honor in the news

-- In Indiana, medical students have taken to honoring the cadavers they work on as part of their training. In what may seem weird or macabre from the outside, the students hold a service for the body that has helped them with their studies. Relatives are invited.

-- In northern Syria, at least 56 bodies were found on the banks of the Quwaiq River -- young men and teenagers with their hands bound and a gunshot wound to the head... executed, apparently without a reverential glance ... a dishonorable slaughter.

"We don't know who they are because there were no IDs on them," said a volunteer who was loading bodies on to a lorry.

 --  And in the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix, almost 75, has announced her intention to abdicate in favor of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander. The abdication, scheduled to go into effect April 30, is not a shocker since several preceding monarchs have done the same, but still there is something honorable about those who are powerful and then set power aside.

The queen ... said she had been thinking about this moment for several years and that now was "the moment to lay down my crown".