Chinatown My Chinatown

When a news story mentions someone has died, why do so many people write things like "Prayers TO the family" as if prayers were THINGS you SEND like a floral bouquet or a sympathy card?

Prayer is all about a relationship to God. Sure, we can all pray FOR people or for ourselves. We can ask a pastor or a friend to "keep us in their prayers." But prayers / praying TO the family? HUH? What religion teaches THAT?

Or are that many people just incapable of writing a sentence correctly?

"I will be praying fof the family at this dificult time." How hard was THAT?

He was a 4th year Cadet at the prestigious Virginia Military Academy in Lexington, VA. Stories said he was soon to graduate, soon to be commissioned in the US Marines and was also engaged to be married.

Then he just died. How does a 22 year old just die? Seems a couple of years back a first year cadet died following some rigorous exercises. That explained th death is the 18 year old. But not much has been said about this death.

Do they really believe the first recorded miracle of Jesus at the Weddding Feast at Cana was to turn the water in six stone jars into GRAPE JUICE? What sort of miracle is that? Doesn't the Bible speak against DRUNKENNESS rather than in any manner condemning HAVING A DRINK?

When they try to claim it was "NON-ALCOHOLIC WINE" that Jesus made, isn't that a contradiction of terms? Isn't WINE a substance that CONTAINS ALCOHOL since it is FERMENTED?

In the past couple of weeks a cadet at a military academy who was about to get married, about to graduate, and about to be commissioned in the USMC killed himself. The official announcement by the academy said nothing other than the fact that he died. I know this is often the case and the reason is always something like "respect for the family." Excuse me. The more people who read a sanitized version of the sudden death of a 22 year old, the more people could think to themselves that there is no disgrace, no problem, nothing wrong with simply taking their own life when things get difficult.

Would it not be better if we as a society were willing to face truth and reality and not gloss it over with the "went home to be with the Lord" nonsence? HE KILLED HIMSELF! He took a gun to his head when law enforcement confronted him. THAT is what a local paper said, and it was soon taken down, likely because someone begged them to remove it. WHY? To pretend he "went home to Jesus"? How about some honesty? How about helping others who might be contemplaying ending their life by showing that suicide is NOT the answer and that many people are negatively impacted and demoralized when someone just chooses to end it all when the going gets tough? Sure, it's easier on the family.....and friends.....and other students by lying or withhilding that nasty word SUICIDE. And that's exactly why we have so may young people who do it. Because no one wants to be honest.

A man I work with commented on Mandela's recent death, stating " Mandela was probably one of the finest African Americans that ever lived."

I said nothing, but thought to myself "African AMERICAN"? Mandela? What part of the AMERICAS did he come from? He was not AMERICAN in any way, shape or form! He had no connection to the Americas. But this co-worker was conditioned to refer to anyone who is Black as an AFRICAN AMERICAN! He was African. He was Black. He was a fine man. But he was not an American.

What is the best way for me to have dealt with this situation without causing a big blowup? How do you deal with attempted PC gone haywire? Ignore it? Then the insanity just continues.

He PLAYS a slimy womanizing amoral dentist on the series. But can ANYONE actually picture him as a hot, sexy man, or even think of him as married in real life? If so, can you share what is sexy about him?

He killed himself in his apartment in Vancouver, BC in July, 2012. The Coroner ruled his overdose on drugs a suicide. The family claimed beforehand that it was an undiagnosed medical condition." Yeah, suicide is a medical condition. That's a new one on the medical community. LOL

Why did this he take his life? Not a peep of information out there, it seems. Up and coming career, young, handsome and gay. Private funeral (of course) and not a word from a soul on WHY. I can only assume his sexual issues as well as drug addiction may have just possibly had something to do with it? No friends? No lovers? No family? Strange.

I suspect he was an alcoholic, but the family did not provide any other information other than the fact that he died. And I bet if they could have even kept that a secret they would have. Any clues? Ironic how this man who so obviously wanted to be a spy and revealed so many juicy bits of insider information ended up dead and buried (or char-broiled?) with no info coming out about a cause of death, funeral, if any, place of burial. etc. Talk about a Secret Squirrel! Why was his family so embarrassed about him? Lots of people have previous marriages and children and screwed up lives. So, he was human. What's the problem? Why would anyone be afraid to be open about things like where someone was buried or what they died from? According to the Wikipedia entry, "John Grisham, a co-author and researcher with Clancy on several books attributed Clancy's death to heart problems." Why would a cause of death have to be guessed, rather than made a matter of record? After all, he was no John Doe. He was a celebrity of sorts. He was known the world over for his writings. Findagrave dot com says "Burial: unknown." Did he vanish? No funeral? NOTHING? How very, very odd. BTW, my question is very clear. It's just SEVEN WORDS. This here is all "additional information" so no critique please, since you chose to read it! Thanks.

He is obviously a super intelligent man. He "knows" there is no God. Yet he can't seem to fathom that he needs to find some way to brush his own teeth. How is that possible?

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Isn't that tactic self-defeating? All that does is drive UP the price from the opening price! Why try to out-bid other interested parties at the outset, which only makes the price go higher and higher? Why not wait till you are close to the END of the listed time and then START the bidding? With only a short time till the bidding must END, wouldn't that make more sense and keep the price more reasonable? Why drive a price sky high in a bidding war AT THE BEGINNING of a listing?

Am I missing something here?

With true celebrities, officials generally share with the public the details surrounding the sudden death of a famous person, due to their celebrity status. With ordinary citizens, those details are generally not divulged.

Giraldo was not that famous, though he did participate in a couple of Celebrity Roasts on Comedy Central. Fellow comedian Lisa Lampanelli actually talked about Giraldo's death as part of a joke on one of them....with him sitting there, knowingly nodding his head.

Anything new in the past 3 years about why he decided to take a handful of pills and down some booze right before he was supposed to be on stage at a local Comedy Club?

I heard it was an overdose of drugs mixed with a huge quantity of alcohol. Does anyone know the specifics? He was found near dead in a hotel room almost 3 years ago. The family has denied it was a suicide. No family wants to hear the truth much less deal with it. Pretty obvious a person does not "accidentally" ingest a ton of drugs along with booze unless he wants to intentionally end things. You need to sleep.....you take A sleeping pill to help. You want to die.....you do the Marilyn Monroe trick.

I tend to use sarcasm at times and have had several questions as well as answers deleted. Not a big deal of course. Some people can be quite touchy. But when I have appealed, following Yahoo procedures, I have never gotten a response from Yahoo, let alone have the question, answer or comment restored.

Anyone else had this happen? Again, not a big issue, but in fairness if they are supposed to have a policy and a procedure in place, then why don't they honor it? All it takes is a couple of people who dislike what you said to get it removed. Would be nice if it were as easy to appeal!

Now that Illinois will be allowing its citizens the possibility to carry concealed weapons and obtain permits to do so, what about non-residents? Any talk of them issuing non-resident concealed weapons permits? What about the issue of granting reciprocal recognition, allowing non-residents to carry in Illinois on their own state's permits? Any news or information?

What's so hard about "I'm thinking of __________ and remembering you at this difficult time. IS THAT so hard? All these comments about "Prayers TO the family." Prayers TO the family? TO THEM? Prayers, last time I checked in pretty much all religions are directed TO GOD, not to a person, family, etc. Seems the farther a person is from the person who died, the farther from reality the comments are. RIP? Rest in Peace? Is there some OTHER way to rest once a person is DEAD? That is as empty a phrase as saying God Bless You to someone who sneezes. No one says that when a person coughs, do they? Why can't people think of something with some meaning to it when a person dies? Like "I'm sorry for your loss." Was that so hard?

True story. If you don't know the answer, take a good guess.

Just read that his funeral will be in New York City on Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is an Episcopal church. I read that Gandolfini was the child of "devout Roman Catholics." Wondering if he had become an Episcopalian at some point or just that the venue was chosen for it's size, in order to accommodate the many mourners and guests. Any clues?

If so, will older dollar bills then be worth far more than their face value as collectibles from an age where people believed in God? You know, when people sang God Bless America, proudly recited the Pledge of Allegiance, with "one nation, under God." Days when people actually remembered the words of PRESIDENT George Washington who proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God"

That's right.....GOD.

When he was found dead as a Canadian mackerel in his North Vancouver apartment in July, 2012, everyone seemed to act shocked. His family said that he died "from an undiagnosed medical condition" and had a quiet, private funeral. He was just 29 at the time of his death. Since when is a suicide (ruled as such by the Coroner) an "undiagnosed medical condition"? A deliberate drug overdose is not an undiagnosed medical condition.

Why would the family have stated something like that?