E = mc2: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

INTELLIGENCE — Photo by David Bruce, used under Creative Commons License. (Inscription carved by Roger Babson at Dogtown Common, Gloucester, Massachusetts, about 1930)

Presented to the Club by David Noyes on Monday evening, November 26, 2018



NEWS FLASH from the front page of the Boston Globe May 21, 2018:



“Massachusetts ponders hiring a computer to grade MCAS essays. Each year, students generate more than six million essays requiring a small army of graduate students, educators, and other professionals to read and score them — a laborious task that takes most of the summer. In an effort to speed up the delivery of the MCAS results to schools and families, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is exploring the option of replacing human test scorers with a computer program. This technology would help the state deliver the results in the summer instead of the fall so that schools could analyze the results and make any necessary adjustments before the school year begins. “



Yes, that’s correct. It’s possible that no human eye would ever see a student’s effort. Can you imagine the Board of Trustees of the Nobel Prize Committee submitting their choices for the Literature Prize to the same algorithm!



Last year Martin gave an intriguing, thought provoking, yet somehow, disquieting presentation about Artificial Intelligence. Tonight, I would like to discuss: Native Intelligence.



I can distinctly remember being in seventh grade, studying what was then called “New Math”. (To this day, I really can’t explain what was “new” about it) We had a two-inch thick paper back workbook with lessons, examples, and problems to be solved. I can even remember our teacher — Mrs. Mansfield. She was spry, agile, and always impeccably dressed. But we took turns guessing what color her otherwise naturally white hair was going to be on Monday morning. Sometimes it had a slight pinkish tone — other times a blue pattern. Once, I recall her head having a distinct green halo.



I soon discovered that I had a knack for this subject and relished the challenge. But I was also struck by how non-universal that experience was. For the first time, I recall being mystified that another student struggled to understand a concept which seemed so obvious to me.



And, at the same time, I fumbled with saxophone lessons and reading music. Too late, I discovered as a high school freshman, that the exam process for high school band was a three-minute solo performance, (in front of the rest of the band, no less), of the John Phillips Souza march we were currently practicing in preparation for football halftime festivities. WOW, how embarrassing! Also, a freshman was always chosen to be the band secretary — whose requisite duties involved making sure every player had the correct music, in the correct order of performance — a thankless job if ever there was one. And, by tradition, the position generally was bestowed upon the worst performer. In this case—yours truly.



I used to read that the aptitude for Math and Music went hand-in-hand, but not so in my case.



All of which brings me to a discussion of the theory of multiple intelligences.



This proposal was first introduced as a radical concept in 1983 by Howard Gardner, in his book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.



Gardner is best known in educational circles for this theory — a critique of the notion that there exists but one human intelligence that can be assessed by standard aptitude testing. He is currently the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981 and a Fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2000. Many teachers, school administrators, and special educators have been inspired by Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences as it has allowed for the idea that there is more than one way to define a person's intellect. Thirty-eight years after the book was written, the theory is still enthusiastically, but not universally, embraced.



As John Maynard Keynes, the famous Nobel economist said: “The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones”.



At the end of the 19th century, France passed a law mandating education for children ages six to fourteen. Amongst others, Alfred Binet was appointed to the Commission for the Retarded. The task was to develop a test that would provide data to distinguish those children who could benefit from remedial help. With the aid of a young medical student, Theodore Simon, in 1905 a new test for measuring intelligence was introduced — the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale. German psychologist William Stern then used the test to create the well known IQ — the tested mental age divided by the chronological age times 100.

Then in 1916, Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University, created a version for use in the United States and it became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. The U.S government recruited Terman to oversee the use of the IQ test for military recruiting for World War I. The recruits were given group intelligence tests which took about an hour to administer. Testing options included Army Alpha, a text-based test, and, Army-Beta, a picture-based test for nonreaders. (Parenthetically, I find it astounding that in 1916, there were so many illiterate men). 25 percent could not complete the Alpha test. The examiners scored the tests on a scale ranging from "A" through "E".

Recruits who earned scores of "A" would be trained as officers while those who earned scores of "D" and "E" would never receive officer training. After the war Terman and his colleagues pressed for intelligence tests to be used in schools to improve their efficiency. With administration to over 1.7 million recruits, and with the backing of the government, the Stanford-Binet test became widely accepted across the country. In part, the excitement about testing was that intelligence was now quantifiable — just as easy as measuring one’s height or weight.

Unfortunately, the test was also advanced by those in the Eugenics movement. Given the perceived importance of intelligence and with new ways to measure intelligence, many influential individuals, including Terman, began promoting controversial ideas to increase the nation's overall intelligence. These ideas included things such as discouraging individuals with low IQ from having children and granting important positions based on high IQ scores.

Throughout the remainder of the twentieth Century, countless people have pursued the best way of defining, measuring, and nurturing intelligence. IQ tests are only the tip of the cognitive iceberg. Such tests as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the American College Test, the Miller Analogies Test, the Graduate Record Exam, etc., are all based on technology originally developed to test intelligence. Even assessments that are focused on measuring achievement (as opposed to aptitude) strongly resemble traditional tests of intelligence.



Gardner admits that the pressure to determine who is intelligent and to do so at the earliest possible age is not likely to disappear anytime soon. But he says that the standard testing for college acceptance, gathers a homogeneous collection of “SAT minds”. And his theory presents a radically different view of the mind, recognizing many different cognitive strengths, and contrasting cognitive styles. He asks the question: “Why does the contemporary construct of intelligence fail to take into account large areas of human endeavor?”



Gardner defines intelligence as a biophysical potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture. This skill allows one to approach a situation where there is a goal to be obtained and to locate the best route to that goal. The problem might be anticipating a move in chess, creating a musical score, repairing a car, or running a successful political campaign.



Gardner, using a set of eight criteria, defines seven intelligences:



1. Musical Intelligence



Musical intelligence entails the skill in the performance, composition, or appreciation of musical patterns.



Think in our local place and time: Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, James Taylor. Enough said!



2. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence



Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body to solve problems.



So include any of the dancers at Jacob’s Pillow, but especially choreographer Martha Graham whose dramatic and expressive performances defined artistry in movement. “Dance is the hidden language of the soul”, she once told the New York Times.



But also, include your favorite mechanic, electrician, or plumber.



Or, consider Roger Clemons, arguably the best pitcher of his generation. But, if you ever heard him speak, you knew he should stick to his day job!



Of course this particular intelligence, most readily translates into financial gain. Lebron James’s new contract will pay him a record $500,000 per game. But even the bench players will make the minimum yearly salary — $1.3 million. For Baseball the minimum is $545,000. For Hockey it’s $650,000. By comparison, the principal oboe player for the Boston Symphony Orchestra was paid $270,000 in 2017.



But, I can’t resist my favorite sports salary story: Babe Ruth was negotiating his salary with Col. Jacob Rupert, owner of the New York Yankees, in 1930, at the height of the Depression. Ruth was told his demand for $80,000 per year was outrageous, since President Hoover was making $75,000. Ruth replied: “What the hell does Hoover have to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did!”



3. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence



Logical-mathematical intelligence involves the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations and investigate issues scientifically. Mathematicians and scientists define this intelligence.



This area of intelligence is the foundation of current IQ testing. In gifted individuals the process of problem solving can be remarkably rapid. And, perhaps, a solution is discovered even before its step-by-step proof is articulated.



For instance, Einstein could imagine and postulate the existence of gravitational waves rippling through the fabric of space-time in 1916, but it would be a full century before LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) could confirm their existence.



4. Linguistic Intelligence



Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages and the capacity to use language to accomplish goals. Lawyers, speakers, writers, poets are among the people with high linguistic intelligence.



The written expression of language is brought to us by our favorite authors. And so, readers interpret and enjoy text using their linguistic intelligence.



One of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”



5. Spatial Intelligence



Spatial intelligence features the potential to recognize and manipulate patterns of wide space (such as pilots), as well as patterns of more confined areas (including artists, architects, and sculptors).



Even with the advent of GPS making map reading skills obsolete, this is the intelligence required to drive a car. Although I see advertisements indicating parallel parking, perhaps the most difficult part of the road test for obtaining a driver’s license can be done automatically by pushing a button!



Spatial problem solving is required for playing chess. The visual arts use of space falls into this category of intelligence. Think of our member Norman Rockwell. And, sadly, the now absent Calder mobiles from the Berkshire Museum! Calder once said that when all goes well, “a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise”.



6. Interpersonal Intelligence



Interpersonal Intelligence is the capacity to notice distinctions among others — in particular, contrasts in moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions. A skilled adult can read the desires of others, even when they might not be apparent. This highly honed skill appears in religious or political leaders, salespeople, teachers, therapists and, yes, even parents.



7. Intrapersonal Intelligence



Intrapersonal intelligence is the knowledge of the internal aspects of oneself—access to one’s own feelings, one’s range of emotions and the ability to draw on that as a means of guiding one’s own behavior.





Since the publication of his book delineating these seven intelligences, Gardner fully expects that other intelligences could be entertained. In subsequent books he has discussed whether Naturalist Intelligence, Spiritual Intelligence, and Existential Intelligence meet his criteria. Although when asked if there is cooking intelligence, humor intelligence, or sexual intelligence, he facetiously replies: I can recognize only the intelligences that I possess”.



Despite describing the independence of these seven intelligences, Gardner acknowledges that nearly every cultural role requires several intelligences. Dance, for instance, requires bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and spatial intelligence. Politics demands interpersonal skill, linguistic and logical aptitude (OR maybe not!).



We are familiar with the John F. Kennedy quote from April 29, 1962 given at a gathering honoring seven Nobel Prize winners:

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Kennedy continued: “Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet”



Gardner suggests that there is a long-standing bias towards testing; after all, for most of us in Western Society, intelligence is a capacity that can be measured by a set of short questions and answers. Gardner asks: “Couldn’t the same method be used to assess a new approach to intelligences?” However, the challenge of measuring someone’s understanding of him or her self or other people does not lend itself to measurement with a short-answer instrument — similarly with bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. Can a person express him/her self effectively in public? Can a person remember his/her way around a place, visited a while ago? Faced with an important decision, can a person reflect on previous experience and make a good decision? These capacities are central to intelligence and yet do not lend themselves to brief assessments. Gardner proposes a host of computer simulations that could be constructed, but realizes the impracticality of such evaluations for general use.



Colleges and Universities have tried for decades to discern the “whole” person in their admissions process. Have you been following the story of the high-stakes case accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-Americans? A group calling itself Students for Fair Admissions brought suit against Harvard for excluding Asian Americans based solely upon race. Harvard had fought the release of its proprietary admissions process, but ultimately had to reveal its secrets to the Court. The plaintiffs contend that Harvard’s own Office of Institutional Research found that Asian-Americans would comprise 43 percent of an admitted class if admissions officers considered only academic qualifications and should make up 26 percent of the class even when extracurricular activities and personal ratings are considered. Yet, Asian-Americans only made up 19 percent of admitted students for the year being evaluated — 2013. The Justice Department has weighed in saying that Harvard’s reliance on personal traits — such as kindness, leadership, and courage (in other words an attempt to measure something other than SAT scores), hurts Asian-American students who often receive lower interview scores from Admissions officers than other applicants. On campus, it has forced students to confront uneasy and intensely personal questions about racial diversity, privilege, and their place at an Ivy League institution. Unlike previous affirmative action lawsuits that hinged on whether a race-conscious admissions process benefitted black and Hispanic students, while hurting white students; this case pivots on a minority — Asian-American applicants.  Stay tuned.



Of course, it is tempting to think of particular intelligences as good or bad; and it is undoubtedly better to have more of certain intelligences than to lack them. However, no intelligence is, in itself, moral or immoral. Intelligence can be put to either a constructive or destructive use.



Before he became the Unabomber, Ted Kaczinski was a gifted mathematician. He went to Harvard on scholarship at age 16 and, in 1967, became the youngest assistant professor of mathematics ever at the University of California, Berkeley. But mathematics was unimportant to him, he later said. It was just a game he was good at. Indeed, he fiercely resented his mother’s insistence that he was a genius. In 1969, Kaczynski abruptly fled academia.



Sixteen bomb attacks, killing three people and injuring 23, were ultimately attributed to him. Tracking him was one of the longest and most expensive manhunts in FBI history. Kaczynski’s bombs were handcrafted, impossible to trace, and became more sophisticated and deadly with time. He carried out this cold trail of terrorism for sixteen years. If not for the actions of his brother David, the Unabomber might still be a fugitive and active bomber.



At trial the government sought the death penalty, breaking an agreement made with David Kaczynski to forgo it. Ultimately, Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty rather than insanity in order to avoid being labeled as mentally ill; and received four life sentences. In a report for the 50th reunion of his class at Harvard, Kaczynski gave his occupation as “prisoner.” Under “awards,” he listed his life sentences.



And, in the category of the misuse of Interpersonal Intelligence, we are all too familiar with the sexual abuse scandals embroiling elite Prep schools, athletic programs such as USA Gymnastics, and The Boy Scouts of America. Most recently, this past summer a Pennsylvania Grand Jury wrote a searing report that Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and law enforcement not to investigate.



The report found more than 1,000 identifiable victims, and is the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The report said there are likely thousands more victims whose records were lost or who were too afraid to come forward.

“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”

The grand jury said that while some accused priests were removed from ministry, the church officials who protected them remained in office or even got promotions. Church officials followed a “playbook for concealing the truth,” the grand jury said, minimizing the abuse by using words like “inappropriate contact” instead of “rape”; and not informing the community of the real reasons behind removing an accused priest.

“Tell his parishioners that he is on ‘sick leave,’ or suffering from ‘nervous exhaustion.’ Or say nothing at all,” the report said.

Constructive and positive use of intelligences does not happen by accident. Deciding how to deploy one’s intelligence is a question of values.



Human beings possess a range of capacities and potentials that can be put to productive use. Individuals need to understand and subsequently deploy their multiple intelligences in productive ways in varying societal roles. Even though intelligence testing is likely to be with us for the foreseeable future, and standard testing of the full gamut of intelligence is not feasible, what matters is the use of intelligence to carry out tasks for the greater good. Accordingly, we should be assessing people’s intelligence by how successfully they carry out valued tasks; or, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I admire it when I see it.”

_______________



Material for this essay was derived from several books by Howard Gardner, including: Frames of Mind, Intelligence Reframed, and Multiple Intelligences. Also, The Boston Globe, The Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, and works my Maya Angelou. 

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Rabbi Harold I. Salzmann, Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Anshe Amunim, Pittsfield, Mass.

The Monday Evening Club has lost its longtime member and secretary-treasurer, Rabbi Harold Salzmann. Here is his obituary. He had been a member of the Club since 1955.

Rabbi Harold  I. Salzmann, 96, died peacefully on Tuesday September 25, 2018 at Mt. Carmel Care Center in Lenox. Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922, Rabbi was the son of Bernard Leopold and Rae (ne Busch) Salzmann. The son and grandson of traditional rabbis trained in the religious schools of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today’s Slovakia), as a youth he received a very thorough training in Biblical Hebrew and Talmud-Torah studies. Eager to explore newer avenues in Jewish thought, Rabbi Salzmann pursued his rabbinical studies in the Reform Movement at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he was ordained in 1950. Throughout his life, he continued his scholarship in theology and as a teacher who trained bar and bat mitzvah children as well as adults. An amateur historian, he collected antique postcards of the Berkshires, possessed a wealth of knowledge about the postal service of British Mandate Palestine, and had begun to write a history of the Jewish community of the Berkshires before his death.

Before joining the US army as a  chaplain at the rank of Second Lieutenant (and later an Army Reserve Captain), he and his wife Audrey (ne Pastor) whom he married in 1950, held a pulpit in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His time as a chaplain for the Western Area Command took him to Germany and Belgium; in Luxembourg, he took part in a dedication ceremony to honor General George Patton.  Turning down a full time commission in the US Army, he returned to civilian life in 1954. He frequently remarked that it was the natural beauty of the Berkshires and his ability to be active in both Jewish and secular life that made him turn down other job offers at larger congregations in New York and Rhode Island.

Over the past 64 years, Rabbi Salzmann dedicated his life to building his Reform Jewish community in Pittsfield. He raised funds and along with the Temple board, engaged an architect to design and to build the new synagogue that is currently home to Congregation Anshe Amunim on Broad street in Pittsfield. The Temple’s membership grew and gained new financial stability through the generosity of congregants who shared his vision. Although he retired early, he remained active as the emeritus rabbi, often stepping in to replace his younger colleagues to conduct services, funerals and weddings.  The Temple honored both the Rabbi and his wife, recently renaming the religious school in their honor. Nationally, he was recognized by his alma mater, the Hebrew University of Cincinnati, with an honorary doctorate in 1975.

At least in equal measure, Rabbi devoted himself to the civic life of the Berkshires, as a citizen and one of its most dedicated religious leaders. Shortly after coming to Pittsfield, he became a member of the Rotary Club. In 2012, fellow Rotarians  recognized his many decades of service to Rotary and the community with the Paul Harris Award.  One of the longest serving members of the clergy in the Berkshires, he delivered more invocations at parades and high school graduations than any other rabbi, priest or minister in the county.  Active in many other capacities in the city and county, from the board of trustees of the Berkshire Medical Center to the committee that restored the World War I memorial in Veterans’ Park on South St.  A longtime member of the Berkshire Clergy Association, he embodied the civic spirit of the Kennedy-era. In addition to his love of collecting books and stamps, he remained the secretary-treasurer of the Monday Evening Club whose members included his dear friend, Norman Rockwell, well into his 90s.

Rabbi Salzmann is survived by his wife and rabbinical partner, Audrey, with whom he would have celebrated their 68^th wedding anniversary on October 8, 2018; a daughter, Dr. Ariel Salzmann of Kingston, Ontario Canada, a son, Joshua Salzmann of London, UK. and five grandchildren Zachary (and his partner Carrie), Francesca, Asher, Natasha and Jordan. The Salzmann family wishes to express their gratitude to our extended Berkshire mishpacha, Jewish and non-Jewish, who frequently visited rabbi as his health declined as well as to express our thanks to the nurses, aides, and staff of Mt. Carmel for the high quality of care and many kindnesses they showed him in his final months of life.

Salzmann, Rabbi Harold, age 96, Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Anshe Amunim, died Sept. 25, 2018 Funeral services will be held FRIDAY, Sept. 28 at Temple Anshe Amunim at 12:00 Noon with Rabbi Liz, P.G. Hirsch, spiritual leader of the Temple, and Rabbi Josh Breindel, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, Mass., officiating. Burial will follow in the  Pittsfield Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations in Rabbi Salzmann’s memory may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center through the Devanny-Condron Funeral Home which has been entrusted with his care.

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The Bridge: An appreciation of George Gershwin

George Gershwin in 1937. Photo by Carl Van Vechten.

Presented to the Club  on Monday Evening March 19, 2018 by Albert
E. Easton

The Triborough Bridge connects the Bronx, Manhattan and
Queens. Basically it’s a bridge from the Bronx to Manhattan, with an offshoot
connected to Queens. George Gershwin built a bridge too, basically from popular
music to classical, but connected in is a bridge that already existed from
popular music to jazz. We wouldn’t be at all surprised today if a classical
piano program included some pieces by Gershwin, and we could probably stand the
shock if there was a little jazz thrown in.

Gershwin’s parents came to the United States in the 1890’s
from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Rose Burkin came first and was living in
Manhattan when a couple years later, Moise Gershowitz (who later changed his
name to Morris Gershvin) arrived and asked her to marry him. Both came from fairly
well off families in Saint Petersburg and had known each other there. They
married in 1895, and in December 1896, their first son Israel (who later
changed his name to Ira) was born. Almost two years later, in September 1898,
their second son Jacob, who was always called George, was born.

The Gershwin family was fairly well off, and always had a
maid. Morris was an entrepreneur at heart and bought and managed several
businesses: cigar store, restaurant, several Turkish baths and many others. Each
time he took on a new business, he moved his family to be near it. If I told
you George Gershwin was a product of the lower East Side, like so many famous
Jewish Americans, I wouldn’t be lying because he did live there sometimes, but
he also lived lots of other places. In all, the Gershwins had over 20 addresses
in Manhattan and three in Brooklyn while George was growing up. Religion and
Jewish tradition did not play a very important part in their lives, although
they always celebrated the seder at Passover.

One of the Gershwin boys was a model student, always
carefully studying his lessons and earning high marks. That was Ira, of course,
the serious one. George was more-or-less the opposite. More interested in
having fun than in studying, he played hooky at times, and his grades were less
than outstanding. Only Ira received a bar mitzvah, George never had one,
perhaps because he was reluctant to undertake the necessary study of Hebrew.

As an example of George’s personality as a young boy,
there’s a story that he asked his father for ten cents to see a movie. When he
was refused, he took off his shoes, went out in the street, and began telling
passing strangers that he was a very poor boy and hoped they could spare a few
cents. He got to see his movie.

In 1910, Morris Gershwin purchased a piano, with the thought
that his serious son Ira, could become proficient at it. Of course, that’s not
what happened. As soon as the piano arrived, 12 year old George sat down and
began playing some popular music of the time. He had already encountered a
piano at a friend’s house, and had learned to play there, something his father
was not aware of. The piano quickly became a very important part of George’s
life.

George loved that piano, and he spent as much time as he
could with it, sometimes to the detriment of his schoolwork, which he never
cared much about anyway. He went enthusiastically each week to lessons with his
teacher, Charles Hambitzer, an accomplished pianist who even did some composing
of his own in the classical realm. Hambitzer wrote of his student: “The boy is
a genius, without a doubt. He wants to go in for this modern stuff, jazz and
what not. But I’m not going to let him for a while. I’ll see that he gets a
firm foundation in the standard music first.”

George had the two things anyone needs to excel in any field
– natural ability and a genuine love for what he was doing. By the time he was
15 he could play any music that was put in front of him, transpose it to any
other key, and improvise on it. This talent got him a job at the Jerome Remick
music publishing house working with the “song pluggers.” A song plugger was
expected to pick up any music Remick wanted to push, and have it played for the
visiting talent looking for songs they could add to their act, in whatever key
they found comfortable.

Remick music had gotten its start on west 28^th Street, the street known at the time as “Tin Pan Alley” for the jangling sound
of the many pianos all being ponded at once, although they later moved uptown
to West 46^th Street, an area that even today is the cradle of
popular music. George being on Tin Pan Alley was too much for Charles
Hambitzer, and his piano lessons ended at this point, but Hambitzer encouraged
him to take music theory lessons from a Hungarian named Edward Kilenyi. Kilenyi
was sympathetic to his desire to work with popular music. And at Remick he
began to make friends with people who would later play an important part in his
career. For example, young Fred and Adele Astaire came looking for material for
their vaudeville act, and he became friendly with them. The pay for ten hours a
day of pounding the piano in a small cubicle was $15 a week.

It doesn’t seem to be possible to tell any American story
without mentioning the influence of race on American history. The public was
beginning to become aware of a very original American type of music. Black
music, in the form of jazz and ragtime, had come on the scene. Black musicians
were emerging from the deep south and performing in northern venues. Syncopated
rhythms (ragged time) hadn’t quite made it to popular music, but ragtime
pianists, notably Scott Joplin had quite a following. George Gershwin was
fascinated by this music and spent hours listening to ragtime piano in cafes
and bars.

By 1915 his skill at the piano had earned him such a
reputation that he was able to get a job recording piano rolls. For this he was
paid a fee of $35 for six rolls, which he could polish off easily on a Saturday
afternoon. Over the course of several years he recorded a total of 130
different songs. Most of the piano rolls available on the internet that were
recorded by Gershwin are in later years, recordings of his own compositions,
but I did find one - Havanola by HugoFrey – that was recorded in 1917. Very definitely classic ragtime.

Gershwin clearly couldn’t
be satisfied forever with plugging only songs written by others, but Remicks
wouldn’t allow him to plug his own songs. So his first published song “When You Want ‘Em You Can’t Get ’Em, When You’ve
Got ‘Em You Don’t Want ‘Em” was published by the Harry von Tilzer company. For
this he was paid five dollars. But it was a start.

After hearing some of his
tunes, Gershwin formed a firm friendship with Jerome Kern, who was by then a
well established composer. As an established composer, Kern generally had a
musical on Broadway. In those days, it was not uncommon for a song by an
unknown composer to be interpolated into a show most of whose songs were by an
established composer, and Gershwin was able to do some of this. By 1918, he had
enough of a reputation to place five songs in a revue called Half Past Eight,
but that closed after a week’s tryout. He then wrote the complete score for a
musical called La La Lucille, which ran for a while but was not a major
hit. But he was about to have a major hit.

By 1919, he had formed a
partnership with lyricist Irving Caesar. The two wrote a number of songs
together, among which was a song called Swanee.
The song was included in a revue that wasn’t too popular. But that wasn’t the
end of Swanee. Gershwin’s reputation
was such that he was invited to a party by Al Jolson at Bessie Bloodgood’s
whorehouse in Harlem, and he was invited to play a few numbers. When Jolson
heard Swanee he asked to interpolate
it into his own review, Sinbad, which was currently running on Broadway.
The combination of Gershwin’s music and Jolson’s delivery proved magical. It
was the biggest hit ever for both of them. Jolson’s recording sold over two
million copies and the sheet music outsold even that. Suddenly, Gershwin was
rich from the royalties. A total of over $10,000 – an enormous sum in 1919.

At the same time as he was
writing Swanee, Gershwin was still
taking theory lessons from Kilenyi. As part of his lessons, he wrote a movement
for a string quartet. This was performed by a few of his friends during his
lifetime, but never published. It was revived after his death. It’s been given
the name Lullaby and has now beenperformed by many quartets and string orchestras. It was his first venture into
classical music. 

Gershwin’s passion, however, was still the Broadway musical.
Producer George White was anxious to produce a revue that would compare to
Florenz Ziegfeld’s Ziefeld Follies. The first edition of George White’s
Scandals was produced in 1919, with composer Richard Whiting, who was hired on
the strength of his major hit Till We
Meet Again. White wasn’t satisfied with Whiting, however, and for George
White’s Scandals of 1920, he hired George Gershwin as the composer.

George White’s Scandals were mostly to showcase beautiful
girls, and Gershwin realized that they were not a good vehicle for his best
material, so he provided music that was mostly pretty pedestrian. Lyrics were partly
by Ira and mostly by another well known lyricist, Buddy De Sylva. Gershwin was
the main composer for the Scandals for five years, ending in 1924. One of the
compositions he included in George White’s Scandals was a one act operetta Blue
Monday. Blue Monday featured jazz music and was intended to be sung
by African-American actors. As such, it was a precursor to Porgy and Bess.

One of the popular songs that emerged from the Scandals of
1924 was Somebody Loves Me. Somebody
Loves Me includes what’s known as a “blue note.” A blue note is a note that
isn’t in the major scale, but inserts a note from the minor scale into the
song. It can’t be played on the white keys of the piano. It’s characteristic of
Afro-American music and is used to produce a sad feeling – the blues. “Somebody
loves me, I wonder who”  “Who” is the
blue note. George Gershwin certainly didn’t invent the blue note, but he used
it extensively, and you find them in many, if not most, of his most popular
songs.

In January, 1924, Gershwin was taking a break from working
on the last of George White’s Scandals, when his attention was called to an
article in the New York Tribune that mentioned “George Gershwin is at work on a
jazz concerto.” He was stunned, since he hadn’t begun any work on such a piece,
although he had told his friend Paul Whiteman that he hoped to do this soon. Whiteman
was anxious to present a concert featuring American music, and had attempted to
book Carnegie Hall for the purpose. When Carnegie Hall was booked for the date
he wanted, February 12, he switched the venue to the smaller Aeolian Hall. Whiteman,
of course, was the source of the press release in the Tribune.

Accounts differ as to the length of time it took Gershwin to
write Rhapsody in Blue– anywhere from
eight days to three weeks. He wrote the score as a two piano piece, intending
that one piano would be orchestrated and replaced by Whiteman’s band. He would
play the solo piano. For his later works, he did his own orchestration, but this
one was handled by Whiteman’s orchestrator.

Gershwin was quite well satisfied with his work, and by the
day of the concert he was confident that it would be well accepted.  The Rhapsody was placed nearly at the end of
the program, which generally went quite well, but Gershwin’s music and his
piano playing far eclipsed everything else. The applause was frenzied. Whiteman
wrote later “At half past five on the afternoon of February 12, we took our
fifth curtain call.” Whiteman had hoped that the Aeolian Hall concert would
help to define American music, but instead it became known as the concert that
launched Rhapsody in Blue. It was the
one item that occupied music critics and journalists in the weeks that
followed, because it established that the jazz idiom had a place on the
classical music stage.

The Rhapsody in Blue
that was performed that day was sixteen minutes long, but it includes a lot of
repetitive passages, and is often edited down. Performances of the Rhapsody can
be anywhere from five minutes to sixteen and still include all its beautiful
themes. I grew up listening to the very popular Victor recording featuring
Gershwin playing and recorded on the two sides of a 12 inch 78RPM disc. For
many years I thought that’s all there was to Rhapsody in Blue.

Through the 1920’s Gershwin claimed a premier place on
Broadway, and most of his greatest songs come from the shows that he
contributed to.  For Swanee and others of his early songs, he had used Irving Caesar as
a lyricist, and after that he frequently teamed with Buddy De Sylva. But most
of his great songs were written with lyrics by his brother Ira. George and Ira
made a good team. George composed a tune, Ira then supplied lyrics. It’s not
really as simple as that, of course; there had to be a lot of back and forth. But
that was easy for two brothers used to getting along with each other.

I’m going to list some of his most popular shows, and the
songs from them that have become standards. The list isn’t inclusive, and I
apologize if I’ve left out one of your favorites:

1924 Lady Be Good – Oh Lady Be Good and The Man I Love.

1925 Tip Toes – Looking for a Boy and Sweet and Low Down.

1926 Oh Kay! – Do, Do, Do and Someone To Watch over Me.

1927 Funny Face – He Loves and She Loves, How Long Has This Been Going On, and ‘S Wonderful

1928 Treasure Girl – Feeling I’m Falling and I’ve Got a Crush on You

1929 Show Girl – An American in Paris Ballet and Liza (An American in Paris was originally published as a separate
orchestral piece and interpolated into Show Girl)

1930 Strike Up the Band
– Soon and Strike up the Band

1930 Girl Crazy – Bidin’ My Time and I Got Rhythm (I Got Rhythm
made Ethel Merman’s Career. She was a virtual unknown until she held a high C
for 16 bars of orchestration)

1931 Of Thee I Sing – Of Thee I Sing, Love Is Sweeping the Country, and Who Cares

In other words, for these eight years, George Gershwin had a
hit on Broadway every year and one or more hit songs. His share of the box
office as well as his royalties from sale of sheet music and recordings left
him quite well off financially. Financial stability leads to the question: Why
didn’t he marry? Well he probably intended to someday, but meanwhile he was
having way too much fun being a bachelor. He dated lots of chorus girls and
other women, never getting too serious about any one although one biographer
says the love of his life was Paulette Godard. Another biographer claims that
he had an illegitimate son by a chorus queen named Margret Manners (stage name
“Mollie Charleston.) Others say this is somewhere between highly speculative
and ridiculous.

Following the success of Rhapsody
in Blue, Gershwin began to write separate concert pieces establishing
himself in the classical field. These included An American in Paris, Concerto
in F, Second Rhapsody, Cuban Overture, and Variations on I Got Rhythm, all of which have been performed and
recorded many times. As Irving Berlin said “He was the only songwriter to
become a composer.”

Gershwin had long entertained the idea of writing an opera,
and had contact with the Metropolitan Opera. In 1933, he acquired the rights to
DuBose Heyward’s play Porgy, which he had long considered might be a
good vehicle for the kind of opera he had in mind. He worked with Heyward in
adapting the play, and finally produced his masterwork Porgy and Bess. He
decided to have the Theater Guild produce it rather than the Metropolitan,
since a Metropolitan production would run only a few times during the season,
whereas a Theater Guild production would run continuously. He insisted on an
all black cast (no black-face), which created some difficulty since the opera
world had not developed many black artists at the time. The production, which
include some of his best songs, like Summertime,
I Got Plenty o’ Nothin’ and It Ain’t
Necessarily So was critically acclaimed, but only a modest success on
Broadway. During the period while he was writing Porgy and Bess, he
solidified his financial status by producing a radio program Music by Gershwin. A few episodes have survived. 

By 1930, the motion pictures known as “Talkies” had come
into their own. Beginning in 1929 with Al Jolson’s appearance in The Jazz
Singer, movie goers were treated to music that came with the movie. Gershwin
was not particularly interested in movies, but in 1930 he got an irresistible
invitation from Fox Studios for him and Ira - $70,000 and a reserved coach from
New York to Hollywood. The film – Delicious didn’t produce any hits. George
enjoyed the sunny climate that winter of 1930, but decided Hollywood was not
for him.

But by 1936, Broadway seemed to have dried up for him. He
returned to Hollywood (where Ira had stayed) and wrote some of his best songs
for three very successful movies – Shall We Dance, A Damsel in
Distress, and Goldwyn Follies. Songs from these movies included: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, They All
Laughed, They Can’t Take That Away from Me, A Foggy Day in London Town, Nice
Work If You Can Get It, Love Is Here To Stay, and Love Walked In.

In June, 1937 he began to have agonizing headaches. He was
diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor and died on July 11, only 38 years
old. His brother Ira survived him until 1983 and devoted himself to keeping the
very considerable Gershwin legacy alive. In 1990, Warner Communications paid a
total of 200 million dollars to acquire the rights to the Gershwin catalog.

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Fur Seals of Alaska (an 1892 paper by Henry Laurens Dawes)

Alaska Fur Seal — photo by US Fish & Wildlife Service — Used under Creative Commons license

One of the members of the Club in its early years was Henry Laurens Dawes, United States Senator representing Massachusetts, who lived in Pittsfield. Dawes himself was the subject of this 2015 paper.



Here's a paper by Dawes, delivered to the Club in 1892, entitled "Fur Seals of Alaska." The original is among the Dawes papers in the National Archives. Dawes himself was the subject of this 2015 Club paper.

Fur Seals of Alaska on Scribd

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Fatal Choice: Choosing no longer to live

Photo by Alberto Biscalchin, used under Creative Commons Licens

Presented to the Club on Monday evening, Dec. 4, 2017 by William P. Densmore

One day in March, 1981, a short obituary appeared in the Chicago Tribune about a fatal choice — the suicide of Earl Russell Marshall, of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It mentioned that Mr. Marshall was a supervisor at the Tulsa maintenance base of American Airlines.



Colleagues of Mr. Marshall at American Airlines had also made a fatal choice two years earlier, a choice primarily responsible for the deaths of 271 people.



Those 271 people had been passengers May 25, 1979 on an American DC-10 jumbo jet which dropped an engine and crashed on takeoff from Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The engine had been worked on at American’s Tulsa maintenance two months earlier. The day after his death, Mr. Marshall, then 47, was to have been questioned by lawyers for the aircraft maker.

The airline said Marshall had no involvement with the accident aircraft. The Tulsa World newspaper talked to Mr. Marshall’s widow in 2004, 25 years later. “He had very bad guilt feelings, and the accident gave him something to attach his feelings to,” Marilyn Marshall to the daily. ‘He was a casualty of that crash.”



DC-10 maker McDonnell Douglas Corp. and American sued each other after the crash and the National Transportation Safety Board investigated. The companies and the government learned that a maintenance work shift ended on one of the nights the DC-10 was in Tulsa and the crew left a 15,300-pound wing engine and attached pylon hanging overnight partially disconnected from the wing – and supported only by the forklift’s hydraulics. The result – a hidden, 13-inch crack formed in one of the three attachments of the engine to the wing.



During the O’Hare takeoff roll at the start of a Los Angeles flight, normal engine thrust broke the attachment, the engine shot forward, rotated over the top of the wing and separated from the aircraft – severing lines of all three independent hydraulic systems vital to control. The plane rolled to the left and crashed. It remains today the highest death toll of any single U.S. aviation disaster.



It was a fatal choice that American Airlines made, to remove the 13,477-pound GE jet engine and 1,865-pound pylon in a single procedure, because it saved 200-man-hours per aircraft engine overhaul, and reduced to 27 from 79 the number of disconnects of lines and cables.



McDonnell Douglas didn’t recommend it, but it also didn’t tell American not to do it that way.



Another fatal choice



I know all this because I was an editor for Chicago Lawyer magazine in 1980 and 1981 and I covered the lawsuits about the crash – I still have hundreds of pages of moldy legal depositions in our basement that contain detailed testimony about the forklift procedure. And ever since, I’ve been fascinated by the safety decisions we make and do not make, and the consequences, and how we assess or become even aware of those consequences.



As a nation, and species, we make policy decisions that involve fatal choices.



For example, we make the fatal choice to allow global climate change to progress, and already we can see migrations, floods, arctic melt, atmospheric and food-security challenges arising. Each of us can think of more such choices for humankind. It seems as if the more distance the policy from our own personal lives and the more people who are at risk, the more likely a fatal choice is made almost without transparent forethought or balancing of costs and consequences.



Another choice. Predawn on Dec. 2, 2017, the United States Senate cobbled together a 500-page document of tax changes, and some completely unrelated matters, scribbled amendments in illegible page-border handwriting, and approved and sent it to the House on a 51-49 partisan vote. There were little or no committee hearings and no time between amendments and a final bill.



One of the provisions of the bill, if it becomes law, is predicted to result over time in 13 million Americans losing their current health-insurance coverage. That’s clearly another fatal choice. Because some of those 13 million Americans are likely to die, or at least die sooner, as a result of coverage decisions by governments and health insurers. Has the United States Senate just become a “death panel”?



It is here – in the domain of health and medicine – that I want to dwell a bit tonight to consider a fatal choice that will affect us all. Some of us will leave here tonight believing the particular fatal choice I’m thinking of is ours to make. Others may well think it should be – indeed is in fact — up to a higher power. I want to argue that the truth lies somewhere in between, that the truth will be different for each of us, and that the sooner we think about it for us and our loved ones, the better – for us and for society.



I’m talking about how we exercise compassion and care near the end of life – a point we shall all reach, perhaps unexpectedly, but more likely with some warning and time for thought and reflection.



Each of us has the opportunity to make a fatal choice about the time and manner our life is to end. Thankfully, life is good enough that most of us don’t choose suicide as did American Airlines supervisor Earl Marshall. But we do make make choices in daily life which could be fatal. We engage in hazardous sports or recreation, unhealthy or excessive eating or drinking. We smoke or become addicted to pain-killing drugs. We own guns.



As we age, there will inevitably be things that will draw us nearer to death. As much as we make decisions as a society, and live as individuals in ways that involve fatal choices, why wouldn’t we do the same as the very real probability of death draws near? At the point where we draw nearer to God, we seem oddly to be more willing than ever to suspend any consideration of whether and on what terms we choose to be alive.



Now, there are people in this group — clergy — who have spent infinitely more time than I thinking about divine intervention and life. So I just have to credit and borrow from a Nov. 7 sermon by The Rev. Sarah Stewart of the First Unitarian Church of Worcester, Mass., whose sermons, by family connection, I receive by email. It helps me to illustrate the fatal-choice nuance I’m driving at.



Rev. Stewart wrote about God’s hand in retelling this joke:

Once upon a time, a man was shipwrecked and flailing around in the sea. He kicked his feet and waved his arms and cried, "O God, save me! I'm going to drown!" And lo and behold, a helicopter spotted the wreckage and flew in low over the man. A ladder uncoiled from the belly of the copter and a rescue worker made his way down. "Grab my hand!" the rescuer shouted.



"No, God will save me!" the man replied. No matter what the rescuer said or did, the man refused to take his hand and be pulled to safety. The rescuer watched in utter dismay as the man slipped beneath the waves. The man came to his senses in Heaven. Dry, warm, and comfortable, he walked toward God, who was hanging out in her favorite chair by the fire. "Hey God!" the man said. "I prayed! I was faithful! Why didn't you rescue me?!"



"Buddy," said God, "who did you think sent the freaking helicopter?"

Here’s why I like Rev. Stewart’s retelling of that story. Because it teaches that God works in many ways, and in ways that you may not even see as divine in the moment. And it teaches that God works in ways that may appear patently secular – the rescue helicopter. And in ways that you have to choose to actively embrace – take hold of the rescuer’s hand.

I think that’s an important aspect of what happens as we age. We may think we will be OK if we just go about our life and assume that God will take care of everything. There will be no pain, no reckoning with family, no diminished quality of life, and if there is, that’s what God intended. That sounds too much to me like the man who just waited in the water until he drowned.



So that’s my little sermon, and I tell it, because the rest of this talk, which is about choice, and a fatal choice at that, is about something still controversial and I want you to know my point of view so you can filter what you hear. My view is that active personal engagement with our fate, whether or not in consultation with God, is appropriate in politics, in life, and in the lead up to death.



A couple of months ago, I wrote an op-ed piece in The Berkshire Eagle. The headline was shortened a bit for space, and it was fine, but the one I had proposed was this: “Right-to-die debate about four words – burden, control, religion and choice – not suicide.” A surprising number of people spoke to me about that piece and how they had been moved to thought by it. It was published Sept. 26, 2017, the same day the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health conducted a hearing on Beacon Hill on Senate Bill 1225 and its twin, House Bill 1194: “An Act Relative to End of Life Options.” Sometime before Feb. 7, 2018, the committee will have to decide if it will refer the bills to the House and Senate for floor votes. It has refused to do so for many years, just letting it lapse.



On Saturday, something happened which may cause the bill to be voted on. At their fall meeting, the Massachusetts Medical Society house of delegates voted 152-56 to end the society’s long-standing opposition to what it has called “physician-assisted suicide” and to adopt a neutral stance. Now, it is calling it “medical aid in dying” and the resolution adopted says that “the act of a physician writing a prescription for a lethal dose of medication to be used by an adult with a terminal illness at such time as the patient sees fit will, if legalized, be recognized as an additional option in the case of the terminally ill.” It says it will train doctors.



The medical society acted after it conducted and reported results of an online survey of a statistical sample of its nearly 25,000 members. A total of 12% responded. Sixty percent of the survey respondents supported “medical aid in dying” . . . the practice of physicians giving terminally-ill adults prescriptions for self-administered lethal medications. The same percentage – 60% — wanted the society to stop opposing physician-assisted dying.



You notice I just said physician-assisted dying, not suicide. Much as in the history of the abortion debate, that one-word shift in terminology is at the center of polarized views. Massachusetts Citizens for Life and the Catholic Church use “suicide.” The Denver-based Compassion & Choices group (formerly the Hemlock Society) and Portland, Oregon-based Death With Dignity National Center -- the two advocacy nonprofits in favor of letting physicians prescribe fatal medication to a willing and competent patient with six months or less to live — both avoid the word suicide.



That’s worth a digression. What do we mean by suicide? That’s simple, you might say. It’s the willful taking of your own life by some overt means. There is no other single English word for that act. “Took her own life,” perhaps. What if you willfully do something very dangerous and it results in your death – driving way too fast as an example? Would your death be deemed a suicide, or an accident? Does intent matter?



If it matters, then we need a new word, or a new understanding of suicide that is without judgment, spiritual or otherwise. Because as our society ages, there will be many people for whom active management of their end of life trajectory could seem appealing. We choose medical procedures, or not, as the man in the joke chooses to reach for the rescuer’s hand, or not.



Did the man in the water commit suicide by not reaching for the rescuer’s hand? He must not have thought so. Interestingly, on Oct. 30, the American Association of Suicidology, whose membership includes mental health and public-health professionals, came out with a policy statement saying that medical aid in dying “is distinct from the behavior that has been traditionally and ordinary described as suicide.”



Colleen Creighton, the suicide-prevention group’s executive director had this to say: “The American Association of Suicidology is dedicated to preventing suicide, but this has no bearing on the reflective, anticipated death a physician may legally help a dying patient facilitate.” She added: “We believe that the term ‘physician-assisted suicide’ constitutes a critical reason why these distinct death categories are so often conflated, and [the term] should be deleted from use . . . in suicide, a life that could have continued indefinitely is cut short. PAD is not a matter of life or death; it is a matter of a foreseeable death occurring a little sooner but in an easier way, in accord with the patient’s wishes and values vs. death later in a potentially more painful and protracted manner. In PAD, the person with a terminal illness does not necessarily want to die; he or she typically wants desperately to live but cannot do so; the disease will take its course.”



Use of the word “suicide” implies an ethical or spiritual judgment of intent by the speaker. I say: “Judge not that ye be not judged.”



The judgment varies around the world. Of 28 developed countries, seven permit some sort of assisted dying and three – Belgium, The Netherlands and Columbia, do not forbid euthanasia – the medical killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The District of Columbia and five states, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Vermont – have enacted laws making doctor-assisted dying by prescription legal. (SEE MAP) Montana did so by court decision. Some 34 other states are considering it. In Massachusetts, governments in Amherst and Northampton last month adopted assisted-dying resolutions. Cambridge and Provincetown did so last year.



Two U.S. Supreme Court actions are relevant here. In 1997, in Vacco vs. Quill, the court ruled 9-0 – with six separate opinions. It upheld a New York state law making doctor-assisted death illegal, distinguishing it from palliative care to alleviate pain that has the ancillary effect of hastening death. The 1997 opinion did not rule on the opposite – a state affirmatively permitting doctor-assisted dying. In the second action, the U.S. Supreme Court this fall declined without comment to review a state appeals court ruling in a Minnesota case which fined Final Exit Network Inc. $30,000 for violating a state statute. The action let stand a lower-court interpretation of the Minnesota law to prohibit the giving of written information to 57-year-old Doreen Dunn that she allegedly used to learn how to take her own life using a helium hood. Final Exit is a nonprofit that for decades has been providing information and support to people who wish to end their own life. By not taking the case, no legal precedent is established. Says Final Exit’s attorney Robert Rivas, who provided a copy of his organization’s Supreme Court appeal: “Until our case in Minnesota, every case on point has held that pure speech cannot sustain a conviction for assisting in a suicide.”



The Mass. Medical Society change in position is similar to what happened in California before that state enacted, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2015, the California End of Life Option Act, making California the fifth state to legalize doctor-assisted death. The California law took effect June 6, 2016, and in its first six months, 258 individuals started the end-of-life option process — 191 were prescribed life-ending drugs and 111 used them. That’s out of 183,265 deaths in California during the same period. That 0.0006 of total deaths – or six-one-hundredths of one percent.



This year, Oregon marked the 20th anniversary of its law taking effect. Over the 20-year period, only about 2,000 Oregonians have requested a prescription. One of them was Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old California educator who moved to Oregon to take advantage of the law when she was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. She was very public about her fatal choice, which drew international attention. Her mother is now on the Death with Dignity board, and her widower husband testified on Beacon Hill in September.



Oregon annually surveys the use of its law and over 20 years it has determined that of four end-of-life issues, pain control was the fourth-most cited reason for choosing medical aid in dying (25.2%). The other concerns were losing autonomy (91.6%), loss of dignity (78.8%), and less ability to engage in activities making life enjoyable (89.7%).



Unless you believe that suicide is an eternal sin, and that hastening your certain death with a pill is in fact suicide, as judged by others, you may have a fatal choice to make. Death and dying are profoundly personal challenges and one needs to appreciate the love and compassion expressed by those with many views, including our families. But we certainly can plan our options for time and manner of death.



It is no longer a taboo subject. In 2014, the state of Massachusetts adopted regulations requiring doctors, nurses, nursing homes other health-care providers to be equipped to provide end-of-life counseling. The Department of Public Health published the seven-page: “Know Your Choices: A Guide for Patients with Serious Advancing Illness.”



Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Massachusetts is a key backer of a nonprofit initiative called the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care (maseriouscare.org), which meets annually. And longtime Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, was among founders of The Conversation Project, dedicated to helping people talk about their wishes for end-of-life care. Doctors, hospitals and estate lawyers can help with advanced-care planning concerning the timing of palliative care, hospice care and life-sustaining treatment options. 

For physicians, the fatal choice is not so simple professionally, even assuming that prescribing death-inducing medication is legalized in Massachusetts. The oldest versions of the Hippocratic Oath say, in common translation from Greek, “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.” However, the vast majority of U.S. medical schools do not ask their graduates to subscribe to a version with words anything like that. And some ethicists argue even the little-used version is mis-understood. Ethicists note that heavy, constant doses of morphine to reduce severe pain – often prescribed for patients with terminal illnesses -- is justified because the main purpose is to relieve pain, with the deadly effects of morphine an ancillary result.



For physicians personally, the fatal choice appears easier. Surveys and reports find that physicians, faced with intrusive, death-prolonging care with no hope of beating a terminal illness, opt out of such care for themselves. This inclination was summarized in a 2011 essay by a University of Southern California family-medicine professor, Ken Murray, MD, who wrote: “[D]octors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little . . . I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, ‘Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.’ ”



In the Berkshire Eagle op-ed, I spoke of four words – burden, control, religion and choice. I wrote about my father’s 2013 death, and his wish to not become a burden on his family. That’s something that weighs heavily on the elderly.



Concerning control -- the author and research physician Atul Gawande, in his PBS Frontline[1] documentary aired in 2015 — and in his book, "Being Mortal" — talks about the fears we all face as we confront the possibility of our own death. One of the greatest is the fear of losing control – your body or mind gives out and you can no longer do the things in life that give you pleasure. Is it OK to make the fatal choice if you feel you are burdening others and you don’t want to be? Should you decision be intertwined with faith and religion?



The fourth word I talked about in The Eagle was choice.



On Oct. 5, 2015, when Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., a former Catholic seminarian, signed the California law, he wrote at the end of his signing statement these words:

In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death. I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn't deny that right to others."

More than 15 years ago, I visited a dear elderly friend – the wife of a former co-worker who had been a widow for many years. She was bedridden in a local nursing home. She could no longer live home alone, had been a vigorous, independent walker and couldn’t any longer. I had been encouraged by her daughter to stop in. As we talked, an aide brought her a plate of food and my friend actively waived her off. It was obvious to me that she did not want to eat. She was cheerful and peaceful. I spoke with her daughter, who spoke with the nursing home. A few weeks later, she died. Voluntary stopping eating and drinking – VSED – is one way to go which doesn’t require drugs or anyone’s permission.



While our corporations, our government, our society, make choices in war, health care, aircraft maintenance, the environment . . . without the best consideration of the fatal consequences, at the end of life, let’s all resolve to equip ourselves with the knowledge and support of our loved ones, and our own information resolve, to each make our own . . . fatal choice – with or without divine intervention.

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