May Mourning
Reuters Photo:
Nobel Peace Prize nominee
Irena Sendler poses at her home
in central Warsaw, March 14,...
Nobel Peace Prize nominee
Irena Sendler poses at her home
in central Warsaw, March 14,...
Whether a cyclone conceived by nature, a man-made bomb or perhaps devilish-born illness (?) - DEATH has many ways to get its nasty deed done.
And, this month of May, it seems to be shaping up as one of those months when the Grim Reaper gives us a full spectrum of its ghastly talents, running the gamut right off the bat with quite a lot of varied and diversified ways to die...
And it's not just us foolish humans biting the dust either;
seals, whales, elephants, cats, dogs...
Every conceivable creature is falling down,
great or small.
And all that at an alarming rate too.
What's the difference with this month in particular
as opposed to any other month, you ask...?
None, apparently.
And that is exactly what is so alarming in the first place.
Death keeps raking them in.
Somehow, the earthly population keeps inching closer to overpopulation,
which in turn brings forth the spectre of famine, plagues and much strife.
Which brings Death right back out to center stage.
One cannot escape it - we all know that.
MAY, though, is the Month of Mary
Mary, whose image everyone has seen
with her foot crushing the snake's head
- the snake being the devil
but since death and the devil are in cahoots
we can imagine that both are being trampled on.
For, one day, Death shall be no more
We can take heart in remembering that
here and now...
Even as death and decay
besiege us
from every corner
from every side...
+++
Following is an excerpt from
my Care2.com Notes feed...
‘Psycho’ Bear Tears Apart An Eco-Idyll
Simone
- 279 days ago -
timesonline.co.uk
A FRENCH government plan to reintroduce bears to the wild appeared to have backfired spectacularly last week after one of the creatures was accused of being “psychotic”. The ecology minister was forced to admit France had been misled about Franska,
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I suggest you click here
in order to listen to
a song that says it all:
Thanks to "knuckleheady2" for uploading it
and to Jean Ferrat for singing it!
Perhaps some extra reading material
and/or search findings
will be appreciated as well?
You will find some here.
But truly, to be fair,
this is all-around better:
As you'll surely notice,
all of the above material is in FRENCH...
It is because...
Looking for this came to mind
as I heard a song on an evangelical broadcast
that went like this:
"Le bonheur est dans la mort
(quand on est en Lui
qui est la Vie)"
When I find that one
either on MP3 or on the web
I'll post it here as well!
(The very moment it's in the clear
and permission has been duly granted -
of course.)
Labels: Burma Cyclone, Culled Cormorants, Earthquake Victims, Fourteen Elephants, Hundreds of Ducks, Irena Sendler, Mildred Loving, Penny Banner, Three Seals, Tornadoes Victims, W.E. Lynd, Yemen Bomb
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ @ 5:44 PM
60 comments
60 Comments:
Cyclone kills at least 351 in Myanmar, state-run TV reports
25 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar - A powerful cyclone killed more than 350 people and destroyed thousands of homes, state-run media said Sunday. Some dissident groups worried that the military junta running Myanmar would be reluctant to ask for international help.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit at a delicate time for the junta, less than a week ahead of a crucial referendum on a new constitution. Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and squashing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.
Some in Yangon complained the 400,000-strong military was doing little to help victims after Saturday's storm.
"Where are all those uniformed people who are always ready to beat civilians?" said a trishaw driver who refused to be identified for fear of retribution. "They should come out in full force and help clean up the areas and restore electricity."
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for human rights abuses and suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.
Last September, at least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.
The Forum for Democracy in Burma and other dissident groups outside of Myanmar urged the military junta Sunday to allow aid groups to operate freely in the wake of the cyclone — something it has been reluctant to do in the past.
It would be difficult for other countries to help unless they received a request from Myanmar's military rulers.
"International expertise in dealing with natural disasters is urgently required. The military regime is ill-prepared to deal with the aftermath of the cyclone," said Naing Aung, secretary general of the Thailand-based forum.
The storm's 120 mph winds blew the roofs off hospitals and cut electricity to the country's largest city.
Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, said the storm's whipping winds and torrential downpour had caused "major devastation throughout the city."
"The Burmese are saying they have never seen anything like this, ever," Villarosa told The Associated Press. "Trees are down. Electricity lines are down. Our Burmese staff have lost their roofs."
At least 351 people were killed, including 162 who lived on Haing Gyi island off the country's southwest coast, military-run Myaddy television station reported. Many of the others died in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta.
"The Irrawaddy delta was hit extremely hard not only because of the wind and rain but because of the storm surge," said Chris Kaye, the U.N.'s acting humanitarian coordinator in Yangon. "The villages there have reportedly been completely flattened."
State television reported that in the Irrawaddy's Labutta township, 75 percent of the buildings had collapsed.
The U.N. planned to send teams Monday to assess the damage, Kaye said. Initial assessment efforts have been hampered by roads clogged with debris and downed phone lines, he said.
"At the moment, we have such poor opportunity for communications that I can't really tell you very much," Kaye said.
Yangon residents also said Sunday that the price of gasoline had jumped from $2.50 to $10 a gallon on the black market and everything from eggs to construction supplies had tripled.
The state-owned newspaper New Light of Myanmar, meanwhile, reported that the international airport in Yangon remained shut but state-run television said it could be opened by Monday. Domestic flights have been diverted to the airport in Mandalay.
The cyclone came only days before a May 10 referendum on the country's military-backed draft constitution. Authorities have not yet said whether they would postpone the vote.
A military-managed national convention was held intermittently for 14 years to lay down guidelines for the country's new constitution.
The new constitution is supposed to be followed in 2010 by a general election. Both votes are elements of a "roadmap to democracy" drawn up by the junta.
Critics say the draft constitution is designed to cement military power and have urged citizens to vote no.
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Motorcycle bomb explodes outside Yemen mosque, killing 18
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press Writer Fri May 2, 4:44 PM ET
SAN'A, Yemen - A bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up amid a crowd of worshippers leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in a rebel stronghold of northern Yemen, killing at least 18 people and wounding about four dozen, officials said.
The attack occurred in Saada, a city in a mountainous Shiite Muslim area on the border with Saudi Arabia where a rebellion by members of the al-Zaydi sect erupted in 2004. Thousands have died in violence between the rebels and the government of this predominantly Sunni country.
Both sides blamed each other for the attack in Saada, where officials said most of the 18 dead and approximately 45 injured were worshippers filing out of the Bin Salman mosque.
Mohammed Abdel Bari said he was inside the mosque when he heard a strong explosion. "I saw crowds of people and two charred vehicles. I saw scores of people laying on the ground," he said.
Government officials blamed the bombing on rebel leader Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi and said six people had been arrested in Saada.
"Those who carried out this ugly crime are terrorists and criminals linked to the terrorist Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi," an Interior Ministry statement said.
Al-Hawthi denied involvement and charged that senior army officers staged the attack to stoke tensions.
"We denounce and condemn this incident," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "We have nothing to do with this attack whatsoever."
The rebels say the government is corrupt and too closely allied with the West. The government has charged al-Hawthi with sedition, forming an illegal armed group and inciting anti-American sentiment.
Many officials in Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and in Yemen's government suspect Iran and Libya support al-Hawthi. Sunni governments in the region suspect Shiite Iran is trying to increase its influence by supporting Shiite groups like the militias in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Al-Hawthi denies that his group, known as the Young Faithful Believers, receives funds from Iran.
Yemen is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, but it also is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden's family and al-Qaida loyalists are active in the country.
Recently there have been a series of attacks in Yemen targeting foreigners. But car bombings and attacks on mosques are rare.
The mosque attack came a day after Yemen's military announced the killing of seven soldiers and blamed Saada rebels. More government troops were expected to be deployed to the area even before Friday's attack.
Florida death row inmate dies of illness
LAKE BUTLER, Fla., May 3 (UPI) --
The second-longest-living death row inmate in Florida history has died of natural causes prompted by an illness, the state Department of Corrections says.
State corrections officials said 57-year-old William Duane Elledge, who was convicted for three homicides, died last month at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Fla., The Miami Herald reported Saturday.
During his initial trial, Elledge had confessed to killing three people in 1974. Later, he alleged his defense attorney's skills and prosecutorial misconduct marred his trial on related charges.
He also argued that his 33-year-long stay on Florida's death row should have earned him a new sentence, requesting life in prison rather than execution.
He had appealed his sentence three times, but was rejected each time.
The Herald said convicted killer Gary Alvord is the longest-living death row inmate in the state, having been sentenced one week earlier than Elledge.
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The government will save on electricity - it pays to be patient...
Of course, I am presuming that the state of Florida still uses the electric chair; I wouldn't know, since I am neither an "unable-to-vote-right" local nor a "snowbird"...
Reward offered in Calif. deaths of 3 seals
LOS ANGELES, May 4 (UPI) --
A federal agency is offering $5,000 for information about the shooting deaths of three protected seals near San Simeon, Calif., authorities say.
San Simeon State Park supervising ranger Leander Tamoria said the three seals, which were protected by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, were found shot in the head at the Point Pietra's Blancas elephant seal colony this weekend, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
"They were found in a pool of blood," Tamoria said. "People come here to see the sights, and this is a sight no one wants to see."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Law
Enforcement has since issued a reward for any information that ultimately leads to an arrest or conviction in the case.
Anyone who is found to have violated the 1972 protection act is liable for fines up to $20,000 and could face an unspecified amount of time in prison, the Times reported.
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Three words:
AVENGE THE SEALS.
Fourteen elephants killed in eastern DR Congo: activists
Thu May 1, 2:01 PM
KINSHASA (AFP) - Rebels and villagers have killed 14 elephants in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past two weeks, a wildlife group said Thursday.
Since April 14, Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda killed four; Congolese FARDC and Maimai rebels killed eight and local villagers killed two elephants in Virunga National Park, the Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect said in a statement.
"This is the worst month we have seen in a long time in terms of recorded elephant deaths," said Alexandre Wathaut, the provincial director for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN).
"ICCN is making official representations to the Congolese military and to the militia for this slaughter to stop. We call on the international community to engage in solving the region's political problems, for the sake of the local population as well as for Virunga's unique wildlife."
Wildlife Direct chief Emmanuel de Merode said relaxing of global ivory trading rules and arrival of Chinese merchants in the lawless Great Lakes region has worsened poaching.
"The upsurge in elephant killings in Virunga is part of a widespread slaughter across the Congo Basin, and is being driven by developments on the international scene: the liberalisation of the ivory trade, being pushed by South Africa, and the increased presence of Chinese operators on the ground, who feed a massive domestic demand for ivory in their home country," he added.
Elephant populations in Virunga National Park have fallen from 3,500 in 1959 to about 350 in 1996.
"The death of 14 elephants therefore has a considerable impact on the viability of the local elephant population."
The killings were announced on Thursday as South Africa lifted a 13-year moratorium on elephant culling, raising concern of a return to the international trade in ivory seen in the 1970s and 1980s, the group said.
The South African government earlier this year authorised the killing of elephants from May 1 as a last resort in limiting the numbers of the African elephant that have more than doubled since culling was halted in 1995.
Apart from elephants, rare mountain gorillas were killed last year in Virunga, one of Africa's largest parks, where local and foreign militias as well as Congolese soldiers, poachers and illegal miners regularly cross.
There are 1,100 rangers protecting five national parks -- four of which are classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites -- in eastern DRC. Some 150 rangers have been killed while on duty in the past decade.
Yet another sad occasion to listen to Genesis' much neglected classic song, "Congo"...
Next: the Addams Family and the Munsters have nothing on this next clan...
3 dead infants found in freezer in Germany, mother arrested
By DANIELA PEGNA, Associated Press Writer Mon May 5, 1:32 PM ET
OLPE, Germany - A 44-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of killing three of her babies after their bodies were discovered in the family freezer by her grown children looking for pizza, police said Monday.
Police confirmed the grisly find Sunday night in the town of Wenden, near Olpe, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia after the woman turned herself in, officials said.
The three infants are believed to have been born alive, but authorities were awaiting autopsy results to determine how they died, said Johannes Daheim, a spokesman for prosecutors investigating the case.
The woman, her 47-year-old husband and three adult children — two sons, aged 18 and 22, and a 24-year-old daughter — have lived in the town in a single-family home since 1984.
The children discovered the frozen babies on Saturday afternoon while their parents were away for the weekend, investigator Martin Feldmann said.
The 18-year-old and his sister had been looking for a frozen pizza and came across a lot of expired food so decided to clean out the freezer.
The teenager then found three identical packets on the bottom of the freezer and opened one and saw the head and arm of an infant that was wrapped in a hand towel, police said.
The children confronted their parents when they returned home Sunday, and the couple and their daughter then went to police together to tell authorities, said Herbert Fingerhut, head of the police investigation, at a news conference.
The corpulent woman apparently concealed the three pregnancies, believed to have been in the 1980s, not only from neighbors but also her own family, Fingerhut said.
"It sounds unbelievable, but there are examples showing such things are possible," he said.
The news of the discovery took other residents aback.
"I've been mayor for 14 years, and this is definitely the worst day I've seen," said Peter Brueser. "We will need a long time here to work through this."
It was the latest in a string of similar cases in Germany.
In the worst case, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.
More recently, police in February were called to a home in northern Germany where a dead infant was discovered in the cellar.
In January, a 28-year-old German woman was charged with manslaughter after the remains of three babies were discovered in her house and the home of a relative. That woman has denied killing the babies.
Some - no, make that MANY kids, of ALL AGES - simply have NO IDEA who or WHAT their parents truly are... I know quite a few kids like that myself...
2 killed as troops fire into Somali riot over food prices
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 56 minutes ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Troops fired into tens of thousands of rioting Somalis on Monday, killing two people in the latest eruption of violence over soaring food prices around the world.
Wielding thick sticks and hurling stones that smashed the windshields of several cars and buses, the rioters jammed the narrow streets of the Somali capital, screaming, "Down with those suffocating us!"
In Mogadishu, protesters including women and children marched against the refusal of traders to accept old 1,000-shilling notes, blaming them and a growing number of counterfeiters for rising food costs.
Within an hour, a reporter for The Associated Press watched their ranks swell to tens of thousands, and the riot spread to all 13 districts of the capital. Some threw rocks at shops and chaos erupted at the capital's main Bakara market.
Hundreds of shops and restaurants in southern Mogadishu closed for fear of looting. At least four other people were wounded in the violence, witnesses said.
The price of rice and other staples has risen more than 40 percent since mid-2007, leading to protests and riots in other nations, including Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon and Burkina Faso.
The Asian Development Bank said Monday that a billion poor people in Asia need food aid to help cope with the skyrocketing prices. And the president of Senegal said the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization should be dismantled, calling it a "money pit" and blaming it for the food crisis.
Soaring fuel prices, growing demand from the burgeoning middle classes in India and China and poor weather have contributed to a jump in food prices worldwide. Africa has been particularly hard-hit.
In Mogadishu, the price of corn meal has more than doubled since January. Rice has risen during the same period from $26 to $47.50 for a 110-pound sack.
The cost of food has also been driven up by the plummeting Somali shilling, which has lost nearly half its value against the U.S. dollar this year because of growing insecurity and a market clogged with millions of counterfeit notes. The shilling has tumbled from about 17,000 per U.S. dollar to about 30,000.
"First we have been killed with bullets, now they are killing us with hunger," said protester Halima Omar Hassan, a porter who hefts goods for people on her back. At the riot Monday, witnesses said troops opened fire in at least two areas of the capital, though most soldiers were firing into the air.
One man shot by the troops died on the way to an operating room at the capital's main hospital, Dr. Dahir Dhere said.
And Abdinur Farah, a protester, said his uncle was hit when government troops opened fire and died before he could reach a hospital.
"He was just peacefully expressing his feelings," said Farah, who was marching with his uncle, his uncle's two wives and his uncle's six children. "It is saddening that the very government which is supposed to support him, killed him."
Somalia has been without a functioning government since the 1991 overthrow of dictator Siad Barre.
Over the past year, thousands of civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced from homes in fighting pitting Islamist insurgents against a U.N-sponsored transitional government supported by troops from neighboring Ethiopia.
The U.N. food security unit warned last week that half of Somalia's population of 7 million faces famine. It blamed an enduring drought as well as soaring food prices.
In a statement late Sunday, Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade said he had long called for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, a separate U.N. agency, to be moved from Rome to Africa, "near the 'sick ones' it pretends to care for."
But, "This time, I'm going further: It must be eliminated," he said.
Wade suggested its assets be transferred to the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development, which he said was more efficient, and that that agency set up headquarters in Africa "at the heart of the problem." The FAO declined comment.
Wade's government in Senegal, in western Africa across the continent from Somalia, responded to protest marches by securing a deal with India that ensures Senegal's needs of 600,000 tons of rice a year are met for the next six years.
In Burkina Faso, the government eliminated duties and taxes on rice, salt, milk and all products used to prepare food for children.
___
Associated Press Writer Todd Pitman contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal.
At least they were not rioting over a hockey game...
Brazilian passenger ferry sinks, 12 dead
MANAUS, Brazil, May 4 (UPI) --
A dozen or more people died Sunday when a passenger ferry boat capsized on a tributary of the Amazon River in northern Brazil, officials said.
Rescue workers and divers were called in to search the river near Manaus for survivors who might still be in the water, O Globo TV reported.
More than 100 people were said to be on board the boat, which reportedly was rated for a maximum of 50 passengers.
Sunday's sinking was the latest in a rash of deadly river accidents on Brazilian rivers.
In March, at least three people died and six others disappeared when a Brazilian fishing boat sank in the country's western wetlands.
The month before, three people were killed when a barge and a ferry collided on Amazon River. The ferry, which reportedly was carrying at least 100 passengers, sank. There were no reports of injuries among the crew on the barge.
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© UPI
Està sempre muito "caliente" no Brasil - mas avia de ter ficado longe da agùa, nâo é?
Company apologizes for ducks' deaths
FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta, May 4 (UPI) --
A Canadian company has apologized for the deaths of hundreds of ducks at an oilsands tailings pond in Alberta province.
Syncrude Canada Ltd. took out full-page newspaper advertisements to offer its "heartfelt and sincere apology" for the April 28 incident that left about 500 ducks dead north of Fort McMurray, Canwest News Service reported Saturday.
The advertisements that appeared in several newspapers were signed by Tom Katinas, the company's president and chief executive officer.
Syncrude said late-winter storms had kept it from setting up noisemakers required to keep migratory birds away from the oily tailings pond water. The company said it is cooperating with government departments that are reviewing the incident.
"We are committed to making the necessary changes to our long-established practices to help ensure a sad event like this never happens again," Syncrude said in its ads.
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I think I speak on behalf of all quacks, orphaned ducklings and Destroyer Duck as well when I say...
Apology NOT ACCEPTED.
Manhattan Project blamed for cancer
ALBUQUERQUE, May 4 (UPI) --
Research to create the first U.S. atomic bombs has caused cancer among people who grew up near where the research was conducted, a lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque this month, alleges children who lived Los Alamos, N.M., in the 1940s and '50s were poisoned by contaminated fish and water, and even by radiation brought into their homes on the clothes of their fathers, who worked on the research effort dubbed the Manhattan Project, The New Mexican reported Sunday.
Rene Ryman, whose father died in 2005 at age 63 of multiple myeloma -- a cancer associated with plutonium -- told her as a child he had played in streams that had a chemical look to the water.
Her lawsuit accuses the University of California and managers at the atomic research lab of negligence and wrongful death.
"If enough people come forward, there's a chance we could do a medical-monitoring class action," said her attorney, Michael Howell.
Lynne Loss, 65, who lived in Los Alamos from 1949 to 1957 but is not yet party to the suit, told the newspaper her father's death was attributable to radiation contamination and her mother also had tumors before she died. She says many old friends have died of cancer and believes there may be more victims from that era.
A university spokesman said the school doesn't comment on pending litigation.
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MY CONDOLENCES TO ALL THE BEREAVED PARTIES AFFECTED BY EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE DEMISES...
+++
Report: 66 detainees died in U.S. custody
WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) --
A U.S. government agency has provided Congress with the names of 66 people who died in immigration custody, a list shows.
The deaths occurred between January 2004 and November 2007.
The list is the fullest accounting to date of the number of deaths that have occurred under the auspices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, The New York Times reported Monday.
Each year thousands of people who are not American citizens are incarcerated while the government decides whether to deport them.
When things go wrong, the families of detainees often have trouble finding out what happened because no government body is required to keep track of deaths and publicly report them, the newspaper says.
Federal officials say all deaths are reviewed internally but critics, including some in Congress, contend the process leaves too much up to the agency's discretion.
The Times says it obtained a copy of the list after filing a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The document contains few details and does not provide the nationalities of those who died.
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Basically, Guantanamo Bay is but the tip of the iceberg...
Indiana boy, 5, shoots sister, 4, to death
INDIANAPOLIS, May 5 (UPI) --
Indianapolis police say a 5-year-old boy who climbed up on a chair to get his hands on a gun accidentally shot and killed his sister, 4.
"The 5-year-old took the gun upstairs to play, and there pointed the gun at his sister and pulled the trigger," police said in a written statement.
The girl, Makayla Booher, was shot in a bedroom Sunday, police said.
The gun was on top of a bookshelf with the magazine removed but a shell in the chamber, police said.
The boy was able to climb up on a chair and get the weapon, The Indianapolis Star reported Monday.
Authorities said there was an investigation under way to see if the children's father, a security guard, would be charged with negligence.
Makayla had been born prematurely, weighing just over a pound, and had undergone 15 surgeries, but she had developed into a nomal little girl, the Star said.
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© UPI
Evidence enough that kids can emulate crazed adults - anytime...
R.I.P. Makayla Booher
Sisters are so right, sometimes, to execrate their brothers...
Report: Suspect held in Philly cop killing
PHILADELPHIA, May 5 (UPI) --
One person has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a police officer during a weekend bank robbery in Philadelphia.
Sources told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Levon Warner, a journeyman boxer in the Philadelphia area, was in custody and had implicated two alleged accomplices in the Saturday slaying of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski.
The suspect who pulled the trigger, Howard Cain, was killed in the robbery. A third suspect identified as Eric Floyd, 33, was at large Monday.
Liczbinski, who would have turned 40 Tuesday, was shot several times with an assault rifle as he followed the suspects from scene of the robbery
The Inquirer said the three suspects had all served time in prison and were allegedly carrying wigs and Muslim-style clothing to use as disguises.
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In related news:
no Philadelphia Flyers at all are to ever be detained for having thoroughly crushed all the insane and inane dreams of all of those inept Canadiens...!
;)
Cyclone in Myanmar killed thousands
YANGON, Myanmar, May 5 (UPI) --
Nearly 4,000 people died, thousands are missing and a village was eliminated by a devastating cyclone that swept through Myanmar, state media said Monday.
The death toll was a drastically higher from the government's initial estimate of 351 people killed from the weekend disaster, The New York Times reported. State-run broadcasters indicated hundreds of thousands of people were homeless and food and water were in short supply.
"The confirmed number is 3,934 dead, 41 injured and 2,879 missing within the Yangon and Irrawaddy divisions," the government broadcast said.
The priority was getting shelter and clean drinking water to residents of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, said Richard Horsey of the U.N. disaster response office in Bangkok.
"People are starving," the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway, quoted an unidentified resident as saying. "Fuel is becoming scarce. People are likely to die of starvation. If international help doesn't come within a week, it will be impossible to survive."
Although human rights groups expressed concerns that the junta wouldn't allow aid organizations into the areas, Horsey said, "My impression is that they are receptive to international assistance."
Despite the destruction, government leaders a constitutional referendum would be conucted Saturday, the Times said.
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R.I.P. Cyclone Victims
and other strangers...
+++
So soon after the Canadiens' foolhardy and downright foolish hopes of a Stanley Cup DIED so abruptly...
Canadian soldier killed on foot patrol in hotly contested area outside Kandahar
Tue May 6, 8:15 PM
By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban militants chose to stand and fight Tuesday, unleashing an ambush that killed a Canadian medic on a goodwill patrol in a hotly contested district west of Kandahar.
Cpl. Michael Starker, of the 15th Field Ambulance Regiment, was pronounced dead in a military hospital after his Civil-Military Co-operation team (CIMIC) patrol came under fire in the Pashmul region of Zhari district, about 25 kilometres outside the city.
A second, unidentified soldier was wounded. He is reported to be in stable condition, and well enough to be able to call his family at home.
Starker was born and raised in Calgary, where he worked as a paramedic for three years, the city's EMS chief told reporters late Tuesday.
Tom Sampson said Starker, one of two Calgary paramedics serving in Afghanistan, was the type of person who would always help those in need.
"He certainly served his duty helping Calgarians here and I think he went to help there. And it's such a shame that he should die while trying to help like that."
Starker was married but had no children. He becomes the 83rd soldier to die in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
A member of Starker's family in Calgary said Tuesday that the soldier's father didn't want to speak publicly, preferring all information on his son's death to come from the military.
"We have lost a fine soldier today and our thoughts are with his family and friends," Brig,-Gen. Guy Laroche, the commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, told reporters at nearby Kandahar Airfield.
"He died helping Afghans build a better future for themselves and their children. His dedication and sacrifice will not be forgotten."
Civilian-military teams have become a signature part of Canada's Afghan mission.
Select soldiers, usually reservists, try to build bridges of understanding between an army that sometimes has trouble comprehending the needs of villages and local Afghans, who are suspicious of any soldiers after three decades of conflict.
"The aim of the patrol was to show their presence, interact with the local population and discuss the development needs of the community," said Laroche about Tuesday's ambush.
The war has taken a harsh toll on these specialists, who travel village to village talking to elders and bringing their concerns back to local army commanders.
Lt. Bill Turner, a reservist and mailman from Edmonton, was killed in a roadside bomb attack in April 2006. One month before that, Capt. Trevor Greene was severely injured in an axe attack during a community meeting in Shinkay, Afghanistan.
The latest attack comes as NATO forces throughout southern Afghanistan are bracing for the anticipated surge in violence that usually accompanies the end of the poppy harvest.
While too soon to say whether the ambush heralds a shift in Taliban tactics, it is unusual for the fact that militants had previously preferred improvised explosives, or roadside bombs or mortars to carry out their attacks. Those so-called standoff weapons don't risk a direct confrontation with the better armed and better trained Canadians.
There have been ambushes on foot patrols, but rarely deaths.
It's been almost 20 months since the last time a Canadian soldier was shot and killed in an up-close confrontation with insurgents, according to records on the National Defence website.
Sgt. Darcy Tedford and Pte. Blake Williamson, of Charles Company 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment, were killed in an insurgent attack on Oct. 16, 2006, during a volley of rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. They had been defending a road construction project in the same general area of Pashmul.
The arid swath of farming country west of Kandahar has been a hotly contested region since Canadian troops deployed in Kandahar more than two years ago. On more than one occasion commanders have declared the area pacified, only to have insurgents sneak back to plant bombs or take potshots at soldiers.
The fact the soldiers could walk through the area and interact with the locals was a hopeful sign and Canadian troops won't be deterred, said LaRoche.
"The intent was to exchange with the population - something we could not do last year," he said. "We will maintain our presence there as long as we need to do so."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement Tuesday offering condolences to Starker's family and friends.
"Corporal Starker made the ultimate sacrifice and his efforts will remain a source of pride for all Canadians," Harper said.
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS NEWS STORY
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No Photo Available.
Condolences to Corporal Starkers family and friends. I trust Calgarians will show the strong Alberta pride and come out in huge numbers to receive him when he returns home.
POSTED BY: JR on WED, MAY 07, 2008 03:01 AM -0500
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Bluescreen
It is unfortunate, particularilly a medic. This is why we need NATO to triple or more the troops and clean up Afghanistan and then get out. We are there as part of a mission, first to rout Al Queada and now to keep the peace while it rebuilds. We are not there due to US policy, this was a true root out evil and free the people from an oppressive regime. But we didn't finish the Taliban when they were on the run and now they have regrouped. Go in big and finish them. Then rebuild.
POSTED BY: Bluescreen on WED, MAY 07, 2008 02:56 AM -0500
R.I.P. Cpl. Michael Starker
My condolences to all your near and dear ones.
Next, a great, great lady passed away as well...
She dared to love with the heart - and made history in doing so.
And now, her heart gave way - and she will be joining her beloved in the afterlife; he's been waiting for her for quite sometime now, even by afterlife standards (women always make us wait...)
Rights advocate, Mildred Loving, 68, dies
CENTRAL POINT, Va., May 6 (UPI) --
Mildred Loving, 68, whose racially mixed marriage prompted the Supreme Court to overturn Virginia's miscegenation laws, died of pneumonia, her daughter said.
Mildred married Richard Loving in 1958 in Washington. They moved to Virginia to be closer to relatives and were arrested on July 11, 1958, for violating Virginia law that made marriage between different races illegal.
She wrote a letter to U.S Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1963 asking for guidance and he referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union, which took the case to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The Supreme Court ruling in 1967 in Loving vs. Virginia decided Virginia law violated the equal protection clause.
"We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race," the court said.
Other southern states held to their miscegenation laws, with Alabama becoming the last state to abandon the law in 2000.
Richard Loving was in a fatal car crash in 1975 and their son Donald died in 2000. Mildred is survived by her daughter, Peggy Fortune; her son, Sidney; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
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R.I.P. Mildred Loving
My condolences to your daughter Peggy Fortune, to your son as well as to all your other descendants - and everyone else who will be missing you.
And now, onwards to another family - this one with all its members of the same uniform color; but look what the daughters did to their own MOTHER...
Early release to halfway house, father's home denied for sisters who killed mom
55 minutes ago
By Jered Stuffco, The Canadian Press
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BRAMPTON, Ont. - Two sisters serving decade-long murder sentences for drowning their mother in a bathtub after plying her with alcohol and powerful painkillers were denied an early release from prison Tuesday.
While the judge said he was "impressed" by the sisters' rehabilitation progress, a conditional release only two-years into their jail terms is simply "too much."
"I urge you to keep up the good work," said Ontario Superior Court Justice Bruce Duncan, adding the sisters are free to make further applications after they've served more time.
"The bottom line is, it's too soon."
The elder sister, now 21, had sought release to a youth-oriented halfway house. Her 20-year-old sibling wanted to live with their father at the same home where the murder took place on Jan. 18, 2003.
The sisters were 15 and 16 years old when they drowned their abusive, alcoholic mother in a tub after feeding her vodka and Tylenol-3 pills containing codeine.
Wearing matching green jackets, the sisters smiled as they were brought into the court and sat quietly as Duncan read out his decision.
Duncan said he was worried the pair weren't getting enough support and rehabilitation since being moved from a youth facility to the Grand Valley Institution near Kitchener, Ont.
"You're supposed to be treated as youth," he said. "I'm very concerned that those principles are not being met."
Robert Jagielski, lawyer for the younger sister, said the transfer last year occurred "without rhyme or reason" and that his client wants to join a support group and get proper counselling so she can integrate back into society.
Last month, court heard the elder sister wants to study engineering at the University of Waterloo and that her younger sister had been approved to take a correspondence class from the University of Athabasca - paid for by the federal government.
The murder was originally ruled an accidental death, despite the fact the girls had bragged to classmates about the killing. The sisters also met with friends at a Jack Astors restaurant after the death to establish an alibi and celebrate the successful killing.
Much of the prosecution's case focused on a series of Internet chats where the sisters laid out their plans to kill their 43-year-old mom.
Still, during hearings last month, the court was told the younger sister has difficulty recalling certain aspects of the murder and that she often deals with her emotions by sitting alone in her prison cell.
Their father told the court then that his younger daughter belonged at the family home, and that corrections staff made a big mistake when she was moved from the youth-centred Syl Apps facility to a federal penitentiary for women.
Though the sisters were given the maximum sentence for young offenders, Canadian law prohibits them from spending any more than six-years in prison.
The remainder of their sentences will be served in the community.
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS NEWS STORY
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xyamaca
Ten years should be ten years now that they are adults they should erve the next five years before any parole. Taking the life of another human being is sad worse your own mother. Showing no regrets, hopefully they will be on probation for the rest of their life. KEEP THEM LOCKED UP.
POSTED BY: xyamaca on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 08:46 PM -0500
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Senf them to Kingston penitentury for another 10 years.
POSTED BY: beowulf33 on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 08:16 PM -0500
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Potts, I agree with that. But should an instance such as David Millgard, Guy Paul Morin or Steven Truscott come up, whoever is responsible for thier wrongfull death be it investigators, judges or (and) prosecuters, should face the death penalty too. That would be a good safeguard so that innocent people aren't executed.
POSTED BY: weedeedledee on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 08:00 PM -0500
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Potts
bring back the death penalty!!! i dont care their sex or age....you kill you die!!!
POSTED BY: Potts on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 07:48 PM -0500
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No Photo Available.
just testing~that sick monster did 12...but still not enough.
POSTED BY: outspoken on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 07:43 PM -0500
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We began with a Canadian - we ended with a Canadian family.
Somehow, I am not surprised such horrible things happen in the middleclass suburbs of Ontario: Brampton, Kingston, North Bay, Barrie...
And wherever Karla Homolka came from - I forget, but it could have been any one of these hellholes...
Damn Yankees...
Not only is it an evil empire - its players and coaches (especially this year, with that Girardi dud) such blowhards as well, but it spawns MURDEROUS FANS too...
Well, so it seems anyway; the charges have not been pressed yet, at, ah, blogging time, but it shouldn't be too long...
Any inning now...
It'll happen way before the Red Sox win the division again and eliminate the Yankees from ANY kind of contention - again.
Yankees-Red Sox argument ends in murder?
Tue May 6, 12:02 PM
BOSTON (Reuters) - A New York Yankees' fan was accused on Monday of murdering a Boston Red Sox supporter and injuring another by running both down with a car after a heated argument over one of America's oldest sporting rivalries.
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Ivonne Hernandez, 43, pleaded not guilty on Monday to reckless second-degree murder, aggravated driving while intoxicated and two counts of reckless conduct after the incident in a Nashua, New Hampshire parking lot last Friday.
Prosecutors say Hernandez was drunk when she drove her car across a dirt parking lot outside the Nashua City Hall into Matthew Beaudoin, 29, and Maria Hughes, 21, after exchanging words with them about the Yankees and Red Sox baseball teams.
The spat began at a local bar where Hernandez said she was a Yankees fan, according to witnesses quoted by the Nashua Telegraph newspaper.
It then spilled outside where a group that included Beaudoin chanted "Yankees suck!" when they saw a Yankees sticker on the rear window of Hernandez's car, New Hampshire's Assistant Attorney General, Susan Morrell, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
She told Nashua District Court that Hernandez drove directly at the group and did not brake, hitting Beaudoin.
"The forensic evidence at the scene indicates tire tracks going about 200 feet that did not swerve or brake," Morrell said. "He went onto the windshield and then when the car hit the parking meter he was ejected," she added.
Beaudoin died of massive head trauma, she added.
Hernandez told police she had only wanted to scare the group. She was ordered held without bail.
Hughes suffered minor injuries.
The Red Sox and the New York Yankees have long been one of sport's most colorful and fiercest rivalries.
While Boston won the World Series championship five times in its first two decades, including the 1903 inaugural series, they endured an 86-year dry spell before winning their sixth Series in 2004 and seventh in 2007.
The Yankees, however, have racked up 26 wins over the Series' history, including streaks of three, four and five-in-a-row championships.
(Reporting by Jason Szep, editing by Todd Eastham)
R.I.P. Matthew Beaudoin
My sympathy to Maria Hughes and everyone else who will be remembering you as the Boston Red Sox go for a second World Series in a row - and an 8th world championship overall.
All of Red Sox Nation is mourning you, Matt.
We'll chant "Yankees Suck" just for you this summer - with added gusto.
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Death toll soars past 22,000 in Myanmar cyclone, 41,000 missing
Tue May 6, 12:33 PM
By The Associated Press
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YANGON, Myanmar - The death toll in Myanmar's devastating cyclone soared above 22,000 on Tuesday, with more than 41,000 others missing, state radio reported.
Meanwhile, international aid officials said up to one million people may be homeless in the wake of cyclone Nargis, which ravaged the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday.
Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas wiped out, the World Food Program said.
Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.
"From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," said a statement issued by Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon.
No Canadians are reported among the dead and injured. A Foreign Affairs Department spokesman in Ottawa said consular officials were attempting to contact all 57 Canadians known to be in Myanmar. Most were registered as being in the Yangon area.
Myanmar's military junta has signalled it will welcome aid supplies for cyclone victims, the UN said Tuesday, clearing the way for a major relief operation from international organizations.
But UN workers were still awaiting their visas to enter the country, said Elisabeth Byrs of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"The government has shown a certain openness so far," Byrs said. "We hope that we will get the visas as soon as possible, in the coming hours. I think the authorities have understood the seriousness of the situation and that they will act accordingly."
Ottawa has set aside up to $2 million to provide urgent relief.
International Co-operation Minister Beverley Oda has said Canada is working closely with UN agencies, the Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations to determine how "Canada's support can best meet the humanitarian needs of the people, once access is allowed by the Burmese government."
President George W. Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the United States to help with disaster assistance, saying the U.S. already has provided some assistance but wants to do more.
"We're prepared to move U.S. navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.
Bush spoke Tuesday at a ceremony where he signed legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the last 18 years, was made an honorary Canadian citizen on Monday.
The appeal for outside assistance was unusual for Myanmar's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of international organizations and closely controlled their activities. Several agencies, including the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, have limited their presence as a result.
Some aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some stricken areas of the largely isolated region, but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.
Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, told NBC's "Today" show that the cyclone, the term used for hurricanes in much of the Pacific and Indian Ocean region, had knocked down huge trees in the country's largest city.
"And it blew down a significant portion of them, some of these are six, eight, 10 stories tall - huge trees, six feet (two metres). . . in diameter. So they came down on roofs," she said.
The cyclone came only a week ahead of a key referendum on a constitution that Myanmar's military leaders hoped would go smoothly in its favour, despite opposition from the country's feisty pro-democracy movement. However, the disaster could stir the already tense political situation.
State radio also said that Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm. It indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.
The decision drew swift criticism from dissidents and human rights groups who question the credibility of the vote and urged the junta to focus on disaster victims.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppression of pro-democracy parties.
At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS NEWS STORY
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No Photo Available.
USA $3 and Canada $2 millions....plus from other countries, supplies, etc..I wonder how much of this windfall be diverted into the junta's hands. The junta seems only good at beating unarmed citizens,they don't know what to do now. As for buddhist shelling a dollar, well ,you can wait....
POSTED BY: jacques l on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 09:05 PM -0500
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Straightup - you make a very strong point. Now we know what you're not going to do.
POSTED BY: Boad on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 08:07 PM -0500
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Hey everyone, check it out, Jade just said she/he will never be the first one to extend a helping hand. We love you Jade!
POSTED BY: Boad on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 08:01 PM -0500
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Straightup
My heart breaks for the people of Burma, but their is no way I am sending one dime unless I'm absolutly positive the Burmese dictatorship won't see any of it. Countries that can afford AK-47's don't need my finacial help. That's where we went wrong in so many other countries. The angencies we send have to pay the goverment bribes to help the people and that's wrong.
POSTED BY: Straightup on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 06:57 PM -0500
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Straightup
My heart breaks for the people of Burma, but their is no way I am sending one dime unless I'm absolutly positive the Burmese dictatorship won't see any of it. Countries that can afford AK-47's don't need my finacial help. That's where we went wrong in so many other countries. The angencies we send have to pay the goverment bribes to help the people and that's wrong.
POSTED BY: Straightup on TUE, MAY 06, 2008 06:55 PM -0500
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R.I.P. 22,000-POSSIBLY 60,000+ cyclone victims...
Shame on you, penny-pinching Canadians, who want to keep your "tax dollars IN Canada"...
It's not like you're donating two billion; your lousy equally penny-pinching government (the Republican Party's patsy party - is it not?) only handed over two MILLION... Peanuts, on a wordly scale...
Surprise, surprise - Dubya's peeps reportedly authorized only three million themselves...
When it's not for the WAR BUDGET -subsidizing Death, basically- Americans are not as rich all of a sudden, eh...
Of course, the Burmese dictatorship is not any better - of course, it is worse.
Maybe the cyclone was for *it* specifically...
+++
Georgia inmate executed
JACKSON, Ga., May 6 (UPI) --
Convicted murderer William Earl Lynd was put to death in Georgia Tuesday evening after the state Supreme Court rejected a stay of execution.
Lynd, convicted of the 1988 kidnapping and murder of his girlfriend, Ginger Moore, was declared dead at 7:51 p.m., USA Today reported.
He was the first inmate in the United States executed since the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection is constitutional, WALB-TV in Albany, Ga., reported. States had stayed executions since last fall pending the high court's ruling.
Before his execution at the penal facility in Jackson, Lynd requested a last meal of two pepper jack barbecue burgers with crisp onions; two baked potatoes with sour cream, bacon and cheese, and one large strawberry milkshake.
The death sentence was carried out the day after the state Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant him clemency.
Lynd had confessed to police he and his girlfriend had consumed Valium, marijuana and alcohol and argued. Lynd shot her two times in the head, stuffed her body in the trunk of his car and shot her again.
The Supreme Court recently ruled the most common method was not unconstitutional, cruel and unusual punishment, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Late last week, the Georgia Supreme Court asked lawyers to address questions about evidence presented during Lynd's trial. His attorneys contended some evidence was flawed.
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Suspect: Argument before Kercher killing
PERUGIA, Italy, May 6 (UPI) --
One of the suspects in the slaying of Briton Meredith Kercher told Italian police the victim and her roommate had been squabbling over money, officials said.
Police said Rudy Guede told them that Kercher and Amanda Knox were arguing the night Kercher was stabbed to death about some missing cash that was to have been used to pay the rent.
The Daily Telegraph said the excerpts from Guede's interrogation were published in the Italian newspaper Corriere dell'Umbria and could point to a motive in the high-profile slaying last fall that was still under investigation Tuesday.
Knox and Kercher shared an apartment in Perugia. Knox and Guede have been implicated in the case along with Knox's boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
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© UPI
R.I.P. Meredith Kercher -
your soul is ever closer to being able to, as your murderer(s) is/are about to be found out...
For the very same reasons, I am also of the opinion that Ginger Moore is resting in peace now...
I am not sure, however, if William Earl Lynd will ever be resting in peace - that is one of those things ONLY GOD KNOWS...
+++
I would truly be remiss here
if I did not make the most out of this other occasion
to encourage all to seek out and listen to the appropriate song for the occasion (read the article that follows and you'll understand right away...)
(This) Monkey Gone To Heaven
Monkey killed at Vancouver zoo suffered 'brutal death,' necropsy shows
Thu May 8, 5:01 PM
By The Canadian Press
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LANGLEY, B.C. - A spider monkey that was killed at the Greater Vancouver Zoo suffered a violent death when its mate was stolen during an overnight break-in, an initial examination of the primate's body suggests.
A necropsy on the dead monkey, a male named Jocko, indicates that it died due to a fractured skull and hemorrhaging on the right side of its brain, zoo spokeswoman Jody Henderson said Thursday.
"It definitely was a brutal death," said Henderson.
Jocko was found dead Wednesday morning and his mate, Mia, was missing following an overnight break-in at the Greater Vancouver Zoo in Langley, B.C.
Henderson said it's still not clear how Jocko was injured, whether he was hit with something or thrown during a struggle.
"We're guessing either it's a blow to his head from either the instrument they used to break into the enclosure or he was thrown across the enclosure and hit the tree or the tree-house that they live in," she said.
She said the full necropsy results, which will take some time to complete, could reveal more about what happened.
The RCMP released photos of the missing monkey and pleaded for the public's help in locating it.
As of Thursday, the Mounties had received a handful of tips but there were no new developments in the case.
"Someone's going to hopefully see this monkey in their neighbourhood, on their property or in the possession of someone - obviously it's not normal to have a monkey like that," said Cpl. Peter Thiessen.
Thiessen said the police are also looking into the possibility that Mia escaped during the attack, but he said that seems unlikely.
Staff have said Mia would have returned to her cage by now if the animal left on her own.
He said investigators are still trying to figure out what may have motivated the violent break-in.
"As time goes on, speculation is that it potentially could be transported, or could be used for parts or sold on the black market for its organs - any number of scenarios," said Thiessen.
Staff with RCMP victim services have been visiting the zoo to help workers cope with the killing and theft and prepare them to explain the incident to visitors, which often include young children.
"We are not just handling the grief ourselves, but handling the grief of other people coming in," said Henderson.
"School groups are in here, so obviously there's going to be pretty distraught children."
Henderson said there have been reports suggesting Mia might be pregnant because she appears to have a large belly in published photographs.
But she said Mia is not pregnant and in fact cannot become pregnant due to fertility problems.
Spider monkeys can live up to 40 years in captivity and are typically found in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America.
Their teeth are sharp, and they have long arms and legs and tails that they use to swing from branch to branch in the forest.
Mia's theft comes just two weeks after a monkey was stolen from a zoo in the Maritimes.
A nine-month-old Goeldi monkey named April went missing from the Cherry Brook Zoo in Saint John, N.B.
The money was found two days later huddled in a small box on a street corner near a local gas station.
Canada ends cormorant cull, toll unknown
WINDSOR, Ontario, May 8 (UPI) --
Canadian parks officials ended a shooting cull of double-crested cormorants in Lake Erie but aren't able to say how many of the birds were killed.
The cull involved two half days of shooting last week and a full day this week, Marian Stranak, superintendent of Point Pelee National Park told the Windsor Star Wednesday night.
While Parks Canada said 72 cormorants were killed last week, Stranak said she didn't know how many were killed Monday, the last day of shooting.
Neither the media nor protesters were allowed to witness the cull, although Liz White of Animal Alliance and Cormorant Defenders International told the Star 315 shots were counted offshore.
Parks Canada claims it needs to reduce the bird population on the uninhabited island because the colony's guano was threatening its Carolinian ecosystem that includes rare trees including Kentucky coffee trees, red mulberries and blue ashes, the newspaper said.
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© UPI
R.I.P. CULLED CORMORANTS.
You were deemed to be nuisances and filed under "undesirable" and "expendable" (as opposed to endangered species or protected wildlife) - but, now, you will be able to fly freely and forevermore, where none shall curb your flight, freedom, right to exist and/or to find happiness... And that is in God's Domain.
+++
Three dead in B.C. apartment building fire, two just metres from safety
Wed May 7, 6:27 PM
By James Keller, The Canadian Press
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NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. - Two elderly women killed in a fire at a North Vancouver apartment building were just metres from escaping the fast-spreading flames and thick smoke, making it as far as the first-floor lobby before they died.
A third woman who died in the overnight fire was found in the third-floor hallway, also apparently heading for safety, police and fire officials said Wednesday.
"Sadly, it looks as though it's a strong possibility they were trying to escape the smoke and the flames and they just couldn't get out in time," said RCMP Const. Michael McLaughlin.
The victim's names were not released.
Between six and 12 people were treated in hospital for minor injuries, said McLaughlin.
Fire investigators were investigating the cause of the blaze, which started just before 10 p.m. Tuesday at the three-storey apartment building. They said they would treat it as suspicious until they determine otherwise.
The wood-frame building was about three decades old and wasn't equipped with a sprinkler system, likely because one wasn't required by building codes when the apartment complex was built, North Vancouver's fire chief said.
Firefighters arrived to find large flames and smoke pouring from the complex, where they rescued at least six people stranded on their balconies.
Some of the residents were alerted by 11-year-old Dustan Roach-Matthews, who ran through the halls of the building trying to warn others of the fire.
"I heard a beeping of a fire alarm in someone's apartment, so I walked up to the first floor and I saw smoke coming out of the door," said Dustan. "I ran up and down the hallways yelling, 'Fire! Fire! Fire!"'
Jordan Gilmore was asleep on the couch when his girlfriend woke him up after hearing Dustan yelling outside.
"I just peered over the side of the balcony, and all I saw was a bit of smoke and a little bit of light from flames," said Gilmore, 26.
"By the time we had gotten from the third floor to outside, it was completely engulfed, the flames were 30, 40 feet above the building.
"I can't explain the sound of it; it was like a freight train or a jet engine, that's how intense the flames were."
Gilmore and his girlfriend, Kristi Hume, came across an elderly neighbour who seemed confused and disoriented, and led her outside.
"As we're going down flights of stairs we were unsure what we were running into," Gilmore said. "You could almost see nothing. You couldn't really see the stairs, you just held onto the railing."
The couple's unit, located in the middle of the building at the rear, was relatively untouched by the flames. An apartment light could be seen shining through the window as fire officials cleaned up Wednesday morning.
But three units on the corner of the building appeared completely gutted, the walls and balconies charred black, and many of the 26 suites sustained water and smoke damage.
No one will be allowed back into the building until the investigation is complete and the building is determined to be safe, said fire chief Barrie Penman.
"There's a lot of smoke damage, it doesn't smell very good in there - there's absolutely no reason to push people back in their suites," he said.
"As far as accessing the building and living in it, it will be some time."
There were reports that partying teenagers may have sparked the fire, but neither Penman nor the RCMP could confirm that.
Penman said he has been with the North Vancouver Fire Department for 28 years and can't remember a fire with so many deaths.
"They're all bad fires, actually - it's definitely a tragic fire," he said. "Any time there's a loss of life, it's a bad day."
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS NEWS STORY
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No Photo Available.
The fact that "inventtorecycle" is unable to think beyond marijuana is perfect proof of its negative impact! Does he not get the fact that three human beings have died!! A typical example of all that is wrong with our world.
POSTED BY: thinker on WED, MAY 07, 2008 04:19 PM -0500
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the fire killed the three unfortunately souls not the marijuana, how tragic and sad that noone has said anything about the three ppl who died; only talk about how we should legalize pot ~ are you ppl high?!
POSTED BY: Tickle on WED, MAY 07, 2008 03:55 PM -0500
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how did this story end up on the topic of Marijuana?!?!
POSTED BY: Tickle on WED, MAY 07, 2008 03:51 PM -0500
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chloe the si... ...the government want people to smoke and drink,and eat garbage like fast foods to control us,we gain weight,we get sick etc.and then we have to spend to make it better...the buck gets around that way...its a vicious circle....marijuana makes everything better...mind and body....but you gotta eat it and not smoke it!!!
POSTED BY: inventtorecycle on SUN, APR 13, 2008 02:03 PM -0500
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ol bob...the old school want the booze,cos that`s what they grew up on....alkys...and the docs know the truth about the good stuff eh!!!
POSTED BY: inventtorecycle on SUN, APR 13, 2008 01:56 PM -0500
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No sign of family of 7 missing in Arctic
HALL BEACH, Nunavut, May 8 (UPI) --
Canadian military and civilian searchers reported no signs Thursday of a couple and their five children missing in the Arctic for a week, rescuers said.
Paul Haulli, the volunteer organizer for a combined search-and-rescue effort from Hall Beach, Nunavut, told the Canwest News Service after speaking with relatives of the family, it didn't appear they were prepared for the four-day, 140-mile snowmobile trek from Hall Beach north to Repulse Bay.
Mariano and Mona Susaarnak left their home last Thursday towing a sled with their five children ranging in age from 1 to 11, relatives said.
Low clouds and stormy weather grounded military flights, and Haulli said about 12 volunteers on snowmobiles were trying to find tracks.
While cold wasn't a factor -- around freezing -- heavy snow was making tracking difficult, the report said.
Mario Aubain, chief instructor at an Arctic survival training center said the family faces significant risks from polar bears and wolves, the report said.
"I'm sure they have a gun, though," he said. "If they were traveling from one village to another with five kids, they would have had food and rifles with them."
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© UPI
Two very different families, once more - all the same results though.
May the departed rest in peace
and may the bereaved find peace as well.
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Report: Mine deaths were avoidable
WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) --
The disaster that left nine people dead at Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah could have been avoided, congressional investigators say in a report.
The report, released Thursday, concluded the mining company should never have submitted a request to remove coal from the section of mine where the August 2007 collapse occurred, and that federal mining officials should not have approved the proposal because of the dangers, The New York Times reported.
Investigators said it was possible, if the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration had "known the full severity" of a March bump -- a bursting of coal and rock caused by pressure or stress -- "MSHA would not have approved the subsequent development and retreat mining of the South Barrier."
The House Committee on Education and Labor, which conducted the investigation, has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether there was a conspiracy to conceal from federal officials the condition of the mine near Huntington, Utah.
Roof supports in a section of the mine gave way August 6, leaving six miners fatally entombed. Ten days later, three miners were working as rescuers died after more tunnels fell.
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© UPI
Every single death is avoidable - or, to be truthful, "delayable"...
However, most everyone who departs, even before their time, finds it to be better on the other side - so everything's fine ultimately, even though what could have been delayed or avoided, wasn't...
How do we know this, for sure?
If it weren't like that, every square inch of the globe would be HEAVILY HAUNTED...
And it's just not quite the case - now, is it?
Umas noticinhas do Brasil agora - vai!
Que bom!
Tudo bem!
Vai ver que vai gostar!
Ah - and if you could HEAR my Brazilian fake accent, you would flip too - with joy, of course! I am sure Dona Maria Do Carmo and Dona Amalia A. will appreciate!!! But I digress... Seriously, I do - a whole lot.
Everyone who may be reading this: get back to proper somber and grieving mode, right this moment - for the subject that follows is saddening and grisly, indeed...
Brazil: Man acquitted in nun slaying
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 8 (UPI) --
The Brazilian man previously convicted of ordering the death of an American nun in the Amazon has now been acquitted, court officials said.
Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura was acquitted by a jury in the 2005 death of Dorthy Stang, a longtime activist in Brazil, O Globo reported Thursday.
Stang, who fought for the protection of land for poor residents of the Amazon region, was killed in by a contract killer. The 73-year-old Stang had been activist in Brazil for 30 years when she was killed by Rayfran das Neves Sales, allegedly on the orders of Moura.
Sales received a 27-year sentence for his crime.
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Once again (because I am certain I've already covered this sickening murder story before, right here, on the Lugubrious Blog... And maybe on the Lambasting Blog as well...) R.I.P. Dorothy Stang
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Back to business as usual here - after all, this blog is about death TOLLS too...
China virus death toll hits 30 as number of infections soars
Thu May 8, 2:04 PM ET
BEIJING (AFP) - The number of children confirmed to have died as a result of a highly contagious virus in China rose to 30 on Thursday as the number of infections soared by the thousands, state media said.
Two children in the southern island province of Hainan died of hand, foot and mouth disease, boosting the grim total, Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua did not say when the deaths occurred but it appeared to be the first report in Hainan of the intestinal ailment enterovirus 71, which can lead to hand, foot and mouth disease.
Xinhua said Thursday that the number of cases of hand, foot and mouth had soared to nearly 22,450 nationwide, up from about 2,500 reported the day before.
Hand, foot and mouth is a common ailment in China, but cases have expanded at such an alarming rate this season that the government has issued a national alert aimed at controlling its spread.
State media on Wednesday warned of a "mass outbreak" of the disease, which has also struck Olympic host city Beijing, just three months before the Games are to begin.
Both China and the World Health Organisation have sought to calm fears about the outbreak, saying there was no cause for panic.
Last year, China recorded more than 80,000 cases, with 17 deaths.
The disease has now appeared across eastern, central and southern China.
It first emerged in large numbers in eastern China in early March, but was not made public until last week, prompting state press to accuse local officials of dragging their feet on raising the alarm.
Anhui province has been the hardest hit, with 22 of the deaths occurring in the provincial city of Fuyang.
Hand, foot and mouth disease is spread through direct contact with the mucus, saliva or faeces of an infected person. Symptoms include fever and sores or blisters on the buttocks and elsewhere.
R.I.P. viral victims...
The thirty of you are NOT making headline news (barely ticker fodder as far as CNN, CNBC, CTVNews and others are concerned; must be that much-feared Tibet backlash again...) - but you made it to the Lugubrious Blog, at least.
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Corporal Michael Starker might have been from the same province and same country - but, chances are he wasn't even a Montreal Canadiens fan as it were! The subject of our next eulogy definitely was - one would think. So, it should fall onto him to embody the death of a dream in Montreal this year and for all years left; for the Armageddon clock is ticking on, meanwhile, as we all suspect it to be...
Henry Brant, Montreal-born avant-garde composer, dies at 94
Wed Apr 30, 11:33 PM
By The Associated Press
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Henry Brant, an avant-garde composer whose works placed dozens and sometimes hundreds of musicians throughout a concert hall - and sometimes throughout an entire city - has died. He was 94.
Brant died Saturday at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., said his wife, Kathy Wilkowski. He died of natural causes, the family said.
Brant created exuberant commissioned works that took into careful account the acoustics of a performance space and mixed musical styles from folk to classical.
They weren't small productions. The 1979 "Orbits" was scored for 80 trombones, and another piece, "Rosewood," was scored for 100 classical guitars. "Prisons of the Mind," a 1990 piece for the Dallas symphony hall, had 314 musicians.
Despite some improvisation, Brant was a perfectionist, said Neely Bruce, a professor at the university who is a longtime friend and a co-executor of Brant's musical estate. Brant was particular about the orchestration, devising a sort of shorthand to get the directions down on paper.
"He's a collage artist, definitely working with large-scale forces," Bruce said.
The wide spacing is crucial and "makes for a clarity that is really remarkable," Bruce said.
Among the widest spacing was for his 1984 "Fire in the Amstel." Four boatloads of flutists and other musicians passed through the canals of Amsterdam.
"It was all timed so when one of the flutes went under one of the bridges of the canal, a marching band would go over it," Bruce said. Meanwhile, cathedral bells rang along the way, and choirs sang in the churches.
Born in Montreal to American parents on Sept. 15, 1913, Brant began composing at age 8, according to a biography on his web page. He studied at the McGill Conservatorium in Montreal, the Juilliard School, Columbia University and Bennington College.
He later taught at all three schools, including spending 24 years at Bennington.
At 94, Henry Brant was only six years removed from the Montreal Canadiens franchise itself, which he could have outlived easily (as he outlived the Montreal Maroons and Montreal Expos) - but will not, in the end.
Next year, the hockey franchise whose existence Brant's own life paralleled will reach 100 years of age.
He won't.
If there are ghosts from the "old Forum" - I say he should be one.
Favoring the visitor clubs - particularly those heralding from towns that appreciated fine music and the arts as he did.
R.I.P. HENRY BRANT.
'Dean of deputy ministers' Arthur Kroeger dies
2 hours, 48 minutes ago
Political analyst and longtime civil servant Arthur Kroeger has died at age 75.
Kroeger died Friday at the Élisabeth Bruyère Health Centre in Ottawa with his family by his side.
"He will be much missed, by those who were lucky enough to know him, but also by the many Canadians who benefited from his life's work and his sense of public service," said his daughter Alix Kroeger.
A Rhodes scholar, he became known as the "dean of deputy ministers" after serving that role six times in key departments including Indian and Northern Affairs, Transport Canada and Employment and Immigration.
He retired in 1992 following a 34-year career in the civil service. He was later chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa where the Kroeger College of Public Affairs is named for him.
He was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 1989 and elevated to a companion of the Order in 2000.
Details of his funeral have not been finalized, but it is expected to take place in Ottawa.
R.I.P. ARTHUR KROEGER
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18 dead in Missouri, Oklahoma after new round of tornadoes
By MARCUS KABEL, Associated Press Writer
SENECA, Mo. - A tornado that spun across the Oklahoma-Missouri border killed at least 18 people as severe storms raked the nation's heart Saturday, injuring many and mangling buildings in the storm-weary region.
At least 12 people were killed after severe storms spawned tornadoes and high winds across sections of southwestern Missouri, the State Emergency Management Agency said. Ten of the dead were killed when a twister struck near Seneca, near the Oklahoma border.
At least six people were killed as the tornado flattened the northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, authorities said.
"They're going over the hard-hit area and turning over everything and looking," SEMA spokeswoman Susie Stonner said of emergency workers' search for victims and assessment of damage. "It's hard to do in the dark."
The number of injuries across the area was not immediately available, though The Joplin (Mo.) Globe reported that more than 90 people from that region were being treated at Joplin hospitals.
The tornado in Picher — a depressed and pollution-scarred mining town that many residents had already fled — caused major damage in a 20-block area, said Oklahoma's Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten.
"I know they are going through the rubble, trying to find people missing," she said. "There are numerous injuries."
Gov. Brad Henry issued a statement saying a major emergency response was under way. He planned to visit the area Sunday.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Picher and all of the other Oklahoma communities that have been impacted by the latest wave of severe weather," Henry said.
Television footage showed some destroyed outbuildings and damaged homes west of McAlester and near Haywood. At a glass plant southwest of McAlester, the storm apparently picked up a trailer and slammed it on top of garbage bins.
"These are rural areas that we are in," Pittsburg County Undersheriff Richard Sexton told KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. "These are good people coming together at this time."
In storm-weary Arkansas, a tornado collapsed a home and a business, and there were reports of a few people trapped in buildings, said Weather Service meteorologist John Robinson.
Central Park Elementary School in the northwest Arkansas city of Bentonville had roof and window damage, and damage was also reported at Pine Creek Center School.
The storms remained active into the night as they swept eastward, with watches and warnings abundant across a wide swath of the Plains and South.
Rescuers freed a man trapped in his vehicle in western Tennessee after a tree fell on it during thunderstorms, Memphis firefighters said.
Memphis authorities say they've received reports of power lines and trees down, but there have been no injuries.
Tornadoes killed 13 people in Arkansas on Feb. 5, and another seven were killed in an outbreak May 2. In between was freezing weather, persistent rain and river flooding that damaged residences has slowed farmers in their planting.
___
Associated Press writers Murray Evans in Oklahoma City and Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
R.I.P. EIGHTEEN... as far as we can tell right now...
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See - it's already over TWENTY now...
So what, it's another tragedy; I'm just saying there would be more than eighteen dead overall before long, and there are...
Let Roxana tell you all about the more gruesome details of this umpteenth sad event...
Over 20 dead in Mo., Okla., Ga. after new round of storms
By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 9 minutes ago
SENECA, Mo. - Search crews combed debris-strewn fields for possible tornado victims Sunday as residents picked through the remains of homes demolished by storms that smashed through the Plains and South, killing at least 21 people in three states.
At least 14 people died in the sparsely populated countryside of southwestern Missouri, and searchers feared more bodies would be found. At least six people were killed in the fading mining town of Picher, Okla., and at least one person died in storms in Georgia.
Susan Roberts, 61, stared at the smashed remains of her classic 1985 Cadillac sitting on her living room floor — the only thing left of her Seneca home. A woman who had apparently sought shelter in the car died there, she said.
"That is what is tearing me up," Roberts said. She had warned the woman — who stopped to change a tire as Roberts and her 13-year-old grandson drove away from the rental house — to escape. The tornado hit just minutes later.
"I'm from Kansas. I grew up watching storms," she said as she walked through the debris. "If I didn't have my grandson with me, I probably wouldn't have left."
The same storm system earlier hit Oklahoma, where at least six people died and 150 people were injured in Picher. Officials there wavered on the number of dead, with the state highway patrol saying six and the state emergency management department saying seven.
The town, once a bustling mining center of 20,000 that dwindled to about 800 people as families fled lead pollution there, was a surreal scene of overturned cars, smashed homes and mattresses, and twisted metal high stuck in the canopy of trees.
"I swear I could see cars floating," said Herman Hernandez, 68. "And there was a roar, louder and louder."
Ed Keheley was headed to town to help out Saturday night when he heard a woman screaming. He looked over to see her hand reaching out of debris.
"She was sitting in the bathtub, she had curlers in her hair and she wanted out of there," said Keheley, who along with several others pulled her out.
The area is part of a Superfund site, and residents have been asked to take part in state and federal buyouts in recent years.
"From what I've been able to determine, that wouldn't have any bearing on whether a disaster declaration would come forth," said Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Earl Armstrong.
As the system moved east on Sunday, storms in Georgia killed at least one person in Dublin, about 120 miles southeast of Atlanta, authorities said. Weather officials had not yet confirmed whether the storms produced any tornadoes there.
The body was found in the rubble of a mobile home, said Bryan Rogers, the Laurens County administrator.
A second person found in the home, who state and local authorities initially reported had died, was hospitalized in critical condition, said Lisa Janak of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
The small town of Kite was destroyed by the storm, said Caroline Pope, a spokeswoman for the Johnson County Sheriff's Department. Close to 1,000 people live in the community, she said.
"From what they're telling me, it's gone," she said from the dispatch center in the jail, which was operating on a generator because the power was out.
President Bush has talked with governors to express his condolences for the lives lost and to discuss the state's needs for recovery, according to the White House.
"The federal government will be moving hard to help," Bush said.
In Missouri, the tornado hit the rural area about eight miles north of Seneca and continued east, said Keith Stammer, director of emergency management in Jasper County.
Next door to Roberts, Jane Lant climbed over splintered wood to go through the mud-caked remains of her bridal shop.
"I just feel so awful, going through this rubble when they are out looking for bodies," she said as she motioned to the search dogs wandering the field behind her. An unidentified body lay under a blue tarp nearby.
Among the dead were five family members of her neighbor who had been going to a wedding when the tornado caught their vehicle in front of her store, she said.
Next door, her husband's feed store also lay in shambles. But one bright moment came Sunday when rescuers heard chirping from the mound and found a half-dozen chicks. They had rescued about 100 the night before.
Susie Stonner, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Agency, said it was unclear how many homes had been damaged. But she said officials in Newton County, which includes Seneca, had initial estimates of 50 homes damaged or destroyed there.
Nineteen people were hospitalized in Newton County, said Keith Stammer, acting spokesman the county emergency operations. He did not know the extent of their injuries.
In storm-weary Arkansas, a tornado caused "substantial structural damage" in Stuttgart, but no one was seriously injured, said Weather Service meteorologist Joe Goudsward.
Tornadoes killed 13 people in Arkansas on Feb. 5, and another seven were killed in an outbreak May 2. In between was freezing weather, persistent rain and river flooding that damaged homes and has slowed farmers in their planting.
Gov. Mike Beebe planned to tour storm damage in Stuttgart on Monday.
"In this seemingly endless season of severe weather, another Arkansas community now faces the challenge of rebuilding, and others are again picking up after damaging storms," Beebe said in a statement Sunday. "It appears everyone in Arkansas survived this latest outbreak, and for that we are grateful. Our thoughts and prayers go out to our sister states that saw a much steeper toll of human life from Saturday's tornadoes."
___
Associated Press writers Murray Evans in Picher, Roxana Hegeman in Seneca, Mo., Dorie Turner in Atlanta, and Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
R.I.P. TWENTY+...
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Tornadoes and twisters taking some loved ones away -or apart- is one thing that can be taken as "natural" for it is a simple act of nature and, pardon the pun, twist of fate. "Mother Nature" can't help it and, if we're unfortunate enough to be in the way when such natural occurrences happen, it was just "our time to go" and that is all there is to it.
The southern states can't help it - such is there bane. A roll of the dice that this false entity called "mother nature" can make all stacked up in your disfavor as easily as a gust of wind clears your Texan backyard of any excess dust...
This next story though, set in Texas indeed, is anything but "natural" - in fact, it is again one of those tales involving "totally avoidable demises" once more.
Those are the deaths that are so much harder to accept than the preceding variety - even though, of course, any and every type of loss is hard to put up with...
5 dead in Houston homicide-suicide
HOUSTON, May 10 (UPI) --
An immigrant family of five was found dead Saturday afternoon in what Houston police are calling a murder-suicide.
Authorities said they believe a man used a rifle to kill his wife and three young children -- two boys and a girl under age 10 -- before turning the weapon on himself, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The bodies were found in a run-down house. Neighbors said they had heard gunshots early Friday, the Chronicle said.
Police and neighbors told the newspaper the family, which was believed to be struggling financially, was from Mexico or El Salvador and had been living in the home for four or five years. The man had been working odd jobs and his wife was caring for the children, a neighbor said.
"It's just so sad," said neighbor Janice Bethea. "I can't imagine how anyone could hurt their own children, but I heard he was having really bad money problems."
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© UPI
R.I.P. Party of Five
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Polish Holocaust hero dies at age 98
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 12, 8:41 PM ET
WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler — credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets — died Monday, her family said. She was 98.
Sendler, among the first to be honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as a Righteous Among Nations for her wartime heroism, died at a Warsaw hospital, daughter Janina Zgrzembska told The Associated Press.
President Lech Kaczynski expressed "great regret" over Sendler's death, calling her "extremely brave" and "an exceptional person." In recent years, Kaczynski had spearheaded a campaign to put Sendler's name forward as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city's welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw's Jews were forced into a walled-off ghetto.
Seeking to save the ghetto's children, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations. Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto — and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.
Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.
"Irena was truly a noble lady and a great humanitarian who helped save thousands of children," said Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the New York-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.
Records show that Sendler's team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.
"Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory," Sendler said in 2007 in a letter to the Polish Senate after lawmakers honored her efforts in 2007.
In hopes of one day uniting the children with their families — most of whom perished in the Nazis' death camps — Sendler wrote the children's real names on slips of paper that she kept at home.
When German police came to arrest her in 1943, an assistant managed to hide the slips, which Sendler later buried in a jar under an apple tree in an associate's yard. Some 2,500 names were recorded.
"It took a true miracle to save a Jewish child," Elzbieta Ficowska, who was saved by Sendler's team as a baby in 1942, recalled in an AP interview in 2007. "Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come."
Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members — a fate Sendler only barely escaped herself after the 1943 raid by the Gestapo.
The Nazis took her to the notorious Pawiak prison, which few people left alive. Gestapo agents tortured her repeatedly, leaving Sendler with scars on her body — but she refused to betray her team.
"I kept silent. I preferred to die than to reveal our activity," she was quoted as saying in Anna Mieszkowska's biography, "Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Story of Irena Sendler."
Zegota, an underground organization helping Jews, paid a bribe to German guards to free her from the prison. Under a different name, she continued her work.
After World War II, Sendler worked as a social welfare official and director of vocational schools, continuing to assist some of the children she rescued.
"A great person has died — a person with a great heart, with great organizational talents, a person who always stood on the side of the weak," Warsaw Ghetto survivor Marek Eldeman told TVN24 television.
In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for wartime heroics. Poland's communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel; she collected the award in 1983.
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said Sender's "courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind."
Despite the Yad Vashem honor, Sendler was largely forgotten in her homeland until recent years. She came to the world's attention in 2000 when a group of schoolgirls from Uniontown, Kan., wrote a short play about her called "Life in a Jar."
It went on to garner international attention, and has been performed more than 200 times in the United States, Canada and Poland.
Sendler, born Irena Krzyzanowska, said she lived according to her physician father's teachings, arguing that "people can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don't matter."
She married Mieczyslaw Sendler but they divorced after the war's end. Sendler then married fellow underground activist Stefan Zgrzembski, and they had two sons and a daughter. One died a few days after birth. The second son, Adam, died of a heart failure in 1999.
Sendler is survived by her daughter and a granddaughter.
R.I.P. Irena Sendler
My condolences to your daughter, your granddaughter and everyone else who had the good fortune of knowing you during your relatively short stay on this earth (considering that centenarians are becoming the norm, even 100 years is nothing in the History of the World and they reportedly lived 5, 6, 7 times as long in Biblical times...!)
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China quake kills nearly 10,000 in Sichuan
1 hour, 55 minutes ago
By Ben Blanchard
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - Nearly 10,000 people were killed by the earthquake that hammered southwest China, officials said on Tuesday as rescuers struggled to reach the worst-hit areas, where many more may have died.
Rescuers worked frantically through the night, pulling bodies from schools, homes, factories and hospitals that were demolished by the 7.8 magnitude quake, which rippled from a mountainous area of Sichuan province across much of China on Monday afternoon.
The toll from China's worst earthquake for over three decades appeared sure to climb as troops struggled on foot to reach the worst-hit area, Wenchuan, a hilly county of 112,000 people 100 km (62 miles) from Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu.
About 900 teenagers were buried under a collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who rushed there, bowed three times in grief before some of the 50 bodies already pulled out, Xinhua news agency reported.
"Not one minute can be wasted," Wen said, state television showed. "One minute, one second could mean a child's life."
At a second school in Dujiangyan, fewer than 100 of 420 students survived, Xinhua reported.
China's Communist Party leadership announced that coping with the devastating quake, and ensuring that it did not threaten social stability, was now the government's top priority.
"Time is life," said an official announcement from the Communist Party Standing Committee, according to the Xinhua news agency. "Make fighting the earthquake and rescue work the current top task."
Officials must speed food, water, medicine and other necessities to quake-stricken areas, the meeting ordered, adding that officials must keep a grip on social stability.
"Strengthen positive guidance of opinion," the meeting urged, warning against the spread of rumors.
The Sichuan quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan tremor in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died. Then, unlike now, the Communist Party kept a tight lid on information about the extent of the disaster.
SEVERED ROADS, RAIL LINES
In Chengdu, many residents slept outside or in cars on Monday night, fearing more tremors in the city where at least 45 people died and 600 were injured.
The government has rushed troops and medical teams to dig for survivors and treat the injured. But severed roads and rail lines blocked the way to Wenchuan, and local officials described crumpled houses, landslides and scenes of desperation.
"We are in urgent need of tents, food, medicine and satellite communications equipment," the Communist Party chief of Wenchuan, Wang Bin said, according to Xinhua.
Most farmers' homes in two townships had collapsed and there was no word from the three townships nearest the epicenter, which have a population of 24,000, the report added. So far Wenchuan has reported 15 dead, a number likely to rise steeply.
More than 7,000 may have died in Sichuan's Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, where 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed, Sichuan television said. Beichuan has a population of 161,000, meaning about one in 10 there were killed or injured.
"Even if it means walking in, we must enter the worst-hit areas as quickly as possible," Wen said, according to Xinhua.
But a paramilitary officer marching with a hundred troops towards Wenchuan described a devastated landscape that is likely to yield many dead and to frustrate rescuers.
"I have seen many collapsed civilian houses and the rocks dropped from mountains on the roadside are everywhere," said the People's Armed Police officer Liu Zaiyuan, according to Xinhua.
(Writing by Chris Buckley; Editing by John Chalmers)
R.I.P. Earthquake Victims
All 10,000+ of you - for it will likely be more than the chosen round number...
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In other ghastly news...
It appears to be not unlike a POKER GAME over on that Gaza strip there - one that raises bets with LIVES of innocent bystanders, alas. The Palestinian militants nab one chip; the Israeli military see that bet and raise it 4 more! No raising them from the dead after they've been shot full of holes though; no one here is even remotely worthy to be one of Christ's disciples, much less The Messiah Himself...
Attack from Gaza kills 1, Israeli retaliation kills 5
By YANIV ZOHAR, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 9, 6:27 PM ET
KFAR AZA, Israel - Gaza attackers sent mortar shells crashing into a border community late Friday, killing an Israeli in his garden and wounding three others, officials said. Israel retaliated with missile strikes that left five Hamas militants dead.
The surge in violence added pressure on Egyptian-led attempts to halt clashes between Gaza militants and the Israeli military.
Gaza's ruling Hamas movement claimed responsibility for the deadly mortar fire on Kfar Aza, a communal farm in southern Israel.
Hours later, Israeli aircraft fired missiles that slammed into two Hamas police stations in southern Gaza, killing five militants, Hamas and Gaza health officials said. The Israeli military confirmed the airstrike and said it was responding to attacks on Israel, including the deadly mortar fire on Kfar Aza.
Palestinian militants frequently fire crude rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel from Gaza, killing 14 people since late 2001.
"Hamas is clearly in control of the Gaza Strip and responsible for all hostile fire into Israel. We hold it accountable for today's attack and the murder of our civilian," said David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, said militants had targeted an Israeli military position, but the mortar shell went astray.
Dozens of residents milled around the tidy lawn where the 48-year-old Israeli's body lay. Shrapnel pocked the front of his house. His identity was not disclosed because one of his four children had not yet been notified of his death.
Israeli rescue officials said three people were wounded by shrapnel.
The military said Friday that Palestinian militants have fired 1,950 mortar shells and rockets at Israel since the beginning of the year — almost equal to the amount fired in all of 2007.
The attacks often provoke Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions, although hostilities have ebbed since more than 120 Palestinians were killed in a flare-up of violence two months ago.
Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected in Israel early next week to discuss his efforts to wrest a cease-fire from the two sides. It remains unclear whether he will be able to forge a deal.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged truce efforts, though it has said that if militants halt their fire, the military will stop its Gaza raids.
Peace talks have been dogged by disputes over Israeli construction in the West Bank and disputed east Jerusalem, and Israeli security concerns. They suffered another setback recently with the recent police investigation into Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's campaign funding practices.
In other violence Friday, a 21-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead in a clash with Israeli settlers north of the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The Israeli military confirmed a shooting involving settlers and an armed Palestinian man, but had no further details.
According to Israeli media, settlers said the Palestinian man fired at them and they shot back. Palestinian villagers said he apparently was hunting when the settlers killed him.
(This version CORRECTS UPDATES with Israeli attack killing five militants, details. INCORPORATES Israel-Gaza; corrects age of Israeli victim to 48 sted 40)
R.I.P. Palestinians (Philistines?) and Israelis (Hebrews?) - all of you must be gathering up on the OTHER SIDE, looking back at your bullet-riddled corpses and saying "why the hell were we so STUPID?"
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Death toll time - again.
Sudan: 200 died in Darfur rebel raid near Khartoum
By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 13, 9:06 PM ET
KHARTOUM, Sudan - More that 200 people were killed in fighting around Sudan's capital over the weekend, the defense minister announced Tuesday in the first official comment on casualties during the assault by Darfur rebels.
Gen. Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hussein told parliament that the attackers sent by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement suffered a crushing defeat, with at least two-thirds of the their 180 vehicles destroyed, according to the official SUNA news agency.
Sudanese were shocked by the rebel assault on the outskirts of Khartoum, hundreds of miles from their bases in the west. The raid was the closest that Darfur's rebels have gotten to the seat of the government.
The defense minister said 93 soldiers and 13 policemen died in the weekend fighting in Khartoum's twin city, Omdurman, along with 30 civilians. He said 90 rebel bodies had been found so far, but more were scattered outside the city.
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned the rebel attack. In a statement, the council urged "restraint by all parties, and in particular warns that no retaliatory action should be taken against civilian populations."
The general said his troops had been prepared to fight the rebels far from the city, but he charged that the army's location was revealed by "huge numbers of fifth columnists" from factions trying to undermine the government.
The rebels admitted they had been defeated but promised further attacks on the capital unless the government deals with the festering situation in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died in a conflict that began five years ago.
"JEM might have lost the Khartoum battle and pulled out in dignity ... but it has not lost the war," the group's deputy chairman, Mahmoud Suleiman, said in a statement given to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Life was gradually returning to normal Tuesday, with banks, shops and markets open for business for the first time since the attack. Checkpoints remained in place, however, as troops searched for any rebels remaining in the city, including their leader, Khalil Ibrahim.
The government doubled its bounty for Ibrahim on Tuesday to nearly $250,000 for anyone contributing to the rebel leader's arrest.
State media reported the reward was 500 million new Sudanese pounds, which is the equivalent of $246 million, but Bakri Mullah, secretary-general of the External Information Office, explained to the AP that the reward was actually in old Sudanese pounds, or about $246,000.
Sudan re-valued its currency more than a year ago and the new pound is worth 1,000 times the old one.
According to witnesses cited by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, at least 100 people had been arrested at checkpoints and in house-to-house searches since the attack, as security forces look for suspected rebels.
"Given Khartoum's record of abuse, there is grave cause for concern about the fate of those detained," Georgette Gagnon, the group's Africa director, said in a statement late Monday.
In a telephone interview with the AP on Monday, Ibrahim vowed to keep up his offensive, saying he can exhaust the army by fighting it across Africa's largest nation. He said he was in Omdurman with his troops.
Ibrahim's movement has emerged as the most effective rebel group in Darfur, where ethnic Africans took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in 2003 to fight discrimination. The conflict has displaced more than 2.5 million people.
Seven bombs kill 60 people in India's Jaipur
Tue May 13, 3:36 PM
JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Seven bombs ripped through the crowded streets of India's western city of Jaipur on Tuesday evening, killing around 60 people in markets and outside Hindu temples.
The bombs, many strapped to bicycles, exploded within minutes of each other in Jaipur's pink walled city, a magnet for foreign tourists.
It was the deadliest bomb attack in India in nearly two years. Around 150 people were wounded and local television stations broadcast appeals for blood donations.
Police officers said no group had admitted responsibility for the blasts. Television channels quoted government and intelligence officials as blaming Pakistani or Bangladeshi Islamist militant groups.
"According to the information I have received 60 people have died and 150 have been injured," Rajasthan's Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying.
The state's home minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, said there were at least 55 deaths.
"At around 7.30 there was a big noise and suddenly I found people in a pool of blood," said Govind Sharma, a priest at a Hindu temple, through tears. "I've lost my father in the bomb blast."
Officials said the apparent motive for the bombs was to undermine a peace process between India and Pakistan or foment communal violence in India.
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is due to visit Islamabad in just over a week to review the four-year-old peace process, his first since a new, civilian government took over in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm. The British and U.S. governments said there could be no justification for killing innocent people.
GIVE BLOOD
At the main government hospital in Jaipur, more than 100 people crowded around the doors of the emergency ward, many screaming for information about their relatives. Police officers at the doors yelled for people to give blood.
"I've come here to locate my son," said Shabnam Bano, in tears. "He had gone to the bazaar but has not returned."
Inside the ward, cleaners frantically tried to mop up blood that had pooled in the main corridors.
Police and state government officials say some or all of the bombs were left on bicycles and detonated using timers. An eighth bomb was defused by police.
Officials said they were not aware of any foreigners being killed.
Two bombs were planted near Hindu temples, where large crowds gather every Tuesday in honor of the monkey god Hanuman.
"It was obviously a terror attack," A.S. Gill, Director General of Police in the state of Rajasthan, told reporters close to the scene of one of the blasts.
The blasts come just a few days after fresh firing along the border between India and Pakistan in disputed Kashmir. India said Islamist militants had been trying to sneak in.
"There could be a conspiracy behind this," Shriprakash Jaiswal, India's junior home minister, was quoted by television stations as saying. He did not blame any one group or country.
Alerts were issued in the Indian capital New Delhi and the financial capital of Mumbai.
In the past few years a string of bomb blasts in Indian cities have killed hundreds of people. The deadliest was in July 2006, when seven bombs exploded on Mumbai's railway system killing more than 180 people.
Last August, three bombs killed 38 people at an amusement park and a street-side food stall in Hyderabad, a city in southern India which is home to a booming outsourcing industry.
Cinemas, markets and places of worship have also been targeted in recent years.
(Writing by Simon Denyer; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Robert Woodward)
R.I.P. 260+ who died in those two locales alone, on this 13th of May of the Year of our Lord, 2008...
+++
It's now officially 13,000+...
More troops rushed to help China quake rescue
Tue May 13, 7:16 PM
By Ben Blanchard
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - Thousands of Chinese troops are set to join a frantic search for earthquake survivors on Wednesday, with prospects looking increasingly grim for thousands of people buried under rubble and mud.
Some 20,000 troops already searching in the southwest province of Sichuan, where Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake crumpled homes, schools and hospitals and cut off some of the worst-hit towns, will be doubled, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The national death toll from the quake has climbed past 13,000 and is likely to rise steeply after media said 19,000 people were buried in rubble in just one area of Sichuan.
A near overwrought Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was shown on state television using a bullhorn to urge on rescuers.
"At present the number one thing is still saving people," Wen told local officials, according to Xinhua. "All collapsed buildings must be fully checked. If there is a glimmer of hope, then put everything into rescuing."
But the depth of destruction in the towns and worst-hit mountainous areas suggests that the influx of troops is likely to find many more bodies than survivors among the toppled buildings, which have become grim vigil sites for desperate families.
In Beichuan County, at least 1,000 students and teachers were buried under a seven-storey school building, and rows of apartment blocks in the town collapsed. Locals told Xinhua that up to 8,000 residents may have died.
"People escaped from the buildings but were only devoured by the landslides," one survivor, Lei Xiaoying, told Xinhua. "There was no way to escape."
That scene is repeated in many other places where troops are only now entering after battling rain and severed roads.
WIDESPREAD DEVASTATION
State media reported devastation in villages near the epicenter in Wenchuan, a remote county cut off by landslides about 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu.
About 60,000 people were unaccounted for across Wenchuan.
In Mianzhu, rescuers said the death toll had risen to 3,000. About 500 people were pulled out alive from crushed buildings. An earlier report said 10,000 people there had been buried under rubble.
A further 18,645 people were buried under debris in Mianyang, a city that also covers much farmland, Xinhua said.
The quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan tremor in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died.
Offers of aid have come from all over the world, three months before the Beijing Olympics. The disaster has for now sidelined upbeat propaganda about the games as well as international tensions over recent unrest in Tibet.
Overnight, Chinese President Hu Jintao spoke about the earthquake, as well as Tibet and other subjects, with U.S. President George W. Bush.
Hu told Bush that Chinese people "deeply grieved" the massive loss of life in the earthquake, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on its Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn).
Analysts said they did not expect serious economic effects from the disaster, but supply shortages could fuel inflation -- already at a near 12-year high.
(Writing by Chris Buckley; Editing by David Fox)
Breaking News Alert
from The New York Times, no less!
(Hmm... I'm not even a subscriber - how can that be?!? Never mind that now...)
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 -- 10:36 AM ET
-----
Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82
Robert Rauschenberg, the irrepressibly prolific American
artist who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century,
died Monday night.
Read More:
here
I wouldn't click on that link if I were you though.
Boycott *everything* from New York - I say!
R.I.P. Robert Rauschenberg
+++
Wrestling legend Penny Banner has died, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a mere few months after her husband.
More details here in an article by Greg Oliver, a friend of Mrs. Banner.
R.I.P. PENNY
+++
Another wrestling legend passing away on the same day as it was (Monday May 12th 2008) - Leo Garibaldi, dead at 78
"Booking skill exceeded his tremendous fame as a wrestler"
However, for my money, his renown is mainly due to the fact that, out of countless father-son tag teams over the eons, it was the team that he formed with his dad, Gino Garibaldi, thta was the very best of its kind.
More about his booking ability, life and accomplishments - here.
R.I.P. LEO GARIBALDI
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More deaths in the animal kingdom to lament, alas: after cormorants, elephants, ducks and seals... stingrays.
In a zoo.
If WE'RE not safe anywhere -
They're not safe anywhere either.
5 more stingrays die as Calgary Zoo asks police for help
Module body
Wed May 14, 7:47 PM
3
* What's this
CALGARY (CBC) - Five more stingrays have died, the Calgary Zoo announced Wednesday as it asked for police assistance with its investigation into the mysterious and sudden deaths of all but three of its rays.
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The zoo said the deaths were likely caused by a poison in the tank.
In a release, the zoo said it has contacted the Calgary Police Service for help "in moving forward with its efforts to determine the cause of the rays' death."
Calgary police Staff Sgt. Greg Johnson told CBC News on Wednesday that the police department is only responding to a request from the zoo, adding he has no evidence or suspicions that any criminal activity has taken place.
"These are amazing creatures and it's unfortunate that this incident occurred, so we give it whatever priority that we feel is necessary," Johnson said. "That's why we were called in today."
But he added that police action so far is limited to opening a file on the case and assigning it to an investigator.
Test results released Wednesday showed the water chemistry of the pool "was within acceptable ranges," the zoo said in a release.
The tests are not able to identify possible toxins in the water, and further tests are being conducted.
"The likelihood certainly is that something got into the water that was toxic to the fish - that's our most likely theory at the moment," Cathy Gaviller, the zoo's director of conservation, research and education, said before the latest results were released.
The exhibit opened in mid-February, after the rays were shipped in from Florida, and in April visitors were able to touch and feed the creatures.
On Sunday, after a public visit, the ray keeper noticed some of the cownose rays were swimming erratically and seemed distressed.
By Monday, 34 rays had died. Another one was announced dead on Tuesday, four more died overnight and one on Wednesday.
The remaining three rays were being held in an oxygenated tank under constant medical supervision.
Poisoning a possibility: professor
Galliver said a toxin added to the water would be able to trigger such sudden deaths.
"Rays are fish, and like any other fish, I mean, they're closely associated with their aquatic environment. I mean, much more so than we are with the air we breathe," she explained.
"So it takes a very, very small amount of many available things, you know, pesticides, herbicides, chemicals, household chemicals, any number of things could be quite toxic to the fish."
Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology in California, said rays are a hearty animal and the sudden deaths signal poisoning is a likely possibility.
"Because the animals all responded at about the same time, and showed similar symptoms, it suggests that it's probably some toxicant, potentially a poison or something like that, was introduced to the tank," he said.
The zoo said the exhibit will remain closed until further notice. The neighbouring elephant exhibit will also be closed.
R.I.P. STINGRAYS
In death, of course, you've gained freedom from that zoo...
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Demises that have blown by us all, here at the Lugubrious Blog - and out there, among all of you who are reading us now!
Nothing that a good web search at "Search In A Flash" cannot rectify...
Most reassuring though is that NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING, gets by GOD.
* 1.
One person dead in train and van crash
Barrie Examiner - May 14 12:19pm
One person is dead following a train/van crash in Ramara Township. The crash happened at marked crossing. Emergency crews are on the scene. Monck Road between Fairvalley Road and the 15th Sideroad is currently closed in both directions. Keep an eye on [...]
Save
* 2.
Man, 21, charged in Toronto six-car crash that killed two of his passengers
Barrie Examiner - May 14 02:19pm
TORONTO - A 21-year-old man is facing several charges in a chain-reaction crash in east-end Toronto that left two people dead. Police say the driver lost control of his car at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, entered oncoming traffic and hit another car. [...]
Save
* 3.
Motorcyclist killed in Wilmot crash
The Annapolis County Spectator - May 14 04:56am
The Annapolis Valley RCMP Traffic Services is investigating a collision between a motorcycle and a passenger van which happened on Highway 1 in Wilmot, Annapolis County at approximately 4:30 p.m...
Save
* 4.
53 ducks die at Saskatchewan oil company facility Open this result in new window
CBC Saskatchewan - May 14 07:24pm
More than 50 ducks are dead after coming into contact with oily water at an industrial site in west-central Saskatchewan, the province says.
Save
Waaaaaugh-at...
More ducks - dead?
The most defenseless fall by the wayside first, right?
Those without sin too...
* 5.
Police identify woman killed in Norfolk crash
The Brantford Expositor - May 12 02:10pm
From OPP in Norfolk: Ontario Provincial Police, Norfolk County detachment continue to investigate a fatal crash which involved two vehicles at the intersection of County Road #45 and County Road #23, Norfolk County. On Sunday May 11th, 2008 at approximately 7:30 pm a brown [...]
Save
* 6.
Senior killed in collision
The Tillsonburg News - May 14 10:24am
Ontario Provincial Police, Norfolk County detachment continue to investigate a fatal crash which involved two vehicles at the intersection of County Road #45 and County Road #23, Norfolk County.
Save
* 7.
Have a wonderful May 24 weekend: drive sober
Listowel Banner and Independent Plus - May 14 01:25pm
Somewhere in the province this long weekend, May 17-19, there will be a horrendous car crash, boating accident or accidental drowning. Somewhere in the province a family will get the terrible news a beloved child, parent, sister, brother or friend has been tragically killed.
Save
* 8.
Second body recovered from sunken plane
Canada.com - May 13 04:02pm
Quebec provincial police divers removed a second body from the wreckage of a 1957 plane crash at the bottom of a lake Tuesday.
Save
* 9.
Man, 19, facing charges after fatal collision
The Simcoe Reformer - May 13 09:29am
A 19-year-old Elgin County man has been charged with drinking and driving offences following a two-vehicle crash that killed a 79-year-old Walsingham woman Sunday night.
Save
News 95.7 - May 13 05:51am
A man has died after a collision between a motorcycle and a van in Annapolis County. The motorcycle burst into flames after impact and the motorcyclist was pronounced dead on scene. The van's occupant suffered non-life threatening injuries that required medical attention.
Save
R.I.P. EVERYBODY...
Nota Bene:
each news item came with a "save" as in "file" option - it is not "saving" as Christ Will, each and every single one of these people who died there...
+++
Man discovers dead baby near Stony Plain
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | 1:16 PM MT
CBC News
A man walking his dog west of Edmonton Wednesday morning discovered the body of a newborn.
Stony Plain RCMP said they were contacted after the man made the grisly discovery just before 7 a.m. on an undeveloped lot in the Silver Sands subdivision. The site is about five kilometres northwest of Stony Plain and about 40 kilometres west of Edmonton.
Investigators believe the newborn had recently been placed there, but say other details including the time frame, gender of the baby and whether it was alive or dead when it was left, will have to wait until an autopsy is performed later in the week.
The RCMP are asking anyone with any information about the crime to contact them.
R.I.P. BABY...
Your mother didn't want you, apparently - there have been quite a few mothers like this, throughout history and most recently...
Their losses, to all.
And Heaven's Cherub Choir's Gains!
+++
China Earthquake Death Toll Update:
It's officially past the 15,000 mark now...
China intensifies quake rescue but hopes dim
Wed May 14, 7:42 PM
By Emma Graham-Harrison
DUJIANGYAN, China (Reuters) - China ordered fresh waves of helicopters and aid into earthquake-devastated areas as severed roads, aftershocks and the sheer magnitude of 15,000 or more dead defied increasingly desperate rescue efforts.
The Communist Party leadership ordered officials to "ensure social stability" as Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake in southwest Sichuan province spawned rumors of chemical spills, fears of dam bursts and torrid scenes of collective grief.
Early on Thursday, the official estimated death toll from the Monday quake stood at nearly 14,463, unchanged from the previous day. In all, about 10 million people have been directly affected by the quake, according to the Xinhua news agency.
But as rescuers pick through towns turned to rubble in Wenchuan and other counties nearest the earthquake's epicenter, the toll of missing -- and probably dead -- is likely to balloon.
"In one minute the city we know flew away. I never dreamt it could happen," said He Lixia, a kindergarten teacher in Dujiangyan, where many residents slept outdoors, fearful of more quakes and building collapses.
"My father and mother are dead. My son was crushed under his school. My wife's office has collapsed and her phone is not working," said a man wandering outside one encampment there.
In Shifang, another small Sichuan city that also covers many villages, 30,000 of some 430,000 residents were missing or out of contact, local officials told Xinhua.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party's Standing Committee met late on Wednesday to assess the calamity that has thrown a dark shadow over preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August.
The meeting ordered fresh waves of soldiers and paratroopers to help, and the government announced 90 more helicopters -- in addition to 20 already deployed -- will try to reach areas where buckled roads have frustrated rescuers, state media reported.
"As long as there is a glimmer of hope, spare no efforts in rescuing," the Party leadership ordered, according to Xinhua. "Ensure social stability in the disaster zone."
But now, into the fourth day since the 7.9 magnitude quake, hopes of pulling many survivors from crumpled schools, homes and factories appear increasingly dim.
A paramilitary officer who arrived at Wenchuan, at the epicenter, told Sichuan TV that a third of houses there had been destroyed and more than 90 percent damaged.
Officials have also warned of dangers from increased strain on local dams as well as mudslides on brittle hillsides where rain has been forecast over the next few days.
Landslides had blocked the flow of two rivers in northern Qingchuan county, forming a huge lake in a region where 1,000 have already died and 700 are buried, Xinhua said.
"The rising water could cause the mountains to collapse. We desperately need geological experts to carry out tests and fix a rescue plan," Xinhua quoted Li Hao, the county's Communist Party chief, as saying.
Premier Wen Jiabao, a geologist himself, has criss-crossed the disaster zone and made emotional appeals to workers and comfort orphaned children.
"To be responsible to the people, be responsible to history, we must do rescue organization work at this crucial moment," he said late on Wednesday, according to Xinhua.
The quake was the worst to hit China since 1976 when up to 300,000 died. Leading disaster modeling firm AIR Worldwide said the cost of the quake was likely to exceed $20 billion.
(Writing by Chris Buckley; Editing by David Fox)
China quake death toll raised to 15,000
BEIJING, May 14 (UPI) --
Rescue workers pulled the bodies of 178 students from a collapsed school in the aftermath of China's deadly earthquake, local officials said Wednesday.
The 7.9-magnitude quake struck Monday in southwestern China, leaving upwards of 15,000 dead and tens of thousands more injured, buried or missing.
The students' bodies were pulled from the rubble of a three-story school in Qingchuan county in Sichuan province. Closer to the Wenchuan county epicenter -- about 960 miles from Beijing -- at least 500 were found dead.
Rescue efforts were hampered by heavy rain, collapsed bridges and damaged roads, CNN reported.
The official Xinhua news agency said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao toured some of the worst-hit areas, visiting a stadium in Mianyang where many of those left homeless were taken.
Xinhua reported 75 percent of the population of Yingxiu, some 7,700 people, died in the quake.
The government mobilized thousands of soldiers to aid in rescue and evacuation efforts, with 200 troops parachuting into one of the hardest hit areas. Hospitals were reported filled to overflowing and medical supplies were reported running low.
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© UPI
R.I.P. 15,000+
The earthquake has killed many already...
The aftermath continues to kill...
+++
I guess that, with Vienna Calling, May 14th, 2008 seemed like the ideal day to go in and confess to the most heinous crime...
Man admits killing family with ax
VIENNA, May 14 (UPI) --
An Austrian man walked into a Vienna police station early Wednesday and told officers "in my flat are my dead wife and child."
The 39-year-old man, who remained unidentified late Wednesday, eventually said he had also killed his parents and father-in-law during a rampage Tuesday, The Telegraph reported. All the victims were killed with an ax, which the man said he had bought for that purpose.
Investigators found the bodies of the man's wife and their 7-year-old daughter in their home in an expensive Viennese neighborhood. The father-in-law was killed at his home in Linz, a two-hour drive west of Vienna, and the parents in Ansfelden near Linz.
"We are dealing with a premeditated crime," said Alois Lissl, the Linz police chief. "The attacks were extremely brutal and he always aimed for the head as he struck his victims."
Police said the man told them he wanted to spare his family "the shame of bankruptcy" after he borrowed money from a relative and then lost it in an investment.
Print article · Return to Website · Email This Article
© UPI
R.I.P. Wife and child of yet another unworthy husband...
You sure know how to pick'em, ladies...
But that is another story...
R.I.P. father-in-law (he was right in disapproving...!)
R.I.P. parents of this senseless brute...
No sense for economics - leading to this senseless act of sheer savagery?
That is what he is: a senseless brute.
+++
Saturday night is *usually* all right for fighting...
In some places, though, every other night is more than all right - and it probably goes twice for Sunday...?
7 die in Sadr City fight
BAGHDAD, May 15 (UPI) --
Seven people were killed and 19 others wounded overnight Thursday in fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City district, Iraq government authorities said.
In other Iraqi violence, a roadside bomb struck the security detail of Baghdad's governor, killing one person and wounding six others, an Interior Ministry official told CNN.
Gov. Hussain Tahhan was not traveling with the convoy in central Baghdad when the bombing occurred.
Also, another bombing killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded four others when a roadside bomb struck an Army patrol in western Baghdad on Thursday.
In the Sadr City fighting, clashes between U.S.-supported government forces and Shiite militias raged in the sprawling Baghdad slum area through the early morning hours.
The new fighting came despite an agreement reached between the Iraqi government and cleric Moqtada Sadr to halt the fighting in Baghdad. A security official in charge of enforcing the peace agreement told CNN the plan to bring calm to Sadr City was still at "square one."
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© UPI
R.I.P. FIGHTING SEVEN
+++
Waiting in line - there's NOTHING worse than that, right?
Some people are lucky enough to cut ahead of the line, sometimes, and save some precious time getting where they want to be - or have to be, whether they want to or not.
The next story is all about that - and a little more...
One stabbed in Death Row duel
SOMERS, Conn., May 15 (UPI) --
The second convict assault in two days in Connecticut prisons prompted a state legislator to voice concern for prisoner safety.
In an attack involving two Death Row inmates, Daniel Webb was accused of stabbing Russell Peeler Jr., in the head with a pen at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers Wednesday. Peeler was expected to recover.
A day earlier, inmate Kevin Cales was allegedly stomped to death by fellow inmate Waldemar Rivera at McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, the Hartford Courant said.
"We need to make sure that our correctional facilities are secure and safe, and that means giving our prison officials the necessary tools and manpower to do their jobs," State Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, a member of the judiciary committee, said.
Print article · Return to Website · Email This Article
© UPI
And I thought HBO's "OZ" was brutal...
R.I.P. K.C.
Soon enough, your two "friends" - ah, no, make that "fellow inmates" - will be joining you there...
Maybe sooner than the state of Connecticut wants it!
+++
Another bad example of journalism - and maybe another miscarriage of justice underway as well with that?
Below, the article sampled FOR NO PROFIT AT ALL AND UNDER THE "FAIR USE" ACT HERE truly should begin this way:
"A Missouri woman was finally indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who was led to commit suicide."
For there is no doubt the hoax caused the suicide - only the degree of guilt is to be judged, henceforth.
And I'll bet a buck that the judge will manage to let the Missouri woman off the hook anyway - wanna bet?
Woman indicted in Missouri MySpace suicide case
By LINDA DEUTSCH,
AP Special Correspondent
1 minute ago
LOS ANGELES - A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.
Lori Drew, 49, of suburban St. Louis, who allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who didn't exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, was charged with conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer.
Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.
Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the case heart-rending.
"The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girl's weaknesses," Hernandez said. "Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she's responsible for her actions."
Drew was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.
Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.
Dean Steward, a lawyer representing Drew in the federal case, said a legal challenge to the charges was being planned. He characterized them as unusual and puzzling.
"We thought when prosecutors in St. Louis looked at the case and all the facts, it was clear no criminal acts occurred," Steward said.
A man who opened the door at the Drew family home in Dardenne Prairie, Mo., on Thursday said the family had no comment.
Megan's mother, Tina Meier, told The Associated Press she believed media reports and public outrage helped move the case forward for prosecution.
"I'm thrilled that this woman is going to face charges that she has needed to face since the day we found out what was going on, and since the day she decided to be a part of this entire ridiculous stunt," she said.
Megan's father, Ron Meier, 38, said he began to cry "tears of joy" when he heard of the indictment. The parents are now separated, which Tina Meier has said stemmed in part from the circumstances of their daughter's death.
Tina Meier has acknowledged Megan was too young to have a MySpace account under the Web site's guidelines, but she said she had been able to closely monitor the account. Meier's family has also acknowledged that Megan was also sending mean messages before her death.
Megan was being treated for attention deficit disorder and depression, her family has said. Meier has said Drew knew Megan was on medication.
MySpace issued a statement saying it "does not tolerate cyberbullying" and was cooperating fully with the U.S. attorney.
U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said this was the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It has been used in the past to address hacking.
"This was a tragedy that did not have to happen," O'Brien said at a Los Angeles press conference.
Both the girl and MySpace are named as victims in the case, he said.
Rebecca Lonergan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Southern California, said use of the federal cyber crime statute may be open to challenge.
Lonergan, who used the statute in the past to file charges in computer hacking and trademark theft cases, said the crimes covered by the law involve obtaining information from a computer, not sending messages out to harrass someone.
"Here it is the flow of information away from the computer," she said. "It's a very creative, aggressive use of the statute. But they may have a legally tough time meeting the elements."
She said, however, that because "a very bad harm was done," the courts may grant some latitude.
MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los Angeles County.
Due to juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney's office said, the indictment refers to the girl as M.T.M.
FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case, Hernandez said.
Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.
Federal officials said Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and moved to Los Angeles for trial. Her lawyer, however, said Drew did not have to surrender in Missouri but would be arraigned in early June in Los Angeles.
The indictment says MySpace members agree to abide by terms of service that include, among other things, not promoting information they know to be false or misleading; soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18 and not using information gathered from the Web site to "harass, abuse or harm other people."
Drew and others who were not named conspired to violate the service terms from about September 2006 to mid-October that year, according to the indictment. It alleges they registered as a MySpace member under a phony name and used the account to obtain information on the girl.
Drew and her coconspirators "used the information obtained over the MySpace computer system to torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass the juvenile MySpace member," the indictment charged.
The indictment contends they committed or aided in a dozen "overt acts" that were illegal, including using a photograph of a boy that was posted without his knowledge or permission.
They used "Josh" to flirt with Megan, telling her she was "sexi," the indictment charged.
Around Oct. 7, 2006, Megan was told "Josh" was moving away, prompting the girl to write: "aww sexi josh ur so sweet if u moved back u could see me up close and personal lol."
Several days later, "Josh" urged the girl to call and added: "i love you so much."
But on or about Oct. 16, "Josh" wrote to the girl and told her "in substance, that the world would be a better place without M.T.M. in it," according to the indictment.
The girl hanged herself the same day, and Drew and the others deleted the information in the account, the indictment said.
Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.
Grills said Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.
Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her. The message was supposed to end the online relationship with "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.
"I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show.
Megan's death was investigated by Missouri authorities, but no state charges were filed because no laws appeared to apply to the case.
___
Associated Press Writers Greg Risling in Los Angeles, Betsy Taylor in St. Louis and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
R.I.P. MEGAN MEIER
Don't look down and bother with this entire indictment stuff - none of it is True Justice anyway...
+++
NOW
It can be divulged...
Just as I predicted... feared...
50,000.
China: Quake death toll could reach 50,000
By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer
11 minutes ago
LUOSHUI TOWN, China - Troops dug burial pits in this quake-shattered town and black smoke poured from crematorium chimneys elsewhere in central China as priorities began shifting Thursday from the hunt for survivors to dealing with the dead. Officials said the final toll could more than double to 50,000.
As the massive military-led recovery operation inched farther into regions cut off by Monday's quake, the government sought to enlist the public's help with an appeal for everything from hammers to cranes and, in a turnabout, began accepting foreign aid missions, the first from regional rival Japan.
Millions of survivors left homeless or too terrified to go indoors faced their fourth night under tarpaulins, tents or nothing at all as workers patched roads and cleared debris to reach more outlying towns in the disaster zone.
On Friday, Chinese President Hu Jintao flew to Sichuan to support victims and express "appreciation to the public and cadres in the disaster zone," the Xinhua said.
State media said that rescuers had finally reached all 58 counties and townships severely damaged.
Health officials said there have been no outbreaks of disease so far, with workers rushing to inoculate survivors against disease, supply them with drinking water, and find ways to dispose of an overwhelming number of corpses.
"There are still bodies in the hills, and pits are being dug to bury them," said Zhao Xiaoli, a nurse in the ruined town of Hanwang. "There's no way to bring them down. It's too dangerous."
But the ministry said on its Web site that to prevent disease, bodies should be cleaned on the spot and buried as soon as possible.
Troops in the town of Luoshui in a quake-ravaged area used a mechanical shovel to dig a pit on a hilltop. Two bodies wrapped in white sheets lay beside it. Down the hill sat four mounds of lime.
In a sign of nervousness, 50 troops lined the road outside Luoshui. Five farmers watched them dig the burial pit, after performing brief funerary rites. Local police detained an Associated Press reporter and photographer who took photos of the scene, holding them in a government compound for 3 1/2 hours before releasing them without explanation.
Across the quake zone in Dujiangyan, troops in face masks collected corpses and loaded them onto a flatbed truck. Thick black smoke streamed from the twin chimneys of the town's crematorium.
Fears about damage to a major dam in the quake zone appeared to ease. The Zipingpu dam had reportedly suffered cracks from the disaster, but there was no repair work or extra security at the dam when it was reached Thursday by an AP photographer, indicating the threat to the structure had likely passed.
People trying to hike into Wenchuan walked on top of the dam as water spilled from an outlet, lowering levels in the reservoir and alleviating pressure on the dam.
Just behind the dam, soldiers set up a staging area preparing speed boats to lower into the reservoir and ferry soldiers in lifejackets, engineers and medical staff up river to Yingxiu, a town flattened by the quake.
The government says "the dam will hold, but then the longer-term question is what to do with it — to keep it or dismantle it," said Andrew Mertha of Washington University in St. Louis, author of a book on Chinese dams, "China's Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change,"
The emergency headquarters of the State Council, China's Cabinet, said the confirmed death toll had reached 19,509 — up more than 4,500 from the day before. The council said deaths could rise to 50,000, state media reported.
The provincial government said more than 12,300 remained buried and another 102,100 were injured in Sichuan, where the quake was centered.
Experts said hope was quickly fading for anyone still caught in the wreckage of homes, schools, offices and factories that collapsed in the magnitude-7.9 quake, the most powerful in three decades in quake-prone China.
"Generally speaking, anyone buried in an earthquake can survive without water and food for three days," said Gu Linsheng, a researcher with Tsinghua University's Emergency Management Research Center. "After that, it's usually a miracle for anyone to survive."
Amazing survival stories did emerge, and were seized on by Chinese media whose blanket coverage has been dominated by images of carnage.
In Dujiangyan, a 22-year-old woman was pulled to safety after more than three days trapped under debris. Covered in dust and peering out through a small opening, she waved and was interviewed by state television as hard-hatted rescuers worked to free her.
"I was confident that you were coming to rescue me. I'm alive. I'm so happy," the unnamed woman said on CCTV.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who has been in the quake zone since Monday, urged those helping the injured to keep up their efforts. Repeating a phrase that has become a government mantra this week, Vice Health Minister Gao Qiang said every effort would be made to find survivors.
"We will never give up hope," Gao told reporters in Beijing. "For every thread of hope, our efforts will increase a hundredfold. We will never give up."
With more than 130,000 soldiers and police mobilized in the relief effort, roads were cleared Thursday to two key areas that took the brunt of the quake, with workers making it to Wenchuan at the epicenter and also through to Beichuan county, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Communication cables were also reconnected to Wenchuan.
Power was restored to most of Sichuan for the first time since the quake, although Beichuan county remained without electricity, Xinhua said.
Much of the official publicity dwelled on efforts to reach the trapped but actual ground operations focused on delivering food and medical aid to survivors and disposing of the dead.
In Dujiangyan, on the road between the provincial capital of Chengdu and the epicenter, a dozen bodies lay on a sidewalk as police and militia pulverized rubble with cranes and back hoes. The bodies were later lifted onto a flatbed truck, joining some half-dozen corpses.
The government said it had allocated $772 million for earthquake relief, according to the central bank's Web site. That is up sharply from the figure of $159 million two days ago.
At the crematorium, some grieving relatives were rushed through funeral rites by harried workers. Scores of bodies lay on concrete in a waiting area — outnumbering the handful of chapels usually used in funerals.
Thick black smoke streamed from the crematorium's pair of chimneys as families cleaned and dressed the dead in funeral clothes, including fresh socks and sneakers for children.
Fireworks were set off every few minutes and families burned incense, candles and spirit money. Such traditions meant to send the dead peacefully into the afterlife were once banned by the communist authorities but have revived in recent years with free-market reforms and rising prosperity. Burial, which likewise the government once tried to stamp out, has become common in the countryside, although still difficult for people in crowded cities.
In an appeal posted on its Web site, the Ministry of Information Industry called on the Chinese to donate rescue equipment including hammers, shovels, demolition tools and rubber boats — 100 cranes were also needed, it said.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has also issued an emergency appeal for medical help, food, water and tents.
After initially refusing offers of foreign aid workers, China welcomed a Japanese rescue team. Made up of firefighters, police, coast guard and aid officials, the first half of the team arrived in Beijing on Thursday and would head to the disaster area Friday, Xinhua said.
Japan and China have been at odds for years over disputed borders, Japan's treatment of its wartime invasion of China, anti-Japanese protests in China, and general Japanese unease over Beijing's rapidly growing diplomatic, military and economic power. Leaders of the two countries met in Tokyo earlier this month to try to resolve their differences.
The Foreign Ministry said Russian, South Korean and Singaporean teams would join soon.
China had so far received international aid worth more than $100 million and materials worth more than $10 million, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a briefing. But it still needed supplies of tents, clothes, communication equipment, machines for disaster relief, and medicines, he said.
"The Chinese authorities have done a fantastic job mobilizing troops, but troops are not everything. You need specialist teams with equipment otherwise you're not going to find them," said John Holland, operations director of Rapid UK, a search and rescue charity with two decades of experience handling international disasters.
___
Associated Press writers Audra Ang in Mianyang, Christopher Bodeen in Dujiangyan, and Cara Anna and Anita Chang in Beijing contributed to this report.
R.I.P. 50,000+
+++
From either the Cold Case Files, Colder Than Cold Cases Archives *or* quite simply the "better late than never" slush pile...
Second body recovered from sunken plane
Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 13 2008
GATINEAU, Que. - Quebec provincial police divers removed a second body from the wreckage of a 1957 plane crash at the bottom of a lake Tuesday.
Four passengers died in the accident shortly after the seaplane disappeared from radar screens on Nov. 21, 1957 after returning from a hunting expedition. The discovery of the pilot's dead dog on the shores of Lac Simon, some 75 kilometres northeast of Ottawa, led investigators to the area shortly after the crash, but neither the wreckage nor the four passengers were found until last Oct. 4 by a diving enthusiast.
(...)
© 2005 - 2008 Canwest Digital Media, a division of Canwest Publishing Inc.. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited.
Sheesh.
For the rest of the article, go dive or fish for it - here.
If it is still there, that is... On "canada.com: where perspectives connect" - ha! And clash! And crash!
But I digress...
Well, I am sure the four of them -and the dog- didn't wait 50 years in order to R.I.P.
They didn't wait for Quebec diving to evolve into a capable, useful tool to be used in forensics...
Still, I heard on the TELECAST of these news (or a similar report on the same story - from a competitor to CanWest) that divers involved in this tardy retrieval were risking their lives still...
To retrieve remains that have been dead fifty years...
As they say over there; "faut l'faire"...
À Bon Entendeur, Salut!
+++
Within 24 hours, the vanishing morphed into a murder mystery - one that is mysterious only in the actual chronology of events, perhaps in the actual true motive and perhaps, also, in the question whether there is involvement or non-involvement of those we could simply call "the usual suspects"...
Within 24 hours, all hope was lost too.
Within 24 hours, a vital young woman was no more among us - cowardly assassinated by some inane individual who is either the most incompetent criminal there is or very pathetic planner...
Aide to Quebec minister kidnapped
RIVIERE OUELLE, Quebec, May 17 (UPI) --
An aide to a provincial minister in Quebec has been kidnapped from her home, police said Saturday.
Nancy Michaud's husband found her missing when he returned home from work at about 2:30 a.m. Friday, the Montreal Gazette reported. Constable Claude Ross of the Surete du Quebec said investigators found evidence that a man broke into the house in Riviere Ouelle and dragged Michaud to his car.
Michaud, a mother of two, is an assistant to Claude Bechard, the minister of natural resources.
Money was withdrawn from accounts belonging to Michaud and her husband at a nearby ATM machine.
Police released a photograph Saturday of a man believed to be the kidnapper. His face is not visible, but police said he was about 5 feet 6 inches tall with a slim build.
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© UPI
Small Que. town reels as man held in slaying of prominent political aide
1 hour, 36 minutes ago
By Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press
MONTREAL - A small Quebec town is attempting to come to grips with the murder of a well-liked and prominent resident, kidnapped from her home in a brazen home invasion three days ago while her young children slept.
Quebec provincial police said Sunday they have arrested a man in connection with the murder of Nancy Michaud, a political aide to a prominent provincial cabinet minister.
And while residents of Riviere-Ouelle, a small town about 140 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, may rest easier knowing a suspect is in custody, their thoughts still drift towards trying to answer the question: Why?
Acting on a tip, police found Michaud's body Sunday afternoon in the basement of an abandoned home just a few kilometres from her own residence in Riviere-Ouelle.
Police spokesman Claude Ross says a man in his 30s, who is from the same town, is being interrogated by investigators and may eventually be facing a murder charge, adding police believe there is only one suspect.
Michaud, 37, had been missing since early Friday morning when police believe she was violently abducted from her home in the town of 1,200.
Ross said two teenagers led police to the abandoned home after finding suspicious activity nearby and when detectives went inside, they made the grisly discovery. Police don't believe anyone has lived in the house in almost 20 years.
Ross says an autopsy is scheduled to be performed on the body in the coming days.
Police believe the person under arrest is the same masked individual caught on camera withdrawing money from two bank accounts belonging to Michaud and her husband at a nearby automated teller early Friday.
The visuals were released to the public on Saturday and played a major role in identifying the suspect, who was initially deemed a person of interest, Ross said.
Michaud, an aide to Natural Resources Minister Claude Bechard, was a mother of two boys, aged six and 18 months.
There were signs of violence at her home and police suspect she was dragged out of the quaint two-storey home and placed in a "small" car.
Her husband returned home about 2:30 a.m. to find the couple's young children fast asleep, but his wife gone.
The ATM surveillance video showed a slim man, about five-foot-five, wearing a ski mask, black gloves and dark clothing making the withdrawls.
Police have said they have no evidence Michaud's disappearance was linked to her job in politics.
Shocked residents gathered near the abandoned home Sunday afternoon, attempting to come to terms with Michaud's death.
Riviere-Ouelle Mayor Roger Richard said Michaud grew up in the tight-knit community and is a longtime volunteer whose murder will leave a large hole.
"She was extremely well liked and gave a lot of her time as a volunteer," Richard said."She had no enemies."
Counselling will be offered to the residents as moving on won't come easily, Richard predicted.
Even at a well-attended community event on Sunday night, a barbecue supper put on by the fire department, it was the murder that was on everyone's mind.
"It will take some time because the population is still in shock," Richard said in a telephone interview. "It was a death for a handful of dollars and we just don't understand it.
"We're still asking the questions about why this happened."
Among those that will need help are the local firefighters, Richard said. Daniel Casgrain, Michaud's husband, is a volunteer with the firefighters, who are taking their colleague's loss particularly hard.
Premier Jean Charest released a statement late Sunday, calling the death inexplicable and offering his condolences to the small Quebec town.
Bechard, a high-profile minister who represents the region in Quebec's legislature, said his thoughts go out to Michaud's family, friends and relatives.
Bechard, who had earlier visited with the family, described Michaud as "a mother, a friend and an extremely devoted employee."
Rev. Hubert Levesque told those at Notre-Dame-de-Liesse Church in Riviere-Ouelle that at times like this, people should turn to prayer.
"We can only support the family," Levesque said in a telephone interview. "There isn't much more we can do."
Levesque said he knew Michaud well, thanks to her heavy involvement in community life. He described her as likable and committed.
Levesque said her impact on the community was noticeable. He said there were between 30 and 40 fewer parishioners in the pews Sunday because they spent the morning searching for Michaud.
"The kidnapping has been all people have been talking about for the last few days and they just don't understand it," Levesque said.
R.I.P. NANCY MICHAUD
+++
I think it's time to get Little Steven to gather up old E Street Band pals and associated musicians to whip up a brand new BOYCOTT SONG FOR SOUTH AFRICA... hmm?
They seem to have forgotten the message sent some years back to neighbouring Sun City, already...
12 die in South Africa anti-foreigner violence
By CELEAN JACOBSON, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 18, 3:16 PM ET
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Emmerson Ziso fled hunger and repression in neighboring Zimbabwe, but now he wants to go back. Even his violent, chaotic homeland seems a haven compared to Johannesburg, where weekend attacks on foreigners left at least 12 dead.
"Most of the Zimbabweans want to leave. It is better at home than here," said the former teacher who was chased out of his home by a mob early Sunday.
"It's spreading like wildfire and the police and the army can't control it," Ziso said, as he tried to help register about 500 people who sought refuge at the police station in Johannesburg's Cleveland area.
It was a scene repeated in other poor suburbs around the city. Angry residents accused foreigners of taking scarce jobs and housing, many of them Zimbabweans who had fled their own country's economic collapse.
President Thabo Mbeki said Sunday that he would set up a panel of experts to investigate. African National Congress President Jacob Zuma, who is likely to succeed Mbeki next year, condemned the attacks.
"We cannot allow South Africa to be famous for xenophobia," Zuma told a conference in Pretoria.
The weekend attacks come as the government tries to change South Africa's violent image ahead of the 2010 World Cup. South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, recording an average of 50 murders each day.
Many in the ANC government took refuge in neighboring countries during apartheid and are deeply embarrassed by the current violence, which has targeted immigrants who came to South Africa from other nations in the region.
Police spokesman Govindsamy Mariemuthoo said 12 people were killed. He said 200 people had been arrested on charges ranging from rape to robbery and public violence.
The Red Cross said at least 3,000 people were left destitute.
Police said the worst violence erupted after midnight Saturday in Cleveland and other rundown inner city areas that are home to many immigrants. Two of the victims were burned and three others beaten to death. More than 50 were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.
The situation remained tense along the main street through Cleveland and police had to use tear gas to disperse stick-wielding crowds trying to loot shops.
Photographs supplied by local newspapers captured horrific images of a man who was set on fire after a tire soaked in gasoline was put around his neck. There was no immediate word on his condition.
One of the demonstrators in Cleveland, Michael Khondwane, said foreigners were to blame for South Africa's drug and crime scourge. He said the violence would send them "the message that they must go."
Johannesburg is South Africa's economic hub and home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Many of them are illegal, but many have also been here for more than a decade and possess South African identity documents.
There has been sporadic anti-foreigner violence for months, mainly aimed at stores run by Somalis accused of undercutting local storeowners, but nothing that compares to the violence over the weekend.
Eric Goemaere, the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres in South Africa, said his staff was helping to treat people with bullet wounds and back injuries from being thrown out of windows.
He called on the South Africa government to declare Zimbabweans as refugees and give them proper protection. "It's a crisis," he said.
There are believed to be up to 3 million Zimbabweans living in neighboring South Africa who have fled the economic and political turmoil in their homeland.
Massive inflation, food and fuel shortages have sent increasing numbers of Zimbabweans to South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia in search of business and basic commodities — or whole new lives.
Zimbabwe's opposition also has cited mounting violence and intimidation targeting its supporters since the country's disputed March 29 presidential election. A runoff between longtime ruler Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is set for June 27.
At the downtown Jeppe police station, large tents and water tanks were being offloaded to help another group of 500 people who sought shelter. Dazed-looking women sat huddled close to piles of blankets and clothes while men kept watch over fridges, bicycles, TVs and other belongings.
Mozambican Bevinda Komati's family including her 11-year-old niece and a 1-month-old baby had to be rescued by police when a mob attacked her brother's small store in downtown Johannesburg.
"We had to hide in the back. They were breaking windows and throwing stones. We didn't know what to do. Luckily, the police came and saved us."
The 26-year-old has been living in South Africa since 1988. Her niece was born here.
"We have lived with these people everyday. I don't know why they are doing this," she said.
R.I.P. 12 ZIMBABWEANS
+++
My condolences to all the bereaved above - and concerning the next story too, below; the six direct descendants as well as anyone else distressed by the departure of their illustrious Adelaide.
I know that a certain clan *should* feel likewise once they lose their *illustre inconnue* whose name stems from the same root - Adelina. But the latter's relatives are not as illuminated as the former's are - not for the most part anyhow. But that is another story... for another eulogy.
China explorer Young dead at 96
HERCULES, Calif., May 18 (UPI) --
Adelaide "Su-Lin" Young, who gained fame for exploring China during the 1930s, has died of natural causes in Hercules, Calif. She was 96.
Young died April 17 of natural causes, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.
The daughter of a New York nightclub owner, Young married world explorer Jack Young in 1933 and the couple explored China in search of specimens for the Museum of Natural History, newspaper said.
One of Young's surviving daughters, Jolly King, said her mother's participation in the nine-month expedition was unusual for women at the time.
"As the sole woman in the company of men, she was an oddity if not scandalous," King said. "It was not accepted at that time."
Young's exploits gained the attention of fellow female explorer Ruth Harkness, who later named the first giant Chinese panda to visit the United States "Su-Lin" after Young. A second Chinese panda brought to the states was also named after Young.
In addition to King, Young is survived by two other daughters, Wan and Jocelyn Fenton; two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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© UPI
R.I.P. ADELAIDE YOUNG
I feel like listening to "Forever Young" (either Alphaville's or Stewart's) in your honor - now.
+++
Poisoning - it does start with a "P" - as in Pestilence, Plague, Pestiferous...
Thus, the following tragedy reported by the UPI, affiliated to my own network via Bravenet *and* Blogger, can be viewed as yet another "apocalyptic" one...
There have been at the very least *two* of those on this month - Mary's Month - and *my* month too...
Scores die from alcohol poisoning in India
BANGALORE, India, May 21 (UPI) --
Health officials in India Wednesday said scores of people died from ingesting illegal alcohol, despite warnings about the substance known locally as "hooch."
Hospitals throughout the country reported at least 45 deaths since Tuesday. Several of those affected were laborers who died following a spat of hooch-related illnesses during the weekend, The Times of India said.
"All those who have died are laborers and we found that they are continuing to drink even after Sunday night's tragedy. Those who died on Tuesday include the ones who had consumed hooch on Sunday and also those who consumed it on Monday," local officials said.
Some of the hooch in India boasts a near 100 percent alcohol content from fermenting sugar cane pulp.
Authorities are searching for a man described in the Times as an "unauthorized illicit liquor vendor."
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© UPI, Headline News
Powered by Bravenet.com
No telling, even in the Good Book, whether some harbingers or "accompanying evils" of actual apocalyptic calamities and strife are not to be, indeed, man-made...
Isn't it always man-made, one way or another, even when it winds up making Mother Nature mad and seeming to be "unleashed"...?
R.I.P. 45+ ill-advised alcoholics of fortune...
+++
As America prepares to elect a veteran, veterans across the nation prepare...
for the ultimate trip.
No White House tour is planned for this one.
A Whiter House, maybe - if their record is not too tainted...!
As reported on CNN, a great number of funerals are expected in the next few months...
Cemeteries see record for veteran burials
Story Highlights
National cemeteries across the country average about 100 burials a day
107,000 burials are expected this year
Planners are building six cemeteries in an effort to keep pace
(...)
An average of 1,800 veterans die each day, and 10 percent of them are buried in the country's 125 national cemeteries, which are expected to set a record with 107,000 interments, including dependents, this year. And more national cemeteries are being built.
(...)
The peak year for veterans' deaths will be 2007 or 2008, Tuerk said. An estimated 686,000 veterans died in 2007. Although many World War II veterans are dying, so are an increased number of Korean War and Vietnam veterans.
==================
Burial numbers
6: Number of new national cemeteries under construction.
7 1/2: Average burials per day at Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery.
30: Average burials per day at California's Riverside National Cemetery, the busiest national cemetery.
60: Median age of Vietnam War veterans and all veterans in 2007.
76: Median age of Korean War veterans in 2007.
84: Median age of World War II veterans in 2007.
125: Number of national cemeteries.
1,800: Average number of veterans who die each day.
101,200: Number of interments in national cemeteries in 2007.
686,000: Estimated number of veteran deaths in 2007.
7.9 million: Number of living Vietnam-era veterans.
23.8 million: Estimated number of living veterans. Ohio Western Reserve, a 273-acre expanse south of Cleveland, opened in 2000 and has about 11,000 veterans and dependents buried there. It has enough land to stay open 92 more years and accommodate 106,000 burials.
=============================
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(...)
R.I.P. VETERANS
+++
Let's pause and hold a minute of silence now for a trio of unnaned deceased ones - who have just crossed over, hours ago...
In L.A.
Where fame is fleeting - they live fast and burn out faster.
KTLA.com will forget about these three casualties of frivolity -perhaps- in no time at all; so allow me to preserve for posterity the deadly details of the totally avoidable accident and tragedy...
I guess that, this time out, I will listen to Wang Chung's "To Live And Die In L.A." in honor of the demises...
3 Die, 3 Hurt In Catalina Helicopter Crash
May 24, 2008, 2:34 PM PDT
CATALINA ISLAND -- A chartered helicopter crashed on the west end of Catalina Island, killing three people and critically three others today, authorities said.
The Eurocopter AS 350 operated by Island Express took off from Long Beach and went down amid drizzly weather about 9:20 a.m. crash near the Banning House lodge at Two Harbors, which is on the opposite end of the island from Avalon, Steve Whitmore of the sheriff's department said.
A woman at the lodge said the engine apparently quit over Isthmus Cove, which caters to boaters, and the chopper went down about 200 or 300 yards inland in some grass.
Another witness said that he heard a pop and saw smoke coming from the exhaust as the helicopter went down.
Helicopters airlifted three injured to mainland hospitals. Flores said their condition at time of transport was critical, and they would require treatment for broken bones among other injuries.
The crash caused a grass fire, which was put out quickly before spreading. It was overcast and drizzling at the time of the crash.
Federal Aviation Administration records show the helicopter departed from Long Beach and was scheduled to return to that city. The crash occurred less than an hour after the helicopter picked up passengers on the island.
The names of those killed were unavailable.
It was unclear if the pilot was among the dead. No one with Island Express was available for comment, but the owner was said to be at the scene.
The Eurocopter AS-350 is a single-engine helicopter that seats six or seven, according to the maker's Web page.
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3 Die in Helicopter Crash, 3 Others Injured
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R.I.P. - THE THREE OF YOU
+++
Back to CNN now -
for memorial type of news.
CNN recommended it to me; I recommend it to you!
I am a sucker for any kind of memorial news, admittedly - being a historian at heart and by training and a nostalgic true and true...!
This one has to do with 9/11, to boot - so I know I am not the only one with an interest here...
Nearly complete Pentagon memorial tells story of 9/11
Story Highlights
Pentagon memorial slated for dedication on seventh anniversary of attack
Memorial features benches engraved with names of victims over pool of lighted water
Relative says memorial helps her to heal
From Larry Shaughnessy
CNN Pentagon Producer
ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- As president of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, Jim Laychak has been involved in nearly aspect of the project's planning.
Stainless steel benches are oriented according to whether the victim was on the plane or in the Pentagon.
The only thing he has not done is visit the bench dedicated to his brother, Dave Laychak, who died on September 11, 2001, when a passenger airplane hit the Pentagon.
"I want to hold off and go and see his bench and touch his bench that day," said Laychak. "I wanted to save something special for me personally on September 11 when we dedicate the memorial, so I can spend some time with it then."
Laychak is one of many looking forward to the dedication of the memorial, which is being built to honor the 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
"This is hallowed ground for a lot of the family members, and the essence of this place will be about them, those that we lost," Laychak said. Watch how visitors react to the memorial »
After more than five years of fundraising, the organizers are about $13 million short of their goal. They plan to have the memorial finished and dedicated on the seventh anniversary of the attacks.
The park, which cost $22 million to build, needs another $10 million in endowment funds to make sure it's always properly maintained. So far, the Pentagon Memorial Fund has raised $19 million from sources as diverse as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, NBA star [and Navy veteran] David Robinson and the government of Taiwan.
=========================
Don't Miss
Portraits of fallen comfort broken hears
Charges against alleged plotter approved
=========================
The focus of the memorial is 184 cantilevered benches built over a pool of lighted water. Each bench is engraved on the end with the name of one of the 184 people who died on board Flight 77 or in the Pentagon that day.
The benches are arranged by age, with the bench of the youngest victim, 3-year-old Dana Falkenberg, in the far southeast corner and the bench honoring 71-year-old John Yamnicky in the northwest corner.
(...)
Read the full article here.
R.I.P. Pentagon Victims, seven years ago, almost...
+++
Seven Years Ago...
And, To Them,
Seven Seconds - Verily!
I would be remiss if I didn't add that!
Now, one of them "public bad guys" (because most of them are bad in private, heck in utter secrecy - didn't you know that?) is reputedly pushing daisies by the root, as they say...
FARC leader is dead, Colombia says
Story Highlights
Colombian official says source confirms that Manuel Marulanda Vilez is dead
Marulanda, believed to be in his 70s, led the leftist rebel group for decades
U.S. State Department says Marulanda expanded FARC's drug-trafficking efforts
(CNN) -- The leader of Colombia's largest leftist rebel group is dead, a spokesman for the nation's defense ministry said Saturday.
Manuel Marulanda Velez, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in 2000.
Pedro Antonio Marin, known as Manuel Marulanda Vilez and nicknamed Tirofijo, is believed to have died of a heart attack, ministry spokesman Juan Manuel Santos said.
"He must be in hell," Santos told a reporter from Semana magazine.
Marulanda, who was believed to be in his late 70s, has led the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for decades.
"The information that we have is that he has gone already," he added. Asked whether he was saying that Marulanda had died, Santos said, "That's what a source who has never failed us tells us."
Speaking later, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe stopped short of saying Marulanda is dead, but he also said that the news comes from a reliable source.
===========================
Don't Miss
Colombian official urges inquiry based on laptop info
FARC commander gives up, calls for dialogue
===========================
"I hope so," he said of Marulanda's reported death.
(...)
On those rather unequivocal words, we'll cut this short as well... hmm?
FARC is 100% supportive of the kidnappings of many (such as the angelic Ingrid Betancourt) and most definitely not just another rebel group...
"...Established as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party in 1964, FARC is Colombia's oldest, largest and best-equipped Marxist rebel group, according to the U.S. Department of State. Several nations, including the United States, classify it as a terrorist group. FARC has been embroiled in a complex guerilla conflict with the Colombian government and right-wing paramilitary groups working in tandem with the government.
The group has defended the taking of hostages, including ailing former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, as a legitimate technique in the conflict, although nations including the United States consider it a terrorist organization.
As the group's leader, Marulanda was the ultimate decision maker who decided to approve the FARC's expanded efforts into cocaine trafficking, according to the U.S. State Department."
Manuel here will NOT be missed!
He was not worthy of bearing that first name!
Vilez was/is definitely a villain - hence, good riddance with him and all of his ilk!
+++
Alas, in Colombia, bad guys don't seem to want to die alone...
Somehow, even when the end comes so swiftly and abruptly that they have no time to do anything at all, something always happen down there that reaps innocent lives as well...
Look at CNN's top news at this hour...
Top News
Twisters tear through Kansas, Oklahoma
Earthquake kills six in Colombia
R.I.P. - COLOMBIAN SIX
+++
The next story will be dubbed as either one or the other:
"The Curse of Harry Potter begins"
Or "more of London's Plague..."
The latter going with this latest spate of teenage killings that has left Londoners somewhat disturbed... to say the least.
Harry Potter actor knifed to death in London brawl
Sat May 24, 7:04 PM
LONDON (AFP) - An 18-year-old actor in the forthcoming Harry Potter film was stabbed to death during a fight outside a London bar on Saturday.
Rob Knox, who plays student Marcus Belby in "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince", due out in November, was killed in a scuffle in the south-eastern suburb of Sidcup.
Police said a 21-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
The fatal stabbing takes to 14 the number of teenagers violently killed in the British capital this year.
Campaigners and politicians are worried about the spate of teenage killings.
In a statement, Knox's parents Colin and Sally said: "Rob was kind and thoughtful and would always help out others.
"The life and soul of the party, he was very outgoing, loved sports, and would always strike up a conversation with people.
"He was respectful to others and adored by all his family and friends."
Film producers Warner Bros said: "We are all shocked and saddened by this news and at this time our sympathies are with his family."
A man came to the bar in Sidcup armed with two knives and was seen waving one of them around through the window.
A scuffle broke out and Knox and his brother Jamie were reportedly trying to protect each other.
Several others sustained knife wounds.
The brothers' friends Tom Hopkins, 18, and Tarik Ozress, 17, managed to pin the armed man down, wrestling with him for several minutes before police arrived.
Hopkins, who was stabbed in the head, said: "Rob was just trying to help out. He was like that. I grabbed the knife, I didn't know at the time that he had another knife. It was just chaos."
Knox was taken to hospital and pronounced dead.
Friends said there had been a row over a phone last week and believe it could have been a revenge attack.
R.I.P. ROB KNOX
+++
Senseless demises are never easy to explain.
In fact, they are IMPOSSIBLE to explain.
All we can say, for sure, is that "it was their time to go" - "their number was up" - or "God Took them before they made any (more) mistakes..."
That's the ticket.
A ticket to Paradise!
Listen to the Eddie Money song then ("Two Tickets To Paradise") then - I sure will!
And rejoice, instead of sombering into sadness and despair - because DEATH is NOT the end!
Rob Knox knows that without a shadow of a doubt, now.
As (it appears to be now) over 80,000 Chinese have known since those huge tremors hit...
As rescue continues, China says earthquake death toll could exceed 80,000
Sat May 24, 2:46 PM
By Tini Tran, The Associated Press
YINGXIU, China - China warned Saturday that the death toll from a massive earthquake two weeks ago could take a major leap and pass 80,000, suggesting the government may be giving up hope of finding more survivors.
But rescuers rushed anyway to reach 24 coal miners who officials said were trapped in three mines by the disaster, though it was not known if the miners were alive.
"We have had the miracle in the past that a miner was found alive after being trapped underground for 21 days," Wang Dexue, the deputy chief of the government's work safety department, told a news conference in Beijing. "We are carrying out rescue work on the assumption that they are still alive. We absolutely will not give up."
Wang gave no further details of the trapped miners. China's mines are the world's deadliest, with explosions, cave-ins and floods killing nearly 3,800 people last year.
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a brief visit Saturday to one of the hardest-hit towns, Yingxiu - a helicopter ride that offered a rare bird's-eye views of the destruction wrought by the 7.9-magnitude quake of May 12.
The mountains in central Sichuan province showed huge tracks of naked earth from landslides. Layers of mud covered fields. Rivers churned brown. Yingxiu itself was largely piles of rubble, and the buildings left standing had caved in, giving the surreal impression that they had melted.
The State Council, China's cabinet, said Saturday the latest confirmed death toll for the quake - China's biggest disaster in three decades - was 60,560, with 26,221 people still missing.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, on a return visit to the quake zone to accompany Ban, warned the toll could go much higher.
"It may further climb to a level of 70,000, 80,000 or more," Wen said, standing amid the rubble in Yingxiu. The jump could occur as the number of missing are added to the number of dead.
About 15 minutes before Wen started talking, yet another minor aftershock rumbled.
Ban, who came to China directly from cyclone-stricken Myanmar, promised the UN would help with reconstruction and that it was waiting for China's assessment of what was needed.
"If we work hard, we can overcome this," Ban said, with Wen standing at his side. "The whole world stands behind you and supports you."
The secretary general left China later Saturday and was to attend an aid donors conference in Myanmar for cyclone victims Sunday.
About 4,800 of Yingxiu's 18,000 people were killed in the quake, a military officer told Ban during a tour. Reporters could see government workers in hooded white protective suits spraying disinfectant on the rubble.
Underscoring doubts that more survivors would be found, Wen said the government's focus had shifted from rescue to rebuilding.
"Previously our main priority was the search and rescue of affected people," Wen said. "Our priority now is to resettle the affected people and to make plans for post-quake reconstruction."
It won't be easy. The quake destroyed more than 15 million homes, Wen said. He said the government needed 900,000 tents and urged Chinese manufacturers to make 30,000 a day.
As the government grappled with the task of rebuilding - a process Sichuan Deputy Gov. Li Chengyun has said could take three years - it also watched for a variety of secondary disasters.
Experts searched for 15 radiation sources buried in the rubble, although they said there were no leaks or public health risk. And survivors left flood-risk areas downstream from rivers that had been dammed by landslides.
With their water pooling and the rainy season coming, the "quake lakes" could breach the earthen barriers and sweep down already fragile valleys.
Meanwhile, some 10,000 medical workers have been dispatched to prevent disease outbreaks.
"The second major challenge facing us is epidemic prevention and control," Wen said, adding that no outbreaks had been reported so far.
He also promised that China would continue its openness about the quake, in which the government has accepted foreign relief teams and allowed Chinese media to report in relative depth on the disaster.
Also Saturday, eight pandas reached Beijing safely after a long journey from their damaged reserve near the quake's epicentre. The pandas will spend the next six months at the Beijing Zoo on a special Olympics visit that was planned long before the quake.
The pandas' home at the world-famous Wolong reserve was badly damaged by the quake and five staff members were killed.
The pandas have been closely watched because they seemed nervous after the earthquake, sometimes eating and sleeping less. But the pandas appeared lively after they were moved into their exhibit space at the Beijing Zoo on Saturday evening, even putting their paws on the glass separating them from the media and the public.
Good to see them talk about the pandas too, in all this - finally.
R.I.P. - 80,000+
And any panda who might have perished too...
+++
From early demises to haunted dwellings - there is but an easy step to make, verily...
Angela Doland wrote a nice article on the subject; inspired as she must have been by the documentary film made by Abel Ferrara about just one such "nexus" where the souls of many a troubled one seem to be converging to - or remaining stuck at, as the case may be...
A fine article, short and concise, that is once again, as all the others, shared here in the spirit of 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for the purposes of criticism, comment, witticisms, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and/or strictly for rants, ramblings and other "rrrrrr-words"...
(I.O.W. - Free Speech!)
Ghosts haunt Chelsea Hotel documentary at Cannes Film Festival
By Angela Doland, The Associated Press
CANNES, France - Most documentaries stick with interviews of living people. But since this one's about New York's Chelsea Hotel and its rock 'n' roll aura, it seems natural that the ghosts of Janis Joplin and Sid Vicious turn up.
For "Chelsea on the Rocks," which premiered Friday at the Cannes Film Festival, director Abel Ferrara ("Bad Lieutenant") strung together archival footage and interviews of the artists, writers and actors who have lived there, in typical documentary fashion. He also hired actors to play Joplin and Vicious for trippy flashbacks.
Both rockers battled drugs and demons during their stays there. Leonard Cohen wrote a song about a sexual encounter with Joplin on an unmade bed there. And the Chelsea is where Vicious' girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, died of a stab wound.
The Chelsea has been a mecca for bohemia for decades, attracting brilliant - and often desperate and doomed - artists. Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller and Arthur C. Clarke are just a few of the greats who spent time there.
Actor Dennis Hopper, who stayed there early in his career, told reporters, "We were all living on the edge, the edge of what, I'm not sure, but we were living on the edge of it.
"A number of us fell in the hole, and some of us stood on the rim, and some of us got out of there," he said. "But it was a really special, exciting time, and I'll always cherish it."
Jamie Burke, who plays Vicious in the movie, calls the hotel "a vortex."
"You get this crazy ... artistic tornado of death and destruction and love and broken dreams," he said.
Vicious was charged with second-degree murder in Spungen's death, but died of a heroin overdose in 1979 at age 21 before standing trial. In Ferrara's on-screen vision, the Sex Pistols bassist was not responsible for her death.
Ferrara, who moved into the hotel to make the movie, said he wasn't sure why he used actors to re-imagine the past - he speculated it might be "a crutch," or his background as a director of fictional tales.
"It's basically (that) my training of approaching how to really get to the heart of something is with writing scenes and actors playing them," he said.
Ferrara's film includes interviews with actor Ethan Hawke, who sings a song he wrote during a stay at the hotel, Hopper, director Milos Forman and cartoonist R. Crumb.
Another important figure is Stanley Bard, who ran the hotel for nearly five decades, helping many artists along the way. Bard was pushed aside last year in a management change that has left residents worried that the Chelsea will become a standard boutique hotel.
Bard's departure, and fears for the hotel's soul, are the backdrop for the documentary. Strangely, though, the film never fully explores exactly how the hotel has changed, which left some Cannes critics confused. Part of the problem may be that the Chelsea's future is still unclear.
"The hotel the way it's been run has ended," said producer Jen Gatien. "And its fate has yet to be determined."
To those who don't believe, the Chelsea Hotel will not be considered as "evidence" - probably ever.
To others, though, it makes no doubt at all...
+++
Thy pussies shall be avenged...
Thy puppies too...
And kitties, and doggies, and every litter affected too...
Canadian firm to settle US claims over deadly pet food
Module body
Sat May 24, 2:14 PM
0
What's this
WASHINGTON, (AFP) - Canadian pet food manufacturer Menu Foods, blamed for the deaths of dozens of cats and dogs in North America, has set up a 24-million-dollar settlement fund to deal with a slew of US legal suits.
ADVERTISEMENT
In March 2007, the company recalled 60 million cans and pouches of food made in the United States and sold under 95 different brand names after reports that house pets were falling sick and dying after eating their products.
The recall cost Menu Foods between 30 and 40 million dollars, and was prompted by the deaths of five company pets and nine laboratory cats of renal failure. Veterinarians in Canada and the United State subsequently reported similar cases.
An investigation by the Food and Drug Administration found the chemical melamine, also used in the manufacture of plastics and pesticides, in wheat gluten imported from China and used in the Menu Foods products.
Hundreds of people have filed for compensation from Menu Foods, and the company announced Friday that it was setting up a fund to meet the claims.
The fund would "allow a potential recovery of up to 100 percent of all economic damages related to the pet food recall that were incurred by pet owners and persons who purchased recalled pet food in the United States and in Canada."
A hearing will be held in a New Jersey federal court next Friday to validate the agreement, while negotiations are underway for a similar deal in Canada, the company said.
R.I.P. PETS...
The big mean petfood company, which is indeed CANADIAN, will pay for this...
(South Park's Parker & Stone were right: BLAME CANADA! Hey - you cannot be wrong all the time, right?)
No amount of money will ever make up for the loss of a beloved pet though - of course.
When the medical establishment is baffled, the rest of us marvel...!
I do it with added gusto, I must add...!
Doctors declare her dead, turn off life support. A few moments later, she wakes up.
» A miracle?
This news item appears all over the web, and it isn't long at all...
Near-death experiences come back as a hot topic of discussion immediately after this...!
This 59 year-old lady, Velma Thomas, stayed "dead" for more than 17 hours... No pulse and no brain activity.
Her having signed on to be an organ donor, Mrs. Thomas was not immediately taken off the ventilator. But when she was, there was still no pulse, but she moved her arm. Then her eyelids. And then she spoke!
She was miraculously alive again - when she had been dead fr quite a while!
God sent her back - her work down here was not done yet!
ABC News, Good Morning America and Yahoo bring this story to the web - try and catch the video here.
If you can - it'll be a miracle too.
But a minor one, this time.
+++
She was miraculously alive again - when she had been dead for quite a while!
Typo - corrected!
Velma Thomas' next-of-kin testify (as does the medical staff, "unable to explain it" as the doc admits - otherwise, the story wouldn't have come out at all!) but, me, I give more importance to the family: one said that they prayed and looked to the sky and asked "for something" - and they sure did obtain it.
A miracle.
May all our prayers get such answers!
Of course, the skeptics will dismiss this anyway - and the most negative of them will add that it is a mere delay of the inevitable...
To those I will say this:
death is not the end - remember?
;)
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For more information, once more, go here
God Bless!
+++
Went too fast there, with my "final commentary with disclaimer" bit there - because the Grim Reaper wasn't done reaping this month!
I was also, admittedly, enthused by the fact that iit was (the preceding "comment" of sorts, that is) the 50th of the month...!
But there are more deaths to lament - more people to mourn...
Comic Dick Martin, star of "Laugh-In," dies at 86
Sun May 25, 8:32 PM
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comic Dick Martin, who starred with Dan Rowan in the hit 1960s television variety show "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In," helping to launch the Hollywood careers of stars such as Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin, has died. He was 86.
Martin, who became a top television director after he and Rowan parted amicably in the 1970s, died of respiratory complications on Saturday at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, near his home, spokesman Barry Greenberg said.
Greenberg said Martin, who had suffered respiratory problems for years, died at around 6 p.m. local time while surrounded by members of his family.
Rowan and Martin became a comedy team in 1952 and spent the next decade working the nightclub circuit, both in the United States and overseas and making occasional guest appearances on television, before getting their own show.
"Laugh-In" debuted on NBC in 1968 as a mid-season offering and became an instant sensation, quickly becoming one of television's top-rated shows and staying popular until it went off the air five years later.
Hawn first gained fame as a regular member of the show and went on to become an Oscar-winning Hollywood actress.
Tomlin joined the cast in 1969 and it was there that she first introduced some of her best-known characters, including the wise-cracking telephone operator Ernestine and 5-year-old Edith Ann.
After Rowan retired for health reasons in the mid-1970s, Martin turned his talents to directing on such shows as "The Bob Newhart Show," "Family Ties" and "In the Heat of the Night."
Rowan died in 1987 of lymphatic cancer.
Greenberg said Martin, who was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, on January 30, 1922, had requested that no funeral be held.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
R.I.P. DICK MARTIN
Make them laugh - in Heaven now!
China got a massive quake.
Colombia got a smaller one.
Chomedey will have a little, itty bitty tiny one next...
Isn't it always like this?
Yet, that third "spot" I enter here is not any better than the other two - it has it coming too, maybe even moreso than the previous two that were devastated. (And be thankful if you have no clue where Chomedey is! They pollute the planet too, in Chomedey! They sin, they lie, they do it all, in Chomedey! No difference - at all. If an earthquake is punishment for sins, then the quakes could just as easily have begun IN CHOMEDEY INSTEAD OF CHINA, I tell you...!)
Colombia quake victims huddle in shelters, 11 dead
Sun May 25, 5:49 PM
By Carlos Duran
QUETAME, Colombia (Reuters) -
Hundreds of Colombians huddled in makeshift shelters on Sunday afraid to go home a day after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake damaged scores of homes and triggered landslides killing at least 11 people.
In the rural town of Quetame, the most seriously hit, families spent the night sheltered on the town's football field or in a public building after the quake knocked out water supplies and damaged or collapsed houses and its church.
"People are still really terrified about a second or third one coming," Benedicto Enciso said as he sheltered with his companion and two children after their home was damaged. "We're trying to put up a tent for 20 people."
Colombia's Red Cross said at least 11 people died and 54 were injured, with about 5,000 affected by damaged houses and buildings,
President Alvaro Uribe visited the affected area, where landslides blocked a major highway from Bogota to Villavicencio near the epicenter, which was 33 miles southeast of the capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Colombia's disaster-prevention office said on Sunday in Quetame alone around 3,300 people were affected and either moved to safer housing or shelters while authorities checked homes for damage. Other towns suffered less damage.
Panicked residents in Bogota fled into the streets when the quake rattled buildings, and one Bogota government office was evacuated after a shower of bricks tumbled off one wall.
Colombia's coffee-growing region was hit in 1999 by a 6.2-magnitude quake that killed at least 1,230 people and left more than 250,000 homeless in the country's worst natural disaster in the last decade.
(Reporting by Carlos Duran in Quetame, writing by Patrick Markey in Bogota, editing by Philip Barbara)
R.I.P. 11+ COLOMBIANS...
+++
A great comedian dies in Dick Martin.
A great musician dies - in John Rutsey.
One who chose to remain obscure - but his legacy is evident nonetheless...
Original Rush Drummer Dies
Wednesday May 14, 2008
The current members of Rush (Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart, Geddy Lee) have been together for so long it's easy to forget that it is not the original lineup.
In the beginning (1968) John Rutsey was Rush's drummer, appearing on the band's first single and album. He left the band shortly after the debut album was released in 1974, because he was diabetic and was concerned about the affect of long tours on his health. In fact, when he left Rush, he left the music business altogether.
Rutsey died in his sleep on Sunday (May 11) apparently of a heart attack that was the result of his diabetes. He was 55.
Comments
May 14, 2008 at 7:04 am
(1) Alun says:
Very sad, after all, without his involvement we’d not have had any Rush! The very original line up only included Alex Lifeson of today’s band.
Apparently he quit the band due to some health issues (Diabetes) & amid the usual reference to “creative differences.”
Whatever was the case, he was there from the start for 6 years …. More than many new bands of today that breakthrough tend to last.
RIP John, you more than played your part Sir!
Alun
May 18, 2008 at 7:57 pm
(2) William says:
R.I.P. John.
May 18, 2008 at 9:44 pm
(3) mark1 says:
to an excellent drummer who paved the way for greater things… You will be
missed John!!!
R.I.P. JOHN RUTSEY
Another unsung good guy named just like my father - it is becoming tradition now.
+++
A cornucopia of demises suddenly avalanched upon us here, at the lugubrious blog, and here are the highlights...
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Monday, May 26, 2008 -- 8:43 PM ET
-----
Sydney Pollack, Film Director, Is Dead at 73
Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer
and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like "The Way We
Were," "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa" were among the most
successful of the 1970s and '80s, died on Monday evening at
his home in Los Angeles. He was 73.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na
R.I.P. SYDNEY POLLACK
To hear of your demise so soon after I saw you acting as I watched (again only in part) EYES WIDE SHUT has to be considered stranger than said film is...
My condolences to the Pollacks.
+++
Lightning kills ex-Major League Baseball player
Mon May 26, 3:15 PM
CARACAS (Reuters) - Former Major League Baseball player Geremi Gonzalez was struck by lightning and killed over the weekend at a lake in his native Venezuela, authorities said on Monday.
Gonzalez, 33, a pitcher who was signed to Japan's Yomiuri Giants in 2007, had previously played for the Chicago Cubs, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Mets and the Milwaukee Brewers.
There were conflicting versions of what Gonzalez was doing at the time of his death on Sunday, but local emergency services told Reuters he was playing with a motorized water-bike when the lightning struck at Lake Maracaibo in his home state of Zulia in western Venezuela.
(Reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel; Editing by Eric Beech)
R.I.P. GEREMI GONZALEZ
If a G-Jeremy had to go - why couldn't it have been Giambi?
But I am digressing...
Geremi must have been twice or thrice cursed already - having played with the Cubs, Red Sox (before they reversed the curse!) and then going to New York...
It would have been worse, of course, had he worn pinstripes...
My condolences to the Gonzalez family.
+++
Folk singer Utah Phillips dies at 73; supported peace groups, labour unions
2 hours, 40 minutes ago
By Jordan Robertson, The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - Folk singer Bruce (U. Utah) Phillips, a freewheeling storyteller and Grammy-nominated musician known for his extensive touring over nearly 40 years and strong support of peace groups and labour unions in his works, has died. He was 73.
Phillips died of congestive heart failure on May 23 at his home in Nevada City, Calif., a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains located about 100 kilometres north of Sacramento, family spokesman Jordan Fisher Smith told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Phillips leaves behind his wife, Joanna Robinson, and three children of his own and two stepsons.
Phillips had been suffering from chronic heart disease since 2004, Smith said. His health problems cut short the touring that had characterized much of Phillips's career, though he kept in touch with fans over the last few years of his life through a series of podcasts and blog postings written by one of his sons, Duncan.
Phillips, the son of labour organizers, once ran for a seat on the U.S. Senate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket and was known as a champion for the rights of working people and a comedian on stage.
One of Phillips's best-known songs in folk circles is "Moose Turd Pie," a single from his first album that recounts Phillips's tale of serving moose excrement to fellow labourers as a cook in a railway track gang to dare them to complain about the food. Smith said strong radio support for the tune in the early 1970s helped Phillips book steady shows in other cities and launch his career on the road.
That career spanned nearly four decades, and Phillips's collaboration with Ani DiFranco on the labour-themed 1999 album "Fellow Workers" earned them a Grammy award nomination in 2000 for best contemporary folk album.
As Phillips's health problems worsened in recent years, he stepped away from the touring life and focused on his health along with starting a folk music radio show and helping establish a homeless shelter.
A funeral date hasn't been set yet, Smith said.
"He was a man who was amazingly funny," Smith said. "And what I saw in the last two years of his life was a human being even more beautiful than he was in performance."
By the same token, if a Phillips had to pass on, why couldn't it have been Michelle? Not that I dislike her so much (as I do Giambi) but it will accelerate proceedings for a Mamas & Papas reunion... That's all...
Yeah, I know - enough digressions!
R.I.P. BRUCE U. UTAH PHILLIPS
My condolences to your Joanna and five children.
+++
Train kills drugged U.S. tourist in Rome
Mon May 26, 1:35 PM
ROME (Reuters) - An American tourist was killed by a train in a Rome station as he walked on the tracks in a state of confusion after being robbed by a man who offered him a cappuccino laced with drugs, Italian police said on Monday.
Police had initially thought that Frank Phel, a Hungarian-born U.S. citizen, committed suicide by throwing himself under an incoming train at the Tiburtina station on Friday morning.
But security cameras and testimony from Phel's wife, who was with him at the station, revealed that an Italian they had been chatting with bought them cappuccinos, added in a mix of sleeping pills and robbed them.
The next morning Phel, still under the influence of the drugged cappuccino, stumbled near the tracks by accident and was hit by the train.
The Italian man has been arrested and accused of murder and robbery.
(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)
R.I.P. FRANK PHEL.
I will NOT make a distasteful play on words with his last name.
+++
Mexico Navy hunts for sharks after attacks
1 hour, 35 minutes ago
By Noel Randewich
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican Navy searched for sharks in the ocean near Pacific surfing beaches on Monday, after two bathers were killed and another maimed in a rare spate of shark attacks.
Three boats and a helicopter patrolled the sea while Navy and rescue officials scanned the horizon with binoculars from popular beaches around the southwestern Mexican resort of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo. They warned surfers not to go far out.
"We've been monitoring the beaches; we've done reconnaissance flights," Rear Adm. Arturo Bernal said, adding that no big shark had been detected yet in the area.
Surfer Bruce Grimes from Texas was bitten on the arm on Saturday off nearby Playa Linda beach, making him the third target of a shark attack in the area in a month.
Two attacks in April and May killed a Mexican and an American -- the first shark deaths off Mexico's Pacific coast in 30 years, according to official records.
Grimes, 49, said he paddled madly toward shore on his board after feeling the unmistakable sandy skin of a shark glide across the bottom of his feet as he straddled his surfboard.
"Then it bumped me really hard. I thought, 'That's definitely a big shark.' I took about three more strokes and he grabbed my arm," said Grimes, who pulled himself free and made it to the beach. He managed to drive himself to a hospital, where he received 100 stitches.
On Friday, Mexican surfer Osvaldo Mata, 21, died after a 6-foot-long (2-m-long) shark seized him, bit off one of his hands and chomped on his thigh. That followed the death in late April of a 24-year-old American who was mauled while surfing nearby.
The Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo government is consulting with experts to determine what could be causing the attacks.
(Editing by Catherine Bremer and Cynthia Osterman)
R.I.P. OSVALDO MATA
Again, as with Mr. Phel, I will refrain from making puns at the expense of Mr. Mata (his last name means... something deadly, in Portuguese.)
R.I.P. - other two shark victims
And may the spirit of Roy Scheider guide these Mexicans who will be staging their very own "Jaws" movie - in real life.
I could say "R.I.P. SHARK" in anticipation too...
+++
With the great director, a great musician too...
One from the same field too, from the movie industry and television business, just like the famed director. One who, unlike Rush's first drummer, stuck around his chosen field for many years and didn't have to turn his back to his true passion due to health concerns.
Yet,
in the end, all three passed on in the same month, precautionary measures or not, passion indulged or not...
There is a lesson to learn in all this, I think...
Earle Hagen, 'Andy Griffith' composer, dies at 88
By Robert Jablon, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Earle H. Hagen, who co-wrote the jazz classic "Harlem Nocturne" and composed memorable themes for "The Andy Griffith Show," "I Spy," "The Mod Squad" and other TV shows, has died. He was 88.
Hagen, who is heard whistling the folksy tune for "The Andy Griffith Show," died Monday night at his home in Rancho Mirage, his wife, Laura, said Tuesday. He had been in ill health for several months.
During his long musical career, Hagen performed with the top bands of the swing era, composed for movies and television and wrote one of the first textbooks on movie composing.
He and Lionel Newman were nominated for an Academy Award for best music scoring for the 1960 Marilyn Monroe movie "Let's Make Love."
For television, he composed original music for more than 3,000 episodes, pilots and TV movies, including theme songs for "That Girl," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."
"He loved it," his wife said. "The music just flowed from him, and he would take off one hat and put on another and go on to the next show."
Hagen enjoyed the immediacy of the small screen, he told the American Society of Music Arrangers & Composers in 2000.
"It was hard work, with long hours and endless deadlines, but being able to write something one day and hear it a few days later appealed to me," he said. "Besides, I was addicted to the ultimate narcosis in music, which is the rush you get when you give a downbeat and wonderful players breathe life into the notes you have put on paper."
Born July 9, 1919, in Chicago, Hagen moved to Los Angeles as a youngster. He began playing the trombone while in junior high school.
"The school actually furnished him with a tuba and his mother made him take it back," his wife said.
He became so proficient that he graduated early from Hollywood High School and at 16 was touring with big bands. He played trombone with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and arranged for and played with Ray Noble's orchestra.
He and Dick Rogers wrote "Harlem Nocturne" for Noble in 1939. It has been covered many times since and served as the theme music for "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" television series in 1984.
In 1941, Hagen became a staff musician for CBS but the next year he enlisted in the military.
After the war, he worked as a composer and orchestrator for 20th Century-Fox studios on dozens of movies, including another Monroe classic, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
In the 1950s, he and Herbert Spencer formed an orchestra partnership that also wrote music for television, including scoring the Danny Thomas hit "Make Room for Daddy."
Later, he worked as musical director for producer Sheldon Leonard, sometimes working on as many of five shows a week.
One of his more notable TV scoring efforts was for the 1960s adventure series "I Spy," starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.
Because the show used exotic locations worldwide, Hagen often included ethnic touches in the incidental music, among them hiring Greek musicians to play for some episodes that took place in Greece. On other locations, he collected ethnic music to mix with Western music back in Hollywood.
After retiring from TV work in 1986, Hagen taught a workshop in film and television scoring.
He also wrote three books on scoring, including 1971's "Scoring for Films," one of the earliest textbooks on the subject. His 2002 autobiography was titled "Memoirs of a Famous Composer - Nobody Ever Heard Of."
Sydney Pollack, director known for 'Tootsie,' 'Out of Africa,' dies at 73
Tue May 27, 7:31 PM
By Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
Sydney Pollack found mainstream success with smart films for grown-ups - a rarity today.
In thrillers, romances and comedies, his movies were intelligent and often dealt with social issues. They call such movies "independent" nowadays; Pollack could craft them into hits.
"The middle ground is now gone," he told New Perspectives Quarterly in 1998. "It is not impossible to make mainstream films which are really good. Costa-Gavras once said that accidents can happen."
Movies today tend to come as either blockbusters aimed at the younger demographics or smaller, stylized art-house works which typically fail to make money. Pollack did neither.
Pollack, diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago, died Monday afternoon, surrounded by family, at his home in Los Angeles, said publicist Leslee Dart. He was 73.
In a tireless career spanning nearly five decades, Pollack distinguished himself as a true professional: a director, a producer and an actor. His greatest successes as a director - 1982's "Tootsie" and 1985's "Out of Africa" - came years ago, but he showed no signs of slowing down.
He was executive producer of the new HBO film "Recount" about the 2000 presidential election, and he produced two high-profile films not yet in theaters: Kenneth Lonergan's "Margaret" and Stephen Daldry's "The Reader."
On Tuesday, Hollywood mourned the loss of the well-liked, prolific filmmaker. He had worked with seemingly every A-list star in the business, from Robert Mitchum to Al Pacino. But Pollack collaborated with Robert Redford more than any other, directing him in seven films, including "Out of Africa," 1973's "The Way We Were," 1975's "Three Days of the Condor" and 1979's "The Electric Horseman."
"Sydney's and my relationship both professionally and personally covers 40 years," Redford said. "It's too personal to express in a sound bite."
Barbra Streisand, who starred alongside Redford in "The Way We Were," said: "He knew how to tell a love story. He was a great actor's director because he was a great actor."
Tom Cruise, whom Pollack directed in 1993's "The Firm" and with whom Pollack memorably acted in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999), said: "Throughout the years, unpretentious and never condescending, he shared with me what he loved about family, storytelling, food, flying and a great bottle of vino. He was a Renaissance man and a great friend."
"They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" - the 1969 film about Depression-era marathon dancers - received nine Oscar nominations, including one for Pollack's direction. He was nominated again for best director for 1982's "Tootsie," starring Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor and Pollack as the exasperated agent who tells him: "I begged you to get some therapy."
As director and producer, he won Academy Awards for the romantic epic "Out of Africa," which captured seven Oscars in all.
Last fall, Pollack played law firm boss Marty Bach opposite George Clooney in "Michael Clayton," which he also co-produced. It received seven Oscar nominations.
"Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better," Clooney said. "He'll be missed terribly."
Clooney's admiration for Pollack is evident in the similar way he has traded on star power to make compelling, complex, realistic dramas with a political sensibility. But unlike, say, Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck," Pollack's films did big business, no doubt largely aided by their considerable star wattage.
"Tootsie" made $177 million. "Absence of Malice," a 1981 film that today would be relegated to a studio's specialty division, more than tripled its $12 million budget. The film, starring Paul Newman and Sally Field, remains a remarkably relevant movie about the press 27 years after its release.
"Sydney was a very special person, but the thing that impressed me was that he was special enough so that he didn't have to think that he was," Newman said Tuesday.
Pollack moved gracefully between in front of the camera and behind it. He became an elite producer, helping bring to theatres well-crafted (but not snooty) films, among them 1995's "Sense and Sensibility," 2002's "The Quiet American" and 2005's "The Interpreter," which he also directed.
He teamed with the late Anthony Minghella on the production company Mirage Enterprises, and produced most of Minghella's films, including "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain." The company also released Pollack's last film, the 2006 documentary "Sketches of Frank Gehry."
"He was elegant, a gentleman, smart and generous, a wonderful actor, a great cook - a true connoisseur of life," said Nicole Kidman, who starred in "The Interpreter. "He guided me artistically and personally, not just as a director or producer but as a mentor and friend."
The film was the first shot at UN headquarters. By then, Pollack was an unofficial ambassador of movies. He often appeared in documentaries about filmmakers; he participated in American Film Institute television specials; and he spoke artfully about classic cinema while hosting series such as Turner Classic Movies' "The Essentials."
Sidney Irwin Pollack was born in Lafayette, Ind., to first-generation Russian-Americans. In high school in South Bend, he fell in love with theatre, a passion that prompted him to forgo college, move to New York and enrol in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater.
Studying under Sanford Meisner, Pollack spent several years cutting his teeth in various areas of theatre, eventually becoming Meisner's assistant.
"We started together in New York and he always excelled at everything he set out to do, his friendships and his humanity as much as his talents," said Martin Landau, a longtime close friend and associate in the Actors Studio.
Though Pollack would make his name as a director and producer, his first love was acting. It wasn't until later in his career that the parts came easily: a notable role in "The Sopranos," a role in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives," appearances on TV shows "Will & Grace," "Frasier" and "Entourage."
His last screen appearance was in "Made of Honor," a romantic comedy still in theatres, where he played the oft-married father of star Patrick Dempsey's character.
"Since I don't pursue an acting career, I (now) have the luxury of getting more offers than when I was pursuing an acting career," Pollack told The Associated Press last year, laughing. "It's the irony of life. When I was a young kid and wanted to be an actor, I couldn't get arrested."
After appearing in a handful of Broadway productions in the 1950s, Burt Lancaster urged Pollack to try directing and introduced him to MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman. His first full-length feature was 1965's "The Slender Thread," about a suicide help line.
The film was scored by Quincy Jones. "Sydney Pollack's immense talents as a director were only surpassed by the compassion that he carried in his soul for his fellow man," Jones said Monday.
Pollack first met Redford when they acted in 1962's low-budget "War Hunt," and would go on to play a major role in making Redford a star. "It's easy working with Bob; I don't have to be diplomatic with him," Pollack once told the AP. "I know what he can and cannot do; I know all the colours he has. I've always felt he was a character actor in the body of a leading man."
Pollack said in 2005 that for "Tootsie," Hoffman pushed him into playing the agent role, repeatedly sending him roses with a note reading, "Please be my agent. Love, Dorothy." At that point, Pollack hadn't acted in a movie in 20 years, since "The War Hunt" with Redford.
The love soon frayed as Pollack and Hoffman differed over whether the film should lean toward comedy or drama, and the tension spilled out publicly. But the result was a hit at the box office and received 10 Oscar nominations, with Jessica Lange winning for best supporting actress.
"Stars are like thoroughbreds," Pollack once told The New York Times. "Yes, it's a little more dangerous with them. They are more temperamental. You have to be careful because you can be thrown. But when they do what they do best - whatever it is that's made them a star - it's really exciting."
He added: "If you have a career like mine, which is so identified with Hollywood, with big studios and stars, you wonder if maybe you shouldn't go off and do what the world thinks of as more personal films with lesser-known people. But I think I've fooled everybody. I've made personal films all along. I just made them in another form."
Pollack is survived by his wife, Claire; two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; his brother Bernie; and six grandchildren. Pollack's son, Steven, died in a plane crash in 1993.
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On the Net:
A YouTube collection of interviews with Pollack: http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2008/05/sydney-pollack-1.ht ml
-
Associated Press writers Raquel Maria Dillon in Los Angeles and Marcus Franklin in New York contributed to this report.
First Recommended By
SilenceisLoud 10 hours ago
ASSORTED
Comments
maggiecat.rm
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 11:15 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
It's too bad that an artist renowned for his graciousness should be commemorated with such a snide and artless obituary. Gossiping about his relationship with Hoffman, mocking Clooney, and scrabbling to inject "NOT SNOOTY" every couple of paragraphs? You deserved better, Mr. Pollack.
Muldfeld
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 05:51 PM -0400 1 0 Report Abuse
This is very sad. I loved "Out of Africa" and he seemed so vibrant and interesting.
DaddyG
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 04:37 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
This is really too bad. Mr. PolIack even looked like he would be a kind and generous man Though I must admit esp. loved his work in Husbands and Wives. My condolences to the Pollack Family and those who were close to him.
icdicanada
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 04:20 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
A Great loss! But a great example of what a person can be.
Bartholemew ...
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 04:18 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
Tootsie- [Dorothy Michaels' screen test] Rita: I'd like to make her look a little more attractive, how far can you pull back? Cameraman: How do you feel about Cleveland? Genius RIP
SilenceisLoud
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 03:53 PM -0400 1 0 Report Abuse
It's good when Yahoo news shares something like this, rather than the tripe anyone can read in the Enquirer.
sean99
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 12:53 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
One of the best director’s and a good actor, will be missed. Sadness goes out to his family and friends.
Pooh Bear
POSTED TUE, MAY 27, 2008 12:40 AM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
He is one of the best. He will truly be missed by many. Congratulations on a life well lived and may there be something wonderful after...
Connie E
POSTED MON, MAY 26, 2008 11:32 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
RIP Mr. Pollack.
The Rat
POSTED MON, MAY 26, 2008 11:08 PM -0400 0 0 Report Abuse
A true artist of film making.
I had no idea that Mr. Pollack had suffered the loss of his only son, 15 years ago. Now father and son are reunited. I regret having disappointed my father in any way That I might have had, but at least I did not disappoint him by going first. Of course, sometimes, most times, we have no say in the matter at all - and that is how we should all go too, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION; without prior notice, by surprise, prefereably in our sleep - and certainly not by our own doing.
But I most probably am digressing once more.
My condolences to the Hagen and Pollack families.
R.I.P. Earle Hagen
and again
R.I.P. Sydney Pollack
+++
Earle Hagen was, by his own admission, virtually unknown - despite having been around practically forever.
John Rutsey was unknown to most by his own choice.
Dick Martin went from in front of the camera to behind it, becoming a forgotten one, only remembered by some indeed...
Sydney Pollack kept going back and forth, from behind the camera to the front of it, at ease in both roles...
And all four, very different in their choices and paths, even if involved in the same *under the spotlight* business generally called entertainment, ALL FOUR get summoned *up there* AT THE SAME TIME...
Aye...
There is MOST DEFINITELY something to be learned from this month's series of demises...
+++
Ahh, Luminous Luciano is not the only one pondering things this way either - Sharon Stone, too, does it!
Talk about strange bedfellows...
*lol*
Sharon Stone wonders if China quake 'bad karma?'
By The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Sharon Stone's "karma" is having an instant effect on her movie-star status in China.
The 50-year-old actress suggested last week that the devastating May 12 earthquake in China could have been the result of bad karma over the government's treatment of Tibet. That prompted the founder of one of China's biggest cinema chains to say his company would not show her films in his theatres, according to a story in The Hollywood Reporter.
"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone said Thursday during a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, isn't that karma? When you're not nice, that bad things happen to you?"
Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," adding that actors should not bring personal politics to comments about a natural disaster that has left five million Chinese homeless, according to the Reporter.
UME has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, China's biggest urban movie markets.
During the brief interview, which has also surfaced on YouTube, Stone also said she cried when she recieved a letter from the Tibetan Foundation asking her to help the quake victims.
"They wanted to go and be helpful, and that made me cry," she said. "It was a big lesson to me that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you."
Stone's words created a swell of anger on the Internet, including at least one Chinese website devoted solely to disparaging her comments.
An after-hours phone call and email to a representative for Stone were not immediately returned Tuesday night.
"To Sharon Stone's comment, it's unlikely that we will respond," said a woman who answered the phone at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. She refused to give her name or position.
According to the web-based database imdb.com, Stone has at least four movies coming up between now and 2010, including "Streets of Blood," "Five Dollars a Day" and "The Year of Getting to Know Us."
As usual, when one tells the truth, it is not well received...
It happens to me all the time - it had to happen to Sharon as well!
R.I.P. - Sharon Stone's Career In China!
Her films are always appreciated in Canada though - oh, and in France, where they shot that horrid Basic sequel there...!
+++
Love Springs Eternal...
Into Eternity, Yes.
What to do when your paramour leaves this world way before you do...
Such grief can make many of us totally crazed, distruaght beyond belief - and desiring death more than anything else now. Such is the case of the next man...
Heartbroken man climbs into morgue freezer
Tue May 27, 11:08 AM
TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwan man grieving over the death of his girlfriend climbed inside a morgue freezer to be with her and was only pulled out alive half an hour later, media and an official said on Tuesday.
The 41-year-old man was discovered on Monday when workers detected an unusually high temperature in the freezer and realized the hatch was not securely fastened.
"A morgue manager opened the hatch, saw two people lying inside, felt scared enough to yell out and then even cried," the Liberty Times reported. "She didn't stabilize for a long time."
The man took a drug before entering the freezer to speed what appeared to be suicide attempt, local papers said. They said his girlfriend died on Friday from an overdose of sleeping pills.
The morgue would step up security to ensure that family and others who come by to identify bodies do not stay too long, morgue administrator Chang Lung-ching said.
(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS NEWS STORY
heartbreak makes us crazy,
POSTED BY: anoteoftruth on WED, MAY 28, 2008 05:07 AM -0500
Most likely the gf did herself in to get away from this control freak who thought he could chase her into the afterlife. I wouldn't get all teary-eyed over him, without finding out why she committed suicide in the first place. Who knows..maybe he drugged her to make it look like she took her own life...
POSTED BY: SilenceisLoud on WED, MAY 28, 2008 03:51 AM -0500
The guy should just chill.....
POSTED BY: sab301 on WED, MAY 28, 2008 02:49 AM -0500
what can you say.... some people are too distraught and willing to do anything to be with their loved one. i hope he gets the help he needs to be able to live a happy life with maybe someone new in the future
POSTED BY: mookie on WED, MAY 28, 2008 02:43 AM -0500
Never mind the unsensitive comments of others - this man has TRUE LOVE in his heart.
He loved greatly - and mourns in an equal measure.
My sincerest sympathy to him.
Here FAITH would be of great succor to him - knowing that she's well, that her soul lives on, would automatically circumvent any crazy ideas from even being, ever...
Her soul survives, man - her soul is ETERNAL.
As eternal as your love for her is - at least.
+++
In Mexico, drug-related assassinations are at an all-time high and showing no sign at all of stopping anytime soon.
Now, THOSE are druggies that truly throw their weight around! I say this because, well, like everywhere else these days, there is a "drug problem" or a "drug dilemma" in my town, my area, my *hood* too - and they may have proven to be somewhat intimidating, but nothing like down in Mexico! Down there, they threaten and they deliver on those threats. They hope that, in doing this, the resolve of the authorities will be shaken and things will go back where everyone will just turn a blind eye to what is going on - in other words, drugs will continue to be dealt, and one and all will act as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Those who clamor that the legalization of marijuana -if only that- should have long been granted, will say that it would solve everything. All this crazy killing is insanity itself, when all the drugs could be legal - rrrrrrrrrrrrright.
Drugs kill the fools foolish enough to become addicted to them; if selling a cigarette is a CRIME, in my estimation, you can guess what I think about selling drugs...
Now I only hope my opinion here won't cause trouble to my MEXICAN NAMESAKE...!
Violence Escalates In Mexico's Drug War
Oxford Analytica 05.27.08, 6:00 AM ET
This article is part of Oxford Analytica's Daily Brief Service.
Provided by Oxford Analytica
Recent killings of senior police and army officials in Mexico suggest that the government of President Felipe Calderón has managed to significantly hurt drug cartels and that corruption is common among police and other government bodies.
These deaths also point to an escalation in the drug cartels' violent responses.
Clashes between drug gangs and government forces leading to death or injury have become routine. Clashes between rival drug cartels, and police who may be on their payroll, create a sensation of open warfare. Also, the recent killings of top officials represent an important setback for the government.
There is no sign that the Calderón administration will waver in its fight against drug cartels, which started virtually as soon as he took office in December 2006. However, the high-level killings have caused widespread frustration.
(...)
R.I.P. - DRUG-RELATED MURDER VICTIMS
You may have died full of lead - but at least your bodies were drug-free.
Unless you'd seen one or many doctors regularly just before being shot - then, I wouldn't bet on it anymore. The medical establishment: the legal drug-dealers, it's them.
But that is another story...
SINCE I EXPECT THIS TO BE THE LAST ONE OF THEM...
I REMIND YOU ALL THAT THIS HAS BEEN, ONCE AGAIN, AS ALWAYS, For Education and Discussion Only. Not for Commercial Use.
I DO THE EDUCATING - I ALLOW THE DISCUSSION - WHEN NECESSARY!
THANK YOU!
+++
All right now - "this time, I'm really gonna do it!"
This was a catch-phrase on the unforgettable sitcom "SOAP" - one recurringly used by the beautiful teacher who took the end of her tryst with one of her underage students too hard - and had become somewhat suicidal over it. This pre-dated a flurry of real-life cases of the kind that, mercifully, did not include suicidal tendencies but simply jail sentences for the ladies involved...
The catch-phrase though (magnificently delivered, repeatedly, by the unforgettable Marla Pennington, from 1979 to 1981) surged back to mind as I found myself obliged to update this here, again - as there have been more demises indeed to take note of in these last few HOURS, verily, of May 2008...
So, this time I'm really gonna do it: this is the last update for this post!
Death never lets up - we know that...
But it can wait 'til it's JUNE now to go at it again - can't it?!?
Hopefully...
NYC crane collapses into street, killing 2 workers
By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - A construction crane snapped and smashed into an apartment building with a thunderous roar Friday, killing two workers in the city's second such tragedy in 2 1/2 months and renewing fears about the safety of hundreds of cranes towering over the New York skyline.
The collapse happened despite stepped-up inspections and a shake-up in the city Buildings Department after the earlier accident, which killed seven people in March.
The 200-foot crane fell apart on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where contractors were building a 32-story luxury condo complex, about 12 stories high.
Scott Bair, a foreman who arrived at the site seconds after the crane fell, said several co-workers told him the crane had just dropped off a load of materials on the top of the building and was turning to pick up a load from the street when "the turntable popped off — even though there are 16 bolts that hold it down. It could be an issue with the bolts."
The turntable is a piece of equipment that helps the crane rotate.
Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said that investigators "will be focusing on a particular weld that failed" on the crane, and noted that the 24-year-old crane's model, the Kodiak, is out of production and one of only four in the city.
LiMandri also suspended several crane operations in the city and called an emergency meeting of experts Saturday to address crane safety.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the accident "unacceptable and intolerable" but said the city appeared to have followed regulations. "Sadly, we have construction accidents all over the world," he added.
With the city going through a supercharged building boom and an estimated 250 cranes in operation as of mid-March, New York has seen a series of deadly construction accidents. Nine people have died in crane accidents so far this year, versus none in all of last year, and two in 2006.
"Construction of buildings is out of control in this city," City Councilman Tony Avella said. "How many people have to die before the mayor decides enough is enough?"
City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, who represented the neighborhood affected by the March collapse, said: "People shouldn't live in fear walking near a construction site — and certainly shouldn't feel fear sitting in their living rooms."
Buildings Department records said officials halted work at the Upper East Side site after the crane failed "load tests" on two straight days, April 22-23. However, the crane passed another test the next day. No violations had been issued in connection with the crane.
Department records also indicate several neighborhood complaints about cranes at the site in recent weeks. At least two callers had expressed concerns about parts of the crane extending past safety barriers. One complained that workers were hoisting heavy metal and concrete over the heads of pedestrians.
Inspectors found most of the concerns were unwarranted, and Buildings Department officials had inspected the crane three times this month, the last time on Thursday. Inspectors responded to a complaint about the crane hoisting loads above workers, but did not see it happening on Thursday, department spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said.
The crane toppled just after 8 a.m., destroying a penthouse apartment across the street and knocking off balconies on the apartment building as it plunged 20 stories into a heap of twisted steel. The city said in a statement that the cab where the operator sits had separated from the crane's tower.
"The sound was like a thunderclap. Then, an earthquake," said Peter Barba, who lives on the seventh floor.
Killed were the crane operator, Donald Leo, 30, and another worker, 27-year-old Ramadan Kurtaj. A third construction worker was seriously injured, and one pedestrian was treated for minor injuries.
Construction foreman Scott Bair said one of the workers on his 40-man crew was taken to the hospital with his "chest slashed open." His eyes filled with tears, Bair said his own life was saved because he left to get an egg sandwich for breakfast a block away just before the collapse.
"I thought, I'm hungry, and I want to go get something to eat — and that saved my life," he said. When he returned to the site, "Everyone was shook up and crying. These are some hardened men, but they were crying."
Dan Mooney, a longtime New York crane operator who went to the scene after hearing about the accident, said he was stunned by what he saw.
Crane operators, Mooney said, generally need to handle their loads very carefully to keep the top-heavy machines from becoming unbalanced. If an operator tries to lift a load that is too heavy, too fast, it could pull the rig over or cause it to sway dangerously. Stopping short while swinging a very heavy load could cause the same problem, as could having a big load suddenly drop off the end of the crane.
"Any instability in the load could be a problem," Mooney said.
Bloomberg said the crane was a different model from the one that collapsed in March. "It looks like a pattern, but there's no reason to think there's any real connection," the mayor said.
Construction workers have died in recent weeks in crane accidents in Iowa, Missouri and Miami. In Washington, officials called for emergency inspections of its 40 cranes after Friday's accident.
In New York, the general contractor on the project, Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corp., said Sorbara Construction, a subcontractor, was in charge of operating the crane. A woman who answered the telephone at Sorbara said no one was available to comment.
In the March 15 accident, contractors building a 46-story condominium near the United Nations — about two miles from the site of Friday's accident — were trying to lengthen the crane when a steel support broke. A four-story townhouse was demolished and several other buildings were damaged.
Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster resigned under pressure a month later. The city also added extra inspections at building sites and required that its staff be on hand whenever the cranes were raised higher. But this week, the department said an inspector no longer had to be present
___
Associated Press writers David B. Caruso, Verena Dobnik, Adam Goldman and researcher Susan James contributed to this report.
Must be the curse of 9/11 continuing to plague the city...?
TACA passenger jet crashes in Honduras; 4 killed
By FREDDY CUEVAS, Associated Press Writer 31 minutes ago
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - A jetliner originating from Los Angeles overshot a runway and raced onto a busy street in the Honduran capital Friday, killing the pilot, two passengers and a motorist on the ground. At least 65 people were injured.
The Grupo Taca Airbus A320 with 140 people on board ended with its nosed smashed against a roadside embankment and its fuselage buckled and broken in places. Authorities frantically hosed down cars trapped beneath the wreckage as thousands of gallons of fuel gushed from the jet.
Rescuers pried open part of the wreckage to get the pilot and co-pilot out, but the pilot didn't survive, said Cesar Villalta, director of Honduras' military hospital.
Passenger Harry Brautigam, a Nicaraguan who headed a regional development bank, died of heart failure. The body of a man trapped under the wreckage was believed to be a taxi driver.
Janneth Shantall, the wife of Brazilian Ambassador Brian Michael Fraser Neele, was also killed in the crash. The former head of Honduras' armed forces, Gen. Daniel Lopez Carballo, was also among the injured.
A statement from President Manuel Zelaya's office said the flight originated in Los Angeles, with a stop in San Salvador before arriving in Honduras' capital, Tegucigalpa. Most of the passengers were from Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica.
Following the crash, officials acknowledged that the runways of Tegucigalpa's aging Toncontin International Airport are short and its approach paths are dangerous. The airport is ringed by hills, posing a special challenge for pilots.
There was no official cause given for the crash, but weather may have also been a factor. The runway was wet with rain from Tropical Storm Alma.
"The plane inexplicably circled the city twice and it ran out of runway because it landed more than halfway down" the length of the strip, airport manager Carlos Ramos told the Channel 7 television network.
The plane "didn't touch down were they normally do, at the start of the runway ... and that is being investigated," Ramos said.
Many passengers walked away from the accident.
Mirtila Lopez, 71, said she was talking to another passenger when the plane "left the runway, hit electric cables from a nearby street and then got stuck in the side of a small ravine."
Following the crash, Honduran air officials said they would close the terminal to large jets and permanently transfer those flights to the former military airfield at Palmerola.
Larger jets will now operate out of the Palmerola airport, also known as the Soto Cano base, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital.
Used by the United States during the Central American civil wars of the 1980s, Palmerola has the best runway in the country at 2,700 meters (8,850 feet) long and 50 meters (165 feet) wide and is used mostly for drug surveillance planes.
There have been calls for years to replace the aging Toncontin airport, which is considered to be one of the world's more dangerous international airports.
The airport was built in 1948 with a runway less than 5,300 feet (1,600 meters) long — shorter than that of a small field such as Municipal Airport in Goldsboro, North Carolina
The altitude of some 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) forces pilots to use more runway on landings and takeoffs than they would at sea level.
In 1997, a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane overshot the runway at Toncontin and rolled 200 yards (180 meters) before bursting into flames on a major boulevard, killing three people aboard.
That motorist on the ground must have been the unluckiest man in a long, long time... The odds of his dying that way were even worse than anyone's usual odds of winning the lottery jackpot - and yet it happened.
5 killed in Calgary home stabbed to death, police say
Fri May 30, 9:38 PM
EDMONTON (CBC) - A Calgary man stabbed his wife, two of his three children and a tenant to death before killing himself in his northwest Calgary home Tuesday night, police confirmed.
Insp. Guy Slater also said that defensive wounds on Alison Lall indicate she died trying to protect her two young daughters, Kristen, 51/2, and Rochelle, 31/2, from their father, Joshua Lall.
Slater said that it appears that Lall first attacked Calgary magazine writer Amber Bowerman, who was living in the Lalls' basement suite. Slater said it looked like she was taken by surprise because there was no sign of struggle.
Lall's body was located in the room of his one-year-old daughter, who was found crying in her crib, unharmed.
It's not clear why Lall did what he did.
"I can't even speculate on that. The only person that knows that is Joshua himself," Slater said.
There was no suicide note, no obvious warning and no evidence of drug or alcohol use.
But there are reports that Lall was under extreme stress, preparing for his accreditation exams to be registered as a professional architect while raising a family and holding down a full-time job at a Calgary architectural firm.
His father, Dominic Lall, told the Calgary Sun his son was distraught when he called his parents in Ontario a few days ago.
"He told us something was wrong - he had a mental breakdown or something," his father said. The couple was planning to fly to Calgary when they learned of the deaths.
Even so, Lall's colleagues, friends and neighbours describe him as a kind-hearted man who loved his family and was very involved in community activities.
Rob Adamson, the chair at architecture firm Cohos Evamy, where Lall had worked for the past five years, said Lall shone at work designing buildings for the disabled.
"He was a very outgoing person in the project work he was doing," Adamson told CBC News.
Adamson said the job is high-pressure and deadline-driven, but "Joshua always seemed happy at work and interested in his work."
He said he last spoke to his employee on Friday, when Lall asked where he could take his wife for an 8th anniversary dinner. Adamson said Lall called in sick on Monday, and the day after called to request a week's holiday.
He said everyone at work wonders what led police to believe Lall could be responsible for the deaths.
"If that were in fact the case, it would be completely out of character and that's the biggest question on people's mind, is that it just simply doesn't make sense," he said.
Bowerman remembered as 'cheery and bright'
Meanwhile, friends and family are also mourning Bowerman, who had written for publications as diverse as Alberta Views and Calgary Real Estate News.
"Personally, I thought Amber was just a fabulous person," Colleen Seto, executive director of the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association, told CBC News.
"She always had a smile on her face. Always really positive and thoughtful. I can't imagine how her family are feeling right now."
Bowerman family spokesperson Ian Busby told CBC News the family is "devastated."
"It's hard to imagine this happening in anybody's family," he said.
"The troubling thing about how this is affecting everybody is she was one of those people that everybody sort of knows even if they don't know her by name. And they all know her as that wonderful person that's always, you know, cheery and bright."
He said Bowerman had described the home as a nice place to live, with a nice, normal family.
This is at least the third such tragedy to occur in a short span; the man from Laval who did in his entire family in a Philadelphia suburb - the man in Austria, who drove to two different places to complete the gruesome entreprise - and now this one in Calgary.
Fathers do not always know best.
And there are, also, the deaths of hockey player Luc Bourdon (at 21) and comedic mainstay Harvey Korman (at... well, about 4 times Luc's age) to mention, also - but both got their own posts here (or will get them, depending when you read this.)
R.I.P. - Victims of the grim reaper in the month of May.
My condolences to all the families affected.
All of these who are now deceased have gone away from our presence - but they are neither ever truly gone nor truly dead - much less the latter. They are remembered by those who loved them (and, via my blog here, something remains for the rest of us too - in a non-lucrative, educational and commemorative way meant to continuously spawn discussion; so that these demises are not so easily forgotten by those unaffected by them, those who saw them as just another "bit of news"...)
And, most importantly, the energy that resided in them -their soul- has gone on to another realm, another level of being...
A vantage point from where they can probably observe our folly with a whole new perspective, at last...
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