Life's Bittersweet Ironies (Another Perfect Storm)

In the old days, a story like Terri Schiavo's, and its larger importance would have been known weeks or months later, not virtual minutes.

Holy Week: A Good Time to Die, If You're a Christian
Meaning no disrespect, but think about it. The last public death spectacle on Good Friday really turned out pretty good.

The Storm in Florida (what is it about Florida?)
I still continue to pray for Terri Schiavo and for those in power who are called upon to make the life-sustaining decisions that will help her. I've written about my own distress at having been through the death watch of my mother, who chose to stop all nourishment. I have tried to get people to see is that what is happening to Terri is probably premature at best, and at worst, a killing of a human being who has beem victimized.

Those who don't agree with me can talk till the cows come home about this case being a right-to-die. It simply is not. Regardless of what this poorly written law says, the moral intent of the law should be that if there is no written living will and instructions, there shall be no intervention. From anyone. This is where the right-to-die people miss it. We simply do not know for sure if Terri wanted to die. And that should make a huge difference all the way around. No tickee, no pull plugee, or tubee.

All I can do is continue to pray for an Easter miracle for Terri. Even the Pope rose above his illness to speak out about the immorality of this act, likening it to "capital punishment." Today he has relapsed and is near death.

Are these "coincidences" actually a message again writ large by The Almighty which reminds us to kill not an innocent person. Well? He's done stuff like that before, you know.

So What's the Perfect Storm?
My screenwriter's brain automatically looks for the plot line of a realtime story. I look for all the things to go wrong that shouldn't, observe human behavior as it relates to a character arc, or how people change, grow and develop. The Schiavo story has all the marks of one of the most fabulous scripts in the world with everything--sex, money, greed, law and possible homicide. Since it's fantasy, right? People buy into it as a story.

I hope this is rather God's immense docudrama reminding man he must act humanely and help get to the truth before killing a person--any person.

Thanks for the read.

All Terri Can Do is Hope Someone Listens

Terri Schiavo may be on drip morphine, but her soul is screaming for someone to save her.

I am living through a most surreal moment.. I am watching an American citizen be dehydrated and starved to death. And no one can stop it?

President Bush Should Declare the Tube Reinserted and Guardianship Given to her Parents
Yes, I know it sounds extremem. But so is death. Especially one that is not necessary. A presidential order, like the one President Clinton used to free his pal Mark Rich, should be used now to free Terri Shiavo from her husband's, his lawyer's and the culturally-sensitive judges' bondage. These who believe that:

Society is best served by granting individual rights only when granting them is beneficial to the whole, which is hardly ever. Society is made up of laws and rules. Irreversible rules, procedures, format, structure. The same ones that are bent over backwards for rapists, murderers, ex-presidents, serial rapists, celebrity wife killers, et al.

Members of the district courts' "star chamber" have evidently made up their minds, once and for all, that morality shall not be used in interpreting our laws. They'll say, "There is a rule, after all, that we can only debate those objective ideals like rules." No, these moral giants take cover (and live in ingnominy).

Yeah, I remember those kinds of rules--ones like the TA in high school lorded over you with if you were late for class. (Rules that can be changed, for God's sake!) Rules, dammit! That's all they are!

The Schiavo case has not been heard on the reality of this case, nor has the argument gone past the question of whether the law was followed and were her rights protected. This legalism is again responsible for unjust treatment of one of our fellow citizens.

Following is the the crux of this issue: It seems no one in the judiciary asked at the outset if Schiavo's is a moral issue and how shall we look at the law from that point of view, with the idea of saving this woman's life. What was the intent of the law? And do we not have a responsibility to err or the side of  Terri. What can we do, as a society built by laws, to save this young woman's life until there is absolute certainty of her diagnosis and condition?

And ultimately, I have to ask anyone who disagrees, "Why not?" The husband says it's been fifteen years. I have to reply, "Then, what's another year or two?" Why are these judges so quick to throw these appeals out? Could it be they don't care about the moral side of it? Those rules again. Or are they simply cowards. I think that must be the case. By the way, the husband has moved on gaining a wife and two babies. There's no reason he cannot divorce Terry and leave her to her loving, waiting parents.

There can be no excuse for Terri dying from this inhumane treatment. If she does, I will hang my head in shame that I didn't get my point across to those who believe that killing Terri is just fine.

A presidential pardon would frankly be a fresh breath of sunshine and clean air.

Thanks for the read.

How Many Have to Die in the Name of States Rights?

Once upon a time, the freedom and equality sought by African-Americans was considered a states rights issue. That's why Bull Connor and Lester Maddox, small-time southern officials who stood in the way of those rights, were thankfully vanquished by federal troops.

Why is Terri Schiavo's right to live subjugated to another low-level southern county official? Tell me, cultural leftists, what is the difference?

Congress Has to Step In
Of course, we need to start with the facts.

1. No one really knows what happened to Terri. Some think she had a stroke, an event or accident that caused the oxygen to stop going to her brain. There's talk that she may have had a head injury. She had been dieting, and her potassium levels may have been low.

2. Doctors do not agree on the diagnosis/prognosis of this patient. After all, her husband will not allow an MRI to see what's going on. Neither will he allow her physical rehabilitation, nor time outside the warehouse he has her in right now. No sunshine. No way.

3. If Mr. Schiavo gets his way, Terri will dehydrate until she is dead, a cruel process that may last seven days or more. When she does expire, he will have her immediately cremated. No autopsy. How strange.

4. Mr. Schiavo didn't remember the thoughtless statement that Terri had made about not wanting to be kept kept alive by machines when she was in her early twenties--until seven years into Terri's condition (by the way, she's not on a machine...she is not vegetative) .

5. Mr. Schiavo must belong to the Moveon.org club because he not only moved on, he moved in with another woman and had two illegitimate children with her. No wonder he wants to move on. It takes money to raise a family. He doesn't make much on his nurse's wages.

6. Mr. Schiavo won a civil suit that awarded him nearly 1.5 million dollars for the care of and therapy for his wife, Terri. When that occurred, the jury likely didn't know he'd be using it to set up a college fund for his kids.

7. Terri parents, the Schindlers, and her siblings want to take over total control and care of Terri. All they ask is that the husband divorce her.

8. The only judge to hear this case for five years has been some yokel who has consistently refused to view or see Terri in her environment. Moreover, he refused to allow cameras or videos because he said it would be disruptive and provocative. Uh huh.

9. The Federal Government not only has the right, but the duty to protect its citizens from being killed by the state and her husband.

Legalism Killed Christ
We've seen legalisms trump humanity throughout history. We saw it when the Brits refused to allow the St. Louis, a boat full of refugee Jews, to anchor at their ports in the middle east. The Jews were returned to Germany to meet their deaths in concentration camps.

We saw legalistic inhumanity when Elian Gonzalez was physically removed, ala storm troopers, from his home in Miami to return to Castro's nasty, gnarled, cigar-stained grasp.

And we read of it when Jesus tried to explain to the pharisees that they were all wrong, that their legalistic view of God was off the mark. Regardless of miracles and proof of His existence as the Son of God, man's pride and fear of loss of prestige and position threw the ruling Jews and Pontius Pilate in an unthinkable position. If they let Him live, they'd have to look at His teachings and run the risk they had been wrong. Let Rome kill him, they thought.

Is our little penny ante judge in south swampland just another pharisee, a Pilate, a self-serving judicial bureaucrat? Or is he rather a silly little man in way above his head and too afraid to admit it?

What must our judge and Schiavo himself and his new family think when they see that Terri's into the third day of dehydration? Do they ignore it, compartmentalize it, or do they lie awake at night thinking about the absolute barbarism of this?

This Must Stop Immediately

If it can happen to Terri, it can happen to you. I suggest you email Darrell Issa, Feinstein and Boxer and insist that that they join the rest of congress in their attempt to save this poor child's life and stop these hyenas from putting her in an urn.

Meanwhile, time's running out. Support Congress in their rescue of Terri Schiavo.

president@whitehouse.gov
http://www.capwiz.com/lwv/bio/?id=40137&lvl=C&chamber=H (Darrell Issa, Representative)
http://boxer.senate.gov/
http://feinstein.senate.gov/

Thanks for the read.

This is Hardly a Right-to-Die Case

I've read headlines about Terri Shiavo, the woman whose husband has decided that an offhanded remark she made when she was twenty-one, should be the reason to remove her feeding tube and watch her starve to death. The debate is framed as a right-to-die.

Let me rephrase that: ...he is killing her and the state is helping him to do it. When in our history has this ever occurred? When?

I suggest this is no more than the right of an insensitive, dishonorable husband (who meanwhile has shacked up with the mother of his two illegitimate children) to kill. If this man were truly worried about his sick wife, he would relinquish control of her entire person to her loving family and go on about his business of living the life he's made for himself somewhere else.

What kind of man would allow a person he supposedly loves starve to death? The event's imagery shocks me more and more each passing day. And what does this compassionate individual stand to gain by this cowardly act?

As Richard Nixon said, "Follow the money."

Death is So Final
I'm about to share a story that may change your mind about  letting people die.

My mother had about six weeks from the time her Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma was diagnosed until she died. Being practical, she placed a no-code on her chart. However, she decided she'd give chemotherapy as try, since it would give her an extra six or so months. Unfortunately, she simply couldn't tolerate the horrible pain caused by the chemo, and thus "gave up," or so she said. It broke my heart when she felt compelled to tell me she's a chicken, that she just couldn't do it.

She endured the deep bone pain that cancer patients deal with and horrible sweating another two weeks, during which time she basically starved herself and would not drink. She had a tube; we tried to feed her. But she didn't want any part of it. By now, she was on morphine for pain management, which is the gift that keeps on taking. Her tolerance became so high so quickly that I knew her respiration would shut down eventually and she would simply die from the results of a suppressed respiratory system caused by the overdose of the drug called morphine, into the arms of Morpheus, after which the opiate is named.

Dosages had to be upwardly adjusted to control the pain, almost daily at first, then hourly at the end. Since she wasn't on a morphine pump, she had to be shot up by humans. I reminded myself of Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment, " in which she practically mugs the nurse to get her terminal daughter morphine. Since my mother's doctor's order hadn't accommodated her ever increasing need for more morphine, she'd have to spend hours of needless pain until some medical bureaucrat got the message. I was on those nurses everyday to stay on top of it.

The extended family, frankly, seemed amazed that we were letting this happen. I admit I felt great guilt, sort of like I was giving up on God and His ability to change things. But, the fact was: this is what she wanted.

We can't be at all sure that death is what Terri Shiavo wants.

A Civil Society that Eats its Young, Eventually Dies
We cannot allow some swamp judge to define the ideals of this country. We, as Americans, deplore what is happening with Terri Schiavo; as Americans we must demand Judge Greer pull his head out of his Panama hat and step aside.

I hope the president steps up the rhetoric to help Americans define right and wrong, in black and white, that we do not as a society kill disabled people.

Hamlet

... but first we have to kill all the lawyers.

Thanks for the read.

Jackson Trial: Truth is Weirder than Fiction

Who writes this stuff? I haven't had this much fun since the O.J. trial. The irony and bizarre never stops!

The Pajamas--A Freudian Slip--and a Bad Pun
Think about it. The guy wore his pajamas to court. To the same court that is trying him for molestation of a child. A child who is to appear on the witness stand again today...and sink Jackson's ass.

I can imagine my back acting up too, especially if I had to face the rest of humanity. Put the jammies on, and everyone will think I'm crazy. Better crazy than found out as a pathological pediphile who belongs in jail. Maybe the jammy thing is an attempt to either intimidate or pacify the accuser. Did Jackson wear those when the kid was molested?

He's a strange, strange man.

The victim, some kid who's survived cancer and an abusive home, seems to be rising above it all and claiming his own right as a person. He is said to stare down Jackson, then return calmly and politely to tell his side of the story.

Then there's the Blake Trial
The owner of Vitello's, the joint where Widower Blake took his missus for a quick bowl of pasta the night she was wacked, appeared at trial last week. Meanwhile, the jury is in deliberation now, and we've yet to hear just who killed Blake's consort.

Flash back six years. My sister and I attended a play in L.A., after which we met the family at Vitello's for dinner. It wasn't gourmet, nor was it warm, but the tab was big and I was annoyed. Nothing makes me pricklier than cold afterdinner coffee. That tastes bad. But, to avoid any unplesantness, I paid the $600 bill and left a fair tip.

As we were leaving, Vitello, ciggy hanging out of his mouth, asked how everything was. "The coffee could have been better..." I said.

As the filial entourage came out, one by one they reported, "He called you a bitch."

I guess one of his fave clients is Garry Marshall and his family. I bet they get real good coffee.

Back to the Real World
Democracy continues to fight through the apparatchiks in the middle east. In his inaugural message President Bush conveyed to new democrats has been taken literally. If it's a helping hand you want from America, we will help you.

Just When I Wasn't Looking
I got published in a local rag, "The Bugle," with a circulation of 78,000. Although I haven't been picked up by a national publisher, I'm happy. I'm very happy to be writing still, even with my new venture ahead. I hope to balance life a bit.

Thanks for the read.

All He Needed Was a Good Daddy

Watching Bill Clinton bloom into a gentleman is almost enough to forgive the guy. He even slept on the floor and left the bed for George the Elder during their travels to save the world.

What the World Needs Now
A child of divorce with an abusive stepfather and a hard-as-nails mother, Bill Clinton didn't have the luxury of an honorable male role model. His real father was a drunk traveling salesman who died in an auto accident when Bill was little. No one ever showed this wonderfully able man, President Clinton, how to act outside his self interest. Now, he's appropriately deferential towards the older President Bush. I'm impressed.


I Love it When I'm Right (which ain't often)
I was the baby of a highly competitive nuclear family. My extended family included a bunch of cousins whose parents ate Ph.Ds for breakfasts and lunch. At that family table, I learned when to hold em, when to fold em, and when to call.

I'm here to call.

I wrote a column last year defending the president's decision to enter Iraq, remove Hussein, change the regime. Regardless of the evidence of WMDs, I wanted regime change because I believed that democracy loves close borders. I was right; more importantly, the president was right.

I also wrote a column last year about Putin and the danger he presents to his country and thus, to the rest of the world. I stated that any ex-KGB director can't tolerate the results of liberty, bad or good. I also knew we had let down the entire region by not accomplishing a follow-through foreign loan program. The crooks took over; and we didn't fix it. One more time, we were outwitted by authoritarians who say anything, anything to stay in business. But, about Tzar Putin, I was right on.

I apologize. It's just that being right once or twice does me good!

Front Street Gallery
I've been absent from blogsphere because I'm opening an art gallery in old town Temecula, California on March 15th. I've not completely given up writing. I'm just pacing myself.

Thanks for the read.