VOA标准英语2012--Online Funeral Services Grow in Popularity

Online Funeral Services Grow in Popularity

 

These days a lot of people say they “live on the Web” - checking sports scores, reading online newspapers, downloading music and videos, and so forth¹.

Now, people are also dying on the Web. At least their funerals are being streamed online in increasing numbers, as a convenience to distant families, friends and fans.

Farewell Webcasts for international celebrities² are quite common. Michael Jackson’s and Whitney Houston’s memorial services were seen by millions online.

But services for ordinary folks are being watched as well.

Several companies are training funeral homes in video techniques and providing them with the software to produce Webcasts of their ceremonies.

A company called FuneralOne in Michigan helped mortuaries stream more than 1,000 Webcast funerals in 2010. And it sells DVD digital recordings³ of memorial services as well.

“We are in a YouTube society now,” Joseph Joachim IV, founder⁴ of FuneralOne, told the Associated Press.

The “memorial casts” allow even casual friends of the deceased, who would not spend the time or money to travel great distances to pay their respects, to tune⁵ in.

For instance, Ronald Rich, a firefighter in North Carolina, called the mother of a friend who had just died and told her that he could not make the funeral because of a snowstorm in the nearby mountains. The mother told him that the funeral would be streamed live on the Web.

“It was comforting to me,” Rich said, adding that he planned to watch the service a second time with other firefighters.

The online-funeral idea has been slow to develop in an industry that values solemnity, etiquette⁶, and privacy. Families that would like to make a loved one’s funeral available online - but don’t really want to open it to the world - can send an access code and password to those who knew and cared for the deceased.

They could be halfway⁷ across America - or halfway around the world.

1 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

2 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

3 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

4 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

5 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

6 etiquette   

n.礼仪，礼节；规矩

参考例句：

• The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
• According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。

7 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。