The very first attempt at talking about resuscitation and organ donation ethics in a Disney movie

You can put a dog on a leash. But what about death? Life? 

Let's see a bit of Burton's "Frankenweenie"...behind the scene: explore connections between Frankenweenie and Apple's late boss Steve Jobs...

Brain death ethics and "dead" donor ethics? Typical expert stuff, closed-door medicine... ignored by a broad public (especially the young generation, but not only, pretty much everybody actually ...) as long as the broad public has not been hit by storm sparks... I mean, something like... next-of-kin organ donation decision... Frankenweenie's Sparky-the-dog sparks memories of storms... like Jobs' health issues, transplant and death...

As Steve Jobs, Apple's ex-boss, was dying after a liver transplant that gave him more than two years of additional life, two major Disney movies were in the works: Brave and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie... Connections between Disney and Jobs were intense and ...conflictual. Jobs was involved in Pixar (owned it) that in turn was bought by Disney... Jobs used to be Disney's main shareholder... On one occasion, Jobs got Disney's head management fired (those guys sucked... Really really...)

Brave and Frankenweenie were both made by people who where deeply moved by Steve Jobs' health and death issues... and grieving... Brave can be interpreted as the parable of Disney and Jobs' complicated (and intense) relationship... Parable of the Prodigal Son (both Disney and Jobs can be alternatively seen in the Prodigal Son's role)... Brave is a fantastic story that can be enjoyed by any stranger to these little issues and conflicts (behind-the-scene story) between Jobs and Disney...

Frankenweenie is an entire different story... Same context; different result... Burton is dealing with death, ok... sort of happens all the time... But in this case, he wanted to deal with ethics related to death, to organ donation, to resuscitation... A difficult subject... a highly sensitive issue in the transplant medicine community and among some people (you may have heard about that DNR thing)... Did you know that sometimes, a potential brain dead organ donor has to be resuscitated on and on for the sake of organ donation - and not for his or her well-being... let's say... letting him or her go without pain... DNR can be linked to organ donation... Few people know this... Even fewer films (especially entertaining films) deal with this sensitive issue... I guess Mr. Burton wanted to make a "Première"... Frankenweenie is a timid attempt at dealing with something that has never been dealt with before... Organ donors are not dead. They are dying... They can be resuscited, just like Sparky the dog... Is it a good thing or a bad thing? At least, it is a disturbing one... says the movie... Good thing or bad thing?? Burton doesn't want to answer the question. He's exploring it... A dying "donor" (a young man involved in a traffic accident) gave his liver to Steve Jobs... Steve got two and a half years of additional life thanks to organ "donation"... Donation or sacrifice? Maybe both... And a transplant is not a cure, since Steve ended up... dying.

Sparky the dog can be seen both as a dying organ donor and as a transplanted "patient"... This is the beauty of the story...

In my opinion Frankenweenie is a very touching story, but not an easy one to look at because it's full of "cultural" references (besides Frankenstein) and has a hidden background that cannot be explained so easily (transplant issues, DNR issues, Jobs death...). With Frankenweenie, I think quite frankly that Burton has been very... brave. Lot of work remains, though...

You can put a dog on a leash. But what about death? Life?...

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A grave organ shortage... aaaand a grave (brain) misunderstanding...

Is "brain death" a grave misunderstanding? 
"But Daaarling, where are you going? ..."

Why wait until death for organ donation, asks Canadian bioethicist

"More erosion of the dead donor rule in the latest issue of the Cambridge Journal of Healthcare Ethics. To the public, it probably seems axiomatic that vital organs should not removed until the donor is dead. But an increasing number of bioethicists are questioning this, especially in the light of grave organ shortages.
Walter Glennon, of the University of Calgary, breathes new life into the Epicurean argument that death does not matter: 'where death is, I am not; and where I am, death is not. So death is not to be feared, since it is nothing.'
Glennon examines the case of a severely brain-damaged patient. He argues: 'What matters is not that the donor is or is not dead, or when death is declared, but that the donor or a surrogate consents, that the donor has an irreversible condition with no hope of meaningful recovery, that procurement does not cause the donor to experience pain and suffering, and that the donor's intention is realized in a successful transplant.'
Paradoxically, he argues that doctors or relatives could actually be harming a live but brain-damaged patient if they do not allow organ donation. Harm, he says, is thwarting a person's interests. If a patient wanted to donate his organs, he would be harmed if they were not donated, or if they were unsuitable for donation because doctors waited for them to die first. 'We should reject the view that organ donors are beyond harm only after they have been declared dead and that they are harmed if organ procurement occurs before this time.'
If this is true, though, why can't people donate organs when they are well - perhaps as a way of committing suicide? Highly unlikely, Glennon responds. Such people would be irrational and hence not capable of the fundamental criterion, acting autonomously. 'It is usually the experience of an irreversible, hopeless condition that makes a person conclude that life is no longer worth living.'"

Source:  Bioedge.org

Questions hover over "brain death", says US bioethicist 

"The leading opponent of defining death as the death of the brain is D. Alan Shewmon, a professor of paediatric neurology at UCLA Medical Center. In the latest issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, an American bioethicist, E. Christian Brugger, defends him against a white paper written by the President's Council on Bioethics (PCB) in 2008.
Although the PCB was famed for its conservatism on many controversial bioethical issues and its sceptical attitude toward utilitarian reasoning, it defended the conventional standards for declaring that a patient is 'brain dead'. These are called the 'Harvard Criteria', after a 1983 paper written at Harvard Medical School. In summary, these are: unreceptivity and unresponsiveness, no movement or breathing, and no reflexes. Death was the moment 'at which the body's physiological system ceases to constitute an integrated whole'. In other words, because the brain is the integrator of all the body's systems, we know that death has occurred when these systems no longer work together.
Shewmon, however, pointed out that there are many cases in which the bodies of 'brain dead' patients - which fit the Harvard criteria - are still functioning as a whole. There have been well-documented cases of patients assimilating nutrients, fighting infections, maintaining homeostasis and body temperature, and even gestating fetuses and undergoing puberty. So, even if the brain were dead, the patients' bodies were still functioning as an integrated whole. In one astonishing case, a 'brain-dead' four-year-old boy lived on for 20 more years. He fought off serious infections and went through puberty before succumbing to pneumonia. An autopsy showed that his brain and brain stem had calcified; there were no neurons at all.
Brugger's article is too long to give an adequate summary of his doubts about the PCB's white paper. But he concludes that it failed to dismiss Shewmon's belief that the integrative capacity of a body is not located in the brain but is a property of the whole organism. If this is true, 'brain death' may not be the death of a person, only the death of an organ. 'Until these reasonable doubts are removed,' says Brugger, 'an ethically justified caution requires that we should treat them as living human beings.'"

Source:  Bioedge.org

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A Ghost Story with "The French Touch"

"Hear that clankin' sound?
Got these chains on me", just like "Phineas and Ferb" (read)





You know what? That sound of clanking metal reminds me of... ghosts.


British people do love ghost stories, don't they?

So I've added "the French touch" on that one, since I'm singing along with Mylene Farmer:  

"Redonne-moi"...
==> AUDIO FILE

 This audio file explains the reason why I became a ghost: I couldn't sing to save my life!

Also have a crush on this ghost - though mine's definitely a boy; not a girl ;-)

Tous les clips The Dodoz

The Dodoz Ghost Lyrics ...

... and, oh, of course, there's that one ... He makes me write (not sing!)


"The Music of the Night" Lyrics

And, I think, that one takes the (wedding) cake ...


"Remains of the Day" ("The Corpse Bride") - Lyrics

Just having a bit of fun here... (audio file)

But wait a minute, everybody! Did any of you leave me ... a ghost? What for?!? Oh, I think I have a clue...

And as a conclusion (remember "The French Touch"?)... 

"Méfie-toi" (Mylène Farmer)

===> Audio File (I did it again!)


"Méfie-toi":

"Il m'a fallu l'impasse
Donner ma langue au chat
Pour contrer l'existence
I.A.O/I.A.O

Mon Q.I. est tenace
Ma patience : un état
Dompter les apparences
I.A.O/I.A.O

Les chemins sont multiples
Tout est question de choix
Au diable les proses brutales
Les colères homériques
Tout ça n'importe quoi
Il existe arme redoutable
I.A.O/I.A.O

Méfie-toi des puissances
Méfie-toi de l'aisance
Au jeu du corps à corps
L'esprit est bien plus fort
Méfie-toi des puissances
Des vierges sans défense
Leurs forces sont subtiles
La force est féminine
Et quand l'esprit frappe
C'est un fouet qui claque
Méfie-toi quand même
C'est la onzième lame
Majeur est l'arcane
Vierge iconoclaste
Dieu, que l'icône est classe

5.4.3.2

Il m'a fallu l'épreuve
Le : c'est chacun pour soi
Avaler des couleuvres
I.A.O/I.A.O

Mon karma est tenace
On est selon " Bouddha"
Héritier de nos actes
I.A.O/I.A.O

Les chemins sont multiples
Tout est question de choix
Et aux paroles mortifères
Mieux qu'une arithmétique
L'esprit fort est le roi
Il règne ainsi sur la matière

I.A.O/I.A.O

Méfie-toi des puissances
Méfie-toi de l'aisance
Au jeu du corps-à-corps
L'esprit est bien plus fort
Méfie-toi des puissances
Des vierges sans défense
Leurs forces sont subtiles
La force est féminine
Et quand l'esprit frappe
C'est un fouet qui claque
Méfie-toi quand même
C'est la onzième lame
Majeure est l'arcane
Vierge iconoclaste
Dieu, que l'icône est classe"

O please don't tell me I don't know the difference between an angel (of Music ;-) and a... ghost. This is what an angel would sing ... a German angel, that is...  

Richard Wagner - Wesendonck Lieder Nr.1. Der Engel. 
Jessye Norman. 
Der Engel




"In der Kindheit frühen Tagen
Hört ich oft von Engeln sagen,
Die des Himmels hehre Wonne
Tauschen mit der Erdensonne,
Daß, wo bang ein Herz in Sorgen
Schmachtet vor der Welt verborgen,
Daß, wo still es will verbluten,
Und vergehn in Tränenfluten,
Daß, wo brünstig sein Gebet
Einzig um Erlösung fleht...
Da der Engel niederschwebt,
Und es sanft gen Himmel hebt.
Ja, es stieg auch mir ein Engel nieder,
Und auf leuchtendem Gefieder
Führt er, ferne jedem Schmerz,
Meinen Geist nun himmelwärts!"

Sure we can't explain ghosts... but they can explain things to us... things that people who are alive are not always willing to explain... Seems that... love never dies. What do you think?

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, please come to the rescue! Let's kick some serious ass!...


Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo - s01ep01- The Scarab... par YakkoWarnerMovies101

Aaaand now, ladies and gents, here's the seeeequel to "A Ghost Story With French Touch"!

Antony and the Johnsons - "I Fell In Love With a Dead Boy"
(Lyrics)

 Thank you, Antony Hegarty, this is so beauuuuutiful!

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Here's how I ended up a story artist for Tim Burton

First off, please, meet my family: a transplant surgeon in the foreground (guess who ;-)...

Gosh, why do people confide in me so much?? I guess that this transplant surgeon was no exception...

==> DOWNLOAD AUDIO FILE

Secondly, when I was a student, I conducted some academic research on German literature. That included intensive research on German romantic writers: various death freaks like Novalis, for example, who used to write night after night to his... dead fiancée (Hymn to the Night); some beauty freaks, also, ready to die for beauty (whereas I'd rather live up to it), like Thomas Mann ("Death in Venice"), exploring the desire to deny the reality of death in "The Magic Mountain", and being quite thorough about those desires... Etc. Etc.

Third, in my family on my mother's side, we tend to see ghosts... I mean... not the ghost of people we know or have known, or the ghost of a person somebody we know used to know... No, that'd be too easy... Those ghosts we get to see are total strangers, and the best way to get rid of those "visions" is to enquire about the aforesaid ghosts... 'cause you see, if I can see them, well, that means that they must've got some kind of a mission for me... Both the transplant surgeon in my family and I are death freaks... but of a different kind... If you ask that surgeon in my family: "What are you doing for a living?", I'm afraid the honest answer's gonna sound like: "I need some vital organs as sure as vampires need blood...", whereas, as far as I'm concerned, I happen to see ghosts of people who got robbed of their vital organs (or blood, for that matter) and my wild guess is that they are not too happy about it... Yeah, yeah, I know... Just another family rant... At least, my little indiscretions allow you to get both sides of the story. I told that surgeon: "Don't worry! My lips are sealed. Mom's the word." But remember? I told you that on my mother's side, we tend to see ghosts, so...

It's not always easy to determine degrees of family relationship (who was your great-grandmother in the third degree? Can you answer that one in two shakes of a lamb's tail?), let alone sort a ghost's life (and death) out! And no, my name is not Victor, or Victoria... but I've started wondering if I could possibly have met with some distant cousin of our dear "Corpse Bride"... Dear Lord! Things are not easy! Try being in my shoes for a couple of secs.You've got the family of the living and the family of the dead... they don't get along... and you're meddling... Who's talking about bending over backwards now? See? Things are pretty much like in that "Anger Management" TV show, plus: add some kind of meddling psychic (medium) in the picture (that'd be me), and you'll easily understand that before you get to this...

... you have to go aaall the way through this first... and second... and third... etc.

Of course I've read quite a lot of stuff regarding this "brain death" scientific polemic... White papers and stuff... Are "brain dead" organ donors really dead? How can you get living organs from dead people?, etc.

'cause one of the ghosts I see, well, I suspect he must have been a dead organ donor at some point in his life... death... life... ooops, sorry, this is confusing...

Anyway, let's wrap things up, shan't we? How I ended up a story artist for Tim Burton? How difficult is that? Well, lemme tell you one thing for sure: it's a no-brainer!

Pic. 1: http://nouvellesvagues.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/1181
Pic. 2: http://copycatty.deviantart.com/art/The-Corpse-Bride-336296207
Pic. 3: http://www.halloweenmoviesontv.com/halloween-movies-a-to-z/tim-burtons-corpse-bride-2005

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