That’s a snarky title for a serious post.

A month ago, the New York Times health columnist Jane Brody wrote a very compassionate column about end-of-life issues that are rarely addressed: people (mostly the elderly or the very ill) who are ready to die not because they’re depressed but because they are ready to die.

Today she follows it up with practical advice:

My Feb. 5 column, “A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit,” prompted a deluge of information and requests for information on how people too sick to reap meaningful pleasure from life might be able to control their death.

Many seeking such control are take-charge people who consider quality of life more important than quantity. They do not want their hard-earned money squandered on costly, yet hopeless, treatments. They do not want to keep their bodies alive when their minds have died. They do not want to die under circumstances they consider inhumane, hooked up to all sorts of medical apparatus, unable to control bodily functions or to communicate with loved ones.

Brody cites two organizations where you can find help.

Time delves into the “real” Obama, explaining his attraction and loyalty to the Reverend Wright.

NewsBusters has the sassiest take on Time’s spin:

Here’s the gist of Time’s defense of Obama, a distillation of Stengel’s statements and Time articles by Amy Sullivan and Joe Klein [link fixed by me --ed.]

* An important aspect of the problem is that white Americans are incredibly ignorant about black churches in America.
* In fact, Rev. Wright’s church isn’t that radical as black churches go.
* It was understandable for Obama to have joined Wright’s church. At the time he was a 27-year old bi-racial man trying to figure out his identity as the son of an atheist father and skeptic mother and needed a church “he could learn from.”
* It’s understandable that Obama didn’t leave the church: it’s like reading a book–you don’t necessarily agree with the author.
* Obama’s speech was a “triumph,” and Americans will be thinking “small” if they make the Wright thing a big issue in the campaign.

For real depth on this issue, read John McWhorter’s piece in the New York Sun, in its entirety. This grabbed my attention in a way that Obama himself has been unable to (indeed, readers know that he has left me cold) [e.a.]:

I have written that it is part of the essence of the modern black American identity to be a victor in private but a victim in public. There is a sense that while initiative is important, blacks still have to display more of it than whites, and that this isn’t fair.

Someone who feels this way can have done well and even be comfortable around white people. However, that sense that black America still labors under a general injustice can express itself in taking a certain pleasure in listening to someone like Jeremiah Wright.

They hear a stirring articulation of rebellion, listenable according to a sense that fealty to one’s race entails at least a gestural nod to sticking a finger in whitey’s eye now and then. The tone, the music of the statements is more vivid than the content. Sermons like this are Sunday morning’s version of gangsta rap.

This, then, is why, as Mr. Obama said in his speech yesterday, he could no more disown Reverend Wright than disown black people in general. So, why did the Obamas not find another church after finding out that Reverend Wright had some tart things to say about “the Man”? Because they weren’t listening to them as logic, but as atmosphere.

This explanation makes total sense to me on one level: I’m a huge Eminem fan, and I unabashedly love (among others) “White America!” and every other extremely provocative song he sings. He stokes my inner rebel, the one that still feels the occasional rush of rage at America’s unfulfilled promise.

Although I have long since given up my rebellious ways, stoking my inner rebel allows me to keep a relatively placid face to show to the world. (Isn’t that what we do—stoke what’s inside without threatening what’s outside—when we listen to music, watch movies, read books, etc.? Blogging is a good outlet, too.)

But Obama came nowhere near explaining what McWhorter spells out [e.a.]:

Well, in hearing Reverend Wright’s agitprop as performance rather than hate speech, Barack Obama is black indeed — in a way other than the uninteresting one of melanin. Yet I see this as irrelevant to how he would run the country.

That is, I, for one, am still ready for a black president. I wonder if the rest of America is.

Hmmm. Put like that, maybe I am.

But I’m not sure that this argument–that Wright is primarily a performance artist doing agitprop—would appeal to most people if it were spelled out. I’m glad to have had my perspective broadened, though (even if it doesn’t leave me any more persuaded that Obama would be a good president).

Indeed, I think he would be the perfect jurist and, for the same reason, a terrible chief executive and commander in chief.

He didn’t explain why he stayed, but by trying to show black and white resentment as the backdrop for Wright’s comments, Obama suggested that his response to controversy isn’t to walk out of the room but to try to understand what’s fueling the fire.

A president’s job, of course, isn’t to understand what’s fueling the fire. It’s to keep fires from consuming America.

Is anyone surprised that the Reverend Wright has struck a blow against his favorite son Barack Obama? (I’m not, as anyone who has been reading my blog knows.)

Here’s Rasmussen:

In the week before the media frenzy over Wright, Obama and McCain were essentially tied in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Less than a week later, and two days after Obama’s speech, McCain had opened a seven-point lead over Obama. Significantly, by Thursday’s polling, McCain had pulled slightly ahead of Obama among unaffiliated voters. McCain also enjoys unified support from Republican voters while Obama only attracts 65% of Democratic votes at this time.

Obama’s favorable ratings have also fallen below the 50% mark since the world learned of his former Pastor. This can be seen as part of a larger trend that began shortly after Obama’s victories in the Wisconsin Primaries. At that time, just before Hillary Clinton began raising questions about her competitor, Obama was viewed favorably by 56% of voters nationwide. That had slipped to 52% just before Pastor Wright’s views became big news and to 47% just before Obama’s speech. Two days after the speech, Obama’s favorables remain at 48%.

As Rasmussen notes, all eyes—particularly the superdelegates’—will be on the electorate.

Note that all eyes will not be on the media, which is what I’m focusing on here on this blog.

Rasmussen doesn’t say it, but I will: after his much-lauded speech, the MSM gave Obama an assist in attempting to put the Rev. Wright behind himself.

I predicted that on March 16; (it wasn’t hard to do, considering the history of Obama-mania):

Well, we’re at the point now where the PR-concocted images and ugly reality keep colliding. And Obama is bound to keep “disappointing” us (or those of us who believed that Obama really is the “transcendent character” that David Axelrod created for our benefit from the exotic strands of Obama’s life).

From now on, Obama and his advocates and surrogates will have to work really hard (though they’ll have the help of a favorably disposed media) to get us to keep our minds off the things that make us doubt him.

Now, with on-the-ground results in stark contrast to the rosy optimism on offer from most MSM outlets (which claimed that with the Speech, Obama had put the Rev. Wright controversy behind him) the MSM is once again exposed as trying to lead (and mold) the electorate’s opinion*** rather than reporting on what it finds and presenting a snapshot of it.

————-*** More specifically, the cable “news” channels are leading the electorate—trying to influence public opinion—via pseudo-events created by the Obama campaign: the Philly speech; the Chicago Tribune interview in which he answered Rezko questions; the interviews he granted PBS and CNN [this from a candidate known to keep his distance from the press] after his Philly speech—to cite just the examples I know of without doing further research, although a cursory spin on Google News provides evidence that he went further into damage control mode. I see he did an interview with ABC, too. And with WITN.

And those are only a few instances of damage control that he’s preoccupied with this week. He first went into overdrive last week, as ETP’s Rachel Sklar reported.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain were all but missing from this week’s news, except as they related to Our Hero, Barack, the protagonist whose quest for the White House is presumed to be the cable “news” audience’s favorite story of the year. We shall see!

A new message from Osama bin Laden puts Europe on notice again, and as Reuters reports the story, “security analysts and officials” don’t seem particularly alarmed.

LONDON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden’s latest message shows that he sees Europe as fertile soil for al Qaeda, especially at a time of tension between free speech and Muslim values, but is unlikely to signal an imminent attack.

Security analysts and officials say there is no evidence that bin Laden’s statements contain coded instructions to al Qaeda operatives and he has no track record of delivering warnings immediately before an attack.

No biggie, Reuters suggests, but notes a new twist:

But Wednesday’s message was striking in its focus on Europe as opposed to the United States, whose President George W. Bush earned only a passing reference as “your oppressive ally who … is about to depart the White House”.

It’s hard to see why Reuters is surprised by OBL’s stated target, considering that his new grievance is specifically against Europeans:

In the latest message, issued on the Prophet’s birthday, bin Laden said the [Mohammed] cartoons were “part of a new crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican had a significant role”.

The reference was part of a familiar bin Laden strategy to paint Islam and Western, Christian-rooted societies as being in a state of war with its origins dating back to the Middle Ages.

One European security official explained Al Qaeda’s tactic according to Al Qaeda’s mind-set [e.a.]:

“It’s the logic of the crusade. The Pope, in the imagination of the Islamists, may appear as the head of the crusade, which is clearly absurd but may have meaning for some Muslims and the Islamists. I do think it may indicate the Pope is a target,” said Claude Moniquet, head of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center.

He said the Pope’s presence in Rome was one factor making Italy a target for al Qaeda. Other European countries in its sights included Denmark, because of the cartoons row, and the Netherlands, where right-wing politician Geert Wilders is set to release a video next week that is expected to condemn the Koran.

By the “logic of the crusade,” OBL targets anyone who displeases his perverted notion of Islamic justice. This is the Al Qaeda ideology: global vigilantism in the name of Allah.

But OBL has his vulnerabilities, as Wretchard notes:

 The rule of thumb in a fistfight is when you land a blow which makes your opponent yell, hit him there again. And the louder he yells the more you hit him in that particular area. Osama Bin Laden has just said “ouch”.

And here’s one of the things that hurts [e.a.]:

What makes the Mohammed Cartoon attack on radical Islam so potent that Bin Laden himself must oppose it, is two things. First, anyone can make fun of radical Islam. Second, the Cartoons are aimed at the weakest point of the Jihad: its sources of authority.  …

The real message of organized nihilism is that “everything is permitted” except to make fun of nihilism itself. Every act is lawful in radical Islam: to bomb markets, kill children, lie, cheat and steal. Everything: except to publish the Mohammed Cartoons.

Are we in the West going to let OBL or Al Qaeda write the rules about what is and is not permissible to say in public in our societies?

Stay tuned.*** 

—————–

*** As long as American commentators like Joe Klein continue to misunderstand the nature of the threat and to make absurd claims—such as the assertion that there is a distinction between Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the “real” Al Qaeda—we’re not going to get too far:

As it now stands, McCain believes that Iraq, where 150,000 U.S. troops are chasing after 3,500 Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia terrorists, is the “central front” in the war against terrorism–and he is on the record opposed to taking military action against the real Al Qaeda, which is actively working to destabilize Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and may be planning the next 9/11 in the mountains of Waziristan.

The next 9/11 is not the only thing threatening the West. One day perhaps more people threatened by Al Qaeda and other fanatical Islamists will understand that.

Visit the Georgetown Bookshop site to order your poster.

Whether the Dutch politician Geert Wilders stumbled into this tactic or meticulously planned the maneuver, he seems to have found a way to challenge both Islamist extremists (of all denominations: Sunni and Shia) and complacent Westerners, who seem not only willing but eager to give up the freedoms their forebears fought to attain for us all.

Der Spiegel describes how one man has been able to spark a “global panic.”

In late November 2007, Wilders announced that he was working on a film that would depict “the intolerant and fascist nature of the Koran.” Spokespeople from the Dutch interior and justice ministries expressed their concern about the project, but they also stressed that they had no power to dissuade the parliamentarian from going through with his plan or to prevent the film from being broadcast.

Since then, a film that no one has seen and of which no one can say that it will ever exist has become a daily topic of discussion and speculation in the Netherlands. Wilders is fueling the debate by occasionally announcing how far along the project is.

Predictably, this roused the ire of those it was intended to provoke—first of all the Dutch establishmen:

This triggered a panic in the Netherlands that could only be likened to the dread leading up to a massive storm. The Dutch ambassador in Malaysia warned that protests could lead to “dozens of deaths.” Dutch ambassadors in Islamic countries were instructed to increase security measures and distance themselves from the Wilders film, while counterterrorism experts at home began making preparations for the day of the broadcast. …

In early March, a few hundred Afghans demonstrated against the Wilders film in the northern Afghani city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where they burned Dutch flags and called for the withdrawal of Dutch NATO units from Afghanistan. This prompted NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to express his concern that broadcasting the film could have an “impact” on the troops stationed in Afghanistan.

It was when the fear had spread from the Netherlands and into the heart of the EU that Wilders struck his first rhetorical blow [e.a.]:

[T]he Dutch foreign minister asked the EU to support the Dutch position. He said that the Dutch believe in freedom of expression, but are against portraying all Muslims as extremists. At the same time, the “terror alarm” in the Netherlands was raised to its second-highest level. The government of Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende appealed to Wilders to abandon his plan to broadcast the film. On the one hand, Balkenende said, “constitutional freedoms must be defended, while extremism and terrorism must be fought.” On the other hand, he continued, “we must consider the consequences of our actions and may not endanger the things that are valuable to us all.”

Wilders reaction was clear. “The cabinet is falling onto its knees before Islam and capitulating,” he said, characterizing Balkenende as “an anxious man who has chosen the side of the Taliban.”

But the fear of Islamist retaliation—blowback—had taken hold in the EU [e.a.]:

Hans Gert Pöttering, the president of the European Parliament … called upon the media to impose a “code of behavior” on itself and not to publish anything that could be perceived as “derogatory” by members of religious groups. He also warned the Dutch not to “make a contribution to violence because of our freedom.” These clear words of appeasement, which the chief EU parliamentarian directed against the victims and not the perpetrators of violence, urging the former to be on their best behavior, were – as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote — the result of “anticipated fear” and sounded “dangerously like self-censorship.”

Wilders, who lives with around-the-clock protection because Islamist websites have called for his beheading, hasn’t yet released his film, and the internet is the only channel left open to him. Nevertheless, he has achieved one goal [e.a.]:

The truth is that the “provocateur” has already achieved his goal. Wilders has managed to portray the Dutch and the Europeans as cowards, shouting “we capitulate!” before the battle has even begun. …

They behave as if they want to protect the members of all religions against insults and abuse, all the while overlooking the fact that it is usually the members of one religion who respond aggressively whenever they are accused of having a propensity for violence.

Wilders could not have achieved more if his film had been shown.

Indeed.

And I note that Osama Bin Laden—remember him?—has been inserted into the global conversation again. This time he’s threatening the Europeans:

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden denounced the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad and warned Europe that retaliation would follow in an audio message released late Wednesday.

Even if the message is canned, as all the reports suggest, it’s a timely reminder.

Whatever you think of him and his methods, Geert Wilders has exposed the West’s vulnerability to (and seeming desire to capitulate to) blackmail through Islamist-extremist terrorism.

With all the focus on Barack Obama’s negatives (and they are considerable, despite the extent to which his supporters delude themselves), it’s easy to forget how irrational the Clinton hatred is.

For example, here’s someone who thinks they’re responsible for all examples of moral turpitude in America:

Unfortunately, America is still confronting the political consequences of Clintonian behavior — as evidenced on both sides of the political aisle, from Larry Craig to Eliot Spitzer, and now, it appears, with David Paterson. (The cultural fallout resulting, in large part, from the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is just as profound, and very sad.)

You did know, didn’t you, that the Clintons are responsible for the fact that half of American teenagers have had oral sex—right?