New Orleans families may dig own graves

[deadparrot]

NEW ORLEANS, July 23 (UPI) -- A shortage of workers in the New Orleans' cemetery division is forcing many residents to bury their own dead, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

"We do not dig graves or put caskets into graves any longer," said city real estate administrator Ed Mazoue, who is in charge of the cemeteries. "The decision was made and funeral homes were notified that families and funeral homes would have to supply grave-digging personnel."

The shortage of workers is attributed to several factors, including workers not returning after Hurricane Katrina, low service wages and city layoffs that occurred before and after the storm hit.

When a burial is taking place at a city cemetery, the funeral home handling the service will try to get someone to dig the grave and have the family pay the grave digger. If no one can be found to dig a grave, the family is left to fend for itself, the newspaper said.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060724-123714-2843r

[pitohui]

1. this is the original story (link inside)

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1153637991230580.xml&coll=1

as far as "the one gravedigger who went cuckoo" i think i know who that is, but he was always cuckoo if indeed it was him

[Pepper32]

2. Is this still America? n/t

[mom cat]

11. It hasn't been America for a long time. Maybe it never was. Our

job is to take those ideals that we love and give them life.

[saigon68]

12. It is becoming a 3rd world country

Like Mexico

[jobycom]

3. And that's where I will have to bury my parents, hopefully not soon.

The reason for the shortage of workers is the shortage of money because the state is broke and the federal government has broken every promise it's made. Half the city is empty, with no infrastructure to even allow rebuilding. There's no place to come home to. Under any other president that city would be an economic powerhouse of rebuilding, but under Bush, it's a landfill and a graveyard.

[undergroundpanther]

4. Private

read (rich people) cemeteries are not having this"problem".
I swear the more I see of this shit,the cruelty of haves against have nots,I find I hate the privileged rich people even more.There are so few rich people that give a shit,it really disgusts me when pollyanna people scramble to defend a few of the privileged by pointing out the few examples of wealth used to help,and it is far too few, to justify such an atrocity,they do that while ignoring the many examples of rich pieces of shit that do not care,and would let poor people suffer rather than be offended or discomfited at having to face up to their own damn callous greed and share. Someday a society we have got to learn to say when enough is ENOUGH,even when individuals are pigs who resist any restraint on their hoarding from others and private' privileges that exclude. We need to cap the accumulation of wealth and limit perks and privilege,lest we let an oligarchy of sociopath shit heads buy our society from under us..And we must learn how to make sure the wealthy are not treated as "special" at someone else's expense anymore ..Because as far as I am concerned privilege is a disgusting social disease that hurts everyone but the privileged few who will do anything to keep it to themselves..

[formercia]

5. Amen.

Good gawd, i'll probably be accused of being a Socialist.

[undergroundpanther]

6. At least a socialist

cares,a sociopath does not.A rich pig that does not care,and will not fork over stuff and help to others is acting like a sociopath,And sociopaths destroy a society.

Imagine a wolf pack, You got an alpha wolf and the other wolves,together they hunt,take a kill,
Now the pack shares the kill.

But if the alpha wolf decides to hoard the kill for himself,what does the pack do?

They kill the alpha wolf,rather than starve.

Humans will be loyal to the greedy parasite alpha human shits even when the alphas don't have the decency of wolves.We are being stupid in a survival sense when we let wealthy thugs have more than they could possibly consume while others,suffer.

Are wolves communist? Or Smart?

Or are Wolves aware of what it takes to survive in this world? Wolves realize sharing the food and sustenance and wealth is the way to survive,sad that so many stupid greedy self destructive sociopath acting stupid humans don't GET that..Our idiot obedience to the morally depraved "bullies" will be our doom.

[earth mom]

15. I'll second that Amen!

Plus I'd rather be thought a socialist than a god damn greedy selfish corporatist! :grr:

[KamaAina]

20. And N.O.'s "solution"? You got it -- privatize!

The bottom line is that "the city should not be in the cemetery business," he said. "It ought to be run by private enterprise."

The problem is that there is little incentive for private firms to take over the city graveyards because they lack open space that can be used to sell new burial sites, Mazoue said. "So you would have to do reclamation (of abandoned tombs), and it takes 13 months to recycle a tomb."

Since only funeral homes can sell coffins, a private company would have to increase burial rates and add services such as selling flowers and tomb etching to turn a profit, he said.

Mazoue estimates "it would take two years to make a profit." He is hoping that the city will agree to initially subsidize an interested party and open bids by the end of the year to allow a private company to take over city cemeteries.

So help me, if I don't get back in soon, I'm gonna see a sign that says "Now Entering New Orleans, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton." :puke:

edit: privatized (charter) schools are already well under way. Doubtless the locals can chime in with even more shining examples.

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. I thought most interments in NO were in above-ground vaults?

[pitohui]

16. well that's what i always thought but that's out of my price range

frankly cremation has been the only option for many a year for people of my means

i don't want to make this about race, but i don't think regular white people get buried any more, so the funeral industry has been preying on black people

a couple, three years ago there was a big story in the times-picayune about poor black families having $25,000 funerals!

meanwhile on the northshore, which is mostly white, there are semi-recurring stories in our "lifestyle" sections about people being cremated for $800

:shrug:

it may be another case of poor, less educated people being led to believe they need to buy something, they don't need to buy

[sandnsea]

23. My folks were buried

The plot was paid for, but that was it. The funerals were about $7000 each, and that was in St. Louis. The funeral director in the little town in Arkansas where they lived said St. Louis was expensive at that. I can't imagine what a $25,000 funeral would buy, holy smokes!! I guess if they laid them out for several days it could add up to that amount, but that sure is a buttload of money to pay to sit around and cry and reminisce.

[pitohui]

24. for $25K a jazz band is included

i understand why it's expensive but crap when i'm dead i won't care if there's a marching band!

[Fermezlabush]

8. So, this is what the "ownership society" is, huh? I get it now.

If you have money, you own the rest. If you don't, you can't get medical care, education, water, libraries, or, it seems a burial. But they'll fight for your right to get born into all this.

[lynne]

9. This is the way it's always been where I live -

- in a more rural area, though. The cemetaries provide only basic ground maintenance, ie: lawnmowing, trimming, flower removal.

When someone dies, the funeral home contacts one of the grave digging firms on their list (I would guess whichever firm is closest to the cemetary to be used) and they come out and dig the grave. The cost is included in the funeral home expense.

[Toots]

10. , the family is left to fend for itself,

Welcome to Bush* America,,What this calls for is more "tax cuts" for the "haves and the have mores"

[tomreedtoon]

13. And why haven't Democrats said anything?

"Our friend Dubya is giving people something to do in New Orleans!"

By the way, if the dead are buried by the family, instead of by paid professionals, it helps cut down on the official "statistical markers" about how many people actually died in the hurricane. If the estimated death tolls are kept low, our Pink Tutu Democrats get to partially bury their own timidity and culpability down, too.

[JackDragna]

14. This is the tip of the iceberg with death/funeral problems..

..here in Louisiana. I know of people who've had to keep deceased loved ones in storage, so to speak, as they waited for either a burial plot or a professional to properly prepare their loved one. Every bit of the infrastructure here in southeastern Louisiana has been thrown into chaos. It's a bloody disgrace.

[pitohui]

17. yeah the couple i know who died when the london ave. canal broke

they were not able to be laid to rest until january, even though the son actually took a boat and found them within days of the catastrophe

[Robb]

18. Quality headline writing

Images came to mind of prisoners digging their own graves, before being shot and put into them.

[Rex]

19. Bury your own dead.

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH AMERICA?

I'm 35 and I've NEVER seen a huge, very very famous American city, get treated like it was in another country! HELLO! New Orleans is in AMERICA right? Did they move it? Is it in Cuba now?

I can't believe what I'm reading here. The handling of NOLA is a DISGRACE and criminal negligence by our federal government. Unfuckingbelievable.

[pitohui]

21. if it was in cuba they wouldn't be shitting on our doctors and nurses

i don't know what to tell you, seems like the crap never ends

[JackDragna]

25. No. New Orleans is not part of America.

New Orleans is poor and black. Or was, at least. To many Americans, "America" consists of big houses, green lawns and strip malls with the required Subway and Gap. Places like New Orleans are alien, far away from their insular islands where water cooler talk about "Big Brother" is considered high culture. There's always been problems with Americans hating cities and the plurality they represent: I remember my father telling me about all the crap he heard about Chicago from rural Illinois people when he lived in West Chicago, a city suburb. I think the problem with New Orleans is this problem magnified to a gross level. When the victims are poor and represent the libertine, liberal part of our culture the right hates, nobody cares when said victims die.

[daleo]

22. Life is like that Simpson's episode

Where Lionel Hutz was pushing this idea - "Dig Your Own Grave and Save!"

Parody no longer exists.