Rodell Vereen and Sugar

Rodell Vereen, 50, of Longs, S.C. was having an affair with a 21-year-old, named Sugar. He would only come looking for her at night when no one else was around. He had to be very careful because he had been caught once before and got into a lot of trouble. However, he was confident that his lover would never tell on him, it was the other woman, Barbara Kenley, that he had to watch out for. The reason Rodell had to be so careful was that Barbara owned Sugar. Sugar was her horse and she certainly did not approve of the relationship.

What Rodell did not know was that Barbara suspected something was going on. She had noticed several weeks ago that Sugar was acting strange and getting infections again. She noticed things in the barn had been moved around; dirt had been piled up and bales of hay stacked near the horse's stall at her Lazy B Stables. Barbara suspected Rodell had returned to visit her horse, but she had no proof.

It was on Thanksgiving Day 2007 that Barbara had found him asleep in the hay by her horse, who had been locked in her stall. A mound of dirt and a stool were behind her. Rodell Vereen was arrested and charged with buggery. On July 21, 2008 he pleaded guilty.

He was sentenced to three years of probation, ordered to undergo mental health counseling, placed on the state’s sex offender list and told not to go near Lazy B Stables.

Barbara spent several nights at the stables, which are about four miles from her home, but didn’t find anything. So she installed surveillance cameras, and when she reviewed the footage from July 19, she couldn’t believe she was seeing the same man doing the same thing to her horse.

“Police kept telling me it couldn’t be the same guy,” Kenley said. “I couldn’t believe that there were two guys going around doing this to the same horse.”

Barbara now had her proof. She told officers she had video of Rodell Vereen "having relations'' with one of her horses on July 19, according to a police report. "I had given police surveillance video before and they weren't able to identify him,'' Kenley said. "And I wanted to catch him firsthand." She wanted to make sure he was arrested. So she staked out the barn.

On Monday night, Kenley said she went to check on the horses and saw an unknown vehicle parked near her property. Kenley found Vereen behind a barn where the horses are kept and pointed a shotgun at him. Kenley called police on her cell phone and waited for officers to arrive.

"He was very subdued,'' Kenley said. "He was like ... cold. He may have been in shock."

Kenley said she asked Vereen what he was doing at the barn and that he said he was looking for a bathroom.

"I told him he was full of crap,'' Kenley said. "He apologized and said he didn't mean to hurt me.''

When the police arrived, Vereen admitted to them that he did have "relations'' with a horse on July 19. He was charged with buggery, trespassing and probation violation. He is being held on $30,000 bail.

"That stable was my getaway, my stress relief,'' said Kenley, who has owned the stable for 20 years. "Everybody has a place they like to go to get away. Now it is totally destroyed. It is the only thing I have in life.''

"I have a false sense of security right now,'' Kenley said. "When they arrested him before I thought that was the end of it. Now all of my insecurities are back. I can't go out there at certain times because I am afraid.''

A family member said Wednesday that Vereen was diagnosed with a "mental disease'' more than 10 years ago.

"He's supposed to be on medication but I don't believe he's been taking it,'' said Beulah Vereen. "He's not a violent man, I know.''

Vereen has had mental problems for several years, but seemed to get better after getting court-ordered treatment last year, said his brother, the Rev. James Vereen, who lives just down the street from his brother and the stables.

"He's done all right when he was on the medicine. I don't know if he is still taking it," said James Vereen, who added his brother has kept to himself a lot in the last few months.

Vereen will have a probation hearing at 9 a.m. Monday at J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway, according to Richard Laskill, a senior agent for the S.C. Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.

A judge will likely determine if Vereen will serve the remainder of his three-year suspended sentence for the 2007 buggery charge.

"Hopefully he won't get out,'' Kenley said. "My goal is to get him away from me and my property.''

 "In 20 years I've never had a problem like this,'' Kenley said. "I never knew people did such a thing.''

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Repeat That Name Again

Like the folks in Wisconsin who had to correct an embarrassing sign that was misspelled; the people of Webster, Massachusetts have a similar problem. They discovered that some road signs (like the one above) referring to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg have spelling mistakes in them.

The 45-letter name for this body of water, is often cited as the longest place name in the United States and one of the longest in the world.

This lake has several alternative names. Lake Chaubunagungamaug is the name of the lake as recognized by the U.S. Department of the Interior, however, many area residents, as well as the official website of the town of Webster, consider the longer version correct.

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After investigating  hundreds of resources and Internet searches, it was determined that the 45-letter Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg was the correct spelling, and that the signs saying 'Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaoggagoggchaubunaguhgamaugg' were inaccurate (inserting an 'o' for a 'u' at position 20, and an 'h' for an 'n' at position 38.)

Richard D. Cazeault, president of the nonprofit Webster Lake Association, said he feels bad the signs are wrong, but given the bad economy, he’s simply glad signs were provided. Exactly how to spell the name has been debated, according to Mr. Cazeault.

“I had a guy do some research on this four or five years ago,” Mr. Cazeault said

During the investigation a number of alternative spellings were found. A 49-letter version -  Chargoggagoggmanchauggauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg - was discovered on many of the original signs. This was the second most popular spelling.

The 45-letter version was found in 949 articles and references such as an encyclopedia, Indian Ranch, oldewebster.com, thefreedictionary.com and others. However, a more than 100-year-old survey map uses one less g at the end of the name, Mr. Cazeault said.

The 49-letter version was found in 382 articles. All other spellings were found in fewer than 100 sources, he said.

The local Chamber of Commerce will now attempt to find out who painted the signs in the first place, and get them to correct them.

State Rep. Paul J. Kujawski, D-Webster, said the original signs were damaged from wear and tear years ago, and he was involved with having them replaced. Incorrect information may have been given to the vendor, but he said he wasn’t sure.

Echoing Ms. Houbre, director of chamber services, he said, “We can contact the people who were involved with it and see what we can do.”

Now that we have determined the correct spelling of the name, there is only one thing left to find out - How does one pronounce that name?

The locals have a better idea. They simply call it Webster Lake.

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Road Sign Misspelled

When I do a blog post, before I press the "publish" button, I always do a spell check. It's not that I don't trust my spelling (most of the time) it's just that you never know whether or not something has slipped through.

Well it seems as if the state of Wisconsin needs to hire a proof reader before putting up new highway signs:



Greg Frank, general manager at Decker Supply Co. of Madison, the firm that manufactured the sign for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation said the company takes full responsibility.

"I can't offer anything more than it was just a mistake made; just poor, poor work on our part," Frank said.

David Vieth, director of the bureau of highway operations for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said the DOT verified that the information sent to Decker was correct. Frank said the company might have entered the information incorrectly into its computer system and workers subsequently failed to notice the errors.

The sign has now been fixed as noted in the following clip:

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Kiss and Make up with a Beer?

Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. (a Black man) was arrested in his house by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley (a White man). President Obama (a Black man) says the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in making the arrest.

The situation escalates and charges of racism and racial profiling are leveled. The President is criticized for defending the Harvard scholar and the unapologetic policeman is backed by his union. The news media, talk shows and blogs all have a field day as the public weighs in with various opinions. Sounds like a powder keg about to explode, right? But not so fast.....President Obama had more to say:

"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," he said. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."

In what he called an opportunity for a "teachable moment", Obama, at the suggestion of officer Crowley, invited both men to have a beer with him at the White House.

"My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved, and the way they would have liked it to be resolved," Obama said. "The fact that it has garnered so much attention, I think, is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America, and -- you know, so to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate. What I would like to do, then, is to make sure that everybody steps back for a moment, recognizes that these are two decent people."

In what was a very different tone than before, Henry Louis Gates Jr. said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with the President and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested him. In a statement posted Friday on The Root, a Web site Gates oversees, the scholar said he told Obama he'd be happy to meet with Crowley, whom Gates had accused of racial profiling.

"I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative," Gates said. "I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sergeant Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige."

"It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience" Gates said. ".....Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

A trio of Massachusetts police unions released a joint statement shortly after Obama's latest comments, saying Crowley had a friendly and meaningful conversation with the president.

"We appreciate his sincere interest and willingness to reconsider his remarks about the Cambridge Police Department," according to the statement. "It is clear to us from this conversation, that the President respects police officers and the often difficult and dangerous situations we face on a daily basis."

Isn't it wonderful to see intelligent people act intelligently? I, however do wonder if it's possible for a President, a Professor and a Policeman (yeah the 3 Pees) to agree on what kind of beer they should be drinking.

I can just see the new ad campaign for which ever beer wins: "Intelligent people drink"....... or "the beer that brought the nation back together"...... Stay tuned!!

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Virginity For Sale at Auction

Evelyn Duenas, 28, is from Ecuador but lives in Valencia, Spain. Evelyn needs money, not just for herself (she wants to go to Med. school) but also for her mother in Ecuador who is suffering from Alzheimer's. That is why she has decided to sell, to the highest bidder, her most precious possession - her virginity - on a Latin American website.

"It's a great sacrifice, but I'm doing it for my mother. I don't think it will solve all my problems, but it will give me some financial stability," Ms Duenas said. "I don't care what people think."

However Evelyn does not come cheap and she has many conditions. She recently turned down an offer of 2,350,000 euros (about $US 3.3 million) because her conditions were not acceptable to the "purchaser". So what are her conditions? See the list below.

• Must have a medical certificate proving good health


• Must use a condom


• One night only


• No kisses or caresses


• She picks the venue (and may bring a trusted friend)

Below is a brief interview with Evelyn which can also be found here.



Evelyn also did a more in depth radio interview in Spain where she explains her motives and talks about her plans, her parents and why she was still a virgin at 28 years old (very strict, religious upbringing.) Listen below (in Spanish only)

[audio http://shadmia.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/evelyn-interview.mp3 ]

However if you are thinking that Evelyn had a unique idea.....no way! Its been done before! At least three times before!

American Natalie Dylan sold hers for US$3.7 million but the deal was never ‘consummated’ after the winning bidder’s wife objected (bitch!). She did burn his $250,000 deposit, though. See more of Natalie here

Raffella Fico, an Italian swimsuit model, had a price of $1.5 million on hers but there is no evidence that she followed through. Currently not a virgin thanks to Ronaldo!!

Romanian, Alina Percea, let hers go (relatively) cheaply; for $13,000 she did follow through and supposedly enjoyed it. Interesting to note here is that going bareback was part of the deal!

Getting back to Evelyn Duenas, there may be some hope for her from an unexpected source - Ecuador.  The government of Ecuador may offer to help Evelyn and her family if she can be persuaded to cancel the auction. They are trying to get in touch with her before making a firm commitment. They may also offer Evelyn a scholarship so she can pursue a medical degree.

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