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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (July 2017) |
 | This article relies on a single source. (July 2017) |
Paul Brophy | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 27, 1937 Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | October 23, 1986 (aged 49) Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Firefighter |
| Known for | First American to be allowed to die by dehydration of his own volition |
Paul Brophy (April 27, 1937 – October 23, 1986) was a firefighter in Massachusetts who entered a persistent vegetative state with no believed chance of recovery. Opposing viewpoints between his family and his doctors on how to deal with his condition sparked an early legal case on the right to die.
On March 22, 1983, Paul Brophy sustained a basilar artery aneurysm rupture with very destructive neurologic consequences. Following the rupture he entered a persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. As he was unable to chew or swallow, a gastric feeding tube was eventually inserted into him to allow for nutrition and hydration.
Later, when it became obvious that there was no hope for even a modest degree of higher brain function recovery, his family requested that his gastrostomy feedings be terminated, a request based on the fact that Brophy had verbally indicated that he would not want to exist in such a degraded state. However, the hospital, New England Sinai Hospital, denied the request, leading to a series of legal actions.
While the first court to hear the case agreed that Brophy would have wanted the gastrostomy tube removed, it refused to authorize its removal, principally because he was not terminally ill. However, when the case went on further to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, transfer of Brophy to another hospital facility that was agreeable to removal of the gastrostomy tube was authorized.
Brophy died a number of days later, making him the first American to die after court-authorized discontinuation of artificially supplied nutrition and hydration to a person in a persistent vegetative state.
Judge Lynch of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court argued that death by dehydration symptoms was "cruel and violent" in his opinion on this case because such a death involved:
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Paul Brophy (April 27, 1937 – October 23, 1986) was a firefighter in Massachusetts who entered a persistent vegetative state with no believed chance of recovery. Opposing viewpoints between his family and his doctors on how to deal with his condition sparked an early legal case on the right to die. On March 22, 1983, Paul Brophy sustained a basilar artery aneurysm rupture with very destructive neurologic consequences. Following the rupture he entered a persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. As he was unable to chew or swallow, a gastric feeding tube was eventually inserted into him to allow for nutrition and hydration. Later, when it became obvious that there was no hope for even a modest degree of higher brain function recovery, his family requested that his gastrostomy feedings be terminated, a request based on the fact that Brophy had verbally indicated that he would not want to exist in such a degraded state. However, the hospital, New England Sinai Hospital, denied the request, leading to a series of legal actions. While the first court to hear the case agreed that Brophy would have wanted the gastrostomy tube removed, it refused to authorize its removal, principally because he was not terminally ill. However, when the case went on further to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, transfer of Brophy to another hospital facility that was agreeable to removal of the gastrostomy tube was authorized. Brophy died a number of days later, making him the first American to die after court-authorized discontinuation of artificially supplied nutrition and hydration to a person in a persistent vegetative state.
Ronald Eugene Cranford (1941 – May 31, 2006) was a neurologist and expert on comas and unconsciousness. He is best known for his work with families on public cases involving persons in a persistent vegetative state. He and three other doctors were responsible for introducing the "do not resuscitate" order. He worked with the families of such notable cases as the Karen Ann Quinlan case, Paul Brophy, Nancy Cruzan case and Terri Schiavo case.
Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American former politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. He represented Wisconsin's 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1999 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's vice presidential nominee in the 2012 presidential election, running alongside presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, and graduated from Miami University in 1992. He spent five years working in Washington, D.C., becoming a speechwriter and legislative director, then returned to Wisconsin in 1997 to work at his family's construction company. He was elected to Congress to represent Wisconsin's 1st congressional district the following year, replacing Mark Neumann, who had vacated the seat to run for U.S. Senate. Ryan went on to represent the district for 20 years. He chaired the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015, and briefly chaired the House Ways and Means Committee in 2015. A self-proclaimed deficit hawk, Ryan was a major proponent of Social Security privatization in the mid-2000s. During the 2010s, two proposals heavily influenced by Ryan—"The Path to Prosperity" and "A Better Way"—became part of the national dialogue advocating for the privatization of Medicare, the conversion of Medicaid into a block grant program, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and significant federal tax cuts. He was selected by Mitt Romney as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, but the ticket ultimately lost to incumbents Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the presidential election. Ryan was elected Speaker of the House after John Boehner's resignation in 2015. During his speakership, he played a key role in the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act in 2018, which partially repealed the Dodd–Frank Act. Ryan declined to run for re-election in the 2018 midterm elections. With the Democratic Party taking control of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi succeeded Ryan as Speaker of the House.
Brophy is an Irish surname of ancient origin, which is derived from the Irish "Uí Bhróithe" or "Ó Bróithe" septs that were located mostly around Ballybrophy, Laois, and in counties Carlow and Kilkenny. It is among Europe’s earliest true hereditary surnames, traceable to a 9th-century Ossorian ancestor and still geographically rooted in the same region more than a millennium later. The Brophy family has played a prominent role in Irish history for over a thousand years, producing petty kings (Rí), clerics, soldiers, and writers. The name is first attested in the late 11th century, yet, as members of the Dál Birn dynasty, the family’s semi-legendary genealogy is said to reach back to around AD 200, according to Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B 502. As such, it remains one of Ireland's oldest extant pre-Norman Conquest noble families, being related to the kings of Osraige and the Fitzpatrick dynasty as represented by the Earl of Upper Ossory, Baron Upper Ossory, and Baron Castletown. The ancestral seat of the family chief became Ballybrophy (historically Ballybrohy, from Irish: Baile Uí Bhróithe, meaning 'townland of Ó Bróithe') after the Norman Invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Giolla na Naomh Ó hUidhrín wrote in the 14th century that the earliest ancestor of the Brophys was Sedna, the great-grandson of the semi-legendary pre-Christian founder of the Kingdom of Ossory, Óengus Osrithe. In The Book of Rights, the Osraige are labelled as Síl mBresail Bric ("the seed of Bresail Bric") after Bressail Bricc, a remote ancestor of the Ossorians. Bressail Bricc had two sons; Lughaidh, ancestor of the Laigan, and Connla, from whom the Ossorians sprang, through Óengus Osrithe. Thus, the people of Osraige were also sometimes collectively referred to as Clann Connla. "The Annals of the Four Masters" records the death of Gilla Molua O'Brophy (Ua Bruaidheada) of Rath Tamnaighe (Lisdowney, Kilkenny) in 1069. The "Annals of Ulster" mentions that Connor O'Brophy (Conchobar Ua Broighthe), King of Ceann Chaille, and Domhnall Mac Gilla Patraic, King of Upper Ossory, were slain by the O'Moores in 1165. Giolla na Naomh Ó hUidhrín mentions the O'Brophys as residing in Magh Sedna (the Plain of Sedna) in the barony of Galmoy (barony), Kilkenny in his 14th century work, "Tuilleadh feasa ar Éirinn óigh." The name of Galmoy (barony), in Irish Gabhalmhaigh, means "plain of the Branch, or Ghabhal" (River Goul). Magh Sedna Was also known as Aos-Chinn-chaille, i.e., [the territory of] the people of Cean Chaille. Magh Sedna is a fertile part of Ireland which the Danes invaded in the ninth century, and where the Normans came after they had conquered Britain in the eleventh century. Over the years the Norse, Norman and Gaelic bloods have mingled in the families of later centuries. It is the paradoxical story of Ireland that the conquered frequently absorbed their conquerors through intermarriage, language and customs. Hence the oppressors of one generation often produced the rebels of a later one. William O'Brothe was appointed Prior of the Augustinian Monastery of St. Tigernacius of Aghamacart by Pope Sixtus IV on 31 March 1481. William is likely to have been the illegitimate son of Philip O'Brothe, Abbot of Kilcooley Abbey, whom Pope Pius II legitimised and instructed to be taken on as a monk at the Abby after his father's death. When Florence Fitzpatrick, 3rd Baron Upper Ossory, the son of the last person to have claim to the kingship of Osraige, was pardoned by Queen Elizabeth I in 1601, his kinsmen, the Brophys and other "old tribesman of Upper Ossory," were also mentioned in the pardon. Ui Broithe was anglicised as O'Broghie in the Patent Rolls of James I in 1603 and 1607. The name appears as Brohy in census of 1659. Their territory comprised the level portion of the barony of Galmoy, in the county of Kilkenny. They were driven from the plain of Magh Sedna into Upper Ossory, after the Norman invasion of Ireland, and their chief settled at Ballybrophy, near Borris-in-Ossory, in Queen's County (now County Laois). At Christmas 1626 Charles I granted his favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Borris-in-Ossory, "Ballybrophy, Grangemore, &c., &c.; all of which he erected into a manor to be called the Manor of Villiers".
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.