More on Terri Schiavo--UPDATE: Schiavo dead 31 Mar 05

[The Yosemite Bear]

no I was waitting for her liver to start killing people ala "Parasite Eve"

[Melkor]

So, does anyone else have the twisted urge to, in honor of April Fools Day, go to a fundie board where they are ranting about this case and create a thread titled "CNN: Autopsy reveals Terri was aware all along!"

Thats so evil its beautiful.

[Nick Lancaster]

So, does anyone else have the twisted urge to, in honor of April Fools Day, go to a fundie board where they are ranting about this case and create a thread titled "CNN: Autopsy reveals Terri was aware all along!"

No, but you can visit this site




* For the Fundies lurking out there ('cause I know you folks just love keeping an eye on us), bear in mind you're the ones who were insisting Terri's utterances constituted anything other than a persistent vegetative state.

[AnimeJet]

Has anyone checked maddox yet?

[Vendetta]

Has anyone checked maddox yet?

Arf!

[Gandalf]

Apparently the parents are claiming they were barred from being at their daughter's bedside. This made the front page of my local right-wing rag's afternoon edition, which had the headline "SCHIAVO DIES, PARENTS AND FAMILY DENIED RIGHT TO BE AT HER BEDSIDE" in white type on an all-black background.

Regardless of whether or not these allegations are true, I'd bet this will become their rallying cry after the autopsy results inevitably show near-total loss of brain tissue.

Terri Schiavo's brother and sister were present, but began arguing with Michael. Michael asked that they be removed so that Terri's last moments would be peaceful.

Her parents arrived after Terri had passed on. They weren't denied anything.

Do you have a source for this?

[Nick Lancaster]

Apparently the parents are claiming they were barred from being at their daughter's bedside. This made the front page of my local right-wing rag's afternoon edition, which had the headline "SCHIAVO DIES, PARENTS AND FAMILY DENIED RIGHT TO BE AT HER BEDSIDE" in white type on an all-black background.

Regardless of whether or not these allegations are true, I'd bet this will become their rallying cry after the autopsy results inevitably show near-total loss of brain tissue.

Terri Schiavo's brother and sister were present, but began arguing with Michael. Michael asked that they be removed so that Terri's last moments would be peaceful.

Her parents arrived after Terri had passed on. They weren't denied anything.

Do you have a source for this?

Repeating what was reported on CBS Evening News.

[Gandalf]

Terri Schiavo's brother and sister were present, but began arguing with Michael. Michael asked that they be removed so that Terri's last moments would be peaceful.

Her parents arrived after Terri had passed on. They weren't denied anything.

Do you have a source for this?

Repeating what was reported on CBS Evening News.

Thankyou good sir.

[Gandalf]

Does anyone know if CSB Evening news is transcripted somewhere?

Their own site has nothing.

[Kizarvexis]

Here is a the middle part of a story from the St. Pete Times that mentions that issue. (Bolding is mine)

For two families, even grief is divided
By TOM ZUCCO, JAMIE THOMPSON, WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, KELLEY BENHAM, LEONORA LaPETER and THOMAS FRENCH
Published April 1, 2005

* * *
The circle around Terri Schiavo, already secure, tightened Thursday. Many of the people involved retreated behind closed doors, preferring to grieve in private. The details of Terri's last hours and death emerged in bits and pieces, from different voices, different corners of the debate.

Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers were both desperate for as much time as possible with Terri before she died. And just as the two sides had fought in court for years, they now maneuvered inside the relative quiet of Hospice House Woodside.

The routine, established in the harried days before, took on a heightened urgency Wednesday night. Unless the Schindlers were visiting, Michael Schiavo stayed in Terri's room, accompanied by his brother Brian and often his attorneys George Felos and Deborah Bushnell.

In an interview late Thursday, Brian Schiavo said he and Michael had stayed up all night, sitting with Terri except when the Schindlers came in. As the night wore on, Brian said, he and Michael talked to Terri and rubbed her arms and legs, which were cold and mottled. They traded stories about the old days with the girl they used to know.

Brian told the one about the time when Michael and Terri were dating and Brian went into the dry cleaner where she worked. He took off his pants and handed them to her. Said he'd wait. Brian stood there in his white briefs while Terri ran to the back, screaming and cracking up.

They told the one about Brian and Michael spoofing a synchronized swimming routine in the pool, and Terri laughing her huge, infectious laugh.

Most of the time, during the vigil of the past two weeks, the Schiavo brothers did not hear the protesters outside. They kept the blinds closed in case people tried to sneak around the building and look in at her. They heard a bit of a horn; it sounded like a bagpipe. They'd go to the room across the hall and look out the window at the scene outside. It reminded them, Brian said, of the St. Michael's Fair back home in Pennsylvania.

"It was a carnival," Brian said. "Did you see they had jugglers there?"

As Wednesday night blurred into Thursday morning, Michael and Brian knew it was Terri's last night. Her breathing had grown rapid and erratic. Her eyes were open, but like always, Brian said, she seemed to look right through them.

Outside the hospice, Bobby Schindler was pleading with the Pinellas Park police officer for another visit. An officer knocked on the door of Terri's room and told Michael that Bobby wanted to see her. Michael and Brian, groggy, got themselves together and said okay, then went to another hospice room down the hall where they'd been living for days.

Just after 7:30 a.m., Bobby Schindler and his sister Suzanne - accompanied by a priest, Father Frank Pavone - were led to Terri's bedside. They stayed in the room for about an hour and a half.

According to Pavone, Terri could not focus her eyes and was breathing with difficulty. The hospice workers, he said, told him and the Schindler siblings that Terri wouldn't make it through another day.

They prayed over Terri, held her hand, stroked her hair. Pavone sang hymns in Latin, including Hail Holy Queen , a chanted version of Ave Maria and Veni Creator Spiritus . They recited the rosary and delivered the chaplet of divine mercy, a series of prayers asking God's mercy.

"For the sake of his sorrowful passion," they said, "have mercy on us and on the whole world."

While Bobby and Suzanne said their goodbyes, Michael and Brian Schiavo waited in the room down the hall. What happened next is unclear. According to Brian Schiavo and Felos, a hospice worker told them that Bobby Schindler had argued with an officer outside Terri's room. Apparently, a nurse had asked everyone to leave the room so Terri's condition could be assessed.

Bobby, Felos said, didn't want to leave and suggested he and Suzanne be allowed to stay until Terri died, even if Michael Schiavo was inside the room. If necessary, he said, an officer could supervise.

Michael Schiavo decided against it.

"Mr. Schiavo's overriding concern here," Felos said, "was to provide for Terri a peaceful death with dignity."

Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan friar who was a spiritual adviser to the Schindlers, acknowledged later that the police had asked Bobby and Suzanne to leave. But O'Donnell denied that there'd been a problem.

Just before 9 a.m., a hospice nurse hurried into Michael's and Brian's room.

"If you want to see Terri," the nurse said, "you need to go now."

Michael Schiavo went to his wife and cradled her. Terri lay on her left side, wearing a pale nightgown. The covers were pulled up. She had stuffed animals under her arms. Four hospice workers in the room were crying.

Michael held his wife and talked to her. Brian stood next to Michael, massaging his back.

"Michael," he said, "it's going to be all right."

Almost immediately, Terri stopped breathing.

"We were there about 60 seconds," Brian said, "and she was gone."

The lawyers and nurses left Michael and Brian alone with her after a while. Terri's hands were still wrapped around pads to protect her palms; Michael removed the pads and tossed them into the trash. Her hands, curled tighter and tighter into fists over the years, had relaxed a little. Michael took a red rose from a vase by her bed and put it in her hands.

By now, Terri's parents had arrived at the hospice. Knowing they were on their way, Michael and Brian Schiavo went back to the room down the hall. Both of them were crying.

Brian turned to his brother.

"Michael, I have to tell you I am very happy for her right now. I feel this happiness inside me that she is no longer locked in that existence."

Terri's siblings, waiting in a shop across the street, learned of her death from the family's attorney, David Gibbs III. They waited for Terri's parents at the hospice entrance. Mary Schindler, Terri's mother, entered first. Gibbs had the sense she knew her daughter was gone, even before a hospice worker spoke.

"Terri's passed this morning."

Mary Schindler wept and walked down the hall to Terri's room. Bob Schindler, about 30 seconds behind his wife, heard the news as he followed.

The Schindler family - Mary, Bob, Suzanne and Bobby - gathered around Terri's bed. Gibbs stood in the hall. He could hear the family's sobs.

Pavone stood in the doorway and recited a prayer in Latin:

"May the angels lead you into paradise. May the martyrs greet you upon your arrival. May the choirs of angels welcome you."

After the Schindlers left, Terri was bathed. Michael and Brian Schiavo returned to her room. Terri was wheeled out on a gurney. In a hallway, about three dozen hospice workers circled her, holding hands. A hospice pastor said a prayer.

For years, as the lawyers and politicians argued, the hospice workers had cared for Terri, watched her, done whatever they could for her and her family.

On this morning, many had stayed after their shifts ended, just so they could say goodbye.

* * *

Link to the rest of the story.

Kizarvexis

[Kizarvexis]

Oops, I forgot to add the webpages of the two local papers on the Shiavo case.

St. Pete Times - more liberal
Pinellas county is made up of a whole bunch of little municipalities that butt up against each other with St. Pete being the largest. The St. Pete Times focuses mostly on Pinellas news with branch sections for Hillsborough county (Tampa, to the east), Pasco (county to the north) and Manatee county (Sarasota, to the south).

Tampa Tribune TBO.com is part of them - more conserative
The Tampa Tribune of course focuses on Tampa and Hillsborough county (slightly larger than Rhode Island) and has branch sections for Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Polk (Lakeland, to the east).

Lakeland and Sarasota have their own papers, but the Trib and Times cover info there anyways, since a lot of people live there and work in Tampa or St. Pete.

Kizarvexis

[The Dark]

I'll see what I can find in the Ledger (Lakeland paper) on Monday, since I don't get weekend copies and forgot to get one yesterday.

[Kizarvexis]

FreeRepublic.com is already claiming that the autopsy will not mean a thing, because it only shows 'recent' events. See here for the spinning.

I've also heard people saying that the coroner will cover up the truth - which ever truth they are arguing for.

Kizarvexis

[The Spartan]

FreeRepublic.com is already claiming that the autopsy will not mean a thing, because it only shows 'recent' events. See here for the spinning.

I've also heard people saying that the coroner will cover up the truth - which ever truth they are arguing for.

Kizarvexis

AARRGH!!!!! What the fuck do we have to do to these people to get them to understand science!? It's not even complicated concepts, this is as simple as it gets. "Recent events" don't magically dissolve an entire brain, certainly not in this case. Do these assholes still cling to the idea that her brain could have grown back? Or that she somehow would have magically recovered just because her eyes can twitch? But then of course this isn't about science, it's about politicians lining up to fellate the fundie asshats who seem to be pushing harder and harder for a fucking theocracy.

I would ask if people were actually stupid enough to believe this horseshit. I *would* ask. But I already know the anwser and it makes me sick.

[Frank Hipper]

FreeRepublic.com is already claiming that the autopsy will not mean a thing, because it only shows 'recent' events. See here for the spinning.

I've also heard people saying that the coroner will cover up the truth - which ever truth they are arguing for.

Kizarvexis

Hell, it's worse than that!
That fucktard is implying that an atrophied cerebral cortex could be the result of withdrawal of the feeding tube!

[Burak Gazan]

FreeRepublic.com is already claiming that the autopsy will not mean a thing, because it only shows 'recent' events. See here for the spinning.

I've also heard people saying that the coroner will cover up the truth - which ever truth they are arguing for.

Kizarvexis

AARRGH!!!!! What the fuck do we have to do to these people to get them to understand science!? It's not even complicated concepts, this is as simple as it gets. "Recent events" don't magically dissolve an entire brain, certainly not in this case. Do these assholes still cling to the idea that her brain could have grown back? Or that she somehow would have magically recovered just because her eyes can twitch? But then of course this isn't about science, it's about politicians lining up to fellate the fundie asshats who seem to be pushing harder and harder for a fucking theocracy.

I would ask if people were actually stupid enough to believe this horseshit. I *would* ask. But I already know the anwser and it makes me sick.

Expecting a lunatic to act and think rationally is a pointless exercise at best -- I fear what the future holds

[The Spartan]

Expecting a lunatic to act and think rationally is a pointless exercise at best -- I fear what the future holds

On an intellectual level I realize that. But nonetheless, the sheer, unabashed idiocy that these people revel in stuns me to no end. Which causes me to respond emotionally and the result is the rant I posted earlier.

[Darth Wong]

It always bugs me when I get flamed or censured in other venues for pointing out that the religious right is composed of idiots, because quite frankly, it is trivially easy to produce evidence that this is true.

[The Spartan]

It always bugs me when I get flamed or censured in other venues for pointing out that the religious right is composed of idiots, because quite frankly, it is trivially easy to produce evidence that this is true.

What drives me straight up the wall is that they actually seem proud of it.

[Wicked Pilot]

What drives me straight up the wall is that they actually seem proud of it.

No fucking shit! Since when did 'stupid' become a desirable character trait?

[Darth Wong]

What drives me straight up the wall is that they actually seem proud of it.

No fucking shit! Since when did 'stupid' become a desirable character trait?

Since the fundies noticed that all of the scientists disagreed with them. Since admission of error is impossible for them, the only alternative was to elevate scientific ignorance into a virtue.

[Durandal]

What drives me straight up the wall is that they actually seem proud of it.

No fucking shit! Since when did 'stupid' become a desirable character trait?

Since roughly November of 2000.

[The Spartan]

Since roughly November of 2000.

Hey kids if you can be president then so can I!

[Wicked Pilot]

Since roughly November of 2000.

Nationally at least. I heard the trend started in Texas a few years earlier.

[Spacebeard]

It seems to me as though fundamentalism has always had a streak of anti-intellectualism: either expressed as a disdain for "big city ideas", or as contempt for "materialism distracting us from spiritual matters". Then when the fundies took over the GOP, anti-intellectualism became part of the standard Republican campaign tactic of impugning the manhood of their opponent with juvenile smears. Gore and Kerry, who dared to use sentences with subordinate clauses and words with more than two syllables, were slimed as either shifty and dishonest (see David Brooks' column "The Boston Fog Machine"), or as soulless, wimpy nerds (see the chatter about Gore being "dry and boring", or Kerry being an "indecisive flip-flopper").

Of course, there's also a vein of anti-intellectualism on the extremist left, which ironically comes mostly from "intellectuals" themselves: the post-modern ones who claim that we should "reject reason" because it enforces social orthodoxy and so on. People who would go on and equate these buffoons with the fundies and conclude that "the left and the right are just as bad" on this issue ought to remember which group controls the agenda of party which in turn controls all three branches of government.