Jack Kevorkian should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

QUOTE from Johnny Carson: 'For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but the phone calls taper off."

I LEARNED I agree with a 79 year old bachelor from Cedar Falls, Iowa. His name is Gerald Baker and he writes an opinion blog for the Des Moines Register. Last weekend Ruth Ann and I stayed at the Isle of Capri Hotel/Casino in Waterloo. On Sunday morning I went for a walk around the casino grounds and picked up some litter on the way. One of the things I picked up was the OPINION page of the Cedar Falls newspaper from June !!, 2011. The opimion piece that caught my attention was entitled, MY THOUGHTS TODAY by Gerald Baker. His subtitle was, "Jack Kevorhian Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize."I found his words inspiring and found myself agreeing with him.

Gerald's words: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a well-known advocate and practioner of euthanasia, died on June 3. I'd like to nominate him to be posthumouly awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
   Last year, that prize was awarded to a Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, who has served eight years in prison, for his defense of human rights in China. Kevorkian also served eight years, in a Michigan prison, for his defense of the proposition that a U.S. citizen's life is the property of that citizen, to be disposed of according to that citizen's wishes, and is not in any way the property of any state goverernment or of the federal government.
   Any government prosecution of people, occasioned by those people's help in assisting the suicide of a citizen, implies that the government regards that citizen as its property, and, presumably, his or her death as a loss of one of its servants.
   Gerald went on to talk about several people in nursing homes who wanted to die, some even begged to die. He told of one 90 year old man he had talked to whose wife had begged him for "something to help her die." He refused because he didn't want to go to prison so his wife starved herself to death.
   Baker said he doesn't want to go to a nursing home but if he does and he wants euthanasia, the only way permitted by our harsh Iowa government would be to starve myself to death. I think the abstinence from food would be easy, since I've been losing my appetite, but a difficult part of that method might be the abstinence from water.

I agree with his views on this issue. To my knowledge the only state with a legal euthanasia program is Oregon. The state of Oregon has been ahead of the other states on quite a few issues.
  
HUMOR for today: The PICKLES comic strip was a good one today.

Opal is nagging Earl to get the lawn mowed.

Opal: "Are you ever going to mow the grass?"
Earl: "If I squint my eyes it looks like it's already been mowed."
Opal: "Well, take my word for it. It hasn't been mowed. And squinting your eyes won't get it done."
Opal walks away and Earl turns to the dog and says: "Now if I can just learn how to squint my ears."