Schiavo World
Well, the autopsy results are in, and I suppose anyone that is interested is up to speed on the Schiavo family’s view of the autopsy report.
They dispute the findings.
What is it that makes these people disbelieve the medical professionals that performed the autopsy? Why is it they cannot accept the fact that hard science refutes every one of their allegations?
Will they ever realize that their ‘beliefs’ are just that; beliefs?
Why do they despise Michael Schiavo the way they do?
“Regardless of the autopsy findings, the Schindlers continue to believe their daughter was not in a persistent vegetative state, their lawyer, David Gibbs III, said after Thogmartin's report. He said they plan to discuss the autopsy with other medical experts and may take some unspecified legal action.”
What legal action are they going to take?
“The medical examiner's conclusions countered a videotape released by the Schindlers of Terri Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile, moaning and laughing. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.”
“They believed her condition could improve with therapy.”
“However, doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness, and Thogmartin's report went further.”
"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he said. "This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."
That last statement alone is the slam dunk I would think the Schindlers would accept.
Let’s look at what the White House had to say about this:
“In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that the autopsy results did not change the president's position on her case.
"Our thoughts and prayers remain with her family and friends," McClellan said. "The president was deeply saddened by this case."
Perhaps the Presidents involvement has embolden the Schindlers and has bolstered their ‘faith’ in a ‘miracle’ and a total ignoring of the medical facts supported by a team of medical professionals. Heck, it must be right if the Preznit of the Yoonited States flew across the country to sign a bill just for this one person.
More from the Schindler family:
"We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life."
Let me rewrite this one:
“We knew all along Terri had become a carrot,” said Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler. “We simply wanted to bring the carrot home away from the greenhouse where it could get any and all of the attention a carrot would need and do it ourselves. We don’t really give a damn about the carrots true caretaker or his personal suffering. It all goes back to this quality of life that we could provide for the carrot because we have absolutely no carrot training or knowledge about carrots but we have faith in god or something like that and besides the Preznit is a man of faith and he signed a bill giving us hope that the carrot could regenerate most of itself even though the greenhouse professionals said that was an impossibility.”
I can see that.
The same type of reasoning supports the Preznit and his war against Iraq. The facts are showing us one thing, but some still choose to believe the ‘facts’ that were fabricated by BushCo. and those are the same ones that believe the WMD’s that Saddam possessed were ferried over to Syria by Al Qaeda, or something to that effect.
I really want to respect the views and beliefs of others, especially in the area of religion. How can one go about accepting the beliefs of others when those beliefs lead to such destruction of life and limb in the case of war, and the emotional strain that is dragged on unnecessarily in the face of hard proven medical science?
This is a hard thing to say, but I will spout my view about religion with the same fire and brimstone style that the believers like to use in selling their side of the story.
Even as a young child I thought that the Baptist church I was forced to go to was full of fairy tales. The stories we were told came straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, only the characters are a bit different.
To sum it up: Terri Schiavo was going to get better is on par with Mary being a virgin.
Umm…sorry…NO.
I think religion is here because we needed something to explain why the sun was shining prior to our evolving in to more intelligent beings and could indeed figure out why the sun does shine.
We use to think we were the center of the universe and the sun and stars revolved around us. We used to think the world was flat before we figured out it was round. We used to think that the whole complete person was inside the womb until we figured out how a sperm fertilizes the egg and forms a blastocyst that implants on the uterine wall and becomes an embryo through cell division.
In the history of man, religion is used to control man, to wage wars, to force people to believe or submit to the status quo or else face the consequences. Most religions hold women as a lesser or submissive being to the male of the species. That attitude still permeates our society at almost every level. Salem witch trials anyone?
I think it’s just not acceptable to most people that when you die that’s it. There is no afterlife, no place where we all hang out and sip tea and pontificate about what righteous lives we led cuz we’re in heaven and sorry neighbor, if only you would’ve believed you would not be rotting in hell right now. I know you cut the grass for me when I was on vacation, and you took care of the dog, and gave Johnny a ride to practice and we used to barbecue and play horseshoes, but you didn’t believe in god and I did so you rot in hell and I don’t.
Marx alluded that "religion is the opiate of the people." Oh no! I'm quoting Marx! That makes me a socialist commie something or another...
Hey, we all seek spirituality in some form or another. How does that spirituality become a tool that is then used to enforce beliefs or ideas or policies onto others?
This is not an intellectual theological discussion, this is me venting about the Schindlers stupidity that is bolstered by their ‘faith’, and that ‘faith’ being bolstered further by Bush’s stupidity of rushing to sign a bill to prevent a lump of flesh from being laid to rest. And yeah, that’s all she was at that point. Terri was gone and had long been gone before all the faith based theatrics began.
Some have told me to relax, most people that are religious are not fringe lunatics. Tell me how many people involved in the Schiavo case were not fringe lunatics and who they are what their position is in our society. Think about that.
Look at the Vatican and that whole power structure, and the dogma of Catholicism. Are any of those pontiffs and their followers fringe types or are they just normal people going about the daily business of living?
Does religion do a lot of good in the world? That’s very debatable. Some say without missionaries god’s will and work would not spread throughout the world. I say why can’t you help the starving without preaching to them? Why must you impose your religion on someone while giving them a piece of bread? Can you imagine being in a car accident and having the paramedic say religious incantations while trying to sew your body up? How much ‘faith’ would you have in that guy to get it right?
Blind faith. What a wonderful pair of words.
(All quotes came from various AP articles gathered up yesterday.)
They dispute the findings.
What is it that makes these people disbelieve the medical professionals that performed the autopsy? Why is it they cannot accept the fact that hard science refutes every one of their allegations?
Will they ever realize that their ‘beliefs’ are just that; beliefs?
Why do they despise Michael Schiavo the way they do?
“Regardless of the autopsy findings, the Schindlers continue to believe their daughter was not in a persistent vegetative state, their lawyer, David Gibbs III, said after Thogmartin's report. He said they plan to discuss the autopsy with other medical experts and may take some unspecified legal action.”
What legal action are they going to take?
“The medical examiner's conclusions countered a videotape released by the Schindlers of Terri Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile, moaning and laughing. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.”
“They believed her condition could improve with therapy.”
“However, doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness, and Thogmartin's report went further.”
"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he said. "This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."
That last statement alone is the slam dunk I would think the Schindlers would accept.
Let’s look at what the White House had to say about this:
“In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that the autopsy results did not change the president's position on her case.
"Our thoughts and prayers remain with her family and friends," McClellan said. "The president was deeply saddened by this case."
Perhaps the Presidents involvement has embolden the Schindlers and has bolstered their ‘faith’ in a ‘miracle’ and a total ignoring of the medical facts supported by a team of medical professionals. Heck, it must be right if the Preznit of the Yoonited States flew across the country to sign a bill just for this one person.
More from the Schindler family:
"We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life."
Let me rewrite this one:
“We knew all along Terri had become a carrot,” said Schiavo’s brother, Bobby Schindler. “We simply wanted to bring the carrot home away from the greenhouse where it could get any and all of the attention a carrot would need and do it ourselves. We don’t really give a damn about the carrots true caretaker or his personal suffering. It all goes back to this quality of life that we could provide for the carrot because we have absolutely no carrot training or knowledge about carrots but we have faith in god or something like that and besides the Preznit is a man of faith and he signed a bill giving us hope that the carrot could regenerate most of itself even though the greenhouse professionals said that was an impossibility.”
I can see that.
The same type of reasoning supports the Preznit and his war against Iraq. The facts are showing us one thing, but some still choose to believe the ‘facts’ that were fabricated by BushCo. and those are the same ones that believe the WMD’s that Saddam possessed were ferried over to Syria by Al Qaeda, or something to that effect.
I really want to respect the views and beliefs of others, especially in the area of religion. How can one go about accepting the beliefs of others when those beliefs lead to such destruction of life and limb in the case of war, and the emotional strain that is dragged on unnecessarily in the face of hard proven medical science?
This is a hard thing to say, but I will spout my view about religion with the same fire and brimstone style that the believers like to use in selling their side of the story.
Even as a young child I thought that the Baptist church I was forced to go to was full of fairy tales. The stories we were told came straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, only the characters are a bit different.
To sum it up: Terri Schiavo was going to get better is on par with Mary being a virgin.
Umm…sorry…NO.
I think religion is here because we needed something to explain why the sun was shining prior to our evolving in to more intelligent beings and could indeed figure out why the sun does shine.
We use to think we were the center of the universe and the sun and stars revolved around us. We used to think the world was flat before we figured out it was round. We used to think that the whole complete person was inside the womb until we figured out how a sperm fertilizes the egg and forms a blastocyst that implants on the uterine wall and becomes an embryo through cell division.
In the history of man, religion is used to control man, to wage wars, to force people to believe or submit to the status quo or else face the consequences. Most religions hold women as a lesser or submissive being to the male of the species. That attitude still permeates our society at almost every level. Salem witch trials anyone?
I think it’s just not acceptable to most people that when you die that’s it. There is no afterlife, no place where we all hang out and sip tea and pontificate about what righteous lives we led cuz we’re in heaven and sorry neighbor, if only you would’ve believed you would not be rotting in hell right now. I know you cut the grass for me when I was on vacation, and you took care of the dog, and gave Johnny a ride to practice and we used to barbecue and play horseshoes, but you didn’t believe in god and I did so you rot in hell and I don’t.
Marx alluded that "religion is the opiate of the people." Oh no! I'm quoting Marx! That makes me a socialist commie something or another...
Hey, we all seek spirituality in some form or another. How does that spirituality become a tool that is then used to enforce beliefs or ideas or policies onto others?
This is not an intellectual theological discussion, this is me venting about the Schindlers stupidity that is bolstered by their ‘faith’, and that ‘faith’ being bolstered further by Bush’s stupidity of rushing to sign a bill to prevent a lump of flesh from being laid to rest. And yeah, that’s all she was at that point. Terri was gone and had long been gone before all the faith based theatrics began.
Some have told me to relax, most people that are religious are not fringe lunatics. Tell me how many people involved in the Schiavo case were not fringe lunatics and who they are what their position is in our society. Think about that.
Look at the Vatican and that whole power structure, and the dogma of Catholicism. Are any of those pontiffs and their followers fringe types or are they just normal people going about the daily business of living?
Does religion do a lot of good in the world? That’s very debatable. Some say without missionaries god’s will and work would not spread throughout the world. I say why can’t you help the starving without preaching to them? Why must you impose your religion on someone while giving them a piece of bread? Can you imagine being in a car accident and having the paramedic say religious incantations while trying to sew your body up? How much ‘faith’ would you have in that guy to get it right?
Blind faith. What a wonderful pair of words.
(All quotes came from various AP articles gathered up yesterday.)
posted by Redjalapeno at Thursday, June 16, 2005
2 Opinions:
Always glad to read your vents, RJ. As you, I believe in evolution. I think this is pretty well documented in the case of organisms, but the temptation to extend evolution to the social sphere was irresistable. I still remember when E.O. Wilson's "Sociobiology" came out in the 70's and caused a stir.
Consider Bush and Co. as the product of political evolution. He has used melded religion and politics like no one has ever done in the United States. Schaivo's case is just one manifestation of a political force. The fact that he won the election (though the Ohio results are still worrisome) indicates that he is the fittest, at least for a certain type of electoral politics in the early 21st century. The fact that his popularity is plummeting, the disaster in Iraq, the Downing Street Memos, etc. suggests that in the larger arena, his type is an evolutionary dead end. Sort of a dinosaur. Religion and politics mixes in the short run; it is sefl destructive in the long run because it it counter to the feelings of the majority of people.
Its a thought, anyway.
Your thought sounds quite logical to me. I was in a very pissy mood and for sure it was a venting rant, or a ranting vent.
I do however, believe that we cannot exclude any part of our collective behaviours from evolution. I hear what you are saying about Bush et. al. being the fittest for the political survival at the outset.
This opens another whole discussion of enormous magnitude, for me anyway.
You sure know how to poke my grey matter!
I did make a factual error in my post, which I corrected today. I left it there to see if anyone would call me on it.
Maybe a) nobody caught it or b) nobody reads this blog anymore because I don't post daily.
Option b) goes back to ADD and the topic of kids having higher IQ's and shorter attention spans and ......
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