The Last Word in Last Words
by Krishna Andavolu
Life through the lens of Death
The psychologist Earnest Becker claimed in his 1973 book, The Denial of Death, that all of human civilization--our culture, our political systems, our rituals--is an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the ultimate reality of our mortality. The ways we commemorate the dead, through funerals, in memory and with writing is also an essential act of our humanity. Obit-mag.com explores this duality: Is it the denial of death that forms our culture or does understanding our mortality give our lives meaning? These are big questions, and we approach them action-by-action, idea-by-idea, person-by-person.
Take a look at Obit-mag.com's Webby Award recognized content that has been featured by The New York Times, NPR, The Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast. Join the conversation and REGISTER TODAY
Computer Afterlives
Consider the Alternative, by James Patrick Kelley
Could your mind somehow survive the death of your body? And if it did, would it still be you? These sound like science fiction questions and they are – as of today. But some respected futurists believe that humanity is at the cusp of a great technological leap. Given our progress in computation and the study of the brain, they think that a kind of digital immortality may be possible sometime this century. Upload your mind into computer memory and you could theoretically live forever.
Lives Examined
Edward Kennedy: A Strong Finish, by Judy Bachrach
“I have lived a blessed time,” Ted Kennedy recently informed a large adulatory audience at Harvard University. It was the very school from which he was expelled for cheating on a Spanish exam almost six decades ago, a dismal moment – one of several -- that defined Kennedy’s early life and provided the template for what his detractors were certain would be an indifferent future. Yet from Harvard on, nothing was predictable about him. In the end he was readmitted and did graduate. In the end, too, he pursued a political career that alternated consistently between the illustrious and the disastrous.
Grim Reader
Obit's Weekly Roundup of Obituaries, by Michael Schaffer
The crisis of 2009 was supposed to be the end, once and for all, of America’s love affair with bankers. As the collapse rubbished middle-class 401(k)s and emptied federal coffers, optimists promised it would also re-order our national priorities. We’d go back to celebrating inventors and engineers — and we’d start to see the so-called Lords of Finance for the greaseballs they really are. So far, Wall Street’s antagonists can’t be cheered by evidence from one corner of our culture: the Obitosphere, which this week gives major play to the sudden death of Bruce Wasserstein.
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Do-it-Yourself Funerals
A Full Measure of Devotion, by Joyce Gemperlein
Would you, could you, say goodbye to a deceased family member by washing the body, laying it on a bed of dry ice – perhaps, like in old-timey Westerns, on the kitchen table right where the breakfast dishes were – gather the proper burial documents and dig a suitable hole?
Retrospectives
Pioneering Hate Radio, by Dick Polman
Perhaps Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all their right-wing broadcasting brethren will soon deem it fitting to visit the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Mich. They could place a wreath at the base of the tall, narrow gravestone that marks the eternal resting place of Father Charles Coughlin, their spiritual godfather, the man who first blazed the trail for hate radio.
The Death of... the Music Industry:
Music is in the Air, by David Patrick Stearns
Like some lumbering Frankenstein monster, the recording industry rose from the dead this summer, thanks to the very technology that’s credited with killing it. As so often before, the jolt came from Michael Jackson, this time on his June 25th death, which inspired a sales surge comparable to Elvis Presley’s, but with a speed not possible even a few years ago.
Krishna Andavolu is managing editor of Obit.
The psychologist Earnest Becker claimed in his 1973 book, The Denial of Death, that all of human civilization--our culture, our political systems, our rituals--is an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the ultimate reality of our mortality. The ways we commemorate the dead, through funerals, in memory and with writing is also an essential act of our humanity. Obit-mag.com explores this duality: Is it the denial of death that forms our culture or does understanding our mortality give our lives meaning? These are big questions, and we approach them action-by-action, idea-by-idea, person-by-person.
Take a look at Obit-mag.com's Webby Award recognized content that has been featured by The New York Times, NPR, The Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast. Join the conversation and REGISTER TODAY
Computer AfterlivesConsider the Alternative, by James Patrick Kelley
Could your mind somehow survive the death of your body? And if it did, would it still be you? These sound like science fiction questions and they are – as of today. But some respected futurists believe that humanity is at the cusp of a great technological leap. Given our progress in computation and the study of the brain, they think that a kind of digital immortality may be possible sometime this century. Upload your mind into computer memory and you could theoretically live forever.
Lives ExaminedEdward Kennedy: A Strong Finish, by Judy Bachrach
“I have lived a blessed time,” Ted Kennedy recently informed a large adulatory audience at Harvard University. It was the very school from which he was expelled for cheating on a Spanish exam almost six decades ago, a dismal moment – one of several -- that defined Kennedy’s early life and provided the template for what his detractors were certain would be an indifferent future. Yet from Harvard on, nothing was predictable about him. In the end he was readmitted and did graduate. In the end, too, he pursued a political career that alternated consistently between the illustrious and the disastrous.
Grim ReaderObit's Weekly Roundup of Obituaries, by Michael Schaffer
The crisis of 2009 was supposed to be the end, once and for all, of America’s love affair with bankers. As the collapse rubbished middle-class 401(k)s and emptied federal coffers, optimists promised it would also re-order our national priorities. We’d go back to celebrating inventors and engineers — and we’d start to see the so-called Lords of Finance for the greaseballs they really are. So far, Wall Street’s antagonists can’t be cheered by evidence from one corner of our culture: the Obitosphere, which this week gives major play to the sudden death of Bruce Wasserstein.
Do-it-Yourself FuneralsA Full Measure of Devotion, by Joyce Gemperlein
Would you, could you, say goodbye to a deceased family member by washing the body, laying it on a bed of dry ice – perhaps, like in old-timey Westerns, on the kitchen table right where the breakfast dishes were – gather the proper burial documents and dig a suitable hole?
RetrospectivesPioneering Hate Radio, by Dick Polman
Perhaps Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all their right-wing broadcasting brethren will soon deem it fitting to visit the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Mich. They could place a wreath at the base of the tall, narrow gravestone that marks the eternal resting place of Father Charles Coughlin, their spiritual godfather, the man who first blazed the trail for hate radio.
The Death of... the Music Industry:Music is in the Air, by David Patrick Stearns
Like some lumbering Frankenstein monster, the recording industry rose from the dead this summer, thanks to the very technology that’s credited with killing it. As so often before, the jolt came from Michael Jackson, this time on his June 25th death, which inspired a sales surge comparable to Elvis Presley’s, but with a speed not possible even a few years ago.
Krishna Andavolu is managing editor of Obit.
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