Ariel Sharon, still in a coma, moved from hospital to his ranch

[jaysunb]

L.A. Times

The 82-year-old former Israeli prime minister has been in a coma for nearly five years. A hospital official suggests that he does not expect Sharon to make a significant improvement.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-sharon-20101113,0,6288123.story

The comments are not very nice :)

[elleng]

1. Thanks for the info; won't read comments.

[Violet_Crumble]

5. Why won't you read the comments?

I've never seen anyone at DU reply to an OP like that before, so I'm curious...

[elleng]

10. OP says 'The comments are not very nice,'

and there's too much unpleasantness around these days; don't need to subject myself to more.

[Violet_Crumble]

13. Oops. I didn't spot that comment at the end of the OP & thought you were talking about comments here

Sorry about that. I totally understand now, seeing I rarely read comments attached to news articles as they seem to attract the ugliest of the internet's trolls...

[LeftishBrit]

16. Agreed

I was far from a political fan of Sharon, but there is no need for people to be vile about someone's horrible illness; and I have no desire to read the stuff.

[Posteritatis]

11. News article comments are, as a rule, deeply disgusting. (nt)

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. There is no recovery for a man his age after this long...

I'm surprised he's still "alive." If they weren't feeding him via tube, he'd have really died long since.

This is not a life at all...

[RZM]

4. Absolutely

If it were me I would have wanted the plug pulled five years ago. My mother instructed me a long time ago to disregard anything and everything her friends and family say and pull the plug at the earliest possible moment if such a situation arises.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Your mom needs to put it in writing, ASAP.

It will save all of you a lot of trouble if it should arise when she can no longer speak for herself.

You need a copy of "Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care." It is a legal document, and cannot be disregarded.

She would be wise to make you her spokesperson for her; the document indicates someone should be appointed to speak for her when she can't.

My husband and I did this, and it is a load off our shoulders.

[RZM]

9. We did that about 6 months ago

It's in stone now, as are my own instructions. I'm glad too, because that's just the kind of thing that is easy to put off until it's too late.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

21. Good for you; a very smart move!

[somone]

3. Oh well

[RZM]

6. Wow. You weren't kidding about those comments

The worst ones have multiple 'thumbs ups' too.

[jaysunb]

8. I try to never wish ill on any one

but sometimes....

This one especially stood out to me :

F13420 at 12:54 PM November 12, 2010
you know you're evil when death wont take you, even when you're knocking on hell's door.

[Posteritatis]

12. Didn't like the man, but wouldn't wish that on him either

If there's anything at all still in there at this point, it's a shred of a remnant that I can only hope isn't capable of understanding its condition.

Biographies of the guy really should say "26 February 1928-4 January 2006," since that's effectively what things are at this point.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. +1

[LeftishBrit]

15. Agreed.

People differ, but I would never want to be kept alive for years in such a state. It reminds me of Terri Schiavo.

[Poll_Blind]

17. Despite my belief that he is a war criminial, I think it's a shame that his...

...real motivations for breaking away from Likud to form Kadima will never really be known. His stroke came at a terribly sensitive time and that caused a rift almost from the start between Olmert and Livni, which is still playing out to this day. For me it remains a huge question mark about how Israeli politics might have advanced, broken away from the co-dependent Likud/Shas relationship which is continuing to destroy Israeli culture and politics as we speak.

PB

[Posteritatis]

18. It's weird how often those question mark events show up

I was thinking of Rabin's death while reading this earlier.

[Poll_Blind]

19. Good point. Rabin, especially after the Oslo Accords, had proven he...

...was interested in moving toward some real, meaningful, settlement of the issue. And, willing to confront the more radical elements of his own citizenry, which eventually cost him his life.

PB

[jaysunb]

20. +1

n/t