smorg

Sorry family. The dog gets what’s left.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/29/helmsley.dog.ap/index.html

Leona Helmsley’s dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. But two of Helmsley’s grandchildren got nothing from the late luxury hotelier and real estate billionaire’s estate.
art.helmsley.dog.ap.jpg

Leona Helmsley holds her dog, Trouble, in a 2003 photo.

Helmsley left her beloved white Maltese, named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund, according to her will, which was made public Tuesday in surrogate court.

She also left millions for her brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who was named to care for Trouble in her absence, as well as two of four grandchildren from her late son Jay Panzirer — so long as they visit their father’s grave site once each calendar year.

Otherwise, she wrote, neither will get a penny of the $5 million she left for each of them.

Helmsley left nothing to two of Jay Panzirer’s other children — Craig and Meegan Panzirer — for “reasons that are known to them,” she wrote.

But no one made out better than Trouble, who once appeared in ads for the Helmsley Hotels, and lived up to her name by biting a housekeeper.

“I direct that when my dog, Trouble, dies, her remains shall be buried next to my remains in the Helmsley mausoleum,” Helmsley wrote in her will.

The mausoleum, she ordered, must be “washed or steam-cleaned at least once a year.” She left behind $3 million for the upkeep of her final resting place in Westchester County, where she is buried with her husband, Harry Helmsley.

She also left her chauffeur, Nicholas Celea, $100,000.

She ordered that cash from sales of the Helmsley’s residences and belongings, reported to be worth billions, be sold and that the money be given to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

Her longtime spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, had no comment.

Helmsley died earlier this month at her Connecticut home. She became known as a symbol of 1980s greed and earned the nickname “the Queen of Mean” after her 1988 indictment and subsequent conviction for tax evasion. One employee had quoted her as snarling, “Only the little people pay taxes.”

Via Andy, via his brother: the ultimate game show, courtesy of those wacky Japanese.

Teachers stage fake gunman attack on sixth graders

Poor judgement? Seriously, ya’ think?

MURFREESBORO, Tennessee (AP) — Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

“We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation,” he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

“The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them,” said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Some parents said they were upset by the staff’s poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.

“I was like, ‘Oh My God,’ ” she said. “At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out.”

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation “involved poor judgment.”

No, seriously…

Paris Hilton is calling on her fans to help her stay out of jail - by endorsing an online petition they can sign. The desperate socialite, who was sentenced to serve 45 days in jail last week after violating terms of her 2006 drink-driving arrest, has teamed up with a pal called Joshua to urge fans to help her. In a post on her MySpace blog, Hilton, who is also asking California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon her, writes, “My friend Joshua started this petition. Please help and sign it. I love you all!”.

The petition, which is addressed to Schwarzenegger, claims “the American public who support Paris are shocked, dismayed and appalled by how Paris has been the person to be used as an example that drunk driving is wrong. She provides hope for young people all over the US and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives. If the late former President Gerald Ford could find it in his heart to pardon the late former President Richard Nixon after his mistake(s), we undeniably support Paris Hilton being pardoned for her honest mistake as well.” Hilton is due to start serving time by June 5 if her appeal fails, after being sentenced at a hearing at Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday.

Poor Paris, being held up to the world as a common criminal! And to be made an example of when she SHOULD be doing her work of convincing young girls that being a drug addled tramp is the true, one path.

I hope she gets shanked in jail. But then again, if she is, it will complete the Holy Trinity of Diana, Ann-Nicole and Paris that was prophesied in the Old testament.