A funeral home says 21 US flags honoring veterans on July 4th were set on fire
CNN By Paul P. Murphy July 10, 2019
(CNN)Twenty-one American flags were found burned at a cemetery in Anderson, South Carolina, according to the funeral home that runs it.
Owner Jess McDougald says his family has never seen anything like it in McDougald Funeral Home's 85 years of operation. The funeral home has been run by the same family for three generations, since McDougald's grandfather started it, and he says they put out American flags during patriotic holidays. The remains of the flags were found in a pile, the funeral home says. "We've put flags out for as long as I can remember," McDougald said. "We've never had a problem."
The flags lined the road to the veterans section of the cemetery on the evening of July 3: about 30 of them, 4 feet by 6 feet in size, fixed to 8-foot poles. But when cemetery staff arrived for work July 5, they found poles in a pile with the burnt remains of 21 flags. read it here
Amazon Sold $240K of ‘Liturgy of the Ordinary’ Fakes, Publisher Says
Christianity Today KATE SHELLNUTT JULY 08, 2019
Christian values can seem increasingly countercultural in a society drawn to the instant gratification offered by the world’s biggest online retailer.
A Christian bestseller (and CT Book of the Year) was targeted by a major counterfeiting scheme.
It took Tish Harrison Warren nearly three years to publish her first book. It was more than 18 months of arranging childcare and carving out time to write before she had a manuscript—11 chapters chronicling details from her day-to-day life paired with the rhythms of church ritual.
By the time Liturgy of the Ordinary debuted in December 2016, she and her publishing team had gone through the process of selecting a cover (an open-faced peanut butter and jelly sandwich against a bright green backdrop) and editing the page proofs to check every dot and detail.
But over the past year, thousands of readers ended up with copies that didn’t quite look like the book she and InterVarsity Press (IVP) had finalized three years ago. The cover was not as sharp. The pages were a bit off-center.
These were not IVP’s books at all. They were counterfeits.
Just as The New York Times put out a report in late June on a surge of counterfeit books available on Amazon, the 70-year-old Christian publisher discovered that one of its own had also “been victim of a highly organized and sophisticated counterfeiting scheme.”
The Times covered complaints that the country’s top bookseller “has been reactive rather than proactive in dealing with the issue” and found examples of Amazon’s third-party sellers pushing fakes across genres: medical handbooks, popular novels, and classic literature. With Warren’s case, add Christian books to the list.
IVP estimates that at least 15,000 counterfeit copies of Liturgy of the Ordinary were sold on the site over the past nine months, their retail value totaling $240,000. That nearly cuts sales of Warren’s book in half; IVP reported 23,000 legitimate copies were sold over the past year. IVP also found evidence of counterfeiting on a smaller scale for one other title, Michael Reeves’s Delighting in the Trinity, which came out in 2002.
Publishers Weekly reported how AAP specifically called out Amazon for facilitating sales of fraudulent books: “The organization claimed that Amazon, on its retail site, allows ‘widespread counterfeiting, defective products, and fake reviews that both degrade the consumer experience and diminish the incentives of authors and publishers to create new works and bring them to the marketplace.’”
read it here
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I guess this explains why Amazon would not tell me how many of my books were sold when it happened to me. While I thought I had something to be happy about back in April when Amazon finally got my highjacked book taken down...that feeling did not last long. They would not tell me how many of the stolen books they sold. Stolen? Yes, when an author does not get paid for their work, it is stolen. What made it worse was that it had gone on for 16 years! Xlibris was the publisher and refused to take down the book...or even bother to find out why it was still for sale, and yes, being bought by people. Those "people" included me at full price so that I could prove what was happening. The problem was, no matter what I proved, no one would do anything to help me. I got the Better Business Bureau involved. I got a lawyer. I wrote and wrote and wrote emails to the "publisher" and tormentor. I called other lawyers but they would not help unless I knew how many were sold. Warren is a "best selling author" and apparently, her publisher cared about what was happening. I just have a very well established online connection...over 15 million.
But that news hit me a few years ago. The number was from Google before they had to switch to a Google+ account. Now, who knows? My site less than 5 million views, so that means all those people on my profile came from someplace else. I couldn't even get anyone to care when I wrote about all this back in April...April Fools Publishing With Xlibris.
You can hear the story about this here. Just goes to show that it is not always what you know...but who you know when you are seeking justice or help to get it.
Disabled Veteran Gets Incredibly Thoughtful, Anonymous Gift
The Epoch Times BY JACK PHILLIPS July 8, 2019
An Oregon woman shared about a touching act of kindness that has gone viral.
Brittany Lynn Garrett wrote on the Love What Matters Facebook page detailing the act of kindness.
“As I was getting ready for my day, my husband appeared at the door with tears in his eyes holding our son,” Garrett said on Facebook. “My heart sank and I thought someone we love took a trip to Heaven… He quickly assured me that no one had died, but someone had just given him a very expensive riding lawn mower!”
She said she had no clue who sent him the generous gift.
“I don’t know who they are, but they have been watching my 100% combat disabled husband push mow our entire yard once or twice a week, and thought this would help make more time for the important things in life!!” she wrote. read it here
Frederick police: Man found outside garage ruled a suicide
Frederick News Post By Jeremy Arias Jun 24, 2019
Detectives later used video surveillance to determine that the man fell from the third floor of the garage and his death was ruled a suicide, Alcorn said. The man was described only as 37 years old and an active-duty member of the U.S. military.
A man who died Monday after police found him injured on Sunday outside a garage in downtown Frederick was eventually ruled a suicide, according a police supervisor.
The man was discovered by a passer-by shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday just outside the Carroll Creek parking deck, according to Sgt. Andrew Alcorn, supervisor of the Frederick Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division. The man was still alive and was taken to a hospital, where he was stabilized long enough for his family members to arrive from out of state, Alcorn said. read it here
Philadelphia Cop Apparently Kills Wife, Himself Inside Juniata Park Home, Police Say
By CBS3 Staff July 8, 2019
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia police are investigating an apparent murder-suicide involving an 11-year veteran of the department and his wife in the Juniata Park section of the city.
The couple was found inside the home on the 4600 block of Weymouth Street around 9:30 a.m. on Monday. They have been identified as 39-year-old Jose Rodriguez and 36-year-old Evelyse Rodriguez.
According to Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, the couple’s 17-year-old daughter called police to check on her parents’ well-being. Ross says the daughter didn’t hear from her father or mother for some time and tried to reach out to them around 2:30 a.m. read it here
