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
Euthanasia and assisted suicide has been decades in slowly, incrementally creeping into our society, into the medical field and medical industry, into the legal field, into government, and even into the clergy. Euthanasia and assisted suicide has evolved and is practiced within the United States, under the radar of an unsuspecting public, and under terminology such as futile care, terminal sedation, and hastening death, whether people acknowledge it, are aware, or not.
Myra Christopher, Euthanasia and The Healthcare Connection - PART 8
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Out of such mistaken thinking came the assaults on the court system during the Terri Schiavo controversy and the relentless effort to have government sanctify marriage as between a man and a woman. Sanctification, though, is better left to religion, while civil rights are better left to government.
Also this month, Mr. Crist and Mr. Gallagher appeared before the Florida Family Policy Council, the state affiliate of the Rev. James Dobson's fundamentalist Focus on the Family. At that event, Gov. Bush called fundamentalist Christians the "bread and butter" of Florida politics, adding: "People who act on their faith are a large number of people in our state. Most people believe in God. It isn't that novel."
Same point, missed again. Belief in God and acting on faith can take people in different directions, not just to what the Florida Family Policy Council decrees is in keeping with that faith. One reason that the thinking in Tallahassee and Washington is so narrow on many issues is that those in power are appealing to groups with very narrow interests. Makes you want to vomit.
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Every media enterprise is to some degree its owner's soapbox, and WealthTV is no exception. One of Herring's favorite subjects is stem cell research. To that end, he inserted himself in the controversy over Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who last year was at the center of a right-to-die controversy.
WealthTV slowly building a base (next comes wealth)
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Yup. Tulewaggles to the right of us, tulewaggles to the left of us, tulewaggles flying up our nose. It is paradise :-)
Well said. In Terri's name, may we follow where America's founding fathers led and "pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" in defense of The Word.
Long read but what a BLOCKBUSTER!!
Perhaps now June might get the Pulitzer Prize
she deserves.
Just damn! I had a hard time reading through that article. Seriously, the corruption and just plain idiocy running through this state(and others), boggles the mind.
Too much to comment on, but what a good piece. Now I have to backtrack and find out how Mrs. Vo is doing : )
All I want to know is WHY? I think I know the answer to that question : (
I saw your other posts above. Isn't there anyone with the cojones to stand up for what's right and moral in that state? Tunnel, etc are nothing but corrupt incompetent pigs, at the public trough.
"Mr. Gerald Bailey, Interim Commissioner
Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Dear Mr. Bailey,
Click on the link above (www.northcountrygazette.org).
This is must bedtime reading, talks much about FDLE and its involvement in alleged cover ups. If your staff tells you there ain't noth'n to this, check to see if their fingers are crossed.
Assuming the same "serving at the administration's pleasure" command staff is in place that worked for Good Guy Guy, you might want to find more reliable counsel to avoid the pit he stumbled into. If you are really good at NOT finding the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the judicially ordered murderous truth -- HECK -- play this right, even if you don't get to keep the commissioner's job, you almost certainly would not be without gainful employment.
Ask the governor to call Bernie McCabe, arranging for you to take charge of his freezing cold case division in Pinellas/Pasco. On the other hand, if you can find an honest senior staff person willing to risk all by helping you reconstruct how McCabe blocked all local, county, and state investigations in the Schiavo scandal, with near certainty, your tenure at FDLE would be short lived.
However, there would be a place for you in the history books for helping uncork a cesspool of political, law enforcement compromised, and judicial corruption. Then, an added bonus, potentially -- alleged fraud involving millions of state and federal dollars. But be careful.
The list of official position persons compromised extends even to the federal DOJ, perhaps even to president Rove. Chose - really good paycheck or uphold constitutions and law. Read on, my friend. AND READ THE WHOLE THING. Just when you think there's nothing new here, you will bump into a,"OOPS! I didn't know THAT!"
Equally important is the way June Maxam continues connecting both old and new dots."
FV says notice that my friend above corroborates my witness that Karl Rove made the decision to rescue Terri in 2003 and also made the decision in 2005 to let her die a barbaric, painful death because Judge Greer knows such powerful republicans who give the party big bucks.
There's nothing wrong with fundraising but when it takes precedence over saving the life of an innocent woman, it's wrong. I think this is why Alberto Gonzalez is butting heads with the president. Gonzalez has to live with his statements that "the U.S. doesn't condone torture when he knows full well that he was ordered to stop Terri's rescue. ORDERED TO. Thanks, Karl.
We have been doing posts since 2003 that it would be MURDER to and since March 31, 2005 that TERRI WAS MURDERED. All on the line. I'm still waiting for justice along with millions of other people around the world.
I will never forget that TERRI SCHINDLER WAS MURDERED and all the people who did it.
Wake up mainstream media. You were told what to say as Terri was being tortured to death. Tell the truth for a change! It's going to come out anyway.
The Pulitzer's are left wing and may have ties to St. Petersburg, FL.
June did not mention the cult in her recent blockbuster. They think the disabled should be glad to give up their civil rights for the able bodied. Their world HQ is in Clearwater and Judge Greer could walk to their HQ from his courtroom. I'm sure he has done so as he has no regard for human life or no concept of respecting the wards he has sworn duty to protect but he's bought and paid for.
Judge Downey is getting thrown out. Judge Rehnke is getting thrown out. They are to make it look like the JQC is doing their job.
If the JQC was really doing their job, GREER would have been ousted during the 2004 campaign for all the illegal stuff he did during the campaign. Before the campaign, he was breaking all kinds of laws when Terri was still alive.
He continues to violate the judicial canons on his Magical Mystery Death Tour.
I ASK: If you had a legal matter in PINELLAS-PASCO COUNTY, would you ask for a change of venue because the judicial system in Pinellas-Pasco County is corrupt and dare I say evil? They kill people.
Tom Gallagher is the only candidate for Gov. of Florida who served in the military. He served at Arlington National Cemetery in the Honor Guard.
The investigative reporter asks if this was an FDLE coverup. Seems like the FDLE spends so much time covering things up that they don't actually enforce the laws of the State of Florida. (Oh, yeah, and while Terri was still doing really well, like day two, FDLE turned around. They were coming to rescue her and FDLE turned around halfway to Hospice Woodside. Who told FDLE to cancel their rescue of Terri?
Link to sex scandal coverup?
http://www.wtvt.com/investreptr/sex-scandal.html
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wtvt.com/Images/ir11-01-02/mcabe_bern.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wtvt.com/investreptr/sex-scandal.html&h=150&w=200&sz=9&tbnid=hfN9IgxWhp9xGM:&tbnh=74&tbnw=99&hl=en&start=4&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbernie%2Bmccabe%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DGGLR,GGLR:2005-38,GGLR:en%26sa%3DN
"My conclusions were based on what my office did, what FDLE did, and what I was aware of at the time," says Pinellas County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, who was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to investigate Coe's death. He says FDLE never mentioned Det. DeBlock or his information.
Bernie McCabe
Glenn Selig, FOX13: He says he gave information to the FDLE before Mr. Coe committed suicide and you're saying you don't know anything about it?
Bernie McCabe, Special Prosecutor: I don't know anything about it.
Glenn Selig, FOX13: Shouldn't you?
Bernie McCabe, Special Prosecutor: I don't know.
FV says: McCabe knows how to stop investigations and "denies" as illustrated above. "I don't know anything about it." FV Question: If Fla AG is Charlie Crist, why doesn't Crist ever assign investigations to anybody? Why does the Governor do it instead of Florida's Attorney General? Isn't that kind of strange? Isn't law enforcement part of Crist's job? I thought everybody was yelling that Jeb should stay out of things. It appears that he's doing Crist's job for him and dare I say, Jeb interferes in investigations that Crist should be handling? If appears that MCCABE is Jeb's coverup point man.
TERRI SCHIAVO BACKLASH: THE POLITICAL PRICE OF ENDORSING MURDER
From the Florida Times-Union:
Jim King has a 19-year record of solid fiscal conservatism in Tallahassee and a resume that includes the presidency of the Florida Senate.
He easily won the only three contested elections he's ever had and was most recently re-elected with 66 percent of the vote.
But King is worried about re-election in 2006, and he may have good reason. Jacksonville's most senior state senator is the only one of nine Republicans who is up for re-election after voting against a state law last month that may have saved Terri Schiavo's life.
King also is the subject of an online petition drive that asks Gov. Jeb Bush and the state Republican Party to suspend him, permanently remove him from office and bar him from representing the party -- all because of his Schiavo vote.
It is interesting that the issue of euthanasia seems to be defying traditional party lines. There are opposing social v. fiscal elements in both major parties, of course nationally the Democrats have succeeded in stifling the elements in their party that sincerely regard faith (as opposed to those who use it as a means to an end), but some still remain, much more on the local level.
The accepted two-dimensional political chart used so often is severely flawed and that's never been more apparent than now, when issues have arisen that clearly show that the normal Liberal/Conservative labels do not apply. It's easy to look for one handy title rather than finding out what a candidate stands for, and that's been a problem for some time now.
King and his fellow faithless Republicans have make their bed, and the gaunt face of Terri Schiavo haunts us and demands we make them sleep in it.
"One problem though. Starving to death a conscious disabled person is against the law and is not a "private family matter", unless you're the Manson Family."
Terri was murdered at the federal, state and local level.
I read somewhere that one of the Pulitzer members is the Head of the St. Pete Times and remember they had a real luv fest with Judge Greer and Mikey, Felos, etc. I can't think of the guy's name right now but the top guy whose name is on page two of section 1 who makes a declaration about being an honest paper. LOL
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