Death in the media

I'm not feeling overly morbid or anything -- it may just be that the clouds and the fog and the cold are starting to get to me...

I know I'm not the first person to ever notice this, but I just wanted to rant on something that bothers me about the media's coverage of that last, significant event of everyone's life: the big D.

Now I'm not sure if this stems from some announcer on TSN croaking and the way it was dealt with, or what, but I've always kind of been repulsed by the way that news stories differentiate between someone dying of 'natural' causes and when someone croaks in an accident or homicide or something...

When someone kicks it from cancer or heart disease or severe herpes, anchors or reporters typically use a kind of condescending tone, like the person who died has ultimately failed:

"John was a hell of a jockey, but his riding days were cut short when he was diagnosed with an incurable hemorrhoid in 1998. He fought long and hard, but finally succombed to the burgeoning blood vessel at the age of 67. He leaves behind a wife, several mistresses, eighteen kids and a worn-out donut cushion."

It's always implicitly stated (by the healthy anchor or writer) that, if John fought harder, he'd still be here, riding women and laying wth horses.

On the other side, when someone is blown up in an airplane or goes off a bridge in a car, they are kind of made out to be heroes:

"Steve died courageously as the bus went over the cliff and into the sewage lagoon. Crews fished him out of the feces and a funeral will be held Saturday. Mourners are reminded to bring nose-plugs."

Steve went 'before his time'. Or before his body or mind turned on him. But is Steve still courageous when he's crapping himself with dementia?

Someone dying from cancer, I think, is leaving 'before their time' too. Or heart disease. I don't see the difference between being diagnosed with incurable cancer and being blown up in an aircraft. Neither person wants either of those things. They don't actively choose them... but the treatment of each ways are so different that it bothers me.

Everyone dies eventually. Everyone fails. Every body will give out at some point. It's not a failure. It's inevitable. It's natural. It's supposed to happen.

On a sidenote, when I go, I want this to be my epitaph:

Herb Mathisen

1983-20??

"Herb was a successful man,

but his heart was a complete failure."

Icebergorrhoids; or an anus singed by purity

Maybe as part of that whole growing old thing I wrote about the other day, I should have put that I wouldn't START becoming one of those people that spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the weather. It's sad watching myself turn into that lowest common denominator conversationalist.

With that out of the way, it was +4 today. It's July 28.

Kind of chilly. Twas so bad that I had to coax my testicles out of my body today with motivational slogans.

Oil Can is not impressed. He won't even talk to me. 

He's sitting under a tent in front of the open oven, cranked to 450, with his hand out the flap, giving me the finger.

I tried to take advantage of the day by visiting the ice flow that's blown into the bay off the ocean.

It was really neat actually, exploring the beach, with all this washed up sea ice. I found a large chunk stranded on land and got up nice and close. 

I'd say it was about 15 feet long, 12 feet wide. It was dripping like mad underneath, but I bet if I'd sat there and watched it for a day, it wouldn't have  changed size in any noticeable way.

I tried to get a picture of myself on the giant ice cube, but because my camera is crap, I couldn't zoom far enough away to make it look like I was on the thing. Needless to say, Oil Can did not accompany me on the adventure to snap the shot.

Oh... he just threw a chair at me. Thing had some zip on it...

"Dayum, Oil Can. You can still bring the heat!"

Ooops, didn't like my choice of words. He just chucked a spatula at me. "... and Joe Momma...", I think he said, as he slid back into his tent.

Oh, that Oil Can... what a character.

So yeah, I was sitting on the freezing block of ice while I was trying to figure my camera out. After a few frustrating minutes, I hopped off, and now I'm convinced I gave myself hemorrhoids.

But that raised an interesting question:

How many people can say they got hemorrhoids from sitting on an iceberg before? 

A privileged few, I bet.

Herbiberous