There's no funeral march for us, only laughter

[nmap]

I came across this article, which I found rather thought provoking. As we consider the change in values within our society, certain waypoints may illustrate our movement in one direction or another.

Although the columnist, Mr. Keillor, may not be the most popular in this venue, the subject may have value. Whether the events described are true or mere fiction is, of course, indeterminate.

I apologize for the lack of a link. The piece was published Saturday, June 13, 2009 in the San Antonio Express-News. I scanned it and used OCR to extract the text.


Speculation: If the present economic difficulties continue, the issue of euthanasia may enter the national debate. It is worth noting that a substantial part of total medical expenses occur during the last year of lfe. LINK, which may have implications in the public health-care debate.


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There's no funeral march for us, only laughter

This world belongs to the young and the daring, the avid, the adventurous, and that's why one follows the saga of corpo¬rate bailouts with a certain trepidation.

We're mortgaging the future. We are rescuing the stubborn and stupid. The cost of a good college education for the young and daring is stupefying, meanwhile the federal deficit yawns, tax increases lie ahead, job losses per month are like a major city getting wiped out, and India and China are doing what we used to do better.

So why does my mind keep drifting back to a woman I knew when I was in college, a writer like me, tall and magnificent, languorous, delightful. And now when I hear young women laugh loudly, as I did last night, I think of her and wonder where she is and who is making her laugh.

Last night a couple of friends and I were in a restaurant, discussing the world's troubles when peals of girlish laughter rang out from the booth behind us. I had tuned out of International Relations and tuned into the program next door so I got the joke.


One woman was talking about her mother, a nurse in a nursing home, and about a cocktail of morphine with a few additives that Mom would serve
to select patients when she felt quite sure that they wished to be released from the bonds of earth. She ushered them out of the world around 4 a.m. when it was quiet — "hearing is the last sense you lose at the end, so if an old man hears a ball-game on the radio, he may come bounding back to life to catch the score" — and she made sure that someone was around to hold the dying per¬son's hand. Death came pain¬lessly and she called the family, who now did not need to sit a long death watch, and the body was moved out and the bed changed for a new customer. All very orderly.

"But one day I walked into the living room and saw my father napping on the couch and my mother, the Angel of Death, standing over him and looking at him in a professional sort of way Our cat sat on a chair watching her with concern in its eye. The cat knew. He never napped out in the open."

That was the laugh line, the wariness of the cat. And when the woman called her mother Snuff Queen, her mother said, "I just hope that when I get there, someone will do the same for me." More laughter.


A person should be horrified by young people laughing at euthanasia, but I only thought of Margie and that apartment on Erie Street in Minneapolis and how hard it was to keep focused when the object of your lust was laughing to beat the band. She played guitar and sang the blues and wrote her term paper on Joyce's "Ulysses" and her laughter was like an aviary of exotic birds. We were young, we had no money we possessed the world through
sheer enthusiasm.

The world belongs to the young. Old pitchers get shelled one day and the next winter are released. Old writers go fallow and that's when people start giving them awards. We're marching to the cliff, and the middle-aged are pushing us and the young are pressing them. The angel awaits with a cocktail. The poets told us to gather rosebuds while we could, that the flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying, and it turns out that they were right.


My friends discuss the upcoming election in Iran, and over my left shoulder young women chortle at the thought of geezers being launched into eternity by the Snuff Queen, gone gone.

[Pete]

Had a talk with a friend who voted for Obama a few weeks ago.

He was all for Obamacare and thought it reasonable to ration care to the elderly. That reasoning is just one tiny step away from the Snuff Queen.

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by Pete

Had a talk with a friend who voted for Obama a few weeks ago.

He was all for Obamacare and thought it reasonable to ration care to the elderly. That reasoning is just one tiny step away from the Snuff Queen.

Amen to that. We are taking up space and oxygen that they believe we don't deserve anymore......

GB TFS

[Saoirse]

I found that story about the young people laughing about euthanasia very distressing.
Many of my friends are much older than I, 10 or more years or better. My grandmother just turned 90 and is in a home for the elderly. I have to wonder now if any of them go to a hospital or some "kid" decides my granny shouldn't be taking up air anymore and should be sent off to heaven. Today's youth is so cavalier about life and death....video games, cartoons, society in general I think are to blame for it. I wonder what it will be like when I finally reach that age...if I am "allowed" to. Or will it become some sort of sick practice to euthanize the elderly by a certain age? Anyone remember the movie and TV show from the 70s, "Logan's Run"?
I guess I am one of those people that value the elderly. People who lived more than MY LIFETIME and have experienced so much carry with them a plethora of valuable information. They have lived the history that I studied in school! They have seen the events that I only can read about in old newspapers or books or watch in documentaries. They can teach me things that I cannot always learn in school. They are fun, funny, intelligent, inciteful and a treasure! They have so much to teach and give the young and yet, our youth cannot find the value in all that. Sad!!

[Gypsy]

Originally Posted by Pete

Had a talk with a friend who voted for Obama a few weeks ago.

He was all for Obamacare and thought it reasonable to ration care to the elderly. That reasoning is just one tiny step away from the Snuff Queen.

Did you point out he also would be "old" some day?

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Gypsy

Did you point out he also would be "old" some day?

Oh, yeah. But for him and most people that day will never come.

[Defender968]

Originally Posted by Pete

Had a talk with a friend who voted for Obama a few weeks ago.

He was all for Obamacare and thought it reasonable to ration care to the elderly. That reasoning is just one tiny step away from the Snuff Queen.

I wonder if he'll keep singing that tune when it's one of his loved ones has to suffer or worse die from the rationing of care, or as others have said when he gets to that point and the shoe is on his foot.

[The Reaper]

Soylent Green.

TR

[Gypsy]

Originally Posted by Pete

Oh, yeah. But for him and most people that day will never come.

Oh, it's coming...

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Soylent Green.

TR

But, Edward G Robinson's character CHOSE the end and went there contented. The idea of a Health Care Provider (isn't there something about 'Do No Harm') making a decision at 0400 about who get to see the next sunrise is horrific. That the Snuff Queen's daughter finds it not only acceptable but humorous is freakish. One is guilty of Murder the other concealing a crime, aiding and abetting. If I find myself in a Nursing home I may re-think my view of CCW in hospitals. "So, You think it's time to walk toward the light? Okay, I'll follow you."

That was great movie.

[frostfire]

Originally Posted by nmap

a cocktail of morphine with a few additives that Mom would serve to select patients when she felt quite sure that they wished to be released from the bonds of earth.

"I just hope that when I get there, someone will do the same for me."

Unless I really know the condition of those patients "set free," I refrain from passing judgment. At least, she has no problem the same thing being applied to her.

I was told the same report from nursing home by a 70+ year old nurse. She realized the full scope of the healthcare problem, and had no qualm about the practice. I have to add that she worked in an foundation for challenged kids and fought for their (and other kids) rights vehemently. Perhaps that's why if she were to choose, she would choose their life over hers.

Keep in mind also the issue of quality of life. Not how long but how. I mean if granny is 90+ years old and still driving and volunteering at the local school, church, etc. By all means, way to go granny. OTOH, terminally ill, GCS < 3, requiring 3+ to machines maintain pulse, and no DNR...that's another story. I may appear cold and aloof, but it comes back to assets and liabilities. I told a next of kin the other day, if there's ever a day when I need ventilator and 15+ drugs to keep me alive, feel free to pull the plug/give me a single dose of .45. Preserve as much organs as possible, and donate every single of them to others (esp. kids), to medical research, and for plant food. I don't care if the next day they come up with a miracle cure, affordable cybernetics or what not, I've lived my life, it's time to go.

[swpa19]

I hope that when the Doc comes to tell me that its just not cost effective to keep me alive any longer, I have just enough strength left in me to point and pull.

[Richard]

Just leave me enough liquid morphine to allow me to not be a burden to others and to go to sleep when I decided it was time to do so.

Richard's $.02

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Soylent Green.

TR

TR,

The only problem I had with that movie is they never said it comes in many "flavors"!

Big Teddy

[greenberetTFS]

Remove this posting......I screwed up and made a double posting...