Death, Disembodied
In the wake of COVID-19, Ann Neumann asks on behalf of a nation in mourning: “how do we honor the dead when we can’t see them, touch them, gather to comfort ourselves?”
Going To Extremes
After a bout with cancer and several strokes that eliminated her quality of life, Becky Benight had had enough. She wanted to die on her own terms. Confessing her wishes to her husband Philip, he sprung her from nursing home hell in a bid for freedom; they made a pact to end their own lives to stop their chronic suffering. Everything went along according to plan until Philip woke up from his coma to discover that not only had Becky died, he’d been charged with her murder.
Death Trips
Is dying alone the worst possible thing that can happen? With the onset of death doulas, you need not impose on friends and relatives in your inevitable decline or suffer the shame of kodokushi, the Japanese term for ‘“lonely death,” meaning the quiet but messy end of a solitary life.’
The Longest Hunger Strike
A prisoner in Connecticut who is protesting his conviction by refusing food is now being force-fed. Is it torture?
“Staff turned off the video camera typically used to record medical procedures. They strapped Coleman down at ‘four points’ with seatbelt-like ‘therapeutic’ restraints. Edward Blanchette, the internist and prison medical director at the time, pushed a thick, flexible tube up Coleman’s right nostril. Rubber scraped against cartilage and bone and drew blood. Coleman howled. As the tube snaked into his throat, it kinked, bringing the force of insertion onto the sharp edges of the bent tube. They thought he was resisting so they secured a wide mesh strap over his shoulders to keep him from moving. A nurse held his head. Blanchette finally realized that the tube had kinked and pulled it back out. He pushed a second tube up Coleman’s nose, down his throat, and into his stomach. Blanchette filled the tube with vanilla Ensure. Coleman’s nose bled. He gagged constantly against the tube. He puked. As they led him back to his cell, the cuffs of Coleman’s gray sweatshirt were soaked with snot, saliva, vomit, and blood.”
