Posted on 03/14/2006 11:28:51 AM PST by KevinNuPac
Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Kevin Fobbs
March 13, 2006
Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?
And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.
On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.
All of us have felt in some way that pain — even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier — not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.
For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will — or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.
Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."
But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," — just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "
Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event — just two days before Mother's Day — there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.
This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral — or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it — thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.
Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years — years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."
So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.
As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides — or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room — overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.
By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313
(this is exactly what we've been saying for 3 years. Now that Terri can't be murdered or the Schindlers punished, the Schindlers can speak out. Remember if they spoke out when Terri was alive, Judge Greer would take it out on them or Terri would be laid flat which could have killed her but hospice was caught laying her flat and turning the feeding tube on full bore. Imagine being suffocated by ensure.
Haleigh's mom doesn't have first amendment rights. The Constitution isn't working because there's no enforcement and govt agencies have taken the laws of the land into their own hands as they boldly go where they can cash out after they dispose of the unrecyclable parts.
We studied China in civics in Jr. High. I never knew that we'd have anything in common with China.
Poor Jimmy Chambers, poor Mae, poor Ted Stith, poor Haleigh in state custody, poor Terri, poor Martin Anderson (murdered by Florida Sheriff Deputies and a nurse standing by and watching) and those who went before.
Scott Thomas is really good news.
Jeb Bush is mtg with dissidents today about the murder of Martin Anderson. Martin died on January 6th, 2006. Thanks, Jebediah for the speed with which you publicly acknowledge the death of Martin. FOUR MONTHS LATER. (sarcasm tag).
greer = past dictator of the free world and now award winner extraordinaire for his resolve to murder Terri no matter what.
From a middle florida blog:
"Blog buzz says Charlie Crist is a winner for Governor and Everette Rice will landslide Attorney General. Is that not the most appalling thought...EGADS. Everette Rice is a big fan of Scientology and he is helping them move their beliefs into the schools in Florida."
FV SAYS: While you're googling Crist and scientology, google Everett Rice and scientology to verify if he's going to add scientology to school curriculum. I knew about Crist's ties to Cruise's cult but had no idea re: Rice. WORTH NOTING TOO - Greer and Rice are best friends.
Sick puppies are ruining florida.
And not just die, but die a horrible death. I presume there is no investigation into Greer's outrageous conduct.
Bill McCollum for Fla AG but McCollum needs to get busy with his campaign.
Think there's no campaign cheating in Florida? Think again. They cheat before the election since the Fla Elections Commission doesn't enforce the rules.
Okay, the uniformed secret service are escorting her off the stage. That's right. Free speech is on the brink. Oh, what's her name says "it is embarassing." Stupid Fox is embarassing. They better investigate the underground Weavers who are being exterminated, sold for parts and tortured, families separated...
Do you know that Clerk Ken Burke and his wife came to Terri's vigils in 2005????? This article states that Ken Burke had a duty to order Judge Greer to audit Terri's financials. This was news to me. I have been keeping to myself for one year that the Burke's came to Terri's Vigils.
So, is Ken Burke a hypocrite by violating his oath but going to Terri's Vigil? Did he go to Terri's Vigil to pray for her soul knowing full well that she was going to die or did he order Greer to audit, Greer didn't audit and Burke did not hold Greer to it?
Either way, now CLERK KEN BURKE is worth reading about here.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/
It's disturbing that Ken Burke's Dept. holds all of Terri's records, that he and his wife attended Terri's Vigil but he violated his oath. (how many people quietly aided and abetted Judge Greer including KEN BURKE?) maybe he went to the Vigil to spy for Greer or somebody high up in the GOP, not to support Terri.
Why was Ken Burke and his wife at Terri's Vigil??? rhetorical question kinda
How disgusting.
"Tom Cruise now says "it was a joke." Well, if that's his sense of humor, that's twisted. Since when is cannibalism funny?"
VERY sick humor. Also, the things that scientologists believe in ARE true, and sick. For instance, they blame a disabled/sick person for being disabled/sick, as if it is their fault.
At first he didn't want his wife to have any pain medication while having the baby; then he backed down a little, because he didn't want to be unpopular with the general public.
I wonder if he would have a wisdom tooth pulled, for instance, without novacain (spelling?). I doubt it.
Gators for Terri made me feel good about being a UF grad. Greer is a black stain on UF, IMHO, of course.
Did you hear about the cannibal who passed his grandmother in the woods?
And you had the nerve to call ME 'devious' : )
Her parents are the late Francis Alexander Shields and Maria Theresia Schmonn. Her paternal grandparents are Francis Xavier Shields, (a tennis star) of Irish decent, and Italian princess Donna Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, who was a sister of Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi, husband of the Infanta Beatriz of Spain (aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain). Their granddaughter Sibilla Weiller (b. 1968) married Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg (b. 1963), the youngest brother of Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, in 1994.
Through her Italian grandmother, Shields is a descendant of Lucrezia Borgia, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Honoré I of Monaco and Henry IV of France. Shields is "a 23rd generation descendant of Francesco I Gattilusio, the founder of the Lesbian Gattilusii dynasty," according to the monograph, The Lesbos Island Ancestors of Prince Rainier of Monaco, Dr. Otto von Habsburg, Brooke Shields, and the Marquis de Sade.
One cannibal says, "I really hate my sister." Replies the other, "Well, just eat the noodles."
When cannibals have a wedding, they toast the bride and groom.
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