Author: John

Categories
Death + the Law Death + the Web

This is What It Sounds Like When Avatars Die…

Virtual Estates Lead to Real-World Headaches
Chris V. Nicholson, The New York Times (November 02, 2009)

I am not an online gamer so I don’t have any experience with the bazillions of virtual worlds inhabited every day by living people. That said, it’s impossible to spend any time online these days without hearing about World of Warcraft, Second Life, or the Sims, so I know all about these places. I never really gave much thought to what happens to a person’s accumulated virtual world wealth until I read this article.

Death Avatar

The key question is this: who (or whom) inherits or keeps your ‘stuff’ after you die but your online persona hasn’t? A number of e-mail services and social networking sites have changed their policies to deal with user deaths. I wrote about a recent Facebook change here. And, as the article linked above describes, Yahoo ended up in court over the release of a dead solider’s email to his next of kin.

The article mentions a company which handles many of these online-property issues, The Digital Beyond, and if I were going to law school right now I would absolutely focus on individual internet property rights. More and more of everything is online and unless the national power grids all go down then that situation won’t change anytime soon.

Lady DeathThe article also discusses this apparently HUGE online incident (based on what the almighty Google showed me) from a 2005 World of Warcraft funeral. Mourning avatars gathered in-game to pay their respects and were slaughtered by a rival group. It’s all like some kind of crazy drive by shooting at a funeral for a rival gang member or something.

But since this incident involves an online funeral turned avatar massacre, someone produced a YouTube video. I won’t pretend to understand what is happening in this video but it looks like a lot of gaming nerds got really really upset:

This kind of makes me want to know what is going on in these online worlds. But not enough to actually become a gamer. Death already eats up enough of my online time.

Categories
Death + Technology Death + the Web Monuments + Memorials

No More Status Updates from Dead FB Friends

Facebook ‘memorialises’ profiles
BBC News (October 27, 2009)

It was bound to happen sooner or later. You know, someone dies and then Facebook goes ahead and suggests that you add him or her as a friend. Yikes. It’s one of the many technology dilemmas when it comes to death and dying in the interweb age.

Upon receipt of proof of death, Facebook will now turn a deceased member’s profile into a memorial site, allowing existing Facebook contacts to view the profile but otherwise locking it down, including removing potentially sensitive information.

facebook-death

I haven’t read through the full Facebook policy, but at some point a new policy will have to be developed: how long does the memorial page remain active? And/or can some next of kin have the page removed even though other members of the family disagree? These cases will all come up.

Such is human death in late modernity.

Categories
Burial Funeral Industry

Death Objects on Video from the MN Historical Society

Minnesota Historical Society Funerary Objects
Matt Anderson, MNHS Curator (October 19, 2009)

Just in time for Halloween. The Minnesota Historical Society presents the following video on Funerary Objects from its own collection. Many state historical societies have these kinds of objects in storage. It’s always interesting to see how they present them and when. Halloween, of course, is a logical (if not too easy) mark.

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture

Hot Human on Dinosaur Action…with Pictures

The Death Reference Desk’s good friend Joanna Ebenstein at the Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn is into the hipper, cooler, creepier side of dead stuff. That’s why Death Ref likes her so much.

So when Joanna invited me to give a talk on Monday, October 26 at the Morbid Anatomy Library I said YES YES YES.

But the whole story gets even better. I know. Who knew it was possible?

Instead of my usual death…death…dead bodies…bla bla bla action I am giving a talk on the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. The talk is full of hot human on dinosaur action and I have photos and video to boot.

Come on down to the Morbid Anatomy Library and be SAVED!!!!

Here is the official announcement:

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory:

“Humans riding on the backs of Dinosaurs: A walk through the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky USA.”

by John Erik Troyer, Ph.D., Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath

Date: Monday October 26th
Time: 7:30 PM (doors at 7:00 PM) *please note earlier than usual start time*
Admission: $5

Creation Museum

In May 2007, the twenty-seven million dollar Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. The museum is dedicated to representing a “young earth,” Christian explanation of the planet, which makes the known universe roughly 6-10,000 years old. Within the museum, visitors can view a large-scale Garden of Eden diorama, a fully loaded planetarium, and animatronic dinosaurs. Since opening, well over 835,000 people have visited the museum. The Creation Museum is a key player in what Troyer calls the American Science War and is part of an ongoing battle between advocates of Evolutionary Biology, Intelligent Design, and Creationism.

This presentation closely (and humorously) examines the relationships between Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Evolution in America by giving a pictorial tour of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. There will also be artifacts from the museum for your perusal.

Creation Museum

Biography:
Dr. John Troyer is the Death and Dying Practices Associate and RCUK Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society in May 2006. From 2007-2008 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University teaching the cultural studies of science and technology. Within the field of Death Studies, he analyzes the global history of science and technology and its effects on the dead body. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website and his first book, Technologies of the Human Corpse, will appear in late 2010.

DIRECTIONS TO OBSERVATORY: ***PLEASE USE NEVINS ST./PROTEUS GOWANUS ENTRANCE***

Observatory is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins St., in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. The entrance is currently through Proteus Gowanus gallery, in the alley off Nevins St (see below for full details).

R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn:

Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Proteus Gowanus is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street:

Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to Proteus Gowanus, the second door on the left.

For more information, see observatoryroom.org

Categories
Cemeteries Death + Art / Architecture Monuments + Memorials

Spring Break 2010: Take A Tour of Nine American Cemeteries

American Cemeteries
MSN City Guide

My mom sent me this MSN piece on some really cool American cemeteries. In case you’re curious, my mom sends me lots of articles about death, dying, and dead bodies. She also sends me articles on tattooing but that’s another story.

Cool American Cemetery

I will be in Washington, D.C. next week and I plan on visiting Arlington National Cemetery.

In fact, I think that it’s important for people to visit cemeteries all the time. Walk around the grounds, touch the stones, and just listen to the silence. I find cemetery visits exceptionally relaxing.

This might be a little too Harold and Maude for some people but so it goes.

Support your local cemetery.

Categories
Death + the Economy Funeral Industry

Death and the Economy: Too Many Unclaimed Dead Bodies for the Body Farm…

Indigent Burials Are on the Rise
Katie Zezima, The New York Times (October 11, 2009)

Regular readers of the Death Reference Desk will recognize that the nationwide increase in indigent burials is a significant trend. Since this summer, when Death Ref launched, we have routinely posted articles on the uptick in unclaimed dead bodies under the Death and the Economy category.

The lead from this most recent New York Times article sums up the entire situation:

Coroners and medical examiners across the country are reporting spikes in the number of unclaimed bodies and indigent burials, with states, counties and private funeral homes having to foot the bill when families cannot.

What makes this article a little different than the others is that it presents some hard facts and figures on the wave of unclaimed bodies.

  • Oregon has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of unclaimed bodies over the past few years.
  • About a dozen states now subsidize the burial or cremation of unclaimed bodies, including Illinois, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
  • Financing in Oregon comes from fees paid to register the deaths with the state. The state legislature in June voted to raise the filing fee for death certificates to $20 from $7, to help offset the increased costs of state cremations, which cost $450.
  • Already in 2009, Wisconsin has paid for 15 percent more cremations than it did last year.
  • Boone County, Mo., hit its $3,000 burial budget cap last month, and took $1,500 out of a reserve fund to cover the rest of the year.
  • The medical examiner of Wayne County, Mich., Dr. Carl Schmidt, bought a refrigerated truck after the morgue ran out of space. The truck, which holds 35 bodies, is currently full, Dr. Schmidt said. “We’ll buy another truck if we have to,” he said.

These numbers present an interesting unclaimed dead body index, but the following point really jumped out at me:

  • In Tennessee, medical examiner and coroners’ offices donate unclaimed remains to the Forensic Anthropological Research Center, known as the “Body Farm,” where students study decomposition at the University of Tennessee. The facility had to briefly halt donations because it had received so many this year…

The Body Farm at the University of Tennessee was specifically built to study how dead bodies decompose in order to assist criminal investigations. The Body Farm needs, by its very definition, dead bodies to operate; even it (a place which requires corpses to function) had to stop accepting unclaimed bodies because there were too many of them.

I want to stress this particular point: There were/are too many unclaimed dead bodies for even the Body Farm…a place solely built to study dead bodies.

It is difficult to say where this situation goes next. I don’t expect to see the unclaimed corpse trend reverse anytime soon and, indeed, I expect it to go even higher. What I do think will happen, down the road, is that more and more of these unclaimed bodies will end up in bio-medical tissue products. But that is a post for another day.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture

Lecture on Dead Animals at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program
Death Ref’s own John Troyer and artist Roxanne Jackson in Dialogue
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, October 15, 2009 7pm (FREE)

I love my job. I will be giving a talk at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on all dead creatures great and small. And preserved. It is a conversation with artist Roxanne Jackson about her newest solo exhibition at the MIA. Here is the official announcement:

buffalo

On October 15, we are excited to announce that Dr. John Troyer, Death and Dying Practices Associate at the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will be talking about Roxanne Jackson’s work in relation to taxidermy and technologies of preservation.

An ambitious new Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP) solo exhibition by local artist Roxanne Jackson explores the complex nuances between animals and humans. The show, “We Believe in Some Thing,” on view through November 1 in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ two MAEP galleries. Jackson’s ceramic sculptures, wall installations, and video explore human and animal interaction but also critique the assumed polarized differences between humans and animals. She asks, among other questions, “Are we more alike than different?”

dead animals

It is a free talk, open to the public and I promise highly entertaining. I know from dead animals.

I might even bring my own private taxidermy collection to the talk. I know. I really have a private taxidermy collection.

Categories
Burial Death + Biology Eco-Death

How Dead Bodies Become Beetle Juice

To Casket Or Not To Casket? One Of America’s Great Field Biologists Thinks About Burial
Robert Krulwich, NPR (October 9, 2009)

NPR science reporter Robert Krulwich (also of RadioLab fame) did this short piece (it’s a little over five minutes long) on the decomposition of dead animal bodies and their consumption by beetles. He interviews Professor Bernd Heinrich, an expert on all things animal, insect and decomposition. Check it out!
SextonBeetle_wide
I am all for being left to rot in the woods after I am dead. Based on my current body size, I bet I could feed thousands of beetle families. It would be my way of giving back to the natural world.

Categories
Death + the Economy Funeral Industry

Death and the Economy: Unclaimed Bodies Fill the Detroit Morgue

Detroit: Too broke to bury their dead
Poppy Harlow, CNNMoney.com (October 1, 2009)

This CNN story on Detroit is heartbreaking. The economic situation in Detroit is horrible enough, but this particular dispatch says more about the financial straits of life and death than anything I have seen.

Over the summer, the New York Times ran an article on why home burials were a sign of the recession. I wrote about it here. The unclaimed dead body situation in Detroit is a much more profound statement about the economy than home burials.

Not only can families not afford to retrieve a deceased loved one because of the cost (even if they want to) the Wayne County Morgue does not have enough money for the final disposition of the bodies. So the bodies all remain in cold storage, waiting for something to happen.

Watch this video attached to CNN article:

Articles about the economy and death have been a re-occurring theme the last few months. This article got published in Green Bay, WI: Unclaimed cremated remains accumulate at Allouez cemetery.

Unclaimed Cremated Remains in Green Bay

Earlier in September, the New York Times ran an article on Wall Street investment firms buying and selling elderly and ill persons’ life insurance policies: The Back to Business: Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance.

And this AP article discusses a subject that I assumed would pop up eventually: Weak economy sparks rebirth of funeral sciences.

Then there are these stories: that the economy is actually good for some funeral homes because of increased mortality rates…

The video is the lead to this article about a Dallas, TX funeral home: At Golden Gate Funeral Home, Bodies Are John Beckwith Jr.’s Business, And Business Is Booming.

But when push comes to shove, and the economy gets really really bad, there is always Craigslist…

COFFIN
Date: 2009-07-20, 10:59AM
Guaranteed to keep your Goth hide translucent white during these hot and bright summer days, this hand-made coffin is just right for the petit Vampire or Vampette. If you are just under 5 feet tall (or can shape-shift to something smaller) with a 29-inch wing span, you will feel cozy and safe sleeping away the pesky daylight hours with this tasteful but unassuming box tucked away in your lair.

Goth Coffin

Your minions can keep your chamber mobile with these fine handles made of Transylvanian hemp and the tucked and buttoned red padded lining will have you snoring until sun down. The hand-painted, one-of-a-kind, whimsical take on a Coptic cross is certain not to offend any version of Goth, vamp or even warm-blood who might have the privilege of actually seeing your private chamber.

It’s hard to let this beautiful treasure go, but we’ve just run out of room. And with all of the sensible people around (see True Blood), we just don’t need to be so private anymore. It can be found and taken for free in the 3400 block of Barranca circle near Mt Bonnell. Better hurry though. It is Big Trash week in our neighborhood.

Categories
Death + the Law Death Ethics Suicide

New Assisted Dying Guidelines in England

Director of Public Prosecutions Publishes Interim Policy on Prosecuting Assisted Suicide
The Crown Prosecution Service (September 23, 2009)

Last week in England, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, released new guidelines on assisted dying. The goal of these new guidelines is to give family members a clearer understanding of what is acceptable before the law when assisting a loved one to die. As the law currently stands in England and Wales, assisting another person’s suicide is against the law. I discussed what caused these new guidelines here.

Here, then, are the guidelines (which are not laws) which will be used to evaluate whether or not compassion was the guiding principal behind the assistance:

The public interest factors against a prosecution include that:

  • The victim had a clear, settled and informed wish to commit suicide;
  • The victim indicated unequivocally to the suspect that he or she wished to commit suicide;
  • The victim asked personally on his or her own initiative for the assistance of the suspect;
  • The victim had a terminal illness or a severe and incurable physical disability or a severe degenerative physical condition from which there was no possibility of recovery;
  • The suspect was wholly motivated by compassion;
  • The suspect was the spouse, partner or a close relative or a close personal friend of the victim, within the context of a long-term and supportive relationship;
  • The actions of the suspect, although sufficient to come within the definition of the offence, were of only minor assistance or influence, or the assistance which the suspect provided was as a consequence of their usual lawful employment.

It was interesting to read the different press reactions to the guidelines.

Washington Post: Britain To Clarify Policy on Euthanasia
Associated Press: Charges Unlikely for Helping Suicide in England
The Guardian: New assisted suicide guidelines to give ‘clear advice’ to relatives
Lesley Close (in The Guardian): Thank you, Keir Starmer
New York Times: Guidelines in England for Assisted Suicide
BBC News: Assisted suicide law ‘clarified’
Death with Dignity in Oregon
All of these articles point to one central point: these new guidelines are only a step towards changing the entire assisted dying/suicide law in England and Wales. This was only the first step.

The most interesting response to the decision from Timothy Egan at the New York Times. I highly recommend reading his piece The Way We Die Now.

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture

Stephen Colbert Discusses Dead Bodies Having Sex

Body Worlds Plans Cadaver Sex Exhibit
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report (September 16, 2009)

Oh Gunther von Hagens, you are the gift that just keeps on giving and giving and giving to the Death Reference Desk. But this time, dearest Dr. von Hagens, you have truly achieved a pop-cultural milestone. None other than Stephen Colbert, he of The Colbert Report and clearly deserving namesake of a new wing on the International Space Station, dedicated two whole minutes to discussing your plastinated bodies posed in sexual positions.

Sure sure, Death Reference Desk overlord Meg broke the story and I produced my own necro-analysis last week.

Stephen Colbert

But it is safe to say, I think, that achieving a two minute commentary from the one and only Stephen Colbert means that you, yes you GUNTHER VON HAGENS, have arrived. Now, the only question is when you will finally jump the shark…but that is a different pop-cultural discussion for another time.

Until then Herr Professor Doktor von Hagens, mull over these wise words from Stephen Colbert himself:

This major breakthrough ends one of science’s enduring mysteries: what does it look like when zombies do it?

Indeed…

(special thanks to my book editor’s assistant for sending me the Colbert link…that’s just how I roll…Thanks Beth!!!)

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Body Worlds Plans Cadaver Sex Exhibit
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests
Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Humor Death Ethics

Dead Bodies Having Sex: the Backstory

Cadaver Exhibits Are Part Science, Part Sideshow
Neda Ulaby, National Public Radio (August 10, 2006)

Death Reference Desk technical guru Meg posted an article on the newest planned exhibition by German anatomist and showman, Gunther von Hagens. This would be Gunther von Hagens of Body Worlds fame. The article discusses von Hagens’ plans to exhibit dead bodies posed in sexual positions.

Gunther-von-Hagens01

There is a fascinating backstory to this corpse-a-palooza sex show and it all begins in 2006….

In August of that year, NPR featured a report by Neda Ulaby on Gunther von Hagens. You can listen to that interview by clicking on the link at the top of the page. On the whole, the report is about the Body Worlds phenomena sweeping America during that summer.

Then, as if by MAGIC, intrepid reporter Neda Ulaby drops this dead body bomb:

Recently, [Gunther von Hagens] sent a questionnaire to 6,500 people who he says have agreed to donate their bodies to him after death. They were asked a number of provocative questions. For example, would they consent to their body parts being mixed with an animal’s, to create a mythological creature? Would they agree to be “transformed into an act of love with a woman or a man?” Von Hagens says that on the sex question, the majority of men liked the idea, while the women did not.

Talk about burying the lead…or burying something. Wowza: that double entendre works on a number of levels.

Plastinated Bodies
But it is all true. Gunther von Hagens plans on fusing dead animals and dead humans together (because, of course, humans aren’t animals….) to create Mythological Creatures. Or, as one former student once proclaimed: “You mean like centaurs and stuff.” Yes yes. I do mean centaurs and stuff.

But the magic doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Von Hagens was clearly making plans to pose dead bodies in sexual positions by at least 2006 (if not earlier). Well, actually, von Hagens says “…transformed into an act of love…” and when you listen to the NPR report, it’s really creepy sounding.

Magical Centaur

Thus began my own personal obsession with tracking every new exhibition by von Hagens to see when he would finally, finally show dead bodies having sex. It seemed fairly obvious that von Hagens would create this exhibition since I GUARANTEE that it (meaning dead bodies doing it) will make MORE MONEY than any of von Hagens other shows. And that is saying a lot, since Body Worlds recorded its 28th million visitor in July 2009. The mythological creatures will most certainly appear at some point but only after a small mint is made with the corpse sex.

And so it has all come to pass. On May 7, 2009, Gunther von Hagens opened a new Body Worlds exhibition in Berlin, Germany (the Berlin link is gone so I am using a Zurich, Switzerland link). In one section of the exhibition, entitled Cycle of Life, von Hagens placed two different pairs of bodies having sex on display. In a statement released by von Hagens, he explains that the exhibit “offers a deep understanding of the human body, the biology of reproduction, and the nature of sexuality.”

He is also making it clear on the Body Worlds website that he wants to bring the copulating corpses to London. I know. The Brits will beat down the door to see it. Here is the full “look out London, here we come” pitch by von Hagens.

At least at the end he wished everyone best wishes.

Sadly, the London Body Worlds exhibition closed at the end of August. The last time I checked, von Hagens never did move the dead bodies having sex to the O2 bubble. But rest assured, I will keep track of this situation for one and all.

And what would this post on dead bodies having sex be WITHOUT at least a short video clip from YouTube. This gem is entitled Copulating Corpses from from Von Hagen[s] Exhibition and it features an awesome song by the band Evanesence.

Enjoy…the darkness…