American death rituals

My story of the week is about American death rituals, or lack thereof. Thomas G. Long, a professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, writing an op-ed in The New York Times, begins with the latest fads in mortuary services,

"new baubles and gewgaws of the funeral business — coffins emblazoned with sports logos; cremation urns in the shape of bowling pins, golf bags and motorcycle gas tanks; 'virtual cemeteries' with video clips and eerie recorded messages from the dead; pendants, bracelets, lamps and table sculptures into which ashes of the deceased can be swirled and molded."

Yikes!

Long suggests that our phobia of dead bodies and our love of consumer culture have robbed our death rituals of their meaning:

"At upbeat, open-mike 'celebrations of life,' former coaches, neighbors and relatives amuse us with stories and naïvely declare that the dead, who are usually nowhere to be seen and have nowhere to go, will nevertheless live always in our memories. Funerals, which once made confident public pilgrimage through town to the graveyard, now tread lightly across the tiny tableau of our psyches."

After reading this story in full -- which I encourage you to do -- I turned to the spouse and said "Promise me that you will never, ever turn my cremated remains into a key chain or any other tacky knickknack." He promised me he wouldn't, and I promised the same.
One thing that bothered me: The story appeared on All Saints' Day, sometimes known as Dia de los Muertos ("day of the dead") in Hispanic cultures. There was no explicit mention of that in the paper, that I could see. I wonder how many people got that connection.

Sad about smoking

I saw an op-ed piece in The Washington Post recently that said to the effect "Let Barack Obama smoke if he wants to."


(Actual headline: "Let the Guy Smoke. Obama Is Probably Fibbing About Giving Up Cigarettes. That's Okay.")


I used to smoke, a lot. It's a depressing, suicidal addiction. It's not good. When you're smoking, you think it's harmless and fun, but that's the addiction tricking you. That's the nature of addiction.


It made me really sad to see that op-ed -- and not because it's particularly about Obama. I'd say the same thing about anyone.


To me, it's like saying, "Let him kill himself, what's the big deal?"


Having said all that, quitting smoking is one of the most personal decisions a person can make. No one can do it for you, and you're not gonna do it yourself until you're 100 percent mentally committed to doing it.

For the NYT fans out there.

This is only funny if you're pretty familiar with New York Times columnist Frank Rich ... an actual conversation at my house Sunday night.

Scene: Me and the spouse sitting on the couch reading the NYT. 

Me: "Hey, did you read Frank Rich today? Was it good?"

The Spouse: "Yes, I did. Frank Rich is always good." 

Me: "Hmm. Can you boil down this week's column for me, so I don't have to read it?"

The Spouse: (thinks for a minute ...) "The pundits are all wrong. The administration is all wrong. Only I, Frank Rich, can tell what is really going on."

The specter of economic meltdown

When the economy goes south, I turn into a business news ADDICT. We may be in heading for the worst downturn since the Great Depression, so you can imagine what I'm like these days. I'm always looking around for the next good stuff.

My favorite sources:

• National Public Radio's Planet Money blog and podcast. Fun, frightening stuff: It's got a casual, shooting-the-sh*t-over-beers vibe to it, cool music and interviews with global economists.
• A triumvirate of big dailies: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal. These guys rock. I particularly like The New York Times series The Reckoning, and I particularly recommend their story on ostensible wise man Alan Greenspan.
• Slate Magazine's The Big Money. I'm particularly fond of a Depression-era diary they're running, written by a lawyer who lived through it in Youngstown, Ohio. Check it out here and here.
  

When I get scare of what's going to happen in the coming months, I comfort myself with this thought: the life of the mind is pretty cheap. Instead of spending money, I'll stay home and read The Brothers Karamazov.

A Good Newspaper Column on Baseball

The best written newspaper opinion columns are fine things to read -- compact, persuasive, poetic. Check out this column written by Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post about The Mitchell Report, a damning report on baseball's steroids problem that was released this week. It starts:

Now, Roger Clemens joins Barry Bonds in baseball's version of hell. It's a slow burn that lasts a lifetime, then, after death, lingers as long as the game is played and tongues can wag. In baseball, a man's triumphs and his sins are immortal. The pursuit of one often leads to the other. And those misdeeds are seldom as dark as their endless punishment.

Read the whole thing here.