Rescued by the Word

Fri, 21 Jul 2000 19:00:00 +0000

I can always tell when I haven't been getting enough. My ears begin to ache with the low din of disorder and the noisome burdens of the Information Age begin to overwhelm and everything begins to sound like everything else. Every message comes flashing in neon or blurting out cautions or blinking some warning in governmentese or proclaiming in the capitalized consumer-speak of the Mall or Main Street -- the DEEP DISCOUNTS or SEMI-ANNUAL THREE DAY SALE or BARGAINS GALORE! Or proffers, in fashionable hyperbole, a Cure for What Ails or The Voice of God or a Miracle Drug or a Diet of the Stars.

And it is a sure sign, when the flat voice itemizing my voicemail options, and the one giving seat-belt buckling instructions, and the one reciting the daily specials all begin to sound like the one on the evening news and the one on the phone peddling solar heat and the one in the pulpit and behind the bar and in the next seat and there in the headlines of the daily paper and there in the primary colors on T-shirts and junk mail and bumper stickers.

Funerals 'R' Us

Wed, 29 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Stories by Salon News and others that attempt to connect the dots in unflattering ways between George W. Bush and funeral home mogul Robert Waltrip have been making the rounds of funeral directors' fax machines all over the country. The stories contain unsavory implications about state employees, depositions, big-bucks campaign donations and the good ol' boys. Does anyone else hear an echo here?

Like most of our fellow Americans, we funeral directors know very little about Bush beyond, of course, his huge campaign war chest, the unstoppable juggernaut of his candidacy and the apparent inevitability of his nomination. Since most of us are small-business types with Republican tendencies and hometown duties, we are glad that the media and the politicos are taking care of matters such as these for people such as us.

But Waltrip of Service Corporation International in Houston, is no stranger to us. He and SCI are to funeral service what McDonald's is to the local diner: a multinational mergers-and-acquisitions firm that has bought up funeral homes and cemeteries on five continents, including something like one in five here in the good old USA, where good old George W. will maybe be president if everything goes according to plan.

Salon.com > Thomas Lynch

Rescued by the Word

Funerals 'R' Us