Split (1)

train · 2.59M rows

text stringlengths 12 102k
COLUMBUS - Crumbling brick pillars at Greenlawn Memorial Park cemetery in east Columbus show the wear and tear of time. The tangle of brush that covered them not long ago, however, is gone. Flat headstones that had sunk in the ground, swallowed by crabgrass and dirt, are being discovered — and some raised. They are onc...
Thanks to a small band of volunteers, Greenlawn Memorial Park on Highway 69 South is finally getting some attention and care it has done without for far too long. The faithful show up with chainsaws, mowers, shovels and wheelbarrows, responding to a call first sent out by Darwin and Lee Ann Turk on Facebook in October....
“There were gravestones that had slid down into the ground, and crabgrass had entangled almost every grave out there,” the former U.S. Marine said. Trees and brambles had encroached unchecked and a round garden feature with brick columns supporting stone Bibles had greatly deteriorated.
That’s how the reclamation of Greenlawn began. It has since involved organized work days, phone calls to city officials, online appeals for information and a certain amount of detective work, especially on findagrave and ancestry websites.
Among those interred are more than 20 military veterans, and even an Alaskan gold miner. How he came to be buried there is just one of many unanswered questions.
Caleb Pounders of Lowndes Funeral Home has done some exhaustive research into Greenlawn’s past.
“Best I can tell, the cemetery started in 1955,” said Pounders. Owners of the corporation that established it never lived in Mississippi. For reasons not fully known, it appears perpetual care and maintenance ceased at the cemetery some time between 1975 and 1985 or 1986. The corporation no longer exists. Greenlawn, in...
Actual ownership of the 17-acre cemetery property appears to be in limbo.
“It’s just a shame: It could be a very nice cemetery,” said Pounders, who continues to communicate with people at the state level about Greenlawn’s future. Any path forward is complicated by strict laws and regulations.
“I’m trying to do something so we can make sure it’s taken care of,” the funeral director said.
Sandra Clemmons Custard and her husband, Kenneth Custard, are among volunteers working toward Greenlawn’s restoration. Sandra has grandparents and other family buried there. Her father, before he passed away, spent many an hour trying to keep their graves from being overtaken by nature.
The sinking, Pounders indicated, is at least partially due to ground settling.
Other volunteers have responded to the call, like Janice Wood and her husband, David Wood, of New Hope. They have no personal connection to the cemetery, but saw the Turks and others working there one day and decided to pitch in. David brought out a tractor to help level ground and reset stones.
After Christina Chunn learned of the project, she urged her 14-year-old son, Hunter, and his friends in Civil Air Patrol to help on a workday. The group for 12- to 18-year-olds is an auxiliary of the Air Force.
Other unselfish acts have surfaced. Burns Dirt Construction donated a load of dirt. American Legion Post 69 provided flags for gravesites on Veterans Day.
Families like Pam Bullock’s are grateful. Her grandparents and other family members are interred at Greenlawn.
“If it wasn’t for everyone who’s helped, we couldn’t have handled it, but we still need help,” Lee Ann Turk said.
Darwin Turk continues to check on the cemetery almost every day. The sight of poinsettias on several of the graves lifts him up as he considers an ongoing list of goals, a wish list of sorts. He’d like to see some type of border fence up, perhaps a decorative link-chain which he thinks was there before. He’d like to ge...
“This might be my last hoorah,” said Darwin, who remains committed to Greenlawn. He and his wife have taken it on as a mission, Pam Bullock said.
The NCCE civic education officer in his deliberation in Basse again reiterated the advice that citizens should take the constitutional review process positively. He emphasised that they are engaged in a civic campaign which is nonpartisan.
It was observed that the turn in the town of Basse was low.
Madam Saffiatou Savage-Sidibeh, the Civic Education Officer from the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), has on Tuesday said that the participation of women in most communities has been very low, especially those in the Upper River Region.
According to her the participation of women in national development is crucial, especially on an important issue such as the development of 'our national constitution".
She expressed the need for all Gambians to come up with their opinions raised in the issues document which is being circulated to facilitate the drafting of the new Constitution.
"I urge all women across the country to let their voices be heard and fully participate in this constitutional review process. It is not only for us as mothers but for our children and grandchildren," she stated.
Madam Savage-Sidibeh said that it is important for all as a nation especially women to participate since 'we have a key role to play in this.' She added that every citizen, men, women, young and old should feel proud to be associated in the development of the Gambia's New Constitution.
"If we miss this opportunity, we as mothers might live to regret it because we might see in the coming future that our aims and aspirations are not highlighted. We've seen that women are very vulnerable in the sense that there are lots of things affecting them, health wise, land ownership, access to farm implements to ...
"Women know their problems, so they should come out and add it to the issues. If it is not reflected in the issues document, let them bring it out for the benefit of their children, grandchildren and their own benefit," she explained.
She reiterated the fact women that developing a constitution are not easy and it takes ages before another one is developed. She therefore urged all Gambians to participate fully in the Constitutional review process.
Inclusion, she said that the CRC is an independent body pursuant to the Constitutional Review Commission Act, 2017. In carrying out its work, she said the CRC is not subject to the direction or control of any person or authority.
"As an institution, it is guided by the following core values: Inclusiveness, independence, integrity and participation," she informed.
Similar message was made at Sabi in URR-South by civic education officers whereby there lighted them about the work of NCCE/CRC and their mission.
Moreover residence also put forward their questions and expressed some viewpoints and comments.
Home prices are falling across America’s major cities, with at least 10 reaching their lowest levels since the housing bubble burst.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index showed declines in 19 cities from January to February. This is the seventh straight month of decline where prices fell at a faster rate in 11 of the markets in February than they had in January.
One city, Detroit, showed a monthly gain. However, even Detroit’s home prices are below their previous 2000 levels.
Fewer people are buying and selling homes in the US. High unemployment, high prices elsewhere and fears over the long term are keeping many out of the housing market. With a low market and high foreclosure rates, low and following prices ensue as home owners hold their homes off the market waiting for better odds.
"There is evidence that potential sellers are holding their properties off the market, waiting for housing prices to stop falling," Bricklin Dwyer, an analyst at BNP Paribas told AP.
Home prices in major cities such Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and others are at their lowest points since 2006 or 2007.
Even as small growth and recovery can be seen in other markets, the US housing market continues to suffer and decline. Cities hit hardest by other economic factors, such as unemployment and foreclosures are suffering the greatest decline in home prices.
On top of an already depressed housing market, foreclosures across America are estimated to increase to 1.2 million this year.
"It's hard to sell when buyers have the leverage and foreclosures continue to create a gap between distressed sale prices and non-distressed sale prices," Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse Securities told AP.
Recent polls seem to confirm this is how the American people feel. A Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers showed 90 percent of respondents feel now is a bad time to sell your home.
“Meet the Small Potatoes,” the first animated feature from Little Airplane Prods., has wrapped principal photography and is in discussion for a theatrical release this year.
Malcolm McDowell has the voice of the manager of a band in “Potatoes,” an animated mock rockumentary. Little Airplane topper Josh Selig (“The Wonder Pets”) wrote and directed the film, which features original songs from Jerry Bock (“Fiddler on the Roof”), who passed away in 2010.
The film includes more than 1,000 animated avatars of actual fans of the shortform “Small Potatoes” TV series. The images were culled from the show’s Facebook page.
See which roads the county has closed or posted for high water as of 4:15 p.m. Monday.
The following roads were closed for high water as of 4:15 p.m. Monday, according to the Marion County Engineer's Office.
The following roads were posted for high water as of 4:15 p.m. Monday, according to the Marion County Engineer's Office.
Recently for my sister's birthday I sent her an edible bouquet of chocolate flowers. The running joke in my family has always been to find creative and thoughtful ways to cope with our disabilities. Because my sister has a vision impairment she couldn't see the colour of the 'flowers', but I knew she would love the tas...
My mum hated that her daughters spent so much effort trying to be 'normal'. But the truth is, the things that happen to a person with a disability are nowhere near what a 'normal' person would experience. Consider the challenge of going through job rejection time and time again, knowing it is because of the perception ...
My sister spent her birthday with a Disability Employment Services provider trying to find a full-time, meaningful job. She went directly to businesses in her area, dressed professionally and with an introduction letter and resume, so that a prospective employer would get to meet her in person and see what a keen, inde...
I know how she feels. When I graduated from Guide Dogs Victoria in 2014, I was faced with the cold, hard fact that my life would never be the same again. My guide dog was my shadow, an extension of me. When I attended a rare job interview, I would put a bow tie around my guide dog's neck to deflect some of the heat off...
The interviewer would ask questions that were of a more chatty, personal nature — everything except questions about my qualifications (I have a Diploma, a Bachelor of Health Science, and 15 years of work experience behind me). The only thing that seems to be holding me back is my vision impairment and the 'elephant' in...
So what changes do we need to see in the general workforce to make it a fair playing field? First, don't assume that people who are disabled are limited to certain industries. Not all people who are blind want to work in a call centre. We all have passions and want to contribute to the workforce.
Other things that would help are truthful and inclusive job advertising, and job application systems that are accessible. For example, avoid captcha technology — I am not a robot, but nor can I see the security images that these tools expect me to be able to identify. Consider, too, the wording in the advertising: Do y...
"If I can win an ironman I should be able to find a meaningful full-time job."
Equal opportunity should start, and be discussed openly, in the job interview. A good start would be to access the great technology that is already available and will only get better in the future. Never-ending paperwork and having to use pens to sign forms should be banned (my guide dog can't sign for me). PowerPoint ...
Cultivate people's abilities rather than creating hurdles. Allow leadership to be formed in management positions. IT database platforms need to meet access levels to support productivity. To engage employees with disabilities in the workplace, the physical and cyber environments need constant upgrading and adjusting to...
Then there are custom contracts that reflect the employee's needs to be retained in the workplace; disability awareness training for employees, with someone who has lived experience of what it's like to actually be disabled; the list goes on. Did you know that businesses who employ disabled people can receive $8000 per...
My sister is now 24 and I am 31. I can't wait for society to learn about different abilities, on their own accord and through positive advertising. Blindness has no cure. I want to be a good role model to my family and friends. If I can win an ironman I should be able to find a meaningful full-time job. It just shouldn...
Casey Hyde is a disability advocate who believes in social justice. She is also a champion in para triathlon. She loves travelling around Australia and meeting people who open her eyes to new things.
In today's world perhaps the greatest disabilities are those flaws of character possessed by those blind to the qualities of others and who see only the superficiality of outward physical appearance.
A fantastic article speaking a truth with which I am personally familiar. I, too, remember the more than 300 CVs I sent to law firms and others after graduation and the (not always terribly subtle) references to my lack of sight on the rare occasions on which I made it to a face-to-face interview. I agree, too, that en...
After reading this excellent article I was moved to look up more about you on the web, Casey and I was even more impressed. To my way of thinking the HR or personnel people who interviewed you should not be in their jobs because they did not have the insight or ability to see what an asset you would be in their organis...
I do hope that you can get the employment you would like. I am a retired person who spent nearly twenty years at Vision Australia in their library.Your article in Eureka really made me aware of the injustice that occurs when it comes to employment. Whilst I can't help you get a job I will be thinking and praying that s...
It is not necessarily over when the fat lady sings. In Milan, instrumentalists and singers from the great opera house La Scala exit the stage to live out their lives happily together at Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, known as Casa Verdi.
La Scala retirees aren't the only residents of this rest home, an imposing mansion set on a traffic circle near the Metro stop Buonorotti. Anyone with a musical career is welcome to pass the sunset years in Giuseppe Verdi's living monument.
This year marks Casa Verdi's 100th anniversary. Verdi was writing "Falstaff" when he conceived of a musicians' retirement home as an enduring memorial to his music. Verdi's father was an innkeeper, so perhaps a family tradition of hospitality also influenced the composer, who bought the property in 1889 and founded the...
Diego Mattiello, Casa Verdi's director, leans back in his swivel chair in a paneled office ornamented with marble busts, paintings and mementos of opera's greatest composer. Royalties from Verdi's many operas funded the institution for decades after he died, explains Mattiello, but now the foundation runs on donations.
"We just received another gift from the Toscanini family," he says. In the main hall, honor rolls of big donors are carved in marble plaques. Luciano Pavarotti is on the list. So are Marilyn Horne, Maria Callas and the Metropolitan Opera Company. There are 79 places in this "residential hotel," as the director describe...
Originally intended for Italian artists, Casa Verdi is now home to an international musical clan, who seem to do little resting given their schedules of concerts, receptions and family visits.
"To live here, there are two qualifications," says Mattiello. "They must have made their living from music and be physically self-sufficient." Residents live in self-contained units--rooms with private baths--and eat in a communal dining room. In Verdi's day, old people without extended families would bed down in a war...
By continuing to live in an environment steeped in theatrical lore, the musicians never really leave their profession, which may account for the upbeat atmosphere at Casa Verdi, said Mattiello. No shuffleboard and canasta here. Concerts are offered several times a week. Verdi's own piano, an Erard, holds pride of place...
"And after 100 years," says Mattiello, "we've modified the bylaws to give opportunities to younger musicians. International students enrolled in a music school in Milan may also live at Casa Verdi."
Residents are given free tickets to La Scala and enjoy Milan's other offerings. The stream of musical pilgrims looking for Verdi's tomb provides a diversion, as do the young resident conscientious objectors who help at Casa Verdi as an alternative to military service.
A warbling voice echoing down the hall testifies that singers are in residence. Former ballerinas, composers and orchestra musicians live here, along with dedicated music teachers such as Berta Bandina, who was born in Tuscany near Sienna but lived many decades in South America, moving into Casa Verdi in 1996.
At the time-darkened bronze statue of Verdi that looms over the main staircase, Bandina pauses. "I touch this statue every time I go by to thank Verdi for making this house," she says. "That's why there's the bright spot on his boot." Upstairs, in a reception room outfitted with several grand pianos, she settles into o...
Luigi Veccia was first cello with La Scala and taught the orchestra musicians for 25 years. Dapper at 86, eyes like black olives, he tugs at a music stand by the window of his room to make space for guests. The walls are an orderly collage of photos, diplomas, awards and concert programs. "That's me with the Papa," he ...
"Do you want me to play?" he asks, gesturing to the canvas-encased cello. But an insistent dancer at the door pushes forward his sister the ballerina.
Back in 1931, Italia Vescovo, now 82, was a star dancer with La Scala. She's a rather stunning octogenarian, striking eyes outlined in kohl and trim body swathed in fur. She gestures to a picture of herself on pointe in a tutu.
"I was in Egypt touring with La Scala company, dancing in Cairo," she reminisces in gravel-voiced Italian, while her brother, Bruno Vescovo, still too young to live in Casa Verdi, echoes her words in English. Bruno also danced with La Scala, squiring prima ballerina Carla Fracci around the stage.
Outside the infirmary, four women with sculpted cheekbones perch in identical poses on a bench. They look like frozen great-aunts of the four cygnets who dance with joined crossed hands in "Swan Lake." An elderly tenor in a business suit stands on an upper floor and uses the stairwell as an echo chamber, rolling out st...
Down the hall lives Cesare Bardelli, a baritone who toured for years with New York's Metropolitan Opera. Bardelli hails from Genoa, studied in Milan and won first prize in a field of 350 singers in 1939. He skips over a long singing career with the Met, the Philadelphia Orchestra and other companies to tout his biggest...
Bardelli pops a tape into a small pink tape player and time stops. "I always sang this for my daughter," he says. "I went all over--Boston, San Francisco, Chicago. My favorite role is 'Tosca's' Scarpia."
He settled in New York City because "New York is like Milano--you can go everywhere in the world from here." But when his daughter married an Italian, he decided to follow her back to the old country.
When asked his age, he crows, "I'm 37," and for a New York minute it's believable, though he's really 88. Carola Szaloy, born in Budapest, has lived at Casa Verdi for only a month. "La Scala people suggested I come here," she says in a mixture of English and Italian. She was living alone in Milan and still teaching, bu...
Life at Casa Verdi is good for Szaloy, who is coy about her age. "It's like La Scala, marvelous. There are other ladies here from La Scala that I know." A typical day features music, of course, a formal concert or impromptu playing by residents. Visitors drop by and students seek advice. This summer Szaloy plans to go ...
Healthcare across virtually all industry categories/therapeutic areas: medical devices & diagnostics, biotech & pharmaceuticals, health IT, health plans, hospitals & physician groups/IPAs and nonprofits.
Merryman Communications works closely with clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies as a strategic partner in integrated marketing, communications, public relations and digital marketing. We are a full-service agency based in Los Angeles with team members around the country. We're all seasoned veterans o...
Betsy Merryman, pres. & mng. partner; Ashley Cadle, Joni Ramirez, acct. dirs.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Several AT&T workers took to the streets in protest Friday after they say a manager held up a noose inside the Memphis warehouse where they work, but never faced any discipline.
Employees say the manager who held up that noose last September is white, but African-Americans make up 95 percent of the workforce in the warehouse.
"He didn't get a suspension. He didn't get anything," Forklift Operator Robin Johnson said.
AT&T employees say their manager, Bruce, made a noose using a forklift safety rope and according to them, it was caught on surveillance video.
They said Bruce tied a slip knot and pointed it in the direction of two managers, who are African American.
An AT&T spokesperson sent a statement saying, "When this was brought to our attention in September we took it seriously and did a prompt and thorough investigation. There was no noose hung in the warehouse. And we found absolutely no evidence of any intent to threaten or discriminate against anyone."
Employees involved say they feel like their feelings don't matter.
"It's pretty much a lot of people who are afraid of him out here," Johnson said.
The warehouse employees say they made complaints to the company's ethics board, labor department and corporate headquarters but nothing was done.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.