Here’s the question: When I am – or you are – terminally ill, who should decide when to call it quits? Right now, it’s mostly hospitals and doctors, with enforcement from the state.  

I don’t want hospitals, churches, or the government making decisions for me about what happens to me at the end of my life. If I’m ill with a terminal disease, then the last choice I get to make should be how I leave this world.

Oregon has led the way in providing terminally ill patients with medically supervised options.

Next week, George Eighmy will be in Vermont to talk about how the more than 10 years of patient choice in dying law has worked out there.

For 12 years he was Executive Director of Compassion & Choices of Oregon, providing non-judgmental information on end-of-life options; he retired last fall.

 

Vermont’s Patient Choices at End of Life invites all who’d like to hear about Oregon’s experience with Death with Dignity to join them at an event with George. Bring your questions and your friends and family. Copies of Vermont’s proposed Death with Dignity bill (H.274) will be available. All events are free and open to the public.

The first public discussion is Wednesday, March 2nd from 6:30 – 8 pm at the St. Albans Historical Museum, 9 Church St. 3rd fl (enter through rear of bldg. – elevator available).

The rest of the schedule is below:

 

Thursday, March 3rd

12:30 pm – 2 pm

Middlebury Town Hall Theatre

68 South Pleasant (Merchant’s Row – on the Green)

 

6:30 pm – 8 pm

Mark Skinner Library in Manchester Center

48 West Rd, just off 7A

 

Friday, March 4th

6:30 pm – 8 pm

Hardwick Memorial Building, 3rd Fl., 20 Church St.

elevator available at Police Dept entrance. Others enter through main door and go up the stairs.

 

On the Radio:

 

MARK JOHNSON SHOW

WDEV

Thursday, March 3rd

9:00 am – 11 am (not sure what time George will be on)

 

If you want to read the bill or a detailed outline of H.274, you can find both here.

I have seen how hospitals dealt with both of my parents and my mother-in-law and father-in-law: invaded by tubes, pumps, ventilators, beeping monitors, their eyes asking for release whenever they were awake. They all had Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders in their charts. It made no difference.

My father-in-law’s only option for controlling the end of his life was to starve and eventually dehydrate himself to death.

At the end of their lives, both my mother and my mother-in-law found themselves in hospitals with the whole array of medical and mechanical interventions preventing them from dying long after they said they were ready. My 61-year-old mother declared she was ready to die after her third or fourth round of ineffective chemo. The hospital instituted an intrusive ‘suicide watch,’ further destroying any possibility of choice or dignity at the close of her life.

Over a decade ago the woman who was a second mother to me chose to die at home. On a day when she could swallow, she asked for help to consume an overdose of pain medication. One (non-medical) person accepted the legal risk of holding a glass of water and opening the prescription container for her. Everyone close to this woman heaved a sigh of relief when the family doctor later certified the death without question.

Why is it that hospitals get to decide how they can wring out the last dollar from a dying patient regardless of the pain and intrusion they cause or the lack of expected positive result? Why is it that the patient cannot decide how they wish to die, and get expert advice and care from a medical professional on how to accomplish that final request?

The Death with Dignity bill (H.274) being considered in the legislature has so many safeguards against misuse that it may well encourage a dying patient to give up on the process: as currently drafted the bill requires that the patient must be terminal (six months or less to live), request a life-ending medication verbally on two separate occasions, and make a third request in writing before two non-family, non-caregiver witnesses, and all of this AFTER getting a second medical opinion and discussing comfort care and hospice care and pain control. There’s also a two-week delay built into the process.

Oregon’s 10 years of experience with patient choices in dying show that for some patients, just knowing they have the choice and control the means of their dying is enough, and they never actually use it.

Death with Dignity provides an option, not a requirement. It’s the last choice you’ll get to make – if the bill passes. If you want more control over the last days of your life – you should tell your Representatives and Senators you support this bill, and they should, too.

At least go hear George Eighmy. He’s lived with the process for 10 years.

As I mentioned below, the point man in the Ethan Allen Institute’s UVM-sponsored, right-wing ambush of Arnie Gundersen during tonight’s VT Yankee “debate” is Howard Shaffer. Shaffer is a prominent member of Lynchburg’s Christian Nuclear Fellowship, which includes in its “about” page this purpose:

Believing that Christ is Lord of every aspect of our lives, our purpose is to encourage each other to live out our Christian faith day-by-day and to apply Christian principles, Christian ethics, and a Christian worldview in all aspects of our personal and professional lives.

And yet, as Caoimhin Laochdha detailed in the comments below:

“Mr. Shaffer, ignorant of regulatory policy, attempted to stifle Mr. Gundersen as well as run his legal bills by complaining to a State regulatory body. That agency, the Board of Professional Engineering, possess quasi-judicial disciplinary authority. This included the power to levy State fines (in the thousands of dollars) and the Board of Professional Engineering also has statutory authority to seek injuctive relief in civil court and/or refer people for criminal prosection. Mr. Shaffer’s intent was a not-so-thinly-veiled attempt to use a State Agency to smear Mr. Gundersen’s reputation through mere allegations of wrong-doing.

Mr. Shaffer did not realize, however, that this particular State agency has NO statutory (i.e. enabling Act) jurisdiction over Mr. Gundersen. It has zero statutory authority over non-licensees who do not run afoul of the agency’s Title 26 enabling Act. The Board neither gave Mr. Shaffer a hearing or bothered to investigate Mr. Gundersen. The Agency did not even ask Mr. Gundersen to answer Mr. Shaffer’s allegations nor did it even bother to call Mr. Gundersen to ask for “his side to the story.” Instead it had a staff person send Mr. Shaffer a “pound sand” letter, and the Agency pointed out to Mr. Shaffer that, even without an investigation, Mr. Shaffer’s mean-spirited allegations raise no legal issue for State consideration. “

WWJD, indeed? Click here to view the official response to Shaffer’s Christ-like attempt to harass/intimidate Gundersen out of the same public arena he now gets his taxpayer-funder opportunity to ambush him in.

(Re-bumped to the top for updates – promoted by odum)

Update #2 (from odum): I’m delighted to report an “I was wrong,” in that it sounds as though the debate was – as they say – fair and balanced. Couldn’t be happier that it ended up being a fair fight after all, regardless of how it was set up and promoted.

There was a sense in the end that the wind had unexpectedly left the sails of the VY Tiger team.  Nicely done, Mr. Gundersen!

_____________________________________________________________

It says something that conservatives so often feel they can’t win an argument unless they can fix the game. Get a load of this:

On Thursday, Feb. 24, hear two experts on nuclear energy debate the issue in the next installment of UVM’s Janus Forum: “Vermont Yankee: Shut It Down or Keep It Running?”

[…] Speaking in support of Vermont Yankee is Howard Shaffer, who has been a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) for 34 years.

[…] His opponent in the debate is Arnold Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairewinds Associates, the firm responsible for analyzing the shortfall in Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning fund, which resulted in a review of such funds at nuclear sites around the country.

Sounds interesting, yes? It is a slightly odd combination. As anyone who follows the issue knows, Gundersen is an obvious choice for the anti-VY side. Shaffer (of the “Christian Nuclear Fellowship” – no kidding), on the other hand, is a peculiar one under the circumstances, as Shaffer wrote to the Vermont Board of Professional Engineering and tried to have them demand that Gundersen could not call himself an engineer, because he was not a “Registered Professional Engineer.”

But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Dig this:

The is the sixth installment of the Janus Forum, a debate series founded by James Gatti, a finance professor in UVM’s School of Business Administration; Arthur Woolf, an economics professor in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Richard Vanden Bergh, also of the School of Business Administration.

Yeah, that would be Art Woolf, the patron saint of Vermont’s laissez-faire right wing and the poster boy for the hard-right Vermont Tiger blog. And Gatti? He’s only the Chair of the Ethan Allen Institute, John McLaughrey‘s baby Heritage Foundation for Vermonters.

Think that’s incidental, then why did Shaffer appear on WCAX promoting this event with Meredith Angwin, the pro-VY blogger who is running the Ethan Allen Institute’s VY-promotional Energy Education Project?

But wait, there’s more…

The forum will be moderated by Emerson Lynn, editor and publisher of the St. Albans Messenger.

Yes, that would be Emerson Lynn, Vermont’s leading media right-wing ideologue. Also a favorite of Vermont Tiger. Now, who are we missing… let’s see… oh, yeah! The Gundersens received a last-minute call from UVM Associate Communications Director Jeff Wakefield inviting Arnie to promote the event on a local radio show! Mark Johnson? Nah. VPR? Wrong again… it was… wait for it…

Rob Roper’s new show – yep, the former GOP Chair, True North Radio Host, and Vermont Tea Party favorite. Did you know he had a new radio show? Well, by jinkies he does! WDEV’s “Common Sense” radio show, sponsored by… The Ethan Allen Institute! What a coincidence!

See, the Ethan Allen Institute is not in favor of government sponsorship of…well… anything, really. Except that they seem to have no problem setting up a phony event to promote their agenda and ambush one of their favorite targets through the University of Vermont’s publicly funded platform.

Arnie will handle himself fine. Not only is he right on the issues, he’s smarter than the combined entirety of the sewing circle aligned against him. But this is still pretty gross, all in all. If the conservative pantheon wants to hold a “debate” on their terms, moderated by their person, promoted to their people through their media, and invite one of their favorite targets, just do it openly – through the EAI proper, with full disclosure – rather than engage in this weird, sneaky stuff.

…And in the spirit of crediting our elected officials when they get it right, I just want to briefly mention how proud we should be that our “DC three” (Leahy, Sanders and Welch) is the only state delegation that has received a perfect score from the League of Conservation Voters for their voting record on environmental issues in 2010!

In these days of economic anxiety and hair-trigger paranoia, it takes courage to stand-up for that singularly important but non-voting constituent: the natural environment.  It may sometimes seem like a thankless job, gentlemen; but we and our fellow life-forms salute you!  May your vision always be greater than the sum of your days on Capitol Hill.

my three yachts

my wine collection

and the art works I have

prodigiously displayed

among my five homes

all my cars

and the Lear jet

do you think for a moment

I would allow such culture

and taste to fall into the hands

of the common rabble

not fit to wipe their snot

on my dog’s silk pawsocks?

get me the President, Charles

this nonsense must stop

imagine the gall of these people

behaving like Arab swine

no manners or breeding

yes, Mr. President

you really must do something

what’s that?

no, that’s not enough

bloody streets and busted heads

remember Chicago in ’68

we must make sure they get it

and also others watching

yes, it will look good

when it is spun right

people will think

you have a spine

all right then

I have guests tonight

we’ll watch it on TV

remember the dead

do not matter

remember what matters

my God, Charles

that man is thick sometimes

makes me yearn for Clinton

has Coolidge been fed?

did you get him the fetuses

from Lawrence Livermore?

and make me another martini

and dry this time, Charles

God, I have to do everything

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

A lot of what Obama has done has been a big disappointment, to me no less than to other liberals. I constantly hear people saying that Obama is no different from Bush, or from what McCain would have been if he’d been elected.

Today we have more proof that these claims are just wrong.

As of today, the Justice Department will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Andrew Cohen reports in Politics Daily:

In announcing the surprise move, Attorney General Holder wrote: “After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

Part of our job as progressive activists is to push our elected officials farther than they want to go.

They deserve credit when they get a big decision like this right.

(Good 1st person account from a different perspective. – promoted by JulieWaters)

I was one of 300+ Vermonter’s who braved late February temperatures to rally at the Statehouse in solidarity with the brave working people of Wisconsin.  The turn-out was solid, the people were a diverse-by-Vermont-standards mix (meaning ‘diverse by socio-economic standards or sexual identity’, not so much racially) who genuinely seemed focused singularly on the issues of labor rights and economic justice and equality.  And most pungent in the air was a sense amongst some that “our moment has come”, and that we were there because of something bigger than ourselves.

I remember up to a year into the Iraq-Afghanistan wars, regular rallies at the statehouse pulled a minimum of a couple hundred and on occasion drew a few thousand people, but the Vermont anti-war movement (and Vermont progressives) (not at all that the groups are one in the same- they’re just 2 groups that I tend to gravitate towards) have really done little in terms of public rallies for several years (as far as I know, anyway).  It was exciting to see some old friends and faces, and it was exciting to finally be rallying around causative issues (economics) rather than reactionary rallies against symptoms (war).  Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings here, but this was a sense I genuinely felt around many of the two, maybe three dozen folks I spoke with as well.

There was something even more universal amongst the two or three dozen folks I spoke with: boooo on the politician speakers.  It was gross, and anti-theoretical to the rally, as far as I’m concerned.  We gathered to stand in solidarity with the people in Wisconsin who are turning up in the tens of thousands every single day to say “no” to attacks against the rights of workers, and we gathered to tell Governor Shumlin, Speaker Smith, and President Campell that the fiscal crisis in Vermont will not be balanced on the backs of working people and those most vulnerable amongst us who must look to the state for the basic means to survive.  I mean, Gov Shumlin?  Isn’t he asking the state employees to sacrifice more?  Isn’t he refusing to even consider asking more from the few among us who have millions of dollars in order to provide support like heat in the winter, and food in times of want?  Refusing to look to those (of which he is one) who have more than they need to provide the resources so that our disabled neighbors may have adequate services for their care?

While stand-in representatives read notes written by our Washington politicians (“we stand with you that workers should have the right to collective bargaining”- gee, how bold a position) my sense, and the murmurs I heard around me, was that no one really gave two shits what Peter, or Pat, or Bernie had to say.  There was no more than 50% of the crowd who cheered enthusiastically for the Governor, and many of the, er , less polite, people I know showed up after Peter’s speech.

An exception for me, personally, was Anthony Pollina, who I think gave an absolutely, to the point, no-fucking-around speech.  One person standing near me said sarcastically “I think he’s going off script” when the Washington County Senator bluntly called for taxing the rich to solve the budget problems that America, and increasingly our leaders in Vermont, are asking the working people to pony up for.

Indeed, the energy in the crowd was palpable.  I could hardly contain myself from shouting “no more politicians” as yet another one was introduced; or better yet, “it’s warm inside!  It’s warm inside!!!”  Yet I didn’t because I had 1:00 responsibilities (FYI, my daughter apparently has a deep-seated fear of stethoscopes, as her check-up was a bit rough).

But maybe I’m being too cynical; maybe there’s not much for Vermont’s working families to be too concerned about.  Maybe, as their presence and their speeches on the Statehouse steps suggested, the Governor and Speaker and our Senators and Congresspeople and numerous other elected officials all stand together with labor.  If so, the budget short-fall caused by the greedy inclinations of the wealthiest among us won’t be carried on the backs of working Vermonters (either through lost salary, benefits, or services); school districts won’t be forced to consolidate based on the absurd notion that “Vermont doesn’t deserve to have one of the best school systems in the country”; early educators will be allowed the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to unionize (don’t forget, the Early Educators Bill that’s up for consideration isn’t about letting them be a union, but just giving early educators the option of forming a union) (kinda like “allowing” collective bargaining); and for certain, a system of universal access, regardless of one’s means, to quality health care can be designed, passed, and paid for without delay in an atmosphere of such universal solidarity with the plight of working people.

I guess if this is what the 2011 Legislature is going to give us, we have little need to be back at the statehouse, except for maybe the occasional rally of solidarity with those that are struggling elsewhere.  If, on the other hand, all the political speeches we were force-fed on the steps of the statehouse were mere politicking- pandering- well, I’d like to think we’ll be back.  And if we do have to return, the Governor and the Legislature should be on notice that we will not be standing around idle as the VNEA organizes a round-robin of talking heads- we will be passed listening to politicians, and we will be heading inside, where it’s warm.

WGDR Radio (91.1 FM, Plainfield, Vermont) plans to preempt their usual programming in the afternoon on Wednesday (February 23rd) for some local coverage concerning homelessness and related matters within Vermont.

Live blog coverage, via CoverItLive, is scheduled to begin when WGDR does so at or around 2:30 PM (EST) and is planned to go until 6:00 PM (EST), which should be available on the WGDR Website and is also posted on Vermont Watch, here (Update: due to technical difficulties, the live blog player could not be directly embedded on the WGDR Website).

Word is Governor Peter Shumlin is planning on calling into WGDR sometime around or after 2:30 PM or so 3:05 PM (Updated).

It is also reported that Agency of Human Services (AHS) Secretary Doug Racine will be at the WGDR studio sometime during the day as well.

In addition, information has it that state Senator Anthony Pollina also plans to call into WGDR during its homelessness related broadcast.

Excerpts of information from sidebar of WGDR Website:

The Homelessness Marathon is an annual 14-hour radio broadcast featuring the voices and stories of homeless people from around the United States. The Homelessness Marathon features live call-ins all night long via a national toll-free number. WGDR invites everyone to come down to the station during the marathon. We are a “listening station” where people can gather in solidarity around the issue of homelessness. The station is on the Campus of Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont.

[…]

Call Ruth Wilder at the station for more information about the special program, or if you want to participate. 802-322-1720

Listen to WGDR in the Central Vermont area on 91.1 FM or stream the station live, here.

Afterwards, live blogging of WGDR’s coverage during the 2011 Homelessness Marathon broadcast originating from Kansas City, Missouri will begin at 7:00 PM (EST) on Wednesday, February 23rd and, barring any technical difficulties or falling asleep, will continue until 9:00 AM (EST) on Thursday, February 24th, 2011.

The Homelessness Marathon’s mission is to raise consciousness about homelessness and poverty in America and around the world. We operate on a shoestring budget and the dedication of volunteers, so your contribution will really make a difference.

Elsewhere within Vermont, WVEW – 107.7 FM – Brattleboro Community Radio will also be airing the Homelessness Marathon as well as preempting their usual programming to provide hour-long local coverage beginning at 6:00 PM (EST).

Read an article about it (via The Commons), here.

One can also view the entire broadcast of the Homelessness Marathon, whose Website will have an embedded player streaming live video feed via Free Speech TV.

In the meantime, to learn more about this consciousness raising event, view a brief promo, here and, a short clip from a 2009 interview of Jeremy Alderson aka Nobody, here (via YouTube).

I went to the rally at the Statehouse today for solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin and other places that are under attack. It was cold as hell, but the sky was clear, and in my guesstimate, there were 4 to 5 hundred people. I arrived right after Governor Shumlin spoke, so I didn’t catch that, but there were many other speakers… Speaker Smith, Senator Pollina, someone from Sanders’ office, as well as several union/labor activists (I was moving around a lot and didn’t get names… sorry). Spirits were high and people were fired up.

Perhaps as a good measure of the popularity of the teabaggers in Vermont, there was one person standing there with a sign that said “Union Greed is Hurting America”. Musta been confused.

All in all, it was a good vibe. These actions over the last week (still unfolding, of course) are some of the most inspiring things I can remember happening in this country in a very long time. Too long.

forever or at all?  

Vermont State Senate Pro Tempore John Campbell quoted in Vt.buzz

Would Vermont legislators ever consider flight?

“No,” Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, said Monday. “I hate to see any legislator walk off the job like that,” he said. “The legislative process is about discourse and about coming up with solutions.”

I don’t know exactly how the question might have been phrased but how about say ‘maybe‘ at least.  

Republican Leader Senator Bill Doyle agreed and said no also to a walk-out.