Life vs Choice for Schiavo

In a story that has taken the country by storm since the ruling came out that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was going to be removed has since become a federal issue? Terri has been living on life support for twelve years, this isn't something that just came up. Yet once the feeding tube was ordered to be removed the GOP machine took swift action to make sure to preserve life of a woman who is in a permanent vegetative state.

Her legal guardian has had doctors run tests and spent time with her for some time; the doctor spoke with NPR's All Things Considered on Tuesday. He stated, although it hurt him to say so, that she was in fact in a permanent state of vegetation. Now there are doctors seeing video clips from four years ago claiming that the damage may not be as severe as it has been reported.

The sad part of this story is that the very people who are rallying to have her feeding tube reinserted are the same ones that are looking to cut the type of funding that is keeping people like her alive. Medicaid is paying a hefty portion of her medical bill, which the GOP wants to reform, and money from a lawsuit which was settled. This too is an issue that the GOP abolished with swift judgment to protect their friends who are heavily invested in these companies, or have other relations.

It was taken up a notch today when I read in the New York Times that three children had been "arrested" for wanting to take a cup of water to Terri. What kind of political stunt is this, and why in the world were they allowed and/or pressured to do this?

It is safe to say that after twelve years of being like this, no miracle is coming which is going to cure Terri from what happened. Her parents are clinging to a memory of what used to be their daughter, and can't bear to let go. It is tragic to lose someone, but Terri hasn't been herself for twelve years now. Who knows what kind of agony she is in, being forced to live when that was clearly not her wish.

My wish would be the same, I would not want to continue living if I were in that type of condition. Yet for some reason Terri's wishes are not being carried out - there is a time to fight and a time to let one rest. In my opinion they should finally lay her body to rest and let it rejoin her spirit.

And I Knew the Silence of the World

The weekend of hopes, doubts and all those smashed in-between finally drew to a close yesterday evening with Tom Petty’s Learning to Fly playing from my speakers. I thought the song was appropriate for a drab Sunday, one filled with grey skies and drizzle.

Friday was a day of anticipation, and if everything had worked out the way I had envisioned it would have been a glorious day. Needless to day things didn’t turn out the way I would have liked, but there was a real bright spot, about eight minutes after four o’clock I receive a call from a friend of mine delivering good news. This is when I was told that I had a ticket to see Nine Inch Nails; this is something to some people and nothing to others, let me explain a bit.

My friend who purchased the tickets lives in the Virginia, and since he moved away last year I said that I would come and visit him. There were circumstances which existed preventing me from making a trip up there, but he had invited me to go up and visit for his birthday. We also talked about me going up there so we could go see Nine Inch Nails if they were to make a stop in DC, and if they didn’t stop in DC maybe a trip to New York would be in order. I didn’t know about the latter because of price, and if I was going to be flying out twice, once for his birthday and then again for the concert it could be a little difficult to pull off financially.

Well, it was earlier that week which we discovered that Nine Inch Nails was going to be playing the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York the day before and on his birthday. So plans were made – I would fly into Virginia, stay there for a couple of days, and then hop a train to New York to catch the show. Stay in New York until Monday, and then fly back home on Tuesday. This was of course provided we could get tickets, and this was going to be a challenge in and of its self due to the overwhelming demand for tickets paired with the fact that he was playing a small venue.

We prevailed in the end, the wheels were in motion and the trip was coming together nicely. Not only was I going to see my friend for his birthday, but we had tickets to see Nine Inch Nails in New York! The other twenty three and a half hours of Friday were lackluster at best.

A wave of confusion or the realization of what was really going on came crashing down on my little shore on Friday; you could see it developing in the email I was composing. The irritating thing about it is the possible motives which spurred this behavior. It was further perpetuated with further analysis of the situation, and some choice tracks I was listening to added fuel to the fire (F.O.D. by Green Day for example). I went to the gym to work off some of this frustration, which worked like a charm. I didn’t get frustrated playing racquetball, and even surprised my friend because I was smiling during my games.

After the gym and eating I headed over to another friends house who I had been emailing through the day about the situation. My goal by the time I got there was to have an idea as to what I was going to do to deal with the situation. The only requirement was for each of us to have a cold beverage in our hands when the conversation went down. With no time wasted we got down to brass tax, filled with raised voices in frustration and wild cackles of laughter. Any random passer by would have thought they were going by an asylum if the conversation reached an outsiders ear. The hour grew late and I headed home with The Art of Self Destruction blasting from my speakers to end this day.

Once I got there I had the urge to listen to John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth”, because at that point it was all I really wanted.

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth