CE9

[pissin2]

Just kidding. I would like to take this time to personally apologize to anyone I offended with my devil star or hail satan remarks. As much as some may believe, it was not my intent to offend. I put the star up because I like it. Much like people do with american flags. And I needed to put some text under it, so I put Hail Satan. It was not meant to get attention. I like Satan. I think he's a cool guy. I didn't think I would be censored. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal and upsetting to people. It's something I will never understand in all my life actually. So I apologize and I will take it down now on my own. In fact, if strat 0 would have just asked me to take it down I would have. But I'm willing to forget about that. I like talking to a lot of you on here, even though we don't agree on a lot of current events. If we could just forget about all this nonsense that would be great.

[chrisfan]

shin said:

Thanks, but I wasn't looking for prayers, I was looking for answers. If my family decides something you don't agree with, would you recommend Congress convene Sunday at midnight to compose emergency unconstitutional legislation, and rouse the president out of his slumber to sign it in his pajamas, or does that only happen on special occasions? And if so, what such decisions would have to come to pass for this to occur? I gotta say, my family's a bit spooked by the timing of all this, I know the concept of Congress getting involved with our persona affairs almost brought my uncle to tears. We'd appreciate the heads up, ya know? It's a brave new world out there, and you can't really say "oh, I'm sure Congress won't get involved", can you?

But see, it is my belief that prayer is the path to answers. Not to mention that the answer I gave said a lot more than simply "pray". Perhaps the lesson here is really that if you don't want the answer, you should not ask the question. But I think that was probably already known ...

[Meursault]

I believe I can fly.

[chrisfan]

A friend’s mother passed away about two weeks ago after some time spent in palliative care. The hospital gave her morphine to remove fluid build-up and also, as I understood it, to regulate her respiratory functions.

I really MUST quit handing out those slanted medical books.

[chrisfan]

I woke up this morning determined not to continue to participate in the Terri Shiavo debate around here. I still feel that way. But I just read this op-ed, and it sums up my thoughts on the "Can we move on now" movement so well that I can't not post it. I'm not posting for debate. I'm just posting it as food for thought.

----------------------------



John Kass
Beware of letting the unacceptable become the norm


Published April 1, 2005


Terri Schiavo died of forced starvation and dehydration in a nation that keeps telling itself it protects the helpless.

It took almost two weeks to kill her, finally, by denying her food and water.

And make no mistake. She didn't "pass on." She wasn't "taken." She may have "found peace," but these are passive terms. What happened to her was active. She was killed.

She was actively denied food and water for 13 days, her cells dying, until she was pronounced dead at 9:05 a.m. Thursday.

I suppose that no matter which side of this you're on, you'll have questions. Those of you who think she should have died will wonder: When will people like me ever shut up about this?

And those of us on the other side will wonder which disability will next be judged as not affording an adequate quality of life? Whose lives are worthy?

But there is another question that won't let go of me: How did we get to this place, where we've come to accept what was done to Terri Schiavo?

What was once horrible has now become acceptable, familiar the way a landscape becomes familiar. No matter how gruesome or spectacular, over time you become used to it. Eventually, you can walk through it without feeling any need to comment.

And that's what's being urged now, a general consensus forming by those who don't want to hear complaints, that it's time to be silent about Schiavo, that we shouldn't give offense, that we should accept her death as inevitable, perhaps rationalize her death as a blessing.

Just as the announcement came over the radio that Schiavo had died, I was reading a compelling column by John Leo in the current edition of U.S. News and World Report about bioethics and how its practitioners have encouraged us to accept the monstrous.

He quoted Rev. Richard Neuhaus, editor of the religious journal First Things. Here is the Neuhaus quote, and I hope to memorize it:

"Thousands of ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable, until it is finally established as the unexceptional."

I'm not a flat-worlder. I don't believe dinosaur bones were left behind by demons to confuse us. Galileo Galilei should never have been forced to recant.

But just think of what we've been confronted with and asked to accept in a handful of years:

Designer babies. And choosing the sex of the child. The use of human embryos in medical research to benefit and perhaps one day perpetuate the lives of larger, more powerful human beings. And cloning, which will bring questions about mining another being's organs, and who lives, and who dies.

Some of it is here, and some of it is almost here. It is rushing at us. Setting the science aside, our collective attitude toward it all--what we're willing to accept--suggests a profound change in the way we think of our humanity. And what worries me is that I don't think we're ready for it, or that we want to prepare ourselves for what's coming as these attitudes change.

It's easier to have the argument framed for us, as the argument about Schiavo was framed, that it was her right to die, that the federal government should not intrude on such a private family matter, and that families help their terminally ill and suffering loved ones die every day.

Put it that way, and I might agree.

But she was not in pain. She was not suffering from cancer. She was not terminally ill with some other disease. She was not on an artificial respirator. She had severe brain damage, but there were questions as to whether she possessed some brain function.

She had parents and siblings who wanted to care for her and provide the basics, like food and water. She was helpless, like a baby.

And now many accept euthanasia, through the killing of this human being on the grounds that hers wasn't a life worth living, if it was a life, as those who support her husband's right to have her killed believe. In this, we've become the Spartans. They threw their disabled and infirm children on the rocks to die.

I don't wish to anger you, if you're one of those who disagree and think that the brain-damaged woman was a vegetable, although comparing her to a vegetable was a way of dehumanizing her and making her easier to kill. I'm not looking forward to offending you, or to being called arrogant, or intolerant, or ignorant of my own faith.

Still, it is probably best that we've been angry on all sides of this, angry and loud. This is about life and death and the quality of life and who decides what constitutes a life worth living. It would be terrible if we were polite and restrained. The silence would be horrible.

It is the center of what Neuhaus said that has concerned me for years. We've been primed by reasonable argument to accept what was once absolutely unacceptable, like the killing of Terri Schiavo.

[strat-0]

Pissin2 said:

Just kidding. I would like to take this time to personally apologize to anyone I offended with my devil star or hail satan remarks. As much as some may believe, it was not my intent to offend. I put the star up because I like it. Much like people do with american flags. And I needed to put some text under it, so I put Hail Satan. It was not meant to get attention. I like Satan. I think he's a cool guy. I didn't think I would be censored. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal and upsetting to people. It's something I will never understand in all my life actually. So I apologize and I will take it down now on my own. In fact, if strat 0 would have just asked me to take it down I would have. But I'm willing to forget about that. I like talking to a lot of you on here, even though we don't agree on a lot of current events. If we could just forget about all this nonsense that would be great.

No problem, Pissin. I should have PMed you, but my first impulse was to remove the text before some unforeseeable events such as unwanted banner ads, spam, or the like started happening.

[Edit: Take a look at the banner ads now, for a taste.]

[pissin2]

APRIL FOOLS!

[JACkory]

Hoo boy...I'm skeered.

[strat-0]

You're a fool alright, but my post stands.

[pissin2]

If there is a hell,
I'll see you there

[pissin2]

I hope you all realize while you're crying in your beers over Terry Shavago, the world has lost a great comedian.

R.I.P Mitch Hedberg

"I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastromi,.Some one needs to tell the turkey, man, just be yourself."

[chrisfan]

Pissin2 said:

I hope you all realize while you're crying in your beers over Terry Shavago, the world has lost a great comedian.

R.I.P Mitch Hedberg

"I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastromi,.Some one needs to tell the turkey, man, just be yourself."

I think the creepiest part of his death is the Baltimore radio station that was scheduled to have him on their morning show yesterday morning. THey called his room, live, and a distraught woman answered saying he could not come to the phone, and hung up. They joked about it, and then found out later WHY he could not be on their show.

[pissin2]

OUCH. That's fucked up!

[Thorngrub]

stratman19 said:

JACkory: I don't speak for stratman, but I don't believe he has ever professed faith in Christ, nor do I think he would wish to be referred to as a Christian. If I'm wrong, I apologize to stratman.
Surely you've paid closer attention to his posts than to think that he has aligned himself with the belief system of us Christians? Or are you one of these people who thinks that all Christians are republicans and all republicans are Christians?

No apology is necessary JAC. Your comments and assessment are spot on.

Thorn, I don't know why you continually call me a Christian. You have done so many times, even after I've said a kabillion times or so that I'm an agnostic. Why is that?

Because I'm a conservative? Because I'm a Republican? Believe it or not, one can be secular, and conservative. Why is that apparently so hard for you to understand?

g'mornin' stratman -- Dude, that's a very good question. And here's my answer: *I don't know*! It's a total "D'oh", HOmer Simpson thing man. Seriously -- I just "assumed", yep, made an ass out of U and me. Mainly me. So in any case, I'm sorry man. You're perfectly right about one being able to be secular and conservative. So it was my bad -- just a brain fart. At least from here on out -- I'll know.

[pissin2]

Frank Perdue dead at 84