I bitch-slap Michael Shiavo

[Pure]

I bitch slap Sher

In some situations, greatness of spirit seems fine, as in a land dispute between two clans. The one carrying the day in court, might allow the 'losers' to squat on the disputed piece, for their lifetimes.

To see the disanalogy, I'll tell you a tale.

A bit after marrying you, I find you prostrate and soon realize your usual literotica drug cocktail has interacted with your Leninism, and has caused this collapse. Your noble heart continues its beat, but you are without speech, speech comprehension, and voluntary muscle control.

I have your fine brain CT'd and it's a mess, and within a few more months turned to something like rotten mushroom soup, except the ole' stem, which keeps heart, lungs going, but not many other reflexes. In my view, you're dead for all intents and purposes. You've got that vacant look in your eyes that used to come from reading amicus. So it's a couple years and the drs. I've talked to say there's no fix, and I decide to plant you, and that total death to be brought about by no nourishment (since that's legal; on my own, I'd be happy to OD you on a triple dose of your literotica cocktail.)

Your crazy aunt Tilly launches a lawsuit to prevent your final death and burial, and sensing a 'cause' a bunch of Falwell's folks and others start raising money. When Tilly visits, she makes artful photos and videos of you which she gives to the Moral Majority and the Witless for Christ. Notable Republicans, esp. those under FBI investigation, who've never lifted a finger for the disabled, take a sudden interest in you, and declare you're a 'disabled person' they will defend to the last dollar you bring in.

I see the picture of you on TV and the funds being solicited, and to make a long story short, in ten years I prevail over Aunt Tilly's well funded legal machine, and again plan your quietus to make, by bare bodkin if necessary.

Some compassionate, if confused soul, says, "Why not just turn Sher--such as she is--over to Aunt Tilly. She and the 'right to lifers' will keep her going."

I decline the misuse go beyond the pictures, to see my truelove's actual disfigured body so used, and the pictures of vacant eyes directed to Christ, and your body being on stage at evangelical conventions with a large 'fundraising' basket. I don't want your minimal living state to be exhibited as a 'person' entitled to all the rights and privileges, compared to a fetus, and object to Aunt Tilly keeping you registered and taking you to voting booths and helping you touch the screen for the 'all Republican' ticket, and renewing your disabled parking permit for her use.

I believe you'd want to be dead, planted, and I do too. So I refuse the soul, her request. I believe you'll rest easier, six feet under, and the sad chapter of my life will be closed.

The some new compassionate savant proposes to 'bitch slap' me for pettiness of spirit?????

 

[Guest]

. . . You've got that vacant look in your eyes that used to come from reading amicus. . .

Thank you, Pure. I needed that.

(Way to bitch slap amicus.)

 

[Guest]

"She received the blood of Christ," said Malanowski, adding he could not give her a fleck of communion bread because her tongue was too dry.



normally not something i would comment on in a public forum... but im disgusted. fine.. .pull the feeding tube... have the fucken nurse use a glycerine toothette to keep her mouth moist while she dies...
we are fucken monsters.

who am i to pass judgment?
inhumane. thats what i see...though i could be wrong, i admit, since i am not directly involved and have to rely on heavily slanted news reports as much of the world does.

but wasnt he so very nice to allow her to have communion minus the 'flake of bread' to go along with her last rites. and btw, it was really super cool of ya to wait erm.. seven years before saying any fucken thing... i think, at that point, her dignity was pretty crushed.

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

I swore I wasn't going to comment on Shiavo. But I guess I'm a nurse who can't keep my mouth shut at times.

From what I've read of Michael Shiavo, it does raise an eyebrow and make someone wonder. The courts, over 25 times have ruled in his favor. It has been refused by the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, after being reviewed. All legal options are over now. The right wing Christian militia has loss and they're up in arms blaming everyone.

There are too many times I've see patients die or euthanized legally because a family member did not want to see them hurt. Give them the morphine, just don't let Mom hurt. Please, Dad, didn't want this turn the machines off. No legal paperwork, just the legal guardian giving the word, the same as in the Shiavo case. Yes, some family members argued. But nothing like this case.


We have now have Congress and the President involved. We have the Christian Pro-Life movement yelling that that Gov. Bush should cause a constitutional problem to save her life. Break the law. Just save her. These are from the people who shoot abortion doctors and bomb clinics and say it's legal in their eyes. These are the people who say law is not from Man but given from God.

Okay, let's follow their rules. Let's stone women to death for adultery, let's put slavery back into place since nothing was said against it by Christ. Let's continue the crusades and restart the inquisition.

This case is nothing but a political fiasco that is going to cost the Republican party it's downfall in the next elections. Every poll shows that the people are behind the husband and the courts. Yet, the Republican party and it's President have tried to step in. I give credit to the Democrats for not taking advantage of the situation. They very easily could. The only ones who support this are the right wing Christian militia. Now that they haven't got their way, they're acting like kids and threatening everyone.

There are alot of questions to be answered. If she's responding and trying to communicate, why not show the public those films instead of the ones from 2001? You're trying to prove to us she is not in a PVS, show us. Don't mouth to us, show us. Tell us all why the U.S. Supreme court has refused to hear this case 3 times? Don't call them tyrannts, show us.

If you're so right to life, why are your followers putting out bounties on federal judges who follow the law and are not influenced by your politics? If you're so legal, why are you telling the Gov. to break the state laws and constitution to seek your own ends?

This has turned into nothing but a right wing Christian political issue. They are using this poor woman as a tool. That has been proven by the interference of Congress and the President to try and please the militia by interefereing in personal rights.

Well, you lost. Let her die in dignity. Stop the shouting outside the hospice and let the other patients get some rest before they die. Follow the laws of this country and of the states. The majority of Americans have voiced their opinions and we don't believe in your fanatasism. Start getting use to it. You've only hurt your own cause.

 

[Guest]

"She received the blood of Christ," said Malanowski, adding he could not give her a fleck of communion bread because her tongue was too dry.



normally not something i would comment on in a public forum... but im disgusted. fine.. .pull the feeding tube... have the fucken nurse use a glycerine toothette to keep her mouth moist while she dies...
we are fucken monsters.

who am i to pass judgment?
inhumane. thats what i see...though i could be wrong, i admit, since i am not directly involved and have to rely on heavily slanted news reports as much of the world does.

but wasnt he so very nice to allow her to have communion minus the 'flake of bread' to go along with her last rites. and btw, it was really super cool of ya to wait erm.. seven years before saying any fucken thing... i think, at that point, her dignity was pretty crushed.

But she isn't there anymore, vella. She's already been gone for 15 plus years.

My mom was director of nurses at a huge nursing home. She often told us how the residents would pull their feeding tubes themselves because they wanted to die. How one woman refused to see her husband of fifty-some years because he ordered a tube implanted and she didn't want that. How at the end, it was usually very peaceful for the dying, and how they usually wouldn't eat the last week or so anyway.

Hospice workers kept the mouth moist because it was the only part of them that suffered any discomfort.

She should have been allowed to go fifteen years ago.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The Schindlers newest claim is that Bulimia didn't cause Teri's brain damage, her husband strangled her. His wish to have her cremated is trying to cover up the evidence. Evidence not found in 15 years and hundreds of tests? they are not in touch with reality any longer.

It seems strange, for me to be defending the husband here, in truth I find him pretty unsympathetic, but come on. The family has taken the low road every time opportunity has presented itself. Their ongoing smear campaign has become so central to their "cause" that they can't even accept an olive branch with any grace. Even Iran can accept aide from the U.S. and be graceful about it. In a "thank you, but we still hate your guts." kinda way.

The family is pressing to allow cameramen and videos to be allowed in her room as she expires. WTF? Does that show even a tiny bit of concern for her wishes? It damned sure raises questions for me about thier sincerity in worrying about her feelings and desires.

The husband allowed her to take easter communion. The character assassins have already swung into action, Oh, he just did that to make sure no appeal was filed on her behalf for having her religious rights violated. The fact that a court order was inplace to protect him has no weight. Just like his attempt to get her ecperimental reatment in California was all about winning the malpractice award. Same with his becoming a nurse. The refrain gets old and you soon come to realize, he can't do anything that dosen't earn him further demonization from the Schindlers and their supporters.

I don't pretend to know his motives, but I will say this. Were I the one taking the kind of abuse he has, I would have already done some lashing out of my own. He has been throughly demonized and I have yet to see even the flimsiest of evidence that the most egrigious accusations are based upon anything other than spite and rancor.

 

[Guest]

I've read sher's original essay days ago and haven't found any reason to look back. sher's sane (common sense) the rest of the America has too much free time on themselves (and don't really know what to do with it.).

Or, maybe they are from NoCo.

 

[Guest]

I've read sher's original essay days ago and haven't found any reason to look back. sher's sane (common sense) the rest of the America has too much free time on themselves (and don't really know what to do with it.).

Or, maybe they are from NoCo.

Forgive my lack of knowledge here, but what is NoCo?

 

[Guest]

But she isn't there anymore, vella. She's already been gone for 15 plus years.

My mom was director of nurses at a huge nursing home. She often told us how the residents would pull their feeding tubes themselves because they wanted to die. How one woman refused to see her husband of fifty-some years because he ordered a tube implanted and she didn't want that. How at the end, it was usually very peaceful for the dying, and how they usually wouldn't eat the last week or so anyway.

Hospice workers kept the mouth moist because it was the only part of them that suffered any discomfort.

She should have been allowed to go fifteen years ago.

i know honey...
and i agree that she should be allowed to pass but
i think the way its being done is an atrocity...
we put murderers to death more humanely is my point.

 

[sweetnpetite]

But then I imagine that first letter, and turning on the television to watch people who do NOT understand spout bullshit, and then I see 'holier than thou' politicians spout even worse bullshit...

Yeah, with everyone shouting at me and hating me, I can imagine saying "Fuck you... FUCK EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!"

This is his bitch-slap to you.

Sincerely,
ElSol

But he is not bitch slapping *us* or *them* he is bitchslapping his wife, and the memory of his wife. And if out of spite- she is the one he lashes out at, I have to wonder an awful lot about him, his 'love' for her and his sincerity.

Weather or not she is 'aware' or whatever is not the point. A loving husband acts with love, even when his wife is dead and in the ground.

 

[Guest]

i know honey...
and i agree that she should be allowed to pass but
i think the way its being done is an atrocity...
we put murderers to death more humanely is my point.

 

[Couture]

Having won the legal point, Michael Shiavo is the one person who could end this nightmare with a measure of dignity. He should concede custody to her parents. Because he chooses to do so, and not because Trent Lott is in a snit. He should do it as a gesture of goodwill toward the family his wife once loved.
[/i]

I think the chances of them kissing and making up probably ended when they called him a murderer. If not then, at least by the time the contract was attempted to be put out on his life and the judges, no?

 

[Pure]

Has anyone noticed

a cooling of rhetoric and lessening of involvement by 'big' Republicans, e.g, GWB, on behalf of extending Terri's existence?

could it have to do with polls showing clear positions among Christians that the government, esp. the fed, ought not to interfere?

(IOW, this 'train' they were going to 'ride' to glorious gains in the 'social conservative' and Christian communities wasn't going any where.)

can it be that 'genuine' 'small government' Republicans are actually exerting an influence on the excesses of the would be theocrats and demagogues?

 

[shereads]

I bitch slap Sher

Ouch. You cut that out!

I'm glad he won, Pure. I appreciate his having fought to preserve the right of the next-of-kin to choose what's best in this situation.

Circumstances made his motive suspect, but neither his motive nor his personality were revelvent to the key issue here. If he had lost the case, the anti-choice forces of the religious right would have established a beachhead at one of the last private places outside our bedrooms: our deathbeds.

On the other hand, if he had conceded custody to her parents years ago, there would have been no legal precedent to worry about and he would have saved his children, their mother, his wife's family and even himself from years of hell. (Not to mention poor Robert Blake, whose trial went almost unnoticed because of this!)

It wouldn't have violated any firm agreement between Michael and Terri; by his own account, his determination to let Terri die was based on a passing comment she made in response to something they saw on television. "I wouldn't want to live like that."

Live like what, though? Without knowing the science behind the diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state, most people watching those disturbing videotapes have assumed that the changing facial expressions, vocalizations and flailing limbs were evidence of a person who was awake, aware and trapped in that helpless state. It would be a nightmare, and I'd want out no matter what my family wanted. But we now know that a diagnosis of PVS means there is no awareness. No pleasure, no pain, no feeling of being trapped and helpless. No need to escape.

If she had known what we know now - that she can't suffer but there is enormous suffering for her mother and others who can't accept the loss - would she have made the same choice?

We'll never know. So her husband, knowing the circumstances as she didn't when she made that comment, had to choose for her. I support his right to make that choice, but I think his choice failed to credit his wife with any compassion for her family.

If it's fair to assume that most people would choose not to be kept alive in a state of helpless suffering, it's just as fair to assume that most people would be willing to have their bodies kept alive if we knew that (a) we wouldn't know it was happening and (b) our families' beliefs would make withdrawing life support an unbearable choice.

Anyone making a Living Will should give some thought to the distinction between being brain-damaged but aware, and in a persistent vegetative state/unaware. I'm revising my Living Will this week to take the difference into account. I insist on being allowed to die if the degree of damage to mind and body leaves me in a semi-conscious state, where there's a possibility that I'm feeling trapped and helpless. But if I lose the ability to care either way, I'd prefer that my family do what they feel most comfortable with. If there's a disagreement, I want the law to remain as it is: that my next of kin is the one who breaks the tie. Not the Bush brothers.

Meanwhile, back to why I bitch-slap Michael Shiavo even though I'm relieved he won his case: he's slap-worthy. He's now insisting on cremation even though it's abhorrent to Terri's parents, and on interment near his home instead of theirs.

Again, I support his right to do so, but I don't respect him for doing it. He has another family now. Let the Schindlers have their daughter's burial place to visit, if it brings them some comfort.

I'll bet his children and their mother are as thrilled about the arrangement as Terri's parents.




<slaps Pure on the butt and runs>

 

[Pure]

How about bitch slaps for Michael AND the parents.?? I know it's gotta be done, else some will forever say a 'disabled person' was offed.

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - An autopsy will be performed after Terri Schiavo dies to show the extent of her brain damage, her husband's attorney says.


On Monday, Schiavo's 11th day without food or water, supporters of prolonging the woman's life carried their protests to the White House, while the husband's attorney said she looked ``peaceful'' and had a stuffed toy cat under her arm.

George Felos, the attorney for husband and guardian Michael Schiavo, said Monday that the chief medical examiner for Pinellas County, Dr. John Thogmartin, had agreed to perform an autopsy.

He said her husband wants definitive proof showing the extent of her brain damage. Michael Schiavo contends his wife told him years ago she would not want to be kept alive artificially under such circumstances.

An attorney for Schiavo's parents, David Gibbs III, said her family also wants an autopsy. ``We would certainly support and encourage an autopsy to be done, with all the unanswered questions,'' Gibbs said.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Ouch. You cut that out!

I'm glad he won, Pure. I appreciate his having fought to preserve the right of the next-of-kin to choose what's best in this situation.

Circumstances made his motive suspect, but neither his motive nor his personality were revelvent to the key issue here. If he had lost the case, the anti-choice forces of the religious right would have established a beachhead at one of the last private places outside our bedrooms: our deathbeds.

On the other hand, if he had conceded custody to her parents years ago, there would have been no legal precedent to worry about and he would have saved his children, their mother, his wife's family and even himself from years of hell. (Not to mention poor Robert Blake, whose trial went almost unnoticed because of this!)

It wouldn't have violated any firm agreement between Michael and Terri; by his own account, his determination to let Terri die was based on a passing comment she made in response to something they saw on television. "I wouldn't want to live like that."

Live like what, though? Without knowing the science behind the diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state, most people watching those disturbing videotapes have assumed that the changing facial expressions, vocalizations and flailing limbs were evidence of a person who was awake, aware and trapped in that helpless state. It would be a nightmare, and I'd want out no matter what my family wanted. But we now know that a diagnosis of PVS means there is no awareness. No pleasure, no pain, no feeling of being trapped and helpless. No need to escape.

If she had known what we know now - that she can't suffer but there is enormous suffering for her mother and others who can't accept the loss - would she have made the same choice?

We'll never know. So her husband, knowing the circumstances as she didn't when she made that comment, had to choose for her. I support his right to make that choice, but I think his choice failed to credit his wife with any compassion for her family.

If it's fair to assume that most people would choose not to be kept alive in a state of helpless suffering, it's just as fair to assume that most people would be willing to have their bodies kept alive if we knew that (a) we wouldn't know it was happening and (b) our families' beliefs would make withdrawing life support an unbearable choice.

Anyone making a Living Will should give some thought to the distinction between being brain-damaged but aware, and in a persistent vegetative state/unaware. I'm revising my Living Will this week to take the difference into account. I insist on being allowed to die if the degree of damage to mind and body leaves me in a semi-conscious state, where there's a possibility that I'm feeling trapped and helpless. But if I lose the ability to care either way, I'd prefer that my family do what they feel most comfortable with. If there's a disagreement, I want the law to remain as it is: that my next of kin is the one who breaks the tie. Not the Bush brothers.

Meanwhile, back to why I bitch-slap Michael Shiavo even though I'm relieved he won his case: he's slap-worthy. He's now insisting on cremation even though it's abhorrent to Terri's parents, and on interment near his home instead of theirs.

Again, I support his right to do so, but I don't respect him for doing it. He has another family now. Let the Schindlers have their daughter's burial place to visit, if it brings them some comfort.

I'll bet his children and their mother are as thrilled about the arrangement as Terri's parents.




<slaps Pure on the butt and runs>

I'm going to assume Michael Schaivo is now doing what he wants. I'll further assume that after a decade of thwarting his desires, in the courts, in the hospice, in the papers, he dosen't really give a good googly moo about the parent's desires. He may even be making decisions that are aimed at hitting back at them, intentionally thwarting their desires.

I can't say that I hold that against him.

Some of the Schindler's charges, unfounded as they are, make perfect sense, and can be excused, in light of legal ramifications.

If you charge he is abusive, for example, you create a situation where APS can step in. If you charge he is not being respectful of her religious convictions, you open the avenue of appeal based on her religious freedom.

Calling him a murderer, isn't helpful in any way, since his is commiting that "murder" under state court orders. Chargeing he was a controling monster of a husband, opens no new avenue of appeal. Chargeing he only want's the money opens no further avenue of appeal, beacuese expenditures from the award that went to Terri could only be made with court approval. Handing out his home address to any yahoo who askes, after some nut already put a 250K bounty on his head, is, in my opinion, the same as soliciting murder. The right to life protestors here are the same core who have murdered doctors and bombed abotrion clinics. At the very least, it's nasty and low down. Chargeing that he caused his wife's condition, after 15 years is farcical.

The family has mounted a continuous campaign of demonizing the man, with unfounded charges, and with simply, nasty smears. I think, wanting him to do anything to be nice to them, is akin to hoping he is a saint. The record dosen't seem to support that.

I don't think the Schindlers are living in the same reality I do. When the brother says he can't understand mike being vindictive and the dad is worried about a morphene shot to ease his daughter's percieved pain as being a conspiracy to do away with her more quickly.

Obviously, in times of great stress and grief, people will do and say things they might later regret. If I had seen any sign that anyone on the family's side expressed some regret or even some misgivings at their words, accusations or actions, I might feel some sympathy towards wanting Michael to try and aceed to their wishes. I have seen none.

When those who are opressed are given power, they almost never use that power well. There is a human tendancy for pay back that transcends most bounds I have seen. From the treatment of sympathizers and collaborators through the great wars, to the dictatorial and tyrranical excessess of most revolutions, the boots of victor's thrust to the throat of the conquered, to systematic destruction of your enemies very identity.

This occurs on a human scale, as well as on the scale of nations. The son of Hechepsut, the female Pharoh, ordered that her likness be struck from every monument in egypt when he finally ascended to the throne. To the Egyptians, that was akin to eternal murder, killing her Ka for all time.

Expecting the husband to be magnanimous, assumes one of three things.

You either assume the smears, accusations and vicious rhetoric never phased him.

You assume he is such a big man he can accept such affronts and not harbor the desire to retaliate.

Or you assume he had no emotional stake in this battle. That he has no real desire to honor his wife's wishes.

I assume he is human. I assume he is mad as hell. I assume he will now act as vindictively as he has been accused of being. And why not? It isn't as if he hasn't already been publiclly accused of it. Family fueds are perhaps the single most common repository of the absolute worst in human behavior you can find.

My family's fued is over land, 40 acres of it. Seeing how she has hurt my mother, the desire to take my Aunt out behind the barn and beat her until her asshole is sucking buttermilk has at times, been so great I have had to be restrained. In this case there isn't just money involved, there is infintely more.

I'm not Solomon. I can't say that I am wise enough to determine who, if anyone, deserves ye olden bitch slap. My suspicion is that if you knew all the facts and all the motives, and started to administer boots to the head among the participants, you would still be slapping come next election

 

[shereads]

Meanwhile, 30,000 children die each day from illnesses caused by malnutrition or the lack of clean drinking water. Mass murders continue in the Sudan while the world watches with flagging interest. And the body count in Iraq has surpassed 1500, counting only American military deaths.

No one can question whether those people wanted to live. And there's no doubt that were fully aware of what was happening to them.

 

[Pure]

sher said,

I insist on being allowed to die if the degree of damage to mind and body leaves me in a semi-conscious state, where there's a possibility that I'm feeling trapped and helpless. But if I lose the ability to care either way, I'd prefer that my family do what they feel most comfortable with.

I don't believe Terri is 'semi conscious', if you mean like what one is for a time upon waking up, or going to sleep.

One neurologist examining her alleged she would fit into a new category proposed by some other neurologist, "Minimal Conscious State."

It's actually rather tricky to state conditions for humane passing, since a mix of factors, including pain, hope of recovery, etc come into play. I can imagine a fully conscious person being 'let go,' as in the movie 'whose life is it anyway.' i.e., i'm not sure i'd relish being fully conscious but unable to move or communicate in any way. Which is to say that degree of 'consciousness' (awareness) is only one factor.

As to Mike, allowing the parents to do what they think necessary to 'save her soul' is magnanimous (rites, communion). Ceding them her body, now or after is not warranted, as Colly suggests, because of --in my opinion--their poor showing of character, of late. Handing out his address may place him in mortal peril, as has happened with abortion doctors whose addresses are posted. It's a gesture of potentially murderous consequence, of which they must be presumed to be aware.



It's always amazed me this 'body' obsession *in those who hold it's a 'mortal coil' or a prison*, or a lesser state than awaits one up the road.