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A simple ceremony is held at the county crematory and cemetery. The chaplain presiding says it is a service like no other, with no grieving families, no personal histories, not even names to read.

by Hailey Branson-Potts and Rosanna Xia

December 8, 2011

They are the unidentified, the estranged, those whose loved ones just couldn't afford to bury them.

In a simple yet poignant ceremony Wednesday near a busy Boyle Heights intersection, the ashes of more than 1,600 people who had never been identified or whose bodies were never claimed were buried in a single grave.

The mass burial has become a custom each December at the Los Angeles County Crematory and Cemetery. This year's ceremony was attended by just a few, none of whom knew the deceased.

The Rev. Chris Ponnet, a chaplain at County-USC Medical Center, led the service for "the nameless and the named but unclaimed" — 1,639 bodies in all.

Interfaith burial rites and prayers were included, with readings from the Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian traditions. The ceremony concluded with the Serenity Prayer, Psalm 23 and a blessing of hands over the burial site.

"I think it's commendable that the county doesn't bury them in the dead of the night," Ponnet said. "It says we have a depth of humanity."

Ponnet, who has led the service for four years, said it is like no other. There are no grieving families, no personal histories or even names to read.

"The disconnect becomes the problem," he said.

For Ponnet, the burial is always personal.

The chaplain said he has met and spent time with people who will someday probably be among those whose ashes are interred in the common grave. Many, he said, know that they will probably die alone.

Albert Gaskin, the county's cemetery caretaker, said he's been to more than 30 of the annual burials. Each has an emotional tug.

"It's hard, especially when you have to cremate babies," he said. "Off the top of my head, there are about 300 babies this year from hospitals around the county, with families who can't afford to bury them."

Bodies at the county morgue are kept in storage for two to three years before being sent to the common grave, according to the coroner's office. There currently are 5,199 people on the coroner's unclaimed persons list.

County-USC has been conducting the burials since 1896.

About 20 people attended the ceremony Wednesday on a hill overlooking 1st and Lorena streets. Each year, a new mass grave is marked with a roughly 4-by-4 inch plaque inscribed simply with the year.

Sometimes, family members discover too late that a loved one was buried in the grave. A few small markers with individual names are scattered throughout the cemetery, placed next to the plaques.

A marker for a 23-year-old named Dennis Riley is near the 1981 grave; at the nearby 1978 burial site is a marker for Daniel Westhart, 22. Gaskin said he knows at least one family that visits a grave several times a year, leaving flowers.

"I'm not here for a specific person," said Ed Pilolla, 39, of Torrance. "I came … just to pay some respect, give some recognition to those who officially have no recognition," he said.

Pilolla attended with six friends from the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, which runs a soup kitchen on skid row and a hospitality house in Boyle Heights.

"A lot of people who came to our soup kitchen — in poor health or estranged from their family — probably have ended up here," said Ann Boden, 56.

"You have the 1% at the top," Boden said. "This is the 1% at the bottom."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-burial-20111208,0,2291491,print.story

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Mexico says it foiled plot to sneak in Kadafi son

Authorities say four people are held. They allegedly aided Saadi Kadafi's bid to set himself and three relatives up in an oceanfront estate in Nayarit state.

by Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

December 7, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City

Mexican authorities announced Wednesday that they had busted an international smuggling ring that was planning to sneak a son of Moammar Kadafi into Mexico, where he was to be ensconced in a ritzy oceanfront estate.

Saadi Kadafi, the 38-year-old son of the deposed and slain dictator, and three relatives were to travel to Mexico using falsified documents that gave them new names and Mexican citizenship, authorities said. The plot involved a network of safe houses, illicit bank accounts and private jets crisscrossing the globe from the Middle East to Kosovo to Canada, said Alejandro Poire, Mexico's interior minister.

Poire said four people — two Mexicans, a Canadian and a Dane — formed the smuggling ring and were arrested last month.

The announcement followed publication one day earlier in Canada of an article that described the plot and Kadafi's intentions to set himself up in the Punta Mita resort area, a Pacific coast stretch of million-dollar villas, Jack Nicklaus golf courses and frolicking celebrities.

The National Post reported that the head of a Canadian private-security firm, Gary Peters, has served as Kadafi's bodyguard for several years and helped him escape to Niger as his father's regime crumbled. The paper quoted Peters as confirming the property had been acquired but that he believed the documents being obtained and other steps being taken to get Kadafi to Mexico were legitimate.

Contacted by The Times, Peters said via email, "People are getting arrested wrongly."

Saadi Kadafi, who lived a raucous playboy lifestyle and who played European soccer professionally, briefly, until flunking a drug test, is wanted by Interpol, which issued a "red notice" in September urging nations to arrest and possibly extradite him. Libya's transitional government had said it wanted the younger Kadafi for "armed intimidation" and misappropriation of property while he headed the Libyan Football Federation, Interpol said. And the United Nations froze his and his family's assets and slapped a travel ban on Kadafi and other top members of the fallen regime.

Poire did not say which family members were going to accompany Kadafi. The fake names they were going to use — Daniel Bejar Hanan, Amira Sayed Nader, Moah Bejar Sayed and Sofia Bejar Sayed — suggested the relatives were, or would pose as, his wife and two children.

Poire identified the leader of the alleged smuggling ring as Cynthia Ann Vanier, a Canadian national, who Poire said had "direct contact" with the Kadafi family and was in charge of finances. Mexicans Gabriela Davila Huerta, or Davila de Cueto, and Jose Luis Kennedy Prieto were tasked to obtain fake papers, while Danish national Pierre Christian Flensborg was in charge of logistics, Poire said.

Mexican intelligence learned of the plot on Sept. 6, about the time Saadi Kadafi was fleeing in a convoy to Niger, government spokeswoman Alejandra Sota said. Vanier was arrested Nov. 10 in Mexico City, and the other three the following day.

"With these actions, the federal government is actively contributing to a safe North America," Sota said.

Under Mexican law, the suspects can be held for up to 80 days without charges. During that period, they will be investigated on suspicion of people-trafficking, organized crime and the use of false documents, authorities said.

Canada's National Post, in its article, described Vanier as a consultant who produced a report blaming the bulk of human rights atrocities on NATO-backed rebel forces that ousted Moammar Kadafi. Her website describes her work as "building bridges from conflict to peace."

The paper also said Peters, the bodyguard, was shot in the shoulder when his convoy was ambushed upon returning to Libya after delivering Saadi Kadafi to Niger. His company, Can/Aust Security & Investigations International, is based in Ontario.

Poire, the interior minister, trumpeted the busting of the alleged smuggling ring as a victory for Mexico's improving institutions and proof of the country's ability to protect its borders. But it is the corruption of the institutions and the porous quality of the borders that may have attracted Saadi Kadafi in the first place. Mexico, as history attests, can be an easy place to hide. Especially if one has the money to hire bodyguards, charter private aircraft and buy off local authorities.

Punta Mita, the resort area in Nayarit state that Kadafi was apparently considering, is particularly tantalizing. Its website shows turquoise waters and five-star hotels and boasts of sightings of Kim Kardashian and Charlie Sheen.

Asked in a radio interview why he thought Kadafi chose the locale, Nayarit Gov. Roberto Sandoval did not hesitate.

"Because we have the best beaches in the world, the climate is marvelous, we don't have problems like hurricanes," Sandoval said. "Nayarit is a paradise, and that's why it doesn't surprise me that Kadafi was thinking of coming to live here in paradise."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-kadafi-20111208,0,853309,print.story

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Smartphones, dumb drivers

With smartphone ownership proliferating, a total ban on cellphone use by drivers is needed, for the safety of everyone on the road.

December 8, 2011

Can you safely talk on a cellphone — or for that matter, check your email or scroll through Google Maps — while driving? Well, of course you can. But those other folks with their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road are a public menace.

Unfortunately, that sums up the attitude of many American motorists, who widely acknowledge using their phones while behind the wheel but insist they're safe drivers. Meanwhile, the number of people worried about the other guy is soaring. When the state Office of Traffic Safety asked California drivers to name the biggest safety problem on the road, nearly 40% listed drivers who use cellphones. That's a big jump from last year, when the top worry was aggressive drivers and speeders, and only 18.3% were concerned about cellphones.

So what changed? Probably the explosion of smartphones, which aren't so much phones as portable computers — and which, like a computer, require both eyes and often both hands, meaning that, in our view, drivers should never operate them. But they do. More than 1 in 4 Americans who download applications to their smartphones admit to using those apps while driving, according to a survey by Nationwide Mutual Insurance. And the number of people with smartphones is growing fast. U.S. sales of smartphones are expected to hit 95 million in 2011, and 43% of mobile phone owners have smartphones; soon it will be a majority.

Motorists have good reason to worry about this. Studies show that people talking on their cellphones are four times more likely to be in an accident than other drivers, and their level of impairment is comparable to people with a blood alcohol level of 0.08%, the legal limit. And that research was done back when cellphones were used only for making calls. Now that they're used for posting on Facebook or playing Angry Birds, we suspect the dangers are much greater.

Lawmakers haven't caught up. Thirty states ban cellphone use by novice drivers, but none do so for all drivers. California has a law that tries to limit the problem but aims at the wrong target. Here, it's forbidden to text while driving or to hold a cellphone to one's ear, but drivers over 18 can still talk using a hands-free device; moreover, it's still technically legal to use a smartphone app while behind the wheel. This is both outdated and ineffective. There is no evidence that using hands-free devices reduces cellphone-related accidents, which happen because drivers are distracted by their conversations, not because they're using one hand to hold a phone.

A total cellphone ban would avoid the problem of legislating for yesterday's technology, and reduce the number of accidents. Meanwhile, if you value your life and the lives of others, don't dial and drive.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-cellphones-20111208,0,4623398,print.story

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From Google News

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Troops' Cremated Remains Went To Landfill

Neighbourhood's efforts recognized with international policing award

CAMBRIDGE — A neighbourhood's efforts to improve safety and clean up its streets have earned it an international community policing award.

The award from the International Association of Chiefs of Police was formally presented to the Alison Park community Wednesday night to recognize work that began back in 2006, when Waterloo Regional Police were told of a rise in racially motivated violence and harassment targeting local Muslim residents.

Police patrols increased, the Elgin Street pedestrian tunnel was cleaned up, regular meetings began — and people took more pride in their community.

“They're seeing the fruits of their labour,” said Courtney Storey, executive director of the Alison Neighbourhood Community Centre. “When people are connected to each other, they feel safer.”

Storey said the work has given residents the courage to be able to speak up and take on the challenges themselves.

Police see the transformation as a success story, proof their community mobilization model gets results. Calls for police assistance have dropped, and quality of life has improved, said Insp. Greg Lamport.

“We encouraged the community to take some ownership,” he said. “They deserve a lot of recognition for it

http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/636120--neighbourhood-s-efforts-recognized-with-international-policing-award

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