Adam Dzialo

Adam Dzialo
Our son, Adam Dzialo, age 30

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy (U.S.A.) Thanksgiving....

Really, now, are words necessary....

George (dubya), remember him,   pardoning the turkey...


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

To Everything There Is A Season...

A short wedding video of Aimee and Tony



There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3 


Sunday, November 11, 2012

Back to "Normal"....

        The wedding is over!  The elections are over!  Sandy the hurricane and the latest nor-easter have passed.   Looking forward to getting back to normal, whatever normal may bring in the coming days...We live in a residential neighborhood near the ocean ...maybe the wind dropped him or her in after the last storm?  On second thought, must be a her.
A visitor to our home on November 9, 2012
Just back to "normal"



I know she's saying something to me, wonder what it is?  Or who is it?

Friday, November 9, 2012

A Dad's Wedding Speech....


    November 3, 2012

     For those of you who don’t know me I’m Phil,  Aimee’s Dad and on behalf of my wife Sharon and I, I would like to welcome you all here today to celebrate the marriage of our daughter Aimee  to Tony.
     I would like to welcome Tony’s parents, Steve and Donna, his brothers and grandmother, as well as all of our relatives and friends. I know a lot of you have traveled considerable distances to be here.
     Many of you have my met my son, Adam, who was severely disabled in a near drowning at a summer camp over 14 years ago.   A special woman in Adam’s life who had the uncanny ability to decipher his thoughts, once told us:  Adam says  “Love means showing up and being there, even when you don’t have to….”  It is with his sentiment that I welcome you.
   Thank you all for coming, it’s very much appreciated.

THE WEDDING
     As father of the bride I have the pleasure of making the only long speech on this magical day…
     I have given much thought about what to say or not to say. For those who know me, I speak my mind, my truth and really don’t censor much.  I often can’t complete a sentence without a profanity thrown in for effect.  But, I promised that I would be behave this evening.
However, for myself, it is has been over 31 of marriage years since I was allowed to say anything without being disagreed with, laughed at or ignored, so this is too good an opportunity to miss.
At the end of the day, it is my speech and I can say what I like.

MY DAUGHTER AIMEE
This is the point where I am supposed to say a few embarrassing things about Aimee when she was younger but unfortunately she has been a perfect daughter. I do know, however, that over the course of the evening, after a few drinks, Aimee’s friends will share more than you want to know.  I am also anxious to hear about those moments from my princess’s life which have been hidden from me with care.
Suffice it to say that Sharon and I are both very proud of how she much she has accomplished and how she has grown up and we are both delighted that she has found someone who she obviously loves and cares for very much.
Aimee is our first child and I can attest to the fact that it was a long and memorable birth…with emphasis on very, very long…
When we spent months in ICU with Adam  in 1998, an elderly and crippled physician pulled Sharon and I aside.  And, as if he could foretell the future, he simply said…”Remember, always, that you have two children…”
We never forgot those words, and I guess that’s how Aimee became a princess.  Despite whatever difficulty we faced, Aimee was always given the best … she was our daughter and our love.  Aimee has made us very proud. All parents want their children to have a good education and give themselves a good start in life.  Aimee accomplished that and we’ll be paying for quite a while.  Today, I look at my daughter and I see an independent, attractive, elegant, stunning young woman. She obviously takes after her mother.
Of course she inherits other traits from me…

·       her cooking…
·       her like of one or two small drinks…
·       her ability to induce others to clean up her messes…
·       her obsessive compulsive need to control…
·       her allergy to people’s bullshit…she, like dad, both have built in detectors and reject that which is false and pretentious
·       her appreciation for the finer things in life (though we disagree about the meaning of finer)
    She learned compassion, sympathy and a zest for living from her brother. She has learned about unconditional and unwavering love from her mother.  She gets her intelligence and drive from both mom and dad…that is the politically right thing to say!
    And, she has well learned about the intricacies of politics from her love, Tony!  Thank god, we’re all on the same page!!!  (four more years!!)



TONY
     Every Father hopes his daughter will find an accomplished, sensible, loving and compassionate  partner and as much as you try not to interfere in their lives, you always hope your children will make the right choices in life.  Aimee, thanks to the power and intention of universal energy, chose Tony.
   I have found that Tony is compassionate, sensitive, loving, intelligent and one hell of a singer.  I am so impressed by Tony’s ability to engage Adam…this a trait and quality of humanity that I rarely encounter in many people.  It is for those and many other reasons, that I welcome you and your family into ours.
     Tony, I hope that you will be able to keep my daughter in the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed and desires.   I’m not sure that either of us knows or understands the depths of princess-hood. To help you with your marriage, I thought I would give you some advice based on my 31 year experience of married life.
    Marriage will teach you many things… loyalty…self restraint…obedience…I am still in daily training on these matters.
     There is no challenge in a marriage that can’t be overcome by one or more of the following:
·       I was wrong!
·       You were right!
·       Yes Dear
·       I love you!
     Finally, never go to bed in the middle of an argument – be a man, stay up and fight and watch some sports or play Angry Birds. You’ve lost anyway, so you might as well get it over with.
    I would just like to leave you with this thought…
     The actor Richard Burton once said that ‘a woman accepts a man for what he is and then spends the rest of her life trying to change him.’… So, if we can all take one last look at Tony as we know him because Aimee’s remodeling work starts first thing in the morning.
Finally, this day is magic.  I believe in magic.  I see magic in their eyes, in their touch, in their embrace …they are magic unfolding in front of us.  It’s the way things should be!  It’s the way things are meant to be…magic!


Sunday, November 4, 2012

The Wedding......A Time for Magic

       My daughter, Aimee wed Tony Iannotti on November 3, 2012.  It was a day of magic, awe and wonder.  Sharing a few photos of the day:
Pre-Wedding Preparations

Groomsmen with Aimee and Tony

Bridesmaids with Aimee and Tony

Mon, Dad, Adam and Aimee

Mom, Dad, and the uber-groomsman (Adam)






The Moment

Our Princess!!

Now, Mr and Mrs. Iannotti

One of many floral arrangements (this one for the vows)

Post Wedding breakfast

Dealing with pre-nuptial anxiety

The products of pre-nuptial anxiety



THE BLESSING GIVEN BY THE FATHER OF THE BRIDE (me)

Apache Wedding Blessing
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years, may happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth.   Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficult and fear assail your relationship – as they threaten all relationships at one time or another – remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives – remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

In the middle of the party that never ends.....Aimee, Tony, Juli at the Coonamesett Inn
Falmouth, MA 











Friday, November 2, 2012

The Slippery Slope Argument ....or the Camel's Nose: MA Question 2

       People die.  Our parents die, our siblings die, our children die, we all die....  It may be the final end, it maybe a transition, it maybe the prelude to the next life, it may be heaven or hell ... no proofs, just a wide disparity of beliefs.  I wrote extensively about Question 2 earlier in the month.

      Massachusetts voters are considering a ballot initiative in less than a week:  Death with Dignity, Physician-Assisted Suicide. Lately opponents are placing political ads on the tube which parallel the lies and distortions of the presidential campaigns.  Vote no: because no family would be around, because no physician would be there, because no psychological evaluation is mandated. Vote no:  because you break apart 100 seconal capsules, dissolve in water and drink.  Vote no: because of the slippery slope:  the terminally ill, then soon the disabled, then soon anyone a burden to society, then....we are the Netherlands.  This I believe stems from a rampant sense of unreal projection.       

One pernicious category of imaginary risks involves those created by users of the dreaded “slippery slope” arguments. Such arguments are dangerous because they are popular, versatile and often convincing, yet completely fallacious. Worse, they are creeping into an arena that should be above this sort of thing: physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

"The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:

Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another." The Nizkor Project


There is no evidence for the "slippery slope" or "camel's nose" argument in any place in the United States which has approved the "Death with Dignity" initiative.  Disability advocacy groups oppose Question 2, often on the basis of "the slippery slope" argument.  The disabled are not terminally ill; to equate disability with terminal illness is an insult.  Terminally ill people are often disabled to some degree.  There is no necessary or appropriate equation between the two states of living.


The lack of safeguards is an argument more reminiscent of a "salami slicing" strategy.  True, there does not need to be family nor a physician present and 100 capsules of seconal are dissolved in water and drank.  Some dying people would want family there to say a final good-bye; others might not....so what?  It's part of choice.  Play into people's fears to defeat an initiative?

How can this deception occur? Look to the money funnel: "In order to launch their "no" campaign, they (opponents) accepted critical seed money from two anti-gay groups: the American Family Association and the American Principles Project. The American Family Association was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their extremist actions, "including publicizing companies that have pro-gay policies and organizing boycotts against them."

Two requests for a lethal prescription, another witnessed request in writing, a determination by the physician that the patient is mentally competent to make medical decisions and a review by a second physician. A psychiatric evaluation may be required if needed. And a confirmed diagnosis of terminal within 6 months.  Quite a series of safeguards!

Yes, doctors make frequent mistakes.  Terminal in six months could translate to terminal in 6 years.  The lethal prescription is an option when life is intolerable or pain unrelenting and intractable.  I would doubt that many would choose to use the script if they are moderately ill or in manageable pain. People given the prescription do not always use it.  People know when death is near.  People know
when they can no longer tolerate life. This experience is quite subjective.  Hospice and palliative care are not ALWAYS an answer nor a solution, but a compliment to physician-assisted suicide.

"However, when looking at the statistics from Washington and Oregon, it appears that terminally ill patients are not choosing the DWDA program as an alternative to hospice care but as a compliment. The majority of patients who ingest DWDA medications are also enrolled in hospice care; 83% in Washington and 97% in Oregon." Barton Associates, Locum Tenens Experts, 10/29/2012


If you are opposed on moral or ethical grounds, do not prevent people of differing ethics or morality from the exercise of choice. If you advocate for the "slippery slope" position, realize that this is a philosophical and epistemological fallacy...."extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs" (Hitchens, C)

A good life should lead to a "good death."  No person should be forced to endure a "bad death"; no person should be deprived of choice because of the fears of some.  Yes, I acknowledge that good people will disagree, but do not allow disagreement to preclude choice of a "good death."

Comments are disabled; tomorrow is Aimee's wedding then will post pictures.
       
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