by Justin Nobel
An old Texas jail. Many prisons take funeral attendance requests on a case by case basis but Texas has set guidelines. Certain prisoners are prohibited a release, including those in for murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery and stalking.
Kentrell Amerson is back in jail. He was released to attend the funeral of his brother Jonas, who was shot to death a few weeks earlier in Omaha, Nebraska. Amerson went to the service then hacked off his locator bracelet and fled. A fugitive task force picked him up later that night.
The issue of whether or not to let prisoners out of jail for funerals is complex. Why would a judge or warden temporarily release a criminal? Yet, what human being would keep another one behind bars while his brother or mother is being buried? Amerson was a petty criminal, awaiting sentencing on a car theft conviction (he now faces a felony escape charge) but many funeral release requests involve criminals in for much more heinous crimes. Read the rest of this entry »
by Justin Nobel
While mating, sharks and stingrays exhibit a state of paralysis called tonic immobility, similar to the idea of “playing dead”. In South Korea, a motivational seminar called Coffin Academy allows clients to play dead in the hopes of rejuvenating their lives.
In Daejeon South Korea, for just $35, you can experience death. First is a photo shoot, then a lecture on living life to its fullest. You decorate your tombstone, write a will and say your final goodbyes. In a candlelit chapel, with your new portrait on a flowery altar, you don a yellow robe and climb into a coffin. Staff pound the lid shut, and for five minutes, you are dead.
This is Coffin Academy, a motivational South Korean seminar begun last year by a 39 year-old man named Jung Joon. The intent of the program is to inspire people to lead more fulfilling lives by simulating death. “The moment I got out of the casket I felt like I was born again,” a Korean business man told Nightline reporter Clarissa Ward earlier this month, “I’m going to go give my wife a big hug.” Read the rest of this entry »
by Justin Nobel
The Westboro Baptist Church has protested more than 42,000 events in the last two decades, including more than 200 funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court announced they will hear a case involving the father of a Marine who says the group caused him emotional distress by picketing his son's funeral.
Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church have protested the Academy Awards, gay pride parades, museum exhibitions, synagogues, the 2008 Sichuan China earthquake and more than 200 funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They gather outside memorial services waving provocative colored signs that read “God Hates Fags”, “America Is Doomed” and “Thank God For Dead Soldiers” and taunt mourners with chants and jeers.
The Topeka Kansas-based church has only about seventy members, nearly all of them related to Phelps, yet they have caused quite a stir. Patriot Guard Riders, a nationwide network of motorcyclists that congregate at soldier funerals to keep the peace, formed solely to counter the Phelps’s and the family has had several police confrontations and minor court appearances. Earlier this week they were issued a major one; the Supreme Court announced they will hear the case of whether the father of a Marine killed in Iraq can sue Westboro protesters for the emotional distress they caused him by picketing his sons’ funeral. Read the rest of this entry »
by Justin Nobel
With the recent death of Jack Babcock, Frank Woodruff Buckles is the last living World War One veteran in North America. He is 109 and lives on a farm in West Virginia.
Jack Babcock joined the Canadian Army at age 15 and in 1916 shipped to England to fight in the Great War. Because he was underage Babcock was forced to train with a group of teens that had also lied about their age called the Boys Battalion. The war ended before he saw action but more than 60,000 Canadian soldiers were killed, just under ten percent of the 650,000 that served. Babcock, who passed away last month at the age of 109, was the last one to die.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, there were approximately 9,750,103 military deaths in World War One and more than 65 million personal participated in the war. With Babcock gone, there are just three verified World War One vets still alive; Claude Stanley Choules, who served in the British Royal Navy, Florence Beatrice Green who served as a waitress in the Women’s Royal Air Force and is the last surviving female vet and Frank Woodruff Buckles, who was a driver during the war and now lives on a farm in West Virginia. Read the rest of this entry »
