Today’s post is an excerpt from The Odd Index by Stephen Spignesi and is being posted with Stephen’s permission: 1.  The dead body arrives at the morgue. 2.  The body’s identity is confirmed, assigned an identification number, and given a toe tag, which is a cardboard ticket with all of the corpse’s pertinent information written on […]

  In the high mountains of Tibet, where trees don’t grow, natural resources scarce, and the land is harsh, Tibetan Buddhists do not bury their dead, nor waste precious resources cremating the body. From dust to dust, flesh to flesh, nothing is wasted. Human body flesh makes precious food for the vultures. Tibetan Buddhists feed […]

Grave plots are property. When cemeteries become full, that property’s value can skyrocket.  Supply and demand. And when you’re hurting for money, and your grandmother’s remains are buried in said property, YOU DON’T SELLOUT GRANDMA! That is, unless you’re the guy who just dug up grandma so he could sell her grave. A Darwin, Australia […]

Two brothers are discussing the details of their father’s funeral. The first one is trying to arrange everything himself, because he knows that the other one is pretty dim and sure to mess something up in some way. The dim brother insists that he won’t. Finally the first brother relents and gives him a small […]

There’s a wonderful end of life charity that’s working in the Netherlands called,  “Ambulance Wish Foundation.”  There’s over 200 volunteers that work with a fleet of ambulances who take terminal patients on one final trip to the destination of their choice. Their Twitter feed is absolutely fabulous.  Here’s a couple pictures that I screen captured from […]