Universal Memorial Homesite Project

Brazilians Broadcasting Funerals via Internet

2010-12-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

Brazilians broadcasting funerals by Internet to relatives abroad
Associated Press Last update: November 22, 2010 - 10:29 AM

SAO PAULO - A funeral home in Brazil is broadcasting its services live over the Internet, giving some of the millions of Brazilians living abroad the chance to say a final goodbye to their loved ones. The Gonzaga funeral home says it has started streaming video of burials, masses and funeral processions in real time to those who can't make it to the ceremonies. It even provides an online chat room. Funeral home director Eres Gonzaga told The Associated Press on Monday it charges about $60 an hour, depending on the service. The funeral home is in Governador Valadares, known as a hotbed for migration to the United States and Europe.

Memes outlive Genes

2004-12-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

According to Richard Hawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, we leave behind both genes and memes when we die. Memes are replicating units of cultural transmission and imitation, while genes are replicating units of biological transmission. Our genetic aspect, Dawkins notes, will be lost after three generations, for our genetic contribution to our descendents is halved with each generation. The genes themselves might be immortal, but the collection of genes comprising any human being soon loses its integrity as it crumbles away in the generative process.

"Elizabeth II is a direct descendent of William the Conqueror. Yet it is quite probable that she bears not a single one of the king's genes. We should not seek immortality in reproduction.... But if you contribute to the world's culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a spark plug, write a poem, it may live on.... The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus, and Marconi are still going strong."

Memorial Events

2004-09-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Universal Memorial Homesite enhances the quality of memorial events while significantly reducing the financial burden and physical inconvenience of mourning the deaths and celebrating the lives of those whom we care for. We accomplish this in several ways; for instance, by producing interactive memorial events in our virtual space for viewing on the Word Wide Web; by broadcasting memorial events live on the Web via video uplinks; by recording downloadable memorial events; by recording memorial events for distribution on compact discs and other suitable media.

Memorial Space

2004-09-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Universal Memorial Homesite will provide memorial space for open public and secured private viewing of memorial events, and for storage and immediate Internet access to property lists, wills, trusts, epitaphs, biographies, obituaries, family trees, guest books, messages, comments, legacies, literary works and other desired information. Interactive antechambers for public mourning and interactive personal or family memorial chambers will be available. Linking and other convenient ancillary facilities will be provided. Memorial Walls will be provided for public visitation - each name will be linked to the individual's personal memorial chamber if desired. The archives may be temporarily preserved, maintained in perpetuity, and/or may be downloaded at any time, depending on the arrangements made.

It shall be done

2004-05-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Universal Memorial Homesite will always strive for the mutually productive balance of commercial and spiritual interests so that each factor shall augment the other in the most beneficial manner for all persons concerned. The crass commercialization of memorial events and related products and services is absurd, and engagement in such a process would fall dismally short of the higher aims of the UMH Project. Hence the constitution of the Homesite's public and private space and the values incorporated therein must be overseen by persons of eminent reputation and substance. To succeed, the perpetual UMH Project must stand upon a rock. That requires the involvement of substantial individuals and investments. We would not have it otherwise. We would not proceed without the involvement of the right people and without substantial investments. Of course any idea whatsoever can be implemented if enough money and manpower are thrown at it, but that does not guarantee a market sufficient over time to make the enterprise worthwhile. Despite all the sophisticated business plans with their professional market research, cash flow projections, and pro forma income statements, impotent ideas are bound to fail. The power of a successful conception depends on its origin. The attractiveness of the Universal Memorial Homesite concept is derived from the most potent force known to humankind. Every human being at one time or another wonders about and searches for the origin of their being and are interested in their fate. Almost everyone would appreciate a taste of immortality or would at least enjoy the thought of having their life remembered and their mortal end commemorated. Indeed, absent the memory of those who have gone before, without hope for the future, civilization would perish. The Universal Memorial Site conception is a "no-brainer." The concept cannot be stolen for it is already out there and it is bound to be realized by the right people. It the right thing to do, and it will be done sooner or later. Please step forward if you are interested.

Related Services and Referrals

2004-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

A broad array of related services and referrals will gradually be made available by the Universal Memorial Homesite as the UMH Project ramps up and providers are brought into the alliance network, including but not limited to:

Live Webcasting of Memorial Events
Archiving and Publishing Services
Professional Counseling
Life Planning
Estate Planning
Legal Services
Insurance
Trust Management
Mortuaries
Funeral Homes
Cemeteries
Crematoriums
Investments
Charitable Institutions

Memory is the Sine Quo Non

2004-05-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

Memory is the sine qua non of mental and emotional development. The Universal Memorial Homesite recognizes and maintains the fundamental utility of ancient ancestor worship, memorial rites and ceremonies. Memorial events satisfy complex emotional needs including the need to live a meaningful life and therefore a meaningful identity. Human beings have striven for some form of objective immortality or continuous social and personal identity, either in this world or in the next, ever since the first person set down a symbol for his or her identity or that of the group he or she identified with - woman is most often credited with the invention of writing. We who presently live would not have a valuable present or future as human beings without the memory of those who have passed before us and without our expectations for those who live after we are gone. We would have no civilization to speak of without our reverence for the departed, without the memory of their lives and deeds, without any hopes for the future continuation of our living project. Indeed, the tendency to mourn the dead and celebrate their lives is one of the most notable factors of early human development. Memorial events serve the spiritual of all people regardless of their faith or philosophy. The secular-minded Confucians of the later Confucian period duly noted that it is logically absurd to insist that the deceased still live; but to claim that they do not live hurts the feelings of those who want them to be alive; therefore this compromise or golden mean is observed: observe the rituals, acting as if they do live, not to prolong the mourning but to celebrate life.

Permanent Earthsite

2004-05-19T05:35:00.001-07:00

The Universal Memorial Homesite will establish the Permanent UMH Earthsite at a suitable location where the UMH Time Capsule will be relatively secure from loss and damage due to natural and artificial disasters. The main set of storage devices for the permanent database will located at the Earthsite - content will be mirrored elsewhere. The Earthsite will also serve as a ceremonial launching site for balloon, airplane, and rocket dispersals of remains on demand. Clients may have a portion of their physical remains encapsulated, shipped to, and stored at the Earthsite. Those who have an interest in future cloning will include appropriate biophysical material.

The Time is Now

2004-05-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Universal Memorial Homesite concept was conceived in Hawaii in 1997. It was too ambitious and ahead of its time at that time, but now the time is ripe for the project to proceed. The concept is bound to be realized in the near future, and it is therefore the right project for those persons who are destined to successfully develop it. As can be seen from the newspaper clipping below, funeral homes are already developing funeral webcasting, which is one of many aspects of the Universal Memorial Homesite project. Many of the existing webcasting funeral homes will be brought online and thousands more added to the consortium of providers of multiple memorial services coordinated by the Universal Memorial Homesite project.

Funeral home offers services via the Internet

By DAVID CLOUSTON
The Associated Press
May 16, 2004

SALINA — Salina funeral directors Mike Carlson and Chris Ford believe in traditional funerals, with a boost from technology that's impressing families with whom they work. Using the Internet, Carlson-Ford-Geisendorf Funeral Home and Crematory can put streaming videos of funerals online for those who cannot attend services. For family members who can attend in person, a copy of the service saved to a video disc. “It gives me more closure. When my wife's dad died, at that time the big thing was they gave us a cassette recording of the service. But no one wanted it,” said Donald Darling, Kansas City, Kan. Darling's mother, Beulah, formerly of Salina, died April 11, and her funeral service was one of the first to be webcast. It received more than 100 viewings. “With this, I can see things I forgot about with the service. It helps you remember things,” Darling said. When Carlson-Ford-Geisendorf built its new funeral home, it made sure to incorporate the technology necessary to make webcasts a reality. The funeral home's chapel is equipped with a ceiling-mounted video camera that videotapes the major portion of the service, along with closed-circuit TV capability that can broadcast the service live to other parts of the building. The equipment cost between $20,000 and $30,000 to buy and install, Carlson and Ford said. The video, usually 30 to 60 minutes, is taken to Web Creations & Consulting in Salina, which compresses it for video streaming. The video is uploaded to the funeral home's Web site and can be viewed for five days after the service. The funeral home has offered Web streaming for about a month and has videotaped three services. As soon as the first one went up online, it received 35 hits, Mike Carlson said. The funeral home could put the service online live but has no plans to do so, he said. The cost of the service is incorporated into the funeral home's package of services. The funeral home also can produce videotapes for Web streaming from funeral services at local churches equipped with audio and video capability, Carlson said. Both funeral directors said webcasts have gained popularity on the East and West coasts but are only slowly coming to the Midwest as funeral homes remodel facilities or build new ones. Pam Scott, executive director of the Kansas Funeral Directors & Embalmers Association, Topeka, said she's not aware of any other Kansas funeral homes providing Internet video of their services. However, she said, many do have online guest registers, where friends and family can e-mail condolences.

The Speech at the Stone

2004-05-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

From 'Ilusha's Funeral, the Speech at the Stone,' The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, transl. Constance Garnett

The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to lift it up.
"I don't want him to be buried in the churchyard," Snegiryov wailed suddenly; "I'll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I won't let him be carried out!"
He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys interfered.
"What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged himself," the old landlady said sternly."There in the churchyard the ground has been crossed. He'll be prayed for there. One can hear the singing in the church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave."
....
"... Let us make a compact, here, at Ilusha's stone (said Karamazov) that we will never forget Ilusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we don't meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind-hearted, brave boy, he felt for his father's honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with the most important things, if we attain to honour or fall into great misfortune - still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. My little doves - let me call you so, for you are very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minutes as I look at your good dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you won't understand what I am saying to you, because I often speak very unintelligibly, but you'll remember it all the same and will agree with my words sometime. You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be able to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men's tears and at those people who say as Kolya did just now, 'I want to suffer for all men,' and may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may become - which God forbid - yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his last days, and how we have been talking like friends all together, at this stone, the cruellest and most mocking of us - if we do become so - will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at this moment! What's more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great evil and he will reflect and say, 'Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!' Let him laugh to himself, that's no matter, a man often laughs at what's good and kind. That's only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you boys, that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, 'No, I do wrong to laugh, for that's not a thing to laugh at.' .... Who has united us in this kind, good feeling which we shall remember and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha, the good boy, the dear boy, previous to us for ever! Let us never forget him. May his memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth!"
"Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!" the boys cried in their ringing voices, with softened faces.
"Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots, his coffin, and his unhappy sinful father, and how boldly he stood up for him alone against the whole school."
"We will remember, we will remember," cried the boys. "He was brave. He was good."