Everyone is talking about Terri Schiavo’s right to live, but all I can think about is Auntie Mame. What would this vibrant, passionate, fun-loving character say about all this? Well, her most famous quote would not be appropriate. “Life is a banquet and most poor sucker’s are starving.” That’s not by Terri’s choice. Or is it? We really don’t know. The only thing for certain is that no media event has been this crazed since OJ.
Someone has put a contract out on Michael Schiavo’s life, in retaliation for Schiavo presumably murdering his wife. This guy, Richard Alan Meywes, probably got this bounty idea from that pesky “eye for an eye” passage from the bible. The same passage that makes people shoot doctors who perform abortions.
All right. I have to say it. What the hell?
Meywes is from North Carolina (of course, he’s Southern) He tried to be her hero and Michael’s judge by sentencing him for a crime that is no crime and is legal. What he’s done is raise the Circus factor on this whole nasty situation. Everyone is committing crimes over Terri. Kids are getting arrested (13 year old twin girls! Sounds like a pervert’s jail fantasy), a 10-year old boy who is not afraid because God is with him. Isn’t God a bit tied up with the people in Iraq, little fella? And now, a contract on Michael Schiavo’s life
I am in the mood to torture myself, so I’ve turned on Fox News. As I type this post, I’m watching protesters outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is living out her last days possibly. Two old ladies are holding 8.5 x 11 pieces of pink paper that simply says Terri. Actually, it says Terry, with a Y. Isn’t her name spelled with a I? No matter. Next to her, someone has a poster board saying the now famous mantra of the Schindler Supporters: She’s not disabled, She’s not ill, She’s responsive. Her choice?
Okay, the person who wrote that needs a professional marketing person to bullet-point their ideas into a clearer message.
Fox cuts away to a commercial, and their teaser shows two men in the protester pit arguing. A big brut type says, “All we want is for the court’s to hear both sides.” The other guy, who fits the short/bearded/academic stereotype, rebuts with, “but the courts have heard both sides. Twenty times they’ve heard both sides. Twenty times.”
I don’t know how many times this case has been heard. Five or twenty or fifty. I don’t know that Terri is responsive. This is what the protesters say. They are wrong about one thing. She IS ill. She’s brain dead for God’s sake, what doctor would call that healthy? Auntie Mame wouldn’t want to exist that way, that’s for damn sure.
Terri’s lying there in bed, can’t talk, can’t enjoy life, can’t write a blog post, can’t eat a nice thick juicy steak, can’t enjoy a glass of pinot noir, can’t even shop at the Gap. I’m sorry, that isn’t living. That’s called being a Muslim woman.
This is a very gray area situation. I don’t know what is right or wrong, but I do know that if I were in Terri’s place, I would want to die. Hell, I’d want to be put down like a dog, with a nice shot of something strong. Hopefully, my life won’t come to that, and to celebrate the here and now. As Auntie Mame would say, I want to live! Live! Live! And by that, she didn’t mean with a feeding tube inserted into her belly.
