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Op-Ed

Soylent Green Is …

May 27, 2019

First off, I’m not going to tell you what Soylent Green is. If you don’t already know, you should either stop reading and go watch the movie or be prepared for a spoiler.

Milt Policzer

By Milt Policzer

Courthouse News columnist; racehorse owner and breeder; one of those guys who always got picked last.

First off, I’m not going to tell you what Soylent Green is. If you don’t already know, you should either stop reading and go watch the movie or be prepared for a spoiler.

The State of Washington has become the first in the nation to legalize human composting. Now you can remember grandma’s cooking by growing vegetables in her.

You can also compare her flavor with, say, that drunk uncle who died of cirrhosis, or a maiden aunt. Is there a particular lifestyle that makes for good soil? I’m picturing the “Top Chef” episode on this theme.

As someone who would prefer never to die, I’m not sure how I feel about this. Burial and cremation don’t sound like much fun, but do I want to be stuck in someone’s garden with stuff growing in me? I don’t know — maybe if it’s organic.

I have to admit I was surprised to read about this new law. I had no idea it was illegal to do anything with a body aside from burial and cremation. Now I can’t stop thinking about all the other possibilities.

Yuk! Maybe I should stop thinking about all the other possibilities. Use your own imagination.

If you’re curious, there’s lots of other interesting stuff in the Washington law (and, I’m guessing, laws everywhere else) about dead bodies and what you can do with them. For example, I didn’t know that you can rent caskets, but you have to give permission for the use of a second-hand (second-body?) casket for your deceased.

Scrabble fans will also enjoy some vocabulary items, e.g. “‘inurnment’ means placing human remains in a cemetery.” I can always use a place to put a u.

By the way, I know what some of you are thinking — it’s not a coincidence that this is happening in the state with the governor whose running for president with an emphasis on the environment.

Everything is political these days.

Fur flies. Quick: What are the two things the Internet is best known for?

That’s right: trolls and cats. So imagine my delight to find an appellate ruling in Ohio featuring both. Think of “Catwalk” (the Netflix documentary) gone horribly wrong.

Now look at this photo:

I know you can’t stop staring at it. I’m having trouble averting my eyes right now. ...

You wouldn’t think that such an alluring creature could drive people to madness and destructive acts, but that’s what happened here (sort of). It seems that the owners of rival catteries had the top two rated Birman cats in the Cat Fanciers Association ratings for the 2015-2016 season.

A little less than two months before the end of the season, a bunch of derogatory emails and online reviews started appearing claiming the plaintiff, a cat-breeding psychotherapist, not only mistreated her cats but that her medical license had been revoked because of drug abuse. The psychotherapist ended up in therapy and it turned out her rival had sent the messages.

And you thought cat shows were just for fun.

By the way, there was one rather odd sentence in the cat ruling: “The trial court also heard testimony from Atty. Sherman as to the high level of skill necessary to handle internet defamation claims and that there are only a couple of law firms which regularly handle such cases.”

Really? You’d think there was enough defamation on the internet to employ every lawyer in the country. This can’t be true. If it is, you lawyers out there need to properly promote your services — on the internet.

Final note: You’ll be happy to know that there are “retired adults available.”

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