How to use this Page

Today's Ypulse Youth Advisory Board post comes from our resident TV guru Alyx Steadman who like 8.97 million other viewers tuned into the MTV Video Music Awards. As always, you can communicate directly with any member of the Ypulse Youth Advisory... Read the rest of this post

Robert Veatch is Professor of Medical Ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. He received the career distinguished achievement award from Georgetown University in 2005 and has received honorary doctorates from Creighton and Union College. His new book, Patient, Heal Thyself: How the “New Medicine” Puts the Patient in Charge, he sheds light on a fundamental change sweeping through the American health care system, a change that puts the patient in charge of treatment to an unprecedented extent. In the original article below, Veatch looks at how the empowerment effected Michael Jackson’s medical decisions and the responsibility of his doctor.

Dr. Conrad Murray is the doctor who apparently administered a fatal dose of the anesthetic, propofol, to Michael Jackson in a desperate attempt to respond to his cries for help in getting some sleep. He has received rough treatment from the media. Jackson’s death has been ruled a homicide and the media are reporting that he will be charged with manslaughter. I think that judgment is too quick and want to come to the doctor’s defense.

The case is, of course, being tried in the press before we have all the details, but the likely scenario is emerging. Making some plausible assumptions, I think a case can be made for the doctor’s decisions. Let me assume, for purposes of discussion, that the doctor did not intend to kill Michael (He was reportedly being paid $150,000 a month to be Michael’s full time physician. Even if he had completely abandoned his duty to serve the patient, he would be a fool to intend the death.) Let me assume that the lethal effects were foreseeable, but not inevitable side effects of a very potent drug. Let me also assume that Michael had been informed by Dr. Murray how dangerous the drug was and how unusual it was to use it for this purpose. Possibly, he had even told Michael that the drug’s labeling did not include the use of propofol outside of a hospital and that almost all physicians would refuse to use it this way.

With these assumptions, a prosecutor will have a difficult time accusing the doctor of a crime. It is not even clear to me that “homicide” is the right term for the death. First, it is important to realize that “off-label” uses of drugs by doctors is not illegal. It is done all the time when a physician becomes convinced that it in the patient’s interest. Second, it is critical to understand that medical choices about what is in a patient’s interest are directly dependent on the patient’s goals and values. They cannot simply be read out of a textbook as if medical science can prove what is in a particular patient’s interest. (Think about whether aggressive chemotherapy is in a terminal cancer patient’s interest or whether an abortion is in the interest of a pregnant woman.) The patient’s interest is necessarily a subjective matter about which only the patient can have direct knowledge.

It seems clear that Michael was in the advanced stages of insomnia and was in excruciating agony from persistent lack of sleep. That is an awful situation about which patients often have to make desperate choices. None of us can know what was in Michael’s head that caused the insomnia or led him to plea for pharmacological intervention. We do know that other drugs had been used even that fateful night (benzodiazepines that are often used to reduce anxiety and induce sleep). These other drugs had failed to solve the problem and made the use of the propofol even more dangerous, something Dr. Murray surely knew and presumably had told Michael.

Now the question for Dr. Murray and for Michael Jackson is, given his desperate situation, is the only drug that will give him some sleep worth the very great risk of side effects, even death? Surely, for most of us the answer would be negative, but that doesn’t mean it was Michael’s answer. Given that he had apparently received the drug many previous times without side effects, I don’t see how we can claim that Michael would be wrong to decide that the risk would be worth it in his case. Deciding whether the drug is “worth it” is a value judgment, not a scientific fact that the doctor can look up in a book. Even if almost everyone else would have decided not to try the desperate off-label use, I don’t know how we can say Michael’s gamble was wrong for him.

But, you might say, even if Michael’s judgment was understandable, surely Dr. Murray was wrong to go along with his patient’s demand. Surely, other physicians would not have agreed. A physician is supposed to be a responsible professional who has the right not to go along with a patient’s very unusual and risky demand. Most physicians would have refused to provide the propofol (at least outside of a hospital) and that is understandable, but this does not prove that Michael’s value judgment about the risk was wrong or that Dr. Murray was wrong to comply. Some medical issues are appropriately judged by what is called a “standard of care.” The correctness of the physician’s behavior is judged by what his colleagues similarly situated would have done. This, however, is not a decision that should be judged by that standard. If it is possible that Michael had made a rationally defensible decision that the risk was worth it for him, then a physician is within his rights to decide to cooperate in a legal behavior if he so chooses. He surely would have had the right not to provide the dangerous drug for off-label use, but he also has the right to decide it is a tolerable risk. If he does so after the patient is adequately informed, I don’t see how we can fault him assuming that the lethal effect was not intended.

This turns out to be crucial for the rest of us if we are to get high-quality, rational medical care. We have for many years recognized that most powerful, valuable drugs have anticipated side effects. If we choose to take the risk and the side effect occurs, we don’t say that the choice was a mistake. If the side effect is death, we don’t say it was a homicide. Provided the intended beneficial effects are good enough, we say that the side effect is tolerable even if it is foreseen. That, in fact, is precisely the justification for doctors’ use of narcotics to control severe pain in cancer patients even though they know that the side effect can be respiratory depression and even death. Most ethical systems have long acknowledged that such “unintended, but foreseen” deaths are tolerable. Normally, such a death is not deemed a “homicide.” Just may be, if we put ourselves in Michael’s shoes and plug in the value judgments he made, we can understand why Dr. Murray, apparently with great reluctance, was willing to go along. I can’t fault him if that was what he did.

When I mused about the rise of nerd culture the other day,  I stuck with mostly gender-neutral terms. But after reading these "5 Tips for Raising Your Girl Geek" on Wired I got to thinking and decided to revisit the topic. From the... Read the rest of this post

Image via Wikipedia

Jade Goody was a kind, brave person who campaigned to bring the smear tests for cervical cancer down to 20 as she had the illness herself.

Michael Jackson was the King of Pop.

These are some of the jokes made about them both:

Person 1: What is the difference between Michael Jackson and Jade Goody?

Person 2: Don’t know

Person 1: 3 months

Person 1: How do you put the Jackson 5 back together?

Person 2: Don’t know

Person 1: 4 bullets

These jokes are horrible and uncalled for, so why do people do it?

When you first listen to the jokes they are funny or entertaining but when you actually think about the people and their lives you realise that these jokes are insulting to them.

Image via Wikipedia

Jade Goody was a kind, brave person who campaigned to bring the smear tests for cervical cancer down to 20 as she had the illness herself.

Michael Jackson was the King of Pop.

These are some of the jokes made about them both:

Person 1: What is the difference between Michael Jackson and Jade Goody?

Person 2: Don’t know

Person 1: 3 months

Person 1: How do you put the Jackson 5 back together?

Person 2: Don’t know

Person 1: 4 bullets

These jokes are horrible and uncalled for, so why do people do it?

When you first listen to the jokes they are funny or entertaining but when you actually think about the people and their lives you realise that these jokes are insulting to them.

I was at home the other day, just sitting down to have lunch, when the telephone rang.I picked it up and the male caller immediately launched into his obviously well-rehearsed spiel, informing me that he was from blah blah research company who are conducting a survey about blah blah and would I mind answering a few questions about blah blah?

Now normally I would make an excuse to get out of this chore, especially as he offered me no incentive such as a free cinema ticket or something else of interest.Perhaps I was just in a good mood, because  I heard myself say:  “O.K.”

He then casually asked me my age and I answered honestly that I am 52.Well my 53rd birthday isn`t till august 29th (yes I share the same  birthday with the late great Michael Jackson, although he was two years younger).

That`s when the bombshell hit! There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line, a muttered reply of “never mind” and then a click as HE HUNG UP ON ME!

There I was left with the receiver to my ear and my good mood shattered!Suddenly I lost my appetite for lunch, my bones seemed to start creaking and I felt depressed.Am I that old? Does my opinion really have no value anymore?

The only other time I felt so deflated was when I once jokingly said to a teenager who was playing a game of pool: “You`re dropping dandruff on the table” as I pointed to the sprinkling of white chalk dust on the green baize.He immediately retorted:”Well at least I have enough hair to have dandruff!”

Touche! or should that be Toupee!?

Image via Wikipedia

I was at home the other day, just sitting down to have lunch, when the telephone rang.I picked it up and the male caller immediately launched into his obviously well-rehearsed spiel, informing me that he was from blah blah research company who are conducting a survey about blah blah and would I mind answering a few questions about blah blah?

Now normally I would make an excuse to get out of this chore, especially as he offered me no incentive such as a free cinema ticket or something else of interest.Perhaps I was just in a good mood, because  I heard myself say:  “O.K.”

He then casually asked me my age and I answered honestly that I am 52.Well my 53rd birthday isn`t till august 29th (yes I share the same  birthday with the late great Michael Jackson, although he was two years younger).

That`s when the bombshell hit! There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line, a muttered reply of “never mind” and then a click as HE HUNG UP ON ME!

There I was left with the receiver to my ear and my good mood shattered!Suddenly I lost my appetite for lunch, my bones seemed to start creaking and I felt depressed.Am I that old? Does my opinion really have no value anymore?

The only other time I felt so deflated was when I once jokingly said to a teenager who was playing a game of pool: “You`re dropping dandruff on the table” as I pointed to the sprinkling of white chalk dust on the green baize.He immediately retorted:”Well at least I have enough hair to have dandruff!”

Touche! or should that be Toupee!?

Image via Wikipedia

Here's a first draft of some ideas from the beginning of my graphic novel. It's quite different from this but you have to start somewhere. Check out my blog from time to time to see postings from the GN!
http://mikecressy.blogspot.com/

Cartoon for the Dutch Nu.nl news website, about the death of a man who had fallen into a vat of chocolate, combined with a wink to the death of popstar Michael Jackson.

More at www.sevensheaven.nl

Today's Youth Advisory Board post is from Nina L. who shares her response to the wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson's death. As always, you can communicate directly with any member of the Ypulse Youth Advisory Board by emailing them at... Read the rest of this post

As the hours of this day passed, it troubled me that as hard as I tried not to get pulled into the vortex of death's calling card, I could not avoid the siren's call of sorrow.

It's the fear of death that compels so many of us to create, to make a lasting impression, to make the art we love and make it matter.

And yes, when someone young dies, we cry "Oh gone too soon. Gone too soon."

I'll just cry that Someone is Gone. I don't even love that my little girls are no longer little girls. Childhood: gone too soon. And confession time: I miss my childhood, too. I didn't know there would be endings then. I don't like knowing that now. I don't want this to ever end.

Life: Gone Too Soon.

Found this clip-- a lovely montage of Michael Jackson's life-- produced for BET but never aired.

Feel it.

VH1's 'The Great Debate' (takes pop culture rivalries to the digital streets with "live, interactive out-of-home screens". Also 'Love Pop Trash' a new "edgy" teen webisode series debuts on web network KoldCast TV. Sounds intriguing, but how teens... Read the rest of this post

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he reflects on nostalgia for the 80’s. See his previous OUPblogs here.

Journalists are not usually in the habit of looking back. They are charged to deliver “breaking news” to us. Novelty is the coinage of the newsroom, not history. Yet this week, the media’s preponderant coverage of the life and death of Michael Jackson has been stridently nostalgic. It reveals a culture needing and ready to sing an ode to the 1980s.

We cannot turn back time, but we can mark its passing. Up till last week, popular culture hadn’t had the chance to address the passing of an 80s superstar and with that, the 1980s. We were given occasion to mourn and contemplate the passing of the 1950s with Elvis Presley’s untimely death, and the passing of the 1960s with John Lennon’s death. So we have sung an ode to the post-war consensus, as we have sung an ode to the cultural revolution.

But enough of the 80s has remained with us - MTV, Nintendo, Reaganomics - not defunct but writhing for relevance, that we have not dared sing its eulogy. Michael Jackson’s and Farrah Fawcett’s death has served us a dramatic notice that it may be time.

After all, it is unlikely that we will see another Michael Jackson. In our era where songs are downloaded one at a time, no one is likely to sell a 100 million records (of “Thriller” or any other album) again. The 80s are over, but it has taken us three decades to find a moment to collectively mark and mourn its passage.

Tragic deaths are compelling not only for human interest reasons, but for the decisive statement about our mortality they make. For if even iconic characters who once defined their age can be so suddenly ejected from the remorseless flow of history, then there is surely no stopping the march of time.

It is no surprise that Michael Jackson is more beloved posthumously than he was all of this decade. Elvis Presley too, had become more and more of a has-been as the 60s progressed. Time is never forgiving - our only feeble antidote is nostalgia. So wrote Joseph Conrad, “Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamor–of youth! … A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and–good-bye!–Night–Good-bye…!”

If the 1980s and whatever the decade repesented are indeed over, then businessmen, journalists, and especially politicians - take note! Nostalgia can only occur when the past has been rendered past.

Of all the wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage we've been blanketed with over the past weekend, one story really jumped out at me — it was David Segal's piece in the New York Times about how fame may never be the same again. The gist is that... Read the rest of this post

Celebrity is a curse, and absolute celebrity is something very few people
are evil enough to deserve.

Philip Pullman on Michael Jackson’s recent death 25th June 2009

I like being an author because I get the pleasure of readers engaging in my books, without the awful burden of FAME.

As the Director of the 4th Kids and Young Adult Literature Festival I talk to creators, share story and have a great time with some of the world’s and Australia’s most admired writers.

There are HUGELY famous authors speaking including Melina Marchetta, Garth Nix, Kate Forsyth. Garth has sold 4 million books worldwide. The gorgeous Deb Abela with her Max Remy Super Spy sold all over the world. So many special authors and illustrators are speaking but NO ONE has celebrity. How lucky are they?

They don’t have to change their faces or hide behind a mask or create a safe private world away from the crowds. Michael Jackson was astonishingly talented. He leaves behind a legacy of ground breaking music, dance, video images and the knowledge that celebrity can kill you.

The Kids and YA Literature Festival is on the 4th July and the craft day on the 5th July at the NSW Writers Centre Rozelle in the beautiful grounds of Callan Park, in Sydney. Come along and say hello if you’re around.                            For bookings and programme log onto  www.nswwriterscentre.org.au

Celebrating books with Jon English, Susanne Gervay, publicist Louise Dear and the Book Worm

Susanne Gervay,Jeni Mawter, Kate Forsyth

Cartoon for the Dutch Nu.nl news website, about the death of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

Join me at Twitter [I mainly write in the Dutch language]

Hillel Italie of the Associated Press writes insightfully about two Kings - Elvis Presley, King of Rock and Roll, and Michael Jackson, King of Pop, who died tragically yesterday in Los Angeles:

"Michael Jackson didn’t want to be just a superstar. Like the Beatles, he wanted to be the biggest, the king. He wanted to topple the reigning man with the crown, Elvis. In life and in death, there was Elvis. “It’s just so weird. He even married Elvis’ daughter,” said author-music critic Greil Marcus, who wrote at length about Presley in his acclaimed cultural history, Mystery Train. Elvis Presley overdosed — in his bathroom — on prescription drugs in 1977 at 42, his bloated, glazed middle age a cautionary tale to rock stars and other celebrities. Jackson died Thursday at 50, rushed from his Los Angeles home and pronounced dead at the UCLA Medical Center. The death shocked more than surprised. While endless fame seemed to inflate Elvis like helium, Jackson’s fame seemed to scrub the flesh and wear into his bones until you could almost see him shiver. Like Elvis, Jackson was once beautiful, outrageous, a revolutionary without politics who shook down the walls between black and white. He had the hits, the style, the ego, the talent. He was the King of Pop and he needed only to fill in the life: He married Elvis’ daughter. He bought the rights to some of Elvis’ songs. Elvis owned Graceland, its name a symbol for a deliverance the singer prayed for until the end of his life. Jackson had Neverland, a fantasy for a child-man for whom money meant the chance to live in a world of his own. He did, and did not, want to be like Elvis."

Read more about Elvis, Michael, and Lisa Marie in Adam Victor in The Elvis Encyclopedia.

I am just in shock. Michael Jackson, gone. Wow. I'm just...wow. I'm saddened by this news. The only other time(s) I felt the loss of a celeb was when Aaliyah died (still feeling that loss, even 8 years after her death) and Bernie Mac. While I am not crying, as I'm sure millions of people around the world are doing (I did cry when Aaliyah died), I am sad. He's gone. He's really gone.

I hope and pray that #1, people remember him for what he's done for music and entertainment, not for his troubles toward the end, and #2, he's finally found the peace he's obviously been searching for. Despite the troubles he's had in the past, you can't take away from the fact that he was one of the best entertainers of his time. I mean, come on. Beat It. Billie Jean. Thriller...the list goes on. Not to mention the hits from Jackson 5.

I remember when I was little, I had a serious crush on MJ. My crush wilted away (for obvious reasons), but the fact that Michael is one of my fave entertainers did not. More than his music, I loved watching him perform. His dancing...magnificent. Oh how I wanted to be one of the dancers in his videos or on tour. Alot of the performers today, if they were really honest with themselves, can attribute their moves to Michael Jackson. Their performances have MJ written all over it. Justin Timberlake, Usher, Chris Brown, and many more. Even some of Ciara's moves mirror the King of Pop (but on a more feminine and updated way).

His videos were awesome. My favorite Michael Jackson song and video of all time is not Thriller, but Smooth Criminal. I love absolutely EVERYTHING about that song...the track, the beat, the dance moves...I'm absolutely crazy about this song. I'm not the only one, am I? Despite the fact that he'd already started changing, I loved him in Smooth Criminal...like, really, with him dressed in white, hat tilted down, his smooth moves. In spite of his high-water pants & white socks, Michael was sexy in Smooth Criminal. After seeing this video, I secretly wished I could grow up to become Mrs. MJ (oh, come on, I'm not the only girl in the world who had that kind of a crush on him).

Michael Jackson's death (it's just really weird saying that) ends this week of death and sadness. Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett are gone, too. *sigh* In honor of the King of Pop, one of the best entertainers I've ever seen, here's Smooth Criminal. RIP Michael.

As originally reported by TMZ and followed by the LA Times , we are saddened to report the death of celebrity entertainer Michael Jackson. Jackson collapsed from a cardiac arrest this afternoon in Los Angeles, California. As his family rushed to the hospital, the news quickly swelled on social media sites such as Twitter and [...]