The latest goat

When it comes to sports, there are goats and then there is the G.O.A.T.

One is a good thing. That would be G.O.A.T., which stands for the Greatest of All Time, and is applied, often with great reverence, to a truly amazing athlete. As in Tom Brady.

Although I was happy enough when the Patriots, thanks in no small part, to the magic that was Number 12, were thrilling the locals with all those Super Bowl wins, I don't especially like Tom Brady. Yet when it comes to quarterbacks, it's hard to argue that Brady isn't the Greatest of All Time. In his prime, the man just amazed me with his sangfroid, his stunning mental toughness, the absolute brilliance with which he performed extraordinary feats of quarterbackery. 

So, there are G.O.A.T.s. Or at least there is one indisputable one.

And then there are goats, the athletes who screw something up, in a big and public way, at a crucial moment. And the something they screw up becomes the proximate cause of a big, public loss.

Oh, there have been plenty goats over the years, the most famous local goat-o being Bill Buckner. Buckner (in)famously  let the ball go through his legs, resulting in the Red Sox losing a World Series to the Mets that they should have won. As it turned out, losing in 1986 made winning in 2004 all the sweeter. And Buckner was welcomed back to Boston. But he will always be remembered for the one, brief, unshining moment when he became the Boston Red Sox' goat.

G.O.A.T.s are few and far between, but there's always a new goat being made. And the latest is Joseph Oassi, a young - very young - defensive end for the Cincinnati Bengals. 

On Sunday, the Bengals played the Kansas City Chiefs for the conference championship and the opportunity to play in the Super Bowl.

The game, in its last few seconds, looked like it was going to go into overtime when Oassi hit Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes when Mahomes was out of bounds. A late hit's a big no-no, and it resulted in a 15 yard penalty that put the Chiefs in field goal range. Which they took advantage of, and won the game.

Oassi is just 22, and - since he spent most of last season on the injured reserve list - this is his first full season in the NFL. 

He's had a good year, and played a good game. Up until the moment when, carried along by momentum and maybe not even realizing that he'd already chased Mahomes out of bounds, he brought Mahomes down. 

And brought the rath of Cincinnati Bengals fans down on his head, big time.

There was Oassi, in what may have been the worst moment of his young life, crying on the sidelines. There was Oassi in the locker room, sitting there with a towel covering his face. There was Oassi, getting called every name in the book on Twitter.

Sure, he makes a ton of money, but I feel bad for Joseph Oassi.

Who among us hasn't screwed something up at work?

I know I did. Making a bad hire against my boss' advice. Okaying a brochure - back in the day when brochures were printed - that had a big old homonym spell-o on the first page. 

I'm sure I could come up with plenty more.

But my professional errors were mostly just known to me and a few colleagues. And I'm betting no one remembers them other than me. Goat-ness was fleeting. Unlike the goat-ness that attaches to a professional athlete. Sure, the mistake will eventually be forgiven by most,  but not forgotten. 

Just ask Bill Buckner. Or you could, if he were still alive. Tragically, he died a few years back, just short of his 70th birthday of Lewy Body Dementia. (Ugh!) Predictably, the news articles on his death all mentioned the ball-through-the-legs episode.

JosephOassi seems like a nice young man, and he didn't try to duck responsibility for his momentary lapse. 

And, of course, it's not his fault that the Bengals missed other opportunities throughout the game that put them in a position where they could lose at the last moment. The Bengals young quarterback was sacked repeatedly, so maybe they lost because of the failures of the O line.

Alas, Joseph Oassi will likely be forever associated with this loss.

I hope he takes heart from knowing that, sooner or later - maybe even at the upcoming Super Bowl - there'll be a new goat on the block.

First, do no harm?

There's been a lot of hysteria of late - at least social media hysteria - about the covid/vax deniers who are posting videos that purport to show themselves having severe tremors as a result of getting the jab. 

These TikToks aren't very artful, and they aren't very believable. They've been debunked by neurologists et al. as low-grade fakery. Bad acting in every sense of the word.

Other than that, there hasn't been a ton of wacky news on the covid front of late. Either there just isn't any, or it's getting drowned out by more critical news. Gun massacres. FBI corruption. Looming Congressional witch hunts.

And then emerged the story about the Utah plastic surgeon who's just been with selling bogus CDC immunization cards. Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, Jr. and his crew - two office colleagues (a coordinator and a receptionist), and a neighbor -  allegedly cash-cowed their way to nearly $100K. That translates into 2,000 fake cards. 

Unlike some of the earlier covid scams - and there were plenty of stories about fake vax cards back in the day when vax cards were still a thing - Moore's story has a couple of additional sinister twists. For one thing, to make it seem that Moore's office was legitimately dispensing shots:

The group allegedly destroyed about $28,000 or more in government-provided COVID-19 doses, usually by squirting syringes containing doses down sink drains, court documents said. (Source: ABC News)

Remember when we were all frantically looking for vaccination appointments? And this a-hole was squirting Moderna down the drain?

Whatever happened to first, do no harm?  

Then there were the saline shots, which were administered to some of the children of those seeking fake cards. Their ultra-concerned parents wanted their kids to believe they'd been vaccinated. Presumably the kiddos weren't sophisticated enough thinkers to agree with their parents that they should just say no to vaccination. Either that or their parents feared that the kids were blabbermouths who would brag about having a real fake vaccination card and get their folks into trouble. 

Moore and one of his fellow schemers - his neighbor, Kristin Jackson Andersen - were part of a group that was "trying to 'liberate the medical profession from government and industry conflicts of interest.'"

Right.

Pretty interesting that Moore was a plastic surgeon, the wing of the medical professional most likely to be given over to fakery. Or, at least, to vanity rather than necessity.  

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2020, cosmetic procedures outnumbered reconstructive procedures 15.6 million to 6.8 million. Granted the vast majority of those cosmetic procedures were minimally invasive treatments like botox. But there's an awful lot of tummy tuck, lipo, and facelift in there.

Not that I'm opposed to cosmetic procedures. One of my best friends regularly goes for botox injections. And people are entitled to try to look their best. If it makes you feel better, have at it. That said, we've all seen pictures - like the cat lady, the Ken doll twins - of too much of a good thing.

And full disclosure: I've apparently had a surgical procedure that's considered cosmetic. In 2015, after experiencing an awful lot of eye fatigue, I had eyelid surgery. In order for Medicare to pay for it, you had to take a special eye test. I passed the test - or was it flunked? - so Medicare paid the tab. I wasn't aware this was considered cosmetic. Other than that: no botox for me, thanks. I'm going the aging in place route, wrinkles, gray hair, and all.

Anyway, it was no surprise to me that Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, Jr.'s expertise is squarely on the cosmetic side of the house. 

Throughout his educational journey, Dr. Moore devoted himself to excellence. His training in the discipline of cosmetic surgical techniques is unequaled. (Source: Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah)

Is it just me, or is the use of the term "educational journey" a bogosity signal?

Weirdly, in setting out his bona fides, Moore's bio notes that his medical degree comes from the University of Miami med school, which is described as "reputable."

Maybe there's a Joe Blow Fly-by-Night School of Medicine out there, but I don't think I've ever heard an educational institution categorized as "reputable."

His main area of expertise is breast augmentation, but he offers a "full library" of "aesthetic enhancements:"

Dr. Moore is largely known for his work with breast augmentations, breast lifts, breasts revisions, tummy tucks, rhinoplasties, CoolSculpting, injections (such as BOTOX and Juvéderm), and advanced weight loss techniques (such as ORBERA and Obalon)....

No matter what type of enhancement areas you are seeking, Dr. Moore can make that dream a reality!

So I guess it was a natural extension of his work and ethos to help those who dreamed about getting the benefits of holding a vaccination card without taking the shot. (Remember when you had to show one to get into a restaurant?) He's all about turning dreams in to reality.

He may or may not be going to prison. He may or may not be losing his license. But thanks to his covid vaccination card - and saline injection - fakery, what might be turning into reality for Moore is his worst nightmare.

The ice castle business may be melting away

Ask me how I feel in a few weeks if February turns out to be, well, February. But so far, I miss winter.

After all, I'm a New Englander. A four separate and distinct seasons New Englander. 

Sure, we have snow in May, Indian Summer, January thaws.

But in the winter, while it may vary from year to year, we get cold, and we get snow.

So far, we've had precious little of either.

Which, admittedly, makes it easier to go out and take long walks. And it saves on heating.

But I miss winter.

And I'm pretty sure that the folks with winter-related businesses miss it a lot more than I do.

One of these business is Ice Castles New Hampshire. 

I don't have kids or grandkids, so I haven't spent a lot of time at this sort of attraction, but Ice Castles, which has five locations in the US (cold places only: UT, NY, WI, MN) looks like fun. 

Even a chickenshit like me knows that it would be fun to whoosh down an ice slide. To crawl through ice tunnels. To meander around an ice maze. 

I'd like to ooh and aah at the "Mystic Forest Light Walk", an illuminated path. I'd like snow tubing, which looks like an even funner version of the flying saucer sliding of my childhood. And when it's coldy and snowy, well, that's 'lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.'

Unfortunately, New England weather has been lovely. Just not lovely weather for a sleigh ride, or snow tubing, or ice tunneling. 

For Ice Castles New Hampshire, the unseasonal weather has meant delaying their opening by a couple of weeks.

They're hoping to open today - chilled fingers and frozen toes crossed - but even a few missing weeks makes a difference when your season (January - March) is so short. 

"The opening date has been pushed back due to the weather," Melissa Smuzynski, a spokesperson for the Ice Castles, said in an email to NBC10 Boston on Tuesday. "We are now targeting the end of January or early February."

The tentative opening date had been this Thursday, Jan. 19, which was already later than the attraction opened last year. (Source: NBC Boston)

When I checked, the Ice Castles at Lake George, NY hasn't opened yet either. Guess they're not quite close enough to the Buffalo weather belt. Utah, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are up and running, and Wisconsin is even sold out for it's peak season. 

Seasonal businesses are tough. My husband's family ran a golf course, and a couple of bad weather weeks could break - and a couple of early or late fair-weather weeks could make - the year. 

So I know that seasonal businesses all skate on thin ice. 

Especially those counting on New England winter to be New England winter. 

Is it werewolf or weirdwolf?

As we see time and time and time and again, people are weird. Really weird. 

And some people are really, really weird. Like really. 

Really.

Case in point, the fellow in Japan who has dreamed, from the time he was a little boy, of being an animal.

The man was delighted when he finally got to wear the gray and white costume modelled on a timber wolf and created by Zeppet Workshop, which cost three million yen (£18,600). (Source: Telegraph-UK)

In case you're wondering, that's about $23K.  

The costume is a full body suit, covering the man from head to toe.

He said: "At the final fitting, I was amazed at my transformed self in the mirror.

"My order to look like a real wolf walking on hind legs was difficult to say the least but the complete suit looked exactly like what I imagined." 

I wish there'd been more info on exactly what this fellow had in mind in terms of always wanting to be an animal.

Once he dons the suit, does he really feel something other than human?

Sure, people may react to him differently than they do when he's walking around in standard issue clothing (e.g., a salary-man business suit) or even in his birthday suit. I can imagine that if he's loping along, even if it's not exactly at the same speed as a real wolf-in-the wild, and someone spots him, there's a bit of a fear factor reaction. 

Does this make the wolfman feel powerful? 

Wolves are carnivores. Does wolfman hunt for meat? Is he quick and savvy enough to catch a mouse? A rabbit? A deer?

And do wolves stand on their hind legs? Or, by standing, is this guy just waltzing around in a really expensive cos-play costume.

Just what does on in this guy's mind?

Is he just a variant on a furry - someone who's interested (sometimes fetishistically) in anthropomorphic animal characters? Or something else?

I'm all for anthropomorphisizing animals. Who among us who's ever known an animal up close and personal hasn't imposed at least a tiny bit of humanity on them?

But I draw the line at pretending to be Daisy Duck or Petunia Pig or RinTinTin.

Maybe an animal who's closer to us DNA-wise. Like bonobos. 

Long story. I've made the acquaintance of a few bonobos - a.k.a. pygmy chimpanzees - in my time. And during that time, I did occasionally ask myself what might be going on in their minds. (Bonobos have nearly 99% of their DNA in common with ours. Wolves share about 84%. Petunia Pig, as a cartoon animal, shares approximately 0%, as she has no DNA to share.)

But perhaps because I'm singularly lacking in imagination, it never occurred to me to wonder what it's like to actually be one.

Some things I just don't get. 

Anyway, Zeppet Workshop is a Japanese company that actually doesn't specialize in costumes for really weird people.

They do a lot of cool and interesting things around robotics and animatronics, digital models, special displays, and costumes for normie stuff like making realistic animals for use in ads. (You really don't want, say, a grizzly bear breaking bread - or anything else it cares to break - in an ad for, say, honey.)

But Zeppet was happy to help the would-be wolfman out. And he's happy as a pig in shit, to borrow another image from the animal kingdom.

When he put on his costume:

"It was a kind of excitement I have not felt for a long time."

This figures. After all, when I first read this story, I asked myself whether this guy is someone whose girlfriend is an anime pillow that goes everywhere with him. And wondered whether he was going to get a wolf suit for his anime pillow GF, too. (Interesting, my brother-in-law had the same reaction.)

For wolfman, this dream was a wish his heart made years ago. And:

 "Thanks to the studio, one of my childhood dreams has come true."

Hmmm. Wonder what other dreams Howlin' Wolf has had. 

On second thought, I'd put those dreams on a 'need to know' basis. And I don't need to know.

So I do have one question: is it werewolf or weirdwolf?

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A shout out - make that a howl - goes to my sister Kath, who spotted this article and sent it my way. Awoo!

And another get rich quick scheme

Decades ago, there was a little scandal in a big company I was working for.

I don't remember all the details. The incident didn't happen in my group; I didn't really know the people involved; etc. But from what I can recall, a woman in the marcomm department was fired for having funneled some work to a consulting company that was  - lo and behold - a company owned by herself and her husband. Thus, she was making her salary while simultaneously running a side hustle. I believe that she and/her husband actually did the after-hours work she was getting paid extra for. Nonetheless...

The fact that she (or, nominally, her husband) actually performed consulting work sets her apart from Priya Bhambi, formerly a senior technology officer at Takeda Pharmaceutical, and her beau Samuel Montronde. Instead Priya and Sam were just playing take-da money and hope you don't get caught. To the tune of $2.3M.

In the alleged scam, Bhambi helped set up a firm in 2018 to provide technology consulting services to Takeda, according to the affidavit. The firm — which wasn’t named in the affidavit — evidently never engaged in actual business but submitted purchase orders to Takeda in 2018 and 2019. Takeda paid about $300,000.

In 2022, Montronde set up another firm, called Evoluzione Consulting LLC, at an address associated with him in Brockton. Evoluzione also never engaged in actual business. In February of that year, Bhambi submitted a letter to Takeda saying that Evoluzione had acquired the first firm. The letter was signed by Montronde, who claimed to be managing partner.

Incorporation documents filed with the state secretary of state’s office said Evoluzione was “committed to transforming the organizations that it works with” and strives to “overcome obstacles and adversity,” according to the affidavit. Takeda made several payments to Evoluzione, including three for $460,000 each. (Source: Boston Globe)

The couple used the money to buy a $60K Mercedes and a $1.9M condo in Boston's Seaport district.

Nice non-work if you can get it.

It's not clear what Montronde's background is. Other than that he's from Brockton, I couldn't find much about him other than a possible match: someone with that name had a near-empty LinkedIn profile that listed him as supervisor at a local Y.

Bhambi's LinkedIn has disappeared, but not before people found that she has an undergraduate degree and an MBA from Northeastern, and a pretty impressive track record in biotech. So she was making plenty - at least, I'm guessing, a couple hundred thousand a year.

But then she came up with her get rich quick scheme. And was dumb enough to lay the plan out using unencrypted text messages.

In a series of text messages the two exchanged last January, Bhambi said she had “put some wheels in motion to pursuit [sic] a small hustle....I can’t be the

face of it though.” Montronde replied, “We become millionaires and we retire babe.” Bhambi responded, “I feel a bit like Geppetto, lol....Although I am not calling you a puppet.”

The scam unraveled when some Takeda employees started questioning what, exactly, they'd been paying for. A $2.3M grift might not be a lot for a company with $30B+ in revenues to absorb. But you have to question what kind of controls Takeda had in place. Fortunately, someone - maybe the person whose budget this fell under - caught things and had a WTF moment.

So Bhambi and her boo won't be retired millionaires any time soon. Instead, they're facing wire fraud charges and will be looking at time. $2.3M worth of time.

Bhambi is 39; Montronde 37. 

Even if things drag on for Geppetto and her little LOL Pinocchio, they'll likely spend a few years behind bars, and thus will be getting out in their early-mid forties. Those are years when, if you're going to be on your way to building your career, you're well on your way. And those are important years.

This almost comically dumb duo will be scrambling around trying to find someone to hire them. I believe in second chances, but I'd really have to think twice before giving one to either of these yoyos in any role that had any dollar responsibility attached to it. You'd be spending all your time looking over their shoulders. 

So good luck with your big dream, Priya and Samuel. Should have picked a different star to wish on.

Meanwhile, I found it interesting that Bhambi used a Disney cartoon analogy to describe their behavior. She should have listened to Jiminy Cricket when he told folks to "always let your conscience be your guide." That is, of course, assuming you have one.

Another Disney cartoon also comes to mind, and it's too late for that: Run, Bhambi, run.

Yes, there is life after baseball

I don't give a lot of thought to what happens to baseball players - i.e., those who play for the Olde Towne Team - when they retire. 

The ones who appear in my consciousness are the ones who become analysts or the "color guys" who pair up with the play-by-play guys to announce games. (And the ones who appear in my subconsciousness apparently include former Red Sox knuckleballer - and current Red Sox analyst - Tim Wakefield, who made a recent appearance in my dream. I was at a wedding - whose? who knows? - and was at the same table as Tim Wakefield and his wife.)

No, my worry about ballplayers is what they're doing for us fans in the here and now. So once they're gone, while they may not exactly be forgotten, it's a matter of out of sight, out of mind.

Of course, modern baseball being what it is, if you're in the game for long enough, even if you don't have an especially stellar career, you're likely set for life. 

Still, there is life after baseball. And if ex-ballplayers all don't end up like Red Sox pitcher (Impossible Dream vintage) Jim Lonborg, who became a dentist, some do end up having an Act 2 that doesn't involve the game. 

Case in point - make that guitar case in point: Bronson Arroyo.

I was always pretty fond of Arroyo, who spent a few seasons with the Red Sox in the early-mid 2000's - including 2004, the Reverse the Curse year, when the Sox won their first World Series in 86 years.  

If for nothing else, I loved Arroyo for the incident he was involved in during Game 6 of the ALCS that year.

As fans will remember, the Red Sox were down 3-0 to the Yankees in the American League playoffs. But, damned if they didn't keep fighting back. In Game 6, they were trailing 3 games to 2.

Arroyo on the mound, he was racing over to first to tag A-Rod out on a grounder. A-Rod slapped the ball out of Arroyo's glove and proceeded on his merry way to second (while Jeter, who'd been on first, gunned it towards home and scored). Not so fast! 

The umpires convened and, much to the vocal, trash-hurling dismay of the crowd at Yankee Stadium, decided that A-Rod was guilty of interference. He was called out; Jeter had to get back to first, his run nullified. And the Red Sox went on to win that game, the next game, and the World Series. (The World Series win was just frosting on the cake. The cake of beating the Yankees in such dramatic fashion was pretty damned good on its own, without the frosting.)

Anyway, I knew at the time he was with the Red Sox that Arroyo was a musician. He performed around Boston with a baseball-adjacent group. He did vocal backups on Red Sox anthem Tessie, by the Dropkick Murphys. 

And now, after years of doing covers, he's releasing an album. 

“Some Might Say” is a collection of 10 guitar-driven songs that bring to mind Pearl Jam or Tom Petty. It was a project Arroyo started in 2017, the final season of his 16-year career...

The desire to make his own record goes back 20 years when Arroyo borrowed a guitar from fellow pitcher Jack McDowell and went on stage for one of the first Hot Stove Cool Music benefit shows in Boston started by Peter Gammons and Jeff Horrigan.

“That jump-started my music career,” Arroyo said. “Just being around that core group of musicians and gaining information from them and seeing how they represented themselves on stage.

“It was all foreign to me at first, but it changed as I got to know people like [Boston-area rock favorites] Juliana Hatfield and Bill Janovitz. I developed an appreciation for how they built up a body of work.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Arroyo doesn't view his music as a job-job. Like a lot of pros, he made enough coin to do what he pleases. Which is golf, ski, travel, and play occasional gigs in the Cincinnati area. (The majority of his baseball career was with the Reds, where he was traded by the Red Sox in 2005.)

“Music is more a hobby than a second career. But I feel like I have to be on stage and performing. It makes me feel good. But I don’t want it to feel like a job. It’s just something I love to do.”

If it's a hobby, it's a pretty professional one. His band includes members who've worked with the likes of Miley Cyrus, Tom Morello, and Iggy Pop. So,

Don’t dismiss “Some Might Say” as a vanity project. Arroyo has a tight band and he sings with urgency and passion.

“Bronson is the real deal. He’s no dilettante,” said Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo and a Hot Stove Cool Music mainstay. “The guys in his band are the best around.”

And the guys in his band o' bros in 2004 were the best around, too.  

As we launch into a season for the Red Sox that looks none too promising, it's nice to know we'll always have 2004. And that memorable evening when slap-happy Alex Rodriguez knocked the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove.

Play ball! Play music!

And the Worst Execution of a Layoff Award goes to - ta-da - Google

Having lived (and/or died) through many layoffs during my long career in the notoriously layoff-happy tech sector, I can fully appreciate it that there's no easy/pleasant way to hand someone a pink slip. 

My full-time corporate career was largely in the physical world. While work from home was technically possible during much of the time I was working in corporate, it was a rarity. Over time, of course, as technology evolved, and employees were kitted out with laptops, as conferencing systems became a thing, and as everyone acquired a mobile phone, working from home became more common. But it was still largely special occasional.

So if you were going to be laid off, it was going to be in person. And mostly, you were going to hear the news, in person, from an actual human being. Some combination of your manager and an HR rep.

This wasn't always the case. I had a colleague who worked for a small company that took this route: on lay-off day, all the employees were handed a color-coded card. Those who'd been issued a pink card were ushered into a conference room and told they were being let go. The lucky blue card holders went back to work.

And sometimes the "in person" thang didn't work out. 

I worked with someone who was in the NICU with his newbie son - a life and death situation to see whether the little guy was going to make it - when he received a call from his boss, who laid him off. When boss got off the phone, he walked out of his office, smiled, and said 'I really enjoyed that.' (This guy was an amazingly mean-spirited and god-awful person. One of the biggest assholes I ever worked with.)

But as the workplace - along with every other aspect of our lives - has increasingly digitized and gone virtual, so did layoffs. 

Employees now learn via text or email that they no longer have a job. Sometimes, people found out when they were locked out of corporate accounts (including email). Nice!

Personally, I think that this is pretty crappy. Call me old fashioned, but whether in person, or via phone, or via zoom, there should be a live person at the other end of the message - even if that live someone isn't the person who can explain all the details (severance, next steps, picking up personal items...). 

But email is apparently becoming an "it method" to get a mass notification about a mass layoff out.

But Google (at least in NYC, which is where this story came out of) managed to screw up the email approach.

In the wee-hours of the morning, they sent an email to all those being laid off. The email had a shelf life of three hours. If you didn't catch it in time, you found that you no longer had access to your account when you tried to log in. 

But if you were and employee who came into the office in person, and the sort of odd-ball who DOESN'T check email before you head into work, here's how you found out:

You swiped your badge to get through the door. Green, you're in. Red, you're no longer a Google employee.

How crushing. How demoralizing. How humiliating. 

Seriously, I don't care how many thousands of people are getting let go. Most managers don't have that many direct reports. Anyone who's a manager can make a call. By all means, tightly script what they can say. But, if you're a manager, you need to be able to have a difficult conversation with someone in your group. If you can't, or won't, well, you're not qualified to have people reporting to you.

And no, it's not fun or easy. Unless you're the sado who enjoyed laying off the guy keeping watch in the NICU, it's really hard. Toss and turn time. (Been there, done that.)

I understand that Alphabet/Google had to cut its workforce. Or at least felt they did.

They'd been on a hiring spree and, as the company's chief exec, Sundar Pichai said in an employee email:

“We hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.” (Source: NY Times)

The good news is that, even if - with all the recent tech layoffs - bouncing into a new job may not be easy, the layoff package is decent. 

Alphabet said that United States employees would receive a severance package that includes 16 weeks of salary, plus two weeks of extra pay for every year they worked at Google. Laid off workers will receive six months of paid health care. Compensation for workers outside the United States will be determined by local labor laws, the company said. 

What's not decent is letting someone show up at the office and finding that their badge has been disabled.

The year is still young, but so far they get my Worst Execution of a Layoff Award.

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Thanks to my sister Trish, who pointed out the deactivated badge story to me.

What the TSA found

It was post 9/11, and security had gotten tighter in airports. Between the 9/11 attacks - two of the flights originated from Boston's Logan Airport - and the crazy-arsed shoebomber a few months later, flying had become more of a hassle. 

It was late March, and I had had to park in remote at Logan, so was taking a shuttle bus to my terminal.

For some reason, I was looking through my briefcase - a hunter-green, soft-sided, monogrammed LL Bean briefcase that was great for overnight travel: laptop compartment, and compartment for personal items (toothbrush, makeup, change of undies, extra blouse, tee-shirt to sleep in...) -  and came across a large bread knife.

Swell.

It wasn't a great breadknife. I'd gotten it at some colleague's Tupperware party, somewhere along the line. But I rather liked it.

Why, you might ask, was I carrying a breadknife in my briefcase?

It was around St. Patrick's Day, and I'd gone through my usual Irish soda bread baking spree, and had brought a loaf into work. With a knife to cut it with. I'd never bothered to take the breadknife out.

So there it was, cradled in a folded paper plate secured with a rubber band.

I made my way to the front of the shuttle bus.

Without taking the knife out of my briefcase - people were still very much on edge when traveling; I had (male) colleagues who would get seated on a plane and confer with their (male) seatmates about what they would do if - I explained to the driver that I was Crocodile Dundee-ing, and asked her if she'd like a breadknife.

She would, indeed.

Not wanting to be tackled, I waited for everyone else to get off at my terminal, then slipped the security violation out of my briefcase and handed it to her.

I can only imagine if I'd neglected to spot it ahead of time. What would TSA have made of this middle-aged female business traveler wearing a Hillary Clinton pants suit, sensible low heels, and a trench coat, but carrying a weapon with her?

Sure, I didn't look like a standard issue terrorist, but you never know. 

Would I have been thrown up against the wall? Patted down? Strip-searched?

Fortunately, I had rid myself of the troublesome object before I got to security.

Phew.

I hadn't thought of that incident in years when I saw an article on TSA's Top Ten Catches of the Year for 2022, which was published recently by TSA on their social media accounts.

The list dates back to at least 2016, when the champions included dead sea horses in a brandy bottle from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, a bullet-bedazzled gas mask from Miami International Airport and a movie prop corpse at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In 2021, the honors went to a chain saw from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, bullets stashed in deodorant at Atlantic City International and meth wrapped in a burrito at Houston Hobby Airport. (Source: WaPo)

Meth wrapped burrito is one thing. But "dead sea horses in a brandy bottle."  Would that have been okay if it had been in a checked bag, or is transporting dead sea horses - in or outside of a brandy bottle - strictly verboten?

So what did TSA find in 2022? 

Someone carrying a wad of cash in his crutches. Turns out, that's not against the rules, as money "does not fall under TSA's definition of 'things that can cause a catastrophic incident on a flight.'" (Nor would dead sea horses, I'm guessing.) Nonetheless, it was something that set off alarms in El Paso.

Someone in Milwaukee tried to take an inert grenade onto a plane.

Who carries an grenade with them, ert or not?

...officers find a surprisingly high number of hand grenades. Even if it’s inactive, the weaponry is not permitted because it can create panic among passengers on a plane. 

At Dulles, someone had a couple of electric cattle prods in their guitar case. The guitar made it on board; the cattle prods were confiscated. Scarier, in Atlanta, someone tried to carry on a gun hidden in a PlayStation.

In Boise, an enterprising - or perhaps just plain dumb - mule was caught with scrunchies full of drugs. 

A knife was found in a laptop in Richmond. Unlike my innocent breadknife, wrapped in its paper plate, this knife was hidden in the laptop itself. After the laptop triggered an alarm, agents unscrewed the laptop's covers to retrieve the knife. 

The guy with the wadded up money in his crutch may have been innocent, but how about the knucklehead in Rochester who had a gun in a sling?

His response to their discovery: “I forgot I put it in my sling.”

Ummmm. You didn't feel something a little heavy in that sling??? 

At JFK, TSA officers found the pieces of a handgun - carefully wrapped in plastic - in two jars of Jim peanut butter. Choosy contraband smugglers apparently choose Jif. Unlike the guy with the gun in the swing who claimed "oops," this perp definitely wrapped the gun pieces with malice aforethought. He was arrested.

It turns out that, even if checked, peanut butter "always triggers an alarm. It might have explosive material." Containers in checked baggage may end up being swabbed.

In September, I packed (in a checked bag) two large jars of Jif to bring to my niece Molly, who's living for the year in Jif-free Dublin. I don't think Molly's Jif was swabbed...

Not to be outdone by the Jif gunsel, some goon was caught at Fort-Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport with a raw chicken stuffed with a gun. 

Who carries a raw chicken onto a plane, with or without gun stuffing?

The top item on the list was found just before Halloween, when agents in LA found "12,000 blue pills of suspected fentanyl inside boxes and sleeves of SweeTarts, Skittles and Whoppers."

Yikes! You mean those rumors about people giving out drugs for Trick or Treat weren't as unfounded as we thought?

Finding some good in dismantling the Lost Cause

Team Henry Enterprises is a well-regarded Black-owned construction company headquartered in Virginia. Team Henry works on public infrastructure, private ground-up builds, renos, etc. It's also involved in projects of "cultural significance," including the UVA Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. And it has also been responsible for "the removal of countless monuments to the 'Lost Cause.'" 

Good riddance to those monuments that glorify the Confederacy. Statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest (Confederate general and the Ku Klux Klan's first Grand Wizard) and Robert E. Lee (whatever else you think of him as a noble warrior, he was a traitor to his country, as were the other political and military leaders of the Confederacy). 

I'm not a big fan of digging back through history and judging everyone by contemporary standards. But fighting to defend the institution of slavery, taking up arms against fellow country-men? 

Tear down those monuments!

All they do is reinforce the notion that fighting to defend slavery was somehow noble. Sure, many of those who fought were brave. But the cause itself was a loser. If it's the Lost Cause, then it should be LOST. 

And when it comes to tearing down those monuments to evil, Devon Henry is getting the job done.

He didn’t seek the job. He had never paid much attention to Civil War history. City and state officials said they turned to Team Henry Enterprises after a long list of bigger contractors — all White-owned — said they wanted no part of taking down Confederate statues.

For a Black man to step in carried enormous risk. Henry concealed the name of his company for a time and long shunned media interviews. He has endured death threats, seen employees walk away and been told by others in the industry that his future is ruined. He started wearing a bulletproof vest on job sites and got a permit to carry a concealed firearm for protection. (Source: Washington Post)

Team Henry's been at it a while now - since 2020 - and the threats continue, but Henry has "simply learned to live with them."

“My head’s in a different place now,” he said. “It’s like, I’m not scared to cross the street, but I’m always going to look both ways, right? So I’m not totally oblivious to who I am and what I’ve done, but I’m just not letting fear kind of drive what I do.”

He's also had some problems with finding subcontractors. To find a crane for one project, he had to go as far afield as Connecticut. 

The decision to take on the statue removal projects didn't come easy.

He had come to understand that those statues — especially Lee — were like religious objects to their defenders. They had stood more than a century as totems of a powerful mythology: that slavery was somehow benign, that Southerners were the noble victims of Northern aggression, that things were better when White people presided over an orderly world. The Lost Cause.

For a Black man to destroy such a symbol would put his life, his family, his livelihood on the line. Henry knew that in Louisiana, a White contractor withdrew from the job of removing four Confederate monuments after receiving death threats. Someone torched the man’s car.

But Henry saw this as a powerful chance to give a bit of justice to the souls represented by the memorial to enslaved people [his company had built]. 

Henry talked it over with his family, who encouraged him to go for it.  

His first project was removing a statue of Stonewall Jackson.

Thousands of onlookers chanted, screamed and taunted the bronze figure of Jackson high on his horse. One tearful Confederate defender begged for work to stop; deputies had to haul him away. 

Others in the crowd cheered. 

He also got some pushback he hadn't anticipated. An African American women dissed Henry for taking what she viewed as TLC with the Jackson statue. Why not, she asked, "just drop it. Just let it go. Just kick it over."

So Devon Henry is walking a fine line, and he's decided to do is professionally and dispassionately. Still, sometimes the enormity of what he's doing gets to him. All those Black folks who never thought they'd see the day when monuments to their oppression were taken down. 

In the meantime, Henry said, his business boomed. If some potential clients avoided him because of the statues, more sought him out. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” he said; Team Henry has grown to 200 employees after starting out 15 years ago with just four.

The company won recent contracts to build a bank and a credit union, and to rehabilitate a structure that once housed enslaved Africans at what’s now the Richmond Hill religious retreat.

He's also, oddly and interestingly,  gotten together with artists of color to create NFT's based on images of the dismantled statues. 

Dabbling in NFT's seems pretty rad for a man who's chosen such a grounded, physical profession. But, oh why not? 

Mostly, the story of Devon Henry and his company's success is a matter of lost and found. The Lost Cause is getting dismantled, and Henry's found his business booming.

Great!

Piss in haste, repent at leisure.

Shankar Mishra used to be Well Fargo's VP of operations in India.

Alas, on a November Air India flight from New York to New Delhi, Mishra somehow (allegedly somehow) peed (allegedly peed) on the 72-year-old-woman who was seated across the aisle from him in business class. Make that no class.

On an Air India flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Indira Gandhi International Airport on Nov. 26, Mishra was “completely inebriated” and urinated on another passenger, according to a police report, which cited a letter from the alleged victim.

“He unzipped his pants and urinated on me and kept standing there until the person sitting next to me tapped him and told him to go back to his seat,” said the woman, who was seated in business class one row behind Mishra, according to the report. (Source: Washington Post)

I've heard of drunks peeing on themselves. But being so drunk that you stand up in an airplane aisle and pee on a fellow passenger?  Without someone doing more than "tapping" him and suggesting he go sit down?

Seriously, folks, there are toilets on airplanes. And even though there may be a line in steerage, you generally don't have to wait - or wait all that long - if you're in business or first (both of which I've flown on plenty of occasions).

But I guess it happens, and this is by no means the only such incident that's been recorded. (Thanks google!) And then there was the notorious event a few years back when some fin-serv exec crapped on the drinks cart...(It always does seem to be fin serv, doesn't it?)

Anyway, yikes. (Yucks!)

Bad enough that the woman was urinated on by a drunken passenger. In the wake of the incident, she was treated piss-poorly by Air India.

According to the report, the woman said that her clothes, shoes and bag were “soaked in urine,” and that the flight crew “refused to touch them, sprayed my bag and shoes with disinfectant, and took me to the bathroom and gave me a set of airline pyjamas and socks.”

She requested another seat but was told none was available. After she refused to sit in her soiled seat, the woman said, she was given a jump seat — a small seat meant for short-term use by crew — for the remainder of the flight.

Another passenger “who had witnessed my plight” noted that it appeared there were seats open in first class, but the crew informed her that the pilot had “vetoed giving me a seat in first class.”

Air India also tried to mediate things by bringing Mishra - a bit sobered up - face-to-face with the women. Not something that she welcomed. (One of the flight's pilots and a number of members of the cabin crew are now in some kind of hot water with the airline. And Air India is reviewing their alcohol-on-flights policy. So there's that.)

When he met with his victim, Mishra went all crocodile tears, begged the woman not to press charges, and offered to pay for her stained belongings to be cleaned. Pressured by Mishra's performance and crew insistence, she took the money and agreed not to insist on Mishra's arrest.

A few weeks later, she had second thoughts. She returned the money and decided to pursue charges. (Meanwhile, Air India sportingly refunded her ticket.)

Mishra has been arrested and charged with a number of crimes.

He's 34 years old, married with a child, and had a good and responsible job.

The operative word is had.

He's been fired by Wells Fargo.

His career is in ruins, as is his reputation. And in a culture where shame still exists...I do feel a tiny bit bad for him. I'm sure he's beside himself, as, no doubt, are his family members.

Piss in haste, repent at leisure.

Peace*Love*Joy*Family - Just who are you?

The card was postmarked, in Boston, on December 19th. But it wasn't delivered, in Boston, until January 6th.

Still, better late than never. And, hey, January 6th is Little Christmas. So, Peace * Love * Joy * Family to you, too. Remind me again who your are.

The first name on the card was the Dad name. Let's call him Paul. 

I don't know a ton of Pauls, and none well enough to send me a Christmas card. 

I take that back.

I do know one Paul with whom I could conceivably exchange Seasons Greetings. But he's not a card sending friend. Plus he's Jewish. So, nah.

Then there was what I initially thought was the wife's name, a name I'd never seen before. Let's call her Terrileen. Which is not it, but she did have an "een" name I wasn't familiar with. (As an 'een' with two 'een' sisters, I thought I'd seen 'em all.)

The kids? Let's call them Amelia, Liam, and Eve.

They looked like nice kids, but none of them looked familiar. 

Paul was wearing a Red Sox cap in most of the pictures he appeared in. So that plus the Boston postmark: local. Probably. 

Still don't know him. (There are an awful lot of Red Sox cap-wearers in these parts.)

I wracked my brain. Nary a Paul in my extended family. Not someone I ever worked with. Not someone I volunteer with. Not my letter carrier. I already got his card.

I googled Paul and Terrileen, to see if I could find a couple by that name. I threw the kids' names in there, too. Nada.

Then I started looking more closely at the 13 pictures on the card.

Maybe Terrileen's not the wife. Maybe she's a daughter.

After all, the first, prime position - upper left corner - shows Paul alone, holding a cat. And most of the kiddos are pictured with Paul or with each other. 

The picture of the woman/girl in the fancy blue dress? It's not all that clear. Could be a wife. Could be a kid.

And whether there are three kids or four, I couldn't really tell. Liam's the only boy, and he rates more appearances than his two or three sisters. But the girls? I think there are three. The one with short curly hair in the band uniform; the other two with long hair. Yeah, I think there are three. But the one of the kid in the band uniform could have been Liam, smiling. 

There's only one picture in which Paul is with an obviously grown woman. Paul and grown woman, standing next to a small airplane. Why isn't she in any of the pictures with the kids? Maybe she's Terrileen, the wife-but-not-the-mom. Maybe she's Terrileen, the girlfriend. Maybe there are only two sisters, not three.

And maybe Paul is gay, a gay dad. 

If there's such a thing as "looking gay", in the picture of Paul cradling the cat, he sorta kinda looks gay-ish.

If Paul's gay, I hope he has someone. Or finds someone. He does look very nice. 

Paul. Terrileen. Amelia. Liam. Eve.

Not their names.

So why not? 

Suppose they're time-wasters like me? One of them idly googling their names might have found this post. I don't want that. Don't want to hurt any feelings by speculating that Terrileen/Amelia/Eve in the band uniform might be Liam.

Anyway, the message on the card is wishing your family love & light this holiday season! 

Same to you, whoever you are.

The card is completely blank on the flip side. No personal message to the Maureen Rogers the greeting card was intended for.

There's always the possibility, of course, that the card was meant for me. Kinda sorta.

Maybe Paul, Terrileen, et al. pick a couple of randos every year to send a mystery card to, and then have a good little family chortle wondering what the recipient makes of the mystery missive. 

It goes without saying: no return address.

Anyway, belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Paul, Terrileen, Amelia, Liam, and Eve. Peace*Love*Joy*Family to you all. 

See you next year. 

The Embrace (Martin Luther King Day, 2023)

When I first saw the designs, I didn't know what to think, but I was leaning toward not liking it. But I figured it would grow on me. And, over time, each time I saw a rendering, I realized it had. 

Then, a week or so ago, I got to see the real thing.

I couldn't get all that close. The monument was still under wraps. But I got a sneak peak through the cyclone fence. (The monument was officially unveiled last Friday.) 

It's weird, a bit. But weirdly beautiful.

I like it.

It's called "The Embrace," and it's a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, who met in Boston when he was a doctoral student at Boston University and she was studying voice at The New England Conservatory. 

"The Embrace" is based on a photograph of the couple, well, embracing.

I'm sure that there will be some who roll their eyes at the thought of commemorating the Kings' love for each other, given the revelations that he had dozens of affairs while they were married. But revelations of the seamier side of his life shouldn't be used used to obliterate MLK's legacy. He was a brilliant leader of the Civil Rights movement who embraced non-violence - and was accused of being an Uncle Tom because of this embrace. King repeatedly put his life on the line, and, not yet 40, he died violently, gunned down by a racist assassin.

There are a few quotes that come to mind when Martin Luther King's name is mentioned.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. 

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.

Still hoping on all three of those, so I'll end with a fourth, lesser known quote:

Always fight with love.

Think I'll mosey on over to the Boston Common a little later to get a better look at "The Embrace."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I moseyed on over on Saturday. When I saw The Embrace unveiled, up close, I decided I really like it. 

The kidney ward in Nepal

The signs are all there. Warmer winters. Wilder storms. Species wiped out.

The natural world is changing in profound and mostly terrible ways, and our way of life (where our = developed and rapidly developing nations) - a way of life based on unceasing/unthinking consumption - is a major contributor to the changes.

One of the ways in which global warming is showing up is with the "link between exposure to extreme heat and chronic kidney disease."

Exactly how heat scars and cripples the microscopic tubes in the organs is still debated, researchers say, but the correlation is clear. (Source: Washington Post)

Not surprising, it's the world's most impoverished people who have things the worst. 

That link has been observed among workers toiling in rice fields in Sri Lanka and steamy factories in Malaysia, from Central America to the Persian Gulf. As the world grows hotter and climate change ushers in more frequent and extreme heat waves, public health experts fear kidney disease cases will soar among laborers who have no choice but to work outdoors.

More than 50 years ago, my father died after a many-year bout with kidney disease. Although he spent plenty of time working on his precious yard, my father's kidney disease wasn't caused by working outdoors in the blazing sun. He worked indoors.

Was his kidney disease genetic? Did his Uncle Jim - who died very young - have kidney disease? On the other side of his family, was it kidney disease that killed his cousin Francis X, who died in his forties?

Or was it triggered by rheumatic fever, acquired while my father was in the Navy?

Who knows?

But I do know that it kidney disease isn't a lot of fun. Over the seven years he lived after his diagnosis, my father had plenty of life left in him. But the disease was progressive, and he was in and out of hospitals throughout my high school and college years. 

Yes, dialysis and kidney transplants both existed back then (we're talking the 1960's; my father died in January 1971), but the treatments weren't as advanced as they are now. By the time my father was declared a candidate for dialysis, my understanding is that he would have been hooked to some sort of cumbersome machine 24/7. He and my mother decided that wasn't an option. So...

So, kidney disease is rotten.

And it's especially rotten when it mows down young men, forced by poverty to work in dreadful conditions.

This was brought home as I sat in the comfort of my nicely climate-controlled home when I read a recent article in the Washington Post about kidney disease in Nepal. 

Nepal is a very poor country, and because of its poverty, many of its young men work abroad, where they can make better money working dirty and dangerous jobs than they could with the meager wages they could earn if they stayed home. Work abroad is the lifeline for many direly impoverished families.

Suraj That Magar, now 28, was from one of them. Half the

families in his village have sent someone to work in nations in the Persian Gulf. Suraj, whose father died when he was six and who was raised by his older sister, left Nepal for Kuwait, where he found work installing windows in skyscrapers. His family didn't want to see him go, but there was no choice. His sister's husband made too little to support an extended family of eight. 

“No family wants their sons to go work in scorching heat,” [Suraj] said. “But we were in financial crisis, so everyone gave me their blessing.”

His sister took out an unimaginably large loan - $1,000 - to pay the recruitment agency. She told Suraj that if the work became too hard to handle, he should come home. 

Six months later, Suraj found himself on construction sites where he installed massive, one-ton window frames on skyscrapers rising from the Kuwait desert. Because elevators were not operational, he recounted, he had to walk several stories to access water. But with work schedules so pressing, most workers gathered around the water tank only during their one-hour break. On many days, the water would be gone before the break ended. Often, Suraj didn’t drink anything all day.

Through his hard work, Suraj was able to send his sister $150 a month, doubling the family's income. He began building a more solid house for the family, hoping to replace living in a mud-and-bamboo hut with the relative luxury of a concrete house. A propane stove would replace cooking in an open fire on the floor. 

Suraj avoided every hazard, except the one that quietly ravaged his kidneys.

One day in January, Suraj collapsed with dizziness and pain shot through his torso and swollen legs. When he checked himself into Kuwait’s Farwaniya Hospital, his Indian doctor took one look, Suraj recalled, and immediately sent him to the intensive care unit.

Suraj had severe anemia and developed a blood clot in his stomach. Before long, he lost consciousness and would need eight pints of blood replaced, according to his Kuwaiti medical records. The diagnosis: end-stage renal disease.

Suraj wasn't alone. A disproportionate number of those in the kidney ward were young men who'd worked abroad, laboring outdoors under harsh conditions.  

The Nepalese government provides some assistance to those needing medical help, but families still struggle, further impoverishing themselves in the hunt for a new kidney. (The Nepalese medical system sounds plenty familiar...)

Meanwhile, back in Nepal, Suraj and his sister are doing what they can to keep him alive. They're planning on selling the half-built house. Any plans Suraj had to get married and start a family of his own are on (likely permanent) hold. They're hoping they can somehow scrounge a kidney, scrounge a kidney transplant. That Suraj will once again be able to work.

“These epidemics of chronic kidney disease that have surfaced … [are] just the beginning,” said Richard Johnson, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado who is studying pockets of kidney disease globally. “As it gets hotter, we expect to see these diseases emerge elsewhere.”

Oh. 

Bring out your dead. Their body parts, anyway.

Megan Hess is going to prison So's her mother, Shirley Koch.

Hess has been sentenced to 20 years. Koch got 15.

They're looking at hard time because they've been illegally selling bodies and body parts out of their now-closed funeral parlor, Sunset Mesa, in Montrose, Colorado.

It is in fact (surprisingly) legal to sell body parts, and there's actually a body broker industry that supplies parts and the whole for a variety of purposes. 

You just can't do it without the permission of the next of kin. And you can't misrepresent where the bodies are going. 

“Koch and Hess neither discussed nor obtained

authorization for donation of decedents’ bodies or body parts for body broker services,” the Department of Justice said in a statement, adding that in some instances, the families had specifically declined to donate the bodies.

According to the plea deal, Hess told mourning families that their loved ones would be cremated, but instead sold parts of or whole bodies for scientific, medical or educational purposes as part of a body broker business she operated from the same premises as the funeral home. (Source: Washington Post)

Hess had quite a vertically integrated operation going there: funeral parlor, crematory, and body broker. 

This structuring of the business ensured that Hess “would always have a fresh supply of stolen bodies which she could later sell to unwitting customers” who were unaware the bodies had been stolen rather than donated, according to the government’s sentencing statement. 

Overall, Hess & Company stole roughly 500 bodies.

Among the victim stories, there was one woman who paid $2K for his father to be cremated. Come to find out, Sunset Mesa slipped her someone else's remains, while those of her father "were sold for use in a human body exhibit abroad."

Hmmm.

How'd you like to show up at a human body exhibit abroad and have the shock of recognition that the body on exhibit looked a lot like dear old dad. (By the way, I've been to a human body exhibit. It was at Boston's Museum of Science, and the bodies on show were plasticized. I must say it was fascinating. My husband and I took our niece, Caroline, who may have been 9 or 10 at the time. The exhibit is okay for kids, and I thought we had explained to Caroline what she was seeing. But about half way through, Caroline asked us, "Hey, are these real bodies?")

They're not the only body brokers to get into trouble. A man made a good faith donation of his mother's body to an Arizona body broker, thinking it was going to be used for Alzheimer's research. Come to find out, the body had been "used as a test dummy in an experimental Army IED blast. The ashes that were returned to him turned out to have only come from her hand."

Ouch.

Hess and Koch were also charged with dealing with diseased body parts - HIV, hepatitis - which can only be transported as hazardous materials, but weren't. These diseased parts were also misrepresented as healthy. 

Hess' defense was that she was in cognitive decline from a head injury she sustained as a teenager. (She is in her mid-forties.) Her mother's excuse was that she was just misguidedly trying to help her daughter make a go of her business. 

Whatever the not-so-mitigating circumstances, Hess and Koch deserve to serve some serious time. (And who can help but notice that these ghouls share their last name with notorious Nazis - Rudolf Hess and Ilse Koch? Jawohl!) 

Meanwhile, I have to say I find the idea of a body broker business pretty interesting, I guess in a weird and ghoulish kinda-sorta way.

I've always thought that donated bodies nobly found their way onto the autopsy tables of medical schools, not as bombs-away dummies for the military. Who knew?