Ed note: Canada has liberalized its medical aid in dying (MAID) laws far beyond that of Washington State (or any other state). A person no longer needs to be terminally ill and the lethal medication can be given by IV injection. This has resulted in about 2.5% of deaths in Canada are from MAID, while the rate is 0.5% in Washington State.
by Ian Austen in the NYT
Since the government expanded the eligibility for assisted death last year to include those with disabilities, critics have been saying there should be more checks and balances.
Cheryl Romaire, who wears a fentanyl patch for pain from a degenerative spinal condition, was recently approved for an assisted death.
CALGARY, Alberta — The first time Cheryl Romaire tried to end her life under Canada’s assisted suicide law, her application was rejected. But after a loosening of the law, she received approval to end her life — and she now intends to do just that.
“It felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest,” Ms. Romaire said recently, as one of her cats and a dog competed for her attention at her apartment in Calgary, Alberta.
Last year, Canada changed its assisted death law, permitting people with chronic, “grievous and irremediable” conditions and physical disabilities to commit suicide, even if they are not terminally ill. And so this allowed Ms. Romaire — who has undergone 41 medical procedures in 10 years for a painful and worsening spinal cord condition but had been told her death from the condition was not “reasonably foreseeable’’ — to qualify for a death on her own terms.
“You can have a good death, you can have your family there with you,” she said. “It’s traumatic still to them. But it’s not the same as the shock of suicide which people will do when they’re at pain levels where there’s no hope.”
Canada is among 12 countries and several American states where assisted death is permitted in certain circumstances. Since last year, it has been one of at least three — including Belgium and the Netherlands — that allow an assisted death if the person is suffering from a chronic painful condition, even if that condition is not terminal.
Although the Canadian law was hotly debated in 2016, when it was originally enacted, it has won broad public acceptance since then, with polls showing strong support. Through December of 2021, 31,664 Canadians have received assisted deaths. Of those, 224 who died last year were not terminally ill, taking advantage of last year’s amendment.
A half century after founding the outdoor apparel maker Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, the eccentric rock climber who became a reluctant billionaire with his unconventional spin on capitalism, has given the company away.
Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.
The unusual move comes at a moment of growing scrutiny for billionaires and corporations, whose rhetoric about making the world a better place is often overshadowed by their contributions to the very problems they claim to want to solve.
At the same time, Mr. Chouinard’s relinquishment of the family fortune is in keeping with his longstanding disregard for business norms, and his lifelong love for the environment.
“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Mr. Chouinard, 83, said in an exclusive interview. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”
Patagonia will continue to operate as a private, for-profit corporation based in Ventura, Calif., selling more than $1 billion worth of jackets, hats and ski pants each year. But the Chouinards, who controlled Patagonia until last month, no longer own the company.
In August, the family irrevocably transferred all the company’s voting stock, equivalent to 2 percent of the overall shares, into a newly established entity known as the Patagonia Purpose Trust.
The trust, which will be overseen by members of the family and their closest advisers, is intended to ensure that Patagonia makes good on its commitment to run a socially responsible business and give away its profits. Because the Chouinards donated their shares to a trust, the family will pay about $17.5 million in taxes on the gift.
Ed note: It’s wonderful to have our neighbor, Town Hall, recognize us and offer special discounts for the inaugural Writers Festival.
This weekend, we turn the page on a new chapter in our organization’s programming story. Town Hall’s inaugural Writers Festival, Volume 1: Humble Beginnings, will be a celebration of literature and all the ways it keeps us connected. The residents of Skyline have been invaluable neighbors in our community and it would mean the world to see you there. To honor this deep connection, Town Hall is offering all Skyline festival tickets for just $10 or half off VIP passes! Use the code FEST10 at checkout to access this exclusive discount. To sweeten the deal, you can have any books you purchase during the festival held at Town Hall and dropped off to you the following week!
Town Hall is honored to share our neighborhood with Skyline and we can’t wait to see you in our historic building once again.
On Friday, Sept. 16, Volume 1 opens with an invocation by Seattle’s Civic Poet Jourdan Imani Keith, followed by a keynote talk with Siddhartha Mukherjee, moderated by Ross Reynolds, on the incredible history — and the future — of cells.
Saturday, Sept. 17, join us for talks by Lan Samantha Chang, A.M. Homes, David Quammen, Oscar Hokeah, Leila Mottley, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ted Chiang, and stay for a nightcap with the hilarious Sloane Crosley. Come for all the authors, or just choose your favorites — you’re welcome to come and go as you please!
Saturday also features tasty food,$10 featured titles from our friends at Third Place Books (while supplies last!), live music by The Bushwick Book Club Seattle, and more. Take advantage of this special offer and surround yourself with the good company of curious readers just like yourself, here in our marvelous City of Literature.
My grandson climbed this favorite local peak last week and sent me this pic. In addition to Mt. Rainier, you can see Rattlesnake Lake and Ledge, an easier place to hike and fish.
Wildfire smoke continues to move into the Seattle area today (Saturday, September 10). A new fire, the Bolt Creek Fire near Skykomish, is sending additional smoke to Seattle. Air quality is now Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups in most areas and Unhealthy for everyone in some areas. Track air quality in your area.
Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups: Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected. The following sensitive groups should especially take precautions: infants, children, and people over 65, or those who are pregnant, have heart or lung diseases (such as asthma or COPD), respiratory infections, diabetes, stroke survivors, or are suffering from COVID-19.
Unhealthy: Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
Avoid health effects from smoke by reducing time spent outdoors, especially activities like running, biking, and physical labor. Stay home if you can. You can improve the air quality indoors with a simple DIY Box Fan Air Filter (WA Department of Ecology YouTube).
Check with your health care provider for more specific health questions and concerns about the effects of smoke. Seek medical attention if symptoms are serious.
Elizabeth was committed to royal rituals but also modernized the monarchy by mingling with crowds, embracing Instagram, starring in spoof videos and even playing a joke on two American tourists who didn’t recognize her.
Posted inGovernment, Humor|Comments Off on Some unusual memories of the Queen
Satire by Andy Borowitz in the NYT. Thanks to Pam P.
MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Amid reports that the Russian front has collapsed near Kharkiv, Vladimir Putin complained that the only reason he is losing the war in Ukraine is that the F.B.I. recently seized stuff he needed.
“I’m not going to go into detail, but there were things I needed, very important things, that the F.B.I. has confiscated that should have been sent to me,” the Russian President said. “If I had those things right now, I wouldn’t be getting my ass kicked all over Kharkiv.”
The fact that materials intended for him are in the hands of the F.B.I. has made him question “whether America is really a democracy,” he said.
“I think if you pay for something—and I mean pay in cash—it should be sent to you,” he said. “Hopefully the special master will straighten all this out.”
Posted inHumor, Politics, Satire|Comments Off on Putin Says He Is Losing War in Ukraine Because F.B.I. Seized Stuff He Needed
An Ohio-based restaurant chain is building its fast-growing workforce with people often overlooked In the U.S., the unemployment rate among formerly incarcerated people is nearly five times higher than the general population, and college applicants with a former felony conviction are almost two and a half times more likely to be denied admission. Without equal access to employment or education, they can get stuck in a cycle of poverty and recidivism. Looking to help reverse this trend, Hot Chicken Takeover specifically hires people that may otherwise have trouble finding employment because of prior incarceration, drug addiction, or homelessness. Almost 40% of its 172 workers have come out of the justice system, and they’ve already expanded to seven locations — with three more on the way. → Read more
Ed note: This cheery review pretty much ignores the downtown situation, crime, drugs and the homeless–but perhaps seeing the glass half full is agood reminder of the strengths of our city.
In the NYT by By David Laskin
The Space Needle in downtown Seattle. With the removal of the elevated highway known as the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the city’s waterfront is undergoing a renewal. Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
On Feb. 9, 2020, the Seattle Asian Art Museum reopened after a three-year, $56 million renovation and expansion that transformed the look, feel and reach of the venerable institution. Five weeks later, the first round of statewide Covid lockdowns shuttered the place. “It was heartbreaking for me and my colleagues,” said Foong Ping, the Foster Foundation Curator of Chinese Art at the museum. “It was shoulder to shoulder in the newly imagined galleries — then silence.”
This July, the museum, which reopened in May 2021, launched a new exhibition curated by Ms. Foong called “Beyond the Mountain,” which showcases contemporary Chinese artists, including Zhang Huan, Yang Yongliang and Lam Tung Pang. It’s a knockout show, with bold, tech-enhanced, multimedia works playing off traditional images and themes. And it’s also a fitting symbol of Seattle in the aftermath of the pandemic. Ink Media #4, by Chen Shaoxiong, with its full-wall projections of drawings based on photos of political protests, is one of the most exhilarating works currently on view in the city, but museum hours remain limited to three days a week and the number of visitors has yet to reach prepandemic levels.
In short, Seattle is back, but not all the way. The pandemic left gaps and tears in the urban fabric, especially downtown, and locals still mourn favorite restaurants that did not make it through: Boat Street Kitchen and Dahlia Lounge downtown, Il Corvo in Pioneer Square, the Paragon on Queen Anne Hill. But the city’s defining cultural institutions remain healthy, new restaurants and coffee places are popping up all over town, and the communities ringing the center are more vibrant than ever.
Capitol Hill makes a comeback
Capitol Hill — the neighborhood where the Asian Art Museum stands on the crest of the Olmsted-Brothers-designed Volunteer Park — is a good example of the city’s recovery.
At the start of June 2020, less than a mile and a half south of the museum, the so-called CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) transformed the neighborhood’s commercial heart into a zone of fierce protest ignited by the murder of George Floyd. Protesters filled a local park with tents and murals, did their own policing after the local precinct was abandoned, and distributed free food, though by the end of the month a series of shootings in the area precipitated the clearing of the CHOP protesters. “At first it was beautiful,” says Pietro Borghesi of the action swirling around the Capitol Hill restaurant, Osteria La Spiga, which he, and his wife, Sabrina Tinsley, own. “Then it became like the Wild West.”
n the last few months, Dr Jeannina Smith has seen organ transplant recipients who have been very careful throughout the pandemic venture out for one activity, contract Covid-19 and lose their transplant.
“I have been at the bedside of a transplant recipient” who “was very ill and in the hospital, and she got Covid the second time in a healthcare setting”, said Smith, medical director of the infectious disease program at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics. “She was sobbing because she said, ‘It’s so hard for me to see that people care so little about my life that wearing a mask is too much for them.’”
While much of US society has breathed a collective sigh of relief at no longer having to wear a mask in public, that freedom has placed people who are immunocompromised at risk, such as Smith’s patients. Nor are they the only ones. Older adults, the very young and those with long Covid are at greater risk too. So while for many Americans the pandemic increasingly feels over, for others – often the most vulnerable – it rages on.
As Smith puts it, “What troubles me as an infectious disease specialist with an interest in public health is the abandonment of the idea that public health exists to protect the most vulnerable.”
We are at a point where this pandemic should not keep older people from socializing
My high-school classmates wanted to make an impact with our 1957 senior-class gift to Shawnee-Mission High School, in the Kansas City suburbs.[1] The Senior Gift Committee had the bright idea of buying a painting, which would hang in the entrance lobby where a few thousand students would pass it every day.
Thomas Hart Benton was famous, especially for his murals, and he lived in Kansas City. The $750 budget, raised from pass-the-hat contributions from 524 of us seniors, was only half the asking price, but Mr. Benton accepted our offer, probably because Gail Goodman, who chaired the gift committee, was so persuasive.
For a senior-class gift, it certainly set a new standard. Then, in the following decades, the value of Thomas Hart Benton paintings went through the roof. By the time of our 50th class reunion in 2007, this painting we had acquired, Utah Highlands, was valued at $750,000.
A thousand-fold increase. That’s likely better than any investment made by a member of the Class of 1957, unless one of us was an early investor in Apple or Microsoft. Utah Highlands is now probably worth over a million.
Success, surely. But the trouble it caused….
The rear of the school library. In 2007, my 67-year-old classmates were allowed into the locked room, as close as the previous level of security allowed –that Plexiglas box (below).
Utah Highlands is about two by three feet, not exactly mural size, but all we could afford. In 2008, other Benton paintings of similar size were going for a million.
Vulnerable as it was, hanging unprotected in the busy school hallway, it was later relocated to the back wall of the school library, where librarians could keep an eye on it.
Decades passed. By the time our 50th Reunion visited it in 2007, a locked room had been built around it. The room had a plate-glass window that kept viewers further away than the protections of world-famous paintings in museums. The school district was surely paying a lot for insurance and trying not to publicize its jewel.
My 67-year-old classmates were allowed into the locked room, as close as the previous level of security allowed –that Plexiglas box.
But the next year, 2008, the painting disappeared. A color photograph was substituted for it, but the Plexiglas protector was left in place. Inquiries from my classmates led the school district to say that the painting was not lost, merely hidden somewhere they would not name. They did not want to talk about it. That sounds like the insurance company was setting conditions for a cheaper premium.
One suspects the district could no longer afford the insurance premiums for public display, only those for secure storage. The district tried to get the big Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City—the one with the giant Claes Oldenburg shuttlecocks scattered around the lawn— to take it as a permanent loan. By 2015, they finally succeeded. I hate to think of how many lawyer-hours were wasted over this.
So, back in 1957, if we had asked ourselves about the potential side effects of our gift, I doubt that anyone would have guessed that we were creating a burden for future school administrators. But, since we were teenagers, I doubt that we would have cared—we might have even treated it as a bonus. I would have. I was still annoyed with the autocratic principal who told me to take off the beret I was wearing. (“I’m not going to allow any clothing fads in my high school,” he said, with his best stern stare.)
The beret initiative was created one morning in my 1956 carpool. Here they are in 2007, with a few extras. I treasure them all as some of the best friends I’ve ever had.
From the left: Richard Schott*, Ginger Stromsted*, unidentified, Mary Margaret McCoy, Bart Everett, Karen Robb*, me*, and Carol Sundell. The * are the carpool.
[1] In 1958, when a second high school opened, the first and only was renamed Shawnee-Mission North. It is located in what is now known to the post office as Overland Park, Kansas, a southwestern suburb of Kansas City.
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