I get that that’s your meaning, but please understand that that’s not the meaning of most folks, nor does our society operate as though the terms are interchangeable. Wills aren’t executed for brain-dead people. Obituaries are not deliberately run. Funerals aren’t held. We don’t bury or cremate brain-dead people. Petty’s daughter was devastated by her father’s tragedy, but she also was infuriated by reports that her father was dead.
Our culture deals with folks whose brains are dead but whose hearts continue to beat very differently from how we deal with those whose hearts have stopped.
I think our board should recognize this difference, even if it’s not an important distinction to you personally. “RIP” is not used in common parlance for someone who’s brain-dead, and it was confusing to see that on the thread while people were discussing that he hadn’t died. Simply removing the edited note would have sufficed.
Again, I recognize where you’re coming from, and am inclined to agree with you that “brain dead” and “dead” are functionally equivalent; however, they’re not culturally equivalent, and using the wrong terms is confusing.
Braid dead is one thing, but brain dead with life support removed? Seriously, that’s code for “only a matter of time.” It’s unfortunate the media reported it too soon, but the facts were the facts, and any hope of recovery was wishful thinking unfortunately. Tom Petty was an inspirational man and his death is a great loss. All the bickering over semantics in this thread is truly baffling. Good night.
See, this is what I don’t get about Idle (and you). Facts are facts, he wasn’t dead. You even said it yourself.
Look at it this way: “Dad had a brain aneurysm, the doctors say he has about 24 hours left, he’s unconscious but you need to go there and see him” isn’t the same as “Dad had a ruptured aneurysm in his brain, the doctors say he has a day or so left, but we’re just calling him dead now. Besides, even if he survives, he’ll be a shell of his former self”*
The only reason this is about semantics is because Idle has his own definition of death. If you guys would like to attempt to do any post death rituals while the person still is still breathing and has a pulse, I’ll be interested to see the results.
*FTR, you advocated for calling him dead even if he returns from his bread dead state because he won’t be the person remember. That’s messed up.
Idle, I think the point you’re missing is that there’s a very existential difference between “mostly dead” and “all dead”, especially when it comes to loved ones and beloved celebrities, and I don’t just mean digging through their pockets looking for loose change. Nor do I mean the oft-abused aphorism, “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” because any reasonable person who knew the facts of Tom Petty’s condition would conclude as you did – there’s no hope, and while his brain stem may be active enough to keep his lungs and heart working right now, it’s only for a few more hours at most.
But therein lies the rub – the facts. Already, several major media outlets had retracted their reports of Petty’s death once their initial information turned out to be wrong. How do we know that the other news – no brain activity, etc. – was not also wrong? I’m not saying that he could have possibly survived, nobody believes that. But he could very well have gone into a persistent vegetative state that lasts days or weeks or even months. Would it be fair for CBS or Rolling Stone to maintain their “R.I.P.” headline on the basis that hey, he’s gonna die pretty soon no matter what, so what’s the big deal?
Frankly, your argument that the thread title didn’t need to be changed is rather specious, based on the fact that Ellen Cherry came along and changed it herself about an hour later. That’s okay, sometimes there’s work at the office that I leave for someone else to do because I’m not in the mood. And don’t take that the wrong way – Monday was one of those rare but annoying situations where a major celebrity death got retracted, but everyone knew it was just a matter of time anyway. Sucks when that happens, like it happened for Joan Rivers and Ronnie James Dio. Plus you’ve gotta consider the OTHER big news event that happened on Monday…
Anyway, I don’t really have a point, just wanted to get that off my chest. BTW, the “Tom Petty R.I.P.” thread on the Steve Hoffman Forums was actually taken offline for a few hours, so we’re not the only board that got gutkicked with this situation.
I’m well aware that, at this point, it doesn’t matter. But what about going forward? What about when one of your favorite performers is rushed to the hospital? Are you okay with Idle calling them changing the thread title to RIP because he wants to go to bed and contrary to all news reports, he considers them dead?
Tom Petty was one of my favorite performers. It didn’t bother me a bit. In fact, I even posted in the thread before Idle did:
If you’re trying to get Idle to admit to some kind of wrongdoing, I’m afraid you’re going to be as successful at it as resisting the Borg is. But if you want to play Jean-Luc Picard, have at it.
Threads like this one are why I would never want to be a mod.
Volunteer mod on an internet message board changed a thread title twice, then didn’t change it a third time because he was going to bed. Seriously, I wouldn’t give a single fuck.
