Puppy Gnawed Off Baby’s Toes

A pit bull puppy chewed off four of a baby girl’s toes while the child’s parents slept, police here said Monday. The parents were booked on charges of child desertion and criminal negligence and were being held in the Bossier Parish Jail pending an initial court appearance.

Police said the parents were sleeping on a mattress in the living room of their residence and the month-old girl was in an infant seat beside them when the puppy began chewing on their baby’s toes.

Mary Shannon Hansche, 22, and Christopher Wayne Hansche, 26, told police they woke up to the sound of the baby crying, found her mangled foot and took her to the hospital about 8:30 a.m. Sunday.

“They did not see the dog injuring the child,” police spokesman Mark Natale said.

The girl underwent surgery Sunday at Sutton’s Children’s Hospital in Shreveport. There was no way to reattach the child’s toes, Natale said Monday.

The puppy was 6 weeks old and had no record of receiving its shots and will be quarantined for 10 days to check for rabies. Natale said he did not know what the puppy’s fate would be after that.

“The puppy itself was just several weeks old! I mean this was essentially a puppy,” Natale said.

“This puppy might have been trying to nurse on the toes of this baby,” veterinarian Michael Dale speculated. “I know that sounds a little far fetched, but that’s the first thing that comes to my mind.”

Teresa Miller, who sold the puppy to the Hansches, was skeptical the dog did it. “He didn’t chew on anything while he was with me. Out of all of them (in the litter), he was the least chewy.”

Another veterinarian, Dr. Valri Brown, said if the puppy chewed off the infant’s toes, it would not have happened quickly. “It would have to be a period of time – maybe at least an hour,” she said.

Meanwhile, the puppy’s been quarantined at Bossier City’s animal control office for the next 10 days to check for rabies. Natale said he did not know what the puppy’s fate would be after that.

When she is released from the hospital, the child will be placed in a foster home until the case against her parents is settled, officials said

Holiday Gift Idea # 9

Peter Boyle dies

Peter Boyle, the tall, prematurely bald actor who was the tap-dancing monster in “Young Frankenstein” and the curmudgeonly father in the long-running sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” has died. He was 71.

Boyle died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, said his publicist, Jennifer Plante.

A Christian Brothers monk who turned to acting, Boyle gained notice playing an angry workingman in the Vietnam-era hit “Joe.” But he overcome typecasting when he took on the role of the hulking, lab-created monster in Mel Brooks’ 1974 send-up of horror films.

The movie’s defining moment came when Gene Wilder, as scientist Frederick Frankenstein, introduced his creation to an upscale audience. Boyle, decked out in tails, performed a song-and-dance routine to the Irving Berlin classic “Puttin’ On the Ritz.”

It showed another side of the Emmy-winning actor, one that would be exploited in countless other films and perhaps best in “Everybody Loves Raymond,” in which he played incorrigible paterfamilias Frank Barone for 10 years.

“He’s just obnoxious in a nice way, just for laughs,” he said of the character in a 2001 interview. “It’s a very sweet experience having this happen at a time when you basically go back over your life and see every mistake you ever made.”

When Boyle tried out for the role opposite series star Ray Romano’s Ray Barone, however, he was kept waiting for his audition — and he was not happy.

“He came in all hot and angry,” recalled the show’s creator, Phil Rosenthal, “and I hired him because I was afraid of him.”

But Rosenthal also noted: “I knew right away that he had a comic presence.”
Impact of ‘Joe’

Boyle first came to the public’s attention more than a quarter century before. “Joe” was a sleeper hit in which he portrayed the title role, an angry, murderous bigot at odds with the era’s emerging hippie youth culture.

Although critically acclaimed, he faced being categorized as someone who played tough, angry types. He broke free of that to some degree as Robert Redford’s campaign manager in “The Candidate,” and shed it entirely in “Young Frankenstein.”

The latter film also led to the actor meeting his wife, Loraine Alterman, who visited the set as a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. Boyle, still in his monster makeup, quickly asked her for a date.

He went on to appear in dozens of films and to star in “Joe Bash,” an acclaimed but short-lived 1986 “dramedy” in which he played a lonely beat cop. He won an Emmy in 1996 for his guest-starring role in an episode of “The X Files,” and he was nominated for “Everybody Loves Raymond” and for the 1977 TV film “Tail Gunner Joe,” in which he played Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

In the 1976 film “Taxi Driver,” he was the cabbie-philosopher Wizard, who counseled Robert DeNiro’s violent Travis Bickle.

Other notable films included “T.R. Baskin,” “F.I.S.T.,” “Johnny Dangerously,” “Conspiracy: Trial of the Chicago 8″ (as activist David Dellinger), “The Dream Team,” “The Santa Claus,” “The Santa Claus 2,” “While You Were Sleeping” (in a charming turn as Sandra Bullock’s future father-in-law) and “Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.”
‘The normal pull of the world’

Educated in Roman Catholic schools in Philadelphia, Boyle would spend three years in a monastery before abandoning his studies there. He later described the experience as similar to “living in the Middle Ages.”

He explained his decision to leave in 1991: “I felt the call for awhile; then I felt the normal pull of the world and the flesh.”

He traveled to New York to study with Uta Hagen, supporting himself for five years with various jobs, including postal worker, waiter, maitre d’ and office temp. Finally, he was cast in a road company version of “The Odd Couple.” When the play reached Chicago he quit to study with that city’s famed improvisational troupe Second City.

Upon returning to New York, he began to land roles in TV commercials, off-Broadway plays and finally films.

Through Alterman, a friend of Yoko Ono, the actor became close friends with John Lennon.

“We were both seekers after a truth, looking for a quick way to enlightenment,” Boyle once said of Lennon, who was best man at his wedding.

In 1990, Boyle suffered a stroke and couldn’t talk for six months. In 1999, he had a heart attack on the set of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” He soon regained his health, however, and returned to the series. (Read story)

Despite his work in “Everybody Loves Raymond” and other Hollywood productions, Boyle made New York City his home. He and his wife had two daughters, Lucy and Amy.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Finding holiday light bulb extravaganzas

Anybody can have a Christmas tree and most neighborhoods have at least one house decorated with strings of lights. But if you really want to see a show, pack the kids and visiting relatives into the car and head for one of the many parks and zoos where holiday lighting has become a high-voltage art form.

Here are Web guides to just a few of the light bulb extravaganzas around the country this holiday season. Be sure to plan ahead; many are closed on December 24-25.

One of the bigger holiday illuminations is the Winter Festival of Lights — http://www.oglebay-resort.com/fol.htmexternal link — at Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia. This fanciful display lights up a six-mile route through the park complex, including an animated Snowflake Tunnel you drive through and characters from the Peanuts comic strip. Scroll down the page for the link to the animated “Good Zoo” show and descriptions of the other attractions that make this a favorite of thousands of visitors. Go back up the top of the page and click on “About Us” to learn more about this complex an hour west of Pittsburgh; that’s also where you access three small videos, one of which shows the Festival of Lights.

Go early to see the baby giraffe and other animals, then wait for sunset and the 10th anniversary Holiday Lights show at New York City’s Bronx Zoo — http://www.bronxzoo.com/external link — which boasts more than a half-million lights and over 150 lighted animal and holiday sculptures. Look for the “sneak preview” video; it’s brief but will give you an idea of what to expect. Click on “Plan Your Visit” and “About the Animals” for information about the zoo’s 4,000-plus animals, a map of the complex and daily animal demonstrations.

Unlike the Bronx Zoo show, which costs $14 a head for grown-ups, admission is free for ZooLights — http://www.lpzoo.org/events/zoolights06.htmlexternal link — at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. Look for the “Special Events” link at the Brookfield Zoo — http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/external link — 14 miles west of downtown Chicago, for details on their Holiday Magic light show, where they switch on more than 1 million bulbs.

On the West Coast, the 2006 LADWP Light Festival — http://www.dwplightfestival.com/external link — is under way at Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, along a mile-long stretch of the park’s Crystal Springs Drive. Click on “Display Guide” to get an idea of the exhibits in the show. And in a Southern California touch, you can park your gas-burner and ride an environmentally friendly electric shuttle bus through the show.

In the Northwest, the Oregon Zoo — http://www.oregonzoo.org/external link — is putting on its own ZooLights display, with almost as many lights as Brookfield. And unlike the brief video at the Bronx Zoo, the “ZooLights Preview” here goes on for two minutes, showcasing a lighted train that young children will love. To the north, in Washington state, the century-old Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium south of Seattle — http://www.pdza.org/external link — also has a Zoolights festival, with live entertainment.

Take in a holiday light extravaganza with a Southern flavor in Savannah, Georgia — http://www.savannahvisit.com/external link — where you need to look for the link to “Southern Lights” along the right side of the page. Here, the holiday lights adorn the city’s trademark squares and elegant old mansions. Click on “Itinerary” to see some of the special events within the celebration.

If you plan to be in Texas, Trail of Lights 2006 — http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/tol/external link — in Austin promises 42 lighted scenes along a mile-long promenade. Unlike many of the others, this show is only for pedestrians, with a tram for people needing assistance. Click on “42 lighted scenes” for shots of some of the scenes.

Italian activist’s TV suicide try foiled

An Italian fathers’ rights activist says he tried unsuccessfully to self-immolate on live television to call attention to dads unable to see their kids.

The ANSA news service reported Saturday that Nicola De Martino, who was recently re-united with his son after a 12-year separation, tried to set himself on fire Thursday night while appearing as a guest on the current affairs show, “Dieci Minute,” or “Ten Minutes” on state television station RAI. ANSA said that the show’s host, along with the distraught man’s 18-year-old son “looked on in horror” as De Martino doused himself with gasoline and then threatened to light a match.

Host Maurizio Martinelli and the studio crew frantically managed to wrest the lit match from De Martino’s hands. He was then led away from the stage.

See it HERE.

ONE PUNK UNDER GOD…hahahahaha

He was born into the glare of televangelist parents Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Then the “Praise the Lord” empire collapsed in scandal. His father went to jail for fraud.

Jay Bakker spent his teens in the darkness, rebelling and bent on self-destruction from alcohol and drugs.

But now, with his 31st birthday next week, this tattooed, multi-pierced pilgrim is on a righteous path: preaching God’s grace to a flock of young, downtrodden and disillusioned parishioners most any other church would turn away.

Jay is the focus of “One Punk Under God: The Prodigal Son of Jim & Tammy Faye,” a reality series about the back-to-basics church he calls Revolution, which, notwithstanding his decade-long sobriety, holds services in an Atlanta bar.

Keeping the faith while keeping Revolution going will prove to be a challenge for Jay.

“I think Revolution is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he muses in the first episode (airing Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST on Sundance Channel). “With some groups we’re too Christian, and with the Christians we’re not Christian enough.”

But Jay has other concerns as the six-episode series unfolds.

His mom is gravely ill from cancer; Jay will be traveling to her North Carolina home for tender visits. His dad, now remarried and with a new TV ministry, is estranged from him — a rift Jay will make great strides repairing. And after several years’ devotion to his church, he will be uprooted when wife Amanda, a young woman with fluorescent red hair and a beatific smile, is accepted by New York University for its doctoral program in psychiatry.

In short, 2006 is eventful for Jay Bakker — far more than he imagined when “One Punk Under God” began filming in February.

He was initially reluctant to sign on, and even camera shy, he insists during a recent interview.

“I feel like I’m just a guy who has a church with 15 people that meets in a bar,” says Jay, who left the Atlanta church in another minister’s care to start a new branch that meets in a Brooklyn pub.

He has no wish, he adds, to leverage his TV exposure into an ongoing video pulpit, as his parents had on such a grand scale with “The PTL Club,” which at its peak reached some 13 million cable households.

“If anything, I’d like to write more books,” Jay says.

Five years ago his first book, “Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows,” testified to his troubled past and deliverance from it.

Now “One Punk Under God” finds Jay continuing a mini-crusade for an alternative to the God he could never make peace with: a wrathful God who hated him for all the flaws he hated in himself.

“God loves us for who we are,” contends Jay, explaining that it comes down to “grace”: “God’s love for all people, and his unconditional love.

“God isn’t counting our sins against us. Yeah, we’ll have to pay the consequences; life has consequences. But God isn’t keeping a record. ‘You better watch out, you better not cry’ — that’s not God. That’s Santa Claus!”

‘Salvation is free. It’s a gift’

In defiance of both his billing as “punk” and his calling as preacher, Jay is an affable, unassuming chap who happens to wear a stud in each ear as well as a lip ring. And tattoos: He got the first of many — it praises Revolution — at 19 while living in Phoenix, where he helped found the church. In the series’ finale, he will get a tattoo in tribute to his mother.

Jay has tattoos because he likes them, simple as that. He never set out to be the punk anti-Bakker for a lost generation. Nor has he disavowed his parents, whose past disgrace could easily fuel skepticism about his own ministry.

“I don’t have a strategy like, ‘OK, I’m gonna distance myself from them, so I can build a church and be my own man,”‘ Jay says. “Me and my dad have a hard time getting along, and now, with my mom being as sick as she is, that’s hard — but I love them, and they did a lot of great things, as well as make mistakes.”

A mistake of theirs he means to avoid: building a church so big and all-consuming that its own sustenance is its primary cause.

In episode two, Jay will make a tough decision that could threaten his church: Should he declare himself a gay-affirming minister? Over fast food outdoors on a bright Atlanta day, he discusses it with Amanda.

“So speaking out in behalf of the gay community and gay Christians is something I should do?” he asks her.

“Absolutely, without question,” she agrees, even as she warns there’ll be a backlash.

She’s right. A conservative foundation wastes no time pulling thousands in funding.

That’s OK. “Salvation is free. It’s a gift,” Jay tells me in New York months later.

“But if I start to compromise now, where am I gonna be in 20 years? I want to be able to encourage other people not to compromise about their passions, their feelings — and not to be afraid that, if you share your convictions with the rest of us, you’re in danger of being thrown out.”

At the end of “One Punk Under God,” Jay’s life remains full of challenges: his mom’s worsening condition; the new city for him and Amanda to navigate; a new congregation to forge. He even speaks hopefully of kicking cigarettes.

Then he shares with me his foolproof plan.

“You put one foot out in front of the other and you say, ‘OK, this is what I believe, this is what I’m seeing in the Word.’ ” He smiles. “It’s a struggle. But what have I got to lose?”

See it HERE.