Why I harp on this...

...the Schiavo case, that is.

I have seen the accusation in a message forum and on a couple of blogs that those of us who don't want to see a disabled woman starved are just sticking our noses where they don't belong. That we are only harping on this because we are self-righteous moralizers who are just trying to show how great we are. That we don't really care about Terri or others like her. That we just want to hear ourselves rant.

I can't express how disgusting and unfair these accusations are.

I care about this because I think it's wrong to starve a disabled person to death. I care because I don't want to see us turn into the kind of society that sees the weak and disabled as disposable. I don't want to see us imitate animals in the wild -- killing off the weaker of their own species.

I also have more personal reasons why I care. I posted about one of those reasons in this post from more than a year ago. I am reposting the contents of that post in the extended entry.

(Originally posted on October 22, 2003.)

You probably wonder why I kept harping on the Terri Schiavo situation. Well, if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that I'm pro-life. But there are more personal reasons why I felt compelled to follow this case.

I've mentioned before that my older brother died of a brain tumor over six years ago. I've never went into much detail about it because it's still very painful for me to think about. I won't go into a lot of detail now, either. There was a lot more to my brother's situation than this. I just want to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

Before my brother died, he spent most of his last days in sort of a semi-coma. He would react to you, respond to things you said, and he even spoke a couple of times. He was there, but yet there was a sort of fog separating him from full consciousness. I played a Beatles CD for him, and he actually blurted out, "Wow, they were good, weren't they?" I thought a miracle was happening, and then he slipped back into the fog. We had a feeding tube put in him, but he could not process the food. I think it may have been because that part of his brain was not working properly.

During this time, I prayed for his healing. I even offered up my own life to God in exchange for his. My mother and I held out hope even though things looked (and were) hopeless. Other member of my family saw how hopeless the situation was and dealt with it in different ways.

Was my brother a non-person when he was in this state? Absolutely not! He was no "vegetable". He was enveloped in a fog, but he was there. He was probably in worse shape than Terri Schiavo is, judging by the videos of her. (Actually, he was in much worse shape, because he was dying. She is not.) If I knew my brother had consciousness, how could I deny the same about Terri?

My iBook -- The Saga Continues...

A couple of weeks ago, I first mentioned that my iBook was on the blink. The day after I posted that, I took it to a computer shop in town that is an official Apple service center. Since this was on a Saturday, and the Apple guy was only there Monday through Friday, I would have to wait a few days to hear from him because of his workload.

Now, there's one thing I had noticed about the problem I was having with the iBook -- if the computer was left off for a few hours, it would come back up and work fine (if perhaps a bit slow)...for a few minutes. Then the buzzing, grinding noise would start up again and it would hang. Here's what I was afraid of -- that since the iBook would have been off for several days, the Apple guy would turn it on and it would work fine. And that's exactly what happened.

When the Apple guy called and told me it seemed to be fine, I described the problem to him. He said that since it was still under warranty, and since it was an iBook, it would have to be shipped to (I think) Texas to be looked at by Apple. He asked me if I needed to backup the hard drive, since he couldn't guarantee my data would still be intact when I got it back. Since I had just done a backup a couple of days before the problems started, and since I discovered that there's a utility I can use to get my iTunes library off my iPod if need be, I told him to go ahead and ship it off.

Yesterday, the Apple guy called me and told me my iBook was back. The hard drive was okay, my data was intact, and they replaced the motherboard. So, after work, I gladly drove in the horrendous late Friday afternoon traffic to go pick up my iBook. No charge, of course.

I brought it home and had it on about three hours. It was working beautifully. I noticed that my wireless connection was getting a much stronger signal. I don't know if they tweaked a setting or if it's the new motherboard, but whatever the cause, I was very happy about this unexpected improvement.

Then, once again, the grinding and buzzing started up and it started hanging. I felt like a deflated balloon.

I'm going to call the Apple guy Monday and tell him about this. Then I'm going to make sure the problem is occurring and take the iBook there and show him what it's doing. I won't let this machine make a liar out of me again!

I now suspect that the problem has to do with the computer getting too hot. It seems to have these problems once it's been on a long time. When it gets cool (after I turn it off or sleep it for several hours) it will work again for a little while. I don't remember hearing the fan kick on when I was running it last night, and it usually comes on after a couple of hours (if it's not sleeping).

I have a little less than a month left on my warranty, so I've got to get this thing fixed soon. Unfortunately, I can't buy an extended warranty because I'm a Florida resident.

Today's Schiavo News

Well, it's been a trying day for those of us following the Schiavo case. Judge Greer has ruled that Terri will be denied nourishment starting March 18th. Also, the St. Petersburg Times would not accept the BlogsforTerri ad unless certain parts of it were stricken. They later recanted the demand for changes, but BlogsforTerri had already made other arrangements. So, the ad will not run in that paper this Sunday. It will run in the Tampa Tribune instead.

On the Air for Life

Earl Appleby of Life Matters! will be a guest on the Steve Kane show today at 7:30am Eastern time (6:30am Central). He will be talking about the Schiavo case. Unfortunately, I won't be able to listen online because I have to take my Mom to get some routine medical tests. However, if you can, try to catch it!

Terri Schiavo Mythbusting

I have really grown weary and impatient with the misinformation being spread around by the mainstream media and others. I mean, how many times do you have to tell people she is not brain dead?

BlogsforTerri presents some facts and dispels some myths about the Schiavo case.

This really isn't that hard to understand. It's wrong to starve a disabled, brain-damaged person to death.

Update: It looks like the Florida DCF is serious about investigating those abuse allegations. Judge Greer may rule on this later today.

Worthwhile Reads

In the spirit of Ilyka Damen's Estrogen Week, here are a few blog posts I've read lately that I think are really excellent. And they just so happen to be written by those scarce, hard-to-find female bloggers:

• Ambra Nykol - The Call to Purity, Part One:

  Curbing enthusiasm requires that some aspect of your own will be put to death. Any pious attitude or ego acquired by those who somehow feel morally superior for remaining abstinent will eventually have the crap beat out of it by the humility necessary to carry out the decision until the end (or rather, the beginning). It ain't easy. The longer you wait, the more humble you become. Just ask A.C. Green; he could write the book.

• Dawn Eden - First-Person Singular:

  A single bases her actions on how they will or won't affect her single, lacking state. She goes to parties based on whether or not there will be new men to meet. She chooses friends who are also single and lacking—again, think Carrie's gang in "Sex and the City"—who will reinforce her own cynicism.

  A singular bases her actions on how they will enable her to be the person whom she believes God wants her to be. She trusts that God has a plan for her and that—assuming she longs to be married—a husband is only part of that plan. Moreover, she trusts that God will provide a husband for her if she follows His will for her life, making the best use of the gifts that He has given her.



• Kathy Shaidle - Gidget vs. Gonzo
  

  In the wake of real suffering, one woman fixes her hair, touches up her lipstick and lands a Fantasy Island gig. Faced with the unbearable prospect of being an intelligent, able bodied white man in the United States of America in the middle of the 20th century, one man dedicates himself to masturbatory small scale violence and irresponsibility.



• Rightwingsparkle - Thanksgiving
  

  What my father taught me most of all is that life is a decision you make. Every day you decide whether you will be happy or not. My dad had nothing but rage fueling him growing up. He could have let that rage ruin it all and he almost did. But that fateful night he decided to turn it all around. He decided to be a wonderful husband, father, friend, and public servant.

  He chose love over hate.

  (Via Beautiful Atrocities.)

William Luse in Touchstone Magazine

William Luse summarizes Terri's situation as it currently stands. He also has an article about the Schiavo case in the March issue of Touchstone Magazine. The article is available online. Here's a brief excerpt:

Here is something I don’t get. If a murderer on death row were found to be suffering his execution by means of starvation—by our withholding from him food and drink—the ensuing uproar would occupy the national headlines and the shouted outrage of the television news until the injustice had been repaired and the warden and his foot soldiers brought to bar and thrown in prison. What would be cruel and unusual punishment for the murderer will be good enough for Terri.

That’s the world we live in now. We agonize over punishing the guilty, while throwing the innocent into Astarte’s fire. And it’s all legal. Where’s Sister Prejean when we need her? Terri Schiavo, being innocent of any crime save possession of a “life not worth living,” lacks star power. She doesn’t draw the crowds. She has no bad-girl swagger. There’s no glamour here, just a dead woman waking.

Now, RTWT.

Terri's stay extended...

...until Friday at 5:00pm. In the meantime, the Florida Department of Children and Families is now intervening. Apparently, they will be investigating the allegations that Terri suffered abuse and evaluating Michael Schiavo's fitness to be her guardian.

Update: More on the abuse allegations and the unreliable nature of PVS diagnoses.

Petition for President Bush

Sunnye has brought this petition for President Bush to pardon Terri Schiavo to my attention. I have signed it. Please do the same.

Temporary Stay for Terri

Terri Schiavo's starvation did not begin yesterday. Judge Greer issued a stay until 5:00pm today. Terri's family is hopeful.

Sadly, what may happen to Terri has happened to others before. Life Matters posts about a few of those cases. There is also the case of the Downs Syndrome baby who was starved to death over twenty years ago. This is the subject of Steve Taylor's song "Baby Doe". You know, I don't even remember hearing about these incidents when they occurred. I was in my teens when they took place, so maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

I'm paying attention now. God forgive me for not paying attention before.

What can be done? Send emails to help spread the word. Write Governor Jeb Bush. Support this ad. And pray.

No Stay for Terri

Unless someone (Governor Bush, for instance) steps in, Terri Schiavo will be denied food and water starting at 1:00pm today. That's less than 12 hours from the time of this post.

What can be done?

Please pray. Write Governor Jeb Bush. Make a pledge for this ad. If you live in Florida, write your representatives and ask them to support HB 701. (And if they are a sponsor/co-sponsor of this bill, write them and thank them.)

Also, join BlogsforTerri and help to get the truth out there.

An urgent reminder for my fellow Floridians...

Email or call your state representatives and ask them to support HB 701. This law will help Terri Schiavo and others like her. Here's why:

We have very little time left. As you read through this bill, realize this will protect the incapacitated. Hearsay and casual conversation will not be enough to starve and dehydrate a person to death in this state if this passes. Protecting the vulnerable, the brain injured, the elderly, those with disabilities will benefit from this bill.

John Bambenek has more on this bill and links to an analysis that explains why this is a better law than Terri's Law.

Update: John Bambenek also links to a petition that Floridians should sign. This petition asks Florida representatives to not support bills HB 523 and SB 988. The petition has a goal of 50,000 signatures. Mine is number 108, so a lot more are needed.

Telling the Truth about Terri Schiavo's Condition

When I have argued with people about this case, one tremendous obstacle is the overwhelming amount of misinformation there is about Terri's situation. They think she is brain dead...that she's a vegetable or a "slab of meat". They say, "Well, I wouldn't want to live like that." In saying this, they should keep a couple of things in mind. First, just because you wouldn't want to live like that doesn't give you the right to decide that starving someone else to death is okay. Secondly, if there is even a shred of hope for Terri at all, shouldn't she be given a chance? I sure am glad Sarah Scantlin was given a chance.

This is not a situation where Terri is brain dead and is on a machine that forces her heart to beat and her lungs to take in air. She is disabled, not brain dead. All she needs to live is food and water. She actually tries to communicate, so she is aware of her surroundings.

The mainstream media will continue to spread ignorance about Terri's condition. One of the important things blogs can do is to combat that ignorance and make sure the truth gets out. Many people have changed their minds about this case once they realize that Terri is not brain dead and is not on artificial life support -- "pulling the plug" is not an issue here.

Some refuse to change their minds even after being told the truth about Terri's condition. Trying to get through to these people is about as productive as hurling yourself against a brick wall. They are true believers in the virtues of euthanasia and/or they are prejudiced against the disabled and the less-than-perfect.

Many say to Terri's parents and those who believe she has a right to live, "Let her go!" Again, this is an ignorant statement. She is not dying. Since when does letting someone go entail starving and dehydrating them to death?

When people actually think that starving a disabled person to death is a merciful and compassionate thing to do, you can see how pervasive the Culture of Death really is.

Don't Throw Rocks at Rock

NRO's Dorinda Bordlee says comedian Chris Rock's recent remarks about abortion being "beautiful" demostrate the power of political satire to reveal an uncomfortable truth:

So here we are, five years into the new millennium, and a comedian has the nerve to say out loud what men across America know full well: that legalized abortion is great for their sex lives; that abortion on demand makes women into sex objects with the full consent of the highest court in the land; and that if their sexual use of a woman results in the unfortunate side effect of a pregnancy, then $300 and their "kindhearted" support of the woman's "right to choose" will take care of the problem.

(Via Relapsed Catholic.)

Terri Schiavo Items for the Day

• Pro-Life Blogs announces the launch of BlogsforTerri.
• Attention fellow Floridians! BlogsforTerri has a legislative call to action regarding HB 701. This bill will help Terri and others like her. Write your representatives ASAP and encourage them to support this bill.
• Paul Deignan of Info Theory has proposed an experiment: a pledge drive for Terri. Read what he has to say and make a pledge if you feel moved to do so.

Terri Schiavo Event in Front of Woodside Hospice

Hyscience was there and has an initial report. Also from the same post, this interesting item: Did you know that Michael Schiavo's lawyer George Felos was once Chairman of the Board of Directors of the hospice where Terri now resides? Looking at the copies of the annual reports confirms this.

Why isn't this conflict of interest getting more media attention?

Revisiting the Schiavo Case

As you have probably heard, Terri Schiavo's life is once again in peril. Once again she faces the possibility of being starved and dehydrated to death.

I have posted about Terri Schiavo quite a bit in the past. I have argued with those who disagree with me about this on other sites. One thing I found very disturbing and disheartening was that otherwise decent and compassionate people could actually argue in favor of withholding food and water from Terri. I know they think they are being compassionate and merciful. They think she is no longer aware of anything, that she's a vegetable, so it doesn't matter if she starves and dehydrates to death.

An argument people often make in defense of killing Terri (or "letting her go" as they euphemistically put it) is that her parents are in denial -- that they simply can't face that their daughter is already gone. But I for one am glad that her parents and siblings are standing by her -- because of stories like this.

I have decided that when it comes to this case, I'm not going to spend time arguing with people on other sites anymore. The reason for this is that it's frustrating and fruitless. I just get angry and strident. I have a feeling I may have even lost some internet friends over this.

For the latest on Terri's situation, check out the following:

• Terri's Fight
• Times Against Humanity
• Thrown Back
• Hyscience (Link found via Dean's World.)

Also, Dean's World is posting about differing views in the Schiavo case, and La Shawn Barber encourages the blog world to get involved.

Note: I have joined the Blogroll for Terri and have included it on the sidebar.

How my week has been...

Well, on Wednesday night, the hard drive on my 11-month-old Mac iBook crashed. Or at least I'm pretty sure that's what's wrong with the thing. I can't even run the disk repair utility, and the hard drive makes a funny noise. At least it's still under warranty, but this is disappointing. I've always been really careful with the iBook...I've never dropped it or anything like that. It doesn't even leave my house. I use it mainly for browsing the internet away from my main PC, playing DVDs and listening to music. I have everything I need on the hard drive backed up elsewhere except for a bunch of songs I ripped from my own CDs into iTunes. My entire iTunes library is on my iPod, but I think you have to get a third-party utility to upload music from an iPod into iTunes. Tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can find someplace here locally that fixes Apple computers.

Also, after getting over the head cold that turned into bronchitis, I am now getting sick yet again. This feels more flu-like than cold-like.

Other than all this, I'm doing okay...

The Purpose of the Military

Discoshaman posts about the controversy surrounding recent remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis. CAIR (of course) is calling on the Pentagon to discipline him.

What is the purpose of the military? Discoshaman reminds us of the answer to that question. It's an answer that makes some people very uncomfortable:

Part of the soldier's job is to kill people, and to do so with a certain amount of enthusiasm and initiative. There's a large segment of the American people who would like to forget what the military is for. As my Sergeant-Major used to explain, it's to "Kill people and break things." It is not, as the Namby-Pamby Caucus would like to believe, the world's most elite airborne soup kitchen.

In a New York Post opinion piece, Ralph Peters puts it this way:

We've come to a sad state when a Marine who has risked his life repeatedly to keep our country safe can't speak his mind, while any professor who wants to blame America for 9/11 is defended by legions of free-speech advocates. If a man like Mattis hasn't earned the right to say what he really believes, who has?

Had Gen. Mattis collapsed in tears and begged for pity for the torments war inflicted on him, the media would have adored him. Instead, he spoke as Marines and soldiers do in the headquarters tent or the barracks, on the battlefield or among comrades. And young journalists who never faced anything more dangerous than a drunken night in Tijuana tried to create a scandal.

Finally, I am reminded of what C.S. Lewis said about this general subject in Mere Christianity:

When soldiers came to St. John the Baptist asking what to do, he never remotely suggested that they ought to leave the army: nor did Christ when He met a Roman sergeant-major -- what they called a centurion. The idea of the knight -- the Christian in arms for the defence of a good cause -- is one of the great Christian ideas. War is a dreadful thing, and I can respect an honest pacifist, though I think he is entirely mistaken. What I cannot understand is this sort of semi-pacifism you get nowadays which gives people the idea that though you have to fight, you ought to do it with a long face as if you were ashamed of it. It is that feeling that robs lots of magnificent young Christians in the Services of something they have a right to, something which is the natural accompaniment of courage -- a kind of gaiety and wholeheartedness.

Update: Amen to this!

On Islamofascists and Inked Fingers

Previously on this blog, I defended the use of the word "Islamofascism" to describe the goals of the radical Islamists. Goals such as those outlined in this interview with Islamist Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad. And there are even more examples in this post on Wahhabism over at Dean's World.

Now, more on this subject...Both James Joyner and C.D. Harris respond to this Guardian piece that complains about the growing usage of the word "Islamofascism" while regretting that the word "fascist" can't be used convincingly against the Bush Administration.

Joyner comments on the term "Islamofascism":

While it's not a term I use -- I prefer the more established "Islamists" -- "Islamo-fascist" is not used merely to describe a set of ideas with which, presumably, virtually all Americans disagree. Rather, it describes the political credo that motivates a terrorist movement and its sympathizers. The facist label is used because the fascsist ideology, like Islamism, required an absolute fealty to a dogma issued by a central leadership, a totalitarian worship of that idea, and terroristic violence to kill or intimidate the opposition.

Then Joyner comments on the absurdity of attempting to hang the "fascist" label on Republicans:

Amazingly, in an article attempting to persuade readers that the use of incendiary labels applied to mass murderers should be avoided, the author expresses his disappointment that the attempt to tar a democratically elected leader with a similar label isn't sticking. Norm Geras correctly notes that even Trotsky was able to "cut through the kind of sorry and dangerous claptrap that minimizes or altogether eliminates the differences between democratic polities and the openly undemocratic, and murderous, movements that are intent on destroying them."

Albert Scardino in the Guardian piece says:

Nazism is better known for its death camps than for Leni Riefenstahl or the Reichstag fire, so analogies between the Nazis' early years and current Republican party behaviour seem hollow, no matter how strong some parallels might be.

To which Harris responds:

Naturally, he fails to mention that the American filmmaker most aptly compared to Riefenstahl is none other than Guardian poster child Michael Moore. Nor does he supply any actual examples of Republican behaviour that analogize to the Reichstag fire or other episodes in the rise of National Socialism in Germany. Well, none that correspond with reality, anyway.

Joyner also looks at liberal talk-show host Janeane Garofalo's ridiculous attempt to equate the inked fingers showing solidarity with the Iraqi voters with a "Nazi salute".

Click for larger view.

Yes, the resemblance is uncanny. [/sarcasm]

New Default Skin!

I have created a new default skin for this site and have switched over to it. It has a lilac/lavender color scheme and features a photo I took of one of my own roses last spring. It's the same rose featured in the photo in this post, but from a different shot. While it was a more up-close photo of the rose, I didn't consider it to be a good shot because it was off-center and the very top of the rose was cut off. However, it was perfect for me to use to make a new layout for my site.

The new skin is called "LilacRose Default" and is on the dropdown list on the sidebar. It is also the very first entry in the gallery. Or, you can switch to it by just clicking here.

If you prefer the old default layout, it is still available in the gallery. It's just no longer the default.

Update (2/7/05): I just discovered today that the link to change to the new skin was messed up on the gallery page. Sorry about that...it's fixed now. Another problem...I noticed that when using the new skin, the gallery pages are sometimes "cut off" at the bottom when using Mozilla Firefox. When I attempted to fix this, the skin ended up not working properly in IE. So, if the gallery page doesn't display correctly, just do a refresh and it should load correctly. I'll have to try and figure out some sort of fix.

Portrait of a Comment Spammer

The Register interviews one of the people responsible for posting spam in blog comments:

Sam's code gets hundreds of open proxies to obediently spam blogs and other sites with the messages he wants posted. They usually target comments to old posts, so they won't show up to people reading the latest ones, though search engine spiders will spot them and index them. And here's the surprising thing: link spamming is not outsourced. These people do it on their own behalf. (Does this mean it's an immature business? Reg readers please advise.)

Here's why. When Sam spams tons of blogs and sites with links to his sites - which are affiliates of bigger PPC sites - people see the links and, seeking some porn, pills or casino action, click through to his site, and from there to the parent site, which pays Sam for each person landing there. The PPC sites can see revenues of £100,000 to £200,000 per month, says Sam. He gets a slice of that - and he wants it to stay that way.

Of course, now it's not just comments that are targeted -- it's trackbacks, too. (Incidentally, I don't recall ever getting any trackback spam attempts until today. MT-Blacklist blocked over 200 of them today alone.)

Will the initiative by Google, Yahoo and MSN, to honour "don't follow" links defeat Sam and his ilk? "I don't think it'll have much effect in the short, medium or long term. The search engines caused the problem" - we didn't quite follow this bit of logic, but Sam continued - "and they're doing this to placate the community. It won't work because most blogs and forms are set up with the best intentions, but when people find hard graft has to go into it they're left to rot. To use this, they'll all have to be updated. The majority won't be. And there'll just be trackback spamming."

By this Sam means spammers setting up their own blogs, and referencing posts on zillions of blogs, which will then incestuously point back to the spammer, whose profile is thus raised.

Is there anything that can stop the spammers (or at least make their work harder)?

So what does put a link spammer off? It's those trusty friends, captchas - test humans are meant to be able to do but computers can't, like reading distorted images of letters. "Even user authentication can be automated." (Unix's curl command is so wonderfully flexible.)

"The hardest form to spam is that which requires manual authentication such as captchas. Or those where you have to reply to an email, click on a link in it; though that can be automated too. Those where you have to register and click on links, they're hard as well. And if you change the folder names where things usually reside, that's a challenge, because you just gather lists of installations' folder names."

This guy makes a lot of money doing this and thinks it's fun. It's perfectly legal and he has no moral qualms about using what amounts to other people's property to advertise junk.

(Via Bene Diction.)