Assisted Suicide

The following post is an addendum to my "Right to Die" video , please go ahead and watch that first if you haven't already.



I know that when most people are thinking about what suicide means, they have some images in mind... images of teenagers who cut their wrists in the bathroom or empty their mom's bottle of sleeping pills. This is usually far from the reality of someone who actually intends to take their own life. Wrist cutting and medicine overdose are (very often) deliberate forms of self harm or cries for attention, rather than suicide attempts. For the people who are indeed set to do it, the methods are much more brutal and the images much more shocking. The most common ways of suicide are by firearms and hanging. Other methods include jumping from hights, throwing self in front of a train or another moving vehicle, deliberate pesticide poisoning, intentionally crashing the car, setting self on fire or throat slitting.

So where am I going with this ? I am not trying to be morbid, but to simply point out that most suicide attempts are not really "attempts". The people who truly want to kill themselves are most of the time either successful or end up mutilated. The popular image of the depressed adolescent who "tries to commit suicide" is actually describing something else : a depressed adolescent who has indeed serious issues and fakes a suicide attempt as a cry for help. Most of them do it in their own homes, which is the place they are most likely to be found, and between the hours of 4 P.M. and midnight, which is the time of the day when someone is most likely to be around. These people don't really want to die, they want to be rescued. And don't get me wrong. These kids are NOT drama whores. They DO need help and if they are desperate enough to go to these extremes, it is a clear indication that they are going through serious issues. They must not be taken as a joke or ignored!

However, the people who intend to commit suicide are a different matter. They WANT to die. They will choose a way to make sure they end up dead. And they should not have to go through that. Weather you like it or not, some people make the decision that their life is not worth living. It is not YOUR choice to make, it is not YOUR life. And you shouldn't have a saying in it. Making assisted suicide available for them is not an encouragement, but an act of mercy and compassion. To believe that legalizing this will actually make more people want to do it, simply has no basis. People, as a general rule, desire to live. This won't change just because they have an option to die pain-free.

I know that most of you reading my blog and watching my videos are from the U.S. You don't have a social health-care system there yet, so this may sound strange. But my proposal is to make assisted suicide part of the health-care plan. It would be free, same as the psychiatric evaluation and assistance (those things are already free of charge in most European countries where a good health-care system is in place).

I'm going to stop here because I will probably make a second part ... I suspect it will be necessary once the comments to my video start piling up.

Summer 2010

I forgot I had this footage from when Larry Kamerman was here ... thought I might as well do something with it . You get to see a bit of Romania too :) Oh well...

Respecting the Dead

In my last YouTube video dealing with this entire "Mosque at Ground Zero" fiasco, I stated this :

<< Personally , I don’t give a crap about respecting the dead. They’re just … well…dead.. “Respecting” them is a social construct that has no meaning to me and I couldn’t care less about it. >>

Many people misinterpreted what said and were even offended by my words, as I could see from their comments. I don't understand exactly why, since I followed my statement with an explanation that, at the time, I thought it would make my point clear :

<< But I’m not an insensitive asshole and I can acknowledge that most people do see value in it. So, even if I didn’t care about this mosque, I did think it is in poor taste and I could understand why the families of the 9/11 victims would be offended by it . >>

Still, I received a number of comments "disagreeing" with me. What is there to disagree on ? My ...feelings ? I never said I am against people being affected by what happens to their loved ones AFTER they die. It's just that I (as in "me", "myself", right ?) am not. What is so offensive about that ?

I actually thought it was a bit funny how some people were trying to trigger an emotional response from me by insulting the people who (they thought) I loved and passed away. Starting with my "dead grandma" who is still alive, and ending with my dead hypothetical children that I will never have. Some of them went to very "gruesome" and explicit details of what they would do to my dead ones. The strongest emotional response they got out of me was "Ew!".

No, I don't care if someone insults my dead loved ones. I don't believe in any form of life after death and since they are dead, they obviously can't be affected by insults. I also don't care if someone "disrespected" their dead bodies, I have absolutely no emotional attachment to their corpses. I do value the memories I have about them. I cherish the little things I have left from them, sometimes I get nostalgic when I hear a song that my grandfather used to love, sometimes I go through the pictures I have with them, sometimes I even think "what would they say about this" when I do something I know they wouldn't like or they would appreciate. But I never visit their graves, their physical remains hold no importance to me.

If you are offended by this, I would have to ask why ? Are you offended by me thinking this or by me saying it ? And what meaning is there in honesty if you are offended by me simply saying what I think ?

Btw ... it's not like you will see me go around and "insulting" dead people, like my "sensitive" commenters tried to do. I would never do that because I know that most people feel differently than I do, and I can understand and respect THAT. I just personally don't relate to it . That's all.

Cribs Yo' !

So I was filming on a project for Larry Kamerman when I had this idea to do a lil' Cribs parody. Btw, this aint really "my place" so the mess around is TOTALLY not my fault. I swear!

Kittehs !

I know, I know .... I haven't posted anything here in a gazillion years. Until something more insightful comes to mind, here's a video with cats. That's about it. Yeah.

The Telescope, the Telescope !

Setting up my scope. Yeah, I accidentally used the wrong aspect ratio when filming so I look like a skinny ass mofo bitch. Also, I realize the music is too freakin' loud. Shit happens. Below the video you have my impressions after the first use :) Enjoy.



So my Celestron (Astromaster 130EQ) is here and I got to take it out for some fun timez. I am a total novice, never worked with a telescope in my life so it was tricky getting used to it ...I actually had to search online info on how to use the mount :/ After I finally got the alignment right, first thing I pointed my scope at was, ofcourse, the moon. Using the 20mm EP it looked splendid, it gave a very sharp image of the craters and what I think it was some of the seas. Then I switched to the 10mm EP and I was amazed how much the image improved. I could even see individual rocks on the Moon's surface.

I turned the scope to Saturn and I was a bit disappointed that I could not see the rings. After a few minutes I managed to see two moons and realized I was actually looking at Jupiter and that's why I couldn't see "the rings", dur dur. I know, imma n00b. Since the sky wasn't perfectly clear (some clouds and a little fog) , the Planets were kinda shaky, especially Mars. Gonna wait for a clear sky night to see the full abilities of this scope when it comes to solar system exploration.

I switched to 20mm EP again and turned it deeper into space. I managed to find the Sigma Orionis and the Orion Nebula and even with this weather I could still distinguish many stars ... the thought that I am actually studying objects 1350 light years away gave me the chills :)

Overall I am still waiting for a night with a clearer sky to full test my scope but so far I am absolutely in love with it. I didn't use the Motor Drive yet because I wanted to move the scope around myself to get accustomed with it ... the motion cables work well and I can move it very smoothly. After I get more used to it I will try some astro-photography. I really don't remember being this excited! ! Thanks again Fred, I am so grateful to you for this wonderful gift <3

Insomnia

Since I had the accident I haven’t been able to sleep. I did have insomnia before, coming and going at times, but it was never this bad. It got me to a point where I am in a very weird state …almost like drunk. Still, I don’t wanna treat it with pills yet . I have nothing against sleeping pills and the reason why I don’t wanna take them may seem really fucked up … but for some strange reason, my mind seems much clearer now.

I’m writing this now cos I’m gonna get into a subject I’ll never talk about again, no matter how things will roll. In Romania there is a group of nationalists called “Noua Dreapta”. I guess the English equivalent for that would be “The New Right”. Their slogan (as you can read on their official website if you are a Romanian), translates : “The New Right : For God, the People and the Country!”. Basically they claim to protect “Romanian orthodox values” which means that they oppose atheism, homosexuality, gypsies, immigrants, and so on.

A couple months after I started my YouTube channel, they found me and the threats began. Which I didn’t give a shit about, threats don't work on me. They tried to fuck with me on levels that went beyond YouTube flagging/hating/trolling/etc. They tried to “report” me here and there with some things they had no chance in hell to be taken serious for. For instance, they reported me for breaking the constitution, as apparently, “defaming” the country is unconstitutional here. Of course, that only applies in cases of war or political treason and such, so it had “fail” written allover it. They also reported my paypal account which got my access to it restricted. For about 3 days, until I got cleared ;)

So all in all, point is, they see me as the enemy and want my ass fried. So why am I talking about this now ? Because, in a strange twist of events, they will probably end up having my home address. Which, considering what I’ve just said, sounds pretty bad. And it probably is. They could also be having access to personal information about me, which, again, will be unpleasant. I am giving you guys a “heads up” on this, because if (or when) this happens, I won’t be talking about it. Not in videos, not on my blog. I’ll deal with it myself, without involving “ZOMGitsCriss” into it.

There was one person on the internet I was stupid enough to care for and trust with my stuff without thinking once that they might turn out to be the exact opposite of what I though they were. I made a mistake ... one that I’m willing to accept and pay the price for. So, if it will come to it, I’ll take it. I will never do something, or stop myself from doing something, out of fear. I was never nobody’s victim and I’m not about to start now. Shit much worse than this happened (and is happening as I type) to billions of other people, so even taking any of this too seriously is petty and selfish from my part.

Whatever will come, will pass.

This is what I'm doing now ...

Update and such :/

Hey *dare* ;)

I know it’s been a while since I made a video or updated my blog but some *stuffs* happened and I haven’t been feeling that hot. I’ve been in another car crash, the second one in the last three months. Yeah, what are the odds of that ? This time I was in the bus. It was dark outside and the highway was poorly lighted so the driver didn’t see this woman crossing the road … he avoided her at the last moment but the sudden maneuver caused the bus to roll over on the side. Nobody got badly injured but some of us did end up in the hospital, including me, as I had a big ass piece of glass from the bus window stuck in the back of my head – for two (literally) bloody hours. The nurses weren’t sure if they should remove it or not so I had to wait for the doctor, which wasn’t as painful (I only felt a weird pressure but no actual pain) as it was annoying. God I hate hospitals! Anyway, it was nothing serious, though I needed a couple stitches and had to do a bunch of tests with a bunch of doctors to see if my brain works properly (did it ever?). It turned out that I’m just as crazy as I was before, so they let me go home. A couple days later they removed the stitches and now even the remaining “bump” is gone … but I still have this annoying head ache which prevents me from making videos. It’s not as bad as it was yesterday though …and not nearly as bad as it was 2 days ago, so I should be good soon.

Other than that nothing exciting happened. Starting two weeks ago, two of my favorite people on YouTube – Gary (Inmendham) and AntiBullshitMan - got caught up in this debate about circumcision, causing a fallout between them. Which sucks. Being on ABM’s side got me blocked by Gary, which also sucks. But I guess that's life and such ... meh.

So yeah, now you know what’s up with my lack of “internet activity” : it’s been a really shitty couple of weeks and I been feeling kinda down. But hey … at least I don’t live in Haiti , right ?

To end this blog on a lighter note, today it’s Darwin’s anniversary and I remember with a bit of melancholy reading him when I was a teenager … and the impact he had on my view of the world at that time. So happy Darwin’s day everyone! :)

Also, today is Peach’s birthday and even if she’s not that thrilled about it, I wanna tell her happy birthday . And Peach, I wish for you everything that I would wish for myself. Have a great year darling <33

What the .....

I really have no excuse for this :/ Since I can't make a YouTube video now, I wanted to do ... something. Oh c'mon ! It's not like you never seen a lady dancing like a crazy hoe on crack and cleaning her room before, eh ?

P.S. : The song is "Hold Tight" by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich 

Green for Iran ?

So there is this “green revolution” going on on youtube meaning that if you support the people in Iran you should turn your channel icon in green. And I've been getting messages about it , asking me if I’m gonna do it and if I support the people in Iran (which, ofcourse, I do) and what do I think about all this and a few were asking what is the green movement about. So I just wanted to talk about it a bit because you may be used to me having very strong opinions on things and with this I honestly just don’t know.

So this is what’s going on … earlier this year in June the Iranian people voted on their presidential elections. And the battle was between the last president Ahmadinejad who basically rules a dictatorship-like regime in Iran … Iran is now a theocratic Islamic republic, meaning that God , or in this case Allah, is considered to be the supreme ruler and the Government operates on Islamic based principles .





The second candidate for presidency was Mousavi who is a reformist and apparently the majority of Iranians who want to change the current theocracy into a democracy supported him.





When Ahmadinejad won the elections, the result surprised everybody and it was concluded that the election were a fraud so the Iranians took the streets into a huge protest militating in support of Mousavi and democracy. But the law enforcements acted very aggressively and a lot of people were shot to death or beaten up or arrested. And this reminded me so much of the Revolution that took place in my own country back in 89. Anyway this is what the green movement is about … green was Mousavi’s color for presidential campaign but it turned into a symbol of the fight for freedom and democracy and protest against the fraudulent elections. So of course I support Iran in this and as a humanist I strongly oppose the theocratic regime there.

BUT … there are also other things to consider. For instance, while Ahmadinejad always spoke very strongly against the United States, Mousavi declared that his foreign policy plan will focus on reducing tensions with other nations. This includes negotiating U.S. Which is not a bad thing but my main concern is that the sudden support shown for the green revolution may be not what it seems and that US may be more interested in Iran’s nuclear weapons and oil and having another "pet government" there ... and less in the Iranian people . I mean, if you look at what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq , the people there were also promised freedom and in turned into a total different thing.

So this is what my concern is … I’m just afraid the this fight for freedom, which I’m certain is very genuine and our support for it, which is also genuine, might be misused.

Anyway, like I said, I am not sure about this, I just don’t know ... so please share your ideas with me because I'm interested in what you're thinking, as for me the situation is far from clear. And again, I do support the Iranian people, democracy and freedom. Always.