The News You Can Use Or You'll Lose (So Go Choose)

[hkellick]

Alot of interesting things happening around the world and I wanted to touch base on some of them.

Everyone's talking about Terri Schiavo. I've seen two people, so far, commenting about how terrible it is for the religious right and the republicans to be backing the parents, instituting a law that gives the parents a chance to save Terri's life... well, except that the judge wants nothing to do with it.
Let's move past the politics. The politics is, to me, a smoke screen for what's really going on.
Not that I have any idea what's really going on. I don't think anyone does.
It's difficult to get the real story here and that's truly worrisome. If you listen to Terri's husband, the facts are... Terri's a vegetable, incapable of knowing what's going on around her. If you listen to Terri's parents, she's.. half-baked? She's capable of knowing and understand what's going on around her, but not responding fully. And of course.. no one REALLY knows what's going on inside Terri's head but Terri and she can't tell anyone.
I question everyone's motives.. ESPECIALLY the husband.
So.. we have Mike. Mike has been suffering for 14 years, taking care of a wife who is severely brain damaged. Except.. he hasn't been. He hasn't taken care of his wife... she's received no treatment, per se, just a clean bed and a feeding tube... also Mike has been getting some on the side.. enough, apparently, to have given birth to two new children.
And then there's the manner of her "execution": dying by starving to death.
This is the part that twists in my stomach.. and why I agree (and god knows, I nearly never do) with the religious right.
Terri's husband, Mike, wants her to die by starvation. That means unless the judge changes his mind that the WORLD will watch Terri get weaker and weaker, less and less present.. for WEEKS.. until she dies.
I can't quite wrap my mind around how ANYONE.. how Mike, how the judge, how ANYONE could be OK with Terri Schiavo dying by Starvation. What an inhumane way to die. For god's sake Mike, you assumedly loved her once, can't you let her find a better way to die?
So, for the record, Mike wins the "Heartless Bastard of the Year" award. This guy goes into my personal hell. I know, Mike, that if I was your lady love, I'd take the kids and run. Because I'd hate to be your wife if I should have some sort of catastrophic accident.

Anyways.. my point is.. I agree with the right wingers this time around. What Mike wants to do is wrong. This is just wrong. I know that eventually that law might come around to bite someone else in a different position, but right here, right now, it was the right thing to do.
And, by and by, guys and gals, if you don't have a living will.. consider making one. Seriously. You never know WHEN something life threatning could happen to you. K and I talked about making living wills once we move in together. I plan to hold her to that.

Then there's Buffalo.
I wrote a post a couple weeks about the sad state of Erie County.
It's not getting better.
I check up on buffalonews.com as often as I can to see what the latest county scandal is.. and there's plenty.
The latest scandal.. and this one hits the bottom hard.. is about the county building in Buffalo running out of Toilet Paper because the vendors were paid late. Apparently things got so bad that, for a day or two, people brought in their own wipes.
Yes, i am serious. Here is a link to the story. or this editorial.
But never fear.. because the county figured out a way to keep it's golf courses open.
Good to see where our priorities are.
Then of course, there's the fact that Legislature Chairman George A. Holt Jr., a big champion of raising Erie County Sales Tax, couldn't bother to pay sales tax on his restaurant.
And that the County Comptroller has probably been mishandly loans, costing the county even more money.
All in all, many of these things are small and stupid. The restaurant owner, the mishandling of loans.. but right now.. well.. put yourself in the shoes of a typical citizen. Six months ago, the county proposed a 1% hike in sales tax (bringing it to 9.25% Sales Tax), it gets voted down and suddenly the county shuts down. The local paper has made a point of keeping tabs on every move Erie County makes.. 150 jobs lost at the Medical Center, closing of DMV offices, closing of county parks.. and then the scandals begin... County Executive Joel Giambra was paying some guy $80,000 a year to be his driver (this one's my favorite)... allegations of abuse while Joel Giambra screams "No, it's not that. It's that we suddenly have to put down a lot more money to pay for medical coverage of our citizens!"
Two new taxpayer advocacy groups have sprung up: Primary Challenge and Free Buffalo. Their ranks are bloated and there's still a whole bunch of people volunteering their time and efforts to help these groups clamp down on fiscal abuse.. and to kick the incumbents out of office.
I feel a certain sort of glee reading through this news. Buffalo and, more or less by extension, Erie County have been spiraling down the tubes for a while now. It reminds me of something Dr. Lockwood said.. She said Washington DC was a city of imports.. you weren't FROM DC.. you just lived there. Buffalo is a city of exports.. you're from Buffalo.. but you don't live there. There's no jobs, the city school district sucks and everyone in that city knows it.. and that's a huge shame because Buffalo is a NICE city. If a blizzard happened in DC and I got stuck in a snow bank, I seriously doubt anyone would help get me out.. but that HAS Happened in Buffalo because we have a small town mentality. In a lot of ways, Buffalo reminds me of a big college town... Buffalo has the Sabers, the Bills... and a whole lot of pride, but not much else.
I don't know if clamping down on fiscal irresponsibility will ever bring jobs back to Buffalo/Erie County.. or people back to Buffalo.. but it might help slow the decline. And that, for me, is a good thing.


OK. I'm done rambling for now.

Comments

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

I have refrained from commenting on the Terri situation, because I didn't know the details. I still wouldn't like to say what should be done with Terri.

However, nomatter if her husband or her parents are right, removing her feeding tube is NOT the way to go. Euthenasia is one thing, subjecting somebody to starve to death is QUITE another.

I hope there's somebody out there with sufficient power to do something about it, who realizes this before it's too late.

[janinedog]

I don't know all the details, but...

First of all, it's illegal to give her a lethal injection, so that won't happen. I highly doubt anyone will make a law just for her to get a lethal injection, because the people who support that are not as vocal as the people who want her to live.

Second, she is missing pretty much all of her cerebral cortex, which means she cannot think like a normal person can. It is very likely that even if she could -feel- the pain of dehydration (not starvation...she was never getting food), her brain would not be able to parse it, and as such she wouldn't know she was in pain. She wouldn't understand it.

But, from what I've heard, they give her morphine or something like that while the tube is out, which will get rid of the pain just in case she can feel it. It may be a long way to die, but given the state she's in, I highly doubt she can feel or understand what is happening to her.

[peachtess.livejournal.com]

On the subject of Terri I found a very good unbiased site with information about the case. Its a blog written by a lawyer in Florida who comments on the legal aspects of the case. Its very informative and even provides court documents to read for yourself. Its as unbiased as it gets or at the very least a whole lot more unbiased then any site put up on behalf of Terri's parents or her husband.
So before comment further on things like "bastard of the year awards" I really encourage you to read this information page (http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html).

[mythagon.livejournal.com]

One thought, and I don't know if it's true or not, but it is a possibility for what is going on:

before her accident, terri and husband discussed what they would want to happen to them in the event of vegetablization and she stated adamently that she would rather die than go on living.

Husband is trying to carry out her wishes and won't let the parents have custody b/c he _knows_ what she would have wanted. You can't give someone leathal injection in Florida, so the only way for her to die is to stop giving her food. I'm going to doubt that she's in pain, b/c that would be all over the conservative media (i.e. fox news) if it were true. Assuming she can even still feel pain, she's probably being given morphine or the equivalent. Given the options, this is the only way she can die.

Personally, if it was death by starvation or being a vegetable, i would rather die. I will not be kept alive by machines when my mind is that gone.

I agree that it is possible he is an ass, but I also think it is possible that he loves her very much and is doing everything he can to follow through on what he knows she would want.

Just a thought.

[neutralface.livejournal.com]

To be honest...I just couldnt miss a opportunity to make fun of anorexics. Thats it.

...nf...