more miscellany
This is good, if you like soccer.
This is bad, whether you like soccer or not.
This is maybe interesting.
The quick n dirty is that apparently a *lot* of remains of 9-11 victims -- sometimes the only remains that remain, as it were -- are in the form of ash and small chips of bone. They filtered out everything above a certain size, and the rest ended up in a landfill, mixed with regular garbage.
People whose opinion I respect, plus a lot of other people I don't know, seem to agree that this was an egregious error and that there is a way to rectify the problem.
I find myself unable to muster the indignation that others have about this. I guess I've always thought that we're excessively concerned about what happens to bodies after the people inside are done with them.
The body is not the person. Why does it matter what happens to the body? It's all symbolic and therefore arbitrary, or at least under our control.
I guess since it's not my family member I don't have all the data, but I feel that while it's nice to be able to make a gesture in how we dispose of remains,
a) sometimes it's not under our control,
b) sometimes the cost/effort would be much better spent elsewhere, and
c) body disposal only makes sense to me as an *extremely* tiny part of how we might honor our loved ones, and rejoice in having known them.
What am I missing?
posted by Rob @ 10:59:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
You actually aren't missing anything. Like you said, if one of ours was the victim, we'd probably want some hullaballoo, but really, when all is said and done, it is just dust anyway. In a plane crash, one can't erect monuments for all the bodies....
I guess to really grasp the feeling you would have to visit the landfill to pay respect to your loved one's final resting place. People have traditions when it comes to death.
For me, I wouldn't care if I was in a landfill after my death, but I know my mother would have a shit fit.
I think a mass grave at a nice park would have worked early on, (still could) plus it would have cost much less than the transpotation of the rubble and remains to the dump, plus the sifting, which by the way was not done as well at the city claims, add in court costs over a five year span that this fight has been going on, also the cost of memorial designs that have yet to be carried out for those victims, ect.....
There's my 2 cents.
With bells there's no unringing
With love there's no unfeeling
With graves there's no undigging
And with death there's no unstinging.
I don't know why some people think it will actually make them feel better. I understand needing a ceremonial act of some sort, but life is for the living, not for dead.
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