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Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
Another Grave Injustice

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shorty63136
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
CNN is saying that the White House has retracted this statement.
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Doreen DelPurgatorio
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
I want to be shot out of a cannon, like Hunter Thompson.
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EKane
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
I'm not shocked. If you're black and your family has been in Chicago for a while chances are you have family there.
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PilgrimSoul
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
I'm a spread my ashes over the ocean type, and things like this are the reason why. Also, am I the only person who finds the idea of remaining in the same place forever once dead sort of... depressing?
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pinkyBella
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I can definitely see your point, but then you're dead. And you won't know where you end up. I've always told my family to just do whatever brings them the most comfort.
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GirlFailer
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I also don't want people to have to care of my grave. Talk about a bummer.
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Edited by GirlFailer at 07/14/09 2:53 PM GirlFailer was starred GirlFailer was unstarred

BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I'm a blow-dart-my-ashes-at-my-enemies kind of gal.
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EkaterinaBallerina
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I think my entire family wants to be cremated. I just hate the idea of lying in a cemetary for all eternity. My mother actually has it in her will that after she's cremated, we're to spread her ashes over the Jersey Shore (Seaside Heights) and then we're to have a party.
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Casquivana
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I just find it weird. Like, you're dead already, what's the point of keeping what was left of you untouched, in one particular location? I don't know. A relative of mine left instructions to scatter her ashes around the place where she grew up and it was sort of liberating to do it. No burial, no hassle. Just the cremation, spreading the ashes, and we were done. Which is pretty much the way she liked things too.
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my cousin is an ape
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I'd like to be buried in the Library of Congress. Perpetual entertainment!
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stacyinbean
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: I know this sounds kind of strange, but for me it's the idea of being in the dark. I'm definitely of the 'scatter me somewhere I enjoyed' train of thought.
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ElleL
07/14/09

@PilgrimSoul: Agreed, my parents always said they would never want to take up space for the living, and would rather live in the wind. I absolutely will do the same. :)
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KiddyKat
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
NPR just said his grave was fine.
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GirlFailer
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
I'm adding this to my growing list of reasons I want to be cremated.
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WantToTouchtheWahine
07/14/09

@GirlSailor: Eh, I'm going to live forever with the magic of cryotherapy.
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Rare Affinity
07/14/09

@GirlSailor: I mentioned yesterday that the venerable broadcaster Alistair Cooke who died of lung cancer at the age of 95, had his bones harvested (without his family’s knowledge) and sold on to human tissue processors before the remains were cremated.
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RainyKate
07/14/09

@GirlSailor:I want to be cremated too, but crematoriums do this kind of thing as well:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1826136.stm

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GirlFailer
07/14/09

@WantToTouchtheWahine: You freezin' the whole thing, or just your noggin?
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GirlFailer
07/14/09

@Rare Affinity: People are despicable. Maybe I'll just have my husband toss me in a nice camp fire.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
07/14/09

@Rare Affinity: a friend of mine is a nurse who has assisted in bone harvesting. the description alone is enough to make me consider having my will say they can't do that to me. i know i'll be dead and cooked to dust anyway, but it sounds horrible.
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Rare Affinity
07/14/09

@GirlSailor:Then all your friends and family can eat you so that you will be a part of them forever.
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GirlFailer
07/14/09

@Rare Affinity: Then I'll pass through them and go into the sewer system and then go into the ocean and evaporate and become a cloud. Fuck yeah.
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Rare Affinity
07/14/09

@linnyt is a walking cliché: I feel the same way about donating my eyes. Other organs yes but not my flesh (for a face transplant) or eyes. Irrational I know but there you go.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
07/14/09

@Rare Affinity: I have an everyface (tons of people say I look like their friend Soandso) so I think the face thing would be ok with me. The 'before' pictures of the people who have had that transplant look terrible and I think my issues with it aren't as much as their need for a new face. Who knows, maybe Soandso will need a new face one day and mine will almost match up already.
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dianersb was bit by a zombie
07/14/09

In reply to Michelle Obama's Dad Buried In Desecrated Cemetery
How awful would it be to find that this had happened to one of your loved ones? It's just so sickening that I can't even imagine what these families are going through.
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Casquivana
07/14/09

@dianersb was bit by a zombie: It is both weird and sad. Something like that happened with the graves of one uncle and one great-uncle, as well as with my grandfather's, although they only tried to desecrate that grave but apparently couldn't. And it was so.. I don't know... disheartening. And I say weird because in a sense, you realize is just the remains, but it still sucks.
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WantToTouchtheWahine
07/14/09

@Casquivana: I really truly hope the grave desecrators were unsuccessful because your grandpa zombie-kicked their ASSES.
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Casquivana
07/14/09

@WantToTouchtheWahine: Ha! That's what my grandmother said at the time! "Son of a bitch was a soldier, I hope he's going after them".

My mom ended up moving his remains to another cemetery, because my grandmother planned to be buried with him and she said that no moron was going to dig her up after she was buried. She actually made it clear that if she wanted to torture us, she could always come back and haunt us, but that she'd rather be left alone in her grave. Yeah, she could be creepy.
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EKane
07/14/09

@Casquivana: I love your grandmother.
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Pandorasvoicebox
07/13/09

In reply to Another Grave Injustice
I had a very heated argument with an atheist friend of mine over the weekend about this. He argued that it was acceptable to move bodies after death, because "It doesn't matter to them anymore anyway" and "It's a victimless crime." I told him that everyone should have a right to determine to some extent what happens to their bodies after death. That's why people express the wish to have funerals in the first place--because they would like their bodies to be interred and they expect it to be. It's like a will: just because the person is dead doesn't mean their wishes are somehow nullified.

I didn't manage to convince him how wrong it was (he admitted it was a "breach of contract" on the part of the cemetery but nothing more). It made me really sad. Is nothing sacred anymore?
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Edited by Pandorasvoicebox at 07/13/09 12:23 PM Pandorasvoicebox was starred Pandorasvoicebox was unstarred

Rare Affinity
07/13/09

@Pandorasvoicebox: Bones being disinterred and re-interred elsewhere to make way for fresh graves is nothing new and was a practical necessity for generations. However, in the UK, if the graves are under a certain age and need to be disturbed, perhaps for redevelopment etc, then living relatives have to be sought and notified and the remains are re-interred elsewhere with all due respect. That is very different from the situation at this cemetery where the remains have been left lying ON the ground as opposed to in it.
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Our Lady of the Massacre
07/13/09

In reply to Another Grave Injustice
What was going through the cemetery workers' heads as they carried out this horrific scheme? Honestly, how could ANY of them think they were doing something remotely OK?
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thecameralovesyou
07/13/09

@Our Lady of the Massacre: That's the thing: I don't think any of them DID think they were doing anything "Ok". They just went ahead and did it anyway. I doubt "thought" or conscience had any part in this scheme. What a sad time for all that have been affected.
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my cousin is an ape
07/13/09

In reply to Another Grave Injustice
As my Grandma would say: Jesus wept.
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Rare Affinity
07/13/09

In reply to Another Grave Injustice
The horrific news of how these corpses have been treated does not surprise me. For decades I used to listen to Alistair Cooke presenting his weekly radio broadcast "A letter from America" for the BBC, which he did for over 50 years. After he died of lung cancer at the age of 95, it was discovered that the American funeral directors had, unbeknownst to his family, harvested and then sold his bones to tissue processing companies to be used in transplant operations.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1506150/Alistair-Cookes-bones-stolen-by-transpla....html

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Edited by Rare Affinity at 07/13/09 11:43 AM Rare Affinity was starred Rare Affinity was unstarred

rednrowdy
07/13/09

In reply to Another Grave Injustice
this story came out while i was physically in chicago for the burial of a family member at a different cemetery, but this whole thing is still incredibly scary and troubling.

what's the moral of the story? people are still morally corrupt assholes? *headdesk*
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ellaesther
07/13/09

In reply to Another Grave Injustice
This story was another opportunity for me to sort of sit slack-jawed for a moment and just go "What.the.fuck.is.WRONG.with.people?" The brief mentions of parents wandering the cemetery looking for their babies just made me want to curl up and die. Or leave the planet.
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portia_sue
07/13/09

@ellaesther: People have very visceral reactions to death and the remains of their loved ones. My father was killed in a terrorist act that killed a lot of people at once, and I remember that my mother was just happy that she got a body back. Some of her fellow widows were told that they had received their husbands bodies, but the story ran around base that if you weighed the caskets, they were too light. So the lucky ones were the ones who got a whole body. It's weird what matters after someone dies, but that was of vital importance for all of the women, my mother included.

Babies, though? That does make me die a little inside, too.
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SunburnedCounsel
07/13/09

@ellaesther: I have a friend whose baby was buried there, and she went yesterday to try to find out what happened to her. I cannot even imagine how unsettling this is, and have very few words of comfort to offer her.
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ellaesther
07/13/09

@portia_sue: Oh my god, oh honey. The loss of your father, the relative lightness of caskets -- oy, so much sorrow. I'm so sorry for your loss!

I, too, am struck by the importance of the remains to people -- particularly as I personally don't think that there is much objective importance to them. The person is gone; what is left is a shell. And yet, wow, my responses to this story were so powerful! Which just goes to show that my intellect and my heart are not always on the same page.

And for those cemetery workers to be so craven about such a deeply human need -- to know where the body is -- just defies my ability to make sense of other people.
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Edited by ellaesther at 07/13/09 12:11 PM ellaesther was starred ellaesther was unstarred

ellaesther
07/13/09

@SunburnedCounsel: Oy, my God in heaven. Good luck to you honey, as you try to help her. My heart just breaks. The enormity of the loss, and then this....
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