[wterrell]

I do not know that personal experience should qualify/disqualify a person to form an opinion upon death and its agents. But if it is requisite, a lifetime ago, to feed my family and myself while going to college, I worked at a University hospital as an orderly on evening shift. I have wiped many butts of terminally ill patients. Fed them. Dressed them. Laughed with them. These were long term patients with no hope of returning home. They became friends of mine. As part of my work duties I have sat in excess of 3 dozen death watches involving these friends and witnessed their very last breath, noting their time of death. My departure from that job precipitated from one death too close to the heart. Later in my college career I worked in nursing homes on the evening shift, not quite as extreme situation as the hospital, but still disturbing.

But, maybe I am of such shallow character that I am swayed by media. Death will deal with us all, media or no. And we will all form an opinion, informed or ignorant.