www.blogsforterri.com and (Terri Topix-Net newsfeed at my tag line).
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
While lurking at message boards, how many times have I read posts about what a creep FL AG Crist is? I urge freepers from all over the help Floridians elect Tom Gallagher in the primary for GOP Governor. If Crist wins, Florida will get EVEN WORSE, if that's even possible. Crist voters may vote for Gallagher in a general election but as a Gallagher supporter, I will never vote for Crist. He lies as often as Mikey does.
There was a message board where some watched the happy couple of msnbc. Their posters got a view of Jodi sitting on Matt's set. They thought she was either fat or pregnant. I posted the link yesterday.
www.blogsforterri.com and (Terri Topix-Net newsfeed at my tag line).
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/ap/article.html?mi=D8GKU8SG0&apc=9008
The only way to get things done is to become a major fundraiser and donor to the party. Then, they will listen. Naw. I'll just lv them high and dry the way they left Terri.
I saw only bits of CC's show. Seemed like she was unprepared, didn't know the case, and tried to hide it.
Oh wow! he has had an eye transplant, or at least photoshopped. That is the first evidence of regular eyes I have seen on him. Usually it is two pits of darkness. Well, we know felos wasn't the donor.
Two black holes smoldering in dead sockets.
Who knows: PhotoShop, Botox, plastic surgery -- "makes no never mind," as a buddy used to say. Michael's problem isn't the baggy eyes. It's his soul. And that is beyond the reach of plastic surgery.
That's what happened to it. Leaked out of the sockets because no eyes to hold it in.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney and a police officer scuffled Wednesday after the Georgia Democrat entered a House office building unrecognized and refused to stop when asked, according to U.S. Capitol Police.
McKinney, a sixth-term congresswoman who represents suburban Atlanta, struck the officer according to one account, a police official said, adding there were conflicting accounts of exactly what happened.
Here is the accompanying photo and I ask you, how could ANYONE fail to recognize this person as a national legislator?
Apparently it is on tape, the whole thing, not that it would make much difference.
This is so important, I must advise you that Florida legislator Sherri McInvale has a new bill for Florida - A law to permit dogs to be allowed to eat at sidewalk cafes.
I hope they expedite the legislation because it is such a vital and an urgent matter.
Continue to starve and dehydrate people behind closed doors and give dogs more civil rights.
Florida is the Starvation State (for people that is).
Scarborough went fine but it's all a blur now. The bottom line is that Amerika shouldn't be killing the disabled, Terri was imprisoned and Michael killed Terri. That's in their book and much more. Terri's mom never imagined that this country would do such a horrible thing to a human being. She's not alone.
I think they both have a clothes pin on the back of their heads pulling the skin tight in front.
http://www.lifenews.com/bio1420.html
I never imagined it either.
excerpt:
As Terri Schiavo Remembered, Pro-Life Group Urges Protective Measures
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- As millions of Americans mourn Terri Schiavo's euthanasia death on its one-year anniversary Friday, a pro-life is urging people to complete a pro-life version of an advanced directive in order to prevent becoming the next person sentenced to death by the courts or family members. "Terri's death was a gross injustice that marked a sad day in our history when our society allowed Terri, a woman with a severe disability, to be discarded in such a cruel and inhumane manner," says Burke Balch, the director of medical ethics for the National Right to Life Committee. Balch said his group wants Americans to do two things to make a difference: complete a Will to Live form from NRLC and contact your state legislators and urge laws to protect disabled people. The Will to Live form allows patients to clearly express the kinds of treatment they want should they be unable to make their own health care decisions down the road. Balch says the form is vitally important because an NRLC study shows the laws of all but ten states may allow doctors and hospitals to disregard advance directives when the directives call for treatment, food, or fluids. The form is designed to make it clear that a patient wants food and fluids continued. Following Terri Schiavo's death, many groups and the media have focused on urging Americans to complete living will forms. However, NRLC reports that, increasingly, health care providers who consider a patient's "quality of life" too low are defying these directives in order to deny treatment against patient and family wishes. Read the complete story.
Sent by Cheryl Ford, RN (www.Fight4Terri.com) whose not affiliated with any other group and works to protect the rights of the disabled community
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