Interesting article in WSJ, which was the most popular of the day. My complaint of American culture has always been on the topic of death. We don’t discuss it much, we tend to avoid it like… well, like death, and then when it does happen to our friends or family, we are immobilized by the shock of it. It then takes months, even years, to come out of the psychological depression.

It’s no wonder when a disease like cancer comes along and we try to grasp on to every single promise, hope, and idea of beating it, even if the odds are low and the quality of life is on the torture gauge. This is why I believe this article on how doctors choose to die is important.

Doctors don’t want to die any more than anyone else does. But they usually have talked about the limits of modern medicine with their families. They want to make sure that, when the time comes, no heroic measures are taken. During their last moments, they know, for instance, that they don’t want someone breaking their ribs by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (which is what happens when CPR is done

I’ve worked in a hospital for years so when you see reality vs. what is portrayed on television shows, you get it. There’s no miracles — or at least they are not as numerous. Here’s an excellent example: CPR

 A study by Susan Diem and others of how CPR is portrayed on TV found that it was successful in 75% of the cases and that 67% of the TV patients went home. In reality, a 2010 study of more than 95,000 cases of CPR found that only 8% of patients survived for more than one month. Of these, only about 3% could lead a mostly normal life.

via A Doctor on How Physicians Face the End of Life – WSJ.com.

I have many stories in my queue in the site ReadItLater.com Most of them are a miss as far as being interesting, but that’s fine; the hits are worth the misses. One such hit I came across very recently is this story on Frances Farmer. Frances Farmer was an actress, described at times as the next Greta Garbo and had a lot of potential in Hollywood. And then she imploded in her life and her career.

I read one paragraph but wanted more background on her. So I went to the first place I usually set off to: Wikipedia. It’s a short write up but a good one. I read from the beginning and didn’t stop till the end. I lie, I did stop, I stopped at this passage:

Farmer recounted her stay in the state asylum as “unbearable terror”: “I was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats and poisoned by tainted food. I was chained in padded cells, strapped into strait-jackets and half-drowned in ice baths.”^[7]

The Scientology-related advocacy group the Citizens Commission on Human Rights reported the following about Western State Hospital: “Conditions were barbaric. Both criminals and the mentally retarded were crowded together, their meals thrown on the floor to be fought over. Farmer was subjected to regular and continuous electroshock. In addition, she was prostituted to soldiers from the local military base and raped and abused by the orderlies. One of the most vivid recollections of some veterans of the institution would be the sight of Frances Farmer being held down by the orderlies and raped by drunken gangs of soldiers.

Wait, what? How did a person go from Greta Garbo-shoes-filler to this? Seems like there were events that lead up to and there were multiple rights circumvented that had her lose her civil rights and rights to speak for herself.

• No lawyer at the sentencing by the Police Judge
• No re-evaluations after her initial release and re-institutionalization
• Cops barging in to her hotel room and being shocked that she didn’t want to go anywhere after taking sleeping pills and being in the nude in bed.

There are smaller instances of the above but how does this happen in America? Even the 30′s-40′s America? She came out from being locked up eventually, and by happenstance of a stroke to her “mom” who had custody rights over her. What is surprising for me is that she was able to do stuff after this, be on Broadway, stage, even some movies… Still, what a waste of a human life that comes from a simple/complex thing like a broken heart?

Of course, I’ve finished the article and I am happy that she did get some happiness afterwards, I just don’t have a good feeling about what was done to her by others–aside from what happened to her at the institutions. So while the title is misleading — she wasn’t technically lobotomized — she did have a life/career crash and I am not totally excusing her, just wanted to have a happy ending in a tragic life. I don’t think I got one.

The male shopper, who pretty much was missing at the onset of the recession, is buying again. And to the delight of retailers, he is not just stocking up on suits and dress shirts, but also doing something women have been doing for years: binging on accessories.

Bracelets. Bags. Hats. Umbrellas.

Seriously, New York Times? Men have been paying bills, paying for their little girls’ outfits, paying for their kid’s college education. Paying mortgages, lighting, computer services/internet. I could list things ad nauseum. Why would you write something as frivolous as this?

I am sorry, but real men do not look like your inset:

via Men Are Buying Fashion Accessories After Slow Recession Sales – NYTimes.com.