McClatchy Newspapers is taking a somewhat ghoulish, pessimistically-toned look at the poor souls who suffer from our success in Iraq: undertakers. That's right, with less people dying, business is slow for Iraqi undertakers, report Jay Price and Qasim Zein in their October 16 article (accessed via Yahoo News), "As violence falls in Iraq, cemetery workers feel the pinch.":
NAJAF, Iraq — At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.
A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.
[...]
The burials aren't expensive, usually $200 or less, but many people draw their income from them.
[...]
The sights and smells of working with the bodies, particularly those torn by war, are hardly pleasant, but it becomes a mundane job like any other, said Jawad Abuseba, 40.
His family has dug graves for more than 300 years, he said. His hands are thick with calluses after 22 years of digging with a shovel, basket and pickaxe. With their nails torn and their skin gray, his hands look as though they're dead, too.
"There is nothing beautiful in this career, but I cannot do any another job," Abuseba said.
Shiites feel so strongly about being buried here that when it's too dangerous to travel, families have buried their loved ones elsewhere temporarily, then disinterred them for reburial here.
Even with less violence, many of those buried here are victims of the war, and the tragedy of each loss offers a counterpoint to workers' worries about money.
[...]
"Certainly, when the number of dead increases I feel happy, like all workers in the graveyard," said Basim Hameed , 30, a body washer. "This happiness comes from the increase in the amount of money we have."
This has got to take the cake for the strangest way a media outlet has found to find a downside to the success of our troops in Iraq.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
See Bush is even
October 17, 2007 - 00:09 ET by DCC1See Bush is even destroying the Iraqi grave-digging market!! If only Hillary was in charge, they could raise the death tax and give it to those poor grave-diggers so that they can afford health insurace for their poor children!!!
Crazies to the left, and Whimps to the right
I used to think members of
October 17, 2007 - 00:20 ET by drillanwrI used to think members of the news media would be smoking a field of turds in Purgatory for the way they have reported/misreported this war ...
Not anymore.
They're going straight to Hell ...
I hate to say it but this one wins the prize over the (bad news) story of a couple years ago about how our troops are NOT dying in the numbers they should be because of our crack military medical teams on the ground, and the modern technology at hand ...
and what would they do to Jesus
October 17, 2007 - 00:21 ET by Lame CherryI created a rather dark comedy on this same subject, but instead had Jesus coming back as the "bad guy" for employing the very things the Bible says He did.
Imagine a world without death.......the billion dollar funeral industry would be screaming for some government to stop Jesus raising people from the dead.
Imagine a world of people healed.........the trillion dollar medical industry would be screaming for Jesus arrest for practicing without a license the healing arts and Hillary would have a fit as with no sick people goodness there would be no way to enslave Americans to her communist health plan.
Imagine a world of Jesus stopping storms.............turning back the sun.............Al Gore would with his globalist greens be screaming for the end of Jesus as the most environmentally dangerous man on the planet.
Imagine a world without religions raking in billions........only one Leader named Jesus for the Father. How long before every sect was out to put an end Him.
Add the sodomites, the aborticide crowd, the fornicators........and one start realizes really fast in todays law crazy and immoral world just how quickly this same bunch would be executing Him on trumped up charges just like before?
Amazing thing is that is what Armageddon is all about in the world's armies gathered together to stop Christ at His Second Coming.......trying to murder Him again.
Only a demonic influenced person could ever come up with a complaint that the death profiteers in Iraq are being harmed by peace.
Any non Hollyweirdo types that want to fund a movie like the one above........hey the script is there and Newsbusters could use the showcase to fund all kinds of brilliant Sheffield playtime activities here.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
Great post - and great news!
October 17, 2007 - 00:54 ET by BlindSightBut I guess McClatchy Newspapers doean't deserve any credit for breaking this story?
"I do not know what is true. ... But in the midst of doubt ... I do not doubt that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty."
- Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr.
No More Graveyard Shift?
October 17, 2007 - 01:37 ET by BarkerThis is either the biggest Onion-style joke/story ever written, or Jay Price and Qasim Zein of McClatchy Newspapers are two of the most laughable, foolish, inept, incompetent, and idiotic reporters in the annals of modern journalism.
I concur. I'm not familiar
October 17, 2007 - 08:09 ET by PeskyDaneI concur. I'm not familiar with the McClatchy News organization, but this HAS to be a plant.
Pesky Dane, McClatchy News Organization is known for
October 17, 2007 - 08:52 ET by RJtheir liberalism. Finding something they've written that is positive about Iraq, our military, President Bush, Republicans, etc, etc, would be akin to finding a snowball in hell.
Ken, are you certain this
October 17, 2007 - 05:11 ET by motherbeltKen, are you certain this didn't come from "The Onion"?????
I'm almost ashamed to say I actually went and looked. LOL
However, the "Bull$$it Most Important Issue for Voters" video was worth it.
Any news can be bad
October 17, 2007 - 05:16 ET by NortoBeliever
The msm takes any news and turns it to its agenda favor. Falling housing prices? Oh Dear. Except that falling prices will inspire new buyers, sellers of old, purchases of goods, jobs. Dah, econ 101, but of course I am beginning to think many of these msmers never had that course.
Halloween or madness?
October 17, 2007 - 05:37 ET by Blogger Guy00001Either the newspaper is caught up in the spirit of Halloween, with all its ridiculous corpses, or it has gone crazy with Bush-hatred.
It's hard to believe that the media can turn good news into bad, but here is clear evidence that they are doing just that.
Despair
October 17, 2007 - 07:25 ET by BacchusSave our Undertakers -- Hillary '08
Undertakers Union International approves this message.
Don't 'cha know?
October 17, 2007 - 07:48 ET by DontFeedTheTrollsDon't 'cha know? Every silver lining has a cloud waiting for those crack journalists to find it.
D
Keep the ILLEGALS out, join NumbersUSA to send free faxes to your reps.
We go this way and that way and...
October 17, 2007 - 07:53 ET by CortillaenWhen lots of people are being killed, "This is horrible! Bush is killing thousands of people! He needs to use a new strategy!" When the death tolls drop off thanks to a new strategy, "This is horrible! Bush is putting thousands of people out of work!" Just a wee bit hypocritical, eh? Then again, what else would we expect from the gloom-and-doomites in the MSM...
http://www.rhjunior.... Great comics with a hefty dose of Christian and anti-nutjob goodness.
"With your mind as high as Mt. Fuji you can see all things clearly. And you can see all the forces that shape events; not just the things near to you." - Miyamoto Musashi
Love this paragraph
October 17, 2007 - 09:00 ET by kg"Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq ."
They really had to throw this paragraph in for effect.