| Home | News | Viewpoint | Sports |
Get To Know Us |
Time Out and Columns |
Help Wanted / Careers |
Back Issues |
|---|
 |
by Lulu Sweet |
Columns
Your View |
| Home | News | Viewpoint | Sports |
Get To Know Us |
Time Out and Columns |
Help Wanted / Careers |
Back Issues |
|---|
|
|
by Lulu Sweet |
Columns
Your View |
It looks like one city councillor won't be going on the "sister city" trip to Wakayama, Japan.
Bill McNulty says he can't take the time off from his day job - he's a Vancouver high school guidance counselor. So while the rest of council is tucking into the sushi and cuttlefish, "Coach" Bill says he'll be holding down the fort. Normally, council sends just a small contingent to the Japanese city that gave us many of our pioneering Japanese-Canadian families, but this is the 25th anniversary of the sister city trip so a much larger delegation is being sent on this junket.
Now there was a first we didn't need to see - or did we. Television's godfathers (or is it grandfathers?) of news, 60 Minutes, aired a planned death videotaped by Dr. Jack Kervorkian. The segment showed a man afflicted with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, the incurable degenerative disease that attacks the nervous system) committing suicide with Kervorkian administering a fatal dose of morphine.
Putting the euthanasia debate aside, 60 Minutes appears to have broken new news ground by being the first to show such a real, planned death, including the man's last breath and pronouncement by the doctor that he has indeed died.
It raises several ethical questions, including whether 60 Minutes should have edited out the final death scene or kept it in. Will other networks showcase similar deaths on prime-time TV?
And finally, who would have guessed that it was the staid, well-respected 60 Minutes's crew would first do such a thing? Personally, Lulu always thought it would be bottom-feeding producers of all those deadliest disaster, dealiest sea-creatures, and stupid-crooks shows.
Got some gossip? Share it with Lulu by leaving a message with The Review's editorial department at 606-8730.
