Category Archives: Aging & dementia

Behind the Boston arrest reports, and findings on U.S. torture

1 Reply

With all the media-bashing yesterday over published reports that a suspect had been arrested in the Boston Marathon bombing, it was quite interesting to watch a PBS Newshour segment on the issue last night.

JEFFREY BROWN: …And we’re joined from Boston once again tonight by David Boeri, a reporter for WBUR Public Radio. He’s been covering the turn of events all day.

Well, David, a very confusing day. What is the latest about whether anyone is now in custody or identified as a suspect? What can you tell us?

DAVID BOERI, WBUR Public Radio: Jeff, at this point, both the FBI and the U.S. attorney here in Boston insist there have been no arrests made. Nobody is in custody.

However, there is a lot of confusion regarding this and reports that we have had throughout the day.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about — some of these reports involve images that were caught of somebody with the bag that has now been identified.

DAVID BOERI: We started the day with news report that the detonation for those pressure cookers had been a timing device, that a circuit board had been found and it was a timing device. So far, so good.

Then we started to get reports independently that there had been images of a man seen putting a duffel bag close to one of the areas where the bombing took place, and also that there was an image, that there was great surveillance video from a Lord & Taylor shop that was near the area that had also shown activity.

Then that led to reports, again by a number of independent sources, that there had been an arrest made. So the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office came in, knocked the story down. However, I had gone over to the U.S. courthouse here, being told in fact that there was an arrest, and while I was there, I was told by two senior judges and two other senior officials that in fact they had been told to prepare for somebody being brought over in connection to the bombing.

A courthouse — a courtroom was being prepared, and they were even preparing an overflow courtroom at the time. That’s when we got a code red alert in the courthouse. An evacuation took place, an evacuation because a threat that had been — that had been made that was deemed credible and the building was evacuated at that point.

And, by the way, that building has the U.S. attorney’s office in it.

[emphasis added]

In other words, multiple sources at the federal court told this reporter, and presumably others as well, that they had been directed to prepare a courtroom because someone connected to the bombing was going to be brought in.

So despite later official denials, was it wrong to be reporting what was being confirmed by multiple sources which were likely known to at least the local reporters? When several people on your beat, in positions to know, disclose this kind of information, when is it reasonable to report it?

Maybe some local veteran reporters could take a swing at this question.

And it’s unfortunate that the Boston bombing diverted attention from an important report on the use of torture following the 9/11 attacks. A NY Times story on the report appeared on Tuesday, and included an online version of the document.

The PBS Newshour looked at the report the same day. From this segment, “Report Finds ‘Indisputable’ Proof That U.S. Tortured Detainees After 9/11“:

JEFFREY BROWN: But when you say in the report that the nation’s highest officials bear some responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of torture, what does that mean? What exactly are you calling for?

DAVID IRVINE: Well, in a couple of instances, number one, the decision to suspend the application of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan was a critical decision that opened the door for all kinds of abuses, because there was nothing put in place thereafter that would tell soldiers, for example, what they could or could not do.

As a consequence, people became unusually creative and crossed the line from lawful to unlawful. The decision to give special permission to the CIA to use enhanced interrogation techniques was a flawed decision. It was based upon a methodology that had been developed by the North Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War as a means of obtaining confessions and false information from American prisoners in those conflicts.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let me just ask you briefly in the short amount of time here, what do you want to happen now? You have waded into some very controversial territory here.

JAMES JONES: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: And many officials would simply flat-out disagree with your results.

JAMES JONES: Well, we’re not after a witch-hunt, but we do think the facts need to be laid out there, the American people need to understand it, the Congress needs to understand it, because what we want to do is to get back to the values that we had before those decisions were made, respect for law, respect for our international treaties and conventions.

And it can be achieved again. But I think until — before that can be done, they have to understand the depth of the activities we took in the name of our government.

The report, authored by The Constitution Project (TCP), is available at their website in a perhaps more accessible form.

Advice on aging left by my dad

Leave a reply

I was digging through boxes of old records this morning looking for an obscure record needed to finish this year’s tax return, and found a totally unrelated note written in my father’s hand. It’s an old-fashioned verse, followed by his explanation. I was surprised by it, as I never thought of my father as very introspective or inclined towards such things. It goes like this:

Age is a quality of mind
If you have left your dreams behind
If hope is cold
If you no longer look ahead
If your ambitions fires are dead
then you are old
but
In life you take the best
And if in life you keep the zest
If love you hold
No matter how the years roll by
No matter how the birthdays fly
Your are not old.

—————

I found this little poem
in a birthday book I found in
my mother’s records following her
death the day before her 99th birthday
our birthdays are flying by and
I like to review this now & then
you may enjoy it.
/s/ John

I don’t know who he originally sent this to. What I found is a copy.

And his math was apparently off.

His mother, my grandmother, Jane GALT MONTGOMERY, was born on 19 Apr 1885 in Fergushill, Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland, and died in Long Beach, CA on 18 Apr 1982 on the last day of her 96th year. So it wasn’t the day before her 99th birthday, as he thought.

My father died on October 23, 2010, six weeks before his the end of his 96th year.

Death is just the beginning

6 Replies

No, I’m not talking about spiritual continuity after this life is over. I’m talking about the bureaucratic tasks that remain for those the departed leave behind. It’s the front end of that bureaucratic mess that I’m bogged down in now.

Even when someone has done extensive preparations, as my mother did before her death last month, there’s still a lot to do.

It starts right after someone dies. Within hours, the mortuary wants to settle on desired “arrangements” and get their check. That’s the first step. In my mom’s case, this was relatively simple. Cremation. Immediate. That is, no “viewing” necessary prior to cremation. Container? In her case, a simple cardboard box which delivered her to the crematorium. Apparently the body can’t go in without the box. What urn? Again, a simple container. Her remains will stay there until later in the spring when we’ll scatter them out near the Diamond Head buoy in the same area where we spread her brother quite a few years ago now. It’s what she wanted, so that’s what we’re doing.

The mortuary also triggers two other important bits. First, there’s the obituary. A simple, brief death announcement is free. Just the basic facts. If you want more, something that really says something real about the person who has died, you’re at the mercy of the newspaper monopoly. We stayed with the freebie. The rest appeared here, and on my sister’s blog.

Second, and more important, the mortuary files paperwork for the death certificate, the official one-page document from the State Department of Health that proves one is really dead. As we have discovered, you need this in order to deal with the basics. The process stalls until the death certificates are ready. And, we were warned, DOH takes several weeks to deliver them. The warnings were correct. It took several weeks.

The certificates are needed for just about everything. Social Security was about the only place that didn’t require a death certificate. I telephoned to inform them of my mother’s passing. They took the information, expressed condolences, and contacted Bank of Hawaii to retrieve the most recent payment that had been auto deposited.

However, every one else seems to need a death certificate. The state’s employee retirement system, banks, investment accounts, etc., all need the documentation.

So my mother’s trust attorney, who we are relying on to guide us through the process of settling her estate, advised us to delay our initial consultation until the DOH delivered the certificates. No use spinning our wheels without that essential document.

They finally came in last week and our appointment is on Friday. I’ve got the “inventory” forms and am trying to reconstruct my mother’s finances. Checking accounts. Savings accounts. Certificates of Deposit. Stocks, some in investment accounts, some held individually. A lot in a few places. A few dollars in others. But they have to be located. Other assets. A seven year old car. Furniture. A mountain of genealogical research. A little jewelry, most of the costume variety. Real property? Just the house. All complicated by the fact that she had been slowly consolidating, while her careful filing of records didn’t keep up. I just can’t pin down the status of some accounts. We’ll have to rely on the banks to search their records to confirm the accounts. Trust your banker. Not much else you can do.

Hopefully I’ll have it all together by Friday and ready for the lawyer, who will hopefully then prepare the documentation we need to begin closing accounts and collecting all the various assets for eventually distribution according to my mom’s wishes.

Somewhere along the way, I’ll have to prepare her 2012 taxes. And then figure out about the taxes covering the 29 days of 2013 before her death. Yes, that thing about death and taxes? It appears that the tax part goes on after the death part.

Meanwhile, there’s the ongoing process of clearing out her house. My sister, Bonnie, is taking the lead as she’s been living in my parents house for most of the past five years, providing hands-on care as they reached the end. It’s a process of discovery. What’s in this box/closet/drawer/etc? File, as appropriate, in one of several categories: trash…thrift store…garage sale…appraise…family heirloom…help, further review needed. It’s likely to be a long, convoluted process.

I wasn’t being flippant in suggesting that dying is a lot of work for the living. That’s just the way it is.

Sisters 1919 and 1984

2 Replies

I had to stop when I ran into another photo of my mother and her sister, Marguerite.

Marguerite was a couple of years older. She’s the bigger girl in the top photo. She was seven. My mom was five.

1919

Marguerite left Hawaii before I was born and lived her adult life on the mainland, stopping in Arkansas before settling down in Nevada. I remember visiting her in Lovelock when I was a kid.

Sixty Five years later, another photo of the two sisters. This one carefully dated–May 23, 1984. In this photo, Marguerite looks diminutive next to my mother.

1984

We’ve learned that families are always complicated. In fact, complicated family relationships are par for the course, and these sisters were no exception. We’ll never know their whole story, unless there a “tell all” diary stashed somewhere waiting to be discovered. It’s probably just as well.

Two weeks after my mother’s death and we’re still in limbo. You can’t begin dealing with the legalities of death until the Department of Health is able to deliver copies of the official death certificate. These are needed to do everything–retrieve assets, check bank accounts, transfer property title, and on and on. The mortuary warned that the state usually takes 2-3 weeks, and it looks like they’ll take the full three weeks in this case.

It’s all a learning experience, I suppose.

The reality of death has only hit home at odd moments.

This morning we ran into a friend on our walk. She stopped to express her sympathy, and we exchanged the usual small talk. I shrugged, it is what it is, inevitable.

Then Meda said, “We called her The Woman Who Knows Everything. And she did.”

And somehow that triggered a wave of loss that seemed to sweep over and past me and, for a very long second, left me alone and adrift in a empty mental space. We did regularly call on The Woman Who Knows Everything for her esoteric knowledge about Hawaii, history, family, life. She was always there, and almost always had an answer. In that brief moment, triggered by that sense memory, this new sense of loss overwhelmed. They we walked on, leaving our friend to go on her separate way, and the moment passed.