Duffy said people want a program that reflects their lives and their tastes. One family asked for a memorial service on the 18th green of their father’s favorite golf course, “because that’s where dad was instead of church on Sunday mornings, so why are we going to church,” Mr. Duffy said. “Line up his buddies and hit balls.”

Mr. Duffy the funeral planner believes that the trend to favor cremation will give greater the freedom in planning a unique memorial program. With the body absent, the mood is less somber. “The body’s a downer, especially for boomers. If the body doesn’t have to be there, it frees us up to do what we want. They may want to have it in a country club or bar or their favorite restaurant.”

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Why did 500+ people perish?

The Minister of Science and Technology, Kusmayanto Kadiman addressed this issue from Jakarta. He said Government received the bulletins about 45 minutes before the tsunami hit but “we did not announce them because we did not want to cause unnecessary alarm.”

“If the tsunami did not occur, what would have happened?” Kadiman asked the reporters. (1)

It is hard to imagine that officials would receive the warning alert but choose not to broadcast it to the people most likely to be affected.

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In an interview from Los Angeles one month later with 2” titanium plates with screws holding his face together, Roethlisberger talked about his experience.

"They told me that I was literally seconds, maybe a minute away from dying because I slit a vein or artery in my mouth or my throat and it was draining blood right into my stomach and luckily the paramedic noticed it and stopped it or else I would have had too much blood in my stomach,"

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