Florida Teacher Blames Firing on Support for Terri Schiavo

Hi all, I am Mike, new here, a supporter of Terri.

Very interesting info on Rus Cooper-Dowda

RGSpincich ----> you have mail please

Given the school district offered no explanation for terminating their employment of Ms. Cooper-Dowda, how can you unashamedly declare, "She was fired because she is not a suitable teacher. Her dismissal is based on her job performance."

You are dangerously close to stepping into the quicksand of bigotry, RHSpincich.

Given the school district offered no explanation for terminating their employment of Ms. Cooper-Dowda, how can you unashamedly declare, "She was fired because she is not a suitable teacher. Her dismissal is based on her job performance."

You don't know much about this case, do you?

Here you go, Einstein.

Rus Cooper-Dowda told CNSNews.com Wednesday morning that the Pinellas County School Board voted six-to-one to fire her Tuesday night, citing "job perforrmance" as the reason.

RGSpincich, you write, "You don't know much about this case, do you?", and then you cite a news reporter who by his own admission declares he did not review the official reason to learn why Ms. Cooper-Dowda was fired. He alleges it was she who told him the reason: 'job performance', he writes.

This is the anchor of truth - your vindication for the crud you chose to use to dirty this thread, RGSpincich??????

In the article you provided, Ms. Cooper-Dowda is quoted as saying, "....I was given less than a day to hand deliver a resignation for 'personal reasons' or be fired for 'not fitting in.'"

"She is a probationary employee and under Florida law all teachers are hired under a 97-day probationary contract as at-will employees and at any point during that 97-day period, the principal can make a recommendation to discontinue the probation," [Ron Stone, associate superintendent for human resources and public affairs for Pinellas County Schools]. "Essentially, that's what's happened here, and we don't have to have reasons for that."

The article closes by indicating the unknown official reason(s) for firing was so off the mark that the governor of the State of Death 'r Us directed a state agency to investigate the circumstances.

Not bad for the 'con' you wrote about initially, and would prefer we accept - over the con you are failing miserably to establish here. It's not a favorable image, unless of course you are in point of fact a horse's ass, RGSpincich.

Ps. Still waiting for your response to pollywog's Post # 13.

The abortion loving story teller, cooper dowda, told the reporter that the governor ordered an investigation. That, like her "waking up" story, is unsubstantiated. She has motive to lie about that and no motive to lie about being dismissed for job performance issues.

Below is the abortion platform of the church Rev. Rus is ordained in. Not only do they tolerate abortion, they want to ensure there are enough doctors to meet the demand. Abortion promoters that create the environment that has led to Terri's Shiavo's perdictament.
No highly publicized protest fast on the church steps to alert the world to the millions of babies that are aborted because of her "church"? Not even a resignation from the so called ministry.
She's really a woman who should be "sainted", eh?

Train more baby killers

S2 Abortion Availability Requires Trained Doctors Issue: What can Unitarian Universalists do to ensure adequate numbers of doctors trained to provide abortions?

Background and Reasons for Study: Unitarian Universalists have a long history of supporting a woman's right to choose an abortion. In recent years, the number so choosing has remained fairly constant. The killing of Dr. Bernard Slepian in Buffalo, as well as threats to other doctors and abortion provider agencies, has made it harder to get doctors to do abortions. In a growing number of communities, no doctors trained to perform abortions are available. Eighty-six percent of the counties in the United States do not have abortion providers. Doctors trained to perform this surgery are aging; over half are over 50! Who will replace them? Medical students are not currently required to receive training in abortion procedures. In some cases, chief medical residents doing family practice are not currently trained in even the simplest abortion procedures. Worse yet, only twelve percent of obstetric/gynecology residency programs routinely teach abortion, and the percentage is declining. One reason may be the mergers between hospitals with and without religious affiliation. One immediate result of such mergers is the elimination of abortion training and birth control counseling.

Possible Study Questions: Are abortions available in your community? Is abortion available in health centers and hospitals or only in private clinics? If there is a teaching hospital in your community, what, if any, abortion-related training does it provide? What can Unitarian Universalists do to encourage abortion training for medical students? How can Unitarian Universalists support the efforts of organizations such as Medical Students for Choice and the American Women's Medical Association as they advocate for abortion training in medical residency programs? How can we assure continued freedom of choice? Do staff and patients have safe access to the abortion clinics?

Possible Actions: Determine the availability of abortion and abortion training in your community. Network with other organizations, including religious groups, to guarantee women's access to abortion services by ensuring there are enough trained doctors. Ask abortion providers how they might be best supported. Meet with local medical school officials to discuss their educational requirements. Write to the American Medical Association in support of abortion training. Contact your elected federal representatives to ask that federal funds be denied to medical schools which do not offer abortion training for their residents. Support federal and local legislation providing for abortion and providing safe access for staff and patients.

Apples and oranges.

Yes, both are grown on trees, but there the similarity ends.

I would guess there are many trying to save Terri, while regularly using contraceptives of every kind.

The focus here is Terri.

Don't muddle it with your well intended by misplaced agenda.

Don't muddle it with your well intended by [but] misplaced agenda.

Hi,
This is Rus Cooper-Dowda.
I am not a Unitarian Universalist minister. I am not a member of that church. I have written for them and a variety of publications. I have also written for the funeral home industry but that does not make me a mortician.

I went to a Unitarian school, a Yankee school (State University of New York on Albany) and even Hamburger University that McDonald's used to run. We are all more than where we train.

I am not pro-abortion. I almost was denied my seminary degree because I was not.I put a lot of energy into anti-abortion work.

Like many people after the onset of severe disability I had to declare bankruptcy for the medical bills that Medicare does not cover.

The most common reasons for bankruptcy are unemployment and medical problems. There are many like me and my family.

About my history of litigation:
They were each American With Disabilities Act cases that did not go to trial because we didn't want money. We wanted access which we got through the U.S. Department of Transportation or U.S. Department of Education.

Here's what we got for our part in class action access requests:
a bus with a working wheelchair lift to finally stop near our house.
Two seminary classes moved so there were no stairs to them
and my son's 4th grade class moved to the first floor.

There is little money in ADA cases by law -- that's why it is so hard to get representation for them.

About the coma time, I am curious as to what kind of proof folks are looking for. I suspect no amount of proof will change the minds already made up here.

I can tell you that as of tonight my story is part of Gov. Bush's next round of legal paperwork submitted on Tuesday.

If I hated Bush, Republicans and condervatives of all stripes -- why would be spending most of my time with them?

I shared the suspicions voiced here about me at my church this morning. The folks at the Sardis Missionary Baptist church think they are very funny.

*Hi,
This is Rus Cooper-Dowda.
I am not a Unitarian Universalist minister. I am not a member of that church. *

I’m sorry that I don’t have much time to respond to your effort to change your stripes . I will, however, show that you are not being forthright about your ties to the Unitarian Universalist church. Doesn’t do much for your credibility on the other matters.

You are a 1993 graduate of the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, CA

Starr King School for the Ministry
Educating Unitarian Universalist ministers and progressive religious leaders since 1904

.http://www.sksm.edu/misc/purpose.html
http://www.sksm.edu/people/grad_a-d.html

The email address that you distribute to the public is what? Uudre@… And what does the “UUDRE” stand for?
Unitarian Universalist Director(?) of Religious Education…

What about the publicity stunt (“publicity stunt” because you are have a history of using valid causes for self promotion) you attempted to pull off at the UU church in St. Petersburg earlier this year. The articles identify you as an ordained minister offering communion at the Unitarian Universalist Church in St Petersburg, Florida..
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/01/11/news_pf/SouthPinellas/Imperfections_are_par.shtml

You are listed as a member of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (FL)
. You are, also, listed as being on the steering committee of a Unitarian Universalist educators. Whose mission statement is as follows:

To bring together Unitarian Universalist religious educators (MREs, DREs, and teachers) from around the world and make their combined knowledge and experience universally available via modern electronic means. To help local and district religious educators:

(1) select curricular resources that meet the needs of their religious education programs;
(2) adapt those resources to best maximize the free and responsible search for truth and meaning among Unitarian Universalist children, youth, and adults; and
(3) improve existing curricula and develop new curricular materials.
http://www.rec-room.org/who.html

Rus Cooper-Dowda
Minister of Religious Education, online religious educator
Church of the Larger Fellowship (FL)

http://www.uua.org/CLF

Then there is this little admission by you in this blog, in which you also address the abortion issue. You link to the aforementioned email address.
“As a non-right-to-lifer hopelessly liberal Unitarian Universalist feminist with disabilities I can understand the concern about my story.
What would you like to know?”
Rus Cooper-Dowda (IP: 205.188.209.139) Nov 4, 2003 10:48 AM

http://www.mcgeheezone.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1167

In the blurb below you, as a UU educator, get into the Star Trek cosmos thing and how it relates to Humanist and Religious Liberal thinking. You, also, take a swipe at Texas conservatives in your revelation of a conversion to Human and Religious Liberalism from conservatism using Star Trek Theology.

*On-line Course Goes Where No One Has Gone Before
A new on-line, intergenerational religious education course called "Star Trek Theology and Ethics for Humanists and Religious Liberals," is now available to members and friends of CLF. Come explore the ethical and theological ideals from the "Star Trek" cosmos. Rus Cooper-Dowda, a member of CLF and a UU religious educator, offers the on-line course to UUs of all ages. She says, "Gene Roddenberry, the father of Star Trek, saw it as a political, social, racial, and human philosophy. It is no surprise that he moved from his conservative Texas roots to become a life-long humanist." … *
http://www.uua.org/clf/members/quest/2002-07.html

Being the Headmaster of the UU School for Wizards, you should have been able to magically wipe your past from the internet.
http://paganinstitute.org/e-hogwarts_happenings.html

A last try --
You misunderstand the autonomy tradition of the faith you are trying to describe -- for both individual members and churches.
You misunderstand my traditional upbringing and interdenominational work using each groups' own faith traditions and values.
You misunderstand that seminary degrees do not automatically make you ministers of the school's denomination.

Finally, you misunderstand that I am not trying to save Terri and our right to speak for her in order to convert you or anyone else to the way I believe in Jesus.

Therefore, let us leave off this foolishness as this is not a denominational discussion board.

I do not care what you believe -- only that you have the freedom to believe it. I understand my round faith journey does not fit into your square faith mold.

So be it and so what -- back to Terri please.

Yours,
Rus

P.S. 2 articles coming up to watch for:
"All I Ever Wanted to Do..." in the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted suicide's newletter, "Update"
and
"Fearrogrance in the Garden Patch" in the "National Right To Life News"

The question remains "who in the world ARE you." This is not at this time an issue of disputed beliefs, but an issue of what your beliefs really are; we want some assurance we aren't dealing with an agent provocateur or a chameleon. We take everything with a pound of salt here anyhow; we have no way of ascertaining that behind your screen name is the real Rus Cooper-Dowda (to whom due gratitude, by the way, for opposing the hellishly obscene starve-Terri juggernaut).

Update on Rus:
I just found out that the student attack I was (and am) still recovering from when I got fired may have caused a series of hairline spinal fractures.

Please pray for me and send good thoughts as I check that out in the next couple of days.

Thank You,
Rus

back to Terri please.

That didn't last long.

"Fearrogance in the Vegetable Patch"
National Right To Life News
December 2003
by Rus Cooper-Dowda
pp. 8-9

As a young doctor's wife I frequently heard my husband and his pals discuss "The Vegetable Patch", that part of the Intensive Care Unit where the comatose and the neurologically damaged were treated. I cringed inwardly every time they would refer to their patients as "The Turnip", "The Carrot", "The Eggplant", but I kept it inside. Only a few months after one such party I wished I had broken the omerta rule (Remember "The Godfather?). I suddenly awoke to find myself in the same position as those labeled ICU patients.

I learned in the mid-1980s that my medical circle's callous disregard for their patient's humanity (and then my own) was really an extreme form of what I now call the common "Fearrogance" of living with a disability.

My new word combines the Arrogance of believing one will never be disabled with the Fear of the real and great odds it will really happen someday.

How else to explain how the Hemlock Society (with their new euphemistic name) and the ACLU refuse to stop labeling all people concerned about Terri's civil rights as the fringe element? The members of such groups (that I belonged to before the onset of my disability) need to believe that Terri's and my experience stays rare and will never happen to anyone they know.

But it isn't rare and it can happen -- to you or someone you know. What people don't realize is that there are more people with disabilities in America than the entire population of Canada. Genetics, accident, injury, and aging will push most of us into the disabled community before the end of our natural lives.

That rampant "Fearrogance" is why my experience is such an important (yet missing) piece in the debate over Terri Schindler-Schiavo's "right" to be killed for having a disability.

In the mid-1980s I was 29 years old when my quiet and long-simmering lupus broke forth with seizure activity of increasing frequency. I lapsed into the state where I couldn't talk, move much or see very clearly.

How deeply I was in a coma-like state will always be a matter of dispute between the players at the time. But I was probably only truly "out of it" for a few weeks at the most.

What I will remember forever is waking in the ICU, a feeding tube inserted into me, to the sight of a school of doctors standing at the end of my bed. I was very glad then that they were going to save me since I was really and truly "back." I was sure they were going to be my much needed life-preserver.

I was sure their attentiveness would include noticing major movement and noise from me when a hypothetical question was asked about me. But to my great horror, after each of my monumental efforts to communicate, the medical team just continued planning an ending for how me that included stopping all care of any kind and sending me to a nursing home to die.
I was supposedly was in a "persistent vegetative state." As a result each improvement in my condition and my ability to reach out only made them nervous. My life was in great jeopardy.

I tried frantically move and making noise during those dreaded "rounds." This intermittent activity was interpreted as evidence of more "repetitive seizure activity ." My cry for help earned me more heavy sedation.

I tried blinking, nodding, hand signs, finger spelling, facial expressions, and pointing to symbols, letters and words on the side of an old file folder. All to no avail.

When I heard they were going to remove life support, I went into a total panic. I tried writing in the air. I spelled "don't." That got me more sedation. I then wrote "don't" it backwards. Their response was to consider tying my arms and hands down to protect me from self-injury. This taught me to stop writing "Don't."

With great difficulty I figured out that there was a "page a day" calendar on the wall across from my bed. Using hand motions, I devised a plan to start spelling out the words on the calendar.

it was my repeated efforts to spell out the same sentence (changing only the last number) that caused one nurse to pick up that the motion of my hands was an attempt to tell them what was on the calendar that day. This insight on her part saved my life!

She put ink on the end of my finger, so I could write the letter "Y" or "N" for yes and no. She started staying after shifts to talk to me -- the only staff person to ever do that. Even after I heard her being warned not to record the results of her visiting and being warned to stop, she still continued to visit. She reached out and facilitated my communication in every way possible.

Out therapeutic meetings had to be brief, late, and very quiet to avoid the notice of most of the rest of the staff who were adamant that all my behavior was nothing more than seizures or reflex. But she knew I was in "there" and took it upon herself to prove it.

Why was she literally forbidden to document my growing and increasingly effective alternative communication styles? They did not fit the existing diagnosis: I was "non-communicative."

This is the same situation Terri Shindler-Schiavo is in now. Only when they took time to listen to the nurse, who pointed out that I was understanding the calendar and also spelling out answers to questions, did they get past the labels.

I sincerely believe, as do many other anonymous and public health care professionals who have worked with Terri, that she is communicating her heart out and has been for years. But the filter of learned "Fearrogance" stands in the way of allowing Terri Schindler-Schiavo the same freedom to exist that you and I enjoy.

"Fearrogance" of that state where you need help with a spoon and that daft ham sandwich the husband's attorney keeps citing.

The question is, Who's next? If people with disabilities can be starved, how about others who are not able to communicate in the "right" way? Toddlers? Nursing home residents with varying degrees of dementia?

What I have come to understand is that my life was threatened by medical and legal obsession with the myth and idea that we can control all aspects of life for ourselves and others. I know this belief as the most absurd stance possible. I used to hold it myself.

Then experience taught me that life with a disability is fully living, including for people like Terri and me. People often say things like, "I wouldn't want to live like that," because they believe it will never happen to them.

When it does, it's not a bad life or a useless life. It's a changed life. I live a changes and different life now as a person with disabilities with loss of some control and a remaining need for help.

Terri Schindler-Schiavo needs such basic help, too. For example, she uses a feeding tube -- a straw device designed in the 1880s -- to take in her nourishment. Her straw, and the ones we use at McDonald's both work by air pressure and gravity. What's the big deal?

The national disabled community recently sent a statement to the press, saying that Terri has the constitutional right to live. It parallels the Right To Life movement;s efforts on behalf of Terri. Some of us are in both groups, others not.

At the end of the day, members of both movements believe that everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This includes people with disabilities, who some may not believe represent the physical "norm." There's that "Fearrogance" assumption again.

But, contrary to their preconceptions, I not only survived, I earned a graduate degree. My son recently began college.

I know in my heart and through my own experience -- then and since -- that there are desperate "non-communicative" people with disabilities everywhere who, even now, are blinking, nodding, and pointing to try to communicate. I could do that when medical staff was convinced I could not.

Terri can do that, too. But the powers that be doubt her in the same way they doubted me.

Welcome to a land full of "Fearrogance."

"All I Ever Wanted to Do..."
"Update"
International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Year 2003 Volume 17 Number 3
page 6

All I ever wanted to do was live, have a child and teach since I was five years old.
But events in the mid-1980s almost stop all of that from happening.

Due to being wildly misdiagnosed, garden variety lupus spun out of control. I sank into nearly continual seizures. That earned me an extended stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a prestigious east coast hospital. It was so sad. I couldn't think, talk, bear children or have a meaningful life again. I had to be allowed to die with all basic treatment and stimulation stopping since I wouldn't notice anyway. Of course I would never be able to write again. The prevailing opinion was simply that my death would be better than my adequately treated disability. My husband sided with the physicians.

So I obliged the staff and died. NOT!

Here's the real story -- I could actually hear all these conversations about my futile care and demise held in my room.

I desperately started trying to communicate. When talk of my pointless life would commence first I tried moving to show the topic really mattered to me. In response I got sedated for seizures.

Then I tried vocalizing. It sounded like moans. I got more sedation for my efforts.

I switched to writing in the air, begging for my life. They didn't get it. So, I began writing my plea backwards hoping they could get it that way. Nope.

At that point I also started memorizing the ICU gossip shared over my body. I heard a lot 24/7 since I was treated like a piece of furniture. As I was not "really there," it was okay to complain about my care while "having" to "move and dust me." I heard that last phrase more than once.

I also heard allegedly funny staff arguments over what kind of vegetable I was in the intensive care garden patch.

In absolute terror at that point, I noticed a wall calendar across from me that didn't say the month, but did say the date. I picked up that the top page read "TODAY IS 21." I immediately started drawing in the air what the date was during rounds. No one noticed -- not even when I changed the number as the week rolled around.

Except for a single nurse ...

She began to work with me by my blinking. When she brought this up to the medical staff, the response was that my blinking did not fit the diagnosis. She couldn't record my budding conversation.

We continued after her shift with ink on my fingers, a clipboard and increasingly complex communication boards made from old file folders and markers.

Her loving work earned me a final session as to whether I was already "gone" or not. I was asked if there was anything I wanted to say. I replied that I needed a divorce to get therapy.

No one ever doubted my presence again.

I still had to struggle for the most basic things like trips for follow-up care, food, water, getting stitches out, counseling, and maternity care. Yes, not too long after that I found out my sterile problem was going to be born in the fall. That son started college this past fall. I earned another master's degree. Obviously I am thinking and writing for you to be able to read this now.

I believe Terri Schindler Schiavo is in a very similar situation to mine back before my son was born.

Anyone who is or knows a woman should be very concerned. Disability can happen any time and anywhere due to illness, accident, or genetics. It is an equal opportunity minority - one that people can involuntarily join instantly.

Women who lose their caretaker status are particularly vulnerable when they need that same level of attention themselves. Indeed, most wards of public guardians are women with cognitive-impairments, precisely the group mostly likely to be starved and dehydrated across all institutional settings.

Therefore, know that supporting Terri's right to live is in your own best interest. I am very proud to say I became an exceptional education teacher as a direct result of Terri's inspiration during the October 2002 hearing when, once again, Judge George Greer ordered her death by starvation and dehydration.

Rus

All I ever wanted to do was live, have a child and teach since I was five years old. But events in the mid-1980s almost stop all of that from happening.

You tell so many whoppers that you can't keep them straight.

"...since we all had disabilities, we were slated to be special education teachers. None of us had any interest in teaching. None of us had credentials. It didn't matter..."

*NEW* Petition to Governor Jeb
Bush to Remove Michael Schiavo as Terri's Guardian
And Open a Full Criminal Investigation.

Sign Conservative Petitions.com Here

ReadCatholic Petitions.com Anyone Can Sign CatholicPetitions.com Here
Sign Friends of Terri.org Petition

Today's Update

Terri's Birthday is December 3rd. People have asked how they may participate. Find out here!

WHAT'S NEW,
Our Help is Needed in Florida The St. Pete Times Misrepresenting Terri's Case!
Action Items

Family attorney, Patricia Anderson speaks to Glenn Beck about this case.

Terri's Law Who is Terri Schiavo?

On Atheistic CommunismDIVINI REDEMPTORIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM MARCH 19, 1937
Read # 27

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Insider Fraud ping-listers, start at #88.

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