"All I ask of dying is to go naturally, yes, I want to go naturally...Here come the devil, right behind..."
- Laura Nyro, performed by 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.
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The interview on Larry King with Michael Schiavo must have gone completely wrong by the time I tuned in at 12:30, catching the second run. Michael was no longer answering Viewer questions, and from the few that I heard, I wouldn't have either.
People calling from Georgia and Oklahoma, asking why the hell it took so long, eight years, for him to suddenly decide this was Terri's wish. Even some baboon, who managed to operate the phone, called in from that great Northern bastion of Reason, the last stand of the Enlightenment in the Northwestern Hemisphere, Ontario, Canada to ask this same idiotic question. It was apparent that those who have come to view Michael as some viscious brute, perpetuating some fraud to hide the truth, had grown so blind from the whirlwind of nasty rumors and terrible innuendos about Michael that they could not possibly conceive of the man actually spending eight years taking his wife to rehab, turning her over in her bed, caring for her on a daily basis, until at last, confronted with overwhelming evidence that his beloved wife had departed long, long ago, Michael let go.
And, oh...the President, already back on the SS campaign trail. Preparing a screwjob the likes of which have not been seen since...well, hell...the Enron scandal was just this sort of screwing. But now...he's the man who flew in just to save Terri Schiavo...why wouldn't you trust him to fix Social Security? Nevermind the execution of a mentally disabled individual or the fact that White Supremacists still drag African Americans behind pick-up trucks for Sport and Recreation in the great state of Texas...sure, that was a while ago but the blood still boils from watching the events of the last week and a half.
Tom Delay even had the nerve to use Religious metaphor as he called for the Vote last night...what a sick twisted, perverted fucker...He's the Ringmaster of the D.C. leg of the Bob & Mary Schindler Show. It's a great diversion, and the Republican base eats this up. It's raw meat...bloody and sinewy. And these depraved bastards love it...almost as much fun as chucking a Molotov Cocktail at an abortion clinic or running down inner city youth with your SUV or kicking a bum...Remember, Screw the Poor. Vote Republican!. Which actually brings up an interesting facet to this Schiavo mess. Namely, the legitimate question as to the whereabouts of Republicans on other Life & Death issues - the Iraq War, Poverty, Veterans Benefits. At least the Pope preaches the Seamless Garment - these daffy Amerikan Vermin love lethal injection, chemical castration and public execution. Personally, it'd be chemical castration for the lot of the Republican Leadership - there's no need to repeat those doomed DNA sequences; scrap the blueprints and dissolve their testicles with a lethal dose - it's completely humane and something done to hundreds and hundreds of Dog's everyday...Perhaps Bob Parker, for the right fee, can be persuaded to end every show with, "Remember folks, please make sure to have your Republican Congressmen or Senator spayed or neutered. Until next time...The Price is Right."
What the hell? Perhaps that's too cruel...this whole Schiavo scene just produces violent imagery. Fuck...the poor women's being raped from every angle - the Media loves it, Tom Delay loves it, George W. Bush loves it, the Right to Lifers love it - and now every dimwit, dipshit and twit between Wheeling and Mobile is jamming the phone lines to offer their two cents or a routine Michael Schiavo-bashing they pulled from the Right Wing Smear Machine...something in the manner of the psychotic episode which passed for the Matt Drudge Radio program last night. Matt was being clever and decided to run a tape of Terri talking, while the voices of Representatives could be heard as the debated the Bill on the House floor. The whole display was perverse, in a bad way, and I was immediately disgusted with the sudden realization that Matt Drudge collects a paycheck every week. Not only could Matt not vouch for the authenticity of the tape, he didn't care either. But a simple notion like genuine or legit is too passe' for the hip, fast-moving Narcoleptic, post-mortem sex Freak-type, the kind one finds hosting Conservative Talk Shows, legally identified as Matt Drudge and Sean Hannity and the lot of Media Whores who pass themselves off as subjective journalists, while tearing down a Media Legend, Dan Rather, in the Twilight Years over forged documents that are currently speculated and rumored to have come from within the Bush Camp...official production of the Grand High Shithead...er, Turdblossom. Of course, that's hearsay and the last thing I would ever do is lie or exaggerate to a Republican, unless I was trying to sneak into a Bush Rally in order to stir up the mud...
AS if enough shit hasn't already floated to the top from the strange political thrashing-about that Tom Delay first started last Thursday. And how wonderful it was to hear that my boy, Rick Santorum, was making sure he was front 'n center on this one. A friend, who shall remain nameless but is a member of the Homosexual community in Pennsylvania, swears to me that the Gay & Lesbian crowd here has honored Senator Rick by naming something after him - I won't discuss the details here, only to say that Santorum is a by-product of intercourse and lube. It should be a hoot watching Rick run around Pennsylvania next year trying to out Pro-life Bob Casey, Jr. It will also be interesting, once the schmuck's figured out he's going down in flames, to see Rick rip a fellow Pro-lifer to pieces in a last, all-out kamikaze effort to win and hold on to his fading hopes of making it all the way to the Oval Office.
However, should this country every elect Rick Santorum President, I will be establishing a quick shuttle service back and forth across the Canadian border. I'll try to get everyone out that I can, but you fuckers are on your own once the heavy shit comes down under a Santorum Administration...not that it can get much worse. If you've managed to survive Bush this long, your strong-willed and your love of country is well noted. Because if you haven't run away after four years of this, like 5500 soldiers AWOL into the Great White North, you're either a sadistic, perverted motherfucker or ready to oppose these miserable bastards for FOUR MORE YEARS...
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AS Governor of Texas, we now know, George W. Bush signed into Texas Law the infamous Mengalian Futile Care Act somewhere around 1999, which permitted hospitals to intervene in the care of a patient against the family's wishes. Truthfully, this is just the sort of thing we should be terrified of our Government doing. It speaks volumes to the Psychotic Mess who currently occupies the White House, and underlies a fundamental issue in the Schiavo Case. It reveals that He, the Big Chief, has not only used government to stomp all over the tragedies of private citizens, but surrounds himself with the Sort who use Mob Rule to seize the Legislatures in an effort to provoke government intervention in order to prevent government intervention, all the while, all parties involved in this gross display of Human Excrement, promote themselves as the sort of people who are adamantly opposed to such beastly behavior, with Proclamations such as the classic "Cold, Dead Fingers" gun-nut mentality or the neo-cons who imagined a world in which liberated Iraqi's laid roses at the feet of good Christian Soldiers, marching into a conquered Babylon in imagery eerily familiar to their Unique and Militarized interpretations of Christ the King as he strode before a subdued populace upon Palm leaves, transfixed by the authority of imperial dogma. (For those now cursing me as an ungodly heathen, I must admit that one of my fondest memories as a child is the smell of the Palm branches we collected each Palm Sunday, and later placed behind the Crucifixes that hung on the walls of the ancestral manse. It was a dry, rich odor, the mix of Benedictions and crisp leaves.)
And with all this religious imagery crashing down around us during Holy Week, it's no wonder W flew in on the Midnight Special from Crawford like a Dry Drunk maniac desperate for political resurrection after several serious weeks of a vicious ass-kicking over Social Security - and he had not even seen the beginning of the response from the Fucked Off geriatrics over at the AARP, who just so happen to remember a thing or two about stomping fascists and sticking it to the likes of the Wall Street/Neo-con types.
Bush quickly infused his Traveling Social Security Salvation Show with high-minded diatribes on the Schiavo Matter, expressing his desire to err on the side of life, which was a completely absurd notion after the revelations about Texas and whispers spreading across the Web faster than Conservative media hacks spread their syphilitic rancor, involving words like "baby" and "pulling the plug" in the same sentence and "unable to pay" or "despite the wishes of the family." But these were just the rants of depraved lefty bloggers, after Midnight types, the sort of Devil worshiping Commie Filth that John Wayne ranted about and upon which the careers of men like Nixon and Joe McCarthy built their careers, actor types and food service workers...Democrats and other social libertarians.
Of course, none of that is either here or there, and it's about as relevant and dubious as Bush's bizarre attempt to associate his role in the Terri Schiavo Nightmare with his fix for Social Security, which even he admits won't solve anything and the GAO confirms will only hasten the problem. Yet onward Christian Soldier...I suspect Bush hopes to use the issue to stimulate the American people's non-existent confidence in his ability to handle Social Security...Like Lazarus, I have brought her back from the clutches of Death. And I will save Social Security, too. Alleluia...for YOU and ME and future generations. And those of you who are 55 and older, have no need to fear. By the time your Social Security payments dry up, I will already have signed legislation permitting hospitals to euthanize your wrinkled ass the moment the first check bounces...
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All Day the television has shown the now familiar images of Terri Schiavo in her hospital bed. A man calls out six, seven times..."Open your eyes, Open your eyes.."'' But there is no immediate response beyond the obvious uncontrollable rolling of the eyes and after the last try the voice on camera seems to give up. Then, after a lengthy pause, Mrs. Schiavo's eyes open - but not because of any direct stimulus or suggestion. They do not even open completely, not even half way, just enough that someone overcome by grief and in the grips of serious political exploitation might see the suggestion of what was desired. She does not maintain a gaze. The eyes are just rolling from left to right, occasionally up and down...The voice says that one eye is askew, farther out than the other. Perhaps the result of muscular degeneration, but that's speculation and there's most definitely too much of that going on. Besides, I'm no medical doctor and could no sooner diagnose my Great Dane, let alone an organism as complex as a human being.
Good Lord...3:30 AM already...and I start a new job at 7:30. A part time cooking gig to bide my time but mostly to pay the bills. I detest the food industry and advise everyone to learn to cook for themselves. Until you've worked next to a man battling a severe onset of Scurvy, who also happens to cook food daily for several hundred people, you will not understand for serious examination and prior knowledge relating to the hygiene of those doomed souls mangling your food with their cross-contaminated, unwashed paws. I thought about bringing him fresh Citrus but was too revolted by the presence of the massive green build-up which covered most of the surface of his incisors and canines, also victims of serious decay and degeneration. But a person could make serious money as a health inspector, and supplement that income with fat bribes to hide holes in the wall, black mold in the basement and the raw chicken dripping onto the already processed foods...No matter what you decide, avoid the Shellfish at all costs...especially the Mussels. Unless I deveined a shrimp myself or took the modest risk of frozen Mussels, I would not ingest half of what passes for Fine Dining.
Mussels arrive about as fresh as the droppings being left behind by the Delay-Bush-Schindler Dog & Pony Show, recently departed from Florida and making the rounds in Washington, after a successful run in the Senate and a rousing encore in the House.
The Schindler's Home Movies are as equally disturbing as seeing the Zapruder Film or security camera footage of the Columbine Massacre or images out of Baghdad. Perhaps the only thing worse is the realization that Bob and Mary Schindler will go to their graves believing their daughter was smiling at them, when she was not, or speaking to them in groans interpreted as words. They are simply unable to let go of their daughter - understandably. But nothing usually good ever comes from obstructing the natural course of things...and for all those who bemoan starvation, it is a part of the process as the bodily systems shut down and there is no longer a need to acquire calories, proteins and nutrients. Left without even the ability to feel pain, Terri's passing from this life will in no way bear any resemblance to the fearsome fever dream depriving the Schindler's and their entourage, family and GOP creeps, of Reason and Compassion.
The videos shown by the Schindlers are edited and only show those moments when it seems Terri is responding. But even those are suspicious and nearly any interpretation could be contrived to explain her steadily darting eyes upon a spot inspection...a person could see whatever they wanted, easily presuming that the eye contact they made, when her eyes just happened to shift into their gaze or in their direction, was deliberate and mutual. Or that when asked to say something like "mama", the air flowing across the vocal cords and over the tongue sounded like..."Was that Maa...Baaah? C'mon...MA-MA...there, there...that was definitely a Gaa-aah"... This is something very difficult for the Right to Lifers to understand; they have a basic failure to understand the Science and Medicine, if they don't simply outright resent it.
Our old Schnauzer, which lived to the remarkable age of 18, had a strange reaction to the word, "mama." When one approached him and spoke this word, he barked in response and one could swear the little bastard was mimicking your "mama" with his own Schnauzer "rah-rah, rah-rahrrr-rrr." It was a curious auditory hallucination, like hearing horns on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass when there were no horns playing...but there they were blaring along with My Sweet Lord and you, curled up in a corner of the room, too gripped by the FEAR to leave your room for the next thirteen hours, fearing your brother has already called the Feds or worse, your parents, and cursing the rat-bastard who sold you the bad Sugar cubes from the back of his vintage Mystery Machine...
So, either the Schindler's are zonked out on Acid or some other psychoactive substance, or completely deranged as a result of an overbearing religious indoctrination or overwhelmed by the grief of losing their daughter and desperately clinging to someone who they were just not ready to say good-bye to. Take your pick...in George W. Bush's America; Reality and Truth are up for grabs.
The truth is surprisingly relative. And easily manipulated when it is kept in the family. Rig an election, pass off your shameless political exploitation to your brother, hire on all of Daddy's friends, take care of the Corporations and Saudi business interests, set fire to Iraqi oil wells and hold back production, so American companies can jack up the price and smash the pristine Arctic Wildlife Refuge and every Polar Bear, Caribou and Beaver - not to forget everyone who happens to drive a car and from the looks of things, automobiles have caught on...never mind it will only yield six months of oil once we begin extracting it a decade after we start drilling. Not that I'm suggesting our government would hold up Iraqi oil production...merely theorizing, brainstorming, an exercise in stream of consciousness...But the scene in Washington these days is enough to make a person dizzy and quickly send them reeling to the ground with a violent rush of blood to the head. And after several days of all of this, I am admittedly lightheaded and fatigued and ready for a well deserved break.
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"There is no happy ending."
- Michael Schiavo
After thirty hours of a persistent sleepless cycle, I finally collapsed and was able to put this terrible fever dream behind me. It was around 2:45 AM when News broke that the Appeals court had denied the Schindler's request to reinsert their daughter's feeding tube. Earlier in the day, the Federal Judge, forced by the actions taken in what has become known in Washington Circles as the Palm Sunday Compromise, ruled against Bob & Mary. It initially seemed the whole thing had come all the way around, just missing the last exit toward some sort of conclusion and running right back to where all this started and where it has been hanging, in limbo, for the past six years.
News came over that Bob & Mary Schiavo were once again pleading with legislators to once again intervene on behalf of their daughter...But after a few brutal days of this and the early rumblings of serious blowback directed toward Republicans, Legislators seemed uninterested in forcing anything. Of course, as we've all learned, Bob & Mary have testified that they were not doing this on behalf of their daughter, but for their own sake - they wanted this for Terri because it's what they wanted. At this point, let me admit that I'm no longer certain which part of this Sad Saga is more tragic and depressing - the wife, the husband or the in-laws. Michael seems to have suffered heavily from the tactics of those who fought against him, who spread innuendo & rumor like Gospel Truth...Sweet fuck...let's hope that's the last of this wretched religious symbolism. Holy Week is an extraordinarily dull period for those who have unleashed the chains of Organized Theology, which is a lot like organized crime only that the Shakedown is much more polite and sublte, generally ended with a simple "Amen," and relying heavily upon the Guilt Centers of the Brain...But it's time to get this mother of a story back on track...
AND that's not hard, considering the Schiavo case is still dominating the 24/7 news cycle, pushing the Minnesota school slayings to the second spot in the rotation. It is a terrible bummer, that savagery in Minnesto, and it seems there is still much for us to learn with regards to preventing these senseless school massacres. In a related story, a man in Indiana, PA was gunned down by Police after a telephone tip alerted authorities that the man was carrying a weapon...After the police asked the man to put down his weapon and his subsequent refusal, they opened fire...killing him before learning that the weapon was nothing more than a pellet gun, an air pistol. But these are trying times and its no wonder America is strung out from Sea to Shining Sea and the once fertile Waves of Grain seem in danger of turning fallow...like a Colossal heroine junkie indebted to the Red Chinese and shunned by half the Globe...
By now, it seems apparent most folks are coming down on Michael's side, not that there are any sides or, at least, in a more civilized world there wouldn't be. Even more than a few Good Christians feel Congress seriously overstepped its boundries. But little obstructs these Right to Exploit Terri Schiavo types; they have a strong stomach for the dirty work of force-feeding the Nation it's Agenda, but they've gone so far as to reject the ultimate conclusion of Life - Death. I suppose most don't like to hear that starvation is natural in the cours of Death - but it is sadly. Perhaps the only thing to grateful for may be the fact that Terri Schiavo is not here, like your or I, to see this terribly degenerate Dog & Pony Show - to see herself exploited and involuntarily thrust into the middle of a political sideshow or see her husband trashed by the Right Wing or her parents, passing day-to-day, seeing things that aren't there...No, Terri Schiavo has already departed...and maybe, just maybe, Thank God for that...
ON the Friday before Palm Sunday, Tom Delay declared to the Religious Right that God had delivered them Terri Schiavo. He also reminded them that he had been very good to the Rapture Crowd, and expected them to return the favor by standing behind their Guy amidst the gathering threat of an indictment in Texas and stewing ethics violations. In the advent of Jeff Gannon, it's uncertain what Conservatives mean when they say they will get behind their Man. But what was made very evident by the Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame incident is that one way or another, when you cross paths with the Neo-con cabal, expect to get screwed by some sinister, blood-sucking pervert who just might go by Bob Novak or Bill Kristol or Tom Delay...Are name is Legion and we are many...And just when you think the violent rape is finished and sooner than Albert Gonzalez can toss you on top of his Human Pyramid, Karl Rove, and the rest of this Nazi Brain trust, will drag your brutalized and bruised self across the coals just before finishing you out back like the climax of some savage Snuff Film.
How much blood is on their miserable hands? Fifteen hundred U.S. soldiers...100,000 dead Iraqi women & children...not to mention scores of maimed, wounded and mentally scarred young American men and women...and all the Death orders he's signed as Governor of Texas...
And Tom Delay is more concerned about the Liberal Syndicate seeking to stop the Conservative Menace. He babbled something about how all of this is Lyndon Johnson's fault and how terrible it was that the Liberals had finally figured out how to stomp a Conservative. But after realizing "Hot Tub" Tom had no problem putting his manipulative scheme to exploit Terri Schiavo right out in the open, like his bizarre pronouncement of God's Deliverance, it was obvious Delay was suffering from the onset of Syphilus and Hysterical Blindness would soon follow. Like the most twisted among the Faith-based Crowd, Delay is most likely counting down the days until Terri's , at his home in Laredo, praying that this will be an especially good, and prophetic, Good Friday...afterall, this is for the Base and the reports of Terri's detiorating condition no doubt swelled the flaccid members of more than a dozen GOP Congressmen and a number of their Apocalyptic Constituents. Delay needs the Base...to pull his fire out of the flames. But it's unlikely he'll escape this one without severe burns and a horribly disfigured reputation as a shameless political hack and general bottom-feeder.
And the President is unlikely to pick up any moment from this with regards to Social Security. Six months from now he will still be flailing about the country screaming about Social Security and the need to address the oncoming crisis...but Americans remember a thing or two about gathering threats and nipping them in the bud...and they do not trust the Almighty to lay his hands anywhere near this one. So, it's unclear what this was really ever about, other than a depraved diversion, a quick smoke-screen to back the Opposition into a corner and begin laying the foundations for the next wedge issue - the Right to Life Agenda. But so long as men like Delay and Santorum and Bush are behind the controls of the GOP Monster, perhaps there is less to fear as these Baboons slowly self-destruct with the increasing frequency of their political missteps...Of course, I'd never advise anyone to give these CREEPS any slack or turn my back on one, for fear of feeling the rusty thrust of a home-made shiv as it pierced my kidney and the wretched Bastards left me for Dead.
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Jeff eventually called me back, but I wasn't around to answer. And after a week of this heavy shit I had little patience for people. Bob & Mary Schindler would appeal to the Supreme Court but it seemed apparent that the steam was running dry, and the Justices were just as likely to repeat the same decision they made before. Even Florida legislators could be seen hiding behind corners and ducking into bathrooms, jumping in front of Charter buses and thrusting themselves into the waiting jaws of the Everglades, when Bob & Mary asked them to intervene again. The Right Wing Smear factory was still cranking out munitions, but I wasn't even modestly interested in listening to Fred Honzberger trot out a psychiatrist who claimed Michael Sciavo fit the profile of an abusive husband. Fred put down O'Reilly and made an Oxycontin crack toward Limbaugh, and I quickly assessed this as an effort by Pittsburgh's Neo-con Mouthpiece to distance himself from the others, figuring Fred's brain was under unbelievable pressure, literally, from the Cognitive burden of towing the Republican agenda and in danger of exploding all over the booth, getting in the dials and equalizers and the Six O'Clock Sports Guy's microphone...but Fred will probably never change. And there's an odd sort of comfort knowing that the Right in this country never really changes - just the names and faces and occasionally a battle to sink to the depths of the Political bottom dwellers.
But there is a sense that the Villagers have beaten the Monsters back into the Night and Shadows and Howling Winds...this time, for who knows what these Brutes have in store and what schemes lay in wait for the '06 elections, hidden deep in labyrinthine catacombs and the vestibules of the Damned. Surer than stink on a skunk, the Republican Party, approaching shakey ground next year and treading dangerously close to a Florida-sized sink hole, is cracking the whip hard across the backs of the Dirty Tricks brigades in an all-out quest to silence the Huddled Masses and Citizen Horde rising up in opposition to their draconian policies.
As the Winter finally gives way to Spring in Pennsylvania, here's to the Resurrection of the Trees and the Flowers and the Land and the renewal of the Soul...The long, slow thaw following the last few flurried outbursts of February and March...that goddamn Hog-weasel in Punxatawny was only off a few weeks - again - yet his most devoted followers, numbering several thousand, arrived as early as 1 or 2 AM for a ritual of Polka, Pork by-products and mass consumption of Alcohol in the chilly Appalachian morning...a Dyonisian Festival for a prognosticating Ground Hog, complete with a substantial marketing gimmick involving t-shirts, hot-pants, plush toys and prophylactics...
But, alas,the Muse is out on a Smoke and Beer run and there are Midnight Hours to Burn...
