Here are two fun facts – if that’s the right way to put it – about cremation.
Turns out that nearly 60 percent of us (Americans) are choosing to go the route of burn-baby-burn-disco-inferno (great song circa-1976 by The Trammps!), and it takes about two hours at 1700 degrees to get the job done.
(I presume the bulkier one is, the longer it takes. So I’ll probably clock in at 2:30.)
According to a new article from the Bay Journal News Service, which we use for some interesting coverage, there are environmental concerns about cremation. And so some people – a small group but probably growing – is opting for “natural burials.”
We’ll have the coverage in our Weekend edition on Friday.
If one is Muslim or Jewish, this is not a particularly unusual idea, as members of those faith often are buried quickly, in rather shallow ground and with little or no desire to artificially preserve the body for all time. The natural-burial proponents do roughly the same thing. You’ll be buried in a relatively shallow grave, in a biodegradable covering and without embalming. All the critters in the vicinity will chant in unison: BUFFET!
My view? When you’re gone, you’re gone, and people can do with my body as they like (within reason). I’m an organ donor, so take all you need before you send me to the afterlife, if one’s a-waiting.
But natural burials probably are a step too far. Sorry it’s going to harm Mother Gaia by using up all that fossil fuel, but I’ll be among the 60 percent planning to go up in flames.
Make it lots and lots of flames: Why not get a head start on where I’m going to be spending eternity 🙂
Or maybe do it the way my father has always said he wants his: a Viking funeral, where they put you on a wooden ship, set it on fire and let the wind carry you out to sea and to eternity. Not sure the folks on Anna Maria Island in Florida would love that, though.
IT’S MY WORD OF THE DAY: Maybe this has been bandied about or perhaps it’s new, but either way it’s new to me.
And I think that, when describing how the federal government’s executive and legislative branches have been working over recent history (define that as you choose), the word “ineptocracy” seems to fit perfectly.
$33 trillion in debt and rising? Endless wars? Choices between bad and worse for president every four years? Move along … nothing to see here ……
– Scott McCaffrey