There's an animated theological discussion going on in the comments thread from "When the Host's Away, New Yorkers Will Play," between a Jewish atheist, Catholics, and others—sixty-eight comments so far. The Jewish atheist has requested I move the comments thread to a new home, so I offer the space below, as he asked very nicely—calling me "Dawneleh."
Jeff Miller of The Curt Jester writes in "Continue to Fight Against the Culture of Death":
What we are doing to the front end of human development we are also doing on the other end. Those that are not deemed to be living a fully human life are also not deemed to be human and not worthy of life. If it is perceived as that you are no longer conscience of your surroundings then it would just be better to put you down. Whatever happened to where there is life there is hope? Does this only apply to people in the cases of miraculous embryonic stem-cell cures?...Read the whole thing.
We not only as Senator Moynihan said have "defined deviancy down", but we have defined what consists of being human down. In a society that largely has no problem sacrificing human embryos for alleged cures we should not be surprised that the other end of the life spectrum can be sacrificed for not matching the current definition of being fully human.
Reader Robert Miller writes: "I've read Michael Schiavo's November 1993 deposition where he says that he knew that her infection could kill, yet denied treatment anyway. However, I can only find it on 'pro-Terri' sites. Do you know where I can be found on an 'unbiased' site or online in the public record?"
If you can help, please post the information in the comments section below. Thanks.
"The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in favor of life."
— President George W. Bush, from the statement he just made about Terri Schiavo's death.
[Transcribed from the radio, verified via an Associated Press report. Oddly, the AP neglected to report the full text of the president's brief statement—perhaps because it called upon Americans to work to build a "culture of life."]
"The law was on his side, and the facts were on his side."
—A CBS News radio legal correspondent, speaking of Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, on the 10:30 a.m. news. He said that among those facts were that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state, and that she had expressed a wish not to be kept alive.
Blogs for Terri reported at 10:01 a.m. that Terri Schiavo has just died.
A Schindler spokesman, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, said in a press conference that I just heard on WINS that Michael Schiavo was not in her room at the time. Also heard on WINS: A Schindler spokesman (probably Fr. Pavone) said that the family had begged Michael to let them be at Terri's side as she neared death, even if it meant being in the same room with him. He denied their request. So, apparently—although I'm sure Michael Schiavo and George Felos will have their own side of the story—Terri Schiavo died alone save for hospital staff and her 24-hour police guard.
Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Paul Greenberg, editorial-page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, writes in Jewish World Review of a visit from a long-lost friend who's now an executive with Planned Parenthood:
He'd come by the newspaper office here in Little Rock, accompanied by a couple of distinguished colleagues, to make the case for (or maybe against) reproductive life. He started off by lecturing us ignorant editorial writers on what words we should be using. We weren't really pro-life, he explained, but anti-choice.Read the whole thing.
One could as easily contend that the opposite of pro-life isn't really pro-choice, but pro-death. But to what end? What would that have accomplished? We were already passing one another like ships in the night, each heavily freighted with its own vocabulary. Shades of Cool Hand Luke! What we had here was...a failure to communicate.
The language lesson went downhill from there as the delegation from Planned Parenthood explained that abortion, or at least the form of it that's done before implantation in the uterus, isn't abortion at all.
What is it then?
It took a long moment for another member of the delegation, a Ph.D., to come up with the proper euphemism: a Blighted Ovum.
Somehow I don't think the term is going to catch on.
"Blighted ovum" is already taken, thank you. It is a medical term, somewhat archaic but still in use by older practitioners especially, which is what we doctors call a "garbage can" term: it comprises a range of different clinical entities which share the same clinical result, namely, spontaneous abortion (i. e., miscarriage).
In the era of ultrasound and genetic testing, we don't use this term, but instead use more specific terms, based on what can be seen (by U/S and pathologic examination) and, often, what can be additionally determined by cytogenetic testing. Examples include things such as partial molar pregnancy or trisomy 18.
Now think as to why this is so Orwellian: a medical term used to indicate disease within a fertilized egg rendering it incompatible with life is now being suggested as a euphemism for the active intervention to prevent normal fertilized ova (i.e., human embryos) from implanting. Drugs that do this are properly called abortifacients, and the process is properly called abortion. This is the MO of the IUD and emergency contraception (more Orwellian language—what is being "contra-ed"? Not con"cept"ion!).
The parents of a girl who was raped when she was 13 are suing Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, claiming employees at one of the organization's clinics aborted the girl's child without notifying them—and attempted to conceal the rapist's identity from the parents and authorities.
Of course, Planned Parenthood's pals will be up in arms, since the organization believes no age is too young for sex.
If the Ohio teen's parents' accusations are true, it only gives more fuel to the allegations that Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline and others are attempting to investigate, against great opposition from the abortion lobby: Planned Parenthood willfully covers up the abuse of children.
An Indiana college student expressed his dislike for a speech by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol by hitting him in the face with an ice-cream pie. Apparently, this is what qualifies as dissent on American college campuses nowadays. Conservatives have such a tight lock on academic discourse that poor, silenced libs have no alternative but to resort to bodily assault.
The Associated Press reports that Kristol wiped himself off and continued his speech.
I think the last line of the AP's report says it all:
"Earlham is a liberal arts college of about 1,200 students that is well-known for its peace studies program."
"The idea that the paper would be so utterly disrespectful of the Christian religion as to choose those numbers is no surprise."
— Anonymous former New York Post employee, quoted in the Daily News' Rush & Molloy column today (third item, "Blasphemy on Sixth Ave."), on the Post's choosing 6-6-6 as the winning cards for its poker contest on Easter Sunday.
The Daily News reports that the chairman of the Locust Valley Cemetery Association has admitted to embezzling nearly $300,000 from the cemetery. His name? Glad you asked.
It's Death. Donald Death. That's Mr. Death, to you.
The story is precious, and it makes me wish G.K. Chesterton were able to comment on it. (Of course, to do so, he'd have to have cheated Death.) My favorite part is the quote at the end from Death's attorney:
[Roth] called Death an "upstanding member of the community who has served on many boards and charities" and attributed the incident to "business pressures Mr. Death was experiencing. We anticipate a favorable conclusion."Well, I should hope so.
"It's one thing to have consent [to end medical treatment] when the patient is overwhelmed with ventilators, and dialysis, and heart pumps, but it's quite another when there are non-heroic ministrations—in this case simply a feeding and water tube—and not having explicit consent or even credible consent--in ending her life."
— Ralph Nader, in Deroy Murdock's excellent National Review Online column today on the strong reasons that nonreligious people have for supporting the efforts to Terri live.
It has come to my attention that more than one Dawn Patrol reader shares my fondness for the 1960s-era Brothers Gibb. Such public appreciation for one of the greatest and least understood rock bands ever deserves reward, so here, for your enjoyment, are photos of me with Barry, Maurice, and Robin at the afterparty of the group's August 9, 1989 Radio City Music Hall show (eternal thanks to Billboard's Jim Bessman for getting 20-year-old me and my pal in), plus a special treat: not one, but two caffeinated examples of the group at its most—ahem—effervescent. I love them best during that time when they were going for Baroque.
It's pretty easy to understand why so-called right-wing Christian wingnuts like me think mainstream-media organizations are eager to see Terri Schiavo dead, when CBS News accidentally releases Terri's obituary on its Web site ahead of time—and claims in it that her husband Michael was at her bedside when she "died." Because CBS News just knows the image of the "loving husband" that Michael Schiavo and George Felos have created—with the media's willing collaboration—would be there 'til the very end.
Scott Sala of Slant Point draws a brilliant parallel between two of the day's events. I've added a link for those who need a reminder of NYC political archetypes:
Perhaps it's fitting on the day Mayor Bloomberg announces he would probably endorse Hillary Clinton for re-election in 2006 that Barnum and Bailey trotted its star elephants through midtown to drink water off the city streets.Read the whole thing.
We are slaves to the ringmaster in City Hall. The Republican leadership chose to endorse Mayor Bloomberg early on, mostly out of tradition of supporting an incumbent, but also clearly against the desires of one bold man seeking to take back his party—Tom Ognibene.
Now, beholden, confined to the circus of Manhattan politics, we elephants watch as our ringleader treats the tigers better than us...
This exchange between the host of PBS's "Newshour" and neurologist Russell Portenoy, noted by the show's other guest, Robert P. George, on NRO's The Corner, captures the surreal verbal twists of the media's Terri Schiavo coverage better than any other:
JEFFREY BROWN: Dr. Portenoy, a final medical question. When Miss Schiavo does die, what will she die of?
DR. RUSSELL PORTENOY: Well, patients who have hydration and nutrition develop biochemical changes in the blood. These biochemical changes progress and at a certain level of abnormality they are associated with abnormal heart beat, arrhythmias of the heart. And so ultimately she will die when her heart stops.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Dr. Russell Portenoy and Professor Robert George, thank you very much.
"This [New York Times] expert’s argument is that, since she is in a persistent vegetative state, she has 'no knowledge of food.' By this logic it would be morally acceptable to suffocate her with a pillow since she has 'no knowledge of air.' She could be dropped out of a 15-story window because she has 'no knowledge of gravity.' She could be shot because she has 'no knowledge of ballistics.'"
— National Review Online's Rich Lowry in "George Orwell and Terri Schiavo," on the "head-spinning evasions" of those making excuses for why they believe Terri Schiavo should be killed.
Good morning! New posts coming later this a.m.—in the meantime, check BlogsForTerri for Schiavo updates.
Christians who live outside the New York City area may have a hard time understanding just how hard it is to find observant Christians here, let alone anyone with the courage to stand up to a "militant secularist" at a cocktail party. So it was with some amusement that I read New Criterion associate editor James Panero's account of how he stood up to a young woman at a party at his apartment when she spoke disrespectfully Christian missionaries.
What I find amusing—and again, you have to know New York City—is that, while James is describing how he defended the faith, he mentions in passing that the "Easter weekend" party that that he hosted was on Friday night. That would be Good Friday—not exactly an evening when I imagine Christians outside the tri-state area booze'n'schmooze 'til the wee hours.
In Gotham, everything is relative—including orthodoxy. Take it from the chaste woman who dyed her hair platinum blonde.
Myopic Zeal lists the "cast of characters" in the effort to murder Terri Schiavo. The sheer breadth of the conflicts of interest is mind-boggling.
The article by Heather Merriam—apparently the same Heather Merriam who has such respect for Christendom that she touted the post-election map deriding America as "Jesusland"—tells of Planned Parenthood's turning houses of prayer into temples of Moloch:
Planned Parenthood of Central Washington (PPCW), headquartered in Yakima, has express health centers located in what you might call nontraditional locations. At an express health center, clients who are short on time and do not require a table examination can quickly pick up their birth control medication or get contraceptive advice.By "birth control medication," Planned Parenthood means the morning-after pill, so-called emergency contraception, which in fact causes abortion, destroying a new life.
Two are located in churches. Both the United Methodist and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have PPCW express health centers.
In order to reach out to large, undocumented populations in rural areas, getting a federal grant wasn't enough. PPCW had to think out of the box.The placement of the clinics and the choice of venue hearkens back to the Negro Project, Sanger's first full-scale effort to prevent minorities from polluting her dream of a "race of thoroughbreds." As Sanger wrote in 1939 to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble of Procter & Gamble, then the director of the Southern region of what would become Planned Parenthood:
These churches are in small communities like White Swan, where there are many migrant farm workers who would otherwise have no access to reproductive health care.
The minister’s work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the [Birth Control] Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.Even if one accepts the modern-day Planned Parenthood's explanation that Sanger did not want the accusation of genocide to go out because it was simply not true, Sanger's words betray her cynical and patronizing belief that black clergy could be manipulated. That same cynicism runs through Planned Parenthood's efforts to infiltrate churches today. From Merriam's article:
Setting up express health centers in churches is only one of the out-of-the-box ideas that have been hatched by PPCW's clergy group, an advisory team made up of 12 religious leaders. The group performs many services for the PPCW staff and clientele, including weighing in on ethical questions and blessing new health centers.
While Planned Parenthood's Web site pays lip service to faith in its self-praise over its church clinics, another new article on its site, a portrait of a young abortion activist, betrays its true, utterly derisive attitude towards faith. The activist is quoted as saying "thank god" for legal abortion. Just like that. God doesn't merit a capital "G" in Planned Parenthood's world. But what would you expect from an organization whose founder (right) boasted on the cover of her newsletter The Woman Rebel, "NO GODS NO MASTERS"?If you've seen the movie The Craft, leafed through the New Age section of a bookstore or checked out any of these TV series — Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or Charmed — then you've probably heard the words Wicca, witch, and/or "magick" used regularly. In the process, you may have wondered what Wiccans do, if a Wiccan and a witch are the same thing, and why there seems to be so much fuss about this magic stuff....So here we have Planned Parenthood introducing morning-after abortion pills into churches on the one hand, and tutoring children in witchcraft on the other. You can't make this stuff up.
One of the best symbols that reflect Wiccan ideals, and the most often misunderstood one, is the pentagram. The five points on the pentagram represent the "five" elements — earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. All of these energies are harmoniously placed within a circle — an emblem of cycles, time, "sacred space," and the "Source of all things." Unlike the upside-down pentacle often displayed in movies as a sign of evil, the pentagram is the perfect image of everything that Wiccans hope to obtain — a sense of self in the greater scheme of things, an awareness of others and the earth, and an openness to welcoming "Sacred energies" into our lives on a daily basis.
This is an answer to prayer. It shows that, however difficult it may be to pray for Michael Schiavo, God can soften his heart. Michael changed his mind and allowed Terri to receive Easter Communion, only a day after he had denied Terri's parents' request that she receive the sacrament.
Although Terri was able to receive only a drop of wine—her tongue was too dry for a fleck of bread—it was nonetheless a complete act of Holy Communion under Catholic law.
Please continue to pray for Terri, her family—including Michael—and Gov. Jeb Bush.
Visit BlogsForTerri for Schiavo updates.
WMCA radio host Kevin McCullough and crew have created "Terri's Day in Paradise," a recording of Phil Collins's "Another Day in Paradise" sprinkled with sound bites from various players in the Terri Schiavo case. It's corny as all get out, but some of the lyrics are eerily evocative of Terri. Overall, the collage creates a pensive mood that's appropriate to this time when our prayers should go out for Terri, her family, Michael Schiavo, and Jeb Bush.
Just as troubling were the candy-cross necklaces on display (above). Call me a conspiracy theorist, but all I could think was that they seemed like a sick attempt to teach Protestant kids not to take rosaries seriously. But even if I'm wrong, who teaches kids to eat a cross? Really!
From Mark Shea, via Deacon Dana:
I just sent this to Jeb Bush and the Prez (at jeb@myflorida.com and president@whitehouse.gov). Feel free to copy, sign with your own name and send.
Subject: The Imperial Judiciary
President Bush, Governor Bush:
I believe we are approaching a watershed moment when it will be the obligation of the Executive to stop the insanity of an out-of-control judiciary. The murder of Terri Schiavo is that moment. When (not if) Judge Greer refuses to grant Governor Bush protective custody, I challenge you before Almighty God to say, "Judge Greer has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." Then, take protective custody of her anyway. Enough is enough! The state has no right to starve an innocent person to death. An unjust law is no law at all.
Sincerely,
Here's a question for the legal experts out there, from reader Joey W.: "Is there any way that Terri's parents can file a 'wrongful death' suit against Michael? And can that be used as grounds to prevent cremation?"
A new report by the Media Research Center reveals the extent to which the national news media is biased against Terri.
"I've been on the bench. I know what it's like to be all-powerful."
So writes former Montgomery County, N.Y., Judge Robert N. Going, in an entry on how the judicial system failed Terri Schiavo.
My friend Kevin McCullough is a pull-no-punches conservative Christian radio host. As such, he writes in a fashion that's guaranteed to put off liberals. The language he uses in his latest WorldNetDaily column is no exception, and as such is unlikely to sway anyone with an ultra-sensitive Angry Conservative detector. That's a shame, because, if one looks past the heated tone—which is perfectly understandable given the current situation—Kevin, drawing on his own experience with his disabled son, outlines the strongest argument yet that Terri Schiavo's starvation is cold-blooded murder. Unlike others who have analyzed the videos of Terri from the point of view of what's there, he brings up the fascinating and—given that it proves Terri's sentience—truly chilling issue of what's missing from them.
"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly [superficially], saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace."— Jeremiah 6:14
"What exactly does it mean to die with dignity?" asks Dory of Wittenberg Gate in "On Dying With Dignity and in Peace":
Somehow if Terri lives on a few more decades, and at some future time begins to age as we all will, and succumbs to one of those ailments that age brings, she will die without dignity. Or is it she will live all those years without dignity? Or is she already living without dignity and somehow in dehydrating she will regain it in death? And once she is dead, of what use will this dignity be?...Read the whole thing.
The other thing that puzzles me is that those who insist that Terri needs to die with dignity and die in peace also assert that Terri is aware of nothing, feels nothing, or sometimes that she does not even have a life. Ignorance, (of one's lack of dignity and peace), it seems to me, would be bliss in such a situation. So then, I am puzzled about what use this dignity and peace will be to such a person, or non-person, as the case may be.
I've begun preparing an entry on Planned Parenthood's latest insanity, which will appear later today. Hint: It's about a new use for a church. (Go ahead, Emily, scoop me.) In the meantime, visit BlogsForTerri for updates on Terri Schiavo, and be sure to congratulate the lovely Janjan for completing her swim across the Tiber.
Michael Schiavo plans to have Terri's body cremated, thereby preventing investigation into the true state of her brain (which would show how alert she was at the time of her starvation) and—more troublingly—preventing investigation into the cause of her collapse, which the Schindlers believe was spousal abuse.
Terri's parents argue that cremation would go against their daughter's Catholic faith. Indeed, it would—in more ways than one. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,the Church does not look kindly upon cover-ups (emphasis mine):
The Church has opposed from the beginning a practice which has been used chiefly by the enemies of the Christian Faith. Reasons based on the spirit of Christian charity and the plain interests of humanity have but strengthened her in her opposition. She holds it unseemly that the human body, once the living temple of God, the instrument of heavenly virtue, sanctified so often by the sacraments, should finally be subjected to a treatment that filial piety, conjugal and fraternal love, or even mere friendship seems to revolt against as inhuman. Another argument against cremation, and drawn from medico-legal sources, lies in this: That cremation destroys all signs of violence or traces of poison, and makes examination impossible, whereas a judicial autopsy is always possible after inhumation, even of some months.MORE: From Canon 1176 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law (emphasis mine): "The Church earnestly recommends the pious custom of burying the bodies of the dead be observed, it does not however, forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching."
Getting ready to leave for services, so no posts until late tonight. After getting some long-deserved sleep, I'll be lucky if I make it to church before Fr. Rutler gets to talking about the sixth word...
I am honored that The Dawn Patrol has made Andrea Harris of Victory Soap's "extremely diminishing list of blogs that don't make me want to vomit black bile."
There's a nice compliment somewhere in there where she says that she likes the blogs on her list because they don't remind her of bitter aspic. At least, I think that's what she said.
In announcing the Schindlers' new appeal, which is based on a neurologist's report that Terri Schiavo is not in a persistent vegetative state, the CBS Radio 5 o'clock news stated that the neurologist has not examined Terri.
This is absolutely not true—just another distortion from a mainstream media that is in a mad rush to see Terri dead.
Please keep up your prayers for Terri, her family, the judge hearing the latest appeal, and Jeb Bush—as well as for Michael Schiavo.
Canadian reader Wanda Sherratt writes with a profound message that puts into words something that I believe many people feel about the Terri Schiavo case, myself included:
The discussion about comparisons between Terri Schiavo's week-long Golgotha and the crucifixion of Christ reminded me of Chesterton's The Everlasting Man and its chapter "The Strangest Story in the World."
The comparisons you posted between the actual events of the last week of Jesus' life and the events of what will probably turn out be the last week of Terri's life are indeed striking. But what has been haunting me all this week is the similarity in the "backdrop," so to speak--the state of the world that led to both events. All this week, I've had a strange, dreamy feeling that I'm living through something very big that's happened before. I don't have any illusions that the death of Terri is going to change the world like Christ's death on the cross. But I feel as though something very deliberate is happening here, as if God were saying, "Now, watch carefully. You've seen this before, and you know what it means."
When I went back to read Chesterton, as I often do when I'm upset, I thought how very familiar the landscape of the 1st-century Roman Empire looked to me. When he wrote about the world that put Jesus to death, he wrote this:All the great groups that stood about the cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly.The next section dealt with Christ's abandonment by the priests and representatives of religion, and that part I omit, because in Terri's case it's not true. The Church has not abandoned her, but it is like the last few straggling supporters of Christ standing around the Cross—powerless to do anything but watch and grieve. The final player in Chesterton's rendition of this story is the crowd:
In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask, 'What is truth?' So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgment-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world.But there was present in this ancient population an evil more peculiar to the ancient world. We have noted it already as the neglect of the individual, even of the individual voting the condemnation and still more of the individual condemned. It was the soul of the hive; a heathen thing. The cry of this spirit also was heard in that hours, 'It is well that one man die for the people.' Yet this spirit in antiquity of devotion to the city and to the state had also been in itself and in its time a noble spirit. It had its poets and its martyrs; men still to be honoured for ever. It was failing through its weakness in not seeing the separate soul of a man, the shrine of all mysticism; but it was only failing as everything else was failing. The mob went along with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the philosophers and the moralists. It went along with the imperial magistrates and the sacred priests, the scribes and the soldiers, that the one universal human spirit might suffer a universal condemnation; that there might be one deep, unanimous chorus of approval and harmony when Man was rejected of men.This is what I find most troubling about this whole matter: not that it is happening, but that it is happening HERE, to US. If we were reading a story about Iranian mullahs or Pakistani villagers forcing a woman to starve to death, we'd shake our heads and deplore it, but we'd also secretly think that such abuses are bound to happen among such benighted people. But America today is like Rome was then - the best and highest accomplishment of human beings, and yet it's still not enough. It's failing the test, and in the same way that Rome failed. If 'the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world' is not a fair description of America, I don't know what is, and yet this is where it has brought us. We know what came after Rome; what can come after America, I don't know, but I do think that THIS America is not one that can resist the avalanche that's just started under its feet.
—Wanda Sherratt
If you've read the media's descriptions of how pleasant it is to die of thirst—their accounts always assume that, despite strong dispute among experts, Terri Schiavo must be unable to feel pain—then read the true-life description of dehydration's effects posted by Wittingshire's Jonathan Witt.
Terri's suffering brings to mind Jesus's words from the Cross—"I thirst"—and how the Good Friday prayer for "all who suffer and are afflicted in body or in mind" calls us to imitate Jesus' own love for the least able of His people.
Brian Mattson, a k a The Banty Rooster, notes a bizarre and unethical distortion in the Associated Press's latest attempt to pretend it's tuned in to the blogosphere.
The AP story refers to Jollyblogger, a site whose Webmaster is staunchly in favor of keeping Terri Schiavo alive. Yet the news organization quoted a commenter to the blog who was in favor of killing Terri—and framed it in such a way that the reader could very easily believe that the commenter spoke for the blog.
How easily? The story referred to the commenter as a "correspondent."
Mattson writes:
Nice to have you finally making your way around the blogosphere, Mr. Associated Press. Couple of ground rules: getting material for your story from comments made on blog posts is a bit obscure for even bloggers, not to mention a national media outlet. If you want to find a pro-Michael Schiavo post, you can branch out a bit and find plenty of lefty bloggers to help you out. Second, please make clear who you are referring to so you don't tarnish otherwise good reputations. For my part, if I was ever quoted at all, in any context, by the Associated Press, I would take it as a tarnish to my otherwise good reputation.Read the whole thing.
Again, welcome to the blogosphere. Please at least pretend you know what you are doing.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied the Schindlers' request to intervene, Terri's fate is in Gov. Jeb Bush's hands. Please keep the governor as well as Terri and her family in your prayers, and check Blogs for Terri for updates.
WorldNetDaily has a very good history of Terri's case from the beginning.
Randall Terry told "Scarborough Country"'s Joe Scarborough [click link for video] that Judge George Greer has never watched the videos of Terri Schiavo—because he's blind.
Just another right-wing Christian wacko lie, right?
Only if you believe that the New York Times, which reports that Greer is legally blind, has a conservative agenda, or that an Associated Press report that states Greer is legally blind and cannot drive was put together by a vast right-wing conspiracy.
In other words, this blind judge, who has consistently ignored calls from medical professionals for a reevaluation of Terri's condition, feels perfectly qualiffied to order the murder of an innocent woman—despite being unable to see evidence that could save her.
Visit BlogsForTerri for Terri Schiavo news and action updates.
Randall Terry video via Jackson's Junction.
Somebody at Reuters is apparently doing something rare for a mainstream-media organization—making an effort to present moral-values issues, and how they relate to Terri Schiavo, from a wider perspective, with "Schiavo Protesters Not All Christian Conservatives":
Conservative Christian groups have called for mass vigils outside the hospice caring for brain-damaged Terri Schiavo but many of the few dozen who have shown up said they were drawn for personal reasons unrelated to organized religion.
Eleanor Smith of Decatur, Georgia, sat on Tuesday in a motorized wheelchair in front of the hospice, baking in the sun, with a sign on her lap reading, "This agnostic liberal says 'Feed Terri."'
Her background was a far cry from the evangelical right wing more generally seen as the lobbying force behind the U.S. Congress' scramble over the weekend to draw up a special law to try to prolong Schiavo's life, and President Bush's decision to cut short a Texas vacation to sign it.
Smith, 65, had polio as a child and described herself as a lesbian and a liberal who had demonstrated before in support of the disabled and causes supported by the conservative establishment's archfoe, the American Civil Liberties Union.
"What drew me here is the horror of the idea of starving someone to death who's vulnerable and who has not asked that to happen," Smith said.
She said she thought that people who left written instructions to withhold medical treatment should have those wishes honored but that withholding water and nutrition from Terri Schiavo, who left no such written instructions, was tantamount to murder.
"At this point I would rather have a right-wing Christian decide my fate than an ACLU member," Smith said.
Fr. Bryce Sibley of A Saintly Salmagundi has two excellent Terri-related posts up: "Reflections on the Terry [sic] Schiavo Situation" and "On the Phone About Terri." "On the Phone" details what happened when he called activist organizations to ask their position about Terri's case, as when he called Amnesty International:
I thought for sure they would have made a statement since they are well-known for their human rights work. The woman I spoke to was very uncomfortable and said that they as an organization did not want to get involved. I pressed her and said they would probably get involved if children in Africa were being starved to death, but she could not come up with a response.
Pro-life Jewish blogger Meira notes the Terri-Purim connection—and quotes the very same verses from the Book of Esther that I quoted earlier today.
I don't believe she saw my entry. I believe the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us all something.
As Meira—who advocates that we fast for Terri—writes, "The best memorial to the tragedies of history is to act for justice today."
"HATING AND MOCKING the disabled—from the leftward side of the fence, of course." So writes Binky, Webmaster of the indispensable Classical Anglican news site CaNN, as he sends this link to the anti-Bush parody site Whitehouse.org's page mocking Terri Schiavo as a "vegetard."
Somebody in the mainstream publishing industry must think Whitehouse.org's funny; the site's creators had a book out last year in time for the presidential election, published by Plume, a division of Penguin USA.
NRO's Andrew C. McCarthy exposes the sloppy reasoning behind Judge Whittmore's decision against feeding and hydrating Terri Schiavo.
Katrina of Cait's Oz Blogs sees Terri Schiavo's suffering as a modern-day passion play, with Terri in the role of Christ.
Reading that, I felt uncomfortable thinking of Terri's case in those terms, because it feels uncomfortable to put any other human being in Jesus's role. Such comparisons are an overdone cliché, one that's usually best avoided.
An e-mail from reader Chris Arsenault—who tells me that he wrote it before reading Katrina's piece—caused me to rethink the metaphor. Without augmenting or taking away from Jesus' own divinity, we can nonetheless see in the suffering of others a metaphor for what Christ suffered for our sake.
The difference is that there is still time for us to pray for Terri and contact public officials (see BlogsForTerri for action updates) in the hope that her time has not yet come.
Chris writes:
I'm not claiming Terri Marie Schindler-Schiavo is a saint, but the number of parallels between her and Christ are starting to add up.MORE: Wise words from Joel:
Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to die.
Terri is innocent and does not deserve to die.
Jesus was betrayed by one he loved for a price.
Terri has been betrayed by one she loved for a price.
Both betrayed by a kiss - Terri with a wedding vow.
Judas Iscariot believing his actions will bring about a popular uprising to throw off Rome.
Schiavo (and Felos, Greer and Cranford) believing this will bring about a popular uprising to establish a 'right' to die.
Jesus was run through the courts
before Sanhedrin
before Pilate
before Herod Antipas
before Pilate
before the public
Terri has been run through the courts
before Greer
before State & Federal
before Greer
before Federal (Whittemore)
before the public
Truth taken out of context used as a testimony against them:
Terri's claim of not wanting to live like something she saw in a movie (which movie?) doesn't speak to what she really does want. It is erroneous to believe such a statement means she wants to die, simply because that's what you think she might have meant. If she really wanted to die she would have said something like, "if I'm like that, then kill me.")
Jesus's claims about the temple were taken out of context and applied to the building when he meant his body.
Both remained silent before their accusers.
Blatant hypocrisy in the investigation for truth.
Extraordinary legalism involved in the trials vs doing what is right.
For instance, overlooking the truth claims made by Christ, but requiring his body to be taken down before the Sabbath.
The truth claims made by Terri - her own body and medical record speaks of the factual truth of abuse and neglect, but is substantially ignored by the appellate courts.
Peter denied Jesus 3 times.
Greer has denied Terri 3 times by pulling her tube.
(Greer is her self-appointed guardian ad litem - advocate)
Jesus was scourged - suffered.
Terri is being scourged by starvation and has been suffering for years.
There are those for life
There are those for death
In both cases there was/is a crowd calling for his/her death!
Armed guards keeping the mother of each of them away from the body to deny
them help.
Those who could be defending Terri (the liberal left) call for an evildoer instead. This is akin to asking for the release of Barrabas--defending Abu Ghraib terrorists while remaining silent on Terri comes to mind.
All of this with just a brief amount of thinking about it. I'm sure there is a lot more.
Think God is trying to say something this week?
Chris Arsenault
The idea that Terri's suffering is in some way representative of Christ's suffering is misguided, in my opinion. The fact is that Christ's suffering only ever happened because he voluntarily chose to represent us, in our fallen and suffering state, to God. He only ever suffered because of the suffering that came into the world by sin. Suffering is not cool. It never was cool, God doesn't think it's cool, hip or intrinsically holy. Suffering is a tragedy that was never supposed to be.FURTHER READING: The Curt Jester covered similar ground this morning.
I know we will have the desire to find meaning in a situation which we fear will end in tragedy, but to search for parallels between her situation and Christ's suffering is to enter a fantasy, and in a sense, to cede the battlefield to the enemy. It is as much as if to say, "We may abate our prayers for her life, for lo! Behold how God means to make a stained glass window of her suffering!"
Fellow believers, we must continue to pray for her. This isn't a lovely Easter story shaping up, it's the moral death of a nation underway, and the mortal death of an innocent woman. Never, never, never give up. If we pray, argue, pursuade and agitate as well as we possibly can, and she nonetheless dies, we may still know that we never accorded the enemy so much as an inch of ground.
Flynn Files' must-read Top 10 of liberals' pretzel logic with regard to Terri Schiavo includes these examples:
9. For liberals, there's no such thing as states' rights on abortion, juvenile executions, prayer in school, prohibiting contraceptives, and the drinking age. When it comes to starving disabled people to death, though, liberals sound like Jefferson Davis on states' rights....Read the whole thing.
3. In 1999, a Florida court decided to honor Elian Gonzalez's mother's wishes that her son stay with relatives in Florida. Liberals disagreed with the Florida court, and sent armed federal agents to send the boy back to Cuba. Now that a Florida court has issued a ruling in a family dispute more to their liking, liberals are saying that a new federal law--granting federal courts the right to overturn (or not overturn) the Schiavo decision--will "undermine over 200 years of jurisprudence."
The wonderful "Baby Got Book" has been going around the Web for a while, but today, thanks to NRO's The Corner, I found a link that lets me see it on my Mac. I love the rapper's "KJV" medallion. And I cracked up when he said, "Thirty-nine plus 27 equals 66. And if you're Catholic, there's even more."
Today's quote comes from Ace of Spades [note: his site contains foul language], via Clinton Watson Taylor's excellent analysis of the legal aspects of Terri Schiavo's case:
"You need a written contract for any lease of land that lasts more than one year; it seems very odd to me indeed that the taking of a human life requires only one hearsay statement from one interested party."
Prosecutor Lance Salyers makes a forceful argument that Michael Schiavo is not telling the truth.
One of Salyers's many arguments against Michael's credibility is inconsistency: "Within [Michael's] 30-minute ["Larry King Live"] interview...the most glaring inconsistency was on the issue of why Schiavo waited 8 years to begin his fight to 'carry out Terri's wish.' His stated answer - that during those 8 years, he was still clinging to hope and trying to find a cure - don't comport at all with his currently professed principle upon which he stands - that of carrying out Terri's wish, regardless of what he or anybody else thinks about it, because he promised. His current stance doesn't allow for his prior behavior (the 8-year wait), and his prior behavior doesn't jive with his current stance. Like trying to hold two positively-charged magnets together, Schiavo finds himself holding positions that seem exclusive.
Read the whole thing; it's a must.
Good morning! Visit NRO's The Corner for Terri Schiavo updates. New Dawn Patrol posts will be up when I am.
Just heard on WINS Radio regarding Terri Schiavo: "Her husband wants her to die with dignity..."
So WINS buys into the idea that there's something dignified about murder. I'd rather be an undignified invalid than suffer the "dignity" of being tortured and starved to death. I didn't hear WINS praising the "dignity" of the Ethiopian government's allowing millions to be starved.
Emily Peterson has noted a similar instance of bias:
I just was listening to CBS Radio News (at noon central)...the anchor reported, and I quote, "Terri was removed Friday from artificial breath support."Here's what the Bible has to say about "dying with dignity":
That's right...breath support.*
The level of ignorance of what is actually happening here astounds me.
When I think back on the dramatic religious experience that changed my life—healing my depression and making me believe not only in God but also in Jesus' messiahship—I think of two messages that I received.
One was the literal message that I heard (which in retrospect recalls Proverbs 2): "Some things are not meant to be known; some things are meant to be understood." That may sound like a strange theophany, but it spoke directly to how I needed to approach faith at the time.
The other message wasn't in words. It came during a period of about five days immediately following the experience, when I had the feeling of being led by the Holy Spirit, as though I were being pulled around by the top of my head. I followed, befuddled but ecstatic, just doing what I felt the Spirit was moving me to do. It was as though I were being taught how to recognize the Spirit at work, so that after it evaporated—and I was sorry when it did—I would know the difference between its inspiration and my own.
During that mystical and intensely exciting time, I tried to ask the Spirit what was going to happen to me. But I was never shown anything more than the next things that I was supposed to do—which in this case were just mundane, everyday things. God's word is, after all, a lamp unto our feet, and a lamp only shows you the next step.
Yet I felt that I received a larger answer—the same one that had come to me in a rush along with the initial experience. It was God's peace: the feeling that everything would be fine. It wasn't a guarantee that I wouldn't have pain, but it made me certain, for the first time in my life, that my suffering had meaning—and that Jesus was with me in it. I likewise had the certainty that as Jesus was with me where I was, so I would eventually be with Him where He is, in Heaven.
Julian of Norwich captured that feeling in her most famous saying: "It is sooth that sin is cause of all this pain; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Most importantly, it's the message that Jesus spoke directly to his disciples at the Last Supper. These are the words that He wants to sear into our minds and hearts, especially at the times when we cannot readily see His hand in our lives:
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)The idea that "all shall be well" has an unfortunate association with New Age sentiment, as it seems to imply that good people cannot change the world. Yet I don't think that when Jesus told us to "be of good cheer," He meant that His peace would prevent us from having to take action of our own.
There's something about a mod English crooner warbling a song with the same title as a Sinatra classic while strolling in and around a vintage BOAC plane, wearing a pilot's uniform, and playing a trombone.
"Come Fly With Me"—Rinaldi Sings
The Los Angeles Times reports that archaeologists believe they've found New Orleans' original House of the Rising Sun.
Eric Burdon gave reporter Scott Gold an insightful quote about New Orleans: "I like to call New Orleans the cradle of the best of the worst. The place is reeking of death. It is as dark a town as it is light."
Gold did not solicit a comment from Alan Price, who's credited as the sole arranger of the Animals' hit version of "The House of the Rising Sun." Perhaps he realizes how difficult it would be to grow a new head.
While the Senate has unanimously passed a bill that would save Terri Schiavo's life, some Democratic congressmen have forced the House to delay a vote until after midnight tonight. People should be asking: Why?
I believe the answer can be found in the Democrats' pro-abortion agenda. Although Planned Parenthood and NARAL have been ominously silent on Terri—they know what's good for them—the blogger at Third Wave Agenda—who admits personal discomfort with the idea of killing Terri—articulates the probable motives of those who would murder her to make a political point:
Congress is getting involved, and it's this kind of Republican hypocrisy that kills me. They talk about limited government and how public officials shouldn't be interfering in private peoples' lives, and then they try to step in and interfere in the most personal of family decisions. It's a huge over-step on their part, and limited-government-loving conservatives should be the ones who are outraged.In other words, if Congress can act to save one adult woman's life, what's to prevent it from acting to save unborn children's lives?
My mom just loves this photo.
To learn whose beautiful seven-week-old girl this is, see the photo of her with her mother on Armavirumque.
On this Palm Sunday, I have been advised by a Jesuit that I need more...cowbell.
Jesuit John, commenting on a song that I posted, was referring to the well-loved "Saturday Night Live" satire of VH1's "Behind the Music" (a must-see), which featured Christopher Walken as Blue Oyster Cult's producer. The sketch has become such a cult item that it inspired one Web site to compile a database of songs using bovinian percussion.
Some of my favorite memories of the late 1980s are the times I saw the Turtles' Christmas show at the Bottom Line, when they did "She'd Rather Be With Me." At the appropriate point, Eddie would say, "Cowbell solo!" and the band would fall silent for a moment as Flo would execute three perfectly timed bangs.
Dory at Wittenberg Gate has the moving first-person account of a severely brain-damaged man who survived being removed from a ventilator and is now treasuring every day of life. It's not what you'd expect—he harbors no grudge against his wife for thinking she was following his wishes by having him taken off the machine. But he now realizes it is better to live than to die:
I was estimated [upon reviving] to have AT BEST the mental abilities of a toddler. I was one an EXTREMELY smart man but did not type much as a toddler! Due to my "diffuse axonal" brain injury I have forgotten most of my past. A court already declared me incompetent and my LOVING wife is now my guardian. She is surrendering her life to ministry. I may have said that I wouldn't want to live as a vegetable as my wife said I had. How many would actually choose living years on a machine over a painless death! My wife never lies and would not say I chose to be disconnected if I had not!...Read the whole thing.
One of the leading causes of death in paraplegics is suicide! Every day I choose to live! I may have at one time felt living connected to a machine was worse than death, but I had never tried it! I have now! I have lived in a vegetative state! Although I hope to just die quickly with no pain, I now choose to live by ANY means God provides.
BlogsForTerri has updates on the efforts to save Terri Schiavo.
I'll have more entries on Terri and other topics later today.
Something light to start your Palm Sunday: "Dubblbubbldandylionluv," an Archies-inspired bubblegum tune song I wrote. I recorded it a few years back with Dawn Patrol jingle writer Michael Lynch under the name Man Cherry & Candy Date. (For those of you who know the Archies, I play Toni Wine to Michael's Ron Dante.) Michael plays all the instruments and produced the track.
Yes, I know I'm singing flat. So sue me.
Last night, I saw Jimmy Webb perform his classic "MacArthur Park," a massive 1968 hit for Richard Harris (and later an Elvis staple and a Donna Summer smash), just voice and piano, at B.B. King's off Times Square. It was wonderful to see how the audience heated up during the "boogie part"—which, reduced to piano, seemed like the work of a brilliant teenager who'd been locked in a room all his life with nothing but the collected works of Chopin and Dave Brubeck.
I couldn't help but be amazed once more at how the Association had so rudely turned down the tune when it was first offered to them—it would have saved their career. Here's the story of that rejection, which originally appeared on Fufkin.com. It's an outtake from my liner notes to Rhino's Association two-CD set, Just the Right Sound:
After Bones Howe produced the Association's Insight Out, he began producing The Magic Garden for the Fifth Dimension, which was composed by Jimmy Webb.
Bones Howe: "While we were doing that, Jimmy kept saying to me, 'I'm writing a cantata for the Association.' I kept saying, 'Jimmy, we've got to finish this record. You've still got two more songs to write for this album.'...
"Finally, we finished The Magic Garden and I went to Jimmy's house and he played me the songs on the piano and it was wonderful. I said, 'As soon as the Association get back [from their tour], we'll get together.'"
Webb was so excited about his song that he hoped the Association would come to his house so he could play it for them. The Association's manager, Patrick Colecchio, however, according to Bones Howe, suggested they meet on Recorders.
Bones Howe: "Jimmy sits down at the piano and I say, 'You've got to listen to this all the way through, because it's meant to be one whole side of an LP. It's got several movements, and every one of them could be opened up and we could put it out as a single.'" There was also connecting music, and Howe thought they could expand on that vocally, as the Fifth Dimension had done with The Magic Garden.
Bones Howe: "Jimmy sits down and he plays them this whole thing from beginning to end, and the last movement is 'MacArthur Park'. He finishes, the guys kind of look at each other, and Pat [Colecchio] goes, 'Maybe Jimmy could go outside for a second and we could talk about this among the guys.'
"Jimmy goes outside, closes the door, and either Terry Kirkman or Russ Giguere says, 'Any two guys in this group can write a better piece of music.'
"I was devastated. It's the old cartoon thing; I see the Grammy on wings, flying away. It's like, here's an opportunity to do something really different that nobody else has done. I thought it was a brilliant idea....
"Then they all began talking about the songs of theirs that they wanted to do on the album. I had to go tell Jimmy Webb that they weren't going to cut his song."
P.S. Howe did get his Grammy, a year later, for the Fifth Dimension's "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In".
The Fox News Web site's latest article on Terri Schiavo contains a line typical of mainstream media distortions of her case:
Schiavo, who is in a persistent vegetative state, will starve to death within a week or two unless the tube is reinserted. No person has ever come out of a persistent vegetative state.Why is is necessary for a major news outlet, which is supposed to be reliable, trustworthy, "fair and balanced," to make such a gratuitous "she won't get better" statement—one that is a bald-faced lie?
I heard Shep Smith on Fox News say several times this afternoon that no one has ever emerged from a persistent vegetative state. There's a good reason for that. When someone shows signs of consciousness, it is not assumed that they have emerged from PVS, it is assumed they were originally misdiagnosed.PVS is a diagnosis. Like any diagnosis, it could be wrong, and especially so in this case, when Terri has been denied the extended examinations and brain scans that could confirm it. For news organizations to imply that it's the truth suggests that they can't wait to advertise her death.
Consider this study. Forty PVS patients were studied. They were given therapy to promote communication. Seventeen of the patients (43%!) were found to be able to communicate. The conclusions? These patients were all originally misdiagnosed as PVS, and such a diagnosis cannot be easily made and requires a team of specialists.
Pray for her, and for yourself—that the government never orders you be murdered like this.
"It was much easier to keep my mouth shut and pray for the unborn than to take the risk of attempting to influence society against a culture of death. I’ve got a wife and four kids to support."
— Former Montgomery County (N.Y.) Judge Robert Going, in an essay about conscience and the judiciary, which is particularly relevant today
"All kinds of people will now say that this is a 'sad' case. This is not a 'sad' case. This is an evil case. This is an outrageous case. This is a time for anger—productive anger."
—Ed Jordan, writing on MediaCulpa about the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. MediaCulpa is an excellent source for news and action updates on Terri.
Blogs for Terri—which reported earlier that Terri Schiavo cried uncontrollably when told she would be starved to death—now has this item, posted by Richard:
Tube is out: Michaels common-law wife says he is very distraught - poor MichaelThere is still time to contact your senators and your representative to demand they do everything in their power to save Terri.
Jodie Centonze, according to Bay News 9, informed the media that Terri's tube has been removed. Centonze is Michael Schiavo's fiancée. The Schindler family was forced to leave when this took place.
According to Michael's fiancée, he is very distraught.
JUST IMAGINE: YOUR CHILD IS BEING MURDERED IN A ROOM - YOU ARE MADE TO LEAVE - HOW WOULD YOU FEEL?????
Looks like the best source for breaking Terri Schiavo news is The Corner on National Review Online, where Kathryn Jean Lopez is working hard to provide updates. Keep reading Blogs for Terri for action alerts, and keep calling your senators and congressman. The latest is that Judge George Greer has reinstated the order to remove Terri's feeding tube.
Many thanks to the very thoughtful readers who volunteered to update J.D. King's caricature of me to match my new hair color. I went with the submission from P.R., who was the first to send one in—he reworked his after I sent him King's recommendation for which hair color to use. Others who tried their hand at updating the image were Valerie of Kyriosity, who also designed the beautiful Dawn Patrol logo above, and Brian of The Banty Rooster.
The Associated Press continues its distortions of the Terri Schiavo case.
If you have already contacted your legislators to ask them to do everything within their power to save Terri, then call the Associated Press at (212) 621-1500, ask for the National Desk, and tell them:
"Some of us [men] choose to exalt the metaphysical side of our sexuality, romanticizing the chivalrous poet. But this amazing poet does not exist in any pure form, nor should he. The ones who come closest to being pure poets are often fat, with greasy hair and dirty socks. Furthermore, they excel as poets because they are well practiced at living inside their minds; but they are not complete persons. Ironically, the habit of pornography is quite compatible with a poetic aesthetic sense of sex."
— Joel Helbling, quoting an earlier post of his within a new post expanding upon it, "Re-crossing the Cimmaron". Show this to the person who tells you that sexual sins aren't damaging.
Blogs for Terri has continuous updates on the efforts to save Terri Schiavo, including information on what you can do.
"Dinkie had grown up and had spent her whole life in rural Kentucky, and she was country. Dinkie was not her given name, but she had hated the name "Ada" as a child, and so one day she had announced that her name was now "Dinkie," and so it was. "Dinkie" was the name on her Social Security card and on her two marriage licenses. She had been married twice, and, according to Brenda, had run both of her husbands off. One of them she tried to kill by sawing through the boards on the stairs in the hopes that he would fall and break his neck, but when he was merely injured and did not die, she eventually settled for letting him escape with his life."
— From "On Holy Ground", a remarkable entry by Roman Catholic seminarian Dennis Schenkel about the woman whose death he attended last week at a Louisville, Ky., hospital.
More blogger glamour pics have been added to the Annoy Christopher Hanson Campaign—plus a response from Hanson himself.
The New Pantagruel, an online ecumenical Christian journal whose motto is "Hymns in the Whorehouse," today issued a call for "forcible resistance to the State’s coercive and unjust implementation of Terri [Schiavo]’s death by starvation."
I have no doubt that if Terri were my mother, I would do everything, legal or illegal—short of harming people or property—to try to prevent her starvation. But—call me a hypocrite—I wouldn't do that or advocate others' doing it for Terri Schiavo. I believe in observing the rule of law. I also believe that if individuals attempted to, say, take over the hospice where Terri is scheduled to be starved to death starting at 1 p.m. tomorrow, it wouldn't mobilize the public in her favor.
If, God forbid, Judge Greer's starvation order stands and Terri dies, we, as a country, will have killed her. That is something that we will all have to face. The acts of individuals attempting to defy the law cannot take away our culpability as a nation.
The New Pantagruel, an online Generation Y Christian journal whose motto is "Hymns in the Whorehouse," today issued a call for "forcible resistance to the State’s coercive and unjust implementation of Terri [Schiavo]’s death by starvation."
I have no doubt that if Terri were my mother, I would do everything, legal or illegal—short of harming people or property—to try to prevent her starvation. But—call me a hypocrite—I wouldn't do that or advocate others' doing it for Terri Schiavo. I believe in observing the rule of law. I also believe that if individuals attempted to, say, take over the hospice where Terri is scheduled to be starved to death starting at 1 p.m. tomorrow, it wouldn't mobilize the public in her favor.
If, God forbid, Judge Greer's starvation order stands and Terri dies, we, as a country, will have killed her. That is something that we will all have to face. The acts of individuals attempting to defy the law does not take away our culpability as a nation.
From BlogsForTerri:
Urgent that EVERYONE CALL THESE SENATORS NOW - ONLY HALF AN HOUR LEFT!
ASK THEM TO PLEASE support: "The Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act."
Reed, Jack - (D - RI) Class II
728 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4642
Web Form: http://reed.senate.gov/form-opinion.htm
AND
Reid, Harry - (D - NV) Class III
528 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3542
Web Form: http://reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm
"American liberals, who fancy themselves the protectors of the downtrodden, have been utterly silent on this matter. Can it be because they don't, even for a moment, want to appear on the same side of an issue as those hated 'pro-life' people?"
—Dustbury's Charles G. Hill on Terri Schiavo
For updates on Terri Schiavo and what you can do to rescue her, visit TerrisFight.org and BlogsForTerri. Also, read Andrew McCarthy's piece in today's National Review Online on how terrorists get better treatment than Terri.
Sorry, but posts about pressing moral and political issues will have to wait until later today, as my I.Q. just went down 50 points.
It all started when my mother offered to treat me to something that would transform my mane, which had recently become disturbingly high-contrast....
Q: What's the best way to find out if a woman's in a persistent vegetative state?
A) Give her an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan.
B) Give her a PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan.
C) Whack her right between the eyes so she moans in pain.
If you guessed C, congratulations! You are qualified to be an expert witness against Terri Schiavo, according to Fr. Robert Johansen's searing exposé in today's National Review Online. Who needs costly and accurate medical tests when you can get the information you want with one well-placed whack?
Remember, Terri has already had significant damage to her head. Yet that's where Dr. Ronald Cranford, an expert hired by her husband Michael—who wants to have her killed—chose to hit her, writes Johansen:
In Cranford’s examination, described by one witness as “brutal,” he discounted evidence under his own eyes of Terri’s responsiveness. At one point, Dr. Cranford struck Terri very hard on the forehead between her eyes. Terri recoiled and moaned, seemingly in pain. In his court testimony, Cranford dismissed the reaction and moan as a “reflex.”Legislation is currently pending in Congress that could save the lives of Terri and others in a similar situation. Read the TerrisFight.org action tips and contact your legislator today, to prevent the court-ordered starvation of Terri that is ordered to begin Friday.
Gregory K. Popcak of Heart, Mind & Strength responds to NARAL's call for "sex-ed haikus"—with sadly hilarious results.
Charles has invited me to judge his headline contest, inspired by a compliment I got in Gawker today. Although I'm ineligible, I've submitted a contribution.
Condoleezza Rice told the Washington Times last week that she's "mildly pro-choice"—for libertarian reasons: "I believe if you go back to 2000, when I helped the president in the campaign,I was, in effect, kind of libertarian on this issue, and meaning by that that I have been concerned about a government role in this issue."
But does the libertarian position in fact favor abortion rights?
People are often, though by no means always, drawn to the libertarian movement out of a materialist worldview at odds with both liberalism and conservatism. But the nature of libertarian philosophy invites strong arguments against abortion, as may be found on the Libertarians for Life Web site, which includes a powerfully argued piece by Dr. Joseph S. Fulda, "Abortion: Is Pro-Choice a Libertarian Position?"
Fulda writes:
No movement is more on the side of reproductive choice in its fullness and strict control over one's own body than the pro-life movement. Indeed, the essence of the pro-life position is respect for the reproductive choice made by the couple and flowing directly from the control the woman had over her own body. The abortion advocates, in contrast, do not respect the choice made in its fullness and seek control over the body -- indeed, the very life -- of another.Read the whole thing.
Thus far, we have twice provocatively referred to the unborn as "another." But the central question in the abortion debate is whether the unborn is, indeed, "another"; human life, that is, individuated from that of its mother. It is, of course, not independent of its mother (not even viable outside the womb early on, yet), but then neither is a neonate and supporters of infanticide cannot be joined in this debate anyway.
Whether the unborn is individuated human life is a theological question and a scientific question. Life becomes individuated, theologically, when God infuses the unborn with a soul, making it a child. Hence, when considered as a spiritual being, the time at which human life is individuated depends on one's religious beliefs: some say conception, others say later. In a secular society, however, it is not the place of the State to decide this question. Fortunately, however, when considered as a strictly material being -- as a mass of chemicals mediated by electrical impulses -- there can be no question, as George Will so eloquently pointed out, that human life is individuated at the moment of conception, since from that moment, "a new DNA complex ... directs the ontogenesis of the organism." That is, as soon as the zygote is formed, a new organism with its own genetic blueprint exists, and it is that blueprint -- and not that of the mother -- that directs the growth and development of the child.
Thus, talk of compulsory pregnancy or forced childbirth is little more than an ideological distraction. To be sure, the pregnancy might have been an undesired consequence of the desired sexual intimacy. But that is compulsory or coercive only in the sense that a man who throws a baseball a great distance for the pleasure he receives can claim that the resulting damage done to a neighbor's window was "against his will" and that the untoward consequence was "imposed" on him. It used to be understood that the laws of nature were not subject to legislative repeal or voiding by the courts and that natural results flowing from voluntary actions are in no meaningful sense "imposed."
As if we needed further proof that Michael Schiavo is on an insane jihad to legally murder his wife, Terri's husband argues his stance by taking the language of the anti-euthanasia movement—and turning it on its head.
"What I'd like to talk about, and I need to let everybody know, is that big brother is going to start making your decisions: whether you die or not now," the adulterous husband, who stands to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance money upon Terri's death, told Florida radio last week.
"And people need to start speaking up," he continued, "because [it's] going to get into your personal, private lives and they're going to force you to have feeding tubes placed into your body, against your will, whether you want one or not."
The government and hospitals are colluding to insure that people are kept alive against their will? Funny, I thought it was the other way around.
Before Hitler instituted his deadly Final Solution, he ordered those who were supposed to protect lives, to instead take those lives away. That is the direction where we're headed if Terri Schiavo is killed. The Dutch are already there.
To learn what you can do to rescue Terri Schiavo, visit TerrisFight.org and Media Culpa.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments claiming that Terri really wants to die, etc. The facts of her case are clear, and it is too late for such bickering; a judge has ordered that this innocent woman be starved to death, beginning this Friday.
