And then there is this...

Mother questions U.S. policy forbidding photos of caskets
By Rebecca Carr

Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service

Thursday, March 24, 2005

WASHINGTON — A single red rose in hand, Karen Meredith leans over her son's simple white stone marker at Arlington National Cemetery.

It's her first visit since she buried 1st Lt. Kenneth Michael Ballard, a fourth generation soldier, last fall.

Still fresh is her anger. Anger at the way the Pentagon refused her sole wish when her son was killed by a sniper last May to photograph his casket returning from Iraq.

Meredith wanted to capture the way fellow soldiers respectfully draped the American flag across the casket and the way an honor guard watched over him as he was unloaded from a cargo plane.

But the Pentagon firmly said "no." It was against regulations and would violate the privacy of family members of other slain soldiers.

"It's dishonorable and disrespectful to the families," Meredith said. "They say it's for privacy, but it's really because they don't want the country to see how many people are coming back in caskets."

That's exactly right. The Republicans believe in a culture of life as long as their is political advantage.

So this Good Friday, I condemn the administrations for refusing to allow America to see the lives given in this war.

The full story can be found here.

-The Oklahoma Hippy