End of Life Counseling

Submitted VIA Senator Contact Forms found at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm for all three Senators.

Dear Senator Grassley:

I am not from Iowa so I am sure my opinion means little to you. However, I was quite concerned about your statement regarding end of life counseling. I do not know if you have had a close family member or friend use hospice services at the end of their life. I have, twice, my father and my grandfather. By the time my father was in hospice, he suffered from severe dementia. When my grandfather entered hospice, he still had a sharp mind, it was his body that was failing him.

End of life counseling provided my grandfather and our family the opportunity to discuss which medical treatments he wanted, which were too painful or pointless, who would take care of him when, and what kind of treatment/assistance with pain he could/would be given. You say that he needed this counseling 20 years before his death. I could not disagree more. While you are right that we all should take the time to discuss our end of life wishes with our families, we do not know the manner or the time in which we will leave this earth. If my grandfather had had this counseling twenty years prior, it would have been useless. The pain medication he received was "new". Twenty years prior to his death, I was an infant. You see, I moved in with my grandparents to help take care of him. The treatment options he needed to consider were also not yet discovered.

I would like to thank you for reminding people to talk to their families about end of life issues. But I would ask you to please not heat up the rhetoric on an issue as important as this one by confusing people with statements like the ones you made regarding this vital service.

Finally, I would like to know your basis for telling people they should be concerned about a government program which would "determine[] if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." I agree wholeheartedly that if such a program were to be proposed, it should be opposed. But no one is proposing such a thing. Why would you intentionally frighten citizens with talk like this?

Sincerely,

Amy

cc: Senators Levin & Stabenow

The NY Times

Obviously, I read NYTimes.com often. I usually stick to the opinion pieces, the political reporting, sometimes the book and film stuff. I don't read much about what is going on in the city, because I do not care what is happening in NYC. I do not care about what is trendy in the city or what the hip and happening are doing. I live in the mid-west. Articles like this one are why people hate New Yorkers and the NYTimes. Jezebel.com's Sadie describes the article as "remarkably nasty." Even after reading that little description I was stunned and very put off by the nastiness of the article. More than put off, I was disgusted by her disgust. I am annoyed enough to have a hard time writing anything more than Who the f-bomb does this woman think she is?

Don't get me wrong, I love snarky as much as the next person. I mean, I love Go Fug Yourself, and those ladies tend to have no mercy. In fact, I just spent the last ten minutes staring at over the horrible choices made at the Nick Teen Choice Awards (and I wasn't even taking into account Miley Cyrus). Between Ms. Wilson's "It took me a long time to find a size 2 among the racks." and her To this end, it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of 'Roseanne.'" I think it has been a while since I intentionally read something so self-involved and condesending.

Things that piss me off

(1) Billboard trucks. That's right billboard trucks. I snapped a quick pick of this one in town as I was leaving work. It is the most ridiculous, wasteful idea I have seen in a while. They have been around the city for a few years now. They usually pop up in the spring and again in August when the students return to campus. If they were on trucks that were doing other things, that would be cool. If they were on trucks that were solar-powered or in some way "green", that would be tolerable. But this just pisses me off. Every time I see one, I think, oh look, another place I won't shop at. Sadly, the company on this one is the place in town where you can get a Pandora bracelet and charms. Looks like, I'll have to try one of the other area cities or shop online. 'Cause this is unacceptable. I feel an angry letter coming on . . .