The Original Musings

Not to mention absolutes and assumptions

When did we lose the ability to disagree with one another without assuming the worst? When did we decide that anyone with an opposing viewpoint must automatically be the enemy? When did it come about that reasoned dissent is the sign of a character flaw?

As we approached the 2004 elections, I became aware that disagreement with certain people was resulting in the literal loss of friendships. I was shocked by this, because I’ve never turned my back on a friend over a difference in political or religious beliefs, and I never expected any true friends to do it to me. The first few times it happened, I wrote it off to “they weren’t *real* friends.”

But it kept happening. Even though my positions had not changed in any way, I was suddenly being branded with my views. I wasn’t just Kate, their friend who disagreed with them on God, politics, the military or the role of the government … suddenly I was Kate, their enemy. I was one of “them” and not to be trusted or really even tolerated, because I was wrong and apparently wrong was now beyond redemption. Tolerance was what I owed them, not something I was worthy of receiving.

In the intervening years, I have seen more and more friends fall by the wayside; people I would have cheerfully walked thru hell on Sunday in barefeet to help were turning away because they didn’t like my beliefs. I began refraining from expressing my opinions and I literally walked away from conversations rather than cause people I considered friends to feel uncomfortable. I even quit putting bumper stickers on my car or political signs in my yard so as not to offend or upset. I confined my opinions to online, reasoning that if they came to my pages to see what I had to say then they were “asking for it” and had no right to complain about what they found.

I didn’t ask anyone to stop feeling the way they felt. I didn’t say they were wrong and shouldn’t be allowed to breathe. I didn’t suggest that their opinions meant they were rotten people or that they deserved to be shot. I didn’t censor them or remove their commentary if they disagreed with me.

Yet time and time again, I am not given the same courtesy. I disagree with something Obama says and I’m a racist who can’t stand the thought of having a black president. I disagree with illegal immigrants and I’m a nazi, because we’re a nation of immigrants and I’m trying to deny others the same rights my forebears were given. I support a state exercising their right — as a state — to say “we don’t want legalized abortions except when necessary to preserve the life of the mother” and I’m trying to foist my beliefs on others and deny them their “constitutional right” to have an abortion. I say I respect the right of a family to save the life of their “vegetable” daughter and I’m accused of having no sympathy for her “right to die with dignity.” I say I have no problem with domestic partnerships or civil unions and that gay couples should be afforded the same rights as a married couple but that the actual institution of marriage should remain one man/one woman and I’m a hater. I disagree with unions and I’m wanting to stick it to the working man, deny him his right to a safe job at a livable wage, take away all his benefits and toss him and his family out in the streets.

If I dare post my dissenting views on their pages and my comments aren’t removed entirely, they’re discounted and ridiculed. Remember the old debate rule of “attack the idea and not the person?” Hah! That apparently doesn’t apply these days.

It doesn’t matter how sound my arguments are — most of them will be ignored and dismissed anyhow — and it doesn’t matter if I have stacks of data to support my position and reams of data to question theirs. It’s getting to the point where a person isn’t allowed to have any opinion that steps outside the pack. If you’re not one of the sheep, you must keep that to yourself, because otherwise you’re some kind of Trouble with a capital “t.”

I want to know when this happened, because this is not the America I grew up in.

Passed away Saturday, 29 August

Robert Schindler Sr. passed away on Saturday at the age of 71. Mr. Schindler died of apparent heart failure.

From left: Suzanne Vitadamo, Bobby Schindler Jr., Mary Schindler, Robert Schindler, Sr.

Mr. Schindler was born on October 23, 1937 and is survived by his wife Mary, and two of his children, Suzanne Vitadamo and Robert Schindler, Jr. He was preceded in death by his daughter Terri Schinder (Schiavo), who died on March 31, 2005 from a court-ordered (at the behest of her husband, who wanted to get on with his life) withdrawal of nutrition and hydration. The Schindlers fought tirelessly to try to stop their daughter’s death, believing it was court-ordered murder. Their efforts failed.

Following Terri’s death, the family began advocating for other medically dependent and disabled patients facing similar circumstances through the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. In 2007, the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund honored the Schindler family with the Proudly Pro-Life Award for their dedication and public witness to the cause of life. “In life, Bob, and his wife Mary, never sought the spotlight. They only wished to care for their beloved daughter, Terri. Through their selfless dedication to Terri, they showed the nation and the world what it means when someone says they are ‘pro-life’,” said David N. O’Steen, Ph.D., National Right to Life Executive Director.

A public funeral mass for Mr. Schindler will be held Friday, September 4 in Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, 611 Knowles Ave., Southampton, PA. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to noon followed by Mass at noon. The family will hold a private burial service immediately following mass at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Philadelphia, PA.
Visitation, Mass and interment will be closed to members of the media.

The family is also planning a memorial service in Florida where the Schindlers lived for many years. Details of the Florida memorial service have not yet been made public.

In lieu of flowers, the Schindler family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation to help protect people with cognitive brain injuries. The address is: The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, 5562 Central Avenue, Suite 2, St. Petersburg, FL 33707.

Maybe God’s not ready for Haleigh to come home just yet

Back at the beginning of December, I wrote about a little girl named Haleigh Poutre.

Blogging right now is sporadic, for reasons obvious to any regular readers, so this is partly “old” news (last week’s) but part of it just happened on Thursday of this week.

Anyhow, about Haleigh Poutre. Haleigh, who is 11-years old, had been beaten nearly to death with a baseball bat by her stepfather, Jason Strickland and her adoptive mother, Holli Strickland, who was also Haleigh’s biological aunt. Relatives who learned about the beating intervened and on September 11, they took her to the hospital. Two days later, her stepfather and adoptive mother were charged with abuse. About two weeks after the couple was charged, Holli was found dead beside her grandmother, in an apparent murder-suicide.

The Department of Social Services had been called to check on Haleigh multiple times over the years, but always came away convinced that Haleigh’s injuries were either normal childhood mishaps or self-inflicted — which is part of Jason Strickland’s current defense: he didn’t injure Haleigh, she did it to herself.

When Haleigh was taken to the hospital in September, her teeth were broken, her face was swollen, her chest had old and new burns. She was extremely thin, her abdomen was sunken, she had cuts and sores, and her temperature was 81 degrees. But the most severe injury was in Haleigh’s brain: Her brain stem was partly sheared, leaving her in what doctors declared a permanent vegetative state.

Multiple doctors agreed that Haleigh was brain dead, and that life support should be removed. The Department of Social Services had petitioned the court for the right to remove Haleigh’s ventilator. They won the right in October. A “do not resuscitate” order was put in place, but before life support could be removed, Jason Strickland’s attorney won a temporary stay.

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Sure as hell ain’t the “Love Boat” either

Michael Schiavo’s lead attorney during the legal battle to end his wife’s life will be heading up a “euthanasia cruise” during the first week of January. For a fee ranging from $350 to $625, participants in the five-day Caribbean cruise will get to hear George Felos leading a program called “Advanced Directives/End-of-Life Care and Neurology.”

James Barnhill, a physician and longtime partner with Felos in advocating euthanasia, will assist in leading the courses. In 1998, Barnhill saw Terri for 10 minutes and told Judge George Greer that she had no chance of recovery. Despite that claim later being refuted by multiple doctors and experts on caring for incapacitated patients, Greer accepted Barnhill’s prognosis.

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He’s had it so rough

Saint Michael Schiavo gave his first public comments since the murder of his wife back in March.

“I never, in my entire life, thought I would be thrown into such a national debate…. All I wanted to do was carry out my wife’s wishes.”

Translation: I never, for a moment, thought that anyone besides her family and a couple of those meddling nurses would give a shit if I offed her. It blows me away, man.

Wiping away tears, Schiavo described his last moments with his wife, Terri, who died in March after a dramatic court battle to remove her feeding tube.

“Terri didn’t die an awful death,” he said. As she died, “I laid a red rose in her hand and said goodbye.”

Translation: I prayed like hell that nobody would manage to get a last minute order to stop me — or indict me. I should have done the job right 15 years ago and none of this would have ever happened. Her death, though, that was a thing of beauty. I felt at peace, finally. The rose was a nice touch, don’t you think?

Schiavo, in recounting his 15-year ordeal, said he refused for years to believe his wife was in a permanent vegetative state after she suffered brain damage when her heart stopped in 1990.

When doctors told him in that first year that she would never recover, he said, “I told them they were wrong. I was going to bring my wife home and we were going to get on with our lives.” It was only after years of futile effort to revive her that he decided to end her treatment. He said that’s what she would have wanted.

Translation: I played it to the hilt, got all the money I could and then set about getting on with the rest of my life. And if those damned parents of hers hadn’t been so relentless, no one would have ever heard the name ‘Terri Schiavo’ outside of Florida.

Schiavo came to the Twin Cities to speak at a conference honoring Dr. Ronald Cranford, a Minneapolis neurologist who was a medical advisor to him during Terri Schiavo’s case.

“I just wanted to thank Dr. Cranford for your help. You gave me a lot of encouragement. You gave me the power to be the person I am right now.” His address was met by a standing ovation from the more than 200 people in attendance.

Translation: I just wanted to thank you for giving me the validity I needed to persuade the right people that this was an act of mercy and not cold-blooded murder. Without you, I’d still be trying to finish the job. And thank you, death worshippers, for that standing ovation. It means a lot.

Here’s a (final?) slap in the face for you

This one was sent to me by a friend. I hadn’t yet seen it. I’m glad she sent it, because if she’d written and said “oh, did you hear [this]?” I’d have laughed at her and said “uh huh, and I’m being nominated for Sainthood next month” or something equally pithy.

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And uses Terri’s headstone to make a statement

Opened my email a few minutes ago and found a note from a friend with a link to this story over on MSNBC. I’ve been so busy this week, I had entirely missed this one.

Michael Schiavo was under court order requiring him to let Terri’s family know when and where her memorial service would be held and where her ashes were to be interred. He did, finally. He faxed them on Monday, after the fact. Not only did the sanctimonious prick wait until after the fact to notify her family, he used her headstone to make a few statements — and get a few jabs in at her family. In doing so, he exposes himself even more for the cold-hearted hypocrite that he is.

• SCHIAVO … without any mention of Terri’s maiden name. I’ve seen markers both ways, but in my experience, they usually also list the maiden name on a married woman’s gravestone.
• BELOVED WIFE … how about beloved daughter and sister also? That IS customary for anyone who dies and it’s flat out snotty to leave it off.
• DEPARTED THIS EARTH FEBRUARY 25, 1990 … really? If that’s the case, then what was that 1992 lawsuit and money for Terri’s care all about?
• AT PEACE MARCH 31, 2005 … if she was truly brain dead all those years, she was already at peace, hypocrite. That was put there purely to spite her family.
• I KEPT MY PROMISE … which promise is that Michael? Certainly not the one you made when you married her. Certainly not the one you made in 1992 when you said (and I quote) “I believe in the vows that I took with my wife. Through sickness, in health, for richer or poorer. I married my wife because I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m going to do that.” We won’t even mention how tasteless it was for him to use Terri’s headstone. That’s supposed to hold her epitaph, not his statement.

After reading about this latest stunt, a friend of mine who has argued with me since day one over this case, said “All right, that’s just low. He really is a callous prick, isn’t he?” Sure is, isn’t he?

Sure hope the next Mrs. Schiavo has a living will. And that it’s on file with someone reliable.

Irreversible Brain Damage

As expected, Terri’s autopsy results revealed nothing of true consequence, other than that Terri died from marked dehydration.

Unanswered questions abound:

She wasn’t abused in the weeks leading up to her death — he can’t say for certain whether or not she was in the 15 years before then as nurses alleged.

Was she abused by Michael before her collapse? No way to tell for sure, but from the reports he’s seen he doesn’t think so.

He said she had been given no drugs or poison to hasten her death — but can’t say whether or not she was given any drugs or poison in preceding years.

He said her brain was “profoundly atrophied” and that no amount of therapy could have reversed her brain damage — but he can’t say when it atrophied and if the original therapy had been continued, whether or not it would have made a difference.

He stated that the original diagnosis of builimia nervosa was suspect and that the autopsy cast doubt on claims that Terri had suffered from an eating disorder. If not builimia, what caused her collapse? No way to tell.

Broken bones could have been caused by osteoporosis. They could have been caused by abusive treatment too, but no one can say for sure now.

One thing he can say for sure:

But without removal of the feeding tube, and if conditions such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections — common in bed-ridden patients — were treated, Terri Schiavo could have lived another decade, Thogmartin estimated.

And that’s what we were saying all along — she’s not terminally ill, and since her parents wanted to take care of her, they should have been permitted to do so.

“Their report shows what we have said — that Terri was not terminal,” said the Schindlers’ attorney, David Gibbs. “Terri Schiavo was not in an end-of-life situation. The decision was made to end her life, and we believe it was done in a barbaric manner.”

To my way of thinking, the autopsy has proven nothing more than that Terri didn’t have to die when she did — and shouldn’t have had to die the way she did. [CNN Reuters FOX]

Was Terri strangled?

I’m astounded by an article I’ve just read, which states that doctors (note the plural) have publicly stated that Terri’s original admission and hospitalization records completely ruled out heart attack and pointed to strangulation as the cause of her condition.

Also according to the article:

Although the police report taken Feb. 25, 1990, by the St. Petersburg Police Department indicates that the incident should be routed to the homicide division, it was not and no criminal investigation of the matter has ever been conducted.

They’re urging a grand jury be impaneled, and the evidence presented.

If this is all true (and it’s not hitting FOX or CNN yet, so who knows?), I certainly hope someone’s going to freaking do something about it. Like bring the murderer up on charges.