Doctor Jack Kevorkian Dies. Requiescat in pace, Dr. Death.

BLOT: (03 Jun 2011 - 08:56:30 AM)

Doctor Jack Kevorkian Dies. Requiescat in pace, Dr. Death.

When I first heard of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, it was with all the media hooplah that was doing its best to make him seem like a crazy, screwed-up crack-pot theorist taking out his murder fantasies on innocent [and in constant pain and suffering with no hope of recovery because that's what terminally ill means] terminally ill patients. He was an icon of the late 90s, a preacher of the fact that the sanctity of life has more than one meaning, and we were all told to distrust him. Suicide is icky (unless, you know, you mean something like combat). Maybe it's a genetic trait: if we allow those who are ok with killing themselves to live and breed, it runs the risk of hurting our entire gene pool. Maybe. Self-injury has a way of inspiring deep hate, and when you have someone preaching that people who will suffer for months or year just to die anyhow should have the right to go out when they want, it triggers a lot of burning emotions. Not all of which were simple religious tropes against killing oneself.

Since then, the late 90s I mean, in the decade that followed, I have read a lot about terminally ill patients and their issues. Have been related to a couple of them. Having thought about the whole thing, I no longer find the media presentation of him accurate. It is too narrow. Tries summing up an entire debate into buzzwords—Dr. Death, for instance—while failing to ask some important questions. That's the nature of the beast, though. If it can't be soundbited, we don't want. If it can't be turned into a clash of cult of personality between two talking heads on prime time news, sponsors won't touch it.

I'll leave you with this one, a surreal photo on the brink of sanity, at best. Dr. Kevorkian smiling beatifically next to one of his "death machines". Don't stare at it too long, it might do weird things to your head.