The old joke about the media headline reporting doomsday comes to mind - "World to end, women and children hardest hit":
A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.
Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .
"I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead," said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. "People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don't talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more."
You know things are going well in Iraq when the press is focused on how cemetery workers are suffering from the drop in violence.
Good grief.
The most aptly-headlined story you've had in quite some time, Rick. I'm sure you've done some kind of digging into this, and it looks legit, but I'm going to have to give it a couple more once-overs before linking to it.
Reads JUST like something from The Onion. Fer cryin' in the sink...
Posted by: Morgan K Freeberg | Friday, October 19, 2007 at 04:04 PM