With that said, I'm really, truly afraid that this isn't over, and may not be for awhile. She was being martyred for a strong political talking point before she was even dead; while the majority of the people in the country thankfully were against the federal side of the battle, the minority is an extremely vocal one, mostly because a good number of them seem to be congressmen.
The parents have a book deal, I give it a year at most before this becomes a Lifetime movie about feminism, and I give it a month before someone has made an attempt on Michael Schiavo's life as a result of all the propaganda.
In any case, I hope SOMEONE got some peace out of all of this.
quote:
Karnaj had this to say about pies:
BAM! LOGIC!
You beat me to posting these images. There are some good articles at Ars Technica and Kuro5hin about all of this.
To put it simply: There was no electrical activity in her brain. None. That's completely brain dead, you don't recover from that. IMO, Terri Schiavo died 15 years ago. There was a body that she was once in that continued to operate and function on a very basic level, but anything that resembled a human soul had long since left it.
-Tok
quote:
Toktuk attempted to be funny by writing:
You beat me to posting these images. There are some good articles at Ars Technica and Kuro5hin about all of this.To put it simply: There was no electrical activity in her brain. None. That's completely brain dead, you don't recover from that. IMO, Terri Schiavo died 15 years ago. There was a body that she was once in that continued to operate and function on a very basic level, but anything that resembled a human soul had long since left it.
-Tok
Couldn't agree more with this:
Perversions of government
You can thank your lucky stars that our judicial system stepped in to check the other two branches of the federal government, which have clearly gone berserk. No matter whether you feel "the tube" needs to be put back in or not, I am frightened by the vigor with which members of the legislative and executive branches of our government attempted to force themselves so deeply into such an intimately personal decision by one individual and one family. Further, while faced with a variety of issues of critical importance to the future of millions of Americans, our federal legislators went for a week's vacation. However, for the purpose of "saving" one brain-dead woman, they suddenly found time to jump back on planes to DC and work feverishly into the night. What?
Well said.
quote:
Toktuk got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
To put it simply: There was no electrical activity in her brain. None. That's completely brain dead, you don't recover from that.
Actually, I believe for it to count as brain death the brain stem has to be dead as well. Terri still had that functioning.
But there are efforts to change the definition to allow for the survival of the brain stem.
Don't get me wrong, I think that starvation is a nasty way to go. On the other hand, aside from actively killing her, which would put him in a position to stand trial, there weren't a lot of options here.
As for the villification of Chiavo and his girlfriend, I think it's very interesting to note that Terri's parents pushed him to start dating, etc. The issue here wasn't some sort of betrayal of Terry or Terri or whatever, it was over the choice to die. Mr Chiavo had nothing to gain from her death. Could have gotten a hardship divorce and transferred legal custody to her parents if maintainance costs were the issue, or if he was desperate to marry the mother of his children. The issue was the right to die.
And it was the spouse's decision to make, as painful as that is for a parent to accept. If Lyinar and I were married IRL and I was badly injured and they told her without any doubt that my higher brain functions were gone, I'd expect her to pull the plug, no matter what my parents felt to the contrary. I'd expect my parents to fight it if they thought there was hope for recovery or foul play, but for crying out loud her condition hadn't changed in 15 bloody years.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
From the book of Leopold, chapter 3, verse 16:
In any case, I hope SOMEONE got some peace out of all of this.
I'd like to think Terry did, whether she was still there or she's someplace else for the last 15 years.
As far as I'm concerned, her family should be blamed for her suffering not her husband. If she was actually truly alive during all of that time, imagine the insane torture that 15 years of living like her would have been.
But what really gets me is how Jeb Bush is calling this "an unnatural death". It was an unnatural end to an unnatural extension of life, which I think makes a world of difference.
quote:
Demos probably says this to all the girls:
If it was your kid, it would be hard to admit that she was gone...to have this puppet smiling at you. I can see how they'd want to think she was still alive.
It's unfair to put someone through surviving for years with major handicaps. That's what it is, just surviving, not living. I've sat in on removing one of my family members from life support (my grandpa). It sucks, but you do what you have to do.
-Tok
And I'm fucking retarded, too, because I actually went to school like that and spent almost the entire day in tears. I remember they were asking students schoolwide to do some survey during their second hour, and I declined - not because I didn't care to take it, but because I didn't think I could hold a pencil long enough to fill it out. It was a Monday, I stayed home Tuesday and went to the doctor that Wednesday. I made it back on Thursday, completely fucked on Darvocet, and anybody I tried to tell just responded with, "But Monica! You're not old!" Made me feel really good, let me tell you.
The pain lasted most of that week... the discomfort and general stiffness lasted about 2 weeks, and for around 3 months afterward I'd have a joint or two start to ache about 24 hours before it rained. I haven't had anything significant since, but after all that bullshit I can honestly say I'd rather have the plug pulled on me than NEED someone to wait on me, hand and foot. When it comes down to being 18 and needing my own mother to pull my shirt over my head because I can't do it myself... I'd honestly rather be dead than place that kind of responsibility on someone.
quote:
Vorago spewed forth this undeniable truth:
She went, what, 11 days without food or water or something?Maybe I am wrong, but I was under the impression that even lying in bed, 2 days without any sort of water was the longest you could go... let alone over a week.
And yeah, about time, maybe now the media can focus on something worthwhile
As a side note, read the story of the crew of the "Lady Be Good" sometime. They got lost returning from a bombing raid in WWII and overflew their base by a few hundred miles, crashed in the Sahara desert and attempted to walk out.
quote:
Monica stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
because I couldn't undo my jeans.
u need ne help
