Morning Musings

I took some time to catch up on my blog reading today, and here's what I'm thinking about...

The New York Times has a beautiful opinion piece from a few days ago titled The Good Short Life. It's written by a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease, who writes thoughtfully and compellingly about deciding to end his life when he's no longer able to take care of himself, rather than have it extended through expensive medical care. It reminded me of a film that came out recently that I want to see, How to Die in Oregon, about the same thing. I think Clendinen, the author of the New York Times piece, is right that we don't really know how to deal with death. Thinking about it makes me kind of uncomfortable, but I appreciated his honesty and his beautiful writing.

Treehugger has a post about a city that offers people the opportunity to trade in their car in exchange for a lifetime of free public transit. As someone who aspires to live in the city and never own a car, I love that idea - though, I guess as someone who hopes to never own a car, I would also never qualify for the free transit! Damn. Still, I think it's a good idea in that it'll reduce the number of cars in use and increase demand for public transportation, which will hopefully allow their public transit system to grow and be more efficient. I do wonder if it might be best for an offer like that to include access to a program like ZipCar - using public transit takes very careful planning, and there are situations where you need to be able to get somewhere quickly on your own terms, I think.

Finally, today's Cheat Sheet at the Daily Beast featured the headline "Wife Cuts Off Husband's Penis." This made me roll my eyes and wonder why I was supposed to care, but then it occurred to me: Why are stories like this of wives' violence against their husbands so much more talked about and widely publicized than (much more common) violence by husbands against wives? Lorena Bobbit was often referenced in high school, but I can't think of any men equally infamous for attacking their wives, and I'm sure it's not that they don't exist. How strange...