Another cemetery scandal has been unearthed (ha!), this time near Chicago, Illinois. Police are accusing some unnamed workers of digging up over 300 bodies in graves nobody visited, dumping the remains and reselling the plots for personal profit.
It’s ghoulish, but what’s the point? Sure, there’s the aspect where the business end was cheating the owners out of their coinage, but did it matter where these dead people were forgotten? Family members weren’t reporting the disappearances, history didn’t care about them … who cares if they become bean-bag chair filler?
(In fact, what may be the few undisturbed graves were those of African-American civil rights pioneers: people who won’t be forgotten for some time.)
So, let’s save the outrage, and maybe reevaluate our country’s obsession with immortalization after death. It’s–clearly–not immortal, and you ain’t no pharaoh. Or, if you’re really worried, keep your dead at home.