If Only It Was Just Bodies...

Now that he is dead, no one wants his body. Rome's mayor refused permission for Priebke to be buried anywhere in the city, and Vatican officials banned any Catholic church in the city from holding a funeral. Even his German home town of Hennigsdorf, near Berlin, doesn't want him back.

It seems we cannot allow our enemies the dignity of a proper burial. After the attack on the Boston marathon, morgues in the city refused to accept the body of bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The idea that evil men do not deserve human treatment even in death goes back to Creon, the mythological King of Thebes, who let refused to allow his enemy Polynices to be mourned or buried: "It cannot be."

It is, indeed, a totally ridiculous state of affairs for a so-called enlightened society to be in.

Nothing much seems to have changed. Do we really have to fear the dead so much that we need to make their bodies disappear?

Well, it's not just their bodies, is it?

At the time of the 47-year-old's sentencing, April's parents Coral and Paul told Dyfed-Powys Police they wanted the three-bedroom home to be razed to the ground.

However, owner Mark Ford is believed to have recently told locals he plans to re-let the cottage, because public authorities are not prepared to buy it from him and knock it down.

Yes. We've been here before..

A neighbour of the Jones family said: "I don’t think anyone in their right mind would want to live there."

"In the interests of decency and respect to April's parents the place should have been knocked down."

We laugh at the quaint notions of the pre-advancement civilisations, but really, aren't we just the same?

Locals in Machynlleth do not blame Mr Ford for advertising the cottage.

"Given what has gone on there, this seems rather distasteful," said another neighbour. "But you can only really feel sorry for the poor guy.

"He is probably paying a mortgage on it, is left with an unsaleable property and has very little option."

 Plus there's that housing shortage to consider...

"While I have every sympathy with him, you would think that someone in authority would have made a call, and compulsorily purchased the place.

"The area is doing its best to pick up and move on but it is particularly hard when those in authority aren't intervening to make sensible decisions."

Why on earth should it be up to 'someone in authority' to indulge the superstitions of the community with everyone else's money?!

Machynlleth councillor Michael Williams said: "I certainly think the right thing to do would be to demolish the cottage.

"But not for one moment do I blame the property owner.

"He cannot be held in any way responsible for what happened there and should not have to bear the financial loss himself."

So...the taxpayer should?

"With the spending cuts being imposed on Powys County Council and the police, I don¹t think it¹s reasonable to expect them to pay either.

"Perhaps the Home Office should step in - it has a big enough budget to be able to absorb the cost of buying the cottage and knocking it down."

But the Home Office doesn't have any money, either. What you are expecting the taxpayer to do is subsidise your squeamishness.