Texas Prisoner Burials Are a Gentle Touch in a Punitive System Manny Fernandez, New York Times (January 05, 2012) At a cemetery in Texas, murderers and other convicts whose bodies are unclaimed can be interred and, for a few moments, remembered. A really interesting article on the cemetery used by Texas prison officials for unclaimed [...]
In Tough Times, a Boom in Cremations as a Way to Save Money Kevin Sack, The New York Times (December 09, 2011) If current American trends hold, in 2017, more bodies will be cremated than buried, and funeral directors say the cost is a major factor in the decision. When the Death Reference Desk started [...]
Yes, He Sold Fakes. They Are Supposed to Be Fake. Jeffrey E. Singer and Corey Kilgannon, The New York Times (August 24, 2011) Paper imitations of luxury items are traditional at Chinese funerals as gifts for the dead, but a seller of cardboard handbags was arrested on copyright-infringement charges on Tuesday. Ok ok. So the [...]
Watery Grave, Murky Law Leor Halevi, New York Times (May 08, 2011) Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea and the history of Shariah. Bin Laden Exits the Scene On the Media, WNYC and National Public Radio (May 06, 2011) It has been one week since President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden was dead. I [...]
Donating Body Can Save Families Money Dan McFeely, The Indianapolis Star (February 08, 2011) A short post on a perennial topic for the Death Reference Desk: how the dead body is transformed into some kind of cash value. Rarely, if ever, does this postmortem value involve direct cash exchanges, mostly because the law frowns upon [...]