Scribblings

Terri Schiavo and decreasing the "surplus population"

Terri Schiavo has passed, God rest her soul.

After the Supreme Court rejected the case for like the 6th time, I began praying for her to die quickly. She hung in right to the end. The doctors predicted it would take up to 14 days for her to die and it did.

I don't want to get into a debate over whether or not she wanted to die and whether or not someone in a persistent vegetative state can recover and whether it's any way to spend the rest of your life. Starvation is a cruel way to die no matter what anyone says about it.

Many times husbands and wives confide in each other and say what they do or don't want but they don't put it into writing. I think it's got to be in writing because there is a possibility of abuse. I read a column by J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times that I found chilling:

After Terri Schiavo, who will the culture-of-death vultures circle? A hint. Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist whose medical opinion was key to a Florida judge ordering Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, was on TV this week candidly admitting he doesn't believe Alzheimer's patients have constitutional rights.

So first it's people like Terri, then the Alzheimer's sufferers, then perhaps end-stage cancer victims, and so forth.

Why not? Who would want to live like that? Are they not burdens?

Charles Dickens captured it when he had Scrooge confront the do-gooders who wanted to save the helpless, deemed worthless to Victorian England.

"If they had rather die they had better do it and decrease the surplus population."

Read the whole column here.

QOTD

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Bay Shore, on the south shore of Long Island. My parents lived in a cottage across the street from my grandparents. I remember my early years were pretty happy because I had my grandma so close by. Everyone in town knew me and I knew them. When I was about 8, we moved a few miles away and that was a big adjustment but it was okay. The really traumatic move came when I was 10 and we moved to Baltimore, MD.

How would you convince someone from the 15th century that the world is round?

I wouldn't try. Who wants to be beheaded? Now, if someone from that century was transported here then it would be easier because of all the technology we have. That is, if the visitor didn't get scared to death first from the extreme culture shock ...

Thursday Threesome

Onesome: Hot Dogs--Spring picnics and cookouts are coming! Is it hot dogs or hamburgers you want to have on your plate as you head back to the table?

Cheese burgers with the works! I'll eat hot dogs if there is nothing else.

Twosome: and-- ...and what else is on that plate that you just cannot be without as you work your way through the crowd? Potato salad? One of those huge pickles? Come on, there has to be something !

I would help myself to potato salad, cole slaw, green salad, pickles, ketchup, and maybe onions

Threesome: French Fries-- ...and the real toughie: do you have to have "fries with that'? ...or will chips do well enough for you. Just curious...

At a barbecue, I'd rather have the chips. At a fast food place, I must have my fries!