The Choices of Brittany

I was so happy to read that Brittany Maynard has chosen to live a little longer.  Brittany has terminal brain cancer and decided to engage in either physician assisted suicide or some other right to die method of her choosing.  She has recently chosen to put off her scheduled departure. 

She is an inspiration to both those who wish to have the right to die on their own terms and also to those such as my mother and sister who fought against death to the very last breath.

My mother fought a very long battle with COPD and was not afraid to die.  At the very end, she fought very hard to stay alive.  Her last three weeks of life were spent in a morphine induced coma and I slept on the floor beside her bed every night and taking care of her every day.  As painful as the whole experience was, I would do it all over again.  The whole experience was a blessing that only those of us who have given our lives to a loved one could understand.

My sister died from brain cancer which had originally metastasized from breast cancer.  She too wasn't afraid of death but fought to the very end to live.  She decided not to take morphine for her pain management and opted for other herbal methods (we need to vote in politicians who understand this).  Despite being bed ridden, my sister insisted upon going on a camping trip and the family carried her and her bed out to a campsite near a lake and a few days later, that is where she died, peacefully watching a sunrise. 

Both experiences have taught me two lessons which can be summed up in these two quotes by Henri Nouwen:

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.”

"Blessed are those who suffer.  Not because suffering is good but, because they shall be comforted."

Regardless of the path Brittany chooses, she is an inspiration for both those who wish to have the right to leave this world on their own terms and for those who fight to stay as long as possible. 

If Brittany decides to fight the battle to the bitter end, she won't be a burden to anyone, but a blessing and they wouldn't have it any other way. 

Sleep and Melatonin

I have absolutely no problem falling asleep.  When I go to bed, I am usually out within a minute.  I then sleep solidly through the night but I usually find myself waking up around 5:30 regardless of how much sleep I have had or yet still need.  As if by an alarm clock, I'm awake.  In the summer when morning breaks around five, I usually wake up with the sun.  Getting only about six hours of sleep each night is not really an issue for me because I have the luxury of being able to take a nap in the afternoon, which may be another problem. 

Someone suggested to me to try taking melatonin supplements for increased sleep so I went to my local Kmart and purchased a generic brand (I won't name it so I don't to endorse any particular brand (but I gave it away by saying I got it at Kmart)) and started taking them.  Upon the initial observation, the supplements didn't seem to do anything for my sleep pattern but, since I wear a Garmin Vivofit wrist band which also monitors any movement while I sleep, by looking at my sleep reports I noticed a difference in my patterns. 

I have uploaded six graphs of my Vivofit sleep patterns.  The first three are pre-melatonin and the second three are from nights where I took melatonin.

In figure A, you can see I went to bed at 11:00 and per my usual routine, I watched TMZ from 11:00 to 11:30.  At around 11:30 when I turned the TV off, you can see I was out.  A little before 5:00 you can see I woke up and tossed around a bit and finally got up around 5:45.

In figure B, I was in bed watching TV and watched some of the 11:30  news before falling asleep a little before midnight.  I woke up around 5:00 a.m. with significant movement.  I usually turn on the TV in the morning and watch the news in bed for about half an hour before getting up.

In figure C, I watched TV at 11:00 and at 11:30, turned the TV off and promptly fell asleep.  I had an unusual morning and slept to a little before 6:00.

Here is where I experimented with taking a single dose of Melatonin before bed.  In figure D, you can see at 11:30 I fell immediately asleep but notice the periods where the flat lines are.  Those are times where I was completely motionless. 

On the second night, In figure E, there are periods of motionlessness and also notice that I slept a bit past 6:00. 

Likewise in figure F, the slightly longer sleep period and significantly longer  periods of restfulness.  That 12:30 spike is where I got up to take care of some business because I took water with the supplement.  I won't do that again.  Notice that I slept right up to 6:00.

In the final analysis, I can't say that by taking melatonin supplements I have noticed anything different about my sleep habits or how I feel but, my Garmin Vivofit has been able to discern pattern deviations which can't be ignored.  

I will continue to take the melatonin supplements until they run out and will closely monitor my Vivofit graphs for a few weeks thereafter to see if anything changes. 

If anyone has been having sleep issues, maybe melatonin will prove useful for you.  If you'll excuse me, the sun is shining and I am going to go take a nap in all its gloriousness. 

Ads from Yesteryear

These are ads from the July 30, 1944 AMERICAN WEEKLY Magazine.  Before I placed the issue up on Ebay, I photographed a few ads from this edition.  My favorite is Crisco where they say "9 out of 10 doctors say 'It's Digestible.'"

Pictures from The Sunday Mirror, August 20, 1944

Before I placed the issue up on Ebay, I scanned a few pictures and stories from the edition.  Of the pictures, here are the captions:

"Her Road Of Shame," It's settling up time these days in liberated French towns.  Here is a woman accused of Nazi sympathies.  Armed French civilians march her past a W.S. tank on road to Pre en Pail, where she will be shorn of her hair, feminine penalty for consorting with the enemy.

Victory 'V' Salutes by French civilians welcome Yank tanks, passing through a liberated town in Southern France on their way toward Toulon.  Note flags.

The Moment of Explosion is caught in this photo at five-alarm fire in Philadelphia.  Magnesium tank of the Quaker City Iron Works is lowing up with a burst of brilliance showering sparks for blocks around.

'Oh, say, can you see . . . " American troops who crashed into St. Malo after a concentrated assault, proudly unfurl the Stars and Stripes atop the town's citadel, Nazis' "Mad Colonel" had delayed his men's surrender.

Free French Partisans, among the first to tie up with American troops appear to have no language difficulties with their liberators in a town in southern France.  The Partisans are bristling with knives and guns.

Vivofit

My Garmin Vivofit and calorie counting helped me lose 15 pounds. 15 to go.

Explanation of the Terrorism Video

Americans think that terrorism started in this country on September 11th, it didn't.  It has existed for certain classes and groups of people since we first came to this hemisphere.

The first act of terrorism began with Christopher Columbus who sought to find a faster route from Spain to China.  Instead he landed on the shore of Hispaniola.  Today we call that island the Dominican Republic and Haiti.  Do they still teach in school that he landed on Plymouth Rock?  Your tax dollars at work.

The indigenous people of Hispaniola were the Arawaks whom Columbus and his men raped, murdered and took as slaves.  In his ship's log he thanked and praised God for the gift of human chattel.  He filled his ship's hulls with several hundred Arawak men and took them back to Spain as slaves.  Most did not survive.  Who knew you had to feed them?  He then lied to the Queen, telling her that there was so much gold there (there was none) that he needed dozens more ships. 

When he returned, the Arawaks poisoned their children and committed mass suicide so as not to be raped, murdered and taken as slaves by Columbus and his Christian men.  Hundreds of thousands of native Arawaks died at the hands of Christopher.  Happy Columbus Day.

When more Europeans began to colonize the entire east coast of the country, they encountered other Native American Nations such as the Iroquois, Mohawk, Algonquin, Seneca and many more.  After the white man launched political campaigns to take Native American land, displace the natives and murder them (because they fought back), we pushed westward because it was our God ordained destiny.  Today, the remnants of those aborigine nations live on reservations and we're trying to take those lands, too.  We are starting by creating insidious laws which they must abide by.

When the Puritans came to North America to escape religious persecution, what did they do?  They persecuted other people because of their religion.  They also created witch hunts.  These were successful campaigns because the general population was told that witches abducted, raped, murdered and ate small children.  This was the same tactic Adolph Hitler used to turn his followers against the Jews.  Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."   Most of our fairy tales and nursery rhymes were created around the myth of children being abducted such as Little Red Riding-hood, Hansel and Gretel, the Pied Piper, Snow White, etcetera.

Then there was the enslavement of the Africans.  After their emancipation, Lincoln's second phase was to repatriate all the blacks back to Africa or to off shore islands.  He first needed to set them free because he couldn't repatriate them if they were property.  He freed them but before he could sign the repatriation act to remove the newly freed from the country, he was assasinated and the African-Americans stayed.  African-Americans should celebrate Lincoln not because he set them free, but that he was assasinated before he could eradicate them.  If outright hate and prejudice wasn't bad enough, our entertainment, music and movie industry further perpetuated stereotypes and inequality.

After prohibition failed, many poor people turned to marijuana since they couldn't afford the illegal hooch.  Marijuana was found to be an excellent source of pain relief and even a cure for alcoholism.  Harry Anslinger made it his mission to eradicate marijuana by spreading lies about its efficacy.  Although the lies were disproved by the La Guardia Report, Anslinger used racism to convince society that marijuana was the devil's drug.  He said that when white girls smoke muggles, it results in them seeking sexual relations with black men and the result would be pregnancy and syphilis.  Marijuana causes sane people to go mad and commit murder.  All the lies must be true because Anslinger had the financial support of pharmaceutical companies, the lumber and paper industry, the tobacco industry, the brewery's and the Hearst empire which published Anslingers tales of rabid, foaming at the mouth hysteria in all their papers. 

Despite none of the lies about this miracle herb being true, the fear and confusion about it continues to exist today.  Many prescription drugs come with horrible side effects including difficulty breathing, heart problems, lung problems, liver problems, blood disorders, thoughts of suicide and even death.  Many prescription drugs are also addictive and it is easy to overdose on them.  In case you overdose on Tylenol, Advil, Sudafed, Motrin, Codein or Aspirin, contact Poison Control immediately.  In case you overdose on marijuana, contact Domino's Pizza.  Unlike alcoholics, I've never seen a person who was high on marijuana beat his wife and children.  The only benefit from the marijuana scare Anslinger created is that it filled our jails and prisons which also employ hundreds of thousands of people in every state.

The hatred for homosexuality fueled by religion has been devastating to our country.  Homosexuality and masturbation were considered sinful because those acts did not produce offspring at a time when the Christian population needed to outnumber the Muslim population (Crusades).  Also, people died in their forties so it was imperative that we marry off our 13 year old children as soon as they hit puberty so they could pump out as many children as possible.  Population is no longer an issue so these "sins" are no longer threats to society, but we forgot why we made them sins.   We are still in conflict today  with the Muslim religion though.  Thanks Pope Urban II and the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  You made genocide holy and gave us wars to last for centuries.

I used to volunteer answering both a suicide hotline and the 211 line.  Far too many gay teenagers would call the suicide hotline not because of their sexuality but because of society's response to them.  I mean, even God hates them.   Now when our new Pope tried to get the message out that even homosexuals are welcome in the church, the Synod said no, they are not welcome.  How ironic, the Catholic church is a magnet to gay artists, musicians, sculptors, writers and clergy.  I guess the Vatican should purge its churches and museums of the works of Da Vinci and Michelangelo because they were gay. 

While answering the 211 line, I would get calls from women and kids who were being physically abused, homeless people without a place to go, hungry families without enough food, people without insurance and who couldn't afford medical care, people with insurance but were now addicted to prescription drugs and they often feel that suicide is their only escape.

I then went on to volunteer at a homeless shelter where I discovered that many of the men there have arrest records.  The reason they can't get jobs is that little box ubiquitous to all applications.  Once they check yes on that box, HR disqualifies them as a candidate.  Now, that is illegal in this country and if you were to ask an HR person if they acted out of prejudice  they would say - prove it.  Many will go so far as to drag an undesirable candidate through the process just to give the outward appearance that they don't discriminate.  Ultimately, that applicant won't be qualified or may fail the Meyers-Briggs test or some such excuse.

Now, I love the church but, before you go to church on Sunday, consider the words of St. Vincent de Paul.  He wrote: "If a needy person requires medicine or other help during your prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind. Offer that deed to God as your prayer. Do not become upset or feel guilty because you use your prayer time to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave him for real service. You should prefer the service of the poor to making your prayer. For, it is not enough to love God, if, your neighbor does not also love God."

Fold your hands in a praying position. These are the hands you use to touch the ones you love, hold the things you treasure, perform the constant countless motions of your living. For now, these hands do nothing, they are not useful held this way, kept by each other from all movement of living and serving. Pressed to each other, there is no space for holding anything or anyone. For the moment these hands are empty and still.  Jon Stewart once said, "Prayer is the least thing you can do for someone while still getting to grandstand like you are actually doing something."

So, vote this November.  Not to vote is to vote.  Then call the politicians and tell them why you did or did not vote for them.  GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND DO IT.  Then get out into your community and help people.  After you do that, go to church and pray over it.  If your social convictions don't align with your church institution's teachings or acts of terrorism, find another church and let them know why you are leaving.  Not to act is to act.  Keep in mind, no agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.   Has your church?  Government?  Have they made amends? 

Homosexuality in the Roman Catholic Church

It's all over the news today; The Vatican recently released a draft of their new document, RELATIO POST DISCEPTATIONEM and it has stirred up quite a firestorm among those on the conservative side of the church and, I think it is rather amusing.

One paragraph within the document states that homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. Are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?

What is amusing about the backlash against that statement is that homosexuals have been at the forefront of the church since its beginning.  Many of our great artists, painters, composers, musicians, architects, sculptors, writers and clergy were - and even today - are gay.  Start by taking a look at Leonardo da Vinci and his legacy to the Roman Catholic Church.  The church has had no problem accepting and embracing the work of gay people for centuries, including today's current crop of gay liturgical participants, as long as they deny their identity and don't come out.  

There is a national music group of over 10,000 members whose past president is gay, everyone knew, nobody cared.  However, when he married his lover of over thirty years, her was terminated from his position. 

The church teaches that everyone deserves respect, dignity and love and that is not inherent upon anything.  Not on their occupation, race, sexuality, economic situation, looks, education or past.  Everyone is a child of God and made in God's image.  Every sinner has a future and every saint has a past.   However, the church still has a difficult time being forgiving and accepting while protesting too much.

The church is quick to state that homosexuality is not a sin, homosexual acts are, and I'd like to point out that heterosexuality is not a sin, although heterosexual acts outside a marriage are.  Most heterosexual people have committed the same sin as homosexuals.  While both acts may be wrong in the eyes of the church institution, we should always love and respect the person and treat the person with dignity.  Gay or straight.  Sinner or saint.

What is surprising is that most churches have no problem with the homosexuals within their worshiping community and are already welcoming to them.  The people simply don't care or are accepting.  Among the silent majority, they are more surprised by the hateful vocal minority than the fact that homosexuals have been the driving force behind the church for centuries.

This document is calling the church to be more dynamic, merciful and welcoming but, the church already is and has been for the past two thousand years.  The haters are constantly telling God's people what is wrong instead of affirming everything genuine, beautiful and good in God's human project.

Clergy, organists, choir directors, choirs, soloists, liturgists, painters, sculptors, architects, composers, theologians, writers, poets and the people in the pews; gay people are already out there where the church is a magnet for those who wish to express their faith through their art, skill and passion.  For the haters who wish to eradicate the homosexual from the church, they would deny the church the source of its most richest heritage and treasure.  The church, its music, its art, its architecture, its teachings and the beautiful tapestry it is today is because of the many people in the past who self identified publicly or privately as homosexual. 

The church needs to remember why it hates homosexuality.  Fear, rabid foaming at the mouth and hysteria about homosexuality started in the days when people died at the old age of thirty or forty.  In order to build the population for protection, to ensure a work force to feed and shelter its population, and to promote the lineage, girls got married at the age of 13 or so.  Men who engaged in masturbation (the sin of Onan) or homosexual tendencies did not produce offspring so the church declared that those activities which spilled the seed was a sin.  I beleive that the Church Of Latter Day Saints promote families of at least seven children to this day for the same reason - to build a population.  And of course, this was also the foundation for the practice of bigamy.   More wives meant more children and a larger denomination.

When there was a war between Christians and Muslims (the Crusades - which we still feel the aftershocks today), in order to beat the Muslims, Christians needed to outnumber them so the more Christians there were, the bigger army they could build.  More Christians meant bigger armies, bigger churches, more workers and the need for larger territories which meant that in order to seize more territory - war.   Over the centuries we forgot why we hated the idea of not producing children and out of ignorance, the hatred for homosexuality still exists today.  

Looking back, we can see how arrogant, wrong and misguided our hate used to be for groups such as blacks, women, Asians, Irish, Jews and for many Christians, the gays.  While looking back, one has to wonder what was wrong with us.  I suspect in a hundred years or so, people will look back on this issue and wonder the same.  The Roman Catholic church should pay heed lest people look back and wonder, "Catholicism, what was wrong with us?"

I know a lot of people who don't go to church.  Not because they don't beleive in God, but because they don't beleive in the church.  Many of those same people won't shop at Walmart because of its human rights violations.  Those same people won't go to church because of its human rights violations.  You have to wonder which is the more enlightened sect.

“I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever."
- Daniel J. Boorstin .