As correspondent Andrea Mitchell was reporting the funeral of Nancy Reagan for NBC News, her commentary toward the end was this: “a love story for all time. . . Ron and Nancy, now together again, for eternity.”
I may be wrong, I don’t think she was talking about “for eternity as corpses that are decaying next to each other underground.”
Point it out. We must point it all out.
I heard that live. I thought it was a breach of journalism ethics. Keep your opinions to yourself.
My perception is that (editors allow) reporters (to) insert personal opinions/bloviations. Words like “may” and “seem” tend to populate NY Times articles. I don’t care how something bloody “seems” to a reporter. There is a reportorial tendency to say what a given statement/action “signals.” There’s also a tendency to include “as if” reportorial perceptions, if you know what I mean.
It’s just part of American speech. The invocation of an afterlife is as common as ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in American parlance. That’s why you constantly hear people refer to recently deceased loved ones as ‘looking down from heaven’ and everyone smiles. It’s become so common a practice that no one even notices it any more.
I know that I harp upon it constantly, but I must once again call out the steeping of American language and customs in religiosity. It is nearly intolerable to me now that I’ve moved outside the US. These phrases and tropes in film and literature now just stick out like sore thumbs. You can always tell when an American speaks now, because their speech is riddled with religious references. The same way farewell is ‘Grüß Gott’ in certain parts of Germany (Bavaria, Austria and a few other areas), an American thanks his good fortune as a ‘blessing’.
Isn’t it a pity that it has become so commonplace to hear religious language that almost no one notices any more? I suppose the only upside is that it’s perhaps the last place where Americans are getting _more_ religious, if the public opinion polls on the subject of religion are to be trusted.
Not saying you’re wrong, but the opposite case could also be made — that the ceremonial use of such language effaces its religious significance, reducing it to common idiom.
That’s how I see it too, Ken. There’s a point at which it gets offensive, though, when people go on and on…
There is no “up there.”
I was most certainly “up there” somewhere when I flew from Kauai, state side a couple of years ago. I think.
But you weren’t „up THERE” (pointing up meaningfully). Because, even in that plane, the dead were smiling down on you from „up there” – except for the sinners who stare up to you from „down there”, I suppose. And if you had died on that plane, you would have still gone up joining the ranks of the ever-smiling. 🙂 🙂 🙂
In this hypothesis, the „up there” is the place where there is no more up to go from, or to be looked/smiled down on. It’s the ultimate up.
That depends which airline you were flying with…
cr
You had to say “harp,” didn’t you?
Heh! Forgot the angelic association. Guess I haven’t rid myself of all that religious language.
I left about 12 years ago. Only started to notice all of this a few years after I left. Oddly enough, it seems to be have gotten much worse in the past 5 years or so.
Every time we say “goodbye” we are saying a shortened version of “God be with you”. Most of us don’t know that any more and, therefore, don’t think we are being religious.
I think in the case of ‘goodbye’ we are such a long way from its original meaning that it doesn’t make sense to consider ourselves as being religious when we use it. The word serves a useful purpose and if I say goodbye to someone I intend no religious meaning at all and 99.999% of the time my interlocutor doesn’t take it as a religious statement. We could insist on a non religious alternative – ‘farewell’ or ‘see ya’ but I don’t think there would be much to gain and we would lose a useful word which you could say we have appropriated from the religious.
That said, DDrucker has a point and there are certainly many words and phrases which retain a stronger religious meaning and which pepper everyday intercourse and which it would be healthy to filter out (his example of blessings being a great case in point).
On a final note of pedantry can I just say in response to DDRucker that whilst Austria infamously became a part of Germany in the 1930s it is some time now since it became independent again!
Good point. My mother was born in Vienna, Austria (and oddly enough always calls herself ‘Viennese’ rather than Austrian), and would never, ever think of herself as German.
Some places are (sub-)culturally different enough from their surrounding area that their inhabitants develop a strong sense of independent identity, often sharing this view of their otherness with the surrounding people, even though with different connotations.
Examples are Vienna and Austria, Bavaria and Germany, Austin and Texas, and Britain and Europe. (some mockery intended 😉 )
Or think of how New York and Los Angeles are thousands of KM apart but in a way more a like than (say) New York and Albany?
Together for eternity on the list of dead humans. That’s it.
It does give me comfort when I think that, if they both were alive right now, they’d be frantically scratching at the lids of their coffins.
that’s the second time today i spit coffee out my nose. Brilliant.
(The first was watching a clip of Triumph the Insult Comic dog on youtube.. “Triumph Talks to Young Voters.” Definitely NSFW, but should be required viewing for the auhoritarian left).
Triumph was killin’ it! That’s some dangerous comedy! Looks like a few of those kids were going to need some counseling after that one. 🙂
Ha Ha Ha!
The first thing I noticed when the news started covering Nancy Reagan’s death were the non-stop references to the afterlife. Everyone kept saying how great it was that Nancy was now with her Ronnie, who undoubtedly greeted her astride a horse and wearing a Western shirt. And then when they played an old clip of Nancy Reagan recounting how Billy Graham had guaranteed to her that Ronnie would be waiting for her when she passed… I just about puked. What a paltry and pathetic view of the grandeur and preciousness of life that you have to rely upon a “get out of jail free” card in order to justify your existence on this fucking amazing planet.
This is a bit raw for me right now, as my 88-year old father is on his deathbed in the hospital. It’s terribly sad right now, but there’s no way I’m thinking that my mother (who died 25 years ago) is waiting for him. My solace is in remembering what a great father and presence he was for me, my sister and my family, not in hoping that someday when I kick it I’ll get to play hoops again with him in some basketball court in the sky.
I haven’t as yet googled back to see how the deaths and funerals of other “First Ladies” were handled in the past- this one seems to be a “Feeding frenzy” of the media and especially the TeaOP candidates falling all over themselves to praise her; apparently some of Ronnie’s “saintlike” qualities rubbed off on her. An old lady friend of mine (who, unfortunately is a staunch Tea Partier) called Obama a “SOB” today for not attending her funeral…..I had to explain the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam to her a while back; she had no idea there was a difference- a PERFECT candidate for TP brainwashing!
I agree! Didn’t they even order the flags at half-staff for her? I can’t remember this much ado about any First Lady not named Jackie.
If crap like this had ever been declared illegal, they would’ve had to call out the California state militia to mass-arrest most of the national media when her husband Ronnie got planted a dozen years ago.
And never mind the disgusting, treacly funeral in San Clemente when Dick Nixon finally gave up the ghost. That whole freakin’ affair really was blatantly illegal.
Whoa, Hunter S. at the top of his game! “The Rev. Billy Graham, still agile and eloquent at the age of 136…”–LOL!
Yeah, the Nixon obit is one of my favorite pieces of his.
H.L. Mencken’s “eulogy” for William Jennings Bryan was HST’s acknowledged inspiration here.
That was priceless!
You are a treasure trove.
Thanks! That was most enlightening. It reminds me how nothing much passes as good journalism anymore.
I’m so sorry to hear that, Larry. You have my sincerest sympathy.
Thanks for sharing your private sorrow with us, Larry I hope your father will be made as comfortable as is possible at this time.
And you’re so right… all we have are memories of our loved ones when they are no more.
(“RIP” should really pertain to those who are left behind.)
Just wondering…. is Jane Wyman there too?
Awkward.
My thought as well. Her and Ronnie might well have been flapping a bit of wing together for the past few years.
Think JW headed off to the Big Nowhere back in the mid-Oughties.
And just wait’ll her kids & step-kids show up!
Yes, that together again thing is just a little hard to take. At least Ron Reagan was there to through out a couple of secular lines. I couldn’t understand why so many attended, as if an actual president was being buried.
Sorry….Throw. I don’t do funerals.
I was surprised how much atheist Ron Reagan fantasized an afterlife for his parents.
RON REAGAN, Son of Nancy Reagan: And, today, my mother comes to rest on this lovely hilltop with its far-reaching views next to her beloved Ronald Reagan Library.
And, by the way, from here, she will be able to keep an eye on things.
Most importantly, she will once again lay down beside the man who was the love of her life, the one she loved until the end of her days.
They will watch the sun drop over the hills in the west toward the sea, and, as night falls, they will look out across the valley. My father will tell her that the lights below are her jewels. The moon and stars will endlessly turn overhead, and here they will stay, as they always wished it to be, resting in each other’s arms, only each other’s arms, until the end of time.
Poetry, that’s all. And *lie down, Ron.
I agree. This definitely sounded metaphorical. No nods to celestial dictators or anything of the sort.
Poetry, I agree. I suspect he made an effort to find language that was comforting without mentioning heaven or God.
Good point.
PBS took Ron’s remarks out of context:
“In her later years, after my father had gone, she used to ask me whether I thought she would be with him again when she died. I’m not a believer in the supernatural, but I always assured her that wherever dad had gone, she was surely going to go there, too. We should all be so lucky as to end up where we’ve always wanted to be.” <a
h/t Hemant Mehta
Just congenially curious, what percent of the total attending ought be reasonably expected to attend?
Trickle down eternity.
I heard that, too, and thought the same thing.
Do we atheists have to be so true & cruel that we have to let poetry & imagination out of our life? :))
There is a big difference between poetry and delusion.
I agree with you Amy. I think this is a rather petty thing to get worried about. Whether it’s poetry, or sincere belief, it doesn’t really matter. We’re the ones butting into the family grief, not the other way around. Sure, we’re not showing up at the funeral, but getting grumpy about how people deal with death isn’t a nice thing to do.
This is the kind of thing that gets atheists rightly called out for their bad behavior. I don’t want people talking about Heaven to me when I’m dealing with death, and so I think we should extend the same courtesy to those who do believe in it.
I agree with both of you.
Pure schlock. Andrea Mitchell learned journalism a long time ago in a TV universe far, far away. At that time they lay great emphasis on “beginning-middle-end” structure and taught nothing of philosophy. I forgive her this feeble attempt at rational thought. She’s a true journalist in the old tradition. Move along now, nothing to see here.
Technically, not correct. Their atoms will eventually scatter. Better than “In heaven, with Jesus.”
Yeah, I caught part of the maudlin mess on the tube. Schmaltzy enough to send somebody into full cardiac arrest. And the minister’s homily was cringe-inducing. But, damn, I really like a couple of the kids, Patti Davis and Ron, Jr. Those two done great today.
It brings to mind the last stanza of Annabel Lee…
“For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.”
I find that beautiful, though. Sometimes songs out-poem poems.
Hey, off-topic except as it relates to White House residents of the same era, but I saw a report awhile back saying Jimmy Carter’s cancer is in remission. Seems like not long before, he was declared in extremis. Tough old Georgia cracker, that one.
It’s often the case that after the first round of chemo or whatever the next set of scans will be “N.E.D.”–no evidence of disease. Sadly that doesn’t always last very long. We can hope, though.
Jimmah is 91 now, so not much is destined to last very long. That’s about the age when buying green bananas constitutes an optimistic investment.
Unfortunately his funeral will probably be unbearably religious too; but he is one of the good religionists, esp. for a born-again one!
(And just think–he’ll be joining Billy! 😀 )
And Miss Lillian, the Peace Corp volunteer! Hope Billy hasn’t got any of his rotten “Billy beer.”
Miss Lillian was a kick. 😀
Hopefully he won’t encounter that crazed swimming rabbit.
Off-topic again maybe, but it is still republican. The Donald Trump show has been cancelled tonight in St. Louis due to demonstrators. Unlike the Chicago fun in 1968, if memory serves, the republican chaos will be lucky if they make it to the convention.
I mean Chicago, not St. Louis
If so, it couldn’t happen to a nicer band of thugs.
After-Life comes oblivion, IE, Non-Existence. The You, in You, ain’t You no-more,(the emphasis being on “Ain’t” and “You”. Sorry, no folks, no sky-fairies, no soul, no afterlife, no sweet meeting in the beyond, the fairy-tail ends when the curtain comes down.
My husband died of cancer on January 20 2016. As long as he remained mentally alert enough to interact with the people he loved, he wanted to stay. He believed this life is all there is. In Oregon, we have laws that permit people to choose to die if and when they want to by self-medication (if they are adjudged by two doctors as fully capable of making that decision). When it became too difficult to control pain without adversely affecting his mental ability, he decided it was time to go. He died at home surrounded by family and friends who honored him by their presence. His death was the most peaceful I have ever witnessed. If I have the chance, I will do the same. He was cremated. I will be cremated. We will be sprinkled somewhere together that had
meaning for us. We were married and loved each other for 56 years, most of our lives. It is more than enough.
I’m so sorry, Rowena!
But yes, what a satisfying, rational way to go. Congrats on such a wonderfully long union. So very much shared history!
Sorry for your recent oss, Rowena.
Thanks for sharing your love story — 56 years — that’s phenomenal. So many memories, too numerous to latch on to, perhaps…
…’loss’…
O Ms Kitchen, .that. is quite a lot to take in … … what you have stated.
But. Exactly the correct amount. To take in.
Cuz in the here and the now re thus: “We will be sprinkled somewhere together that had meaning for us,” the then in reality when ones loving each other are dead, will become for all of the dead folks (not for those loved ones still alive) … … … … exactly as it had been on The Planet .when before. any of them were born.
With my advancing age, that thinking of how being dead will “be” for me is mighty comforting.
Thank you, Ms Kitchen, for posting this account.
Blue
You have my sympathy & admiration, RK.
Hugs
In my culture (Bulgarians, the unhappy atheists) it is common to think and talk about reunion with loved ones after death, though there is a consensus that this reunion will be in the nowhere.
I can say that after some of my loved ones have died, it is easier for me to think of my own imminent death – it will bring me to them, in the nothing.
We like to bury bodies or ashes where other family members have already been buried, so to say, to bring the atoms where other atoms have already been positioned. If two family members die simultaneously in an accident, their bodies will absolutely be left to decay side by side.
So, while there may have been too much media hype about Nancy Reagan’s death, I find nothing wrong with the reporter’s words.
And I bet that, whatever others have written in this thread, no one has ever treated or will treat the body of a loved one as a mere biological waste, though technically this is what remains after life stops.
My family is free to dispose of my carcass in the most cost effective and environmentally friendly method they can find.
Donate my organs, give my body to science, bury the ashes under a tree or toss them in the ocean. It’s all good.
Now I wouldn’t actually mind being a skeleton in a junior high classroom if they promised to dress me up for every holiday.
Have you ever seen this bit by comedian David Cross?
In this line, I remember a quote from Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods:
“…They came across a mound beside the track. There was a helmet atop it, and a sword stuck in the sand.
“A lot of soldiers died to get here quickly,” said Brutha.
Whoever had taken enough time to bury their dead had also drawn a symbol in the sand of the mound. Brutha half expected it to be a turtle, but the desert wind had not quite eroded the crude shape of a pair of horns.
“I don’t understand that,” said Om. “They don’t really believe I exist, but they go and put something like that on a grave.”
“It’s hard to explain. I think it’s because they believe they exist,” said Brutha. “It’s because they’re people, and so was he.””
(Om is a god having horns as his logo. Brutha is currently his only extant believer.)
A very interesting thread. The language surrounding death is understandably softened, but does go too far. I object to the word “passed” – why not just “died”? Possibly too many of those speaking fuzzily of a husband and wife being re-united aren’t aware of the following bible quote: Matthew 22:30 KJV “for in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven”. So the cowboy shirt Ronnie dons to greet Nancy would have to make allowance for his wings!
How does she know they are in the same place?
Ron Reagan’s answer to his mother was kind but honest “wherever Ronnie is, I’m sure that’s where you will be.”
I watched the funeral and all mumbo jumbo from the priest about the certainty of eternal life, and was appalled watching that many influential people either believe that crap or play along.
A love story for all time?
Somehow I can’t picture Walter Cronkite saying something so treacly.
I was going to comment but then I remembered the saying appropriate to such occasions: “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing”.
So here goes:
cr
If you never say anything but nice things, thus never voice criticism, the world will never get better.
There’s a time and place for everything. Save the ammo for when it’s really needed.
Certainly criticise NBC but I wouldn’t want to include e.g. Ron Jnr as collateral damage.
cr