(Editor's note: After some feedback, trying a new title for this weekly feature. "Deathcetera"? It's corny, but a bit better than Weekly Reader.)
TOP
STORIES
Jenny Gold from Kaiser Health News talks
about the Institute of
Medicine’s recent report, “Dying in America”. You can download a free
copy of the report here. Gold interviews the report’s author, Nancy Metcalf,
here.
A very good list
of tips and links for consumers faced with purchasing funerals and burials – via WPRI.
DEATH
Isn’t that nice?
Here’s an app that tells you when you are going to die – from Eliza
Berman at TIME magazine
That Victorian
terror of being buried alive – by Ella Morton at Atlas Obscura, via
Slate
Why a couple is
buried underneath the runway at Savannah’s airport – from Greg
Gullberg at WSAV
MOURNING
In Iran, Ashura memorial
mourners have the status of rock stars – via the Guardian
Stained-glass
windows memorialize war dead – from Anne Fletcher at the Vancouver
Courier
FUNERALS
Funeral home
launches mobile showroom – via Craig Hlavty at the Houston Chronicle
Zoroastrian sky
burials
– from Ella Morton at Atlas Obscura, via Slate
‘Amusement and
Contradiction in the Contemporary Funeral Industry’ – a paper by
George Saunders in Critical Sociology
END-OF-LIFE
ISSUES
Pro-Death with
Dignity op-ed
from Dr. Peg Sandeen, Executive Director of Death with Dignity National Center