The Final Days of Bush

Even as an Obama supporter, there are still times when I think about the burdens and pressures of being George W. Bush. It's one thing to walk the line, but it's another to swim in blurred gray areas -- and we know how they say life is never so defined.

Although the past 8 years have not been this country's best -- and I am sure most of these years has not been Bush's best either -- I am certainly impressed by how tightly the president has held on. Politics aside, the gritty tenacity he's shown, the simple, but rigid principles he relies on have been interesting to watch.

Honestly, how can you wholeheartedly believe the man to be evil, if you allowed yourself to understand that Bush firmly and adamantly believes that he has been doing the "right" thing?

And his idea of leadership and heroism is to keep going on even while everything else falls apart, even while the world turns on you.

I cannot imagine how many counts of betrayal he's had to face.

And still, here he is, doing what he set out to do -- for better or for worse, ill-advised or not.

Despite what I disagree with, I still have to give him that kudos for hanging on.

"The Final Days" is a great article from The New York Times magazine by its first-time contributor, Pete Baker, on the Bush Legacy. Also, listen to the Back Story podcast to the left of the article to hear what Baker has to say.

Death with Dignity of Choice

Somehow, I don't quite understand people who are so vehemently against the Oregon Death with Dignity Act (aka. Doctor-Assisted Suicide).

If people can have a choice over giving birth (or not), then why not death?
If people can have a choice over getting married (or not), then why not death?
If people can be put to death involuntarily (capital punishment), then why can't people choose their own deaths, their own destinies?

Provided that friends and family accept it, then why is this so wrong?

Are we so used to the idea that we are helpless against death? Does the idea of accepting and even embracing death as freedom really scare us so much?

But you know what's scarier than death? Being trapped. Having no choice. Waiting to die. (a lesson I learned when I was in Hong Kong for my grandmother's funeral recently)

If life is painful, doctors as healers, who try to extend our lives, would only become the deliverers of pain ... since they can't completely heal us anyway. They are only halfway-healers if they can't admit their insufficiencies.

What, did you think choosing death over life is somehow the easy way out? To survive is an instinct. Therefore, one must truly have a persuasive reason to choose death over survival. Parting is never easy, as we are so used to living. But at some crucial point in a life, we must accept that there could be something better beyond living in this life, if living means being having no choice at all. If living is freedom, then I say don't let freedom be your cage.