Latest / On Deathcare / MD Composting Reversal, Delta Lawsuit, and the Selected/NFDA Vote

Transcript

MD Composting Reversal, Delta Lawsuit, and the Selected/NFDA Vote · On Deathcare

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I am Tony Russo from On Deathcare,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: and this is The Rest, your weekly rundown of news from around funeral service.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Got a ton of stuff to get to,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: going to get through it as fast as I can,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: but, you know, try to still keep it light and interesting.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, though,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to remind you that this show is sponsored by my paid subscribers
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: who back all of the work that I do.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very grateful for it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to take out a subscription paid or not,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: you can do that by going to ondeathcare.com and clicking subscribe.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just get into it.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ton of stuff today.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of weeks ago,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I expressed shock and a mild but pleasant surprise that Worcester County,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maryland,
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: which is not far from where I live,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: about 20 minutes from here where I'm recording,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: allowed a human composting application on part of its land.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: These are not the type of people to do this type of thing because they're really very podunk-y.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I was surprised.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was happy for Earth Funeral, which was able to get it passed.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, this week, the county commissioners have sought to overturn the...
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: What's it?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Zoning Board of Appeals decision and block the application.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: This was led by a person whose name is Ted Elder.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Ted Elder, I know from covering him when he used to just be a crank.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not just a crank.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's a less than sharp crank.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite quote from Ted Elder,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: when I was talking to him, I was interviewing him for during the election.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And He's like, and we're going to do this, and they're going to do that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's talking about what the board is going to do.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, well, you're one of seven.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to order them around, what makes you think they won't just ignore you?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, oh, I never thought about that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's Ted Elder.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's really into working with other people.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: He actually...
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: He slid in there,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: maybe a decade ago, right after people got outraged about the Obama election.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: He was among that class of cranks that moved into public office,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: and he's irremovable now,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: so the IQ of the Worcester County commissioners is even lower than it was back at
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: the turn of the century, which is a shock for me.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have an interview scheduled with Earth Funeral this week,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: so hopefully I'll get to talk to them about that.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when I do, I will report on it On Deathcare.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But for now, there's a link to this suit in the show notes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Worcester County doesn't care how much of its public money it has to spend
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: to get what the To get what the sick people who really matter,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: old timey family matters, want.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not like living in a real democracy down in Worcester County.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, link in the show notes.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is an odd,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: somewhat bad luck story,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: but I wanted to share it because it came across my desk
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: and I felt like it would be important to just ring your bell on it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: A Tennessee family alleges
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: that Delta Airlines had left their father's body unrefrigerated overnight following
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: a flight connection delay,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: causing extensive decomposition that prevented a final viewing
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: of Marvin Ed Morgan had not been embalmed because of his spiritual preferences and
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: that he Was,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: of course, fine with Delta, but there was a missed connection out of Tennessee.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he was flying from Florida to Tennessee,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: but of course he had to go through Atlanta and delays at
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: the Atlanta airport made him miss his connection.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But since he was no longer a living person,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: he needed special accommodations when he missed his connection
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: and Delta did not provide them.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I reached out to Eagles Wings,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: who was the logistics company on this,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: and they've been a great fan of theirs for a long time.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they chose not to comment, which I completely understand.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: They did offer their apologies to the family and You know,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: obviously didn't charge for the service.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: But this is something that it looks like it was more on Delta
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: because they didn't provide the cold storage that they were supposed to provide in
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: the event of a of a misconnection.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, there's a link to the reporting on that in the show notes.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: If there's any more reporting to be done,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I will write about it On Deathcare and I will send it along your way.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a paywalled story that I wanted to talk about.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to read some of the stuff from the court records and all.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bowie Family Funeral Home in Sheridan,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Arkansas, is filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a signing of 4.2%.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: The owner,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Wesley Cole,
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  SPEAKER_00: has attributed the decline to growing preference for cremations
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: and private gatherings over traditional funeral service,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: full service burials,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: alongside the financial strain from his recent divorce from co-owner.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Donna Cole.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to wait the Donna Cole, Wesley Cole split more heavily than the cremation.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not chiding anybody here.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I actually hope to come out with a couple stories in the next few weeks about people
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: who have added cremation to the list of things they're doing,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: who have built crematories.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really hard to build a crematory, as I've reported here before.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: People don't like it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing they hate worse is Then having a crematory is,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: um, having to pay for their own burials, I guess.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I, um, but what was really weird here was they laying it off on the rise in cremation rates.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's very 10 years ago.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a plan to deal with your new mix and now Arkansas has, um,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: They are 10 years behind, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So their cremation rate was 45% in 2020.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And today it's just 54%.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And just like everywhere else, it's probably going to go north of 70%.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is going to be an issue.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are in a low cremation state,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: it's long past time to make a plan for what you're going to do when cremation goes
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: to 70% because no amount of pouting and stamping is going to make
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: the cremation rate go back to 10%.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's just not going to happen anymore.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: there's a link to my reporting on this in the show notes and to the paywall
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: if you're interested in reading the whole story.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is more of an update than a news news thing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a company called Enswell in Hillsborough,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: North Carolina, that is expanding its operations.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Owners Hunter and Veronica Beatty have purchased
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: a 6,000 square foot commercial space on the ground floor of Greenbridge Condominiums
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: to house its administrative staff,
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: accommodate larger memorial services for up to 100 guests.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And establish an art gallery.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: The art gallery named After Light is in honor of the venue's former occupant
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: and it will feature end of life themed artwork and participate
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: in local folk festivals and art festivals and things.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: This was something they were doing.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: In the acclimation center that they opened,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: that was like one of their main plans when they started was to do this kind
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: of thing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So to see them succeeded is really cool.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it will also allow the firm to not have to turn away people who need more
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: than 10 people at a service, which was a problem in their old place.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, link to that in the show notes.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: On the off chance that you did not listen to the selected independent salon
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: that I did last week with some of the dissenters who are
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: against having selected independent funeral homes purchased by
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: the National Funeral Directors Association,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote up a story to go with it as well.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a link to that in the show notes.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: As I think I mentioned last week,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: there were some disturbing stories Announcements about the complete lack of interest
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: in member opinions when it came to this.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: you have to really wonder if Selected If the selected leadership and specifically
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: the executive class cares whether or not this stays as an organization.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I've been thinking about.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I saw some of the remarks in one of the larger publications from the people
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: who stand to make the most from this,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: which is the people who are going to keep their jobs by doing.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Making these two organizations into one.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing that just keeps jumping out at me.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I said in the video, again,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: if you didn't get a chance to see it,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: is in my coverage of small towns,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: usually people who are And they want to help,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: but they don't know all the ins and outs.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: They essentially let the executive run the show.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I really think that's what's going on with both of these entities.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the executives got together, said, OK,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: what can we do to not make the kind of cuts that are going to afford
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: or affect us personally?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this was the solution.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So as the vote comes up for whether or not to be included,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: there are two things I want to point out.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: One, is the story.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a link in the show notes.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It goes into different details.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's, I think,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: if you don't want to spend
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: the whole hour watching us have this hashed out conversation,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: which I think was great.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't want to spend the whole hour,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: you can read the story in about three or four minutes.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear from some people in the National Funeral Directors Association,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: some members who care one way or the other,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: because it's funny,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: the The members of Selected seem to be against being subsumed by the NFDA.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as an NFDA member,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: if I were an NFDA member,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: which I'm not very,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: very clear about that, I don't see the upside for me as a member.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I get to fund another organization as far as I can tell about that.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway...
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: We will see what happens as this goes forward.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: The vote is on, I believe, September 24th.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we should have some information by the end of the week.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: If they decide to release it,
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: if they decide to accept the votes,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: it's really everyone at the top is behaving in a way that only encourages,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know, kind of a conspiratorial thinking about this.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard not to slip into that.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, there's a link to the latest reporting on that in the show notes.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Finally,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to take one last second to point out the Joe Vanella report,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: which I have started in partnership with Vault,
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: but actually with Spencer Haake,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: who is the founder of Vault and has the I kindly accepted the burden of watching
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Traitors, the new blood television show that's out on Thursday night.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: The show will come out on Friday night as soon as I can process it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: We usually do our review in the late afternoon and then I put the show out in the early evening.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a Friday night watcher, there will be spoilers.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: You may want to wait till Saturday.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The rest has been an On Death Care production.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was written, edited, all the things by me.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Tony Russo having a blast doing it and intend to continue having a blast doing it.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'd like to thank you for your time and attention.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know both are incredibly valuable and it's flattering that you take the time
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: to catch up with some of the news with me.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I try really hard not to take up too much of your time.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also like to take this opportunity,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: as always, to thank my paid subscribers who make all of my work possible.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to become a paid subscriber or a non-paid subscriber,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: just go to ondeathcare.com where you'll have the opportunity to hit subscribe.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, you can subscribe for anything from $0 per month to more than $0 per month.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: The support is really, really flattering.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been great to see you guys participating in some of the conversations,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: all of the sharing that's been going on of these stories.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's really nice.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so thank you for backing this kooky horse.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll keep it going.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll catch you next time.