Godless PM

[Andrew D]

Modern society, particularly America, as it becomes more secular, has opted to warehouse the elderly. Choosing instead to ignore the emotional bond and 'not care' about them anymore.

I disagree again. Most people do not choose to "warehouse" their elderly parents. When they decide that a "senior care facility" is the best thing for an aging parent, they are deciding exactly that -- that it is the best thing for the aging parent.

Because of medical advances, many of today's elderly are living well past the point at which, in earlier times, they simply would have died. Providing such advanced medical care requires medical skills which most people do not possess. It's not simply a matter of wiping the shit from our parents' asses and the drool from their chins -- which I and every other child of an aging parent I know would have done unhesitatingly -- but of monitoring all sorts of conditions, giving injections (which I would not have been legally allowed to do anyway, due to my not having the requisite medical certification), and so forth. They don't call it "skilled nursing care" for nothing.

Children of elderly parents make difficult, often heart-wrenching decisions about their parents' care. At least in most cases, they do not make such decisions lightly. It is not about "warehousing"; it is about what, within the universe of available options, will provide the parents the best care possible. Often, the children simply cannot provide the best care possible by themselves. And in those cases, unless the parent is resigned to dying and does not want anything more than palliative care, a "senior care facility" is often the best available option for the parent.

[loCAtek]

Granted, I understand the medical concerns; elderly parent care is indeed difficult. My Grandmother was in seriously poor health for years because of advanced Alzheimer's disease. It was to the point she could not dress, feed, or bathe herself, and recognized no one. However she was given round-the-clock care by my aunts (who also had their own children) while a nurse visited the home regularly. She only spent one week at the end of her life at a hospice. My grandfather was also in their care but he was in much better health. Years later, when he died at 96, he was at home. Maybe my opinion of elderly care differs because I wasn't an active caregiver to them; I didn't have to do the work, but I've already told my father he can come stay with me when the time comes.

Chance that a senior citizen will enter a nursing home: 1 in 3
Chance that a patient in a U.S nursing home is sedated or physically restrained: 1 in 2
Average cost to stay in a US nursing home for one year: $76,680
Average number of days which individuals that require long term care, receive it: 904
Percentage of older population with long term care needs who live at or near the poverty level: 40%
Percentage of total long term care hours that are provided by unpaid caregivers: 84%
Percentage of Americans over 60 who live with a younger relative: 6.3%
Percentage of Japanese over 60 who do: 70%

Source

[Big RR]

Percentage of total long term care hours that are provided by unpaid caregivers: 84%

Lo--I think this is particularly telling; the vast majority of long term care is provided by unpaid workers, who are most often family. I think the difference between us and the Japanese is that out elderly and parents relish their independence, and will choose to live apart from younger family members, alone if necessary, rather than move in with the kids. That independence forms a large part of our national culture, and distinguishes us a lot from other countries.

And i agree with Andrew re skilled nursing care; I think a lot of people, my father included (in the last few years of his life) can benefit from institutional care that will monitor conditions, make sure proper medications are given on time, assure adequate nutitrition, etc. But that independent streak comes in, my father would have rather lived in a dark closet than in a regimented institution, and i respected that as long as I could. But it didn't help his health of longevity that he continued to eat what he shouldn't, missed medication, and often missed medical appointments because he just didn't want to go. Personally, I'd welcme Dr. Kevorkian over any of those alternatives when I had difficulty with health concerns, but the healthcare industry isnists on wringing every last dollar out of us befor we can go gently into that good night.

[Andrew D]

As for your [LoCAtek's] characterization of the spearation from the spiritual connectivity as a "hell", I believe I can understand and sympathize with that. Indeed, I think achieving this spiritual connectivity is the ultimate aim of existence, a way of transcending the discrete separateness of each of us within our physical world, and the spearation as a form of hell which can only be remedied when the connectivity is achieved. IMHO, achieving this will enable us to understand and experience all.

Or maybe what we should do is recognize that "the discrete separateness of each of us within our physical world" is illusory -- a mental construct which does not accurately represent reality.

Have you ever spent a while in a room with a bunch of other people? If so, you have inhaled air expelled from their lungs.

And I don't mean just air that they had inhaled and then exhaled as if it were the air in a balloon which one breathes in and then out again without much (if any) substantive change. I mean air that has gone through their entire bodily systems. It has been inhaled into their lungs, processed into their bloodstreams, circulated throughout their bodies, converted from one chemical formation to another, and expelled -- only to be inhaled by you. Where it will repeat that process, only to be inhaled by someone else. And on and on and on ....

Next time you eat a burrito or a plate of spaghetti or a salad or whatever, pause for a moment. Consider a particular bean, noodle, lettuce leaf, etc. Every atom in that thing has been through millions (probably billions or trillions or ...) episodes of having become part of some other being before it becomes part of you. It has been eaten and shat and inhaled and vomited and hurled into space and rested on the ocean floor and risen as vapor and fallen as rain and ....

We are all parts of each other. Whatever spiritual significance that may (or may not) have, it is a fundamental fact about "our physical world". There is no "discrete separateness" except in our minds. In our physical selves (which may also be illusory, but let's save that for another day), there is exactly the opposite: One big whirl of stuff -- the stuff of which all of us are made -- in which "we" as "individuals" are transitory phenomena.

[loCAtek]

Hmmm, food for thought...



joke and real consideration.

[The Hen]

Just back to our Godless PM for a moment, (and I am sorry if Gob has already posted this snippet of info somewhere. I have had too much on at work to catch up with all the threads since my break), but I see that the Catch the Fire Ministry is going to be waging an assault on Canberra over the Godless PM just before the election.

The following has been removed and is now only on Google cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=au



Should be worth a laugh.

[Gob]

Bugger, we have guests while that is on.

I would have loved to have gone, dressed up as satan, and taken along a boom box playing "In League with satan" at full volume..

I'm in league with satan
I was raised in hell
I walk the streets of Salem
Amongst the living dead
I need no one to tell me
What's wrong or right
I drink the blood of children
Stalk my prey at night

Look out beware
When the full moon's high n'bright
In every way I'm there
In every shadow in the night
Coz I'm evil in league with satan
Evil in league with satan

I'm in league with satan
Obey his commands
With the goat of Mendes
Sitting at his left hand
I'm in league with satan
I love the dead
No one prayed for Sodom
As the people fled

I'm in league with satan
I am the masters own
I drink the juice of women
As they lie alone
I'm in league with satan
I bear the devils mark
I kill the new born baby
Tear the infants flesh

[Crackpot]

[loCAtek]

That's interesting but the media always seems to misrepresent Satanism. I've met a few followers, even attended a ceremony up in the city ( Of religions they have the highest percentage of member loss.) and the root philosophy seems to be; 'Do whatever you want, just don't hurt anyone.' Attributing murder and mayhem to them is sensational and theatrical; mostly done in an overblown fashion by Heavy Metal artists playing on fundamental Christian myths of what they are, not what they actually are.

[Crackpot]

No not really what you describe is neo-paganism. Satanism it something entirely different. Of course, just like any belief system, many don't think about it enough to understand the ramifications of what they profess to believe in.

[loCAtek]

Granted, but my point was; attributing barbaric behavior to Satanic practice is more often inaccurate or out-of-date. Usually just done to shock or annoy people not convey any sort of real worship.

[Crackpot]

Depends on what you mean by barbaric behavior. While most don't do the outright illegal by definition being a satanist is being opposed to righteousness.

[loCAtek]

By barbaric, I mean maliciously harmful like most of those song lyrics. I know for a fact some of the neo-pagan Satanic rituals include eating human blood, (usually baked into a bread, cake or cookie in order to sterile it) but the blood was freely given, not taken from a victim or something. That's opposition to righteousness, without being barbaric. Your mileage may vary.

[Big RR]

Much like chirsitian ritual involves eating the human body and rinking the human blood of jesus. Some christian religions see thecommunion more as a symbolic meal than real cannibalism, but the onlder religions believe the bread and wine actually transform into body and blood, although there is a debate about whether this is through consubstantiation or trasnubstantiation and what the products really become. Indeed, drinking the blood of somehow who willingly sacrificed it for you began with christianity at the last supper, and not satanism or paganism. In light of this, I'm not sure why the satanic/pagan practice is considered barbaric or not righteous.

[Gob]

Australia's Julia Gillard and her partner today became the first unmarried couple to move into the Prime Minister's official residence in Canberra.

It means the country’s first female leader will on Wednesday be able to celebrate her 49th birthday at The Lodge’s far more salubrious surroundings than her Melbourne bungalow.

Miss Gillard and her partner, Tim Mathieson, a former hairdresser-turned estate agent, have already said that Australia will just have to 'wait and see' whether they marry or not.

Mr Mathieson is affectionately known as Australia's First Bloke.

The couple have been together since 2006 after meeting two years earlier at the Melbourne hairdressing salon where he worked. Miss Gillard deposed former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last June after she took over as leader of the Labor Party.

But she refused to move into The Lodge until she was formally elected, a position she gained only with the support of two independents. As well as being the first female Prime Minister, Welsh-born Miss Gillard is also the first since Billy Hughes (who ruled from 1915 to 1923) to have been born overseas.

She was brought up the pebble driveway to The Lodge in a chauffeur-driven car. But, determined to show she was still a woman of the people, she collected her own bag from the boot of the car, before being greeted at the front door by household staff.

Shortly afterwards she and Mr Mathieson, both dressed in jeans, emerged to stroll around the lush gardens, rich with spring pansies and camellias.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z10gYpiWQG

[loCAtek]

Jeans! Oh, the scandal!

[thestoat]

Gob, so nice that religious bigotry can't quite quash everything

[Lord Jim]

Most of the "religious bigotry" : I see expressed on this board is directed towards religion, not emanating from it....

[Big RR]

I agree with you regarding this board Jim; but in real life the vast majority is the other way. IMHO most atheists, even zealous one, usually just keep their mouths shut about their beliefs (or lack of them) unless provoked or invited to comment. Religious zealots, on the other hand, feel they have a duty to proselytize and often include in this duty the attacking and criticism of any beliefs other than their own.

[thestoat]

Lord Jim - you sound as if that offends you? I thought the point of the board was to "have fun, relax, but above all ARGUE!". (By the way, my post above was in reference to the demonstrations against her premiership due to her atheist beliefs).