"And in a relatively remote area of the cemetery, where 600 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan are laid to rest, personal mementos placed on graves are left out to rot in the rain for days." -Mark Benjamin

"Moreover, they remove fresh flowers after a day or so on many occasions. THis place does not get the respect it deserves." -sprucegoose

In Taiwan, and elsewhere in China, in many cemeteries staff does not provide a great deal of what would be considered "routine upkeep" on grave sites.

Rather, it is the obligation of families to go to the graves of their ancestors and pay their respects each year on Tomb Sweeping Day (Qinming Festival), by cleaning and landscaping them, making sacrifices, and traditionally going so far as disinterring the remains and cleaning the bones. How about that?

Here in America we expect Arlington to fertilize the cemetery three times a year, keep the grass an inch short, powerwash the stones, leave the flowers and mementoes out for a respectful time but don't get them wet or touched by grass clippings, and fill every divot in the lawn.

And for the most part Arlington lives up to that. Meanwhile a large proportion of old cemeteries that no longer have active burials or organizations are more or less overgrown. After some period of time many of them end up being relocated en masse or simply built over. (In my own town several graves a couple hundred years old in a forgotten cemetery extension were discovered a few years back in an office renovation.)

Arlington is held to and keeps to the highest standards of operation for such a large, public cemetery--which has no control over its own budget, and which must follow exacting federal procurement requirements for all projects. Of course they aren't perfect.

Let me get this straight: You have an adjusted gross income (Form 1040 line 37) of approximately $350,000 from a four-acre nursery? You are making a profit of $87,500 per acre, after all deductible business costs, expenses, depreciation, labor, etc.?

If so, I really need some of what you are growing. If not, then go away.

Thanks for the "clarification." Can I call you Joe the Horticulturist from now on, since you admit that your initial comment was completely disingenuous and these taxes on the "rich" have no application to you?

Nice follow-up to the hatchet job on Higginbotham, also based on the disgruntled account of Gray.

Metzler is completely in the right here, and you are out of line and have no basis for your criticism. You write: "Arlington's poor treatment of the mementos and gifts ... appeared to stand in contrast to practices at other cemeteries. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs 130 cemeteries across the country, asks people not to leave items other than flowers on the graves. But when it does find those items, it collects and holds them for 30 days in case the family wants to claim them."

Yet you do not interview a single official from a VA cemetery, or any other cemetery to back up this unsupported assertion. In fact you contradict yourself--saying that the VA cemeteries forbid leaving mementos and only retain them for 30 days in case they are claimed? How often does that actually happen? You don't say, but I have a good guess--just about never; why else would they have left them? And what happens after 30 days? You do not say, but I am guessing they go straight into the dumpster, just like at Arlington.

You baldly claim that Arlington's practice is "in contrast" with other cemeteries but can't cite a single one that DOESN'T trash ephemera left at graves.

But I hope you feel good about yourself for making a mother feel bad. I'm guessing she never actually thought about what would happen to the materials left at the grave until you shoved the photographs in her face.

Obviously if someone values an object they should not abandon it at a gravesite or any other public location.

Looks like this "series" investigative articles has come to an end at two. They each got their spot at the top of the pages, Benjamin got to spout outrage on teevee and made an MSNBC anchor cry, and now Salon appears to be quietly burying it without comment. It's off the front page now anyway.

I expect this is the last of this poorly-researched, cut from whole cloth nonstory we'll see.

Installation #3 of this hatchet-job series includes a smoking gun! ONE instance of an undocumented burial of unknown vintage in a cemetery of 300,000 dead. Malfeasance! Infamy!

Sorry, round #1 and #2 were bad enough. You've completely lost your credibility on this story. The cemetery is fine, go muckrake elsewhere. Is this really the depths you have to sink to find government "wrongdoing?"

Good observation. And Kansas O'Flaherty was a comic. There's a lot more love for and sense in the average Camille Paglia column.

Let's hope this one doesn't last as long as Kansas O'Flaherty. Don't expect any more of an apology for it though.