Death With Dignity Act Goes into Effect In Washington

Washington ballot initiative I-1000 or the Death With Dignity Act went into effect Thursday, March 5, 2009, causing a minor but somewhat noticeable and well funded pro-life backlash.  The group “True Compassion Advocates” who are against the Act staged a demonstration at the University of Washington Medical Research Center on the day it went into effect.  True Compassion says they plan to stage more protests when further information on which hospital, nursing homes, etc, decide to offer “end of life choices.”

In Seattle, Swedish hospital isn’t offering end of life services and Virginia Mason won’t give out any life ending medication or assist someone to die on the hospital grounds but they are giving individual doctors and pharmacists the option to provide end of life services in their outpatient facilities.  The University of Washington Medicine health system which includes Harborview hospital is on board with Group Health Cooperative offering full end of life options.

The initiative itself was passed back in November of last year with a 58.68% for to 41.32% against.  Washington now joins Oregon, which has had more than a decade of legal physician assisted suicide, or “aid in dying,” and Montana, who in December 2008 legalized “end of life choices” in a court ruling which is currently being appealed.

The group mainly financially backing the Death With Dignity Act, Compassion & Choices, views access to life ending medication as an issue of human rights and dignity, that a terminally ill person with less than six months to live, must be able to choose when and where they will pass on.  True Compassion see aid in dying as an exploitation of destitute and mentally ill people even citing supposed cases in Oregon where insurance companies will pay for someone to terminate but not for continued treatment.  And although, the actual medication that would end a patients life has to be self administered, opponents of the law see it as a simple and inhumane way to deal with illness.  The problem with the opposition to “Death With Dignity” is they fail to see even before I-1000 it was already legal to choose to die.

 When a patient is diagnosed with a terminal illness this means not only incurable but fatal disease with less then six months to live you are given what is called “end of life” choices. These options included hospice, palliative care, and comfort care until now. 

 Hospice care is available to patients diagnosed with a terminal disease and six months or less to live. The philosophy behind hospice care is the acceptance of death as a natural conclusion to life, allows a person to die at home, and provides palliative care.  Palliative care is an option for patients who do not want to continue with any more diagnostic and/or treatments that are aimed towards a cure. The health care provided to these people is based on symptom relief, often including pain management.

 Comfort care is stopping all life sustaining treatments. This is a step further than palliative care because it includes pulling all gastric tubes and/or intravenous lines that provide nutrition and hydration. This in itself is speeding up the death process. Another part to palliative care is pain medication. This involves giving large doses of intravenous pain relieving medication. This not only relieves a patient from the pain of dying but allows the biggest side effect with these medications to take place and once again, hasten the dying process. The side effect is respiratory depression which slowly helps a patient to stop breathing.

The medical field is already giving terminally ill people the choice of death and assisting them in dying.  In health care the concept known as autonomy, the right for a patient to make her or his own decisions even to choose to end one’s life, is expected to be respected by all healthcare providers.  The Death With Dignity Act actually appears to give more options to healthcare providers and most importantly patients, to choose what would make them the most comfortable at the end of their days.  

It seems like the next logical step of pro-life “True Compassion Advocates” would be as the late great Bill Hicks predicted locking arms and blocking cemeteries, “there’s options.”

 

This article was co-written by the lovely and knowledgeable Alexandria Zayer, RN, CNA, RYT, CMT

More on Bremerton Girl Scout Cookie Fraud!

This just in: The 20 dollar bill forging tweakers from Bremerton are dumber than previously suspected.
The Bremerton Police Department now have in their possession not only the aforementioned Girl Scout cookies they left in the trunk of their car but a cell phone video of the woman implicated printing the fake money.

The trial should prove to be very quick.

Deparment of Justice Looking into King Co. Deputies Assault on Minor.

 

According to assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Harris who runs our local Civil Rights Division, Deputies Paul Schene, 31 and Brian Bonnar, 43, might be going up on real charges.  Harris, who lost when prosecuting Bonnar in 2006 for excessive use of force, might be ready to try again.  For now she is only using vague terms like “…On our radar” also adding, ”I do wish I had had video in that (the 2006) trial,” where Bonnar was acquitted despite multiple eye witnesses including five other officers testimony and a complete media, political and legal shitstorm.  

Long story short Brian B. lost it on a woman who had rammed a Sheriff’s cruiser in a high speed chase after she was already handcuffed and subdued.  He was beating this lady up so bad the other Deps had to pull him off, then lied about it on record.  Oh yeah, and even before all that he got cleared for beating a mentally unstable man who was being checked into the psych ward. 

Brian Bonnar claims to have left a $175,000 a year sales job in software in San Francisco back in 2003 to be a Deputy, he claims he did this because of 9/11.  Now, the average King County Sheriff’s makes about $51,187.92 a year as of 2006.  Sounds like a personal financial 9/11.  I suppose beating people up could be far more rewarding than pulling in 175 Gs a year if you look at it the right way.

After Malika Calhoun, the teen who the Deps jumped appeared on CBS’ ”The Early Show” Monday, a lot more people started paying attention.  Malika came off as a well, even soft spoken kid who was pissed at being harassed.  She claims that the stolen car in question wasn’t even really stolen, more borrowed without permission from the parents of other girl involved.  She described the attack as “horrible” and claims she repeatedly told the officer she wasn’t resisting.  As far as I know the last claim can’t be verified because there is no audio on the surveillance video but one doesn’t really need (or maybe want) to hear what happened in that cell.

It looks like the only person in the local judicial system who has actually seen the same video we’ve been watching since Friday, King County Prosecutor Daniel Satterberg, had this to say, ”We believe this case is beyond just police misconduct, it’s criminal misconduct.  This is clearly excessive force.”  Thank you, Mr. Satterberg.

Money Jungle on 9th Floor Radio, 9th Floor Radio on Money Jungle

The nice folks at 9th floor radio and my gracious host and beloved friend Jack Shit let me shamelessly self promote us while I played some face melting thrash (although I’m disappointed I didn’t have time to play more of the crossover punk shit I had planned)! Anyway, the show won’t be archived until tomorrow, and I sound dumb on the radio. Enjoy!

More Starsucks Garbage/Mr. $chultz is a Sneaky Fucker.

This video totally creeped me out, Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, is a goddamn weirdo.

To meet the tough economic times Starbucks has introduced their version of an American favorite: Instant coffee.  According to starbucksvia .com the shit costs 9.95 for a box that makes 12 servings.  That’s about 1.20 a cup for some instant coffee, which beats their prices for a regular cup of coffee that tastes like ass anyway.

I really do hope Schultz is actually creeping around fucking with people’s coffee and snitching on himself in interviews.

The One That Got Away…

Strait copypasta from the SPD blotter.

On 3/2/09 at 7:52 p.m., Officers were dispatched to the 5100 block of South Garden Loop Road to investigate a vehicle that had crashed into a house.  The homeowner was out on foot chasing the fleeing driver when officers arrived. Officers found the car had entered the home, but no one was injured.  A K9 tracked was established  but lost the scent around 51st Ave. S. and South Renton.  The homeowner said he heard the crash, went outside, and saw the driver leaving the car and running towards 51st.  He followed, but lost track of him around 51st and Renton.   The car was taken to the Processing Room for printing.

The suspect is outstanding and the investigation continues.

Taking Cookies From a Baby

The Girl Scouts aren't fucking around anymore.

Bremerton Police caught three people who ripped off Girl Scout Troop 40411 for a hundred dollars, the equivalent of 25 boxes of Girl Scout cookies.  The two men, 21 and 22 and a woman 18 were picked up after a clerk at a RiteAid snitched on one of the men who was trying to pass a fake 20 and a snitch on a police scanner saw them pitch the fake money behind his house.
Local police figure they dropped about one grand on peninsula before they were arrested.  Basically the scheme was simple:

1. Smoke meth.

2. Print fake money.

3. Smoke meth.

4. Buy candy bar, get change in real money.

5. Buy meth.

6. Repeat.

One suspect is still on the large and the other two are screwed.  The cops found drugs and paraphernalia as well as the printers and ink in their pad.

Seriously guys, the fucking Girl Scouts?  Enjoy your maximum sentence.

Microsoft Scraps 1400 Jobs in a Day and an Estimated 5000 Over the Next Year and a Half.

“In response to the realities of a deteriorating economy,” Steve Ballmer CEO of local ultra monser Microsoft said he was, “taking important steps to realign Microsoft’s business.” He went on to, “Tell (them) about what we’re doing and why.” he said in  his memo to employees on Wednesday.  And what he means by “realign” is massively cut the fuck out of everything but his cash allotment for the blow and hookers that inspire  his “spirited” employee pep rallies.  

Microsoft is hurtin’ on the inside.  Shares fell, and revenue for the quarter only rose 2 percent.  They’re cutting company travel expenditures by 20 percent, slowing the Puget Sound MS campus, christian babies for sacrificing, marketing, and HELLA JOBS, .

Microsoft employs 94,286 people world wide, 56,654 domestically, and 40,797 in the state of Washington alone.

“As part of the process of adjustments, we will eliminate up to 5,000 positions in R&D (Research and Development,) marketing, sales, finance, LCA (Legal and Corporate Affairs,) HR, and IT over the next 18 months, of which 1,400 will occur today. We’ll also open new positions to support key investment areas during this same period of time (read: Hiring while firing.) Our net headcount in these functions will decline by 2,000 to 3,000 over the next 18 months. In addition, our workforce in support, consulting, operations, billing, manufacturing, and data center operations will continue to change in direct response to customer needs.” Says Steve Ballmer in regards to the job situation for MS employees.  Later in the memo he goes on to say that, “For employees who are directly affected, I know this will be a difficult time for you and I want to assure you that we will provide help and support during this transition. We have established an outplacement center in the Puget Sound region and we’ll provide outplacement services in many other locations to help you find new jobs. Some of you may find jobs internally. For those who don’t, we will also offer severance pay and other benefits.”  

Now that sounds pretty thorough, Microsoft is setting up their very own unemployment center.

Seattle Police Beat a 15 Year Old On Camera and Receive a Paid Vacation.

On November 9th, 2008 in a holding cell in SeaTac City Hall a kid got beat up by two Seattle Deputies, this we are sure of, we have the video.
Apparently, one young woman’s shoe and getting ”real lippy” (according to Travis Brunner one of the Deputies involved) warrants a massive beat down by two full grown men.  She was also in handcuffs for part of the incident.  One of the cops, Paul Schene, who is 6 feet 2 and weighs 195 pounds, has had some problems with the law which he is sworn to uphold in the recent past.

In 2006 Deputy Paul Schene shot and killed mentally ill Pedro Jo after Mr. Pedro tried to choke him out with his own radio cord.  Which would sound legit except he fired his gun 11 times at Pedro, hitting him in the back as he was running back to his car on I-5 where he was stopped.  Anyway, he was cleared of the shooting and received a differed sentence and probation for being arrested shortly after the shooting for driving trashed off of pills and booze.  He was probably drowning his remorse for shooting an unarmed man in the back, maybe not though.  

Currently, neither Deputy Paul Schene or Travis Brunner are facing felony charges, Schene is up on misdemeanor assault which he obviously plead ‘Not Guilty’ to.  Schene is also on paid leave.  If the case goes to trial “(H)e could face additional charges,” said Ian Goodhew, the deputy chief of staff in the Prosecutor’s Office.  

Apparently, no one from the Prosecutor’s Office has seen the Youtube video of these guys whooping this little girl’s ass and neither has our BS hipster media.  While Seattlest.com is bantering about Portland and The Stranger (OL) is gibbering about Dan Savage or something real bad shit is happening right here in front of us.  

Well, at least the economy isn’t the worst thing on my mind for once.

The P-I Is Up For Sale.

On January 9th, 2009, Steven R. Swartz, the president of the newspaper division of the Hearst Corporation, parent company of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, told a shocked room full of P-I employees that it was selling the publication to whoever wanted the unprofitable piece of shit.

If you have a binding lease for the next few months locking you into a over priced place you thought was cool at the time and work at for the P-I, you’re fucked. Most of the staff’s job’s are almost certainly gone in 60 days.

The P-I is one of the two daily newspapers in print here in Needle City, first appeared on the scene as the Seattle Gazette in 1863. It is currently the more liberal of the dailies and pretty much has consistent beef with the other team: The Seattle Times. The various shit storms and name calling between them has proven both interesting and intellectually stimulating at best, and intensely boring and back biting at worst. In 1983 the Times and the P-I came to a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA,) despite their “glaring” differences. This pact advertising, marketing, distribution and production purposes. Hearst doesn’t own the Times and despite industry rumors, doesn’t intend to buy it.

Hearst papers are best remembered for the old school sensationalism articles. Well, that and Patty Hearst, heiress of Hearst Corp, getting her crazy ass getting kidnapped by the SLA and subsequently robbing banks with them in the ’70′s.

So, Swartz of the Hearst Corp walks up and tells everyone that they’re going to sell their paper. Swartz from early on in his shit speech mentions the strike that P-I went on in 2000 then proceeds to lay it on thick. Very tough decision indeed, apparently a business decision. He won’t take questions, even though some questions are just being shouted by a frustrated staff. He patronizes them for a while and then dips out. [video]

The deal is, if no one wants to buy the Post-Intelligencer in the next 60 days they will “have to pursue other options”, which could mean going to all digital or totally killing the paper. “One thing is clear: At the end of the sale process, we do not see ourselves publishing in print”, Swartz says. This means a staff cut of epic proportions and good luck finding a journalism job in this economy.

This is a local example of what’s happening to print journalism in general: Everything is going to the interwebs. Some of you probably haven’t touched and ACTUAL newspaper, on paper in months or years unless it was next to a toilet somewhere and you ran out of TP. Bloggers and the increasing amount of on-line news sources are putting these folks out of work and why not? Like Captain Swartz says, “Journalism is a fabulous profession… A wonderful profession… But it is a business”.

When there is constant financial concern over the printing and labor costs being covered by the income from advertising, marketing, and the local readership of your publication, you have a responsibility . Not that the P-I hasn’t done some amazing investigative journalism and has MUCH better editors than say Money Jungle (I guess what I mean by that is their staff has at least A SINGLE high school graduate between them,) but we bloggers on the internets are usually free of such restrictions. We are also free to make shit the fuck up and not research things as in depth as someone who gets paid to therefore has the time to do it. But looking at the history of the Hearst media giant we can see that they do the same thing.

All that aside, our best wishes go out to the staff of the P-I and I hope they have better luck. I hear Salon.com is hiring.