Categories
Death + Popular Culture Funeral Industry

Florida Elects Tea Party Funeral Director

Outspoken Fla. Democratic Rep. Grayson Unseated
Mike Schneider and Bill Kaczor, The Washington Post (November 02, 2010)

Buried deep in this Washington Post article on the November elections is the following factoid: one of the newly elected Republican Congressmen from Florida is also a Funeral Director. Representative-elect Steve Southerland is part of the Southerland Family Funeral Home in northern Florida.

I need to check and see how many funeral directors have served over the years in both the House and Senate. I’ve been poking around but I can’t find a single source on this one. Now that I’m interested, however, I must know. I will find out and report back.

 

southerland_profileIt’s worth noting that Representative-elect Southerland was also a Tea Party backed candidate (according to various news accounts), although I have not seen any official Tea Party literature on the American funeral industry.

The National Funeral Directors Association takes a decidedly non-partisan approach with the candidates that it supports and every year funeral directors from all over America arrive in Washington, DC to meet with elected officials.

The Death Reference Desk will keep an eye on Representative Southerland.

We want to know what kind of death he brings to the table.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law

Toe Tags and Neck Holes

 

FDA Unveils Proposed Graphic Warning Labels for Cigarette Packs
Gardiner Harris, New York Times (November 10, 2010)

The war on tobacco has gotten just a bit splashier and “deathlier”. Graphic images designed to scare people straight will soon be gracing cigarette packaging by next summer. The images range from a corpse in a casket, a cadaver, toe-tagged feet, gravestones, a deathbed denizen and a guy blowing smoke out of a hole in his neck for good, visceral measure.

See the images here.

Graphic images on cigarette packs are nothing new. In Europe, graphic warnings such as these (and worse) have been in place for years. But now that the FDA has the authority to regulate the tobacco industry, they are going all out with introduction of a glitzy new shock and awe, “anti-advertising” campaign. On Wednesday, they unveiled 36 new warning labels, of which 9 will be chosen, to grace cigarette packaging across the U.S. However, the new effort ups the ante quite a bit from the rather sedate Surgeon General’s warning stating that “smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy.”

According to the NY Times,

Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the Nicotine Dependence Center at the Mayo Clinic, said he was hopeful the labels would save lives, though he said a higher federal tax and tougher workplace restrictions were also needed.

“The evidence is that graphic labels do make a difference in enticing smokers to stop smoking,” he said.

I say, you be the judge. Are cigarettes still the proverbial “nails in the coffin?” And if so, is showing a guy actually in a coffin enough to get you or others to quit smoking? The FDA is currently seeking public comment and so are we. We’re not blowing smoke—send us your thoughts!

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Grief + Mourning

Sick Beauty in the Stains of Death: Sarah Sudhoff’s “At the Hour of Our Death”

At the Hour of Our Death
Sarah Sudhoff

Our worldly possessions speak to how we live, while their particular aesthetics — the whorl of this cushion, the filigree of that doily — hint at personality. In her series, At the Hour of Our Death, artist Sarah Sudhoff explores how our stuff reveals how we die, and reminds that we do die, and so do the ones we love from whose deaths we are detached. Sudhoff photographs the stains left behind from suicides, murders and other messy deaths.

Filmmakers Mark and Angela Walley produced a short documentary about Sudhoff and her work:

[Video not working because Vimeo is evil? Click here.]

Sudhoff’s intention with this work is to draw attention to the often invisible process and remnants of death. Normalized efforts to erase or conceal — or incinerate, as is the case of the fabric swatches she photographs — the evidence that death leaves behind, including the body itself immediately swept from view until the funeral, isolate us from our loss and make grief impersonal and arguably more difficult than it already is.

I say “arguably” because seeing the blood splatters of a loved one’s suicide would probably freak out and traumatize most people more than it would aid their mourning. Nevertheless, this sanitizing of death is a denial of reality and dislocates our understanding and acceptance of death. Sudhoff’s work recognizes and acknowledges the marks death leaves behind, on pillow shams and drapes but also on us.

A bit morbid, sure, but this is the Death Reference Desk. And if I may, while granting Sudhoff legitimacy in her artist statement, and at the risk of being creepy or insensitive, I am personally less interested in the death tie-in than I am in the pure aesthetics of the work.

Ignore for a moment that these images are saturated with the gore of the dead. Why? Because otherwise is too easy — too emotional, too blatantly taboo and therefore transgressive, and while Sudhoff does not seem to aim for shock, the context sends interpretation down a single, obvious, kinda gross but we-should-feel-good-about-ourselves-for-thinking-about-death-and-the-consequences-of-its-social-sublimation path.

And you know what? These photographs are really rather pretty on their own and function as effective works of art without all that weight.

sarahsudhoffIn the serendipitous way propriety and rules and stuff impose boundaries on Art, Sudhoff was unable to photograph actual crime scenes. Instead she is allowed to shoot their remnants pulled from the biohazard boxes of a death scene cleanup company. Fabric swatches are tacked to a wall, flooded with lights and photographed. While perhaps she would have done this anyway, this arrangement forces intense close-ups on the fabrics, as opposed to wider angle, let’s-see-the-whole-room, imagine-the-moment shots that would put us closer to the dead.

Instead, we have only a moment, and that moment is abstract and evocative. The textiles themselves are both art and commodity. Even a foam carpet pad, with its texture and color, has a weird, familiar but rarely recognized beauty.

The stains that seep can be seen as corruption or defacement — defects in these products. And yet there is balance and harmony, a rightness in the randomness. Nonetheless, even if you didn’t know it was blood, the creeping distortions signal that something is dreadfully wrong, complicating that beauty (or, ironically, enlivening and enriching a mundane pattern).

Combined with context — knowledge of what these stains don’t represent but actually are — Sudhoff’s work achieves a subtle power easy to overlook when we’re so quick to look away.

If you’re into this stuff (heh), check out Sudhoff’s other photo series linked on the left side of her website, including medical waste and sacks of unclaimed cremains.

Categories
Cemeteries Death + Art / Architecture Death + the Economy Death + the Law

Where New York’s Unclaimed Dead Bodies Get Buried

Artist’s Study of Island Brings the Dead to Life
Adam Geller, Associated Press (October 30, 2010)

 

Hart Island Project
Melinda Hunt

This is a really compelling article about a New York burial ground for unclaimed bodies. Adam Geller, from the Associated Press, wrote a lengthy piece about both Hart Island (the cemetery) and artist Melinda Hunt, who turned Hart Island into a fascinating artistic project.

It’s a great read. You will find similar kinds of articles in the Death + The Economy section of Death Ref. There is no shortage of unclaimed dead bodies these days.

At top is a short section from a documentary entitled Hart Island: An American Cemetery.

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture

Death Wish?

Remember the Doomsday Clock? Only those of a certain generation—and perhaps librarians with too much random information in their head—do. As one of those said people on both counts, an article in the October Wired magazine caught my eye. Titled “Suspend the Deathwatch”, author Scott Brown revisits (did it ever leave?) the Doomsday Clock and its place and anachronistic stance, in today’s society.

First mentioned in 1947 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (God, I love that periodical title—I literally walk past bound issues of it on a weekly basis in my work and smile, but I digress), the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic representation of our impending worldly doom. The closer the hands get to midnight, the closer we are to total mass extinction. I suppose the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement would be very happy if we would just get on with it already.

The Atomic Scientists describe the clock thusly:

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction–the figurative midnight–and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

Mr. Brown’s contention is that “we need an instrument that measures a wider variety of potential apocalyptic scenarios.” He goes on to suggest a Doom Queue—a lineup of ever grisly scenarios that would jockey for number one position. And better yet, he suggests we can all crowd source it with users picking and rating their fave apocalypse. Sounds good to me. As some of you may have attended last weekend’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, it seems the perfect way to capture our collective anxieties and at least give us something slippery but tangible to put our money on rather than a doom-laden clockface staring into the abyss.

But in case you are still setting your watch to the old Doomsday Clock, it’s 6 minutes to midnight. Sweet dreams!

Categories
Death + Crime Death + the Economy Death + the Law

And the Corpse Rides Shotgun Follow-Up

Portrait Emerges of Woman Whose Mummified Body was Found in Car Joseph Serna, Los Angeles Times (October 28, 2010)

Last week I wrote about a California news item which involved the police finding a dead body in a car. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times did a follow-up piece and as I suspected the emerging story is really sad. Death Ref has run several pieces on Death and the Economy and this most recent article fits the bill. The Times provides this addendum to last week’s story:

The two women met last year at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley and were unlikely acquaintances. One was a Costa Mesa real estate agent, the other a homeless woman [Signe Margit] who frequented the park. The real estate agent allowed the woman to sleep in her father’s old sedan. But sometime in the last 10 months, the homeless woman died in the car. And for reasons that Costa Mesa police are still trying to determine, the real estate agent decided not to report the woman’s death to authorities. Detectives said she drove the car with the mummifying corpse covered with clothing in the passenger’s seat. She used baking powder to reduce the smell.

I decided to post a follow-up piece since so many dead body stories function as macabre fantasy tales without an actual ending. It seemed only appropriate to end this particular story with a fuller acknowledgement of the hard economic times many people now face.

Categories
Death + Crime Death + the Economy Death + the Law

And the Corpse Rides Shotgun

Woman Drove Around With Mummified Body
Salvador Hernandez and Greg Hardesty, The Orange County Register (October 22, 2010)

I am a little surprised that only a few people sent me this recent decomposing-dead-body-in-the-news article. Like so many of the other dead body stories on Death Ref this particular California tale is both macabre and sad. Indeed, it looks as if the economic problems currently afflicting a great many Americans played a role here. We’ve got an entire Death Ref section devoted to just Death + the Economy items. This most recent story also reminds me, a little bit, of the Pennsylvania case from last July.

More than anything, the Orange County prosecutor will have to look at the California statutes which define how and when a corpse is mishandled.

I have a hunch that no legal action will be taken.

And in case anyone is wondering, the smell described by the Police is the result of the body’s decomposing fluids seeping into the car’s interior.

I know I know. Too much information.

Never Stop Learning.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture

Last Words Reprise

I posted a bit ago about William Brahms’ Last Words of Notable People. I wasn’t the first (and certainly shan’t be the last) to get super-nerdy about it.

Check out author John Green’s lovely, spastic video review. Hee hee!

Categories
Burial Cemeteries Death + Popular Culture Eco-Death Funeral Industry

Green Burial: A Review

Eco-friendly or “green” burial methods and practices are the hot topic in the funeral industry and mortuary sciences these days. Everywhere you turn, there is a new book, article or news report on the subject. There is even a Green Burial Council, which touts itself as “an independent, tax-exempt, nonprofit organization working to encourage environmentally sustainable deathcare and the use of burial as a new means of protecting natural areas.” And while the topic has received much attention in popular culture, acceptance of the various practices haven’t reached the all important “tipping point” for true integration into society—at least not yet anyway.

There are literally thousands of links out on the Internet referring collectively to the green burial movement. In doing a quick Google search using the following terms, this gives you a sense of the green burial chatter out there (numbers are rounded up):

“green burial” = 45,000 hits
“eco-friendly burial” = 35,000 hits
“natural burial” = 37,000 hits

So I thought it might be a good idea to review the various final disposition methods considered or referred to as green, natural or eco-friendly. There are actually quite a few different options out there although many funeral homes or mortuaries may only offer one option if they even offer any at all. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list but rather, an overview of some of the most common green body disposition and burial methods. I am making a distinction about the two categories as the former is about how the body is dealt with at final disposition and the latter is about choices made about final placement of the remains.

Disposition of the Body

Promession: The body is frozen to minus 18 degrees Celsius and then subjected in liquid nitrogen. This makes the body fragile. It is then vibrated which causes it to break down into an organic powder. Then it is introduced into a vacuum chamber where the water is evaporated. The now dry powder passes through a metal separator where any metals and mercury are removed. The remains are now ready to be laid in a coffin made of corn starch. The coffin is then buried in a shallow grave in living soil. As a result the coffin and its contents turn into compost in about 6-12 months. A bush or tree can be planted above the coffin. The compost formed can then be taken up by the plant, which can instill greater insight and respect for the ecological cycle. The plant stands as a symbol of the deceased. Source: Promessa

Alkaline Hydrolysis: Alkaline hydrolysis, also known as Resomation (which is a trademarked term) is a process that liquefies rather than burns body tissues. It uses about a sixth of the energy of cremation and has a much smaller carbon footprint, according to Sandy Sullivan, the managing director of Resomation, a company in Scotland that has designed a machine called “the Resomator”. The corpse is placed in a pressurized chamber. The vessel is then filled with water and potassium hydroxide, creating a highly alkaline solution, and heated to 330 degrees. After about three hours, all that’s left are a soft, white calcium phosphate from bone and teeth and a light brown primordial soup of amino acids and peptides. Bodies buried underground decompose in the same way, albeit over many years and aided by microorganisms. Unlike cremation, Resomation doesn’t vaporize the toxic mercury of dental fillings and doesn’t char joint implants, leaving them clean, shiny and potentially recyclable. The bone and tooth material can be ground into a fine ash, as with traditional cremains. The brown liquid, because it’s sterile, can go down the drain. Currently used on research cadavers and diseased animal carcasses, there are various companies exploring the commercial use of alkaline hydrolysis in the disposition of human corpses. Source: The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas (New York Times Magazine)

Embalming-free: Currently, no state or province in North America automatically demands the embalming of bodies. When preservation of the body is specified by state ordinance, refrigeration, chilling or dry ice can often be substituted for embalming. Special circumstances such as an extended time between death and burial, and transportation of remains on commercial airline flights may necessitate embalming. The body can be refrigerated instead of being embalmed with toxic chemicals. If refrigeration isn’t available, ice or dry ice can be used to preserve the body until burial. Embalming fluid is usually comprised of the carcinogenic chemical formaldehyde, which poses health risks to those who work with it. For those who choose embalming, there are now several formaldehyde-free embalming fluids that will adequately preserve the body for up to several weeks. Source: aGreenerFuneral.org

Placement of the Body

Green Cemeteries: A green gravesite is a natural setting more closely resembling a forest floor. Green cemeteries are park-like or woodland/forest settings with acres of natural topography. The natural or green burial method starts with the body preparation which uses no embalming fluid or a nonformaldehyde-based formula. If there’s a headstone, it’s a rock or a piece of rough-cut limestone that’s flat on one side to identify the deceased. Some people plant a tree on the spot. Some methods use GPS coordinates to spot a grave’s location. Caskets are made of wood, plywood, bamboo, cardboard, cornstarch or wicker, etc. Sometimes a shroud or quilt may be used to wrap the body.

Backyard Burial: Not all backyard or personal property burials utilize biodegradable caskets/coffins or involve wrapping the body in cloth or shrouds. However, by choosing backyard burial, families do not contribute to the high maintenance costs and pesticide-laden practices at traditional cemeteries. Perhaps the most well-known burial on personal property is that of the Presley family at Graceland in Memphis, TN. Each state has different laws regarding personal property or backyard burials. Source: various

Biodegradable Coffins: There are numerous biodegradable coffin/casket choices. Some of the most common materials used are bamboo, willow, pine, seagrass, cane, recycled paper and cardboard, untreated jute and natural resin and banana leaf. Unlike traditional caskets which may be made of steel or rare hardwoods and employ fixatives/varnishes, metal hinges, rubber gaskets and paint, biodegradable coffins are made of organic materials, allowing for easy breakdown and decomposition into the soil. Source: Natural Burial Company, ecoffinsUSA et al.

Reef Balls: Reef balls are artificially-designed reefs. They are hollow, concrete structures that are placed on the ocean floor and serve as habitat for marine life. Cremains are mixed with the concrete as the reef ball is being cast. Once hardened, they are transported out to sea via boat where friends and family members are able to participate in a sending off ceremony. Eternal Reefs is one of a small number of companies offering memorial reef balls. The largest “green memorial” in the United States is located in Sarasota, Florida where several hundred Eternal Reefs Memorial Reefs are dedicated. Eternal Reefs have been placed in many locations including waters off of New Jersey, the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, Florida and Texas. Reff balls are only allowed in properly permitted locations that are approved by the Federal, State, and local governments. The Reef Ball Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) publicly supported non-profit organization that functions as an international environmental non-governmental organization. The foundation uses Reef Ball artificial reef technology, combined with coral propagation, transplant technology, public education and community training to build, restore and protect coral reefs. The foundation has established “Reef Ball reefs” in over 56 countries with ongoing projects in 14 additional countries. Source: Eternal Reefs, Reef Ball Foundation

Further investigation

Books:

Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris
Going Out Green: One Man’s Adventure Planning His Natural Burial by Bob Butz
Grave Expectations: Planning the End Like There’s No Tomorrow by Sue Bailey

Links: Green Burial Council, Centre for Natural Burial, Natural Death Centre

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Westboro Baptist Church Supreme Court Case

Anti-Gay Minister Shouldn’t Be Able To Intrude On Soldiers’ Funerals
Doug Gansler, The Washington Post (October 6, 2010)

 

Funeral Protesters Have A Free-Speech Right
Editorial Board, The Washington Post (October 6, 2010)

 

Westboro Baptist Church, Phelps Family Speak Out About Funeral-Protest Case
Ian Shapira, The Washington Post (October 6, 2010)

 

Court Considers Westboro Baptist Church’s Anti-Gay Protests At Military Funerals
Robert Barnes, The Washington (October 6, 2010)

 

Justices Hear Arguments In Funeral-Protest Case
Adam Liptak, The New York Times (October 07, 2010)

 

Lamentable Speech
Editorial Board, The New York Times (October 7, 2010)

 

Court Weighs Free Speech vs. Privacy At Funerals
Robert Barnes, The Washington Post (October 7, 2010)

A hardly definitive roundup of articles about Wednesday’s Supreme Court Case involving the Westboro Baptist Church and its funeral protests.

This NewsHour television report is really good too.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

US Supreme Court Hears Funeral Protest Case on Wednesday

Westboro Baptist’s Funeral Protests Put Free Speech To Test
Michael Doyle, McClatchy Newspapers (October 1, 2010)

 

Supreme Court Term Offers Hot Issues and Future Hints
Adam Liptak, The New York Times (October 2, 2010)

 

Free speech: Westboro Church Supreme Court Case Tests First Amendment
Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor (October 2, 2010)

On Wednesday, October 6, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in an important free speech and protest rights case. Death Ref has been covering this case for a while and you can read those previous posts here. In brief, the Westboro Baptist Church, which is based in Topeka, Kansas was sued by Albert Snyder after its members protested outside his son’s military funeral in Maryland. Snyder’s son was a US Marine and the Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley, protested outside the funeral with signs which proclaimed “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and other, similar statements. The WBC is also known as the group God Hates Fags and fervently believes that soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because America has embraced homosexuality, therefore God is letting the deaths happen.

 

The WBC’s theology is an island unto itself when it comes to its funeral protests but it has garnered a lot of attention over the years. It has also drawn the ire of people who don’t like the church at all.

Albert Snyder’s case has been working its way through courts for a few years now and the US Supreme Court faces a particularly difficult set of arguments. Warren Richey’s piece in the Christian Science Monitor does an excellent job of positioning the case within a broader historical context.

And it looks like this decision will be historic, in one way or another. The politics involved are making for odd mixes of both conservative and liberal thought. It is also really difficult to know how the Justices will respond during the oral arguments.

Keep checking back to Death Ref for updates.

Categories
Burial Death + Art / Architecture Eco-Death

Skyscraper Burial in Mumbai

Vertical Cemetery is a Greenery Clad Final Resting Place for Mumbai
Yuka Yoneda, Inhabit.com (September 28, 2010)

We’ve posted before about vertical burial — that is, placing corpses in upright containers for burial in the ground standing up. The proposed Moksha Tower in Mumbai takes this concept to a whole new level by providing burial space in a skyscraper, giving “burial” and memorial options in a physical space while conserving precious horizontal green space that might otherwise be used for parks — or housing for the living.

While this design is clearly not in any spiritual tradition, the Moksha Tower attempts to appeal to the four major religious groups in Mumbai. According to an article from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the tower “acts as a symbolic link between heaven and earth”:

For Muslims, it provides areas for funerals and space for garden burial; for Christians, areas for funerals and burial; for Hindus, facilities for cremation and a river to deposit a portion; for Parsis, a tower of silence is located on the roof of the tower.