Showing posts with label fallen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fallen. Show all posts
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014
How the mighty have fallen
How the mighty have fallen
http://www.wnd.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-print/images/print.png
- Text smaller
- Text bigger
Cast your vote now. All answers are stored anonymously.
ADD THIS POLL TO YOUR SITE (copy the code below)
<iframe src=”http://www.wnd.com/how-the-mighty-have-fallen/” style=”width: 600px; height: 582px; border: 1px;”></iframe>
- Text smaller
- Text bigger
Read more about How the mighty have fallen and other interesting subjects concerning Top Stories at TheDailyNewsReport.com
Monday, August 26, 2013
Political Staging in Trial of Fallen China Official
Feng Li/Getty Images
The courthouse in the city of Jinan where the ousted Communist Party official Bo Xilai is standing trial on corruption and abuse of power charges.
JINAN, China — In the weeks before Bo Xilai, the fallen Communist Party star, went on trial here on corruption-related charges, senior officials from the powerful party investigation agency told him about two officials who had been tried earlier on somewhat similar charges, Mr. Bo said in court.
One, a former vice governor of Anhui Province, fought back and was executed in 2004 for taking bribes and stealing $ 1.6 million. The other, a former railway minister, was more compliant; he received a suspended death sentence — essentially life in prison — in July, mainly for taking $ 10.6 million in bribes.
The senior officials’ point, Mr. Bo told the court here in a 10-minute speech on Friday, was that the party could mete out any punishment it chose, and that Mr. Bo’s fate rested on whether he chose to cooperate during his own trial on charges of bribe taking, embezzlement and abuse of power, according to two people briefed on the proceedings.
Mr. Bo’s speech and some other instances in which he railed against threats and hardships during his 17 months in captivity have not appeared in the torrent of court transcripts released publicly during the trial, China’s most closely watched in three decades, which ended on Monday. Instead, those transcripts have shown Mr. Bo cross-examining witnesses, ridiculing the testimony of his wife and former colleagues, and seemingly free to play his part as defendant however he chooses.
On Monday, Mr. Bo used the platform of his closing argument to lay bare the secret love triangle involving the prosecution’s two star witnesses — his wife and a former police chief — that he asserted had ultimately ended his vaunted career.
The trial remains political stagecraft, fashioned around Mr. Bo’s combative character, analysts say, despite the fact that the party, in an unexpected show of relative transparency, has allowed millions of Chinese citizens to witness much of Mr. Bo’s performance through a running court microblog.
The spectacle, they say, is an effort by the party to convince his elite party allies and ordinary supporters that Mr. Bo, a populist politician and the son of a revolutionary leader, had his say in court, and that the long prison sentence he is expected to get is based on evidence of crimes committed, not political payback. State news media have highlighted daily the evidence presented against Mr. Bo, while officials have limited his airtime in court and in the transcripts to help maintain control.
“The authorities hope to separate the Bo Xilai case from politics,” said Chen Jieren, a legal commentator. “They want people to think this was only an anticorruption struggle, not a political and ideological struggle.”
While the microblog gambit may have won Mr. Bo additional sympathy and exposed cracks in the prosecution, its show of legal parrying between the defendant and his accusers also lent considerable credibility to the political theater. Perhaps most important for the party, what has most captivated ordinary Chinese — thanks to headlines in major state media outlets — is a mountain of testimony that depicts Mr. Bo as the archetypal corrupt official, with a spoiled son and a wife who murdered a British businessman. (She was convicted in August 2012.)
In his closing argument on Monday, Mr. Bo unveiled more explosive elements surrounding his family, and essentially argued that the saga came down to crimes of passion. He said Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing, which Mr. Bo governed until his downfall in March 2012, had a final falling out with Mr. Bo and fled to a nearby American consulate in large part due to tensions that boiled over from his secret affair with Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai. Mr. Wang had told Ms. Gu that he was in love with her, and that outraged Mr. Bo, he said. His wife and the police chief had been close for years, he said, ever since Mr. Wang came to Chongqing to investigate Ms. Gu’s suspicions that she had been poisoned.
“Because he and Gu Kailai were stuck together as if by glue, Gu Kailai took him at his word, and Wang Lijun infiltrated my household because of his association with Gu Kailai,” Mr. Bo said Monday. “So now such a serious thing has occurred.”
He added: “The two had an extremely special relationship, and I was so sick of it.”
Mr. Bo said Mr. Wang harbored an enduring “secret love” for Ms. Gu, and that “his emotions were twisted; he could not free himself.” Mr. Wang expressed his feelings in one or more letters to Ms. Gu, Mr. Bo said. One day, Mr. Wang told her of his love and slapped himself eight times in front of her.
According to Mr. Bo, Ms. Gu said: “You’re abnormal.”
“I used to be abnormal, but now I’m normal,” Mr. Wang said, according to Mr. Bo.
Political Staging in Trial of Fallen China Official
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Illinois "Flag Man" honors fallen soldiers
Courtesy Rick Randall
Larry Eckhardt says of his efforts: “These men and women give their lives to protect the flag. It should protect them on the way home.”
By Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News contributor
Larry “The Flag Man” Eckhardt cannot be stopped. If a soldier dies in combat and is returned home to be buried within driving distance of his Little York, Ill., home, Eckhardt will be there.
And he will be there with more than 2,300 American flags. Most are the size you’d hang on the porch – three by five feet. They are affixed to 10-foot poles, which are driven into the ground every couple of yards along the hearse’s procession route. Most of these roads are in the country. Some of them are dirt and no more.
These tributes, as Eckhardt, 56, likes to call them, have been stretched out for as many as 14 miles. Since 2006, he has planted flags for 108 service members in states across the Midwest. The majority have been combat fatalities from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though he says about a dozen were suicide deaths. This Memorial Day, there are thankfully no funerals; Eckhardt will spend the holiday in Orfordville, Wis., speaking at an event.
He gives a simple reason for his efforts, which can be exhausting and have put him in debt.
“These men and women give their lives to protect the flag,” he told NBC News. “It should protect them on the way home.”
Eckhardt is not a veteran and doesn’t come from a military family. He spent most of his life building combines for International Harvester, before an injury forced him to retire. He manages an apartment complex in Little York, but considers his work as The Flag Man his calling.
It was seven years ago that Eckhardt attended the funeral for a soldier in a nearby town and thought that there just weren’t enough flags. Since then, he has amassed an impressive collection.
Each time a combat death is reported in Illinois and surrounding states, Eckhardt contacts the local funeral home or pastor to get the family’s permission for a tribute. He loads up a Ford Econoline passenger van and a trailer with the flags and drives for hours, sometimes through the night. Last year, he clocked thousands of miles.
David Goldman / AP
Those who lost their lives in service to their country are honored during both private and public moments.
When he arrives at his destination, there are often hundreds of eager volunteers ready to help. In one town, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts decided to compete to see which group could disassemble the flags faster. The Girl Scouts won.
“It’s so cool to get the kids involved,” Eckhardt said. “It’s teaching them that these guys are special. And we don’t ever want them to forget that they’re special.”
Eckhardt comes in to each town a stranger and leaves with friends, and for this he says he might just be the “most blessed man in the country.”
Rick Randall, a real estate developer in St. Louis, met Eckhardt three years ago at a funeral for an airman in Troy, Ill. Randall uses photos of deceased service members to create a picture board, a remembrance that can be shown at their funerals.
“He’s a one-of-a-kind, he’s a force of nature,” Randall said of Eckhardt. “As many times as I’ve been with him in these small communities in the Midwest that lose young heroes, I still can’t comprehend how he does what he does.”
Eckhardt says he has missed only one funeral within driving distance. In August 2012, he took off 29 days to recuperate from a triple bypass to open up a complete blockage in one artery and a 90 percent blockage in another. His doctor implored him to take a break for at least six months.
“Ain’t gonna happen,” he said. “We would have missed so many of these young men and women coming back …The flags have taken on a life of their own.”
Courtesy Tom Rollins
Larry Eckhardt in Preston, Iowa, hammers a flag anchor into the ground for the December 2011 funeral of a Marine killed in Afghanistan.
The flags made it to the service member’s funeral under the care of some volunteers.
Eckhardt’s dedication has earned him many awards, none of which he’ll mention unprompted. Last week, the state chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution gave him a Silver Good Citizenship Medal. Last year, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn declared June 14 as “Larry The Flag Man Eckhardt Day,” an occasion to “recognize and honor the sacrifice of our veterans.”
Quinn, in a statement to NBC News, explained what Eckhardt’s efforts have meant to towns across the state.
“I’ve seen these flags and the profound effect this stirring image has on the community,” he said. “I can see how the simple action of an everyday guy like Larry – a Johnny Appleseed of the Stars-and-Stripes – inspires others such as the Boy Scouts to join in solemn tribute. It means so much to the families, the friends and other service members.”
Eckhardt wishes that a few volunteers would take up flag tributes in states outside the Midwest. But he says that each time he’s been approached about the idea, he is asked how much it pays. His answer: zero.
Eckhardt has received generous donations, including hundreds of flags from Randall and the trailer that rides behind his van. The shaky economy means there are fewer contributions these days.
“It’s an expensive proposition,” Eckhardt said of paying for gas, hotels and upkeep for the van and flags. “But it’s not about the money. I could come home and be totally broke and be happy because I know I’ve helped a few families.”
Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter based in Oakland, Calif.
Illinois "Flag Man" honors fallen soldiers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)