In Serbia, vandals broke into Slobodan Milosevic’s tomb and drove a stake through his heart to keep him from “returning from the dead to haunt the country”. I think that’s utterly charming.
When I go, I’d figured the best plan would be to donate my body to science, or to be cremated…but now I’m thinking it would be really cool if crazed folk dug my body up, chopped it to bits, put a stake through it, and maybe paraded the head around town on a pike. I wonder if there is a funeral plan for that?
(via The Pagan Prattle)
Are graves shallower in Serbia than elsewhere?
Or do they think he’s partially dug his way out?
Also – I hope their aim was good. The only thing worse than a vampire war criminal dictator is a pissed off vampire war criminal dictator with a stake through his bellybutton.
“Milosevic popped his clogs back in 2006 …”
What a delightful idiom! I can’t wait to use it on the next buffoon who croaks.
You can always count on The Reg for a good story.
I love the way that the vampire-hunting story includes the line “Find your perfect job – click here from thousands of tech vacancies”. I guess vampire-hunting does sound a bit more exciting than writing PL/SQL. What do you suppose the job qualifications are?
What? Sarah Michelle Gellart on vacation in Eastern Europe?
Only fifty years old, and his mind is already dwelling on death! ;-)
Although, I must admit, that might be even cooler than a Viking funeral.
Noam Chomsky will be dissapointed.
To “pop one’s clogs” is, AFAIK, an old(?) British English euphemism. A google search turns up many examples, and A dictionary of slang – “P” – Slang and colloquialisms of the UK defines it as:
Are these guys available for hire? When Thatcher finally goes we can’t take any chances.
Sadly, the same technique will not avail against (cue twilight zone deep voice close-mic effect) Zombie Hitler.
Oddly enough I’d been considering something similar for Cheney, until I remembered you need a heart to drive a stake through it.
As for you, PZ, I’d’ve thought ground into paste and chumming squid-inhabited waters would have been more up your alley.
BTW, happy birthday.
“Are these guys available for hire? When Thatcher finally goes we can’t take any chances.”
Why wait?
@ AJ Milne:
Didn’t you see “Shawn of the Dead”?
“Remove the head or destroy the brain.”
I was walking along Lower Belgrave Street one morning when she almost shoulder checked me, coming across from the curb. The first thought to go through my mind was ‘witch’.
But I have to admire her for her significant achievments. When I used to visit the UK in the 70’s, it seemed very run down. During & after her reign, it sure picked up. I know many people suffered, but many have benefitted. Who can do the moral/social/economic calculus to determine if her legacy was good or bad?
“Sadly, the same technique will not avail against (cue twilight zone deep voice close-mic effect) Zombie Hitler.”
Well, of course. You have to aim for the proper target.
1) Vampire- apply wooden stake to heart, until transfixed.
2) Zombie- apply sledgehammer to head, until pulped.
3) ID creationist- apply boot to groin, until you get bored.
Richard,
I guess it depends on who you ask. Being from a working class northern town, I grew up with people who hated her. literally hated. On the other hand, a year or so ago I was at a party in Chelsea (long story) and conversed with people who thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Trying to be vaguely objective (whilst undoubtedly being very unscientific), I would imagine her legacy is:
Social – negative if you lived in mining towns, pretty damned good if you lived in Chelsea. Somewhere in between if you were middle class. Maybe on balance negative (as rich folk tend to do OK, irrespective of who is in charge).
Economic – positive. we were in the shit prior to Thatcher and she probably did help drag us out.
Speaking of vampires, did you know apparently some cultures believe that pumpkins and watermelons can become vampires? I didn’t either until today. But apparently these vampiric fruit are not greatly feared, seeing as how they lack teeth.
Strange? No more strange than vampiric humans when you think about it.
Nice story, the vampire hunters really don’t get enough press these days.
You’re kidding right? The DI started passing out fliers for the gala event years ago.
You might consider being fossilized. Or preserved in amber, which sounds really lovely, come to think of it.
I do wonder, are there laws against having your own dead body desecrated?
Hmm. I’ve thought about the same thing (along with being an organ donor), but had a question about the donating to science part, that considering the readers here maybe somebody could answer. What do they do with your body when they’re done with it, or biohazard in general? Do they incinerate it? It seems like the type of thing you wouldn’t want to throw in a landfill.
Thatcher helped the UK out of the economic crapper?
I thought it was because all those north field oil rigs
came online during her tenure.
I hope to be cremated and then added a bit at a time to the coffee at the local Starbucks. My wife hasn’t totally bought into the idea yet, but I’m working on her.
Did they rebury him at the crossroads? Did they burn him and scatter his ashes? You’re supposed to do that (both at the same time? Don’t ask me) too! Uh-oh! Looks like they’d better resurrect Peter Cushing to get it right.*
Of course, according to that vampire scholar Anne Rice, you don’t have to do any of this.
Why can’t vampire hunters keep their stories straight? Teach the controversy!
*Some say use eye of newt for this; others, mere incantation. Dr. Frankenstein used electricity; Dr. Polidori, chemicals (but that’s only according to Christopher Isherwood, not Mary Shelley. Lord Byron was to besotted to render an opinon). Teach the controversy!
Fatboy –
It depends on who you’re giving it to. In some cases you get the body back, in some cases the cremated remains, in some cases not at all. The book Stiff is a good overview of a lot of the options, in a general sense.
My grandmother has already arranged to donate her body to a medical school in the area, but I don’t know if anything is coming back. Never thought to think about it!
Cremation, which is one of the benefits of donating for research. The downside is that it prevents you from donating organs to living patients. Most research facilities require complete cadavers, so you must pick one or the other, though neither turn out be what they claim.
I would rather the blind can have my eyes.
John Prine, “Please Don’t Bury Me”
Sweet Revenge
Cowboy Lyrics
In the UK, you can donate organs thru the NHS.
Basically, if they don’t harvest them, you can donate the corpse to the local medical school. The Human Tissue Authority has an information pack, & you can choose how long they hang on to the corpse. There are provisions for some tissue to be kept separately, if required. They can do a cremation, or return the remains for other treatment – woodland burial or cremation nearer home or family. It’s quite flexible.
Richard.
Carlie, Mike, Thanks for the responses. I wasn’t worried about getting the remains back, it was more a hippy-like concern that my nutrients go back into the ecosystem, and not get locked up in a concrete vault in a graveyard, or, well, I guess I didn’t know exactly what they did with your remains after research, but I was worried that it was something like what they do with nuclear waste, sequestering it away somewhere – incineration makes much more sense, and was what I figured they probably did, but just never knew for sure. Anyway, now I’ve got a decision to make. I’d always figured it would go die -> donate organs -> give the rest to research -> burn remains when done with research. Now I’ve got to decide which would be better for humanity, giving my organs to people, or giving my body to research (or finding a research institute that doesn’t mind taking sloppy seconds).
Oh, and thanks for the response, too, Richard. I guess I was busy editing at the same time you were.
My grandfather, a physician, left his body to his med school alma mater. I can’t recall them sending anything back, so I am guessing he was cremated after they were finished with him.
Personally, I am rather partial to the sky burial- or, as the Tibetans call it, “giving alms to the birds”. Non-polluting and the birds get a meal out of the deal.
Personally, I have made it clear that when I die, I expect a Viking funeral.
My wife and my parents are not happy with this, but, hell…it’s my funeral, right?
I like Steve Goodman’s idea:
Build a big fire on home plate out of your ‘Louisville Sluggers’ baseball bats,
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in the beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour south west wind
When my last remaind go flying over the left field wall
Will bid the bleacher bums adieu
I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue
I’ve updated my plan to donate my body to science fiction.
I now want to be cremated, taken up the far end of the first operating Space Elevator (at 100,000 km) and released over a 24-hour period at the equinox. First human on Mars, bitches. Also Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, etc.
Note that as the birthdays go by, your usefulness as an organ source decreases. Octogenarian organs are not going to last a lifetime in a twenty something body.
To maximise your chances of being a donor, take up a hobby like snow boarding or motorcycling and refuse to wear a helmet. That and lay off the abuse of recreational drugs.
There’s always The Body Farm.
http://www.deathsacre.com/
Or having your ashes turned into a diamond.
Whilst hardly anyone would disagree that something needed to be done (Use a deep voice going down the register as you say the sentence), Thatcher and her pals were a raging phsychotic pit bull of a response.
Without North sea oil, they would have been screwed. As it was, they presided over the destruction of old industries without helping deal with the resultant unemployment, ensured that wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the rich, and destroyed many peoples faith that gvts could do good, by doing bad instead.
The economic changes occuring in the UK at the time were largely dicated by the changes in the global economy, and would have demanded change. But instead they adopted a slash and burn approach, junking millions of people all for worship of some voodoo economics.
Or having your ashes turned into a diamond.
*Guffaw* You have got to be kidding me!
Come on. They’re just dumping out the ashes on the highway and handing the survivors a zirconium rock. Shimmying succotash, people will believe anything.
Got a reference for that, Kristine? They’re probably turning a huge profit, given the prices for which artificial diamond jewelry are being sold in magazines, but I haven’t heard they’re perpetrating outright fraud.
I’m pretty sure I don’t believe a word of this “life gem” diamond thing.
But if it IS true, what a great way to sequester carbon…..
Do you think we could ask them to stake Pol Pot, just to make sure???
Check into “green” burials, without concrete coffin, etc.
That happens anyway – it’s easier to turn ten thousand dollars into twenty thousand than to turn one dollar into two, and any system based on profit margins inevitably concentrates wealth in the very top of the economic food chain.
I would be more sympathetic regarding criticisms of Thatcher if the people making them didn’t seem to be so ignorant of even rudimentary economic principles. I have little direct knowledge of her government’s effects, but judging by her critics, she couldn’t have been all bad.
Western vampires are so tame! :P Let’s see those vandals tackle a Penanggalan!
From: http://www.agonyagogo.com/penina.html:
“Penanggalan consists of a woman’s head that floats through the air with its entrails hanging below it… the Penanggalan seems to have full control over her organs, using them as an octopus manipulates its tentacles… to perform a variety of common mechanics, as well as using them to constrict her prey.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penanggalan
> Note that as the birthdays go by, your usefulness as an organ
> source decreases. Octogenarian organs are not going to last a
> lifetime in a twenty something body.
I haven’t looked this up to find the veracity of the article, but in a magazine I read last year was a piece about the oldest known tissue in a living human, being a cornea a woman received when in her 20s, from a donor who was quite old at the time. Now she’s in her seventies, and still has that cornea, which is coming up to 130 years old.
I know nothing about the regeneration of corneal tissue, so perhaps there’s none of that original cornea left – and I imagine a cornea transplant from an aged donor would be a world away from a donated liver, heart or kidney.
I would think so too. For starters, if it fails, the effects won’t be fatal.
Come on. They’re just dumping out the ashes on the highway and handing the survivors a zirconium rock. Shimmying succotash, people will believe anything.
Posted by: Kristine
OK people, is this an argument from ignorance or and argument from incredulity?
Vote now!
If there are any bogs remaining when I die, I’d like to be tossed in one, perhaps with a noose around my neck. Bog bodies have fascinated me for a long while. Maybe somebody in the future will think they have a murder mystery on their hands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body
I want to be stuffed and mounted. I would make a great coat rack in a relative’s foyer. (Guess where the hat would go!) Even just my head would make a wonderful mantelpiece, especially if I were making a really weird facial expression, or sticking out my tongue.
Why is this not hugely popular? Is it illegal?
Religion can be fun, we shouldn’t complain about that!
Priests to purify sacred site after Bush’s visit
I recently read a highly enjoyable book about what happened to Thomas Paine, the anti-Christian Founding Father, after he died: The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine, by Paul Collins (2005). Basically, Paine’s fans exhumed him and never got round to re-burying him in style.
I agree. The question is how much the government does to make sure that that one dollar at least stays one dollar instead of becoming a quarter. I get the — admittedly uninformed — impression that Thatcher did nothing whatsoever in that direction.
Hey, that doesn’t matter at all. It’s a scientific hypothesis! It’s testable. :-) Spectroscopically if you don’t want to risk destroying the gem.
I agree. The question is how much the government does to make sure that that one dollar at least stays one dollar instead of becoming a quarter. I get the — admittedly uninformed — impression that Thatcher did nothing whatsoever in that direction.
Hey, that doesn’t matter at all. It’s a scientific hypothesis! It’s testable. :-) Spectroscopically if you don’t want to risk destroying the gem.
Thats the point Caledonoian- she made it easier for it to happen, whilst making it as likely that the poor would stay poor, ie reduced social mobility, a trend that has continued under her bastard love child Tony Blair.
Also, my understanding was the the montearist economics policies she followed are generally now regarded by economists as being rather off the wall and innacurate.
But it’s always hard for the poor to stop being poor. Middle classes arise only in very special circumstances – throughout the majority of history, humanity has been divided into Rich and Poor, with the latter outnumbering the former by several orders of magnitude.
And?
Why is there a First World, and why has it survived the last 50 years?
And?
Why is there a First World, and why has it survived the last 50 years?
Basic medicine.
Rome didn’t fall in a day.
“When I go, I’d figured the best plan would be to donate my body to science, or to be cremated”
Have you ever considered cryonics? I know, there are reasons to think it won’t work, but even a small chance of it working is a small chance of a lot of extra life, which seems worthwhile to me.
On the day of Richard Nixon’s funeral I had planned to go to Yorba Linda and wander through the streets in Dickensian garb carrying a mallet and a stake. Unfortunately, it rained like all hell that day and I decided that sitting in the tank waiting for bail dressed in old, stinking wet wool was not my idea of a good time.
Maybe I’ll just have to visit the Library . . .
Hey, that doesn’t matter at all. It’s a scientific hypothesis! It’s testable. :-) Spectroscopically if you don’t want to risk destroying the gem.
That depends on whether she works for the Discovery Institute or not, becasue the last time I checked they were the only ones saying that “our hypothesis is legitimate even thought the data directly contradicts it”.
Why is there a First World, and why has it survived the last 50 years?
Cheap and plentiful energy, i.e. Oil
I’m thinking it would be really cool if crazed folk dug my body up, chopped it to bits, put a stake through it, and maybe paraded the head around town on a pike. I wonder if there is a funeral plan for that?
Depends on your politics. Oliver Cromwell was buried with full honours, dug up a few years later after the Restoration, tried for treason, beheaded, his head placed on a pike outside St James Palace, and his body hung in chains at Tyburn; the head subsequently went on a sort of Grand Tour of the pro-Cromwell bits of England before ending up in Cambridge.