Habsburg: Funeral held for last Austro-Hungarian heir

An anachronistic funeral for a man whose times spanned the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the creation of the EU to the fall of Soviet Communism and beyond. From the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-141720

The funeral of the last heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Otto von Habsburg, has taken place in the Austrian capital Vienna.

European royals and political leaders, many from nations that his family ruled over, attended the service.

The body of the last crown prince was buried in the Imperial crypt at a private ceremony. His wife, who died last year, was buried alongside him...

Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn presided over a funeral mass, attended by European royals including Sweden's King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein...

Members of historical societies wearing traditional uniforms mingled with mourners outside the cathedral watching the service on large screens.

Mr Habsburg's body was buried shortly afterwards in the Imperial crypt where his ancestors lie. However, his heart will be taken to Hungary for burial at an abbey west of Budapest on Sunday, in accordance with a Habsburg tradition.

A passionate advocate of European unity, Mr Habsburg served as a member of the European parliament for two decades...

Death Becomes Him

Right? Wrong? In a gray area?  Not a current article but one I just came across recently.
Atlantic Magazine, March 2010
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/03/death-becomes-him/7916/

OVER THE PAST DECADE, LUDWIG MINELLI HAS HELPED MORE THAN 1,000 PEOPLE KILL THEMSELVES AND HAS TURNED ZURICH INTO THE UNDISPUTED WORLD CAPITAL OF ASSISTED SUICIDE. MINELLI SEES HIMSELF AS A CRUSADER FOR WHAT HE CALLS “THE LAST HUMAN RIGHT”—AND HE BELIEVES THAT HELPING MORE AND MORE PEOPLE TO DIE ADVANCES HIS CAUSE. EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE IN AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO DIE ON YOUR OWN TERMS, HOW FAR IS TOO FAR IN THE QUEST TO SECURE THAT RIGHT?

By Bruce Falconer


IMAGE CREDIT: DAVID LEVENE/GUARDIAN NEWS AND MEDIA LTD 2009

Ludwig Minelli, a lawyer and self-described humanitarian, helps people kill themselves. Last summer, he invited me to a party inaugurating the Blue Oasis, the latest in a series of properties he has converted into makeshift death houses for the purposes of Dignitas, an organization he founded in 1998.

The Blue Oasis is a two-story blue house with a flat roof, situated next to a machine factory and across from a soccer field in an industrial area a half hour’s drive east of Zurich. In the yard, flowering trees and tall grass frame a clear, round pond flecked with lily pads and stocked with goldfish. A gravel path winds from the front door across the yard...

A few hours later, with the party under way, Minelli led a tour of the Blue Oasis for his employees—five men and nine women, a mix of college students, professionals, and retirees, all of whom work for Dignitas part-time. Minelli himself is 77 and has thinning white hair, thick glasses, and a hearing aid in his right ear, but he displayed a youthful enthusiasm as he walked us through the house. It was clean and new, with hardwood floors and white walls decorated with watercolors of rural Swiss landscapes. In the front hallway hung a framed cartoon of a man concealing a vial of poison behind his back and waving off people approaching him with a wheelchair and a box of diapers. A cooler full of chilled champagne sat beside a hospital bed in one of two rooms specially outfitted for people who want to kill themselves.

Dignitas’s slogan is “To live with dignity, to die with dignity,” and for 12 years the group has been serving cocktails of sodium pentobarbital, a highly lethal barbiturate, to clients from around the world. During that time, Ludwig Minelli has helped more than a thousand people kill themselves, and he has cornered the market in what has come to be called “suicide tourism,” transforming his native Zurich into the undisputed world capital of assisted suicide...

Hundreds gather for funeral of Texas fan who fell

Terribly sad. Complete story at:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7648529.html

Hundreds gather for funeral of Texas fan who fell

By JAIME ARON
AP Sports Writer
The Associated Press

Monday, July 11, 2011
12:41 PM EDT

BROWNWOOD, Texas — A funeral procession is under way in Brownwood, Texas, for 39-year-old Shannon Stone, who was fatally injured trying to catch a souvenir baseball at a Texas Rangers game.

Stone's widow, Jenny, and their 6-year-old son, Cooper, walked hand-in-hand behind a fire truck carrying his casket. More than 50 emergency vehicles were part of Monday's procession.

Nearly 1,000 friends, family and well-wishers also attended a private memorial, where witnesses say Stone was remembered fondly for his kindness, love of baseball and skill as both a firefighter and a loving dad.

Stone and his son had gone to a Rangers game Thursday night and were sitting in left field when outfielder Josh Hamilton tossed a foul ball into the stands. Stone fell about 20 feet onto concrete as he caught the ball and he died a short time later.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Hundreds of friends, family and law enforcement personnel arrived in Brownwood on Monday for the funeral of 39-year-old Shannon Stone, who fell to his death trying to catch a souvenir baseball at a Texas Rangers game.

From the New York Times, a piece about facing death with grace and dignity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opinion/sunday/10als.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

OPINION

The Good Short Life

By DUDLEY CLENDINEN

Published: July 9, 2011

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Dudley Clendinen, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, at his home in Baltimore last week.

I HAVE wonderful friends. In this last year, one took me to Istanbul. One gave me a box of hand-crafted chocolates. Fifteen of them held two rousing, pre-posthumous wakes for me. Several wrote large checks. Two sent me a boxed set of all the Bach sacred cantatas. And one, from Texas, put a hand on my thinning shoulder, and appeared to study the ground where we were standing. He had flown in to see me.

“We need to go buy you a pistol, don’t we?” he asked quietly. He meant to shoot myself with.

“Yes, Sweet Thing,” I said, with a smile. “We do.”

I loved him for that.

I love them all. I am acutely lucky in my family and friends, and in my daughter, my work and my life. But I have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., more kindly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for the great Yankee hitter and first baseman who was told he had it in 1939, accepted the verdict with such famous grace, and died less than two years later. He was almost 38...