Throughout the week, we keep people up-to-date with information about the Death with Dignity movement and other topics related to end-of-life care through Facebook and Twitter. Below are highlights from this week.

Efforts regarding Death with Dignity:

• On Wednesday, the Vermont Senate approved a Death with Dignity bill. The bill now faces two more hurdles: the House needs to concur with the Senate version and the Governor needs to sign it. The House vote is slated to take place tomorrow.
• Vermont Representative Kate Webb stated why she supports Death with Dignity in the Shelburne News.
• In an interview with the New York Daily News, Death with Dignity National Center executive director Peg Sandeen talked about the often hidden source of opposition to Death with Dignity laws.
• The Huffington Post picked up Peg's interview as well.
• Vermont's historic efforts attracted the notice of USA Today.

We've spotlighted several of our staff members. Today, we would like to shine the light on one of our board members, Betty Rollin.

Betty Rollin is a TV correspondent, accomplished author, and sought-after speaker. A former correspondent for NBC News, her special reports for Nightly News included a series on the Native Americans of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, which won both the duPont and Emmy awards. She now contributes reports for PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.

Rollin is the author of seven books, including First, You Cry, a moving story—the first of its kind—about her breast cancer and mastectomy. Published in 1976 and re-published in 2000 in honor of the author's 25th "cancer anniversary", it received wide critical acclaim and was made into a television movie starring Mary Tyler Moore as Ms. Rollin.

Throughout the week, we keep people up-to-date with information about the Death with Dignity movement and other topics related to end-of-life care through Facebook and Twitter. Below are highlights from this week.

Efforts regarding Death with Dignity:

• Rutgers Law School hosted a forum to discuss the proposed Death with Dignity bill in New Jersey. Another Rutgers Law forum is scheduled April 10 at the Newark Campus.
• The chorus of support for Connecticut's Death with Dignity bill continues to grow. The bill has until May 5th to be approved for consideration by the full House of Representatives.
• Paul Carpenter, a columnist in Pennsylvania, heard an outpouring of support for safeguarded Death with Dignity laws like the ones in Oregon and Washington.
• A Minnesota judge ruled part of the state's law banning assisted death is unconstitutional. One of the defendants in the case, former Final Exit Network president Jerry Dincin, died four days after the verdict.

Any discussion of water-cooler television these days has to include HBO's Game of Thrones. The show is based on a best-selling series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, with five books presently in print and two more to come. I first discovered the books over ten years ago, and I find it amusing to see a whole new audience react to the many shocking plot twists and unexpected deaths of major characters through a different medium. With a new season set to premiere this Sunday, the buzz is heavy around who's survived the events at the end of the previous season, and who'll be next to go. Though set in a fantastical medieval world where seasons last for years, the reality of death is a constant in Martin's universe. The nation of Westeros (or The Seven Kingdoms) is rarely at peace and, even in peacetime, disputes between various feudal lords, bandits, drought, famine, disease, and the ever-approaching threat of winter and its accompanying deprivation make the threat of sudden death routine for its inhabitants.