Next time you get a Publishers Clearing House mailer ...

check to see if any of these are available. At the very least, they would make great birthday gifts.

St. Rosalia

September 4 is the feast of St. Rosalia. She is the patron saint of Palermo, Sicily.

According to legend, Rosalia was born of a Norman noble family that claimed descent from Charlemagne. Devoutly religious, she retired to life as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote "I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ."

In 1624, a horrible plague haunted Palermo, and during this hardship St Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman, then to a hunter to whom she indicated where her remains were to be found. She ordered him to bring her bones to Palermo and have them carried in procession through the city.

The hunter climbed the mountain and found her bones in the cave as described. He did what she had asked in the apparition, with her remains carried around the city three times, and after the procession the plague ceased. After this Santa Rosalia would be venerated as the patron saint of Palermo, and a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.

Upon examination by a renowned geologist and palaeontologist, William Buckland, the bones of St. Rosalia were thought to be those of a goat.

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Damien's note: My friend Michael claims descent from Charlemagne -- as does just about everyone with European ancestry. Whether the Rosalia connection means he is an old goat, I do not know.

So ... um ... yeah, I guess. You know. Right?

Falsies

According to MassLive.com, a state police trooper pulled over a 20-year-old driver on the interstate this week, after spotting the weird license plate on the back of her car. As in, it’s not a license plate, it’s a drawing, done on a piece of cardboard with colored markers.

It did include the words “Massachusetts” and “The Spirit of America” drawn in blue pen, because if you’re going to make a fake license plate, why go with another state than your own, right?

Alas, “That’s a big no-no,” said one state trooper.

The driver wasn’t arrested but will have to show in court for charges of driving with a suspended license and attaching false plates.

Damien's note: Perhaps the artiste was unfamiliar with the idea of brass rubbings, in which case she might have been able to produce a more likely counterfeit.

Beauty is as beauty does

Dethroned Myanmar beauty queen blasts pageant boss

May Myat Noe — the country's first winner of an international beauty contest — lashed back at her accusers at a tightly packed news conference.

She denied accepting breast implants, as claimed by David Kim, director of media for the South Korea-based Miss Asia Pacific World. He said the surgery was provided free of charge, part of efforts to boost the teen into super-stardom.

Kim said Noe was stripped of her title last week because she was dishonest and unappreciative, and that she ran off with her tiara after learning of the decision.

Noe said she boarded a plane for Myanmar before getting word. She said she did not intend to steal the crown, but also wasn't going to give it back without a "sorry," not just to her, but also to Myanmar.

"I'm not even proud of this crown," she said after opening a blue box and placing the tiara on the table in front of her.

"I don't want a crown from an organization with such a bad reputation."

Her mother, who accompanied Noe on the trip to South Korea, cried when asked about the experience.

 

AP Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe

May Myat Noe, left, Myanmar's first international beauty queen, winner of the 2014 Miss Asia Pacific World, sits with her mother San San Htwe and her crown that she allegedly ran away with, during a press conference in Yangon, Myanmar, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014.

The Miss Asia Pacific World pageant, now in its fourth year, is no stranger to controversy.

In 2011, Wales representative Amy Willerton and several other contestants alleged that the contest had been fixed after a woman representing Venezuela was apparently named runner-up of the talent round before competing.

The argument with organizers — captured on video and uploaded to YouTube under the title "Confessions of a Beauty Queen" — was widely circulated in the pageant community.

Some of the contestants also accused officials of asking the women for sex in return for higher placement in the contest, and charged that the police called into investigate the allegations were bribed.

Those allegations were denied by Kim.

"It is not true that the girls were sleeping with the organizers or the director," he said. "The police already announced that these were just rumors. We checked everything, the CCTV in the hotel, everything. It was just rumors."

Myanmar, which only recently emerged from a half century of military rule and self-imposed isolation, started sending contestants to international pageants again in 2012.

Noe's win was widely covered in local media.

And a few of these...

 

These are not so much optical illusions as camouflage. GSN has a program, Skin Wars, that features contestants performing challenges containing body painting in each episode. Body painting focuses more often on the illusion of clothing and such.

or the opposite.

 

Admittedly, if you don't have a body that will provide the right kind of canvas, no amount of body paint will turn you into Superman.

But you can always invest in a muscle suit. Just be careful how you sit, because those sags will show!

Because I haven't done any of these for a while ...

 

So what's your perspective on things?