Vatican: Pulling Plug on Terri Akin to Capital Punishment

I'm afraid I must disagree with the Vatican on this one. No civilized country would mete out capital punishment by withdrawing food and water.

Hopefully Terri Schiavo is too brain-damaged to know what is happening to her. Though at terrisfight.org I've seen some video clips that make me uneasy. In these Terri appears to be severely brain-damaged yet certainly aware of her surroundings and capable of emotion.

Of course her husband, Mark Schaivo, knows much more about her situation than I do. But from these videos I'm afraid she is able to suffer. No doubt she would be better off to be with God, but starvation and dehydration is a horrible death. If there is any chance that Terri can still feel, however slightly, letting her die this way is obscene.

Old and New

Some years ago I owned a fairly nice collection of Christmas tree ornaments, inherited from my late parents. Some were antiques. They had been on every family Christmas tree since I was born.

After our marriage I shared them with my husband. I loved seeing the old things on our very first tree. It seemed a perfect blending of my past with my present, and helped heal the pain of my parents' deaths.

Then we had children. Our younger child is a five-year-old, possibly autistic boy who likes to throw things. We used the old ornaments because these were all we had; we couldn't afford to buy more. We tried everything. Nothing worked. One by one, the lovely glass balls went smash against the wall Each time I heard one break my own heart broke a little too.

Fortunately we acquired more ornaments. Some were gifts from relatives. Many were left behind from a tenant of a family rental house. A few were made by our children as school projects. All graced our tree this Christmas.

Today we finally took down the Christmas tree. We're late because I've been quite ill for several weeks with a lung infection. As I took down the ornaments I thought about our old ones and our new ones. It's interesting how motherhood changes one's perspective. Our tree is much more beautiful now than it was with the antique ornaments. The best ones, that really make it shine, are the paper reindeer and the glass stocking that reads "Baby's First Christmas 1997". And the ones made precious by the memory of my son's eager hands putting them on the branches two and three at a time.

My old baubles served their time well. But the entire lot would look shabby next to a piece of red cardboard with a string for a loop, framing a picture of our daughter sitting on Santa's lap.

The Disaster

I feel that I should say something on the tragedy in Asia, since so many others have done so. I have read many eloquent expressions of grief and faith. I have a full heart. But, lacking skill, I could only repeat the beautiful sentiments of others.

I would like to offer money, but right now we have none. Hopefully, later on I'll be able to give a little. Right now all I have to offer is prayer.

The Joy of Gray

Something rare and wonderful is happening. It's a gray, cloudy day in Texas.

Most of my fellow depressed people get worse in the winter, when the days are darker. I'm just the opposite.

The summers here are endless. The bright sun hurts my eyes. I can feel the pain in my spirit. The wet heat burdens my soul. I can't breathe.

But days like this sing to me. I can see. I can breathe. The air is full of life. The blues and grays are the colors of joy. The bare trees, like hands raised to Heaven, add to the music.

Right now I can only dream of these things. I have walking pneumonia, and my lungs are too sickly for me to go outside. I can only hope for more lovely gray days.

Blogging and Tiredness

In the past few days I've tried numerous times to update this blog. Each time, for one reason or another, it didn't take. Once I simply couldn't get connected to Blogger and I lost the entry. It wasn't one of my better efforts. I suppose it is now floating around somewhere in cyberspace like the lost and lonely orphan it deserves to be.

But several times I've had an idea and just been too tired to write about it. It's been a bad year here in Texas for sinuses. Wet and hot, then wet and cold. The local doctors would likely be happily contemplating the world cruises they can now afford...if only they weren't so busy working themselves to death.

I hope this tiredness is due to my sickly sinuses. I've got a spot on my right side that looks a little too much like the pictures of melanoma I've found on the 'net. Melanoma isn't a happy disease for anyone. With our small income and no insurance, treatment might be an iffy proposition. So I'd really just like to skip the whole thing. As my hubby says, Let's not do it and say we did.

I won't know anything for certain until January. That's the soonest I can see our doctor. I'll be doing a lot of hoping and praying...when I'm not too tired.

New Journey

Well, I broke my resolution. Instead of blogging I've been looking around and reading other blogs, trying to get some sort of handle on what I want to say. It's difficult for me. I don't like to share my thoughts and feelings. I prefer to keep them rolled up tight in their dark inner place. Keep it happy. Keep it safe. No worries, no waves.

But things have been changing. That tight little place isn't so so cozy anymore. The darkness that once was so warm is empty now. Those feelings and ideas that were once my friends now seem in danger of becoming my demons. It's stifling there. It hurts.

But how do I let these things out? I need to find my voice...to find the me in all of this. Not in a selfish, self-centered way. In order to find where God is leading me, I think I need to better understand just who He is leading. Who is she...where are her words?

I now begin the journey anew.

I Resolve...Sorta

In the somewhat forlorn hope that I can keep these, I have made two resolutions. One, that I will blog much more often. I'll shoot for at least one posting each day. Two, I will try to steer away from politics. At least the national kind. Politics usually makes me irritable, and I'm tired of reading my griping posts.

I hope that by posting each day I'll make a strike against one of the more debilitating features of my Asperger's Syndrome. The problem is, I can't post because it's not perfect. At least, not to me. This touches every aspect of my life. If it's not just the way I think it should be, I can't bring myself to do it. I can't think of a single project, word or action of mine that has come close to meeting my standards of perfection. So when this tendency runs amuck, which it often does, I have to force myself to do anything at all. (Well...getting out of bed is easy enough, but after that it starts getting complicated.)

So, in order to post every day I'll have to express myself more freely, and with less mental editing. No more "It has to be profound or I can't write." Of course this doesn't exclude praying about what I write. That should always be part of the process.

I'm obviously not writing for the masses anyway; just for myself. I'll see how it works out.

Vinyl Records and Zombies

According to a blog I just read, there's a movie called Shaun of the Dead in which vinyl records thrown like ninja stars at zombies will "kill" them. Given the amount of time it takes me to wake up in the morning, perhaps I should hide our old record collection before my husband gets ideas.

Bush, Kerry Health Plans Differ Sharply

I sort of hate to write about politics again since I didn't intend this to be a political blog. But I do write about what's on my mind, and politics has been on my mind a lot lately.

For the past day or so I've had a stomach bug. It's been going around; I was the last person in my family to get it. Before that I had problems with my chronically-ill sinuses, which are steadily getting worse. My husband is disabled. As an aspie I have trouble getting and holding down a job that offers health insurance. We're too poor to afford private health insurance and too rich for Medicaid, except for the children. (Here in Texas the ceiling is ridiculously low. You pretty much have to be living on the streets to qualify.) Happily my husband has Medicare and my children have Medicaid. Usually I can't afford to go to the doctor at all. So I found the above article very interesting.

Both plans seek to help the growing numbers of the uninsured. According to estimates Senator Kerry's plan would drop the numbers from 45 million to 27 million over 10 years. President Bush's plan would cover from 7 to 17 million, depending on who's doing the estimating. Quite a difference.

Bush's plan would use tax breaks and "market-based incentives" to address the problem. But what good are tax breaks when you're already too poor to pay taxes? Even if you do, the market would have to come down quite a bit for a tax break to cover the expense.

Senator Kerry's plan, costing at least $653 billion over 10 years, is certainly pricey enough. But at least we would be spending it on something worthwhile. And Kerry would pay for it by rolling back tax cuts on persons making more than $200,000 per year. Anyone making that much can afford a little more tax.

For an old hag like me to not get medical care is inconvenient. Here in Texas we have a lot of very sick children getting sicker for lack of proper medical treatment. That's obscene.

Texas is an easy place to live if you're rich, but pretty tough if you're poor. I worry that Bush wants to turn the country into a giant Texas.

The Uncompassionate Conservative

The Uncompassionate Conservative

This is a very interesting piece by writer Molly Ivins, who went to high school with President Bush. I'm not a native Texan, but I lived here for about four years of Bush's governorship. From what I've seen and heard, I suspect this characterization is accurate. Really scary.

My Decision II

It just occurred to me that in my last posting the aspie part of me took over and I came across like a prig with my head up my...oh well, you get the idea. The bottom line: Bush, with his war and his excuses for it, his economic decisions and his general attitude toward the poor (he admits he can't understand what it's like) just gripes my soul. One way or another, he offends nearly every moral belief I've got. The only exceptions are school vouchers (I'm for 'em too), abortion (I'm against it), and an amendment prohibiting gay marriage (he's for it, I am too, intellectually, although my emotions protest a little).

Kerry is neither warm nor cuddly but I find his politics very attractive. And I have no problem with his tendency to change his positions on issues. Being an aspie, when I meet someone new I turn into The Ice Princess of the World, only more clumsy. And I tend to be much worse than Kerry about indecisiveness and changing my mind. Others see black and white, right and wrong. I see a hundred shades of gray and a million possibilities. So it's tough for me to take an absolute stand and stick with it.

So I'll have to vote for Kerry and pray that God will lead him. There's more, of course, but I'll plow through it later.

My Decision on the Election

As you can see by the new banner on this page I've decided who to vote for in the upcoming election. Many things guided my decision, but one thing sticks out in my mind. During the first debate President Bush asked Senator Kerry if he thought our troops in Iraq had died for nothing. As one could expect Kerry answered negatively. When I asked myself the same question, I had to admit that yes, I'm afraid they did. Unless one believes that control of more oil fields, in order to expand profits for oil companies, is worth dying for.

It's fine to talk about liberating the Iraqi people. In a sense they are liberated, at least from the rule of Saddam Hussien. But true liberation requires the physical ability, and the will, to remain free without outside help. As it is, without the help of the U.S. forces Iraq would surely become dominated by an Afgani-style fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship. And, judging by the experience of Afganistan, the government of Saddam would look almost sweet and gentle by comparison.

The Presidential Election: How Should a Christian Vote?

I've been agonizing over this presidential election. As a Christian I feel obligated to vote but... According to my Baptist co-religionists (and other Christians I've read on the subject) it's cut and dried: Vote Bush. He's pro-life and in favor of vouchers for private schools; Kerry isn't. He drove Saddam out of Iraq thus making it safe for democracy (and Christians). He is strongly anti-terrorist.

Sounds simple. But not to me.

Bush certainly sounds pro-life. Being strongly pro-life myself, I applaud this. But if if anything has gotten any better for the innocent babies I haven't noticed it. If Kerry is no more effectual than Bush in this respect, would he really be a threat? Nothing has changed on the school voucher front either.

Under Bush many people have been laid off and jobs have gone overseas. Company executives are getting richer while families are losing their homes. Surely this is nearly as much of a life issue as abortion.

And Bush has brought us war. We are sacrificing our children to kill other people's children in Iraq. Certainly Saddam was no moral leader. But is it just to kill too many people in order to get rid of a government that killed too many people? This makes no sense to me.

So I want to vote for Kerry. But like a hamster on a wheel I come back to the conviction that I simply can't vote for someone who favors abortion. I'll pray about it and hopefully make peace with my conscience. But ah, the agony of the single issue voter!

The Nuthouse

This is a very good site for depressed persons and those who love them.

The Nuthouse

A Little About Me

I feel that before I start treating everyone to my opinions it might be a good idea to share a little about myself. I'm 45 years old, extremely happily married, with two rather young children. I'm a Christian. I was raised a Catholic; recently I joined the Southern Baptist church. (There's a long story here which I won't get into now.)

I also have Aspergers Syndrome. For a detailed description of what this involves look here . It's affected me in various ways all my life. But right now it means that I have trouble holding down a job because I have trouble remembering and carrying out directions. And I have trouble talking to people and maintaining friendships. I think this is part of the reason for this blog. I want to express my thoughts in ways I can't face to face. I've always wanted to have a sort of newspaper opinion column. This is as close as I'm likely to get. I pray that God will be pleased with my efforts and that He will bless whoever reads my writings.