Just so we're all aware

[dwenius]

Dear friends, family, acquaintances, and political representatives,

If I am diagnosed by a capable team of medical doctors as in a "persistent vegetative state" with "no hope of any cognitive function,"
We're gonna PARTY IN THE HIZZOSPICE, BOYEEE!

Your instructions are as follows:

1. Rule #1: My life is to be extended until such time as I can claim sole title to the official world record as the oldest "living" human. Bring the boys from Guinness around and make sure there's a lot of press celebrating my "achievement." Hell, just to be on the safe side, why don't we say we'll keep my body going until I'm 135. If anybody else tops 130 in the interim, tack on an extra 5 years.


2. Set me up like Tim Finnegan: barrel of whiskey at my feet, bucket of porter at my head. Except make it stout.


3. Bring the noise. I want 5,000 watts of booming doof, minimum, all tight 18" subs and something stylish in a silk tweeter for the highs. I want the furniture in that room to be dancing, plus the plants, including myself. Set up some sort of weekly schedule (Goa, Dead show, something mixing Spiritualized with the Lords of Acid, etc.) and invite the orderlies in to shake it. I've noticed that people are usually all quiet and respectful around the dead. Fuck that , this might be the wake that lasts 40 years, and I expect y'all to gather around and raise the roof for the duration.


4. Bring me porn. I want a steady supply of wet, plot-laden, high-production value, gender-neutral obscenity scrolling by on a big plasma screen 24 by 7. If my dim, soulless eyes don't respond to the best that Private and Vivid have to offer, we'll just have to push it up a notch and install a stripper pole. Make sure to point my head the right direction so the girls don't feel like I'm ignoring them, and tip heavily.


5. Podcast. Every week, record a half hour of whatever noises I make, give it an obscure, pun-ridden 35 word title, and publish it on the net.


6. Publish. Every Sunday at noon, have someone time the intervals in between blinks. Using any suitable cipher, "translate" the result into a bulleted list. of words. Send them to McSweeny's with the title "A short list of largely inferred potential could-be thoughts, maybe."


7. Every full moon, spike my I.V. with some interesting form of contraband, alternating so I don't develop any tolerance.


8. Buy me a lotto ticket every week (random number selection). If I ever win, haul my ass to Vegas with a few dozen close friends and don't leave until everybody has at least six stories they'll never tell another human being. Then spend whatever is left on drugs and women.


9. Resuscitate, yo. I figure every one of you ought to have a chance to use those big electric shock mitts on me at least once. It'll be a story you can tell my great-great grandkids.


10. If my organs start to fail, put me on the donor list and install new ones. I'm eventually going to be an organ donor, but not until I'm dead, and that's when I'm 135, 'k? What, is there a law that you can't donate somebody else's organs?


11. Send the bills for all this stuff to President Bush, Tom DeLay, or their immediate heirs. <- as if there could be any doubt on this particular item, let me assure you, I am quite serious. Find a way, make it stick.

(This list goes to eleven.)

*****************

I don't think I have anything new to add to the debate, but the hypocrisy is staggering, even for BushCo. Let's see:

• While Governor of Texas, Bush signed a bill allowing life support to be terminated if the person couldn't pay for it.


• Schiavo's care is coming from malpractice judgments and Medicaid, both of which Bush wants to at least curtail, at most eliminate. (attr: matrushkaka)


• Where were all these culture of life senators when we were voting to bomb Iraq? I guess what Bush meant to say is: "We should create a culture of life, unless it's brown life, or Islamic life, or life that just happens to be sitting on a little bucket of unrefined crude." Because 200 generations of DU-mutated Iraqi babies is a small price to pay for having access to what, maybe another 10 years worth of oil. Won't that be great? 100 years from now, when we're still patrolling the streets of Fallujah, the National Guard will be going up against RADIOACTIVE insurgents with THREE ARMS. Mother nature is perverse; the third arm will probably be long enough to let them reload their own rocket launcher without taking it off their shoulder. How you like evolution NOW, George?


• Where are all those "sanctity of marriage" people now? It's wrong and offensive, but I believe the legal definition of marriage STILL includes the bit where guardianship is transferred from the parents to the husband. So, this whinging, no matter how heartfelt, falls into the same category as grandparents claiming any sort of rights of access to/influence on grandchildren. Non sequitur; there are no rights there in the first place.


• I've heard this referred to as both "medical terrorism" and "judicial terrorism". What the fuck? So now I can't give money to the A.M.A.?

So right, then, this is all another horrible sham to divert attention away from inflation, the deficit, the religious theocracy in Iraq, the continued attacks on and deaths of servicemen, and all those other policy failures. Apparently Jacko's jerking isn't weighty enough to distract the reporters, never mind the populace. It's pretty much beyond disgusting, but the media just can't stop sucking on it. Fooey on the lot of 'em.

Ok I'm done now.

Comments

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

not least because of the fun and games with fingerprints and photos on the way in.

I was wondering what the issue is with photos and fingerprints, because I've been discussing the same thing with matrushkaka's French friend who will be visiting in a month. I can understand objecting to them wanting a list of locations you'll be at so that they can check in on you. Or requiring a 'minder' to follow you around like you're in North Korea. Or even objecting to searching your luggage for contraband on your entrance and exit. But for someone who will have hundreds of photos taken of himself by anyone from friends to strangers - what's the issue with a photo by the Border Control?

If I can make their case: many of the 9/11 hijackers entered on fake passports. The owner of one came forward to announce that he had been mis-identified as a 9/11 hijacker and was still very much alive. We still have no idea who several of those hijackers were, and certain parties at the DOJ are desperately wishing that someone had at least one grainy picture of the folks in question. The photos wouldn't have stopped anyone, but they would make post-attack forensics MUCH easier to manage.

I'm not sure how it works in Ireland, but in the US there's an "Expectation of Privacy" in private situations (in your house behind drawn blinds) but no Expectation of Privacy in public situations (at shopping malls and airports). As long as the photos are being taken during immigration rather than at 3AM in your hotel room by US officials paying an unexpected visit I don't see what the problem is.

[waider.livejournal.com]

It's just a random thing I say to piss off my American friends.

Having dispensed with the glib answer: I dislike the implication that by getting on a plane I am to be considered a criminal. Photos, ok, not such a huge deal, but fingerprints? Plus, depending on the route I take, I may not be photographed and printed until I'm actually in the US (i.e. in that no-space between getting off the plane and the other side of INS) so your 9/11 reference is somewhat non sequitor in that respect. Much as I hate the even-more-glib-than-me analogies some people draw with 1930's Germany, I can't help but observe things like this coupled with more and more privacy invasion under less and less control and feel somewhat twitchy.

Regarding "expectation of privacy" I'm not really sure how to answer that. I think there's a general attitude here that what's my business is my business and what's yours is yours, and that's as far as it goes. I don't really know.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

I dislike the implication that by getting on a plane I am to be considered a criminal.

I'm not sure that anyone is implying that you're considered a criminal any more than the X-ray machines imply that you're considered a terrorist or the custom agents imply that you're considered an international drug smuggler.

If anything, the photography and fingerprinting ought to offend the border agents because it implies that US border control agents are not very good at their jobs. They can't spot expertly forged passports. They can't distinguish subtle differences in facial features on unfamiliar foreign faces. They're so bad at identifying foreign visitors that they need an elaborate and expensive way to retroactively determine who fucked up and let the wrong person in.

depending on the route I take, I may not be photographed and printed until I'm actually in the US (i.e. in that no-space between getting off the plane and the other side of INS) so your 9/11 reference is somewhat non sequitor in that respect.

Your plane would arrive in the US empty of fuel and would not present the fire hazard that the full planes departing New York did.

If you'd really like to avoid the fingerprinting and photo I'm pretty sure you could fly into Montreal and drive into Canada, as the world trade center bomber did.