'Splain this ....
I drastically changed my schedule so I can have Thursdays off for doctor appointments, car maintenance, and such, and the first available time with my doctor is a Friday.
Why do people take cameras (or camera phones) to funerals?
Japan's obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.When I finally get a 30Gig iPod the annual Pepsi Free iTunes contest isn't run. Well, at least my employer just gave me 4 free downloads. With any luck, they'll give me the iTunes Razr phone, too.
"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
At one ceremony several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.
"I'm sure the deceased would never want their faces photographed," she said. But
others called it a form of a memento in the modern age.
"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator
Toru Takeda told the paper.
