Columnists

Democrats got shellacked on November 4th. Republicans gained at least 8 Senate seats, 12 House seats, and 3 governorships. Democratic partisans spread the blame around: President Obama, Party leaders, lethargic blue voters, and a hostile media. Nonetheless, there are five elementary lessons to be learned from the debacle. -more-

This Senior Power column (#177) is mostly about hospice. In July 2010 my column (#20) was about Death Hospice Palliative; it is accessible via the Planet’s online archive. That was then. This is now.

Hospice is a care philosophy based on belief that every person with a life-limiting terminal illness, regardless of age, is entitled to be as free of pain and symptoms as long as possible.

Some folks, including “professionals,” assume that hospice provides assisted suicide. It is currently possible to obtain physician-assisted suicide, albeit not easily, in three states. Popular literature conveys two pictures of hospice-- an at-home service and a building/program elsewhere. It can be confusing. -more-

Meditation allows me to have more inner peace in spite of troublesome thoughts that may occur and in spite of the difficult circumstances that I sometimes experience. It causes me to seek relief through mental exercises and not through the escapism of alcohol or illicit drugs. Meditation gives me the hope that I can feel better when suffering. Meditation allows me to fall right to sleep at night. -more-

It is now old news that San Francisco’s proposed Soda Tax (Proposition E) did not pass and Berkeley’s (Measure D) did. Proposition E would have placed a two-cent per ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages while Berkeley’s Measure D will now place a one-cent per ounce tax. -more-