Clipmarks | wiccantexan's 'death' clips

Woman impaled on statue of Hindu goddess

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:01:28 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

A woman had to be cut free after impaling her arm on three-inch metal spikes attached to a statue of the Hindu goddess Kali.

The 30-year-old victim fell onto the spikes at her home in Salford, Greater Manchester.

It took firemen 30 minutes to free her by cutting through the spikes with a hacksaw.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service said: "The woman had fallen onto the statue within the house. We had to cut through the part that she had impaled her arm on.

The victim has not been named. It is understood she "fell onto the statue while staggering around".

Kali, the goddess of time and change, is generally associated with death and destruction.

Tags: goddess, hindu

Obama's birth certificate in high demand

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:01:16 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.honoluluadvertiser.com

Hawai'i birth certificates — just as with death, marriage and certain divorce documents — are released only to people with a "tangible interest,"

The Obama campaign said it has posted a copy of his birth certificate at www.fightthesm ears.com in response to Internet chatter that the Illinois senator is not a natural-born citizen. But the posting has done little to curb the nearly weekly requests to the Health Department for copies of the original, Okubo said.

Some skeptics point to the lack of an official state seal on the birth certificate posted on the Obama campaign Web site.

But seals often are placed on the back of the birth certificate, Okubo said, "and whether it shows through depends on how much force was put into it."

Others wonder why a large black rectangle appears next to the words, "CERTIFICATE NO."

"The thing that's redacted is just our file number," she said. "Potentially, if you have that number, you could break into the system."

Tags: politics, obama, birth, official

Controversial U.S. Church Group Stopped At Border

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:32:37 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.nationalpost.com

Residents rallied Thursday to protect the family of a young man murdered on a Greyhound bus last week from a posse of radical religious protesters planning to portray Tim McLean's death as God's wrath.

Earlier this week, the Westboro Baptist Church - an organization branded as a hate group and infamous for protesting the funerals of slain U.S. soldiers - announced they would picket Mr. McLean's funeral to let Canadians know that his decapitation was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and adultery.

But Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church's founder, Fred Phelps, said a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border on Thursday afternoon.

The resistance to the planned funeral protest started on Facebook yesterday morning when Jim Cotton, a resident of Winnipeg Beach, launched a page asking city residents to help protect Mr. McLean's funeral.

Mr. Taylor's plan worked.

Tags: church, christian, hate, religion, god

Insurance pays for death, not life

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:45:51 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: abcnews.go.com

The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing.

The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

"It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won't give you the medication to live."

Critics of Oregon's decade-old Death With Dignity Law -- the only one of its kind in the nation -- have been up in arms over the indignity of her unsigned rejection letter. Even those who support Oregon's liberal law were upset.

Tags: death, drugs, cancer, life, medical, health

"Taking Leave of Life. An Intimate Portrait"

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:14:38 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Link to interactive Gallery (can't clip) http://www.oge-gallery.com/

Clip Source: www.wellcomecollection.org

Life Before Death, 9 April-18 May 2008

Nothing teaches us more about life than death itself. Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels asked 24 terminally ill people if they could accompany them during their last weeks and days. From these vigils came a series of insightful descriptions and photographic portraits taken before and after death.

Far from being gloomy, these intimate concerns of the dying reveal the preciousness and transience of life, and make us question what we often take for granted.

24 sets of photographs taken before and after death

Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao, age 52

“Death is nothing. I embrace death. It is not eternal. Afterwards, when we meet God, we become beautiful.”

Tags: life, death, photography, exhibition, beate lakotta, walter schels

Former Senator Kills Young Geese on Gas Grill, Then Jokes About It

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:35:07 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.woai.com

Former Republican Mississippi state senator Mike Gunn has entered guilty pleas to charges he took young Canada geese from their habitat and killed them in his gas grill.

Boland said her attention was drawn to Gunn when she saw adult geese attacking him, trying to save their young.

She said he put the goslings in a gas grill and when that didn't kill them, he beat them to death.

Gunn told authorities he fed the geese to his dog.

After Gunn pleaded guilty in federal court he joked about the episode

"I ran afoul of the law, and laid a huge egg and have received a gaggle of problems as a result, I am just glad this wild goose chase is behind us now," Gunn joked as he left court.

"What's important to remember is the despicable way these baby geese or goslings were killed, and if we find others doing that we will all wind up right back here in federal court," Walker said.

Tags: animals, cruelty, abuse, geese, death, babies

Russia says remains of last Czar's son identified

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:05:43 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Russia said on Wednesday that charred remains found in a pit belonged to Czar Nicholas II's only son and his daughter, exactly 90 years after the Bolsheviks shocked the world by murdering the last Czar.

Moscow's confirmation that the remains included those of Czar Nicholas' 13-year-old heir, Prince Alexei, came as hundreds of Russians flocked to a church built on the site where the family was gunned down by Bolshevik executioners.

Remains believed to belong to the Czar, his wife and three of his daughters were exhumed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were reburied in 1998 in the imperial crypt of the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg.

But Prince Alexei Nikolayevich and 19-year-old Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna were not among those remains.

Forensic scientists said molar teeth and amalgam fillings found with the new remains matched those found among the remains of the other members of the royal family.

Tags: russia, history, dna, forensics, death, family, royal

Japanese Man Dies After Working Excessive Overtime

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:35:15 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

A Japanese labor office ruled that one of Toyota's top car engineers died from working too many hours.

It was the latest decision against overwork in Japan, where stoic acceptance of extended overtime has long been the norm.

The victim's wife's lawyer says the man, who was 45, had been under severe pressure as the lead engineer in developing a hybrid version of Toyota's Camry line.

According to the lawyer, in the two months up to his death, the engineer averaged more than 80 hours of overtime per month.

The ruling, which will allow his family to collect benefits from his work insurance, is the most recent in a string of decisions against long working hours in Japan. The country has been struggling to cut down on deaths from overworking, known as "karoshi," which have steadily increased since the Health Ministry first recognized the phenomenon in 1987.

Tags: japan, japanese, work, overtime, death

Smithsonian Puts Mysterious Crystal Skull on Display

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:38:05 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Some mysteries are such fun you almost don't want to know the truth. That may help explain why people are fascinated with crystal skulls.

"People like to believe in something greater than themselves," Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh said, and crystal skulls are mysterious and beautiful.

The skulls "are a fascinating example of artifacts that have made their way into museums with no scientific evidence to prove their rumored pre-Columbian origins," she added.

Crystals carved into the shape of a human skull fed the 19th century's need for drama and mystery and its fascination with death.

Of the many crystal skulls in museums and private collections around the world, the Smithsonian's is one of the largest, at 10 inches high and weighing 30 pounds.

The skulls were carved from blocks of quartz — sometimes called rock crystal — and show the marks of modern carving tools. That means they were not made before the 19th century.

Tags: death, skull, museum, mystery, smithsonian

Archaeologists Recreate Aztec 'Whistles of Death'

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:02:55 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.

But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years.

When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle.

If death had a sound, this was it.

Roberto Velazquez believes the Aztecs played this mournful wail from the so-called Whistles of Death before they were sacrificed to the gods.

The 66-year-old mechanical engineer has devoted his career to recreating the sounds of his pre-Columbian ancestors, producing hundreds of replicas of whistles, flutes and wind instruments unearthed in Mexico's ruins.

Tags: history, archaeology, culture, mexico, aztec, death

Americans: My Religion Isn't The Only Way

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:15:09 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

(CBS/ AP) America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don't feel their religion is the only way to eternal life - even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don't know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

In all, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation shared that view, and 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion.

"There's a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences," he said.

"I think that organized religion could find this also a little bit threatening in the sense when dogma and doctrine become less and less important, it doesn't matter belonging to one church or another," Williams said on the CBS Evening News.

Tags: religion, faith, american, belief, life, death, theology

Obama disagrees with court on child rape case

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:46:52 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Democrat Barack Obama said Wednesday he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people who rape children, a crime he said states have the right to consider for capital punishment.

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said at a news conference. "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution."

Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, said that had the court "said we want to constrain the abilities of states to do this to make sure that it's done in a careful and appropriate way, that would have been one thing. But it basically had a blanket prohibition and I disagree with that decision."

Tags: obama, child, rape, supreme court, death penalty, constitution

Man tells off comatose wife, rouses her from coma

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:00:03 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

A mother who fell into a coma during labour came back from the brink of death after her husband gave her "a bloody good rollicking".

Yvonne Sullivan, 28, suffered blood poisoning and blacked out after being told her newborn son had died during a traumatic birth.

When doctors told him they might have to switch off her lifesupport machine, he sprang into action.

Holding his wife's hand, he told her: "You start fighting, don't you dare give up on me now. I've had enough, stop mucking around and start breathing. Come back to me."

Two hours later she started breathing on her own.

Within five days Mrs Sullivan's ventilator was switched off and she regained consciousness.

Yesterday she said she remembered her husband berating her.

"I can't remember exactly what he said but I never liked getting told off by Dom," she recalled.

"Something inside me just clicked and I began to fight again.

Tags: health, medical, marriage, death

Empty 'Meet the Press' chair honors Russert

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:34:59 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

The moderator's chair on NBC's "Meet the Press" stood empty on Sunday in remembrance of Tim Russert, the man who had occupied it for 17 years.

Colleague and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, who broke the news about the anchor's death, spoke on Sunday the familiar first four words of the news program, "Our issues this Sunday." He noted that those were the same words Russert had been recording for the show when he collapsed and died. Watch Brokaw break the news »

"Our issue this sad Sunday morning is remembering and honoring our colleague and friend," Brokaw said.

"This is where you separated the men from the boys," said Matalin, who is married to Carville. "You weren't a candidate until you came on this show."

Russert had appeared as an unlikely icon for television news, with his cherubic face and dimpled chin, but he was a prolific interviewer and tireless journalist, one with an intimidating breadth of political knowledge and insight.

Tags: tv, television, journalism, politics, tim russert

Manson follower Susan Atkins being considered for release

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:10:26 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.woai.com

Authorities say Susan Atkins, a Charles Manson follower convicted in the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate, could soon be released from prison because she is near death.

State corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton says the now 59-year-old Atkins is terminally ill and is being considered for so-called "compassionate release."

Thornton says the corrections department is reviewing the request, which would then be passed to a state sentencing court.

Thornton did not say what sort of illness Atkins has.

Atkins helped stab Tate, the pregnant wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski, 16 times during a 1969 rampage that saw six others murdered.

Tags: charles manson, murder, prison, death, celebrity