In Case We Die

Danny Bland’s fictional prose novel about a doomed junkie couple is given depth by his first hand experiences in the ’90s grunge rock scene. “It wasn’t the pounding headache or the all too familiar taste of blood in my mouth that woke me that morning, but the stink of cat piss. They all have cats. Cats and bad tattoos and mops of dyed black hair that reek of cigarettes and watermelon Bubblicious.” This debut novel by veteran Seattle musician Danny Bland follows a pair of outsiders who find themselves locked in the palpable, dizzy grunge-rock scene of early-’90s Seattle. Vulnerable to the high relief of heroin addiction, Bland’s characters ― Charlie Hyatt and Carrie Finch ― are unapologetic protagonists whose epiphanies are as blinding as their weaknesses. Finch, 21, beautiful and dangerous, drowns out the voices in her head and the consequences of a misled life with electric guitars, booze and petulant misbehavior. Her single abiding faith takes the form of an unlikely savior ― ’60s psychedelic musician Roky Erikson. At the ripe old age of 28, Hyatt attempts to make sense of the cards he has been dealt: a miserable job in a porn shop, a drug habit he cannot afford and the wildly unstable woman he had chosen to love. Two damaged people can balance a seesaw for a long time, even finding the illusion of safety; but when one gets off unannounced, the other will fall. As Finch finds sobriety, her sanity and her relationship with Hyatt falter until an inevitable event brings the two back together a decade later.

In Case I Die - A Planning Guide is a detailed summary of instructions for your family in the event of your untimely death. This guide allows your family to know your wishes, instructions, and location of critical information. Written by a CPA with over twenty years experience, this guide is the most valuable gift you will ever give your family!

What will become of our earthly remains? What happens to our bodies during and after the various forms of cadaver disposal available? Who controls the fate of human remains? What legal and moral constraints apply? Legal scholar Norman Cantor provides a graphic, informative, and entertaining exploration of these questions. After We Die chronicles not only a corpse’s physical state but also its legal and moral status, including what rights, if any, the corpse possesses. In a claim sure to be controversial, Cantor argues that a corpse maintains a “quasi-human status" granting it certain protected rights—both legal and moral. One of a corpse’s purported rights is to have its predecessor’s disposal choices upheld. After We Die reviews unconventional ways in which a person can extend a personal legacy via their corpse’s role in medical education, scientific research, or tissue transplantation. This underlines the importance of leaving instructions directing post-mortem disposal. Another cadaveric right is to be treated with respect and dignity. After We Die outlines the limits that “post-mortem human dignity” poses upon disposal options, particularly the use of a cadaver or its parts in educational or artistic displays. Contemporary illustrations of these complex issues abound. In 2007, the well-publicized death of Anna Nicole Smith highlighted the passions and disputes surrounding the handling of human remains. Similarly, following the 2003 death of baseball great Ted Williams, the family in-fighting and legal proceedings surrounding the corpse’s proposed cryogenic disposal also raised contentious questions about the physical, legal, and ethical issues that emerge after we die. In the tradition of Sherwin Nuland's How We Die, Cantor carefully and sensitively addresses the post-mortem handling of human remains.

We have lost the ability to deal with death. Most of our friends and beloved relations will die in a busy hospital in the care of strangers, doctors and nurses they have known at best for a couple of weeks. They may not even know they are dying, victims of the kindly lie that there is still hope. They are unlikely to see even their family doctor in their final hours, robbed of their dignity and fed through a tube after a long series of excessive and hopeless medical interventions. This is the starting point of Seamus O'Mahoney's thoughtful, moving and unforgettable book on the western way of death. Dying has never been more public, with celebrities writing detailed memoirs of their illness, but in private we have done our best to banish all thought of dying and made a good death increasingly difficult to achieve.

The attitude and the pretensions of the “medicine man” may perhaps have had some value in the days when the multitude was full of superstition and had no scientific knowledge, but we hope those days of ignorance have passed, though we fear superstition remains. The “medicine man” was a more or less clever poseur, who used his small amount of knowledge to conceal his very large amount of ignorance. The medical profession, till the more recent years, cannot be entirely acquitted of the same sort of dishonesty, but a new era of open-mindedness and honesty has, I think, begun. To get any real success in the treatment of disease, we must get confidences, not6 one-sided, but on both sides, between ourselves and our patients, and so alone shall we get that co-operation without which there can be little expectation of success. At present we see this success more in the wonderful results of psychotherapy than in the treatment of objective disease, but I firmly maintain that mutual trust will prove its great value in this also. Is it reasonable to expect that men of equal learning and intelligence as ourselves will accept our treatment and advice without knowing the rationale of them? Should we do it in the case of legal or religious matters? Our patients know as well as we do that medical knowledge is in a continuous state of flux and that as yet we are nowhere near finality. The dazzling garment of omniscience will be discovered to be the somewhat shop-worn cloak of ignorance. A wise and observant patient can help us enormously in the investigation of7 a difficult problem in disease, for the subjective symptoms are often as important as the objective. What the eye does not see may be there all the time. The history of the world right up to the present time has shown the futility of dividuality as against individuality both in politics and religion. The greater part of our Christian teaching is against separateness, and towards mutual love, consideration, and help. For this reason I have tried to write so that all may grasp the hope and possibility of a longer and more effectual life. Co-operation is the watchword of the future, isolation the disease and explanation of the past...FROM THE BOOKS

Dr. Sam Parnia faces death every day. Through his work as a critical-care doctor in a hospital emergency room, he became very interested in some of his patients’ accounts of the experiences that they had while clinically dead. He started to collect these stories and read all the latest research on the subject, and then he conducted his own experiments. That work has culminated in this extraordinary book, which picks up where Raymond Moody’s Life After Life left off. Written in a scientific, balanced, and engaging style, this is powerful and compelling reading. This fascinating and controversial book will change the way you look at death and dying.

The Shikoku pilgrimage, a 1400 kilometre, eighty-eight temple circuit around Japan's fourth largest island, takes around forty days by foot, or one week by car. Historically, Buddhist ascetics walked it without ceasing, creating a tradition of unending pilgrimage that continues in the present era, both by pilgrims on foot and by others in cars. Some spend decades walking the pilgrimage, while others drive it repeatedly, completing hundreds of pilgrimage circuits. Most are retired and make the pilgrimage the centre of their post-work lives. Others who work full-time spend their holidays and weekends as pilgrims. Some have only done the pilgrimage a few times but already imagine themselves as unending pilgrims and intend to do it "until we die". They talk happily of being addicted and having Shikokuby?, 'Shikoku illness', portraying this 'illness' and addiction as blessings. Featuring extensive fieldwork and interviews, this study of Japan's most famous Buddhist pilgrimage presents new theoretical perspectives on pilgrimage in general, along with rich ethnographic examples of pilgrimage practices in contemporary Japan. Pilgrims Until We Die counteracts normative portrayals of pilgrimage as a transient activity, defined by a temporary leave of absence from home to visit sacred places outside the parameters of everyday life, showing that many participants view pilgrimage as a way of creating a sense of home and permanence on the road. Examining how obsession, devotion, and a sense of addiction aided by modern developments and economic factors have created a culture of recurrent pilgrimage, Pilgrims Until We Die challenges standard understandings of pilgrimage.

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care—nearly 44 percent of all deaths—and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape, through gripping stories of real patients, families, and doctors, as well as the corporate giants that increasingly own the market. Changing the Way We Die is a vital resource for anyone who wants to be prepared to face life’s most challenging and universal event. You will learn: — Hospice use is soaring, yet most people come too late to get the full benefits. — With the age tsunami, it becomes even more critical for families and patients to choose end-of-life care wisely. — Hospice at its best is much more than a way to relieve the suffering of dying. It is a way to live.