In Defense of a Death Book for Children
I don’t think I was a particularly morbid child.
That being said, I was a particularly morbid child.
All children are particularly morbid children. They start life so fresh and tabula rosa and free of death anxiety. Then adults go and paste that anxiety onto them layer by layer like a 12 tiered cake of fear.
We keep them away from funerals and tell them not to worry because, “grandpa is sleeping.” What we don’t realize (and seem to forget as we slide into reluctant adulthood) is that children have dark imaginations far more powerful than any reality.
Yes, Grandpa is dead. Just as trees die and goldfish die and all things eventually die so their atoms can be gloriously spit out back into the universe to make new, interesting things. That’s the truth isn’t it? Is that so scary? Why not tell a child that, instead of telling them Grandpa is sleeping- conjuring nightmarish visions of poor Gramps waking up trapped underground in a tacky blue casket.
I’ve been thinking about a children’s death book for awhile. Early indoctrination to the cult of healthy minded death acceptance. Of course it would be easier to write a book for adults in the style of a children’s book. But I think it’s far more useful actually aimed at the little humans. It seems like that is the consensus from the people I’ve been talking to, including Andy, quoted today on the G(rave)chat:
“I vividly remember realizing my own mortality as a kid.
I have no idea what triggered it, but I ran into my parents’ room and was screaming and crying and saying, “Mom, Dad I’m going to die I’m going to die.”
And they were like, “Yeah in like 90 years maybe, go back to bed.”
But basically I really needed that book.”
Your Death Has Migrated
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Come say hello.
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GOP Death Culture
Oh shit. Well we can file this under terrifying.
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), one of the participants and a staunch enemy of President Obama’s health plans, what should be done if, for instance, a sick, 30-year-old man without health insurance suddenly became gravely ill.
“(And) he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?,” Blitzer asked the congressman.
“That’s what freedom is all about,” Paul responded. “Taking your own risks.”
“But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?,” Blitzer insisted.
At this point the 1,000 Tea Party activists gathered at the Florida State Fairgrounds for the debate erupted in laughs and cheers: “Yeah! Yeah! Society should just let him die,” they gleefully said.
Source via Shannon
Normally I am opposed to underwater corpses, but this is just…
Normally I am opposed to underwater corpses, but this is just lovely.
From The Night of the Hunter from 1955.
Stolen from Oliver Anderson who is good at the facebook.
This is the first film in a series from something (someone?)…
This is the first film in a series from something (someone?) called “The Midnight Archive.” I do so long for them to make more, because this one is about a Brooklyn pet mummifier.
Perhaps more interesting than her super secret salt soak preservative formula for Mr. Fluffy, is that she apparently has an interested human all lined up for her services. The legality of that is fascinating to me. I say it can’t legally be done (in our current oppressive state run death climate) but perhaps Sorceress Cagliastro has all sorts of loopholes I know nothing of. Regardless, this is insanely entertaining.
Thanks to Soceress Fif Liddell for the link.