This is a diary of depression mixed with anger. It's based on two men who successfully avoided both while they faced the thing we all fear the most: Death. Leroy Sievers and Randy Pausch both made peace with their impending death, knowing that not only was it was inevitable as it is for all, but imminent. They faced death and did not display anger and depression, and that is where I admit I am not so strong. I am ashamed to be alive in light of the spirit that they displayed throughout the moments we know we will all face - but don't believe we have to day to day.
I'm seething inside after watching Saturday night's transparent panderings to the religious right; who's hubris in co-opting the phrase "culture of life" is unforgivable. I feel they have absolutely no credibility to claim any moral standing on life at all and I'll explain why.
If one is objective when considering what will most likely kill you, it becomes perversely ironic to realize how we fight tooth and nail with great indignation against things we have little control over, but so often shrug with indifference at the things that are well within our capacity to change. In that sense, I'm not the only one who should be ashamed when remembering the lives of these two incomparable, exceptional men who taught us about life and death.
The comedian Gallagher (yes, the one with the watermelons) once said, "The Higway Patrol reminds us that if you don't get killed on a holiday, it don't count." If I have to explain why that's funny, you won't understand the rest of this diary.
You see, we have this country frothing at the mouth - an unfortunately large percentage of it at least - convinced that death only matters when it comes by the hand of an abortion doctor or a terrorist. To mix some metaphors, the right wing argues why we must invest enormous efforts to save two particular trees, meanwhile the rest of the forest is being decimated by a wildfire of ignorance and delusion. The neocon Right and the religious Right thrive on the heroic ideals that we must fight terrorism and end abortion, but they don't admit that statistically it's indesputable that most Americans will be killed by their own easily avoidable bad habits or by accidents.
You want prooof? (I am so pissed right now) Let's start a one month experiment: Take your local newspaper, and between the front page and the obits, I want you to start two columns categorizing how people die: On the left, write down everyone who makes the front page in a horrifying car crash, a house fire, abject violence, or some bizarre accident involving mundane objects that people don't seem to realize are lethal. In the obits, you may or may not choose to include those who are killed by cancer or heart disease, because they are not always identified. Now, in the column on the right, write down everyone who was killed by a terrorist act. And let's go one step further and include all U.S. military casualties in that column.
You get back to me with those numbers, let's agree to meet on Labor day. I'll say that your left column will require multiple pages, and your right column may be empty. I've seen months pass without a local death of a soldier; I can't say that for DUI.
And I'll guess my rant here will get picked up by Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponuru, RedState, FreeRepublic, LittleGreenFootballs and MichelleMalkin who call the left "the culture of death". But they don't bring much intellectual honesty to the table. Because after a month, you're going to be looking at your two columns and it's going to be impossible to deny that what will kill you or someone in your town is more likely to come at your own hand, that of your nearest neighbor, or a total stranger with no professed intent to kill you than it will a terrorist.
Go grab the biggest chart you can find at the Centers for Disease Control, and analyize what the leading causes of death are. Amongst people in the 16-60 age bracket - the years we think are our most productive and valuable, where your health ought not to be an issue - either an accident, violence, or a disease attributable to your own bad habits will likely be on your obit. I didn't make this up.
Seatbelts and helmets save lives. And still we have libertarian crusaders who are so indignant that the state has asked them to be responsible enough to wear them, they will eschew a good idea just because someone asked them to. (don't get me started on this one, I have a member of my own family who made a point to not wear his seatbelt on the way home after I defended state laws mandating their use. He normally wore a seat belt anyway, but just to prove to me that the state was wrong to make him do it, he took it off that time.)
I have a neighbor who continually rails about government regulation through the EPA and OSHA, all the while he gets to live in an environment that gets to benefit from all those advances in awareness.
So what am I ranting about?
Simple - in this country, at this time, it should shame us all that the cause of your death only inspires indignation when it can be blamed on someone else - because the things that we do have control over are more likely to get us and we don't invest nearly the time or energy. The numbers don't justify the rage. During the debate with Rick Warren, McCain was the first one to bring up 9/11 and Rick Warren had to say "40 million" each time he reminded the candidates that abortion is still legal. But even when health care was mentioned, how many times did anyone say "We need to end smoking in this country if we really want to save lives, and alcohol responsible for many deaths behind the wheel and from disease"? Maybe I missed that part of the debate.
How about this: there were 2978 people killed on September 11, 2001. There are roughly 40,000 people killed in automobile accidents every year. That's 110 people per day, meaning it only took 27 days to surpass the death brought upon us by the terrorists. Quick: How many months since 9/11?
Almost 95. Before the November election, automobile crashes alone have killed and will kill 100 times the number of people that Al Queda has since 9/11. I left out house fires, gun accidents, gun violence, and all of the "Darwin Award" bizarro stuff that seems like a hysterical story unless you're the fool's wife or kids.
There are no "rolling thunder" parades to commemorate death caused by our own bad habits. Neither Leroy Sievers nor Randy Pausch were smokers or heavy drinkers, and yet even though the Marlboro Man is no longer a ubiquitous advertising poster, you don't have to go very far to smell one blow his bad habit in your face, or leave the smoldering evidence of his bad habit on the pavement. And I can claim a member of my family who met his end by the ripe old age of 37 from cirrhosis of the liver, and my father 'survived' throat cancer for eight years but never gave up the smoking and drinking which was ostensibly the reason he had cancer in the first place.
So.
If you aren't killed on 9/ll or in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, it does count. Your family and friends will still grieve for you, and the hole you leave in their lives will be no less devastating simply because your end came at the hands of someone who is not called a terrorist.
I'm sorry if I have offended anyone, I truly am. But I watched my father 'survive' cancer for eight years by having his throat and tongue cut out. Saddam Hussein was said to have cut out the tongues people he tortured, and for that he was a war criminal. My father had to make the copayments on the surgery to have it done to himself. And then my father started drinking and smoking again because he had nothing left to lose.
Did you get it yet? This is a long screed, and I apologize that I don't have a good editor. But when the religious right wants to talk about the culture of life, they have to start being more honest. It's wrong to be self-righteous and indignant about only abortion and Islamic extremists, because there is a lot of death cause by other things we can prevent. George Carlin's rants in later years pointed out that your life is center stage if your in the womb, but once you're born you're not much value to the Republicans until you're old enough to enlist or vote. And the neocon right has to be more honest and admit that before this day is out, more people will be killed by other Americans than will be killed by terrorists, Islamic or otherwise, through gun violence, stupid behavior, preventable accidents, and their own indifference to pay attention and take advantage of what available measures that exist to to save their life.
The Culture of Life. It's not a trademark, and it's not even an legitimate expression for anyone who is honest with themselves about what the reasons you will grieve for someone you love.
Leroy Sievers and Randy Pausch knew how to celebrate life, to cherish that life no matter how much of it is left, and represent two exceptionably admirable reasons why our freedom to choose what to do with what life we have is so important. I wish either one of them had been invited to host a forum with the presidential candidates.