Medically Assisted Death (MAID) Law

Federal government moves to delay MAID for people suffering solely from mental illness

Thu, February 2, 2023

Justice Minister David Lametti says the federal government want to delay by a year the extension of MAID to those suffering solely from mental illness. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press - image credit)

The Liberal government is introducing legislation to delay by one year the expansion of the medically assisted death (MAID) law to cover those suffering solely from a mental illness.

"It is clear more time is needed to get this right," Justice Minister David Lametti said Thursday. "The proposed one-year expansion is necessary to ensure that we move forward on this sensitive and complex issue in a prudent and measured way.

"It will provide time to help provincial and territorial partners and the medical and nursing communities to prepare to deliver MAID in these circumstances."

Lametti said the delay will allow ongoing studies of the risks of extending MAID to this group of people to be completed.

"The safety of Canadians just comes first," Lametti said. "That's why we're taking the additional time necessary to get this right."

The government passed MAID legislation in 2016. The Superior Court of Quebec struck the law down in 2019 because it was limited to those whose deaths were "reasonably foreseeable."

Bill C-7, which passed Parliament in March 2021, removed that requirement, in line with the court's ruling. The legislation also temporarily pushed out the expansion of MAID to cases involving only mental illness to March 2023.

'We want to be sure': Lametti

Lametti said many of the provinces were ready to expand MAID in March of this year but the federal government decided to seek the extension to be sure no one jurisdiction is rushed.

"COVID slowed everything down," Lametti said. "To be honest, we could have gone forward with the original date, but we want to be sure, we want to be safe, we want everyone to be on the same page.

"We want, in particular, those health practitioners, those faculties of medicine, colleges who had some concerns to have the time to internalize what is happening."

Lametti said the extension will also give the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying time to complete its final report on MAID for those suffering solely from mental illness.

The committee delivered an interim report in June of last year, which concluded that it was racing against the clock to get its recommendations published in time for the expansion of MAID legislation.

"Although some work is already underway … there is concern that more remains to be done to ensure that all necessary steps have been taken to be ready by the March 2023 deadline," the interim report said.

A looming deadline

"Mental illness" in the new legislation refers to conditions that are primarily psychiatric, such as depression and personality disorders. It doesn't cover neurocognitive or neurodevelopmental disorders, or related conditions.

People with neurodegenerative diseases that lead to dementia can qualify under current rules for MAID, officials said.

If Bill C-39 is not passed by March 17 of this year, MAID for people solely suffering from mental illness will become law in Canada. The legislation cannot be passed after that date because the two-year time limit will have ended.

Lametti said he's confident the legislation will pass in time and has already secured the assistance of the NDP and the Bloc in the House of Commons.

The minister said he hopes the Conservatives agree because they have shown support for such a delay in the past. He also said that while he's normally open to opposition amendments, he will be less open with Bill C-39 because it's a simple repeal.

Dying with Dignity Canada said in a series of social media posts that while it understands the need to provide safeguards and protect the vulnerable, much of that work has been done already.

"For the small group of people across Canada who suffer from treatment-resistant mental disorders, and who want the right to apply for MAID, this delay serves to extend their suffering. For this, we are deeply saddened," the group said.

That hope was swiftly dashed later in the day when Conservative MP Michael Cooper called for the expansion of MAID to be scrapped. Later, in the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also condemned the expansion to MAID in 2024.

"They've announced that a year from today they will introduce measures to end the lives of people who are depressed," he said. "Will they recognize that we need to treat depression and give people hope for a better life rather than ending their lives?"

Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett chastised the Conservative leader, saying that health professionals are trained to deny MAID to people who are suicidal.

Government House Leader Mark Holland, who recently spoke of his own mental health challenges, called on Poilievre to reconsider his remarks.

"I would suggest that the leader think about the assertion that anybody supports anybody taking their life," Holland said.

"When we are talking about issues of MAID, it is below this place to assume that any person, anywhere in this country, supports the idea of suicide as way through dark times."

Alberta has seen roughly 10,000 'excess' deaths since 2020, and COVID doesn't explain it all

Thu, February 2, 2023 

The number of deaths in excess of what would be expected throughout the pandemic is double the number of deaths specifically attributed to COVID-19. (Wendy Martinez/CBC - image credit)

The number of Albertans who died over the last three years was significantly higher than what would be considered normal for that stretch of time, and not all of that increase is attributed to COVID-19 deaths, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

Weekly death estimates from the federal agency show there were 9,821 extra deaths over the course of the pandemic, from early 2020 to the first week of November 2022. That is, close to 10,000 more people died than what would normally be expected for the same time period. Researchers call this number excess deaths.

The official count of COVID deaths suggests the disease is responsible for a large proportion of excess deaths. Alberta Health data shows 5,277 people died of COVID-19 between January 2020 and early November 2022.

But experts say COVID-19 numbers miss the true loss of life that has occurred since 2020. They point to a variety of potential factors for the other deaths, including the province's toxic drugs crisis and an under-pressure medical system.

Others argue Alberta is undercounting COVID-19 deaths.

Total deaths per week in Alberta

But regardless of how the deaths are counted, it's important to know what's happening so as to better address the root issues, according to a Calgary doctor who has spent countless hours with COVID patients.

"We get into semantics of dying with COVID, or dying of COVID," said University of Calgary public health researcher Dr. Gabriel Fabreau.

"And really, it's irrelevant from a health-systems perspective, or the health of a population perspective. Many more people are dying that shouldn't be dying."

Demographers say some excess deaths can be attributed to an aging, growing population. But the last three years saw a significant jump in overall deaths.

Not everyone agrees on the number of excess deaths in the province. There are varying methodologies for calculating this number. Estimates of excess deaths do vary.

Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease researcher and associate professor at the University of Toronto, pegs the number of excess deaths in Alberta at 10,232.

She believes underreporting is one reason for the elevated excess death numbers in most provinces, including Alberta.

In her latest report, Moriarty estimates that Alberta is missing thousands of deaths for the Omicron period (December 2021 to November 2022) of the pandemic.

Pandemic death toll in Alberta


She estimates the number of cases and deaths based on the infection rate of the population on a given date. That expected case and death ratio is based on jurisdictions with more detailed COVID testing and data sharing such as Quebec and the U.K. — jurisdictions where excess deaths more closely match COVID deaths, she says.

Alberta defines a COVID death as a person who died of COVID-19 or where the disease was a contributing factor and is confirmed through a lab test prior to death. But deaths in congregate care outbreaks where only a rapid test was done are also reported, according to Alberta Health.

When it is unclear whether COVID caused or contributed to a death, it is classified as "unknown" and is reviewed by health officials, including nurses, physicians and, in some cases, the medical examiner.

In Quebec, the definition includes lab confirmed cases. It also includes cases where someone who had symptoms of COVID dies with no other clinical explanation, after being exposed to a positive case in a close-contact environment, such as living under the same roof. A positive test result is not required in those cases.

According to her reporting, Moriarty says most Canadian provinces have been overemphasizing COVID deaths in the elderly and missing others.

"There is considerably more excess mortality in younger age groups, even after you adjust for toxic drug deaths, which are also themselves probably underreported," Moriarty told CBC News.

Before the arrival of pandemic, Alberta averaged roughly 40 to 75 drug poisonings per month. Once May 2020 arrived, that number dropped below 100 just once and has been as high as 175 deaths per month.

A separate Alberta study, based on weekly death estimates, looked at excess deaths between March 2020 and December 2021. It found nearly 55 per cent of the deaths were attributed to COVID-19. But it also observed an additional quarter of excess deaths were associated with drug poisoning.

"Although older adults are more likely to die of COVID-19, a massive increase in non-COVID-19-related mortality was observed among younger people," it said.

A spokesperson for Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping said the excess death figures are not a result from underreporting.

In a statement, the spokesperson added the department is confident in the province's reporting of COVID deaths. It cites alcohol and drugs — particularly opioids — an aging population and a greater demand on the health-care system as reasons for the rise.

"The pandemic led to major deferrals of care between 2020 and 2022, which is also contributing to increased patient acuity that could be impacting excess death rate numbers," the statement said.

COVID-19, excess deaths


James Talbot, a former chief medical officer of health for Alberta, says underreporting could be one possible explanation for the excess deaths, adding the province records only test-positive deaths.

"So people who died at home, or in the ambulance, or in emergency before they could be tested, would be listed as excess deaths," he wrote in an email to CBC News.

But Talbot believes delays in getting medical attention for other conditions, toxic drugs and the overwhelmed medical system could also be causes.

Fabreau, the U of C public health researcher, agreed the strained health-care system is affecting patient outcomes.

He says a lot of research shows that over-capacity health services cause additional mortality, whether it's elevated ambulance or ER wait times, or reduced nurse staffing in hospital wards.

"This can lead to the dramatic increase in missed cancer diagnoses we have been seeing, which is due to collapse of primary care," he said.

Lack of adequate mental health care can lead to increased overdoses and alcohol-induced hepatitis from a surge in alcohol use during the pandemic, he said.

Fabreau also suggested the social and medical complications brought on by the arrival of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have led to the escalated deaths.

"There's a long litany of serious complications that come with COVID," he said.

"Strokes, heart attacks, blood clots, organ failures — those are mortality, those are deaths and morbidity that are probably not being captured as COVID but certainly are adding to the increase mortality burden."

Misinformation fills the void

When it comes to accounting for excess deaths, researchers like Moriarty believe it's critical information for the health system and citizens to have.

She said much of this data is available from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and Statistics Canada, but the delays in reporting from many provinces make painting a provincial or national picture difficult.

Fabreau agrees.

"When data are not made available or data are difficult to access, we've learned that in the daily age of misinformation [that] we'll fill in the gaps with garbage and confuse a population and make it harder for people to understand what's happening," he said.

Some reports of excess death numbers in other countries, like the United Kingdom and the United States, have fuelled false claims online that vaccines are to blame.

Fabreau, who is leading a national study on COVID vaccinations, says there's no evidence vaccination raises the risk of death, according to his reading of the literature.

"If anything, it is the exact opposite — it dramatically reduces your risk of death and serious illness," he said. "And I've seen way too many people die of COVID."

Almost 97 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date in Canada, and nearly 32 million Canadians have been vaccinated.

Health Canada data shows that of 400 post-vaccination deaths reported to the agency, its investigation determined/found only four were "consistent with causal association to immunization." One of those deaths occurred in Alberta.

More than 50,000 deaths have been associated with COVID-19 in Canada.

Fabreau says Alberta could, without too much work, provide more detailed and comprehensive data on hospital wait times, ambulance reporting and wait times, hospital capacity and major and minor surgical wait times, without jeopardizing patient privacy.

"We pay for these health systems," he said. "So we should have access to the data about them, and I think that improves accountability and it improves trust."

CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

With faculty strike in its 4th day, MUN's nursing students are going back to their work terms

Thu, February 2, 2023 

Members of Memorial University's faculty association are back on the picket lines for the fourth day of strike action. 

(Peter Cowan/CBC - image credit)

Peter Cowan/CBC

A day after a Memorial University nursing student said she and her classmates fear they won't graduate on time, amid a labour dispute between faculty and administration, the university said clinical placements will resume next week.

Fourth-year nursing students had their work-term placements come to a halt when members of MUN's faculty association walked off the job Monday.

Those students — 69 in total, according to the university — need to complete their work terms to graduate on time in May. Many, according to student Madison Bailey, already have jobs lined up upon graduating.

In a media release Thursday, MUN said clinical placements that were suspended when the strike began will resume Monday with supervision by administrative leadership and the already assigned per-course instructors, who aren't affected by the strike.

"We have been constantly monitoring the potential impact of pausing this clinical placement," said Neil Bose, interim provost and academic vice-president, in the release.

"As we approach the end of the first week of strike action by MUNFA, we have determined we will provide supervision to these students by non-union academic leadership. This is necessary in order to ensure that there is no further risk of a delay in providing nursing resources to the province's health-care system."

Ash Hossain, president of Memorial University's faculty association, said there are still some sticking points his union and its members are pushing for — one of which is job security for contract employees.

"Weirdly enough you can work as a contracted member at MUN for 10, 20 or 30 years and still have no job security, no conversion to full time," he said. "A lot of our members are like that."

Peter Cowan/CBC

But among the union's biggest demands is having a seat on the university's board of regents. The board makes decisions on property, revenue, business and other affairs, such as the appointment of the university's president.

But that move requires work at the provincial government level and an amendment to legislation to allow the faculty association to have a seat on the board.

Premier Andrew Furey said it's something his government "would commit to" but the amendment won't be an overnight solution.

In a media release Wednesday night, the faculty association said it welcomes Furey's comments.

But, the union continued, while MUN raised the prospect of being open to a faculty seat on the board "it misses the essence of collegial governance."

"Inclusion in academic decision-making requires a commitment from the university's administration and cannot simply be resolved with a legislative change from the province — and given the administration's response to MUNFA's requests at the bargaining table, there is no evidence that this commitment is forthcoming," the media release reads.

Hossain said Furey's comments are a good starting point but there's still a piece that's missing.

"Part of our collegial governance package was to insert a definition of collegial governance in the collective agreement, which administration said no to," he said.

"We are still waiting to hear from them. They have to be able to move on major issues for us to come back and sit and talk."

With classes and work terms cancelled, MUN nursing students worry about graduating on time

Wed, February 1, 2023 

Memorial University nursing students are worried about graduating on time due to the labour dispute between university administration and its faculty association. (Jeremy Eaton/CBC - image credit)

Jeremy Eaton/CBC

A class of nursing students set to graduate in May is worried that won't happen because of a labour dispute between the Memorial University of Newfoundland Faculty Association and university administration.

Madison Bailey, a fourth-year nursing student in MUN's faculty of nursing, said her classes have all been cancelled, along with a work-term she's supposed to be completing, amid the strike. But the two other nursing schools in the province — the Centre for Nursing Studies, operated by Eastern Health, and the Western Regional School of Nursing in Corner Brook — remain unaffected.

"There's a stop to all of our courses and clinicals, which greatly affects my class in particular because we're in our … final semester of nursing," Bailey said Wednesday. "We're basically doing our work term right now but that's on pause."

CNS students on the same 12-week work term and unit as Bailey at the Health Sciences Centre are continuing with their education while Bailey and her classmates stand on the picket line in support of their striking instructors.

She said it's a stressful situation and students are trying to figure out a way to complete their work term, graduate on time and help with the province's nursing labour shortage.

"Right now there's a pause on 70 of us. That's 70 new graduate nurses. A lot of us are going to Eastern Health and places in Newfoundland [when we graduate]," Bailey said.

"We're all super-stressed out. That's the consensus between our whole, entire class. We don't know what's going to happen. There's been hardly any communication between us and administration."

Jeremy Eaton/CBC

Bailey said she and her classmates support the faculty association but want to see the strike end soon so they can move on with their education, get back on hospital unit floors and get the job experience they need by May.

"The three schools are supposed to be on the same curriculum. And we are, we're all getting the same education, the same degree at the end of the day, but we're being affected definitely the most by this," she said.

"There wasn't really a plan set up for us. What's going to happen to us? We still don't know, and it's been a couple of days. It could be a couple of days that this goes on, or it could be weeks. It could be even months and that could really affect us starting our jobs in May."

Bailey, like many of her classmates, already has a job lined up, with orientation scheduled for May 1.

Premier Andrew Furey says the provincial government is hoping for a quick resolution for students' sake.

"Just think about what these students have been through in the last three years. There's been nothing normal about their education," Furey said Tuesday.

"To have a labour dispute thrown into their degree training at this point is certainly problematic, and we would hope that both sides see that and both sides can be open to coming back to the table and have a speedy resolution to this."

If the issue of having representation on the university's board of regents is the sticking point, said Furey, that's something government "would commit to." But he added it's not an overnight solution.

"The MUN act is a very big piece of legislation. It's one that we would need multiple sources of input from but that would be a commitment that we would honour for sure," he said.

Pincher Creek ambulances wait at urban hospitals as UCP puts up more money to train rural doctors

Thu, February 2, 2023 

Increasing wait times at urban hospitals are delaying treatments for patients transferred by Pincher Creek Emergency Services’ ambulance crews while tying up paramedics, PCES Chief Pat Neumann told Shootin’ the Breeze.

Neumann said PCES crews have long experienced these delays at Calgary hospitals, especially at Foothills Medical Centre, which Neumann said handles most of the cardiac emergencies, advanced heart treatments and diagnostics, and complex traumas within Alberta Health Services’ south zone.

But similar bottlenecks have hit the Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, which also takes routine and emergency patients from Pincher Creek and surrounding areas, and where Neumann said PCES crews have consistently reported emergency room delays since last summer.

“Lethbridge is terrible now” for wait times, Neumann said.

“It's to a point where, unless they actually are admitting the patient to the ER right away, (PCES crews) are typically waiting every time they go now.”

A return trip to Calgary will tie up a PCES ambulance crew for at least five hours, with crews spending at least three hours on trips to and from Lethbridge, the chief explained.

The department has two ambulances. When one has to travel to and from Calgary or Lethbridge, “That only leaves one ambulance in this community to do any other urgent transfers going out of this area, or to respond to any other emergency call,” Neumann said.

Longer waits are the norm when urban hospitals increasingly provide routine treatment and diagnostics for rural patients. At the same time, Neumann said his crews now attend calls from town residents struggling to access primary care.

“We're picking people up that are going to the (Pincher Creek) Health Centre because they don't have a doctor. They don't know what else to do to get the services they need.”

Patients are showing up at the health centre sicker than they might have been if they’d had regular care from a family doctor, and the problem “compounds itself” as the hospital’s doctors and nurses scramble to fill the gap, Neumann explained.

Six doctors now work at the health centre and its attached medical clinic, down from 11 several years ago, according to the clinic’s executive director, Jeff Brockmann. (Dr. Gavin Parker manages the health centre’s ER.)

Local ambulance calls have more than doubled since Neumann started at PCES roughly 20 years ago, with hospital transfers up by a similar margin. Crews that responded to just under 750 calls in 2005 were handling over 1,500 in 2018. Transfers meanwhile climbed from around 350 to just over 600 in the same period, according to PCES statistics.

The town’s population held at around 3,700 for much of that time, but shrank to around 3,400 by 2021, according to the Government of Alberta’s online regional dashboard.

Just over 25 per cent of residents are 65 or older — a slight proportional increase over 2016, according to Statistics Canada’s 2021 census. As Neumann suggested, the town isn’t getting bigger — it’s getting older.

In response, Health Minister Jason Copping said the Alberta government is investing in rural health care.

Copping said at a media roundtable Monday that the province had put up $1 million to explore options to train doctors at the University of Lethbridge and nearby Northwestern Polytechnic.

“We recognize that we need to train and hire locally, and by getting those seats out in rural Alberta, the more likely that (graduating doctors) are going to stay,” he said.

Copping stressed that Alberta’s United Conservative Party provided many more millions in budget 2022, including the UCP’s new collective agreement with Alberta’s doctors.

The province is meanwhile to bring in foreign doctors by “leverage immigration.” Seventeen doctors from outside Canada have agreed to work in Lethbridge, with some already working there.

“I can tell you more is coming.… So, stay tuned,” Copping said.

Laurie Tritschler, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Shootin' the Breeze

RACIST FAUX COPS

'It is sickening': Canadians appalled by video of Vancouver police handcuffing Indigenous child with autism

The child's mother speaks out after the disturbing video circulates online: 'This is a first'


'It is sickening': Canadians appalled by video of Vancouver police handcuffing Indigenous child with autism

Abhya Adlakha
·Editor, Yahoo News Canada
Tue, January 31, 2023 at 2:08 p.m. MST

Trigger warning: This article contains disturbing footage of an underage child under duress. Viewer discretion is advised.

A disturbing video circulating online has left the public appalled after an Indigenous boy with autism was handcuffed by Vancouver police last Thursday.

In the video, shared by the 12-year-old boy's mother, shows the boy held down on the floor by two Metro Vancouver Transit Police officers at BC Children’s Hospital.

The mother is heard in the background pleading the officers to let go of her son and that he was Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). She can also be heard saying that he was reacting because he wasn't in the usual room at the hospital.

"I respect both #VancouverPolice and #TranslinkPolice but this was a first. We are at #bcchildrenshospital waiting to see a doctor. My kid has been diagnosed with conditions and I the parent do my best with his behaviour," Mia Brown wrote under the video.

"My kid wanted the usual waiting room, but it was taken so my son started whining, and a moment later he was pushed to the ground and handcuffed. My son was crying while the officer (with the glasses) had his knee on my kid’s back. I tried to take these men off my kid but I couldn’t even pull their hands off, so I started recording. I told the officer that what they just did to my kid was not right."

According to CBC, Transit police said they were called by a SkyTrain attendant at the Broadway-Commercial Station just before 5 p.m. that day.

They found the boy who was "physically assaulting a woman, later identified as his mother," their statement to the CBC said.

"Officers attempted to verbally de-escalate the situation, but the youth began trying to push their mother toward the tracks, causing an even greater concern for her safety."

They also added that the mother had a bloody face and the boy allegedly assaulted the SkyTrain attendant when they tried to intervene.

"The use of physical force is always a last resort," the transit police statement to the CBC said.

A statement from B.C. Children's Hospital said "providing an inclusive and culturally safe health-care environment for patients and their families is a top priority.''

The hospital says it has started a health and safety review into what happened, and its Indigenous health team has reached out to the boy's family to offer support.

The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) also issued a statement regarding the mistreatment of the young boy and said they were "appalled by the horrendous treatment" of the boy.

"Children deserve to be cared for with compassion, instead were met with callous violence. Our hands go up to the mother who acted bravely in such a horrific situation," the statement said.

People outraged by the incident

Soccer star Andrea Neil calls for judicial inquiry into sports abuse in Canada

A former captain of Canada's women's soccer team is calling for the federal government to launch a full judicial inquiry into abuse in sports across the country.

Andrea Neil, who made 132 appearances for Canada between 1991 and 2007, spoke to members of Parliament on Thursday, saying "nothing can change until we turn the lights on and reckon with where we are."

Neil also spoke out against how Canada Soccer handled allegations of bullying and sexual abuse against Bob Birarda, a former coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps and U-20 national women's teams.

Birarda pleaded guilty last February to three counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual touching involving four players, and was handed a sentence of two years less a day in November, including nearly 16 months in jail.

Neil says Canada Soccer did not protect the players who came forward with allegations and should not have allowed Birarda to keep his coaching license after he was dismissed by both the Whitecaps and the national sporting organization in 2008.

She told the Standing Committee on the Status of Women's meetings on the safety of women and girls in sport that she wants the government to commit to a comprehensive forensic audit of Canada Soccer's finances and publicly disclose how funding is being used and why.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2023.

 Martini Judaism

David Crosby was my first Bible teacher

He lived hard, played well, sang beautifully and died in a good old age. What else could you ask for?

David Crosby performs in Indianapolis in November 2017. Photo by Raph_PH/Wikimedia/Creative Commons

January 24, 2023

By 

Jeffrey Salkin

(RNS) — David Crosby was responsible for my first lesson in the Hebrew Bible.

Well, actually, it wasn’t just David Crosby. It would have been all of the Byrds.

I was 11 years old, and I had just bought their hit single “Turn Turn Turn.”

The label on the disc said: “Words and music by Pete Seeger, based on the book of Ecclesiastes.”

I asked my mother: “What is the book of Ecclesiastes?”

“Ah,” she replied.

With that, she went to a bookshelf and got down her old confirmation Bible. We found the Book of Ecclesiastes in its “back pages” (as in, the song by Bob Dylan, which the Byrds also recorded, and brilliantly), and there we found the words: “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

Many years later, I would hear the Byrds’ leader, Roger (nee Jim) McGuinn in concert, and I had the chance to meet him.

Roger is a born-again Christian, and he has profound respect for Judaism. I told him I was a rabbi, and I told him the story of my childhood encounter with the real lyrics of “Turn Turn Turn.”

“That was my first Bible lesson,” I said. To which he responded: “And that’s not even in the Torah!”

He signed his autograph to me: “To Rabbi Salkin, your rabbi, Roger McGuinn.”

But “Turn Turn Turn” could not have existed without David Crosby’s sublime harmonies. Those harmonies came to define the Byrds — that, and their futuristic worldview, among other things.

The Byrds became my favorite rock band of all time — yes, surpassing the Beatles.

I saw them in concert several times. The best and most memorable concert was in 1971. It was at the old Music Inn (also sometimes called the Music Barn) in Lenox, Massachusetts. Apparently, their music was too loud, and it was drowning out the more dulcet tones of the classical music concert down the road at Tanglewood. The local police came on stage to get the band to turn down the amplifiers.

We audience members broke into wild applause when we noticed that one of the policemen was the Stockbridge chief of police, William Obanhein — aka “Officer Obie” of “Alice’s Restaurant” fame.

I stuck with David Crosby for his prodigious post-Byrds career, in various combinations with Stills, Nash and Young, and for his solo career as well. Throughout it all, there was his gorgeous voice, his unparalleled harmonies, his unique guitar style (he was one of rock music’s pioneers of alternate guitar tunings, a style Joni Mitchell also adapted) — and always, what seemed from afar, like a gentle and generous soul.

This, despite his troubled life, and his outlaw ways.

That is why I mourn his death, at the age of 81.

Eighty-one.

As you know, I am a rabbi, and I officiate at many funerals. I always read the Psalm that includes these words: “The days of our years are three score and ten, or by reason of strength, four score years.” Many of those funerals are for people who are the same age as David Crosby — four score years — and even a little younger.

Consider the fabled 27 Club of rock musicians — rock stars who died at the age of 27. That necrology includes Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and Brian Jones.

All of them, in the words of the poet laureate of the Jewish people H.N. Bialik, died “before their time, and before anyone’s time … with one more song within them.”

For all his challenges, David Crosby lived to be triple that age — surpassing the Psalmist’s “four score years.”

We can say to our aging rock icons, and perhaps to ourselves, in the words of Blue Oyster Cult, “Don’t fear the reaper.”

But, the coming of the reaper is inevitable — as sure as the late Warren Zevon asked his loved ones to “keep me in your heart for a while” and the late Leonard Cohen said to God “hineini — I’m ready, my Lord.”

Consider this mix of some of David’s later work. He stayed productive and creative. We were lucky to have had him for as long as we did.

Every year on Sukkot, when I reopen and relearn the words of the Book of Ecclesiastes, I always hear the Byrds singing its words. (Or, this version, with Bruce Springsteen and Roger McGuinn, which is one of my favorites).

This is, after all, the soundtrack of our youth, and when we lose a voice that was an essential part of that soundtrack, we are not only saying kaddish for the singer. 

We are saying kaddish for our youth, as well.

Go in peace, David

Why right-wing populism should worry us all

Religion can make you better, or it can make you worse. A podcast on white evangelical populism in America.

A scene from a video for "Onward Christian Soldiers." Video screen grab

February 3, 2023

By 

Jeffrey Salkin

(RNS) — I love malapropisms.

My favorite: A number of years ago, a bar mitzvah kid was leading services from an earlier Reform prayer book, “Gates of Prayer.”

He was supposed to have read: “In a world torn by violence and pain …”

Instead, it came out of his mouth as: “In a world torn by violence and prayer …”

He got that right.

Meet my guest, Professor Marcia Pally. Professor Pally teaches at New York University and at Fordham University and held the Mercator Guest Professorship in the theology department at Humboldt University-Berlin, where she is an annual guest professor. Her latest book is “White Evangelicals and Right-wing Populism: How Did We Get Here?” We discuss her concerns about right-wing evangelical populism. Listen below.

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Want to watch something terrifying?

Check out this video of the song “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Watch those young, beautiful children doing exactly as the lyrics would teach: preparing to become Christian soldiers, marching as to war.

The images are terrifying.

This subject is so hot, so alive and, frankly, so upsetting — precisely because it is about the weaponization of faith.

A group of insurrectionists, including Jacob Chansley (shirtless), prays inside the U.S. Senate chamber after breaching the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Video screen grab via Luke Mogelson/The New Yorker

Check out this quote from Professor Pally’s book:

Among those who on January 6, 2021 rioted at the US Capitol building claiming that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald Trump was a small group that stormed the Senate chamber. Removing his horned helmet, a bare-chested “shaman” figure named Jacob Chansley led the group in prayer:

Thank you heavenly father for gracing us with this opportunity… to allow us to exercise our rights, to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs. We will not allow America, the American way of the United States of America to go down … Thank you divine, omniscient and omnipresent creator God for blessing each and every one of us here and now …. In Christ’s holy name, we pray.

I could not put Professor Pally’s book down, and then I went on to watch Andrew Callaghan’s documentary “This Place Rules,” which just came out and which is available on HBO Max.

It is a chronicle of his trips across the United States, visiting people who wound up — or whose compatriots wound up — on the steps of the Capitol building on Jan. 6.

Many of these people were terrifying. I also mean they were physically terrifying. While I believe everyone has the right to do with their bodies as they want to — these people seem to have gone out of their way to alter their appearances so as to look really scary. They define the meaning of terror.

It worked. I have to say: It terrified me. The whole issue of how faith becomes intertwined with right-wing politics, violent bigotries — all of that — I was fascinated. Grimly fascinated.

I was grimly fascinated and terrified and depressed by the interviews in the film with children who believe in various conspiracy theories, including the QAnon conspiracy theory.

But even more than that: I found it absolutely revolting that they were quoting those theories and then using terms like “globalist” or “Rothschilds,” which are antisemitic dog whistles.

All of which reminded me of something about faith. The late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who served as the chief rabbi of Great Britain and who had a warm relationship with the current King Charles, once said — and it has always stayed with me — that religion has the power to make good people better, and it has the power to make bad people worse.

It is ultimately our choice.