I'll bet Tom DeLay was the kind of kid who ran to his mom every time the other kids didn't let him have his way.

His tantrum about the Schiavo case continues:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), under fire from Democrats for what they consider threatening remarks about federal judges, plans to ask the Judiciary Committee to undertake a broad review of the courts' handing of the Terri Schiavo case, his office said yesterday.

DeLay's office did not specify exactly what the majority leader wants the committee to do. The Constitution gives Congress the power to set the areas of authority for federal courts, but it was unclear what could be done by the committee in response to the Schiavo case, in particular.

The majority leader said Thursday he wants to examine what he called the "failure" of state and federal courts to protect Schiavo, who died 13 days after the court-ordered withdrawal of her feeding tube.

DeLay issued a statement asserting that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." He later said in front of television cameras that he wants to "look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."

I hate to tell you this, Tom, but when Congress and the President overstep their Constitutional bounds, it's the courts' JOB to thumb their nose at Congress and the President.

Would someone please give this fucking moron a copy of the Constitution and make him read it?

And while you're at it, would someone please remind Republicans that supporting this corrupt, idiotic hypocrite doesn't exactly give them the moral high ground?

This week, after the death of Terri Schiavo, the President of the United States of Do What I Say Not What I Do said, "I urge all those who honour Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others..."The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favour of life."

My friend L. reminds us:

Bush has NO shame. The two monetary mechanisms that have enabled Terri Schiavo to receive medical and hospice care for 15 years were the $1,000,000 settlement from a medical malpractice lawsuit the family won on Mrs. Schiavo's behalf and Medicaid. The Republicans in Congress, URGED on by the demonic Bush, voted to END or limit medical malpractice lawsuits and voted to CUT $15 to $20 Billion FROM Medicaid. Furthermore, if Terri Schiavo lived in Texas and had not had the winnings from the medical malpractice lawsuit and Medicaid to pay her expenses, a law Bush signed as Texas governor would have enabled the hospital to DISCONNECT all life support to Terri Schiavo even AGAINST the family's wishes. Mrs. Schiavo could have been "killed" in Texas years ago and no one would have protested, because it was a Texas Republican-sponsored law designed to save money for a principal lobbying group, the Texas Hospitals Association, that made it possible to stop life support for the Texas poor and indigent who are in a persistent vegetative state.
Bush speaks of a desire to "protect the weak"; that is a sick joke coming from this evil man whose policies are all designed to harm the weak, the powerless and the vulnerable.

L. is right...Schiavo's medical expenses were paid for because her husband was able to file a lawsuit against the doctors who were treating her for fertility problems -- the kind of lawsuit to which Bush wants to put a stop, and Medicaid -- a program Bush wants to cut to the bone.

When is someone in a leadership position (I'm talking to you, Mr. Kerry, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Bayh, Mr. Edwards, and especially YOU, Mr. Joementum) going to stand up and point this out?

If you needed further proof that the misnamed "pro-life" movement is not about "innocent babies", but about trying to scare women into keeping their legs closed, there's a growing movement among Christofascist Zombie Brigade pharmacists across the country to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. In some cases, such pharmacists are also refusing to return the prescription so the customer can have it filled elsewhere (assuming there is an elsewhere; in many areas Wal-Mart is the only pharmacy for miles around, and if their pharmacist refuses, those women are shit out of luck).

This is going to have to be dealt with, and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich throws out the first ball:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich approved an emergency rule Friday requiring pharmacies to fill birth control prescriptions quickly after a Chicago pharmacist refused to fill an order because of moral opposition to the drug.

The emergency rule takes effect immediately for 150 days while the administration seeks a permanent rule.

"Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to," Blagojevich said. "No delays. No hassles. No lectures."

Under the new rule, if a pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist must be available to fill it without delay.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has also filed a formal complaint against the Chicago Osco pharmacy for the Feb. 23 incident.

The pharmacy was cited for "failing to provide appropriate pharmaceutical care to a patient." Penalties could include a fine, reprimand or revocation of the pharmacy's license.

In other news on this front, a debate is going on in Colorado as to whether hospitals should be required to tell rape victims about emergency contraception:

Gov. Bill Owens, a Roman Catholic who campaigned for office on conservative values, could face a tough choice deciding whether to sign a bill requiring hospitals to tell rape victims about emergency contraception.

Fellow Republicans say the bill, passed by the Legislature on Tuesday, violates Catholic hospitals' freedom of religion by forcing them to offer information about abortion. Democrats say the bill simply requires that help be given to women whose bodies have been violated.

In the middle is Owens, who refused to immediately take a position after the legislation was approved. Spokesman Dan Hopkins said Owens would "carefully consider" it before deciding whether to sign the legislation.

Republicans blocked similar versions of the bill the past two years, when they were in charge. Democrats captured both the House and Senate last November and pushed the measure through.

Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput objected to the bill because it does not require health care workers to tell rape victims that some medications stop a fertilized egg from being implanted, which he says amounts to abortion. He said the church does not object to rape victims taking steps to prevent ovulation when there is no risk to a fertilized egg.

Using the "fertilized egg" definition to define the beginning of human life is fraught with danger for women, because up to 30% of fertilized eggs never implant, but are expelled by the body in a normal menstrual period. If you're going to go down this road, every time a woman has a period, the government would want to know if any fertilized eggs were passed, and if so, what the woman did to "kill the baby." Do we really want women to have to start sending used tampons to the government? Do we really want this kind of intrusion? For that matter, defining the fertiized egg as a human being automatically requires making ALL hormone-based birth control illegal -- Norplant, birth control pills, Depo-Provera, and the IUD -- all of which act at least partially create an inhospitable environment in the uterus for implantation. This will leave us with condoms and diaphragms for contraceptive options -- which is obviously the point. Force women to remain chaste except for breeding.

Is that the country YOU want to live in? And if you're male, living in this country where males are raised to try to get laid as often as possible, who are you going to have sex with if you don't want to pay a whole mess of child support?

So the National Press Club is holding a symposium on journalism and blogging, which originally featured Wonkette and none other than Little Jeffie Gannonguckert representing the blog side of the fence. Now, Wonkette isn't my taste, but she's more of a humorist than a political blogger, and I would guess that if she's the best they could come up with in a world that includes Duncan Black, Markos Moulitsas, John Aravosis, Kevin Drum, the Corrente folks, Ezra Klein, and a host of others, the "cute girl" factor is more operative here than anything else. As for Jeffie Gannonguckert, he's neither a blogger NOR a journalist, so unless they've invited him to bring the hookers, I can't imagine, other than cluelessness, what the point of having him at this conference is.

Pressure has been put on the NPC to include John Aravosis, and this has resulted in Matt Yglesias being added to the conference, which is a start...but it's still not enough, since this conference is obviously going to focus on the whole Gannonguckert scandal. So another letter is going out shortly, and I've signed on.

Aside from the 24 x 7 news coverage of such relative minutiae of the Terri Schiavo death watch, the Michael Jackson trial, and who's going to buy the farm on next week's season finale of Lost (I say buh-bye, Boone, you're boring and simpering and I say good riddance), it's because they think stuff like this is news.

...or at least you'd think so, given what Pam's House Blend is reporting, that the not-so-Rev. Fred Phelps is planning to picket Jerry Falwell's funeral. Apparently Falwell only hates the sin, not the sinner, and that's not enough for MISTER Phelps.

Today I'm proud to have Frank Lautenberg as my Senator:

April 1, 2005

Tom DeLay
Majority Leader
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Majority Leader DeLay,

I was stunned to read the threatening comments you made yesterday against Federal judges and our nation’s courts of law in general. In reference to certain Federal judges, you stated: “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”

As you are surely aware, the family of Federal Judge Joan H. Lefkow of Illinois was recently murdered in their home. And at the state level, Judge Rowland W. Barnes and others in his courtroom were gunned down in Georgia.

Our nation’s judges must be concerned for their safety and security when they are asked to make difficult decisions every day. That’s why comments like those you made are not only irresponsible, but downright dangerous. To make matters worse, is it appropriate to make threats directed at specific Federal and state judges?

You should be aware that your comments yesterday may violate a Federal criminal statute, 18 U.S.C. §115 (a)(1)(B). That law states:

“Whoever threatens to assault…. or murder, a United States judge… with intent to retaliate against such… judge…. on account of the performance of official duties, shall be punished [by up to six years in prison]”

Threats against specific Federal judges are not only a serious crime, but also beneath a Member of Congress. In my view, the true measure of democracy is how it dispenses justice. Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well.

Federal judges, as well as state and local judges in our nation, are honorable public servants who make difficult decisions every day. You owe them – and all Americans – an apology for your reckless statements.

Sincerely,

Frank R. Lautenberg

The rest of you Democrats, take note: Tom DeLay must NOT be able to get away with ANYTHING.

Jesus H. Christ:

Students expressed shock last week when a popular history professor suddenly was dismissed. Then many expressed disbelief after they discovered an audio-enhanced website where he spoke out against Jews and blacks, including FDU basketball players.

"He was my favorite professor," said one student. "I can't believe it is the same man."

In fact, Jacques Pluss, an adjunct professor at the Metropolitan Campus, openly discussed his March 21 dismissal from Fairleigh Dickinson in a 44-minute interview on a website of the National Socialist Movement designed with swastikas and a picture of Adolf Hitler.

Pluss said he was "removed" from his classroom duties when he received a brief phone call at 5:30 p.m. from the department chairman who, he said, told him he was being released "for the convenience of the university" the following day. "I was stolen away in the night," he said. Pluss reported that he will be paid his salary through the end of this semester. He also said he will retire from "the academic world" and devote himself to the cause of the White Aryan Race Nation.

The professor speculated that he was dismissed because of his work with the National Socialist Movement on the internet, adding that the university "followed the typical Jewish, lawyerly, Hebrew line." He suggested that a "watchdog group" may have alerted FDU about his activities beyond the classroom.

During one segment of the conversation, Pluss said the university did not want adverse publicity while its Division 1 basketball team was in the NCAA playoffs. He said the players are "n--- to the core" and "sit in the back of my class with CDs and earphones" listening to "ghastly rap music."

Earlier in the same broadcast, Pluss referred to the "browning of America" and called FDU a "heavily Judaized institution" with a large minority student population. He said those students are "floating their way through school on taxpayer dollars," adding that it (FDU) is "not just browned, but singed." He also discussed attending a recent "gathering" of the White Aryan Race Nation in South Carolina, commenting that he had been gratified by the turnout.

Here's my question, though...was he spouting stuff like this in the classroom? I'm really kind of two minds on this. If he's essentially a neo-Nazi in his spare time, that's his own business until and unless he engages in illegal activities (like persecuting Jews, lynchings, and some of the other lovely things groups like the NSM might decide to engage in). If that doesn't come out in the classroom, I'd be inclined to say it's his own business. On the other hand, he's a history professor. I would imagine he'd find it very difficult to teach accurately about things like slavery and the Holocaust, given his views. FDU (where I attended grad school) is a pretty diverse campus community, and while I understand the university's wanting to wash their hands of someone like this, I think that more information about whether he's bringing his nutty views into the classroom is in order. The reason I say this is because there's a huge push now to get more "conservatives" (read: wingnuts) into campuses. If that happens, I can imagine a situation in which membership in organizations like ACT, HRC, and the ACLU could get you kicked out of your job.

...is the title of a terrific Salon piece today dealing with the media coverage of the Schiavo case. You'd never know from the way the case has been handled by the broadcast media, particularly the cable monster that still persists in calling itself "news", that over four-fifths of Americans did NOT believe it's the government's job to interfere in a family tragedy, and that most of them would NOT want to be kept alive by whatever means necessary. Instead of focusing on the majority of Americans who are still sane, and who realize, however reluctantly, that death is a necessary part of life, the media decided to ride the Republican self-described "culture of life" pony. Not once have they recognized the inconsistency of advocating life by whatever means necessary for Terri Schiavo, but to completely ignore the ever-mounting casualties of the Iraq war, and the ten Native Americans killed in last week's Minnesota school shooting, or Sun Hudson's termination of life support, or the cruelty of much of the legislation the Republicans are bulldozing through Congress, or for that matter, the 160,000+ lives lost in the December tsunami in southeast Asia.

All this takes place against the backdrop of last night's HBO broadcast of Left of the Dial (review at Mixed Reviews to come next week), the documentary about the rise, fall, and rise of my own personal life preserver in the snake pit that my country has become, Air America Radio. Yesterday marked the network's one-year anniversary, and finds the network on a reasonably solid financial footing, with a new, entertainment industry-savvy CEO in Danny Goldberg, and a lineup that belies the right-wing meme that liberals have no sense of humor. Contrary to the fondest wishes of the wingnut noise machine, AAR has NOT disappeared, and combined with the relatively sane results of the polls on the Schiavo case, indicate that those of us who do NOT see America's mission as being a fundamentalist Christian theocracy still have a pulse, and that at least a shred of sanity still exists in this country.

Of course, with the newly-released report on intelligence failures being responsible for the errors of judgment that led to the Iraq war (color me skeptical) also stating that we are ill-prepared to recognize threats that may be building now, all of this remaining sanity can be crushed in an instant with another terrorist attack. Given how much the Bush Administration benefitted from the 9/11/01 attacks and the blank check most Americans have given it in the aftermath, don't look for the Administration to fix those problems any time soon.

I'm sure glad I'm employed outside the home. This eliminates any possibility of dealing with what I'm sure is a nonstop barrage of "guests" on the cable news shows, each one presumably on the wingnut side of the fence.

But there is, in fact, some REAL news today, that of course the broadcast media, those guys who force-feed their crap over PUBLIC airwaves that belong to US, are conveniently ignoring.

First of all, even the skeptical have had the rug pulled out from under them today. The so-called "intelligence" about WMDs in Iraq WAS, in fact, crap after all.

Second of all, unmentioned by President Codpiece in his "culture of life" focus on the death of Terri Schiavo, are the three GI's, who last time I checked, should be regarded as just as human as Terri Schiavo, and at least still had their cerebral cortices, who were killed in separate incidents in Iraq today. (Hat tip: Attaturk)

And third of all, is it just me (and ThinkProgress), or did Tom DeLay just admonish the nutballs to commit violence against Michael Schiavo and every judge who worked on the Schiavo case?

MSNBC is reporting that Terri Schiavo has died, hours after her parents' last appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court.

This is not a happy day for anyone, not even those of us who were appalled at the political circus that grew around this case. I'm at an age now where it's hard to see people my own age die, let alone someone younger. And yet, I feel that the time to grieve for this woman was fifteen years ago, when her relentless efforts to conform to society's view of what a woman's body should look like took their toll and robbed her of her very selfhood.

At this point, I have to separate out my contempt for her parents for their willingness to be part of the Christofascist agenda, and their cynical selling of the names of the people who believed in their cause, and their clear regard of their daughter as property; from the kind of human sympathy one has for parents who lose a beloved child. Despite the hoopla, this has been an ordeal for them, and at least for now, it's time to lay off.

As for Terri Schiavo herself, my own spiritual beliefs tell me that this was a task she had to complete during this incarnation; and it's not for us to try to understand why this is. At any rate, I hope she finds peace and that better things await her next time around.

Now I think we as a society have to focus on exactly how we're going to deal with medical technology, and what constitues "life." And anyone who doesn't currently have a living will (and that includes me) had damn well better get one, PDQ.

A commenter at Kos posits some very good questions we need to address NOW:

1. How much of a brain counts as 'human enough' to preclude questions of whether to sustain life-support? At what point should it be a state decision? At what point should it be up to the spouse or immediate family?


2. How much hope of partial or full recovery is needed to justify continued life-support?


3. When should a feeding tube deemed extraordinary care? Now that the pope has one, this question will receive global scrutiny.


4. What sort of people should be making the decisions that result in the death of a severely damaged/disabled human on life support? Lawyers? Judges? Police? Families? Anyone who wants to preserve the life that others are willing to allow to expend?


5. Should people who believe in miracles and supernatural powers be allowed to intervene in the affairs of those who don't? What's the right of a 'faith-based' community to trump a 'reality-based' family or group on a matter of 'life'?

My answer would be that such decisions should be made by the individual, which is where the living will comes in. For those who have none, some kind of "hierarchy of responsibility" needs to be set up. I'd hate to think that, for example in a gay couple, parents from whom one is estranged would be able to trump the partner in making such decisions.

What I fear, though, is that even making one's wishes clear in a living will won't be enough for the folks who pushed this case into the limelight. How far will they go?

A journalistic note: The photograph of Terri Schiavo taken soon after she became incapacitated, one which was routinely cropped and mistakenly used as a "before" photo, is shown in full on MSNBC's site, and now it's clear that this is not a photograph of an intact person.

...and how I wish I still had it. Damn, I wish I could still pull off stuff like this. Check out in particular the third photo. Have you ever seen someone having so much fun being snarky?

We on the left have tended to imbue Karl Rove with quasi-magical powers because of his usually unerring political instincts. In the Schiavo case, however, Rove's "play to the base" strategy seems to have backfired. How badly this will hurt the GOP over time remains to be seen, but when conservatives are starting to blast their own party, something is definitely up. Republicans may be many things, but one thing they aren't is rebels. Republicans tend to be good soldiers, going along even with policies they don't like.

Yesterday, former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, about as impeccably-credentialed a conservative Christian Republican as you're likely to find, blasted Congress for its injection of religion into the making of Federal policy. Today, Stanley F. Birch, Jr., one of the most conservative Federal judges, steps into the fray:

in Wednesday's 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to deny a rehearing to Schiavo's parents, Birch went out of his way to castigate Bush and congressional Republicans for acting "in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for governance of a free people - our Constitution."

Birch said he couldn't countenance Congress' attempt to "rob" federal courts of the discretion they're given in the Constitution. Noting that it had become popular among "some members of society, including some members of Congress," to denounce "activist judges," or those who substitute their personal opinions for constitutional imperatives, Birch said lawmakers embarked on their own form of unconstitutional activism.

It's amusing to watch so-called judicial purists blasting what they like to call "activist judges", or more frankly, "activist liberal judges." It's clear that where Christian reactionaries are concerned, "activist judge" means "any judge who doesn't decide the way we want him to. The odious Jay Sekulow, pal to Pat Robertson and another Jewish guy who thinks allying himself with Jesus freaks is the way to survive when they start rounding up all non-Christians into camps, blasted Birch while praising a judge appointed by that spawn of Satan himself, Bill Clinton. I wonder if they think Antonin Scalia is an activist judge as well, since even HE didn't vote to hear the Schiavo case in the Supreme Court. Of course, we already know that Scalia doesn't believe that the High Court has a dog in this particular hunt, as evidenced by his writings in the Cruzan case.

It's becoming more and more difficult for me to believe that there is some kind of massive conspiracy that's been going on for over a decade among dozens of Federal judges (including conservatives), the Pinellas Park police, the staff at the facilities in which Terri Schiavo has been housed for the last fifteen years, and Michael Schiavo, to cover up some kind of abuse. Schiavo may not be a nice guy. It's pretty clear that he was the kind of controlling husband that most of us wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. It's possible that his wife was about to leave him. It's possible that having him make the decisions ISN'T what she would have wanted -- though frankly, if all he has to go on is what her family says, after all the animosity and after the circus they've allowed to go on (one in which he has tried not to participate), I can hardly blame him for taking what they say with a grain of salt. But ultimately where I come down on this is "Why on earth would he put himself through all this for any other reason other than because he really believes in what he's doing?" He's refused all financial compensation for backing away. He's not that big a Catholic, from what I understand, so divorce shouldn't be that big an issue for him, not if he's living with someone else and had children with her. I can't buy some kind of massive, nationwide coverup of abuse. No matter what path I try to go down here, I keep ending up with just two possibilities for his motiviation: Either he really believes he's doing what's right, or else this is his last opportunity to get his in-laws to butt out of his marriage once and for all.

As usual, Olbermann puts it best:

It is possible that Michael Schiavo is a battering spouse or a murderer, just as it is possible that you are a battering spouse or a murderer.

But the odds against him (or you) being a battering spouse or murderer, and a complete idiot, are very, very high.

And that is exactly what the husband of the unfortunate, and unfortunately publicized, Terri Schiavo, would have to be, to have done what he did yesterday, unless his innocence was all but certain and the mainstream medical evidence on his wife’s condition all but incontrovertibly verified.

Through his attorney, Mr. Schiavo announced that after his wife’s life ends, he will delay the planned cremation of her body, and ask the Chief Medical Examiner of Pinellas County, Florida, to conduct a full autopsy on the cause of her now impending death.

If he, as some blood relatives of his wife now suggest after a decade of suggesting otherwise, somehow abused her, or he led to the heart stoppage that put her in her present state, it is not likely to be missed by the autopsy.

If he, as his in-laws and all of his critics now suggest after nearly a decade of suggesting otherwise, had an ulterior motive in seeking to end her treatment, it is not likely to be missed by the autopsy.

And if the part of her brain that makes her her was not irreparably damaged (in fact, turned to liquid)— as examination after examination and court after court has found— it is certain not to be missed by the autopsy.

In short, Mr. Schiavo has just given his critics three opportunities to prosecute him by authorizing, in fact requesting, the autopsy. If he’s been lying, or the doctors have been wrong, or any of the hysteria stirred up by those operating both in good faith and bad in this case, is true— then he is a complete idiot.

This case should now be considered closed. Obviously it will not be. It will be perpetuated by a few good, sad people who do not want the woman they know as daughter, sister, or friend, to die. It will be perpetuated by others who cannot come to grips with the incongruity of part of her brain still acting automatically, like a stoplight in the middle of a desert. But mostly it will be perpetuated by people who do not and have not given a damn about Terri Schiavo, or her parents, or anyone but themselves and the opportunities to exploit this situation for their own personal or political beliefs.

Michael Schiavo’s insistence on an autopsy will resolve more than just how hopeless his wife’s situation really has been. It will also be an autopsy on the credibility of those who have tried to manipulate her insentient condition. For, unless Michael Schiavo is a battering spouse or murderer, and a complete idiot, his public critics will be revealed as snake-oil salesmen who have not only exploited his wife, but also thousands of Americans who— just like me, and no doubt just like you— would love nothing more than to see Terri Schiavo rise from her bed and go home, happy, healthy, and fully restored.

No pun intended. This is a letter posted at Altercation today:

Dear Dr. Alterman:
I have an irony to illuminate.

A few months ago, I spent a lot of time at a nursing home keeping my elderly aunt company as she faded gently to black. My sister and I had the privilege of holding her and singing her to sleep in her final hour. We had no wrenching decision to make - Mavis was very clear with us about heroic measures.

During many long visits I came to know a lovely man named John who spent many of his waking hours at the home keeping his beloved Christine company. "Steen", as she was known was lost forever to the impenetrable fog of Alzheimer's. Many years ago, John and Steen worked for the Dutch Underground in their efforts to hide Jews, gather intel for the Allies and give the Nazis all possible grief. As John asserted, "Steen was the hero." As a courier, she had to smuggle all manner of stuff from town to town, evading German patrols and getting through checkpoints and roadblocks undetected. Had she been caught, she would have faced down a firing squad. John told me blushingly and proudly that Steen was a world-class flirt and voluptuous 16yr old beauty with long golden hair who could wiggle, tease and giggle her way out of any situation.

And so she did, saving countless lives and contributing to the great victory.

After the war, John and Steen came to Canada, declared themselves unhyphenated Canadians and gave generously to their new homeland. Steen died recently with John at her side in grieving silence. She was the love of his life; his rock and his heroine.

And so the irony. The whole world knows who Terri Schiavo is. We know the details of her medical condition, the sounds she makes, the minutiae of her marriage and have seen unflattering photos of her wasted limbs and vacant visage. We even got to see a picture of the now iconic feeding tube protruding from her navel.

Terri Schiavo, the innocent sufferer is the unwitting center of a huge and ugly morality play that demeans us all. Steen, the intrepid heroine to whom many still living owe their lives died quietly in a small Canadian town. Not even the local paper managed to note that a woman of extraordinary grace and courage passed this way and made the world a better place.

Irony.

As someone whose grandparents lost relatives in Hitler's camps, let me be the second American to say: Thank you, "Steen."

Eric Clapton is 60.

He's no longer God. He's Methuselah.

Hoo-frickin-ray. Blogger is actually working again (or so it seems; we'll see whether I can actually post this.

But here's a nice little tidbit that the Lunatics in Pinellas Park and the Pundits Who Love Them can flog to death on the cable news channels: Judge George Greer, who gave the initial order to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, used to be Lizard King Jim Morrison's roommate, back when they were Florida State graduates.

There's a connection to be made here. Let's give it a try:

Hmmmmm...Morrison was obsessed with death; Greer orders this feeding tube removed. Therefore, rooming together at Florida State makes you want to kill yourself or others?

As the Terri Schiavo case draws towards its sad and inevitable close, there's something that's been nagging at the back of my mind for quite some time. I first noticed this with friends who married young and still allowed their parents to make decisions for them and still looked to their parents for guidance and direction far more than anyone who had entered the so-called "adult" institution of marriage ought to.

The problem in a marriage where the parties are still too closely tied to one or both sets of parents is that there's inevitably a tug-of-war as to whose parents are going to control things. Young marrieds will buy a house they can't afford because their parents expect them to (and often provide the down payment). They will start a family because their parents want grandchildren, not because they're ready. Too many people marry and still allow their parents to guide their lives. If you have to ask for Mom 'n' Dad's approval before doing something, you're not an adult, and don't get married.

I knew one couple where her parents and his parents never agreed on what this couple should do. So they were in a constant state of divided loyalties -- do they side with their parents or their spouse? (Hint: once you marry, your spouse becomes your first priority, NOT your parents.)

I know at least three instances in which a wife wanted a baby, the husband wasn't ready yet, and the wife's mother urged her to go ahead and get pregnant anyway, because "once he sees the baby, he'll love it." This happens also when a young marriage is in trouble...a well-meaning but misguided parent will urge the couple to have a baby "to bring them closer together." In each of those cases, the wife became pregnant, the husband didn't love the baby, and the couple ended up divorcing. I somehow get a sense that something like this is what happened in the Scott/Laci Peterson marriage. This in no way excuses murder, but it certainly can make someone feel besieged.

Some information has trickled out over the last few days about Terri Schiavo that nags at me as well. Of course I don't know this family, but both the Schindler and Schiavo families are often described as "close-knit." This can be a positive, but it can also be a negative, pulling a couple in separate directions. Terri Schindler was barely 21 when she married. I get a sense that she comes from a controlling family. One report, to which unfortunately I cannot find the link, indicated that when she lost 50 pounds on Nutri-System in her senior year of high school, it was with her mother's help. We all know now about teenage girls and their weight. Do we know for sure that Michael Schiavo was the only person concerned about Terri's weight? What did her mother think about her 200-pound teenaged daughter? It's a fine line between "closeness" and controlling...and I wonder...if Terri Schindler married a controlling man (which it appears she did), was it because being controlled was what she was accustomed to?

Think about what bulimia is. The National Women's Health Information Center says:

Purging and other behaviors to prevent weight gain are ways for people with bulimia to feel more in control of their lives and ease stress and anxiety.

We know that the Schindlers had a large role in this couple's early married life:

They met in the Philadelphia suburbs where Terri Schiavo and her husband, Michael, spent their childhoods and married in 1984, barely past adolescence. The young couple relied on the generosity of her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, first living in their basement in Pennsylvania, then moving to a condominium here that Robert Schindler had bought around the time he sold his heavy-equipment business.

The Schindlers followed their daughter and son in-law to this sunny coastal city, and though they did not see Michael Schiavo often -- he was working long hours at beachside restaurants -- they had no problem with him. He called them Mom and Dad. They paid their daughter and son in-law's rent.

Now, I'll grant you -- I'm not exactly the poster child for the product of a functional family. But I wonder how a young couple is supposed to make their own way in the world when the parents are paying the bills and following them around the country.

I have to wonder: Was Terri Schiavo feeling torn by conflicting loyalties, between controlling parents and a controlling husband? Rather than simply wanting to be thin, was her bulimia about something more? Was she the chubby kid in the skinny family; the throwback to someone's peasant ancestors, and in this thinness-obsessed society, an embarrassment?

We just don't know, and we never will. I just wonder.

But in the two biggest media circuses of the last year, the unrelated and vastly different Schaivo and Peterson cases, there is one common thread: a perhaps too tight bond with the parents, often at the expense of the marriage.

Marriage is hard enough when you're young without feeling as if you're being torn in a million directions. A word advise from someone hitting the half-century mark this year: If you're not ready to break up with your parents, don't get married. You can still be friends with them, and if you're lucky, they'll always be there for you. But when you marry, you make your OWN way with your spouse. Sometimes you'll do things right, sometimes you'll make mistakes. But you'll do it on your own, together, as a unit.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike. No less a venerable personage in blogdom than Digby has been thinking about this very thing:

...I think that Krauthamer may be expressing the views of plenty of "conservative" people who want to control their children's lives long past the time they are legally and morally allowed to do so. That particular kind of control is often the default temperamental style of right wingers. They wish to control everything, particularly the people around them.

Essentially, he's saying that parents should have a veto over the spouse in these issues. (If it were the spouse who wanted to use extraordinary measure to keep the patient alive, current law would already suffice.) Therefore, he's promoting the idea that there are cases in which your "first degree relatives" have the power of life and death over you in circumstances where your spouse disagrees. What a concept.

I had a colleague years ago who was in a terrible car accident and severely brain damaged at the age of 33. He had been estranged for years from his abusive family and had been more or less raised by others to whom he was very close. He was quite wealthy and had left his surrogate family all of his money in his will. He was also unmarried and did not have a living will, although those who knew him said that he had expressed many times that he would not want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures. His estranged family were extremely religious and insisted that he be kept alive at all costs. Being "first degree" relatives they had the right to make that decision. I lost track of the situation after five years or so, but at that time he was still living in a persistent vegetative state. The money ran out and he was put on medicaid. I heard that his family rarely visited.

I realize that in some cases, one might not want one's spouse making that kind of decision, especially if the marriage is in trouble. But if that's the case, then make a living will! That should be just another way of protecting oneself when a marriage is on the rocks. But there are enough dysfunctional families out there that assuming that blood relatives know what you want, and will always act in your interest rather than their own, isn't an answer either.

Emma at the American Street (hat tip to Shakespeare's Sister for this one) draws a big red line under the extent to which the Schindler's stated they'd go at one point to keep Terri alive:

One of the most enlightening documents is the Guardian Ad Litem report that had to be filed under Florida’s Terri’s law(which was later found unconstitutional). Several sections spoke to the Schindler’s motivations. Here’s the most horrifying:

Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition, and trail testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.

My sympathies for the Schindlers dried up right about here, out of fear, I think. Or horror. They would keep a mindless, limbless husk in a bed, because it would make them feel joy?

One other thing I'd point out here is that until the wackos like Randall Terry got hold of this family, they at least had a grip on the reality that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state, not ready to give a valedictorian speech followed by dancing the lead in Giselle.

Here's the wonderful, selfless, life-loving, woman-caring Christian man who let his 10-year-old son get arrested bringing cups of water to a woman who can't swallow.

I don't know why these things can still surprise me.

But hey, he's one o'them "blank slate" Christians, where he can do whatever he wants, and as long as he accepts Jeebus, he gets a free pass to God's own home theatre, where he and his sanctimonious buddies will get to pass around nachos and popcorn and watch heathen like me burn.

(hat tip: commenter Michael Hawthorne at Americablog)

I guess now that Judith Miller may go to jail, Elisabeth Bumuller is going to inherit her kneepads:

George W. Bush has been acting like a man liberated from the American presidency.

At an event in Denver last Monday, he mused that sending out quarterly statements for the individual investment accounts he wants to add to Social Security could encourage people to pay more attention to government but then chuckled that investors might conclude from tepid returns that "maybe we ought to change presidents or something."

At a news conference last week, Mr. Bush joked that he did not have the time "to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?' "

And at the end of an interview with a Belgian television correspondent last month, Mr. Bush blurted out to the young woman that she had "great eyes," glanced away slyly and then a little sheepishly, but for the most part seemed sorry that the session was over.

Is this a new George Bush?

White House officials insist not and say that the frisky president people are seeing in public is simply the one he has kept private for the last four years. "In the first term he wanted to have the American people see his heart and his policy agenda and his seriousness, and not that he's an impishly fun, very clever guy," said Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education and the president's former domestic policy adviser.

I think it's more a question of the fact that this is a man with absolutely no empathy, who now that he doesn't have to worry about re-election, is free to release his Inner Asshole.

What's wrong with this picture?

That's the "inclusive" nature of Republicanism. Put one black person in there, then crow about how "inclusive" you are.