Starve to death?


sorabji.com: Are there any news?: Starve to death?
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By spunky on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 10:59 am:

    I have always told Eri that if I had some sort of accident that leaves me brain dead, or in such a state that I could not live without a respirator or some machine to keep me alive, then she should let me go.
    But, this story gives me pause.

    I am not a medical expert, so I may be off base here, but....

    This woman's heart and lungs work perfectly. The only thing she cannot do is eat by herself.
    She is not brain dead, she is not comatose.
    She is disabled, mentally, but not vegitative.
    She has been in the hospital on a feeding tube for 13 years.

    Again, that is not the life I personally would choose, but damn.
    If they take the feeding tube out, she will lay there and starve to death for 7 days.


By eri on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 11:38 am:

    Wow, that is just one fucked up story. I mean. Why doesn't the husband listen to the doctors? Why did he refuse the test to see if she can swallow? Why would he want her dead if she is obviously not in a vegetative state all of the time? I just don't understand.

    Don't worry honey, if this were the case with you, I can guarantee that you would live.


By J on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 11:52 am:

    Apparently he wants her dead,this is TOO sad.Why is Jeb turning his back on this? As Swine would say where is the humanity?


By spunky on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 12:26 pm:

    It's murder. The lady is semi-responsive, and I cannot understand why, if there is even the slimmest chance of recovery, a husband would ever consider this.


By Spider on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 12:42 pm:

    Last night, I spoke to my best friend, who's a grad student in Philosophy, and she told me about this Medical Ethics class she has to TA for. The professor had talked about the fact that nowadays people are debating issues that would not occur to people a generation ago, because it was just a given that certain things were wrong.

    I'm with Spunky -- why is this even an option for the husband?


By patrick on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 12:51 pm:

    its obvious is it not spider?


    he has the chance to leave behind a tragic tragic situation, and move on to potentially a new life, new wife or to continue to spoon-feed his wife for potentially decades to come as he has done, for the last 13.



    if he had any balls, he'd resign himself from the situation, and give the parents control of the situation.

    his selfish needs are determining the fate of his wife and thats sad.


By dave. on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 12:59 pm:

    i suspect that if a moment of lucidity could be summoned from the patient, she'd not only want the tube pulled, she'd want a lethal injection. i can't imagine anyone loving life so much that they'd prefer comatose but alive to death.

    dammit, it i ever get like that, please put me down.


By spunky on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:02 pm:

    but see, patrick, in my own opinion, on a personal level, that's what marriage is about.
    You don't desert your spouse because she is unable to feed herself for fucks sake, and you sure don't decide to stop feeding her.
    If she is not brain dead, and she is aware of what's going on around her, then you stick by herside until natural death comes, or the brain stops functioning.


By Spider on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:07 pm:

    "he has the chance to leave behind a tragic tragic situation, and move on to potentially a new life, new wife or to continue to spoon-feed his wife for potentially decades to come as he has done, for the last 13."


    That's heartless, and incredibly selfish. I hope to God you're never hit by a car or get a stroke and your wife doesn't dump you for a "whole" man.


By patrick on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:38 pm:

    spider....spunky.....HELLO!


    welcome to the real world.

    you're taking my assessment of whats motivating the guy as my own spider. thats not exactly fair, thank you very much.

    while you and spunky have romantic, traditional and admirable outlooks on marriage they are still naive (have you ever paid attention to the divorce rates? it usually takes a lot less than coma to propel people to divorce).

    Of course its selfish and heartless. DUH! but people generally suck.




    now, you want to ask my personal outlook of the situation if it were ME or do we want to continue to talk about the couple in the story presented?


By spunky on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:48 pm:

    I just did not see that angle.
    That thought did not occur to me.


By semillama on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:56 pm:

    It IS really confusing as to why this guy prefers his wife to die rather than seek annulment or divorce or something. Perhaps he took out a fat life insurance policy on her.


By heather on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:58 pm:

    he should divorce her and walk away. if he
    can't, he should be allowed to. no one should
    be forced to stay married.

    if i was in that state i would not want anyone i
    loved tethered to me like that, even if they
    wanted to be.

    come visit me on occasion, whatever, but go
    live your life. you only have one. and i don't
    think wanting to live it fully is selfish and
    heartless at all.

    [killing her to get out of it is just horrible]


By spunky on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:04 pm:

    Heather, that's not what you agree to when you are married.
    You share your life with your partner.
    YOu promise to stick with them through sickness and health, better or worse.

    A marriage is not "until it cramps my style"...


By J on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:04 pm:

    In reading all the links in the article I found this http://www.terrisfight.org/ I went there and signed a petion to Jeb then I went back to the links and saw Jeb's going to bat for her due in part by the many e-mails he recieved.Jeb's e-addy is jeb@jeb.org/ and his phone # is 850-488-4441


By dave. on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:15 pm:

    jeb@jebbajibbajabba.dork

    ok, i actually read most of that article and if the parents are correct, well yeah she should probably stay all tubed up and happy. whatever.


By patrick on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:24 pm:

    my personal position should i or my wife be in that situation is more close to heathers than spunks.


    i think heathers take on it is 'bigger' so to speak.

    "A marriage is not "until it cramps my style"...

    thats not what she is saying at all spunk.

    i certainly wouldnt want nico tethered to me in that situation if i was being kept alive by artificial means with no hope of recovery. to want that, to me, is even more selfish.

    i don't believe you have to give up part of yourself to be married. thats selfish. you are still your own animal. i think its more moral recognizing that regardless of my physical being, my wife is her own, she has her own needs and longings, and for her to sacrifice them for the rest of her life by my lifeless bedside is cruel. when you agree to marry, you don't sacrifice your needs, its a give and take. when one part of the equation is removed, the circumstances change and not with cold hearts inmind.




By kazu on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:25 pm:

    I don't think many people take descisions like this lightly. I don't know what this guy is thinking and it makes me sad. In my experience with stories like these, it is always with tremendous grief and with much agonizing that decisions to end life-support are made. And while the final decision is often in one person's hands, these decisions are rarely made alone.

    There is another tale, different but equally as tragic and frustrating (and this relates to the other thread on domestic partnering) about a lesbian who was injured in an accident and needed constant care. Her parents fought to keep her, never once acknowleding whether she would have wanted to stay with her partner. In the end, she went back to live with her partner who now takes care of her.

    See why can't Karen Kowalski come home?



    This whole "sickness and health, better or worse" while all that is nice and good, also assumes that this is going to be reciprocated and when that promise is being held up by only one party and it begins to wear away at their well-being, then something has got to give. Take my mother for example, she divorced my father because his illness did not allow him to be an emotionally stable partner. It was like having a fourth child to take care of. Was she supposed to sacrifice her own happiness? And what in cases, such as my mother's, where the well-being of her children rested on her being stable enough to take care of us?


    So many factors to consider, is my point, and no single promise made under certain conditions is enough to cover how complicated these situations turn out.


    okay, i'm depressed now.


By heather on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:26 pm:

    "cramps my style"?

    please.

    i wrote more, but i'll leave it at this:


    spunky, you and i will never have similar lives
    and i am sure that it is just fine with both of us


By kazu on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:29 pm:

    That should be Sharon (not Karen) Kowalski


By Spider on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:53 pm:

    The shocking thing was not that the guy wants to leave his wife...that happens a lot when the wife gets sick. When I researched MS, I read that there's a very high divorce rate in couples with an MS-positive wife, much higher than when the husband has MS. Anyway, if both people enter the marriage with the same expectations, who cares? Marriage is only Sacred and Forever if both people want it to be that way. The shocking thing was that he WANTS TO KILL HER.


By kazu on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 02:56 pm:

    It's as though he's fighting to keep some age-old definition of wife-as-property and fighting against anyone who would tell him what to do with his property.


By kazu on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:10 pm:

    Well, that he stands to get $750,000 when she dies is telling.


By semillama on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:21 pm:

    "The shocking thing was not that the guy wants to leave his wife...that happens a lot when the wife gets sick. " Yes, just look at Newt Gingrich for a particularly well-know yet oft-overlooked example.


By spunky on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:23 pm:

    no one should be forced to stay married, sorry if I alluded that they should.
    Personally, I would choose to stay by her side, but I am putting eri in that bed, and my place in life is by her side.
    But that is a personal choice.
    I choose that because that is what makes me happy.

    I am sure she is absolutely miserable, because I know she knows what he wants to do.
    The life insurance has been depleted by medical bills. I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think Patrick was right. He wants to move on. It would be in his best interest to hand this over to her folks, and walk away.
    And if she did recover, I don't think they would be together anyway, because he wanted her dead.....

    Awful.


By kazu on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:29 pm:

    "Terri’s husband lives in a house with Jodi Centonze. He openly admits that he has been engaged to this women for over seven years, have recently given birth to a baby girl, and has announced plans to marry her when Terri is no longer alive."

    This is what the family's site says. Of course, it is one-sided, but worth considering. There is lots of interesting documentation on the site, not just their "take" on the situation.


By kazu on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:33 pm:

    Taken with a grain of salt, I am still apt to believe most of what is on that site, because I don't think Terri's parents have much to gain by throwing around accustations that could otherwise be proven false.


By semillama on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:40 pm:

    Dude, she has no will and the whole $750,000 settlement goes to him when she dies. If money were not involved, this wouldn't be happening. He would have ended the marriage legally (can you do that if the other person is incapable of communicating?) and married the other woman (who must be a REAL winner if she can be with a bastard like that).


By J on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 04:04 pm:

    I'm wondering why he wasn't arrested for attempted murder when he put her in a coma in the first place.


By spunky on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 01:33 pm:


By dave. on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 05:35 pm:

    ok, so now that schiavo's life has been completely reduced to a political football, i think the costs of care for schiavo going forward should be transferred directly to the florida state republican party.

    i also think the fsrp, since it's so pro life, should immediately offer funding for anyone who is denied eligibility for organ transplants based on lack of funds. after all, those people are allowed to die when intervention is available for the right price. oh, but that would be a hand-out, not a hand up, wouldn't it?

    right to lifers fucking disgust me.


By semillama on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 05:45 pm:

    In some cases it would literally be a hand-on.


By heather on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 08:32 pm:

    letting her STARVE TO DEATH is gross


By dave. on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 10:53 pm:

    totally, but that's how it's done. if you're completely unable to feed yourself, you eventually die. i guess this way no one can be accused of murder. either way you look at it, we treat our beloved animals better than the treatment she's getting.


By A5478 on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 02:13 am:

    Dave - sorry right to lifers disgust you.
    What about husbands who obtain a 1.6 million dollar jury award for your disability and then decide that you really want to die and litigate your death by starvation all the while refusing to provide treatment and therapy and keep you in a hospice despite the fact that you have no terminal illness and repeatedy deny your parents visitation?

    Grow up. It's not a black and white world.


By kazu on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 11:14 am:

    yeah dave. you need to see the world in pretty rainbow colors, like this person who clearly understands the rich compexity of cases like these and has articluated with them with both clarity and compassion.


    I love when someone counters a so-called black and white statement with an equally black and white statement. That's my favorite thing ever. It's better than icecream. Besides, now I know why I have to let the government decide what happens to my body.


By The Watcher on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 06:40 pm:

    Now she is gone.

    Yesterday on my way to work a local talk show host described what happens to the human body when it is denighed food and water.

    If this is such a painless death - we should say good bye to, care, save the children, and any other charity seeking to feed the starving masses in (name your third world country).

    After all they are just going through a painless natural ending of life.


By The Watcher on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 06:43 pm:

    One more thing, If this was so painless, or she was so unaware being in a vegitative state, why was she on a morphine drip?


By Antigone on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 07:09 pm:

    The issue is dead, along with the political party which sold it's soul to promote it.


By V on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 07:22 pm:

    The Watcher,what do you mean "she is gone"? If v can help eny way I will,speak more,what is happening on your end of the line?v is here to help,speak.Talk,tell me.v allways listens.You want person to person E-Mail from v,you will have it,just post.Ask what you want.Open up,I am here.Yes,I know you went off line for some time,so v understands you had problems,your problems I think are bad,but I do not know unless you post.God bless......when you feel ready,post to v.


By dave. on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 07:30 pm:

    3/31/2005
    The Loneliness of the Long Distance Protester (Part of the "Christ Weary" Series):
    It is time, it is time, it is indeed time for the protesters to start the long, lonely process of packing up to head back to their homes in far-flung townships around the bright spring-lit nation of America. Now that Terri Schiavo has died, as she should have nearly a decade ago, there is nothing left for the motley group of insane Christian families, sex offenders, and people-with-nothing-better-to-do except take hands as if they are a real and actual community, pray one final time to a Jesus who apparently didn't give a shit about all the other prayers, and move on.

    It is time to pull off the last bit of red tape that reads "Life" from one's mouth, the symbol of resistance that one took off every day to have breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and water whenever one was hungry or thirsty. Yes, pull off the tape and take off the headphones, playing, what? Pillar? Or Seventh Day Slumber? Something that offers comfort, succor, inspiration, but with a beat that came from sinners.

    It is time to decide what to do with all those signs - to tear them up or keep them as souvenirs, all those "Let Terri Live" and "Terri's Life Is Precious To Thousands of People" and "Wake Up America, You Are Next!" and "Terri is not a vegetable" and, really, "Hitler Starved Jesus, Greer Starved Terri" and "The World Needs Terri To Live" signs, as well as the "Wanted" posters with pictures of Florida legislators and Judge Greer on them, as well as the ones that plead with the Bushes to do something and the ones that plead with God, Jesus, and/or Mary to intervene, which, as noted above, did not happen. Yes, so much paper, so much trash, so much detritus of the event.

    It is time to pack up the crucifixes, the huge ones, the ones with a gory Gibson-approved Christ, bleeding, beaten, hanging there, the one that threatens all of us with a good Jesus ass-kicking if we sin. It's time to pack up the shrines and the Catholic statues, all of it must be taken home.

    It is time to put away the pro-life t-shirts and the photos of aborted fetuses and the anti-abortion signs that conflate Schiavo with a fetus, as if Schiavo was the perfect symbol - the adult fetus, helpless, repositioned in utero, ready to be protected as one would protect an infant or a kitten. Oh, but, yes, dead, Schiavo's corpse will become one with the dumpster fetus as iconic images of the movement to take over the medical decisions of individuals and their families. Schiavo dead is, really, much more valuable over the long haul than Schiavo on a feeding tube until her body rots away.

    It is time to pack up the wheelchairs, oh-so-many wheelchairs, where the misguided disability activists sought to embrace the Schiavo case as their own. Where groups of disabled people, shaking in their scooters, were able to communicate in ways that Schiavo would never be able to. So the radicals of the group Not Dead Yet, strangely named after a line from a Monty Python film, must pack up their tubes from their "We Love Our Tubes" protest. Time to hitch the chairs up for the slow lift into the vans and hit the road.

    It is time to pack up the dolls that the kids brought, the children of crazed Christian parents, taught to weep for Schiavo, for that vegetable-face photo that's been pushed on all of us, that, to a seven year-old, must, for all the world, look like a cartoon character, a Precious Moments-style doll, a motherfuckin' Care Bear. Yes, Mommy and/or Daddy said pray and they prayed. Mommy and/or Daddy said hand out flyers and they handed out flyers, Mommy and/or Daddy said, "Get arrested" and they got arrested. But now the children must take that eternal ride home with their parents, hearing how their long days in the sun and their long nights camped outdoors were worth it, that Jesus loves them all a little more for having been there. They will be taught to hate others in inverse proportion to how much they're taught to love Christ.

    Unless they intend to riot or create a shrine at the hospice, there's nothing more to be done. They have done all they can. But they will be back, though, of course, they will. There will be a next time, another symbol to rally around. They may be packing up, but it's only to get ready for the next trip and the one after that. And while they're busy praying for little Schiavo's everywhere, they won't even notice that the government that abuses their vote keeps whittling away, whittling away at every foundation of their lives until there will be nothing left but war and Jesus.
    // posted by Rude One @ 10:21 AM




    3/28/2005
    Republicans Jump the Shark:
    Here's the thing every good bar brawler knows: when your opponent is down, you don't retreat to the nearest corner. That's for boxers, in the ring, where allegedly "rules" govern behavior. Fuck that. You're a fuckin' sleaze in a bar, and when you get into that inevitable bare knuckle free-for-all, you better be in it for the blood, or it's gonna be your blood that's seeping into the cement under the faux wood floor. So you never back off until that blood is shed, until the motherfucker is unconscious or dead or running home to lick his wounds like a pussy cat after a fucking.

    'Cause if you just walk away when you think you've given some asshole a whoopin', then sure as you're standing there, that son of a bitch is gonna get up off the floor and blow your brains out or shiv you in the ribs. No, no, you need to be willing to take that obliterated wad of fuck and prop him against the bar and kick in his face and chest until he's coughin' blood, gaggin' on his own demise, until an ambulance comes to scrape his sorry ass off the bar floor. And you know what? If who you've beaten down is an asshole bully who got in your face and pinched your girlfriend's ass and threatened to fuck her in front of you because the asshole bully didn't think you'd do anything, then the crowd will cheer on your pummeling of the asshole.

    President Bush and the Republicans in Congress are on the floor now, having been the asshole bullies for so, so long. They finally overreached with the Terri Schiavo nightmare, thinking that if they passed the "feed-the-Schiavo" bill, they'd be lauded for their compassion and promotion of the "culture of life," a phrase so useless in describing anything that it's brilliant in its emptiness, much like the President himself. Instead, they're imploding.

    Let's take the long look here: the whole issue has pushed daddy-killer Tom DeLay into the national consciousness so that when Fox "news" spends a brief second between Michael Jackson and "whatever shall we do with Terri's corpse" coverage to actually talk about something that matters, like DeLay's ethics troubles, viewers will think, "DeLay? Isn't he that skeevy redneck who demanded that Schiavo be kept alive?"

    It has pretty much wrecked the further political aspirations of Jeb Bush (who had one of the great "hominah, hominah" moments in news history when he babbled that there was nothing else he could do) and Bill "I Can Diagnose Your Neurological Ailments With My Super Psychic Heart Doctor Powers" Frist.

    And it's flushed Bush's poll numbers into the pre-9/11 shitter. Bush knows that this is a fuck-up of major proportions. His approval rating has plunged as more and more people realize they were suckered in by words like "compassion" and "security." Bush is lame-ducking himself faster than it takes, say, a woman in a vegetative state to die.

    Karl Rove knows that Republicans are taking the blame for this one, at this point, that he's finally, at long last, alienated the moderate portion of the party and that much threatening, whipping, and sodomizing will be required to get them back in line. But you reap what you sow, motherfuckers, and the Republicans created this Golem. Since Reagan (when Randall Terry first reared his hateful head), they've been pandering to the fundamentalists, getting them to think they had more and more power without, as so many have pointed out, delivering much more than a prayer and a little bit of rhetoric to them. Remember: Churchy wanna get paid. At some point when you pledge the promised land and holy days to people, they're gonna want a down payment. The Republicans lost control of their monster and that big bastard's gonna go on a rampage.

    The money part of this is the way the nutzoids outside the hospice and around the country are demanding that the opportunistic, decadent fuckers in Congress prove their loyalty to the cause of "life" (or, better put, "Christ") is more than lip service. C'mon, motherfuckers, you fuckin' subpoenaed Terri Schiavo. Now, do you have the balls to enforce it? Of course not. Of course not. That would require that the Republicans (and the bushel of enabling Democrats in the House) actually have "beliefs" and "principles."

    There's other issues where the demands of the wacko right are beginning to appall the majority of Americans, like the Michigan bill that would allow doctors to deny care to homosexuals.

    But of course the delicate question is how the Democrats use the glazed eyes of Terri Schiavo against the Republicans. And, as with most matters political, the Rude Pundit has the ready, easy solution: it's all about the inference of language. If a Democrat is up against a Schiavo Republican (and, good, wise, vaguely left pundits everywhere should start calling the wacked-out, ultra-Christian Republicans by this nom de guerre), don't bring out Schiavo's corpse. Instead, just say that you support the government staying out of "the most intimate decisions a person" (or "family") "can make." Or some such shit. You see what that does? It evokes Schiavo without saying her name and, frankly, it also covers things like abortion rights, gay rights, and more. If the Schiavo Republican wants to question you about it, then you have free rein to bring up Schiavo. Despite the cries to the contrary that the Schiavo matter will go away, rest assured: by 2006, the Republican party will have either been eaten by its most rabid members or be silent on Schiavo to the point of suffocation.

    So let's be optimistic here for a moment: the Republicans are spitting blood on the bar floor. If you wanna be a pussy Democrat, you pick your opponent up and say, "Let's be friends" and buy him a beer. But if you know anything about Republicans and the political game, that fucker's gonna smash that bottle of Bud over your head. The better way to play it? Sit on his chest and pound his head on the floor until he's drowning in his own vomit.
    // posted by Rude One @ 11:10 AM



    3/18/2005
    Terry Schiavo Must Die:
    The time has come for the inevitable end of this story, this miserable lot of the last fifteen years for Terry Schiavo. Brain-damaged and rubber-boned, barely human anymore, Schiavo has the indignity of having her nerve-reflex smile paraded out every time the moment comes close for her to have to sink or swim, to learn quickly to feed herself or starve. She is the unfortunate child of narcissistic parents who have pathetically deluded themselves into believing that, at some point, the rock that rolls around in her head will once again become a brain. She sadly lives in a culture so driven mad by religion that people will gather and pray for her to go on "living" (if by "living," you mean "devolving into a gelatinous mound with a nerve-reflex smile"). Anyone even barely touched by the rationality that is supposed to mark us as the most advanced creatures on the planet know this to be true: She must die.

    And it doesn't matter at this point how. Take out the feeding tube. Wheel her into the alley behind the hospice and put three bullets into the back of her foamy skull. Put her on a raft on Tampa Bay and send her out to the lovely Gulf of Mexico. Hell, a merciful nation would rejoice at this act and make sure there's fireworks and live music on the bayfront to accompany her on her last journey. A merciful God would have sent avenging angels to smite all those preening idiots outside the hospice with Gabriel announcing, "Are you all out of your fucking minds?" before setting the whole place, Schiavo and all, on fire.

    But we are not a merciful nation, for we believe that suffering is a gift from God or some such bullshit, and if you are chosen to suffer, then suffer you must. If you're dirt poor, single, and homeless and you get pregnant, you must keep your baby, even though the overwhelming chance is that you and your baby will be hungry, cold, and miserable for the rest of both of your lives. Despite the fact that virtually every competent medical person who has walked into Schiavo's room and smelled the shit-scent of death has declared Schiavo a cabbage or, on a good day, a pea pod, the right smells opportunity to distract people from the gutting of programs that actually do good for the living . Other "experts" who have witnessed Schiavo's eyes follow a balloon on videotape are nonsensical idiots (and that includes Senate Majority Leader and noted cat-disemboweler Bill Frist).

    Way back in 2000, before Schiavo became the rallying call for people who have nothing better to do, here is how the St. Petersburg Times described Schiavo's end: "If [the feeding tube] is removed, Mrs. Schiavo would die painlessly in a week or two. She does not feel hunger or thirst, and she would just drift away, doctors say." That fact, that Schiavo will not actually experience anything differently, is now left out of most media stories on her. The distorted face of Terry Schiavo is now merely a canvas upon which ideology has been writ large, where the notion of "life" has been perverted to mean "a heartbeat," and where the cruel vicissitudes of politics now rear their ugly, hydra-heads.

    The right loves this. This is better than Elian Gonzalez. The National Review's Andrew McCarthy (who was so good in Pretty In Pink, but has really let himself go) rants like a baboon about to tear out the liver out of a fallen baboon enemy about Schiavo, saying that "she'd be better off if she were a terrorist." Schiavo's fate is like manna from heaven because anyone who dares to say, for instance, "Terry Schiavo Must Die," can instantly be labelled as uncaring and cruel and then you can go on Fox "News" and Hannity'll show that reflex-smile of the damned and everyone can say they are doing "what's best" for Schiavo.

    Terry Schiavo was a vain woman, driven to bulimia by a sad desire to be thinner and thinner, afflicted, as so many women are and so many women aren't, by pop culture standards of thinness. Chances are it was the bulimia that led to the heart attack that led to the brain damage that led to the gooey being that is Schiavo being prayed over by the President and his brother. Now ask yourself: if Terry Schivao saw herself right now, knowing what we know about who she was and how she felt about looks, would she want to stay alive? You who know men and women like the pre-gelatinous Schiavo understand of what the Rude Pundit writes.

    Now the Congress is involved. And the Republicans want Schiavo brought into the hearing room. What a spectacle that's gonna be. What a fucking horror show. What an embarrassment to this nation. All those righteous members of Congress, weeping because Schiavo can't answer their questions, listening to her machine sounds, the suckings, the gurgles. They called Schiavo before the committee in a little over a week because "it is a federal crime to harm or obstruct a person called to testify before Congress." Another person, another prop. Those fuckers in the GOP know what they're doing: force Democrats to vote against the bowl of jello in front of them and then use that as immunity in elections against charges that the Republicans are eliminating Social Security. What these disgusting, dirt-covered worms won't do to eat the flesh off the body politic.

    The only comfort in any of this is that Schiavo won't know a fucking thing that's going on. She is an object, not a subject. She is acted upon. If Bill Frist wanted to test her reflexes by pulling up her gown and raping her in front of the gathered media, she would not care. If Tom DeLay wanted to pick her up and dance her around like a puppet, she would not care. She will never, ever care again. There is only one caring solution. She must die.
    // posted by Rude One @ 9:57 AM







By V on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 07:41 pm:

    Anti,you got it big time wrong.v thinks we are talking dead people.


By patrick on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 07:41 pm:

    "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 Bush

    Was that our policy in Iraq? Don't think so.

    How do these nut job fundamentalists live with their the death penalties and wars based on intelligence that is "dead wrong".

    Fucking insane hypocrites.


By patrick on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 07:48 pm:

    wow.

    going back and reading the discussion only serves to prove we really have no idea what we're talking about.


By V on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 08:01 pm:

    Dave,how come you by passed "The Watcher" its just not on.He has a problem.We need to sort it out.By now,you know that v regards you as smart,so back track and help The Watcher.


By V on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 08:33 pm:

    patrick,v thinks "The Watchers" wife may have died,but no one seems to care ,part from v,you good at back tracking?on this thread?now no bullshit,most men die within 6 months of there wifes death,I dont want this situation with "The Watcher".You want to save a Mans life? ,so post.Give input.


By V on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 08:49 pm:

    "The Watcher",v is allmost tempted to give up on Sorabjis,but v dont ever give up.,ever.


By wisper on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 09:01 pm:

    I have so adored watching this bullshit go on and on. It has pointed out so many flaws and hypocrisies in the conservatives. Like the sanctity of marriage, which apparently ends if your insane selfish christian parents want control of your half-life.
    They have no problem executing retarded people though, on my no.

    It doesn't matter even if he WAS just doing it for money (of course i don't believe that), it doesn't matter if she in fact WOULD have wanted to live as a veggi on a tube for the rest of her pathetic life. It was her husband's choice alone to make, that was his legal right, and it kept getting fucked with for no good reason at all.
    That's the sick part, not her death. Calling congress into session again and again over one lone person, even the consideration to write a law just for one person- this is seeing democracy bent over and ass-raped.

    And watcher, your reasoning is as flawed as anything. They had to let her starve, because your government will not allow her to be put to sleep.





    ....and she was anorexic, they really just helped her achieve her dream. *rimshot*


By wisper on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 09:02 pm:

    (i meant OH my no!)


By kazu on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 09:21 pm:

    plus hospice workers take all possible measures to
    insure that such a death is painless which includes
    morphine for those in a vegetative state.

    i love the rude pundit.


By kazu on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 09:22 pm:

    i'd like to say i wish I'd known more before, but really
    I shouldn't have known any of it.


By V on Friday, April 1, 2005 - 09:31 pm:

    wisper,why the stupid comment?read the thread from the top to the bottom,you are very wrong...with respect,you are wrong.


By semillama on Saturday, April 2, 2005 - 05:23 pm:

    Speaking of hospice, my dad was named Hospice Volunteer of the Year by the national hospice organization, the actual name of which escapes me.

    Hospices are one of the best things about our society.


By Platypus on Sunday, April 3, 2005 - 12:56 pm:

    That's awesome, sem. Hospices are indeed one of the best things about our society. I wish more people knew about and took advantage of hospice and other like programs. No one should have to die alone, or in pain.


By kazu on Sunday, April 3, 2005 - 01:36 pm:

    barkeepers friend is one of the best things about our
    society. i got all the tea stains out of my favorite mugs.


By Rowlfe on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 12:53 am:


By The Watcher on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 01:59 pm:

    My wife is still alive and kicking.

    Well alive at least.

    MS does not leave much energy for her to actually kick anything.


By The Watcher on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 02:18 pm:

    That story about Schiavo's parents got it wrong. As usual. They really did not know the names were going to be sold. Rented actually.

    At the time they set it up they were just so happy about the offer for help in raising money that they missed that detail in the contract. If they had realized that was in there they would not have agreed to it.

    I wish I could find the site that reported the whole story.


By patrick on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 02:31 pm:

    Right. With all the lawyers flocking around their shit for years on end, that one little detail just slipped by? Bullshit Watcher.

    "Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Ms. Schiavo's parents, confirmed that Mr. Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send an e-mail solicitation raising money on the family's behalf."
    From the NY Times
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html


    Dude, even the Christian crackpots are saying he knew what he was getting into.


By Rowlfe for those unwilling to register for NYT on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 03:21 pm:


    List of Schiavo Donors Will Be Sold by Direct-Marketing Firm
    By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and JOHN SCHWARTZ

    Published: March 29, 2005

    WASHINGTON, March 28 - The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.

    "These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"

    Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.

    "I think it's amusing," said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. "I think it's absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information."

    Executives of Response Unlimited declined to comment. Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Ms. Schiavo's parents, confirmed that Mr. Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send an e-mail solicitation raising money on the family's behalf.

    The Schindlers have waged a lengthy legal battle against their son-in-law Michael Schiavo to prevent the removal of the feeding tube from their daughter, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.

    Mr. McCullough said he was present when Mr. Schindler agreed to the arrangement in a conversation with Phil Sheldon, the co-founder of a conservative online marketing organization, RightMarch.com, who acted as a broker for Response Unlimited.

    "So the Schindlers do know the details," Mr. McCullough said on Monday. How much attention they paid to the matter is hard to assess, he added. "The Schindlers right now know that their daughter is starving to death, and if I ask about anything else, they say, 'I don't want to hear about it.' "

    Direct mail and mass e-mailings are ubiquitous fund-raising tools of interest groups on the left as well as the right, and others in the direct-mail business defended the sale of lists like the roster of donors to the Schindlers as a useful way for potential donors to learn of causes that might appeal to them.

    Pamela Hennessy, an unpaid spokeswoman for the Schindlers, said she was initially appalled when she learned of the list's existence.

    "It is possibly the most distasteful thing I have ever seen," Ms. Hennessy said. "Everybody is making a buck off of her."

    Ms. Hennessy, who operates the Schindlers' Web site, www.terrisfight.org, said the family had not released any of the names or e-mail addresses gathered there. "Obviously these people are enterprising, and they are taking advantage of this very desperate father," she said.

    On Sunday, as the Schindlers gave up on their legal battle and their daughter passed her 10th day without food, others continued to rally supporters and solicit money in an effort to restore the feeding tube.

    "This time, we have a real chance to break through the 'roadblocks' that the enemies of life have been putting up in front of us," said a mass e-mailing from RightMarch.com, asking supporters to urge Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene somehow.

    The message added: "We're asking you to give a donation to help with our activism efforts to save Terri's life. Battles cost money; resources cost money; media costs money; we could go on, but you get the picture."

    Mr. Sheldon - whose father, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, has also sent appeals urging support for Ms. Schiavo - apparently played a dual role as a partner in RightMarch.com, which is working with the anti-abortion activist Randall Terry, and as a broker for Response Unlimited. Mr. Sheldon did not respond to phone calls yesterday.

    "I think it sounds a little unusual right now because of the situation where she is in the process of dying," said Richard Viguerie, another major conservative direct-mail operator. "If you came across this information six months or a year from now, I don't think you would give it too much thought."


By Antigone on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 03:30 pm:

    Besides, Watcher, even if this is an outrageous slander, isn't it about time some outrageous slander is spread about the Schindlers? After all, they and their minions been spreading all sorts of lies about the husband for years. It's only fair.


By V on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 05:44 pm:

    The Watcher,in England,we have a s.f. program called "Dr.Who"...its been running for 40 years,in it we have a guy called "The Watcher",,,,is that you? ,... also I dont think he is human,and he is from a distent star...is that you? also,good regards as allways from v.


By agatha on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 08:31 pm:

    There's something blackly amusing about that story. It's so wrong, yet so right!


By wisper on Monday, April 4, 2005 - 09:31 pm:

    ah, i always knew those Schiavos were real classy people.
    Beautiful.


By The Watcher on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 05:33 pm:

    I've seen a few episodes of Dr. Who, it runs on our local PBS station late on Saturday nights.

    No. I did not take The Watcher from that show or any other. I took it because I'm an interested observer of human nature.

    How else could I possibly put up with some of the idiousy spread around here.


By The Watcher on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 05:41 pm:

    Did anyone else see the latest South Park episode concerning this issue?

    I love these guys work. Even when I totally disagree with a position they have taken. I have to admit, for a cartoon, they present their points of view quite intelligently. And always with a good sence of humor. They also never leave any sacred cow unskewered.


By V on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 07:07 pm:

    The Watcher,it is most cool that you post to me,v does not know how how often you you look in,v also sees "South Park",75 channels right now, but v still miss stuff know and then,so you even seen "Dr.Who"...?amazing.!!!


By eri on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 07:58 pm:

    Saw the South Park. Loved it. We watch the new ones whenever we can (which is whenever they are out). But yes, even if we disagree with the viewpoint, we still laugh our asses off at the way they put it forward.


By agatha on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 08:41 pm:

    idiousy...

    SO IRONIC!!!


By jack on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 09:04 pm:

    ever hillaireous!


By Antigone on Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 10:33 pm:


By Gee on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 08:57 am:

    they aired the first episode of the new Dr. Who on CBC last night. I thought it was good enough, and I like the actors, but I was really confused by the dummies. all of a sudden their arms turned into guns! that was odd.

    oh well.


By Gee on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 09:02 am:

    the beginning of this thread is so interesting. so many judgements.


By patrick on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 12:36 pm:

    i dont understand that tiggy.


By Antigone on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 12:58 pm:

    One of the protestors, who wept at Schiavo's suffering, had no problem causing it as an interrogator in Iraq.


By wisper on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 04:23 pm:

    Gee- room mate and i were trying to figure that out as well. They build these mannequins with guns in their arms??


By V on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 07:18 pm:

    You know it turns out v has the same leather jacket as the latest "Dr.Who"...its a black "Ben Sherman" at 400$.Shops are selling out fast on this line in the U.K. also I hear the "Dalecs" can now fly up or down stairs,but I have not seen it for myself,allways thought of them as evil skateboards.,you know,its strange to see some of your clothing on t.v.


By Rowlfe on Saturday, April 9, 2005 - 07:34 pm:


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