Sometimes I don't post because I don't think I have anything to say. Sometimes I don't post because I don't know how to say any of the twenty things I want to say. Sometimes I just can't imagine how to process what's happening in my head to words. I'll try to be more faithful to do this. Not that more than three people actually read any of this, but more because I am trying to be faithful to the calling I believe God has placed on my life. So, if it looks and smells incoherent, it probably is. Just look away. Hopefully the next time you stop by I will have edited or deleted anything offesive or wrong.
Hopefully too, I'll be posting my poetry here soon.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Definitions
Today in Florida a woman lays dying, murdered actually, it's just not finished yet.
Over the course of the last two weeks the MSM has pontificated, postured and blathered all about the right to die. Once again they've got it all wrong, the story of Terri Schaivo is really about the right to kill those we find inconvenient, costly and ugly.
Surveys have asked over and over "Would you want to live like this?" NO! is the resounding American answer. Ask the question another way, "If you had an accident or injury that left you significantly disabled would you prefer to have all the rehabilitative might that modern medicine offers and all the tests administered to properly diagnose you or would you prefer to languish in a twilight place until they came to pull your feeding tube out so that you slowly starved and dehydrated to death, this death taking up to two weeks or more?" Um, tests and rehabilitation please.
That question "Would you want to live like this?" could get a "No" answer to dozens of situations and circumstances. For example: I don't want to live with acne, back pain, headaches, old soccer injuries, in Denver, as an amputee, without wealth, without comfort and without my cup of coffee in the morning. Are we so selfish and vain that life actually loses all of its value simply because our circumstances change? I'm not saying that there isn't heartache and pain involved, or that life is easy for Terri or her family. What I am saying is that life itself is precious, and must be held onto tightly at all times.
What I see at work here is misplaced and wrongheaded selfishness disguised as sympathy. Simply because you would prefer to not live in a specific circumstance does in no way mean that it is acceptable to put someone else to death because they are living in that specific circumstance. It looks like sympathy, but really is an aberrant form of selfishness.
Considering that life is the one absolute irreplaceable in our time here on earth, the one thing we can't do without, should we really be quantifying it's value with what we used to be like, what we prefer and how we would LIKE to live? If you follow that logic, then why do we intervene in places like Darfur, after all who wants to live like a third world refugee? Just let them die. That of course is hideous thinking, of course we intervene, life is valuable. Sometimes.
In reading the opinions of the bioethecists weighing in on Terri Schaivo's case I am more and more frightened of the future. These "ethicists" actually argue that because Mrs. Schaivo's diminished brain function has reduced her hopes for her life, and even her ability to know that she has a life that her life is therefore less valuable and so she can be terminated like we would kill a cow for dinner. She is unaware that she is a person and therefore her right to protection as a person is forfeit. They argue the same for embryos, fetuses, infants and alzheimers patients. We should be harvesting these "Non-person people" for what they have that we lack. How on earth did these people come up with these sick, twisted and demonic ideas? Well, it starts with abortion, that leads to euthanasia, that leads to eugenics, that leads to a slaughter we can't even imagine.
No, you say. Really? Wake up and smell the coffin. In Europe they kill babies and children because they don't measure up, through the age of 12. In this country we allow a woman to kill her fetus right up to the moments before birth, we allow physician assisted suicide. In China they harvest organs from political prisoners in the hours before they are executed. AND WE ALLOW ALL OF THIS. Why?
Because we have consistently and willfully turned away from God, from the knowledge that He gave us this life, life for a purpose. Jesus came that we might have life, and that abundantly. So that we could walk in His ways and glorify Him. In seeking after Satan's folly, pride and power in ourselves and our abilities, forsaking the One who gave us ourselves and our abilities, we have set up new gods in the temples of our minds. Youth, health, bodily perfection, fill-in-the-blank. These gods rule us with heavy hands, influencing everything they touch. Just look around, you can see them everywhere in everything. Most terrifyingly of all, these gods have taken up residence in the halls of medicine.
So, would I want to live like Terri Schaivo? Not with Michael Schaivo as my husband, because I wouldn't live, I would die.
Over the course of the last two weeks the MSM has pontificated, postured and blathered all about the right to die. Once again they've got it all wrong, the story of Terri Schaivo is really about the right to kill those we find inconvenient, costly and ugly.
Surveys have asked over and over "Would you want to live like this?" NO! is the resounding American answer. Ask the question another way, "If you had an accident or injury that left you significantly disabled would you prefer to have all the rehabilitative might that modern medicine offers and all the tests administered to properly diagnose you or would you prefer to languish in a twilight place until they came to pull your feeding tube out so that you slowly starved and dehydrated to death, this death taking up to two weeks or more?" Um, tests and rehabilitation please.
That question "Would you want to live like this?" could get a "No" answer to dozens of situations and circumstances. For example: I don't want to live with acne, back pain, headaches, old soccer injuries, in Denver, as an amputee, without wealth, without comfort and without my cup of coffee in the morning. Are we so selfish and vain that life actually loses all of its value simply because our circumstances change? I'm not saying that there isn't heartache and pain involved, or that life is easy for Terri or her family. What I am saying is that life itself is precious, and must be held onto tightly at all times.
What I see at work here is misplaced and wrongheaded selfishness disguised as sympathy. Simply because you would prefer to not live in a specific circumstance does in no way mean that it is acceptable to put someone else to death because they are living in that specific circumstance. It looks like sympathy, but really is an aberrant form of selfishness.
Considering that life is the one absolute irreplaceable in our time here on earth, the one thing we can't do without, should we really be quantifying it's value with what we used to be like, what we prefer and how we would LIKE to live? If you follow that logic, then why do we intervene in places like Darfur, after all who wants to live like a third world refugee? Just let them die. That of course is hideous thinking, of course we intervene, life is valuable. Sometimes.
In reading the opinions of the bioethecists weighing in on Terri Schaivo's case I am more and more frightened of the future. These "ethicists" actually argue that because Mrs. Schaivo's diminished brain function has reduced her hopes for her life, and even her ability to know that she has a life that her life is therefore less valuable and so she can be terminated like we would kill a cow for dinner. She is unaware that she is a person and therefore her right to protection as a person is forfeit. They argue the same for embryos, fetuses, infants and alzheimers patients. We should be harvesting these "Non-person people" for what they have that we lack. How on earth did these people come up with these sick, twisted and demonic ideas? Well, it starts with abortion, that leads to euthanasia, that leads to eugenics, that leads to a slaughter we can't even imagine.
No, you say. Really? Wake up and smell the coffin. In Europe they kill babies and children because they don't measure up, through the age of 12. In this country we allow a woman to kill her fetus right up to the moments before birth, we allow physician assisted suicide. In China they harvest organs from political prisoners in the hours before they are executed. AND WE ALLOW ALL OF THIS. Why?
Because we have consistently and willfully turned away from God, from the knowledge that He gave us this life, life for a purpose. Jesus came that we might have life, and that abundantly. So that we could walk in His ways and glorify Him. In seeking after Satan's folly, pride and power in ourselves and our abilities, forsaking the One who gave us ourselves and our abilities, we have set up new gods in the temples of our minds. Youth, health, bodily perfection, fill-in-the-blank. These gods rule us with heavy hands, influencing everything they touch. Just look around, you can see them everywhere in everything. Most terrifyingly of all, these gods have taken up residence in the halls of medicine.
So, would I want to live like Terri Schaivo? Not with Michael Schaivo as my husband, because I wouldn't live, I would die.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Playground Rules
Playground Rules are those rules that you knew intuitively as a child, and if you didn't you got your butt kicked by the other kids. Things like "Never cut in line at the slide, unless you won't get caught" (rule #25) or "General Alarm sounds the moment the Ice Cream Man is sighted" (#12) were rules we lived by as children. We had rules for siblings, rules for neighbors and rules for kickball. These rules were in effect all the time with specialized rules for every location, not just in the playground, but at home, at school and on vacation when you run into new children. These rules enabled us to play effectively and safely with children all over the country when our parents took us on cross-country road trips.
The number one rule applied all the time: All things must be fair. Defining fair was left to the situation or who had the biggest and strongest older brother, but one thing we all agreed on, if your Mom was bringing cupcakes to class for your birthday she had better bring one for each child, OR ELSE! This is a good rule, and every parent with a 6 year old knows they had better get an accurate head count and prepare extra in case of tipping and disaster. Only an act of God, and it had better be a doozy, could be an excuse. And even then, it's better that Mom doesn't show up at all.
Apparently no one informed St. James and LaDonna Davis that this rule also applies to Chimpanzees. Last week the couple were bringing a cupcake to their chimp, Moe, for his 39th birthday. Two other chimpanzees freaked out when they didn't also get cupcakes, broke out of their cages and severely mauled Mr. Davis. Mrs. Davis also sustained injuries. Analysis of this attack by an animal expert in the Washington Post confirmed what any six-year old could have told you, Buddy and Ollie were ticked because they didn't get any cake. Mr. Davis lost his nose, testicles and one foot in the attack. Apparently Chimpanzees have a highly defined sense of fairness. You would think that after living with one for all those years they might have understood that.
(Their pet, Moe, had been confiscated in 1999 because he bit off part of the finger of a neighbor, BTW)
So now you know. Remember your playground rules, they may save your life, and your nose, feet, fingers...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/04/chimp.attack.ap/
The number one rule applied all the time: All things must be fair. Defining fair was left to the situation or who had the biggest and strongest older brother, but one thing we all agreed on, if your Mom was bringing cupcakes to class for your birthday she had better bring one for each child, OR ELSE! This is a good rule, and every parent with a 6 year old knows they had better get an accurate head count and prepare extra in case of tipping and disaster. Only an act of God, and it had better be a doozy, could be an excuse. And even then, it's better that Mom doesn't show up at all.
Apparently no one informed St. James and LaDonna Davis that this rule also applies to Chimpanzees. Last week the couple were bringing a cupcake to their chimp, Moe, for his 39th birthday. Two other chimpanzees freaked out when they didn't also get cupcakes, broke out of their cages and severely mauled Mr. Davis. Mrs. Davis also sustained injuries. Analysis of this attack by an animal expert in the Washington Post confirmed what any six-year old could have told you, Buddy and Ollie were ticked because they didn't get any cake. Mr. Davis lost his nose, testicles and one foot in the attack. Apparently Chimpanzees have a highly defined sense of fairness. You would think that after living with one for all those years they might have understood that.
(Their pet, Moe, had been confiscated in 1999 because he bit off part of the finger of a neighbor, BTW)
So now you know. Remember your playground rules, they may save your life, and your nose, feet, fingers...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/04/chimp.attack.ap/
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
History in the Making
When you see it, you know. It's that story on the news that makes you sit up and take notice, realizing that you are seeing something big, really big, and you know that you have to soak in every detail, every nuance, because you want to remember. There are lots of stories like that for me, and probably for you too. The Challenger Accident, Tiananmen Square, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bhopal Accident, the Execution of Ceaucescu, September 11, 01. And now added to that list are the protests in Lebanon.
The brave citizens of Lebanon have so far forced the Syrian-puppet PM Omar Karami to resign and now they are turning their efforts to rid their country of it's Syrian oppressors. Lebanon has been under occupation for twenty years, in part because of the actions of Arafat and the PLO after Jordan kicked them out for doing exactly what they did in Lebanon in the early eighties, run terrorist missions into Israel. The subsequent response from Israel and the continued actions of Arafat destabilized Lebanon and opened the door for Syrian dictator and Moscow stooge, Hafez Asad to declare Lebanon his own. Syria has had troops on the ground, has hand picked governments, and has brutally repressed the people of Lebanon.
Now the people are rising up against oppression, as they have in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, etc. I can't wait to see what happens. I hope they win!
A bit of history
http://www.lgic.org/en/history.php#h5
BBC Coverage of Lebanon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4306925.stm
The brave citizens of Lebanon have so far forced the Syrian-puppet PM Omar Karami to resign and now they are turning their efforts to rid their country of it's Syrian oppressors. Lebanon has been under occupation for twenty years, in part because of the actions of Arafat and the PLO after Jordan kicked them out for doing exactly what they did in Lebanon in the early eighties, run terrorist missions into Israel. The subsequent response from Israel and the continued actions of Arafat destabilized Lebanon and opened the door for Syrian dictator and Moscow stooge, Hafez Asad to declare Lebanon his own. Syria has had troops on the ground, has hand picked governments, and has brutally repressed the people of Lebanon.
Now the people are rising up against oppression, as they have in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, etc. I can't wait to see what happens. I hope they win!
A bit of history
http://www.lgic.org/en/history.php#h5
BBC Coverage of Lebanon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4306925.stm
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