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daffy
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:19 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1939 Location: Wall Street
Those of you out west should watch Nightline tonight. They have an in-depth interview with the guy who was Terry S's court-appointed gaurdian-at-law a few years ago. His job was to look out for her interests. He spent a lot of time with her and learning about the whole situation. The husband comes out looking pretty good.

I'll try to write more about it, but I wanted to post this first so other people could see the show and judge for themselves. If you care about this issue, watch Nightline tonight!

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billyweeds
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:04 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
daffy wrote:
Those of you out west should watch Nightline tonight. They have an in-depth interview with the guy who was Terry S's court-appointed gaurdian-at-law a few years ago. His job was to look out for her interests. He spent a lot of time with her and learning about the whole situation. The husband comes out looking pretty good.

I'll try to write more about it, but I wanted to post this first so other people could see the show and judge for themselves. If you care about this issue, watch Nightline tonight!


Is Nightline repeated? Meanwhile I saw Larry King Live, where Michael Schiavo was the guest. He's articulate and intelligent though stern and unyielding (as he should be). I liked him and certainly agree with his point of view.
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tirebiter
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:13 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4011 Location: not far away
A good friend, whom I trust implicitly, told me that Terry Schiavo's husband wants to kill her because he wants to eat her flesh. Thank God the Republicans are standing up against the rising tide of cannibalism among Democrats in our country!

Sorry. Bad joke. But if you look at the coverage of this issue, you'll see that I'm exaggerating just a little bit-- the media seems committed to reporting this travesty of a story just as the Tom DeLay's in DC want them to: Help God-Fearing George Bush Protect Terry From Godless Murderers!

There is no level to which these sons of bitches won't sink to service their fundamentalist base.
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censored-03
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:33 am Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 3058 Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
Last night between 6:30 pm at the start of NBC's evening news and 6:48 pm I saw the same image (home video) of that poor helpless woman (who should have been dead and buried years ago) wearing that sad smiling open-mouth (drooling?) expression and little girls night-gown with the almost Currier and Ives/Shirley Temple type collar about 10 times! Bastard NBC! I wanted to scream out at the parents as well "Ghouls !!! She's not coming back !!!"

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censored-03
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:38 am Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 3058 Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
I guess what I forgot to add to that last post was that in some other photo image of Schiavo (spelling) she had long red hair and a sexy kind of smile and I realized this was the real Terry not this dressed up for the Judge and jury/right-wing fundamentalist "good" little girl image they keep jamming down our throats..it reminds me of how girls who have sex deserve to be slashed in those Reagan era flicks..fuck these Republican clowns seriously ! Now get off my goddamned lawn !

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Ghulam
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:45 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY
Public opinion underreported?

http://tinyurl.com/48uk9
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daffy
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:47 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1939 Location: Wall Street
Joe Vitus wrote:
She's developed bed sores because he isn't willing to take proper care of her, and her parents have asked to have legal control (and take over the financial responsibilities). The guy apparantly told a nurse something like "I just want this bitch to die."

Kate wrote:
That's a very good question, Joe, one that I haved asked as well. One coworker has a very harsh take on it - she is still worth some 700,000 dollars from a law suit. Notice he has not gotten a divorce and yet has a common law wife. A more generous take is that perhaps she really did verbally tell him once that she did not want to be kept alive and so, because he truly loves her - is fighting for her. No one really knows.

Joe Vitus wrote:
He did win a lawsuit for millions supposedly to go toward keeping her alive, right? And having won, hasn't spent much of it on actually doing that, indeed has done a 180 and claimed she would want to die? It sounds fishy to me.

Joe Vitus wrote:
Okay, I'm confused. Why did he sue for money to sustain her, if before this happened he knew she didn't want to be sustained? Is his argument that he didn't realize there was no way the money could help bring her back, and realizing that afterwards, he felt there was no choice but to stop feeding her?

Okay, I couldn’t give my full attention to the whole program, so I may have missed some stuff. Here’s what I got:

When Terry first went into the hospital, her husband (Mike?) was constantly by her side and seeing to her every need. In fact, the staff at the hospital complained about him because they felt he was too demanding; it interfered with their ability to care for their other patients. The doctors were telling him for years that his wife would never recover, but he refused to believe them. The entire time this was going on, his care for her was impeccable. In fact, while she was under his watch like this, she never once even got a bedsore (this according to the guardian-at-law). This went on for years (I got the impression it was four or five) before Mike finally accepted a lack of hope. Unfortunately, I don’t recall them saying when he first mentioned his wife’s wishes to be allowed to die. I suppose it's possible that even though he knew her wishes, he couldn't bear to follow them until long after it became clear she wasn't going to recover, but that's speculation on my part.

He did win about $700,000 in a lawsuit. I forget what the reason for the suit was, but the money was put into a trust to cover the expense of her care. He had no access to the money whatsoever; I don’t think he was even in charge of it. A lot of the money went toward legal challenges to the lawsuit, so it ran out pretty quickly. He never saw a dime.

The show played a recording of her parents talking to her and her responding to them. It was an audio recording, not a video. Basically, she made some long groans, and truth be told, it does sound like she’s answering them. But the guardian said she makes those noises a lot, no matter who is in the room, and even when no one is in there. There really isn’t any cause and effect. [Unfortunately, the clips we see on TV make it look like she’s trying to respond to her surroundings, or at least they do to me. If what the guardian says is true, the news shows are doing a grave disservice by showing those clips without explaining that she does these things no matter what the stimuli. It’s giving the public the wrong impression, and a strong one at that.].

The guardian-at-law didn’t come onto the scene until around 2000, I think. They didn’t address why the husband didn’t get a divorce or turn over total care to the parents, or if they did talk about it I missed it.

The impression I got is that the husband is really getting the short end of the stick so far as representation in the press (and in Congress, too, for that matter). The guardian said Mike is not a demonstrative man (unlike his in-laws), that he is very private, but that he is a good guy. Remember, this is coming from the guy who was appointed to see to the patient’s best care; he doesn't represent Mike. The husband comes across as totally different from the monster Tom DeLay, et al are portraying him as. The parents aren’t discussed much, except to say that of course it’s tough for a parent to accept the hopelessness of their child’s case. They are not demonized.

Personally, I’m furious that the Right is politicizing this by making this into a Federal issue and ignoring their own history of calling for states rights. It’s a state issue and the state courts have settled it, repeatedly. The Florida judge has been working on it for years; it’s not just some whimsical decision to him.

It’s heartbreaking to see those TV clips, but I really believe this is the husband’s prerogative. It’s a family matter, and he’s the one closest to her. He’s not a cad; he proved how much he cared for her. His word should be final.

However, I really don’t like the idea of pulling a feeding tube and letting her starve to death in a hospital. I don’t have any answer to that.

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tirebiter
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:00 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4011 Location: not far away
It's an unbelievably sad situation. But these vampires who are using her for their own political ends are filth.

Filth.
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daffy
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:07 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1939 Location: Wall Street
billyweeds wrote:
Is Nightline repeated?

I don't think so. There may be transcripts at abc.com.
billyweeds wrote:
Meanwhile I saw Larry King Live, where Michael Schiavo was the guest. He's articulate and intelligent though stern and unyielding (as he should be). I liked him and certainly agree with his point of view.

That's good news. I wish I'd seen it.

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censored-03
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:07 am Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 3058 Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
Interesting reading

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-11-13/fishwrapper.html

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bocce
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:26 am Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 2428
thanks to all for your responses to this issue...

it is apparent that the husband has little or no fiduciary interest in terry's death and is not acting in self interest. i find it difficult to believe anyone would choose to be sustained in a vegatative state. as lorne stated it is a case about the quality of life not the vestiges of physical functionality.

so then the question (for me) becomes what is an appropriate resolution. in our society, dignity in death is accorded to the least of us whether dogs being put down or murderers being executed. a lethal injection is applied and death come swiftly not torturously slowly by starvation. why a society who would presume to rule on an issue of life or death doesn't exercise the same balls in dispensing it baffles me.

that said, i find the actions of the government less despicable than predictable. what did you expect from what is a clearly stated program of pro life by this very conservative, "faith based" administration? ms. schiavo has become the poster girl for a policy based on the theory that a twitch and a nod define a potential voter.
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Ghulam
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:45 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY
Court refuses to reinsert feeding tube. The federal judge in Florida who made that decision probably would need extra protection.
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Ghulam
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:47 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY
On making Gone With The Wind :

http://tinyurl.com/5lqd6
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jeremy
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:19 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
Am I the only one having to log on each visit today or is my server giving the site's cookies a hard time?

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:42 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Merlot,

Thanks for that. A side of the issue I wasn't hearing anything about.

Sioux,

Basically, I love that you can keep your sense of humor in a issue that touches you so closely. Personally, if you do any haunting, I hope you'll channell into Houston sometime, because I don't want to loose contact with you.
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