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I normally try to avoid cynicism, on the grounds that it’s bad mental hygiene. Think of this as my early spring cleaning.
1.
Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student at Red Lake High School in Minnesota, armed himself with two handguns plus a shotgun and went on a rampage, killing ten people and injuring fourteen others. You could say it was a copycat crime:
Reggie Graves, a student at Red Lake High School, said he was watching a movie about Shakespeare in class Monday when he heard the gunman blast his way past the metal detector at the school’s entrance, killing a guard.Then, in a nearby classroom, he heard the gunman say something to his friend Ryan: “He asked Ryan if he believed in God,” Graves said. “And then he shot him.”
Thing is, Jeff Weise wasn’t imitating the actual Columbine shooters. He was imitating a pious urban legend (what back home we used to call a faith-promoting rumor) that sprang up in the wake of the Columbine shootings: that shooter Dylan Klebold asked Cassie Bernall whether she believed in God, and shot her when she said she did.
This story, in many variant versions, spread as fast as the internet would carry it. Cassie Bernall—a cute blonde who had a classic conversion-narrative history of turning to religion after dabbling in bush-league wickedness—was hailed as a martyr, and her story has since been repeatedly invoked to push the usual religious agendas. It’s been especially useful for WASP Chinos who want to think of themselves as being cruelly persecuted for their faith, but who are inconveniently short on evidence that this has ever happened.
Trouble is, the Cassie Bernall incident didn’t happen anything like the stories describe it, and the shooters weren’t targeting Christians. As has gradually become clear, the media coverage of Columbine was notably bad, and the Cassie Bernall story was the single most egregious example of slovenly journalism in the whole mess.
My favorite take on the Cassie Bernall legend can be found at Gadgets for God:
“Yes, I Believe” HatWhether 17-year-old Cassie Bernall actually did say “Yes, I believe” (or words to that effect) before she was so cruelly murdered by Dylan Klebold in April 1999 is the subject of heated debate. Whatever the case, it hasn’t stopped the merchandisers from turning the tragedy at Columbine High School to their advantage.
Now you can sport “Yes I believe” bracelets, chokers, dogtags, keyrings, and this navy bill/khaki crown hat for $17.99 – available from yesibelieve.com. How long before this overtakes WWJD products… if it hasn’t done so already?
I’m sure Jeff Weise’s behavior will be trotted out as further proof that Christians are coming in for persecution. If I’m right, that claim will be purest codswallop. What this tragic incident really teaches us is that kids who are exposed to non-reality-based right-wing Christian propaganda may subsequently commit horrid acts of violence.
There is one striking point of similarity between the Columbine and Red Lake shootings: in both cases, the students were reading Shakespeare when the firing broke out. It’ll be interesting to see whether school districts across the country propose a ban on Shakespeare, the way they tried to ban black clothing in the wake of Columbine.
2.
Terri Schiavo. Everybody knows the story. It’s very sad. She had a stroke and heart attack that cut off oxygen to her brain for too many minutes, and since then has been in a vegetative state. Lack of oxygen will do that. Recovery is impossible. Her cerebral cortex is gone, and no amount of denial is going to bring it back. Her brainstem keeps her breathing and allows her undead body to make random and reflexive movements, but Terri Schiavo herself has left the building. Whatever’s occupying her hospital bed deserves a better death.
Bush and the Republican Congress’s attempt to hijack the judicial proceedings, in defiance of basic Constitutional principles, was pure grandstanding. Thsee same guys who’re enthusiastic about the death penalty, nonchalant about military and civilian deaths in Iraq, and perfectly ready to cut funding for everything from prenatal care to basic public health and safety infrastructure, invoked an extrajudicial, extraconstitutional “culture of life” to justify their media coverage-oriented meddling in the Schiavo case.
You want to see the depth of their spiritual convictions? Here goes:
GOP memo says issue offers political rewardsWASHINGTON — Republican leaders believe their attention to the Terri Schiavo issue could pay dividends with Christian conservatives whose support they covet in the 2006 midterm elections, according to a GOP memo intended to be seen only by senators.
The one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who is up for re-election next year.
“This is an important moral issue, and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue,” said the memo, reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. “This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a co-sponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.”
If you’re a pro-lifer, please realize that these people have no respect for you or your beliefs. To them, you’re just a button to be pushed.
Back in his Texas days, Bush happily signed legislation that made it easier for hospitals to pull the tubes on unresponsive patients, even ones whose known wishes ran contrary to it, whose families were opposed to it, and who might conceivably have had a better-than-zero chance of recovery.
What made the difference? That legislation back then was about money. This legislation now is about votes. None of it has anything to do with moral beliefs. Throwing the Schiavo case into the federal courts was a bleak and conscienceless piece of hypocrisy, undertaken at the expense of a family that has already seen far too much suffering.
3.
Consider the manly political action figures sold by Herobuilders.com. There’s considerable subtext present. Nowhere else will you see such a super-buff Rudy Giuliani or Tony Blair, or such a suggestively receptive Howard Dean. Herobuilders also offers several attractive George W. Bush models. They must be popular with the clientele. I must admit that for some reason I’m squicked by their figure of George tearing off his shirt. It’s so not my kink.
I nevertheless find all this slightly cheering. Normally, when I contemplate the relationship between (on the one hand) Republican voters, and (on the other hand) the thugs, pirates, hypocrites, Pharisees, and bunco-steerers in the Republican leadership, I fall into blank incomprehension and despair: how can they vote for those people?
But conceiving an unreciprocated and perhaps inappropriate sexual fixation on (mostly) right-wing political figures? That’s okay. I may not be able to imagine doing it myself, but I know it for the sort of thing human beings do.
It’s a start.
We can accuse President Bush of many things, but the legislation he signed as governor actually made a fair amount of sense. See
http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2005/03/20/4103/
for an analysis.
(So that's his invocation of Taft-Hartley in 2002... the Texan legislation... Nope, still only need one hand to count the things he's ever done that I've approved of.)
Hi, Stephan. My point wasn't that that legislation was sensible; it was that signing it was inconsistent with his position on the Schiavo case.
Oh, that. Sorry. I don't even notice the current adminstration being merely hypocritical any more; otherwise, my outrage center would have fried to a crisp the day we invaded Iraq.
On Schiavo, do consider this doctor's analysis.
Also, if you read a bit down in the Lean Left posting that Mr. Zielinski cited, I believe it indicates that the charge of hypocrisy is mistaken:
The reason National Right to Life got involved in drafting the Texas law was simple enough: it was obvious that some solution to futile cases had to be found, so they participated in order to make the law as lenient as possible. The 10-day rule was one of the compromises they struck (though in fact facilities had routinely been caring for patients much longer than that while trying to come to arrangements with the families). This is a solution that is necessary - one that even rabid pro-lifers have agreed to, and one that is becoming common across the country. Hospitals simply must have a mechanism to cut off care for hopeless cases - not “severely ill” or “terminal", but literally hopeless cases, patients who cannot improve - when those cases are tying up scarce resources or costing the hospital large amounts of its own money. (Arguably, you ought to cut off care in all futile cases just as a matter of principle, but there is little harm in indulging unrealistic family members as long as they are not overriding the patient’s own wishes and as long as they can pay for their indulgences themselves. When they make demands on other people’s resources or interests, a line must be drawn.)
So if I understand correctly, Bush and pro-lifers agreed that when a patient has no chance of recovery, the hospital shouldn't be required to provide free care forever. But that obviously says nothing about the Schiavo case, where her parents (if I recall correctly) are willing to subsidize her care.
So if I understand correctly, Bush and pro-lifers agreed that when a patient has no chance of recovery, the hospital shouldn't be required to provide free care forever. But that obviously says nothing about the Schiavo case, where her parents (if I recall correctly) are willing to subsidize her care.
What... what... what? You mean, appeals to the person's wishes, dignity, standards of acceptable life don't count and you HAVE to be kept alive... but if you ain't got the money it's ok to pull the plug?
No, this is not hypocritical. This is... this is worse.
In regards to Terri Schiavo: I don’t know why you think they’re doing this to win political favor. They have a vested interest in securing life for people without the use of higher brain functions. It’s called self-preservation.
Apropos of virtually nothing, happy birthday.
The extra special fun part of Bush's having signed that law in Texas is that it has apparently recently led to a black baby in that state having HIS feeding tube pulled--against the express wishes of the mother.
Joy, oh glee.
What gets me about the Terri Schiavo kerfluffle is that if she were poor or dark skinned, Bush (either President Kill Again or Gov Jeb) would be walking down to the hospital to pull the plug themselves. What truely flips me out though, is that there are just enough Republican zombies out there dumb enough to fall for this sloppy, transparent ploy.
It gives hypocrites a bad name.
The Terri Schiavo case depresses the hell out of me. It has special resonance for my family, as we just had a discussion about a feeding tube for my grandmother with Alzheimer's and internal bleeding that put her in the hospital. She's immobile, responsive but rarely coherent and is not often awake anymore. My grandfather made the decision to put the feeding tube in because he couldn't bear the idea of having his wife of 60 years starve to death. I have distinct empathy for the Schiavos and the Schindlers. These are not situations where anyone wins.
There's a shred of silver lining in that this case and my grandmother's case has prompted my family to have discussions about our wishes in case anything similar should happen to any of us. Morbid as it may feel, I'm really glad we did.
And speaking of hypochristians and things that make you go misanthropic...
The Australian government has been widely condemned by human rights advocates for its longstanding habit of incarcerating immigrants in concentration camps in the desert. Now they're adding insult to injury by offering to expedite the release of Muslim immigrants who convert to Christianity.
See the Sydney Morning Herald's report (registration required, see Bugmenot as usual):
"Thirty of Australia's longest-term immigration detainees are having their cases reviewed and could be freed because they have converted to Christianity since arriving. The Federal Government has made the move quietly as it searches for a face-saving way to soften its policy on failed asylum seekers who have been in custody for more than three years, and cannot be repatriated to their countries of origin. It follows strong lobbying efforts by several Government backbenchers, churches and the powerful Family First party for the Government to relax its refugee policy for Christian converts."
Why, no, of course the West isn't engaged in anything remotely resembling a new Crusade against Islam. Whatever could have given you that idea?
This seems to me like one of those ticking time-bomb hypotheticals, just in reverse, for euthanasia. That, and the hypothetical has passed into reality, an ethicist's dream.
If a woman is persistently vegetative, and expressed a prior wish to die if ever in this status, and will die slowly when her loving husband ends her nutrition to respond to her wish, and it's all legal, shouldn't we use physician-assisted suicide as an act of mercy to ease the amount of her suffering before dying?
I'm curious about whether assisted suicide has been considered for Terry; it's probably illegal in Florida.
I guess I sound a little like an armchair philosopher; I'm just trying to come to grips with the thing.
The horror of the Schiavo case highlights the need for everyone to discuss their health care choices, choose a decision-maker, and prepare an advance directive. Please, please, if you have not already done so, do so as soon as possible. I would not like to personally know the next family 'Roach Farm' DeLay and his Merry Band decide to save.
This website has forms for most states: http://uslivingwillregistry.com/default.htm
I'm finding those "kung fu grip" hands on the Giuliani doll disturbing on any number of levels.
Dan - No problem here with your armchair philosophizing. It's a decision that most likely all of us will have to go through at some time in our lives (and some of us will have others go through the decision on our behalf). Seems wise to me to rehearse it in the friendly light of day, when it's all hypothetical and therefore the stakes are low.
However, you're wrong in your facts with regard to the Schiavo case: What's being discussed here isn't physician-assisted suicide, it's withholding treatment. Introducing feeding and hydration tubes are intrusive medical procedures; when we contemplated it for my mother, we were told it involved an incision in the stomach. (Well, maybe not an actual incision, but breaking the skin and passing an object through it.)
The difference between withholding treatment and euthanasia is a bright, shining line, even if it appears subtle when we are first introduced to the idea. I think that even religions with strict prohibitions against suicide — such as Catholicism — permit withholding treatment from hopeless cases, and also permit people with terminal illnesses to refuse treatment.
Shall we look at core values?
President Bush’s budget calls for a $60 billion reduction in funding for Medicaid over 10 years, a cut, which would worsen the burden that cash strapped states like Alabama are already experiencing. The budget also slashes spending for community development block grants; housing programs for the disabled; low-income heating assistance; and local police forces. The president proposes eliminating altogether the HOPE VI housing program; the rural housing and economic development program; and various education programs for at-risk children. In the case of HOPE VI, the president would retroactively cancel last year’s congressional allocation for the program. The budget would even tighten eligibility for food stamps at a time when the poverty rate is rising by making poor Americans ineligible for the stamps if they receive other forms of assistance unrelated to their nutritional needs.
I dunno how it plays in the big cities, but around here the low-income heating assistance and rural housing and economic development programs are real popular.
And did you like the thing with the food stamps? What was that about feeding tubes, George?
Speaking of "an unreciprocated and perhaps inappropriate sexual fixation on (mostly) right-wing political figures", there's Susie Bright's little piece on her fixation with Dan Quayle:
http://www.susiebright.com/stories/quayledick.html
(warning: humor and explicit if unlikely sex...)
So if I understand correctly, Bush and pro-lifers agreed that when a patient has no chance of recovery, the hospital shouldn't be required to provide free care forever. But that obviously says nothing about the Schiavo case, where her parents (if I recall correctly) are willing to subsidize her care.
Bush was for pulling the plug on hopeless patients who cannot afford to pay. That position is not consistent with pro-life principles, because it makes money the deciding factor, instead of the patient's quality of life. In other words, for Bush, who boasts of being pro-life, it is hypocritical in the extreme. And regardless of Bush's posturing, it's bad medicine. I do understand that we can't afford unlimited medical care, but care should be rationed according to its cost-effectiveness, not by ability to pay.
Now, Bush is against pulling the plug on Terry Shiavo, who is a pathetic exemplar of hopelessness. This is inconsistent with his previous position, piling hypocrisy upon hypocrisy. Even though this intervention is intended to court pro-life voters, it is not pro-life to artificially prolong the misery of someone against her will.
If there is any consistency in Bush's positions, it is that the Futile Care Act was heartless, cruel, and mercenary, while his Schiavo intervention is heartless, cruel, and cynically opportunistic.
Schiavo's care is not being subsidized by her parents. It is paid for by money from a malpractice settlement. Of course, to the Bush administration, this is "lawsuit abuse" and they are against it. If Bush had his way, Terry Schiavo's plug would have been pulled years ago, because there would have been no settlement.
So yes, it's hypocrisy, in spades.
You might find these discussions of the Texas legislation interesting: http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2005/03/20/4103/
http://www.leanleft.com/archives/2005/03/22/4105/
The rationale for the Texas legislation is a bit more complicated than the blogosphere-at-large is making it out to be.
(Although that doesn't make the GOP's stance of Terri Schiavo any less hypocritical, for a myriad of other reasons.)
I pretty much tuned out after the election, viewing my former country as a lost cause. With each passing day, I look to the south and see a country that seems to be fraying at the seems. This Terri Schiavo case and the amount of attention it's getting is just absurd.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but when I look at the U.S., I see nothing but a selfish culture (and as far as I'm concerned, that goes for the left just as much as the right). What will it take to create real change in the culture of the U.S.? I think there needs to be a revolution in self-education and community in the U.S. I just wonder if that will ever occur.
(And I'm not trying to start a flame war with these comments. They're just late night ramblings.)
The rationale for the Texas legislation is a bit more complicated than the blogosphere-at-large is making it out to be.
I agree completely. However, Bush and the Texas legislature could have passed a simpler and fairer bill that did not include a means test. Of course, that would have been hard, but we don't elect politicians to do only what is easy.
Thanks, Mitch.
Yeah, I thought about this because of something I saw on CNN: the Vatican considers removing her feeding tube to be euthanasia:
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- It is rare for Vatican officials to publicly discuss ongoing legal matters.
But in the case of Terri Schiavo -- a brain-damaged America woman who has been kept alive for 15 years -- they have taken the unusual step of harshly criticizing the removal of her feeding tube.
They say the procedure amounts to nothing less than a ruthless way to kill a person.
"It is euthanasia," says Javier Lozano, of the Pontiff's Council for Health.
I guess I was then thinking about the less ruthless of two ways to kill a person; is euthanasia by, say, lethal injection worse than euthanasia by withdrawal of feeding tube?
It starts feeling ugly, though, like "kill one to save twenty" kinds of debates. I guess I'd prefer never to have to know. I feel sorry for you for being in a similar situation with your mother.
My father has already left explicit instructions, though. He says that if he can't function well enough to stay out of the nursing home that we are to take him on his first skydiving experience. If he survives, repeat.
On that Oedipal note, back to machine language datapaths.
What will it take to create real change in the culture of the U.S.? I think there needs to be a revolution in self-education and community in the U.S. I just wonder if that will ever occur.
Things seem bad now, but the Depression was worse. I hope we don't we don't end up in times like that again, even if it is what it takes to revitalize American society.
My grandparents reacted to the Depression in different ways. Both sides went through some hardship, but not any serious privation that I know of. One side came out with a heightened sense of entitlement, that they had earned the right to live comfortably. The other side came out with a heightened sense of responsibility, that they needed to look out for others. I was fortunate to be close to all my grandparents while growing up. I loved them all. But it was clear that the liberal activist side of my family was the happiest. My mom's mother, bless her, is still going strong at 95. I'm glad I have her as a role model.
Most Americans, young, old, red, blue, whatever, are in favor of removing the tubes and letting this poor woman pass away. A minority are looking for some kind of political capital. The press is playing along. This should be a non-story.
Interesting paragraphs from Daily Kos:
"It's important to remember that the latest ABC News poll on the issue clocked conservative support for removing the feeding tube at 54-40. That's a solid majority, among conservatives. Heck, even among evangelicals, there is narrow support for removing the feeding tubes, 44-40.
"What we have here is a Republican Party held captive by a narrow, fringe, extremist part of its base. Your average Republican is looking in horror at the current congressional spectacle. The GOP majority has neatly segued itself into the party of Big Intrusive Government."
In coming years, political historians might look back and try to pinpoint the day or week or month that the Republican Party shed the last vestiges of its small-government philosophy. If and when they do, the week just past should make the short list. For it was in this last week that the Republican-controlled Congress made it clear that it sees no area of American life -- none too trivial and none too intimate -- that the federal government should not permeate with its power.
He says two events are the signals: The Schiavo case, and the baseball-steroid hearings.
It's ironic that George Bush is making me a conservative, and the more conservative I get, the more I hate Bush and the current leadership of the country — who call themselves conservatives.
gracelandwest - Good thing you're not trying to start a flamewar here, because if you were I would tell you to take your superior, patronizing attitude, fold it up until it's all corners, and shove it into an orifice from which things usually only come out of. You're proud to be no longer an American? Fine. I wouldn't want you to risk soiling your precious virtue by hanging around with the rest of us, so why don't you just leave us alone? And I'm sure you must be thankful that your new country, whereever it is, is one that has never had corrupt people in power, and never oppressed anyone — which is to say that it's either (1) imaginary or (2) was founded, like, last Thursday and has barely had time to draw up a flag and stamps and other national stuff, let alone having time to go out and do evil.
While I do not really consider this case euthanasia, I would really have nothing against killing this poor shell quickly and painlessly. It is more or less the only case in which I think direct intervention is warranted. This woman is no longer alive. My cat is no genius, but can enjoy life and feel pain. Terry Schiavo can do neither. She's no longer there. She died years ago.
This is a very different case from dementia. A demented patient is still there. But there comes a time when this is simply no longer true. I saw my grandmother cross that line. She lived on for six months, staring into nothing with scared eyes which were probably her last expression back when the stroke hit, fed by intravenous tube because she no longer swallowed, slowly curling up in a lopsided fetal position. My mother who lived by her side for all the six months said that once she stayed in the room when the nurses came to wash her and she saw the bed sores. Her spine was visible through them. We do not think she was feeling anything at that point, or at least we hope so. We begged the doctors to stop the IV tube. They came on all indignant to us, telling us that that way she'd die of thirst and that that was a terrible, terrible death. At the end of the sixth months, her veins couldn't take the IV tube any longer, and as a consequence, she did die of thirst. They had to break her bones to lay her flat in her coffin, she had been curled up so long her tendons had atrophied.
Me, there was a point when I would have gladly have removed the tube, pumped her full of morphine, and let her go. I don't think she was in pain, and what dignity she had had the dementia had already taken away years before. But all of us who loved her looked at that body and couldn't help grieve. Even if we knew she wasn't in there any longer. It was like a six months-wake. We were lucky because she was old, the stroke had done a lot of damage, and she only lasted six months.
I wouldn't have dreamed shortening her life when she was wondering around whispering to herself, talking to the ladies in the mirror, or even mumbling anxiously, incomprehensibly in her bed after the stroke. She was like a little lost baby then, and we cared for her, though she was no longer the woman we had known. But in those last six months she was no baby: she was just a breathing corpse.
My country is coming apart at the seems. It's not all selfishness. There are many people who mean well, and act for what they think is right and good, even when it goes against their own self interest. They are doing their duty as they see it. But what seems right to them seems deeply wrong and a menace to us, and vice-versa. They live in the same country as us, just on a different planet. It's not good, and it probably will get worse. As we struggle to deal with the outrageous stupidity and the terrible irony of it all, we tell beautiful and painful stories. Nothing hurts as much as the knowledge of good and evil. What happens when we find out the singularity we're headed to is emotional?
gracelandwest,
I'm an American expat too - still a citizen, but living abroad. I know how you feel. I get that way late at night sometimes, too.
A few mitigating circumstances to tell yourself, when you see the country you have loved approaching what looks like meltown, while you're powerless to do anything about it:
As for the Terry Schiavo thing, it's crystallised my desires in a non-medical way. My wishes for after any permanent complete disablement include things like:
Having said all that, I love what the established church (a concept I don't like) in my current country just said:
"We are conscious that as a church we are much indebted in our life both to a significant presence of persons of homosexual orientation, and also those whose theology and stance would be critical of attitudes to sexuality other than abstinence outside marriage.
"We rejoice in both."
Thank you, Scottish Episcopal Bishops. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4374249.stm
The best post on the Schiavo issue is in this dkos diary, who in turn links to one of the most comprehensive and objective resources and Jeb Bush-appointed Guardian Ad Litem report. Short story: the money is gone, and even if it were still there, the husband wouldn't be able to inherit a penny. Both parties are moved only by affection for the victim, but one of them are being manipulated for political reasons and won't let it go even after _any_appointed_judicial_organ_ upheld the decision (made from the judge, not from the husband) to take the tube off.
The family will take it to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I bet those old Justices will feel for Schiavo: they risk to end up like that in a few years (or months), and I don't think they want to hang around much in that condition. The Schindlers will set a "wonderful" amount of precedents, and the fundie schills supporting them will end up doing their cause a very bad service.
I think you (and Slate) have missed the real danger of the Terry Schiavo case. Not only is it the US Government poking its nose in where it doesn't belong, only three senators were present due to it being a midnight session.
Things get worse when you take into account that Quorum Counts must be requested, or Quorum is assumed to exist. Yes, there are reasons not to call for a quorum count when numbers slip too low- but this trick simply makes a mockery of the rules.
Three senators, all republican and a voice vote. Of course it was unanimous. Great precident to set there.
A few comments -- first, thanks for the link to that crocheted hyperspace thing.
Next, Cassie Bernall ... now, I have no idea why that kid in Minnesota went on a rampage, but go on and completely dismiss Cassie's story is a spin on the truth. What the Columbine gunman actually asked her (if anything) is moot; the information on her spirituality comes from her personal journals. Her father tours churches and uses her own writings and drawings in his messsage.
2. Schiavo -- I wish they had pulled the tube 15 years ago. I ask why it didn't happen then as it now makes this decision difficult on a moral level. But, apart from the specifics of her case, one could argue that this issue now impacts on issues regarding the handicapped. Would someone suggest you could refuse to feed a severly handicapped person just because they were too brain-damaged to feed themselves? I am not trying to make a moral judgment here, I am just tossing out ideas that might be of concern.
I, too, have had to fight doctors to invoke a living will. My mother approved a feeding tube as an emergency service when my father had the first stroke, thinking it would be a temporary, until-he's-well-enough-to-come-home sort of thing. Two weeks and cascades of strokes later, it was clear he wouldn't be coming home.
I also had to fight them for his morphine.
Dad was intermittently conscious and speaking right up until the end. He knew, and I knew, the day when our last visit came, and we said our goodbyes.
It wasn't the sort of dignified death my husband's family tends to have, but it was worlds better than the lingering semi-life he would have had with the feeding tube. If I could have made his death quicker, instead of weeks on a morphine drip, I think he would have agreed to it. He was looking forward to moving on into eternity.
On your item 3, perhaps as many readers as possible should contact this outfit to ask when the Jeff Gannon figure will be available. Just think what range of "action outfits" can be made available for it--and what it's action options could be. We already know what his weapon of choice is....
On the Schiavo case, it's been used by this administration to establish some truly scary precedents. The unanimous voice vote by three Senators is one part. More important is that the Federal government can get involved in what should be a personal decision. It does bear directly on the abortion issue, and points up one of my objections to efforts to ban abortion--that once the precedent of governmental control is set, what can be banned can also be made compulsory. It ties directly to the mindset that engaged in compulsory sterilization of the mentally handicapped, lobotomization of deranged or troublesome people (name that Kennedy!), and winds up with means testing to decide whether to pull the plug on patients who are not beyond hope of recovery. All done for their own good, of course.
What would these same zealots say if asked why they didn't force a ventilator and heart-lung machine to be used to maintain a beating heart in the great modern Republican saint, Ronald Reagan? He had more brain activity than does Terry. Hell--they'd better hook Cheney up right now. With his cardiac history he could go at any time, and we already know that his circle will always choose life. Unless it's life that has no money, or doesn't march to their specific drum.
If you want a Jeff Gannon doll, if you give 'em $450 and a couple of photos they'll make one for you, no problem.
I think, being in another country, I don't have enough exposure to the whole Columbine thing to understand what's actually been going on with this whole "do you believe on god" stuff. Are people really using that to try and claim persecution?
Sue:
On point 2, I can see where you're coming from. But from all I can gather, this woman isn't handicapped. She's not even there any more. The body is still maintaining, but on purely autonomic functions.
Having said that, there has to be a quicker way than starving to death. Even if she won't feel it, it won't be nice for any of her family to watch.
Paul, I do not believe anyone is claiming religious persecution in the Columbine case. I believe the story is just pointing out the price one might need to pay for their beliefs (which on a one-to-one basis is much different than persecution as a practice of culture -- and can be true across the spectrum of beliefs.)
Alas, with Schiavo, I wish they had let her die when she first suffered the brain-damage.
The 'paying the price' thing assumes, though, that the girl was shot because of her belief in god. Is there actually any evidence for this? I thought the shooters were basically just killing everyone they could find.
Paul said:
I think, being in another country, I don't have enough exposure to the whole Columbine thing to understand what's actually been going on with this whole "do you believe on god" stuff. Are people really using that to try and claim persecution?
There's a certain part of the fundie population that still thinks it's the first century and Ceasar is feading Christians to the lions for the amusment of the pagan masses. They apparently haven't notticed the monuments of the ten commandments or churches on every street, godly billboards and Supreme Court Justices talking openly about our laws being Christian in origin. Stories like the "Yes, I Believe" myth is a way for these folks to reinforce their persocution complex. After all, they only make up 70% of the population, so we godless other 30% must be trying to persecute them or we would have happily converted by now and would all be singing hymns and sitting patiently, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the rapture.
totally insane, the facts are still coming in but people really don't appear mad about this and our political people have said little or nothing.
but after all what can you say?
I used to worry that Terri Schiavo was suffering. If I were lying there, even fully conscious and aware of my surroundings but unable to respond in any way, I think I'd rather be dead.
But then I saw a picture of her brain. Her cerebral cortex has liquified. Now I know she isn't suffering, because there's nothing there to suffer with.
My only concern, as a Wiccan Priest, is that her spirit may still be bound to that body. If it is, then it's been in torment for fifteen years, and the parents have been committing the worst of all crimes against her -- as tools of the hypochristians, as someone above has called them.
I've said it before: The Republican Party has become a stinking midden where true conservatives smother in the effluvia of right-wing ideologues.
The Columbine shooters targeted "jocks," by whom they'd been (at least in their view) mistreated. There was one guy early on who they warned to take off before the rampage began. Other than that they shot at random. If Cassie Bernall is a Christian martyr, so is Matthew Shepard (in fact I can make a better case for him).
If Cassie Bernall is a Christian martyr, so is Matthew Shepard (in fact I can make a better case for him).
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
What he said.
Among other things, yeah.
There's little evidence that the Columbine shooters targeted jocks, either. The library at lunchtime wouldn't have been my first choice to find them.
=============
If the question ever arises for me, and there's no reasonable hope of resuming normal mental function, my choice is comfort care only.
This story connects, sort of, the God and Poltics subthread, the classroom subthread, and the outbreaks-of-violence subthread:
Many social scientists say a new government program will turn fieldwork abroad into spying. Can secrecy coexist with academic openness?
By DAVID GLENN
Chronicle of Higher Education
Section: Research & Publishing
Volume 51, Issue 29, Page A14
In 1995, as the American Anthropological Association debated a revision to its code of ethics, Felix Moos made an argument that was unpopular among his peers. Anthropologists, he said, should be permitted -- indeed, should feel a duty -- to conduct classified research that might help the U.S. government understand global conflicts....
"We have on the Intelligence Committee what I call 'Oh my God' hearings," Mr. Roberts says. "As in: 'Oh, my God, how did this happen?'"
Read some about Jeff Weise in the paper this morning. Kid had been through a lot. Dad a suicide, mom brain-damaged and in a nursing home, cousin killed in the same crash that injured mom.
So:
Just what is it that losers and creeps and traumatized youth find so attractive about Hitler?
There's little evidence that the Columbine shooters targeted jocks, either. The library at lunchtime wouldn't have been my first choice to find them.
So is the "all jocks please stand up" an urban myth as well? THAT I did not know.
Just what is it that losers and creeps and traumatized youth find so attractive about Hitler?
My speculation has been that it's a way of getting attention. Worshipping Hitler is outrageous enough that no sane person could ignore it as a serious sign of trouble. Unfortunately, for some reason our society appears to have decided that "he's doing that to get attention" means "ignore him" not "he's crying for help."
Teresa --
One additional thing. In addition to considering this doctor's opinion -- which apparently no other commenter has yet done -- you might want to direct some cynicism towards the "GOP memo" itself. Thus far, no one has explained where it came from; it is not written on Senate letterhead; and the memo's text was mostly copied from a blog posting at the Traditional Values Coalition. That doesn't prove the memo is a fake, but one should definitely take it with a grain of salt. Read here and here for more info.
Those HeroBuilders things are Cree-Pee, as is their link to a designer/vendor of "Urban Tactical Clothing". And the comic they link from their main page just sounds disturbing.
But you have to give them credit for craft -- they apparently do good work, and carefully, too.
Just what is it that losers and creeps and traumatized youth find so attractive about Hitler?
Hitler was kind of a loser and a creep, and traumatized according to some people. And yet he acquired Supreme Power. That's a pretty attractive narrative, to some types.
Respectful of Otters has had several excellent posts about the Schiavo case, including this one about her brain testing since 1998 (excerpted):
"Pekin Prattles also reproduces a lengthy journal article by Dr. Cranford (it's mislabeled "Dr. Cranford's complete Terri Schiavo report," but it's obviously a summary article, not a medical report). It's well worth reading. He discusses the series of CAT scans taken between 1990 and 2002 (not just the 1996 one which has been widely reproduced on the net), the EEG evidence over the same time period, and Schiavo's clinical records from her attending physicians - correcting the widespread misapprehension that Schiavo's neurological condition has not been re-evaluated since the 1998 trial."
I listened to a minnesota caller on Air America this am after taking my youngest son to school. The woman said that the killer had been raised in the Twin Cities and was relocated at age 11 to Red Lake after his mother was placed in a nursing home for severe injuries sustained in a car accident. As noted above, his father committed suicide 4 years ago. The kid, who was described as a nice,quiet kid in the Twin Cities, was put into a family he had not grown up. but the worst was he apparently was subjected to constant bullying at the school where the administration did nothing about it.
Now, that is starting to make sense to me.
Stefan,
I'd say that Hitler is attractive to those people because his message is "It's not your fault". Don't have a job? Must be them damn Jewblackmexicanpolishasianitaliancommunistpaganists who are taking them all. It's simple, understandable, easily repeatable, and requires no further effort or investigation on the listener's part. The fact that the evidence isn't credible doesn't make any difference.
It's also a message of comfort e.g. the world isn't random or unpredictable or unfair or scary, the problem is with those [imagine strike-through here, not quite sure why it's not working] body thetans Jewblackmexicanpolishasianitaliancommunistpaganists demons democrats[/strike-through] others. Who needs a philosophy where s**t just happens when you can have one where s**t happens because of a very specific someone?
Although I may be pimping here, check out Disney's propaganda shorts in "On the Front Lines", specifically "Reason and Emotion". Even though it's propaganda (and pretty cringingly sexist), it's a good key into the mindset.
Jack - take a look at this post by that same doctor, and tell me why we should take his medical opinion seriously.
Seriously, even in the comments section of the post you link to he already backs down from some of his more, um, authoritative pronouncements about the Schiavo CT.
That doesn't prove the memo is a fake, but one should definitely take it with a grain of salt.
If I'd written that memo, I'd say anything to try to disavow it now, too. Do tell, Jack. Who's responsible for it--Vince Foster?
Side note: in Re:
http://codeblueblog.blogs.com/codeblueblog/2005/03/csi_medblogs_co.html
I had a look at it, and dismissed it on the grounds that (A) it goes haring off into conspiracy-theory land with the whole "IF THIS IS NOT TERRI'S CT THEN WHERE IS HER CT?" thing, and (B) the correct forum for a doctor to raise questions about the interpretation of a specific test is a courtroom, not a blog. Less gently, I can find a person with an MD willing to say anything up to and including "Stephan Zielinski's brain has been eaten by mice"; MDs can be confused or flat out wrong just like anyone else. Ergo, I'm not going to attempt to refute medical claims on a blog-- first off, because I'm not a doctor, and second, because the case has come up in court after court after court and the result is always the same: there's nobody home in there.
Still less gently: sometimes, that lone voice crying in the wilderness is out there alone because he's an idiot. I can't say for sure in this case-- I've never met the man-- but I will say that if I get hit by a bus, I really hope someone else is on duty at the ER that day.
Jack, that "doctor" you cite is not one of Terri Schiavo's physicians. He has not examined the patient, nor done any of the other things he by rights should have done before giving a medical opinion. In terms of professional behavior, he's way over the line. In fact, the way he's shooting his mouth off there makes me wonder whether he's a doctor at all. I'd like to see some believable credentials. Until then, he's just some guy who writes as Codeblueblog.
Every legal and medical detail of Terri Schiavo's case has been scrutinized, repeatedly and in detail, continuously, for years. No one involved would dare make an unconsidered decision. Nevertheless, the legitimate court system decided that, on the basis of the evidence and the law, the appropriate action was to go along with the removal of the feeding tube.
Are you objection to adjudication by evidence, adjudication by law, or both? I'm curious.
There is no case to be made for ignoring Terri Schiavo's wishes and her physical condition. The only way to make one is by lying. This current congressional media stunt is the only way to circumvent the legitimate court system. And even after said stunt had been pulled, and the case thrown into the federal courts, pray notice that they quickly arrived at the same conclusions as the state courts.
This case is yet another patch of astroturf. Y'all are being suckered.
Here's the hard truth: Terri Schiavo's cerebral cortex is gone. It has ceased to be, it has expired, it has been replaced by cerebrospinal fluid. It is neither stunned, nor resting, nor pining for the fjords. Its total non-functionality is not due to its being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk, and it wouldn't twitch if you put four million volts through it, because it simply isn't there.
Nobody comes back from that.
As for that GOP memo, I sincerely doubt that the Washington Post printed the story without checking it out first.
I always wondered what a real zombie would look like. After looking at some of the pictures of Terri Shiavo, I now feel like I've seen one. There's no human excuse for letting what remains of a person continue to exist in this awful state.
Keith: hear, hear.
Hammesfahr Disciplinary Action
One of the Schindlers' 'experts' was recently disciplined by the Florida Dept. of Health for employing unproven treatments on his patients. Nice work.
By the way Gov Jeb Bush in his press conf today after the 11th Cir turned the appeal down 10-2, hinted he may send in the Fl Law Enf. Dept. to grab Schiavo and have the tube reinserted. He's found a Christian neurologist who claims that she's not in a persistent vegitative state.
And the FL Senate turned down the latest iteration of Terri's law 21-18. 9 Repubs voted with the sane ones.
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/mqa/FinalOrders/03-17-03/DOH-03-0182.pdf
I tried, I really tried to do the href sort of thing, and couldn't get it to work. This is the address for the disciplinary action against Hammesfahr.
What has this given us?
The precedent that three Senators, voting at midnight, can have a bill on the President's desk and signed into law by the next morning.
I can see one case that might be made for the parents:
Terry Schiavo the "person" no longer exists; but the body is a living organism. It gives the parents some (partly delusional) consolation to care for and visit the body. If they're willing to assume the cost and responsibility of maintaining it, this does no harm to "Terry Schiavo," who is already gone.
Aside from the larger issue that perversion of the United States legal system is immoral, I see these moral questions:
a) Would allowing the parents to assume custody of the body do harm to the husband, who is a living human being with legal rights and connection to the person who has passed on?
b) Would allowing the parents to maintain Terri's body be disrespectful to the will of Terry Schiavo, who, from all evidence, would not have approved of this after she was no longer there to occupy her body.?
c) [a more finicky issue which I, as someone who tries to avoid killing any living thing, have some sympathy with]: The organism may be sensitive to pain and discomfort on some level. Starving it to death may induce a traumatic experience that it feels on some level. If someone is willing to assume financial and physical responsibility for maintaining the organism, perhaps this isn't such a terrible thing. Why kill a large, breathing creature if you don't have to -- and its continued existence causes you no hardship?
Unfortunately, those issues are bound together with a bunch of other ones:
a) Intelligent people are appalled by the sense of delusion around the case exhibited by those who buy into the idea that "Terri is still there and might someday be saved." The operative instinct here is that it's more ethical and compassionate to make ignorant people face hard facts about life and spirit than to allow them to indulge in fantasies.
b) Political monsters are capitalizing on the case to inflict damage on the United States legal system -- which ultimately harms all of us. These monsters are using the case as a prop in their ongoing platform of cultivating ignorance and superstition as the best way they know to maintain their political power.
As far as the arguments in favor of the parents assuming custody, the courts have already decided against them in a reasonable way -- after considering rational medical evidence.
If something in the hearts of a large number of people says the decision of the courts is wrong, I think this needs to be addressed in a way that tempers justice (for the Terry Schiavo who is now gone) and mercy (mostly mercy for the parents) without abandoning rationality -- and mercy for the husband.
Bush, Delay, and the congress members who "passed" that stupid bill aren't helping.
Well, offering the faintest glimmer of hope, here's a quote from a Republican who dared to vote against the Schiavo bill. Take particular note of the second paragraph.
"My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. "This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."
"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Mr. Shays said. "There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."
From today's NY Times. (reg reqd)
It'll be interesting to see whether or not he gets targeted by the god squad after shooting his mouth off.
The other thing about Hammesfahr is that he says he was "nominated for the Nobel Prize for his work in Medicine and Physiology in 1999."
What's interesting is that the Nobel Foundation doesn't announce nominees, either before or after the prize is awarded.
So what's the basis of his claim? "Hammesfahr said he was nominated for the prize by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bilirakis, who wrote a letter to Stockholm recommending the doctor for the honor several years ago." (St. Petersburg Times) Mike Bilirakis isn't on the Nobel nominating comittee, so his opinion with the Nobel Foundation carries the same weight as mine. Anyone want to be a Nobel Prize nominee? I'll fire off a letter to Stockholm right away.
Xopher - remember in Crime & Punishment, Raskolnikov's fascination with Napoleon? How he built his "superior person" ethics [sic] around the persona of the little Emperor?
Given what Buonaparte did to Russia, this was exactly the 19th century equivalent of having a Hitler fixation.
Right on the money in re "ignore", but needs to be expanded just a little - first we ignore them, then we punish them. If they're dead, we punish people like them, or who might be like them, if they get the chance. This guarantees an endless supply of tragedies for public mourning, and an endless supply of targets for ritualized state-sponsored vengeance. Actually taking preventative measures would be counterproductive, in addition to being hard work, for the Establishment. (Thus Bushco talking in the runup to the elections about how they were going to respond to crime by making tougher sentences, as if that would restore the dead.)
----
Italian poster gilgamesh has, btw, tied the Schiavo backers to our old friends of the Hegemony, the Scaife Foundations, in a comprehensive post I have bookmarked because not had the time to dig through. But it is sure to be interesting.
This is *not* new in conservativism, of course. Terry Schaivo is quite simply the godsend replacement for Karen Ann Quinlan, for whom as a young theocon I prayed nightly until she finally died of pneumonia as her body gave out. Back then, it was her parents who were the demons, for wanting her disconnected from the respirator...
It's Terri, not Terry, by the way. I'm embarrassed by the fact that I knew this, but still used the wrong spelling a bunch of times, several posts up.
The New England Journal of Medicine has weighed in on the side of the doctors (as one might expect).
They're at the top of the main page, the two articles designated as "early release." They're both pdf format; one's by a doctor and one by a lawyer/MPH. They're also both open-access, which is unusual for the NEJM editors. They reserve that status for items they think are very important.
What bothers me about the parents and why I wouldn't want to see them be given custody is that they never seem to have acknowledged the reality of their daughter's medical condition. That they are still saying she has consciousness shows that they are not capable of caring for her.
Claiming Terri will regain use of her mind is akin to ancouraging belief that someone whose arm has been amputated at the elbow could regain use of their hand.
These people want a miracle. Not an everyday miracle. Not a saint-level miracle. (There must me a word for that, but I don't know it.) No, they want a full-blown Jesus miracle. There have been billions of people on the earth since the death of Christ and, to my knowledge, not one of them has gotten a miracle on the level the Schinders are asking for. But they have no humility about it, no sense of the awesomeness of power that it would take for their daughter to be returned to them.
All they are showing is petty anger, at their son-in-law, the courts, the doctors... Wrapping themselves in religious righteousness, not having reached the point where they realize that their anger should be aimed at God, and that only in forgiving Him will they be able to find peace.
If the Schindlers were willing to say "We know our daughter's case is hopeless, but we want a chance for a miracle," I might be sympathic to their cause. But this denial of the medical truth, the reality of their daughter's condition is to me the saddest part of the story.
And watching this saga unfold, I am not surprised that the daughter of these parents died of a fatal eating disorder.
Sorry to hijack the thread back to the "political action figures" sub-thread . . . but James D. Macdonald noted upthread
If you want a Jeff Gannon doll, if you give 'em $450 and a couple of photos they'll make one for you, no problem.
Now that's a serious action-figure kink.
Because for that kind of money, you can rent Gannon in the flesh.
(Sorry, but I've been waiting since the afternoon to mention that. Carry on.)
Re: Jeff Weise.
The question I had about his alleged Nazi admiration is not "How can someone admire Hitler?", as "How can someone Hitler would condemn as subhuman admire Hitler?"
Scary as it is, I could see the appeal in admiring a dictator, or in the lazy morality of blaming some group for the ills of the world. But as soon as it hits the point where one of the people being blamed IS YOU, I can't see the appeal.
Or did nobody ever mention to him that while Jews were the most persecuted, anyone not "Aryan" white (Or Japanese) was on the list?
I wonder if the Terri Schiavo tragedy has anything interesting to say about property rights. After all, if a person owns a set of silver spoons or a car, surely a person owns their body. Just as, in the absence of a will, statements like "when I die, I want Mary to have the silver" should be considered, so should statements like "when I die, I don't want my body to go on hooked up to life support" be considered.
It's an idea that occurred to me here due to the presence in these halls of Jo Walton, since I just a few weeks back read _Tooth and Claw_...
On the other hand, repeatedly stated but non-willed requests for the disposition of property seem to mean nothing legally; witness the continuation of Roger Zelazny's Amber books. So I suppose it's a very good sign that a person's ownership of her body is in a different class.
And it fits with the typical Republican ethos these days that they're trampling over themselves in their eagerness to trample Terri Schiavo's property rights.
To Lenora Rose; re: Jeff Weise and Nazism:
As I understand it, from the articles I've seen today, Jeff Weise was against racial mixing. He was apparently very critical of inter-racial marriages and the loss of Native languages. I presume that he felt that a National Socialist government would force like to marry like, therefore stopping further dilution of Native bloodlines with 'other' peoples' contributions.
Whether he went beyond that to the 'purify the planet of all non-Aryans' part isn't an issue any longer.
Madeleine, ownership of one's body and the parts thereof is actually a very weird legal question. See, for example, Moore v. Regents of the University of California, where Moore was convinced to have a splenectomy, after which doctors at the Medical Center of UCLA performed research on it and other samples taken at his visits. They patented a cell line derived from his cells and licensed it commercially. Moore was upset when he found out they were profiting by hundreds of thousands of dollars from "his" cells, and sued. The courts ended up wanting to throw the property question back to the legislature, and one judge objected particularly to the idea of "a right to sell one's own body tissue for profit." (This is from my boyfriend's property casebook, by Dukeminier and Krier, if anyone cares.)
There have also been a couple cases about property rights in sperm like this current one.
So what "owning your own body" means and what rights you then have (right to sell a kidney for medical research? right to sell a kidney for transplant? right to have an abortion? right to clone yourself?) are still poorly-defined legally.
As for Chris Shays, he's already under watch for publicly denouncing the DeLay ethics rule changes earlier this year. Here's one of the early posts about the issue by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. Marshall later named all the members who said they opposed the rule change the Shays Handful. Keep in mind that Shays is from Connecticut, so appearing unhandcuffed to his party's leadership may be a good thing electorally.
While watching all the ghastly posturing, grandstanding, and delusions related to the Schiavo case, I've been wondering how this fits in with evangelists' views of Heaven. For them, shouldn't God be standing around twiddling His fingers, waiting for her to show up in Paradise, while mortals bicker?
Teresa, you said: Jack, that "doctor" you cite is not one of Terri Schiavo's physicians. He has not examined the patient, nor done any of the other things he by rights should have done before giving a medical opinion. In terms of professional behavior, he's way over the line. In fact, the way he's shooting his mouth off there makes me wonder whether he's a doctor at all.
Neither are you or any of the commenters one of Terri's physicians. That does not seem to stop anyone from giving an opinion about the CT scan images or anything else. Are you intending to imply that bloggers and commenters can freely comment on Terri's medical condition, except if they're a doctor themselves? I'm not sure I grasp that standard.
More generally, what seems to be missing from the discussion above is any acknowledgment that the pro-Schiavo people (citizens, not politicians) are perfectly sincere and genuine in their worry about creating a slippery slope towards the euthanization of anyone deemed too disabled. In other words, their concern is not just about Schiavo, but also about where that precedent will lead in the future. Nothing about that belief warrants ridicule or denigration.
True, the pro-life side in this case is also rarely able to see that some people sincerely believe that the judicial process has spoken, and that Schiavo no longer really exists in any meaningful fashion. They also are unable to acknowledge that this is a difficult moral issue.
Neither are you or any of the commenters one of Terri's physicians. That does not seem to stop anyone from giving an opinion about the CT scan images or anything else. Are you intending to imply that bloggers and commenters can freely comment on Terri's medical condition, except if they're a doctor themselves?
Are you intending to imply that they can't?
I'm not sure I grasp that standard.
That "doctor" or whatever he is, is presenting raving speculation as if it were professional judgement. Where are his standards?
Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that the Schiavo case is "astroturf" merely by pointing out that some foundations have funded her parent's lawyers. That's not the same as astroturf -- i.e., trying to manufacture the appearance of an "grass roots" movement on Schiavo's behalf. Indeed, the Schiavo case has been a cause du jour for Catholics and other pro-lifers for a few years now.
More generally, what seems to be missing from the discussion above is any acknowledgment that the pro-Schiavo people (citizens, not politicians) are perfectly sincere and genuine in their worry about creating a slippery slope towards the euthanization of anyone deemed too disabled.
Pro-Schiavo? Don't you mean pro-Schindler?
I'll give you that the Schindlers are perfectly sincere and genuine. But they're not primarily motivated by "worry about creating a slippery slope." Let's be real. The Schindlers are nuts. As such, they are part of Bush's core demographic. The politicians who are taking advantage of this are not worried about slippery slopes either. Or do you think it's really necessary to gut the Constitution, separation of powers, and states rights, in order to ensure that people's bodies will stay on life support forever? If you do, you're being played.
I didn't say that the Schindlers were motivated by a "slippery slope." I was referring to the many citizens who have been following the Schiavo case for the past several years. If you read any of their many writings, you'll see the slippery slope issue raised innumerable times. It's not a matter of debate that this is a sincere and genuine moral concern of theirs. You are free to think that they are wrong about the slippery slope, but even in order to disagree, you would have to admit that their concern does exist in the first instance.
Jack V. ]the pro-Schiavo people (citizens, not politicians) are perfectly sincere and genuine in their worry about creating a slippery slope
Ahem. "pro-Schiavo"? The other side is also "pro-Schiavo"; they want to preserve her right to control her own destiny. This might be the start on a "slippery slope" if it were some kind of precedent-setting decision; it's not, it's a routine application of long-existing law.
For anybody still interested in this, I recommend reading the original trial court ruling (PDF) which has some information I hadn't seen in any of the news stories I read.
jackV: A doctor who not only ignores the detail that this was one of several CT scans, not the only one, but bases his entire case on the assumption that this is the only one, without doing further resarch? Nope, not worth listening to.
Yes, some individual people on the pro-Schindler side are sincerely motivated. Some are, but are basing their attitudes on interpretations of the findings as incorrect as your doctor's. But the ones with the current political clout seem not to be the ones praying, nor the ones worried about euthanasia-slippery-slope. It's George W. Bush and Karl Rove we're worried about, not a sincere Catholic.
Slippery slope? The US has the death penalty. That is about killing perfectly healthy and aware people who do not want to go. There's no slippery slope here - all the slippage has already happened. You mean it's ok to kill people only if it bothers them?
Here's how I think about the players. Not, mind you, how I feel, as explaining that would require recounting medical tragedies in my family.
(1) I give the U.S. Supreme Court credit, today, for not giving a political plum to the President they appointed, but actually following Law.
(2) I cannot separate my disgust for the congresscritters who followed the GOP Talking Points from any rational thoughts.
(3) There is no Terri Schiavo, and has not been for a long time. This is like a battle for a cryonically frozen corpse. It is the flip-side of Tom Disch's "Wings of Song."
(4) Mr. Schiavo suffers the defamations that he's doing this for the money (he only has $30,000 or so left from the medical malpractice judgment), and of the local Catholic dogmatic who asserts that this is a bad husband because he's being unfaithful to his wife with another woman.
(5) I basically agree with Mary Root that the Schindler's are horribly irrational, verging on insane, from a greedy faith that demands Jesus-Class miracles -- is there a Richter scale for these?
(6) However, the family is deeply victimized by their traumatic memories, and unable to approach rationality, and require loving professional treatment. See:
Emotional Memories Function In Self-Reinforcing Loop
DURHAM, N.C. (March 8, 2005) -- Researchers exploring the brain structures involved in recalling an emotional memory a year later have found evidence for a self-reinforcing "memory loop" -- in which the brain's emotional center triggers the memory center, which in turn further enhances activity in the emotional center.
The researchers said their findings suggest why people subject to traumatic events may be trapped in a cycle of emotion and recall that aggravates post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They said their findings also suggest why therapies in which people relive such memories and reshape perspective to make it less traumatic can help people cope with such memories.
The paper by Florin Dolcos, Kevin LaBar and Roberto Cabeza, was published online February 9, 2005, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Jack, people who present themselves as physicians and then say crazy things are not worth listening to. LESS so than people who give crazy opinions without claiming to be physicians, yes. This is because the "ph
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