Rick, your (political)honesty and (personal)openness here is illuminating and heartbreaking to read. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Of the many ways to die (as described in the book), Alzheimers is the most horrific, and the one we are most powerless to stop or treat. So I agree with you Rick, that this is a cause worth fighting, and I will do whatever I can to support that fight.

As a minimum, I’ll join Michael Reynolds in writing my Senators and Congressman.

Alzheimer’s is a monstrous thing. It takes death and extends it out over a decade and in the process drains the life of everyone around. Not a good death.

By the way, a “good death” for me would almost certainly involves Liv Tyler. (Yes, with the elf ears.) Although she might have a different view.

I’ll fire off an email to my Senators. About Alzheimer’s funding. Not the Liv Tyler thing.

I am afraid that these cuts are just the start. Whether or not health care is nationalized, there is steady progress toward rationing. Is this particular cut penny wise and pound foolish? Absolutely, but that is an immutable trait of the federal government, and for that matter, local governments.

I lost grandparents to Alzheimer’s. I cannot imagine a more cruel disease, and if you wanted to personalize any one thing, this was it. You got my attention.

@Rick;

The political is almost invariably personal. So it should be.

As I told Margolis recently; Politics isn’t a game until itself. Politics at the individual level, ideally, is merely a reflection of our most personal value structure, and our personal moral fibre. Politics is merely a tool to represent those values to and advance those values in, whatever ‘community’ we happen to be in. There’s a lot of implication, there, that attaches itself to this and so many other issues precisely because of that relationship.

If nothing else, your post brings home to me that we often get so wrapped up in the political game that we forget there are people’s values, and peoples lives that are at stake.

@Shaun;
It’s an interesting point, but I hasten to add that they’re finding adult cells are often as or more effective.