The PM Glass Box.
The Glass Box is where the PM team meets in at 18.00 every weeknight to discuss the content of the programme. We stay six feet away from each other.
We try to be honest with each other, but not hurtful, as we talk about what worked and what didn't...what met our expectations and what fell short.
This virtual glass box is where you're encouraged to take part in the same spirit. Tonight's PM editor Briony Harris will read your comments and may well add her own.
Listen to PM
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It aint often I am lost for words but goodness me.
I couldn't do that job, Mr Mair. But, bravo. Euthanasia think tanks?
You on PM have in my opinion tactfully tackled the subject of "assisted suicide" before. But as I said - tactfully.
Dr Philip Nitschke. Well I really don't know, Doctor but I felt uneasy. Very uneasy.
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I listened closely to Dr Phil about the Death Seminars in Bournemouth, waiting to disagree with his outlandish views, but actually found him very reasonable, talking about people making independent and informed decisions, so I had to kick the cat instead
:-(
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I'd like to know what the youth in Asia have to do with it.
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I thought the interview with Dr Nitschke was quite informative. It was interesting to hear that some people who attend his seminars are dissuaded from taking their own lives, and that there are sound procedures in place to prevent the vulnerable and mentally ill from attending his seminars.
Dr Nitschke is providing many sufferers of chronic conditions with important information. It is not right to keep people alive for years when they want to die. The quality of people's lives must be considered together with their express wishes.
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Is the Evening Standard (London) under new ownership, then? Not in the same bed as the Mail any more?
Gosh!
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nikki @ 2: I agree with your comment (apart from cat kicking). Thought Eddie grilled him appropriately but got reasonable answers. Was glad he asked about people who are terminally ill.
It occurred to me that, if Dr. Phil is dealing with suicide in a reasonable manner, perhaps there are things to learn from him. I'm thinking of his comment about death being 'permanent'. So many youngsters take their own life, I suspect with some 'romantic' idea of how they'll be remembered, without any proper comprehension of the finality of their action.
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Hey, Nils.
So we're ignoring the enormous bank losses to come home to roost next year and the effect of government getting it's money back by selling its shares.
And international mining conglomerates are benefiting 'cos China is switching to infrastructure spending. (Highly steel etc using)
So HOW is that justification for 'general optimism' that your contributors always find?
It's 'general optimism' about ....general optimism, ain't it!!!
Ie, a speculative froth.
We should have nationalised the banks outright. Right?
It ain't helping pensions (managers sensibly pulled out of the FTSE Big Dipper ages ago. And the money isn't going to be used for more high street spending, but for further speculations.
It's asset inflation during a slump. Slumpflation.
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Is there any significance in the Swastikas behind Gordon Brown in the news story about him going on Youtube again?
Perhaps appropriate for this government?
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re: Polish workers
Our delivery driver from our wholesaler is Polish and he is an absolute joy. He is trying to teach me colloquial Polish (failing at present!)
One of the English drivers told me that there are a lot of Polish workers in the warehouse and they are very popular with the managers who consider them to be extremely respectful. Apparently if you say "Guv'nor" with a Northern accent it sounds very much like an impolite term in Polish which translates to a word that sounds a bit like banker.
The managers are happy because the Polish workers seem to be showing respect. The Polish guys are happy because (at the moment) they're getting away with it.
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We had a big influx of Polish and other Eastern European workers in Ireland and I have found them universally hard working and polite.
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Israel is fighting for its life. Those who expect Israel to obey the Queensberry rules are deceiving themselves.
Churchill wasn't too bothered about them either.
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Newlach 4
Spot-on...
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norman... 11
You're quite right (again).
The Third World War starts there.
Watch that space...
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OK, I haven't had chance to listen back to the interview with the professor.
Nevertheless,
Euthanasia;
I understand this to be the quickening (assisting) of the death of a person who has a terminal illness and is close to death already. This done to relieve the pysical suffering of the person?
Assisted suicide;
What is this please in relation to Euthanasia?
Someone has also said that the vulnerable and mentally ill should be protected. there are some mentally ill people have committed suicide because they don't want there mental illness anymore. And who are the vulnerable?
The last person to go to Switzerland for assisted death did not have a terminal illness, but was physically disabled.
I am confused as to where the boundaries are, where they are moving, and who makes the decisions. The BMA have come against assisted deaths.
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6.Lady Sue
You are absolutely right, where it comes to the young suicides, many of which are "cry for help" suicide attempts which sometimes go "wrong".
Wearing my qualified psychologist's hat and with some experience in councelling of these cases, I can add that most youngsters are so convinced of their personal immortality, that they visualize still being in control "after death", watching the tears and despair of their guilt-ridden families, and very nearly imagining the TA-DA moment when they will re-emerge into a friendlier and more loving atmosphere, now that they have punished their nearest and dearest enough.
One trick that sometimes works is to convince them that au contraire, they will NOT be in control, and make them laugh. Once, at the frantic family's request, I was roped into 3,5 hours of conversation (in the middle of the Atlantic, on a boat) with their 17 years old son who was rapidly spiralling into his third suicide attempt. I had to listen to his poetic description of opening his veins in a bath, quietly thinking of the person who would make the grisly find.
Then I asked him, "You do know, of course, don't you, what all your family will be doing 15 minutes later? - THEY WILL ALL BE DRINKING TEA! That's what the Brits do when in shock: just think, you could be watching them rattling their cups and slurping, but unable to stop them or say anything." He thought for a while and then roared with laughter. At least for the moment all was well again...
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Your interview of the Israeli spokesman was very good, unlike an appalling interview with an Israeli spokesman on C4 news this evening.
Although I am opposed to euthanasia, I thought that interview was good too.
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14.fJd
Assisted suicide is when the means are provided, but you do the job yourself. In the Dignitas clinic they give you the correct lethal dose, but you must take it with your own hand and drink it yourself. A friend who procures a loaded gun, or a lot of pills is assisting you in the act, but it's your own act.
Euthanasia, also called mercy killing, (this is straight from Britannica) is the putting to death of incurable or terminally ill patients painlessly and at their request. This implies administering the lethal dose to somebody else.
There is a grey area where pain-control in dying patients can tip into mercy killing. When I had cancer and was given no longer than 3 years to live (that was 5 years ago and counting), I was taken to a hospice to be reassured that I can die in dignity and without pain. One of my probing questions was met with a level gaze and a quiet "we control pain at every level". I was immensely reassured that I shall not be allowed to die screaming in agony, even if it hastens my end by a few hours...
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Cossackgirl@15: that was a most interesting comment. I had suspected as much in young suicides and it is good to get your experienced input.
I wonder if there is some way this "real" result could be 'advertised' amongst youngsters in some way, as a deterrent.
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18. Lady Sue
Facebook?!
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Well, yes I suppose Facebook might be used but I was thinking more along the lines of a govt. tv advertising campaign: dead really does mean dead.
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Cossackgirl (17)
Thanks for that. Its the grey areas you mention that is the problem. I don't just think they are in the elderly terminally ill either. If the grey area is only to do with method or are there wider ethics. Again I reiterate, the BMA have come out against assited death.
Lady Sue,
"I wonder if there is some way this "real" result could be 'advertised' amongst youngsters in some way, as a deterrent"
I have to say I find your comment reminiscent of the 'just say no' approach to the drug problem a few years ago. Young people, quite rightly in my opinion, treated it with the contempt it deserved. It was paternalistic and patronising, seen as coming from those who new little of what they were trying to foist on them. I don't think young people need anymore advertising approaches that seek to treat them as little more than an archetypal stereotypes. And at what age does a 'young suicide' stop being a 'young suicide'??
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Lady sue if you are serious about this issue, I suggest you get in touch with a national charity such as MIND who have a branch called 'Young Minds'. I'm sure they would be only too pleased to help you understand the problems and issues surrounding young suicides and how we are all individuals - no matter what our age!
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Lady Sue, (18) My god, did you really type advertise the real result of suicide?
No one on the planet is that stupid
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20/21. Lady Sue and fJd
I fully share with Lady Sue the desire to warn the young, I'd shout from the roof-tops if I thought it would do any good.
But I must say, Lady Sue, that I was not being flippant saying "Facebook" and here I strongly agree with Joe: the young do not pay any heed to official Government propaganda. It's simply not cool.
They are listening to their own gang and to Internet much more than to the good sense offered by older people. The very fact that it is officially offered would by and large stop them paying any attention.
They are putting clear blue water between themselves and the adults, making their own mistakes and learning from them, just as we did at their age. Most people who survive a genuine serious suicide attempt never do it again, even if it leaves them disfigured.
Joe, I would say a "young suicide" would be below adult age, a teenager and a youngster to the age of 21, approx.
This is not the same as somebody dying "young", which can be said of people in their thirties and these days even forties.
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Cossackgirl (24)
I knew you would know what I meant over the advertising thing.
I was also being a bit sarcastic about the age of a young suicide. I just felt the approach was kind of demeaning to the suicidal actions of a young person as opposed to say someone older or vice versa saying, that some older attempts at suicide are somehow more acceptable?? Don't know if I'm making sense??
I think one of the problems with news programs like PM is, the issues are here today and gone tomorrow for most. However, for the people the issues affect, they live them 24/7. I don't say this in a detrimental way, its just a reality.
anyway, glad to know your a bonafide psychologist. I have done much work with mind and at my local support groups and hospital. I don't see myself as an expert in anything though. I mainly worked on the struggles of claiming benefits and how it affects those who are already suffering. I also talked to some social work students at my local university on mental health.
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I had a friend who tried suicide and failed, three times. He died at age 89.
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About the young and the government, I agree with all who have said that the former don't believe the latter or their propaganda.
But then, I wasn't worrying about the swine flu global epidemic until the government assured us that it was all under control and nothing to worry about...
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(21) fJd: it was a suggestion along the lines of trying to find a way to reach young people. It was an initial idea, not meant as a "paternalistic and patronising" approach.
(23) Tbird: there is a TV advertising campaign on drinking and driving. It's horrific and I believe is having the intended result of showing young people what can happen. Not sure if it also appears on the UK channels, the theme tune is "I can't take my eyes off you".
I presume your comment "no one on the planet is that stupid" refers to suicide leading to death. My intention regarding showing that suicide leads to death and what the finality and reality of that is, is better explained Cossackgirl's @15. She clearly has first hand experience of how young people perceive their own "personal immortality" and think of suicide as being somehow like a scene of a film in their life in which they continue to be a part of after their death.
(24) Cossackgirl: thanks for explaining. I can see your reasoning and think it is a good idea. They would have to cover Bebo, UTube and all the other social networking sites too.
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Sue (28) yes All I meant by stupid is that everyone knows the end result of suicide.
However if you could buy a "cry for help" suicide kit that could make you feel under the wheather for a few days then maybe that would be the answer.
Better still, talk to the guy from last week who had motor neiron who was doing all he could to stay alive
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Tbird: take your point but Cossackgirl's account of what young people think is going to happen is chilling.
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The issue isn't young people as was made clear in the interview, it's about terminal illness where there is no cure and where the end could be prolonged by physical inability to act and relatives' refusal to let go. We all own our own bodies, and have the right to choose when we die, but there are so many ways to die, and more discovered all the time by the stupid. I don't see why a kit is necessary.
The attitude towards suicide is largely based on 'faith' and the delusion that human lives are precious, unlike all other animal lives which can be wasted for a whim or for some rich bitch to wear their skin round her shoulders. Yet we 'humanely' help an injured and unsaveable animal to die - putting it out of its misery, we call it - but can't help a fellow human do the same. Thus the deranged faith merchants force people to suffer rather than go quietly into the night, and the assumption is that relatives don't have the best interests of their dying loved one at heart, but are out to kill them to get their money. Only their rabid god can decide when we go apparently.
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11. normanmugabe
The usual Israel apologist nonsense, making abuse of argument an artform.
No one expects Israel to behave like a civilised country, no, of course not, but do they have to target women and children from fighter aircraft and tanks? All the lies about accidental deaths is belied by the fact that they can take out a Hamas leader in his car from a drone a mile up. And even if the whole world criticises, they reject it, it's bias against Jews of course, the perfect Catch 22 for any critics.
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25.fJd
Your work sounds both interesting and worthwhile. Professionally, although at the Uni we all had the Foundation Course in Psychology, I was trained as an educational psychologist alongside with becoming a philology don. So I cannot claim expertise in medical psychology. I worked not with pathological cases but with young people of pre-college and college age, basically, students who had problems in the environment which did not provide the kind of support available here and now. These days I am regularly asked for councelling by people who are temporarily in a mess, because their understanding of the world and their place in it has come unstuck through some major trouble. As often as not they want to drop by for half an hour, they say, and then stay for 3-4 hours and a 3-Kleenex story.
I like to recommend the books by Dorothy Rowe.
It's a wild generalization, but older people usually have a practical reason why they don't want to live anymore (great pain, sudden poverty, great dishonour, terrible loss). Youngsters don't really want to die, they tend to have a conflict between their expectations and reality, so they "don't want to live in this world if this is what it's like". A fresh interest, a sense of purpose, a personal vocation are common sense cures.
Also, if they come into a terrible conflict with their parents, a "cry for help" suicide attempt makes the old arguments unimportant, the parents are punished by the near loss and all is forgiven by the hospital bed.
In Russia, I knew of a man who was accused of stealing from the trust of his ward. A retired officer, he blew his brains out in the courtroom, unable to bear the dishonour. The accusation turned out to be false.
I also knew a young romantic student who was in the first flush of tender tremulous love. During a college picnic in a forest glade, she came upon him answering a call of nature. Rather then return to the party, he tried to hang himself but was saved in time, so we learnt why...
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