What we remember on Memorial Day In addition to fallen soldiers, the holiday is a day to remember all loved ones who are no longer with us. Five writers share their memories of fathers, husbands, friends and fellow soldiers. May 30, 2010 Decoration Day, the predecessor of Memorial Day, was established in the years after the Civil War to honor Union soldiers who died in combat. Since then, the holiday has become a time to commemorate all those who died in military service to the country. It is also, more broadly, a day to remember all loved ones who are no longer with us. Here are some remembrances in honor of the holiday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-memorialday-package-20100530,0,949770,print.story

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Thousands in Phoenix protest Arizona's immigration law

The demonstration, one of the largest since SB 1070 was signed into law in April, draws a diverse crowd. Backers of the law are to hold their own rally at a suburban stadium in the evening.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times

May 29, 2010

Reporting from Phoenix —

Under a broiling desert sun, tens of thousands of protesters on Saturday slowly marched five miles to the state Capitol to rally against Arizona's controversial new immigration law.

There was no official crowd estimate, but the march was by far the biggest demonstration since Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law on April 23. The law makes it a state crime to lack immigration papers and requires police to determine the status of people they stop and suspect are in the country illegally.

The law's backers, who held their own rally at a suburban stadium Saturday evening, contend that the measure is necessary to protect against violence seeping across the border from Mexico. "Why not make the country like it's supposed to be? Borders define us," said Don Baggett, who came to the rally from a Houston suburb.

Critics including President Obama, whose Justice Department is expected to challenge the law in court, contend the measure invites racial profiling.

Several groups have sued to stop the law from going into effect , but if they do not prevail in court it will be implemented on July 29. It is widely popular in Arizona and has attracted majority support in several recent national polls.

State Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, a Democrat who opposed the law and is running for governor, announced on Friday he would defend the state against federal litigation. But Brewer, his likely Republican opponent, Friday night said she didn't trust Goddard and would select private attorneys to handle the case.

Saturday was dominated by the voices against the law, and the march shut down much of this city's center.

Demonstrators came from as far as Rhode Island and Louisiana. They streamed down the broad boulevards in a several-blocks long procession of white shirts, American flags and umbrellas to protect against the sun and temperatures in the high 90s. Dennis DuVall, 68, drove down from Prescott, Ariz., 100 miles north.

"It's my civic duty," said DuVall, a retired bus driver. "It shows commitment. People are willing to come out and walk five miles in 100 degrees. It's important."

The diverse crowd included a number of families like the Baezes, who drove from San Diego on Friday night. Juan and Guadalupe Baez, their six children ranging in age from 2 to 18 and Guadalupe's mother all wore matching white T-shirts that Juan, a 43-year-old trucker, had designed. On the back were the words: "We are hard workers, not criminals! We believe in USA justice. Arizona's SB 1070 is not justice."

"It's good to come here to help people," said Baez, who emigrated from Mexico illegally 24 years ago but was legalized in the amnesty signed by former President Reagan in 1986. He is now a U.S. citizen. Passage of the Arizona law shocked him. "I thought the government is more noble, more fair here," he said.

Another family pushed a toddler who held a hand-lettered placard that said, "Mommy, why is my skin color a crime?" Several banners targeted President Obama, with whom many Latino activists express disappointment for failing to push immigration reform. "Obama ¿Donde Esta la Reforma?" asked one.

Another banner, carried by a group of students, declared "CSU Bakersfield: We Are Arizona."

Hours later, several thousand supporters of the law filled most of a ballpark in Tempe where the Angels play during spring training. A series of talk radio hosts revved up the crowd while a musician played "Hit the Road Jack," and "tea party" groups signed up new members. One member of a Texas tea party, a legal immigrant from Colombia, spoke in Spanish of her support for the law.

"It's difficult for me to understand why you Americans have to pay for so many people who are not citizens," said Victoria Dennis of Dallas, as her husband, Philip, translated to wild applause. "This has got to stop, not only here in Arizona, but in America."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-protest-20100529,0,2664137,print.story

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Mexico accuses U.S. Border Patrol of excessive force in stun gun incident

 The Mexican government says a man whom U.S. authorities shot with a stun gun at a San Diego County border crossing is unconscious and in serious condition.

The Mexican consulate in San Diego said in a statement Saturday night that agents from the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection agencies appear to have used excessive force in the Friday confrontation. It said it was trying to establish contact with the Mexican man's family.

Border Patrol spokesman Daryl Reed said the man was taken to a San Diego-area hospital Friday night at the San Ysidro border crossing separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Reed says the man had become combative.

The man's name has not been released.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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L.A. immigrant rights protesters target Diamondbacks, plan Arizona march this weekend

Activists are particularly pushing measures to grant legal status to undocumented college students and farmworkers, both of which are backed by powerful interests.

The Dream Act, which would offer legal status to undocumented youths who attend college or join the military, is now included in the Pentagon's strategic plan for fiscal years 2010-12 as a way to maintain the nation's all-volunteer military. And agribusiness has teamed up with the United Farm Workers union, along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to push a bill to provide a stable supply of legal farm workers.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/la-immigrant-rights-protesters-target-diamondbacks-plan-phoenix-march-this-weekend.html#more

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From the New York Times

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In the Koreas, Five Possible Ways to War

WASHINGTON

USUALLY, there is a familiar cycle to Korea crises.

Like a street gang showing off its power to run amok in a well-heeled neighborhood, the North Koreans launch a missile over Japan or set off a nuclear test or stage an attack — as strong evidence indicates they did in March, when a South Korean warship was torpedoed. Expressions of outrage follow. So do vows that this time, the North Koreans will pay a steep price.

In time, though, the United States and North Korea 's neighbors — China, Japan, South Korea and Russia — remind one another that they have nothing to gain from a prolonged confrontation, much less a war. Gradually, sanctions get watered down. Negotiations reconvene. Soon the North hints it can be enticed or bribed into giving up a slice of its nuclear program. Eventually, the cycle repeats.

The White House betting is that the latest crisis, stemming from the March attack, will also abate without much escalation. But there is more than a tinge of doubt. The big risk, as always, is what happens if the North Koreans make a major miscalculation. (It wouldn't be their first. Sixty years ago, Mr. Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, thought the West wouldn't fight when he invaded the South. The result was the Korean War.)

What's more, the dynamic does feel different from recent crises. The South has a hardline government whose first instinct was to cut off aid to the North, not offer it new bribes. At the same time, the North is going through a murky, ill-understood succession crisis.

And President Obama has made it clear he intends to break the old cycle. “We're out of the inducements game,” one senior administration official, who would not discuss internal policy discussions on the record, said last week. “For 15 years at least, the North Koreans have been in the extortion business, and the U.S. has largely played along. That's over.”

That may change the North's behavior, but it could backfire. “There's an argument that in these circumstances, the North Koreans may perceive that their best strategy is to escalate,” says Joel Wit, a former State Department official who now runs a Web site that follows North Korean diplomacy.

The encouraging thought is the history of cooler heads prevailing in every crisis since the Korean War. There was no retaliation after a 1968 raid on South Korea's presidential palace; or when the North seized the American spy ship Pueblo days later; or in 1983 when much of the South Korean cabinet was killed in a bomb explosion in Rangoon, Burma; or in 1987 when a South Korean airliner was blown up by North Korean agents, killing all 115 people on board.

So what if this time is different? Here are five situations in which good sense might not prevail.

An Incident at Sea

Ever since an armistice ended the Korean War, the two sides have argued over — and from time to time skirmished over — the precise location of the “Northern Limit Line,” which divides their territorial waters. That was where the naval patrol ship Cheonan was sunk in March. So first on the Obama administration's list of concerns is another incident at sea that might turn into a prolonged firefight. Any heavy engagement could draw in the United States, South Korea's chief ally, which is responsible for taking command if a major conflict breaks out.

What worries some officials is the chance of an intelligence failure in which the West misreads North Korea's willingness and ability to escalate. The failure would not be unprecedented. Until a five-nation investigation concluded that the Cheonan had been torpedoed, South Korea and its allies did not think the North's mini-submarine fleet was powerful enough to sink a fully armed South Korean warship.

Shelling the DMZ

American and South Korean war planners still work each day to refine how they would react if North Korea's 1.2 million-man army poured over the Demilitarized Zone, 1950s-style. Few really expect that to happen — the South Koreans build and sell expensive condos between Seoul and the DMZ — but that doesn't mean the planning is unjustified.

In one retaliatory measure last week, South Korea threatened to resume propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers at the DMZ. In past years, such blaring denunciations, of Kim Jong-il 's economic failures, were heard only by North Korean guards and the wildlife that now occupies the no-man's land. Still, the threat was enough to drive the North's leadership to threaten to shell the loudspeakers. That, in turn, could lead to tit-for-tat exchanges of fire, and to a threat from the North to fire on Seoul, which is within easy reach of mortars. If that happened, thousands could die in frenzied flight from the city, and investors in South Korea's economy would almost certainly panic.

American officials believe the South is now rethinking the wisdom of turning on the loudspeakers.

A Power Struggle or Coup

Ask American intelligence analysts what could escalate this or a future crisis, and they name a 27-year-old Kim Jong-un , the youngest of Kim Jong-il's three sons, and the father's choice to succeed him. Little is known about him, but his main qualifications for the job may be that he is considered less corrupt or despised than his two older brothers.

One senior American intelligence official described the succession crisis this way: “We can't think of a bigger nightmare than a third generation of the Kim family” running the country with an iron hand, throwing opponents into the country's gulags, and mismanaging an economy that leaves millions starving.

It is possible that on the issue of succession, many in the North Korean elite, including in the military, agree with the American intelligence official. According to some reports, they view Kim Jong-un as untested, and perhaps unworthy.

“We're seeing considerable signs of stress inside the North Korean system,” another official reported.

And that raises the possibility of more provocations — and potential miscalculations — ahead.

One line of analysis is that the younger Kim has to put a few notches in his belt by ordering some attacks on the South, the way his father once built up a little credibility. Another possibility is that internal fighting over the succession could bring wide-scale violence inside North Korea, tempting outside powers to intervene to stop the bloodshed.

Curiously, when Kim Jong-il took the train to China a few weeks ago, his heir apparent did not travel with him. Some experts read that as a sign that the Kim dynasty might fear a coup if both were out of the country — or that it might not be wise to put father and son on the same track at the same time, because accidents do happen.

An Internal Collapse

America's most enduring North Korea strategy isn't a strategy at all; it's a prayer for the country's collapse. Harry Truman , Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy hoped for it. Dick Cheney tried to speed it.

The regime has survived them all.

But could the North collapse in the midst of the power struggle? Sure.

And that is the one scenario that most terrifies the Chinese. It also explains why they keep pumping money into a neighbor they can barely stand.

For China, a collapse would mean a flood of millions of hungry refugees (who couldn't flee south; there they are blocked by the minefield of the DMZ); it would also mean the possibility of having South Korea's military, and its American allies, nervously contending with the Chinese over who would occupy the territory of a fallen regime in order to stabilize the territory. China is deeply interested in North Korea's minerals; the South Koreans may be as interested in North Korea's small nuclear arsenal.

A Nuclear Provocation

With tensions high, American spy satellites are looking for evidence that the North Koreans are getting ready to test another nuclear weapon — just as they did in 2006 and 2009 — or shoot off some more long-range missiles. It is a sure way to grab headlines and rattle the neighborhood. In the past, such tests have ratcheted up tension, and could do so again. But they are not the Obama administration's biggest worry. As one of Mr. Obama's top aides said months ago, there is reason to hope that the North will shoot off “a nuclear test every week,” since they are thought to have enough fuel for only eight to twelve.

Far more worrisome would be a decision by Pyongyang to export its nuclear technology and a failure by Americans to notice.

For years, American intelligence agencies missed evidence that the North was building a reactor in the Syrian desert, near the Iraq border. The Israelis found it, and wiped it out in an air attack in 2007. Now, the search is on to find out if other countries are buying up North Korean technology or, worse yet, bomb fuel. (There are worries about Myanmar.)

In short, the biggest worry is that North Korea could decide that teaching others how to build nuclear weapons would be the fastest, stealthiest way to defy a new American president who has declared that stopping proliferation is Job No. 1.

It is unclear whether the American intelligence community would pick up the signals that it missed in Syria. And if it did, a crisis might not be contained in the Korean Peninsula; it could spread to the Middle East or Southeast Asia, or wherever else North Korea found its customers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/weekinreview/30sanger.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Attack Bares South Korea's Complex Links to North

MUNSAN, South Korea — Like many South Koreans, Choi Byung-wook said he felt outrage over the North Korean attack that sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 sailors. But he also said that he did not expect the hostilities to get any worse and that his nation must continue to engage the North.

“Inside, we are furious,” said Mr. Choi, 46, a government employee who shopped on a recent afternoon at a mall in this city just a few miles from the South's heavily fortified border with North Korea . “But even with 46 dead, cutting off North Korea is not an option for us.”

Mr. Choi's views are typical in this affluent nation. Since the government released evidence implicating North Korea in the attack, reactions in South Korea have ranged from anger to betrayal and even disbelief that North Korea would launch a strike against a neighbor that had showered it with fertilizer, investments and food aid .

But as the ship's sinking has blown into an international crisis, South Koreans also seem divided over how to respond. Many appear reluctant to press the government to take action for fear of provoking the North even further. There is also strong sentiment here that regardless of the attack, South Koreans must continue to engage the North Koreans, whom they still view as impoverished if sometimes dangerous relatives.

“South Korea has a dual perception of North Korea as both brother and enemy,” said Lee Nae-young, a political scientist at Korea University. “After the Cheonan, the majority sees the North as enemy, but the brother view also remains.”

For now, public opinion seems to have swung behind President Lee Myung-bak , a conservative who has taken a tougher line toward the North than his most recent predecessors did and responded to the sinking by cutting most economic links with North Korea. A poll by Gallup Korea, released Thursday by The Chosun Ilbo, a newspaper, showed that 60 percent of respondents supported the government's sanctions against the North.

Political analysts say Mr. Lee has seized on the Cheonan attack as an opportunity to lift his approval ratings, which were hovering below 50 percent before the crisis but have risen sharply. Analysts say the sinking of the Cheonan may also prove to be the final nail in the coffin of the so-called sunshine policy of his liberal predecessors, who in 2000 started giving the North aid with no strings attached in the hopes that it would open up. Public support for that policy began to falter after North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006.

“We can't just keep throwing money at North Korea if they do this,” said Lee Eun-chan, 72, a retired construction worker who recently ate dinner at a restaurant in Munsan.

But while passions are running high, they are tempered by a deep-seated resistance here against returning to an era of cold-war politics and hostility toward the North, political analysts say. A strong core of support for maintaining ties with the North cuts across South Korea's otherwise divided landscape. Even President Lee has not called for permanently ending ties, but rather for resuming aid, trade and investment only when the North reciprocates by curtailing its nuclear programs.

There is a strong sense of shared ethnic identity with Northerners, which runs deep enough that South Korean newspapers gave glowing coverage of the North Korean soccer team, which won its first World Cup berth in 44 years, even as they railed against the attack.

Also, some here fear that the North's isolated leadership might try to threaten the South's prosperity if it is not appeased.

While most of the business community has stood by the conservatives, Mr. Lee has alienated one group: the approximately 700 South Korean companies that do business with North Korea or invest there. Many complain that they will suffer huge losses if economic ties are severed. Particularly concerned are the 121 companies that have invested in the industrial park at Kaesong, which the North has recently threatened to close.

“They thought their business was supposed to free from politics,” said Kim Kyung-woong, chairman of the Council for Inter-Korean Civil Economic Exchange, a lobbying group.

The conflicting emotions stirred by the Cheonan's sinking are also apparent in Munsan, a suburb of Seoul with rows of white high-rise apartments filled with middle-class Koreans.

“It may be stupid of us not to just sever ties, but it is not that easy with North Korea,” said Park Eun-joo, 48, who sells shoes at a local shopping mall. “We are living better than they are, so we have to forgive them.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30mood.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Foes and Supporters of New Immigration Law Gather in Arizona

PHOENIX — Two sides of the immigration debate converged here Saturday: a throng of several thousand marching for five miles opposed to Arizona's new immigration law, and several thousand nearly filling a nearby stadium in the evening in support of it.

Organizers said the timing was coincidental, with both sides taking advantage of a holiday weekend to bring out the masses. But the gatherings encapsulated in a single day the passions surrounding the national immigration debate, recharged by the new law, which will expand the state's role in immigration enforcement.

Both demonstrations made a point of waving a large number of American flags and issuing pleas for a national overhaul of immigration law, but they offered a jarring study in how polarized the debate has become here.

The demonstrators against the law were mostly Latino, with young people and families making up a large share. They played drums, whistled and chanted and gave speeches in Spanish and English denouncing the perceived racism behind the law. Many carried posters or wore T-shirts with the message: “Do I look illegal?”

At the rally in favor of the law, which began with the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem, any mention of Mexico or supporters of the law brought lusty boos — a video clip of President Felipe Calderón of Mexico especially fired up the crowd, which was mostly white and middle-aged or older. Placards like “Illegals out of the U.S.A.” were typical, though speaker after speaker ridiculed the idea that the crowd was racist.

Far more attended the earlier rally opposed to the law, which included a five-mile march to the Capitol in withering heat. It was one of the largest since Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law April 23.

Some were citizens, like Armando Diaz, 33, a mechanic born and raised here who believes the law has helped spread anti-Latino fervor in the state.

“This is not what Arizona is about, hate,” Mr. Diaz said as he neared the capitol, where people fled for what little shade they could find. “But that is what this law is about.”

The later rally, at sundown, was organized by Tea Party groups from St. Louis and Dallas who said they decided to take the lead and support the state against a wave of boycotts protesting the law, some by cities like San Francisco and Seattle.

“We are doing this to crush any boycott against the free market,” said Tina Loudon, a Tea Party member from St. Louis who helped organize the rally. “Arizona has a sovereign right to enforce immigration laws on the books.”

The law — barring any successful legal challenges — will take effect July 29. It would allow the police to check the immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants when they have been stopped for another reason. It also makes it a state crime, not just a federal one, to not carry immigration papers.

Advocates see it as a tool for law enforcement to weed out illegal immigrants, while five lawsuits filed against it call it an infringement on federal authority and suggest that Latino citizens and legal residents will be swept up for questioning.

On another front, the governor and attorney general are disputing who will defend the state against the legal challenges and possible litigation by the United States Justice Department .

Ms. Brewer, a Republican, said Friday she had removed the state's attorney general, a Democrat and vocal opponent of the law, from defending it, accusing him of colluding with the Justice Department as it nears a decision on whether to challenge the law in court.

But the matter remained in dispute on Saturday, as the attorney general, Terry Goddard, a Democrat and potential challenger in her re-election bid, said in an e-mail message that he was “definitely defending the state” in legal challenges to the law.

Ms. Brewer said she took action after Mr. Goddard met Friday with Justice Department lawyers, who then met with her legal advisers.

Justice Department officials said they routinely meet with a state's attorney general and governor when considering legal action against their state.

“We continue to have concerns that the law drives a wedge between law enforcement and the communities they serve, and are examining it to see what options are available to the federal government,” said Tracy Schmaler, a department spokeswoman.

The United States attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. , has said he worries that the law may intrude on federal authority and lead to racial profiling.

Protest rallies were also held Saturday at the state capitols in Texas and Oregon, as well as in San Francisco, according to The Associated Press.

At the Arizona demonstrations, opinions could not be further apart.

Mireya Chavez Cerna, 43, an illegal immigrant who works as a maid, marched with her 9-year-old son, who was born in the United States and wore a shirt reading “Made in America.”

She denounced the climate of fear in the state and said immigrants like her could not abide the wait of a decade or more for a legal visa while their families grow hungry.

“Do you think we would risk losing our lives crossing the border if we didn't have a need to come here for a better life?” she said. Supporters of the law “don't know,” she added. “They don't understand. They don't live in Mexico. They don't know how it is.”

But Ann Hyde, a radiological technologist from Chandler, said she grew frustrated at supporters being tarred as prejudiced or worse.

“We are not racists,” she said. “This law is about respecting the laws of the nation and the economic impact of illegal immigration, which is enormous. My state is broke and they cost us with spending on schools, hospitals and other services.”

Though violent crime is declining in Arizona, as in most other states, and illegal immigration is down at the border, speakers played up crimes that illegal immigrants have been charged with over the years, including shooting of police officers.

“One is too many,” said Mark Spencer, the chairman of a union representing rank-and-file police officers in Phoenix.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30immig.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From Fox News

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Terror Plot Prompts U.S. to Weigh Military Option in Pakistan

The Washington Post says the U.S. military is developing plans for a unilateral attack on the Pakistani Taliban in the event of a successful terrorist strike in the United States that can be traced to the militant group In response to a report that the U.S. military is developing plans for a unilateral attack on the Pakistani Taliban in the event of a successful terrorist strike in the United States that can be traced to them, a U.S. official said it makes sense to thwart terrorists "in the most aggressive ways possible."

"Jones [National Security Adviser Jim Jones] and Panetta [CIA Director Leon Panetta] seemed to make a strong impression on the Pakistanis, especially when it came to the TTP links to the Times Square plot," the unidentified official told Fox News. "The Pakistanis understand that our enemy is their enemy, too."

Planning for a retaliatory attack was spurred by ties between alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad and elements of the Pakistani Taliban, The Washington Post said in an article posted on its website Friday night, quoting unidentified senior military officials.

The military would focus on air and missile strikes but also could use small teams of U.S. Special Operations troops currently along the border with Afghanistan, the Post said.

Airstrikes could damage the militants' ability to launch new attacks but also might damage U.S.-Pakistani relations.

The CIA already conducts unmanned drone strikes in the country's tribal regions. Officials told the Post that a U.S. military response would be considered only if a terrorist attacks persuaded President Barack Obama that the CIA campaign is ineffective.

A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Pakistan already has been told that it has only weeks to show real progress in a crackdown against the Taliban.

The U.S. has put Pakistan "on a clock" to launch a new intelligence and counterterrorist offensive against the group, which the White House alleges was behind the Times Square bombing attempt, according to the official.

U.S. officials also have said the U.S. reserves the right to strike in the tribal areas in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and other high-value targets.

At the same, the Obama administration is working to improve ties with Pakistani intelligence officials to head off attacks by militant groups, the Post reported.

Officials quoted by the Post and the AP requested anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/29/report-weighs-military-option-pakistan/print

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Pirates Threaten Boats on U.S.-Mexico Border Lake

Twice in recent weeks, fishermen have been robbed at gunpoint by marauders that the local sheriff says are "spillover" from fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.

ZAPATA, Texas – The waters of Falcon Lake normally beckon boaters with waterskiing and world-record bass fishing. But this holiday weekend, fishermen on the waters that straddle the U.S.-Mexico border are on the lookout for something more sinister: pirates.

Twice in recent weeks, fishermen have been robbed at gunpoint by marauders that the local sheriff says are "spillover" from fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.

Boaters are concerned about their safety, and the president of the local Chamber of Commerce is trying to assure people that everything's fine on the U.S. side of the lake.

At the fishing camp his family has owned for 50 years, Jack Cox now sleeps with a loaded shotgun at his feet and a handgun within reach.

In the American waters, Cox said, "you're safer, but you're not safe." Mexican commercial fishermen regularly cross to set their nets illegally, why wouldn't gunmen do the same? he asked.

Two weeks ago, the Texas Department of Public Safety warned boaters to avoid the international boundary that zig-zags through the lake, which is 25 miles long and 3 miles across at its widest point. Authorities also urged anyone on the water to notify relatives of their boating plans to aid law enforcement in case of trouble.

Since issuing the warning, most boats have stayed on the U.S. side.

"That's a good indication. It means they're getting the message," Texas Parks and Wildlife Capt. Fernando Cervantes said Thursday as he patrolled with two other game wardens. "They're still coming out, but they're not going across."

The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

Game wardens and the U.S. Border Patrol watch over the lake but do not cross into Mexican waters, and no Mexican law enforcement is visible.

Men armed with assault rifles robbed fishermen on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on April 30 and May 6. They traveled in the low-slung, underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar here. They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available. No one was hurt.

A third incident happened a couple of days before the warning was issued, but Cervantes said the fishermen were able to escape without the thieves boarding their boat.

The attacks "were really unusual," Cervantes said. "We had never seen it, and then they started up."

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several months.

A fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican border cities into violence. Police stations were attacked, officers killed and rolling gun battles between the gangs and with the Mexican military became commonplace.

"To me, this is spillover violence," Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. said. "I don't do the Chamber of Commerce talk. I talk reality."

Still, the sheriff says, boaters should safe provided they stay on the American side.

Cox, 81, says it was only a matter of time before the violence from Mexico crept onto the water. And the idea that gunmen looking to score easy cash from fishermen would not cross the lake's imaginary boundary doesn't make sense, he said.

That perspective is what worries Chamber of Commerce President Paco Mendoza.

"What's keeping our town alive is our lake," Mendoza said. In recent years, drilling in the county's oilfields has virtually stopped, and the wells are no longer producing like they once did. In those days, oilfield workers packed Zapata's restaurants and hotels, he said.

So Zapata increasingly looks to the lake for economic growth. Five fishing tournaments are scheduled between now and July, and a few big ones are set for next year.

"As far as we know, all of our contracts are still in play," Mendoza said.

Falcon Lake landed on the national map of fishing destinations after the 2008 Bassmaster Elite Series tournament, where bass-fishing world records were broken.

The pirate warning could hurt businesses that depend on the lake, "but anglers will continue to come to Falcon because of the great fishing," Mendoza said.

Norma Amaya, who runs a tackle shop with her husband, insists there is plenty of good fishing in U.S. waters. She points to a photo taken in December of a woman holding a 13.2-pound bass and smiling broadly.

Amaya said her husband's guide service had had a couple cancellations since the pirate warning, but they are still booked solid for next year's peak season, which runs from December to March.

They've stopped selling Mexican fishing licenses because no one is fishing over there now. Robert Amaya stopped taking clients into Mexican waters back in March, when violence was peaking in Mexico.

"It is dangerous over there (in northern Mexico), I wouldn't advise anyone to cross," she said.

Norma Amaya said the reports of pirates "have been blown out of proportion. It's probably just some hoodlums. I don't think the cartels want the exposure."

As he helped launch his cousin's bass boat from Falcon Lake State Park, Ronnie Guerra said he hadn't heard much about the pirates. But he knew enough to stay on his side of the lake.

"We already know what's going on on the other side," he said. "It's been going on for a long time."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/29/pirates-threaten-boats-mexico-border-lake/print

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America's Valiant Veterans Repose in Cemeteries Worthy of Heroes -- Both in the U.S. and Abroad

More than 300,000 American troops are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, but far more have been laid to rest in memorial sites and private plots around the country. Here is a look at the resting places of some of the most famous American warriors since the nation's founding.

American troops serving at home and abroad have given their lives, their limbs and years of service to a grateful nation. Many of those who have passed away are buried with honor in Arlington National Cemetery — more than 300,000 veterans in total — but far more have been laid to rest in memorial sites and private plots around the country. Here is a look at the final resting places of some of the most famous American warriors who have served since the nation's founding.

REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Before he was president, George Washington led the Continental Army in the six-year fight against British troops. Washington is interred at his home in Mount Vernon, Va. Nathanael Greene , one of Washington's top generals, was felled at the age of 44 by sunstroke shortly after the war ended. He is buried in Johnson Square in Savannah, Ga. The great American naval hero of the war, John Paul Jones , died in France and was buried there, but was later exhumed. His hallowed remains are now enshrined at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

INDIAN AND MEXICAN WARS

Andrew Jackson fought bravely in the War of 1812 and in numerous engagements with Indian tribes, dying in 1845 of a series of ailments after serving two terms in the White House. He's buried on his estate, the Hermitage, in Nashville, Tenn. Future president Zachary Taylor fought Indians from Indiana to Florida to Texas and later became a hero of the Mexican-American War. He is interred in Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Ky.

CIVIL WAR

Though Arlington National Cemetery was created during the Civil War, few of its great generals are buried there — not even Robert E. Lee, who once owned the property. Ulysses S. Grant lies in Grant's Tomb in New York's Riverside Park. Gen. Winfield Scott , an important Union strategist, is buried at West Point, where he is joined by George Armstrong Custer , who survived the Civil War but died at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

After the war, Gen. Robert E. Lee became the President of Washington College in Lexington, Va. (now Washington and Lee University), and is interred at the school's Lee Chapel. His ablest commander is buried in the same city in Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, though the Confederate tactician lost an arm in battle, and the arm is buried elsewhere.

WORLD WAR II

Commander in chief of the Pacific fleet, Chester W. Nimitz : was later promoted to Chief of Naval Operation. He was buried at Golden Gate Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif, in 1966. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower  was president of both the U.S. and Columbia University, and buried in the chapel at his presidential center in Abilene, Kan., in 1969. The top general in the Pacific theater, Douglas MacArthur , was laid to rest in the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Va., alongside his wife.

VIETNAM

James Stockdale was the highest-ranking officer held as a POW in Vietnam and spent more than seven years in confinement. When he passed away in 2005 he was buried at the Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Md. William Westmoreland , the commanding general in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, died just two weeks after Stockdale and was laid to rest in the cemetery at West Point. Charles Beckwith , who is credited with creating the special operations team Delta Force, was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Tex., upon his death in 1994.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

Jason Dunham , a Marine corporal, received the Medal of Honor for smothering a grenade with his helmet and body while wrestling an insurgent in Iraq. He lies in a private cemetery in Alleghany, N.Y. (image) Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor was awarded the Medal of Honor after jumping on a grenade in 2006 to shield his sniper team in Iraq; he is buried in Fort Rosencrans National Cemetery, San Diego. (image) Another SEAL, Michael P. Murphy , died bravely in a firefight in Afghanistan and was buried in Calverton National Cemetery in Calverton, N.Y.

Yet more than 125,000 American troops are buried on foreign soil in 24 permanent cemeteries, including two of the country's finest warriors. Gen. George S. Patton survived World War II and asked to be buried with his men. He was laid to rest in a U.S. military cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg, after his death in 1945. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. , who, like his father, was awarded the Medal of Honor, led the assault on Utah Beach and is buried in the military cemetery in Normandy, France.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/27/resting-places-american-troops-abroad/print

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Wisconsin Army Veteran Allowed to Keep Flag on Display

A Wisconsin Army veteran -- who faced eviction this week for flying the American flag -- will now be allowed to keep the flag up for as long as he wants. 

Under mounting nationwide protest, Charlie Price, 28, of Oshkosh, Wis., and officials at Midwest Realty Management struck a "mutual agreement" that allows the veteran to continue displaying the patriotic symbol, according to a statement posted on the company's website on Thursday. 

Price and his wife, Dawn, 27, were previously told they had to remove the flag -- which hangs in a window inside the couple's apartment -- by Saturday or face eviction due to a company policy that bans the display of flags, banners and political or religious materials. 

"It means the world to me," Price told FoxNews.com. "The way it happened wasn't the right way because the staff members were getting threatened and we didn't want any violence out of this, but I'm glad we did come to a compromise." 

Randy Rich, the apartment complex's property manager, told FoxNews.com that Midwest Realty Management received nearly 4,000 e-mails and thousands of phone calls in connection to the controversy.

"A few were questioning our policies and were civil in nature," Rich wrote in an e-mail. "However, most were filled with profanity and demeaning statements. Hundreds contained threats to our property, our employees and their families."

Rich said a Facebook page created by Dawn Price contained personal information of some employees at the apartment complex that led to harassing messages. The company has asked her to remove that information since it "has no bearing on this situation or her goal of changing the current flag legislation," Rich's e-mail continued.

"I will be putting a boycott on your rentals," one message reportedly read. "I will be telling anyone and everyone I know not to rent from you." 

Another reportedly read: "You are going to evict someone for displaying an American flag on Memorial Day? Shame on you for dishonoring a veteran." 

A Facebook group created by Dawn Price, " Freedom to Display the American Flag ," had roughly 2,000 members on Wednesday. As of early Friday, that number had grown to more than 44,000. 

Price, who served tours of duty as a combat engineer in Iraq and Kosovo from 2000 to 2008, said he'll now work on amending the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 , which states no "condominium association, cooperative association, or residential real estate management association" may stop someone from flying the American flag. The law, however, does not apply to renters. 

"I never thought it would be an issue," Price said, especially since the flag was inside his apartment. "It's a holiday when we should be able to show all of our pride and the respect for the people who fought for it, from the Civil War all the way to today." 

In a statement posted on its website on Thursday, Midwest Realty Management apologized to Price and all U.S. veterans. 

"It was never our intention to hurt the Prices or disrespect what Mr. Price and all veterans have sacrificed for each and every one of us," the statement reads. 

The company will now revise its policy to allow residents to "honor America" and display the flag in a manner similar to the Prices, who have hung the symbol in their apartment since Veterans Day. 

"Again we apologize to the Prices and anyone else who was offended by our actions," the statement continued. "It is our sincere hope that our apology will be accepted and the changes we are making will be beneficial to our company and our residents."

Price's wife, Dawn, told FoxNews.com earlier this week that she began decorating their apartment last year to honor his eight years of service. An American flag topped off the display, she said. 

"I knew it made Charlie really proud to see that," Dawn Price said on Tuesday. "And this isn't something new. This has been up for quite some time now." 

Veterans' groups were furious at the realtors' initial refusal to allow the flag to fly.

"As a veteran, it sickens me that the Dawn and Charlie Price's building management company would imply that the American flag could be construed as offensive by their residents," Ryan Gallucci, a spokesman for AMVETS, told FoxNews.com on Tuesday. "We're talking about our most revered national symbol. This is insulting to anyone who has defended our flag honorably, like Charlie Price."

Charlie Price said he wanted to thank everyone who contacted him and his wife since the controversy began last week when they were told they had to remove the flag or face eviction. 

"I would like to thank all the supporters out there," he said. "We're looking to do this the right way. Right now, we're concentrating on amending [the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005] so everyone can show their pride in their country."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/28/wisconsin-army-veteran-allowed-flag-display/print

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From MSNBC

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Margaret Mensch attends a burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Mensch is an "Arlington lady" — one of the volunteers who attend funerals there

At Arlington, each soldier has a special lady Volunteers honor troops and make sure none is buried alone By HELEN O'NEILL The Associated Press May 29, 2010 ARLINGTON, Va. - Joyce Johnson remembers the drums beating slowly as she walked with her girls from the Old Post Chapel, behind the horse-drawn caisson carrying the flag-draped casket of her husband. She remembers struggling to maintain her composure as she stared at his freshly dug grave, trying not to dwell on the terrible sight in the distance — the gaping hole in the Pentagon where he had so proudly worked. The three-volley salute. Taps. The chaplain handing her a perfectly folded flag. The blur of tributes.

"If there is anything you need ..."

Then she melted back into the crowd.

Later Johnson would think of her as a touchingly, human presence in a sea of starched uniforms and salutes. She would learn that the stranger was an "Arlington lady" — one of a small band of volunteers, mainly spouses of retired military officers, who attend every funeral in Arlington National Cemetery. She would read the notes — a formal one from the Army Chief of Staff and his wife, and a personal handwritten one from the Arlington lady herself.

She would learn of their mission: to ensure no soldier is buried alone.

Johnson wasn't alone. In fact she felt as though an entire nation was grieving with her.

But she never forgot the kindness of her Arlington Lady.

And several years later, as she wrestled with how to best to honor her husband, she dug out the lady's card. This is something I can do, she thought, not just for him, but for every soldier.

"It doesn't matter whether we are burying a four-star general or a private," says Margaret Mensch, head of the Army ladies. "They all deserve to have someone say thank you at their grave."

Mensch is sitting at her desk in the basement of the cemetery's administration building in the cramped office shared by ladies from the Navy, Air Force, Army and Coast Guard. The place bustles with activity — young military escorts in dress uniform arriving to accompany ladies to funerals, chaplains scribbling eulogies in their tiny office across the hall, cemetery representatives ushering mourners into private rooms upstairs.

30 funerals each weekday

There are approximately 30 funerals in Arlington every weekday and the ladies attend every one. All have their own reasons and stories.

There is Mensch, married to a retired Army colonel, who oversees the mammoth task of organizing the schedules for her 66 Army ladies and who says attending the funerals is the greatest honor of her life. And Doreen Huylebroeck, a 63-year-old nurse who remembers how desperately she wanted an Arlington lady beside her when her own husband, a retired Navy officer, died three years ago. Janine Moghaddam, who at 41 is one of the youngest Arlington ladies, and who felt a desperate need serve her country in some small way after Sept. 11, 2001. And Johnson herself.

She treks to the cemetery in spring when cherry blossoms burst over the rows of white stones and everything seems dusted in yellow pollen. And in the swelter of summer when the stones blaze in the heat and mourners sometimes pass out at services. Even in winter, when the wind whips through the marble pillars of the Columbarium, Johnson and the other ladies keep their vigil, clinging to the arms of their escorts as they pick their way through the mud and snow.

Always elegantly dressed, often in hats and gloves. Always standing, hand over heart, a respectful distance from the grave. Always mindful of history.

The ladies know every inch of Arlington's 624 manicured acres, from the stones of freed slaves marked "unknown citizens" to the grave of the first soldier interred here (Private William Christman, a farmer from Pennsylvania who fought in the Civil War) to Section 60, where the men and women who lost their lives in the current wars are buried.

"So many stones, so many stories," says Paula Mckinley, head of the Navy ladies, as she drives through the cemetery one recent spring day, stopping at a section not far from the throngs of tourists at President John F. Kennedy's grave.

Baldwin. Curtis. Sanchez. She walks among their headstones reciting their names.

With her booming voice, red hair tucked under a straw hat, and brisk manner, Mckinley, whose husband is a retired Navy officer, is a striking figure. But she is subdued by the graves, reverential. "They all deserve to be remembered, and to be visited," she says.

McKinley, who has been an Arlington lady for 21 years, drives a little further. She stops by a grove of willow oaks, searching for a specific plot.

"Here you are, sweetheart," she says, gently touching the stone of a young woman Navy officer who died in an accident at the age of 25. The officer's mother called from California one day — on her daughter's birthday — and asked if an Arlington lady could put flowers on the grave. Now McKinley visits regularly. She says it's the least she can do.

Job to honor, not grieve

The first group of Arlington ladies were formed in 1948 after Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg and his wife, Gladys, noticed an airman being buried without any family members present, just a chaplain and honor guard. It seemed so sad, and somehow so wrong. So Gladys Vandenberg enlisted a group of officers' wives to attend all Air Force funerals. The other branches of the armed services followed, with the exception of the Marines, who do not have a group.

The ladies insist they are not mourners. They come to honor, not to grieve. "An Arlington lady doesn't cry," is practically a mantra.

And yet, there are times when that is inevitable.

McKinley remembers choking up as she offered condolences to a 10-year-old girl, who had just lost her parents. The child reached up and hugged her tight. And the time a young widow from Peru clung to her, begging McKinley to sit next to her in the front row. Her husband had died suddenly and there were no family members to comfort her.

Linda Willey, head of the Air Force ladies, describes the pain of burying friends from the Pentagon after September 11, 2001, when shards of debris still littered the cemetery and tears flowed freely behind dark glasses.

And Mensch tells of the heartache the Army ladies felt last year when one of their own escorts was killed in Iraq. The handsome young soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division, who had escorted the ladies to hundreds of funerals, was buried with full military honors, an Arlington lady standing by his grave.

About 145 ladies volunteer in the four branches, which all have slightly different rules. The Army ladies maintain a strict dress code — no slacks, no red, panty hose to be worn at all times. The Navy ladies introduce themselves to the families before the funeral, and follow up with personal notes about six weeks later.

All of the ladies volunteer for one day a month, sometimes attending four or five funerals in a single day. All have memories and stories: the time a family feud erupted and police had to break up the mourners; the young widow who wore a red cocktail dress because it was her husband's favorite; the older widow who refused to get out of the car because she saw the Arlington lady standing near the grave. She assumed this was the other woman.

"You never know what to expect, and you never judge," Willey says as she walks among the headstones and ponders her role. Willey, 63, who is married to a retired Air Force colonel, became a lady almost by accident, as a favor to a friend who kept pressing her. From her first funeral she knew that this was what she was meant to do.

"It just felt right, such an honor," Willey says. "It's such a simple gesture and yet it can be so powerful."

As she talks, strains of "America the Beautiful" seem to float over the stones from a grave site a short distance away. Jan Jackson of Fort Collins, Colo., is burying her parents. Their urns sit next to each other on a table above their joint grave.

Jackson's mother died in 2006 and her father, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, died last year. She had planned this springtime date on what would have been her father's 96th birthday. She wanted to honor her parents, married 67 years, by burying them together in the nation's hallowed ground.

As a member of a military family, Jackson, 59, is familiar with the pomp and precision and patriotism that accompany funerals. But she was utterly unprepared for the flood of emotion that swept over her as a young military escort took her arm and guided her from the chapel to the grave.

It was a small funeral — just Jackson, her son and grandchildren. And her Arlington lady.

Everything about the service was perfect, she said later. And this stranger was there to make it even better — "almost an angelic kind of person who is there for you even though she doesn't know you, even though she is not required, even though it is not her job. It was so special, so comforting."

From around the cemetery drift the sounds of other services, bands and gun salutes and drum rolls, one funeral seeming to blend into the next.

In one section, three daughters in black dresses and pearls, are burying their father, a former Navy officer who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and who meticulously planned his own funeral, even visiting Arlington regularly to view his final resting place. He smiles from a photograph propped next to his urn.

In the Columbarium, decorated veterans, laden with medals, are saluting one of their own — a member of the naval aviation squadron known as the Golden Eagles, and one of the last survivors of the Battle of Midway.

And in Section 60 a widow, young and beautiful and dressed in black, clutches her toddler son. Before her, standing to attention, the honor guard that had processed behind her husband's coffin, pulled in a caisson by six white horses. In the distance, the rifle guard that had fired the salute. In a far corner, the lone bugler who had played taps.

On this steamy spring day, beneath a towering oak, a 27-year-old Army sergeant, killed in an attack in Pakistan a month earlier, is about to be laid to rest.

"Today the country tries to say thank you ... and yet words are inadequate," the chaplain begins.

His widow seems overwhelmed, her eyes locked on the silver casket that holds his remains. His parents softly sob.

And then a lady steps forward, an older woman, dressed in a simple dark suit.

She whispers a few words of condolences and presses two cards into the widow's hands.

"If there is anything you need ..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37416579/ns/us_news-life/print/1/displaymode/1098/

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Drug gangs dismember Mexico prison warden

MEXICO CITY - The body of a prison warden kidnapped by gunmen earlier Saturday was found dismembered and scattered in several locations in a small state adjacent to the Mexican capital, Mexican media reported.

Suspected drug gang hitmen grabbed Luis Navarro as he reported for work at the prison Saturday morning. Parts of his body were later found in gift bags at four locations near police stations in Morelos state.

At least two of the packages contained messages threatening police and other public officials, Mexican media said.

A spokesman for the state public security office confirmed Navarro's kidnapping but declined to say whether it was his dismembered body that was found.

Morelos state and Cuernavaca, its capital which is a popular weekend getaway near Mexico City, have witnessed a surge in drug-related violence since security forces killed Arturo Beltran Leyva, the leader of an eponymous regional drug cartel, in December.

Beltran Leyva's death has triggered a brutal power struggle as factions in the gang battle for control of its territory.

The half-naked bodies of two men were found hanged from a major bridge in the city in April in one of the most shocking recent crimes in the once-quiet colonial city.

Drug violence is raging across Mexico and almost 23,000 people have been killed in the fight among cartels and with Mexican security forces since President Felipe Calderon launched his army-led crackdown on drug gangs in 2006.

The escalating violence is scaring off tourists and worries Washington, which is giving anti-drug aid, equipment and police training to Mexico. Some investors have frozen investment in factories in cities on the U.S. border, especially in Ciudad Juarez, the most deadly flash point in the drug war.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37419603/ns/world_news-americas/print/1/displaymode/1098/

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