March 31, 2005

An Injustice Completed

Filed under: Uncategorized — Administrator @ 11:46 am

Terri Schindler

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

— W.H. Auden

Michael Schiavo: Second Most Hated Man in America?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Administrator @ 11:03 am

Here’s a link to my sympathetic piece on Michael Schiavo.

Barring a miracle on the order of the resurrection of Lazarus, Terri Schiavo is going to die. Then what?

Michael will have gotten his way, his attorney will move on to support some other “I love you but please die” case, and the media will gradually drift away.

However, his fame - or infamy - will follow him. I would bet that Schiavo is the second most hated man alive today in the USA, the coveted Number One position going to Scott Peterson with OJ Simpson a distant third.

Schiavo has already received death threats, and these will no doubt continue indefinitely since there is no shortage of lunatics in this country who are willing to protect life by taking it. Has he considered how this will impact his life and his family? He has two children and a “wife” whose reputation in the media places her a notch or two below a crack whore.

He may perceive this - and rightly so some might argue - as unfair, and he may believe in his heart of hearts that what he is doing is right. However actions have consequences, and that is something every one of us must consider when we act.

When I founded the ITPAA I realized that one of the consequences would be “blacklisting” with several firms. It’s not fair, but it happened and I had to live with the consequences. Where I live the market has been large enough so that I could find work elsewhere, but there is no doubt in my mind that I have paid a price - and continue to pay a price - for my ITPAA activities.

The consequences of my actions were relatively minor. Schiavo, on the other hand, has pissed off a large segment of America, and left an even larger segment unsympathetic to his position. For the safety of his family, I hope that he is offered and receives some kind of protection akin to the Witness Protection Program.

The Failure of the System…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Administrator @ 10:37 am

otherwise known as “How the Schindler Family got the shaft.” Here’s a Florida lawyer’s take on the case (link). Money quote:

In this case, the trial judge simply chose to believe Michael Schiavo’s version of the facts over the Schindlers’. Since there was evidence to support his conclusion (in the form of testimony from Michael Schiavo’s siblings), it became nearly impossible for the Schindlers to overturn it. The judges who considered the case after the trial-level proceeding could make decisions only on narrow questions of law. They had no room to ask, “Hey, wait a minute, would she really want to die?” That “fact” had already been decided.

In essence, the finding that Terri Schiavo would want to die came down to the subjective opinion of one overworked trial judge who was confronted by a very sharp, experienced right-to-die attorney on one side and a young, quasi-pro bono lawyer on the other.

I doubt that the Schindlers will be at the same disadvantage when they take up this matter in civil court.

Powered by WordPress