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.
If you stop defending Jeb, I'll stop re-iterating my position which is based upon my witnessing Terri's premeditated murder play out.
I will bring this info to the thread and then I've got errands to do today.
Mel Sembler is the Ambassador to Italy as appointed by Bush 41 and as reappointed by Bush 43. Mel Sembler is George Greer's friend and associate. Mel Sembler ran George Greer's campaign when Greer ran for County Commissioner who dealt with zoning issues. They zoned Pinellas County and made land deals with the scientologists who have destroyed downtown Clearwater imo.
Sembler's son, Brent Sembler is running Charlie Crist's campaign for governor. Charlie Crist failed Terri on purpose to protect his law enforcement friends and his friends at DCF.
Bottom line is that if a politician is from PINELLAS COUNTY, they were all accomplices in the death of Terri Schindler (Schiavo).
Terri is gone and it's for the love of money and power. If you want to make Jeb a hero, why don't you start a vanity thread? You'll get flamed mercilessly. Don't assume that all freepers are in love with Jeb Bush at this time. It's a fact that the Bushes however are in love with the Semblers who ran a drug abuse clinic that used starvation and sleep deprivation as techniques to get kids off of drugs. It was shut down by the govt.
Are you Jeb Bush?
Can Vicki move to another state that will treat her with respect? South Dakota is a nice state. They would treat Vicki well.
Click on my screen name to visit my profile page. I have Father Pavone's account of Terri's last hours there for all to see.
Insult and malign? Hah!
Keyes has been one of the biggest supporters of the President's foreign policy throughout the war. So much so that he has thank-you notes from the (very liberal) WH chief-of-staff, Andrew Card, expressing gratitude to him for the same.
But let me tell you, friend, after the treatment that Dr. Keyes has received in the last few years from the RINOs in the party, mostly for no offense except standing up for the very principles this website and the GOP platform advocate, a lesser man would have been much harsher in in his criticism of this administration than he has been.
Yes, I am.
Because I don't know what she has done for years and many come on here and try and destroy the reputations of our strongest politicians.
Which is the same reaction she is going to get in Florida from all that support Jeb Bush. It undercuts her efforts and makes it appear partisan ambush of a republican governor. Now with Keyes in the picture, it could easily be used to ruin the future of Jeb, one of the most stable, trustworthy candidates for further political positions.
Jeb Bush is a man we want in government somewhere and, no doubt, there are many that want to push him out of the picture for their own political goals.
I just know that if I was in Florida and heard her continual blaming of Jeb as she fights the wrongs, I would not join in her efforts because if she cannot see where the real problem lies, she will not be very effective in getting change. It makes her arguments appear merely a tool to destroy Republicans.
And, I want the efforts to succeed and they also will need Jeb Bush on their side.
A) The idea that Jeb Bush would have been impeached for saving Terri's life is patently ridiculous. The Florida legislature doesn't even have the guts to impeach Greer. Why in the world should any thinking person believe that you could even find a single legislator that would have lifted a finger to impeach a powerful and popular Governor? Utterly ridiculous.
B) A simple signed order from the Governor would have been completely effective. The LEOs on the ground in Pinellas Park fully recognized the superior jurisdiction and authority of the chief executive of the state, and plainly told me so personally. They would have stood down and stood aside on the mere presentation of a signed order from Jeb Bush. That's a fact.
So, by all accounts, Jeb got Jesse on the martyrdom track, which the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee stated to me in person the day prior. Rep. Dave Simmons said to me, "Terri will be a martyr."
Republican Dave Simmons didn't know I was a freeper. Let him eat his words now.
Ok, apparently your agenda is against Jeb Bush.
I will have to support other efforts regarding Terri - I will not be a part of a Bush revenge/political witch-hunt.
I am really sorry to see you do this. But, I come to FR to support our candidates - not to work against them.
If he had merely acted to save Terri's life, I would have supported him for any office he wanted, including the Presidency.
Jeb Bush is a man we want in government somewhere and, no doubt, there are many that want to push him out of the picture for their own political goals.
Terri Schiavo's case was the test of Jeb Bush as a man and as a politician. He was found wanting. Personally, I could not support him now for any elected position in the future.
I can check with Cheryl.
No one here is carrying out a vendetta against Jeb.
Personally, my only goal is that conservatives across America understand exactly what happened in Florida in March, so that they don't have blinders on about the real results, for real people and families, of squishy Republicanism.
The Governor has a term to serve out. If he wants to pursue legal remedies to help assure that the euthanasia movement is stymied (even if it is for political reasons or to assuage his troubled conscience) I will support him whole-heartedly in that endeavor.
Just don't ask me to stand idly by while the history of what happened to Terri and her family is rewritten using lies.
And don't ask me to ever support Jeb Bush again for any public office.
I'm telling the truth. Guess you are sorry that the truth is coming out. I told you I was done trashing Jeb if you stopped defending him. "Are you Jeb Bush" was a mood lightener, not an attack.
http://www.renewamerica.us/forum/?date=040606
Address to the National Federation of Republican Assemblies
~~~
Alan Keyes
~~~
August 25, 2001
...... Well, I start here today my friends because some of you may believe that the Clinton era was the most dangerous era that we faced as Americans and conservatives.... I do not believe this. I believe that we are right now in the most dangerous era that we have faced as conservatives in America. And though I know it will be difficult for some of you, the sub-heading of this speech could very well be, "Why I am not a Bush Republican." ........
The bullet you hear is not the one that kills you. .... The one that gets you is the one you don't see coming--and you don't see it coming half the time because it's dressed up as part of your friendly environment;...does not announce what it intends to do and then it ends up seducing and betraying those who often stand for right [unintelligible].
" No, no, no . . . [laughter] If you really want to destroy somebody, first you've got to get into their good graces, you have got to pretend to be their friend,........
....Well, I've been watching and I'll tell you, I don't see coming out of Washington today one thing, not one major thing that corresponds to the agenda of liberty, that corresponds to the agenda of conservative principles that we've just discussed. .... Am I supposed to stand up here and pretend that that emperor's got clothes when I know he's not wearing any?
....and I tried to explain to them, no, the evil that you know, the evil that you recognize, the evil that inspires you to fight against it, that's not the worse evil you can face.
The worst evil you can face is the insidious evil that creeps behind your lines,..... And I'm watching it happen right now."
This is why I do not trust Alan Keyes.
Can you refute the truth of what he said? Or are you simply so partisan that you refuse to face the truth about this administration's record?
The only difference between what he said and what thousands of FReepers say every day is that he said it sooner, and publically.
Nice excerpt, by the way...one which is designed to lose as much unhelpful context as you possibly can to back up your attack on the good Doctor.
Although Keyes wasn't referring to the Terri Schindler case, your post made me think about how very fitting the statement is with regard to the Republican party and its complicity in her murder.
Bump.
Judicial Corruption Cover-up Documentation / Report on JQC Lynch Proceeding
http://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2005/06/judicial_corrup.html
He came to Dallas and used a Republican conference to lambast the President of the U.S. - the same thing the democrats do daily.
We don't need subversion. This was publicly - what does he do behind the scenes?
Why do you think we are so upset with McCain? Because he does not work with us - he works against us. Keyes is the very same - all is about Keyes.
No thanks. We have enough politicians that care only about their personal goals.
The Doctor may be a good man - but he sabotaged the President of the United States and I don't appreciate it.
What was the purpose? To turn republicans away from a sitting president and to help his future election goals.
And, I believe that is full well why he was not let in the door at the Governor's mansion - they know what he is.
Do you really think Keyes would not set up Gov. Bush to ruin him in future elections? Well, I don't and it is getting pretty clear that a lot of Florida Terri supporters want the same thing. I don't.
No. The Republican party did all they could legally do to help Terri. I don't notice any complaints about what the dems did not do.
The American public does not want the federal government to overrun state laws because it leads to the federal government making bad laws instead of merely one state making bad laws. The bad precedents of the federal government reach every one of us.
Why let the horrible government of Florida lead to bad laws for all of us? Get the laws straightened out in Florida as you should have been doing all along, but don't bring all other states under the type of government you set up in Florida.
Of course people get mad, but each of you is smart enough to really see what the laws of this country are. The President of the U.S. and the Governor of Florida are in no way required to over-reach their positions to please the few malcontents that will immediately turn on them with impeachments.
To put the blame on Republicans and leave the democrats untouched, to leave the legislature untouched, to leave the euthanastists untouched is very revealing as to the agenda.
The laws are the problem. If all are serious - get the laws changed. Now that is not for Jeb Bush to do - that is for YOU, the people, to demand of the legislators.
You people in Florida allowed this to happen - not Jeb Bush.
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