9/11. 24 years later, I can't, don't, and won't forget.

I also find it difficult to keep talking about. Partly because of the subject matter. Partly because of the way some people politicise it. And partly because I did a lengthy post about it once:

The 9-11 jumpers; they didn't "jump"

This is an issue that isn't talked about a lot, because it's so unpleasant, and extremely emotional. It's about the people who supposedly "jumped" from the WTC towers before they collapsed.

So many in the media seemed to claim at the time that they were jumping out of "despair"; as if it were just an emotional response, a suicide choice; an act of will, that they could simply choose to do or not do.

That just seems like such an unfair judgment to me. I don't believe that most, if any, of those people "chose" to jump. I think SMOKE, HEAT and FLAMES simply FORCED them to their deaths by falling.

You can't "choose" whether or not you want to stand close to burning jet fuel; you simply can't. If there is nowhere safe to move away to, you move anyway. Just the smoke alone, making it impossible for you to even breath... if you were suffocating, what would you do for air?:

To call it jumping, like it was a choice, just seems wrong. When people went to work at the WTC that morning, they were not expecting to have to jump to their deaths. These poor souls did NOT choose this... [...]

If you follow the link to the rest of that post, it's filled with pictures of people jumping. I don't want to re-post them here. Some things get easier to deal with over time... for me, this is not one of them. That post also includes commentary about jumping, falling and suicide, and how those terms do and don't relate to what actually happened.

I don't post about it much anymore, because I eventually said all I had to say about it. Some people left some very thoughtful comments on that post; they understood what I was getting at. Many others left some really shitty, ugly, horrible comments that were sickening to read. I deleted all of those. And will continue to do so.

I used to have Site Meter on this blog, and for a long time it said that that particular post was more popular than any other blog post I've done. I've gotten rid of site meter since then, so I don't know if any or many see it anymore. I don't particularly care about being popular or having huge amounts of traffic to this blog.

I post what I care about, and things I've been reading about, and if it resonates with someone, fine. If it doesn't, fine, no one has to read it or like it. But I also am not obligated to post other peoples drek; they can make their own place to post that, I'm not interested in hosting it here.

But I still remember. The people who faced impossible choices. It can still make me cry. May they Rest In Peace. Condolences to their families.

     

COVID: An Equal Opportunity Infector

Whites now more likely to die from covid than Blacks: Why the pandemic shifted

SOMERVILLE, Tenn. — Skill Wilson had amassed more than three decades of knowledge as a paramedic, first in Memphis and then in Fayette County. Two places that felt like night and day. With only five ambulances in the county and the nearest hospital as much as 45 minutes away, Skill relished the clinical know-how necessary to work in a rural setting. Doing things like sedating patients to insert tubes into their airways.

[...]

The imbalance in death rates among the nation’s racial and ethnic groups has been a defining part of the pandemic since the start. To see the pattern, The Washington Post analyzed every death during more than two years of the pandemic. Early in the crisis, the differing covid threat was evident in places such as Memphis and Fayette County. Deaths were concentrated in dense urban areas, where Black people died at several times the rate of White people.

“I don’t want to say that we weren’t worried about it, but we weren’t,” said Hollie, who described her 59-year-old husband as someone who “never took a pill.” After a while, “you kind of slack off on some things,” she said.

Over time, the gap in deaths widened and narrowed but never disappeared — until mid-October 2021, when the nation’s pattern of covid mortality changed, with the rate of death among White Americans sometimes eclipsing other groups.

A Post analysis of covid death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from April 2020 through this summer found the racial disparity vanished at the end of last year, becoming roughly equal. And at times during that same period, the overall age-adjusted death rate for White people slightly surpassed that of Black and Latino people.

The nature of the virus makes the elderly and people with underlying health conditions — including hypertension, diabetes and obesity, all of which beset Black people at higher rates and earlier in life than White people — particularly vulnerable to severe illness and death.

That wasn’t Skill.

The virus also attacks unvaccinated adults — who polls show are more likely to be Republicans — with a ferocity that puts them at a much higher risk of infection and death.

That was Skill.

He joined the choir of critics opposing vaccination requirements, his rants in front of the television eventually wearing on Hollie, who, even if she agreed, grew tired of listening and declared their home “covid-talk free.”

So, she said, Skill commiserated with like-minded people in Facebook groups and on Parler and Rumble, the largely unmoderated social networking platforms popular with conservatives.

“We’re Republicans, and 100 percent believe that it’s each individual’s choice, their freedom,” when it comes to getting a coronavirus shot, Hollie said in January. “We decided to err on the side of not doing it and accept the consequences. And now, here we are in the middle of planning the funeral.”

Capt. Julian Greaves Wilson Jr., known to everybody as Skill, died of covid Jan. 23, a month after becoming infected with the coronavirus. He fell ill not long after transporting a covid patient to the hospital. At the time he died, infection rates in Fayette County had soared to 40.5 percent among people taking coronavirus tests. [...]

There are a lot more details in the article. In short, it is saying it was easier for blacks and latinos and people in lower income brackets to die of Covid, because of crowded living conditions. Middle class and upper class whites had an advantage for a while; it was easier for them to avoid exposure. But if they did not get vaccinated, they remained at risk. Over time, they became less careful about exposure. And now, it's catching up with the unvaccinated.

Viruses don't care about your politics, or what you think and what you believe. They care wether you are a receptive host.

     

When death affirms life

We saw this movie recently:



The Fault in Our Stars

Two teenage cancer patients begin a life-affirming journey to visit a reclusive author in Amsterdam. [...]

You might think it sounds depressing. In some ways it is. But it also manages to be uplifting. People being forced to deal with reality the way it is, not the way they want it to be. And the Gems you can find hidden in that. And, how much the dying have to teach us how to live.

Wikipedia: The Fault in Our Stars (film)

   

Pioneers of Hospice: Changing the Face of Dying

I saw this video recently. Here is the first 18 minutes on Youtube:



The full video runs about 50 minutes. It's very informative, well worth watching the whole thing. I've been looking for a copy, but the DVD seems to be out of print, with no indication of when it might become available again. Does anyone know? https://www.academicvideostore.com/video/pioneers-hospice offers it for $249.00, but that's way beyond my budget.

I'm surprised the video has not been re-released and made more readily available. IMO, Hospice is a much misunderstood concept. This video does a lot to clear up those misconceptions. I hope that whoever owns the copyright will release the video for publication again, or else release it into the public domain, where it could do a lot of good.
     

Exactly what’s killing Americans in each of the 50 states, the “most distinctive” causes?

Death Map: What’s Really Killing Americans

Heart disease and cancer are the most common killers in the United States but a new map sheds more light on exactly what’s killing Americans in each of the 50 states.

Using statistics from 2001 to 2010, the map highlights the “most distinctive” causes of death, rather than what kills the most people. A ‘distinctive’ cause of death is when the rate is higher compared to the national average.

The map is “a somewhat of a colorful and provocative way of starting some conversations and highlighting some unusual things that are going on,” study co-author Francis Boscoe told LiveScience.

The flu was the most distinctive cause of death in Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. In mining states like Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, lung diseases caused by inhaling certain dusts were the most distinctive causes of death.

Dying in a plane or boat accident was the most distinctive cause of death in Alaska and Idaho, while sepsis was the most distinctive cause of death in New Jersey. The most distinctive cause of death in New York and Connecticut was inflammatory diseases of pelvic organs.

Possibly the most surprising statistic comes from Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon, where deaths caused by law enforcement officers — not including legal executions — were the most distinctive cause of death in those states, meaning “death by police officer” occurred in those states at a higher rate compared to the national average.

The numbers of “distinctive” deaths vary greatly. For example, 15,000 people in Florida died of HIV, the most distinctive cause of death there. Meanwhile, there were 22 deaths from syphilis, the most distinctive cause of death in Louisiana.

The source of the map is here.

   

Death and dying in America

Seeking a ‘Beautiful Death’

[...] Dr. Volandes, a staff physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, noted that “in the abstract, fighting every second of the way and pursuing aggressive life-prolonging interventions sounds admirable.” But he wants doctors, patients and families to consider the likely outcome of the fight and how much suffering it will involve.

He recognizes that “there are no right and wrong decisions about medical care at the end of life” but insists that all decisions should be fully informed. To ensure that patients and families understand the options, he has developed a video tour of what medical interventions like ventilation, CPR or placement of a feeding tube look like, which often prompts a change of heart. As one patient put it, “It looks so different on television.”

The video, produced by ACP Decisions, a nonprofit group devoted to advanced-care planning, is licensed to health care providers and insurers who can show it to patients and families to facilitate shared decision making in planning for care at the end of life.

In a randomized trial of the video’s effectiveness among 50 patients with advanced brain cancer, a quarter of patients in the control group who had only a verbal discussion about end-of-life care with their doctors chose life-prolonging care, half opted for limited medical care and only one-quarter chose comfort care. But none of those who saw the video opted for life-prolonging care, a handful chose limited medical care, and 92 percent decided on comfort care, Dr. Volandes reported. After watching the video, patients said they had a better understanding of their choices.

However, even just a discussion with their doctors about goals for end-of-life care can often make a huge difference. The one-third of patients in a 2008 national Coping With Cancer study who had such a discussion were less likely to undergo CPR, be put on a ventilator or be placed in an intensive care unit. Most enrolled in hospice, suffered less and were in better physical shape and better able to interact with others and for a longer time.

Their survivors, too, fared better; six months after the deaths, they were markedly less likely to experience major depression.

Options regarding end-of-life care should be discussed well before an emergency — or for those with dementia, during the early stages of mental decline. “The absolute worst time to contemplate decisions about medical care is when one is critically ill and in the hospital,” Dr. Volandes writes.

The kinds of questions doctors should be asking:

[...]

They are some good questions. Read the whole thing for embedded links and more.

     

My Mother, My Dear Mother...

Judith
1938 - 2014
Here is an excerpt from her eulogy:

Judy was born in Portland, ME [...]. Raised mostly in Hartford, CT, she spent a lot of time with relatives in Maine. She often spoke of her grandmothers, Nana Bea and Ma Curry. She lost her beloved brother, Jimmy when he was just 20 years old. They had a very special bond and throughout her life she shared her many memories of him.

She wed her truest friend and the love of her life, Quintin, in 1956. From 1958 to 1963 they had 3 children – James, Charles and Quinci. Judy always said she knew she wanted to have a family of her own.

Who She Was to Her Husband and Children

She was a survivor, of circumstances in her youth over which she had no control.  She took control of her life at an early age and created a life and family for herself.

She made our house feel like a real home.  She made curtains for our bedrooms, painted the rooms of the house vibrant colors, did paint-by-number paintings to decorate our walls.  When her kids were young, she would read magazines and get ideas for Christmas decorations. She could perfectly recreate anything she saw in those magazines, making glittery and colorful hanging mobiles above the stairs, decorations around door frames, wall hangings, paintings of Christmas scenes on the glass of the front storm door... she transformed our house into a magical Christmas Land!  We kids were “wowed” by her artistic talents; it seemed like she could do anything.

In the summer, she planted beautiful flowers, morning glories up the sides of the front porch, a rock garden with portulaca in the center of the lawn, Easter Lilies and Jack-in-the-Pulpit in front of the house, and she grew all sorts of indoor plants. She had a green thumb, and taught us kids how to grow things, too.  She and dad worked on the vegetable garden, giving us a bounty of vegetables in the summer, with enough to can for winter.

She always prepared delicious and balanced meals for us, and friends were always glad to stay for supper whenever they had the chance.  She also loved to bake.  As we got older, she insisted that we do our share of housework, such as showing us how to cook simple things, mend our clothes and do laundry. It wasn’t until we moved out that we realized she had taught us how to take care of ourselves, helping us to be self-sufficient and independent.

Judy had a rich sense of humor, even exchanging pranks with her kids and laughing when others may have scolded. Her love of animals and appreciation of nature have always been an important part of who she was.

She could be shy and retiring, a bit of a recluse, but when it was necessary to interact with a lot of people (as in the hospital), she would rise to the occasion, and be very sociable.  She used to knit afghans and sweaters for people, with bright colors and interesting patterns, and give them away.

She created a lot of beauty in our lives that we took for granted, thinking that's just how life was supposed to be. Then we went out into the world and found that it's not always that way. Someone has to be doing it, to be making that beauty.  And fortunately, we had a good example from our mother as to how that is done.

“She was our father's wife, and our mother, and we loved her, and to us the world was a better place just for her being in it.  Just knowing she was there was a great comfort, and her absence now is sorely felt.  We miss her, because she was a part of us, and still is, and always will be.”

She was suffering from pulmonary hyper-tension and a calcified heart valve. She underwent surgery to replace the heart valve, but her lungs were too compromised, and she did not recover from the surgery. She was removed from artificial life support on June 11th.


We had the funeral in September, and buried her remains in a family plot at a rural cemetery in Maine. I went back for the funeral, and haven't blogged much since. It's been a lot to take in. My sister read this poem at the burial ceremony:

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Of course, I cried when she read that poem. So did she. The service ended with a Baptist Minister reading a variation of the Consolation Prayer, which felt both devastating (as in "This is it") and comforting (even though I am not religious). Then the box of ashes was buried.

As much as we say things like "Mom will live on forever in our hearts", it's still not the same as having her here on earth with us. Getting used to that is the new reality.

The movie "Rabbit Hole" dealt with the topic of grief caused by the loss of a loved one. I remember one scene, where an adult daughter (Nichole Kiddman) who has lost her son, a small child, in a tragic accident, asks her own mother (Diane Weiss), who had also lost a son, if the pain ever goes away. Her mother says no, but...


That is perhaps what people mean by the phrase "time heals". I have a feeling that it's going to be a lot like that.
   

A final blog post

Not from me, but from the Being Human blog, which I had been reading because of the interesting links to philosophy. His last entry talks about his terminal illness, and the final things he had to say. It's quite sobering:


Is it finally time to say goodbye?

The Being Human -blog that you are reading just now is at the moment a collection of 434 smaller and larger essays. Their subjects range from the nature of our universe to things like the reasons why masturbation is seen as a sin in Christianity. I started this blog in December of 2007, and this blog has since had over 860 000 visitors from all over the world.

During all these years, I have told very little of myself. My aim has been to air my ideas and not promote myself. This blog is not weblog, but a collection of little essays. Not a single posting has been tied to a particular daily event or happening. They try always to be reflections on ideas on a bit wider perspective. How I have succeeded in this, remains for my readers to judge, of course.

Things are about to change. Just now I see a need to record some of my personal history also here in this blog that has always been the favorite child among my blogs. The basic reason for this is that was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in November of 2011. Cancer was by then already deeply embedded in my liver and lungs. It simply cannot be removed from liver without destroying the liver also, anymore.

I am still here thanks to chemotherapy that has given me an additional year and a half, but the therapies were terminated a week ago because their ability to fight my cancer has waned off. I am on my own now, but nobody knows how soon the end will come. However, it is quite certain that I will not see my 56th birthday in January of 2014. [...]

There is much more. He talks quite a bit about the things that were important in his life, and that helped him. I had linked to some of his posts in the past, and am very grateful for his contribution to my education, about things I've wanted to learn about.

Thank you, Jaakko Wallenius. R.I.P.
     

Who should be allowed to die?

And what is the criteria to decide?

Put the elderly on ice?

(CNN) -- No one has come out yet and explicitly suggested that old folks like me (I am about to turn 83) should be treated the way the Eskimos, as folklore has it, used to treat theirs: put on an ice floe and left to float away into the sunset. We are, however, coming dangerously close.

[...]

... Once we set an age after which we shall provide mainly palliative care, economic pressures may well push us to ratchet down the age. If 80 was a good number a few years ago, given the huge deficit and the pressure to cut Medicare expenditures, there seems no obvious reason not to lower the cut-off age to, say, 70. And nations that have weaker economies, the logic would follow, should cut off interventionist care at an even younger age. Say, 50 for Guatemala?

Above all, age is the wrong criterion. The capacity to recover and return to a meaningful life is the proper criterion.

Thus, if a person is young but has a terminal disease, say, advanced pancreatic cancer, and physicians determine that he has but a few months, maybe weeks, to live (a determination doctors often make), he may be spared aggressive interventions and be provided with mainly palliative care. In contrast, an 80-year-old with, say, pneumonia -- who can return to his family and friends to be loved and give love, contribute to the community through his volunteering and enjoy his retirement he earned with decades of work -- should be given all the treatments needed to return him to his life (which in my case includes a full-time job and some work on the side). [...]

Sounds like someone is worried about the "death panels" that Sara Palin warned about. A bit ironic, given the author's credentials. But the article is a thoughtful examination of the topic.
     

From 9-11, to a Farm. Life, Death, and what is important to us.

I was living in San Francisco when 9-11 happened; I'd lived there for many years. I'd always preferred rural life to urban life, but I needed to work, and cities offered more job opportunities.

By 2001 I was a business owner. But as the economy soured, our business suffered, and we sold up and moved out. To a rural area, where we have a business in town and a small farm at home. I always figured we were heading to a place like this eventually. But 9-11, and it's effect on the economy and our business, made us decide to make the transition sooner rather than later.

While surfing the net, I came across one woman's 9-ll story. She worked near the towers. She got caught in the dust cloud when the first tower collapsed. She's a writer, and reading her story makes you feel like you were there:

First-hand account of 9/11

At the Wall St. train stop people were covered with papers. A plane crash. That's what everyone said. Then a boom. Everyone ran. I ran to my office and called my brother in the Midwest.

I wanted to be closer. At the corner of Church and Broadway, I angled my way through a large, packed crowd to get the best view. We talked about people jumping. The police stood behind the yellow tape. Minutes later, there was a boom. I thought it was a bomb, so I crouched, but people ran, so I ran. I couldn't see anything. I don't know how far I ran. Couldn't see where I was running. Didn't know if I was in a street or next to a building. Didn't know what street I was on. No one could talk because the dust filled our throats. After about ten steps I tripped over a pile of people and then people tripped on me.

I laid there. The only sound was the falling of dust and debris. No one moved under me. The weight of people on top of me got heavier. I couldn't breathe. I knew we were all going to die in that pile. I pulled myself out of the pile. My slip-ons slipped off. I stood up and saw nothing. Not even an inch in front of me. I put my hands out and felt for something. [...]

She ends up drinking out of a ... well, read the whole thing.

She writes for a living. She has a blog, and she's written about how the experience has affected her, shaped her life, even 10 years later:

Surviving 9/11: Ten years later

She also lives on a farm now. I can't say there are a lot of other similarities between my life and hers. But she does have some keen insights, and I do know, like her, that, when you think you are going to die in the next moment, your priorities suddenly become very clear. And when you survive, instead of die, if you have any sort of depth to you, those revealed priorities stay with you the rest of your life.

And I have to say, poking around her blog, I've really enjoyed reading some of her rants, observations, and advice:

What to do in college right now

Bad career advice: Do what you love

Motivation Tips from the Bath

Best alternative to grad school

Voices of the defenders of grad school. And me crushing them.

Overcome the willpower myth

Figuring out where you fit

She isn't politically correct, and her posts are full of interesting embedded links.
     

Corriander, our beloved Chug, is no more

She was a Chihuahua - Pug mix, so we called her a "Chug". She was 16 years old, which is something like 115 in dog years. She died one week ago tonight.

It was my ham radio night, when our radio net meets on the air. I always feed the dogs a little later on those nights. The net had ended, and I had prepared her food and was bringing it to her when I heard her yelping rapidly, in a panic. She was on her bed, with her head hanging over the edge, like she was trying to get up.

I put the food down and rushed to her, just in time to hold her while she died.

I think it was her heart. It didn't last long. I held her and stroked her and rubbed her ears and spoke the usual words of comfort to her, as the life left her body.

It was sad. And it sounds kinda awful, but it wasn't really. She died at home, in the hands of someone who loved her. And it was quick.

She was completely deaf, and almost completely blind. She slept most of the time.

Last year, she started to lose her mind, like a kind of doggie alzheimers. The vet put her on some prescription dog kibble, called "b/d" (for "brain diet"). It worked; she came back to us, mentally. But she continued to slow down physically.

I had to walk her on the leash, or she wouldn't walk with us. Toward the end, I carried her a lot. On that last day, I could not find her leash, so I had carried her most of the way through our walk in the woods.

At night she would poop and pee on newspapers I left out for her, because she couldn't manage the stairs anymore, or even the dog door. Lately she had stared to become careless about going on the paper; I was dreading having to take her to the vet to be put down, putting it off as long as I could. Now that won't be necessary.

I had hoped she would die quietly in her sleep. But perhaps she needed me to be there at the end. Anyway, that's how it played out. I was there.

Our other two dogs were there, watching. They understood.




She had a good long life. We had some fun times. I posted once years back about how she survived cancer, using natural treatments. She continued to enjoy life, even as she aged. As she slowed down, we made it easier for her.




We buried her in the garden, next to Saffron, our Boarder Collie - Aussie Shepard mix, whom she was very attached to. I planted blue daisies on top of her grave, so that when I say "Corrie's pushing up daisies now", it will be more than just a figure of speech.




Good bye, Corrie. You will always be my favorite Chug.
     

Can someone be accidentally buried alive, even after rigor mortis has set in?

The answer would seem to be "yes":


Woman wakes after heart stopped, rigor mortis set in

"Val Thomas’ doctors honestly can’t explain how she is alive today.

Thomas, who lives in West Virginia, is being called a medical miracle after she suffered two heart attacks and had no brain waves for more than 17 hours; reports NewsNet5.com.

Thomas’ heart stopped around 1:30 a.m. Saturday and doctors said she had no pulse. Rigor mortis started to set in, and she was placed on a respiratory machine.

“Her skin had already started to harden and her fingers curled,” Thomas’ son, Jim, told NewsNet5.com. “Death had set in.”

Thomas, 59, was rushed to a West Virginia hospital, where she was put on a special machine to induce hypothermia. This would allow her body to cool down for 24 hours before they would warm her up again, doctors explained.

However, Thomas’ heart stopped again after the procedure.

Her family said their goodbyes and Thomas’ tubes were removed, but she remained hooked on a ventilator as the possibility of organ donation was discussed.

However, Thomas woke up 10 minutes later and started talking.

“The nurse said, ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs. Thomas,’ and mom said, ‘That’s OK, honey, that’s OK,’” Jim Thomas said. [...]

I don't know which is worse; them thinking she's dead when she's not, or them wanting to harvest her organs while she's still alive.

I remember when an uncle of mine died in the state of Maine, state law said the body could not be buried for three days. At the time I thought, "There must be a reason for that". Well, now I know why!

There is a VERY informative article on the topic at snopes.com:

Just dying to get out

Snopes doesn't let you copy excerpts, so you'll just have to follow the link. Some very horrific, but even some very funny, stories on the subject. And did you know that even now, some people want to be buried with their cell phones, "just in case?".

Golly, how do you test your cell phone reception for six feet under ground? I'm sure that's one that the "Can you hear me now?" guy hasn't tested.

Well, I guess now you know what the conversation is like around our dinner table sometimes! Pat's been complaining that my posts about impending financial Armageddon are too depressing, and suggested that I should post about something more cheerful, like this, so here ya go. ;-)