Life in the Garden

My prediction that Amy Winehouse would be dead by the end of the year didn’t play out. Word is that wino has hired a trainer and joined the Virgin Active Gym in London. Work it girl.

Recently the Muslim Council of India sent an important message to the world’s Muslims. It asked one of the country’s largest Muslim graveyards, Marine Lines Bada Qabrastan, where unclaimed bodies are often interred, to deny burial rites to the nine men who died after terrorizing Mumbai. Refusal to bury the terrorists in a Muslim cemetery signifies not just that terrorist attacks are un-Islamic, a contention often heard, but that their perpetrators become, by carrying out these acts, non-Muslim. “They cannot be Muslims or followers of Islam,” declared Muslim Council President Ibrahim Tai, “so they cannot have a final resting place anywhere on sacred Mother India.”

The question then arises, what should India do with the dead bodies?

Cremating the dead and scattering the ashes in international waters, as Israel did after executing Adolf Eichmann in 1962, is the best option. Because Islamic law opposes cremation for Muslims, who believe in the physical resurrection of the body, incineration alone would signify a non-Muslim way of disposing of the dead.

Continue reading Leor Halevi, professor of history, Vanderbilt University:

OVERHEARD AT THE OFFICE:

Earlier this week I overheard a colleague in all seriousness, comment on an event being “ironical”.

THE END IS NEAR:

Despite feeling the end of year crunch, 2008 has been a bright year for Hall Enterprises. It gives me hope.

Earlier this year we had a few set-backs with ice and flooding and twisters at World Headquarters, and we are wrapping up the Urn Garden advertising experiment using the blog as a marketing tool. No facebook or twitter. No time.

I’m excited about the possibilities that word press offers, I’m grateful to have a technical adviser that will bail me out if needed. Now, it’s just finding the precious time.

On average, it takes me a couple of hours to write a post. It’s getting better, and it helps when I’m organized. A work in progress. I’m still unsure about mixing business and personal posts, although the personal posts seem to get more comments. Really though, it’s about the families we serve and the adventure of selling the product that no one want to buy.

We’ve in the middle of relocating the warehouse, which was one of the goals of 2008. This was our sixth move in four years. I see one more in the future.

We hit the projected sales goal for 2008.

The business paid for the intern’s education.

I Hate Bank of America: Paid off!

We made some headway on a side project that will launch in 2009.

On a personal note, I did learn that not only should you not discuss politics at work, you shouldn’t comment in the comfort of your own home. Just recently, I’ve realized the toll that the election took on my marriage.

All summer I looked for rainbows and unicorns, and while I never actually saw one….I’m told they will appear. It might be a few years.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you good luck in 2009!

This might be the first Christmas that liquor did not touch these lips. However, it’s been non-stop cheese and sugar consumption in the garden. We’ll be back to regular programming after a quick detox.

Wishing you a bright and prosperous New Year.

Being buried with a cell phone is the second most requested item to be placed in a loved one’s casket, immediately after a request to be cremated with a pet’s ashes.

“We had a young man die this past summer and they put his cell phone in the casket for the viewing and it rang constantly,” says Frank Perman, of Frank R. Perman Funeral Home, Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa. “It was turned to silent, but you could see the phone light up so you knew people were calling. And they were leaving messages.

THE NEW TAPS:

“Some people will call the deceased just as they’re lowering the coffin into the ground,” he says. “It’ll be prearranged and you’ll hear a faint ring.

Cell phones are the most popular, but I-Pods and Game Boys are also going to the grave.

Funeral professionals are only too happy to comply these days, as long as people don’t try to cremate gadgets along with anyone’s remains.

“You can’t cremate any kind of electronic device like a cell phone or hearing aid or pacemaker,the battery will explode. If a family wants the cell phone with a person who’s being cremated, I’ll put it in the urn afterwards.”

Continue reading….

*according to a survey of 100,000 people last year by the British charity Age Concern (sort of the AARP of England)

As Ed and I were having another cocktail, I asked James what he was looking at. “That Celebrate Life sticker, John John. You guys should do that.”

John Lee

This magnet inspires me.

The bright yellow flower, (again with the power of flowers) sprang from events of the turbulent 60′s, assassinations, war, and the worry of a son in the jungle, “My Dad had a bunch of flower stickers printed with the slogan “Celebrate Life” on them as a fund raiser for the Diocese, Anyhow, those stickers ended up in a whole bunch of places, not just on the back of automobiles.”

“A friend had a 1964 VW Convertible and we put stickers all over that bug.” said Jim Lee.

“When I first got the bus in 1992 or 1993 we started putting bumper stickers from places we’d been on the inside roof of the bus. It is pretty well full now. My Dad gave me the last ‘Celebrate Life sticker’ to put inside the bus, where it remains to this day.”

Last original CL sticker

Last July, when John Lee returned to the Ozarks for his mother’s memorial service, he spotted the sticker on Mom’s Last Bus Ride, and snapped the moment.

Later, as John’s nephew was scrolling through Jon’s blog, he spotted the Celebrate Life flower on the ceiling of the bus and suggested magnets instead of stickers. “Ed and I looked at each other…we printed them up in magnet form and I have been spending my spare time selling them to beach stores, churches, health food stores, outdoor outfitters, and basically any place else I can think of.”

Funeral homes could build a whole package around this theme and make a powerful statement tooling around town.

Contact John Lee for more information.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

Bob Lee, a decorated World War II veteran who fought in the great battle of Pismo Beach, Bob was in the newspaper and publishing business all his life. A prolific reader and thinker, Bob authored numerous books, articles and pamphlets. He was an editor and publisher for The Queen’s Work, a Jesuit publishing house and Ligouri Publications, a Redemptorist publishing house. He was the founding editor of The Mirror, the Catholic newspaper for the diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.

Tip to longroof and busplunge

Or the air conditioner.

It’s the morning rush in the hood and the teenagers are getting it sideways on their way to school. Who am I to talk, I was on the downhill slide last night and skidded right past my turn.

At least I didn’t bite the curb.

Lead-foot moved his car only to reveal another spin out. One of the neighbors stepped out wearing her pink cowgirl pajamas and started snapping pix.

Today’s tip for better living: Ease Off the Gas