The little G and I were watching tv recently (most likely when I should have been cleaning house…) and I stopped on a kids channel because for once, it had something I wanted to watch. Much to my amazement, Cartoon Network was showing an older Tom and Jerry “movie” and Grace was enthralled with it (she likes cats and mice). I had to explain to her several times who the two main characters were (you know, the cat and the mouse) but after a while, she got it and had no problem following along.

What struck me, while watching it, wasn’t the violence (because the cartoons of my youth were definitely more violent than todays cartoons, remember Elmer Fudd vs. Bugs?) but the fact that unlike most of the cartoons today, Tom and Jerry were quality cartoons. Well drawn, for the most part, the story was better than a lot of the crud on the kids networks today and it was fun to watch. When did kids shows become mindless drivel?

It was nice watching Tom try to catch jerry with no luck at all and even more fun to watch jerry out wit Tom with whatever engraved plaques, bowling balls, bats or other implements of distruction he could get his little mouse paws on. Even cooler was the ability to connect with my eldest watching something that had me laughing for hours when I was her age.

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Apparently, if you’re an Englishman, your internal organs are only on loan. PM Gordo Brown wants to ensure that once you kick it your organs are returned to their rightful owner, the State (by state, I mean the National Health System in GB (Great Britain, not Gordon Brown)). Thats right, Brown is backing a law that makes it proper for a state Hospital to assume that you want your organs donated if you show up DOA (or you kick it on their dime) and do not have it explicitly expressed beforehand that you want to hang on to what you believe to be is yours.

This opens up a whole pandora’s box of legality and what is and is not considered personal property. Currently in the States (the United ones of course) you generally have to declare (on your Drivers License or a living will of some sort) that you want to donate your organs. I like the fact that I get to decide what happens to my liver (if I don’t drown it in rum and coke first) when I die and its not automatically handed to the state for the first Tom, Dick or Sue who needs a new liver.

I mean, what’s next? If the Government can declare that your organs belong to the state when you die, whats to keep them from taking other personal property once you pass??

Note: I don’t have a problem with organ donation, I just believe it should be on your own terms…

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