Redditch council is planning on using the waste heat from a crematorium to warm up a swimming pool. Their plan is to save money, nearly £15K/yr by diverting the heat that would normally go up the chimney into heating the public baths.

The problem they have is that they expect it to be perceived as gross, sick, in poor taste, and disrespectful to use the heat used to burn dead people into providing a useful facility for the living. I suspect this is the same perception that cremation had before it was introduced. The first cremation in modernish times was in 1885 but it wasn’t actually legalised until 1902. Until then it was seen as something to be reserved for the truly evil and other heathens. So to burn a body was seen to be disrespectful to the dead.

In fact because it’s not discussed I suspect that if people realise that the left over metals such as hip or knee replacements or even pins used for badly broken limbs is sold as scrap ready to go into the next plane they would be just as disgusted. What about the waste of natural resources with the casket. In the UK only a wooden casket can be used and it has to be burnt. In many other countries cardboard is used during the actual cremation. This would disgust many other people.

But it’s not all people who would be disgusted by the various methods of body disposal. Some see it as a good thing that something productive comes from the dead, something that would be just buried and forgotten about otherwise.

Times change. Society changes. People change. We are born, we live, and we die.

Times change. The next method for the disposal of dead bodies is probably going to be alkaline hydrolysis. This is where the body is dissolved in an acid under high temperature and pressure leaving very little behind. It’s advocated as the next best thing because the heat isn’t anywhere near the temperatures required for cremation. However the remains aren’t generally thought to be easily and neatly handed to relatives to put on the mantelpiece, though the process does leave bones which can be cremulated to produce “ashes”.

Society and people’s attitudes change. Hydrolysis is perceived as vile and dehumanising as the remains can easily washed away into the sewer system. Or that the remains might end up in the water we drink, a bit like Soylent Green. But you can’t say that it will be seen that way forever, especially if the issue of flushing away is overcome. Maybe instead dead bodies will be launched into space as that is neat, tidy and nothing horrible happens to the dead body in space – well not that you can see anyway.

When we die there’s not much you can do with your remains except stop it putrefying and causing a mess. How we do it doesn’t make much difference especially to the dead body. What it does make it a difference to are the surviving family, relatives and friends. They still care about their relative who passed away and it’s their memories of that person which is the most important. If they need a token to look at or go to to remember then there are many objects which can provide this from gravestones to urns to a tree or bench or even a piece of jewellery.

Personally I see an urn containing ashes placed on a mantelpiece as just a little bit creepy. I would prefer hydrolysis or even frozen in liquid nitrogen and crushed into smithereens. But then that’s me. Your mileage may vary.

SBML

Death is a post from: Anna Raccoon

What other explanation can there be for his decision to download adult movies on pay-per-view cable TV, to be watched in Ms Smith’s ‘second home’ in Redditch, and then allow his wife to claim the cost back from the tax payers?

What could be more damaging to Ms Smith’s political credibility than to find that the tax payer must cough up for second rate explicit porn to keep her ‘parliamentary advisor’ – aka her husband – amused, whilst she is holed up in her sister’s back bedroom?

Ms Smith was said to be ‘mortified’ today after she was forced to offer a humiliating apology over the expenses claim.

The Home Secretary said she ‘mistakenly’ submitted an expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency.

The relationship between Ms Smith and her husband was said by Government insiders to be ‘very difficult,’ but stressed that the couple were still together.

Still together? Just as well – we wouldn’t want the tax payer to be paying for a ‘blue movie venue’ when the Minister involved no longer even visits the house, would we?

Tory MP Mark Field said:

‘The entire Commons allowance system is now indefensible. It’s one thing to make dubious claims on the location of your second home but for the husband of a Home Secretary to be claiming for pornographic TV is completely beyond the pale.

‘It’s no good Gordon Brown promising an inquiry at some point in the future. This must be reformed now.’

Is Jacqui Smith’s husband a secret Conservative? is a post from: Anna Raccoon