BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 02 - 06:23 AM

Amos, you have done it again. Just the right touch IMHO. Sat here singing it to an amalgamated tune and frankly it sounds pretty old-timey including the lyric! Great job!! Once again, you ARE da' MAN!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Mar 02 - 05:17 AM

SharonA: I agree with your initial posting, The perpetrator should be dealt with: Did you mean the person who failed to cremate the bodies, or the perpetrator of the song ??
Seriously though, Leave the song and the link in. Removing it would suggest that it should not have been included at all, and ones immediate response to anything, either good news, or atrocity, is often a truer reflection of its impact.
No-one writing a song now about the Titanic could capture any of the immediacy of feeling at the time. In a few years you can look back and decide whether your response was appropriate, but remeber, that will be a different you.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 07:08 PM

SharonA --- Way back in this thread (which I've only just picked up on) you said: "Re my own body: If it were possible in this day and age, I would want to be buried without a coffin and to be allowed to decompose and let the nutrients of the body return to the earth. But I don't think that's legal."

Well I don't know about where you are, but here in the U.K. 'green funerals' are becoming quite common. A quick search brought up www.naturaldeath.org.uk (sorry, don't know how to do a blicky) which has details of about 130 woodland burial grounds and the possibility of using cardboard coffins to ensure rapid bio-degradability.The site also had links to the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

BTW, I hope you don't need their services too soon!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 02 - 11:40 AM

Sentiment and hysteria aside, here's my response:

We Never Did Care Too Much for Grandma

(Tune: Little Old Sod Shanty on the Plain
or Okie from Muskogee, as preferred)

We really never cared too much for Gramma;
We didn't like the way she'd piss and moan
But we're feeling kinda blue,
And we're half-inclined to sue,
At the disrespect they showed to Gramma's bones.
 

Chorus:

She was much too bad for heaven

And much too mean for Hell.

So where our Gramma ended up,

No-one can really tell.

And I'm not surprised her horny hide

Was much too tough to burn,

But what the hell is that in Gramma's urn?

Ol' Gramma always acted like a hellion,
We couldn't stand the things she'd say an' do
Though her spirit was like leather
They left her bones out in the weather,
Now she's out there causing grief for someone new.

Cho.

Now we don't much care what became of  Gramma;
Up-town or 'cross the tracks, it's all the same
We can't know her brand new handle
But this crematory scandal
Is a dirty downright slur on Grampa's name

Cho.
 

We really never cared too much for Gramma;
We didn't like the way she'd piss and moan
But we're feeling kinda blue,
And we're half-inclined to sue,
At the disrespect they showed to Gramma's bones.
 

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Genie
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 01:20 AM

Capri,
Actually there was at least one parody not too long after 9-11 -- the Banana Boat Song parody (Come Mr Taliban, turn over Bin Laden).

I fully AGREE, though, that song challenge!s should not have to be funny.  Why not have challenge!s that evoke beautiful, moving songs sometimes?

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 10:01 AM

I made this post to the "Creamatorium [sic] Debacle" thread yesterday, asking people's opinions as to whether I should ask Pene Azul to remove my parody song from that thread. In fairness, I think I should also ask people who are following this thread but not that one. So, here's a link to my post: post from SharonA 21-Feb-02 - 07:13 PM: "Should it stay or should it go now?"

What do you think?

Sharon

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 05:44 PM

Now that is what I call royal thread drift!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 05:18 PM

Well, I am FAT because I eat too much.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 01:32 PM

Oh, I didn't ask LexisNexis for permission either. Oops...

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 01:29 PM

Here is my answer; I borrowed the tune from The Green Fields of France, and also some of the phrasing. Without permission, so I am not claiming authorship here.

Lament Of the Crematory

O where have you gone, my grandmother sweet
I thought that I had your grey ashes to keep
But sad lamentations are rising now here
It isn't just you who has vanished, I fear!
I see near your gravestone more mourners so sad
And some now are wondering, where is dear old Dad?
We all thought you resting in peace somewhere nigh
With no more earthly ailments over which to sigh
CHO:
Did they burn the fire slowly
Did they cremate your lowly
Earthly remains, which you thought left behind?
Did Ray Marsh hide you out in his forest?
Now will Sperry, ME, find your last place to rest?
When you died we all grieved and wept sorely for thee
But that was way back in nineteen-ninety-three
Last week we were happy you'd seen our young strife
And though we still missed you, we'd gone on with life
But now that we know you are not where we thought
We cannot rest easy not knowing who brought
Your ashes, or mortar dust, home to us then
And we weep and we wail, all over again
CHO
So now they have dogs and they search through the day
Finding bones and small pieces, and mummies, they say
Some lay in the dirt, which we'd shunned for your sake
With others in backyards, the woods and the lake
So far the lost dead number hundred times three
And each day they find more, just wait and you'll see
A long prison sentence looms for Ray Brent Marsh
But the grieving still weep and their mourning is harsh
CHO
So now Noble, Georgia's on Lexis.com
And no-one can know when their love will come home
To rest, for a while, on a mantelpiece shelf
In an urn or a box with an ornate old elf
The bones from those piles are nobody's now
There isn't enough DNA to allow
For proper identification for all
For O how much longer shall our sad tears fall?
CHO

I hope I have not offended anyone, especially the author of the original song or tune.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 01:17 PM

I think there are lines that civilized people don't cross....mg

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 01:16 PM

Unreal.......If I was ever sorry I started a thread, this would be it..........Geeziz...........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 01:00 PM

One confusion here is thta people seem to be thinking that humour is all about fun and being lighthearted. And that is just not always true. There is such a thing as satire, and using humour as a weapon or a tool.

I imagine a song about this probably would take a satirical form, casting a quizzical eye at a society where a hands-off attitude towards death allowed this kind of thing to happen. It wouldn't be a fun song. But it might adopt a joking tone.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 12:50 PM

Hi, kat: You're right about the time factor for the "Jokes" thread. I guess I misinterpreted your phrase "right after it was happening" since the terrorism related to the 9/11 attack was happening then (anthrax, threats, etc.) and, for that matter, the clean-up and retrieval of remains from 9/11 is still happening.

The other thread I mentioned was started on September 12th, 2001, and the discussion was prompted by a joke made at the end of "Part 5" of the "American Attacks" thread series.

You're right that no one issued a Song Challenge about the terrorism. But I think we're comparing apples and oranges here. Marsh did not kill the people whose bodies have been found at the Noble, GA crematorium (at least, not that we know of); he mishandled, desecrated and hid the bodies and deceived the surviving families. Still not funny in and of itself, no matter how much time passes.

But if cathartic humor is supposed to be good for the human soul, then how long is the soul supposed to suffer before that catharsis is allowed to take place? Seems to me that that would be up to each individual to decide. Do you think that Mudcat's often-repeated "if you don't like it, don't read it" maxim might apply here? Or do we defer to those who aren't ready for catharsis by never using dark humor at all in any post about any situation, just in case they might read it too soon? And where do we draw the line between humor that's acceptable and humor that isn't, without becoming so PC that some folk music is not acceptable on a folk music site?

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 11:46 AM

Well, the first wasn't started until almost a full month after 9/11, which at least is later than the responses started to this. As to the other, I don't have time nor the inclination to wade through all of the postings to see what discussion you might mean. If it is indeed discussion then I do not see it in the same light as what we've had with this subject.

I've given my opinion and will post no more about this. If some do not see a need for time's passage, so be it.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:53 AM

kat says, "In all of the hundreds of postings we had about 9/11 while and right after it was happening, there was no thought of writing some sickening parody about body parts, etc."

Well, there was a thread soliciting sick jokes about it, which resulted in a song parody about contracting anthrax from terrorist activity, as well as a couple of jokes and an interesting discussion about using dark humor (or "shock-humor", as McGrath says) to deal with handling the corpses: Thread title – Jokes in the Worst Possible Taste

There's another dark-humor discussion, nestled among other posts, in this thread on the 9/11 terrorist attacks: AMERICAN ATTACKS**SIX -about enough huh?

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Ian Darby
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:34 AM

Something else, try and have a look at the poetry of William Mc Gonegal.

He used to scour the magazines of the time looking for disasters to write poems about.

Some of these would rival the worst country songs and he managed to feature loss of life, crippled children, and a train wreck in just one of them

One of the lines will stay with me Forever,

"The stronger we our bridges do build, the less chance we have of being killed."

There was an album of his poetry released by John Laurie, and Spike Milligan also did some parodies,

The other thing is that most of the disaster ballads like Trimdon Grange & Gresford were written and sold to raise money for the victims families so thats okay then.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:34 AM

Yes, CU, that is so about folk music, all I am saying is it needs some passage of time, first. As I think I said before, I am amazed at some of the insensitivity which has expressed in this and the other thread, esp. towards other Mudcatters. Bottom line, I just think it is too soon for parodies or any other "funny" stuff about this. I find it offensive.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:03 AM

Tragic? Shameful, anger-provoking, unfair, pitiful - but I wouldn't use the word tragic in this kind of context.

Also grotesque grand guignol stuff. Which gets classified as a sort of shock-humour. Very rarely actually funny, but the presumoption is that it has some kind of cathartic role.

If I was writing a song about this episode I wouldn't go directly down the funny or the tragic road. I'd be writing because I had something to say about the attitude to death in a society that didn't like to think too much about those things.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 09:13 AM

Thanks CapriUni, my words exactly. This is definitely food for song - tragic ballads now, parodies later. Just like 9.11, or the California earthquake, or (pick a tragedy)... I'm thinking of something to the tune of Green Fields of France, which is lovely. But that may be bacause I don't imagine tunes the way I can imagine words. If I get it all together, I'll post it, and duck!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 07:47 PM

Seems to me that Mickey has called someone a moron....I'm just not sure who. Was it me? If so, I apologize, Mickey, but that really is the way I feel. Like Mrzzy, I tend to see a lot of humor where none is intended.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 07:18 PM

(tried to submit this response before, but it didn't go through)

Kat --

After all, this is a blues and folk music forum. Surely, we'd be upholding tradition and keeping it alive by writing songs about the good, bad and ugly, not just silliness.

Actually, I've been comtemplating issuing a open-ened Mudcat-wide Challenge:

When Mudcat gives you BS, make music!

Folk music traditionally has been about anything and everything -- topics as lighthearted as Christmas fruitcake, as mournful as the death of a loved one, and as angering as injustice. Every topic we discuss in our bs threads is the potential subject of a song...

No?

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 02:25 PM

Good point, CU, but I haven't seen much of that in this instance. The song challenges around here usually are about absurd situations which are easily parodied, so I was thinking more along those lines, as were others, apparently.

Maybe someone will follow your suggestion and the music can help with the healing. That is what happend when we heard about the Columbine tragedy. Many of us wrote lyrics that day and in the days to follow, that expressed sorrow, shock, dismay, love and hope.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 01:42 PM

Kat --

No, there were no parodies right after 9/11. But there were many responses to the tradgedy in song (I myself wrote one): musical expressions of the grief, anger, hopes for healing, disbelief, shock.

Granted, some were not very good (all of those emotions translate well into art, I think except disbelief and shock). But the urge to sing comes with the feeling of deeep emotion. I sometimes wonder if the human capacity for song has its roots in the howl, which evolved before the use of words.

Who says a song challenge has to be funny?!!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 01:24 PM

It is too damn soon, that's why not! Give people some time and distance to cope and heal from such an horrific thing.

In all of the hundreds of postings we had about 9/11 while and right after it was happening, there was no thought of writing some sickening parody about body parts, etc. This thing in GA was a deliberate act on the part of the Marshes, not some funny, *oops* accident.

Some of the stuff I've seen on the other thread about this is some of the most tasteless, insensitive ever posted on the Mudcat, imo.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 12:42 PM

WHy not write songs about horrible public health issues? LOTS of folk songs are about tragedies!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From:
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 11:32 AM

I'm glad that people have rethought this and backed off from attempts to write songs etc. Aside from the trauma to the immediate families, it is a horrible public health problem. It also must be very upsetting to the children of the area. mg

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 11:28 AM

P.S. to my post of 20-Feb-02 - 09:49 AM: Of course, there are more differences between the "Uncle Harry" song challenge and this one. Among those are (e) the fact that the remains themselves are not anonymous people (each of those bodies had been on record as being sent to Marsh for cremation, though reports have said that some of those bodies may never be identified due to the state of decomposition): and (f) the fact that the grieving relatives are not anonymous (some are even known to one of the Mudcat visitors – see this post post from Chip A (no relation!), 19-Feb-02 - 04:42 PM)

Granted, in Ian Darby's example of the Titanic, there were also grieving relatives, as well as survivors of the sinking, and I'm sure they weren't happy to hear all the jokes and humorous songs about the Titanic, either.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 10:02 AM

Oops - I was thinking of Scrooged, where he thinks he's at his brother's cremation but it's his own, actually, staged by the Ghost of Christmas Future. Not Groundhg Day.

And yes, other peoples, other cultures, definitely. We don't do funerals in my family, we do memorial services, Dad has no grave or marker unless you count his name on the State Department wall with other civilians dead in the line of government duty, and when Uncle Greg accidentally sold his car with his father, my grandfather's, ashes still in the back, and the guy who bought it was from Minnesota and thought the ashes were there on purpose to help get traction in the snow, so he used them to get out of a snowdrift or something, we all - even Uncle Greg - thought it was funny. We still do, actually. I guess the worst dead person story in the family was the poor old aunt who was very old, and had been visiting Paris and was on her way back to Budapest, and died in the transit lounge - so she was OUT of France but they wouldn't put a corpse on the plane - she was legally on nobody's soil, and there was an AMAZING amount of difficulty because France couldn't let a corpse back into the country either. I think it took over a day to resolve, while the dead lady just stayed in a chair to the side with a sheet over her so nobody would notice or something. We still think this one is funny too... and thought so at the time. After all, SHE didn't care, she was dead. Plus she would have found it terribly funny herself, I think!

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 09:49 AM

Ian Darby: You're right that the passage of time is one factor in the acceptability of humor about tragedy, but it's not the only factor. Take a look at this old thread: SONG CHALLENGE Part 33 – Who Left Uncle Harry in the Bushes?

That song challenge was issued only five days after the story broke that human remains, in the form of cremated ashes, under a bush. In that case, no one batted an eye about poking fun at the situation, and several parody songs were written.... but there are differences between that Song Challenge and this one: (a) the scope of the problem – nearly 200 bodies in GA and counting; (b) an obvious perpetrator (Ray Brent Marsh) at whom to be angry, instead of an anonymous remains-dumper; (c) the international exposure that the GA story is receiving; and (d) the fact that the GA discovery was made after 9/11/01and that everyone seems much more sensitive about black humor these days.

Speaking of sensitivity and black humor: When I posted my parody song about the situation in Georgia (linked in an earlier post on this thread), I was concentrating on meeting the challenge to write a satirical song. What I posted was admittedly insensitive, though satire isn't supposed to be sensitive. Apparently, my posting resulted in some people being outraged at me, when what I'd intended to express was outrage at Marsh for his despicable crime, through outrageous satire. Oh well, I am by no means a master of the art form of satire; oddly enough, I've been advised privately not to attempt to write a serious song on the subject, lest it be taken by others as an attempt at humor. But others here have stated their opinions that the horror of this situation should be expressed in song; I can only hope that someone more skilled than I will try his or her hand at it.


Here's a link to a page on www.law.com discussing current (and proposed) Georgia law as it applies to this case: law.com – Questions Grow with Georgia Body Count

Sharon

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Ian Darby
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 09:08 PM

There are loads of 'Titanic' jokes.

It appears that it is only the passage of time that makes it acceptable to make fun of the fate of the passengers.

I can't work this out. How long should we wait before we start taking the p**s?

Will the N.Y. Twin Towers tragedy eventually become a subject for humour, "New York, New York, so good they suicide bombed it twice".

I don't think so.

Regarding cremations.

At my Mam's funeral I asked if they could leave the curtains open as we left the place.

We touched the coffin and said goodbye as we walked out without having to deal with that awful sense of finality as the curtains closed....

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mickey191
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 07:39 PM

This thread has raised too much emotion for me to continue. One last thing : If a moron rereads his post, does a light bulb EVER go off signifying the sheer stupidity of his statements? Thanks to those who were sensitive and thoughtful. Slainte.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 06:26 PM

According to this link – Cremation: Important Questions to Ask – it seems that some few Pennsylvania facilities (funeral homes and crematoriums) do allow families to be present for the cremation. Another article I'd seen says that that practice is being examined by PA Commonwealth court.

Here's an excerpt from another article, found here: Quick Response to Crematory Horror:  "Tri-State [Crematorium] worked only with funeral homes, and under Georgia law only crematories that deal directly with the public have to be inspected." So it seems that some Georgia crematories do have direct contact with the bereaved; this place, however; was not one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 06:23 PM

Mickey, of course I would! Didn't you hear me say that burial practices are for the living? I am still among the living and would be livid if I discovered that my father's ashes were not my father.

Actually, I do think that what ever happens to the body is "of little consequence" unless it offends someone or causes a problem.

State law varies, but in Wyoming, at least if you own the land, you can bury whatever you want on it. The only real law in Wyoming is that if a human body remains unburied or uncremated for more than 3 days, it must be embalmed. We found this out before my dad died and he was occasionally helping out a mortician. We also did not have to get any permits or anything to transport my mom to Kansas ourselves to be buried, but she did have to be embalmed. Bodies don't even have to legally be in caskets to transport.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 06:07 PM

Mrrzy: Please see the link I posted to this thread on 19-Feb-02 - 01:06 PM, and also this link: ABC News – More Corpses Found

In the ABC News story, "officials said at least one family received remains that did not belong to their relative. The relative's remains were identified among those recovered from the grounds." So at least one family was in possession of the wrong remains, and I don't doubt that they will discover more. Other families have found that what they thought were a relative's ashes were wood ashes or concrete dust or potting soil, depending on the individual urn. It isn't a matter of graves – though apparently some of the bodies had been removed from graves – but a matter of people thinking they were achieving "closure" after a death by disposing of the deceased's body in a way that brought them peace, only to find that the body was unceremoniously dumped and allowed to decay and, in some cases, even mummify. Some people believe that that sort of treatment can cause a dead person's spirit to fail to be at rest; others are simply grieving for the loss of their loved ones all over again because their sense of "closure" is gone. Still others struggle to explain to their young children why Grandma isn't in the urn as they'd been told. That's where the grief counseling comes in.

I don't remember there being a cremation scene in the movie "Groundhog Day" (is it the movie you're referring to?) but, if there was, it was a Hollywood fantasy. The law varies from state to state, but in Pennsylvania (where the movie's story is set), as in New Jersey and apparently in Georgia, the public does not deal directly with a crematorium but must handle the procedure through a licensed funeral director. The body is taken from the funeral home to the crematorium, cremated and returned in the form of ashes to the funeral home if it is to be retrieved by the deceased's relatives. The transportation service can also be provided by a cemetery, I believe. But the family does not attend the actual cremation of the deceased as part of the funeral service itself.

As to the charges against Ray Marsh, he's being held for theft by deception – theft of services that were paid for but not performed – not theft of the bodies. I hope there will be other charges as well, related to the abuse of the corpses and the unsanitary conditions in which they were stored.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 05:18 PM

All the cremations I've been to there've been no falmes to see, just a curtain pulled across to hide the coffin.

A I've said before, if you're going for cremation, do it the Indian way (India Indian I mean) and burn the body out in the open in a funeral pyre.

But the idea of a funeral without the presence of the person who died, not because the body has been destroyed or lost in some accident, but because of some kind of sense that its better not to have them there - that seems really strange. Still, different cultures, different customs.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 04:56 PM

Maybe it's just me, but these folks were all DEAD ALREADY, so what happened to them doesn't seem to me to be a thing of grief counseling. But I think I'm missing something - it wasn't as if the survivors were visiting graves and talking to the wrong remains, there were no graves, right? At least there weren't supposed to be? And anyway, don't you ATTEND the cremation of your loved ones, like in Groundhog Day? I think I would have noticed something like, no flames. Also, it's unclear why the guy should be charged with THEFT - the survivors gave him the bodies to do something with which he didn't do, but they were his to dispose of by then. Maybe LARCENY or FRAUD - where he was paid to do X and didn't do it... but THEFT? Did I at some point OWN my father's dead body?

But this was FASCINATING as news goes, and indeed, a song is definitely required.

Please do not lambast(e) me for not understanding why some folks get upset at the mistreatment of dead bodies. I am not trying to be offensive, I just don't see the issue, they're DEAD and nothing can hurt them ever, ever again. Not even being stolen as one of my cousin's ashes were, right off the mail train, never recovered.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 04:42 PM

kat: Whatever you do to them, make sure you do it at least once for each body (lessee now, that'd be 139 sessions on the rack, so far....)

Sharon

"Torquemada... ya can't Torquemada anything!" – Mel Brooks

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 04:01 PM

I totally agree with you, Mickey and I am sorry this has been so upsetting. I do understand and I'd feel the same way, as I said, if I found our my mom's ashes weren't really her.

Sharon, yes, of course it is done with respect and ceremony. I was aware of what the Marshes have done. It is despicable and I've had a good time thinking up all manner of slow torment for them, something Torquemada might employ, were it acceptable to get them back that way for all of the horror they've visited on others through their actions. It would probably be wasted on them, though. They obviously have no feelings, nor compunctions or empathy, so one wonders if they are capable of feeling pain.:-(

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mickey191
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 03:11 PM

Kat, If I were brought up in Nepal I would have no qualms about that type of disposition. Just as some cultures use an ice floe or a pyre, it is an acceptable custom-but respect is paid. The Fido thing is applicable only to animals. I paid $150. for the cremation of my dog. She was to be cremated alone, and those are supposed to be her ashes in the urn. If I found out that the fellow was cremating several animals together, I'd be ticked off. But if I found that my husbands ashes were comingled with someone else, I'd be furious,hurt, devastated. If I found out that he was laying for 2 or 3 yrs. unattended to, because some Son-of-a-bitch was too lazy to do his job-I think I'd get a gun! Respect must be paid.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 01:13 PM

In Ireland there's still the tradition that the undertaker or funeral director does it as a sideline with running a pub. And not necessarily even the same pub where you all go after the funeral either.

Our practice is that cats who have gone to glory are buried out at the bottom of the garden, and that's what I'd like for myself too.

But there's probably a law against it, and it'd bring down the value of the property, I suppose - though I can't myself imagine why that should be. I'd have no problem with having a grave of a former owner down the end of the garden, next to the cats.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 01:06 PM

McGrath: See this link: Worry Over Crematorium Procedures Everywhere

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 01:03 PM

McGrath: Yep, it's true. In fact, it's the law in New Jersey that cremations must be handled by funeral directors and not with a direct business transaction between the bereaved and the crematorium facility, and it's a law that's being contended in Pennsylvania, according to a local news station.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 12:29 PM

Of course to nasty thing to have happened, and it's not funny funny. But there is tradition of graveyard humour which incorporates this kind of thing in time. People joke about Sweeney Todd, sing Rickety-Tickety-Tin with gusto. That's fiction, but real life is incorporated too - "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother twenty whacks..."

I suppose it's a way of dealing with horror.

At leasat in this case there's no suggestion thta anyone was murdered, so far as I have seen.

Here is the piece about it in today's Guardian (England), which bears reading.

One point in it that brought me up short, questioning whether it is really true, was this:

"This is not like a British crematorium, where a clergyman holds a service then the coffin disappears behind a discreet blue curtain.

"The Marshes dealt only with funeral homes. And the frequent pattern with cremations in the US is for the body to be taken away before the service. The relatives see nothing until they receive an urn a few days later. No wonder the Marshes got away with it for years. No one wanted to know what was happening, least of all those grieving. For them, death is often sanitised into a visit to a funeral parlour, decorated in chintz and fake walnut like a country house hotel.

"The experience of a funeral without the upsetting presence of a corpse has become increasingly popular"

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 12:17 PM

kat (re Nepal and elsewhere): Yes, they do leave the body out for the elements to reclaim, but don't they do it in a respectful fashion, with a ceremony? What's so objectionable to me (and apparently to many others) in this case is that the owner or owners of the GA crematorium hid bodies, stored them in a disrespectful and unsanitary fashion, and lied that the ashes they were sending out were human remains when they were actually wood ashes and concrete dust, with the intention of deceiving people and making money for work that was never done.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 11:51 AM

Sorcha, just so you know the folks at the pet crematory in Sheridan are really nice and from what I understand do one pet at a time. I've used them several times. I will have to ask her about that, next time, as there will inevitably be a next time, darn it!

Mickey, I don't mean to belittle anything that you have said. I'd be very upset if I found my mother's ashes were not really from her body. Just wanted you to know though there are some societies in Nepal and elsewhere which consider leaving a body out for the elements is the most practical and honourable way of taking care of it after the person has left it behind.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 11:17 AM

Mickey191: I know whereof you speak. When my cat Chester was in the final stages of kidney failure and had to be put to sleep to end his suffering, it was in the middle of a heat wave during which I'd had such respiratory distress myself that I'd gone to the emergency room of the local hospital. I didn't want to risk going outside my air-conditioned apartment to drive to the vet for my sake and for Chester's, so the vet and her assistant paid a house call to put him down. She gave me a moment with him after the death, but then she wrapped his body in a towel rather briskly and matter-of-factly, and I was upset to see his body flipped around like that.

I think vets forget sometimes that the pet owners are as much their patients as the animals themselves!

As for animal cremation, Sorcha is right: I investigated the options for Chester's remains, and I was told by the pet crematorium folks that several animals are cremated at once, then the pet owner gets ashes from that cremation session. To me, it did matter that some of Chester's ashes might go to Fido's owner and vice versa, so I went for the more expensive route of burial in a pet cemetery since I don't have a yard of my own to bury pets in. A friend offered to let me use her garden, but I wanted a place that I could visit and mourn for my little companion anytime without worrying about whether the current or future owners of a private property would approve of my being there.

Re my own body: If it were possible in this day and age, I would want to be buried without a coffin and to be allowed to decompose and let the nutrients of the body return to the earth. But I don't think that's legal. And you're right that, if any of my siblings outlive me, they would be displeased and possibly distressed about that method. I do feel, though, that keeping bodies in containers (be they coffins or urns) robs the earth and ultimately depletes it of necessary chemicals. However, leaving bodies above ground to rot, as this monster in Georgia has done, is inexcusable. Now I hear that they're testing the ground water near the Noble crematorium site for contamination.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!S
From: Mickey191
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 09:35 AM

Sorcha, I replied to your letter-but for some reason it wasn't posted. I agree with most everything you said, including that it didn't make any difference to you what happened to your body. There is no conciousness there in the body-so of course you can't care! But those whom you left behind care. Sorcha I have to think you would be mortified if you found your dear Mom or child, or husband's remains were left out in the elements and subject to God knows what degradation. You & I have had this discussion before, and we share the same views on cremation,but did you mean to leave the impression that what happens to the body is of little consequence? I've had all my dog's cremated, and it doesn't bother me much that my Laddie or Tiny may have been cremated with your Fido. Just so I know they didn't end up in a garbage dump. My last dog was given the death shot, then the vet brought over a garbage bag and said, " Help me put her in." (she weighed 15 pounds) The SOB could have & should Have done that himself. My last memory was shoving the dog in that bag. Now I understand she had to be put in something to get her to the Crematorium, but it should have been done without my being there. It was heartless.It was,IMO, disrespectful. Sorry about the Length of this post.

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 08:17 PM

I prefer cremation because the planet is running out of space to bury dead bodies. "I" am not there anyway, so what difference does it make to me? Some relatives need a grave, others don't. The whole funeral/burial process is for the LIVING, not the dead, anyway.

If you know what they look like, cremated animal remains are quite identifiable. Fairly large chunks mixed in with powdered ash. Bones don't burn real well, and must be crushed. It is impossible to tell what are really human remains instead of other animals without lab tests.

Those Pet Crematoriams that promise you get YOUR pet's remains back? Yea, well, you might, but there were probably at least 50 other pets cremated at the same time.....

Subject: RE: BS: I think there's a song challenge here!!!
From: Mickey191
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 07:47 PM

Those of us who decide on cremation aren't letting go of the body. Many of us choose it because ground burial causes the degredation of the body we loved. For many of us, it is hard to separate the spirit & the corporal being. Then to find that the remains have been treated with such disrespect is unfathom- able. This story has planted a tiny seed of disbelief in my mind. My husband's ashes are here with me, and now I'm wondering if this is not just an isolated incident. There is not one damn funny thing about this. Not even if you put it in the guise of black humor.