Assisted suicide _ Canada revisits an old debate

Gloria Taylor arrives in a wheelchair at British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday December 1, 2011. Taylor, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, is seeking the right to a doctor-assisted suicide in a challenge at B.C. Supreme Court. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

Gloria Taylor arrives in a wheelchair at British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday December 1, 2011. Taylor, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, is seeking the right to a doctor-assisted suicide in a challenge at B.C. Supreme Court. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

Gloria Taylor arrives in a wheelchair at British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday Dec. 1, 2011. Taylor, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, is seeking the right to a doctor-assisted suicide in a challenge at B.C. Supreme Court. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) ? Confined to a wheelchair, in constant pain and unable to bathe without help, a 63-year-old grandmother has forced the issue of assisted suicide into Canadian courts for the third time in two decades.

Gloria Taylor has Lou Gehrig's disease, a rapidly progressive, invariably fatal neurological affliction.

"It is my life and my body and it should be my choice as to when and how I die," she said before going to the British Columbia Supreme Court last Thursday to challenge Canada's ban on assisted suicide, a crime carrying a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

It has been nearly 20 years since another Lou Gehrig's disease sufferer, Sue Rodriguez, gripped Canadian hearts with her court battle for the right to assisted suicide. She lost her appeal but took her own life with the help of an anonymous doctor in 1994, aged 44.

In 1993, a Saskatchewan farmer, Robert Latimer, put his quadriplegic daughter Tracey in his pickup truck, attached an exhaust hose and watched her die. He said the 12-year-old functioned at the level of a three-year-old, living in pain, unable to walk, talk or feed herself.

Convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, after numerous appeals Latimer's conviction was upheld and he began serving his sentence in 2001. He was paroled a year ago.

In the latest case now unfolding, Taylor's lead lawyer, civil liberties defender Joe Arvay, argued to the court that assisted suicides were taking place despite the ban, a practice he likened to the illegal "back-alley abortions" of the past.

Taylor and her family won't testify, but she sat in the courthouse in her wheelchair. She has told reporters she can't even wash herself unaided or perform basic household chores. She called it "an assault not only on my privacy, but on my dignity and self-esteem."

She frequently uses a respirator. "I fear that I will eventually suffocate and die struggling for air like a fish out of water," she said.

Opponents argue that allowing assisted deaths could lead to abuses of the elderly and infirm. Dr. Will Johnston of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada fears people could be pushed toward death when their lives are no longer convenient for others.

Supporters draw support from the Royal Society of Canada, the country's senior scholarly body. Its panel of professors and specialists in medical ethics and health law said in a report issued Nov. 15 that assisted death in Canada should be regulated and monitored rather than criminalized.

"A significant majority of the Canadian population appears to support a more permissive legislative framework for voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide," the report said.

It said assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Montana, while in England and Wales the policy does not stipulate that every case must be prosecuted.

Johnston called the report "a euthanasia manifesto disguised as an impartial report."

Sheila Tucker, a lawyer with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, says the issue is back on the agenda because with the passage of time various jurisdictions have gained working experience with the legalities of assisted dying.

Johnston countered that Canadian political attitudes had not changed ? that only last year Parliament voted 228-59 against changing the law to allow doctors to help people die "once the person has expressed his or her free and informed consent to die."

The British Columbia Supreme Court is expected to rule early next year, but Tucker is sure the decision will go to the Canadian Supreme Court, meaning no change in the law can be expected before next winter at the earliest.

By then, she said, Taylor may no longer be alive.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2011-12-04-CN-Canada-Right-to-Die/id-ce570af10b544c25b39580a0a93d543b

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Yarmuth gets new communications director : Bluegrass Politics

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, has hired Stephen George as his new communications director.

George, who previously worked for Yarmuth as a staff writer at LEO Weekly in Louisville, will replace Trey Pollard, who has accepted a press position with the national Sierra Club in Washington to focus on media strategy for the organization?s conservation campaigns.

George?s first day with Yarmuth in Washington will be Dec. 12. George also has worked as editor of the Nashville City Paper and wrote about government for the Nashville Scene.

He recently was press secretary for U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee.

?Jack Brammer

Source: http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2011/12/05/yarmuth-gets-new-communications-director/

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Singer Mindy McCready's 5-year-old son in custody (AP)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. ? By the time Arkansas authorities took country singer Mindy McCready's 5-year-old son from her and into custody on Friday evening, one thing had already become apparent to many in America: McCready's life has come to resemble a bad country song.

Since her emergence in the mid-1990s as a honey-voiced success story out of Nashville, McCready has been increasingly known for her personal foibles instead of her music.

This week's custody battle was the latest in a long saga of personal heartache and brushes with the law.

Florida Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Terri Durdaller wrote in an email Saturday that her agency was working with Arkansas state officials to bring McCready's son, Zander, back to her legal guardian in Florida. His maternal grandmother has been Zander's guardian since 2007.

Officials say he's safe and in good health.

"Zander is in Arkansas and we continue to arrange his swift arrival back to Florida," Durdaller wrote.

In Arkansas, Cleburne County Sheriff Marty Moss said Saturday that McCready didn't have permission to be in the unoccupied summer home where she was found Friday evening with her son. Authorities continue to investigate the matter, he said.

The sheriff's office said in a news release Saturday that it was known McCready had been a visitor to the area and that deputies were working with the U.S. Marshals Service to see if the singer might be there. Authorities located McCready after receiving a report of "possible occupants in a summer home that was supposed to be unoccupied," the news release said.

Authorities said officers entered the home and found McCready and her son in a bedroom closet. A man, David Wilson, was also in the residence. Moss said neither had permission to be in the residence, but neither was arrested at the time.

Moss told the Associated Press on Saturday that the house where all three were found is next door to one where Wilson has stayed in the past. He said he doesn't know if McCready is still in the area and doesn't expect that she will face any charges for being at the unoccupied home.

"I don't expect that to happen," Moss said.

Gayle Inge, Zander's grandmother and McCready's mother, was tearful when she talked about the news by phone Friday night with The Associated Press.

"I'm real excited that he's safe," she said. "But I can't explain what this is like. We feel for Mindy and we feel for Zander."

Inge said that her son ? McCready's half-brother ? texted McCready, who responded with a text that said her mother would never see her again.

"I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her that I love her," Inge said.

McCready, who turned 36 on Wednesday, did not respond to emails Friday and Saturday.

The weekend developments capped a days-long struggle between McCready and several others, including state of Florida child welfare authorities, a Fort Myers, Fla. judge and her own mother.

Authorities say McCready took the boy during a visit late last month to her father's southwest Florida home, where she was allowed to visit the boy. McCready's parents are divorced.

A Florida judge signed an order Thursday telling authorities to take the boy into custody and return him. It's not yet clear whether the singer could face criminal charges.

McCready said earlier in the week that she would not bring her son back from Tennessee, where she has a home, despite violating the custody arrangement. She told the AP that her son had suffered abuse at her mother's house, a claim that Inge vehemently denies.

"I'm doing all this to protect Zander, not stay out of trouble," McCready wrote in an email to the AP on Thursday. "I don't think I should be in trouble for protecting my son in the first place."

McCready told the AP Wednesday night she was in Tennessee and couldn't travel because she is seven months pregnant with twins.

The boy's father, Billy McKnight, told NBC's "Today" show Friday he spoke on the phone with McCready and their boy after the judge's Thursday deadline expired.

"He did sound healthy and OK. He wasn't crying or scared," McKnight said about their son.

"I think she believes she has a case and doesn't realize she's pushing her luck on this one," he said.

McCready and her mother have had a long custody battle over the boy, who was living with McCready's mother.

The singer had provided a series of emails to the AP with Lee County Judge James Seals' ruling to return the boy.

"Mom has violated the court's custody order and we are simply restoring the child back into our custody," the judge wrote. "Nothing more. Nothing less. The court makes no judgment about whether Mom will or will not competently care for the child while in her custody. It only wants the child back where the court placed him."

McCready found fame in the mid-1990s when she moved to Nashville at the age of 18, armed with only her karaoke tapes. Her first album, "Ten Thousand Angels," sold two million copies.

Her next four albums weren't as successful. Her personal troubles began encroaching on her professional success. According to her website, she suffers from severe depression.

McCready fought the release of a tape in which she reportedly talked about former Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, with whom she had an affair as a teenager.

In August, she filed a libel suit against her mother and the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., over a story published in the tabloid newspaper that quoted Inge.

And in 2008, McCready was admitted to a hospital after police said she cut her wrists and took several pills in a suicide attempt.

During the TV show "Celebrity Rehab 3" in 2010, McCready came off as a sympathetic figure, and host Dr. Drew Pinsky called her an angel in the season finale.

Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_en_mu/us_people_mccready

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Carlos Mencia Attempts Comeback On Comedy Central With New Style

Tomorrow night, Comedy Central will broadcast Carlos Mencia's new one-hour special, "New Territory." And everyone is asking, ?Has he stopped stealing jokes?"

It's impossible to talk about Carlos Mencia without mentioning "joke theft." Last year, Marc Maron confronted Mencia on the allegations on his podcast "WTF." Maron also sat down with Mencia's fellow comedians, Willie Barcena and Steve Trevino, in a separate podcast. And then he got Mencia to sit down for a follow-up discussion where Mencia said, "I was defeated... I don't know what to say. That was the beginning of the realization that, like it or not, I'm complicit in this."

Mencia was accused of stealing material from Bill Cosby, George Lopez and Ari Shaffir.

He isn't the first comic accused of stealing jokes and he certainly won't be the last.

The 44-year-old comic said he has been through a lot of personal changes. He described it as an "evolution as a human being" that is now incorporated into his new special. That's why the special is called "New Territory." He feels like he's "in new territory." Mencia said changing his style of delivering comedy was "really, really hard."

HuffPost LatinoVoices chatted with Mencia about his new special, his losing 70 pounds and living down his "joke stealer" rep.

Why was it so difficult to change your comedy style?
Imagine being successful at how you write and all of a sudden you have to come up with a new writing style because you realize what you were doing didn't really reflect you. What happened was, I would go on stage and tell a joke and it didn't work. Or it didn't work as well as I wanted to and I immediately wanted to go back to my old style of being you know, more aggressive and screaming or whatever, but I had to tell myself, ?No, you have to trust it. You have to go with it.?

What was therapy like for you? What did you have to ask yourself?
I know what I'm not, but what am I? And, at that point, I realized that I needed to go seek professional help to answer this question because I obviously have no clue as to who I am.

Why did you decide to lose weight?
The weight loss came about because a buddy of mine who was diagnosed with diabetes because of his obesity told me that I was fat. And, I started laughing and he was like, no seriously, you're fat. And I said, ?Oh wow, really.? People say, Congratulations to me but this is nothing to be congratulated on, anybody can do this. It's not hard.

Do people treat you differently now that you lost so much weight?
They look at me with reverence in a way that they never did before. Like with this level of respect that I never got before. And, believe it or not, in a weird way, a level of sympathy as well. I was never one of those fat victim people. I always have to address how much weight I lost and people always realize then how fat I was.

Your real name is Ned Arnel, why did you change your name?
The owner of the Comedy Store suggested it. She said to me, "You can't be an angry Mexican named Ned." I told her I wasn't Mexican and she replied, "Everyone is going to think you are Mexican. It's the way it is. Don't fight it." And, I remember thinking, ?Well, I have an uncle named Carlos.? She said, ?Carlos Mencia, that's melodious.? And, that was it.

Are you happy with your decision?
In retrospect, I believe that I am the first person who has a name that was pretty white and changed it to an ethnic name like ?Carlos.? I actually did the opposite of what a lot of people did in my industry. But this was someone that could help me get my career going so, fuck yea, I'll change my name.

How do you feel about George Lopez getting fired from TBS?
Here's what I know about the business I am in. It's all based on money. It's all based on ratings.
I wish there were more like him on TV. We don't have that chance to fail because it becomes a Latino thing as opposed to a ?Carlos thing? or a "George thing" or a time slot thing or a network thing. It becomes, "Latinos are not going to be successful in television." And, that's just bullshit.

How much has your reputation as a "joke stealer" affected you?
I had to ask myself, "Okay, why are they hating on me? What am I doing to facilitate this or to bring this on? Where is my part in all of this?" And, that's what became important. It became something to look at within myself.

Do you think you are ever going to live the reputation down?
I think that a lot of people don't understand it. If that reputation was real, I never would have gotten work at comedy clubs in the first place. They would've told me, "We can't have you here doing that stuff."

How have you changed?
My whole thing is, waking up everyday and thinking in the positive and not the negative. Listen, there are three people I know in the world, that professed love, harmony and peace: Ganghi, Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King. I don't even put myself in those guys shoes. But what I do realize is, if those guys have haters, it's just the way things are. You gotta move on. When I was younger, I was angry. I was boisterous and loud. I was on top of the mountain, screaming at everybody, "Look at me!" Now I'm more of a Taoist.

How has the audience embraced you?
I've never gotten a response that I'm getting today. I've never gotten the laughs that I'm getting today. Never gotten the respect that I'm getting from audiences. It's a different vibe, a different feel, and definitely a different type of special.

You talk a lot about America, why do you love it so much?
When I hear people say, ?America sucks!? I just want to slap them in the face and say, "Shut up!" You don't know what suck is. You don't know what poor is. You know what poor in America is? I'm poor and live in the projects. You know what poor in Honduras is, that man died because of malnutrition.

Why does the set background of your new show say, "Department of Immigration?"
Part of those pieces of Americana in the background is me telling the audience that this guy's perspective is that of an immigrant.

You joke about the SB1070 law, but how do you feel about it?
Illegal immigration is not a problem in this country. The reason we have illegal immigration is because we give them jobs. We don't need any other law. Don't employ them, they won't come. That law is not necessary. It's that simple.

Do you ever regret anything you said on stage?
I've never said anything to be mean. The only things I wish I can take back, but not really, is how I dealt with the hecklers because it came off as so real but it wasn't. I wish I could go back and say, you know I'm kidding right? This isn't real. With stand-up, it's different. People believe that is exactly who you are and that might be 1 percent of your personality blown up for comedic purposes but people don't look at it that way because what we do we do so well that it comes off as that is exactly how we are.

What can we expect from the new and improved Carlos Mencia?
I have been writing screenplays, a couple of TV show ideas, a book and a one man show.
I plan to get back on that horse. You know, get out there again. I want the world to engage with Carlos Mencia again.

On Tuesday, Dec. 6, An Extended And Uncensored Version Of "Carlos Mencia: New Territory" DVD Will Be Released By Comedy Central Home Entertainment And Paramount Home Entertainment.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/03/carlos-mencia-comeback_n_1127370.html

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