Death and Dying

Of the more than 16 million members of America's "Greatest Generation" who served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, approximately 1.4 million were still alive as of November 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Unfortunately, those remaining veterans are dying at a rate of Read More...

On April 27, Army veteran Joe "Tiger" Patrick set forth on foot from San Diego, California, in order to honor the men and women who have lost their lives during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars thus far. Dubbed "Faces of Our Fallen" because Patrick carries Read More...

Perhaps a sign that the U.S. economy is indeed improving, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported this week that adult consumers plan to spend more on gifts for Mother's Day 2013 versus last year.

According to a survey NRF conducted, those 18 years old and older will spend an average of Read More...

A total of five U.S. presidents gathered in Dallas, Texas, last week to attend the dedication of President George W. Bush's presidential library. In addition to Bush, President Barrack Obama joined former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton at the ceremony.

Now, that sounds like a lot of present/past commanders in chief, but the record for most living U.S. presidents at one time is actually Read More...

Last week, an article on Quartz, a tech- and business-news website, affirmed just how easily someone can fool most of the people most of the time, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln. In his article "How to become internet famous for $68," Kevin Ashton details the ridiculously easy and inexpensive steps he took to breathe virtual life into Santiago Swallow, a suave Mexican-born author, speaker and social media guru who also happened to be a product of Ashton's imagination.

Like Frankenstein working high atop Castle Cyberspace, Ashton pieced his monster together using Read More...

On April 4, 2013, New Mexico became the 34th U.S. state that now issues a "certificate of stillbirth" to parents whose child dies within the womb after a defined gestation period (generally after 20 weeks). According to information published in 2011 by The Lancet, a medical journal, 5 in 1,000 pregnancies -- roughly 30,000 annually -- result in stillbirth in the United States. (Every year, 2.6 million stillbirths occur worldwide.)

Advocates of stillbirth certificates assert that these documents can Read More...

This Tuesday, April 16, marks the sixth annual National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD). The purpose of NHDD is to both educate the public about the importance of creating an advance healthcare directive and to provide the tools necessary to do so.

If you haven't created an advance directive yet (and only 29% of the American public has), Read More...

In a blog I wrote last October, I stated that I generally "don't buy into folk beliefs like celebrities dying in threes."

The key word there is "generally" because, given the news today of the deaths of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and original Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Club "Mouseketeer" Annette Funicello Read More...

I've loved pirates since childhood and, even now, I sport a pirate tattoo and occasionally toss "Avast!" into everyday conversations. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to discover that actor Morgan Freeman sports an earring because pirates influenced him at a young age, too.

According to an article on OMG Facts, Freeman thought the pirate/earring combination looked "sexy." Moreover, he apparently Read More...

About 10 years ago, a funeral director I know stated to me: "People love their pets more than their own family members."

As proof, he noted that he owned two cemeteries -- one for people and one for pets -- and that the latter site Read More...