Comments on: Slow News Day

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 03:00:53 +0000

you’d see that this was a moment of levity that even included Michelle, notwithstanding her incidental serious expression directed off-camera

thanks for pointing that out, steve. i wouldn’t have watched the video otherwise.

and i love stella’s idea of a proper funeral.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 21:37:10 +0000

In reply to Steve Bates.

Different cultures have different rituals and they can clash. I’m more in the celebration of life tradition, which mandates essentially a gathering of friends telling their best personal memories of the deceased, which are often hilarious, because people sometimes have fun during their lives. Celebrations of life usually include food and drink to ease people.

The only real immortality is in the memories of people who knew you. The historians usually get it wrong, and after a while they start to make things up.

Death rituals are for the living, the dead are beyond caring.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 16:46:22 +0000

Far be it from me to actually agree with at least two CNN talking heads, but if you watched the video rather than studying the still pics, you’d see that this was a moment of levity that even included Michelle, notwithstanding her incidental serious expression directed off-camera. As to levity at a “funeral,” it wasn’t a funeral; it was more like a wake, a celebration… South Africa is far from the only culture that has that custom. Look at New Orleans jazz bands: solemn on the way to the grave site, jazzing like crazy on the way back.

Stella has a request for her own funeral: in front of the gathering is an urn labeled “That Reminds Me of a Joke”; it’s filled with slips of paper each containing a joke, from which each attendee draws one and reads it. For someone with a sense of humor as rich as Stella’s, it would be the perfect farewell.