In The News...

In Brazil, six female inmates recently escaped... with their babies... from a prison unit that allows new mothers to be with their newborn. At first, I had some admiration for these brave women who, I imagined, would run, cuddling the little ones to their breasts, while turning to return fire... but then I thought, "Hey, what kind of an example are you setting for those impressionable ones?"

In Los Angeles, authorities caught up with two scam artists. The women would take out a $1 million insurance policy on person who didn't exist, then after a tragically sad death of this imaginary person, stage an elaborate funeral, complete with flowers. The ensuing burial was in a cheap, cardboard coffin filled with either rocks or butchered meat and animal bones. A certificate of death was sent to the insurance company to claim the mil. They pulled this off seven times, it is thought. I cry when I think of the grief of those poor imaginary families.

Side note: It is speculated that as many as one in four of us has been, or will be the victim of one scam or another. Gullibility test: Help! I am trying to get my family here from Gratalupe and need just $10 more. Please send immediately!

Last item: I need a job like Mr. Pang had. Pang, a financier who is now under suspicion of being somewhat of a Madoff-like scam artist himself. He says he once was a valued merger adviser at a large, well-know financial company. The CEO of that company says he was not that valued. He says Mr. Pang was fired for stealing $3 million from an escrow account. Fired? Sounds like pretty stiff punishment to me.