The Useful Dead V

Another creative use for the remains of your dearly departed: donate them to Body Worlds so they can be plasticized and then posed for public viewing in a variety of imaginative positions. What better way to teach the kids about anatomy?

What remains unclear is where these bodies came from. One report says that many of the bodies at the Body Worlds exhibition in Chicago appear to have bullet holes at the base of the skull. This makes me suspect they are probably Chinese prisoners who were executed. Criminal though they may have been, somehow I doubt these people volunteered to have their remains paraded in front of the world in this way. Nor did they want their organs sold for profit.

I haven't been to this exhibit. Maybe it is tastefully done, though it's hard to imagine how. In any case, it's more evidence that we live in a ghastly reincarnation of the Roman Empire. What will be next?