Right to Die

As I surfed some blogs recently, I came across one that was addressing the so called "right to die by assisted suicide" controversy. This was written by a young college student who proclaimed himself as "a conservative, white, Christian male . . .".

Addressing the physical and mental condition of people living with an extremely high level of pain, and even those terminally ill and unable to care for themselves in any fashion, he says "It's morally repugnant to me and a sign of cowardice simply giving up because they're uncomfortable and therefore undignified." He groups these wretched people that need help finalizing their paradoxical existence with "a girl wishing to better her life by murdering her child" Of course, he is speaking of abortion and I won't get into that right now.

I truly hope this fellow is speaking from youthful ignorance. I would hate to think that it's his arrogant conservatism or his preferable whiteness or his religious ethics or his male superiority that is making him think in such a misguided and selfish way.

He is positioning himself as judge for those that he cannot remotely relate to. It seems to me that one's youth should be spent living, loving and learning instead of criticizing that which one knows nothing of. Life isn't found in Cliff's Notes or on any written page; only by living (hopefully long and well) and sharing will any meaning in life be found.

All I can say is: Young man, walk in the shoes of these uncomfortable and undignified folk, then you may be able to pass just a smidgen of judgment, if not on them, at least on yourself.

Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning

Under the hen house on my knees
I thought I heard a chicken sneeze
It was only the rooster saying his prayers
And handing out hymn books to the hens up stairs

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As told to me when I was just a lad by my late uncle Roy. Original author unknown.

Life in the Hills

Playtime

When I was growing up—being poor country people—we younguns had little to play with except for the stuff we created for ourselves or someone else made for us. At hog killing time, my uncle would bring me the hog's bladder, blow it up, and I had a balloon that would last an hour or so. For musical pleasures, we played the swinenet. We would take a hair from a horse's tail and stretch it across a live pigs butt and blow on it. Actually wasn't as much an instrument as it was something with which to annoy the adults. I believe it annoyed the pig more than anyone else. From time-to-time, the pig evened things out a little by reversing the flow of air. That music had character.

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Thanks, Cathy, for putting up with my nonsense. The balloon part is factual.

On Sundays, I feel like "Another Brick in the Wall". The rest of the week, I'm tearing down the wall.

Well said

"All that there is; all that there ever was; all that there ever will be."
Carl Sagan from Cosmos