January 17, 2001
John Q. Public

The poor guy fell and broke his hip. That would be the beginning of a sad story... IF he could actually pronounce the word "hip", if he could even remember from minute to minute that he had broken it, and IF he didn't repeatedly point to the back of his head when asked to point to his hip. Ronald Reagan's interface with reality has been completely altered by Alzheimer's, and as sad as that is, it shouldn't be the top news item TWO nights in a row!

Please don't think me too crass [just a little inappropriate], but the media coverage of this event is just disgusting. Bad things happen to good people sometimes; I'm really no stranger to that sob story. But the attention paid to the details of the hip, the surgery, and the "long road to recovery" just helps to illuminate how odd the human race really is, and how obtuse the media can be. The media's concern about him "getting better" is as odd as the human desire to recover and bury their dead. The dead are dead damnit, what does it matter where the hell we put them [I know, it matters for the living...]; and arguably, Reagan is dead too [or at least the Reagan well all knew and loved - and he was quite charismatic; no sarcasm here] its just that he doesn't know it.

Even if they put a bionic hip in this guy, and he healed perfectly, he still would only put 1 out of 10 spoonfuls of Cheerios in his mouth, while the other 9 end up on his forehead. The fact that his caretakers would even fix his hip is comical; the likelihood of him even walking again is as slim as him being elected president again. But as a species, we are taught to respect life and unfortunately this translates, sadly, into prolonging it even when it shouldn't be.

If you've gotten this far, then you're either interested, pissed off, or wondering what the hell the point is. The point is this: respecting death, is sometimes more important that respecting life.

5 years ago, acting as my Grandfather's agent, I helped to make sure that his LAST wish was respected: he wanted to die peacefully and not have his life prolonged by the use of "undue" measures. I had to fight with the hospital staff to respect his wishes, as they constantly continued to try to feed him and give him water, while he lay dying. He was not on the "road to recovery" any more than Ronald Reagan is. And as much as I cared for him, I cared more that his wishes be respected than I did about my selfishness in wanting him to stay alive for me. We kept him comfortable with medication, we talked to him, and we waited for him to die.

Whether or not Ronald Reagan wants to be kept alive or not [I'm sure he discussed his wishes with his wife Nancy before he "headed into the sunset of his life" - as he so eloquently put it] is not even of interest to me. Certainly his last wishes, whatever they may have been, should be respected. But you're all entitled to my opinion on the matter, which is this: The fact that the media rolled out this flimsy sob story of "injury and recovery", like its as serious and far reaching as the hip injury that ended the sporting career of Bo Jackson, shows a callous disrespect for the gravity of the situation. Go ahead, mourn the guy, love the guy, cry for the guy, laugh at the guy; but for god sake, please turn off the damn TV and give yourself an opportunity to make up your own mind.