Inspirational words about life from a nonagenarian, news that Tim Cook tried to donate his liver to Steve Jobs, and the death of renown author Terry Pratchett top our weekly news headlines.
WEEKLY NEWS HEADLINES FOR 3/20/2015
Residents of Camp Hope place one of the flags every hour on the hour until the NCAA tournament is over. Camp Hope offers counseling and treatment for soldiers and their families battling PTSD. (Photo: KHOU)
Flags planted every hour to raise awareness for military suicide
Mar 20, 2015 – KHOU TV: Over the course of the 441 hours of basketball games that make up the NCAA March Madness tournament, 441 American flags will be planted in front of the PTSD Foundation of America’s Camp Hope in Northwest Houston to draw attention to the unsolved epidemic of military suicides…Read full story
By Sharing Death on the Web, Dying May Not Feel So Alone
Mar 17, 2015 – Time Magazine online: Lisa Bonchek Adams is not necessarily a household name, but she may well be remembered for having transformed how we understand death and dying. The 45-year-old mother of three died last week after a very public battle with breast cancer. For eight years after her initial diagnosis, Adams shared her unvarnished story with her 15,000 Twitter followers and untold numbers of blog and Facebook readers. Among her last tweets: “Find a bit of beauty in the world today. Share it. If you can’t find it, create it…Read full story
Citizens guard buried history at Huguenot Cemetery
Mar 15, 2015 – St. Augustine Record: The first three to six days after contracting yellow fever, many don’t experience any signs or symptoms. Soon enough, the infection reveals itself through fever, muscle aches, yellowing of the skin and delirium. If left untreated, it can ultimately lead to death. Soon after Florida became a U.S. territory, yellow fever took the lives of many in the 19th century in an epidemic…Read full story
“Ask A Mortician” Is The Best Thing On YouTube
Mar 13, 2015 – BUZZFEED: Caitlin Doughty is a mortician who wants to help you understand the process (and the business) of death…Read full story
Cartoonist Roz Chast talks about death and dying
Mar 13, 2015 BoingBoing: Roz Chast draws a comic about her parents getting old and dying. Sometimes her account is funny, sometimes it’s poignant; always it’s memorable, even though her parent’s life and death were ordinary in most respects…Read full story
New exhibit explores our relationship with death
Mar 13, 2015 – The Star Phoenix: Inside the Western Development Museum’s curatorial centre are two morbid but fascinating artifacts from a time when death was far closer to home than it is today. One is a portable embalming kit. The other is a carrying case for deceased infants, complete with a white shroud. Both will be exhibits in the Edwards Funeral Home, the newest addition to the museum’s Boomtown exhibit…Read full story (link no longer available)
45 Life Lessons Written by a “90-Year-Old” Woman
Mar 12, 2015 – POPSUGAR: People often tell Regina Brett how great she looks for her age. Turns out, she is actually 54 years old — not 90. She wrote down these life lessons the night before her 45th birthday after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Over that past decade, these lessons have gone viral on the Internet amid claims that she is 90 years old. Luckily, she finds humor in this misrepresentation, knowing how many lives she has touched…Read full story
Apple CEO Tim Cook tried to give Steve Jobs his liver — but Jobs refused
Mar 12, 2015 – Fast Company: In January 2009, Steve Jobs was sick, gaunt, frail—unable to get out of bed thanks to a painful condition called ascites, a gastroenterological side effect of cancer that caused his belly to swell. The Apple CEO was in desperate need of a liver transplant. He almost found one in the man who would eventually succeed him…Read full story
Traditional American funerals are dead – but not buried
Mar 12, 2015 – Al Jazeera America: U.S. cemeteries are banking on the country’s growing cremation rate — projected to overtake that of casketed burials for this first time this year — to keep them open and accepting remains for as long as possible. In their remaining acreage and patches of grass, cemeteries are finding places that might not fit a coffin but could fit several urns…Read full story
