Historic Congressional Cemetery, Washington DC

Had to happen sooner or later: Caskets and funeral planning are coming to the mall. 

CBS News reports that Forest Lawn - cemetery of the stars - has established kiosk sales points in SoCal suburban malls.

The death business might be in decline if they're coming out from behind shuttered and curtained "funeral homes" and setting up consultation centers in commercial shopping centers.  Will this mean more transparency in the American business model of fleecing relatives of the dead with overpriced sateen and velour lined boxes sealed in expensive hardwood coffins and even more expensive metal containers?  So wasteful.  

Jessica Mitford's milestone investigation The American Way of Death points out that while the death industry might try different window dressing, it is still  bunko.  Funeral directors and their ghoulish henchmen the embalmers, need more regulation.  Competition should be encouraged; Americans need a low-priced option  -- simple containers and inexpensive burial or cremation options.
Embalming is not necessary and not required in many locations.

Intelligent and eco-sensitive folks can arrange burials efficiently and relatively waste-free with a cardboard casket or natural burial at many locations.

Meanwhile, a company called Til We Meet Again which specializes in lifestyle caskets and military funerals, has opened stores in Arizona, Louisiana, Kansas, Indiana and Texas, according to the CBS report and the company's website.

Ancient Burying Ground of Hartford, Connecticut

Wonder if  Skull and Bones, the secret society for boys-not-yet-men at Yale University

Skull and Bones, Yale University
Photo: en.Wikipedia.org

ever cruised the 30-odd miles from New Haven up to Hartford to practice their skulduggery at the Ancient Burying Ground of Hartford?

The Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven was closer  -- there's even a section just for Yale College -- but can't you just see those rich bad-lads tossing bootleg bubbly in Dick's Stutz-Bearcat and motoring to Connecticut's other city on a midnight lark?   

Gravestones of the Lawrence family
Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford, Connecticut
Photo: Connecticut Historical Society
and Connecticut History online

Dating to 1640 and continuing to the 1800s, the burial ground is the oldest historic landmark in Hartford.

The headstones range from plain style with just the facts about the deceased to stones with carved ornamentation of death's heads, angels and cherubs.  Ground stones, tablets and table stones mark the final resting places of Hartford's early English and French Huguenot settlers.

A brochure produced by the Ancient Burying Ground Association outlines a self-guided walking tour with detailed information  on notable headstones, genealogy and regional history.

A short video on the graveyard provides historic and cultural orientation.

More information:

Connecticut Visit - Ancient Burying Ground of Hartford

Connecticut Historical Society Museum & Library

Connecticut History

Polyphagia :: Definition :: Eat :: Swallow

Do they still eat humans? " They " being other humans?
Ugh. Um, yes.

This article in the English newspaper The Telegraph  is about cannibalism in 2012,
not 1550,  the time frame of Hans Staden's True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil, edited and translated by Neil Whitehead and Michael Harbsmeier.  He lived to tell the tale.


In April 2012, the Huffington Post reported, the unfortunate three met the killers when they applied for a nanny position in the household of  those charged by Brazilian authorities with murder and cannibalism.  According to a CBS News report, there were other victims.  CNN also covered the story.