“Thank God for Dead Soldiers”
9 Mar2010
So says Fred Phelps. You may be familiar with Phelps and his hate-mongering followers—most of whom are actually his family members—because they have been making headlines for at least the past 20 years.
For the uninitiated, Fred Phelps is the founder and pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. He is best known for his various anti-gay protests and placard-waving antics around the country, featuring such slogans as “God Hates Fags” and “Fags Die, God Laughs”, among other free speech protected hate bombs.
Earlier today, the Supreme Court decided that they will hear a case involving Phelps and the family of deceased soldier Matthew Snyder. In 2006, Phelps protested at Matthew Snyder’s funeral, claiming God hates America — and hence soldiers — because of our nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. One of the signs he and others waved had “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” plastered across it. The Snyder family sued and was awarded a judgement of $10.9 million dollars. However, last September, the U.S 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, overturned the decision on free speech grounds.
According to an article in today’s LA Times,
Snyder’s family appealed to the Supreme Court, saying the protests had “tarnished” their son’s funeral. “Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better,” they said.
As Chris Weigant, of the Huffington Post points out, it is not so much about free speech per se, but rather, protected classes of speech such as religious and political speech.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of this case as it will test to what extent these classes are protected. Fred Phelps makes my skin crawl—as a librarian who supports the First Amendment—and as a human who finds the profanity of this man’s behavior repugnant. But ultimately, the case will come down to whether the Snyder family can claim damages in their case. According to the Citizen Media Law Project, the case centers on “defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
- By: Kim
- In: Death + the Law| Death Ethics
- Tags: free speech, protests, soldiers
Seattle Librarians Tackle Mummy Eating
8 Mar2010
Guanajuato Mummy Hand, by Tomascastelazo
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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- By: Meg Holle
- In: Death + Technology
- Tags: medicine, mummies, superstition
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) and a breakdown of all deaths by country can be found here.
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.
- By: John
- In: Death + the Law| Death Ethics
- Tags: assisted dying, assisted suicide, bioethics
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.
- By: Meg Holle
- In: Death + the Web| Grief + Mourning
- Tags: Facebook, religion
The Dark Arts
27 Feb2010
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.
- We found 11,675 results for dead.
- We found 3,470 results for death.
- We found 16,098 results for dying.
- We found 549 results for coffin.
- We found 337 results for funeral.
- We found 11 results for morgue.
- We found 62 results for burial.
- We found 161 results for suicide.
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.
Toe-Tag Party Invitation
Natural, Green Burial Casket
Vintage Wells Fargo Casket Tag
Human Bone Necklace
- By: Kim
- In: Death + Art / Architecture| Death + Popular Culture| Death + the Web
- Tags: crafts, Etsy, jewelry