The Business of Death and Dying

Who Owns Your Death?

Parents create life, and tend to control the start of it. But who fundamentally controls the end? With suicide being against many secular and moral codes, and physician-assisted suicide only making recent inroads into the dying equation, we consider: Who owns your death?

A Mortician for the YouTube Generation

We’re not supposed to laugh about death. It’s a serious matter. Yet Caitlin Doughty thinks humor is the key to making our own mortality more palatable. Meet the young mortician and YouTube sensation who’s on a mission to make us face our impending doom with a unique combination of expertise and wackiness. Through her YouTube channel, “Ask a Mortician,” Doughty manages the unimaginable: making millions smile at the fact that one day everything they love will perish.

Funeral Selfies: A 21st-Century Way to Grieve

What’s the worst thing you can do at a funeral? Dress inappropriately? Bring a snack or a date? Forget to silence your phone? OK, how about snapping a selfie and posting it online? If you are unfamiliar with the concept of the #funeralselfie, this may come as a shock. But it’s becoming a common practice among the younger generation, and some death professionals view it as putting a 21st-century face on grief.

The Good Side of Death

Believe it or not, the bubonic plague, which killed some 25 million across Europe during the 14th century, had an upside. Such an extreme case of natural selection might have actually been good for human evolution. Also, the resulting severe worker shortages shifted power to the labor pool, thereby helping undermine the feudal system. And this ghastly period might still provide lessons about genetics and fighting disease.

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