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I am man enough to admit that I am a recovering Republican. I am still a conservative person but refuse to associate myself with the GOP after what I experienced over the last few years. None-the-less, I still love listening to Lars Larson for my daily fill of local and national politics.
Over the last few days, Lars has dedicated much of his show to a Veteran’s Administration handbook that walks readers through end of life planning. The booklet focuses on communicating how you would like important medical decisions made if you are unable to answer for yourself. Do you want to survive on life support? How do you personally define life support? Who can speak for you if you are unable? What should that person say on your behalf? How will they know what to say?
I believe the booklet does a great job at diving deeper than just “I don’t want to be hooked up to tubes” when it comes to these important decisions. It records the comfort level of your life now so that those facts can be properly accounted for when someone makes a decision on your behalf. It leaves very little in doubt for you or the person making medical decisions on your behalf.
But Lars says that the handbook is a way for the government to encourage someone to end their life. He says on his web site: “Veterans; Thanks for your service, now go kill yourself” as a way to mock the end of life planning resource provided by the VA. He warns that so called ‘Obamacare’ might have the same principles he claims the VA has: kill yourself to save the government some money.
I disagree. I think the VA handbook was thoughtfully written and appropriately walks people through a tough issue that we will all need to consider at some point. What do you think, does the VA handbook go too far? Are you afraid that Obamacare will “pull the plug on grannie?”
Click here to see a PDF of the handbook.
Listen to Lars Larson every weekday from noon-4pm in Portland’s 750kxl.
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yikes!
Personally I've always questioned Lars Larson's ability to reason or have knowledge on any topic other than blatant selfpromotion.
Hell the man once said mon-ett when talking about the artist (sure I'll agree that knowing pronunciation of foreign names isn't always easy but he was a television reporter at the time, and they're SUPPOSED to know that stuff ahead of time).
Regardless until such time as the GOP or any of their ilk can recognize dialogue is more than fearmongering and abject stupidity they are what's wrong with this country and are far too often the leading cause of the rest of the world thinking we're ignorant fools unworthy of anything but watching tabloid tv.
End of life planning is one of the single most important sets of decisions you can make. It will save you of suffering you don't want, and alleviates the feelings of responsibility and remorse that haunt families who are forced to make these decisions without being able to ask you what your wishes really are.
I don't understand why he's working in media. Really. He was never interesting at all until he came out as a regressive Rush-wanna-be. He makes this stuff up as he goes just rile people up, like Rush. He doesn't use journalistic integrity in his "broadcast", instead he asserts his twisted views and parrots the GOP talking points he's given. Again, like Rush. It is so difficult to face the death issue in our culture. Attacking people facing death or a death in the family to make Obamacare political hay in such a moment of vulnerability is…well, unpatriotic for one thing. I think he lives in a very tiny, frightening, sad world.
Meh. Lars Larson is a partisan hack who lost whatever credibility he might have once had when he decided to carry water for the Bush Administration for eight years. Seriously, Larson defended many Bush Administration actions that would have had him foaming at the mouth if those exact same actions had been done by a Democrat. I mean, if a Democrat authorized warrentless wiretaps, or leaked the identity of a CIA operative, do you really think Larson would have let that slide for one second? Anyone choosing to be honest knows the correct answer to that question. And that answer explains why Larson, to me, has very little credibility. Like all partisan hacks on both sides of the political isle, Larson is all too happy to excuse or under-report the wrongdoings of his own party. But he wastes no time pointing his finger at the perceived misdeeds of the other guys. (And I say "perceived" because at times, Larson has a bit of a skewed sense of things.) ____Which is all too bad. Because at one time (a long time ago), Larson was a decent investigative reporter. But I suspect that the Larson of 25 years ago, would laugh at the highly-partisan, logic-torturing Larson of today.
The last time I listened to this guy's show, he was advocating charging anti-war protesters as terrorists for blocking traffic. To me, sitting in the middle of the street does not merit a minimum 20 year sentence.
After that, I never had the stomach to go back.
I'd rather watch a bugs bunny cartoon than listen to Lars Larson.