The MRI From Hell
OK.
All we have been hearing the past few days is that Terri Schiavo has
NEVER undergone an MRI on her brain.
Never.
Rush is saying it, Ann Coulter is saying it, Savage, Hannity, Beck, tons and tons of "conservative" websites (just do a Google for "Schiavo MRI" and you'll see what I mean)....
Yet, two nights ago, on the NBC Evening News, there was a picture of Terri's MRI compared with the MRI of a cognizant person.
Was I dreaming?
Maybe, but if you
really dig through the Google junk, you'll find a reference to this webpage:
Medical Observations Show Schiavo Cognitive, Alert.
This purports to be
"[the actual medical] chart [that] outlines the progress of Terri Schindler-Schiavo from February 25, 1990 through December 2003 as noted by healthcare professionals."The actual medical chart.
Click on it. Now, do a page search for "MRI".
Here's what you'll find:
"7/24/1990
"MRI Report Dr. Pinkston
"Profound atrophy w/ very atrophic appearing cortex. Mild white matter disease, anoxic/hpoxic injury"So, there
was an MRI done of Terri Schiavo's brain. And a Dr. Pinkston did a report based on this MRI. Why, then, is the conservative media so rabid on insisting there
was NO MRI?
Their argument concerns me, because uninformed and passionate people can come away from it with the false assumption that Mrs. Schiavo has never had
any imaging done on her brain. This is not true, as the following link will attest:
Analyzing Terri Schiavo's brain.
This is the picture of a CT Scan done on Terri in 2002. The damage is clearly shown, and explained.
After hearing about this case ad nauseum, I've come to the inescapable conclusion that the conservative media is being manipulated by the Schindler family. They're pawns in this case, and the Schindler's are playing them like virtuosos.
Why does this strike me so?
The first inkling was the release of that audio recording purporting to be Terri right after the feeding tube was removed last Friday. Remember? Her Daddy saying "Hi, sweety", and Terri moaning....
Glenn Beck devoted most of the first hour of his show on Friday, March 18 to this tape, complaining bitterly that what we were hearing was Terri in pain, Terri fighting for her life, Terri starving to death.
Turns out the tape is a year old. The Schindler lawyer admitted as much to Sean Hannity on Sean's Monday show, March 21.
So Beck was had. As were all the other conservative media who played that tape over the weekend.
Then there was the Schindler lawyer who went on Hannity on Friday, March 18. She claimed to have asked Terri to just tell her she wanted to live, "then it would all be over." Terri allegedly said, "I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....."
That's it.
But both this lawyer and Hannity interpreted this as Terri saying she wanted
to live! How did they get that? Maybe Michael Schiavo is right, maybe Terri really wants to die. Maybe she was saying "I waaant to die!"
"I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...." isn't enough to decide either way.
Then there's the issue of the money. The Schindler family has been painting Michael as a money-grubber, who is only after Terri's settlement cash, which he is entitled only after she dies. I even bought that one, and wrote about it last week.
My apologies to Michael Schiavo. NBC News mentioned the money last night. They said that the Schiavos got $1 million in a medical settlement. $700,000 went to Terri, $300,000 to Michael.
But the figure that struck me is this: NBC claimed that
only $40,000 of the $1 million remains!So, why hasn't Michael given up and just handed custody over to the Schindlers? There's no money in it for him now.
Then there's the "coming out" of the nurses. They claim they are doing it on their own. But, my suspicions, given everything else that's been happening, lead me to believe the Schindlers are behind this.
The final straw was Mrs. Schindler, begging on national TV: "Someone please do something to save my daughter!"
How gut-wrenching. How sad.
And the conservative media lapped it up like puppies.
Now, I want to reiterate here what I wrote last week: I don't want to see Terri die. Not at all. It would have been best if Michael had just divorced Terri and handed custody over to the Schindlers. We never even would have heard about this case; it would have remained what it always was: a quiet issue between two families over the tragic injury to an adored wife and beloved daughter.
But, thanks to lies about MRIs, audio tapes, and the law, the Schindlers have shoved this baby right down our throats.
And we just opened up and swallowed.
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Pulling The Feeding Tube On The Courts
So, today is the big day. Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is due to be removed today.
It's been an interesting 24 hours; in some respects a microcosm of the past 10+ years. We've had some extremely calisthenic legal maneuverings, including -
finally, some would say - an interest by the US Congress.
But it appears, at this minute, to all be in vain - Judge Greer has overruled all, including the Congress, and has said, "Enough".
Again.
And I have to say, as much as I don't want to see Terri starved to death at the wishes of her incredibly selfish husband - who stands to profit financially from her death through her estate - I'm more concerned with what this case has done to the court system.
To put it succinctly, the past 10+ years have seen this case march all around the Florida courts. It's even touched the US Supreme Court, who diecided this week to leave it be.
Here's what bothers me: when party #1 in this case lost in a court, they went to another court. They won, and Party #2 took it to another court. They won and Party #1 took it to another court. Another victory and another appeal; another loss and another appeal.
Appeal, appeal, appeal.
Bounce, bounce, bounce.
If you don't like what one judge says, then go shopping for another one.
This sets an incredibly bad legal precedent: if you don't like a verdict, appeal. Which, in and of itself, is fine - it's a cornerstone of our legal system. But we've seen the appeal process become so stretched and prolonged that it's begun to erode the idea that a person can ever have a case
finished.
If the Schiavo case is any indication, no one can ever win in our legal system: appeals can drag on indefinitely. Gone is the ostensible principle of legal finality. Verdicts become mere
opinions, ready to be overturned by another judge.
So, when Judge Greer said, "Enough," part of me wanted to weep - for Terri and her family - but also part of me wanted to sit back and sigh with relief; maybe this case is going reach a conclusion after all.
In all the musings of the million-dollar pundits, no one has bemoaned the fact that our legal system is being eroded by the noble effort to keep Terri alive, and the effort by her husband to see her dead. We hear about the evils of Terri's husband; and I concur with this concensus. We hear about the pain of the family; and I understand their desire to assume the care of their daughter. It certainly would have been best for everyone if Terri's husband had signed over custody to them years ago.
But we don't hear about the courts.
It's too bad, because I would like to see some serious legal discussion of this issue. Without this discussion, I'm afraid that the starving of our courts is being masked by the good intentions of millions of Americans.
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Babies in Suits
Yesterday, March 2, 2005, Indiana state democrats were faced with 132 bills in the current session at the statehouse.
Bauer, the current leader of the minority democrat party, was faced with a bit of a quandry. Among those bills were issues he was not keen on tacklng: daylight savings time, BMV reform (the BMV is a huge source of money from its vanity plates), and the Colts stadium (the democrats are smarting because Republicans didn't just roll over and accept Indianapolis Mayor Peterson's proposals on the new facility).
So, Rep. Bauer cast around for some fresh ideas on how to handle the crisis. And his gaze fell squarely on previous democrat strategies: one from Texas, the other from Washington.
The first strategy was borne out of the Texas Republicans' desire to redistrict the state. Such redistricting would have favored Republican lawmakers, since they are the majority. They sought to use gerrymandering as a way of solidifying their base by drawing "new" Republican voting zones.
The Texas democrats didn't like this one bit - despite the fact that gerrymandering has been a favored tactic of
theirs for decades.
So, the Texas dems fought back the only way they knew how: they cut and ran. Instead of standing nose-to-nose with the Republicans and fighting for their principals, they bailed: left the state, in fact. High-tailed it for Oklahoma and New Mexico.
They thought the voters would interpret their immature action as a sign of determination.
It didn't work. The voters saw through the charade, saw them exposed as the unprincipled little babies they are, and the Republican gerrymandering was a success.
Et tu.
In Washington, whining has been raised to the level of an art form by Senate democrats. Rather than fight the good fight on Bush appointments, democrats have chosen the
unconstitutional tactic of the fillibuster (the constitution does not allow fillibuster for "advise and consent" issues like judicial appointments).
They basically sat down, grabbed a magazine, and said, "Make me."
Passive-aggressive behavior at its pre-teen best.
Of course, they may have won the moment, in no small part because of the Republicans failure to force closure, but they eventually lost they day with both the voters and with the government. They lost seats in both the Senate and House in 2004, and Bush has re-issued his appointments, which the dems are now forced to approve.
So, Indiana democrat Bauer has obviously taken these two examples of democrat "principles" and has chosen to adopt the party option:
Cut And Run.
Indiana State House democrats spent the entire day yesterday in what they call "caucus". What this really amounted to is a boycott. A walkout.
A temper tantrum.
Rather than staying and fighting the Republicans toe-to-toe (which any reasonable adult would do), the Indiana dems put on their whiner hats, stomped for good measure, and threw a passive-aggressive party.
They let 132 pieces of very important Indiana lawmaking fail - budget issues, education issues, economic issues, BMV reform, daylight savings time, the Colts,... everything got trashed because the dems took their ball and went home.
Which leaves Indiana two options: either award the babies in suits by supporting them, or throw the bums out when they come up for re-election.
The second option seems the only adult thing to do.
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