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.
Will Republicans disown judge in Schiavo case?
Paul Hetrick, vice president of Focus on the Family, repeated an intellectually cowardly cliché of the religious right when he referred to "rogue judges" (Letters, "Goodman marriage column conveniently ignores reality," June 7) redefining marriage. "Rogues" are apparently those judges who make decisions contrary to the beliefs of Focus on the Family. If that's the case, Pinellas County (Fla.) Circuit Judge George Greer just earned "rogue" status in the eyes of the religious right.
Greer, a conservative Christian and longtime Republican, has recently been under armed guard protection. He received death threats for allowing Michael Schiavo to remove the feeding tube that kept his wife alive in a vegetative state for 15 years.
Greer, whose rulings were consistently upheld despite numerous appeals, said "all of the credible medical evidence this court has received over the last five years" suggested Terri Schiavo's behavior was not a product of cognitive awareness. Greer stood up to congressional attempts at invasion of privacy in the case, rejecting an effort led by House Republicans to subpoena Terri Schiavo as a means to force reinsertion of her feeding tube.
In legal circles, Greer is acclaimed for his consistent application of Florida law. Those less concerned with law and unwilling to accept "credible medical evidence" reacted differently. The FBI arrested a North Carolina man it said placed a $50,000 bounty on the head of a judge in the case, although officials didn't name the judge. The pastor of the Southern Baptist church that Greer belonged to for years asked him to leave the congregation.
Judge Greer's fellow Baptists excommunicated him from his church for doing his job with integrity. Will Republicans follow suit and excommunicate him from their party?
Richard Zimdars
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Friday, June 10, 2005
http://onlineathens.com/stories/061005/let_20050610006.shtml
bttt
H.R. 235 - Houses of Worship Freedom of Speech Restoration Act
Looks like it's time to call our reps again & tell them to vote for free speech in churches.
I came across this background.
"From the founding of the country until 1954, churches and other nonprofit organizations were permitted to expressly endorse or oppose candidates for political office. That changed when Lyndon Baines Johnson ran for United States Senate. He was opposed by a nonprofit organization (not a church), and after he won the election, he proposed legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit nonprofit organizations, including churches, from endorsing or opposing political candidates. The Code was amended in 1954 without any debate regarding the impact of the bill."
excerpt from:
http://www.lc.org/resources/pastors...es_politics.htm
I couldn't figure out how to find out how my rep. voted on Rightmarch.
More on H.R. 235 - Houses of Worship Freedom of Speech Restoration Act
http://www.hr235.org/
Might be good to contact this guy and tell him to talk about the RINOs in FL on his radio show:
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/
I wonder if anybody has amnesia cop's name? it still might be worth putting some pressure on this individual to come forward with the truth.
I can't believe that they would have shot Terri's mother and father for trying to take her to a hospital. My God, that would make it like Nazi Germany.
Has anyone interviewed those police officers since then?
This was such a mess. So horribly tragic. Impeach Judge Greer!
I wonder what the prisoners think of Michael?
There was an article in Our Sunday Visitor, June 12, 2005 edition, about a man who was in a motorcycle accident and the doctors said that they were sure he was brain dead. If he ever woke up, the doctors said he would be in a vegetative state, & she should let her husband go.
She told the doctors that her husband was an organ donor, but if they gave up on him, and did not give him a surgery he needed for a crushed pelvis, no matter WHAT happens to him, you don't get his organs.
So they operated on him, even though the neurosurgeon responded: "There is no doubt in my mind that your husband is brain dead."
Dennis Lewinski is alive today. He speaks and thinks clearly. He is blind and uses a wheelchair to get around - possibly because of the delay in the surgery.
But he and his family are happy that he is alive.
ping
That is just what it was like.
There are pictures floating around of a young man defiantly giving them the Nazi salute. He was arrested. All on the scene were aware you DON'T cross that line OR ELSE. They wouldn't have needed to shoot those attemting, they would have overpowered them instead. The cops were big, strong, determined and volunteers. It was truly like out of a movie and the cops were dressed in black, some in jackboots, and the SWAT wore insignia.
There is another picture floating around of the burly cops leading a little kid in handcuffs to the paddy wagon. The size contrast is incredible.
It was not the America I love that we witnessed there.
The after effects are already starting.
I've have taken a lot of heat from several FReepers already for daring to disagree with an assesssment of VDH but I urge you all to read the following and let us all know how you see things now.
It is the blood of Terri Schiavo that we will never be able to wash from our hands.
I urge you to read ~
Excellent read, powerful contrast. You hit the irony. Did you catch my earlier thread, "The End is Greer"? I hoped to sketch the monstrous clash of good and evil.
We had plenty of velveeta in Luzon, only way to fix mussels was with velveeta.
The family and attorneys must have it. I can imagine the cop saying to himself, "Hmmmm would I rather live or talk?" But the couple of nurses broke free, though. They are still ok. That is the tough thing. The cop may risk his life to bring out the truth, and then it is all smothered anyway and he is in a real bad situation with little if anything gained.
Give me a link please, I missed it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1384167/posts
Thank you for posting expatguy. I'll check out your link immediately.
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