My Take on Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo died today. Virginia asked me what I thought about it, and by the time I had written down what I thought, I decided it was worth its own entry.

First of all, I find the way this case was handled by the media and this country was kind of disgusting. South Park made an excellent point last night (yes, South Park did an episode that took it's shoot at Terri Schiavo, and while it was out of line at times, it actually made a good point). Kenny was in a vegetative state, and they had lost the last page of his will which contained the end of the sentence "In the case where I am in a persistent vegetative state, please...". Well at the end of the episode, after the entire world was up in arms about Kenny, they find the last page, and it reads: "do not show me on national television in this state and make a big deal pushing political agendas based on me." This makes a whole lot of sense to me. That being said, I'm not sure this could have been avoided, as some kind of legal statement is necessary to judge future cases.

What this case does not address:

• Assisted suicide. Terri was not able to discuss her desires to live or die in her current state.
• A patient on life support. Basic life support includes breathing and circulation support. Advanced life support adds electrocardiography and fibrillation control. Terri needed none of this. You can question her quality of life (and we will soon), but she was not on life support.

Moving on. Terri.

I think there are a lot of outlying factors here. First of all, as far as I can see, there must be something fishy about this husband. There are several reasons that he could want Terri to die. The first and most obviously would be the large amount of money he stands to inherit. But let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt. He can say he needs to move on. But really, he's been living with some other lady for several years (in many states they would have a common law marriage), and even has kids in that relationship. So maybe he wants to legally move on, so he can marry his new wife. Still, he could just divorce her. And if his inspiration is really as simple as that he doesn't think Terri would want to live like this, then why did he wait fifteen years? Fifteen years!

The biggest question in my mind is whether anyone has the right to look at Terri, and question if her quality of life is high enough. Judging quality of life is a very slippery slope. If we look at Terri's life as "too low quality", why should we stop there? What about extremely retarded people (sorry I am lacking the more PC phrase here...)? Feeding tubes are not all that uncommon. Many people live on them, in an extremely more functional state than Terri. The idea of judging quality of life just seems like a very dangerous one.

In the end, idealistically, it seems like if someone wants to take care of a person like Terri Schiavo, why should they not be able to? However, this is not something that can be codified into law (we can all thank the CAA-Student government mess this year for the insertion of the word codify into my vocabulary). The fact is, there needs to be some default position of authority to address what is to happen to you in the case that you cannot answer for yourself. Law states it is the husband, before the parents. And I don't think that anything that congress/the president did was appropriate. The law says that her husband is to speak for her, and he did. He says she would not want to live. It is difficult to say that a parent is more appropriate than a spouse. There are going to be many cases where each would be more appropriate.

I guess in conclusion, I don't really trust the husband and his intentions. And I don't really trust congress and its intentions. And I feel sorry for the parents. I feel like much more could have been done. But it wasn't. And, unfortunately, they have no legal ground to stand on.

Most of all, I am looking forward to this story moving out of the media, so that her husband, her parents, and the country can move on.

The News...

• File sharing hits the supreme court, as the music industry claims that companies distributing file sharing software are direct beneficiaries of copyright violations, and should be held liable.


• There is something wrong with America and it's ability to keeps it's hands off of little boys. The boy scouts join the pervert club.


• Speaking of which, the Michael Jackson trial continues...


• A UN Study determines that the Earth's health is deteriorating. This study cost $24 million! What a rip off. I could have told them this for like $100.


• The U.S. soccer (or football) team shocks Guatemala 2-0. Upon reading the article, ITRC employee Brian Hill wonders why no one ever gets a polite awakening.


• Johnnie Cochran dies at age 67. Agree or disagree with the outcome of the OJ trial, Cochran played an important part in this history. Read what Rell wrote, a while back.


• Burger King releases new breakfast sandwich: The Enormous Omelet Sandwich. Wisconsiners say: "730 calories? That ain't nothing."

While this brief run through of the news did help my homework procrastination, I must say, the world is depressing. I didn't even go into the latest Schiavo reject, the U.S. Soldier convicted of murder in Iraq, or the latest teen school shooting. This is why I stick to the sports page (where we get a look at each of the coaches in the final four, McDonald's High School All-American Game coverage, and coverage of the upcoming NFL draft.

Facebook Me

So there have been several trends that I have resisted lately. One example would be blogging (though we all can see where that ends). Another would be these online friends communities, such as The Face Book and Orkut. (I did actually want to be a member of orkut before I really even knew what it was, basically because it was made by google and it required an invitation...anyway...).

Well I finally broke down and joined the face book. It is actually a pretty interesting read, while I am at work. At the very least, it has helped me recontact two old friends, and it reminds me of birthdays (it told me this morning that Erti's Birthday is April 2, which I knew :-p ).

Anyway, since I sold out, I might as well add:
FaceBook Me!

Music vs. Lyrics: What's Important?

I've been thinking a lot lately about music, and specifically lyrics. I pose this question:

How important are the lyrics to whether you like/dislike a song?

Ideally, this would create open discussion (ie - leave a comment), but since no one likes to leave comments, I'm not going to count on it. Anyway, I'll delve further...

There exists some song, and you love everything about it musically, but you don't like the lyrics. Do you like the song? Do you listen to the song?

This question is being raised in my head now by a Modest Mouse song I've just discovered, Bukowski. Musically, the song is awesome. It's kind of slow and dreary, but picks up a bit, uses the slide guitar well, and reminds me a lot of Mount Moriah (Jenks and Josiah's band). Bukowski was a poet, who didn't believe in friendship/relationships, and rather turned to alcohol. His works showed a very free yet slobby life.

The song is a look at life, and basically (at least in my interpretation) is saying that life ends up more like how Bukowski sees it than how most people do,
and he questions why God would want to control his life.

If God controls the land and disease,
keeps a watchful eye on me,
If he's really so damn mighty,
my problem is I can't see,
well who would wanna be?
Who would wanna be such a control freak?

A quick aside about me: I am a practicing Christian, though I have always been taught/believed that not only is questioning everything ok, but it is important.

So, in an effort to keep this moving, I'll sum up this song and move on. At first I wasn't sure how to feel about these lyrics, but after some thought, I find them an interesting (and depressing) outlook on life. They make you think. And I think that is a very important part of any art.

But now to the bigger question at hand: What kind of lyrics makes a song unlistenable?

I can think of three reasons why someone may not like some lyrics:

• They are stupid
A lot of rock/metal/pop songs fall into this category. Metallica singing about crushing them all to NSYNC singing about dancing around.
• They are idealistically different from what you believe in
  Something like Bukowski, or something like Creed to a non-Christian.
• They are offensive
  Something like Eminem's song Kim, where he describes how he is going to kill his wife.

I can easily say that stupid lyrics are pretty easy to get past. To me, the music is far more important than the words, and not every song needs to be deep or probing. Similarly, music that offends me is pretty easy to give up. The lyrics are just too difficult to ignore.

Where I get stuck is on the idealistic differences. I have no problem listening to someone else's opinion of things. In fact, I welcome it. And anytime anything makes you think about something, I think that is a good thing (because really, thinking is good). Still, do you really want something you completely disagree with pounded into your head over and over again? Whether you are paying attention or now, lyrics get ingrained into your head. That's why we can all sing along to a song after we've heard it twice. In the end, Bukowski is one of the most played songs by my ipod. And I don't have a problem with that...

NCAA Tournament: In Review

Believe it or not, 5 years ago, during UNC's last final four run, I watched two games. Actually, just parts of two games. The combination of time, the development of an undying love for this university, and the influence of a few friends (first the superhardcores and later all my sports guru buddies) have all contributed to my love of sports, and particularly this NCAA tournament. Thanks to digital cable and our dual TV set-up, I can safely say that I was able to catch at least 10 minutes of each of the 61 games so far in the 2005 NCAA tournament.

If you didn't get to see as much as I did, here's a brief rundown:

The first round was full of scares, as nearly all the top teams (save 1 North Carolina) played close games. 3 Kansas fell victim to the biggest upset of the first round, ending the possibility of Roy Williams having to live out the worst moment of his life. 4 Meanwhile, Syracuse, the team all UNC fans were counting on to eliminate dook, loses to 13 Vermont.

10 NCSU and 12 UW-Mil were the only real surprises in the sweet sixteen (come on, did anyone besides Andy Katz think 2 Wake would make a tournament run without playing defense?). 1 UNC breezed by 9 Iowa State (even though 9 Iowa State "has seen better teams"). Again 1 dook struggled, yet holds off 9 Mississippi State.

1 UNC survives, with the help of a suspect traveling call against 5 Villinova. Allen Ray describes the controversial play: "I thought that the ref called the foul, but he called the walk, but, I feel we should have never put ourselves in that position anyway. I can’t say that’s the reason that we lost because of that one play." Rashad McCants knew: "I knew I didn’t foul him. I felt like when he drove he wasn’t expecting anybody to be there. So I just wanted to make a defensive rotation, without a foul, and just make him be as surprised as possible. And he didn’t know what to do. So he traveled. I knew if it was going to be a foul call that it was probably going to be one of the worst calls of the game. I did think that it was a travel at that point. I didn’t wait for him to tell me."

10 NCSU and 1 dook were not so fortunate each giving up early leads and leaving the tournament. 1 dook was the second 1 seed to fall, after 1 Washington fell to 4 Louisville the previous day. 3 Arizona needs some last second heroics from Salim Stoudamire to pull past 2 Oklahoma State.

The elite eight was as dramatic as it has ever been. On Saturday, 4 Louisville rallied from 20 down to top 7 West Virginia in OT. Pitino becomes the first coach to take three different teams to the final four. 1 Illinois, "destiny's team", overcame a 15 point deficit in the last 4 minutes to stun 3 Arizona in OT. 1 UNC held off a hot 6 Wisconsin team to clinch their first final four since 2000. But the game of the round was 2 Kentucky vs 5 Michigan State. Patrick Sparks puts the game into overtime, and even that cannot decide this one. In double OT, the Spartans prevail.

So where do we go from here? St. Louis of course. I, for one, will not be making the trip. I don't have the money. And maybe there's some good karma for my being in NC. And while there is some part of me that is looking forward to this tournament being over and hense my watching much less TV (My back is sore; my eyes are tired; my body gets lazy), I still can't hide my enthusiasm. I love this time of year. I love this tournament.

So here's to the end of the coach K AMEX adds! Here's to the 3 games in the final four living up to the 4 games this past Saturday and Sunday. And most of all, here's to the Heels bringing home the championship this weekend.