Sunday Directions

Sleep-deprived and saddle-sore from an active Saturday, we nevertheless stumble through some stories sticking out from the headlines on a sunny Sunday morning.

Community: A small town comes together to help the five children of a murdered single mother in Wolfeboro New Hampshire:

Hundreds turned out Friday to mourn Burns, described as the kind of person who would have been organizing this event if another family found itself in this situation. Now, the community wants to make sure her children are provided for in her absence...
...
Townspeople handed over donations small and large for a spaghetti meal. Proceeds will go toward the Burns children. Tim Proulx is a carpenter by trade who spent the day making 1,600 meatballs.
"It's for a great cause, so there's really no effort into it," Proulx said.
Proulx said he wants to make sure Burns' kids have what they need as they mourn their mother.
"Anything that I or any of us can do to help, that's what we're here for," Proulx said.
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Burns' friends said they are eager for resolution and justice, but right now, their top priority is to help the children.
"It's for her children. It's all for her children," said Irene Bailey, of Wolfeboro. "We'll do whatever we can for those kids."

Smile: An anti-climactic botanical discovery sucks some fun out of history, as scientists find that a plant on the island of Sardinia, rather than a death-defying machismo, may be the real source of the famous "sardonic grin:"

Sardinian scientists believe they've traced the roots of the 'death-defying' sardonic grin to a plant commonly found on the Italian island.
Greek poet Homer first used the word, an adaptation of the ancient word for Sardininan, to describe a defiant smile or laugh in the face of death.
He was believed to have coined it because of the belief that the Punic people who settled Sardinia gave condemned men a potion that made them smile before dying.
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''Our discovery supports what many cultural anthropologists have said about death rituals among the ancient Sardinians,'' said Cagliari University Botany Department chief Mauro Ballero.
"The Punics were convinced that death was the start of new life, to be greeted with a smile,'' he said.