Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture

Death and the New Yorker Maiden

Humor and Death: A Qualitative Study of the New Yorker Cartoons (1986-2006)
NCBI ROFL blog (June 07, 2010)

I read the New Yorker magazine every week and have been reading it for years. In fact, I was reading the most recent issue just today. One of the magazine’s best features is its cartoons. Most of the cartoons alternate between extremely funny and utterly incomprehensible. The impossible to decipher ones are often the best part of each magazine because a reader has to think, a lot sometimes, about what the hell is going on in said cartoon.

Some of the funniest New Yorker cartoons involve death, dying, dead bodies, and, of course, funeral directors. I actually keep a file of death related New Yorker cartoons but I haven’t updated it in a while.

And I always thought to myself that it would be quite the project to analyze all the death and dying cartoons in the New Yorker.New-Yorker-CartoonWell, I no longer need to analyze the New Yorker cartoons because two authors (Matzo M. and Miller D.) working on a joint paper in Palliative Support Care (2009 Dec;7(4):487-93) have published their own exhaustive study. The title of their paper, Humor and death: a qualitative study of The New Yorker cartoons (1986-2006), sums it up.

It’s important to point out that the Death Reference Desk came across this study via the NCBI ROFL blog (acronym watch: National Center for Biotechnology Information and urban slang watch: Rolling on the Floor Laughing), run by two Ph.D. students in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California Berkeley.

But what I’m really shocked by is this turn of events. These two enterprising Bio-Engineers (cue They Might Be Giants please) got hold of this article before the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) run by Marc Abrahams. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that NCBI ROFL even SCOOPED the Annals of Improbable Research on a killer story.

So, let the Death Reference Desk be the first blog to nominate the authors of NCBI ROFL for a 2010 Ignobel Prize in Science Journalism.

Eustace Tilley would be proud.

Categories
Death + Technology Suicide

Overtime and Under Stress

“Maybe this spate of suicides will also serve us as a wake-up call,” he said in an interview last week. “We realize we must do a better job.” —Louis Woo, a high-ranking Foxconn executive

The NY Times has written another article about the Foxconn suicides. This follows a second pay raise by the company this past Sunday and sheds more light on the incredible number of hours many factory workers are clocking. According to the article, the first suicide, Ma Xiangqian, racked up 286 hours of work time (including 112 hours of overtime) in the month before he died—that’s three times the legal limit. And the pay? The equivalent of $1 per hour.

Now, Foxconn has instituted a new policy: stay with the company for 3 months and your monthly salary will be bumped to $300—more than double what workers were getting paid 3 weeks ago. Foxconn’s management and the companies doing business with them (namely, Apple, Dell, etc.) realize they are under a lot of public scrutiny about their labor practices. There is talk of an ongoing investigation—and I hope it is true. But the cynic in me also wonders how much of it is really a CYA campaign. I hope the former, but I suspect the latter.

All this has gotten me thinking about the sociological and cultural implications and differences between East and West when it comes to this type of death. I did a little searching for books on the subject of suicide in China specifically and in Asian society more generally. If you’d like to explore things for yourself, here are some titles you might be interested in. As always, check your local library’s collection or take advantage of interlibrary loan.

Suicide and Justice: A Chinese Perspective (Routledge Contemporary China Series). Fei Wu. 2009

Suicide: The Hidden Side of Modernity. Christian Baudelot. 2008.

Suicide in Asia: Causes and Prevention. Paul S.F. Yip. 2009

Categories
Death + Technology Suicide

Foxconn Raises Salaries

Today’s NY Times reports that Foxconn will raise employee’s salaries by 33 percent. Assembly line workers will now go from the equivalent of approximately $132 per month to $176 per month. A week earlier, company chairman Terry Gou, had promised to improve conditions at the factory and to quell the rash of suicides plaguing the company, denying there is a correlation between worker’s salaries and the suicides. According to the Times:

The company, which is based in Taiwan and employs more than 800,000 workers in China, has denied that the suicides were work-related or above the national average, saying instead that they were the result of social ills and personal problems of young, migrant workers. Foxconn said Wednesday that the decision to raise salaries was not a direct response to the suicides.

For some insight and a bit of the backstory, check out this audio clip from the folks over at Future Tense from last week. It’s about 45 seconds in.

Categories
Afterlife Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture

Deathly Art at DIA

Anubis, God of Death

Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, has joined the ever-growing population of deathly artworks at the Denver International Airport (DIA).

Denver’s local ABC affiliate, KMGH, reports that horrified travelers are now greeted by the 26-foot tall statue upon arrival in the main terminal.

Anubis is being erected in anticipation of the Denver Art Museum’s upcoming King Tut exhibit. The jackal-headed god now joins Mustang, also known as the “Bluecifer” or “Demon Horse” statue by Luis Jimenez and Leo Tanguma’s Nazi-inspired two part mural entitled Children of the World Dream Peace.

Bluecifer

DIA has garnered much praise and criticism over the years for its extensive public art program which has featured a wide variety of paintings, murals and sculptures, in addition to various commemorative plaques and parquetry.

Children of the World Dream Peace has probably garnered the most attention, inspiring multiple conspiracy theories about its message and meanings. With its gun-wielding, sword-brandishing, gas-masked soldier figure, you may be able to see why. The giant blue mustang with the glowing red eyes and popping black veins has also struck fear into the hearts of travelers—although more for its ominous presence—than any overtly death-inspired message. Although, the fact that the artist, Luis Jimenez, DIED from being crushed under the sculpture when it fell on him, may also add to the creep-out factor.

But now Denverites and weary travelers can gaze upon and contemplate the newest addition to the airport—Anubis—the Egyptian god of the dead and embalming. According to Ancient Egypt Online:

Anubis is the greek version of his name. The Egyptians knew him as Anpu (or Inpu). Anubis was an extremely ancient deity whose name appears in the oldest mastabas of the Old Kingdom and the Pyramid Texts as a guardian and protector of the dead. He was originally a god of the underworld, but became associated specifically with the embalming process and funeral rites. His name is from the same root as the word for a royal child, “inpu”. However, it is also closely related to the word “inp” which means “to decay”, and one versions of his name (Inp or Anp) more closely resembles that word. As a result it is possible that his name changed slightly once he was adopted as the son of the King, Osiris. He was known as “Imy-ut” (“He Who is In the Place of Embalming”), “nub-tA-djser” (“lord of the scared land”).

The interpretation and criticism of art is a heady business. Assigning meaning is never cut and dried—even when the artist him/herself explains the creation. Despite observations by sanctioned or unappointed art critics, we are all ultimately left to our own devices in this process. Much as in death, it’s a solo trip. So if you have visited or will visit the DIA and have any extreme feelings one way or another about their art collection and its possible deathly implications, drop us a line and give us your insights.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Burying Dead Soldiers and Judging Free Speech

High Court: Justices to Consider ‘Funeral Protests’ in Free-Speech Case
Robert Barnes, Washington Post (May 31, 2010)

The Washington Post ran a really interesting article today on an upcoming US Supreme Court case involving freedom of speech and protests at funerals for dead soldiers. I expect that the story ran today because it is, afterall, Memorial Day and a good time to reflect on freedoms, liberties, and the people who died while in the US military. The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether or not the Westboro Baptist Church, run by Fred Phelps, has a right to protest near soldiers’ funerals. What makes this case particularly complex is that the WBC protesters (which are never more than a handful) hold signs proclaiming their thanks for dead soldiers since God is punishing America for condoning homosexuality.

For years, the WBC has protested at all kinds of funerals under the “God Hates Fags” banner but it has really only been the soldiers’ funerals which drew the most ire. We’ve been covering this particular legal case on Death Ref and you can read those posts here: Father of Dead Soldier Ordered to Pay Up and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”.

The case’s most provocative legal question is this: Will a majority of the US Supreme Court rule in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church, even though its tactics are almost universally despised? What are the limits of free speech in this situation? Can Albert Snyder (the father of dead Marine Matthew Snyder) sue the Westboro Baptist Church in order to stop its protest activities without violating the first Amendment to the US Constitution?

Robert Barnes, the reporter at the Washington Post explains:

…First Amendment specialists think Albert Snyder has a difficult case to prove to a court that has been particularly outspoken on government attempts to regulate speech and has accepted two privacy cases for the term that begins in the fall.

 

George Washington University law professor Daniel J. Solove, the author of “Understanding Privacy,” said he finds it “perplexing” that the justices took the case. The message of Phelps and his followers is “stupid and obnoxious,” Solove said, but seems to fit squarely into the kind of unpopular speech that the Constitution protects.

 

The church maintains that its protests are not aimed at the dead — there was no particular reason to select Matthew Snyder’s funeral for picketing — but at the actions of the living.

 

A sampling of the signs carried at Snyder’s 2006 funeral at St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Md., included “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “Semper Fi Fags,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “Priests Rape Boys.” The demonstrators abided by the law and stayed away from the funeral itself.

 

Albert Snyder sued Phelps, and Snyder argued at trial that the demonstration invaded his privacy, caused emotional distress and violated his rights to free exercise of religion and peaceful assembly. He said a treatise posted on the church’s Web site specifically mentioned Matthew and his family.

 

A jury awarded Snyder more than $10 million, which was cut in half by the judge and then overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond. A three-judge panel said that although Phelps’s rhetoric was offensive, it was protected as speech concerning issues in the national debate.

The politics of this case are also compelling. A number of both conservative and liberal elected officials have joined together in support of the military families while simultaneously passing laws in about 40 US states banning (or severely curtailing) protests by the WBC. On the one hand, this is not particularly shocking. On the other hand, social conservatives do not necessarily disagree with the WBC’s anti-gay rhetoric and liberals have historically made the case for unpopular, protest speech.

And no matter where the WBC protests, the counter protests are usually much larger. Indeed, a Veterans motorcycle group called the Patriot Guard Riders attends soldiers’ funerals (but only if invited by the family) so that the next of kin is insulated from the protests. In the middle of all this is a funeral director trying to negotiate this moment in American cultural politics but then that’s nothing new.

So the questions remains open: What are the limits of free speech in this situation?

I think that it is also inevitable that this case will end up in the election politics of the autumn, which is too bad because the questions being raised are really important and not easily decided.

Sadly, it is the soldiers’ families who get caught up in the middle of this and at the end of the day I have a feeling that the impact on next of kin at the funerals will carry a great of weight with the Supreme Court.

As the Washington Post puts it:

Snyder said he was only vaguely aware of the protests at military funerals until the protest came to him. He still gets emotional recalling that day.

“All we wanted was a private funeral for my son,” he said. “They turned it into a three-ring circus.”

Categories
Suicide

Rash of Suicides at China’s Foxconn

Taiwanese-owned computer and electronics manufacturing giant, Foxconn, is drawing criticism for its recent spate of suicides. At present, 10 people have committed suicide within the last year—with one of those deaths occurring just hours after company Chairman Terry Gou, bowed in apology over the deaths.

Previously, we have reported on spates of suicides in posts on France Telecom and suicide hotspots like Japan’s Cliffs of Tojimbo and China’s Yangtze River Bridge. Although it’s not totally clear whether the Foxconn suicides can be attributed to copycat behavior among employees, one thing that can be fact-checked is the average number of suicides per year in China’s population as a whole.

According to 2004 World Health Organization estimates, China’s annual suicide rate is 16.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Foxconn employs approximately 800,000 employees. So, one can argue that statistically speaking, the number of recent suicides is actually less than the national average. But due to the quick succession of deaths and the fact that they all share the same employer, one has to ask what role, if any, their workplace played in their deaths. This is what investigators both in China and the U.S. are now attempting to unravel.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Minnesota’s Extra End-of-Life Legal Hoops for Same-Sex Partners

Editorial: ‘Final Wishes’ Veto is Cold, Calculating
At time of death, we can be kinder to same-sex couples.
Star Tribune (May 24, 2010)

Last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would have given same-sex partners in long term relationships the legal right to the other partner’s dead body for funeral arrangements and final disposition of the remains. I wrote about the veto on Death Ref (Governor of MN to Gays and Lesbians: You Cannot Claim Your Partner’s Corpse) and discussed how Pawlenty’s decision was very similar to a veto issued by the Governor of Rhode Island.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has now weighed in on the veto with an Editorial. I totally agree with what the Editorial Board says and with its critique of Pawlenty’s rationale for vetoing the bill.

Here is the Editorial’s key section:

“Currently a person can, by executing a will, designate who shall be empowered to control final disposition of his or her remains,” Pawlenty wrote in his letter explaining his veto. “This bill therefore addresses a nonexistent problem.”

 

That’s not the reality, say some who have lived through the death of a partner, only to face technical entanglements that kept them from carrying out their final wishes.

 

“We had done what we thought was everything we could possibly do,” said Tim Reardon of Golden Valley, recalling the legal preparations he and his partner Eric Mann made before Mann’s death in 2006. “The myth is that you can legally take care of all that stuff.”

 

Reardon’s inability to carry out Mann’s wishes, until his partner’s understanding parents intervened, is an example of why the bill is needed. “To have to hear, after your partner is dead and you’re absolutely physically and emotionally spent, somebody say, ‘I’m sorry, your relationship is not recognized,’ it strikes this deep kind of disbelief. It’s just such a crazy violation of our rights, our dignity, of our respect.”

 

It’s heartless to put our fellow citizens through such heartache. And it’s unfair to make same-sex couples hire attorneys to get the same rights as married couples.

Governor Pawlenty’s veto is part of a larger battle that will lose the war. Marriage and all its benefits, including the right to a deceased, same-sex partner’s corpse, is on the horizon.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Technology Death + the Web Grief + Mourning

Inventing the Future of Death

Recent design school graduate Jake Shapiro of New York shared his thesis project with us: “The Future of Death” examines how our internet and social media oriented lives have and will continue to change the way we think about and deal with death and grief.

The project, for which Jake designed and constructed working prototypes, includes an external drive that downloads and preserves a loved one’s online data. The LED screen allows users to view content on the handheld device, which can also be docked with the Digiurn — an urn with a screen “where a loved one’s physical and digital existence can be preserved and viewed forever.”

Here’s a demo of the software:

Deathware from Jake Shapiro on Vimeo.

Managing digital assets and identities after death is certainly a timely topic. Some sites cater to password management and transmission upon death (such as Legacy Locker and Deathswitch), while Facebook has death memorial mode for personal profiles. This may, however, be the first effort to draw together a person’s social media output and combine it with the physical reality of the urn and what remains of the deceased within it.

(There is an irony here — online communities can be vastly dispersed with “friends” having never met in person. While grief with such deaths can be indisputably intense, these people will probably not attend the funeral or ever see the urn or grave. In other words, The Future of Death compiles content once shared with a potentially vast network and archives and relays it to only a select few — the family and perhaps close friends. It could easily have an online portal as well, of course — or people could simply go to the original blog, twitter account, and so forth, though the long-term availability of content at its native origin is uncertain.)

While the social media aspect of this is new, there is precedent with digital urns delivering photos, video and audio. Interestingly, search results for such urns mostly turn up cremain containers for pets, suggesting that consumers may consider the product a gimmick or otherwise inappropriate for human remains — fine for your dog, but your dad? No. (They do exist, however: One $900 urn inexplicably states that “This urn can be sealed airtight as well, for those who choose to bury their loved ones.” Why buy an urn with a digital display then hide it in the earth? Eek.)

Jake’s concept diverges not only with including social media content, but in the design itself. Check out these other digital photo urns:

They resemble tiny television sets, complete with remote controls, while the Digiurn is both a throwback and a distinctly modern piece, using the classical urn shape while set up like an iPod docking station.

How comfortable with LED screens and external drives are Grandma and Gramps? Hrm, well, it’s their children to whom such products would be marketed. But in a similar complication, compiling, storing and providing access to the deceased’s social media content assumes he or she participated in it. This is a very current concept for a market that largely won’t need it for another 30 to 70 years.

Of course, this is the future of death we’re talking about. Considering how the internet has evolved over the past 10 or even 3-5 years, who knows what the future will hold for technology, not to mention how it will transform grief. At the same time, as computer scientist Alan Kay so eloquently put it, the best way to predict the future is to invent it — and we can be sure designers like Jake Shapiro will do just that.

Categories
Death + Technology Death + the Law Death + the Web Funeral Industry

Digital Death Day! (Is Every Day)

Virtual Life after Death
Peregrine Andrews, BBC News (May 22, 2010)

Last week, May 20th, was the first Digital Death Day, an unconference in California of funeral directors, digital identity professionals, attorneys, technologists, entrepreneurs and obituary enthusiasts to share concerns and probably a few crazy-interesting ideas about managing digital identity after death.

Despite DeathRef being followed by digitaldeathday on May 4th, I have been sucked into the void of Other Responsibilities and neglected to pay attention until, oh, May 20th, as the unconference was actually happening. Bad librarian! Suffice it to say, it looked pretty darn cool. It appears that notes, podcasts and such are still being compiled. We’ll link them once they’re up. In the meantime,

The BBC also gets in on the action (article linked above), discussing the issue of digital assets such as domain names, sponsored Twitter accounts and virtual property in online games, as well as memorizing at social networking sites, or otherwise continued online engagement with the person’s profile, as though the person weren’t dead at all. This practice has been criticized as prolonging the grieving process, though others argue that it merely facilitates it.

Good stuff. As this post title suggests, Every Day is Digital Death Day — we’ll keep vigilant for what else emerges from the unconference and, of course, elsewhere on this topic.

Categories
Cemeteries Death + Art / Architecture Death + Humor

No Sexy Time Allowed in Japanese Cemeteries

Nude Cemetery Photos Result In Charges
Renowned Japanese photographer faces up to six months in prison
Associated Press (May 20, 2010)

What is it about cemeteries, coffins, and all manner of death objects that makes people want to rock the sexy time? I know I know. I’ve read plenty of Freud and Lacan too, but still…What I like about this story is that the Japanese photographer in question has taken the ‘I admit that I messed up’ route and that he will pursue other venues for his creative expression.

I haven’t seen the calendar in question, this would be the calendar that the models were posing for, but this entire story reminds of a post Meg posted in February. That particular news item involved a series of ‘Sexy Coffin’ calendars from Italy and Poland. The Italian calendar is particularly (in)famous and has been around for a while. I actually own a few years worth but keep them hidden in a discreet brown paper bag….

But this Japanese incident also reminded me of the photography work by Spencer Tunick, who creates massive tableau shots featuring hundreds of naked bodies. What I admire about Tunick is that he keeps coming up with new ways to make his photos interesting.

So the lesson, I think, for Japanese photographer Kishin Shinoyama is that he should have brought 300 nude models to the cemetery thereby using the sheer force of nakedness to shut down any complaints. Ok…this isn’t really a feasible plan but I’d be curious what hundreds of naked people in a cemetery might look like in a photograph.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

Doctors Should Talk with Patients about Death

Doctors Should Talk To Patients About How They Want To Die, Says Regulator
James Meikle, The Guardian (May 20 2010)

The last month’s worth of news coverage in the UK has focused on nothing but the May elections so it was good to see an old fashioned death and dying story in the Guardian. My first take on these new guidelines, that doctors should speak with dying patients about, um, dying, was a smirk.

I do know, however, that frank and candid conversations about dying are not everyone’s forte, so I appreciate what the UK’s General Medical Council has done. As the Guardian reports,

While the guidance does not address assisted suicide, the GMC says it is still illegal and doctors have to remain within the law. However, it says there is “no absolute obligation to prolong life irrespective of the consequences for the patient, and irrespective of the patient’s views.”

This has been causing some real gnashing of teeth today. And it should. While it is absolutely true that the prolongation of life is never absolute, it’s still something which most doctors will do. Enter, then, patients and their end-of-life wishes. At a certain point during medical treatment, a patient may very well say “I’ve had enough and I want to stop all this.” Patients also expect (as well they should) that doctors will continue to treat them without giving up. The whole situation, then, can be a real bind for doctors and patients alike.

What these new guidelines want to do, it seems, is say to UK doctors that it’s ok when patients die, assuming the patient has a terminal condition and that the patient has accepted death. Negotiating the end of life is a complex task, especially when it comes to medical care, so I think that what the GMC has done is a good thing.

Here is a stripped down list of what the new guidelines entail:

• Doctors must give patients approaching the end of life the same quality of care as all other patients.

• Decisions must start from a presumption in favour of prolonging life.

• Doctors may recommend particular treatment options they believe best for patients, but must not pressurise them to accept advice.

• Patients who feel under pressure from families or carers to accept or refuse treatments must be helped to reach their own decisions.

• Doctors must not base treatment decisions involving significant risk to patients solely on constraints of money, staff or equipment.

• Doctors must respect “as far as possible” wishes of patients who do not want to know in detail about their condition or treatment.

• Doctors can withdraw from providing care if religious, moral or other personal beliefs amount to a conscientious objection to a patient’s decision to refuse treatment.

Paula-Westoby-DNR-TattooThe new guidelines also reminded me, for some odd reason, of a funny and poignant story from late 2008. A 79 year old New Zealand woman, Paula Westoby, had Do Not Resuscitate tattooed on her chest. She did this so that in the event she unexpectedly died, her wishes would be known.

This is what I call a real commitment to the End of Life.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Governor of MN to Gays and Lesbians: You Cannot Claim Your Partner’s Corpse

Pawlenty Vows Veto of Same-Sex Measure
Jason Hoppin, Pioneer Press (May 13, 2010)

Oh Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota. I know that you think you’ve got a chance at the 2012 Republican Presidential ticket but, alas, you’ll be disappointed. In all honesty, I don’t know who will be the GOP candidate but it won’t be you, that much I know. So instead of helping gay and lesbian Minnesotans in committed, long term relationships cope with a partner’s death you go ahead and veto a completely practical, sensible bill.

I am referring here to Minnesota Senate Bill No. 341 which, among other things, would allow same-sex domestic partners to claim their dead partner’s body in order to make funeral arrangements. Here is the bill’s language:

Subd. 2. Determination of right to control and duty of disposition.
(a) The right to control the disposition of the remains of a deceased person, including the location and conditions of final disposition, unless other directions have been given by the decedent pursuant to subdivision 1, vests in, and the duty of final disposition of the body devolves upon, the following in the order of priority listed:

The list includes 1.) Wills and Legal Instruments 2.) Spouses 3.) Domestic Partners and other groups such as children. It is the third group, domestic partners, which Bill 341 added and it is the reason Governor Pawlenty (by his own admission) vetoed it. Pawlenty’s rationale was that since same-sex couples can establish Wills or Health Directives in which a same-sex partner is named as the sole decision maker then the law was unnecessary.

In a sense Governor Pawlenty is correct but only so far as this means same-sex couples have to jump through a hoop that married straight couples do not. Furthermore, this law would have made the entire funeral arrangement process and final disposition of the dead body a lot simpler. As the law currently stands in Minnesota, any same-sex couple without explicit legal documents stating the couples’ final disposition wishes faces a potential legal challenge from next of kin. If the family of a gay man or lesbian woman does not like or even acknowledge the same-sex partner then that person can be legally excluded from the entire funeral.

This is a situation that funeral directors confronted quite a bit during the 1980s and 1990s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic. It’s a terrible scenario in which the body in the casket can literally become a dividing line. The Minnesota Senate Bill would have gone a long way towards simplifying how same-sex couples can claim their deceased partner’s body.

One day, and it will be in my own lifetime, these legal forms of discrimination and the individuals who supported them will look absolutely barbaric. This much I also know.

So there you go Governor Pawlenty. You’re not going to get the GOP nomination and you’re acting like a completely intolerant, insensitive brute. But at least you’re in good company: the Governor of Rhode Island did the same exact thing last November and he too will never be President of the United States of America.