Submersible Passengers Died in Implosion (VIDEO)

We all know now.

But this was the big breaking letdown for so many yesterday. I personally saw no hope of survival, and the more we saw the more my initial intuition proved correct.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Search crews found debris from craft on ocean floor near Titanic shipwreck."

There's more at NPR (a great piece), "James Cameron says the Titan passengers probably knew the submersible was in trouble."

And an incredibly lucid and scientifically-informed interview with Cameron, at CNN with Anderson Cooper:

The interview continues here, "James Cameron on the 'surreal irony' of Titanic wreck and Titan implosion."

The Boomers in the Twilight Zone

Following-up, "Three-Quarters of Generation Z 'Not Interested In Sports'."

From Andrew Sullivan, "How exactly are they going to die? And how much choice should they have in it?":

I’m not particularly afraid of death. But I’m afraid of dying.

And dying can now take a very, very long time. In the past, with poorer diets, fewer medicines, and many more hazards, your life could be over a few months after being born or moments after giving birth or just as you were contemplating retirement. Now, by your sixties, you may well have close to a quarter of your life ahead of you. In 1860, life expectancy was 39.4 years. By 2060, it’s predicted to be 85.6 years. This is another deep paradigm shift in modernity we have not come close to adapting to.

For some, with their bodies intact and minds sharp, it’s a wonderful thing. But for many, perhaps most others, those final decades can be physically and mentally tough. Increasingly living alone, or in assisted living or nursing homes, the lonely elderly persist in a twilight zone of extended, pain-free — but not exactly better — life.

We don’t like to focus on this quality-of-life question because it calls into question the huge success we have had increasing the quantity of it. But it’s a big deal, it seems to me, altering our entire perspective on our lives and futures. Ricky Gervais has a great bit when he tells how he’s often told to stop smoking, or eat better, or exercise more — because leaving these vices behind will add a decade to his life. And his response is: sure, but the wrong decade! If he could get a decade in his thirties or forties again, he’d take it in an instant. But to live a crepuscular experience in your nineties? Not so much. “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” he quipped. Not entirely wrong.

Anyone who has spent time caring for aging parents knows the drill: the physical and then the mental deterioration; the humiliations of helplessness; the often punitive absorption of drug after drug, treatment after treatment; multiple medicinal protocols of ever-increasing complexity and side effects. Staying in a family home becomes impossible for those who need 24-hour care, and for adult children to handle when they’re already overwhelmed by work and kids. Home-care workers — increasingly low-paid immigrants — can alleviate only so much.

All this is going to get much worse in the next couple of decades as the Boomers age further: “The population aged 45 to 64 years, the peak caregiving age, will increase by 1% between 2010 and 2030 while the population older than 80 years will increase by 79%.” I’ll be among them — on the edge of Gen X and Boomerville.

I mention all this as critical background for debating policies around euthanasia or “assisted dying” (a phrase that feels morbidly destined to become “death-care.”) Oregon pioneered the practice in the US with the Death with Dignity Act in 1997. At the heart of its requirements is a diagnosis of six months to live. Following Oregon’s framework, nine other states and DC now have laws for assisted suicide. Public support for euthanasia has remained strong — 72 percent in the latest Gallup.

But this balance could easily get destabilized in the demographic traffic-jam to come. In 2016, euthanasia came to Canada — but it’s gone much, much further than the US. The Medical Assistance in Dying (or MAID) program is now booming and raising all kinds of red flags: there were “10,000 deaths by euthanasia last year, an increase of about a third from the previous year.” (That’s five times the rate of Oregon, which actually saw a drop in deaths last year.) To help bump yourself off in Canada, under the initial guidelines, there had to be “unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be relieved under conditions that patients consider acceptable,” and death had to be “reasonably foreseeable” — not a strict timeline as in Oregon. The law was later amended to allow for assisted suicide even if you are not terminally ill.

More safeguards are now being stripped away:

Gone is the “reasonably foreseeable” death requirement, thus clearing the path of eligibility for disabled individuals who otherwise might have a lifetime to live. Gone, too, is the ten-day waiting requirement and the obligation to provide information on palliative-care options to all applicants. … [O]nly one [independent witness] is necessary now. Unlike in other countries where euthanasia is lawful, Canada does not even require an independent review of the applicant’s request for death to make sure coercion was not involved.

This is less a slippery slope than a full-on, well-polished ice-rink. Several disturbing cases have cropped up — of muddled individuals signing papers they really shouldn’t have with no close relatives consulted; others who simply could not afford the costs of survival with a challenging disease, or housing, and so chose death; people with severe illness being subtly encouraged to die in order to save money:

In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital’s director of ethics told [patient Roger Foley] that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost “north of $1,500 a day.” Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care. “Roger, this is not my show,” the ethicist responded. “My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying.”

It’s hard to imagine a greater power-dynamic than that of a hospital doctor and a patient with a degenerative brain disorder. For any doctor to initiate a discussion of costs and euthanasia in this context should, in my view, be a firing offense.

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Then this: in March, a Canadian will be able to request assistance in dying solely for mental health reasons. And the law will also be available to minors under the age of 18. Where to begin? How do we know that the request for suicide isn’t a function of the mental illness? And when the number of assisted suicides jumps by a third in one year, as it just did in Canada, it’s obviously not a hypothetical matter.

Ross Douthat had a moving piece on this — and I largely agree with his insistence on the absolute inviolable dignity of every human being and the unquantifiable moral value of every second of his or her life. I’m a Catholic, after all. At the same time, we have to assess what this moral absolutism means in practice. It can entail a huge amount of personal suffering; it deprives anyone of a right to determine how she or he will die; and it hasn’t been adapted to our unprecedented scientific achievements, which have turned so many medical fates into choices we simply cannot avoid.

Does the person who lives the longest win the race? So much of our medical logic suggests this, but it’s an absurd way to think of life. I’m changed forever by losing some of my closest friends when they were in their twenties and thirties from AIDS a couple decades ago. They died; I didn’t. Wrapping my head around that has taken a while, but it became a burning conviction inside me that their lives were not worth less than mine for being cut so short; that life is less a race than a performance, less about how many years you can rack up, but how much love and passion and friendship a life can express, however brief or interrupted.

I still think this. Which is why I do not want to force terminally sick people to live as their bodies and minds disintegrate so badly that they would really rather die. Dignity goes both ways. My suggestion would be simply not aggressively treating the conditions and illnesses that old age naturally brings, accepting the decline of the body and mind rather than fighting like hell against it, and finding far better ways to simply alleviate pain and distress.

And at some point, go gentle. Treating those at the end of life with psilocybin, or ketamine, or other psychedelics should become routine, as we care for the soul in the days nearer our deaths. (Congress should pass this bipartisan bill to waive Schedule 1 status when it comes to the terminally ill.) We can let people die with dignity, in other words, by inaction as much as action, and by setting sane, humane limits on our medicinal power — with the obvious exception of pain meds.

Even Ross allows that “it is not barbaric for the law to acknowledge hard choices in end-of-life care, about when to withdraw life support or how aggressively to manage agonizing pain.” But that should be less of an aside than a strong proposal. What kind of support for how long? In my view, not much and not for too long. What rights does a dying patient have in refusing treatment? Total. What depths of indignity does she have to endure? Not so much. I’m sure Dish readers have their own views and unique experiences — so let’s air them as frankly as we can in the weeks ahead (dish@andrewsullivan.com). There has to be a line. Maybe we can collectively try to find it

I think of Pope John Paul II’s extremism on the matter of life — even as his body and mind twisted into a contortion of pain and sickness due to Parkinson’s and old age. His example did the opposite of what he intended: he persuaded me of the insanity of clinging to life as if death were the ultimate enemy. There’s little heroism in that — just agony and proof that we humans have once again become victims of our own intelligence, creating worlds we are not equipped or designed to live in, achieving medical successes that, if pursued to their logical conclusion, become grotesque human failures.

Moderation please, especially in our dotage. And mercy.

 

GRAPHIC: At Least 17 Dead in Soccer Melee at Mexico's Querétaro Estadio Corregidora Stadium (PHOTOS)

This tweet is particular gruesome. It's a foaming mob, kicking people to death, stripping off their clothes. Here, "The riot at the Querétaro vs Atlas game spilled outside of the stadium. Reprehensible scene."

Oh! Lord have mercy!

At London's Daily Mail, "Mexican football league suspended after match turns into BLOODBATH: 'Up to 17' fans killed and 'at least 26' injured after fights break out in stands as supporters beat up rivals and strip them NAKED":

At least 17 were killed and 26 people were brutally injured in a football match in Mexico yesterday, according to local reports.

The game between Queretaro and Atlas was suspended when fights broke out.

Unconfirmed reports of deaths emerged amid footage of fans bloodied and unresponsive.

Security opened the gates so women and children could escape to the pitch.

The Liga MX - Mexico's elite football division - announced the suspension of all remaining matches this weekend.

 More here, "VERY STRONG IMAGES FROM QUERÉTARO CORREGIDORA STADIUM. The bars fought brutally, there are wounded and unofficially dead. NO TO VIOLENCE IN STADIUMS, IN SPORTS, IN FOOTBALL," here, "Picture captured of man in the total choas that broke out at the Liga MX soccer match between Atlas and Querétaro."

See also, "Soccer Match Gets Suspended As Gruesome Riot Ends With 17 Fans Dead & Counting (VIDEO + PICS)."

Deadly Devastation: More Than 70 Killed in 'One of the Toughest' Tornado Events in Kentucky History (VIDEO)

Terrible.

Just biblical destruction and death. 

Watch the most dramatic images here. 

Story from the Lexington Herald-Leader, "‘One of the toughest nights in Kentucky history’: 70 or more feared dead in tornadoes":

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The “most severe tornado event in Kentucky’s history” is believed to have claimed the lives of at least 70 people, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference in Graves County late Saturday morning.

He said the death toll “may in fact end up exceeding 100 before the day is done.”

Beshear said earlier Saturday that four likely tornadoes wreaked havoc on the state with one traveling for more than 200 miles in Western Kentucky, “something we have never seen before.”

More than a dozen Kentucky counties have reported damage from the storms, he said.

Deaths have been reported in multiple counties.

The hardest hit appears to be Graves County in far Western Kentucky, where Mayfield, the county seat, has been devastated, the governor said.

A collapsed roof at a Mayfield candle factory with about 110 people inside resulted in mass casualties and will account for the largest loss of life in the state as a result of the storms, he said.

As of just before noon, Beshear said about 40 of the 110 people inside the plant had been rescued. The last successful rescue there was at about 3:30 a.m., Beshear said, though he said “we still hope and pray that there’s some opportunity for others.”

Eleven people died in Muhlenberg County, Coroner Larry Vincent said. Other counties reporting deaths and injuries were Hopkins, Marshall, Warren, and Caldwell, Beshear said Saturday.

Up to 10 counties may have casualties, he said. Widespread damage was reported in Bowling Green. A Bowling Green police spokesman said Saturday morning that the number of people hurt or killed was not yet known, as first responders were still working to find people amid the wreckage.

The National Weather Service in Louisville said evidence of damage from an EF-3 tornado with estimated wind speeds of 150 mph had been found by its survey team in Bowling Green.

The weather service office in Paducah said in a tweet that crews were out doing storm damage surveys Saturday, but that it will take some time to get a rating on the intensity of the tornado that hit Mayfield.

More than 75,000 Kentucky customers remained without power as of 1:17 p.m. Saturday, according to the website PowerOutage.us.

Keep reading.  

Also, via Reuters, "Six Amazon workers killed after tornadoes reduce warehouse near St. Louis to rubble."

Oh, the humanity. 

More at Memeorandum. 

Former President George W. Bush Overcome by Emotion During His Eulogy for His Father, George H.W. Bush (VIDEO)

I know a lot of conservatives dislike George W. Bush, but I love him. I wish I could meet him. He's my favorite president. I love Trump too, but there was the dignity of George W. while in office, and his dogged perseverance on the Iraq war I'll never forget.

And this is a wonderful eulogy.

Anthony Bourdain Heartbroken After Split from Asia Argento?

I know, from having my heart broken too many times, if there's one sure thing to drive a man over the cliff it's the rejection of a beautiful woman. And Bourdain had problems before. He'd been a heroin addict at one point.

The Other McCain tweeted the other day:

Bourdain had a history of serious drug abuse. He was divorced twice, and had just been dumped by his girlfriend. Stop pretending that his suicide was mysterious, caused by some "chemical imbalance." That's bullshit.

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) June 9, 2018

Why don't you mention that the reason Bourdain killed himself was because Asia Argento recently dumped him? https://t.co/rM1bxLBfCr

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) June 9, 2018

I wrote about my pal Tony https://t.co/4STkQsUxVV

— your friend Helen (@hels) June 8, 2018

Also at TMZ:

ANTHONY BOURDAIN
EVERYTHING SEEMED GOOD WITH GF
... Until This Week https://t.co/nJQ1UQvHHl

— ☮️ 🕊 🌎 tmarie (@Syr829) June 9, 2018

Here's where things get murky. We know Anthony was shooting his show in France this week -- he'd been there for at least 4 days. However, Asia was back in Rome, strolling around with a French reporter named Hugo Clément. There were photos of them holding hands and hugging, but the Italian photographer who shot the pics pulled them off the market on the heels of Anthony's death.

It's unclear if Anthony and Asia had broken up. If they did, there was no public announcement. Their last public appearance together was at an event was back in April in NYC.

Anthony Bourdain Has Died

Today's a sad day. Charles Krauthammer released a statement saying he's got just weeks to live. He's been recovering from a successful surgery to remove a tumor of the stomach, but now the cancer's returned, very aggressively it turns out. More on that later, but it makes me sad. I think I've been just amazed by Krauthammer all these years, even when I disagreed with him, but he's so good. Just so good. It's a wonderful thing that he was able to share some final thoughts with everybody, so folks can respond with their well-wishes.

Meanwhile, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain committed suicide. See CNN, via Memorandum, "CNN's Anthony Bourdain dead at 61."

Bethany Mandel has written about suicide this week, first about Kate Spade's death, and the loss of her father to suicide, at the New York Post. And then again today, with the news of Bourdain. It's very profound reading:

In the wake of Kate Spade's death, I wrote about my father's suicide for the first time. Thank you to my amazing husband @SethAMandel for editing this, I don't usually submit things to him because he's brutal, but this time he was kind. https://t.co/nlgHdfBmzJ

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) June 7, 2018

To all suicide survivor kids, a note: https://t.co/d3kmxndiRA

— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) June 8, 2018

Kirsten Powers Deleted Tweet Shaming Hugh Hefner Moments After Announcement of His Death

Sometimes you just need to chill on those hot takes.

Kirsten Powers wisely deleted this tweet about Hugh Hefner. pic.twitter.com/NFr7bDB1VB

— Brittain for Senate (@SenatorBrittain) September 28, 2017

'Dying together was their deepest wish...'

Maybe if it truly was "their deepest wish"? Maybe if there were young, legally-informed family members around to guard against malicious state "health" officials. Then maybe, just maybe, I could accept this. I'm still skeptical, though. I just am.

At Althouse, "'Nic and Trees Elderhorst, both 91, died [together, by euthanasia] in their hometown of Didam, in the Netherlands, after 65 years of marriage'."

It's the Netherlands. I'm not at all confident the Netherlands is all that different from Iceland when it comes to protecting life. Did you see this? "Monstrous: 'Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion'."

I'm for life. I don't like the European, or Nordic or whatever, approach to "human compassion." It's evil.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying

Lawrence Meyers cited her in my previous entry.

At Amazon, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families.

Four-Year-Old Minnesota Boy Accidentally Hangs Himself (VIDEO)

Just devastating.

At CNN:

Israel Yinon, Renowned Conductor, Dies After Collapsing Onstage in Lucerne, Switzerland

You never know when you're going to go.

In this case, at least he died with his conducting boots on, doing what he loved to do. RIP.

At the Times of Israel, "Renowned Israeli conductor dies on stage during concert," and London's Daily Mail, "Internationally renowned conductor drops dead in front of screaming audience and musicians during a symphony in Switzerland."

Physician-Assisted Suicide is Receiving Fresh Support, But Remains as Open to Abuse as Ever

It's a terrible, terrible policy.

European countries put old people to death simply for being lonely, while calling it "compassionate."

And now Brittany Maynard's case is being used to advertise "death with dignity."

I can't think of anything as ghastly.

From Paul McHugh, at the Wall Street Journal, "Dr. Death Makes a Comeback":

‘I guess Jack’s won,” a pal of mine said, alluding to Jack Kevorkian , whose views on physician-assisted suicide are lately back in vogue. With backing from liberal financier George Soros —a longtime supporter of “right to die” legislation—proponents are intent on expanding beyond Oregon, Vermont and Washington the roster of states where the practice is legal. Legislation to allow assisted suicide is moving through New Jersey’s statehouse, last month a New York legislator vowed to introduce a similar bill, and in California state Sens. Bill Monning and Lois Wolk are working to legalize the practice.

My pal may have a point, but he perhaps has forgotten how often in fights for good ideas, the bad ones—even when crushingly defeated, as when Michigan sent Kevorkian to prison in 1999—sidle back into the ring and you have to thrash them again.

Since ancient Greece physicians have been tempted to help desperate patients kill themselves, and many of those Greek doctors must have done so. But even then the best rejected such actions as unworthy and, as the Hippocratic Oath insists, contrary to the physician’s purpose of “benefiting the sick.” For reasons not too different, doctors traditionally refuse to participate in capital punishment; and, when they are inducted into military service, do not bear arms.

lso, as Ian Dowbiggin showed in “A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America” (2003), physician-assisted suicide was periodically championed in the 20th century yet rejected time after time by American voters when its practical harms were comprehended. As recently as 2012, Massachusetts voters defeated an initiative to legalize assisted suicide.

There are two essential harms from the practice. First: Once doctors agree to assist a person’s suicide, ultimately they find it difficult to reject anyone who seeks their services. The killing of patients by doctors spreads to encompass many treatable but mentally troubled individuals, as seen today in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

Second: When a “right to die” becomes settled law, soon the right translates into a duty. That was the message sent by Oregon, which legalized assisted suicide in 1994, when the state-sponsored health plan in 2008 denied recommended but costly cancer treatments and offered instead to pay for less-expensive suicide drugs.

These intractable, recurrent drawbacks are but one side of the problematic transaction involved with assisted suicide. The other, more telling side is the way assisting in patients’ suicides hollows out the heart of the medical profession.

The fundamental premise of medicine is the vocational commitment of doctors to care for all people without doubting whether any individual is worth the effort. That means doctors will not hold back their ingenuity and energies in treating anyone, rich or poor, young or old, prominent or socially insignificant—or curable or incurable.

This is the heart and soul of medical practice. The confidence with which patients turn to their physicians depends on it, and it is what spurs doctors to find innovative ways of helping the sick.

So why do the arguments for physician-assisted suicide regularly recur? Primarily because of compelling stories about patients who despair when medical futility, burdensome treatments and an unavoidable, painful fate seem to combine. Such patients have never been rare.

A recent high-profile case was that of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman diagnosed last year with a malignant brain tumor. She chose to publicize how, given her fears over what doctors were predicting, she would move from California to Oregon where a physician could—and did—prescribe medications for her to kill herself before many of the symptoms she feared had developed...

Keep reading.

Heart-Wrenching First-Hand Report on the D.C. Metro Fire

Someone dying right before your eyes, you offer help. But sadly it's too late.

At the Washington Post, "Metro rider who helped dying passenger: 'I told her she was going to be okay'":

Jonathan Rogers said he was in the second or third car of a Yellow Line train Monday when it stopped abruptly in a tunnel just outside of the L’Enfant Plaza station. Soon, smoke filled the car and some passengers began having breathing problems. On Tuesday, Rogers, who works at the D.C. Department of Transportation, said he was still recovering from a difficult afternoon and remembering a woman he and his fellow passengers tried to help.

Rogers recalled that after several minutes aboard the smoke-filled train, passengers began having difficulty breathing, including a woman, who was identified Tuesday afternoon as Carol Glover, sitting in one of the seats facing the door. But unlike others who were very vocal about their discomfort, “She was kind of stoic.”

“She was just sitting,” he said. “You wouldn’t have even noticed that anything was wrong. ”

But there was something seriously wrong. Rogers watched through the smoke as the woman slid out of her seat and sank slowly to the floor. Eventually, she got down on all fours, he recalled.

“It wasn’t like she was demanding help,” Rogers said. “She was too short of breath.”

He and other passengers rushed to her side to help...

Keep reading.

Joan Rivers Talks to Her Daughter Melissa Before Surgery

Video, from 2011, "Joan Rivers Moments Before Surgery - No Makeup."

Via Ann Althouse, "'I don’t want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents'."

Robin Williams Oscar Acceptance Speech for 'Good Will Hunting'

I think the whole world is hurting this morning:



PREVIOUSLY: "Robin Williams Dead at 63."

5-Year Old Has Meltdown When She Learns Her Baby Brother's Going to Grow Up

I think this clip caught some viral action earlier in the week.

Irony: No Funeral for Hate-Preaching, Funeral-Protesting Westboro Church Founder Fred Phelps

I despise Westboro Baptist. Their funeral protests against America's service personnel are probably the most evil form of free speech this side of the KKK. But it's their right to do it, and frankly, Phelps has never been a model for conservatives on opposition to the radical left's homosexual agenda.

So it's pretty ironic that Phelps' own family won't hold a funeral for the old man. At WIBW Topeka, "No Funeral, After Death Of Westboro Church Founder Fred Phelps."

And a rare expression of decency on the left, from Erica Cook, at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, "Show love to Fred Phelps's family instead of hatred":

The very post I saw his death reported also had a call to picket his funeral as he has done to so many. This was by a friend who has seen his hate, and understandably wants to exact revenge. But if the actions of his life have shown anything it is that the funeral is no place for revenge or the spirit of hate. We may not feel sorrow at his death. It may even be a day of relief. But this is the time to show why he was wrong to protest the funerals of our family.

This is the chance to show the world how we are better people. We aren’t people who make the death of a man the reason to celebrate, no matter who that man is. We are the better people. And no matter who he is to us, he was someone’s father, grandfather, brother, and uncle. We may still be fighting against them, but today they need the respect they didn’t have the capacity to give when it was us. If we act in any way other than respectful we become no better than them. In stooping to that we relinquish the right to call what they do wrong.

Like I said, a rare example of leftist decency.

I'm sure there was plenty of leftist joy around today, for example:

Yes, this queer person is happy phelps is dead. He made life harder for people. May he rot.

— aliceinthewater (@aliceinthewater) March 20, 2014

Leftists dance on conservative graves every time a right-winger dies. And leftist hatred of conservatives hasn't abated in recent years (Duck Dynasty anyone?). But hey, leftists always need someone to hate. Might as well be Fred Phelps.

Sherwin Nuland, the 'How We Die' Guy, Has Died

We all gotta go sometime, and it's rarely dignified. Frankly, this guy predicted his own undignified demise.

Kind of depressing, actually.

At NYT, "Sherwin B. Nuland, ‘How We Die’ Author, Dies at 83":

Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, a surgeon and author who drew on more than 35 years in medicine and a childhood buffeted by illness in writing “How We Die,” an award-winning book that sought to dispel the notion of death with dignity and fueled a national conversation about end-of-life decisions, died on Monday at his home in Hamden, Conn. He was 83.

The cause was prostate cancer, his daughter Amelia Nuland said.

To Dr. Nuland, death was messy and frequently humiliating, and he believed that seeking the good death was pointless and an exercise in self-deception. He maintained that only an uncommon few, through a lucky confluence of circumstances, reached life’s end before the destructiveness of dying eroded their humanity.

“I have not seen much dignity in the process by which we die,” he wrote. “The quest to achieve true dignity fails when our bodies fail.”

In “How We Die, ” published in 1994, Dr. Nuland described in frank detail the processes by which life succumbs to violence, disease or old age. Arriving amid an intense moral and legal debate over physician-assisted suicide — perhaps the ultimate manifestation of the concept of a dignified death — the book tapped into a deep national desire to understand the nature of dying, which, as Dr. Nuland observed, increasingly took place behind the walls of the modern hospital. It won a National Book Award.

Dr. Nuland wrote that his intention was to demythologize death, making it more familiar and therefore less frightening, so that the dying might approach decisions regarding their care with greater knowledge and more reasonable expectations. The issue has only intensified since the book was published, and has been discussed and debated in the medical world, on campuses, in the news media and among politicians and government officials engaged in health care policy.

“The final disease that nature inflicts on us will determine the atmosphere in which we take our leave of life,” he wrote, “but our own choices should be allowed, insofar as possible, to be the decisive factor in the manner of our going.”

Continue.

Turns out this guy was Victoria "f-k the EU" Nuland's dad:

Dr. Nuland’s first marriage ended in divorce. In 1977, he married Sarah Peterson, an actress and director. Besides his wife, survivors include two children from his first marriage, Victoria Jane Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Andrew; two children from his second marriage, Amelia and William; and four grandchildren.

'As I grow older, I think more and more about death and what comes next...'

Saberpoint ruminates on life's meaning as one gets long in the tooth: "A Rainy Day, a Good Cigar, God and the Near Death Experience."

No, I'm not a "materialist" either.