Hot Flashes
Watch this Wall Street Journal videocast on scattering ashes.
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An Energy Efficient and Yucky Alternative to Cremation
I read this on the Energy Collective web site. Cremation is popular these days for those who have kicked the bucket. But here’s a shocker for the conservation-minded: The amount of natural gas and electricity used to cremate one body is the equivalent of driving a car from coast to coast. When your body goes up in flames, it also emits a lot of nasty stuff: greenhouse gases, smog-causing gases, particulates, and mercury vapor if you’ve got a few of those old tooth fillings.
Given this post-humus environmental footprint – and given our concern about climate change – innovation in this area is on the rise. In Denmark and Sweden, some municipalities are taking the waste heat from their local crematoriums and using it as part of their district heating systems. In North America, there’s a new technology called Resomation – generically, biocremation -that avoids incineration by chemically breaking down the body. It’s kind of yucky – basically the body is loaded into a metal chamber that’s filled with an alkali-based solution that, under heat and pressure, turns the non-skeleton portion of the body into a soapy soup that’s simply flushed down the drain (apparently it’s benign and gets treated in our wastewater treatment system just like what we flush down the toilet). The process uses a fraction of the energy required for cremation. You can’t get scattered but maybe you wanted to have your ashes flushed down the toilet anyway.
Supply Limited, Demand Eternal, Graveyards Fill Up And Are Running Out Of Space
I just read an interesting article in the Boston Globe. Scarcity of graveyard space is an intensifying problem as the baby boom generation moves through its golden years. Some project that the annual death rate will as much as double over the next two decades. As a result, families no longer can count on family plots and their loved ones are being buried farther and farther away. With land expensive and limited acreage available in large swaths of Eastern Massachusetts, budget-crunched communities are struggling to buy sites for new burial grounds as their existing cemeteries fill up.
Patrick Swayze’s Ashes To Be Scattered At His Ranch
Many fans and celebs are mourning the sad demise of Hollywood actor Patrick Swayze, who died on Monday after loosing his battle with pancreatic cancer. Patrick Swayze’s mortal remains will reportedly be cremated first on Friday and his funeral will be planned later by his family and friends.
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Michael Jackson’s Hair From Fateful Pepsi Commercial Soon to Become LifeGem Diamond
In my book, one cremation option is to take your cremation ashes and transform them into a diamond. Here’s news from LifeGem who is turning Michael Jackson’s hair into diamonds.
When executive producer Ralph Cohen scooped up the charred hair Michael Jackson lost in the filming of the now-infamous Pepsi commercial, he had no idea that he was saving an important piece of history.
Cohen, executive producer for the Pepsi commercial, was among the first to reach Jackson when he was set on fire. Cohen threw his jacket over Jackson’s head to help extinguish the flames. As Jackson was being rushed off the set and to the hospital, Cohen instinctively, picked up the charred lock of hair and put it in his pocket– where it remained undisturbed for 25 years until Jackson’s death last month.
“Back in 2007 LifeGem collaborated to successfully create diamonds from Beethoven’s hair.
“We specialize in creating diamonds from locks of hair. Our plan is to give people an opportunity to own a diamond made from Michael Jackson’s DNA,” said Dean VandenBiesen founder of LifeGem. “We are currently evaluating Jackson’s hair sample to determine how many diamonds can be created. This will be a limited collection and we anticipate great interest.”
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Disneyland a Hot Place for Scattering Ashes
Brian Vaszily, Founder of IntenseExperiences.com writes this on his web site:
Video cameras at Disneyland are recording an alarming trend: more and more visitors are spreading the cremated remains of their loved ones on their favorite attractions.
In November 2007, for example, a woman was caught sprinkling ashes from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. By the end of the attraction’s 15 minute duration, she managed to cover much of the “Captain’s Quarters” with the powdery remains of her beloved.
But by far the most popular location in Disneyland to spread ashes of loved ones is in the Haunted Mansion attraction. I suppose they hope to see their face among all those other spirits you see during that ride.
Yet another popular ride to spread ashes is the “Small World” exhibit … apparently so the spirit of the beloved can hear that nearly-impossible-to-get-out-of-your-head “It’s a Small World After All” song for all eternity.
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Inventor Of Pringles Can Is Buried In One
Fred Baur, the inventor of the Pringles can had one wish when he died and that was to be cremated and have his ashes put into the can he invented. According to the the Time magazine article when Frederic Baur died after a battle with Alzheimer’s, his son and siblings stopped at a Walgreen’s drug store for a can of Pringles on their way to the funeral home. “My siblings and I briefly debated what flavor to use,” Baur says, “but I said, ‘Look, we need to use the original.’”
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Stonehenge Thought to Be Cremation Burial Ground
A recent study on Stonehenge comes to thwart the conclusions of the preceding ones, by claiming that the monument was, in fact, not a healing center, but a cremation cemetery.
This discovery provides further fuel for the century-old ongoing debate over the purposes of England’s most famous monument.
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Shaky Economy Skyrockets Cremation Demand
“Our cremations in total volume with our funeral homes have doubled and that’s primarily due to the cost of ground burial and entombment,” said Frank Sinatra Jr. of Sinatra Memorial Home.
Cremation will cost a family around $400, ground burial more than 10 times that amount at $5,000 and a crypt — a coffin stored above ground — starts at around $8,500.
As I have pointed out in my book, expensive caskets do not show how much you loved your dearly departed.