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3-22-05,
5:58 AM
You guys
wanna go see a dead body?
Music:
The Servant - Cells
We
live in a country that is packed to
the brim with loonies. While this
certainly isn't news to most of you,
after spending hours trudging
through all the information on the
Terri Schiavo case and the arguments
therein, I think it bears repeating.
If
you aren't familiar with this case,
it's been going on for quite some
time, but it's recently become Big
News™ again. Here are the facts:
Terri Schiavo is a Florida woman in
a persistent vegetative state and
has been in such a state for the
last fifteen years. Numerous brain
scans and EEGs show there is
absolutely no activity going on
upstairs, due to the fact that the
majority of her brain has been
basically reduced to spinal fluid.
What little remains is what commands
the very basic functions to keep her
alive; she still breaths, her heart
still beats. The only reason
she is alive is because she is
hooked up to a feeding tube.
Terri's husband, Michael, has been
stating from day one that his wife
has stated that if such a thing were
to happen to her, to let her die
with dignity, and is attempting to
carry out this request. Terri's
family, however, does not want to
let their daughter go that easily,
and is fighting Michael.
Unfortunately, this request is not
documented anywhere, so if Terri did
make this request, it cannot be
proven.
Florida state law says that if a
person with no living will is in a
persistent vegetative state, the
spouse gets to make the call on
whether or not he or she lives or
dies. As you can probably guess,
lawsuits are thrown back and forth,
and now it seems the federal
government has taken a shine to the
issue and is attempting to make it
so they have the power to make this
decision.
The fact that this has now become a
politically partisan issue boggles
my mind, and only reinforces my
belief that we're plunging further
into a bottomless pit of insanity.
At this moment, Terri's feeding tube
has been removed and so she will
slowly starve to death, any other
means of death remains illegal.
Perhaps one of the most insane parts
of this case is that, in order to
have the tube reinserted and the
case dragged on, Terri was
subpoenaed to testify before
congress.
Another tragic part of this case is
how Michael Schiavo's character is
coming under attack from virtually
every angle you can imagine:
-
Michael Schiavo is in it for
Terri's life insurance policy.
This argument
conveniently ignores the fact
that Michael was offered one
million dollars to transfer
custody over to the family. When
he refused, he was then offered
ten million dollars. He refused
again. For some reason this
argument doesn't gel with me.
- Michael's been living
with another woman for fifteen
years, he just wants Terri out
of the way so he can remarry.
This argument would be
reasonable if it weren't for the
fact that divorces exist.
- Michael was a violent
man that used to beat Terri.
No evidence. Examinations of
Terri abound, absolutely zero
evidence supporting this.
Michael stands to gain nothing
from Terri's death, what I see is a
man determined to carrying out his
wife's wishes. I could be wrong,
there could be some other ulterior
motive behind Michael's actions, but
I can't see it. There are some
people that believe he won't take
the money when under the public's
eye because it would expose him for
"the scumbag he really is." Damned
if you do, damned if you don't? I
can be cynical sometimes, but being
that cynical would probably cause me
pain.
As for Terri's family, most notably
her parents, I cannot begin to
fathom what it must be like to lose
a child, so it must be extremely
difficult for them, but there's
nothing there. Terri effectively
died fifteen years ago. They
believe, completely disregarding
medical evidence, not having a shred
of their own that would support
them, that Terri can recover with
rehabilitation. They believe that
when they see her blink her eyes
that there she is responding to
them. Her brain is mush, only the
most basic of functions remain. She
would blink if she saw her parents,
she would blink if you put a bowl of
mashed potatoes in front of her, she
would blink if you played the best
of Michael Bolton non-stop for hours
on end, she would blink if
absolutely nothing were happening.
It has to be rough, but she isn't
coming back. Even Lazarus had a
cerebral cortex.
The Bush Administration is trying to
pass "Terri's Law" which would keep
Terri alive, Bush himself spoke
about this yesterday. Imagine,
legislation for this single case
alone. Though it's not hard to
imagine that they're trying to set a
precedent here at the same time.
I've heard the argument that because
Terri still breathes and blinks,
that "the separation of body and
soul has not taken place." I'm
sorry, but if these are the best
arguments you've got and you're
going to try to pass legislation on
something like this, you're going to
have to show me a soul.
Really, the saddest part is that
since this has become a political
issue, nobody really cares about
Terri. The major issue here is
getting to determine who has the
kind of power of life and death, and
right-wingers, who I was thinking
were against federal government
getting involved in our personal
lives and preferring state
governments to sort out issues,
the ones who whine and kvetch about
decisions put in the hands of
liberal federal judges, are going in
a totally hypocritical direction.
While on the thread of hypocrisy,
here's a fun little bit of
information: Back in 1999, when our
man Bush was governor of Texas, he
signed a bill that gave top priority
in a case such as this, to decide
whether a person in a persistent
vegetative state should live or die,
if no living will existed, to the
spouse. Looks like he changed his
mind. I wonder why that is?
To close out this little rant, let
me ask you this: Say you were brain
dead, absolutely no chance for
recovery, you don't respond to any
sort of stimuli, you can't have
thoughts; you are literally
nothing but a shit and piss factory.
Would you really want to be hooked
up to a machine and be kept alive?
-K.
i've got a
pretty bad headache
3-7-05,
10:34 PM
We're
eating oranges and we're making IDs.
 Music:
Muse - Apocalypse Please
Dear
Internet,
It's
spelled ridiculous, not
rediculous, for fuck's sake.
Why
must you make me hate you?
Love,
-K.
I'll pay you back in... $ RAPE
DOLLARS $
3-5-05,
6:58 PM
The Lone
Rangers? That's original. How can
you pluralize "The Lone Ranger"?
Music:
Ben Folds - Give Judy My Notice
Alright, I'm back on a normal sleep
schedule... For now. The following
post is going to jump around from
different topics rather rapidly, I'm
also leaving the more serious stuff
for a future entry.
I
can't wait for my brother to move
out, and yes, it's really happening
this time. My grandfather owns a
couple buildings in south city and a
one bedroom flat opened up after the
guy living there moved out. What
that guy failed to mention to my
grandfather was that some of the
water pipes were busted, so the
place is being renovated. It's a
pretty big place for $350 a month,
so my brother and his girlfriend
jumped on the opportunity and
they'll be moving into it once
they've finished bringing it back up
to snuff.
I was reminded how much I can't wait
until he moves by the smell of
marijuana that wafted into my room
and up my nostrils. What's important
to note is that I had the door
closed, the window open, and at no
point today did Blake come in. All
he had to do was walk by the door.
It's like if Pigpen from Peanuts
was a pothead.
The
full version of
Darwinia
has finally been released, and
it is great. Adopting a very
simplistic but beautiful art style,
a basic and straightforward
interface and addictive,
genre-bending gameplay, it's been
quite a hit. It's not hardware
intensive, either, as evidenced by a
constant framerate of 100FPS. If you
still haven't tried the demo, I
recommend you check it out, it's on
their site, there's absolutely no
reason not to. It's pretty
remarkable what three guys working
out of their homes can make.
Speaking of not being hardware
intensive, at one point I had
intended to put together an article
with a list of decent older/free
games that will on power-challenged
systems, but someone on the Shack
did the work
for me in a much more efficient
manner. Though once again I'll take
the time to stress the importance of
sites like
The Underdogs.
At
some point I really hope to write a
review of Resident Evil 4,
but I've got a whole mess of games
to get through now. I rented
Pikmin, Wind Waker and
Metroid Prime through GameFly
and I've been trying to divide my
time among those as well as
Darwinia. Knights of the Old
Repbulic 2 has also been
released, though I never finished
the first one, I've heard it's
pretty much just more of the same. I
also started new Jagged Alliance
2 and Silent Storm
campaigns because I have ADD, I
suppose. The WW2
tactical-shooter-based-on-a-true-story
Brothers in Arms was released
on XBox a couple days ago to
much critical
and player acclaim,
hopefully the PC release isn't too
far off. After a string of failures
that were mostly the result of
publisher pressure, it's nice to see
Gearbox finally hit one out of the
park.
Later this month the complete series
of
The Lone
Gunmen will be
released on DVD. I really liked this
series and never missed an episode,
which is usually the
kiss
of
death
for a television program. If you
never got a chance to see the show
it was a spin-off of The X-Files
that went in much different, more
humorous route, and it really worked
well. Featuring the three Lone
Gunmen characters (and one goofball
named James Bond), naturally, it
followed their misadventures as they
attempted to scoop stories for their
underground newspaper. Funny and
clever, two qualities of a show that
Fox
cannot
maintain, it was doomed
from the start.
I
picked up a copy of Michael
Crichton's Sphere last
weekend and plowed through it, much
better than the movie despite being
somewhat technologically dated
(written in 1987). The movie started
off extremely well, I thought, and
then after the first half it just
sort of went to shit. After reading
the book I found that the movie
stays fairly close to the novel in
the first half, and then tries to
cram the rest of the book in as
quickly as possible, failing in the
process.
Yesterday I bought a copy of Richard
Matheson's vampire classic I Am
Legend and I'm about half way
through it, good stuff. It's aged
well considering he wrote it in
1954.
The
script for the first episode of
The Apocalypse Man has gone
through its first draft, and despite
being told otherwise I think it
sucks. Compared to the rest of the
work by my fellow students in my
screenwriting class it feels
hackneyed, even somewhat childish;
it's a trainwreck of genres and not
a single one of them stands out in
any way, especially in the area of
black humor. I'm fascinated with the
concept of the series, it's
something I would really love to
make someday, but I don't like how
I'm handling it. I'll put the final
draft up here once it's finished.
I
thought I'd end on a high note.
-K.
weather balloons are going to end
baseball
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