Terri Schiavo died today, following a lengthy execution.
Remember Duane Allman, Vicksburg, Miss., 1973.
Wail on, Skydog!
UPDATE:
Mark from Vicksburg was kind enough to send in another wonderful pic of the memorial and give us the story behind its creation.
Marburg virus has popped up again.
For decades they've been looking for the host reservoir and still haven't found it. Scientists have no idea where it comes from, how to prevent it, or how to cure it.
The three to seven-day incubation period is a nightmare in these modern times when people can fly to the other side of the world in a day.
If you ever get a chance to read Laurie Garrett's book "The Coming Plague", do so. Her chapter on Marburg is excellent. It not only tells the story of the virus itself, but also details the very human story of those people in 1967 in Marburg, Germany who were dealing with not only a deadly disease making its world debut, but also the first of an entirely new family of viruses.
Bummer news on the blog-front. Are You Conservative? is calling it quits.
I hope he changes his mind, as his manner of expressing himself is so very interesting.
Lilly is doing super. Her digestive problems turned out to be a treatable bowel disease. For her dogfood meals she has to eat special food that contains no fiber. For her people snacks she can still have some of whatever we're shoving into our faces at the time, as God forbid it be anything that would give our bowels a scrub. One thing though, her vet doesn't want her to have the freeze-dried liver I use as a reward when we're out on walks. I'm trying to figure out what kind of alternate highly-delectable treat would be suitable as a reward for not threatening to devour a kid in a stroller.
Her behavioralist couldn't make it last Friday, so we still haven't tried out the head collar yet. (OK, Amy?) We've been entering and exiting the neighborhood through some intensely heavy vegetation across the street from my house, and have greatly minimized our chances of encountering huffy neighbors acting out of sorts because of Lilly wanting to remove their feeding tubes with her teeth.
Even though the qualilty of this pic is poor, I've included it because it captured on film Shiloh and Lilly actually being buddies. Things are looking up.
Can't we all just get along?
Michelle Malkin has her feet on my head.
Now I'm going to feel oppressed all day.
For those of you who are connoisseurs of human folly, a satire post saying the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston broke up because of political differences, particularly the President's plan to privatize Social Security, really got some people hopping.
The Navy has honored those brave and cool-headed sailors of the USS. San Francisco whose actions saved lives and helped save the submarine in what was a hideous situation. All honor to them.
More locally, the Broward Sheriff's Office has honored the deputy who came across a church bus full of kids sunk in a canal one night along the Florida Turnpike. He kept swimming through the emergency exit on the roof of the bus and was able to save 23 of them. He organized the people who stopped to help, performed CPR, and did all that was humanly possible to save those children that night in the pitch-black water.
Lucky for all of us that guys like Deputy Tony Monforte and the honored crew of the San Francisco are out there, as the rest of us are going to run around like chickens with our heads cut off. At least, I would.
(Thanks to Gmac for news of the San Francisco.)
I want to wish everybody a very Happy Easter.
Since I can only find the audio-only version of The Easter Song as a clip, here's a video that has the whole thing. The woman at the piano, Annie Herring, has the voice that I was supposed to have. There was obviously some mistake and it went to her instead.
It's probably for the best. She uses it to glorify God, while I'd've no doubt headed with it to Nashville.
The Schindlers were outlawyered at the beginning, when it most counted. Michael Schiavo had $300,000 to spend for a good lawyer and all they, who had no money, could get was an inexperienced lawyer who was willing to work pro bono.
Despite Hollywood movies to the contrary, inexperienced pro bono lawyers seldom win the case.
We were always so horrified that whenever anyone in our immediate family got into some sort of legal jam, my mother would sell land and go hire the most high-profile and expensive lawyers in Lee County. Whether it was for dog bite or attempted murder, off she'd go to her safe deposit box at the bank. It just seemed like overkill. Then again, we always got unjammed.
The cover of the March issue of Harper's magazine shows a group of Marine recruits. One of them is fading.
It's a story on going AWOL.
The recruit shown as fading is angry. He's Lance Cpl. Britian Kinder, an active duty Marine who's not the least bit AWOL. Neither are any of the other Marines on the cover. They're not too pleased either.
Neither is Getty Images, the owner of the photo. No tampering is allowed.
Giulia Melucci, vice-president for public relations for Harper's says the cover photo is merely decoration. There's no word on what her reaction would be if she were pictured on the cover of Time with a knife superimposed in her hand to illustrate a story on "Women Who Kill."
Or if the HQ of Harper's was pictured on the cover of Newsweek to illustrate a story "Does Media Profit From Child Porn?"
Or "Magazines That Suck."
UPDATE:
Country Store puts the Harper's editorial policy to good use.
Docs: Starving death peaceful.
Some other doctors disagree.
This is sad.
I don't know if it's true, but Terri's parents are certainly fighting to the end.
I do believe blood is thicker than water.
He whistled his tune as he tried the trap
and it sprang down with a ready snap.
Then with a smile of awful command,
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me Hangman." I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men,
and I'm no henchman of yours." I cried.
"You lied to me Hangman, foully lied."
Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye,
"Lied to you...tricked you?" He said "Not I...
for I answered straight and told you true.
The scaffold was raised for none but you."
"For who has served more faithfully?
With your coward's hope." said He,
"And where are the others that might have stood
side by your side, in the common good?"
"Dead!" I answered, and amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me.
"First the alien ... then the Jew.
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
none before stood so alone as I.
The Hangman then strapped me...with no voice there
to cry "Stay!" ... for me in the empty square.
The Schindlers have lost again before the Florida Supreme Court. If there's anything else that can be done, I don't know what it is.
Both AYC? and Blame Bush have posts about why this fight isn't just about one woman.
Terri Schiavo's case is off to the Supremes, who, evidently, are really the ones in charge of the country. It sure isn't Congress calling the shots.
Well, I hope they use some of their mighty power to send a glass of water down Terri's way.
UPDATE:
They declined to hear it.
UPDATE II:
Governor Bush has filed for custody of Terri. What a nice guy. Unfortunately, the petition will go before Judge Greer, who already put some kind of restraining order on the Department of Children and Families. I don't know how Jeb will physically claim her.
Who knows? He could send in the Guard.
UPDATE III:
Naturally, Judge Greer denied Governor Bush custody of Terri, and as we all know, Judge Greer is never wrong. He is a man without fault.
OK, Jeb. You're not running for re-election as Governor, and you've repeatedly said you don't want to run for President. You've got nothing to lose. I won't object a bit if you go ahead and call out the Guard.
Maybe he has some cleverer plan, but I'm fresh out of ideas.
Will Governor Bush dive onto the grenade? We'll know very soon.
UPDATE IV:
According to Randall Terry, the Governor blinked:
Randall Terry, who is acting as a spokesman for Schiavo's parents, said Bob and Mary Schindler were not giving up, and again slammed Gov. Bush for not strong-arming the court.
"The governor blinked. The governor blinked," Terry said. "We can only hope the governor is huddling with his attorneys and he is determined with his constitutional authority to enforce the statutes."
The fat lady's warming up and the skinny lady's wearing out. It's now or never, Jeb.
The 11th Circuit Court has denied the appeal. I imagine this will go to the Supreme Court now.
I'm all for hearsay evidence in Probate court. I clearly remember all of you saying you'd want Florida Cracker to have your worldly goods when you should die.
Michelle Malkin has more.
UPDATE:
The Schindlers are not appealing to the Supremes after all, but instead are asking for some sort of review. At this point I'm getting confused. [Lawyer Carl in Atlanta, do you understand this part?]
Meanwhile, Governor Bush is tearing his hair out trying to get Terri some help.
Some think that Jeb can pull a rabbit out of his hat right about now, but I'm not so sure.
Kudos to Florida Senator Daniel Webster. He doesn't give up. I think he's picturing his own brain-damaged son in this situation.
UPDATE:
The 11th Circuit Court says not no, but hell no.
They're working pretty frantically in T-town. Hopefully, something will be accomplished before the girl drops dead.
I'm kind of embarrassed about that whole giving to the tsunami victims thing. If I had known how painless death by dehydration and starvation was, I could have used the dough to get my car detailed instead. It's definitely the best way to die. Except for maybe freezing to death- that might be better.
In any case, I don't know what I was thinking keeping Indonesian kids from peacefully going off to heaven.
Hey, Bob Geldof- pull the other one.
UPDATE II:
Hyscience has word on breaking news that Governor Bush has the Department of Children and Families investigating abuse of Terri.
I pray they take her into protective custody.
Governor Jeb for sure wants to go and bust down the door himself. That man does not play.
UPDATE III:
From the Governor's press conference announcing new evidence that Terri is not in a PVS:
"I'm to make sure that Terri is afforded at least the same rights that criminals convicted of the most heinous crimes take for granted," Bush said. "If a prisoner comes forward with new DNA evidence 20 years after his conviction suggesting his innocence, there is no doubt that the courts, in our state or all across the country for that matter, would immediately review his case. We should do no less for Terri Schiavo."
Meanwhile, the Florida Senate turned back the efforts to help Terri there.
UPDATE IV:
Governor Bush is indeed moving to take Terri into protective custody.
I don't drink alcohol, but I might could use a shot of some right about now.
All of this stuff is heading back to Greer, I do believe.
Here's Duane doing a little backstage picking with John Hammond in 1970.
Wail on, Skydog!
At least Terri's plight has shone a bright light on something that has been sneaking up on us:
[James] Bopp [of the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled] says the raging debate over Schiavo is shining a light on a practice that had become increasingly common. "This has been going on without public attention," he says. "It's prevalent now, that people who will live for years but whose lives are viewed as not worth living are being starved and dehydrated to death," he says. "This is focusing on the problem."
That will make some people kind of sad:
Mr. Meisel of the University of Pittsburgh also sees the Schiavo debate as a setback for right-to-die advocates. "There has been a period of legal development since 1975 in which it had become increasingly accepted to terminate life support - including feeding tubes - for a person in a persistent vegetative state," he says. "This whole episode will call that into question in doctors' minds."
I hope so. There sure are an awful lot of people out there who live at the mercy of others.
The judge said no food for Terri Schiavo.
Now it's off to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
Needless to say, things don't look good.
Get a living will and be very careful who you marry.
Being brain-damaged could get you iced in these parts.
Governor Bush is still plugging away. It may be too late, however. At least if he does succeed at ousting Michael Schiavo as guardian for adultery, the parents could get their daughter's body back, and MS intends to have her cremated.
UPDATE:
James Taranto said it very well:
Supporters of Michael Schiavo's effort to end his wife's life have asked how conservatives, who claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage, can fail to respect his husbandly authority. The most obvious answer is that a man's authority as a husband does not supersede his wife's rights as a human being--a principle we never thought we'd see liberals question.
But why do those of us who aren't right-to-life absolutists side with Mrs. Schiavo's parents, who want to keep her alive, over her husband, who wants her dead? It's a fair question, and it raises another one: What kind of husband is Michael Schiavo?
According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this prima facie evidence of adultery. And this is no mere fling; a sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel described Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's "fiancée." Mr. Schiavo, in other words, has virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze is as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows as it is possible to imagine.
The point here is not to castigate Mr. Schiavo for behaving badly. It would require a heroic degree of self-sacrifice for a man to forgo love and sex in order to remain faithful to an incapacitated wife, and it would be unreasonable to hold an ordinary man to a heroic standard.
But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wishes to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is that he refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimmest irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her marriage is still alive.
All of those who are so desperately worried about the judicial branch being slighted in the Terri Schiavo case should be happy to know it's back in the hands of a judge- Judge James Whittemore. What he'll do with it is anybody's guess.
Serial killers get one bite at the Federal apple, surely an innocent woman can be allowed a nibble.
Meanwhile, a victim's rights group has filed a formal request with Attorney General Gonzalez to investigate whether Terri has been abused as covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
UPDATE:
Statement of the President:
Today, I signed into law a bill that will allow Federal courts to hear a claim by or on behalf of Terri Schiavo for violation of her rights relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life. In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. This presumption is especially critical for those like Terri Schiavo who live at the mercy of others. I appreciate the bipartisan action by the Members of Congress to pass this bill. I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.
Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to all the Congressmen and women who voted for Terri's being able to have Federal redress.
Listening to C-SPAN, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland thinks God's eye is on the swallow. God must think San Juan Capistrano is just the coolest.
It's vote time.
UPDATE:
The House has approved the bill. Now it's off to President Bush, who is waiting to sign it into law.
Florida State Senator Nancy Argenziano, one of the "Republican Nine" in Tallahassee, upset about the phone calls she's been getting, today repeated the same silly statement she made during the debate on the Terri Schiavo-related bill:
"I respect them for what they believe. And I wish they'd respect me for my belief, that you shouldn't keep people from going to heaven."
Too bad Genene Jones isn't one of her constituents. She felt exactly the same way
Personally, I don't believe in sending helpless people to heaven who haven't put down in writing that they'd want to make an early trip there. I just don't think it's polite.
From all the complaints she's been getting, I do believe she's worn out her welcome in her district.
I scheduled a big powwow with the vet who is the owner of my animal clinic, and took Lilly in to see her today.
I didn't blog it, but last month a vet there, an elderly man and board-certified, while attempting to kill Giardiasis, if indeed Lilly had it, prescribed her antibiotics at such a high dosage that they would have caused neurological damage had I given them to her. Luckily, that night, another vet at the hospital who was reviewing charts called us and told us to cut the dosage in half. Then they fired the old vet.
I knew the vet had been let go, but didn't know until today that it was because of that prescription for Lilly.
I told the head vet that Lilly had to have continuity of care, just like a chronically-ill child, and that from now on all our dealings would be with her alone. We went over all of Lilly's physical problems and came up with a new plan of attack, this one based on the treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, one of the dozen of digestive disorders that occur primarily in German Shepherds.
As for her behavioral problems, sorry guys, but I've decided to give the Gentle Leader a try. The day before yesterday, while I was walking the dogs, a very sweet boy dog layed down at the end of the street and waited for his friend Shiloh. Lilly had met this dog ten times before and they'd gotten along fine. This time, Lilly went ballistic; Shiloh trussed me by wrapping her leash completely around both of my ankles several times, taking me quite a bit of time to get free; and three different neighbors looked on us with hatred on their faces. It was a spectacle.
Mr. Cracker, complete with a degree in Physics from Florida State University, is studying the collar and diagrams, trying to figure out how the damn thing goes on.
When the behavioralist comes this Friday, he'll show me how to use it properly.
I have to gain better control over Lilly on this little street where I live.
UPDATE:
No, I will not have the leader on in the house.
One of the protesters arrested yesterday for trying to bring Terri Schiavo water was our own former Lee County Sheriff John MacDougall.
And one of the three Florida Reps who plan to oppose the bill, is my Representative, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
I didn't say anything when her supporters stood with their signs directly in front of the doors of the polling place when I was trying to get through, but if she goes up there and embarrasses us, I'll be out there on the corner of Arvida and Weston with a "No Food, No Water, No Votes" sign the next time that fool runs for anything.
All she can do is stall things. At 12:01 a.m. tomorrow they're just going to meet and vote it through anyways.
I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am for the guys in Washington crafting a compromise bill for Terri Schiavo. Hurry, hurry, hurry. This will take the whole thing out of Judge Greer's hands.
Last night in Tallahassee there were some interesting doings, as well:
Senator Daniel Webster gave fellow-lawmakers some home truths, parable-style:
State Sen. Daniel Webster pleaded for a last-minute reversal Friday, waving a new $100 bill at his colleagues then dropping it on the Senate floor.
"Put it on the floor, smash on it a little bit, now it's all dirty and soiled and it's wadded up. You know what? It's still worth $100," he said. "Some of our lives are like crisp $100 bills. Some lives are a little crumpled up. Some lives are soiled and it may not be the life that we'd like to have. But there's life."
And Senator Nancy Argenziano showed her spooky side:
"I believe keeping someone from getting to heaven is the wrong thing to do," she said Friday, handkerchief in hand, as she explained why she couldn't vote to prolong the brain-damaged woman's life.
We can thank our lucky stars this woman is a Senator and not a nurse in a neo-natal ICU.
Florida Sen. Daniel Webster, R Winter Garden tries to make a point using a one hundred dollar bill that it has value whether it's crumpled up or crisp and new, in connection with the Terri Schiavo case, Friday March 18, 2005, on the Senate floor in Tallahassee, Fla.
UPDATE:
Jackson's Junction has the video of today's press conference on Capitol Hill announcing the new bill.
While both the US and Florida Houses got their acts together, the two Senates did not. Last night the US Senate did pass a bill protecting just Terri, but not until the House had already adjourned for Easter break. Now some last-ditch efforts have the US House shoving subpoenas into the spokes and the Schindlers trying to file for habeas corpus.
Meanwhile, I see many editorials about "letting" Terri die. She has no underlying disease that is being staved off. She is just a brain-damaged woman. If someone were to lock any one of you in a room with no food or water, you would die. As I've read so frequently lately, "nature would take its course", and you would "be at peace."
I wonder at some people's inability to distinguish between allowing someone to die and causing someone to die.
Since she left no written instructions as to her wishes, I'm with President Bush on the subject:
"The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues," he said in a statement. "Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern."
How we treat the most vulnerable among us shows a great deal about who we are as a people. That is, unless you decide to reclassify those individuals as no longer really being persons. Then what you do to them doesn't matter.
You can even tell yourself that when they die of thirst and hunger, they don't feel it a bit.
UPDATE:
Lawyers for the US House of Representatives are indeed winging their way down to Florida with a basket of subpoenas, compelling all and sundry to come to Washington to testify later this month, including, according to some reports, Terri herself.
Much more over at Blogs for Terri.
UPDATE II:
Holy crap. This isn't something I wanted to come home to.
Of course, it would have to be Judge Greer.
Despite Terri being given protection as a Congressional witness, he has said his orders should be followed "forthwith":
In a stunning turn of events, a judge Friday rebuffed extraordinary efforts by congressional Republicans to intervene in the contentious battle over Terri Schiavo and once again ordered her feeding tube removed.
Minutes later, a spokeswoman for Schiavo's parents, who are seeking to block the removal, said the family was asked to leave Schiavo's hospice room. Observers noted that a similar situation occurred in 2003, when Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for six days before it was ordered reinserted.
Republican leaders in Congress, with the support of President Bush, early Friday had said they'd summon the brain-damaged woman to Washington to testify before them and open a congressional investigation, effectively postponing the 1 p.m. scheduled removal of the feeding tube.
But at a brief hearing in Pinellas County, Circuit Judge George Greer refused a request from U.S. House of Representatives attorneys to delay the removal, saying his order should be complied with ``forthwith.''
UPDATE III:
They have indeed "forthwithed" Terri.
UPDATE IV:
They didn't even spare her pain by capping the tube. They removed it entirely.
Lucianne's daily dunning of readers for money for the "bandwidth beast" is starting to remind me of PBS.
Well. I have had a Salon-o-lanche, and am quite disappointed.
Mr. Cracker said with the nature of that publication and the link's being referred to as "From the right", combined with people's general inclination being to read only that which they think they might agree, that I shouldn't wonder at having such small traffic from it, but rather should be glad I had any at all.
I do very much appreciate the thought behind it, however.
I don't mind adding that, by contrast, I should never complain about being in the middle of a INDC/Ace of Spades link sandwich.
Yay! Florida's House of Representatives has passed a bill blocking the removal of food and water from any incapacitated person who hasn't left written instructions saying he rejects sustenance:
The state House passed a bill Thursday that could keep Terri Schiavo alive, less than 24 hours before the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed.
The Senate began debating a more limited version of the bill as lawmakers rushed to beat the scheduled removal of Schiavo's feeding tube.
The legislative action was part of a last-minute flurry of attempts to save Schiavo's life. Congress was also considering legislation to move the case to the federal courts, Schiavo's parents appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer scheduled a hearing Thursday to consider a request from the state to halt the removal of the tube.
The House bill would block the withholding of food and water from patients in a persistent vegetative state who didn't leave specific instructions refusing the artificial measure. It passed 78-37.
"This provides a safety net where the government stands up for the vulnerable who don't otherwise have a voice," said Republican Rep. Kevin Ambler.
Gov. Jeb Bush has strongly urged the Legislature to pass a bill that would save Schiavo, as it did in 2003. That law allowed Bush to order doctors to restore Schiavo's feeding tube six days after it had been removed. The law was later declared unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court.
"We have a responsibility to act, to deal with this issue," Bush said. "It breaks my heart we're in a situation where it's possible this woman could starve to death."
Our Governor is such a Dudley Do-Right. I love him to pieces.
And hats off to Florida Rep Dennis Baxley of Ocala both for putting this bill together and for choosing to adopt and raise a brain-damaged child.
He shows compassionate conversatism at its finest.
-------------------
Fla. House OKs Bill to Keep Schiavo Alive
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The state House passed a bill Thursday that could keep Terri Schiavo alive, less than 24 hours before the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube is scheduled to be removed.
The Senate began debating a more limited version of the bill as lawmakers rushed to beat the scheduled removal of Schiavo's feeding tube.
The legislative action was part of a last-minute flurry of attempts to save Schiavo's life. Congress was also considering legislation to move the case to the federal courts, Schiavo's parents appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer scheduled a hearing Thursday to consider a request from the state to halt the removal of the tube.
The House bill would block the withholding of food and water from patients in a persistent vegetative state who didn't leave specific instructions refusing the artificial measure. It passed 78-37.
"This provides a safety net where the government stands up for the vulnerable who don't otherwise have a voice," said Republican Rep. Kevin Ambler.
Gov. Jeb Bush has strongly urged the Legislature to pass a bill that would save Schiavo, as it did in 2003. That law allowed Bush to order doctors to restore Schiavo's feeding tube six days after it had been removed. The law was later declared unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court.
"We have a responsibility to act, to deal with this issue," Bush said. "It breaks my heart we're in a situation where it's possible this woman could starve to death."
The Senate bill could also prevent Schiavo's death, but would only apply to cases where families disagreed on the patient's wishes.
Schiavo, 41, has been at the center of a long and bitter court battle between her parents and her husband, who wants to remove her feeding tube so she can die.
Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped temporarily, and court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, says she told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents disagree that was her wish and say she could improve with proper treatment.
Greer has granted Michael Schiavo permission to remove the feeding tube, a ruling a state appeals court upheld Wednesday. Without the feeding tube, Terri Schiavo would likely die in one to two weeks.
Late Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would delay removal of the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube by moving such a case to federal court. Federal judges have twice turned down efforts by the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to move the case out of Florida courts, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., urged his chamber to save Schiavo.
"If we don't act or if somebody does not act, a living person who has a level of consciousness, who is self-breathing will be starved to death here in the next two weeks," Frist said.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the case raises "a lot of complex issues" and declined to comment on specific legislation. But he said Bush "stands on the side of defending life."
Also, Schiavo's parents filed an emergency motion at the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the removal of her feeding tube so lower courts can consider whether their daughter's religious freedom and due process rights have been violated.
A bill that would help Terri Schiavo has passed in the U.S. House. One in the Senate is supposed to be debated today. Her case would be moved in Federal jurisdiction and possibly head to the Supreme Court.
In Florida, our legislators have hit a roadblock with their efforts to hammer out some law that will stand the test of constitutionality.
Also, according to one source, DCF has bowed out the case, but I've seen nothing about it in the news, only that DCF is appealing the judge's refusal to let them investigate.
Tomorrow's the day, so hopefully to God things will be set in place in time.
UPDATE:
Think you're full of knowledge on Terri Schiavo's situation? There's always room for WuzzaDem.
This poor Barstow man was walking around acting disoriented. Later, he got reoriented inside the belly of a Saurian-American.
He could have done with a little Baker Act'ing right there.
The article includes the usual pro-alligator bias: alligators are like Gremlins: they're the dearest creatures on earth, with hearts of gold, but feeding them makes them go bad.
Actually, they always want to eat us, and if they get the opportunity they'll do just that.
UPDATE: Salt Lick has just pointed out to me the Friendly Crocodiles of Paga, Ghana. Small children can pull their tails and chuck them under the chin, causing the crocs to chortle merrily. It's true!
Me Wuv Oo!
Monday was National Pi Day, the day when all good Southerners chuckle and knowingly say amongst themselves, "Pi are round. Cornbread is square."
Here's Duane sitting in a park in Northern Florida with a very silly sibling.
Wail on, Skydog!
Be careful about getting into feuds with your neighbors. One of them might be able to have you involuntarily commited:
A Longboat Key psychologist has been sentenced to ten weekends in jail for lying on forms to involuntarily commit a griping neighbor who later died.
Holli Bodner had a yearlong feud with Jean Pierre Villar about street lights and dog poop before committing him to a mental health center in April 2003.
Hopefully, she'll have her license revoked as well.
If I could Baker Act all the people I felt needed it, half of Broward County would be basket weaving.
UPDATE:
Bill of INDC Journal wonders at the non-mention of my home county, Lee, in terms of citizens needing involuntary commitment. In fact, we do our part there to keep the Baker Act flag flying high, allowing me to be able to inform you from personal knowledge that in Lee County, one does not weave baskets, but instead crafts baskets made of paper.
It's Bleeding Kansas all over again in the comments here. I'd say the Border Ruffians are winning this fight.
As far as I recall, Kansas's past is anything but Plain Jane.
(Via Overtaken by Events.)
Things are looking up in the Terri Schindler-Schiavo case, with the Florida Legislature set to block the removing of food and water from incapacitated persons in general unless they've left written instructions to do so.
I notice the reporters in this article got a reaction quote from one side of the case, but not the other.
Gratutitous demonizing of the "far right" is included. As far as I can tell, these are just people who don't think food and water counts as medicine, since every person on the planet has to have it every single day. I wonder at the objection to sustenance being delivered via a tube: Nancy Cruzan could take nutrition orally, but they chose to tube-feed her for efficiency's sake. When they removed her tube, they chose not to give her food and water by mouth either. Her father later hung himself, so perhaps he didn't think he'd made such a wise decision after all.
I can understand the Quinlan's taking their daughter off a respirator, but when she went on living another nine years, they certainly didn't try to starve the girl to death.
There's something so incredibly sad about old missing persons cases. You'd think just about everyone who goes missing turns up again at some point, alive or dead.
In 1966 two young Pinellas County women went missing in the Ocala National Forest. After all this time, they've never been found, and their families are still waiting.
The St. Petersburg Times has a look back at the case.
Hillary "Medfly" Swank is spending thousands to contest the $187 fine she got from customs inspectors in New Zealand when she tried to bring in fruit in her luggage. For some unknown reason, she feels she doesn't have to follow the petty agricultural laws of the country she's trying to enter. I can't imagine why.
Hey, if you're not using one of those, send it down here
I had no idea that we who are supporting Terri Schiavo were so very clever:
"Every politician ought to be taking lessons from this case on how to galvanize the population and obtain a following," said Kathy Cerminara, a medical-law professor at Nova Southeastern University and co-author of a treatise on the right to die. "They are masters at it."
It's so funny. I know what the opinion of every opinion columnist on the staff of the Miami Herald will be before I read their articles. They must get along famously because they agree on everything. Now people can express their own opinions without writing a letter to the editor and it makes us all evil geniuses for doing so. Blame Al Gore for inventing the Internet.
As for spreading misinformation, every word in the article above, "Sophisticated tactics aid Schiavo's parents," is a gem of absolute truth. It must be. It's in the newspaper.
Contact your Reps here and your Senators here, and ask them to support the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act, all you Conservative Dr. Lovelesses.
Despite the fact that things frequently fall off aircrafts when they land or take off, that ground crews are supposed to clean runways for precisely that reason, and that the Concorde is well-known for having "profound structural errors", a French judge has ruled that an airline, Continental, is to be placed under judicial investigation for the July 2000 Concorde accident in Paris.
The Concorde was grounded for more than a year after the accident, then retired permanently by Air France and British Airways in 2003.
From the conclusion of the BEA's (France's FAA) investigation:
Moreover, the in-service experience shows that tyre damage during taxi, takeoff or landing is not an unlikely event on Concorde and that it may actually lead to damage to the structure and to systems. However, this had never caused a fuel fire.
The accident that occurred on July 25, 2000, has thus shown that the destruction of a tyre -a simple event which cannot be asserted not to re-occur- had catastrophic consequences in a very short time-scale without the crew being able to recover from this situation.
Consequently, without prejudice to additional elements that may arise during the course of the investigation, the BEA and the AAIB recommend to the Direction General de l'Aviation Civile of France and the Civil Aviation Authority of the United Kingdom that:
· The Certificates of Airworthiness of Concorde be suspended until appropriate measures have been taken to ensure a satisfactory level of safety as far as the tyre destruction based risk is concerned.
Their plane crashes because it's too delicate to handle having a flat tire and that's supposed to be somebody else's fault?
(Via the Coalition of the Swilling.)
I'm receiving persistant complaints about the lack of a photo of Shiloh, the resident good girl, on the sidebar, and am now being told that not only must one be put up, but it should also be Photoshopped to include her wearing a halo. While I agree that all the fatted calves are going to Lilly, I don't know how to Photoshop a halo. Can someone help me out here?
The saintly Miss Shiloh has been known to hump her crippled sister's head.
UPDATE:
Thanks so much to Bill of INDC Journal for the new pic of Shiloh on my sidebar.
Bill will soon have his own radio show. Congrats!
Well, how about that. There's a three-legged dog club on the internet. I'll have to submit Lilly for membership.
Going one further (or one fewer), here's the video that commenter Salt Lick mentioned of Faith, the two-legged dog who walks upright .
Lilly's behavioralist visited this afternoon. We went and hung out in front of the elementary school on the next block. Lilly's gotten so good with adults that now we wait for them to pass by before clicking and treating. We know of three things that truly make Lilly explode: dogs, kids, and those wheeled carriers people use to tote their bags. A kid with a wheeled bag is Hiroshima.
Everytime he visits, the behavioralist brings up the use of a "gentle leader." It's a type of head collar that fits behind the dog's neck and around the muzzle. It's supposed to facilitate training of the type we're doing because if the dog pulls, he is automatically shutting his own mouth. I think it's a bit coercive and am holding off. I told him what I really want to do is change Lilly's entire way of thinking. All it takes is time and consistent application of positive reinforcement. At some point in the future, the whole world is going to look like a giant Pez dispenser to her.
Soon it'll be time for our first field trip. Our destination: a dog park!
How can you make a recalcitrant suspect quit acting the fool and give you that urine sample? The versatile taser will get the job done.
(Via the versatile Gmac.)
Miami Developer Fernando Labrada enlisted after 9/11. While preparing to go to Iraq, he gathered $8,000,000 in building materials for the country and tried to donate them for reconstruction there. Finding difficulties in getting the materials moving in the supply line, in the end he decided to pay the freight for them himself.
Now Labrada is back home, and in Iraq there stands a new police training facility built from his gift.
What a guy.
Here's another proposed law you can get behind: The Gynecologic Cancer Education and Awareness Act of 2005.
I don't know a single woman who's survived ovarian cancer. Not one. It's a shame because from what I've read, if it's caught early enough it is survivable. Nobody I've known cottoned on to it early, though. The early symptoms aren't really anything that make you sit up and take notice.
This is a bi-partisan bill with a lot of sponsors. I really hope it passes.
It looks like the Department of Children and Families is going to give Judge Greer enough rope to hang himself with. He'll be ruling on whether they can intervene in the Terri Schiavo case. If he rules yes, they'll have a two-month long investigation and who knows what will turn up. If he rules no, they can take her into protective custody. Meanwhile, the Florida Legislature is busy trying to get this girl, and others who would be in her shoes, some due process, the same as everybody else.
UPDATE: Greer ruled no. The ball is now in DCF's court.
Also, in addition to both houses of the US Congress crafting bills, the Florida Legislature is doing something as well.
Janette has a handy little post for contacting your Senators and Reps to encourage them to pass the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act.
The Fort Myers News-Press, the Pensacola News Journal, the Sun-Sentinel, and other Florida newspapers are suing FEMA for access to hurricane aid records.
I doubt that the people who commited fraud in Miami-Dade had enough wattage to think that perhaps other people in Florida would notice their actions, but the FEMA representatives there who helped perpetrate this nonsense should certainly have known better.
This must be Jim Morrison week at Florida Cracker.
Here's the newly-discovered film clip of Morrison at FSU. He plays a would-be Seminole whose application gets rejected due to over-crowding.
He does not expose himself in this film.
Here's Duane mugging with a roadie while the groupies are clustered around the bass player.
Wail on, Skydog!
Despite chronic digestive ailments, Lilly has become a fluffy, glossy, fully fleshed-out-from-the-waist-up young German Shepherd who shows a high predilection for a career in law enforcement. Shiloh has tried to sign her up for a special job with the Broward Sheriff's Department, but Lilly prefers to walk a beat in her own neighborhood and to maintain the peace within her home.
Last week when the behavioralist visited, he brought a trainer and another dog. Via commands on cell phone, he had the trainer and dog move back and forth behind an island of shrubbery at the end of the street, making the dog disappear from Lilly's sight, then reappear again. All the while we're clicking, treating, and progressively moving in closer. Except when she'd totally lose it, then we'd move ten feet back and start again.
We managed to attract quite an audience of neighbors, as this was a big professional production going on right on their own street. In the end, Lilly met the sweet, friendly Golden Retriever who was serving as the guinea pig, and they got along fine. When we had turned to go home, however, Lilly turned back around to bark and lunge at the dog. The behavioralist was shocked, and said that once the introductions were concluded, that shouldn't have happened. I told him she frequently does just that and he then shocked me by admitting that with all his expertise, he had absolutely no idea why she would do such a thing. It was abnormal behavior of a type he'd neither encountered nor even read of.
Yes! A pathological behavior unknown in the annals of dogology and displayed only by my girl! Please let's call it Lilly Syndrome!
My chances of her getting her own chapter in his training book, should he write one, are looking pretty good.
Newly-elected Senator Mel Martinez has written legislation to give incapacitated people the same rights of due process as death row prisoners.
Anyone object to the brain-damaged having Constitutional rights the same as Ted Bundy did?
I always say what this world needs is more three-legged dog hero stories.
Many thanks to Max Black of Prairie Fire for point me to the Syrian blog "Amarji- A Heretic's Blog." This is fascinating reading.
Amarji believes Assad is merely stalling for time before a likely international showdown.
This is one blog I'll be checking daily:
The City’s air is rife with all sorts of untoward rumors, everything is now possible: there is talk of arrests, purges, coup d’états, assassinations, sanctions, invasions, anything and everything, except, of course, freedom. Everything is possible except freedom. Freedom is never mentioned. Freedom never comes to mind. Freedom remains a distant dream.
It seems President "Ju-Ju" Bush has quite a fan club in the Middle East. Some folks aren't so nuanced they can't appreciate a straight-talking cowboy.
He's on a lot of people's minds these days, as is the indelible image of Saddam in his spider hole. From the Lebanese protesters shouting "Bush sends his greetings!'' at the video image of Assad, to Assad himself telling Time magazine "Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to cooperate," people are convinced, as Gadhafi was before them, that President Bush does exactly what he says he's going to do.
Circuit Judge George Greer, who is presiding over the Terri Schiavo case, has one other claim to fame: one of his college roommates was an obnoxious Jim Morrison:
Greer, whose family moved to Dunedin when he was 4, spent 21/2 years at St. Petersburg Junior College before entering Florida State University in 1962 as a 20-year-old. He majored in marketing.
He moved to a house about a mile from the FSU campus with a friend and some students he didn't know. Greer described the house this way: "Jim Morrison and five normal people."
One Halloween, Greer recalled, Morrison greeted children out trick-or-treating at the front door completely naked. Morrison had lighter fluid in his mouth. He spit it out, touching a match to the fluid to create a roaring flame.
"The poor little kids ran screaming to their parents," Greer said.
The Morrison biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Daniel Sugerman, provides a description Greer won't contradict.
Morrison "drank their beers, ate their food, and wore their clothes without asking," the book said of Morrison's relationship with his housemates.
"He kept careful records of all his actions, and their reactions, writing in his journals as if he were an anthropologist and his housemates were his subjects. In less than three months' time, Jim had the household frantic. Everyone was living in a constant state of anxiety over what was going to happen next.
"It all blew up one night in December ... when Jim was playing Elvis too loud."
After one semester, the housemates asked Morrison to leave. He transferred to UCLA in California, where he found fame.
"He was a bright guy," Greer said. "He liked his tequila. All of us at one time or another had him on the floor with our fists raised."
No word on whether Greer would have eventually removed all food and water from Morrison and allowed nature "to take its course."
Apparently Dan Rather didn't slide into yellow jounalism bit by bit through bad choices- he was like that from the get-go, from his very beginnings as a reporter covering the JFK assassination back in Texas:
It was a different lie--one delivered on national news, and at the expense of children--that caused Rather trouble at the time. As reporters from around the world descended on the Texas city, Rather went on the air with a local Methodist minister who made a stunning claim: Children at Dallas's University Park Elementary School had cheered when told of the president's death.
The tale was perfect for the moment, reinforcing the notion among distant media elites that Dallas was a reactionary "City of Hate." It slyly played to a local audience, too: The school named was in upper-income University Park, one of two adjacent municipal enclaves that shared a school district and a reputation for fiercely protected, lily-white privilege. Finally, for the ambitious Rather--a native Texan and then a Dallas resident--the account represented the very sort of revealing, local dirt that the throngs of out-of-town competitors would have to work far harder to get.
Except that it wasn't true, and Rather knew it, Barker says.
At least he has symmetry: his began his career with a lie and he ended it with one.
(Via Tim Blair.)
I'll cross my fingers that Egypt is the next domino to fall:
Many area specialists have long maintained that democratization in the Middle East will not get far until Egypt is fully engaged in the process. And Egypt could not truly set out on a path of democratization without first amending its constitution--to downsize the pharaonic powers of its president and set limits on his term in office. (Mr. Mubarak is already into his 24th year.) So the announcement [of President Hosni Mubarak proposing a constitutional amendment, opening up the process of electing the president by direct competitive balloting] is an important first step, one that the regime may assume it will be able to control to its own advantage, but which may not be that easy to contain once people begin to feel empowered. The genie is out of the bottle.
Here's to democracy busting out all over.
(Via Lucianne.)
Fad at Farm Accident Digest had mentioned the story last week of the chainsaw wielder who got killed by the cops. I see it's popped up again on FR as the investigation into the incident continues. It's being presented there as a Liberal/Conservative argument, but I can't see how that applies. I'm very conservative but I do think it is a big deal when someone gets killed by the police.
No matter what anyone claims, unless it's a confrontation where everything happens in a split second, there are always things you can do differently. That's what that big hunk of meat inside our skulls is for- it allows us to come up with plans of action, including some that don't necessarily involve filling the problem full of lead.
The Lebanese have the coolest signs.
Baby Assad says he's pulling the troops back to the border, but that's not going to cut it. This guy doesn't have the stuff to bring this off: some of his own people will give him an assist into the dustbin of history.
A pregnant girl starts hitting herself in the stomach to try to provoke a miscarriage. After doing this for weeks with no luck, she asks her boyfriend to help out. It works likes a charm and now he's charged with murder...and she can't be.
His crime is her constitutional right.
What kind of diapers should Chemical Ali wear: cloth or disposable? The cloth ones would be better for the environment, but I'm not so sure Ali cares about pollution.
No doubt this fellow was watching the news along with all of us when word came out of scrappy Tillie Tooter's surviving three days trapped in her car in the mangroves underneath a local highway overpass. Now he's Tillie, Jr.
While trying to save the cell phone he'd dropped, "David" fell into a forty-foot shaft underneath a railroad bridge at the Port of Miami. He was there for three days with broken legs, drinking rainwater, until a worker heard his cries for help.
Both Tillie and David show that not only can you be stuck in the middle of nowhere, you can be stuck in the middle of somewhere, too.
Be sure to check out the pics of the rescue at the link.
Yesterday law enforcement did a swoop in Miami-Dade County and arrested 12 people who filed false FEMA claims. They have warrants for two more. Hopefully, this is just the beginning, as anyone who filed claims there for Hurricane Frances is a liar:
"This is probably the tip of the iceberg,'' said U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Palm Beach Gardens. "I hope this sends a clear, compelling message to anyone who tries to scam the system. I also hope this sends a wakeup call to the FEMA officials ... acting as if nothing is wrong.''
The Miami-Dade payments have drawn outrage nationwide since the South Florida Sun-Sentinel first reported in October on the large amounts going to a county spared any hurricane conditions. The controversy prompted a U.S. Senate committee investigation and proposed federal legislation to change the way the government awards disaster assistance in the future.
One woman's mother brought up an important point:
"I think the people that gave them money [are] just as guilty,'' she said. "If they go in the apartment and there's no damage, why would they give them money?''
Why would they?
As of tonight, I have a cleaning lady and am officially on Nob Hill. Henceforth my days off from work will be like those of Mr. Cracker, spent doing whatever I feel like, rather than scrubbing things.
Hallelujah.
Events in Lebanon are unfolding rapidly. As a wise man once said, "Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul."
Lebanese protester holding a Koran and a rosary.
That day in Miami, the whole band felt the irresistable pull of the cool hat.
Wail on, Skydog!
From the New York Sun:
First the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, then the Purple Revolution of Iraqis raising their dyed fingers after voting, now the Cedar Revolution against Syrian domination in Lebanon. Freedom, as President Bush has said so often, is something that is hungered for by all human beings, no matter what their nationality or religion. Despite the view that seems to obtain on the left, even Arabs have a desire for freedom. And today, it is on the march, and at least some of the Lebanese have said publicly that they are inspired partly by events in Iraq.
Which domino will fall next? Is it Egypt, where an aging President Mubarak, after years of authoritarian rule, is suddenly raising the question of how a new leader will be chosen? Is it Syria, which, as our Eli Lake reports today, is being targeted for pressure by those such as Senator Brownback who feel that Damascus has backed the terrorists in Iraq? The senator is talking about major funding for civil society groups, a tactic that certainly worked wonders in Iraq, starting with Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Is it Iran, where pressure is building for the important next step of a popular referendum on theocratic rule? Such a referendum would, almost by definition, spell the end of such rule. It is hard to predict which domino will fall. But in the face of recent events, skepticism in the domino theory must be tottering like just another, well, dictatorial regime.
Who would have thought there'd be so much good news coming out of the Middle East? After all the dominoes fall, the next thing on my wish list is an Islamic Reformation.
Might as well dream big.
