Not an ordinary man but a Harvard Law Hero

Harvard Law Hero from Jules Crittenden

They keep coming out of the woodwork. Harvard war heroes. This one, when all the other Harvard Law graduates headed off to the white-shoe law firms, the non-profits, community organizing, that kind of thing, he headed off to the United States Marine Corps. Three combat tours later, it was the DEA because, his dad said, unlike CIA and other agencies, he could be assured of frontline action there. He found it in Afghanistan.

Peter Gelziniz  tells the story in Crittenden's paper The Boston Herald.  Final salute to a singular hero

On Oct. 26, Special Agents Weston, 37, Forrest N. Leamon, 37 and Chad L. Michael, 30, were part of an elite DEA-Special Forces strike team, which had just completed a successful night raid on an Afghan drug bazaar.

After a fierce, hour-long firefight, 31 enemy insurgents and heroin traffickers were dead, and a stockpile of drugs, IEDs and weapons were seized. Mike Weston and his team boarded the choppers for the flight back to their outpost in the western city of Herat, certain they had made a difference in the blackness before the Afghan dawn.

“A lot of what we do is done quietly,” said Matthew Murphy, in Boston’s DEA office. “The public isn’t generally aware of the dedication of character it takes to place oneself on the front lines of narco-terrorism . . . these were not ordinary men.”

Condolences and grateful thanks to his family, especially his wife Cindy whom he married on Memorial Day.  Cindy was the widow of his best friend at Harvard Law, Helge Boes, who died in 2003 while serving as a CIA officer in Afghanistan.

Posthumous marriage

Since death us did part: French mother-of-two marries her fiancé a year after he is killed in a car crash

A little-known section of the French civil code states it is possible for a bride or groom to marry a dead fiancé as long as there is clear evidence that they planned to marry before the loved one died.

Magali wore a white dress and veil and a large colour portrait of the dead groom was on show during the ceremony, the Independent reported. The service was attended by 30 family members and friends.

The widow bride said at Saturday's service: ‘I am not really in the mood to have a wedding reception so we will just drink a cup of coffee and I will thank everyone who has supported me.
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The sombre event ended with her placing a bouquet of flowers on the bride-groom’s grave.

"Heaven:it ain't boring"

Now on his sixth installment of Heaven: It Ain't Boring, Berger is setting out to debunk what he says are "myths" about heaven and dying.

Forget about serenely playing the harp on a fluffy cloud. Berger says heaven is a dynamic place of fun, culture, creativity and happiness.

"When you read the Bible and see what's going on in heaven, there's nothing boring about it. There's nothing boring about God," he said. "Why would God's heaven be boring? The creator of the universe? Come on."

Son's death motivates pastor's study of afterlife

Wild West send-off

The Wild West send-off for husband and wife killed in historic American outlaw town

For a Wild West-loving couple who died near the setting of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, it was a fitting tribute.

Scores of mourners attending the funeral of Country and Western fans Arthur Wilkinson, 81, and his wife Winifred, 75, dressed as Indians and 19th century American soldiers.

The pair were killed during an annual pilgrimage to Tombstone, Arizona, where they were hit by a pick-up truck as they tried to cross a road.
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Speaking after the funeral, the Rev Michael Dolan, said: 'I have done hundreds of funerals but have never seen anything to match this. 

'Although the circumstances were quite tragic it really was a celebration of a good life well lived.'

"The defence rests but his soul goes strolling on"

Memorial service celebrates 'magnificent Mortimer'

A gathering of celebrities and notables remember John Mortimer, lawyer, author and creator of Rumpole of the Bailey
who died in January.

Memorial service for Ft Hood soldiers gunned down by traitor

President at Ft Hood Memorial Service Hails the Fallen

Standing in front of 13 sets of boots, rifles, helmets and photographs, Mr. Obama vowed that the memory of those slain in a rampage here last week would “endure through the life of our nation.” One by one, he listed the names of those killed and described their hopes and dreams and the families they left behind.

“It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy,” the president told thousands of soldiers and relatives gathered here at the nation’s largest Army post. “But this much we do know: No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts. No just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice, in this world and the next.”

"He was starving, he needed to eat"

Russian cannibal who ate his mother given lighter sentence by judge who says 'he was starving, he needed to eat'

A cannibal who killed and ate parts of his mother had his sentence reduced by a judge who said 'he needed to eat'.

Sergey Gavrilov secured reduced time in jail after confessing: 'I did not like the meat very much. It was too fatty. But I was so hungry, I had to eat it.'

The 27-year-old was given a lenient prison sentence because the judge said he was starving and needed to eat after spending all his money on vodka and gambling machines.

There are no words.

Nien Chang, R.I.P.

Nien Cheng dies at 94; survivor of torture during China's Cultural Revolution

At a time when China's Communist leader Mao Tse-tung was trying to purge political rivals and reassert his authority, Cheng, the wealthy widow of an oil company executive, was one of untold numbers of professionals who were evicted from their homes by the Red Guard. She was arrested in August 1966 and falsely accused of being a spy.

Cheng endured 6 1/2 years of solitary confinement and torture in prison, refusing to confess or bow to the will of her interrogators. On her release, she discovered that her only child was dead, purportedly by suicide, but actually beaten to death by Red Guards.

In simple, exquisite detail, Cheng's 1987 book describes the maddeningly circular reasoning of those caught up in the revolution.
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"Far from depressing, it is almost exhilarating to witness her mind do battle," Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the New York Times review of her book.
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By 1980, she had managed to leave China for Canada. Three years later she moved to Washington, using money her husband had left her in overseas bank accounts. In 1987, she was a guest at a White House state dinner, where she chatted with President Reagan. Her book was excerpted at length in Time magazine. She became a U.S. citizen in 1988.

"There were many Chinese who fought back and many who suffered much more. Some of them have never recovered," she said. "But my privilege has been to write about it, and that's only been possible because I could leave."

The Victims of the Terror at Fort Hood R.I.P.

In the worst act of terror since 9/11, a "radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting, "Allahu akbar!" ("God is great!")" killed 13 people and wounded dozens of others at Ft Hood, Texas.  I agree with Ralph Peters who says

This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's an act of terror. Period.

When the terrorist posts anti-American hate speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as "Palestinian" in a Muslim spouse-matching program and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit -- well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an "Islamist terrorist.

I've read a great deal about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, but little, as yet, about his victims.  I've cobbled together what I've been able to learn this morning on the Web about the people killed, the lives disrupted, the families shattered.

With deep condolences to all the families and friends of those killed and wounded.

Russell Seager

Capt. Russell Seager, 51, of Racine, Wisconsin, joined the army a few years ago because he was a psychiatrist  who wanted to help  soldiers returning from war adapt to civilian life again.

His uncle said, “He just wanted to help the soldiers because they helped us,...“And then he got shot by a psychiatrist.”

  Amy Krueger

Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel Wisconsin joined the Army shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, vowing to take on Osama bin Laden.  She was part of Captain Seager’s unit, which was headed to Afghanistan.

Her high school principal said  "I know she was proud to serve and proud to share her experience. She took pride that she was able to serve her country."

John Gaffney

Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, of the Serra Mesa area of San Diego, who had worked with mentally disabled adults in San Diego, was a psychiatric nurse who arrived at Ft. Hood the day before the shooting to prepare for a deployment to Iraq.  His close friend d and co-worker Stephanie Powell said, "He wanted to help the boys in Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the trauma of what they were seeing, He was an honorable man. He just wanted to serve in any way he can."  He leaves a wife and son.

  Michael Pearson

Pfc. Michael Pearson, 21, of Bolingbrook, Ill., joined the Army a year ago, was training to deactivate bombs and was known for his nimble fingers on his Fender Stratocaster guitar.  His mother said "He was the best son in the whole world,

Jason Hunt

Specialist Jason D. Hunt, 22, joined the military three years ago because, he told his grandmother, in Frederick, Okla., “it was time to grow up.” And when his two-year commitment was finished, he re-enlisted, right in the middle of the Iraq desert on his 21st birthday.  He got married just two months ago.

Francheska Velez

Francheska Velez, 21, of Chicago, was just  return ing home from Iraq where she disarmed bombs. She was three months pregnant and scheduled to begin maternity leave in December.  Ms. Velez had joined the Army three years ago to fulfill her father’s dream of serving the country and enlisted for another three.

“She knew I always wanted to be in the Army,” Mr. Velez, a Columbian citizen, said in Spanish. He learned Thursday of her death. “I didn’t expect it to happen here and not in Iraq. The worst thing was it wasn’t a terrorist. It was an American soldier.”

Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, who grew up in Pittsburgh, also joined the military like her father and grandfather, her sister, Margaret Yaggie, said in a telephone interview. Lt. Col. Warman was a physician’s assistant who was also a member of one of the Army medical reserve units.  She leaves behind a husband, two daughters and six grandchildren.

Kham Xiong

Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minnesota, was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan and was standing in line for a physical at the center and was responding to a text message from his wife, urging him to come home for lunch when he was killed.  Hs sister Mee Xiong said the family would have been able to understand if Kham would have died in battle. But the death on U.S. soil just didn't make sense.  "He didn't get to go overseas and do what he's supposed to do, and he's dead ... killed by our own people," Mee Xiong said.

He leaves his wife and three children, ages 4, 2, and 10 months.

Michael Grant Cahill

Michael Grant Cahill , 62 from Cameron, Texas,  suffered a heart attack two weeks ago and returned to work at the base as a civilian employee after taking just one week off for recovery, said his daughter Keely Vanacker.

"He survived that. He was getting back on track, and he gets killed by a gunman," Vanacker said, her words bare with shock and disbelief.

Cahill, a physician's assistant helped treat soldiers returning from tours of duty or preparing for deployment. He had been married for 37 years to his wife Joleen

Aaron Thomas Nemelka

Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19,  of the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Utah, chose to join the Army instead of going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his uncle Christopher Nemelka said.

"As a person, Aaron was as soft and kind and as gentle as they come, a sweetheart," his uncle said. "What I loved about the kid was his independence of thought."

Aaron Nemelka, the youngest of four children, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in January,

Better late than never

Bricklayer 'killed' in car crash stuns grieving family... by turning up at his own funeral

Relatives of Ademir Jorge Goncalves, 59, had identified him as the victim of a Sunday night car crash in Parana state in southern Brazil.

As is customary in Brazil, the funeral was held the following day, which happened to be the holiday of Finados, when Brazilians visit cemeteries to honour the dead.

What family members didn't know was that Goncalves had spent the night at a truck stop talking with friends over drinks of a sugarcane liquor known as cachaca, his niece Rosa Sampaio told the O Globo newspaper.

He did not get word about his own funeral until it was already happening on Monday morning.

Muslim honor killings

Noor Almaleki is the 20-year-old woman in Arizona who was run over by her father in a Jeep because she had become 'too Westernized'.

Aasiya Hassan of Buffalo was decapitated by her husband who did the deed in his TV studios he set up to promote Muslims as peace-loving people.  His motivation? money concerns or upset about the order of protection  had taken out against him a week earlier by his wife who was seeking a divorce after bouts of domestic violence.

An aunt and her three nieces were found dead in a submerged car at the bottom of Rideau Canal north of Kingston, Ontario. The parents of the three young girls tearfully explained it was a driving lesson gone wrong. Now they and  their son have been charged have been charged with first degree murder .  The aunt wanted a divorce and one of the girls was seeing a Pakastani boyfriend, both against the wishes of the father, the patriarch.

Mark Steyn
Noor Almaleki, whom I wrote about over the weekend, has died, the latest Western victim of a Muslim honor killing. If there were a Matthew Shepard murder every few months, Frank Rich et al would be going bananas about the "climate of hate" in our society, but you can run over your daughter, decapitate your wife, drown three teenage girls and a polygamous spouse, and progressive opinion and the press couldn't give a hoot. Indeed, as The Atlantic notes, it's merely an obsession of us right-wing kooks.

Francois Mitterand's last meal

In late 1995, dying of prostate cancer -- an illness he'd long lied about and hidden from voters -- Mitterrand decided to end his life by dining like a king. In centuries past, French monarchs were privileged to one very special delicacy: a small song bird called the ortolan, which was drowned in Armagnac, then flambéed and eaten whole. Since the bird is now endangered, it's strictly illegal to eat them in modern France -- but Mitterrand didn't wish to die in the modern France he had helped to make. So on New Year's Eve, he organized a select group of his friends and enjoyed a royal menu -- complete with lavish supplies of foie gras, 30 oysters for each diner, and ortolans. Each guest was allotted one of the birds, but according to The Independent (January 11, 1997):

After grabbing the last of 12 birds, the dying president disappeared for a second time behind the large, white napkin, which is ritually placed over the head of anyone about to indulge in the horrific act of eating a charred, but entire ortolan. "Those who had already been through the ordeal once, looked at each other in astonishment," wrote Mr. Benamou [a witness]. The table listened in embarrassment as the former president masticated the little bird to a paste behind the napkin, in the approved manner, before swallowing it. Then Mitterrand lay back in his chair, his face beaming in "ecstasy."

Mitterrand refused to eat after that. He suspended all treatment for his cancer and died just eight days later. He'd had his reward.

John Zmirak in Gluttons for Power

"The bravest and most courageous man I have ever met"

British Soldier killed defusing 65th bomb

A British soldier responsible for making safe 64 bombs during five months in Afghanistan, died as he tried to defuse another.

Staff Sgt Schmid, born in Cornwall, lived in Winchester with his five-year-old stepson and wife.

Christina Schmid said: "Oz was a phenomenal husband and loving father who was cruelly murdered on his last day of a relentless five-month tour.

"The pain of losing him is overwhelming. I take comfort knowing he saved countless lives with his hard work."

" His courage was not displayed in a fleeting moment of time; he stared death in the face on a daily basis,"  Lt Col Gareth Bex

Michael Yon on Great Britain loses one of its finest

His crew was competent and confident, and worked faster to clear bombs than any I had seen.  If not, the soldiers could never have completed this mission, because there simply were too many bombs.  They say all beekeepers get stung, but these are not bees.  These soldiers were facing an extraordinary number of bombs and booby-traps that are designed to kill the team.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thomson, commanding officer of 2 Rifles Battle Group, said: "Staff Sgt Oz Schmid was simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met."

Murder by Pestle

Wife, 28, bludgeoned millionaire husband, 76, to death with a giant pestle after he asked for a divorce

The young wife of a British millionaire who bludgeoned him to death after he asked for a divorce has been found guilty of murder.

Nigerian-born Kate Artori West, 28, smashed William West, 76, over the head with a giant pestle used in African cooking, then set him on fire before burying him in a sack.

Reports at the time suggest that Mr West could still have been alive when he was set on fire.

West has been jailed for life after a three-year long trial in Gambia this week. She was, however, spared the death penalty.

William West's charred body was found near the couple's luxury home on the Gambian coast in July 2006 just days into a holiday with his wife of six years.

All Souls Day

To Trace All Souls Day by  Fr. Brian Van Hove, S.J.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once said so well, one major difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics pray for the dead:

"My view is that if Purgatory did not exist, we should have to invent it." Why?

"Because few things are as immediate, as human and as widespread—at all times and in all cultures—as prayer for one"s own departed dear ones." Calvin, the Reformer of Geneva, had a woman whipped because she was discovered praying at the grave of herson and hence was guilty, according to Calvin, of superstition". "In theory, the Reformation refuses to accept Purgatory, and consequently it also rejects prayer for the departed

In theory, the Reformation refuses to accept Purgatory, and consequently it also rejects prayer for the departed. In fact German Lutherans at least have returned to it in practice and have found considerable theological justification for it. Praying for one's departed loved ones is a far too immediate urge to be suppressed; it is a most beautiful manifestation of solidarity, love and assistance, reaching beyond the barrier of death. The happiness or unhappiness of a person dear to me, who has now crossed to the other shore, depends in part on whether I remember or forget him; he does not stop needing my love."
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As the sacraments on earth provide us with a process of transformation into Christ, so Purgatory continues that process until the likeness to Him is completed. It is all grace. Actively praying for the dead is that "holy mitzvah" or act of charity on our part which hastens that process. The Church encourages it and does it with special consciousness and in unison on All Souls Day, even though it is always and everywhere salutary to pray for the dead.

Killed by rampaging elephant

BBC children's TV safari guide killed by charging elephant in Tanzania

A Safari guide who was working on a BBC children's television programme was killed after an elephant charged and trampled over him yesterday.

Anton Turner, 38, was assisting the filming of the CBBC series 'Serious Explorers' which is retracing the footsteps of legendary explorer David Livingstone in Tanzania, Africa.

Mr Turner, a Brit who is a former Army officer and experienced safari ranger, was seriously injured after the elephant attacked him.
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Three children who had been picked by the BBC to travel with the party were present during the fatal charge but both were unhurt.

Musician killed by coyotes

Taylor Mitchell, 19, Musician, Killed by Coyotes

Up and coming Canadian musician Taylor Mitchell has died from wounds sustained from 2 coyotes. Taylor Mitchell was hiking alone on a trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia. People heard Mitchell's screams and called park rangers. The rangers did make it there in time
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The singer died on the way to the hospital from her wounds. The coyotes had bitten her many times and the paramedics said she was in critical condition when they found her and she had lost a lot of blood.

Taylor Mitchell was a new talent that was on the rise. Her debut CD is called "For Your Consideration". She had just turned 19 and gotten her driver's license. She loved the woods and appreciated the beauty of them. Taylor Mitchell was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award this year in the young performer of the year category.

" Elderly men and women with no one else to care for them are given exquisite attention."

Newly canonized St Jeanne Jugan, the founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor, devoted her life to the care of the elderly poor.  Her remarkable story as Humble Friend of the Poor can be read here. 

"Making the elderly happy, that is what counts", Jeanne Jugan

George Weigel writes about her in his inimitable way

Born during the virulently anti-Catholic French Revolution, Jeanne Jugan learned early in her life that fidelity to Christ and his Church could be costly. A history of the period of her childhood sums things up neatly: “In spite of the persecution, the people of Cancale kept the faith. During dark nights, in an attic or a barn, or even in the middle of the countryside, the faithful gathered together, and there in the silence of the night, the priest would offer the Eucharist and baptize the children. But this happiness was rare. There were so many dangers.”

Jeanne Jugan knew poverty as well as persecution, and developed a marked sensitivity to the humiliation that those who have fallen through the cracks of society’s net of solidarity can feel. She declined an offer of marriage because, as she put it, “God...is keeping me for a work which is not yet known, for a work which is not yet founded.” That work came into clear focus when, at age 47, she met an elderly, blind and sick woman, whom she took into her care; from that seemingly random encounter was born a tremendous work of charity. The congregation of women religious she founded dedicated itself to the care of the poor and elderly—and supported itself by begging, with the foundress, Jeanne Jugan, as chief beggar.  The Little Sisters of the Poor spread rapidly throughout Europe, America and Africa, but the going was never easy for Jeanne Jugan.
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In 1843, Jeanne Jugan’s re-election as superior was quashed by the community’s priest-advisor, Father Augustin Marie Le Pailleur. Refusing to contest what others would have deemed an injustice (but which she thought to be the will of God), Jeanne Jugan accepted this curious decision and went on the road, supporting her sisters by begging. For the last 27 years of her life, she lived at the order’s motherhouse in retirement, again according to the orders of Father Le Pailleur; her role as foundress was never acknowledged during her lifetime. Yet the novelist Charles Dickens could write, after meeting Jeanne Jugan, that “there is in this woman something so calm, and so holy, that in seeing her I know myself to be in the presence of a superior being. Her words went straight to my heart, so that my eyes, I know not how, filled with tears.”
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To enter a house of the Little Sisters of the Poor today is to recapture what Dickens experienced. Elderly men and women with no one else to care for them are given exquisite attention; the dignity of every patient is honored, no matter how difficult that dignity may be to discern amidst the trials of senility and disease. The Little Sisters of the Poor and their patients are living reminders that there are no disposable human beings; that everyone is a someone for whom the Son of God entered the world, suffered and died; and that we read others out of the human family at our moral and political peril.

Eulogist given the hook

I'm scratching my head wondering how the editor gave this report this headline - Soupy Sales goes out with love

SOUPY Sales would have loved his memorial yesterday at the Riverside Funeral Home. Freddie Roman, Joe Franklin and Kenny Kramer -- who inspired the character played by Michael Richards on "Seinfeld" -- were among those who paid their last respects.

One of Soupy's two rock musician sons, Tony or Hunt -- our source didn't know which -- recalled his dad's advice: "Be true to your teeth, and they won't be false to you."

Professor Irwin Corey had to be removed from the podium after his eulogy turned into a diatribe about health-care reform, in which he insisted that Soupy -- along with Odetta, Eartha Kitt and Miriam Makeba -- died prematurely because of inadequate treatment.

And a female rabbi told the crowd that Soupy's parents, Irving and Sadie Supman, the only Jewish family in Franklinton, NC, owned a dry-goods store and sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan.

Killed Raking Leaves

He survived D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, won the Silver Star and was killed raking leaves.   

Jules Crittenden has more on Philias Verrette in Never Know How You'll Go.

We’re all going, one way or another. It’s how you live that matters. A parting salute to a great American, who served his country bravely in war, worked hard to provide for his family in peace, and died, at the age of 87, cleaning up his yard. That sounds like a good life, despite its tragic end at this late age.

Condolences to his family.

The Other Side of Sadness

From The New Old Age, Maybe Grief Isn't So Bad After All

In “The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss,” Dr. Bonanno does not minimize the acute sorrow people feel when someone they love dies. He acknowledges that a small proportion of mourners — 10 percent to 15 percent, he reports — have long-lasting depression and distress and may benefit from medical intervention. But most people are, to use the term he does, resilient: they fluctuate between pain and happier emotions, seek comfort, maintain their equilibrium and, before long, find renewed meaning and pleasure in life.

“Most bereaved people get better on their own, without any kind of professional help,” Dr. Bonanno writes. “They may be deeply saddened, they may feel adrift for some time, but their life eventually finds its way again, often more easily than they thought possible. This is the nature of grief. This is human nature.”

The order by which people are admitted to heaven

From the Deacon's Bench is this hilarious order by which people are admitted to heaven that appeared in Notre Dame magazine.

To be admitted without review by committee: children under the age of 12, sixth-grade teachers, the mothers of triplets, janitors, nuns (all religions), nurses, all other mothers, loggers, policemen with more than 10 years of service, Buddhists (see Appendix A), bass players in rock bands, librettists, gardeners, cartographers, eighth-grade teachers, cellists, farriers, veterinarians, magicians, compass-makers, firemen and firewomen, rare-book-room librarians, cobblers, anyone from the former Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific, breakfast cooks in diners, philologists, proofreaders, administrative assistants and secretaries, sauciers, mapmakers, cartwrights, cartoonists, essayists, people who manufacture thimbles, and Presbyterians (see Appendix B).


To be admitted after cursory review by committee: archaeologists, Catholics, Jews, doctors (except orthodontists; see Appendix C), plumbers, taxi-drivers, boatwrights, soldiers actually engaged in defending their clan or country from attack or threatened attack, undertakers, popes without children, longshoremen, tugboat pilots, coaches of any elementary-school sport whatsoever (precedence for basketball and Australian Rules football coaches), all other teachers, cellists, anyone who ever worked on an auction for a nonprofit, scuba divers, publishers of children’s books, people from Finland, people who sell life insurance (it turns out life insurance is something really, really close to the Director’s heart), anyone who ever took a tango lesson, hotel doormen, people who brew beer in their bathtubs, child-care-center directors, emergency dispatchers, detectives, monks, anyone in the peanut-butter industry, paddle surfers (female), bus drivers, fishmongers, anyone who ever repaired a copy machine or a child’s bicycle, and any father who ever wiped or bathed a child other than his own without complaint.

To be admitted under the special Mother of the Lord provision (“the back door”): Unitarians, Pete Maravich, exotic dancers, journalists (see Appendix D)
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Appendix D: Unitarians, bless their earnest hearts, are admitted without further ado, but the debates over the qualifications of journalists as a class go back millennia and have generated many planets’ worth of legal records. For the year 2009, print and radio journalists are given precedence over web journalists. Television journalists are, as usual, not admitted, but this year for the first time are allowed to file appeals with Mr. Edward Murrow.

Grieving chimps

Is this haunting picture proof that chimps really DO grieve?

United in what appears to be deep and profound grief, a phalanx of more than a dozen chimpanzees stood in silence watching from behind the wire of their enclosure as the body of one of their own was wheeled past.

This extraordinary scene took place recently at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, West Africa.

When a chimp called Dorothy, who was in her late 40s, died of heart failure, her fellow apes seemed to be stricken by sorrow.

As they wrapped their arms around each other in a gesture of solidarity, Dorothy's female keeper gently settled her into the wheelbarrow which carried her to her final resting place - not before giving this much-loved inhabitant of the centre a final affectionate stroke on the forehead.

“When funerals and death are not fun anymore, I’ll get out of the business,’’

The funeral director who met his wife at a funeral and other stories as the funeral directors convene in Boston.

They came to the Boston Convention and Exposition Center to talk shop, trade ideas, and marvel at how one of the world’s most somber professions has been changed by technology and the growing demand for funerals that go beyond hearse-and-casket basics.

Designer caskets, green burials, and funeral webcasts for family members who cannot make it are just some of the innovative solutions to the world’s oldest problem: what kind of send-off to give the departed.

Kurt L. Soffe, denizen of a 95-year-old funeral home in Utah, recalled what he dubbed “the Harley funeral.’’ A pack of bikers wanted to bury their Harley-Davidson-loving loved one in a way he would have appreciated: with a procession of Hogs instead of black limos, led by a Corvette instead of a hearse. Oh, and could the funeral staff wear casual clothes instead of suits?

“We do not say no,’’ Soffe said.

"Each grief is really every grief - that one small grief will open up the vast pool of grief that lies within us."

Father Stephen Freeman writes about the Orthodox custom of remembering the dead on Soul Saturdays and how they have become in his life.

After becoming Orthodox in 1998 these Memorial Saturdays became supremely important in my life. Our congregation suffered two very unexpected deaths (both in car crashes) in the course of our first two years that left all the devastation that grief can wreak. For a congregation that was young, we were suddenly faced with that which faces the old with great frequency.
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Thus it was that “Soul Saturdays” became times of deep importance for me. The population of my “grief world” was far larger than I would have expected by that time in life. Praying for the departed, and doing so with such frequency was a part of the Tradition of the Church that seemed in my first introduction – not only wise, but completely essential.
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Grief is strange stuff. I was taught, when I was doing hospice work, that each grief is really every grief - that one small grief will open up the vast pool of grief that lies within us. Thus none of us is ever just grieving one person or event. Blessedly, it is all in the hands of the good God who loves mankind and who Himself bore our grief.
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I know that I could not bear the weight of all I remember were I not able to stand with others and pray God’s eternal remembrance. There are times as an Orthodox Christian that I am not just grateful for the grace God has given, but wonder how I ever tried to live without it.

Treasures cast into river by Archbishop of Canterbury

Many of the best Celtic artifacts have been found in water.  For ancient Celts,  water was a powerful manifestation of the supernatural, the boundary between worlds. 

They made sacred offerings and "deposits" in lakes, pools and rivers across Britain and Ireland.  When the dying King Arthur was taken across the lake to Avalon, his sword, Excalibur, was cast into the water.

Maybe that ancient idea was behind the number of treasures cast into the River Wear in Dunham by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey  who died in 1988.

The objects, some solid gold, have been discovered by amateur divers Trevor Bankhead, 40, and his brother Gary, 44, a fire service watch officer, over the past two and a half years.

Their first find was an ornate silver trowel presented to the Archbishop for laying the foundation stone of an Indian church in 1961.

The brothers have since retrieved over 30 other items linked to Ramsey, along with hundreds of medieval and Saxon artefacts.

Among them are gold, silver and bronze medals struck to commemorate the second Vatican council, which must have been presented to Ramsey, who was the most senior cleric in the Church of England from 1961 to 1974, when he met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966.

'He didn't do anything, he didn't participate in helping. He did nothing. He just stood there.'

The sad story becomes clearer.  For some seeking rebirth, sweat lodge was end.

Midway through a two-hour sweat lodge ceremony intended to be a rebirthing experience, participants say, some people began to fall desperately ill from the heat, even as their leader, James Arthur Ray, a nationally known New Age guru, urged them to press on.

“There were people throwing up everywhere,” said Dr. Beverley Bunn, 43, an orthodontist from Texas, who said she struggled to remain conscious in the sweat lodge, a makeshift structure covered with blankets and plastic and heated with fiery rocks.

Dr. Bunn said Mr. Ray told the more than 50 people jammed into the small structure — people who had just completed a 36-hour “vision quest” in which they fasted alone in the desert — that vomiting “was good for you, that you are purging what your body doesn’t want, what it doesn’t need.” But by the end of the ordeal on Oct. 8, emergency crews had taken 21 people to hospitals.
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About 90 minutes into the ceremony, Dr. Bunn said, someone yelled in the darkness that a woman had passed out just after Mr. Ray closed the tent door between rounds. Dr. Bunn said Mr. Ray replied, “We will deal with that after the next round.”

By the end of the ceremony, two people, James Shore, 40, who Dr. Bunn said had dragged an ill woman out of the lodge and then returned, and Kirby Brown, 38, were near death; they died that evening. A third participant, Liz Neuman, 49, fell into a coma and died on Oct. 17.

Two victims, Kirby Brown, 38, and Liz Neumann, 49

Given the accounts of the survivors who said that Ray was intimidating and discouraged people from leaving, I hope that criminal charges are brought against him, if not manslaughter, at least criminally negligent homicide.

I suppose it is to be expected that many will continue to support Ray, but this is shocking.

On a conference call Mr. Ray held last week for sweat lodge participants, Dr. Bunn was shocked to hear one recount the comments of a self-described “channeler” who visited Angel Valley after the retreat. Claiming to have communicated with the dead, the channeler said they had left their bodies in the sweat lodge and chosen not to come back because “they were having so much fun.”

More from the Daily Mail -  Sweat lodge survivor tells how guru 'caused three deaths'

People were vomiting in the stifling heat, gasping for air, and lying lifeless on the sand and gravel floor beneath them, according to participant Beverley Bunn.
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By the time people started collapsing, Bunn had already crawled to a spot near the opening of the sweat lodge, praying for the door to stay open as long as possible between rounds so that she could breathe in fresh air.

At one point, someone lifted up the back of the tent, allowing light into the otherwise pitch-black tent. Ray demanded to know where the light was coming from and who committed the 'sacrilegious act,' she explained.
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As it neared the end, Bunn said some participants found themselves physically and mentally unable to tend to those around them.

After the eighth round, Ray instructed them to exit the sweat lodge just has they had entered - going clockwise, a movement meant to symbolize being inside a mother's womb.

What followed was a triage situation with people laid out on tarps and water being thrown on them to bring down body temperatures.

Some people weren't breathing and had bloodshot eyes. One woman unknowingly walked toward the fire before someone grabbed her, Bunn said.

Shouts of 'we need water, we need water,' rang out. 'They couldn't fill up the buckets fast enough,' Bunn said.
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Ray was standing about 10 feet away, watching, Bunn said.
'He didn't do anything, he didn't participate in helping. He did nothing. He just stood there.'