It’s a tough competition among Seattle’s daily papers, what with the Times’s Harvard hit piece on Darcy Burner and the P-I’s laughable front-page analysis today of early voting for governor (which is entirely pegged on extrapolating King County’s lower mail voting rate thus far than other counties without accounting for the fact that we’re also one of only two counties with polling place voting on Tuesday).
But the “honor” of worst smear jobs of this dismal campaign season in our local papers has to go to the P-I’s Joel Connelly for his relentless series of factually challenged hit pieces on I-1000, reprised today. (And no, it doesn’t deserve to be linked to. Find it yourself, if you have the stomach.)
Connelly has a right to his faith-based opinion on I-1000, and to express it. I would respect that. (Goodness knows, I’ve had enough public opinions that friends of mine have disagreed with over the years.)
However, he does not have a right to use his public soapbox for a seemingly endless litany of dishonest smear jobs. His jihad on this initiative (religious imagery intentional) has dramatically lowered my opinion of his integrity.
I’ve been terminally ill; I spent two long years sliding toward my death, including three separate comas, over two dozen surgeries, and untold nausea and pain. I was fortunate enough to survive it, but I sure remember the experience. With all the ameliorative care in the world, it was still awful, and now that I’m a couple decades older and more brittle, it will be worse next time. Maybe I’ll endure it again, maybe I won’t. That’s my choice. As someone personally affected by this initiative, I don’t simply disagree with Connelly; I find his work on this, his assumptions about the motivations and decision-making capacity of the terminally ill, his eagerness to impose his own religious and moral code on my body, and his willingness to put me and my family through a living end-of-life hell so that he can feel a little better to be personally offensive – and it takes a lot to offend me.
I may be wrong but I think too many people put too much importance on newspapers. I know few people who read them for opinion anymore. The few that still do read them seem to gravitate to the sports page and to the wire stories.
I’ve watched people read papers on planes on morning flights for many years. Each year the number of people reading papers diminishes and the attention they give the paper weakens. Alaska used to give out the WSJ to first class passengers, then just leave a pile at the door. Then they stopped all together. The first few weeks they did this, they ran out of papers. By the end, an untouched pile would sit at the entrance…
That said, I wouldn’t worry to much about the size of the megaphone anymore…. I haven’t seen a PI in someone’s hands for at least a year. Same goes for the ST.. Only papers I see anymore are in frequency order, USA Today, NYT, WSJ..
” … his eagerness to impose his own religious and moral code on my body …”
That’s what this is all about. I don’t think Joel is trying to offend you; I’m sure his religious and moral beliefs are sincere. But in a pluralistic world where not everyone has the same religion, how far can we go in imposing our beliefs on others?
Clearly, society has the right to, and should, prevent people from harming others — that’s the very definition of “society.” But should society keep people from harming themselves? In many states, attempting suicide is a crime. Are the moral questions different when self-harm is necessary to stop unbearable pain and prevent a horrible death? Many people say yes. Should society intervene to prevent mothers from aborting her fetus? Many people fervently believe a fertilized human egg is a separate, innocent, human life deserving of society’s protection.
These are all difficult questions and we can disagree on them without impugning each other’s motives or integrity. But how we disagree may well implicate personal integrity — well-intentioned motives don’t excuse lying or other ethical failures.
I’m not saying Joel did that. But I’m tempted to say that your fate is none of his business and he ought to let you decide when you’ve had enough of this mortal coil instead of arrogating to himself the power to make that decision for you — unless he’s willing to bear your surgeries, comas, etc., for you.
The crosses are stacked against the wall. You’ll notice they’re all large and heavy. Would those willing to bear someone else’s cross please form a line. No talking in line, please.
@1: I actually think that’s part of why the dailies have been so dismal this election season. The less relevant they become, the more desperate they are to draw attention to themselves.
That said, individual general audience media (dailies, TV, radio) still reach more people and have more influence than any other individual sources. The P-I’s circulation is plummetting but it’s still orders of magnitude larger than the most popular local political blogs, HA included. So they still matter, and that’s why we do so much media criticism at HA.
When you call someone “dishonest”, you should take the time to write out how it is that someone has been so. All I see above is how you disagree, I don’t see anything that reveals an untruth treated as true.
The proponents of I-1000 are the ones promoting a change of the status quo. Okay, I get it, you assert you have a right to request to be put down. That is a huge change in current medical practices, and while you say this is just your choice, it does in fact have farther reaching implications.
The amount of bile that has been directed at Joel for his clear and forthright expression of his opinion (in an opinion column you know) has been truly startling. Real hostility that has not been deserved or reciprocated. This is clearly an emotional issue.
The initiative will likely pass with a large margin. And after that… people will still suffer when dying and health care will have been advanced… not so much.
For all the anger and bile, one would think that so much more could have been accomplished.
Vote No on I-1000.
Stevens Trial Juror May Face Contempt Charges
The media hasn’t said so in those terms, but it’s obvious that’s on her itinerary. This is the juror who was excused from jury deliberations after telling the judge her father was dying. He wasn’t. She flew to California to watch horse races. The judge ordered her back to court to explain her actions. She had a public defender with her.
one of the pro-I1000 ads said that we can’t leave it up to doctors and politicians to decide when we die. That was never the case.
Believe it or not, this country and it’s laws were based on the bible. God is the one who decides when it’s our time.
America is nearing it’s end. I’ll be sad when she’s gone.
offthewall76@yahoo.com
# 5: Of course, we can be sure that’s going to be among the items which the defense is going to argue justifies a mistrial. At this point I think the odds of a Court of Appeals reversing the trial court and ordering a mistrial is about 50/50. But that won’t come soon enough to save Steven’s Senate seat.
Geov:
You are an insipid, boring, self-absorbed bigot. Obviously, you have no understanding of my I have criticized I-1000 — the criticisms have been entirely secular — nor any understanding of what it is to have a “faith-based opinion.”
6 “Believe it or not, this country and it’s laws were based on the bible.”
Thank God they didn’t include all of Leviticus…and that it hasn’t been imposed on all of us, in spite of a few zealots’ shrill demands.
If you’re one of that group, sorry if I’ve offended you, and please shut up.
I will have to say, Geov, that I’m awfully glad you didn’t choose to end your life during your ordeal.
I would assume that most of the non-trolls here have no particular objection when Joel’s and my faith motivate us to speak out against the slaughter of civilians in a foreign land to promote American hegemony, or to work to prevent homeless people from freezing to death on Seattle’s streets. Please accept the fact that nobody’s perfect.
Geov-
I am a very active and progressive liberal, and have also faced my own mortality, and had my own painful moments. I have watched my mother and father die long and in the case of my father, extremely painful deaths- a death that could not happen with today’s care. But I still oppose this measure. I respect that your views are different from mine on this issue. I hope you will do likewise.
Let me respectfully suggest that my opposition to I 1000 is based on serious philosphical concerns that are very secular in nature and stem from my view of where public policy should not go. It is also directly related to my work with incredibly dedicated advocates for the disability community, who are very concerned about this measure. Further, I have been a part of a group of far better legal minds than mine that have identified many flaws with the measure as drafted.
I will stop there, as I don’t expect to change your mind. But remember this, please.
There are people of very good will and very good intent on both sides of this issue for very profound reasons. I have not and will not attack the motives of the supporters and I accept them as very humane. I hope you can respect that many opponents are also motivated by very personal and well intended reasons.
Peace.
@6
Ahhhh… the words “god” and “bible” don’t appear anywhere in the constitution… I’m not familiar with any wording in the bible that is reflected in the Constitution….
With such a low opinion of life and love it is surprising the author has not sucked the business end of a .38 by now. Anyone with enough education and determination to bang out a few words on a computer should be able to make “arrangements” now for the next time. It is pretty clear that I-1000 is not about helping those who are unable, but instead needed to provide some acceptance from society.
Grow some balls and take care of it yourself. Leave the rest of us out of it.
@8 Joel, a “faith-based opinion” is one comprised entirely of opinion, unburdened by actual evidence, with maybe a half-sprinkling of selective truths to justify it after the fact. That’s a pretty good working definition of at least a half-dozen of your columns on I-1000.
I was led to believe by mutual acquaintances that underlying your opposition was your religious belief. Substitute “moral” for “religious” and it’s the same equation – only instead of promulgating the tenets of one or another moral tradition, I guess you’re just pulling this out of your ass. Which is actually even worse.
PS Thanks for the name-calling. It elevates you.
Thank you for that great response to Connelly’s swaggering puffery. What he and other anti-I-1000 zealots forget is that *their* religious or spiritual beliefs are their own, while the rest of us have our own, too. I don’t want to impose my beliefs on him, and I expect him to do likewise. What’s the big deal about that?
Also, I’ve been continually astounded that so many anti- arguments say that I-1000 would inject the government into our personal, end-of-life decisions. Baloney! It will have the opposite effect, of removing government intrusion from one small part of our end-of-life decisions.
I understand the concerns that some people have re certain classes of people being at risk of being encouraged to take the fast way out. But we’re already dealing with such issues in countless different ways in our medical system, and I don’t see I-1000 being any more of a hurdle. Instead of worrying about the chance of some dying patients being coerced into asking for the fatal prescription, I think we can better exercise our moral vigor for the tens of millions of people who would never get to see the doctor in the first place, because they have no insurance
@8, 15: Joel, to be clear:
“bigot”: I mentioned religious motivation not because religious beliefs (or in your case, secular moral ones) bother me, but because seeking to impose yours on me, when I and the people around me are the only ones who will be affected by the consequences of my actions, is unacceptable. As it would be if I tried to legally impose my beliefs on you.
“self-absorbed”: I brought up my own experience here solely and specifically as a counterpoint to your treacle today about how wonderful hospice care is. For some people, yes. (For some, no amount of TLC or morphine makes it OK.) That’s no reason to make it my only legal option.
Less personally: I spent a decade – admittedly not nearly as long as you – writing political columns professionally. I’ll freely admit that at times I engaged in hyperbole to enhance my argument. But I never – never – knowingly lied about my subject. Neither do any other journalists I know worthy of the name. You have done so on this issue, repeatedly – and after numerous people have attempted to help you get your facts straight, so that at least you’d be making your case honestly.
That is why you have completely lost my professional and personal respect. The name-calling (from our self-appointed guardian of bipartisan civility, no less) simply confirms that you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The only thing we haven’t heard in this election is “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion,” so this is something of a new twist.
Thanks Geov for calling JC on his “stuff” (to put it nicely). While Joel was so busily noting all the contributions, I was surprised he didn’t note all the Free Advertising Space costs donated by the P.I. for the Anti-I-1000 campaign (AKA Joel’s Columns).
I’ve been seriously considering dropping my P.I. subscription that I’ve had about 25yrs. Especially after reading Joel’s intrusive drivel. Next thing we know they will be shoveling the Pro-Life agenda down our throats as well.
I’m sorry Joel’s Dad died, his Dad wouldn’t have been eligible for I-1000 anyway from what has been described. But his singular experience is NOT the same experience EVERYONE else might look forward to. My own Dad started on the heavy dosage drugs from hospice in Phoenix VA yesterday.
Mostly today’s column sounded like whining sour grapes.