2005-06-15 21:23:20.551931+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments
When the results of the Terry Schiavo autopsy are all over, many people seem to be linking to this tired NY Review of Books rehash of the speculation, most of which the autopsy seems to have answered. Elf hits the high points.
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2005-06-16 13:03:21.205589+00 by: ebradway
Watched The Sea Inside last night. Deals with assisted suicide in a beautiful way. In addition to presenting an important topic well, it is also a very moving piece of art. It was the first subtitled movie that I've watched in a while that held me on the edge of my seat. It's also interesting to note that I could follow the Spanish dialog alot easier than I usually can in Hispanic movies.
As far as Terry Schiavo goes, I'm glad the autopsy has thoroughly exonerated her husband and I hope someone files a medical malpractice suit against Sen. Bill Frist, MD, (R) Tennessee, for his testimony in the Senate that Schiavo was not in a vegetable.
On a personal note, I've had one grandfather die a very drawn out death from bladder cancer. He wanted to die much sooner and spent the last two months of his life in a rehab facility too embarrassed to let anyone other than my grandmother in to see him. My other grandmother has a form of Alzheimer's to the degree that she doesn't recognize me at all and even forgets who my brother, who she sees weekly, is. She recently had a heart attack and only has 20% of her heart function left but she is completely oblivious to the fact. She is not suffering in any way - other than she gets upset when the nurse comes by her house every day because she doesn't know who they are or why they are there.
#Comment Re: made: 2005-06-17 12:58:45.766628+00 by: petronius
I won't comment on the Schiavo case, being bummed out by the high-fives from the euthanasia set. I will mention something about Spanish language.
A few years ago I was in a cafe when a bunch of high school girls came in. Along with them were some exchange students who sat down near me. They had medium brown hair, brown eyes, and light skin, none of the Indio features I see in most Chicago Hispanics. And I could follow their conversation fairly well, even with my decades old highchool Spanish. I realized that they were real Spaniards, and they spoke like the tapes they played in school. Very crisp pronunciation, every sound distinct, no slurring together of vowel sounds. In school they taught us Castilian Spanish, and Castilian speakers made the tapes, while Mexicans and other new World Spanish speakers speak faster, jazzier dialects. It would be as if you learned English from the BBC and then ended up in Jamaica; same language, but boy was a difference in diction!
#Comment Re: made: 2005-06-17 14:20:41.389573+00 by: meuon
May all of us die a glorious and spectacular death, after a long life of love, happiness and adventure.
Life is not to be savored and clung to, preserved in a jar, stored away for "someday".
Life is to be spent, for in living well, life grows. Until the very end, went completely spent, we go.
Let us go with a grin, meeting death as the reward, knowing life was good, and we invested it well.