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October 02, 2008
OLD RHYMER
Angela Pusateri, 79, may be unconventional, but, according to Jenna, 13, "She really is a cool grandmother." The Hallandale Beach, Fla., woman is a rap-music singer with a new CD (Who's Your Granny?) and occasional playdates, where she shows up in hockey jersey, jewels, sunglasses and baseball cap. Sample rap: "I can bring the noise better than P-Diddy / I am older and wiser, I ain't a disguiser / I am condo commando in a high-riser, Who's your granny?" Also, "Move over, Trick-Daddy, 'cause this is my town / I gotta shuffleboard posse and we're known to get down." Actually, conceded Jenna to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in September, "Sometimes it's embarrassing."
DEAD SERIOUS
"In many ways," reported the Los Angeles Times in August, the Torajans of Indonesia's Sulawesi Island "spend a lifetime preparing for their demise," in that the most glorious highlight of their existence appears to be planning the elaborate celebration of the end of it. In fact, taking one's last breath is only the beginning of a lengthy tribute, such as the one for Toraja's last king, who died in 2003 but has not been put away yet, pending completion of the necessary ritual animal sacrifices. (In the interim, the deceased is considered more "sick" than "dead.") Said one local ("cheerfully," according to the Times), "Torajans! (We) live to die!"
WHORE OR LESS
About 250,000 women in the southern India states of Karnataka and Maharashtra are selfdescribed "elite" sex workers whose impoverished, or devoutly pious, parents "dedicated" them as children to the Hindu goddess Yellamma, according to an August dispatch in The New Yorker. Despite the state's outlawing the practice in 1982, the women's fate as "devadasis" remains an attractive alternative to ordinary marriage (which would usually be to poor and abusive men) and provides a degree of status, in that they dress nicely and can inherit family property, while street prostitutes cannot. However, devadasis still fall victim to the region's rampant HIV rate.
RECKLESS ABANDONMENT
The Nebraska legislature's new "safe haven" law for unwanted babies, like other states' laws, allows them to be dropped off anonymously at hospitals to discourage abortions (and neglect by unfit parents). However, unlike other states' laws, Nebraska's applies not just to infants, but "minors," because, said Sen. Tom White, "All children deserve our protection." In September, the first two non-infants were abandoned, as exasperated parents gave up on rebellious sons aged 11 and 15, and critics say the law could apply to those up to age 19.
PEE MYSELF AND I
In August, the U.S. Department of Transportation unveiled new rules for train and bus drivers returning to work from drug-use suspensions. They must now be tested first by a strip search to detect devices for cheating (such as artificial penises), and if none is found, they may re-dress themselves, but a monitor must still "directly watch the urine as it goes from the employee's body into the collection container." Not surprisingly, several unions have challenged the rule in court. MTW
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| Entertainment and lifestyle news for Maui, Hawaii and the surrounding Islands. Maui Time Weekly is Mauis only independent and locally owned newspaper.
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