BOBBEE BEE: (PTSD) 33 Strategies of WAR

We present everything you need to know about facing your foes, and all of life's battles, based on the book The 33 Strategies of War by best-selling author Robert Greene.

Greene has studied countless battles throughout history and pulled together the need-to-know strategies that can also be used for "winning the subtle social game of everyday life."

SELF-DIRECTED WARFARE

The first 4 strategies are all about getting your head in the game.

The mind is the starting point of all war and all strategy...

Declare war on your enemies

The Polarity Strategy

Life is endless battle and conflict, and you cannot fight effectively unless you can identify your enemies.

Learn to smoke out your enemies, to spot them by the signs and patterns that reveal hostility.
Then, once you have them in your sights, inwardly declare war.

Your enemies can fill you with purpose and direction.

Do not fight the past

The Guerrilla-War-Of-The-Mind Strategy

What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past. You must consciously force yourself to react to the present moment. Be ruthless on yourself; do not repeat the same tired methods.

Wage guerrilla war on your mind, allowing no static lines of defense — make everything fluid and mobile.

Amidst the turmoil of events, do not lose your presence of mind

The Counterbalance Strategy

In the heat of battle, the mind tends to lose its balance. It is vital to keep you presence of mind, maintaining your mental powers, whatever the circumstances. Make the mind tougher by exposing it to adversity. Learn to detach yourself from the chaos of the battlefield.

Create a sense of urgency and desperation

The Death-Ground Strategy

You are your own worst enemy. You waste previous time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Cut your ties to the past — enter unknown territory. Place yourself on "death ground", where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive.

ORGANIZATIONAL (TEAM) WARFARE

The next 3 strategies are about making the most of your team.

Ideas and tactics mean nothing without an organized, responsive, creative, and motivated army.  

Avoid the snares of groupthink

The Command-And-Control Strategy

The problem in leading any group is that people inevitably have their own agendas.

You have to create a chain of command in which they do not feel constrained by your influence yet follow your lead. Create a sense of participation, but do not fall into groupthink — the irrationality of collective decision making.

Segment your forces

The Controlled-Chaos Strategy

The critical elements in war are speed and adaptability — the ability to move and make decisions faster than the enemy.

Break forces into independent groups that can operate on their own.
Make your forces elusive and unstoppable by infusing them with the spirit of the campaign, giving them a mission to accomplish, and then letting them run.

Transform your war into a crusade

Morale Strategy

The secret to motivating people and maintaining their morale is to get them to think less about themselves and more about the group. Involve them in a cause, a crusade against a hated enemy. Make them see their survival as tied to the success of the army as a whole.

DEFENSIVE WARFARE

The next four strategies will reveal defensive warfare is the height of strategic wisdom — a powerful style of waging war.

Get ready to master the arts of deception.

Pick your battles carefully

The Perfect-Economy Strategy

We all have limitations — our energies and skills will take us only so far.

You must know your limits and pick your battles carefully. Consider the hidden costs of war: time lost, political goodwill squandered, an embittered enemy bent on revenge. Sometimes it is better to wait, to undermine your enemies covertly rather than hitting them straight on.

Turn the tables

The Counterattack Strategy

Moving first — initiating the attack — will often put you at a disadvantage: You are exposing your strategy and limiting your options.
Instead, discover the power of holding back and letting the other side move first, giving you the flexibility to counterattack from any angle.
If your opponents are aggressive, bait them into a rash attack that will leave them in a weak position.

Create a threatening presence

Deterrence Strategies

The best way to fight off aggressors is to keep them from attacking you in the first place. Build up a reputation: You're a little crazy. Fighting you is not worth it. Uncertainty is sometimes better than overt threat: If your opponents are never sure what messing with you will cost, they will not want to find out.

Trade space for time

The Non-Engagement Strategy

To retreat in the face of a strong enemy is not a sign of weakness but of strength.

By resisting the temptation to respond to an aggressor, you buy yourself valuable time — time to recover, to think, to gain perspective.

Sometimes you can accomplish most by doing nothing.

OFFENSIVE WARFARE

The next 11 strategies outline the form of warfare practiced by the most successful captains in history. 

The secret to their success is a blend of strategic cleverness and audacity — it will give all of your attacks much greater force.

Lose battles but end the war

Grand Strategy

It's the art of looking beyond the battle and calculating ahead.

It requires that you focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.

Let others get caught up in the twists and turns of the battle, relishing their little victories.
Grand strategy will bring you the ultimate reward: the last laugh.

Know your enemy

The Intelligence Strategy

The target of your strategies should be less the army you face than the mind or women who runs it. If you understand how that mind works, you have the key to deceiving and controlling it. Train yourself to read people, picking up the signals they unconsciously send about their innermost thoughts and intentions.

Overwhelm resistance with speed and suddenness

The Blitzkrieg Strategy

In a world in which many people are indecisive and overly cautious, the use of speed will bring you untold power.

Striking first, before your opponents have time to think or prepare, will make them emotional, unbalanced, and prone to error.

Control the dynamic

Forcing Strategies

People are constantly struggling to control you. The only way to get the upper hand is to make your play for control more intelligence and insidious. Instead of trying to dominate the other side's every move, work to define the nature of the relationship itself.

Maneuver to control your opponents' minds, pushing their emotional buttons and compelling them to make mistakes.

Hit them where it hurts

The Center-Of-Gravity Strategy

Everyone has a source of power on which he or she depends. When you look at your rivals, search below the surface for that source, the center of gravity that holds the entire structure together.

Hitting them there will inflict disproportionate pain.

Find what the other side most cherishes and protects — that is where you must strike.

Defeat them in denial

The Divide-And-Conquer Strategy

Never be intimated by your enemy's appearance. Instead, look at the parts that make up the whole. By separating the parts, sowing dissension and division, you can bring down even the most formidable foe.

When you are facing troubles or enemies, turn a large problem into small, eminently defeatable parts.

Expose and attack your opponent's soft flank

The Turning Strategy

When you attack people directly, you stiffen their resistance and make your task that much harder. There is a better way: Distract your opponents' attention to the front, then attack them from the side, where they least expect it.

Bait people into going out on a limb exposing their weakness, then rake them with fire from the side.

Envelop the enemy

The Annihilation Strategy

People will use any kind of gap in your defenses to attack you. So offer no gaps. The secret is to envelop your opponents — create relentless pressure on them from all sides and close off their access to the outside world.

As you send their weakening resolve, crush their willpower by tightening the noose.

Maneuver them into weakness

The Ripening-For-The-Sickle Strategy

No matter how strong you are, fighting endless battles with people is exhausting, costly, and unimaginative. Wise strategist prefer the art of maneuver: Before the battle even begins, they find ways to put their opponents in positions of such weakness that victory is easy and quick. Create dilemmas: Devise maneuvers that give them a choice of ways to respond — all of them bad.

Negotiate while advancing

The Diplomatic-War Strategy

Before and during negotiations, you must keep advancing, creating relentless pressure and compelling the other side to settle on your terms.

The more you take, the more you can give back in meaningless concessions.

Create a reputation for being tough and uncompromising, so that people are back on their heels before they even meet you.

Know how to end things
 

The Exit Strategy

You are judged in this world by how well you bring things to an end. A messy or incomplete conclusion can reverberate for years to come.

The art of ending things well is knowing when to stop.

The height of strategic wisdom is to avoid all conflicts and entanglements from which there are no realistic exits.

UNCONVENTIONAL (DIRTY) WARFARE

The following 11 strategies will give a greater understanding of the diabolical psychology involved in dirty warfare, helping to arm you with the proper defense.

It gets nasty.  

Weave a seamless blend of fact and fiction

Misconception Strategies

Since no creature can survive without the ability to see or sense what is going on around it, make it hard for your enemies to know what is going on around them, including what you are doing. Feed their expectations, manufacture a reality to match their desires, and they will fool themselves. Control people's perceptions of reality and you control them.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Take the line of least expectation

The Ordinary-Extraordinary Strategy

People expect your behavior to conform to known patterns and conventions. Your task as a strategist is to upset their expectations.

First do something ordinary and conventional to fix their image of you, then hit them with the extraordinary.

The terror is greater for being so sudden. Sometimes the ordinary is extraordinary because it is unexpected.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Occupy the moral high ground

The Righteous Strategy

In a political world, the cause you are fighting for must seem more than just the enemy's. By questioning your opponents' motives and making them appear evil, you can narrow their base of support and room to maneuver.

When you find yourself come under moral attack from a clever enemy, do not whine or get angry; fight fire with fire.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Deny them targets

The Strategy Of The Void
 

The feeling of emptiness or void — silence, isolation, non-engagement with others — is for most people intolerable.

Give your enemies no target to attack, be dangerous but elusive, then watch as they chase you into the void.

Instead of frontal battles, deliver irritating but damaging side attacks and pinprick bites.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Seem to work for the interests of others while furthering your own

The Alliance Strategy

The best way to advance your cause with the minimum of effort and bloodshed is to create a constantly shifting network of alliances, getting others to compensate for your deficiencies, do your dirty work, fight your wars. At the same time, you must work to sow dissension in the alliances of others, weakening your enemies by isolating them.

Give your rivals enough rope to hang themselves

 

The One-Upmanship Strategy

Life's greatest dangers often come not from external enemies but from our supposed colleagues and friend who pretend to work for the common cause while scheming to sabotage us. Work to instill doubts and insecurities in such rivals, getting them to think too much and act defensively. Make them hang themselves through their own self-destructive tendencies, leaving you blameless and clean.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Take small bites

The Fait Accompli Strategy

Overt power grabs and sharp rises to the top are dangerous, creating envy, distrust, and suspicion. Often the best solution is to take small bites, swallow little territories, playing upon people's relatively short attention spans. Before people realize it, you have accumulated an empire.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Penetrate their minds

Communication Strategies

Communication is a kind of war, its field of battle is the resistant and defensive minds of the people you want to influence.


The goal is to penetrate their defenses and occupy their minds. Learn to infiltrate your ideas behind enemy lines, sending messages through little details, luring people into coming to the conclusions you desire and into thinking they've gotten there by themselves.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Destroy from within

The Inner-Front Strategy

By infiltrating your opponents' ranks, working from within to bring them down, you give them nothing to see or react against — the ultimate advantage. To take something you want, do not fight those who have it, but rather join them — then either slowly make it your own or wait for the moment to stage a coup d'état.

Dominate while seeming to submit

The Passive-Aggression Strategy

In a world where political considerations are paramount, the most effective form of aggression is the best hidden one: aggression behind a compliant, even loving exterior. To follow the passive-aggression strategy you must seem to go along with people, offering no resistance. But actually you dominate the situation. Just make sure you have disguised your aggression enough that you can deny it exists.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

Sow uncertainty and panic through acts of terror

The Chain-Reaction Strategy

Terror is the ultimate way to paralyze a people's will to resist and destroy their ability to plan a strategic response.


The goal in a terror campaign is not battlefield victory but causing maximum chaos and provoking the other side into desperate overreaction. To plot the most effective counter-strategy, victims of terror must stay balanced. One's rationality is the last line of defense.

Source: Robert Greene's The 33 Strategies of War.

A soldier's greatest weapon is himself

 

BOBBEE BEE: Coping Tips for Siblings and Adult Children of Persons with Mental Illness

If you find it difficult to come to terms with your sibling's or parent's mental illness, there are many others who share your difficulty.

Most siblings and adult children of people with psychiatric disorders find that mental illness in a brother, sister, or parent is a tragic event that changes everyone's life in many basic ways.

Strange, unpredictable behavior in a loved one can be devastating, and your anxiety can be high as you struggle with each episode of illness and worry about the future. It seems impossible at first, but most siblings and adult children find that over time they do gain the knowledge and skills to cope with mental illness effectively. They do have strengths they never knew they had, and they can meet situations they never even anticipated. A good start in learning to cope is to find out as much as possible about mental illness, both by reading and talking with other families.

NAMI has books, pamphlets, fact sheets, and tapes available about different illnesses, treatments, and issues you may have to deal with, and you can join one of the 1,200 NAMI affiliate groups throughout the nation.

(For other resources and contact information about your state and local NAMI affiliates, call the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800/950-6264)

The following are some things to remember that should help you as you learn to live with mental illness in your family.

• You cannot cure a mental disorder for a parent or sibling
• No one is to blame for the illness
• Mental disorders affect more than the person who is ill.
• Despite your best efforts, your loved one's symptoms may get worse, or they may improve.
• If you feel extreme resentment, you are giving too much.
• It is as hard for the parent or sibling to accept the disorder as it is for other family members
• Acceptance of the disorder by all concerned may be helpful, but it is not necessary.
• A delusion has little or nothing to do with reality, so it needs no discussion.
• Separate the person from the disorder.
• It is not OK for you to be neglected. You have emotional needs and wants, too.
• The illness of a family member is nothing to be ashamed of. The reality is that you will likely encounter stigma from an apprehensive public.
• You may have to revise your expectations of the ill person.
• You may have to renegotiate your emotional relationship with the ill person.
• Acknowledge the remarkable courage your sibling or parents may show when dealing with a mental disorder.
• Generally, those closest in sibling order and gender become emotionally enmeshed while those further out become estranged.
• Grief issues for siblings are about what you had and lost. For adult children, they are about what you never had.
• After denial, sadness, and anger comes acceptance. The addition of understanding yields compassion.
  
• It is absurd to believe you may correct a biological illness such as diabetes, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder with talk, although addressing social complications may be helpful.
• Symptoms may change over time while the underlying disorder remains.
• You should request the diagnosis and its explanation from professionals.
• Mental health professionals have varied degrees of competence.
• You have a right to ensure your professional safety.
• Strange behavior is a symptom of the disorder. Don't take it personally.
• Don't be afraid to ask your sibling or parent if he or she is thinking about hurting him or herself. Suicide is real.
• Don't shoulder the whole responsibility for your mentally disordered relative yourself.
• You are not a paid professional caseworker. Your role is to be a sibling or child, not a parent or caseworker.
• The needs of the ill person do not necessarily always come first.
• It is important to have boundaries and to set clear limits.
• Just because a person has limited capabilities doesn't mean that you expect nothing of him or her.
• It is natural to experience many and confusing emotions such as grief, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, hurt, confusion and more. You, not the ill person, are responsible for your own feelings.

• Inability to talk about your feelings may leave you stuck or "frozen."
• You are not alone. Sharing your thoughts and feelings in a support group has been helpful and enlightening for many.
• Eventually you may see the silver lining in the storm clouds: your own increased awareness, sensitivity, receptivity, compassion, and maturity. You may become less judgmental and self-centered, a better person.

Permission is granted for this fact sheet to be reproduced in its entirety, but it must include the NAMI name and contact.

BOBBEE BEE: BACK FROM HAVANA

With his latest release My Personality is Borderline, people are starting to believe all the hype surrounding this mystery MC, who seemed to have come out of nowhere with his highly anticipated album Pocket Full of Ghetto Poems.

The so-called Carolina Rap Cat, from Magnolia, claims to have his mojo back and plans to deliver more mind-altering songs that push his listeners to the edge, with more thought provoking themes and videos.

Matter of fact, after hanging-out with some of his friends in Georgia at D'Cuban, a Cuban restaurant, which specializes in Caribbean cuisine, the self-proclaimed Black Poetry writer, who is known by some as "Steel Magnolia,"  felt inspired to pen a song entitled Guerrilla Prince, which is somewhat about the controversial Cuba Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

"This song Guerrilla Prince continues my revolutionary theme for the album/mixtape..."said the Radio and Television/Mass Communication major from Winston-Salem State University.

"Plus, it allows me to challenge myself creatively to try to rhyme over different percussions and instruments as well as educate the masses about the African-Cuban connection.

With Graham trying to broaden his scope and take his music international,while exploring different subject matters, he has a big recording session coming up in November in order to finish the project with his friend Supreme DJ NYBorn at Payroll Studios in High Point.

"I will probably release a few more songs by way of SoundCloud on Facebook before I buckle down on preparing to release the mixtape for purchase, which probably will be released at the beginning of the New Year." said Graham, who stays busy drawing his controversial cartoon Bobbee Bee "The Hater" for Black Athlete Sports Network, which he hopes to re-instate with all new espiodes next week.

"Man, I got some really good songs....But, I am still doing some test run on Facebook, in order to see what the people are feeling."

Up next, according to the Rap Professor, are song titles which include: Illuminati, I Got My Mojo Back, Too Cool For School, Black Women Sing The Blues, I am a True Master and One Day We Will All Be Free.

However, all this is subject to change like the whether.
But, I Can't wait!!

It's going to be a Hot Winter and a Cold Summer!!!

Plus, I gotta Pocket Full of Ghetto Poems in my back pocket.

 

BOBBEE BEE: 5 STAGES OF GRIEF?

Grief is a somewhat complicated and misunderstood emotion. Yet, grief is something that, unfortunately, we must all experience at some time or other. We will all inevitably experience loss. Whether it is a loss through death, divorce or some other loss, the stages of grieving are the same.

 
There are five stages of grief. If we get stuck in one stage or the other, the process of grieving is not complete, and cannot be complete. Thus there will be no healing.

A person MUST go through the five stages to be well again, to heal. Not everyone goes through the stages at the same time. It is different for each person.

You cannot force a person through the stages, they have to go at their own pace, and you may go one step forward then take two steps backward, but this is all part of the process, and individual to each person. But, as stressed, ALL five stages must be completed for healing to occur.

THE 5 STAGES OF GRIEF AND DEATH:

1-Denial-"this can't be happening to me", looking for the former spouse in familia places, or if it is death, setting the table for the person or acting as if they are still in living there. No crying. Not accepting or even acknowledging the loss.

2-Anger-"why me?", feelings of wanting to fight back or get even with spouse of divorce, for death, anger at the deceased, blaming them for leaving.

3-Bargaining-bargaining often takes place before the loss. Attempting to make deals with the spouse who is leaving, or attempting to make deals with God to stop or change the loss. Begging, wishing, praying for them to come back.

4-Depression-overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, frustration, bitterness, self pity, mourning loss of person as well as the hopes, dreams and plans for the future. Feeling lack of control, feeling numb. Perhaps feeling suicidal.

5-Acceptance-there is a difference between resignation and acceptance. You have to accept the loss, not just try to bear it quietly. Realization that it takes two to make or break a marriage.

Realization that the person is gone (in death) that it is not their fault, they didn't leave you on purpose. (even in cases of suicide, often the deceased person, was not in their right frame of mind) Finding the good that can come out of the pain of loss, finding comfort and healing. Our goals turn toward personal growth. Stay with fond memories of person.

Get help. You will survive. You will heal, even if you cannot believe that now, just know that it is true. To feel pain after loss is normal. It proves that we are alive, human. But we can't stop living.

We have to become stronger, while not shutting off our feelings for the hope of one day being healed and finding love and/or happiness again.

Helping others through something we have experienced is a wonderful way to fascilitate our healing and bring good out of something
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If you like what you are learning, please leave a comment at lbiass34@yahoo.com and read our new children's book entitled "A SAD DAY FOR JOSE"

BOBBEE BEE: 11 MYTHS ABOUT DEATH

By Charles Meyer

From Baby Doe to gerontology, medical decision making the area of the withholding, refusing or withdrawing life support has become increasingly difficult.

New technology has had the most obvious impact as patients, families and physicians are offered more and ever new diagnostic and life-prolonging equipment.

CAT scanners are being supplanted by Magnetic Resonance Imagery using no radiation. Lasers are treating everything from eyes to arteries.

Twenty week fetuses that were considered untreatable are now kept alive with new respiratory equipment.

But even though technology has increased our treatment options for trauma and long-term illnesses, it is usually not the determining factor in making decisions. Rather, there exist a set of subtle, extremely powerful myths about death which inform and direct our choices regarding life support. These myths are indicative of the collective beliefs about life and death in U.S. culture.

They are frequently used as impediments to decision making. Whether based on medical tradition, social obligation or religious teaching, the death myths influencing our decisions are indelibly embedded within the collective psyche.

They flash through our minds when the doctor tells us the patient’s condition is poor. They are the screens through which we hear the diagnosis of serious illness. They are standards against which we weigh our response to a terminal prognosis. The death myths most prominent in our culture are:

1. Only old people die.
   

   

   
   

Conversely stated, “Young people should not die.” Neither assumption is true. Anyone who has experience in hospitals knows that death is no respecter of age, and there is no guarantee of lifespan given with conception.

Further, it is ageism at its worst to think an old person has “lived his/her life” and is more accepting or more deserving of death than a younger counterpart. In fact, it is entirely possible for the situation to be quite the reverse; the aged person may be more vital and have more to live for than the youth.

This myth can result in young person’s being subjected to extraordinary efforts from intubation to chemotherapy just because they are young or old persons prematurely being denied further treatment because they are old. The myth also serves to reinforce our own wish for a long life, and to defend against our fear of our own death coming “prematurely.” Whether we like it or not, people of all ages die.



Each death is sad, tragic, and acceptable or a relief based on the quality of the person’s life and the kinds of relationships s/he had. Each situation, therefore, needs to be evaluated on those criteria, not on myth that presumes it is “okay” for old persons to die, perhaps intimidating that the elderly want to die or even ought to die.

2. Medicine can cure everything.

Even in the face of long-term illness when the patient is finally about to die, panicked family members frequently ask, “Can’t you do something?” This reflects a strong expectation that medicine can find and cure all illness and physicians are or should be omniscient. Most physicians do not act to reinforce this image.

The myth persists because we want to believe that drugs, medical technology, and their physician purveyors can prevent or cure the effects of disease, aging and self-inflicted injury (smoking, diet, lifestyle). In addition, the medical community has frequently oversold the efficacy or advisability of a particular technical or therapeutic “breakthrough.”

Thus, particularly Western culture have acquired unrealistically high expectations of what technology can do. The current promotion of the artificial heart is the latest example of such a media event. Heedless of the availability, advisability and ruinous financial cost of such a devise, the heart is proffered as another example of medical technology’s ability to cheat death-and so this myth is reinforced. It is more honest to be realistic with patients and ourselves about the limits of tests, treatments, medications, and prognoses.

3. Life is always the highest value.

The initial presumption in nearly any accident or illness is always in favor of preserving life. But once the patient is stabilized and the prognosis is clear, other considerations take effect. It is at this point that the meaning and quality of life as the patient experiences them are of the highest value in making the hard decisions of treatment and life support. However, most family members or friends do not know what the patient values because they’ve never talked about what the patient wants done in terms of life support, organ donations, or experimental treatments. It is almost as though people hear this myth as a religious command-an injunction from God to keep breathing. In fact, in nearly every religious system, while longevity is highly value supports our own refusal to see death as an acceptable outcome for the patient-and for ourselves.

4. Money should not be consideration.

Many people believe it is crass and insensitive to give the cost of treatment any weight in medical decision making. In our “bottom line” society they emotionally recoil at the prospect of finances determining treatment, preferring to spend “whatever is necessary” to save the life of a loved one. But what of the young couple whose baby is dying, yet can be kept alive a few more hours or days in our high tech Intensive Care Nurseries?

Or the elderly woman maintained by a respirator in ICU whose husband is barely subsisting on Social Security? And what of the use of medical resources devoted to these dying patients (not just for comfort but for continuing active treatment that is much more than palliative) that could be used for taking care of other, curable patients, for research, or for reducing hospital costs for everyone? The honest, if uncomfortable, truth is that money is already a consideration. It will continue to play an even greater role as healthcare rationing becomes a reality given a limited amount of resources and a virtually unlimited demand.

Yet, sensitively done, consideration of the family’s or patient’s financial situation is a very caring gesture, as is weighing the effect of treatment on the cost of healthcare to the entire community, indeed to the nation.

5. Death is evil.

Death means failure.

While the church is responsible for promoting the former myth, the medical/healthcare profession is responsible for the persistence of the latter. Many people, desperately attempting to make some kind of logical sense out of their illness, have been told by the religious community that good is always rewarded and evil is always punished. They then extrapolate that since they are sick or dying, they must have done something bad to incur the punishment of a wrathful God. In fact, the sickness and death are amoral occurrences. They have nothing to do with good/bad, right/wrong, punishment/reward.

We get sick.

We die.

Welcome to Earth.

The death rate here is 100%.

One out of one dies.

The only thing “good” or “bad” about death is the manner in which one responds to it. Death, like about death is the manner in which one responds to it. Death, like any other amoral occurrence is merely an occasion for good or evil to become manifest. That manifestation is shown in our response to the event, not in the event itself. Likewise death has nothing to do with failure. Assuming one has done everything necessary (not possible, but compatible with life,” it is understandable that the person dies.”

The death has nothing to do with good/bad, right/wrong, punishment/reward.

We get sick. We die. Welcome to Earth. The death rate is 100%. One out of one dies. The only thing “good” or “bad” about death is the manner in which one responds to it.

Death, like any other amoral occurrence is merely an occasion for good or evil to become manifest. That manifestation is shown in our response to the event, not in the event itself. Likewise death has nothing to do with failure.

Assuming one has done everything necessary (not possible, but necessary) and the patient’s condition is said to be “incompatible with life, “it is understandable that the person dies. The death has nothing to do with the ability of the physician or nursing staff. In fact, it seems the height of arrogance to assume that we (patient, family or physician) have “failed” when death, a natural process, has followed its normal route.

This does not imply that death is not often sad, angering, relieving, unfair, or crushing. It is all this and more in emotional terms. The problem arises in treating death as though it should not happen, denying it as a logical, even acceptable outcome of the patient’s illness.

Death might more easily be tolerated if we saw it as a form a healing. Death as healing transposes its symbolic meaning from that of evil enemy to that of an acceptable, and at times even welcomed, friend.

6. Where there’s life there’s hope.

The myth is patently untrue.

Where there’s life there is quite often the opposite of hope-agony, fear, excruciating pain, anger, frustration, loneliness and despair. The sentiment really expressed here is that where there is biological activity there is reason for optimism that the person may recover, even against all odds.

The questions to be asked are: “What is life?” and “What is hope?”

Is life merely the exchange of air being forced into stiffening lungs, or blood being pumped inside a human cavity? Is it biological activity mechanically produced or substantially supported? Again, the quality of life standard (as judged by the patient if competent or by the patient’s significant others if incompetent) applies.

Increasing numbers of people believe that life is not life if there is no quality of relating, of experiencing and enjoying, of being. “Hope,” also, is quite often confused with “optimism.” Optimism demands the patients get well (not just better) and return to the former state of health. The meaning of hope, on the other hand, was expressed by a cancer patient who commented: “It’s okay with me if I live and it’s okay with me if I die.

Because either place I’m loved.” Hope implies that death is as acceptable an outcome to one’s condition as life. Hope embraces and affirms both life and death as parts of a greater whole of existence.

Hope sees life not as parts of a greater whole of existence.

Hope sees life not a problem to be solved but as a mystery to be lived, and death as a part of that mystery.

7. Suffering is redemptive.

Some people will refuse pain medication, withholding the palliative measures needed to they see the suffering as cleansing, deserved, or redemptive.

Usually based on a conservative theological or philosophical tradition, followers of this myth conquer their own helplessness in the face of illness and death by assuming discomfort and pain are spiritually or psychologically helpful to the patient.

It is sometimes true that suffering can be an occasion for redemption, for the healing of memories, relationships, hurts, fears, or guilts. Pain and illness often are the precipitators of change in behavior or perspective on the person’s lifestyle. But suffering is also quite often the occasion for unquenchable bitterness, debilitating despair, collapse of faith and disintegration of personhood.

Once again, in an attempt to make sense of an illness, people want to believe there is some purpose, some plan, some reason for the horrible suffering they or their loved ones are enduring, But suffering as related to illness in the hospital is as amoral as the virus, bacteria or bodily condition that is the cause.

8. You don't lie until your number comes up.

This myth reduces God to the clerk in the deli section of the local supermarket. The implication, of course, is that God personally decides the time of death for each individual based on some unknown formula having something vaguely to do with guilt, suffering, retribution and, only occasionally, with mercy. Thus it is thought to be inappropriate to make life support decisions because the person will die when God is ready. The truth is that people largely choose their time of death. People die around anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and meaningful days for them: and they often wait to die until their loved ones leave the room. To believe this myth is to posit an all-controlling, capricious God, and to avoid responsibility for life support decisions.

9. It is God's will.

This myth covers everything from birth defects to hemorrhoids. It assumes powerlessness and futility on the part of patients and families to decide life support issues. Yet people would rather believe it than to accept personal responsibility for illness or the capriciousness of disease. This myth is not only a convenient method of avoiding the life support issues, but also reinforces a system of healthcare that leaves all decisions in the hands of the medical practitioners. In fact, it is theologically inconsistent to believe that a loving compassionate God wants people sick or dead. Probably the best discussion of this myth is found in Leslie Weatherhead's book entitled, appropriately enough, "The Will of God."

10. Pulling the plug is suicide/murder.

Many people refuse to make a decision to withdraw hydration, nutrition or respiratory maintenance because they believe such an act constitutes murder. Likewise, to designate a personal directive such as a Living Will may seem tantamount to suicide. The underlying presupposition is that it is improper to take any control one's own death. To do so is to usurp the power and prerogative of all-controlling God.

In fact, not to decide is to decide.

Not to make a Living Will or withdraw artificial support mechanisms is to decide to abdicate responsibility. It is to relegate the burden of decision making to someone (physician, hospital, committee, court) less qualified to make it, and refuse to accept our ability and responsibility as "co-creators with God" to share in the rational determination of our destiny.

One could just as easily argue that not to "pull the plug" or make a Living Will designation is to stand in the way of Nature, God or the normal procession of life to death.

11. To die of hydration or starvation in a hospital is inhumane, cruel and immortal.

When many people think of food and drink they imagine sitting down at a table with barbecue and beer (at least in Texas we do.) But that image is vastly different from the reality of the dying patient, or even the vegetative non-dying patient, who is maintained by artificial nutrition and artificial hydration. Instead, picture blue humming boxes sucking high calorie pastel liquid from bags and bottles and forcing it through clear plastic tubing into patient's nose or directly into the stomach or intestine. This artificial support is parallel to the use of a respirator that artificially pumps air in and out of failing lungs.

For increasing numbers of people, to dehydration or starvation while being kept comfortable with the large array of palliative drugs is far preferable and much more humane than the prolonged dying by incessant medical intervention that is demanded of patients by misinformed relatives and practitioners. It is clear that these death myths at one time served a proper and meaningful role in medical decision making.

As a part of our previous presuppositions about life, death and medicine, these myths stood to call all the available resources to the service of life at any cost.

 At a time when the technological armamentarium was minimal and the major courses of treatment were palliative, the myth prescribed and underscored the medical/legal/theological ethical system of their day. But current technology has changed the perspective about and meaning of the concepts of life, death and medicine.

At these concepts are revised in light of even newer treatment options, we will need to develop a different, more flexible set of "death myths" to guide our decisions. Different from the old, the following guidelines facilitate, rather than impede, decision making in the area of withdrawing, withholding, or refusing life support.



Aggressively seek information.

Good decisions begin good facts.

Patients and families need to talk to the physician, and listen actively, critically when s/he answers. Many families complain that their physician did not tell them everything, when in fact they themselves did not want to hear and did not listen.

They need to ask as many questions as necessary. The physician works for them and they have a right to know all of the information gathered. They are also free to get a second opinion, or even a third given the time constraints. Many physicians will request or encourage another opinion anyway. Having heard their best experienced conclusions as to diagnosis and prognosis, the decision regarding treatment and life support is then up to the patient/family. Aim for a balance. If the patient is competent, one ought to consider first what s/he wants done. If the patient is incompetent it will be up to the significant other to determine what the patient would want done. In every situation the wishes of the patient should be given priority and honored wherever possible. Next, balance off the wants and needs of the patient with those of the family.

It is important that no unilateral decision be made. Both the desires of the patient and the desires of the family/significant other needs to be considered and a consensus carefully reached. Sometimes it is appropriate to consider the needs of the larger community as well:e.g.

Will this expenditure of healthcare (respirator, neonatal or ICU bed space, dialysis, heart surgery) limit the available resources for less catastrophically ill patients? Consider the ethnic of love and the ethnic of need. Jesus suggestion that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves implies putting ourselves in the position of the person whom life support is about to be withdrawn.

What is the most loving thing to do (for the patient, family, community) this situation? Another major ethical premise of the Old and New Testaments is always to come down on the side of the needy, dispossessed and helpless.

It may, of course, be difficult to determine who is the most needy in the particular situation. (Is it the dying infant, the grieving family, the respirator-bound adult, the anguishing spouse?) But, combined with the ethnic of love, the ethnic of need can be a helpful tool for clarifying decisions. Can does not imply ought. This clearly revolutionary maxim is nearly anti-Western. The West was built on "can implies ought." If we could build a railroad across the country, we ought to do so. If we can put a person on the moon, in a space station, on another planet, we ought to do it. Our new medical technology, however, is permitting us to do things that in some cases we ought not to do. Boundaries will have to be carefully drawn using this statement as a guide, particularly in the realm of life support decision making.



When faced at the bedside with a decision about withdrawing, withholding or refusing machines, I.V's or CPR, this maxim may assist many persons in allowing death to take its natural course. Be there. Continuity and support are viral. Whether you are the caregiver or the significant other, don't just make the decision and leave. Often families decide to withdraw treatment and then quickly absent themselves from the scene.

Likewise caregivers participate as helpers in the high drama of the decision making and then find other things to do. While the decision is itself important, it is of equal import to support that decision with contact and constant support. Be by the bedside of the dying patient, or the patient who has made withdrawal or withholding of treatment decision. Agonize with them, cry with them, remember with them as they lay dying. Of course it is difficult to be present as the wishes of the patient or family are carried out, respirators removed, dialysis stopped. But for all involved-patient, family and staff-it will help preserve the dignity and love with which the decision was made. What is medically or legally right may not be ethically right. Just because a procedure is medically "indicated" or legally "propitious" does not mean it is the procedure or action of ethical choice.

Such decisions are frequently relegated by default to medical and legal personnel on the assumption that these persons have some expertise in determining the appropriateness of a particular action. Patients and families, especially in a crisis, may turn first to external guidelines from physicians or attorneys hoping to find some solid ground on which to base their opinion of what is "right."

Often it is only after some confusing, disappointing or conflicting medico-legal advice that they begin to ask what is "right" for this person, given who s/he is and what s/he wanted. It seems clear that the basis for moral decision making must be primarily other than legal and medical, though those disciplines may offer helpful information. The place to start is with the desire of the patient. Death is a form of healing.

As stated earlier, rather than the evil enemy to be battled at any cost, death can be seen as a form of healing: a logical, even welcome alternative to a debilitating life. To view death in this manner requires a broader perspective on life, and assumes an attitude of acceptance of both life and death as a part of a larger existence. The more we will treat our terminally ill patients with the respect and dignity that their dying demands. The Bible is not a model for morality. It is a mirror for identity.

There is not much information about respirators in Genesis, Leviticus, or Revelation. It is clearly inappropriate to look to the Bible to tell us specifically what to do. It is, however, important to look into the Bible to tell us specifically what to do. It is, however, important to look into the Bible as a mirror to see who we are, to determine what kind of covenant people we are with our peculiar God, to watch how we interact with God and one another, and to use that information to make our ethical decisions more in line with the historical tradition and reality. Examine your own death.

How many people reading this article have: a legal, binding will? A durable power of attorney? A Living Will? Made their funeral arrangements and paid for them? Made a decision regarding organ donation? Are registered with an organ bank or procurement agency so that donation is likely to happen? Often those persons who claim to be on the forefront of assisting others in ethical decision making have done little regarding their own death. Studies have shown that if people have not faced these issues in their own lives, they are much less likely to even hear persons who are in crisis or dying allude to them.



If we are to be truly helpful to others in exploring the ethical implications of life support decision making, it would be well for each of us to make our own decisions first. The issues discussed here are not theoretical or rhetorical.

The question is not "if" we will have to make decisions, especially about life support, but "when?"

Some 70% of American deaths now occur in healthcare institutions. That means that death is frequently medically assisted and decisional, rather than spontaneous or "natural."

As this medicalization of death continues to grow, we will be forced to make life support decisions more often, either at the time of the dying, or in an advanced directive such as a Living Will. Preparation, especially at the parish level, through education, dialogue, and decision making now will facilitate our decision. If we do not make our choices and preferences known now, then others will make the decisions for us, and we will deserve the kind of technocratic terminal healthcare we will get.

The Rev.Charles Meyer is Assistant Vice President, Patient Services, St. David’s Community Hospital in Austin,Tex.

BOBBEE BEE VS. JASON: Raeding Si Fundermtil

This Friday, Bobbee Bee celebrates (JASON)

J. uly A. ugust S.eptember O.ctober N. ovember by slashing the price of his books. You can get all three books, which include the "classic" In the Mind of Bobee Bee," Larry Longs Legs and A SAD DAY JOSE for only $50

So if your child is having problems reading DON'T CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN with TRICK OR TREAT candy. Put some books in his or her GOODIE bag! Get our 3 book series "In the Mind of Bobbee Bee and improve your child's reading skills and attitude.

JASON can you read the following?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghitt pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlhoe.
Amzanig huh?

This is why Bobbee Bee's literacy program as well as his series of children's books are so important.

Although most children learn to read, there are a significant number of children who do not read as welll as they must to function in a society that has increasing demands for literacy. Only about 70 percent of students earn their high school diplomas.

Among minority students, only 57.8 percent of Hispanic, 53.4 percent of African American and 49.3 percent of American Indian and Alaska native students in the U.S. graduate with a regular diploma, compared to 76.2 percent of white students and 80.2 percent of Asian Americans.High school students ability to read complex texts is strongly predictive of their performance in college math and science courses. At the nation's four-years colleges, nearly 8 percent of all entering students are required to take at least one remedial reading course. Only about one-third of such students are likely to graduate within eight years.

Poor readers are also more likely to be unemployed or in prison. Fifty-five percent of below-basic readers are unemployed, compared to only 22 percent of proficient readers. Within the prison population, 56 percent of adult prisoners read at or below the basic level, compared to only three percent who read at the proficient level.

To get all the books in the series of In the Mind of Bobbee Bee send money orders $50 money order to PO BOX 172 Magnolia, North Carolina 28453 or e-mail us at lbiass34@yahoo.com


Bobbee Bee Helped Jason Learn to Read in J.uly A. ugust S.eptember O. ctober and N.ovember.
If you have any questions, send them to lbiass34@yahoo.com