Remains of the Days.

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 12-MAR-07

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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Last week, our attention turned, collectively, to the problem of what ought to be done with the remains of one recognized even among nonbelievers as at least semi-divine--one who had, despite a complicated paternity, transformed our consciousness, and whose life, retold as a series of parables, has proved an enduring source of solace, guidance, and fascination. Also last week, someone claimed to have found the tomb where Jesus was buried.

These twin cable-television disputes formed an odd and yet touching counterpoint: the first dispute was, of course, over the body of Anna Nicole Smith, the former jeans model and oil millionaire's wife whose untimely death caused an unseemly tussle between her mother and her boyfriend over where she ought to be buried. The second involved the revelation, keyed to the launch of...

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