The Seattle Public Library “Shelf Talk” blog posts questions of the month, answered by their reference librarians. March’s curiosity happens to deal with death: the ancient practice of munching on ground up mummies for their alleged curative powers.
(Thanks to librarian/archivist friend of DeathRef @leahpearse for passing this along!)
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Frontline: The Suicide Tourist
PBS (March 02, 2010)Assisted Suicide Guidelines: Family Can Still Face Prosecution
Sandra Laville, The Guardian (February 25, 2010)
Frontline, the documentary film unit for the Public Broadcasting Service in America, just premiered a really important new program. The film follows an American, Craig Ewert, as he decides to end his life at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. What is unique about this storyline is that it focuses on an American going to Dignitas, which isn’t that common. To date, thirteen US citizens have ended their lives at Dignitas (as opposed to 135 Brits and 563 Germans).
The cultural, political and social issues surrounding Dignitas have been an ongoing topic in the United Kingdom, which makes the timing of Frontline’s documentary all the more uncanny. Last week, the Director of Public Prosecutions for the UK (Keir Starmer) published new guidelines for assisted suicide. Over the years, many people have wondered if “assisting” someone commit suicide included, say, going to Dignitas with the person. So much confusion has surrounded this UK law that short of actually changing it (which will eventually happen) the guidelines were published to help define whom the law can and cannot prosecute.
I have written extensively about the assisted dying debates in the UK on Death Ref (indeed, my first post was on an assisted dying case) and you can find a plethora of information in the Assisted Suicide section and the Death + the Law section.
As a final point of interest, the state of Oregon has published its 2008 Summary of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act and you can see how people have used the law there to die.
In the end, the law will be changed in the UK and it will resemble Oregon’s law.
R.I.P. on Facebook
Lisa Miller, Newsweek (February 17, 2010)
Grieving and memorializing through Facebook, along with Twitter and other sites, has faced criticism for being impersonal and superficial. Lisa Miller, religion editor at Newsweek, introduces a religious perspective on Facebook as a community space for grief:
We live in a disjointed time. Many of us reside far from our families and have grown indifferent to the habits of organized religion. More of us — 16 percent — declare ourselves “unaffiliated” with any religious denomination. …
The Christian ideal of “the community of saints,” in which the dead rest peacefully in the churchyard, as much a part of the congregation as those singing in the nave, is something any 19th-century churchgoer would have instinctively understood. In the absence of that literal proximity, Facebook “keeps the person in the communal space — the way a churchyard would,” says Noreen Herzfeld, professor of science and religion at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn.
All of which raises tantalizing questions: the average Facebook user has aged to 33 years old. In two generations, will the pages of the dead outnumber the living? Will our unchurched children be content to memorialize us with a quip on a “wall”? Something is gained, but what is lost in this evolution from corporeal grief (the rending of garments) to grief tagged with a virtual rose?
It’s fascinating to think of Facebook as someday having more dead than living account holders (I personally don’t think it has that kind of longevity, but hey — you never know). Though I suffer no anxiety about it, I’m also curious how online interactions compare to traditional, meatspace experiences, in individual instances and for societies over time. This isn’t a new form of grief, but a new vehicle for expressing the old grief.
I do, however, take issue with the idea of “unchurched children being content” with virtual memorials. In addition to it weirdly suggesting that Facebook is or shall become a den of heathens, it also seems to suggest that the “unchurched,” on Facebook or not, have less meaningful or are otherwise remiss about grief and memorializing.
Technological advances in communication and community do not discriminate between the religious and the nonreligious — or for that matter, those who go to church or those who identify as Christians but don’t regularly attend services. The “churched” are just as susceptible to “being content with” what contents them in every other aspect of their wired lives — including online discussions and memorials about the people they cared about.
Incidentally, that sounds like a congregation — and one that doesn’t require ascribing to a set of beliefs to participate and feel welcome. …Though you do need to agree to Terms of Service, this is generally less monumental than consigning, resigning or denying your soul.
Etsy.com, the DIY/craft juggernaut, is the go-to place to buy and sell all things handmade. If you are familiar with this phenomenon, you would know that if it’s vintage button earrings and owl-themed stationary you desire, then Etsy has it locked down.
The Etsy craze is so hot right now that it was recently featured in a NY Times story. Online since 2005, Etsy employs 74 people — and one dog named Dottie — according to the “About” section of their website. And, you really know you’ve made it when another site pops up mocking yours — see Regretsy.com.
Since I am interested in craft and DIY culture, and I like to troll Etsy from time to time, I decided to do a little searching on some death-related terms and see what comes up. I figured I’d see some skeleton-themed, Halloween-y stuff and sure enough, I wasn’t disappointed. But digging a bit deeper, one comes across a most interesting array of death/dead/dying oriented items that are available for purchase for that special someone in your life.
I compiled a list of search terms and their corresponding hits below. But alas, there are some false hits. For example, in searching the term “dying,” Etsy doesn’t make the distinction between a seller writing that you may be “dying” to get your hands on her vintage fabric scrap neck gator vs. actual items that somehow are related to the actual act of dying. The “Advanced Search” supposedly allows you to narrow your search by adding the minus (-) sign, but it doesn’t always work. So, to use the “dying” example again, if you search on that term, you will also be given items that are tie-died and die-cut. As you can imagine, this annoys this here librarian. The date of this search was Sunday, February 21, 2010.
Peering further into these categories, here now are but a few of the handmade goodies on offer (click the photos to see the items in Etsy). I’ll let you explore some of the more “shock and awe” items on your own.
A Funeral Is Being Held for IE6 on March 4. Browser to Be Buried Without the Body
MG Siegler, Tech Crunch (February 23, 2010)
In response to Google’s announcement that come March 1, it will no longer support Internet Explorer 6, the Aten Design Group is holding a funeral for the much be-loathed, cantankerous old man that is Microsoft’s eight-year ancient blunder of a browser.
Mock funerals forever! You can attend the service in person in Denver on March 4, send flowers or merely leave some memories — rants, backhanded compliments or even begrudging respect — at the memorial site. A few of our favorites (may require special knowledge to appreciate and fully ROFL):
Cromat: Enjoy that coffin and remember margin: 0 auto;height: 100%; is valid in heaven.
Danny Raede: He was the browser i used for many years. I will never forget installing xp, booting him up, and then downloading firefox.
Michał: Oh IE6… Such a hard person to please. Always thought he was more !important than everyone else. It’s like he could never fall inline and instead just float’d along by himself. And though he was often the bane of my existence, it pains me to see him now that he has Layout in the coffin. It makes me want to just * > #cry. Is that coffin 100% height?
b0ne5: I’ll always remember IE6 as a maverick. It rendered things its own way, even when all the other browsers were conforming to standards. Conforming was not in its lexicon & it refused to bow to pressure to conform to web standards. Shine on you crazy diamond!
Topher Fangio: I just rewrote a good portion of our site, and he (like an old man with thick glasses) didn’t quite see it just right. The images were distorted, and the colors looked a bit faded. Sad to go that way, looking at a bleak and awkward world…
Amos Vryhof: Die you sick twisted bastard!
Chris Shattuck: The one purpose in our existence that seems incontrovertible is that we should work steadily to improve the quality of the lives of our children and children’s children. IE6 had a difficult, highly criticized life and kept mostly to himself, but he was also successful in this one respect.
Transparency was incredibly difficult for him, perhaps because it would expose too much of his pain. But by forging his way in a world where there were no standards (at least that he was aware of), he did the hard work for his progeny, and IE6, 7 and 8 are a testament that from the flawed can emerge a greater perfection (though there’s still room for improvement). And for all his backwards ways, IE6 is still valued by holdouts across the world who rally for the qualities that he was unable to pass successfully onto the next generation. IE6, I salute you and respect your role in my world.
But damn, good riddance.
Internet Explorer 6: Hai guys! Just thought you should know I will be unable to attend… as this page is broken and does not render properly for me.
Coffin Calendars Are a Sexy Hit
New Poland Express (October 16, 2009)via Trendhunter Magazine, “Controversial Casket Calendars”
Last October DeathRef tweeted about Italian coffin maker CofaniFunebri, which created a coffin product catalog featuring scantily clad goths. (This did not make the Death Reference Desk proper — while fine with being a sexy goth coffin calendar tweeter, I was reluctant to become a sexy goth coffin calendar blogger.)
Hesitation, begone! This is officially a post-worthy trend, which I initially missed but to which Trendhunter (appropriately enough) just alerted me. Not about to be outdone, Poland’s largest coffin manufacturer, Lindner, came out with its own sexy model, coffin-humping calendar. Hey, guys, don’t you know there’s a crisis going on? And perhaps it’s because of declining casket sales that marketing teams are getting creative (read: skanky) with outreach initiatives.
In response to criticism about the appropriateness of such a venture, the Lindner managing director, Barthosz Linder, says:
I don’t believe that sex alongside death is shocking and offends people who have just lost someone close to them. I produce coffins. I could produce furniture or something else. But I don’t. And this is a good coffin. I decided on such advertising because I wanted people to know about our brand. That’s it.
And about ripping off the Italians? What say you to that, Mr. Lindner?
The idea for this calendar is mine. Although I admit that I was inspired by an Italian calendar. There, a company does the same thing, but I thought, ‘Well, our Polish girls are prettier, and our coffins are better. … So we can do better.’
This is the part where I’d say, “You be the judge!” if I didn’t suspect you had better things to do. But if not, you can check out the full CofaniFunebri calendar here and see teaser pages from the Lindner calendar here, which boasts of “12 beautiful coffins [and] marvelous pictures of 12 beautiful Polish girls in magic landscapes.”
Who Dies of What in Europe Before the Age of 65
Elodie Cayotte and Hartmut Buchow, Eurostat (2009)
On the heels of last week’s post about mortality rates in New York City, comes this hot hot hot report on how Europeans are dying. Special thanks to my good friend Gauti for sending it along.
The usual postmortem causing suspects are covered: heart disease, lung cancer, alcohol related deaths, suicide, transport accidents, cervical cancer, and AIDS. I read this report, in a bar, while drinking a pint of beer (I live in England…) which seems fitting given the high number of alcohol related deaths in the UK. Indeed, the report sums up overall EU mortality rates this way:
The countries with very low mortality below age 65 are Italy, Switzerland, Malta, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands and to a lesser extent Spain. Within the United Kingdom, there is a strikingly large north-south division that encompasses the whole range of EU mortality. A number of former industrial areas with high mortality are found in Northern England and the north- east of France.
And let me tell you, the North-South divide in England is intense. A person might as well just give up the ghost if he or she lives north of the Midlands. The difference in life expectancy between Southern England (where I live in lovely Bath) and the North is almost seven years. Across the board, in every category, death seems to lurk at every turn in Northern UK regions. It seems that television ads have become extremely important in this public health dilemma and I found the following binge drinking gems, per usual, on YouTube.
Jazz Funeral to Bury the Aints Nickname
Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune (February 19, 2010)
A short article out of New Orleans caught my mock funeral adoring attention: on Saturday at four, a jazz funeral procession will commence for the no longer relevant nickname, “the Aints.” Saints once more, the NFL team rocked the Superbowl a couple weeks ago. After those celebrations, the homecoming parade proper and of course Mardi Gras, N’awlins is addicted to fun.
Fans are encouraged to bring their old Aints paper bags and place them in a coffin.
…The paper bags being what fans used to wear over their heads at games during particularly dismal seasons. Nice.
In the City’s Vital Statistics, so Many Ways to Die by Accident
Al Baker, New York Times (February 15, 2010)Summary of Vital Statistics 2008
Bureau of Vital Statistics, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (January 2010)
‘Tis the Season for Annual Reports on Mortality Statistics. The City of New York has now released its 2008 numbers for all forms of human death. Good news for Gotham: homicides are down and so are accidental deaths. That said, at least one person is killed a week while walking. Make sure and wait for the crosswalk sign.
Here is an interesting section from the New York Times article at the top on the overall mortality rate changes.
In 2008, of the 54,193 people who died in the city, 1,044 deaths (excluding drug overdoses) were classified by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as accidental — an 8.8 percent decline from 1998, when there were 1,145 accidental deaths. In contrast, the number of homicides fell 17.5 percent in that same period. The contrast is more stark going back to 1993: accidental deaths have fallen by 30.1 percent, while homicides have dropped by 73.2 percent…
…There are roughly 6,000 codes used to define deaths by accident, reflecting all types of violence and disorder. People are run over by cars, buses or taxis. There are dozens of codes to define deaths from drug consumption. Some die from the smoke and flames of fires, or they fall at construction sites or in their own backyards. Others are hit by trains, drown at beaches or crash their bicycles.
I understand why Departments of Health compile these statistics because it is useful to know how people are dying in a local area. Lawyers generally like to know these numbers too and a good funeral director can just tell you how people are dying without even looking at the vital statistics. Death by the numbers, as I like to call it, also reminds me of Meg’s recent post on Life Insurance Policies. Mix in bizarre, insane, unbelievable accidents and you basically have the annual Darwin Awards.
But I digress…
If you are a true student of Mortality statistics (and I have some friends who are) then please download the official 2008 report by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Bureau of Vital Statistics.
And if your attention span can’t handle charts, graphs, and brief descriptions of tragedy then please, oh-please, watch these short Public Service Announcements about preventing accidental deaths in the workplace. I am always amazed at what YouTube offers when you really need a solid bit of video:
Need to Get Over Your Ex? Call Death Bear
Laura T. Coffey, TODAYshow.com (February 12, 2010)
Ah, Valentine’s Day — the most prodigious of the Hallmark Holidays, buttering up lovers (and by buttering I mean fattening) and sending single people into quiet rages, whether feeling left out of others’ romantic schlock or when needing to justify or prove indifference, which invariably comes off like denial.
It may be especially bad for those recently devastated by love’s crueler arrows – specifically, the snapping off of that arrow, having it jammed the rest of the way through one’s heart, and watching love run like hell. Sigh.
The end of a relationship can feel like death — or at least to the precocious living, scrambling for extreme metaphors to give meaning to these darkest of times. AND that bastard left a pile of his crap in your apartment that you’re too furious/wimpy/apathetic to demand that he pick up, and/or haul out to the trash yourself.
Enter Death Bear — that is, if you’re lovelorn in Brooklyn. Upon summoning via text, performance artist Nate Hill will don his gloomy alter-ego, a seven-foot tall, weirdly narrow bear with an over-sized hard plastic head. This phantom is all black except for the ghastly humanoid hands that collect the memories you want to forget — at least the physical manifestations that call them forth. Your ex’s clothes. Lame CDs. All those heart-sharing soul-binding letters that were obviously LIES.
From Nate Hill’s website:
We all have someone or something we would rather just forget. Things fall apart. Love hurts. Dreams die. But when you summon Death Bear to your door, you can rest assured that help has come. … Death Bear will take things from you that trigger painful memories and stow them away in his cave where they will remain forever allowing you to move on with your life. … Let Death Bear help you, and absorb your pain into his cave.
Awesome. And remember, this isn’t just a Valentine’s affair. Getting dumped, like death, can happen anytime of the year — and Death Bear will be there.
Funeral Directors’ Challenge: Death Waits for No Snowstorm
William Wan, The Washington Post (February 12, 2010)
This is a classic news article about two kinds of hot topics: funeral directors and freakish weather events. You put these two things together and WHAMMO, you’re king of the world.
So right now in Washington, DC (which is still digging out from under three feet of snow) local funeral directors are working working working because people keep dying. Indeed, mortality rates tend to go up during heavy snow storms because of accidents and strenuous shoveling. Meanwhile, cold weather and snow forces some cemeteries to close, which in turn forces families (and therefore funeral directors) to scramble when it comes to interment, calling around to find open graveyards or, alternatively, storage facilities until the snow clears. Funeral directors may work around the clock, sleeping at work among the dead–on couches, not in the caskets.
My father the funeral director did all these things (and more) during snow storms in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is just part of being a funeral director: you never stop working because death doesn’t stop.
Hindu Wins Northumberland Funeral Pyre Battle
BBC News (February 10, 2010)Hindu Man Wins Court Battle for Open-Air Cremation Pyre
Matthew Taylor The Guardian (February 10, 2010)
It has been a big week for cremation in the UK. On Wednesday, Davender Ghai, a 71-year old Hindu man from Newcastle won a landmark court case on Appeal. The Ghai case is fairly straightforward: when he dies, he wants to be cremated on an open air pyre, as opposed to inside an industrial grade crematorium furnace. Mr. Ghai is a devout Hindu so his request is grounded in religious reasons.
When Mr. Ghai first made the request in 2006, he was told ‘No’ by Newcastle officials. He then took his case to the UK Courts and kept losing until this most recent decision.
I am providing an extremely rushed explanation of the case. Burning through it, you might say. The Guardian and BBC News articles at the top explain the case history. I also wrote about Mr. Ghai’s case a few weeks ago on the Death Reference Desk.
So let’s skip ahead to why the Ghai case is important. Two important questions were pondered by the Appeals Court: 1.) What is a building, as stipulated in the 1902 Cremation Act? And, 2.) Does the mere thought of an open air pyre cause the general public mental anguish?
In a nutshell, Davender Ghai agreed to a pyre enclosed by four walls (with no ceiling) and his lawyers demonstrated that his request didn’t cause the general public mental angst. Indeed, it seems to me that this form of ‘natural cremation’ (a term cleverly invented by Mr. Ghai’s legal team) will have a huge appeal to all the natural and green burial people in the UK. How that gets managed is an entirely different question, since Mr. Ghai made his request based upon religious reasons.
More than anything, this case demonstrates that supposedly immutable death laws can be challenged and changed to encompass the world’s religions. And in the case of Mr. Ghai, his request faithfully follows the law.
Watch this video to see Devander’s Ghai’s happiness with the decision. I have never been happier for an individual’s eventual death…
