"All I ask of dying is to go naturally, yes, I want to go naturally...Here come the devil, right behind..."
Blood, Sweat & Tears
"Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new, sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!"
Charles Alexander Eastman(Ohiyesa), Santee Sioux
MUCH has already been said regarding the Schiavo affair. By now, every home in America has discussed this nonsense ad nasuem, and a dramatic spike in the Living Wills business should soon follow. I've avoided writing about this for several days now, partly to see how things unfolded and partly because of a severe writer's block that developed somewhere between the President's strange press conference and the events of Sunday night, as the House of Representatives debated the Schiavo legislation.
But there is no escape from a week that shall go down as one of the most bizarre in these early months of Bush's Second Coming...
Sweet Jesus Fuck...My first religious analogy...Easter is bringing strange vibrations and this is clearly the remnant of a guilty Catholic conscience, which lapsed long ago and is now afflicted with the onset of severe dimentia...
Events unfolded quickly and only the most naive among us would chalk it up to mere coincidence that Tom Delay attached himself to Terri Schiavo's paralytic rictus like some viscious, nasty canker sore, during the same week that saw increasing pressure, from both Democrats and Republicans, regarding the Majority Leader's ethical woes. It was a quick diversion, a sleight of hand, but in all honesty nothing really new...This is standard fare for the neo-conservative menace. And Delay was firing up the Smear Machine early on St. Patrick's Day, ready to paint Democrats, with names that sound very similar to Boxer and Feinstein, as death-mongers and barbaric.
Only when they announced late Saturday night that the President would return early to D.C. from Crawford did it hit - this entire mess was developing into a certified three-ring circus, and by mid-week the Nation would be so burn-out on all this talk that Congress may have to call another emergency session to hold a second St. Patrick's Day, just so this horrible business could be drowned in a sea of hoppes and barley, in a necessary ritual of drunken self-abuse to exorcise the nasty demons who have hitched along for this trip.
Delay's initial press conference was disturbing and I could only stomach it for a few moments before I was fast out the door and on the road for cigarettes, solid food and good drink. I rolled into the neighborhood Z-Mart, a small convenience store operated by a man and women, husband and wife, who imigrated from Pakistan and are constantly subject to xenophobic insults and generally derision from the surrounding conservative community. They are openly Hindu, but often mistaken for Muslims, and the local Christian community decided that these godless heathens needed a stearn and constant reminder of their heresy; so, a massive billboard was erected, right next to the gas pumps, proclaiming Jesus Christ with one of those Biblical quotes which i just offensive to the intellect. They know me as "Dean," because of my vocal support for the Good Doctor in '03 and '04, and I'm fairly certain I brought them into the fold. But like many, when Dean finally withdrew from the primaries, I released a long sigh and pledged to stand with Kerry...an inevitable decision that left me feeling empty. Kerry never connected with his audience like Dean could, who invoked passion and concern, and this may go along way to explain the disastrous events of November 2nd.
But I hadn't come for political talk today. Just a pack of Marlboro's and a beverage. Convenience Stores are renown for the quality of their edibles, so I resorted to cheap junk food for sustenance until the real deal could be acquired. Besides, this all gave me time to digest Delay's antics, and a rare break from the widening spyre of Madness which would envelop the entire Capitol by mid-day Palm Sunday.
I hopped back in the car and put on some music, a bootleg from the Dead's "Wave that Flag" tour last year, when the perennial hippie's decided to up the ante and start registering voters at their shows. Sleep Time Ampitheater, Sacramento...heavy shit, solid jams, long interludes...not for the faint of heart, but the seasoned, well-rounded Dead efficianado...highlighted by a rousing cover of Zepplin's Over the Hills and Far Away", which made it all too clear that the company of a gypsy soul this weekend was preferable to the the nonsense instigated by the Republicans...You've got the Love I need...And just as they were heading into the first jam of the song, the cheap, manufacturer CD player overheated and began skipping, a common feature in factory installed players...So, I turned on the radio, not really knowing now what I was looking for, and began the deliberat, out-of-the-way drive home...
There's not much for good Talk Radio in general, and the problem in Pittsburgh seems symptomatic to the epidemic which long ago swept the Nation. There are two "talk" stations - FM's 104.7 and the legendary KDKA 50,000 Watt monster, which broadcasts to 38 states, the American Somoas and dark corners on Mars. KDKA has a fairly conservative line-up, anchored by Bill O'Reilly at noon, local demogogue and recently stomach-stapled Fred Honzberger at three, and an assortment of moderates, conservatives and liberals to fill in the down times. Mike Romei and Chris Moore are the "liberals," but Romei is on late and usually discussing UFO's or talking to the Angel Ladies, and Moore is on weekends and frequently subject to blackouts due to Pittsburgh's perennial losers, the Pirates, who barely pass as a Major League team these days and would be better off junking the whole thing, except PNC Park is a magnificent park and the City still owes more than a few payments before the beast is in the black again. Otherwise, one can pick up Air America radio - out of Cincinnati. But only after six in the evening and until twelve-thirty in the morning, when programming swithches to the local Black Baptist Church. More than a few long rides home at night were soothed by their Gospel singing and glossalia and shouts of "Amen, Allelujah...Preach on, brother." Perhaps my attitude toward religion would alter significantly if my formative years were spent in a House of Worship other than the monstrous, medieval legacy that is the Catholic Church or if I had, at least, understood the Priest when he justified purchasing Italian-crafted Nativity sculptures, at $10,000 a pop, forsaking the poor as inevitable and a constant reality - There will always be poor people, he said, but these finely crafted, hand-painted Rocks are for the Glory of God!
Channel 104.7 is far more disturbing than KDKA's line-up and much more violently toward the Right on everything from Sunday Bake Sales to Homeschooling. If one doesn't care for Bill O'Reilly, they can switch over to Rush, followed by Sean Hannity, that lunatic Michael Savage, and a host of other shameless self-promoters and media whores. I should admit that I have a strange habit of turn on Right wing radio just for provocation. Usually, there is enough lunacy in the first five minutes of any of their shows to drive a sane person to drink. But I've never considered myself well-balanced and spent the better half of last year's election laughing, yelling and ranting at Savage's voice through the speaker. However, it is getting harder and harder to be a freak these days. The monsters coming out of the shadows on the Right are far more bizarre and craven than I could ever hope to achieve in my quest to subvert the paradigm, buck the establishment and screw the status quo...These are twisted individuals, like crack addicts armed and loosed upon a town of unsuspecting Den mothers and children.
WELL, well...off on a wild tangent. I've drifted seriously from the topic at hand and at some point this was all leading somewhere...Ah, yes...Terri Schiavo...talk radio...political shamelessness of a magnitude unmatched in recent years...
Fred Honzberger was hammering hard at Michael Schiavo, the poor husband who I have nothing but extreme sympathy for, and generating conversation that was borderline slanderous, loaded with inneundo and assumption, basic gossip rubbage one would expect to hear at a laundry mat or bridge table populated by old Church Crows and ne'er-do-wells. Fred freely floated his opinion, which has been running around Conservative rumor mills, that Michael Schiavo is simply attempting to silence his wife by pulling her feeding tube, for fear that his wife may one day arise and reveal the truth behind the viscious hit and subsequent violence which actually caused Terri's present predicament. No evidence, no facts, just pure bullshit. And if I was Michael Schiavo, I would be on the phone to my attorney arranging for every low-life, scumsucking Right wing fucker who repeated these baseless claims, to feel the heavy crush of a Slander lawsuit. I would make these goofy bastards twist in the wind and then send them all up for chemical castration to avoid the further procreation of their ilk...but Michael comes off as a genuinely anguished individual, ready to bring an end to this nightmare which has lasted seven years in the courts, involved nineteen judges, the Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme court, District Court and enough Medical Professionals to lineup from West Chester to Tallahassee.
No, Michael is a better man than me, for I would make these backwoods, Bible-beating, Evolutionary rejects crawl right back up in the fucking Tree, and not dare come back down until they had mastered the prehensil thumb and shown some sign of basic humanity. And now that I think about it, there's not much difference between the Right and monkey's at a zoo or in the Wild, except to say that your average Chimp or Bonobo is slightly less crude and a bit more educated than your everyday Conservative Yahoo fuckhead...both involve aerial fecal matter and endless jacking-off, which is essentially what this entire Schiavo thing is quickly devolving into - one gigantic Nazi circle jerk, exploding onto the scene with enough skullduggery, disinformation and unprincipled behavior to sicken Goebbels, Walter Winchell and a shameless self-idolator like Barry Bonds, all in one fell swoop...the Marquis de Sade was never so twisted, even in his most depraved fantasies, as the current Festival of Crap being staged by the Republican Party right now. Ivan the Terrible had more sympathy than this ratshit-sack of goons running the Nation...I would even expect better from that craven anti-hero of the French Revolution, Robespierre, and his Cult of the Supreme Being, who oversaw the slaughter of a thousand innocents a week during the Reign of Terror and eventually ran amok on the whims of his own ego before facing his own brutally, violent demise.
And here we are talking about the fate of this poor woman and her ultimate demise. It was evident from Fred, and a majority of his callers, local neo-con, fundamentalist swine crawling out from every rock, nook and cranny to toss in their two scents, that the people - the Right to Lifers - who have hijacked this poor soul, are utterly oblivious to the numerous EEG's, brainscans and medical tests, all showing that the cavity which once housed her Cerebrum was now filled with Spinal Fluid, a result of Atrophy and Oxygen Deprivation resulting in the eventual liquidation of her Cognitive organs.
THIRTY minutes was all I could endure of this nonsense. I wanted to get home quickly, call my friend Jeff in Kutztown who had been imbibing since 7:30 AM, in hopes of salvaging some portion of the Holiest of Holies, before the gothic imagery of Easter Week descended upon me like an Ephedrine head rush knocked up a few volts by whiskey, herbs and lack of sleep. Jeff was in need of heavy drink. He is getting married in November and expecting a child in June or July. Do the math...the poor bastard still hasn't told his parents about the pregnancy, the revelation of which will no doubt knock them to the ground. Jeff's father is a prominent superintendent in Western Pennsylvania, and his mother is known for crushing the spirits of any goodhearted lad with a icy glare and fiery tongue...but half a state away and with a gut full of alcoholic gospel, Jeff was safe from the realities of that confrontation. With no significant problems on that scale, the worst I could drink away was the growing annoyance brought on by Delay and the Rightwing Talk show Faeries...the boozehounds were nipping at my heels and by mid-evening it was evident that this subject needed set aside and dealt with later - after celebration, a ritual clearing of the mind and a good night's sleep...which finally began somewhere around seven on Friday morning.
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The next few days moved fast and before you could slap an ethical violation on Tom Delay, the Senate had approved the measure unanimously on a voice vote, Bush was on his way back from Crawford and the House would take up the bill on Sunday evening. By this point, severly twisted vibrations were coming from Washington, and the Right wing was quickly moving to seal the deal and complete the total manipulation of this politically contrived event.
When Bob Schindler was asked about his response to the eventual passage in the House, he said that he had told Terri and she smiled at him, "so help me God." But little did that man know or want to know, that not even Jesus Christ incarnate, at this point, could undue the severe and irreparable damage to Terri's brain. This was the infamous "smiling," paralytic rictus mistaken by the parents and others as a conscious, voluntary act. They showed Terri "following" a balloon, yet deceptively panned the camera down far enough so that only Terri's face was on screen, a single shot, her eyes darting uncotrollably and without intention, and the balloon neatly out of frame, creating the illusion that she had Ocular muscle control, something Doctors have testified she absolutely does not possess and an easy indication that her Cognitive functions was no more.
I've tried to figure out Bob and Mary Schindler, and the only conclusion I can reach, at this point, is that they are the same sort of people who see Mary on screen doors and Jesus in a tray of ice cubes. Strangely enough, it just came across the wire that some nut in Indiana has spotted Satan on the back of a turtle's shell at his pet shop, I shit you not...Anyway, both Mary and Bob state that they have no idea to the nature of their daughter's wishes, but that THEY want her alive because it's what THEY want. Bob testified in the first trial that he was angered he did not receive any money from Terri's mishap, and both he and his wife have done everything they could to destroy Michael - accusing him of neglect, abuse, saying he never entered her into rehab or anything...But Michael has a different take and says that his wife was in Rehab for three years.
Michael had his wife in and out of rehab for the first few years...St. Petersburg,Fl, Mediplex in Bradenton. He even flew out to California to meet with a specialist, who was experimenting with stimulators placed in the Brain, but the Doctor even believed that this was unlikely to render Terri anew.
Michael has been threatened with death and forced to move from his home, which is not uncommon when dealing with the sort of folks who go around blowing up Abortion clinics and killing Doctors in the name of Jesus, harass poor mothers on their way to the clinic with a wall of venomous, religous intolerance and shouts of "Whore," "Slut," "Sinner." But depsite all of this, Michael has become an Emergency Room nurse, inspired by his experience with his Wife.
When Michael turned down the Schindler's offer of $700,000, he offered to turn the remainder of Terri's estate - $50,000 - over to charity. But the Schindler's balked and continued in their efforts to perpetuate the frail, inhuman shell that was once their beloved daughtwe. And one can certainly understand their plea - to a point. Afterall, they are behaving instinctually, trying to protect their daughter. I almost believed that one, and maybe it was true at some point, but serious questions are being raised as to where Bob and Mary Schindler scraped together $700,000. And the involvement of Right to Lifers, who have infused the Schindler's with money, raises serious doubts to the legitimacy of those who hope to save Terri, so that she can spend the rest of her days in a bed, unaware, nonexistent, with her immediate family bounding around her believing that her wandering eyes are looking at them or her guttaral moans are some attempt at forming speech.
But none of this is true; it's medically impossible. It is not, however, unlikely for PVS's - Persistent Vegetative State - to smile, move their limbs and make noises, as the air rolls across their vocal cords from the involuntary relaxation of the respiratory system before the equally involuntary contractions draw another breath.
Gibbs, the lawyer for the Schindler's, is muttering on Larry King, a rebroadcast episode from last Fall, about how her death could result in the genocide of useless retards, the bedridden and terminally ill...Good fucking God...this is how these people think. Some nut on Matt Drudge is screaming about how they'll come after the mentally handicapped individual he watches...Have they wandered this far off the Reservation?...and that is exaclty the kind of invitation that called upon the Right to Lifers to involve themselves in all of this, which has fueled Bob & Mary's sideshow protest, involved the Governor Florida, the Majority leader in the House and the President.
George: Jeb, it's your brother...
Jeb: Oh...yeah. What's up?
George: Hey, I just wanted to thank you for milking this thing along. I mean, I'm knee-deep and the Democrats are kicking my ass on Social Security. My own Party's starting to despise me and some are saying that I'll set back the Conservative Cause all the way to the Scopes Monkey trial...goddamn Activists Judges...
Jeb: Yeah...ok...sure thing. Look, I wasn't looking so hot myself. But with Terri, and you letting me visit those heathens smacked around by the Tsunami's...
George: Hehe...Yeah, I'm gonna slap my saddlebags on this pony and ride it all the way through Good Friday and Easter...Karl says the timing couldn't be better; just another indication the Good Lord's on OUR side.
Jeb: Right. Hey, fuck that husband. I didn't even bother talking to him...just the Parents. They're our kind of folk. Hell, the state House and Legislature didn't even review any of the evidence. It's the most shameless thing I've ever done, next to rigging Florida for you in 2000, but it's my springboard...
George: I'll keep the seat warm for you, little brother.
IT is strange indeed that a man known for executing just about everything he could as Governor of Texas prefers to "err on the side of life." And it did come at an excellent time, so maybe God is on their side, in which case, my doubts about the Almighty seem healthy and substantiated. His mid-week Press Conference was a disaster, but he's clearly reached a point where he no longer cares about mispronunciations, broken sentences and a condescending attitude which would have seen me smacked out of every classroom between Kindergarten and the Twelfth grade, if I'd been so boorish and brazen to exhibit such a ferocious characteristic in public. But he's the President...and they can do whatever the hell they want...
So, he would fly home early, missing the jovialty of the Sunday Special Session, but just in time to sign the bill and send the case on to Judicial Review. A grand instance of Judiciary Activism if I ever saw one...just keep ramming it through until the ideaologically correct ruling is achieved.
Not much stands out from the Special Session. Most Democrats bothered not to show up, wanting nothing to do with this vote. And for good reason...I would bet good money that every Democrat who voted "no" and finds themselves in a close race next year, will see a few ads run decrying them as death-mongers, starving the braindead and terrorist sympathizers.
Most notable, on the Democratic side, was Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), the veteran Civil Rights activist, and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), a licensed psychologist, who warned his fellow Republicans, at least those carrying medical licenses, that they could quite possibly be violating their state regulations by offering a diagnosis without examination. McDermott and Lewis also saw the ploy for what it was - a diversion, a cheap trick, a wedge issue to divide the country and gear up the Right wing fringe for the 2006 election cycle. For Lewis, who has been beaten, bruised and accosted in his fight for Civil Rights, it was "a sad night in the House of Representatives."
Indeed.
A number of Republicans who spoke were doctors. But with the recent track record of GOP doctors, I have advised all of my friends and relatives to ask their doctors' about their political affiliation. No one needs to bother with some bumpkin who believes AIDS is transmitted through tears or that masturbation causes pregnancy or abortion leads to cancer. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if every one of those conservative hack fuckers - who spoke to the vitality of Terri Schiavo without one of them ever examining her, the closest being Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), a doctor and sponsor of the legislation, who viewed Terri via videotape and stated that by his defintion, she was not in a vegetative state - was a card carrying member of the Flat Earth Society. Everything they uttered went against medical science and reason, which is not surprising coming from a Party that hoisted Ketchup up as a Vegetable and reveres Ronald Reagan as an honorable, decent man. I hear Bill Frist never met a leech he didn't like and feels every now and then a good blood-letting cleanses the soul. Perhaps this is the Compassionate Conservatie hooha sweeping across Iraq, like the Spirit of the Lord descending upon Egypt with locusts and plagues and Rivers of Blood to cleanse the unwashed Egyptian rabble.
It should surprise no one that this passed. It is tragic, however, that arguments against it were largely dismissed with sentimentality, bullshit and shameless political spin. What new, awful precedent has been set with this - an individualized bill for a specific case only. Hell, had they sent up a bill gauranteeing that all do-not-resuscitate orders would receive Federal Review, it would be a goddamn law and these baseless fuckers would have a leg to stand on.
Democrats who voted "yes" no doubt understood almost instantly that this would be used against them in some way if they voted against. Let's hope those who voted "no" are a little more certain of their re-election next year. But count on seeing this mess emerge again next year, as you listen about some poor sop being beaten over the head, in a hotly contested race, with a Terri Schiavo-shaped cinder block...Whack, whack, whack...Just ask Max Cleland and Tom Daschle what these viscious little Conservative ass-creeps are capable of doing.
Not a single, self-prosyletizing, creepy muckraker the Republicans trotted out onto the House floor last night has ever spoken with Michael Schiavo, a man who only hopes to fulfull a promise to his wife and bring this long, sordid tale to a conclusion...of course, that all depends on the Federal Review currently underway...who knows what strange twists and turns remain on this trip? But the Republican Party has shown its true colors and they will all attend Easter sevices this weekend like the good Christians they play on TV.
Enough of this wicked talk...I've said more than I originally intended and probably haven't covered much ground not already dismissed by the Media and the Right to Lifers and the shameless political slime which controls the Republican Party and takes it's marching orders direct from the Shithead...er, Turdblossom...in charge.
Suffice it to say that 2005 is quickly turning into one strange fucking year...and there are still nine months to go...a war with no end, a Social Security plan on life support and a nation shifting dangerously under the keen watch of John Birch-types and other macabre spectres crawling forth from the depths of the GOP's engorged bowels, fat on the juicy exploitation of a women incapable of speaking for herself and held hostage by those whose shame knows no limits.
