This thread serves as a place for posting all new general information and references, along with links following Terri's case, plus information on cable news and talk radio shows dealing with the issue, court cases and press releases. This is also the place to post contact information, prayers and general discussion.
If you have something that qualifies as BREAKING NEWS or FRONT PAGE NEWS, please post it on a separate thread in that category in order to give it maximum exposure and then post a link to the article/thread here so that it will be included in the next update of links. Also, if you post links to articles from original sources and there is also a thread on FR, please link to the FR thread. Many original links become corrupt over time and we want to be able to access the information at will.
This thread will stay up through next Sunday. I will be in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, but I will still be able to check in with y'all, just not as often.
A reminder: please do not post personal information on the public forum. We have lots of folks on scene down in Florida and we don't want them having any problems with the death squad.
Oh, that clip is incredible! It's word for word...LOL! Felos must have gone to the Mexican Federales School of 'Law'. His arrogance and contempt is astounding.
*VOLUNTEERS * VOLUNTEERS* VOLUNTEERS*
Volunteers --Please READ!
PRINT THIS OUT
AND PASS ON TO PEOPLE SITTING AT HOSPICE!
A GREAT idea was suggested by Pat Anderson and it was that I make assignments. So here goes the Volunteer assignments.
Please respond ASAP to me via email to let me know you are in receipt of this email and can do your assignment.
Again respond ASAP please..or I will assume you cannot do a table and will assign your table to another volunteer.
IMPORTANT*
SET UP FOR PARTY at 3:00 PM
People maybe working on Wednesday, so we need to officially consider the party officially begins between 4 -5 PM .
The "Happy Birthday Terri" circle of friends song!
All join hands to sing Happy Birthday Terri
---5:30PM ------6:30 PM -------7:30 PM
*Birthday Tables need to be set with enough distance between so the traffic flow pattern is smooth and there is enough room between them for people to move around.
*Please be considerate of all attending and set tables in a designated area so there is a sense of party organization.
I think it is best if the party area is set away from where the vigilers pray, so not to disturb those in prayer.
And also in respect for those who are there to support Terri,
but do not wish to pray.
It is IMPORTANT NOT to offend anyone, or turn any supporter away!
* Name Tags-- Please wear a Volunteer name tag.
* There's plenty to do for any regular vigiler who wishes to help but who has not been assigned a specific table.
Please feel free to help at all tables! Volunteers will need breaks.
* I will hopefully arrive early. However, if any of you arrive before me...please be sure to set the tables to the side of Vigil prayer area and in an organized flow pattern.
Thanks........
Cheryl F. & Pam H.
813-695-0870
Fight4Terri@aol.com or
Phenn@zimp.org -TABLES -
PLEASE DECORATE TABLES IN LAVENDER (TERRI'S FAVORITE COLOR)
Have balloons and a donations can at each!
TABLE # 1 ----
Volunteer PAM Henessey. - TerrisFight.Org Table
Please volunteer at this table.. bringing table #1 and setting it up.
Table 1-- should include /brochures/ribbons/literature ***Nicely decorated Donations Can!
TABLE # 2 FAMILY TABLE --
Volunteer/s (Angela Hillhouse & The Schindler's) - Please locate Bob & Mary Schindler and ask them to PLEASE create a Family Table.
Pictures of Terri- her favorite music playing - things Terri made... etc..etc.
*Place Nicely decorated "donations can"
Table # 3 Beverage Table-
Volunteer, Angela Hillhouse & Jackie ? - please volunteer at the beverage table.
Please set up a beverage table with:
coolers/ice/cups/ napkins/ drinks.
*** Place Nicely decorated donations cans at this table also
Table # 4 --- Cake Table
Volunteer, Jackie Miller
PLEASE Contact Angie STUTZ619 @ aol.com.
She has volunteered to pay for as many sheet cakes as we need.
I suggest 4 LARGE sheet cakes. Sam's makes nice one for a reasonable price if you order soon.
* BETTER TO HAVE EXTRA THAN NOT ENOUGH*
Please bring a large enough table to handle cakes.
We will need plates, napkins, & forks at this table
***Place Nicely decorated "donations can" at this table also.
Table # 5 " CHILDREN/ Balloon Table "
Lorraine
At this table it would be nice to have things set up for children who are visiting Terri. Perhaps ribbons with little lolli-pops stuck through them.
***Place Nicely decorated "donations can" at this table also.
Table # 6 Light a Candle & Guest Book Table
Volunteer, Cheryl Ford
Fight4Terri/ Votive Table/InternetTable
Votives and guest book for people who wish to light a candle for Terri. Special cyber poems/ cyber flowers/ picture collage sent from Internet people.
***Place Nicely decorated "donations can" at this table also.
TABLE # 7 " HOW TO HELP TABLE"
Volunteer, KAREN WARD-
TABLE FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO SIGN PETITIONS..OR PICK UP SAMPLE LETTERS WITH ADDRESSES TO WRITE TO POLITICIANS.
***Place Nicely decorated "donations can" at this table also.
CHAIR VOLUNTEER--
Volunteer, KATHY MUSIK --- PLEASE COORDINATE FOLKS who can bring BRING extra CHAIRS and set them in the PARTY AREA WHERE VISITORS CAN SIT/ EAT/ TALK/ MINGLE.
AREA Party Decorators - Folks who are sitting vigil please decorate trees and area with bows and balloons. Lavender is preferred because Pat says it is Terri's favorite color.
My understanding is that George W. Greer, when placed on the 2004, ballot will be voted "Yes" keep him or "No" expel him. He is running against "himself." In such election, gullible voters usually stick with the "friendly incumbent."
No, Baird has already spoken against Terri's fight. He has said as far as he is concerned that Terri's Law is "unconstitutional." Anything concerning these FL judges seems to be a "done deal" against Terri.
Does anyone have an understanding if Pinellas voters even know that George W. Greer (and now Baird) has tried to have poor Terri starved and dehydrated?
It seems to me that these FL judges (many "Republican" except on the FL Supreme Court) are among the most power-mad individuals that the USA has ever produced. They make Napoleon Bonaparte seem almost reasonable.
Thanks for all that you and the others are doing at this hospice to celebrate Terri's birthday.
Is there any indication that potential patients may be avoiding this institution because of all the abuse against Terri that has gone on for so long now under the roof of this hopice?
I seem to remember that MS is a Catholic and his live in girlfriend is too and wants a Church wedding.
That's what I thought too. I think Michael S. is a Catholic in name only. I remember reading that Terri would go to Church on Sunday with her parents and Michael would stay behind.
The Partnership for Caring has for some time had an
underhanded propaganda piece on its website. I posted
a response to them. There is little hope that it will
go anywhere directly with them. However, I believe that
any misrepresentation by a national level advocacy group
needs to be strongly corrected. Google searches by
interested persons may bring our corrections to the
attention of people, whether or not the organizations
themselves take notice.
If you feel like hitting them too, here is the link:
http://www.partnershipforcaring.org/HomePage/ This is my letter to them:
I am responding with scorn to your scurrilous marketing
hype titled PREVENTING A TRAGEDY. The slanted
phraseology concerning Terri Schindler-Schiavo identifies
you from the outset as being sworn to an agenda rather
than to serving the public. You say for instance that Terri
is
in what doctors and the courts have agreed is a
persistent vegetative state. Such a selective citation is
of the same caliber as
in what Americans and politicians
have agreed is the pressing need for oil exploration in the
Arctic Wildlife Preserve.
Which Americans and which politicians? Again, which
doctors and which courts? In Terris case, two doctors
contracted by Michael Schiavo predictably agreed that
she is in PVS. Why do you strain at admitting that two
doctors contracted by the Schindler family, also predictably
dissented? Do you find insufficient comfort in the fact that
a fifth physician appointed by Justice Greer delivered an
ostensibly independent opinion in favor of PVS, but emerged
compromised by his familys prior relationship with Michael
Schiavos attorney George Felos?
Your blatant misrepresentation comes as no surprise,
having no less obfuscating an objective than your omission
of nefarious ties between Partnership for Caring and the
Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, whose CEO Mary Labyak
sits on your board of directors. It is easy to see your lack
of enthusiasm for being identified with the beleaguered
Suncoast operation, what with the two class action suits
brought against it by defrauded donors, and a number of
other suits by individuals. It would not enhance your market
prognosis were it known that the Hospice of the Florida
Suncoast elected to recruit convicted felon Susan Wynn
for its finance department, or should I say swindle
department?
Just what exactly is your agenda? It cannot possibly be
in the area of advocacy for the dying, nor of quality
assurance regarding services to them. Apart from your
retaining a board member implicated in overseeing illicit
hospice activities, you also run afoul of the ethical mandates
of advocacy. Were it not so, you could be expected to
question Terris admission to the Hospice of the Suncoast
over three years ago. Surely you are aware of hospice
admission guidelines that specify the necessity for a
diagnosis of terminal by two physicians. I challenge
you to show even one in Terris case.
You must also be aware that the Hospice of the Suncoast
stands in violation of Federal Statutes pertaining to the
conduct of facilities receiving federal funds. By retaining
Mary Labyak on your board, and by turning a blind eye
toward Suncoasts questionable practices, you show exactly
on which side of the law you prefer to operate. Spare us,
therefore, your glib contrivances of public service and humane
disposition. While it is not certain whose interests you serve,
it is certain that it is not the public. Mary Labyak has bigger
plans than mere public service, it seems.
One searches in vain for disclosures of facts that are at
odds with your well-crafted mission statement. You are
less than forthcoming with regard to Choice in Dying,
which you absorbed into your operation. Is it because
you know that the donating public would look askance
at its roots in the Euthanasia Society of America? How
would it affect your fundraising efforts if people were to
realize that this progenitor of yours was founded in 1938?
That was, after all, during the time that another euthanasia
society achieved spectacular successes across the Atlantic
under the auspices of the Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei?
In light of this, shall we say unsavory lineage of Partnership
for Caring, your orientation statement in the PREVENTING A
TRAGEDY propaganda piece is rather disingenuous. You
write:
the essence of the matter is that this terrible
family tragedy was preventable. Neither you nor the
Hospice of the Suncoast under its past chairman George
Felos, nor Justice Greers friendship with two more board
members of the hospice offered any venue for the prevention
of what you now hypocritically term a tragedy. Your dirge
has the sincerity of Hitlers and Himmlers lamenting unrealized
opportunities for the prevention of Jewish deaths at Dachau
and Auschwitz.
You continue the charade with the necrotic, sugary assertion
that each and every one of us have a right confirmed by
the highest court in the land to refuse medical treatment if
we so desire. With characteristic hostility toward fact, you
design your platitude to insinuate that this right pertains to
Terris situation. To give your fable added momentum toward
public receptivity, you invoke the highest court in the land
in an innuendo that Terris case had received the attention of
that court. Far from it, Justice Greer of the Pinellas County
Probate Court was practically the sole judiciary agency
responsible for findings concerning Terris situation.
Justice Greers findings are in themselves marvels of
mangled jurisprudence. To wit: His honor extracted
clear and convincing evidence of Terris wishes from
Michael Schiavos anecdote of a casual statement his
wife made sometime in the mid-1980s during an emotional
reaction to a TV show. Worse, the memory of this anecdote
was latent for 13 years until it spontaneously came to the
fore in 1989. Numerous opportunities since 1991 to bring
the court into its benefit were inexplicably passed up
by Michael Schiavo.
Michael Schiavo claims to have heard Terri say that she
would not want to be kept alive by anything artificial.
A rather vague description of someones intent, wouldnt
you say? Yes you would, since you go to great lengths in
your propaganda to stress the importance of being specific.
Be that as it may, feeding tubes were not included in the
definition of artificial life support until a 1990 amendment to
the Florida Statutes was passed. Prior to then, and certainly
during the mid-1980s, the removal of a feeding tube would
have been considered a felony offense.
Justice Greers retroactive attribution of such a procedure
to Terris intent is a wanton and unsustainable adulteration.
Before Justice Greers innovative adaptation of judicial
principles, perpetrators were immune from prosecution for
breaches of laws passed after their act. Evidently, non-
criminal subjects of adjudication require less stringent
standards in Justice Greers version of jurisprudence. Is
it safe to assume that Partnership for Caring would welcome
having future legal definitions retroactively applied to its
present and past activities?
You continue in the best tradition of Josef Goebbels by
appealing to the publics instinct for protecting its rights:
The second equally crucial-- lesson is that each and
every one of us must act firmly and definitively to exercise
this right. May I remind you once more that Terri has implied
no desire for upholding the right to die from starvation and
dehydration?
The understanding prevalent during the time of her alleged
statement to Michael Schiavo eliminates her having
envisioned convulsions from dehydration, regardless of how
prudent you might consider it for citizens to wish for such a
fate. If I had minimal faith in your integrity I would urge you
to forego insulting our intelligence. However, the brazen
distortion that marks your bogus presentation obviates
any hope that you might be amenable to the request.
I find your opportunism both evident and irreparable
because you remain, to the end of your sociocidal
concoction, determined to turn reality on its head.
You write: Talk, talk, talk. Tell our health care agents,
families, doctors, lawyers, and clergy what we mean by
the statements weve put in our living wills. Although they
do not have Mrs. Schiavos words to guide them, several
courts have found credible the evidence of her wish not
to exist in her current situation. Partnership for Caring and
Last Acts support this countrys rule of law and thus the
courts decisions. Although they do not have Mrs.
Schiavos words to guide them
?
And just what precisely is the purpose for a living will if
there is no need for its words to be available to guide the
courts decisions? The courts also did not have Terris
guardian ad litem to guide them, since he was dismissed
and never replaced by Justice Greer at the behest of attorney
Felos, in direct contravention of retained rights to counsel
and access to the court. Justice Greer was furthermore
amiss in carrying out the mandates of Probate Statutes by
allowing Michael Schiavo to circumvent the required review
of a guardianship plan for at least three years. Who needs
guidance when the law is so malleable in His Honors hands?
Several courts
? Hardly! The mere fact that an appeals
courts, after a first reversal of Justice Greers ruling, was
reluctant to step on His Honors toes again, does not mean
that several courts found the evidence credible. Even a
minimally informed lay person knows that evidentiary rules do
not elevate anecdotes to the force of a living will, particularly
not anecdotes that had been forgotten for five years prior to
Terris incapacitation and for eight more years of litigation
after it.
While it seems clear that you support Justice Greers long
unchallenged miscarriage of justice, it is anything but clear
that you support the rule of law as you so loudly proclaim.
If you did, you would be outraged over the phenomenal
number of violations of law and denials of rights and due
process that Terri Schindler-Schiavo endured at the hands of
a judge to whom the canons of jurisprudence are manifestly
worth less than the paper they were written on.
Among these are breaches of Florida Statutes pertaining
to the rights of elderly and disabled persons (including
retained rights), Florida Statutes pertaining to guardianship,
the rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the United
States and the rights granted by the Americans with
Disabilities Act. Please do not speak of rights. In the
company of the lies to which you are so earnestly
committed, the word does not resonate well.
I know the thread is due to be renewed, but I just got home this evening and I have a job interview in the morning. If it's okay with everyone, I am going to wait and do the new thread tomorrow.
You're fine.
Take care with the job interview, butte be confident, and lettuce know what happened.
(Sea, even eye new the knew spell-checker wasn't perfect!)
I must say, I'm most impressed with your articulation, diction, clarity, and writing skills. Kudos to you, terrasol. Excellent letter!