Permission Issues in python cgi scripts on Apache 2.2 on OSX Leopard

["Dan Yamins" <dyamins@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm a total Apache newbie and I'm having two permissions-related related problems.  

I've set up local virtual host set up to serve a local directory that a project of mine is in.  In this directory, I have some python .cgi scripts.   In several places, scripts that work fine when not run as .cgi scripts (but just as regular .py scripts in the Python interpreter) break when run by apache because of what look like permissions related issues.     Specifically:

1) When a script attempts to make a directory, it fails to do so unless writing in enabled for all users, not just owner or group.   Apache issues a permission denied error. 

and, 

2) Some os stat modification operations , like the touch function (called os.utime), fail -- with the error message being that "Operation is Not Permitted".    I've put permissions to 777 for all the involved files but to no avail.   (Am I right in thinking that this problem is also a permissions issue?  I know the first one is, because the error message says so explicitly.)   

My computer is running off-line and this only ever going to be a local development task.   So, my basic question is:  is there some way, for the directories that I'm serving, to turn of all the permissions protections whatsoever?  E.g. to run Apache in a mode as if the process running the scripts had all root privileges?  And so that I can run scripts via cgi without having to worry about problems like the "Operation Not Permitted Errror"?   

I tried to do things like put the following directives:

<Directory "my/local/virtual/host/directory">
    Options All Indexes MultiViews ExecCGI
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

in my configuration files (e.g the virtual host conf fil, the httpd.conf file, etc...), but this failed to achieve my goal.   


Thanks (and I apologize if my description of the problem wasn't detailed enough)!
Dan