What did delaying the inevitable achieve? Well it cost the club a fortune as we recruited Ba and Bridge on a combined salary of £150,000 a week for 5 months. That's £3,000,000 down the pan, before you take into account fees paid to their clubs. It's probably a net £5,000,000 actually. Then there was the decision to retain Parker. Had we cashed in on him in January, we may have secured £8million. I would be amazed if we get £5million now. That's another three to five million chucked down the toilet.
Then, of course, there was the failure to start the rebuild earlier. Players like Jordan Spence could have been properly blooded and Hines and Sears tested to the full, had we accepted we were down and started planning for next season. But like the mythical ostrich, we buried our head in the sand. Why?
Because that's what you do. You don't give up, not even when all logical hope is gone. You keep hope. You fight. You achieve dignity by facing into adversity and toughing it out. Which brings me to Terry Pratchett. I watched that programme last night. Well, I watched most of it. I couldn't watch the "climax" when a man completely sound of mind took his life in front of the watching millions because to say "No" at the last moment would have been humiliating.
The programme was an utter disgrace. I am not taking a position here on dignity in death - when somebody is in the final throws of agony it is absurd not to offer them mercy - but this Dignitas organisation is a factory of death, an Auschwitz under a different name, operating in the name of profit. Listening to the clipped Germanic accent of the woman who decides on who should live and who should die brought the names of Eichmann, Himmler and Mengele to mind. I felt huge compassion for the two condemned men at the centre of the programme and utter repugnance for Pratchett, a voyeuristic angel of death seeking personal solace at the expense of others. His assistant who voiced the opinion that this was "wrong" said it all.
I am not an emotional person but I was close to tears as I heard the dying man ask for water. There was a terrible resonance of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, with Pratchett taking the role of the Mariner, bringing this terrible tale into our homes.
I witnessed no dignity, I witnessed life ending unnecessarily early, life surrendered for fear of being a burden on others. Where was the love? It was utterly absent. To hear a man on the point of self extermination tell his wife to "Be brave" said it all. He killed himself for her, not for himself, and from what I could see, she was happy to hold his hand and lead him to this C21st version of the Nazi gas chamber. As he snored his way into death, oblivious now of the audience who had pressured him into death, I wondered at the value of his estate and how his wife would now be living her life.
Dying a slow death isn't pleasant but it has to be better than people feeling pressured into an early exit. Of course we were down at Christmas but who wants to embrace death in the festive season? To witness this poor man kill himself as a Christmas present to his wife was truly horrific.
I suggest Dignitas design a new logo, reading "arbeit macht frei".
20 comments:
In using that picture are you suggesting that because Parker's worked hard this season we can 'set him free' or are you continuing your campaign to crucify him, hawking provocative unrelated holocaust imagery, or setting about trying to prove Godwin's law yet again?
May I suggest you READ the article. It has NOTHING to do with Parker. This just shows what a knee jerk idiot you are - with respect!
HF,
Unfortunately you are completely wrong with this article. From the sounds of things you are definately against assisted suicide. The reason why the gentleman wasn't given water when he asked for it was simple. If they had given him water at that time, two things could have happened:
1) It could have prolonged his death, taking a lot longer than it should have also causing suffering.
2) He could have suvived the poison, but have been left brain damaged.
You have to look at the view from the person who wants to end his life. They don't want to be a burdon to their family, the suffering that they will go through (yes I know the family will suffer from the death, but this way they get to grieve early on, knowing its what they wanted). At this moment in time I don't want to die, but if I developed an incurable disease I would definately start to wonder if I would want to live my life as a vegatable, having people tending to everything. I certainly would hate to develop Alzheimer's. I've seen what it does to people having a grandparent who developed it after having a stroke. I hated watching my grandad slowly degrade and it was degrading to him as well. To me all that sounds worse than dying, living for years like that before finally surcuming to death.
You are completely wrong..when, and I hope you never do, you face a lingering slow death, then you will have a right to state these emotional views,until then I suggest you keep quiet about something you clearly have no comprehension of...
I'm not sure where I stand on this to be honest. I didn't see the program (although I had heard about it before last night). However I think I believe that it should be the individuals choice in the matter and if they choose to end one's life in that manner then so be it.
I do think it was wrong to put a camera in there.
However I am still thinking this through so am not totally sure on how I feel. How ever until I am in the situation where myself or a family member are there (god forbid it that this happens) then I am not sure anyone can make a wholehearted choice on it.
hjl, I have. I nursed my father through the last two weeks of his life as he died in agony from cancer. I cannot explain everything here for legal reasons but I am certainly not an opponent of mercy killing as I say in the article. The doctor was very clear about our responsibilities in terms of gradual increase of the morphine dose.
Last night was comletely different. The programme featured two men a long way from death and not yet in acute agony. The law is wrong because we cannot make living wills, signaling a desire to be removed from acute agony, but what happened in last night's programme was even more wrong. Two lives were snuffed out needlessly early and the intrusion of Pratchett and the TV cameras were appalling. I had a very uncomfortable feeling that death was opted for to please others - and that cannot be right.
Hammered, I answer many of your points above. The cry for water showed that the last conscious moment was very far from kind. It was a desperate cry, the cry of a man in a desert wanting to be rescued. It was heart breaking.
Your Alzheimer's point is very misguided in my opinion. We had a neighbour whose mother suffered from Alzheimer's and she was perfectly happy. Her relatives weren't but she was! Yes it is very sad to see a grandparent regress intellectually, but if he isn't aware and still enjoys life, what right have you got to judge his life worthless? Apply your logic and handicapped people would be sent to gas chambers - which is precisely what the Nazis did until the Catholic Church publicised the attrocities.
I will clarify. I believe in living wills. I believe in relieving suffering. I am utterly opposed to taking any life before pain thresholds are challenged. I am utterly opposed to any profit making organisation being involved - and paying salaries means that profit is being made out of death even if Dignitas claim not to be profit making. I believe that the televising of a good man's death was gruesome and utterly unacceptable. We will never know if he might have changed his mind if the cameras had not been there. How much subliminal pressure was being applied? I think the BBC and Pratchett should be prosecuted personally.
Hammersfan
Thx for replying to my message; you have my total respect for your evenhanded reply and I am very sorry to hear about your Father's illness.
However, what you have overlooked in my message is that you PERSONALLY have not experienced a terminal illness and cannot, therefore, empathise with somebody in this position.
You need to try to limit your emotions when blogging as these are, otherwise, excellent.
I still disagree with you hj. I have stood vigil at the bedside of a man I loved and nursed him as he died in agony. That is first hand experience. I have also suffered acute pain myself and on one night, in particular, may well have opted out if given the opportunity, such was the pain. That was three years ago. It was nothing major, it was just acute pain. Pain can make us do stupid things and we need to be protected from ourselves. I don't think I am responding emotionally to this issue at all, I am responding in a level headed way. Yes to living wills; no to assisted suicide until the unbearable pain barrier is approached. And absolutely no to Alzheimers because relatives and care homes will take the economic and selfish view when, in fact, the sufferer is perfectly happy, albeit they do not understand how they are embarrassing their "loved ones". We are a long time dead and death should be the very, very, very, very last resort in my opinion, not a plan that can be ordered through the post and paid for 18 months earlier than is necessary!
Anyway, it is a personal issue. I am only engaging in the debate because of the TV coverage which I believe was ethically wrong because of the pressure it put the subjects under to go through with it.
I agree with most points you make HF. Can you just clarify to me your definition of a living will?
I take on board all your points but it still must rest with the individual..who are we to judge when a sufferer's pain is unbearable? It must be up to each person to make this judgement, only he/she should have the right to choose the correct "time".
Anyway, as "they" say, it looks like we'll have to agree to disagree!
A living will states that if in an unrecoverable coma, brain dead or in the final agonising stages of disease - such as terminal cancer -then you authorise the ending of needless suffering. It is the duty of a doctors to reduce suffering; to ask them to prolong agony when there is no prospect of recovery is absurd in my opinion.
My father was dying in absolute agony and had, at most 36 hours; his exit 5 hours into that 36, breathing steadily and no longer screaming in agony was kindness. To expose doctors and family members to possible prosecution in a situation like that is wrong.
"may well have opted out if given the opportunity, such was the pain"
You are a bigger Jessy than I gave you credit for. I had 9 kidney stones once - projectile vomiting - 6 shots of morphine and 10 out of 10 on the pain threshold - didn't feel like topping myself once
My grandmother deteriorate over a period of years and not hours like your father - it would have been a mercy to ease her suffering and mine watching her slowly deteriorate and lose all dignity = when she died I was robbed of the grieving process as I had lost years beforehand.
All about you 2147 - YOU were robbed of the grieving process, YOU had to watch your Gran deteriorate. You selfish cnut! I'm sure she felt really bad about putting YOU through all that. What a shame you couldn't package HER off to Switzerland and have done with it, eh?
"Rime (note the spelling) of the Ancient Mariner"..now that's what I call a song,13 and a half minutes of fcuking beauty from Steve Harris. Up the Irons,Jon
The thing is HF, we are going on whose definition of 'unrecoverable' or 'terminal'? What happens if you switch the machines off today, and you find either a cure or palliative treatment the next day? Would that make it murder ....or manslaughter?
22:13 my grandmother didn't know what day of the week it was and certainly didn't recognise any of the family for many years. She couldn't sit herself upright, let alone get out of bed, she was on 20 different types of medication to keep her alive. She had to be washed, fed and changed like a baby. I had very fond memories of my grandmother and as her first grandchild we shared a strong bond.
The point that I was trying to make is that it slow, drawn out and immensely undignified end for her and for many years she had no quality of life at all.
No machines involved with my Dad mate, lung cancer and in absolute agony. There was no way back. In cases like that it is clear cut.
I'm sorry to hear that mate.
And say someone changes their mind about the living will they had made before illness but are not able to convey it due to their illness? You see, we never know how we're going to feel once we're in that situation.
Glen Hoddle and David Ike should be able to spread light on why it had to be so. Think you'll find it's all to do with Karma.
"You selfish cnut!" not sure that was called for?
The fellow was talking of his grandmother - what upset you so much, to break one of your own rules?
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