New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | December 31, 2004

Jacob Sullum on the effort to exhume the right to fair competition.

Comments

|12.31.04 @ 2:43PM|#

Just as taking the bus is the next best thing to walking, becoming a med school cadaver is the next best thing to stuffing oneself down a garbage disposal.
And for those of you interested in not just doing something, but standing (lying) there, I happened to be at a secular service recently for cadavers, and heard glowing testimonials from young doctors about how the cadaver is the tutor of the team.
(I always meant to be a tutor.)

|12.31.04 @ 3:25PM|#

Fah! Just render my dead carcass down for fertilizer. It would be more useful that way than let it go to waste, rotting away in a overpriced wooden box.

|12.31.04 @ 4:28PM|#

I always thought a viking funeral would be cool. Does anyone know about the legality of that?

|12.31.04 @ 5:04PM|#

When I die, I would just like my body to be loaded onto a powerful catapult (specifically, a medieval-style siege trebuchet) and flung in a random direction.

|12.31.04 @ 5:11PM|#

I want to be stuffed.

|12.31.04 @ 5:12PM|#

"I always thought a viking funeral would be cool. Does anyone know about the legality of that?"

I'm pretty sure you need a permit from the viking historical commission (to make sure it is historically accurate), an environmental impact statement (to make sure your burning doesn't let off any toxic fumes or other harmful byproducts), and the person in charge and selling you the funeral pyre has to be licensed by the state viking funeral commission (to protect your relatives who pay for the service from being exploited by viking impersonators).

|12.31.04 @ 7:30PM|#

Great, Stevo Darkly, your will will be the cause of putting someone's eye out. I hope they sue your estate.

And "Hagar the Horrible" Matt,
Hey, just be a cadaver, man!

"Hello," help us intervene with Matt.

|1.1.05 @ 8:45AM|#

You can always go the Martian route and let your friends and family eat your body. It would be wasteful to do otherwise.

|1.1.05 @ 3:39PM|#

Ruthless

When a friend of my mother looked into donating her late husband's remains to the Univ of Fla Med School she found that the costs of arranging transportation and the school's processing costs (paid by the donor) far exceeded the cost of the simple Quaker memorial and cremation she planned. They had started looking into it while he was dying of a disease that they thought researchers might be interested in.

My aunt in south New Jersey found the same thing when she was trying to pre-plan for herself and my uncle.

|1.1.05 @ 3:59PM|#

"Will there be any expenses to my family or estate for donating my body to the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine? Yes. The only expense which must be paid by the next-of-kin or the estate of the deceased is for transportation, by either a funeral home or a private ambulance service, to the College of Medicine. We will assume all costs for embalming, storage, cremation, and final disposition of the remains of either burial at Spring Grove Cemetery or return of cremains to the family."

Warren|1.1.05 @ 6:59PM|#

If I had my druthers, I'd have my corpse be donated to the vultures and maggots.

No question, licensing requirements for casket sales should be abolished.

|1.2.05 @ 6:54PM|#

Ruthless,

Why don't they just let you drop off the cadaver at the information booth?

Booth Attendant: Hello sir, how may I help you?

Driver: I'm just donating a dead body to the medical school.

Attendant: All right, just sign this donation form and I'll put it in my...

Cadaver: I'm not dead.

Attendant: What's that?

Driver: Nothing, here's your form.

Cadaver: I'm not dead!

Attendant: He says he's not dead.

Driver: He is.

Cadaver: No I'm not!

Attendant: He isn't!

Driver: Well, he will be soon, he's been very ill...

Cadaver: I'm getting better.

Driver: No you're not, you're going to be stone dead in a moment.

Attendant: I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.

Driver: Can I wait around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.

Attendant: We're about to close.

Driver: When's the next drop off day?

Attendant: Thursday.

Cadaver: I think I'll go for a walk.

Driver: You're not fooling anyone, you know. (to attendant) Look, isn't there something you can do?

Cadaver: I feel happy, I feel happy, I feel *ugh*

Driver: Ah, thank you very much.

Attendant: Not at all. See you Thursday.

|1.2.05 @ 8:32PM|#

crimethink,
What you said almost caused me to bust a gut. So much so, I shared it with the little wifey. Big mistake.
The cadaver in question in my foregoing was her mother.

What can I say?
I'm married to a person who thinks The Weekly Standard is the bees' knees.

|1.2.05 @ 9:18PM|#

Ruthless,

Sorry 'bout that. I hate to get a man in trouble... ;-)

Of course, I don't deserve the credit. For those here who don't already know, that little skit was based on, rather, lifted almost word-for-word from, a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.