| Kiss Of The Snake Lady
At home in Jackson
Heights, model Sara has a three-foot python, two turtles, two dogs and a parrot. But because she is away at college, her mother, a
biology teacher, takes care of them.
Sara is a sophomore
at University of Massachusetts (UMASS) at Amherst where she is preparing to become an
herpetologist, studying reptiles along with some amphibians. It’s not a far cry from her days of being a
volunteer at Alley Pond Park in Douglaston where she took care of the animals —
rabbits, turtles, and snakes.
At the herpetology
department at UMASS, Sara gets to clean cages and feed the animals, including two
alligators and an eight-foot python and a boa.
Yet one of her
favorite courses this semester is “Love and Sex in French Literature,” where she
got to watch the movie “Dangerous Liaisons,” and dip into the literary
perversions of the Marquis De Sade.
Sara and her family
recently moved to Jackson Heights and into a larger apartment. What Sara likes about the neighborhood is,
“They have a lot of good food,” including the Indian Taj Palace and
Armando’s, an Italian restaurant.
She loves to shop
at the little shops along Junction Boulevard, or the Victoria’s Secret in Bay Terrace
with a stopover at the Outback Steak House.
But her favorite of
all in Queens is IHOP (International House of Pancakes). At the IHOP on Northern
Boulevard, Sara orders a waffle stuffed with bacon.
When asked if her
love for snakes turned guys off she said, “Guys think it is cool that I’m not
afraid of snakes and lizards.”
Sara started
modeling when she was six. She’s worked at Victoria’s Secret and used to swim
competitively. She’s open to working for makeup companies but wouldn’t work for
one that tests on animals.
But when it comes
to her and men, she admits she can be pretty picky. Sara
wants a man with nice eyes and said, “I kind of like scruffy looking guys.”
Decontamination
According to
spinmasters at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Elmhurst Hospital Center
is one of the foremost facilities for treatment of victims of biochemical attack.
The hospital has
had a complete decontamination unit in place at their Emergency Room for four years, said
spokesperson Dario Centorcelli.
In fact, the first
victims of the Sept. 11 WTC attack who were brought to Elmhurst for treatment were
decontaminated – about 26 people, Centorcelli said.
The treatment
provided an extra measure of protection for hospital workers and other patients.
The hospital’s Decontamination Unit is “one of the best” in the
northeast, said CDC spokesperson Carl Gregory.
Rescue
Let Down
Rescue workers at
the Twin Towers dug through to 50 feet below Tower 1 this week, where they discovered a
conference room, completely intact.
Sources told QConf that the room, complete with water
cooler, paintings and charts on the walls, “could have been dusted off and used”
with no repairs.
Queens Democratic Party's political gurus celebrate on Primary
night: (l. to r.) Frank Bolz, Gerry Sweeny, Mike Reich. |
Knowing that a team
of Queens firefighters was last seen escorting victims from a conference room on the 13th
floor, the spirit of the rescue teams rose as they began a search of the area.
Then someone
spotted a sign on a wall that had collapsed just outside the room, which read “76th
floor.”
A search provided no bodies, and the crews went back to digging.
Jailed
Mafioso Offers 'Shredder'
Queens’ most
famous son-in-law is waiting to hear from Mayor Rudy Giuliani about an offer of help in
the rescue effort at the site of the Twin Towers.
Carmine Agnello, son-in-law of jailed mafia don John Gotti,
offered the city the use of a $6 million shredding machine to chew up twisted steel mixed
in the World Trade Center rubble.
Agnello, who
pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in April, said he watched the disaster strike from
his cell window in federal lockup in Brooklyn. He said he was so moved by the tragedy that
he offered the use of the shredder and other equipment from his scrap metal business to
help with the cleanup effort.
Agnello made the
offer through his attorney, Scott Leemon,
who said the machine uses super-sharp blades to shred the steel into small chips that
leave the machine on a conveyor belt.
“Instead of
carting the beams, trucks could take more in each load of chipped metal,” Leemon
said.
Leemon said the
offer is “genuine” and that Agnello, 40, hopes the city will be able to accept
it – “no strings.”
Queens
Flies At The Pentagon
As workers toil as
part of the recovery effort at the Pentagon, a flag that features a piece of Queens
history can be seen flying alongside Old Glory overhead.
The logo of the Army Corps of Engineers (right) is modeled after the Officer's
Club at Fort Totten (below). |
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 |
After suicidal
terrorists hijacked and crashed a commercial jet plane into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the
federal government called in the Army Corps of Engineers to assess the damage, assist in
the recovery effort and help rebuild.
The official flag
of the specialized Army division — a red flag with a castle-like structure featured
in the middle — can be seen flying near the portion of the Pentagon that was
destroyed in the attack.
For many, the
structure on the flag symbolizes our nation’s readiness and capability to rebuild but
the “castle” — the official emblem of
the Army Corps of Engineers — is
also a representation of a building that still stands in Bayside.
The castle-like
structure is actually the Officer’s Club at Fort Totten which was named for Brigadier
General Joseph Totten, a big- wig in the Army Corps of Engineers in 1898.
The Fort served as the Army Engineering School, a
training facility for coastline defense, an anti-aircraft artillery post and a staging
facility from World War I to the Persian Gulf War.
The officer's club
served as a focal point of daily life of members of the Corps in its early years.
The structure now
serves as the home of the Bayside Historical Society.
Simply
Amazin'
Even as the
defending National League Champion New York Mets cling to their improbable run toward the
playoffs, it hasn’t stopped them from lending a hand in the wake of the World Trade
Center tragedy.
On any given day
since the WTC tragedy, when the Mets were not on the road, a sharp-eyed observer could
find some of the Amazins’ among the throng of volunteers in the Shea Stadium parking
lot, which after Sept. 11 became a staging area for emergency and relief services.
Just prior to the
Mets’ recent road trip, a QConfer noticed
one worker packing away supply boxes at a rate that far exceeded the others.
It was Met second
baseman Edgardo Alfonzo.
A
Question
This curious
question was raised on a radio call-in show:
There are two men,
both extremely wealthy. One develops relatively cheap software and gives hundreds of
millions of dollars to charity. The other sponsors terrorism.
That being the
case, why is it that the US government has spent more money chasing down Bill Gates over
the past ten years than Osama bin Laden?
E-mail
Of The Week:
The President has
asked that we unite for a common cause.
Since the hard line Islamic people can not stand
nudity and consider it a sin to see a naked woman that is not their wife, all women should
run out of their house naked to help weed out the terrorists. The United States
appreciates your efforts, and applauds you. |
