The inevitable flood of McCain bashing jokes and double entendres is going to be lots of fun for all of us. However, I suggest that we all (well, the majority of us) agree, here and now, to not joke about Alzheimer's disease. Because, for any of us who have lost a loved one to this insidious disease, it just ain't funny.
In 1994, I lost my mother to Alzheimers disease once and for all. Her passing was actually the culmination of a very exhausting, traumatic and heart-rending 5 year journey for everyone who loved her, including a whole tribe of family and friends.
By the time she died, Mom had been a resident of a nursing home for two years. She no longer recognized any of us, with only occasional exception. She no longer had control of her emotions or bodily functions. In reality, she was my mother in name only - the person I knew for 40 years was no longer home. In all honesty, her death was a blessing for her and for us.
Her sister, my favorite aunt in the whole world, died from the same disease, in the same room of the nursing home, only a few years later.
I cannot stand John McCain and believe him to be one of the most two-faced, hypocritical assholes in the American political scene. I have no doubt that he is, in reality, too old to be President.
However, I cannot understand why it is acceptable to use, as a political joke or weapon, a disease that is affecting so many thousands of people like my mother and her sister, and families like mine. None of us would use cancer, or mental retardation, or Aids, or tuberculosis or any other disastrous disease as a political weapon, so why use Alzheimers? Wanna use the fact that you have to bankrupt your loved one in order to get help? Wanna use the fact that McCain has his head up his ass when it comes to the war? Right On! But, let's maintain a civil, considerate discourse when it comes to a really shitty, godawful and painful disease that affects millions of us.
If you want to know more about this horrible disease, here's a link:
http://www.alz.org/...