Liberty Bell

Terri Schiavo

Nearly a year after her death, her parents and husband are releasing opposing books that will continue the debate over the decision to remove the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo. Terri Schiavo died on March 31, 2005, at the age of 41. 13 days before, her feeding tube had been removed under a legal order granted to her husband, Michael. Terri’s death was caused by a mix of dehydration and starvation.

Michael Schiavo fought the Schindlers (her parents) in court for eight years over the removal of Terri’s life support, arguing she would not have wanted to be kept alive in what doctors called a persistent vegetative state.

The Schindlers argued that she retained some level of consciousness. “Don’t let anybody tell you that Terri did not know who was in that room,” Mary Schindler told The St. Petersburg Times in an interview published Saturday.

In their book, “A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo - A Lesson for Us All,” the Schindlers continue the debate, saying Michael Schiavo abused Terri and say she wouldn’t have wanted her feeding tube removed.

In Michael Schiavo’s book, “Terri: The Truth,” he says he was determined to carry out his wife’s wishes despite death threats and other pressures.

“Terri: The Truth” is being released Monday. “A Life That Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo - A Lesson for Us All” will be released the day after. It will be interesting to read the different sides presented by family members.

Sago Mine survivor Randal McCloy visited his home Tuesday for the first time since the Jan. 2 explosion. He was able to eat a home-cooked lunch and spend three hours with his children.

McCloy and 12 co-workers entered the Sago Mine to resume production after a holiday shutdown when an explosion trapped them. The rescue teams were not able to reach the men until over 40 hours after the disaster. By then, the others had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

McCloy was carried out with kidney, lung, liver and heart damage on Jan. 4 and remained in a coma for weeks. Today, he is able to eat and breath by himself - walking still requires some assistance. He’s able to speak, but doctors say his ability is consistent only when the questions are simple and his attention focused. It may be three to six months before McCloy is capable of carrying on a normal conversation. McCloy still faces weeks of therapy.

Please contine to remember the McCloy family. If you believe in prayer, pray that Anna would have to strength to continue caring for the family. Pray that the doctors would know the most efficient way to treat Randal. Also pray, that when the time comes, they would have the right words to tell Randal of the fate of the other miners.

Donations may be sent to:
Randal McCloy, Jr. Fund
c/o Clear Mountain Bank
1889 Earl Core Road
Morgantown, WV 26505

Weinstein with Bonnie, his wife of nearly 30 years.

An Albuquerque lawyer and Air Force Academy graduate, Mikey Weinstein, is suing the United States Air Force, claiming senior officers and cadets illegally imposed evangelical Christianity on others at the school. Mikey Weinstein’s entry into the war over the separation of church and state is - by his own admission - tardy. But he’s figures late is better then never.

Weinstein’s immediate family is Jewish; his extended family is largely Christian. He considers family most important, than the Air Force. Weinstein represents the second of three generations of military academy graduates. His dad graduated from Naval Academy. One of his sons, Casey, is a Air Force Academy graduate, the other, Curtis, is a junior.

Weinstein was going about his life as a Republican lawyer and businessman, husband and father, until July 2004, when he visited Curtis. Curtis wanted to talk, but not on base. As they traveled from the campus, Weinstein started freaking out, wondering what trouble his son had gotten into.

He said, “Dad, it’s not what I’ve done, it’s what I’m gonna do, and I’m probably going to get into a lot of trouble. I’m going to beat the shit out of the next person who calls me a “f***ing Jew” or accuses me or our people of killing Jesus.”

When Weinstein asked Casey about his experience, Casey told him that just the way it is. “Senior cadets would sit down and say, “How do you feel about the fact that your family is going to burn in hell?’”

Many problems with religion and military, result from the issue of rank. For example, you cannot respond to a senior officer insisting you accept the Lord as savior with a “Get out of my face, Sir,” or “Not interested, Ma’am.”

A June 2004 report observed that during basic training, Maj. Warren Watties called on about 600 cadets to proselytize their bunkmates and warn them they would burn in the fires of hell if they weren’t born again. A 2004 survey indicated that half the cadets at the academy reported hearing religious slurs on campus.

Official academy fliers, distributed on military grounds, promoted Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. Within months, Weinstein said, his sons reported a rise in anti-Semitic slurs. A Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

On July 12th, 2005 there was a story in the New York Times about the increasingly religious climate in the Air Force. It included a quote from Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson: “We won’t proselytize, but we reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched.” Weinstein thought Richardson, No. 2 in command of the Air Force chaplaincy, would be fired, or at least reprimanded, for his statement to the New York Times. He watched for a backpedaling clarification by the Air Force to appear.

Nothing.

On Oct. 6, Weinstein filed his lawsuit, alleging that, in an attempt to impose evangelical Christianity, the Air Force is in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the wall separating church and state. Weinstein is demanding that the Air Force prohibit its members from involuntarily converting, pressuring, exhorting or persuading fellow members to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty.

Air Force lawyers responded claiming he and the four other plaintiffs (Casey Weinstein, Patrick T. Kucera, Ariel B. Kayne and Jason A. Spindler: academy graduates who currently are serving in the Air Force) were no longer attending the academy and thus not subject to the abuse they alleged.

Weinstein countered, saying he is suing the Air Force, not the academy.

The debate spread, including members of Congress and attorneys from Christian associations.

Last month, the Air Force released new “interim” guidelines on religious expression, which include the statement that “Voluntary participation in worship, prayer, study and discussion is integral to the free exercise of religion.”

Weinstein called it a signal that the Bush administration is trying to appease powerful evangelicals, including Dobson (Focus on the Family leader) and Haggard (Head of the National Association of Evangelicals).

He’s received a lot of support from strangers:

“I’ve gotten a gazillion calls from military people all over the world saying, “OK, I’m seeing what’s happening, and this is wrong.” From the academy alone, I’ve gotten over 1,000 people coming forward: cadets, officers, civilian staff, former cadets, graduates, coaches, athletes, saying “Oh my God, thank God someone is doing something about this.’”

The vast majority, he says, are mainstream Christians — Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans — who are “just not used to being preyed on and prayed upon by fellow Christians saying, “You don’t accept the Lord the right way.’”

But he’s also been called the “Satan’s lawyer,” and “Satan’s assistant,” and the “most dangerous man in America.”

Weinstein says a rumor has circulated that he wants to ban people from saying “God bless you” when someone sneezes.

“If standing up for the Constitution makes you a godless secular leftist or an arch secularist, well, like I’ve said before, gee, you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

During this fight, Weinstein has hired, at one point or another, eight different law firms and five PR agencies. The 18-, 19- and 20-hour days of work and battle are starting to pile up. But, he figures, somebody’s got to do it. “It’s time,” he says, “to stop doing nothing.”

More info at:
Mikey’s Mission
and
‘Mikey’s passion’

Dana Reeve, wife of Superman actor Christopher Reeve, died of lung cancer on March 6, 2006. She is survived by her 13-year-old son, Will; her father, Charles Morosini; two sisters, Deborah Morosini and Adrienne Morosini Heilman; and her late husband’s two grown children, Matthew and Alexandra Reeve.

Dana was an activist, actress, singer, motivational speaker and published author. But she was also a dedicated, loving wife and mother. Christopher Reeve credited Dana for pulling him out of depression, after a horse-riding accident left Christopher a quadriplegic. Together, they worked to form the Christopher Reeve Foundation and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center.

Although a non-smoker, Dana was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. On August 9, 2005, at the age of 44, Reeve made her announcment saying: “Now, more than ever, I feel Chris with me as I face this challenge. As always, I look to him as the ultimate example of defying the odds with strength, courage, and hope in the face of life’s adversities.”

Tributes to Dana Reeve

In the Gloaming
Sung by Dana Reeve at the end of Christopher Reeve’s directorial debut from the film of the same title.

In the gloaming, oh my darling,
When the lights are dim and low,
And the quiet shadows falling,
Softly come, and softly go.

When the winds are sobbing faintly,
With a gentle lull of woe,
Will you think of me and love me,
As you did once long ago?

In the gloaming, oh my darling,
Think not bitterly of me,
Though I passed away in silence,
Left you lonely, set you free.

For my heart was crushed with longing,
What had been could never be,
It was best to leave you thus dear,
Best for you, and best for me.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Rev. Martin Niemüller, 1945

“Niemoeller was one of the most respected Protestant leaders in Germany. After a signal career as a young man, a decorated U-Boat captain in the First World War, he became an activated Christian. In 1933, when he became the most high profile of Hitler’s Christian opponents, he was in charge of a prestigious suburban parish in Berlin-Dahlem.

Niemoeller was a leader in the mobilization of the Pastors’ Emergency League, in the Synod that denounced the abuses of the dictatorship in the famous “Six Articles of Barmen,” and in other visible joint actions and sermons that finally led to his arrest on 1 July 1937. There were then a few honest judges still functioning in Germany, and when the court let him go with a slap on the wrist Hitler personally ordered his incarceration. Niemoeller was in concentration camp, including long periods of solitary confinement, until the end of the war.”

Quoted from Littell’s article in Christian Ethics Today
Found at PIA CAUSA

UW, or the University of Washington, is one of the main universities in Washington State. A fine university, except it’s in the middle of Seattle — in the middle of a Democratic city. So when UW makes the news, I rarely like the results.

To stand up for my sister and the other Repulicans studying at the U: you’re the people you allow me to believe there’s still hope — we’re just a bit outnumbered!
—————————————————————————–
Students reject honor to ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ hero
Member of Marines not ’sort of person UW wanted to produce’
—————————————————————————–
Posted: February 14, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The University of Washington’s student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory “Pappy” Boyington of “Black Sheep Squadron” fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.

Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government’s meeting last week, said she “didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.”

Ashley Miller, another senator, argued “many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men.”

Senate member Karl Smith amended the resolution to eliminate a clause that said Boyington “was credited with destroying 26 enemy aircraft, tying the record for most aircraft destroyed by a pilot in American Uniform,” for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.

Smith, according to the minutes, said “the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington’s service, not his killing of others.”

The senate’s decision was reported first by Seattle radio talk-host Kirby Wilbur of KVI, whose listeners were “absolutely incensed,” according to producer Matt Haver.

Brent Ludeman, president of the university’s College Republicans, told WND in an e-mail the decision “reflects poorly on the university.”

“Pappy Boyington went beyond the call of duty to serve and protect this country – he simply deserves better,” Ludeman said. “Just last year, the university erected a memorial to diversity. Why can’t we do the same for Pappy Boyington and others who have defended our country?”

The resolution points out Boyington, a student at the UW from 1930-34, served as a combat pilot in the 1st Squadron, American Volunteer Group – the “Flying Tigers of China” – and later as a Marine Corps combat pilot in charge of Marine Fighting Squadron 214, “The Black Sheep Squadron.”

Along with the Navy Cross, Boyington was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his heroism. He was shot down and spent 20 months in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

The resolution says, “Be it resolved … [t]hat we consider Col. Gregory Boyington, United States Marine Corps, to be a prime example of the excellence that this university represents and strives to impart upon its students, and, That we desire for a memorial for Col. Boyington be commenced by the University of Washington by 11 January 2008, the twentieth anniversary of his death, which will be publicly displayed, so that all who come here in future years will know that the University of Washington produced one of this country’s bravest men, and that we as a community hold this fact in the highest esteem.”

Commenting on the decision, a blogger who says he met Boyington on numerous occasions at a museum and air show over the years noted the famous flyer “was no rich boy,” having grown up in a struggling family in which he was forced to work hard to make it through school. The blogger, who hosts the website Paradosis, also pointed out Boyington was part Sioux.

Boyington was open about his marital problems and alcohol abuse, saying notably, “Just name a hero and I’ll prove he’s a bum.”

The blogger wondered, “have our Washington youth revised history so much as this? To compare Boyington – or for that matter any of our WW2 vets – to murderers? What are these kids being taught today? They don’t deserve those 20 months Pappy spent being tortured and beaten in a Japanese prison camp … they don’t deserve any of what our grandfathers and grandmothers sacrificed to free Europe and the Pacific.”

Boyington wrote a book in 1958 that reached the best-seller list, “Baa Baa, Black Sheep.” In 1976, he sold rights to Universal, which aired a TV series for two seasons of the same name.

Boyington, who died Jan. 11, 1988, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

taken from http://newsviewsnopinions.blogspot.com/2006/02/crime.html

Is it the NFL or is it the NBA, that……

36 have been accused of spousal abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

19 have been accused of writing bad checks

117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 business

3 have done time for assault

71….. repeat 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 currently are defendants in lawsuits

and

84 have been arrested for drunk driving

in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet? . . . Scroll down, citizen!

Neither……

It’s the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Cindy Sheehan has been commended by our media for her anti-war efforts after the death of her son, Casey Sheehan. It makes you wonder what Casey would think of his Mom’s efforts.

Army Spc. Casey Sheehan died in Iraq on April 4th, 2004. Casey had volunteered to be part of a quick response team when rioting started in Baghdad. His unit was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

“That’s all he wanted to do was serve God and his country his whole life,” Carly Sheehan said. “He was a boy scout from age 6 or 7 and an Eagle Scout. It was kind of a natural progression to go into the military from that. He said he was enjoying the military because it was just like the boy scouts but they got guns.”

Casey first enlisted in 2000, when he was twenty. He reenlisted in 2004. He knew he could be sent to a combat zone – that he would be risking his life for his country. When he volunteered to be part of the quick response the team he knew about the danger. But he went.

In Cindy Sheehan’s words:

The sergeant said, “Sheehan, you don’t have to go,” because my son was a mechanic. He was a Humvee mechanic. And Casey said, “Where my chief goes, I go.” And he knew what had to be done. And he died in his best friend’s arms in Iraq. I imagined it would have hurt if one of my kids was killed but I never thought it would hurt this bad. Especially someone so honest and brave as Casey, my son. When you haven’t been honest with us. When you and your advisers rushed us into this war. How do you think we felt when we heard the Senate reports that said there was no link between Iraq and 9/11?

Cindy started a cause that even those who disagreed with her could empathize or at least sympathize with. Her son had just died. She was a bereaved mother who blamed the president for his death. Unlike other mothers across the nation, she went on to protest in rallies, using a 8x10 in. photo of Casey “as if she is carrying a saint’s icon that she intends to use as a weapon.”

Cindy Sheehan has gone to far. She is no longer honoring the death of her son. She is an embarassment to America, those in favor of the war in Iraq and those against.

Cindy has been arrested for demonstrating without a license on 9/26/2005. In an article on MichaelMoore, Cindy wrote:

The fine for “demonstrating without a permit” is $75.00. I am certain that I won’t pay it. My court date is November 16th. Any lawyers out there want to help me challenge an unconstitutional law?

On January 31st, Cindy Sheehan was arrested after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush’s State of the Union address.

Cindy is no longer a bereaved mother angry at the war and at the president. She has blatantly refused to obey the laws of America. While doing so she has become a threat to America.

I would like to say to Cindy Sheehan and her supporters don’t be a group of unthinking lemmings. It’s not pretty,” said Mitzy Kenny of Ridgeley, W.Va., whose husband died in Iraq last year. The anti-war demonstrations “can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope.

When you get mad at Cindy, remember Casey Sheehan was a brave man who died for his country. He deserves our respect and our honor. Hugh Hewitt comments:

When you are tempted to blast his mom, remind yourself of this man’s sacrifice and heroism and assume as I do that he loved his mom deeply and would defend her like the fine son he must have been even if he disagreed with her politics.

Honor Casey Sheehan.

Related articles to check out:
The Call
He Chose to Serve
Army Specialist Casey Sheehan - Someone You Should (Have) Know(n)
The Darkly Fascinating Times of “Mother Sheehan”