From MSNBC.com and the wire services:
'Soul Train' creator Don Cornelius commits suicide
Don Cornelius, creator of the long-running TV dance show "Soul Train," is dead at 75 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Los Angeles police tell the Associated Press.Don Cornelius in 1973
Cornelius' death was discovered early Wednesday morning at his Sherman Oaks, Calif. home.
Us Weekly reports that when Cornelius was in court in 2009 for divorce proceedings, he complained of "significant health issues."
TheGrio: Why 'Soul Train; will never leave America's station
"Soul Train" began in 1970 in Chicago and aired in syndication from 1971 to March 2006, featuring primarily African-American musicians. It brought the best R&B, soul and later hip-hop acts to TV and had teenagers dance to them. It was one of the first shows to showcase African-Americans prominently, although the dance group was racially mixed. Cornelius was the first host and executive producer.
Stars such as Ike and Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, James Brown and Stevie Wonder appeared on the show.
Watching the show became a weekly ritual in many households, especially African-American homes. Author Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote in theGrio that "It was virtually a black household ritual to do one of two things when Saturday rolled around and it was Soul Train time. One was to sway, swoon, and sing the lyrics belted out by the parade of R&B legends and top hit artists ... The other ritual was to dance, or more likely stumble around the living room, trying to do our best imitation of the latest dance steps displayed by the show's perpetual motion gyrating couples."
Popular features on the show included the "Soul Train Line," where individual dancers showed off their moves between two lines of people, and the "Soul Train Scramble Board," where dancers unscrambled letters that spelled the name of that night's performer or a prominent African-American.
The show began each episode by welcoming viewers to "the hippest trip in America" and closed by wishing them "love, peace and soul."
Suicide is the right of every adult. Are you of the opinion that our lives belong to the state? If we own ourselves, we have the right to do with ourselves as we see fit.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. Anyone who commits suicide does so in an altered and impaired state.
DeleteI would love to see an expansion of legally assisted suicide in the case of people who are clearly already identified as dying, who are in great distress where controlling pain is not feasible.
Several countries have such programs as part of their medical care which allows for easing the process of death. The Netherlands, and Switzerland are excellent examples. The state of Oregon's death with dignity act is an excellent example in this country:
http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Pages/index.aspx
But that requires things like medical reviews to avoid abuse.
Suicides most often simply dump the problems of one person onto the shoulders of other people, and society. It is far more constructive to help people than to create a legal right which does not appear to be considered generally to be a moral right of adult suicide.
You and your gun buddies like to throw around the word 'right' as if you understand it and have some authority on the subject.
You don't, and you tend to get that claim wrong a lot.
Suicide is not in the best interest of the individual OR the society in which they live, with the rare exception of death with dignity for people who are terminally ill accompanied by great distress and pain. That is more of an expanded kind of hospice care than real suicide.
And you're not the sole authority about rights, either. The claim that I'm making here is that I belong to myself, not to society. If I choose to die, that's my right. I shouldn't have to seek permission from any board of review.
DeleteI find it disturbing how little you want people to control their own lives. Many people, especially many Americans, don't want to ask for permission from authority figures to make decisions about themselves. This really is what our arguments come down to. You want everyone to submit to society in all matters, while I want a large measure of autonomy.
I've never claimed to be the sole authority on rights, Greg.
DeleteRather, I've argued for a more generally accepted definition of rights than what you argue for, one that respects both moral and legal rights.
When there are people here who don't understand that a civil right IS a constitutional right, or who do not recognize that slavery was part of the U.S. Constitution under accepted property rights, notably where people who are black and slaves re counted as 3/5 of a person, then there is a serious problem on your side of the argument with understanding 'rights': what they are, what they aren't and what defines them.
I'm perfectly willing to turn to experts on the subject for definitions and understanding of it.
You guys tend to trot out de Vattel without ever having read his work on the law of nations, and without appreciating that it applies primarily to relationships between countries.
You cherry pick those ideas that are out of date, that have been broadly understood to be superseded by better and later developments of thinking - thought didn't begin and end with the founding fathers of the United States.
You are full of crap. Have you ever taken a class on ethics? A serious class, not one of the junior college 'with training wheels' stuff.
Boards of review exist only to prevent abuse of easing a person's death.
I think you have an even more difficult argument to pose that you have a right to off yourself than that you have the right to off others. And sadly, I don't think you have a grasp of even the fundamentals for such an argument.
No wonder you're so worried about mental health professionals, LOL!
You probably recognize that they would argue, very reasonably, that if you want to kill yourself, you most likely are not of sound mind to make the decision.
But then we routinely question your mental abilities here, because you give us so much cause to do so.
They should apply the death penalty for anyone that attempts to commit suicide. That would stop all of the suicide attempts.
Delete1. You missed an opportunity here, since Cornelius had trouble with the law over domestic violence in recent years. It leads me to wonder whether he was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's disease or something similar.
Delete2. I don't trot out de Vattel. You and Laci keep going on about him, but not I.
3. Have I taken a class on ethics? Part of my graduate work was in philosophy, including ethics, and I've taught the subject too. What you fail to understand is that ethics isn't like physics. Right behavior can't be determined solely by mathematical formulae, despite what Jeremy Bentham believed.
4. But answer me this question: What is the fundamental unit of society? As you may have guessed, I say that it's the individual. I suspect that you disagree.
5. Do you believe in a right of self defense? You've hinted that you don't, but I'd like a clear statement. Do I have the right to stop an attack in progress? If so, why do you oppose having a device that is effective toward that goal?
6. On what grounds can you claim that I don't have the right to suicide? You don't strike me as the kind of person who would say that I belong to God, but perhaps you believe that I belong to the state. In case you're wondering, I have no intention of relieving you of my existence.
Greg, You're throwing around the r-word a bit too loosely, don't you think?
DeleteDog Gone is absolutely correct (I almost said right). Most people who commit suicide are choosing a permanent solution to a temporary problem. There are some exceptions, like terminally ill people in terrible agony.
Mikeb,
DeleteAnswer my question: Do I belong to myself or to the state? If I belong to myself, I may do with myself as I please, so long as I harm no one else. (By harm, I mean something real, by the way.)
You may own a dog, but not torture it.
DeleteYou have to prove here that killing yourself would not harm others.
I don't think you can prove that; which is why suicide is an issue of public health not only the individual.
You claim to teach literature, although nearly everything you write argues a failure to understand any of the major themes of literature. Your grasp of matters is shockingly superficial.
Try on John Donne for starters, he wrote very eloquently on the subject:
No man is an island
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Greg, whether you like it or not, you are part of society.
DeleteIn a democratic society, you are also part of the government.
Som, yes, you are a part of the state, and unless you chose to abandon the society that you live in, you must live by its rules.
Or work to change them.
There is also the option of emmigration--may I suggest Somalia, Afghanistan, or Iraq for a suitable new home for you, Greg?
As long as I choose to participate in society, I have to live up to my responsibilities in it. But if I choose not to participate any longer, that should be my choice. Or would you also ban someone who decides to live off the grid? What about the young adults that I've heard about recently who choose to be homeless for a while? They make that choice because they haven't bought into the system. Would you round them up for re-education?
DeleteSurely you don't think that I've never read John Donne's poem. That's his position on the subject, and he's welcome to it, but it's not the necessary answer. I can understand a theme or an idea without having to believe it--that was the mark of an educated mind to Aristotle.
I do recognize that some people have a duty to others. Parents, for example, have no business killing themselves until they've raised their children to a successful life. My statement about a right to suicide is a general principle, though. Unless there are duties that one has to fulfill, one has the right to commit suicide.
This fits in with the idea that a woman has the right to decide what to do with her own body. If you argue that a person has no right to suicide, how can you also believe that a woman has a right to abortion? We could build a case that society's interests trump the woman's.
My point here is that your foundation of rights is fragile.
Laci the Dog,
DeleteMy I suggest North Korea to you?
Sad news, but thanks for posting it.
ReplyDeleteA report that I saw just today suggests that I was right. Cornelius appears to have been suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. If so, he faced years of increasing disability, dementia, and dependency. Dog Gone, I realize that medical science has made some progress in treating this disease, but even so, what we have now is only a temporary delay in the inevitable. Can you really blame Cornelius for making the choice that he made?
ReplyDelete