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POPSWhat's trashed at Arlington National Cemetery
Left out in the rain to rot were crayon drawings by children who had lost a parent, photographs of soldiers with their babies, painted portraits and thank-you notes from grade-school kids to fallen soldiers they had never known. Colors of artworks ran together. Photos were blurred and wilted. Poems and letters were illegible wads of wet paper. A worker in a brown uniform wandered among the graves, blasting the headstones with a power washer without regard to what was left of the mementos -- or the obviously uncomfortable mourners looking on. Some items got further soaked. The worker blasted others across the grass. Many of them would end up in a black trash bin in the cemetery's service area. Arlington's poor treatment of the mementos and gifts -- testaments to the personal cost of the post-9/11 wars in the Middle East -- appeared to stand in contrast to practices at other cemeteries. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs 130 cemeteries across the country, asks people
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POPSThe D-Day commemorations: The living and dead, comrades again more (at source): The political and media row over the 65th anniversary of D-Day has obliged us to ask, and answer, a difficult question. Why do we carry on commemorating events such as the Battle of Normandy? How should we do it? What will we do when we no longer have the old British men, and women – more than 600 of them – who marched in comradeship (and sometimes in tears) in Bayeux and Arromanches yesterday? Or, for that matter, the hundreds of American and Canadian veterans who paraded at Omaha and Juno?
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POPSGilded Lions to Jewelled Horses How traditional Jewish craftsmen helped to create the American carousel. American Folk Art Musuem, October 2, 2007 - March 23, 2008. Well worth a visit.
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POPSFunny Tombstones This is a list of very funny things that have been written on tombstones. I guess since you have to go anyway, you might as well leave them laughing.
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POPSNo "Increase in Anti-Semitic Violence in Britain" US Dept of State Who did you trust U.S. Department of State or Foxcrap? These OFFICIAL figures are fractions of the attacks on Muslims in the UK. The misnomer anti-Semitism figures were 18 persons charged and 8 convicted!!! Get a grip. There is no comparison in the public perception of Jews as against Arabs, the true Semites, in Britain!!! In whose interest is it to talk up virtually none existent figures to give the mainly tolerant Brits a bad reputation??? Not England's! Not Arabs! Who??? Pseudo victims?
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POPSGraves 'vandalised' by council for sake of safety Local taxpayers must now fund the council's mistakes. That means less money for health and education. And all because a small number of people made such a bodge up of something that could have been done sensitively in the first place. It's hard to find a win in situations like these. Here's the council's official statement: http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/content/news/general/3192619?a=0
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POPSWiccan Pentacle Added to Emblems Allowed on Headstones The pentacle has been added to 38 symbols the VA already permits on gravestones. They include commonly recognized symbols for Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, as well as those for smaller religions such as Sufism Reoriented, Eckiankar and the Japanese faith Seicho-No-Ie. VA-issued headstones, markers and plaques can be used in any cemetery, whether it is a national one such as Arlington or a private burial ground like that on Circle Sanctuary's property. Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons. Variations of the pentacle not accepted by Wiccans have been used in horror movies as a sign of the devil.
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POPSPagan Vets Rally for Respect Jill Medicine Heart Combs told the crowd that her Wiccan husband, Gerwin Dee Combs, who served in the Army from 1979 to 1986, lies gravely ill in an irreversible coma in an Ohio hospital. Combs wept as she spoke, saying that her husband would want an emblem of his faith on his gravestone. "We must speak out against religious prejudice," she said. "I know Gary would want me to be here."
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POPSDead Man's Storage Why a dead man's storage locker yielded dozens of tombstones? A macabre collection that police belive represents "a lifetime of stealing."
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