Jack_Kevorkian is an American pathologist, right-to-die activist, painter, composer, and instrumentalist. He is most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient's right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He famously said that "dying is not a crime." 

I've Waiting Years 20 Years For This Film

And I am overjoyed that a director as gifted as Barry Levinson Levinson has done it. It's just one more depressing reminder of the social regression that has hit America's shores in the 15 years since Fox News joined the Culture War. Kevorkian did eight long years in prison, all throughout the pathetic Terri Schiavo  case, and we STILL don't really discuss Right to Die issues in any way that would ever bring forth legislation. We're too busy discussing Sarah Palin's palm notes, how Sue Lowden's family once paid doctors with chickens, or whether Glenn back is a character or psycho neurotic. Conservatives found out how to rule our body politik and America lost her soul.

Mazer's script follows the doctor from his earliest, quietest cases in Michigan through his first blushes of local and then national publicity, including his portrait on the cover of Time. Kevorkian must do battle not only with overzealous politicians but also with fellow doctors who denounce him as a killer quack; with his own lawyer, who eventually decides to run for political office; and with America's ever-ready nut fringe, members of which show up at his home in states of pietistic imbecility. 

Read: "You Don't Know Jack" (Review by Tom Shales, Washington Post)

 

My father wasted away in a slow, wretched death spiral

Since then, I have always been sensitive to the misery that our archaic attitudes are toward life, and what should be our right to leave it when we're good and ready.  It should not be up to anyone else to tell us when that is. I think conservatives who rile against this basic right are simply addicted to controlling other people's lives as compensation for no real control over their own.

Here are some basics on this basic human right:

Background

  About "You Don't Know Jack"

  Jack Kevorkian

  Al Pacino

    Right To Die Issues

  Experts & Organizations

  Tutorials & Guides

  • The Suicide_bag — Make no mistake. Taking one's life is harder than it sounds, if one wants to minimize pain, risk of failure, and a myriad of other common consequences of suicide.  This article concerns the so called Exit bag method of personal self-determination. It is considered the only fast, painless and untraceable way that a family can help you, a friend, or a family member to end their life with dignity, and without the risks or legal implications of other methods.

"Bernie Goldberg Fires Back"

The Daily Show 4/20/2010 — Length: 11:54

Jon "apologizes" for criticizing Bernie Goldberg and Fox News, but it's only because they're a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization.  Do NOT shut this off half way thru. The real punchline comes after the lengthy setup.

Please retweet this with the green button. Once again, Stewart explains what all the rest of the media never can. People need to see it.

 

The Money Shots

Jon Stewart to Bernie Goldberg (with gospel backup singers behind him.)

Bernie Goldberg..

You're criticizing me for not living up to YOUR tag line!

And you dismiss any criticism as further evidence of how the rest of the media persecutes you.

You like to pretend that the relentless conservative activism of Fox News is the equivalent of the disorganized  liberal influence you find at NBC, ABC and CBS.

You may be able to detect a liberal pathogen..in the bloodstream.. however faint.

But Fox news is such a crazy overreaction to that perceived threat,

you're like an auto immune disorder.

I'm not saying the virus doesn't exist in some small quantity.

But you're producing way too many antibodies.

Fox News. You're the Lupus of news.

So I guess what I'm saying to you is this.

So long as "Fair and Balanced" is how you sell yourselves.

So I guess what I am sayin' to you is this:

Go fuck yourselves.

Related

This is a wonderful interview, and like most of the Washington Journal good stuff, it was buried in the early morning segment when only we hard core @cspanWJ watchers even saw it.

You really need to spend some time with this segment. He covers a lot of ground, and he knows his subject(s) really well. He's got a gift for casually, but concsisely discussing the practical and hypothetical issues raised by this Bizarro-world remix of modern conservatism, Republican cronyism, and all the Batshit crazy that we've been calling the Tea Party, lately.

Watching this segment, I thought about how much I really dislike the term "Tea Party," because it romanticizes a contrived and entirely wrong conception of what the real Tea Party was. But it also fails to describe what is happening in this "movement," or who and what it really represents, or where's it's going. And it's just too fucking informal for a trend that might ultimately take down the entire American experiment.

So, as is my wont, I set about to define it.  It seemed to me that what is happening is a perfect astroturfed storm consisting of:

  • Generally Republican crony corporate capitalism,
  • Fox-news-fed "big government" protesting under the guise of fiscal conservatism.
  • Resurgence of the John Birch Society and other fringe social conservative groups.

The triple-threat might neatly be termed, Trio-conservatism."  

So I liked it so much, I just submitted it to Urban Dictionary as:

Trio-conservatism A more formal designation for the socio-economic blending of corporate, fiscal and social conservatism that now typifies the so-called "Tea Party" movement in the United States.

Love it? Like it? Hate it?  Think I should burn this post and never bring it up again?

If UD approves it, it should be published sometime tomorrow.  I can improve the definition after they do. It's too annoying to spend time making the perfect definition, only to have some UrbanTard editor reject it for totally random reasons. There is no appeal.

About Dave Weigel