Author: Kim

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

Father of Dead Soldier Ordered to Pay Up


An update to our “God Hates Dead Soldiers” post. The family of dead Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder has been ordered to pay $16,510 in legal fees to Fred Phelps.

Interestingly, the case, which is to be heard by the Supreme Court, centers not on Phelp’s First Amendment rights, but rather “the complaint included claims for defamation, two counts of invasion of privacy (intrusion on seclusion and publicity given to private life), and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” (Citizen Media Law Project)

The judgment has sparked the outrage of Bill O’Reilly who has vowed to pay the Snyder family’s debt. Said O’Reilly,

“It’s obvious they were disturbing the peace by disrupting the funeral. They should have been arrested, but our system is so screwed up, so screwed up, that loons are allowed to run wild. Snyder is fighting the good fight, and he is taking his case to the Supreme Court as he should. We are behind him 100 percent.”

Hmmmm… not so sure I’d want Bill O’Reilly’s monied interests on my side.

Categories
Death + Crime Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

Kevorkian Revisited

Independent Minds: Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Listen to the audio)

Heard an interesting public radio broadcast this evening. It’s a series titled “Independent Minds” and tonight’s profile featured Dr. Jack Kevorkian. The show illuminates, through interviews, audio clips and sound bites, the life of the controversial “Dr. Death” and attempts to separate and dissect the man and the myth.

Want more Jack? Check out trailers for the upcoming HBO film You Don’t Know Jack, starring Al Pacino as Kevorkian. Directed by Barry Levinson, it also stars Susan Sarandon, John Goodman and Brenda Vaccaro. I don’t have cable and it could be a while before it shows up on Netflix. So if anyone catches it, by all means let us know and share your thoughts!

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics

“Thank God for Dead Soldiers”

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.”

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Death + the Web

The Dark Arts

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

Categories
Death + the Web Grief + Mourning

Grief Revisited

Photo credit: DeviantArt.com

A recent article in the New Yorker entitled “Good Grief”, by Meghan O’Rourke, delves into the subject of grief and grieving and asks the question “Is there a better way to be bereaved?”

The article revisits Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ seminal work on the subject and seeks to examine the “stages of grief” in relation to new research on grief and mourning. The new research suggests that

Grief and mourning don’t follow a checklist; they’re complicated and untidy processes, less like a progression of stages and more like an ongoing process–sometimes one that never fully ends.

Interesting as well is that,

Searching or yearning, crops up in nearly all the contemporary investigations of grief. A 2007 study by Paul Maciejewski found that the feeling that predominated in the bereaved subjects was not depression or disbelief or anger but yearning. Nor does belief in heavenly reunion protect you from grief. As [another reasearcher, Bonnano says] “We want to know what has become of our loved ones.”

Popular culture is full of references to the ubiquitous five stages of grief as posited by Kubler-Ross. The latest issue of Adbusters, entitled “The Post PostModernism”, states that

Our upcoming issue explores the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance — and personal and planetary demise. Which stage are you in? Send your deepest insights and wildest notions to editor@adbusters.org.

Or this article from Reason regales us with

Therapists looking to study the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, in that order—need look no further than Washington Democrats struggling to come to grips with the fact that the health care overhaul they spent nearly a year crafting is now dead.

And then there is this icky YouTube video of a mother who taped her young daughter as she was told that her goldfish has died. The mother crafted a video of her daughter going through the “stages of grief” and set it all to a bad soundtrack comprised of a shitty song and the TV blaring in the background. Seriously? It reminds me of the mother who Tweeted her grief hours after her son’s drowning death, a questionable and hotly debated topic of late. However, in the case of the mother Tweeting, she was the one grieving in her own way; the “goldfish mother” is choosing to film her daughter as she is grieving over her beloved pet. Good grief!

Categories
Death + Biology

Lolcats? No, Death Cat.

The story of Oscar, the “Death Cat”, is making the rounds these days. From articles in Discover and the New England Journal of Medicine, to an episode of House to a recent posting on this Danish death-related blog, AND a newly published book, this cat gets around—but only if you’re about to die!

Oscar is a therapy cat who currently resides at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. His special (and for some, disturbing) talent is seeking out and curling up on the beds of terminally ill patients near death. Then, as soon as they’ve passed, he jumps off the bed and disappears.

Some say the cat is able to smell certain ketones in the blood that are released during the pre-death process. It is similar, they say, to the reported cases of cancer smelling dogs. Others think it’s just a coincidence or that he just likes to snuggle up with the heating blankets often present on the patient’s beds.

I tend to think that Oscar is indeed aware of something beyond human detection. I don’t think it’s that hard to believe that their olfactory senses are so sensitive as to detect almost infinitesimal chemical traces in humans. Think of cadaver or drug-sniffing dogs, for example. Smell is such a powerful sense in both humans and animals—although we humans are like a brick of rock compared to the finely tuned nasal capacity of certain animals. Fun facts: Bloodhounds have over 300 million olfactory receptors and the average house cat has about 200 million receptors. Humans have a mere 5 million (New Scientist). And for more about smell, check out The Smell Report by the Social Issues Research Centre. But why does Oscar feel compelled to lay with the patient? Is he trying to comfort the dying? Or is he just trying to send a message/warning to the living and the dying, that hey, someone is going to die here? Who knows. But I think it’s super fascinating. What do you, dear reader, think?

Categories
Afterlife Death + Biology Death + Technology Death Ethics Defying Death

Mr. Freeze

Robert C.W. Ettinger

The January 25 issue of the New Yorker features an amusing article about cryopreservation of bodies, a.k.a. cryogenics or cryonics. The article doesn’t so much shed light on the science of this controversial procedure; but rather, it spotlights Robert C.W. Ettinger, one of the founders of the cryonics movement.

The ninety-one year old Ettinger gives journalist Jill Lepore a tour of his Cryonics Institute, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit. Ettinger is matter-of-fact as he dodders around the facility and explains the processes and pitfalls of cryopreservation. Ettinger’s two wives and his mother are frozen at the Institute as part of the current total of 883 members, not including the 64 pets also in cryostasis. Several pictures are here from the Immorality Institute’s forum page.

In his youth, Ettinger was a reader and writer of science fiction which informed his interest in and ultimately his career choice as a cryonicist. And indeed, he has an interesting take on what the future holds. Regarding the idea that if no one ever dies, won’t there be too many people on the planet? Ettinger posits:

The people could simply agree to share the available space in shifts and could “go into suspended animation from time to time to make room for others.” There will be no childbirth. Fetuses will be incubated in jars. Essentially, motherhood will be abolished. Then too, eugenics will help keep the birthrate down, and deformed babies could be frozen against the day that someone might actually want them.”

If you wish to learn more about Mr. Ettinger’s postulations, visit your local library or retailer and take a gander at some of his books:

Prospect of Immortality (2005)
Man into Superman (2005)
Youniverse: Toward a Self-Centered Philosophy of Immortalism and Cryonics (2009)

Categories
Burial Death + the Law

Things Left Behind

“That’s probably the hardest part — to see how some of these people have nobody in their lives,” Hendrickson said.

Saw an interesting article in the LA Times about what happens to the belongings of those who die and have no heirs or fail to leave a will. Possession are packed up in a warehouse and later auctioned off, with proceeds going back into the estate or used for burial expenses, with the remainder going to the state.

I imagine this happens in hundreds of cities throughout the United States. But with Los Angeles County being so dense—and being home to a high percentage of famous and infamous decedants—these auctions must present quite the collection of oddities and fascinations. The thrift store freak/junkhound/garage sailor in me salivates at the possibilities. The introspective me thinks about the sadness of so much left behind. Obviously, you can’t take it with you whether you will it to someone or not. But, in most of these cases, the stuff left behind tells a story about someone very alone—save for the company of their last earthly possessions.

Categories
Suicide

The Cliffs of Tojimbo

At Japanese Cliffs, a Campaign to Combat Suicide
Martin Fackler, New York Times (December 17, 2009)

Tojimbo Cliffs

“I will continue until the government finally gets its act together and takes over,” he said. “I can’t let their inaction cost another precious life.”

Japan has a long history of suicide. And nowhere is this cultural phenomenon felt more keenly than at the cliffs of Tojimbo, a popular tourist destination, on Japan’s western coast. This scenic and treacherous spot has the grim distinction as being one of the best known places to kill oneself in Japan.

Japan’s suicide rate is an astonishing three times higher than that of the U.S. In 2003, a record 34,427 people committed suicide in Japan and this year is on track to approach that number. Due to the global financial crisis and Japan’s long economic decline, suicide has become an “honorable” solution in a place where depression is little discussed and very rarely addressed.

But there is one man who is trying to change all this, at least in his small (but arguably large) way. He is Yukio Shige, a retired policeman who has dedicated his days to trying to prevent people from jumping off Tojimbo’s cliffs. Mr. Shige has also organized over 70 volunteers who also help him patrol the cliffs, looking for the loners. Read the NYTimes article linked above for a profile of this good Samaritan.

I am truly in awe of his dedication to this mission. It is an amazing testament to the resolve of one man, determined to save lives, one conversation at a time. If I had a hero, Mr. Shige would be it.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

No Presidential Condolence for Soldier Suicide

A few weeks ago, various news outlets reported the story of Spc. Chancellor Keesling, an American soldier in Iraq who committed suicide. While incidents of suicide among soldiers who are currently active and those returned home is certainly newsworthy, the focus of this particular story was quite different. Although Mr. Keesling received a proper military burial, his family did not receive the standard condolence letter sent by the president, as is customary for fallen soldiers.

This didn’t sit well with the family. Was he not a hero too? Did he not serve his country honorably? Mr. Keesling’s family then found out the reality: there would be no condolence letter — it was a matter of policy. Incensed, Mr. Keesling’s father, Gregg, wrote letters to President Obama and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. asking them to reconsider the policy. You can read the letter here.

An Op-Ed piece in Friday’s New York Times also addresses the issue, which looks at the notion that recognition of soldier suicide valorizes or venerates death.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. I can certainly see how a grieving family would want to have their son or daughter’s military service recognized and respected and how a letter from the president would help ease that pain just a bit. However, I also don’t think killing oneself is the same as dying in combat, getting killed by friendly fire or any other way while serving. It is a different kind of death — or so we are to believe — one that does not jibe with the heroic propaganda and selfless ideology of the military.

This does not mean that Mr. Keesling did not serve his country honorably or that he doesn’t deserve recognition somehow. But ultimately, it is Mr. Keesling’s family that will live with the pain of his death for the rest of their lives, and no letter is going to change that. For President Obama and other military officials, a condolence letter is just part and parcel of the war machine, or S.O.P (standard operating procedure) in military terms. Although the Administration is looking into their current policies surrounding condolence letters, suicide, for now, is not considered “honorable.”

I believe that focusing on the root causes of depression and supporting mental health efforts for military personnel is the best strategy — and will hopefully help lessen the number of suicides in the first place — and the pain for those left behind.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death Ethics

Quodlibetica: The Death Issue

1259005135Haapoja2

Friend of Death Reference Desk, Collier White, has just published the second issue of his collaborative writing/arts/criticism blog, Quodlibetica. The theme? Death. Olly, you know how to get us.

The issue, or “Constellation”, as it’s called, describes the issue thusly:

Death is an ideal subject for art: marginalized, terrifying, and ultimate. In our second constellation, Quodlibetica looks at death in contemporary art and invites writers and artists to talk about death, art, and ethics: Jan Estep questions whether killing animals can ever be justifiable in the name of art, while Collier White visited with Pamela Valfer, an artist who draws and works with dead animals. Patricia Briggs explores death and violence, kept at a distance, in Roxanne Jackson’s work. In our portfolio, Ana Lois-Borzi explores death up close, in a grieving process mediated by art. Christina Schmid focuses on angels and road movies, staples of American folklore, in current and recent shows at Franklin Artworks and form + content, while Collier White’s reviews of Antichrist and The Box dive into pop culture’s lingering obsession with death.

Explore and engage with this well-written addition to the universe of arts criticism.

Image: Terike Haapoja. Photo by Jan Estep.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology

Discards

coach-designer-dog-coat

The euthanasia of unwanted cats and dogs is a regular occurrence the world over. However, in Japan, it takes on epic proportions. The voracious appetite of the Japanese for all things cute, fluffy and designer has spawned one of the worst adoption/destruction ratios anywhere. Whereas, in the United States about half of the animals in shelters are euthanized; in Japan, that number climbs to a staggering 90%.

The preferred method in Japan is to euthanize the animals by dumping them in an airtight metal box—as many as eight at a time—and pumping in carbon monoxide. This CNN video features one Japanese shelter on a typical day as they round up the animals for disposition. The reporter introduces the story by warning that some viewers may find the content “objectionable.” Yes, but not in the assumed way—not for having to see dogs and cats on “death row” (a misnomer of course since they did nothing wrong to land there, other than to be born). No, it’s objectionable because of the callous disregard for life that put them there in the first place.

This Asahi Shimbun newspaper article describes the ways in which workers at an animal protection center in one Japanese prefecture are doing outreach to school children to sensitize them and teach them about animal cruelty. “Now you understand that dogs and cats also have feelings, don’t you?” a worker at the Mie animal protection center asked students at Ominato Elementary School in Ise, Mie Prefecture, in early September.

The way in which we treat animals is reflective upon how we, as a society, understand life and death. The attendant value we assign to different living things is a sad commentary on the priorities of consumer-driven cultures (USA included) willing to sacrifice innocent life forms in the name of feeding faddish, acquisitive tendencies.