Funeral Words

Amateur Sleuths

Fascinating article about an amateur information hound who spends countless hours working to identify, unidentified dead.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23858151/from/ET/

Gravestones that talk back

Well they don't talk back directly, but a Japanese company has patented a system where a barcode-like symbol gets placed on a headstone, which when photographed by a cellphone camera, automatically takes the user to a memorial website which can be viewed on the phone.

The QR codes they talk about look something like this:

They apparently see wide use by consumers in Japan for connecting people with information using their cellphones. We in America do not have this sort of infrastructure in place, but perhaps someone could put together an alternative. This approach seems much more useful and much less expensive to implement than the video screens others have proposed for attachment to gravestones.

Here's the news brief about it from the MSNBC website:

Grave communication
Call it a tale from the e-crypt.

But Teruo and Miyoko Oba say there's nothing eerie about their new family grave site, equipped with a mobile phone bar code to offer connectivity long after their own bells have tolled.

The family plot in Kofu, a rural city near the Japanese Alps, boasts a high-tech, "QR" black-and-white square, linking the Oba's pictures and history to phone-carrying visitors who can enter virtually to pay their respects.

Tombstone maker Ishinokoe says the QR codes, which users scan to link with everything in Japan from buses to restaurant reservations, are a new way to visit its "memorial service window" grave sites that contain more than the cremated ashes of the deceased.

"We already have a patent and should get another this month, but we hope this service is not just for our customers, but the entire funeral industry," said Yoshitsugu Fukuzawa, head of Ishinokoe, which launched the product this month.

The Oba family say the new technology offers more options.

"I thought the idea was great as usually the deceased don't have any input to how a grave site is arranged," said 73-year-old Teruo.

"Visitors using this service can actually see the departed."

His wife Miyoko, 70, says kids in particular will be connected.

"It's bit of a new approach. We wanted our grandchildren to be able to use it when they visit the family site."

Fukuzawa says he hopes Ishinokoe's "window" service spurs on the funeral industry, while bringing families closer together.

"Nowadays most memorial services are simplified to under five minutes of just burning incense and offering flowers," he said. "I hope our grave site changes that and families stay near the tomb and talk about memories of the deceased for a long time."

We just hope people don't freak out if their cell-phone battery dies.

Burglar nabbed playing dead at funeral parlor

I couldn't resist the headline. Follow the link for the full story.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23916904/

Virtual Vietnam Wall

Yesterday I read about a virtual or online version of the Vietnam Wall. Please note this site is not government sponsored site and people must explicitly request that a name appear on the site, but it looks interesting and worth knowing about.

http://www.virtualwall.org/

Are Memorial Societies Obsolete?

You have heard me mention Rob Heppel before. He runs the website FuneralFuturist.com and ran that extensive online interview of me after the Baby Boomer article came out.

Well Rob appeared on a Seattle, WA NPR radio station last week with a pair of consumer advocates. You will find some of his commetary on the experience, including his suggestion that Memorial Societies have become obsolete at the following link.

http://www.funeralfuturist.com/funeral-costs-what-i-didnt-get-to-say/

I also chimed in with a response to one commentator's economic "reasoning" and his accusation that funeral homes were somehow "colluding" on prices.

Check it out.

Beach Memorial

They call this "Arlington West", a war memorial/protest located on the beach in Santa Monica California.

Follow the link to see more photos and information about the organization behind this project.

http://www.arlingtonwestsantamonica.org/

Here's a video story about Arlington West now appearing on the New York Times website.

NYTimes.com: Arlington West Video

Funeral Limousine Tragedy

Click on the continue link below to view the aftermath of a funeral limousine accident. According to the email I received, this vehicle had gone out on a family pickup before a funeral and a pickup truck coming from the other direction tried to pass a slow moving vehicle and ended up side-swiping the limo and killing an eight year old passenger.

Just another reminder that no matter how carefully we operate our vehicles, we still have to function in a world filled with other drivers. At the very least, make sure any children who ride in funeral vehicles have a proper car seat. You never know when something like this may strike.

UPDATE:

Follow the link to a few more details about this accident.

Soldier Charged in Death of Girl

UPDATE 2:

Strangely enough, a funeral limousine slammed into a tree in Boston a couple of days ago. No fatalities.

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1082197

Evangelicals Go Back to the Future

Below you will find the link to a fascinating story from the Washington Post. According to this article, a growing number of evangelicals (yes even the shopping center sized mega-churchers) have started turning to early church practices, like observing Lenten fasts and even weekly confession, in a movement now known as "worship renewal". Here's a brief segment of the article:

This represents a "major sea change in evangelical life," according to D.H. Williams, professor of patristics and historical theology at Baylor University. "Evangelicalism is coming to point where the early church has become the newest staple of its diet."

Experts say most who have taken on such practices have grown disillusioned with the contemporary, shopping-center feel of the megachurches embraced by baby boomers, with their casually dressed ministers and rock-band praise music.

Instead, evangelicals -- many of them young -- are adopting a trend that has come to be known as "worship renewal" or "ancient-future worship."

Of course other evangelicals see this trend negatively and do not support the movement.

Regardless, this points out that religious outlook swings on a pendulum much like other social trends. The article doesn't make any reference to the funeral practices adopted by this movement, though no doubt some of those patterns will change as well, perhaps leading back to a more traditional outlook on disposition.

Time will tell.

Washington Post: Feeling Renewed By Ancient Traditions

Funeral Service Insider Interview

Stephen Lee from the Funeral Service Insider published an article based upon the work I have done calculating the impact of baby boomer mortality on the future of funeral service. Basically a follow-up to the article I published in the American Funeral Director back in January.

Track it down and check it out. We have much to prepare for in the years ahead.

I will have to ask Stephen for permission to reprint the article here on the blog, though I'm sure that will have to wait until the newsletter has had a chance to circulate.

Friday Word Origin

As a writer, I look for inspiration and ideas in all sorts of places. This year I bought the Word Origin Calendar, published by Accord Publishing, so that each day I would have a glimps into the origin of words. Some of those stories, such as the origin of the word "chowder", which came up on January 2nd, I find quite fascinating. Not everyone's cup of tea I understand but writers really need to know these things.

Anyway, I do not consider the following entry all that unique but it does fit our professional area and this may answer a question you have had for many years. Check it out.

For Friday, January 18, 2008 the page reads:

the quick and the dead * The dead do not move quickly, to be sure, but the "quick" in the sense of this long-attested English proverb are not rapid either. In Middle English, quikke meant "alive", so that the phrase means "both the living and the dead."

For what it's worth...

Have a wonderful weekend and GO PATS!!!