Answer: unless you’re married to Michael Schiavo, a husband who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on having a court approve with finality the disconnecting permanently of his wife’s feeding tube — a lifeline that provides her with necessary food and water to sustain her. No, these kinds of statistics are meaningless to a woman whose marriage is comparable to having a chronic disease. Unless Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s parents’ attorney prevails, unless an appellate court or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes and sets aside Circuit Court Judge Greer’s ruling, a ghastly process will begin at around 1:00pm on March 18th that will eventually lead, in the space of 10 - 20 days or so, to a newspaper headline that may read: Terri Schiavo Dead From Complications of Marriage.

Here’s an in-depth story from CNSNEWS.COM that merits a full reading. According to its author, Kathleen Rhodes, Kansas Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius has received thousands of dollars in political campaign contributions from the owner (George Tiller) of one of two Kansas’ abortion clinics being “directed by Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline to furnish medical records on dozens of young women and girls.” Tiller’s clinic — Women’s Health Care Services P.A. in Wichita — is also “currently under investigation by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts,” as a reseult of a 19-year old abortion patient (from Texas) having died of hemorrhaging.

Tiller’s “health care clinic” specializes in hundreds of late term, partial-birth abortions. A discussion of his practice is featured in this “Talking Points Memo” of Bill O’Reilly’s. In it, he notes: “Pregnant women from all over the country go to Kansas to have this ultra-controversial operation performed by Tiller, who’s one of the few American doctors comfortable with partial birth abortion (search).” If you can stomach it (and maybe you should force yourself regardless), here is the loathesome, horrific, industry practice George Tiller specializes in and from which he’s able to generate the money for political influence.

Tiller is described as “a family man.” “If you didn’t know that George did abortions, you’d think he was the world’s nicest guy,” observes Joan Wagnon, Kansas’ Secretary of the Department of Revenue. Makes me wonder what Governor Sebelius thinks of him and his way of making a living? Maybe along with the thousands of dollars the governor’s campaign has received from the likes of George Tiller, she should be receiving thousands of letters of disapproval as well, and a whole lot fewer votes next time she runs for office!

How many of you purposefully chose not to view the Academy Awards’ telecast last night? I did. Recall this post of mine, as well as this subsequent post? Well, I checked in with Betsy’s Page this morning, as is my habit, and read her post linking to a scattering of emcee Chris Rock’s jokes and “edgy” commentary.

No thanks. Glad I stuck to my guns. Not that either would have ever insulted their audience in the name of edginess, but I would no more listen to Bob Hope or Johnny Carson telling me to sit my ass down, then I would Chris Rock. As a member of any audience, I’m the customer and I want courtesy and deference shown me. I want to be entertained, not bad-mouthed.

The Oscar producers have said that Rock was hired because he could attract a younger, more hip audience, and those kind of demographics sell products and services, thereby boosting advertising dollars. Of course, they also made him take some of the edge off of what are his customary, profanity-laden routines. They wanted him to be hip, but not too hip.

How does that make you feel — you of the “younger generation?” Is telling you to sit your asses down cool, hip, and with it? Tell me, as I’m earnestly curious: why didn’t your parents prefer that kind of so-called humor, or their parents? Do you not think there’s anything to the notion that our society is being continually coarsened by the liberal, Whoopie Goldberg-led, Hollywood crowd?

Rock was hired and gets away with talking to you that way (and under the guise of being hip, edgy, trendy, and youth-oriented), because when you watch him that signals to Hollywood and Manhatten that you’re okay with it. Simple as that. Suit yourselves, but, I would ask this: have you ever walked out of a movie theatre, a comedy club, or flipped away from a television program because something said or something shown flat offended you? If not, try it sometime. You’ll feel empowered. It’s comparable to voting in an election.

When the Academy Awards’ show returns to its senses (if that day ever comes), I’ll gladly tune in again, as I’m a movie lover. But as long as the show’s producers are willing to risk offending me and others, as if we don’t count, count me out.

We bloggers for Terri (BlogsforTerri), we ardent Pro-Life advocates (ProLifeBlogs), have been wearing out our fingertips and keyboards in a tireless effort to forestall what may be, alas, the inevitable — the gruesome, court-ordered death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. We are a nation of laws and, ultimately, a court will either adjudge the rightness of what we seek or abet a husband hellbent on the premature death of his spouse. Like it or not, it’s as simple (and perhaps as brutal) as that.

If you, as I, have turned over and over again in your head all of the information you’ve researched and linked to in this grim legal brouhaha in order to satisfy yourself that you’re doing the right thing in fighting for Terri’s life, then allow me to share with you what I’ve hanged my hat on in this protracted court battle and virulent test of wills. Indeed, let’s compare notes. After all, the boxes and boxes (and more boxes) of records in this case are impossible for anyone other than a team of lawyers to wade through and decipher; and, fact is, most of us, just like most jurors, are not grounded in the law. What we do have in abundance, however, as do many jurors, is common sense and an intuition formed by life’s experiences that usually serves us well.

If you boil it all down, the central issue is husband Michael’s claim that his wife Terri confided to him that she wouldn’t want to be kept alive artificially in the eventuality of something compromising her quality of life, just like what happened to her in 1990 — terrible brain damage. Let’s set aside the cause. Whether a chemical imbalance led to a heart attack and subsequent oxygen deprivation or some form of trauma was the genesis of her brain damage, what’s pertinent for us is that he claims she’d want a feeding tube permanently pulled and her parents (and siblings) claim otherwise. Now we know Terri left neither written corroboration of that purported conversation with her husband, nor ever executed a living will. But the courts don’t seem to mind that fact. So for us doesn’t it come down then to the credibility of Michael Sciavo? Whether we believe in euthanasia or the right-to-die concept, or steadfastly hold that the sanctity of life transcends such desparate considerations, it seems to me the best any of us can do in weighing this protracted controversy is to take a hard look at Michael Schiavo’s attitude and behavior.

Were it me, and I’m a husband of thirty-six years and married to my high school sweetheart, I’d do my damnest to carry out my wife’s wishes, whether they were expressed to me verbally in a genuine and convincing fashion or more formally in a binding legal document. I think most loving husbands would agree with me. Good men strive to do right by their spouses, and their children and grandchildren. But I have not seen any evidence of a heartfelt, abiding love for Terri by Michael in all that I have read and ruminated over. Has he not denied her through the intervention of the courts needed physical therapy and other forms of treatment and rehabilitation that might have helped her? Has he not denied her through the intervention of the courts basic medical tests that could better confirm the actual state of her condition? Has he not denied her dental care resulting in the loss of teeth and, more alarmingly, endeavored to withhold medical treatment for a serious urinary tract infection that might have killed her? Has he not been instrumental in the removal from her room of all symbols of her Catholic faith and sought to deny her the sacraments of the Church? Has he not constrained the visitation rights of loved ones? Has he not sought through his attorney to challenge as not germane and admissible the findings of countless medical experts that hold his wife not to be in a permanent vegetative state? Have witnesses not come forth to verify that he has referred to Terri as a “bitch” and expressed that he wanted “the bitch dead?” Has he not been living with another woman and had two children by her, while refusing all along to secure a legal divorce from his wife? Has he not, in concert with his attorney, sought to perpetuate the notion that his wife is comatose, incapable of any sensory awareness, and unable to recognize loved ones or form words or utterances? And did he not ensure that Terri’s parents could no longer film their daughter to prove that she is sentient and anything but a brain-dead vegetable? Need I go on any further?

There’s something rotten in Florida and that rottenness is the cold-blooded treatment of a wife by a philandering husband. That’s pretty much good enough for me to draw my conclusions. But, there’s a clincher. It is this document. I really need to see no other documentation. Mary and Robert Schindler have made Michael Schiavo an offer he shouldn’t refuse. But the man won’t help Terri; the man won’t divorce Terri; the man won’t take the money and run, and leave Terri to the care and custody of the people who truly love her. For reasons I don’t pretend to understand fully there is spitefulness at work here. There’s a viciousness. And it’s hurtful and inhuman and unconscionable. What husband, given all the facts and contradictory evidence of his wife’s medical condition, would nonetheless be so recklessly persistent in seeking to remove food and water from her — the one he took vows with — so she can die a slow, agonizing death over several or more weeks? This is not loving, this is not honoring, this is not cherishing, for better or for worse, the woman you stood before God with and with whom you pledged to live until death do you part.

No, what Michael Schiavo has done and what Michael Schiavo continues to do is not the love of which the poets wrote, nor anything countenanced by civilized people.

Betsy Newmark of Betsy’s Page posts on the incomprehensibly dumb decision at the University of Colorado that granted tenure to Ward Churchill by quoting UC’s professor of law Paul Campos to underscore what she terms the “perfect hypocrisy surrounding the whole Ward Churchill fiasco.” The erstwhile “part Cherokee Indian” professor was granted tenure in April, 1991, by CU regents without the kind of “rigorous review” process that normally attends such recommendations and approvals.

What Betsy didn’t mention in her post was that Ward Churchill’s transgressions (i.e., the ongoing accusations of lying about his Indian ethnicity, plagiarizing academic publications, and mounting suspicions surrounding his artwork) may result in a big payday for this “Dr.” who never earned a doctorate. Bad behavior apparently is a new economic model in some academic circles!

Reverend Pat Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, is quoted in this WorldNetDaily column by Art Moore as having observed that, unlike the Nancy Cruzan story, the Terri Schindler-Schiavo controversy is drawing international attention, fanned in part by bloggers and the instantaneous communication possible via the Internet.

“There is much going on out there and clearly the faith-and-values community is being energized.”

“The thing that has struck me as quite extraordinary is that the Cruzan story largely went under the news radar screen, but now 15 years later, with the advent of Internet bloggers, Internet news services, we have a way to instantly get the news out.”

“I have neve been more optimistic about the future of our country as we find ways to get information out and see the country move dramatically to a more values-based position.”

We all need some encouragement in our continued efforts to get the message out that Terri Schindler-Schiavo deserves continued life, not a gruesome death at the hands of her two-timing husband, who, despite his relationship with another woman, and having had two children by her, continues to refuse to divorce his wife Terri, to allow her parents, George and Mary Schiavo, or her brother Bobby, to become her legal guardian(s) and willingly assume responsibility as her caregiver(s), and to block much-needed therapy and rehabilitation treatments for a wife he’s more intent on legally murdering than helping. Rev. Pat Mahoney provides such encouragement and we, who have aligned ourselves with BlogsforTerri and ProLifeBlogs.com, must continue to be flag bearers in this noble cause and unflagging in using our keyboards!

(Google Images)

Count me in, as inumerable posts of mine on the subject of illegal immigration and border security attest, with Polipundit in citing immigration reform and, by implication, border security, as a make or break issue for Republicans and President Bush. As is pointed out in his post, conservative republicans want and insist that the president deal forcefully and comprehensively with the illegal alien issue and its impact on our country. And they see expending the president’s political capital in this area as a top priority. Moreover, the president’s “Guest Worker” proposal is not the solution and is viewed by this writer as camouflaged amnesty and a signal to Presidente Vicente Fox that his government-encouraged, illegal emigration program is just fine by us.

Tell me, how does this sit with you:

The Mexican government is reprinting what some believe to be a guidebook to help illegal immigrants avoid capture and prosecution after entering the United States. Called the “Mexican Migrant Guide,” the Mexican Foreign Ministry says its purpose is to help people who have already decided to enter the United States to diminish their risk of death and to inform them of their rights should they be arrested. Some legislators, such as Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, say the document is a guide on how to enter the United States illegally.

Sorry, but it’s late, and I guess I couldn’t resist having fun with the title of this post before heading off to bed. You go ahead and read it, as I have no intention to quote from this AP story. I suspect though that with the instantaneous, worldwide coverage that this bizarre behavior will attract ol’ Harold Hart may just have to go and get his name legally changed and flee Neillsville. I don’t want to suggest that he’d be hounded were he not to, because ol’ Harold might just turn on the hounds.

As far as the name change goes, I’d suggest Hugh Heifer.

If George Felos, Michael Schiavo’s gun-for-hire, grim-reaper attorney, is accurately quoted by Mitch Stacy in this Associated Press (AP) story, then this man with an overarching determination to ensure that Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s feeding tube is removed has reached a new low, even for him.

Stacy quotes Felos as saying:

“If Terri Schiavo could for one hour get up and see what’s going on, I think she would be absolutely horrified that she has been maintained in this condition against her will for so long, and that she has become the political pawn that she has.”

Tell me, how many bloggers are on the BlogsforTerri blogroll — 100, 200, 250? Answer that question correctly and you’ll know how many people, at minimum, will be sickened by that disingenuous, abominal, altogether hypocritical statement. Do you loathe unctuous, prevaricating spinmeisters, as much as I do? Then feel free to loathe George Felos. He’s deserving. This is one arrow in his quiver that I thought he’d have the good sense to keep under wraps for the duration. Maybe, despite the win yesterday in Judge Greer’s court, Felos and his client are feeling a bit desparate. Maybe they’re starting to feel the heat of public opinion. Even the sinister have their limits, their tolerance thresholds. When you’ve sold your soul to the devil, you know what you’ve done and it haunts you.

Fellow bloggers — please tell me where I’m wrong. Many of you have no doubt done a lot better job of researching the facts of this protracted legal battle than I, and have a more intuitive sense of what’s likely to become of this helpless, defenseless woman we all have come to care about so deeply. I marvel at the detail in some of your posts. Many of you have done superb work. You’re to be commended. All of you are noble warriors.

Please — correct me if I’ve errored in what I believe to be the following:

1) Terri is confined to her hospice room, tantamount to a “lock down,” and is never taken outdoors for fresh air and sunshine;
2) Terri has been denied physical therapy and other medical treatment over a number of years that might have improved her condition;
3) Terri has been denied most forms of stimulus, including having a television or radio in her hospice room;
4) Terri’s “will” is not, in point of fact, a matter of record, as she never executed any written statement, let alone a “Living Will,” attesting to her husband’s claim that she would not want her life maintained in her current condition, and that said claim was never made by her husband in the immediate days, weeks and months after the so-called “chemical imbalance” led to a heart attack and oxygen deprivation in 1990;
5) A large chunk (e.g., approximately $500K - $600K) of the significant monies awarded for Terri’s care and rehabilitation via successful lawsuits her husband initiated has gone instead for legal fees to have the courts approve having her feeding tube removed and her life taken;
6) Terri, despite her Catholicism, has been denied the sacraments of the Church, and Church doctrine does not allow euthanasia or subscribe to any right-to-die philosophies;
7) Terri’s parents have been precluded from filming any additional videos of Terri that might further substantiate that she’s sentient; Terri once had a serious urinary tract infection that her husband sought to keep medical professionals from treating and, had it been left untreated, would have surely killed her;
9) Videos, as well as statements from visitors who are other than family members, corroborate that Terri reacts positively to her parents visitations;
10) Terri has been denied a basic medical test — a “swallowing test” — that, among other tests that could have been administered, might have revealed that she is nowhere near being in a permanent vegetative state;
11) Terri has audibly voiced some basic words;
12) Despite a “bone scan” that has been interpreted as showing injuries to Terri that may have been the result of physical abuse, the courts have never directed that a criminal investigation be undertaken;
13) Twice Terri has had her feeding tube removed and come near death at the hands of the courts owing to legal actions taken by husband Michael Schiavo who, while not divorced from her, cohabitates with another woman and has had two children by her.

Sorry, but I’m so mad at the moment I cannot go on with this. Felos had a lot of gaul to make such a statement. He’s really pushing it with me. Are you mad as hell? Get to your keyboards!

Lorie Byrd at “Polipundit” links to this bizzare story. Meanwhile, I want you to all know that because I’m in agreement with Bill O’Reilly’s “Boycott France” campaign (I have absolutely no use for Jacques Chirac), I have stopped drinking (or buying) my favorite brand of Scotch — Chivas Regal. So not only is the story bizarre, to be sure, Lorie, but it plays to my craving! If I would have known it wouldn’t be reported, I, too, might have been inclined to gather around Hunter’s corpse with friends and family for a double-Chivas rocks! But, O’Reilly has spies everywhere, as does “Polipundit,” so my transgression would have undoubtedly been divulged.

Betsy Newmark of Betsy’s Page points to a projection from Polidata that bodes well for the Republican Party beyond the 2010 census. Seems the Grand Ol’ Party stands to pick up three (3) additional electoral votes in both Florida and Texas, while the Dems will lose six (6) overall with two coming out of New York’s present complement. Don’t you just love good tidings!

This could well mean that the more prudent in Democratic ranks may begin abandoning their hard-line liberal positions, while taking a page or two (or three) out of Hillary’s playbook. Seems we Red State dwellers are beginning to look better the more the capital “L” liberals sober up and see their chances of recapturing the White House anytime soon just slipping-sliding away.

Of course, there’s the nation and then there’s California. Rob Reiner hasn’t figured it out yet (nor has Barbara Boxer).

As if the news out of Florida were not bad enough with the ongoing legal battle being waged by Bob and Mary Schindler to save the life of their cognitively-disabled daughter, Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a search for the 9-year old girl, Jessica Marie Lunsford, missing since Wednesday, continues without success and, as all too often is the case with such likely abductions, the prospect of finding her alive becomes more bleak with each passing day. I should add, however, that according to this CNN report “investigators have no concrete evidence that the young girl was abducted.”

Mark Lunsford, the little girl’s father, is “convinced that no family member has anything to do with this” and has continued his appeals for additional help in the around-the-clock search being conducted for her, as well as for anyone having information on the whereabouts of his daughter to step forward. Last seen Wednesday night when she went to bed wearing a pink nightgown, authorities indicate not having found any signs of forced entry, but they did note that the front door to the house in Homosassa, FL (80 miles west of Orlando), where Jessica lives with her father and paternal grandparents, was not locked.

Jessica has no history of running away. Her estranged mother, Angela Bryant, who lives in Warren County, Ohio, is not mentioned as a suspect, and has also issued a plea for help.

This blogger is not aware of activity by Florida-based bloggers to aid in the search process, but I suspect that sort of thing may be underway or is being formed. Jessica will be added to this writer’s prayer list.

Here is a good link in the blogosphere:

Civil Commotion

Additional MSN link:

ABC News/AP Story

IrishLaw provides her customary, well-thought insights in this post on California’s Proposition 71 initiative to fund stem cell research, “including embryonic stem cells.” In what the writer calls “the failure of journalism” (i.e., the MSM) to cover this story comprehensively, she expresses concerns that such failures are not only giving many disease-afflicted people false hope of near-term medical cures, but the very superficiality of the reporting skates both the potential medical risks, as well as the broader, compelling ethical questions for experiments conducted on cells that are really “early-stage human lives.” It’s an important read and do make sure to read the links within the post.

So thinks Circuit Judge George Greer and so thinks Michael Schiavo’s attorney, George Felos, who is quoted in this Associated Press (AP) story as saying, “I am very pleased that the court has recognized there must be a finality to this process.” Of course, for one of this country’s most prominent right-to-die proponents, “finality” means for George Felos the barbaric death by starvation and dehydration of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. Both husband and attorney can hardly wait to have Terri’s gastric feeding tube permanently removed at 1:00pm on March 18th, as each is convinced it’s incontrovertibly the right thing to do and what Terri would have wanted (i.e., “… allowing him” — Michael Schiavo — “to carry out what he says were his wife’s wishes not to be kept alive artificially”). No mention is made, of course, that there’s no written proof of such wishes, certainly not a “Living Will.” In that and in other ways, some egregious, this AP story is consistent with most of the reporting on Terri Schiavo in the mainstream media. It cites a “chemical imbalance” as the root cause for “her heart to temporarily stop beating” back in 1990, which “left her severely brain damaged.” There’s no mention, however, of contradictory evidence from a bone scan that she may have been a victim of physical abuse. Nor is any reference made to contradictory medical claims holding that she’s cognitively-disabled, but certainly not “vegetative” or requiring medical life support. Nor does the AP’s Mitch Stacy reveal that Terri’s parents, the Schindlers, have been blocked from having a basic “swallow test” performed on their daughter. Indeed, the story is boilerplate MSN reporting with but a few informational updates.

But, sadly, Stacy cannot contain himself. He proceeds to describe the legal tangle between Terri’s husband and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, as a “feud” and having all of the “elements of a soap opera.” Well, Mr. Stacy, this is not Hatfields and McCoys, nor a fiction. It is a pitched life and death battle over whether to preserve her life and her human dignity, or to snuff it out over a protracted period of up to twenty days by removing water and sustenance from her, and thereby inflicting dreadful pain and suffering on a woman unable to defend herself or cry out for mercy.

They shoot horses don’t they, Mr. Stacy?

After the relief that came with the news this afternoon that implied, to less careful readers among us, that Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer had extended the “emergency stay” through March 18th, an examination of his ruling issued at 2:50pm EST tells, alas, quite another story. The only cause for cheer is that Terri Schindler-Schiavo will not be dead on or before March 18th owing to Judge Greer’s decision today. But, in point of fact, Micahel Schiavo won. Judge Greer ruled unequivocally that he is “no longer comfortable in continuing to grant stays” and that Terri’s fate must now lie with the appellate courts.

Indeed, absent intervention by the appellate courts between now and then, Judge Greer is adamant that: 1) the motion for a further stay is denied and will remain denied; 2) that, absent a ruling to the contrary by the appellate court, Terri’s husband Michael Schiavo is duly directed to “cause the removal of nutrition and hydration” from his wife at 1:00pm on Friday, March 18, 2005; and, 3) that Michael Schiavo requires no further action from Judge Greer’s court to carry out that grissly action (which, of course, is tantamount to a death warrant for Terri). The court order even makes reference, in the cold-blooded language of legalese, to Respondents’ Motion for Emergency Stay of Execution of February 11, 2000. Call me naive, but the language gave me chills, however fitting it is as an accurate description of what’s at stake in this protracted legal battle.

Accordingly, any notion that prayers and public pressure might have turned Judge Greer more humane and compassionate has evaporated in the cold-as-steel bluntness of his ruling. For me, anyway, it’s hard to be charitable towards a man who can sign his name to a court document directing that food and water be withdrawn from a human being whose eyes light up when her parents stand at her bedside. He can choose, as he has done this afternoon, to wash his hands of, in the style of Pontius Pilate, the imminent death by his decree of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, but we in the blogosphere, particularly those of us working through BlogsforTerri and ProLifeBlogs, cannot and will not.

Terri deserves better, her parents and siblings deserve better, and humanity deserves better. To me this is all part of the glaringly horrific disrespect for the sanctity of life in our country. When 47.4 million unborn are aborted and tossed into medical waste heaps, then what’s the big deal about a Terri Schiavo here, a geriatric or mentally-challenged person there? Secular societies seek the convenience and utility of not having to weigh God’s laws. If the appellate courts do not intervene, a part of our humanity will die with Terri.

BlogsforTerri has just posted an announcement at its site that a three-week stay has been granted by Circuit Court Judge Greer in the Terri Schindler-Schiavo case! Updates to follow.

UPDATE: Here’s the Associated Press (AP) report.

UPDATE: Here’s an MSNBC/AP report updating the Associated Press’ earlier release.