Word: mitfords
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...Americans spent 1.6 billion dollars on funerals. This is slightly more than the estimated cost of providing books, tuition, and living expenses for the 3.6 million students enrolled in colleges and graduate schools during that year. And it is this phenomenal expenditure which Jessica Mitford examines in The American Way of Death...
...findings are not favorable to morticians. In a relaxed anecdotal style, Miss Mitford draws a harsh picture of unscrupulous undertakers, victimizing simple, grief-confused Americans. She points out the petty racketeering, shady legislation, and help from newspapers and florists which contribute to the situation. Her essential approach is economic; she tends to feel that for Americans, death's sting is mainly transmitted through the pocketbook. Her arguments are phrased in dollars and cents, and her case, though effectively put, is peculiarly lopsided...
This book is rather similar to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, another crusading volume. Miss Mitford does not write as well as Miss Carson, but she manages to put forth the same kind of well organized, highly emotional appeal. No one can read either book without becoming concerned, and perhaps a little angry. But there is a fundamental distinction between these two books: Miss Carson has the courage to criticize the American public as well as the pesticides industry. Miss Mitford confines her attack to the undertakers and their abettors...
Beginning next February, the U.S. cost-of-living index will include the cost of dying, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced. Bestselling Author Jessica Mitford and all the current furor about the high cost of dying had nothing to do with it, insisted Bureau Assistant Commissioner Arnold E. Chase. Bureaucracy doesn't move that fast. Over a year ago, said Chase, the bureau decided to add the cost of funerals to the 300 items included in the monthly index, along with 50 other new additions. Among them: legal expenses, installment credit, hotel and motel rates...
...American Way of Death, Mitford...