A recent news reported that an intruder broke into the house of an 82-year-old grandmother in Rochester, New York, last week while she was preparing for bed. She narrated to the investigators that she heard heavy pounding on her door close to midnight and when she refused to let the man in, the man was incensed and forced his way inside. Hiding in the dark, she whacked the intruder with a table as the man walked around the house. She also hit him several times with a piece of metal. The responding police officers found the poor guy severely beaten black and blue. The grandma who works out in the gym everyday is a former champion bodybuilder and can lift objects double her weight.
Explaining her situation to the police, she said: “It’s kind of semi-dark and I’m alone, and I’m old. But guess what, I’m tough; he picked the wrong house to break into.”
This Christmas, when Santa Claus comes to Rochester neighborhood, he should knock and identify himself properly when he brings gifts to the tough lady.
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Insurance claimants can do various ways to make insurers pay their claims. Some complain to the regulator or media while others resort to threats. It is also common to seek the intervention of influential personalities like government officials, including Malacañang to facilitate the settlement of the claim. On the other hand, some companies engage in unfair claims settlement which is actually an offense under the Insurance Code. A common gripe raised by claimants against insurers is the imposition of unreasonable requirements to establish the occurrence of the risk or contingency insured against. For instance, there was a time when the submission of the death certificate alone was not sufficient to prove the fact of death of the deceased insured. Some years back, a syndicate operated in one remote municipality which manufactured death certificates used to document the dubious death of a nonexistent insured person. Several life companies had been victimized resulting to stricter claims settlement procedures. Companies employed claims investigators that looked into suspicious claims to combat insurance fraud. Thus, it was not unusual for the claim investigators to interview attending physicians and neighbors of the alleged deceased and even take photographs of the corpse and the tomb. While this is now a thing of the past in our country, it seems that insurance claimants in other parts of the world are still grappling with this problem. In KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, relatives of a deceased person were filmed taking the corpse into the office of Old Mutual Insurance when their claim for death benefit was not acted upon on time. The body was placed inside a body bag. The insurer explained that they needed more evidence that the insured was dead before settling the claim. The company apologized and immediately paid the claim.
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Thanksgiving, which is held every fourth Thursday of November, is perhaps the most celebrated annual holiday in the United States. It is nondenominational and secular so it is probably more popular than Christmas. The first recorded Thanksgiving was the harvest feast shared by the pilgrims at Plymouth in Massachusetts, and the native Wampanoag people in 1621. The first Thanksgiving feast was served by five women who arrived aboard the Mayflower the previous winter. The five prepared and served the food with the help of the native women. About 50 pilgrims and 90 natives joined the celebration, which lasted for three days. Thanksgiving was traced to the earlier harvest festival to celebrate a bountiful harvest. Later, favorable political and military events became occasions for Thanksgiving proclamations. The traditional fare of the Thanksgiving meal consists of roast turkey, potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie. The bread stuffing is a delicacy that you may not like the turkey, but for sure you will like the bread it ate. Vehicular traffic during the Thanksgiving week is the busiest of the year since family members who live far apart gather with their folks. It’s the time for family bonding, good food and fine drinks and football. Thanksgiving was not an official holiday until the editor of a popular magazine, Sarah Josepha Hale, convinced President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim the fourth Thursday of November as the National Thanksgiving Day to promote unity. Every president after Lincoln annually proclaimed the holiday on the same day but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt changed it to the third Thursday of November to extend the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy, which was then suffering from depression. Eventually, this effort resulted in a nationwide shopping spree that is now called Black Friday, the day when all shops conduct sales at substantial discounts. But not all states complied, so FDR returned the date to the fourth Thursday of November.
A teacher asked her students: “What should you be thankful for?” Joseph raised his hand, and answered: “I am thankful that I’m not a turkey.” Happy Thanksgiving to all!