words of the day
tweakments koekoeksjong snackgedrag phlizz
tweakments koekoeksjong snackgedrag phlizz
we are fumitory growing between the furrows in fields — our flowers like small red lips.
late spring 2020
is the egg of a guillemot shaped like a pear so it can roll around on a rock without falling off?
or does the egg of a guillemot not fall off a rock when rolling around on it because it's pear shaped?
late spring 2020
3 coves of garlic a handful of finely chopped parsley 40 g softened butter 250g mushrooms 2 spring onions chopped freshly ground black pepper and sea salt juice of half a lemon
finely chop the garlic and mix it with the parsley. clean the mushrooms and chop them into quarters.
warm half of the butter mixture on a low heat and fry the spring onions until they are transparent.
add the rest of the butter and the mushroom and fry on a high heat until the mushrooms have a nice colour.
finish with lemon juice and pepper and salt.
serve on toast or fried bread.
ps no one gets hurt.
july 2013 friends those of you who knew robert, he exited last night and everything went according to plan. he rang me yesterday afternoon and i was able to tell him how much i admired his courage, his humility and his determination and wished him bon voyage. i rang the hotel this morning to let them know and they were grateful. he gave me permission to publish his final statement on my website. he went on his own terms, quietly and with dignity. we can be proud of him and our organisation for making it possible. x johannes
Death is a normal part of the life cycle. For some people it comes quickly, for others more slowly. Some have time to make preparations and put their affairs in order, others do not. The following notes are prepared to assist those in the first category and are written from first-hand experience. They have been written from the perspective of a single person, living alone, with one person as next-of-kin. I retired as a university Research Fellow and had a forty two year professional career in social welfare provision, planning and research and six years of fulfilling retirement.
These notes are divided into two sections. The first is an extract from my memoir and outlines the reasons why a person decided to terminate their life. The second section deals with some of the practicalities involved in preparing for termination of life. It is hoped that this might provide an initial check list template, which can be progressively added to, and which assists those who have the time to put their affairs in order.
************************************************ A RATIONALE FOR ENDING A LIFE
We live in a secular society and I totally reject outdated religious views about death and dying. There has been a failure by timid governments to legislate for a legally safeguarded framework for end-of-life choice, a reason why I have been a long-time member and supported the actions of both Dying with Dignity Victoria and Exit International.1 I refuse to have my end-of-life choice dictated to by others or become ‘the plaything of clinical and religious institutions.’2 It is past time that death was seen as a normal stage in the life cycle and de-medicalised. As Charlesworth succinctly put it:
I do not exercise my moral autonomy by allowing my life to be dictated by chance and external forces, and neither do I exercise my moral autonomy by fatalistically allowing my death to be dictated by chance or external forces. It is not “playing God” to seek freely to control the direction of my life, and it is not “playing God” to seek freely to control the mode of my death.3
If my death has not been sudden, it has been my intention to make a pragmatic life choice, as a mature and intelligent person, to decide how and when to end my life. ‘I believe that we should die with decency, so that at least decency will survive.’4 It will be at an appropriate time and easier for my immediate family to dispose of my property. I will conclude my life with a quiet sense of overall life fulfilment.
I am content to leave this life…I have had a good life and have this sense I’ve done my bit. There is a sense of completion coming from this experience.5
A directive that my body is donated to Melbourne University, for the purposes of medical research, has been effective since 1964. I have no wish for a funeral,6 only that people who have known me will have their own personal memories of their contacts with me during our lifetimes.
Three factors have guided my thinking and decision-making in the event that I do not die suddenly. First, it will be an appropriate time in the lives of my three nieces for them to be the main beneficiaries of my estate. It has been my wish that my estate is distributed according to my directives and not wasted on potentially inappropriate health interventions or aged care.
Second, with ageing comes the increased possibility of major health issues. I choose to maintain my autonomy and independence before these are lost by an incident, outside my control, which results in my quality of life being severely compromised for a long period of time or permanently. Keeping severely compromised people alive, against their wishes, is immoral and will become an increasing ethical issue and impost on scarce taxpayer dollars as Australia’s population ages. While medical advances offer new technology:
…success is often only ameliorating disease and postponing death, which means a larger share of the population living with the sequelae of disease and into older age with more chronic disease and handicap.7
It is a fallacy that all available medical interventions should be pursued when, for many older people, this only results in unnecessary discomfort and minimal prolongation of life. This direction does not equate with quality of life for many people. I have limited confidence in the health professions abiding by my expressed wishes in medical directives and there is clear evidence that palliative care and pain relief are ineffective in some health outcomes.
The more you learn about modern health care, the more likely you are to end with a healthy scepticism about its potential benefits and harms.8
Third, my decades of involvement in gerontology and social planning leave me in no doubt that health and aged care services will not be able to adequately meet the needs of the predicted aged demographic in Australia. Indeed, these services are already dysfunctional, contracted out by governments, and are sparse, under-regulated and, in many cases, sub-standard.9 For example, I predict the current fad of private enterprise retirement villages will see many become old age slums of the 21st century. The latest report on the state of aged care in Australia reiterates many of the recommendations made in previous reports and will be similarly ignored by time-serving bureaucrats and politicians captured by the private sector.
The system…is difficult to navigate and the quantity of services is limited. Quality can be variable, there are gaps in service coverage and limited choices for care recipients. Pricing, subsidies and user co-contributions are inconsistent and inequitable within and between care settings.10
Some of my friends will regrettably experience first-hand sub-standard aged care in their ageing process and perhaps better understand my thinking. With current government policies, services will only get worse and I have no wish to be a service recipient.
‘See, it is death, nothing more – an event in life.’11 Looking back, it has been an interesting and generally fulfilling life journey.
These notes?...perhaps they may be of interest to somebody to learn about a path of which the traveller who has committed to it did not wish to speak while he was alive. 12
NOTES: A RATIONALE FOR ENDING A LIFE
CHECK LIST
Location of death This can be done at home or in another place, such as a hotel/motel, the latter to avoid upset to neighbours if they are close by.
Notification of death Johannes (human1958@icloud.com) can arrange for someone to telephone the police and hotel/motel the following morning to advise the location of a deceased person. This avoids hotel/motel staff entering a room and finding a deceased person. The matter then becomes one for the police/coroner to deal with. The name of a contact person, such as next-of-kin or a solicitor, should be left with notes for the police.
Note to hotel/motel A bank cheque for the hotel/motel cost, which can be ascertained at the time of booking, can be left in an envelope on the bed, together with any explanatory note the person wishes to make to the Manager. Credit cards should have been destroyed prior to death.
Note to police/coroner This can include name, date of birth, contact person, previous or current occupation, burial arrangements, reasons for taking this action, a brief medical history, what liquid or pill was taken (such as Nembutal) and the fact that nobody else was present or assisted. It can also include an explanatory document indicating the reason for death, such as a copy of the memoir extract included in these notes. An information booklet is available from the Coroners Office titled The Coroners Process: information for family and friends.
Disposal of body Advice will be received from the coroner when the body is ready for disposal. Arrangements can be clearly set out in notes left for the executor, such as a public or private disposal/burial or cremation/death notices or not. Cheaper one-off payments can be made with an undertaker before death.
Advice of death Letters or, in this case a memoir, can be left for the executor to forward to persons nominated. If a funeral is to be held, a death notice for papers and a list of persons to be advised should be left for the executor. A standardised notice can be left for the executor to forward to businesses/organisations advising of death. It should include the name of the deceased person, an account or membership number if applicable, and the contact details of the executor.
Will/disposal of property It is important that a Will has been made and clearly sets out how property is to be disposed of. For example, name items and recipients; name the organisation receiving a monetary bequest and the amount being given.
Interim finance/payment of accounts An amount can be left for the executor to pay outstanding and ongoing accounts until probate is finalised and property disposed of. In this case, $4000 was left for the executor to meet such expenses. Leave this as a bank cheque, as bank accounts will be closed on notification of death and monies cannot be withdrawn until probate is finalised. It is important that insurance payments are kept current until property is disposed of. Insurance companies also need to be advised if a property is left vacant after death.
Property security Arrangements need to be made for a person (often a neighbour) to regularly collect mail and junk mail. This person needs to have a contact for the executor and possibly a spare key to the property of the deceased. Rubbish bins should be cleared and not left outside a property. Newspapers should be cancelled. Lawns and garden need to be maintained for security purposes and to retain the value of the property before disposal. Re-direction of mail to the executor can be made with the post office or a postal box retained/closed. It is advisable not to have a ‘for sale/lease’ notice board placed on the property grounds until all items in the property have been disposed of/relocated. If security light switches are left on when the property is vacant, a person needs to have access to the property to re-set these, as some will stay on after a power failure.
10.Deletion of items A telephone landline/mobile can be disconnected by the provider so that they cannot be used by another person, especially if a property is vacant. Files on a computer/disks should be deleted and an internet connection should be cancelled before death. Files/personal documents may be kept for family/archival purposes and this should be clearly noted. Files/personal documents not being kept should be destroyed. Credit cards and other cards should be destroyed.
***************************************
Once again, thank you for your advice and assistance; it has been most appreciated. Hopefully all goes according to plan next Wednesday. As I have said in my letter to my sister and nieces, 'I am perfectly at peace with my decision, which is put well by T.S.Eliot in his poem A song of Simeon:
My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand'
I'm glad you contacted immediately, as one of the things to finalise tomorrow is erasing material from my computer and terminating my internet. Every good wish to you and your partner for the future. Robert. ____________________________________________________
Robert Lowell (Dr). July 2013. johannes klabbers to robert
thank you robert.
i will remember your humility, your concern for others, and the quiet certainty with which you carried out your plans.
your end will be dignified and you will go on your own terms, at a time of your choosing.
it was an honour to know you and to be able to be of use as you made your plans and carried them out.
bon voyage.
johannes
____________________________________________________
i am a blackcap – do not be dismayed if i stop singing — i will start again!
even if my song is then not as long or as full of passion.
apologies to derwent may
Eating mussels at ten thirty in the morning and really enjoying them. It's possible. There are humans here doing just that. They extract the tiny morsels from their black shells with serious expressions, as if their lives depended on it. Precarious pyramids of empty shells gradually form on their table.
At another table two large people, almost as wide as they are tall, are eating unusually small pastries, one each, carefully, with big fingers and drinking coffee. They are determined to drain every last drop of their cappuccinos by putting their heads right back and turning the paper cup upside down at the entrance of their open mouths and then waiting patiently for gravity do its work.
A more ineffective defence against being eaten than a big hard shell is difficult to imagine when what you're dealing with is a hungry human. Every fish, even a large one, just keeps swimming when it sees you closing your shell, no matter how tasty the snack they know (or don’t know) to be inside. But if you're unlucky enough to be swept up in a dragnet (or perhaps you had the misfortune of being born a farmed mussel and you never knew the pleasures of the wide open seas or the joy of being caught in a wave and rolling with it, all the way into shore, before being washed back out again) once a human has you in their tentacles there is no escape, shell or no. You’ll wind up in a big pot with some of your friends and a bunch of others you don’t know.
And when you slightly open your shell to sneak a peak, thinking you're back in the water and it might be safe, the water tastes terrible and soon it’s starting to get pretty damned hot and you close your shell again as tight as possible, but to no avail.
And then it’s all over. Forget about it. That was your life. Your shell opens up by all by itself as the water begins to boil and soon your body (I imagine it succulent and tender yet slightly resistant to a set of well maintained molars but I'll never know) is being prised from the inside of the shell to which you were clinging for dear life, with a toothpick.
Melbourne, 2015.
It is difficult to put in words how much I love the #music made by this band during most of the nineties.
I was late coming to the Mouse, relatively speaking. I first caught up with them in the latter half of the nineties somewhere in the three years between the release of The Moon and Antartica and the first two ‘proper’ albums, the one I always thought was called ‘This is a Long Way to Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About’ and ‘The Lonesome Crowded West’.
I bought both CDs after I found an MP3 online of 'Birds vs Worms'. A student, Jamie Nimmo, had heard me play Pavement on the radio. I made students listen to my radio show for their research assignment in a subject called sound and music. I had to get listeners somehow. Jamie said I might like Modest Mouse. And he was right.
I remember where I was standing when I first heard the opening chords of Dramamine, it was a warm day, the window was open, the Princess was working in the veggie patch. I don't think I listened to any other records that entire summer.
Towards the end of the nineties, like everyone else who loved their music, I was worried. Modest Mouse signed with Sony. When the Sex Pistols signed with EMI in '77 it was the beginning of the end of punk. Anarchy never works when it's packaged up and sold to as many people as possible. And if there was ever real anarchy in music it came in the form of Isaac Brock's songs, his singing, and the way he punished his guitar.
When their first record on Sony, The Moon and Antartica (2000) came out, the critics loved it and it was hailed as a masterpiece but, rather predictably, I didn’t mind it but it didn’t move me, it didn’t, you know, hurt like their previous records, The Lonesome Crowded West and the album I have been referred to for nearly 20 years in error as This Is A Long Way to Drive For Someone with Nothing to Think About (1996) – and so I’ll keep calling it that just of told time sake. I thought The Moon and Antartica a little bland. It had ‘compromise’ written all over it.
Isaac Brock was reportedly unhappy with the way the record was mixed and after its release he remixed it, just for himself, so he could listen to it the way he wanted it to be. Unbeknownst to me this remastered remixed version was re-released in 2004 and I finally caught up with it more than ten years later. It is an almost entirely different record – far more intriguing, intense and urgent, but subtle and lyrical too at times – and here I am weeping with gratitude. What a gift from the Time Before.
ok so if the dutch royal family costs every dutch citizen 20 euros a year, why not let the royalists pay for it! every citizen should have the option to opt out of a royal tax. the population seems fairly evenly divided between those that think having a #royal family is a good idea and those that don't. the cost to the royalists to keep the royal family that they like so much? a mere 40 euros a year! everyone wins, especially of course, as usual, the king and his cronies, but not at the expense of those who would rather not have to pay for them.
oh wacht even. is majesteitsschennis nog steeds een ding in dit achterlijke land?
opa denkt dat ie leuk is maar is het niet.
nee we krijgen het niet for niks. we hebben het verdiend. fijn. toch?