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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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NEWS ABOUT: coffin

coffin stories: 10 news summaries

 Wal-Mart Enters 
 Coffin Biz 

Funeral homes face competition from discount caskets

Oct 30, 09 2:08 AM CDT
(Newser) - America's leading big-box store is now also a pine box store. Wal-Mart has started selling a range of discount coffins on its website and plans to expand its death products to include pet urns and memorial jewelry. Prices start at just $895 for a steel coffin. Funeral home owners say... More »

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coffin • casket • retail sales • Wal-Mart • funeral home

 Media Lose Interest in War 
 Dead: Only AP Shoots Coffins 

Photo ban lifted, but photographers aren't bothering

Sep 29, 09 11:13 AM CDT
(Newser) - Back when George W. Bush was president, the media made a big fuss about the administration’s refusal to allow the press to photograph soldiers’ coffins, saying it hid the true cost of the war. President Obama lifted the ban in April, and the media flocked to snap shots of... More »

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Bush administration • coffin • American media • Obama administration • war dead • media ban



 Jackson May 
 Be on View in 
 Glass Coffin 

Funeral promises to be extravagant event

Jun 30, 09 10:53 AM CDT
(Newser) - Michael Jackson’s funeral could be as lavish as one of his concerts. His body will reportedly be transported in a horse-drawn carriage, and he could be on view in a glass coffin. “The glass casket idea would create so much public interest it would take time to organize,... More »

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entertainment • coffin • casket • celebrity • death • funeral • Michael Jackson • burial • Jehovah's Witness • Katherine Jackson • Joe Jackson

analysis

 Should We Allow Coffin Pics? 


Feb 15, 09 4:26 PM CST
(Newser) - President Obama is reviewing a media ban at Dover Air Force Base, where dead soldiers arrive in flag-draped coffins, but "in truth, it's not an easy issue," John Barry writes in Newsweek. There is widespread support for raising the ban "as a way of reminding the... More »

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media • coffin • US military • Dover Air Force Base • soldier • soldiers' families

 Final 'Green' Frontier: 
 Cemeteries 

Increasingly popular embalming- and casket-free option freaked locals out

Jan 2, 09 11:53 AM CST
(Newser) - As the green movement contemplates the afterlife, more funeral directors are seeing demand for a sendoff without the embalming and sturdy coffins of traditional burials, the Wall Street Journal reports. Natural burials won't necessarily put funeral directors out of business: Yes, simple shrouds are available, but so is a $300... More »

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coffin • casket • green products • burial • funeral home • cemetery

Fans Get Prime Seats for Eternal Extra Innings

Logo coffins, urns make case for 'long-term' devotees of Sox, others

Dec 1, 08 12:35 PM CST
(Newser) - Die-hard baseball fans can now continue showing their team pride even in the afterlife. A Boston-area funeral home is offering its first-ever Red Sox casket, emblazoned with the team’s logo and accented with baseball-bat-type wood. “It's really a beautiful thing,” the funeral-home director, a Sox fan himself,... More »

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MLB • Boston Red Sox • coffin • casket • New York Yankees • branding • funeral home

 Thais Take Coffin 
 Naps to Fix Karma 

$5 buys a few minutes in monastery's gaudy pink boxes

Oct 1, 08 7:44 PM CDT
(Newser) - As Thailand's economy slows and its government falters, growing numbers of deeply superstitious citizens are jostling into a pink coffin to "die," the Telegraph reports. At about $5 a head, monks in a monastery outside Bangkok officiate over the "dead bodies" in the coffins, before ushering in... More »

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Thailand • coffin • Buddhist monks • economy • temple • luck

(Newser) - Louisiana is still finding coffins displaced by Hurricane Katrina three years on, the Wall Street Journal reports. Katrina and Rita moved 1,500 bodies from their resting places in the state's swampy south, where floating coffins during floods have long been part of local folklore. Hundreds remain unidentified, and they... More »

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Hurricane Katrina • Texas • New Orleans • coffin • Louisiana • Mississippi • Hurricane Rita • Katrina aftermath • cemetery • Hurricane Gustav

Greenies Can RIP With Eco-Friendly Funerals

Cardboard caskets, natural burial sites catch on in US

Apr 20, 08 5:35 PM CDT
(Newser) - Greenies who bought organic in life can become more organic in death, the AP reports. Brits have enjoyed the eco-friendly funeral for years, but now cardboard coffins and natural fibers for corpses are catching on Stateside. "People are trying to think about what's the best way to live and... More »

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environmentalism • coffin • death • funeral • green

Death Be Not Proud
(At a Discount)

Apr 12, 07 4:47 PM CDT
(Newser) - What does it say about us, Mark Morford asks, that wandering the aisles at Costco in Palm Desert, CA, we come upon not only drums of olive oil and eighty-packs of frozen cream puffs, but over there, right next to the tires and the lawn furniture and right behind the... More »

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shopping • Costco • coffin • casket • consumer • death

10 Stories


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