Hi Albert,  Suicide is one way of not dealing with life.  I agree it is
a poor story subject, but suicide is usually committed by unstable
individuals with problems they cannot accept.  Unfortunately this story
gives age related blindness a bum rap.  It leaves out the millions of
people like myself who have continued to live productive and useful
lives.  At age 82 years I have lived with age related blindness and it
is a small price to pay for life abundant.  Suicide stories have been
around for as long as man has told stories.  I have no statistics to
prove it, but more suicides have been committed over the loss of: money,
property, loved ones, jobs, business failures, alcohol, drugs,
depression and the list will never end.  Just think how Shakespeare
could have been such a great story writer if his plays could not have
suicide as the ending of his dramas.
Gordon Wahl
###

Albert Ruel wrote:
>
> Here's an article from the Globe & Mail, one of Canada's National
> Newspapers.  Tell me what you all think.
>
> Thx, Albert
> ER episode under fire
>
> CNIB protests over storyline in which vision impairment leads to suicide
>
> By Guy Dixon
> Sat. November 22, R-15
>
> Bob Newhart's vision-impaired character on the TV series ER shouldn't have
> killed himself.
>
> So says the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, which fired off a
> strong press release this week, a few days after the episode in question was
> aired. The institute which provides support for the blind also wrote letters
> of complaint to the series' executive producer, NBC and its Canadian
> broadcaster, CTV.
>
> But the question is how receptive TV producers and networks are to these
> kinds of complaints, particularly with aging hits such as ER looking to edgy
> storylines to maintain their ratings.
>
> Newhart's character on ER was losing his eyesight due to age-related vision
> problems. Depressed by his illness, and after cutting his hand with a knife
> while trying to prepare a meal, he shoots himself.
>
> "The message this show sends is alarming," the CNIB's president Jim Sanders
> said. People with this condition, age-related macular degeneration, still
> lead "healthy, active, productive lives. This episode is so potentially
> damaging because 80,000 new cases of AMD are diagnosed in Canada each year."
>
> The CNIB isn't the only one taking issue with ER these days. An American
> group, the Center for Nursing Advocacy, recently launched a letter-writing
> campaign aimed at NBC and the show's producers, complaining about the
> portrayal of nurses and their roles in hospitals.
>
> A Warner Bros. spokeswoman in Toronto declined to comment on the CNIB
> complaint, and an NBC spokesperson in Los Angeles wasn't immediately
> available. CTV said it has no control over the storylines.
>
> Some large-scale boycotts targeting sponsors have gone so far as to push
> shows off the air, said Richard Gruneau, professor of communications at
> Simon Fraser University. But with a particular grievance such as the CNIB's
> complaint against one plot line in one episode of one series, prospects of a
> response are small. "There are no mechanisms for that," Gruneau said.
>
> The next question is whether there should be.
>
> -30-
>
> Albert & Janis Ruel
> Victoria, BC, Canada
>
> "Nothing is more tragic than someone who has sight, but no vision." - Helen
> Keller
>
> My daily prayer:
>
> Lord keep your arm around my shoulders and your hand over my mouth!
>
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