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The video below shows “American tacky” in all its glory. A man who loved Burger King dies and his family honors him by taking the funeral procession through the Burger King “drive thru.” Free Burgers for all on the way to the Cemetery, hearse and all.I’ve seen worse, I have to admit. Probably at the top of the list is and “Funeral Home Drive- thru” where the deceased is actually on display in a window. No need to get out of your car and actually visit the family. No, that’s too much trouble and lacks the kind of convenience we...

Chicago police to increase security at gang funerals Updated: Dec 05, 2012 9:42 PM CST By Craig Wall, FOX 32 News reporter CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Rahm Emanuel announced Wednesday that gang funerals in Chicago will start to be treated like "gang events," including increased police presence, pat-downs, and searches outside of funeral homes and churches. "Where there's a gang funeral — given that they have shown no respect for a place of worship — we're gonna change how they're gonna operate. The Police Department is gonna change the way they deal with gang funerals," the mayor said.

As the funeral procession headed through Chicago's Far Southwest Side, mourners weaved in and out of traffic, leaned out of car windows as they sang to music blaring from their stereos and flashed gang signs, a video on YouTube showed. These rowdy processions for slain street gang members have upset many residents of Mount Greenwood and Beverly, who say they create a public safety problem. There have even been reports of shots fired, police say. Neighbors want a number of cemeteries in the area as well as funeral homes to take more responsibility for the mayhem, but the businesses say...

After an inquiry by U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the Pentagon is reversing a decision to limit the Fort Snelling Memorial Rifle Squad’s access to the ceremonial rifles they use for military burials. And to ensure other veterans don’t face similar red tape, Kline also is introducing legislation that will enable the Army to loan or donate excess rifles to eligible organizations – including local chapters of the American Legion and VFW. The move comes after members of the Rifle Squad complained to Kline, a retired Marine Colonel, that the Army wanted to recoup a number of their vintage ceremonial...

When it comes to the feminist version of history (sorry — herstory!), it’s hurrah for Gloria Steinem. She started a magazine nobody ever read. And cheers for Billie Jean King, the tennis player who proved a young professional athlete could beat a 55-year-old slob. Give it up for Indira Gandhi and Hillary Clinton, who proved that you could sweep into power on the coattails of your dad or husband, and by all means let us celebrate Oprah Winfrey, who proved that you could spin mystical mumbo-jumbo, airy empowerment talk and perpetual wounded victimhood into a billion-dollar sisterhood racket. What about...

Question on Cremation. Does the Bible say anything about it? Is it forbidden?

After some 60,000 burials over the past three decades, the veterans on the Fort Snelling Memorial Rifle Squad have gotten used to their World War I vintage Springfield 03 bolt action rifles. Now the Army wants to replace them with a newer model. But it won't be without a fight. "What the heck is the problem?" said Tom Mullon, a 74-year-old Vietnam War-era veteran and 12-year volunteer for the squad, which fires off three rifle volleys followed by taps at veterans' burials. "The whole squad is irked about it. We're doing a job for the Army, and we don't cost...

A weakened economy has spurred Americans to revamp their household budgets from the ground up – even in the afterlife. With the average cost of a typical burial service hovering around the $10,000 mark, cremation has become the go-to burial practice for more than 41 percent of American deaths, The New York Times' Kevin Sack reports. There are a number of factors that could be behind the spike in cremations, with budget restraints landing at the top of the list. According to the National Cremation Research Council, crematory services cost a little more than $1,100 on average – a fraction...

The dead -- and funerals for them -- figured heavy into the history of Mormon theology. Did you know that… …two of the most distinctive Mormon doctrines were first revealed at a location where the focus was on the dead? …two teachings that serve as the “heart” of the Mormon version of their “gospel?” …and that these two doctrines are not taught in the Book of Mormon? …despite the reality that another Mormon “scripture” – Doctrines & Covenants – repeatedly claims that “the Book of Mormon…contains…the fulness of the gospel” (20:8-9) – Why would a book touted to proclaim "the...

<p>America’s heroes can once again be laid to rest with appropriate religious services. A federal court last month approved a consent decree in which the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) agreed to drop its ban on prayer and the mention of “God” during funerals and other events at national cemeteries.</p>

Today I was incensed at the conclusion of a traditional Serbian-Orthodox funeral for my beloved 85 year old uncle, Daniel Martich, who proudly served in the US Army during The Korean Conflict. During the committal service at a Pittsburgh cemetery the local military detachment performed their ritual, then folded and presented the American Flag to my aunt. As I'm sure you have witnessed during military funerals, a soldier bends to one knee and recites a scripted message to a surviving relative that begins 'On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation, I wish to present...

A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial "alkaline hydrolysis" unit at a Florida funeral home. The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed as a green alternative to cremation and works by dissolving the body in heated alkaline water. The facility has been installed at the Anderson-McQueen funeral home in St Petersburg, and will be used for the first time in the coming weeks. It is hoped other units will follow in the US, Canada and Europe. The makers claim the process produces a third less greenhouse gas than cremation, uses a seventh of the energy, and allows for the...

In the past, the state has reserved about $13 million to help pay for an estimated 12,000 funerals for individuals who relied on public aid. Participating funeral homes were alloted $1,100 for funerals and $552 for the burial. (snip) "Now the only viable option --- I don't mean to make light of it -- is to leave the body at the medical examiner office," Szykowny said. "After 60 to 90 days they'll take the body to what's called a potter's field and bury it in a numbered grave."

A Texas lawmaker is calling for a congressional investigation of the Houston National Cemetery after he went undercover and determined that cemetery officials are still preventing Christian prayers at the funerals of military veterans. “The Obama administration continues to try to prevent the word ‘God’ from being used at the funerals of our heroes,” said. Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas). “It’s unacceptable and I’m going to put a stop to it as fast as humanly possible,” Culberson told Fox News Radio. He attended a burial service at the cemetery undercover on July 8, when he says he witnessed volunteer members of...

January 24, 2011 For Funerals Too Far, Mourners Gather on the Web By LAURA M. HOLSON In an age of commemorating birthdays, weddings and anniversaries on Facebook and Twitter, it was perhaps inevitable that live Web-streaming funerals for friends and loved ones would be next. It is no surprise that the deaths of celebrities, like Michael Jackson, or honored political figures, like the United States diplomat Richard Holbrooke, are promoted as international Web events. So, too, was the memorial service for the six people killed Jan. 8 in Tucson, which had thousands of viewers on the Web. But now the...

FORT HUACHUCA — It’s not just a matter of raising the American flag in the morning and lowering it in the late afternoon, or using it to drape the casket of a soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman or veteran. There are rules based on traditions incorporated into law when it comes to “Old Glory,” the Fort Huachuca Select Honor Guard noncommissioned officer leader said. Saturday afternoon, about an hour before the daily retreat ceremony, Sgt. 1st Class James Weathers talked to a number of scouts —girls and boys — about the ceremonies involving the American flag. “There is a...

McALLEN — Hidalgo County should ban funeral processions, county District Attorney Rene Guerra said Thursday. A fatal crash during a funeral procession Wednesday has led to questions about the safety of the motorcades, where law enforcement officers guide traffic by blocking intersections. A Hidalgo County Precinct 2 constable’s deputy hit and killed an Alamo woman Wednesday when the deputy’s cruiser “t-boned” the vehicle she was traveling in. Guerra said he’s been concerned about funeral processions for years now, but Wednesday’s crash has revived the debate and sharpened his concerns. “I was afraid that what happened yesterday would happen,” he said....

Featured Term (selected at random):FUNERAL RITES The liturgical functions that the Church performs at the burial of members of the Catholic Church. The Constitution on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council directed that the funeral services be revised to express more clearly the paschal character of Christian death, and that the rite for the burial of infants be given a special Mass. Both provisions were implemented in the new rite promulgated by Pope Paul VI, to take effect on June 1, 1970. The new emphasis is on the Christian hope in eternal life and in the final resurrection from...

Joyce Johnson remembers the drums beating slowly as she walked with her girls from the Old Post Chapel, behind the horse-drawn caisson carrying the flag-draped casket of her husband....She remembers struggling to maintain her composure...And then a lady stepped forward, a stranger, dressed not in uniform but in a simple dark suit. She whispered a few words and pressed two cards into Johnson's hands. "If there is anything you need ..." [Johnson] would learn of their mission: to ensure no soldier is buried alone.

Burying the Dead: Catholic Funerals   Wisdom 1:12-14 "Seek not death in the error of your life, neither procure ye destruction by the works of your hands. For God made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living. For He created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth." I Corinthians 15:51-58 "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again: but we shall not all be changed. In...