Desecration

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said Sunday that he has directed the Justice Department to compile a list of federal prisoners convicted of burning the U.S. flag in anticipation that they will be freed under a recent Supreme Court decision. "If someone is entitled to relief, then all are entitled to relief," Thornburgh said, referring to the high court's 5-4 decision in a Texas case, in which the justices ruled that burning the American flag is a constitutionally protected form of political protest.

McDonald's inadvertently offended thousands of Muslims by printing a Koran scripture on its hamburger bags, then staged a retreat Tuesday after Islamic leaders complained. The stir caused by the world's leading purveyor of fast food began with a World Cup promotion featuring the flags of the 24 nations competing in this summer's soccer championship. One of the flags was that of Saudi Arabia.

Crows caw in the distance and a cold drizzle falls from a churning gray sky in this remote corner of northwestern Kentucky where hundreds of freshly dug holes--open wounds upon the land--mar a sloping farm field. The crude excavations are littered with black fragments of ancient pottery, a few discarded beer cans, abandoned shovels and the broken, mud-stained bones of perhaps 1,200 Indians.

The calls and letters to the Smithsonian Institution in recent weeks have been "like a flood," says spokeswoman Madeleine Jacobs, who ticks off the big and small media throughout the country that have covered the issue. "Even important topics like our divestment from South Africa didn't get this much attention." The deluge has come from the debate over what to do with the 35,000 American Indian remains and funerary objects held by the Smithsonian for more than a century.

Hundreds of angry protesters in Afghanistan's capital burned an effigy of President Obamaon Sunday, acting on rumors that American troops had desecrated the Koran. U.S. military officials emphatically denied that any copies of the Muslim holy book had been mishandled, and accused the Taliban of spreading falsehoods to incite hatred against Western forces. But the protest -- reminiscent of similar demonstrations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world in recent years -- showed how easily passions involving religious sensitivities can be stirred up even with a dearth of evidence.

Assistant Hesperia Fire Chief Will Wentworth listened incredulously as a caller complained that the noxious black smoke pouring from a nondescript building in the desert carried the sickeningly sweet smell of burning human flesh. "I don't think so, it's a ceramics shop," Wentworth replied. "Don't tell me they're not burning bodies. I was at the ovens at Auschwitz," the man said chillingly, Wentworth recalled.

Skulking in the dead of night in the remote and overgrown Las Pavas section of the Southern Municipal Cemetery, robbers armed with crowbars and sledgehammers first shattered the tomb's concrete vault and the granite marker that read, "To our dear wife and mother in heaven, Maria de la Cruz Aguero." Then they lifted the coffin lid and stole leg bones and the skull of the woman, who had died Sept. 9, 1993.

The vandalism that occurred at a Van Nuys Catholic church over the weekend is being classified as a hate crime, police said Tuesday. Someone sprayed paint on a mosaic of the Virgin Mary and scrawled the number 8 in black on some steps and doors of St. Elisabeth Catholic Church on Cedros Avenue on Saturday night. The vandalism was discovered Sunday by church employees and parishioners, who have since removed the paint.

Veterans groups, conservative organizations, local politicians and a television commentator launched a nationwide petition drive Saturday to support a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit desecration of the American flag. But the newly formed National Save the Flag Coalition is not canvassing neighborhoods for signatures--it is relying on a national 900 telephone number to attract supporters. During a press conference in Burbank on Saturday, organizers blasted the U.S.

By a single vote, the Senate on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have given Congress the power to ban flag burning. The tally in favor of the measure was 66 to 34, just shy of the 67 votes required for a two-thirds margin of approval. Such a majority would be necessary in the Senate and House before a constitutional amendment could be sent to the states for ratification.

Hundreds of angry protesters in Afghanistan's capital burned an effigy of President Obamaon Sunday, acting on rumors that American troops had desecrated the Koran. U.S. military officials emphatically denied that any copies of the Muslim holy book had been mishandled, and accused the Taliban of spreading falsehoods to incite hatred against Western forces. But the protest -- reminiscent of similar demonstrations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world in recent years -- showed how easily passions involving religious sensitivities can be stirred up even with a dearth of evidence.

The body of an Ethiopian soldier killed in clashes between troops and Islamic militants was dragged through the street and pelted with stones in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu. The soldier was among two Ethiopian troops and a Somali killed in the heavy fighting. Soldiers from neighbor- ing Ethiopia have been in Somalia since helping the shaky United Nations-backed government drive an Islamic militia from power in Mogadishu and much of the country's south in December.

Skulking in the dead of night in the remote and overgrown Las Pavas section of the Southern Municipal Cemetery, robbers armed with crowbars and sledgehammers first shattered the tomb's concrete vault and the granite marker that read, "To our dear wife and mother in heaven, Maria de la Cruz Aguero." Then they lifted the coffin lid and stole leg bones and the skull of the woman, who had died Sept. 9, 1993.

Re "Whose Jerusalem?" Opinion, Jan. 23 Daniela Yanai's critique of Israel's ideology of "exclusivity" shows a simplistic grasp of history. She contends the accidental discovery of ancient graves in West Jerusalem is desecration. Yanai doesn't understand the true meaning of desecration, whether committed by Jordan after seizing East Jerusalem following the 1948 war, erecting latrines on the ancient Jewish cemetery, or Muslims in France defacing Jewish graves with swastikas. The fact is that Muslims historically desecrated cemeteries and houses of worship of "nonbelievers" (Jew and Christian)

The top executive of California's biggest utility Thursday apologized to an Arizona Indian tribe, promising to atone for the company's desecration of a sacred site the tribe considers a portal to the afterlife. Chief Executive Thomas King said Pacific Gas & Electric Co. "regrets the spiritual consequences to the tribe" when it built a $15-million water treatment plant in the Mojave Desert, west of the California-Arizona border.

Re "Flag Measure Fails by 1 Vote," June 28 God bless America -- the Bill of Rights survives. HAROLD N. BASS Porter Ranch I suggest that flag wrapping, not flag burning, constitutes the most egregious desecration of the flag. Flag wrapping is the practice by politicians of wrapping themselves in the flag, especially during an election year. An excellent example of flag wrapping has just been provided by members of Congress who pushed for a constitutional amendment that would give them the power to ban flag burning by private citizens.

By a single vote, the Senate on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have given Congress the power to ban flag burning. The tally in favor of the measure was 66 to 34, just shy of the 67 votes required for a two-thirds margin of approval. Such a majority would be necessary in the Senate and House before a constitutional amendment could be sent to the states for ratification.

The Bush administration moved swiftly Thursday to curb international outrage over a report that U.S. troops in Afghanistan desecrated the bodies of Taliban fighters, setting them ablaze to taunt militants. U.S. embassies around the world have been given "instructions to engage" their host governments to head off anger provoked by a videotape showing Americans torching the remains of two militants, and Assistant Secretary of State Karen P.

A man performing court-ordered community service in a cemetery was charged with breaking into a Civil War-era tomb and desecrating remains by pulling apart a skeleton and posing for pictures. "It's bizarre, absolutely bizarre," police Lt. Richard Siemasko said. "I can't even imagine what was in his head. This is just a whole new level of weird for me." Neil J. Goodwin Jr., 19, of Salisbury was working at the city's Old Hill Burying Ground on Aug.

The House approved, for the sixth time since 1995, a constitutional amendment Wednesday that would allow Congress to prohibit the physical desecration of the American flag. The measure now goes to the Senate, which has consistently rejected similar proposals. But this year, supporters and opponents of the amendment say that passage in the Senate could be extremely close -- within a vote or two.