HW 50 - First Third of Care-of-the-Dead Book Post

Jokinen, Tom. Curtains Adventures of an Undertaker-In-Training.

Precis-
Tom Jokinen in the book Curtains explores the life of an undertaker after quitting his very comfortable government job. Inserting himself in the job and culture that surrounds it while still using his own on the job experience, some journalistic investigation and a good sense of humor. He explores his own thoughts on the subject while also comparing it to that of societies. Discussing the way funeral homes sell there product while still competing with growing popularity of cremation.

Quotes-

1. "In the office, Richard's quick estimate, not including cemetery expenses, comes to $7,680, which he rounds up to $7,900 to provide wiggle room. Then if the final bill is less than the estimate, they'll feel like they got a deal." (page 39)
2. "Just under two hours and a lunch later, we open the heavy door to reveal her scattered skeleton, pieces of white bone blown around by the powerful gas jets."

Analysis-

Tom Jokinen uses his humor and personal accounts to express to the reader this idea of being and undertaker. He doesn't use historical or even statistical information but uses personal accounts to make it seem more like he is the readers friend telling him a story and less like the reader's author.the most interesting part of the first part of the book is the small section where he discusses the techniques is selling coffins. he is so descriptive with the way Richard studies his clients focusing on the person in the family who he knows is in charge even if they aren't focused on him. The author also stated one line that really caught my attention when describing Richard, he said " He doesn't want to be your friend he wants to be your funeral director something that most corporate funeral directors do not do." this specific line really gave me more of an understanding as to the type of person that Richard is, which is one thing i really appreciate about the author's writing style he is always very descriptive.

HW 48 - Family Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

For this assignment, I interviewed my mother and father. They both grew up in Middle Eastern countries but as you'll soon see there ways of caring for the dead are very different. I first interviewed my mom, who was a bit reluctant about talking about this topic. I personally have never had this conversation with her before and so I wasn't sure what to expect. I asked how she would liked to be cared for after her death, to which she responded saying that she would want to be buried like everyone is. I got the assumption that she wasn't too familiar with the other forms of caring for the dead so I told her about cremation and "natural" care of the dead. She wasn't a big fan of cremation the idea of having her body burned kind of freaked her out, which when you think about it, is kind of weird.


Analyzing this interview I realized that her reaction to cremation is completely understandable. The only reason we don’t react like that is because we are used to the idea, our understanding is much more broad. We were lucky enough to grow up in a generation where tradition isn't something that is held to as high a standard as the ones before us, which allows us to be able to accept things the my mothers generation and culture really could not, which then begs the question how much does our culture/ generational norms effect our decisions?


The second person I interviewed was my dad. His perspective was a little different, I asked him similar questions to that of my mother and got some very different answers. I asked him how he would like to be cared for after his death and he said that it didn't really matter, I asked him why to which he responded that he would be dead its not like he is going to have any feeling or memory of how he is cared for after his death. I asked him which he feels is better cremation or burials and he told me that the truth is, whichever one is more beneficial to society and his loved ones afterwards would probably be the better one for him that is at least.


The one thing I noticed about my dad's point of view is that it is very utilitarianism. His ideas on care of the dead are very unselfish and its not because he wants to be a unselfish man but because being able to provide for his loved ones and/or society may be his way of making death work for hProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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benefit. Instead of allowing death to be unbeneficial he makes it so that it is beneficial. Which then also is a gateway to asking the question do people make excuses for death to be a part of their life or is it genuine kindness that causes people to do things like donate money or make the care of them after their death as easy as possible?

Future Death: The Dead Human Body as Biomass (extra credit)

Attending this lecture i feel that i have gotten a better look into the care of the dead. Dr. John Troyer The deputy director of the Centre for Death & Society focused mainly on cremation. He really wanted to get across this feeling of how cremation is one of the more popular ways for caring for the dead. He started off with informing us about his work, but then eventually started talking about new and innovative ways of caring for the dead. He mentioned that there is an infrastructure inside this idea of care for the dead. he talked about controversial topics regarding burial (what is natural Burial?) and then even discussed the problems with the system right now. He also discussed the use of crematoriums as a energy source that could power 20 houses at once(one of my favorite parts of the lecture). However he mainly focused on informing the audience on the basics and then choose to go deeper into a specific part of care of the dead which again is cremation.


I was surprisingly entertained by the lecture. I went in there scared because of all this talk about death. I remember the first thing Dr.Troyer saying was that he the Centre for Death & Society wasn't a bunch of Gothic fanatics obsessed with death which gave me a big sense of relief. The topic i really enjoyed was his focus on new and innovative ways to care for the dead. Specifically he discussed this machine that feeds off of biomass which can be a very resourceful tool in retrieving the thousands of bodies that are to radioactive to touch in japan right now. I started off thinking care of the dead is a part of life that wasn't necessarily important, however after attending this lecture i realized that this is what so many other people think as well which is why care of the dead is such an important topic. There are 54 crematoriums in NY that handle about 700 bodies, if one were to shutdown for any reason there would be 700 bodies with nowhere to go and then all of a sudden care of the dead would become an important subject. I have a new respect for care of the dead and am excited to learn more about it. At the beginning of this unit i mentioned that i can't see any nightmarish industrial atrocities, however it is becoming clearer what they are now.

HW 47 - Peer Perspectives on the Care of the Dead

For researching peer perspectives on care of the dead i interviewed my sister (age 14 similar background), my friend dean (age 16 similar age), and George (someone i met a few days ago who is very wealthy). The first person i interviewed was my sister. She like me has not been exposed to death very much, other than the death you see on T.V. (when you think about it, that's really actually a lot), which lead me to my first question. How do you feel care of the dead portrayed in today's entertainment industry compares to your experience with care of the dead? to which she responded, "When i watch T.V. the only thing i can think about when you say care of the dead is the doctors who examine the body after the person is dead." I explained  to her that they were called morticians and then proceeded to ask her about cremation (whether she knew about it or not and her thoughts on the topic). To my surprise she knew what it was but really didn't know much about it.

The next person i interviewed was my friend George. His grandmother passed away a few years ago and had agreed to tell me what the process was like caring for her after she had died. I asked if she was buried or cremated and he said she was buried but not buried your average way. He said that she was buried naturally. I asked what that meant to which he responded, "she wasn't buried in a cemetery with a metal coffin or gravestone she was buried on our property upstate without any casket and had a rock instead of a gravestone.

The last person i interviewed was my friend dean. I have known dean for 16 years but this topic has never came up. I asked dean what he knew about care of the dead. He told me that he knew about cremation and burials and was very familiar with mortuary's. hearing that i wanted to know how he came about knowing about them, maybe his answer was similar to my sister's. He told me he watches a lot of CSI and Law and Order. He said that although he hasn't had many close experiences regarding care of the dead that he feels he knows a lot about it. I asked if he feels that the entertainment industry represents care of the dead well, to which he responded that it doesn't represent it well because they leave a lot of things out.


I wanted to focus my questions surrounding there thoughts on care of the dead represented in the entertainment industry. I did this because i felt it is something we all can say we have some sort of connection to. During the interview i noticed that all of them got there general ideas of care of the dead from television, Shows like Law and Order depict this care for the dead in almost every episode. This lead me to think about how we base our own knowledge on care of the dead based on what we see on T.V.? which also begs the question is this a good or bad thing? Do our thoughts and ideas that come from T.V, the internet, and video games give us a good platform to start off when going deeper into this unit or does it stop us from growing as we do?

HW 46 - Initial Thoughts on the Care of the Dead

Growing up I have been lucky enough (or not depending on your interpretation) to have never been to a funeral or even seen a dead body. That being the case I have never even had a conversation with my parents about the topic, so telling you how I’ve been taught to think about death is impossible. Maybe because it is a scary subject to bring up? Some people I know think talking about death will cause it. When you think about it there are a lot of superstitions surrounding death, the superstition really depends on the culture. When I think of death and the care of the dead I tend to think about mortuaries and murder because of the fact that today society popularizes the subject with shows like Law and Order and Criminal Minds.


The topic I really want to explore this unit is how ancient cultures cared for the dead specifically Ancient Greek vs. Roman. These two cultures are very similar and I would like to know if they have similar rituals when caring for the dead. Another topic I would like to focus on is superstitions regarding death (especially ones in our culture) and also how these superstitions affect our rituals? This topic then begs the question what rituals surrounding the care of the dead are there? On that note I can't seem to think of any obvious nightmarish atrocities surrounding care of the dead. What is so nightmarish about care of the dead? And is what’s weird about the care of the dead (considering the fact that we are going to be exploring what’s normal about it and exposing it as weird)?

HW 45 - Reply to Other Peoples' Comments

Response to comments:

Abdul, Ben, Sarah, and Andy thank you for commenting on my blog. In general i felt your comments revealed that the aspect you were all particularly fond of was our interview of the students from hunter. We had actually interviewed multiple others who were not willing to share their thoughts on camera so we began to target groups that seemed more relaxed and excited. The first group was a normal group of friends who later turned out to be pre-nursing students which worked in our favor in terms of revealing what those who want to become professionals in the field, actually knew about it. The second group we interviewed were actually grad students doing there own video project which we ended up having to be in if we wanted them in ours.

The suggestions you all made will definitely be taken into account if i ever do another video project. Abdul educating people or telling them what to use to educate themselves regarding this topic is a terrific suggestion and Ben i will definitely try harder to get the information from the hospital if i do this same project again. Andy and Sarah, the sound was obviously not incredible ill try my best to use a different camera or get a microphone so that the sound quality is better next time.

Thanks again for commenting, much appreciated.

HW 44 - Comments on Other People's Projects

To Devin,

Your project focused on the cutting of the umbilical cord, which includes, when to cut it (do doctors cut it too early).

The one aspect of this project that I truly valued was way you divided up the information at the beginning (anesthesia, convenience, and technology) although those were the shortest parts of your project I found them to be organized in a way where I enjoyed them the most.

The reason why this project matters to me is the fact that this could possibly affect my future decision when having a child. I am now definitely more likely to tell the doctor to wait a second before he cuts it. I will also be telling my friends (those who don't go to SOF) and family to check out this blog and to learn what i have.

The only suggestion I would make is to organize the second half a little better I felt it was a bit out of place although it was still a great project.


To Andy,

Your essay is a look into the cover-up that is in the movie The Business of Being Born. I found this essay to be very well written, this cover up is one I did not notice until you wrote about it. There is one specific line that I particularly found interesting which was where you analyze Muhlhahn’s interview, "Although Abby’s baby boy arrives safely, the physician says that Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) occurred. Do you want to talk about that? In the film it appears like the baby was starving, everybody missed it, and the doctor saved the day. But the situation was misconstrued because of a critical detail that was lost during the emergency transfer. The physician who received the transfer was under the impression that the baby was 40 weeks. Abby’s baby was actually born at 35 ½ weeks. A 3 lbs, 5 ounces baby at 40 weeks would have been much more serious than at 35 ½ weeks" I felt that here she began to make excuses almost as if deflecting the blame onto the viewer for not knowing this information. Doing research on my own I discovered the same thing as you. at 35.5 weeks a 3 Ib and 5 ounce baby is very small and way off the growth curve which makes me question some of the other information in the movie, not for any particular reason except for the fact Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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at we were mislead here so there is a chance we were also mislead somewhere else.

Overall this paper was written very well. The only bit of constructive criticism is to start off the essay with a statistic rather than someone’s opinion because of the fact if someone not in our class who was reading this may be uninterested in Ina May’s opinion on the movie (since they don’t know who she is) however I think an interesting statistic on birth (specifically "Intra-Uterine Growth Restriction" (IUGR)) would be more compelling to a reader. Also the way you concluded the essay was especially good. The line “I also conclude that we must critically investigate the claims and evidence of ESPECIALLY the people we most agree with, in order to avoid entrapment in dishonest and/or oversimplified representations of our situation.” Is something I feel is important too; the best way to avoid a situation where someone else challenges you on your information is to challenge the information yourself.


To Abdul,

It seems that your project was a deeper look into the industrial nightmarish atrocities that surrounds pregnancy and birth.

One particular aspect I liked about your project was this look into both statistical information and historical information. This brings not only a general look onto the subject but also analyzes how we have evolved and how are opinions/practices have changed regarding the subject.

This project definitely matters to me, mainly because it has helped solidify the information I had learned in class. Knowing that a fellow classmate who has put hours of time into researching the subject discovered generally the same thing as the information we received in class allows me to be more confident in it.

The only suggestion I would make is to focus on a single aspect. It seemed that your project might have been a bit broad. Perhaps focusing on maybe cost, or historical information (although it seemed you mainly leaded towards cost) would have made this project a bit better. However this project was still well written and a joy to read. GREAT WORK!!

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From Andy:


Sharif,

Hilarious that you went to a college and interviewed those people and asked them those questions. Your interpersonal skills seem to have been working well, since you got them to talk at length on camera. Its easier when its two people, so they don't think you're a lone crazy.

You can hear for yourself here that the main problem with amateur film is the audio.

Why the baby picture at the end?


From Abdul:

For Sharif( Classmate):
Shairf it seems as though your post was about gathering information about people's understanding of birth. You really seemed passionate about this topic since you took the time out to venture out into the city and figure out what the common people knew regarding the topic. Since the common people are the majority of people in the city it's important that they understand birth and be knowledgeable about it.

One aspect of your post that I particularly valued was the fact that you used your connections(college now class id card) to get into Hunter College to find out what people who are seeking more knowledge, and are supposedly more educated than the average citizen know about birth. It's a very creative idea I don't think many more people thought of going to a decent college in the city and interviewing regular students, as well as pre-nursing students. Your elevator speech in class really made me want to go to your blog and watch these interviews.

A reason why I think your project matters is because the common people are the majority of people that are affected by birth. It's most important for them to be educated and knowledgeable about such an important aspect of life that many people involve themselves in. These people need to be prepared for for brith and I really think by you going to Hunter College and investigating people's opinions, you tried to really see what's in people's minds. Since were both enrolled in a Psychology class in Hunter, I think that helped with your drive to uncover what was in the Hunter student's heads.

I would have appreciated more from you on this topic.Although your blog was solid and much better than mines, I think if you would have maybe tried to educate people at Hunter more after you found out how little they knew. Perhaps posting fliers with some knowledge we learned from the unit on the bulletin boards on some of the floors, or just handing them out to students would have helped. If that wasn't possible you could have had sheets that told the Hunter students how to educated themselves better by having the names of the books we read this unit, or even the name of the movie we all watched. Clearly you didn't need to do any of this since your blog and elevator speech were solid, but there just suggestions. Nicely done Sharif I'm very proud of your work here.

From Ben:

For your project, I believe that you intended to explore how much knowledge people had on the topic of hospital births and what their impressions were. You explored to different hospitals to see how they handled birth, as well as interviewing multiple students at Hunter College.

This topic is extremely important to me, and it should be to everyone else as well. Understanding the procedures of hospitals is essential in the woman's decision to either have a hospital birth or go with a midwife instead. It is also important to be aware of the general public's understanding of a topic like this, so one can observe what knowledge people still need to acquire in order to take an educated stance on the matter.

I think you guys did an amazing job making that video! The fact that you were able to get all those students to talk to you for such a long time is impressive in itself, but your choice of questions in the interview provided very informative answers. The effort you put into this project was clear, and it showed through the observations you made in the hospitals.

It would have been nice if you had been able to get the necessary information out of the hospital staff, but nevertheless, great job!

HW 42 - Pregnancy & birth culminating project

Video Link Here ------->  http://vimeo.com/22095843



When brainstorming ideas for this project I initially wanted to do a film on the way hospitals handle their pregnant patients from c-section rates to how and when they use epidurals. However we decided that the topic was to broad and was honestly something you could look up online. I wanted this project to connect with the people watching it and mean something so I decided that the topic/main idea of the film would be what are perspectives of the common people and how is pregnancy and birth represented in hospitals. Lucas and I decided to visit Beth Israel hospital first the past Sunday, when we got there we noticed that at first they were friendly, the security guard obviously told us we couldn't go up but was gave us the number for the labor and delivery floor. We called up and were invited to talk with members of the staff. However when we got upstairs we began to start filming and were almost immediately avoided, the same people we were invited to talk to were told by a superior to completely avoid us stating that they were busy and had no time (when they clearly were not).

We decided that the next best move would be for us to go to Roosevelt hospital and see how they would react to us attempting to interview them. When we got there we were not allowed to film but they gave us a phone number that we could call to speak to the head nurse. We called multiple times but unfortunately we were never contacted back even after leaving several messages. When there we noticed that there were many similarities between Beth Israel and Roosevelt, for example they had the exact same logo (except for the name) we discovered this was because they were both owned by an umbrella corporation called Continuum Health Partners. We made the assumption that because they are both owned by this corporation that the procedures that they have when processing these pregnant women (funny how I said processing as if they were pieces of meat). However there were many differences, for example Roosevelt hospital seemed directed towards the wealthy with their private rooms and gourmet chefs (that's if you had the money) while Beth Israel seemed directed more at the common people because of the fact that it didn’t have that many luxuries.

Wednesday we went to Hunter College and decided to interview college students. We did this because college students are supposed to be the part of society that is constantly craving knowledge and to be the ones who already have an impressive amount of knowledge. We located a group of students first and found out that a majority of them were born c-section; we continued the interview only to find that their knowledge on the subject was similar to ours at the beginning of the unit. What is even more surprising is that 3 of them were pre-nursing students and were interested in going into the field of obstetrics and gynecology yet didn't know that much about it.

I felt that this project was very important to grasp a deeper understanding of the general’s public thoughts and knowledge of the subject. Although some knew more than others on the subject in general the knowledge on the subject was not so vast, which raises the question are we coming into this experience without the proper amount of knowledge making us unprepared for it? and Do we need to know about birth before going through the process? I think that we do go through this process unprepared and without the right amount of knowledge however I personally think we only need a little bit of knowledge on the subject because without a bit of knowledge we essentially allow the midwife or ob/gyn to make those decisions for us making them in charge of your process.