"Were you wondering why, after nearly two weeks of constant media play on the nightly newscasts, the story of the malfeasance at the Georgia crematorium suddenly dropped from the national news radar? So was I. Then I found this story from the Houston Chronicle, and I began to wonder if this might be one of the reasons... of the over 90-odd bodies found rotting in the Georgia countryside, over two dozen of them came from SCI-owned facilities. Hmmmm. This comes on the heels of the news of similar outrages occurring at SCI facilities in Florida. And, of course, those of us who've been following the Bush family's Texas doings know about Funeralgate there." So writes Tamara Baker in American Politics Journal.

The night after Christmas, funeral home executive Peter Hartmann was found dead in his garage, seemingly a suicide. His death followed revelations that cemetaries owned by Hartmann's company, Service Corporation International (SCI), had "recycled" graves in its Palm Beach cemetaries. But Peter Hartmann was not responsible - these cemetaries were not even in his territory. "The weekend before Christmas, Hartmann was summoned to a meeting with Houston honchos, who'd flown in for an emergency strategy session on the Florida case. We don't know what was said at that meeting, what facts were revealed. We don't know what Hartmann was told to do, or not to do. We don't know what he agreed to do, or refused to do. We don't know if he indeed 'tried to do the right thing,' whatever that might have been. We just know that three days later, on the night after Christmas, the deputies found him dead, in a company car, in the garage on Sugar Pine Drive." So writes Chris Floyd in the Moscow Times.