Free Republic

I've borrowed Woody Guthrie's 1942 song to report that this is my last column for the Voice. I'm not retiring; I've never forgotten my exchange on that decision with Duke Ellington. In those years, he and the band played over 200 one-nighters a year, with jumps from, say, Toronto to Dallas. On one of his rare nights off, Duke looked very beat, and I presumptuously said: "You don't have to keep going through this. With the standards you've written, you could retire on your ASCAP income." Duke looked at me as if I'd lost all my marbles. "Retire!" he crescendoed....

DES MOINES, Iowa, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- An Iowa man who apparently took his own life was found dead with the book and DVD versions of the suicide guide "Final Exit" close to hand. Des Moines police said Derek Mott, 56, also had a list on his desk of needed items for a suicide device described in the book, The Des Moines Register reported. The cause of death was described as asphyxiation. Diane Mott discovered her husband's body at about 4 p.m. Thursday, police said. She told the newspaper he had been in great pain because of diabetes. The book...

How many people get a second chance at life? Rae Kupferschmidt has. In mid-January, the 65-year-old former medical secretary suffered a devasting cerebral hemorrhage, a massive bleeding on the brain. "They thought I was dead," she says. In fact, on January 17th, doctors declared her "brain dead." One word, "dead," is handwritten on that date on the calendar in Rae's room at United Hospital in Saint Paul. In that same hospital room where Rae fielded questions from reporters on Tuesday. Clearly, Rae did not die, but even now, her family is not second-guessing the decision to disconnect life support. Medically,...