Month: November 2014

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midterm notes

sticky-notes-1024x768This week I found a few extra sticky notes stuck around the edges of my computer desk. Seems they were prompted by Tuesday’s election…

I’ve heard rumblings of bipartisanship. Where were those calls before the election?

CNN, FOX, MSNBC… interesting watching them all.

Wasserman Schultz calls Obama Democrats’ “best asset.” If he was their best asset he would have been seen campaigning with vulnerable candidates. Please don’t lie for rhetorical sakes. Please don’t think we’re ignorant.

Obama calls election the “worst possible group of states for Democrats since Dwight Eisenhower.” Noticing a trend… the “worst”… “worst economy.” Wonder if he’ll ask how he’s contributed to the public’s discontent.

Wish this would finish soon. I’m getting sleepy. Need to go to bed.

Crist/Scott or Scott/Crist… geepers… can they decide which party they actually wish to be from? Charlie Crist has officially represented 3 different parties now. Geeesh.

Scott Brown is challenging the New Hampshire results. Ok, I get it. Close election. Congratulations. But accept the outcome.

Ed Gillespie… where’d you come from? No one seemed to think your race would even be close. And now… what… a recount in Virginia?

All these graphics. Much improved. Could use one of those big interactive computer screens in my family room.

How do they call these races with only 7% of the vote in? Oh, my. Doesn’t always make a lot of sense.

Obama calling leaders from both parties to the White House on Friday. Could this be a little more regular and all be more considerate?

Still need sleep by the way.

Pelosi calls the potential results a “catastrophe.” Get some perspective, please. Go to Africa; see spread of Ebola. Then let’s talk catastrophe.

How to win and lose graciously. Seems like we could all learn something there.

Facebook. Twitter. (See winning and losing graciously again.)

Too much money. Yep. No doubt they could all be better stewards. Why don’t we use all that to pay down the debt?

Anti-incumbent? No. More anti-Washington. 

This election is over. Well sort of. Still a run-off. Sorry, Louisiana.

Alaska… where are you?

No more commercials or robo-calls. Thanks, God.

Hope and change. Again.

Elections have consequences.

Now quit campaigning, quit the disrespect, and get to work. P.S. Some of us also still need sleep now, too.

Respectfully…

AR

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sundays & tuesdays

10532136_10204417077048664_2802010865682159839_oFor 17 Sundays most of the nation joins with the likeminded, typically sitting on the family room sofa, sometimes in our favored garb, cheering on our favorite team. Like this past weekend… some rooted for Denver instead of New England, Pittsburgh instead of Baltimore, and St. Louis instead of San Francisco. We enthusiastically and loyally cheer for our team. “Who dey” and “Go Bengals,” for example, were heard multiple times, echoing loudly amid our household (… yes, some days it’s hard to be a Bengals’ fan). But let’s face it: not only are we zealously rooting for our team, we are also actively rooting against the other.

Today, however, is Tuesday; it’s not Sunday. Yet with today’s midterm elections, it seems many have the two days confused.

Many highly intelligent people are rooting zealously for their team — and — actively rooting against the other. Many of the elect are encouraging us to do exactly that. From Pres. Barack Obama to congress to our local municipalities, many are encouraging us to choose sides — to choose a single side — choosing only one team. It’s as if only one team can win.

[Sigh.]

It’s not that I don’t believe certain candidates are better. It’s not that I don’t believe certain policies are wiser. Wisdom and foolishness exists across all parties.

I will add that no party’s candidates have cornered the market on integrity, and the Intramuralist will always support a man or woman of integrity before a candidate who shares a preferred party (note:  I don’t have a preferred gender or ethnicity). That’s one of the most significant, gaping, moral loopholes that seemingly intelligent people seem to miss. They fight for their party. They don the favored garb. But they forget that not all people of all parties are good — they aren’t all men and women of integrity;  they also forget that both Pittsburgh and Baltimore have good people on their team; hence, it’s understandable that some would favor the plays of the Steelers to the Ravens or the Ravens to the Steelers. It’s not so understandable to  rhetorically vilify an entire team in order to propel oneself or one’s party; such seems a silly exercise for the otherwise intelligent to embrace.

This past weekend Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) joined in a conference call with progressive activists, attempting to help a Democrat keep hold of Iowa’s currently open Senate seat. He said of his desired candidate, “Bruce Braley is a fine man. He has a good record of public service.” Of his opponent, Joni Ernst, Reid said, “She’s so out of line with mainstream Iowans… she has spent the entire campaign talking about what she did as a young girl, castrating animals.”

Friends, please vote for the person of your choice, but don’t be influenced by Reid’s words; they aren’t accurate. They are part of an inflated rhetoric designed to prompt us to put on our partisan garb and root actively against the other team. Democrats and Republicans alike join in this exercise; it’s as if they are attempting to get us to hate the other team — to turn a blind eye to the fact that there may exist candidates of integrity on both sides of the ballot.

This past Sunday the Jacksonville Jaguars visited Cincinnati’s “Jungle” on week 9 of the NFL’s regular season. We were (obviously) rooting for the Bengals, but we no longer cheered actively against the team from North Florida. We were changed by this past summer, when my family had the opportunity to visit extensively with several of the Jaguar players, including blossoming rookie, star quarterback, Blake Bortles. Blake was very intentional with my sons; he was especially good with my child with special needs. While the Jaguars lost the game Sunday, thanks to Blake, we had no doubt there were people of integrity on both sides.

Maybe all those talking about today’s ballots should recognize that, too.

Respectfully…

AR

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maynard’s choice

cover-768Today was the day. Today was the day Brittany Maynard’s family and friends were to begin life without her. Today was to be the beginning of her surrender… and of, her family’s grief. Allow me to provide some brief background info, as shared by Brittany herself…

On New Year’s Day, after months of suffering from debilitating headaches, I learned that I had brain cancer. I was 29 years old. I’d been married for just over a year. My husband and I were trying for a family.

Our lives devolved into hospital stays, doctor consultations and medical research. Nine days after my initial diagnoses, I had a partial craniotomy and a partial resection of my temporal lobe. Both surgeries were an effort to stop the growth of my tumor. In April, I learned that not only had my tumor come back, but it was more aggressive. Doctors gave me a prognosis of six months to live.

Because my tumor is so large, doctors prescribed full brain radiation. I read about the side effects: The hair on my scalp would have been singed off. My scalp would be left covered with first-degree burns. My quality of life, as I knew it, would be gone.

After months of research, my family and I reached a heartbreaking conclusion: There is no treatment that would save my life, and the recommended treatments would have destroyed the time I had left.

I considered passing away in hospice care at my San Francisco Bay-area home. But even with palliative medication, I could develop potentially morphine-resistant pain and suffer personality changes and verbal, cognitive and motor loss of virtually any kind. I did not want this nightmare scenario for my family, so I started researching death with dignity. It is an end-of-life option for mentally competent, terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less to live. It would enable me to use the medical practice of aid in dying: I could request and receive a prescription from a physician for medication that I could self-ingest to end my dying process if it becomes unbearable. I quickly decided that death with dignity was the best option for me and my family.

Brittany moved to Oregon, obtained the prescription, and after finishing her so-called “bucket list,” planned on dying yesterday, November 1st. Brittany, however, changed her mind. She remains alive today.

Let me thus add a few thoughts and questions. Please perceive no judgment; there is none. I have no idea what it would feel like to be in Brittany’s shoes. Walking in her shoes, however, does not lessen my emotion nor question.

Brittany says she changed her mind because she “still feels good enough”… “I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends.” She also is still “reserving the right” to die on her own terms.

I can’t imagine being Brittany. I can’t imagine the sobriety that encounters her every day, the sobriety so many of us fail to face as it’s so easy to take a month or minute or moment for granted.

Amidst all the heartache, within Brittany’s seizing of the moment, there is a wisdom so many of us miss. Brittany makes me want to take nothing for granted.

More questions directed to this articulate young woman and her heartbreaking situation… why exactly did you change your mind? With circumstances the same, why have you decided to currently live? What keeps you here?  What do you think happens next? Do you know God? Do you trust him? Can he comfort you? Can he help you die with dignity? What will be the first conversation after death you have with God?

I have no answers this day… no judgment either… I am walking away, just hugging my family and friends right now… really tight.

Respectfully…

AR

[NOTE:  At 9:35 p.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 2nd, long after this column was posted, USA Today reported that Brittany did indeed end her life.  USA TODAY Network is awaiting further details.  Rest in peace, Brittany. ]