Posted on 06/05/2005 11:45:26 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
"Too Late To Die Young: Nearly True Tales From a Life," by Harriet McBryde Johnson.
About two years ago, Harriet Johnson appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. If you saw her portrait, you probably haven't forgotten it.
A thin woman in a wheelchair leans forward, a purple shawl draping one shoulder. Johnson describes it this way in her new memoir: "The portrait has been described as beautifully disturbing, and most nondisabled people seem to see it that way. I'd prefer to call it disturbingly beautiful, but I'll take it the other way around if I must."
Johnson has an unnamed muscle-wasting disease, but don't dare say she "suffers" from it. She insists on being her own complicated person, a Southern lady, for instance, as well as a socialist, an atheist, a lawyer and a born storyteller with a wicked sense of humor.
She eschews pity and sentimentality. She supports the work of Not Dead Yet, a group of anti-euthanasia activists who demonstrated outside Terri Schiavo's Pinellas Park hospice earlier this year, dramatically sliding out of their wheelchairs and lying on the ground.
And though Johnson hates the hackneyed trope of triumph in the face of disability, she nevertheless has a string of interesting adventures. She runs for elected office. She travels to Cuba to discuss disability rights. She protests the Jerry Lewis telethon annually in her hometown of Charleston, S.C., and she bribes her friends to join her with promises of free food.
Her gripe with the telethon is its grim prognostications. When she was 30, her mother became ill, and Johnson had to accept for the first time that, contrary to all expectations, she might indeed outlive her parents. "While anyone may die young, it's not something you can count on," she writes. "You have to be prepared to survive." It's that angry, proud but utterly normal brand of survival that is at the heart of Johnson's memoir.
The most fascinating chapter is her encounter with the philosopher and animal rights activist Peter Singer. (It was this encounter that rated The New York Times Magazine cover.) Singer believes that in some cases it is morally acceptable for parents to kill severely disabled infants. Johnson disagrees, so much so that she fears even debating him would dignify his ideas as socially acceptable. Nevertheless, she meets him, travels to Princeton University to debate him and ends up with a great story about it.
The best memoirs don't necessarily tell every event in a person's life, but they do capture the voice and the emotional feel of the author. Yes, it's impossible for a nondisabled person to fully know what Johnson's life is like. But her writing is so vibrant, so interesting and so funny that you can't help but feel as if you're in her world, sitting beside her and hearing her story for yourself.
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Over and done. Deal with it.
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You wish
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What I heard is that King was captured by the Spanish Inquisition, flogged with cactus branches, tied spread-eagled on a hill of fire ants, trampled by 300,000 Mongolian cavalry ponies, jeered on the Oprah Winfrey show, and finally barbecued at the Whistlestop Cafe where folks said he was the most delicious barbecue they had ever tasted. There was enough for everyone to have several helpings of Jim.
It was one of the best dreams I ever had.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1401087/posts?q=1&&page=651
buuuuuuuuuummmp! :)
You want to know how to get a die-hard Christian Republican to agree with a socialist/atheist?
Start legally killing off disabled people for the money.
At Pinellas Park I noticed while talking to those around,I had a wiccan on one side, a Protestant on the other and a Catholic. It looked like almost every point of religion was represented and and all for the same thing (except some guy dancing and waving feathers and blowing smoke at us. Never quite understood that one.)
This is not going away until we get some justice for Terri and her family. Deal with THAT!
Bahahaha!
I'm wondering what could conceivably be a "great story" about Peter Singer, unless somebody decided to chop that part off.
I know we are supposed to love our neighbor, but if Jim King moves in, I am moving out before he becomes a neighbor.
Never!!
We will never go away until justice is served to the wicked, who
killed Terri - those who sinned by comission as well as omission!
You mean chop off his Singer??
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