Medical Futility Statues

Thaddeus Pope of Medical Futility Blog has worked on a piece that has just been published in a new book called The Many Ways We Talk About Death in Contemporary Society. 

Thaddeus' piece is titled "Medical Futility Statues: Can They Be Resuscitated?" A full table of contents is available here. 

Here's a publisher's description of the book as a whole:

"This interdisciplinary work examines the representation of death in traditional and 'new' media, explores the meaning of assassination and suicide in a post 9/11 context, and grapples with the use of legal and medical tools that affect the quest for a 'good death.' The contributors treat their interrelated topics from the perspective of their expertise in medicine, law, psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, religion, philosophy, literature, media, and visual culture."

Congratulations Thaddeus. It looks like a fascinating read. 

Facing Facebook

We've all had a teacher or two who really inspired us. 

For my sister, it was her high school art teacher, Mrs. Saad. 

Yesterday, she found out via Facebook that Mrs. Saad had suddenly passed away at a fairly young age. 

It occurs to me, before our age of new media, this is probably something my sister would have found out about much further down the road—as gossip through a friend, or at her next school reunion. Now, she is struggling with the tragedy of how this woman's life ended prematurely, and also the immediacy of the news. 

I wonder how it will change grieving that the entire community of people who know and knew someone can instantaneously become aware of their passing. Is this healthier, or is this more than we should be expected to handle?

CNN Hologram Broadcast

Paul Levinson, my grad school thesis adviser, has a theory called anthropotropism. Roughly outlined, it states that as new media develop, they mimic, more and more closely, the characteristics of the physical human body.

I was reminded of his theory looking at CNN's "hologram" technology, where reporter Jessica Yellin was reporting from Chicago but appeared to be in studio with Wolf Blitzer, in a Star Trek "Beam me up, Scottie" sort of way.


Hoorah for the advancement of technology ... . It's still a little freaky to me, but maybe that's just because my greatest childhood nightmare was this.