The unclaimed ashes of hard times

[SoCalNative]

The funeral director knows: Good times mean fancy services; bad times mean unclaimed remains. So some of the dead stay with him, in paper bags, near those from other decades, other bad times.

Stephen Kemp rummaged through a supply closet for a box of staples, being careful not to jostle the blue paper bags of cremated remains on the floor.

It's not a great spot for ashes, but he ran out of space long ago. In the grand scheme of things, the closet is as good a resting place as any.

Kemp, the owner of Haley Funeral Directors, is used to a certain rhythm of life and death.

Good times mean fancy funerals -- open bars with top-drawer liquor, horse-drawn carriages, jazz bands for all-night jam sessions. Bad times mean unclaimed remains -- funeral fees often being a low priority for the living.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-on-the-edge-funeral22-2009feb22,0,2914598.story

[47of74]

1. I would normally suggest

...that the funeral director go to the nearest Republican politician who spouted off about the stimulus and ask him (or her) to provide assistance in getting the remains buried. But then again these are Republicans we are talking about here, they wouldn't lift a finger to help bury someone's loved one.

[InkAddict]

2. You are right - Remember the twin prongs of "Funeralgate"?

http://www.hereinreality.com/funeralgate.htm

Here's a new chapter in an old scandal involving a Bush contributor and longtime family friend, Robert Waltrip. This time it's the desecration of dead bodies, and George W. Bush is directly linked to this scandal (as is former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, GW's Chief of Staff while governor of Texas). According to Fox News, Waltrip's company, a cemetery company called Service Corporation International (also known as Dignity Memorial) was "recycling" graves, removing the bodies that were there originally and throwing them in the woods to use the space to house new customers at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida.

Bush's connection to the story is that he was subpoenaed in 1999 but refused to testify in a lawsuit by an ousted Texas state employee as to what his involvement was in halting an investigation into SCI's embalming practices, among other things.
This was a big Texas scandal for our president at the time, but as you will learn from this Washington Post article dated August 31, 1999, a Texas judge put everything right for then-governor Bush, just in time to campaign for the Presidency.

Taxpayers of the state of Texas and SCI settled the lawsuit for $210,000 on November 9, 2001, weeks before the gruesome discovery made at two cemeteries in Florida caught the brief attention of the media.

http://www.democrats.com/node/5960

After Bush stole the White House in 2000, he put his close crony Joe Allbaugh in charge of FEMA.

Allbaugh had been Bush's chief of staff when Bush was Texas Governor, and then served as Campaign Manager in the 2000 election. He was the least well known of the powerful "Iron Triangle" - Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and Joe Allbaugh.

When Allbaugh was put in charge of FEMA, he was still at the center of a whistleblower lawsuit brought by Eliza May, the former executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission. The scandal became known as "Funeralgate":

Much more...


It doesn't seem appropriate that cremains should be in a coat closet?????? Abuse of deceased, unclaimed though they be???

ASHES, ASHES, WE ALL FALL DOWN!

[47of74]

3. Thanks for reminding me of that

And that's a reason I wouldn't trust a Republican with anyone's remains.

This whole SCI thing is also part of the reason why I did my arrangements all in advance with a local funeral home even though I'm still pretty young. If something does happen to me then it'll be a local guy taking care of me and my family, and doing what I want.

[Renwiick]

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