Dance a Jig On Your Grave

True or false:  Per the real artist Shea Hembrey, his created artists Micah Abernathy and Bud Holland "wanting to create a joyous practice linked with death they (Abernathy and Holland) are working to establish dig jigs in a few rural Tennessee communities.  A dig jig is set on a milestone birthday or wedding anniversary for the person or couple to dance on the actual grave where they'll eventually be buried.  Friends and family gather to watch them dance on this spot."  Is this true or false?  Do you like the idea?  Will it take?  Why not do it if you own the grave(s) and your body will be spending eternity there?

Who's to Blame for 2010 Upper Big Branch Mining Disaster?

29 miners died in the above disaster.  Massey Energy (now owned by Alpha Natural Resources) was the owner of the mine.  Alpha settled with the Justice Department, for $209 million in fines and restitution, to avoid prosecution for the disaster.  The criminal investigation of top officials of Massey Energy must continue as they systematically, intentionally and aggressively worked to avoid safety compliance and to thwart regulators.  If Massey had complied with mining regulations in the first place not one miner would have died!  Lies were told and records were destroyed.  More than a dozen of Massey's highest officers have all taken the 5th!  Why?  They should all be held accountable (and they should make themselves accountable).  Are these executives not embarrassed?  Are they not humbled?  How can they live with themselves?  They and their behavior are corrupt.  Corporate America at its finest once again.  These executives have paid fines with the corporate checkbook, with shareholder's money.

Formula 1 Driver Death Tragedies

Formula 1 car road racing in Europe from the 1940's into the late 1960s was fast, furious, competitive, violent and often calamitous.  F1 racing then was extremely popular in Europe, and winning races was very prestigious for racers.  For about 20 years almost 1 driver died per race on average.  Funerals were common.  On the straightaways speeds could hit 250 miles per hour.  The drivers lived on the edge.  They loved what they did.  They tried hard to be in "the zone", that space where they can see ahead and react well to all of the other drivers.  Racers looked for "the limit" also, the theoretical speed where the car is on the verge of spinning out of control.  It's a gut feeling.  Drivers were addicted to "a nodding acquaintance with death."  Many expected to die on the track.

Most courses then had no protective barriers for spectators.  In the 1955 Le Mans race a Mercedes car crashed and killed 80 spectators.  In the race for the Formula 1 championship in 1961 at the Italian Grand Prix a car crash killed 14 spectators and 2 drivers.

Specks in Time

In 1977 the unmanned probes Voyagers I and II were launched to explore Jupiter and Saturn.  The completed their missions.  And they are still alive and going, farther and farther from the Earth, and transmitting interstellar space data.  They are close to leaving our Milky Way.  Their data transmission batteries should last another 14 years roughly.  After that the Voyagers will keep moving away from the Earth.   Potentially they could travel for BILLIONS of years!  In about 5 Billion years our Sun will consume the Earth and life will end.   (We'll see.  Man can be very inventive.)   So the Voyagers could outlive us, and perhaps if there is intelligent life elsewhere and they find a Voyager there is information available on board about us and the Earth to be decoded.  The information includes music, images, and greetings in hundreds of dialects.  (Thanks to Peter Krauss for the above.  He writes:   "The universe will go on quite nicely with or without us." and "...perhaps giving the impression (from the information mentioned above) that we knew we were lucky to exist for a brief time on this cosmic speck, instead of suffering under the solipsistic notion that we somehow reigned supreme in a universe created for us."

Strange but Unfortunately True Life and Death Stories

A woman in England's partner grew bored with her.  So he and a friend tasered her.  They bound her hands, feet and mouth with tape.  Then they put her in a long cardboard box which they then buried in a shallow grave.  They left her there to die.  She started cutting away at the tape with her engagement ring.  She was successful in getting rid of the tape.  In all it took her an hour to undo the tape and to rip through the cardboard and dig her way out.  Covered in dirt she ran to a nearby road, flagged down a car, and then went to the authorities.  Ah love.

Funny/Odd Death Thoughts That Happen to be Real

The sign reads:  "Ray Cemetery, The End of the Road."

Another sign elsewhere reads:  "Turn Left Ahead for Cemetery/Dump."

In the Bronx, NY there is a motorcycle biker club, the Ching-a-Ling Nomads.  They honor their dead members in their signature tradition of of spitting beer on the graves of deceased Nomads.

Insurers Owe Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to the Beneficiaries of Deceased Customers' Life-Insurance Policies

Well I'll be!  Big corporate malfeasance once again.  I can't believe it but I should know better.  This is scary stuff.    Many of the largest life insurance companies in the country have not paid out death claims on deceased customers' life insurance policies to beneficiaries.  The way the system works now, per life insurance contracts, the beneficiary is supposed to notify the insurance company that the policy holder has died.  But many people/survivors/beneficiaries, mostly low-income, don't even know that the deceased had a life insurance policy.  So the  insurance company sits on the proceeds and gets to keep them if no one claims the money.  The companies use a Social Security death database when it's been beneficial to them, such as cutting off retirement-income checks.  Hmmmm.  They'll go out of their way to benefit themselves but not their customers.   What a surprise!  So state regulators have recently started forcing life insurance companies to use the death database to pay out to beneficiaries.  Will there be penalties, fines and settlement agreements?  Should there be?  So far most of the minimal number of cases settled have resulted in the insurance companies denying wrongdoing as part of the settlement.  Big companies never seem to have a sense of shame.  Why not get them to admit to wrongdoing and then have them pay out a whole lot more money in penalties and fines.  Big companies are slapped on the wrist and executives laugh all the way to the bank.