by Earl Moore on March 25, 2008
One should never underestimate a persons will to live.
Last week my 87 year old Mother had a heart attack that seemed to be the culmination of a general decline in overall mental and physical health and constitution.
As recent as two days ago it seemed she was down and had completely turned off and tuned out, seemingly waiting for the end. I believe I underestimated her.
Today she’s alert, in good spirits, sitting up and able to take a few steps with the help of a walker.
This is certainly wonderful. However, it drives home the point that if things can radically improve so quickly they can also crash just as fast.
Now as I approach her hospital room to visit each day I’m wondering what I’ll find.
by Earl Moore on March 22, 2008
Religious, moral and societal compasses have us preserve life regardless of the cost of continued living. We reflect how lucky we are that modern medicine allows so many to live into the “golden years.”
The roll of the dice may determine your luck. Some are lucky to live long productive and rewarding lives, while other “medically preserved lives” consist of people unable to care for themselves or remember who they or their loved ones are.
These same loved ones are often faced with making heart wrenching decisions about continued care based not upon what they would wish or what would be best, but rather, what is affordable or practical.
My father died with Leukemia at the fairly young at age of 67. His suffering was short and his mind was sharp at the end.
Since my father’s death my Mother, who’s now in her late 80’s, has had two heart attacks (one recently), triple bi-pass surgery, two hip replacements, a detached cornea, years of fighting Parkinson disease, depression, recent signs of dementia and 19 years of loneliness.
She’s a real fighter, but she would set you straight about who she thinks was lucky.
by Earl Moore on March 18, 2008
Apple released Safari 3.1 today with support for the new audio and video tags of HTML 5 and for CSS animations as well as CSS web fonts
The update is a 39MB download and is available for both Mac and Windows.
by Earl Moore on March 17, 2008
This weekend I re-watched the movie “V for Vendetta,” a very interesting and timely film about a country living under a police state.
I imagine most have seen V for Vendetta. To refresh everyone’s memory…here’s an assorted audio collection of quotes from the movie.
This fourth viewing seemed even more relevant considering what could be viewed as recent Government encroachments upon individual freedoms in the name of safety, security and anti-terrorism.
A line from the movie has been playing over and over in my head:
“People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people”
I sincerely doubt that our government has much fear of us, it’s citizens, these days but more and more of us are finding reasons to fear it.
We need to pay attention to this upcoming presidential election.
by Earl Moore on March 16, 2008
This weekend I’ve had some time to download and go through some of the photos Bonnie took from her trip last week to Paris and Brussels.
She got some great shots, especially considering the weather…it was cold, cloudy and even raining most of the time.
Here’s some random photos I selected [ click thumbnail for larger images ].
PARIS (Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe):
BRUSSELS (Downtown, Expo ‘58-World’s Fair, City Streets):
Bonnie has a good eye for photos.
When we’re out and about I’ve encouraged her to point out what she sees as a photo opportunity. We see many of the same things but there are times when she will catch something I at first don’t see and visa-versa.
