The clothespin gravestone marked the grave of W. Jack Crowell, who owned the National Clothespin Company, the last wooden clothespin manufacturer in the United States (today it produces plastic clothespins and barrettes). Originally, Jack wanted a giant clothespin with real spring so children could teeter on it.

Top Japanese chef Miki Nozawa has died after apparently being attacked by two German men who were unhappy with the fried noodles from his restaurant on the North Sea island of Sylt.

The men, aged 36 and 50 are thought to have beaten 57-year-old Nozawa to death outside a strip club on the upmarket holiday island, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday.

Earlier in the evening the pair had eaten Nozawa's beef, vegetable and fried noodle dish, which they disliked and refused to pay for. They left his restaurant and headed to a nearby strip club, where they bumped into the chef.

Nozawa recognized them and insisted both give him €10 – a request that was not met well and as the argument escalated the trio went outside. It was allegedly there that the two handymen beat the chef so badly he had to be taken to hospital.

He died on Tuesday as a result of his injuries, Ulrike Stahlmann-Liebelt, state prosecutor from the nearby city of Flensburg, confirmed. She would not say whether reports that the men beat him until his entire left side was, as the Bild newspaper said, “one big purple bruise,” were true.

Rest in peace

“Gilda got married and went away. None of us saw her anymore. There was one good thing: Laraine had a party one night, a great party at her house. And I ended up being the disk jockey. She just had forty-fives, and not that many, so you really had to work the music end of it. There was a collection of like the funniest people in the world at this party. Somehow Sam Kinison sticks in my brain. The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from the show, a lot of other funny people, and Gilda. Gilda showed up and she’d already had cancer and gone into remission and then had it again, I guess. Anyway she was slim. We hadn’t seen her in a long time. And she started doing, “I’ve got to go,” and she was just going to leave, and I was like, “Going to leave?” It felt like she was going to really leave forever.

So we started carrying her around, in a way that we could only do with her. We carried her up and down the stairs, around the house, repeatedly, for a long time, until I was exhausted. Then Danny did it for a while. Then I did it again. We just kept carrying her; we did it in teams. We kept carrying her around, but like upside down, every which way—over your shoulder and under your arm, carrying her like luggage. And that went on for more than an hour—maybe an hour and a half—just carrying her around and saying, “She’s leaving! This could be it! Now come on, this could be the last time we see her. Gilda’s leaving, and remember that she was very sick—hello?”

We worked all aspects of it, but it started with just, “She’s leaving, I don’t know if you’ve said good-bye to her.” And we said good-bye to the same people ten, twenty times, you know.

And because these people were really funny, every person we’d drag her up to would just do like five minutes on her, with Gilda upside down in this sort of tortured position, which she absolutely loved. She was laughing so hard we could have lost her right then and there.

It was just one of the best parties I’ve ever been to in my life. I’ll always remember it. It was the last time I saw her.”

Just 93 days later, 30 American troops, most of them members of Team 6 were among 39  killed in Afghanistan when the Chinook helicopter they were riding in was shot down by a Taliban fired rocket-propelled grenade in the largest single loss of life since the war in Afghanistan began.   

Last week, families of the fallen soldiers held a press conference to claim that the US government is as responsible for the deaths of their sons as the Taliban.

• Both Vice President Biden and President Obama broke protocol to reveal Navy Seal Team 6 as Bin Laden's killers and by so doing put a  target on their backs.    Protocol would require that they be referred to only as "special forces".

• These men were sent on a hastily planned mission intended to aid 47 Army Rangers in the Tangi Valley even though the Rangers controlled the battle zone

without special operation aviation but with a standard transport Chinook helicopter, without proper air support, i.e. no escort, without the requested pre-assault fire, but with Afghani forces inserted at the last minute who were not properly vetted.

Even more disturbing was their funeral.    It was a bizarre mixed Judeo-Christian funeral for the servicemen mixed in with a Muslim funeral for the Afghanis.

Military brass prohibited any mention of a Judeo-Christian God at their funeral, but instead invited a Muslim cleric whose prayer over the fallen has the families up in arms.  You can see the imam prayer here in this video.  I have copied the subtitles below>

“Amen I shelter in Allah from the devil who has been cast with stones. In the name of Allah the merciful giver. The companions of the fire (the sinners and infidels who are fodder for hell fire )are not equal with the companions of heaven( muslims). The companions of heaven are the winners. Had we sent this Koran to a mountain, you would have seen the mountain prostrated in fear of Allah, (mocking the God of Moses).  Such examples are what we present to the people; to the people, so that they would think (repent and covert to Islam). Blessings are to your God, the God of glory of what they describe. And peace be upon the messengers and thanks be to Allah the lord of both universes.(mankind and Jinn)”

Stephen Coughlin, an Islam expert, was commissioned to provide a 2nd translation. and he claims that the funeral rite that was delivered over the dead soldiers is “a standard funeral rite among Muslims.” Naturally, non-Muslims may be surprised by this claim, but the Islam expert expounded in detail:

“Even a standard prayer is actually a little bit offensive because … it comes from a book of the Koran or a chapter of the Koran that’s basically about defeating the infidels. And [in exploring the issue] I basically showed that there were two verses quoted in the funeral rite.
If you back it up one verse, it gives you the greater context of the fact that the people who are not Muslim are condemned to hell, by those prayers and so I basically showed that. So my point isn’t that the imam was deliberately inflammatory — my point was that it’s inflammatory even when they’re not trying to, because it goes to the issue of the fundamental and irreconcilable difference between Islamic orientation and a non-Muslim orientation.”
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While they initially expected footage from the event to arrive (it is apparently standard procedure for military families to get video of funeral proceedings before the body is sent back home), they purportedly never receive it. But in January, a source that the family declined to name finally sent it to them.

The Vaughn family held onto the footage for a few weeks before watching, understanding that it would be an emotional experience for them. While Karen enjoyed the prayer that was seemingly offered by a U.S. chaplain — the one that came before the imam’s — she said that her “jaw literally dropped” when she heard the cleric’s portion of the address.

“We knew instantly we needed to translate this,” she said, noting that she contacted a friend who has experience with Arabic translations.

The family sat on the video for months, as the grieving parents considered how to proceed. Now, it appears they have come forward not only about the cleric’s alleged verbal offense, but also about other issues that were highlighted earlier today at the press conference.

“Our sons were subjected to a final act of betrayal by their government,” Karen Vaughn told TheBlaze of the prayer being read.

The families are now seeking a congressional investigation

A San Francisco man who almost took his life eight years ago by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge has been reunited with the hero who saved his life.
Kevin Berthia was perched on the iconic bridge ready to take a fatal leap on March 11, 2005, when he heard the voice of California Highway Patrol officer Kevin Briggs calling out to him from above.

Over 60 life-changing minutes, Briggs managed to convince Berthia, as he has done with hundreds of suicidal men and women, to climb back over the rail and give life another shot. Since that significant day Berthia hasn't looked back and is now happily married with two children.

And this week he was able to thank the man who made all that possible. The pair reunited as part of an emotional ceremony honoring Briggs and other members of the CHP known as the Guardians of the Golden Gate Bridge, whose job it is to gently talk people like Berthia down from the structure.

'It was phenomenal,' Berthia, 30, told Yahoo News about the reunion at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention public service ceremony.

'I didn't know what I was going to feel, or how I was going to react,' he said. 'But when I first saw him, he walked up me and I just shook his hand. It felt like I had known this man my whole life. The nerves weren't there. It was just two old friends being reunited.'

As he presented Briggs with the award, Bertha explained how grateful he was for Briggs' help and urged others to seek help, insisting they could too get better and life a fulfilled life.

'I didn't want him to try and stop me but now I'm glad he did,' he told the crowd. 'All I can say is that I am truly grateful. You gave me an opportunity to live.'

A resounding image of the man clinging to the bridge as Briggs spoke to him provoked an outpouring of support from the Bay area community.

After he received the award, Briggs said he was 'very humbled, honored and happy' to have the recognition for his team's hard work.

'I (accept this award) on behalf of the California Highway Patrol and police officers across this country who strive to do their best each and every time they receive a suicide call.

'During my career I've encountered numerous suicide attempts on the Golden Gate Bridge. Of those attempts, I've only lost one person. It's something you never forget.

'Kevin found the courage in himself that day to climb back over the rail, thus beginning a new stage in his life. Here, standing before us, is the reason we do what we do.'

Sonny ‘Uno’ Santiago, 23, was a rapper who died in a car crash in February. Commissioners at Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn this week unanimously rejected his family's request to inscribe his gravestone with a song verse that included a profanity.

The panel became aware of the language when the company inscribing the 3-foot tall memorial submitted drawings to commissioners.

The inscription read: 'You gonna remember the damn name, I give a f*** if I die with no damn friends, I got my fam by my side and that’s until the end.’
Pine Grove Cemetery regulations posted online state that ‘the cemetery office must approve all inscription work on monuments.’

City officials contacted the family about the inscription and they agreed to have the gravestone inscribed with a different, profanity-free verse from a song Santiago wrote.

Good for them.

Thomas L. McDonald reminds us that burying the dead is one of the seven corporal acts of mercy.  Tobit, and Tamerlan: The Dignity of Burial

Tobit was a righteous man. His story is told in the book of the Bible that bears his name….

Tobit is a man who performs many acts of charity, but the most dangerous is his burial of the dead, particularly strangers, and, notably, those who have been executed.
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Touching the dead rendered one impure for a period of time. Although it was a necessary thing to do, performing the act for strangers is a profound act of charity. Indeed, Tobit is forced to sleep outside after performing the burial because he is impure, and he winds up blind as a result.
Some of the bodies buried by Tobit have been cast “beyond the wall,” where the unjust would have been thrown. It’s interesting to note, however, that the only place in the law where rapid burial is explicitly commanded is in the case of criminals who have been executed….

A 62-year-old man dies skydiving with friend when his parachute malfunctions

A 62-year-old woman was out jogging in Littlerock, about 40 miles northeast of L.A. when she was 'mauled to death' by 4 pitbulls

A British Olympic champion, Andrew Simpson, was killed after his 50 MPH catamaran capsized while he was practicing for the America's Cup and he was stuck under its hull for 10 minutes.

They were on their honeymoon on Reunion Island, an overseas region of France located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar and southwest of Mauritius.  While his wife lay on the beach, a French man on his honeymoon went surfing when sharks attacked and killed him.

Quoting biographer Steven Ambrose's description, “Dwight Eisenhower was a great and good man. He was one of the outstanding leaders of the Western world of [the 20th] century,” Weigel calls the proposed memorial an "historical and aesthetic travesty".

The present Eisenhower Memorial design, by postmodernist Frank Gehry, has virtually nothing to do with the Dwight David Eisenhower of history. Plans call for Ike to be memorialized in sculpture as a barefoot farmboy on the Great Plains: not the great wartime leader; not the soldier-diplomat; not the chief executive of the United States who presided over eight years of peace and prosperity. The Gehry conceit seems both obvious and entirely in tune with the postmodern deconstruction of history: There are no great men; there are no great virtues; there is no great striving; nor is there great accomplishment or great service to others. No one, visiting the Eisenhower Memorial as designed by Frank Gehry, would have the slightest reason to grasp the truth of the man himself, as Stephen Ambrose once described him:

As a soldier, he was, as George C. Marshall said at the end of the war, everything that the U.S. Army hoped for in its finest products — professionally competent, well versed in the history of war, decisive, well disciplined, courageous, dedicated, and popular with his men, his subordinates, and his superiors. His leadership qualities also included a high degree of intelligence, integrity, commitment to basic principles, dignity, organizational genius, tremendous energy, and diplomatic ability. As a man, he was good-looking, considerate of and concerned about others, loyal to friends and family, given to terrible rages (which he learned to control), ambitious, thin-skinned and sensitive to criticism, stubborn and inflexible about his habits, an avid sportsman and sports fan, modest (but never falsely so), almost embarrassingly unsophisticated in his musical, artistic, and literary tastes, intensely curious about people and places, often refreshingly naïve, fun-loving — in short, a wonderful man to know or be around. Nearly everyone who knew him liked him immensely, many — including some of the most powerful men in the world — to the point of adulation.

None of this is conveyed by the sculpture of a barefoot boy on the plains. None of it is conveyed by the other elements in the Gehry design: 80-foot-tall, nondescript cylindrical posts (they can’t even be properly described as pillars) holding up perforated metal “tapestries,” creating what Gehry himself once called a “theater for cars.” But what does a “theater for cars,” or any other kind of postmodernist knock-off of a Fifties drive-in, have to do with creating a memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander who planned the invasion of Normandy, the president who ended the Korean War and who proposed “Open Skies” as a means to lower the temperature of the Cold War?

A new  video slams the unbuilt memorial for its $142 million cost and impermanent design.

The design for a proposed Eisenhower Memorial has inspired much heartache and anger among historians, architects, veterans and even the Eisenhower family, who say this wasn't the way they imagined a monument to the 34th president and D-Day commander.

The video, created by the National Monuments Foundation in Atlanta and shared with Whispers Tuesday, uses digital modeling to show viewers exactly what the unbuilt monument would look like, and the foundation says the results are troubling.