A Child Stripper’s Saga | Newsweek Periscope

HEALTH CARE
Ultimate Outsourcing
Tina Peng 11/19/2008 12:00:00 AM
Dorthea, 72, a retired bank teller, lives in Harlingen, Texas, a city of about 67,000 in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley. Like a lot of Texans, she's crossed the border to Mexico a few times to buy cheap medication. But she'd never considered undergoing complicated medical procedures there—at least, not until she was quoted the prohibitive price of $30,000 for a gastric-band procedure, a treatment for obesity in which a band is placed around the stomach to limit food intake. It wasn't covered by her insurance, so Dorthea, who asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons, opted to drive south and pay less than $10,000 for the outpatient operation at an American-owned hospital in Reynosa, Mexico, 10 minutes over the border and about an hour from her home. The outpatient surgery was a success, and she's planning on returning for follow-up care. "It was very good treatment," she says.
BUSH
But Words Will Never Hurt Me
Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
If George Bush took the insults personally, he didn't let it show. On Oct. 23, John McCain, who once stood by the president despite a tense personal relationship, let loose with an unsparing rebuke of the Bush administration's failures. He chastised the president for the "conduct of the war in Iraq for years, growth in the size of government" and for ignoring the will of Congress. "We just let things get completely out of hand," McCain told The Washington Times. McCain's attack read like a Barack Obama ad, only angrier.
FAST CHAT
Gossip Girls, With God In Their Hearts
10/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
In the hyperrich and hyperreligious Dallas enclave known as the Park Cities, Bible study is a contact sport. Author Kim Gatlin, a wealthy, gorgeous divorcée, was inspired to write "Good Christian Bitches" about the backbiting women in her orbit. She spoke with NEWSWEEK's Gretel C. Kovach.
FASHION
Clothes Make The Ice Man
Marc Peyser 10/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
You might say that Sean Avery is the human equivalent of jock itch. It's his job, as the baddest badass in the National Hockey League, to annoy his opponents, to get under their skin—anything to gain an edge. Like the time he painted his fingernails black. "It was an experiment to see what a guy would do when he saw a fist coming at him and the nails are painted," he says. Or the time he turned his back on a game against New Jersey so he could wave his arms to block goalie Martin Brodeur's view and glare at him like a jackal. "I still remember the look on his face," says Avery. "I think at that point he thought I was officially out of my f–––ing mind." The NHL promptly outlawed that kind of diversionary tactic in what is now called "the Avery Rule." "I only got to do it once," he says, "but it was a good once."
BUSINESS
Vice: The Recession-Proof Bet
Eve Conant 10/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
It's 8:30 p.m., the stock market is down 700 points, and Rick's Cabaret in Manhattan is packed. Drinks are flowing, women in electric-blue gowns are peeling off layers onstage, and if the Wall Street clientele is stressed, the guys aren't pinching pennies. Sabrina, who offers $20 neck rubs at the bar, is making a killing. "I'm happy," she says, "but I'm sorry it's for this reason." Margo, a stripper, tells NEWSWEEK she just wired $1,000 to her dad, a plumber who recently got sacked. Claudia, another dancer, says her tips are "consistent," but she's losing clients in her day job as a fitness trainer. This stability isn't news to Rick's CEO, Eric Langen, who has seen stock in his chain of gentlemen's clubs nose-dive even as his revenues nearly double. "I wouldn't say we're recession-proof," he says, "but we're recession-resistant."
NATION
Lost Girl
Gretel C. Kovach
She was only 12 years old, but she had the body of a woman eight years older. And at Diamonds Cabaret, an all-nude strip club in Dallas's sprawling red light district, patrons could see every inch of it. How this preteen runaway landed in the dregs of the adult entertainment industry last fall is a parent's worst nightmare, a story that vice cops hear all too often, and an example of a glaring legal shortcoming in Dallas, where Diamonds remains open for business.