The Shiavo case–a family affair

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t weighed in on the Shiavo case yet, and I haven’t followed it in anything approaching exhaustive detail. But I have my take on it, which I think is a bit different from most of what I’ve been reading.

I look at it as an excellent example of a case that is primarily and essentially a family dispute. I don’t know whether these parties have ever tried mediation or family therapy–not that either would have led to a resolution, of course, but I wish they’d been tried.

If Terri herself had left written instructions in a living will, we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all; her wishes would have been carried out. In the absence of such written instructions, if both parties (the parents, the husband) had been on the same page about what Terri wanted, we also wouldn’t be having this discussion. Even without that agreement between the parties on what her wishes might have been, if both parties themselves agreed on what they wanted, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The only reason we are having this discussion is that Terri’s husband and parents disagree, and disagree strongly enough to have a court battle.

To me, it would have been best if her husband and family could have reached some agreement out of court. Since that didn’t happen, and has no chance of happening any more, it becomes a court case. As far as I can see (and, once again, I have to say I have not read a vast amount of documentation about this case), the issue becomes twofold: is Terri’s husband correct in his statement of what her wishes were; and, if we can’t know for sure, whose wishes should be paramount, the husbands’s (to “let her die”) or the parents’ (to “protect her right to life”)?

In human terms, this case is nothing but a tragedy, from start to finish. A beautiful young woman in the prime of life reduced to this sort of twilight lingering dependency. Heartbroken parents, a husband who was probably heartbroken too, albeit in a different way (I will assume here that Michael Shiavo’s motives are good; I know others would disagree). All possible outcomes are almost unutterably sad. To look at photos of Terri’s grieving parents is to see a pain that is nearly unbearable.

But in legal terms, here is my suggestion: I think that Florida law, which to my understanding favors the rights of a spouse over the rights of parents, should be amended to read that the paramount right to decide (in the absence of written expressed wishes of the ill person) should rest in the spouse unless another first degree relative has been the primary caretaker for a certain time, in which case that caretaker/relative would have rights equal to or greater than the spouse. I’m not sure what the details of such a law would be in terms of what that length of time should be, or how to define “primary caretaker,” but I’m sure the legislature could duke it out on that and come up with something more fair than the present law.

I would also suggest that it be mandatory that the parties to such a dispute be required to try a course of mediation, and/or of consultation with a family therapist specializing in medical family therapy, as a prelude to any court hearing. This sort of thing is done in some states for child custody battles, for example, and I see no reason why it couldn’t be tried in cases like this. Of course, such an amended law won’t help us in the Shiavo case, but it might help for future cases.

If Terri dies soon (and it is looking more and more as though she will), her parents are going to have to go through a terrible time of pain and anger. I can only hope, if she is to die shortly, that it happens as painlessly and easily as possible, and that her parents get a lot of help, support, and love–whether through therapy or their church or friends or family or all of the above. They will need it.

ADDENDUM: I just came across this Charles Krauthammer piece in which he says essentially the same thing I’ve said here. I find this interesting because Krauthammer is a psychiatrist as well as a very fine writer. He approaches questions with that perspective, and it gives him a different take on many subjects. Not only that, but he has a special sensitivity, I think, as a person with a disability himself–he is a quadriplegic from an accident he sustained as a young man.

The language of public life

The New Neo Posted on by

I was reading Dr. Sanity’s recent post, in which she quotes Fred Siegel from the NY Observer. He describes an encounter with some undergraduate Dean supporters prior to the 2004 primaries thusly:

I was taken aback by my conversation with the Deaniacs; their sheer coarseness stunned me. Even at the height of the “Ronald Reagan is going to blow up the world” mania of the 1980’s, I had never seen a “Fuck Reagan” button. But the coarseness was consistent with the dominant mood in academia outside of the sciences.

Well, I hate to break it to you, Fred, but it ain’t just academia. At the risk of sliding even further into old-fuddydud-ism (and perhaps even my use of the word “fuddydud” is emblematic of the fact that I’m already hopelessly mired there), I have to say that I myself have noticed recently a remarkable rise of what Siegel delicately refers to as “coarseness” in public life, not just academia.

Clinton donned shades and played the sax on TV. That wasn’t any problem; it was fun. But now we have candidates using the F-word in interviews with the media. Kerry in Rolling Stone, describing Bush’s Iraq policy–well, at least that was Rolling Stone, which appeals to a certain demography, so there was a bit of logic behind it, although I think it did absolutely nothing to enhance his candidacy or his person. And, just to show that I’m a nonpartisan equal-opportunity critic, there was Dick Cheney dissing Patrick Leahy on the floor of the Senate–although that was a personal spat, apparently, rather than a public interview.

What’s up? We’re all baby boomers here, and we tiresome boomers used to crow about how we liberated the language (and a lot else) from the confines of earlier ideas of propriety, etiquette, and politeness. Some of this liberation was good, no doubt.

But there’s something to be said for propriety, especially in public life. Now Joe Biden, in an article in the 3/21/05 New Yorker by Jeffrey Goldberg entitled “The Unbranding,” is quoted as saying, “What is so transformational in the last four years is that these assholes who wouldn’t give President Clinton the authority to use force” have now become, he said, moral interventionists. “Give me a fucking break.”

Does this make you want to vote for the man in 2008? Does it make him seem more “muscular?” Does it make him seem young and hip, or merely juvenile? To me, it’s the latter.

I’m a child of the 60s myself, and not averse to an F-word here and there in my private life. But I can’t imagine Roosevelt or Truman giving an interview and purposely using language that they no doubt were familiar with, but thought should be confined to private life, if uttered at all. They were aware that there’s public and then there’s private words, and as leaders of the Western world they had some funny notion of retaining a little dignity in public discourse.

ADDENDUM: By the way, spellcheck agrees. It wanted me to replace “assholes” with “assails,” and “fucking” with “bucking.”

How about those anti-Clinton bumper stickers?

The New Neo Posted on by

A commenter named Nick writes, in response to this post of mine:

I remember seeing a lot of anti-Clinton bumper stickers when he was elected. These two come to mind immediately…

“Inhale to the Chief”
“Don’t Blame Me. I Voted for Bush”

I’m not sure whether the Clinton ones ever became quite as popular… or whether they were as ferocious as some of the current Bush ones, but lets not forget about them. Both sides have played this game.

So, have both sides played this game? To a certain extent.

But as Nick himself suggests, the enmity towards Bush seems both more widespread and more vicious than that towards Clinton. For this reason I think there is a qualitative difference; I don’t think that Bush-hatred is merely a mirror image of Clinton-hatred, although Clinton-hatred certainly existed.

Look at the two bumper stickers Nick mentions. They are critical of Clinton, it’s true, and the first one is hostile (the second one reminds me of the “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Massachusetts” post-Watergate sticker that I mentioned in my earlier bumper-sticker post, and was no doubt modeled after it).

But neither of these stickers even begins to approach the depth and scope of the hostility displayed (and even gloried in) by the Bush ones: calling Bush an idiot, calling his Presidency a “regime,” comparing him to Hitler. What’s more–and I don’t believe it’s just because I live in a blue state now–the number of cars sporting these extremely negative anti-Bush stickers was far greater than the number displaying the anti-Clinton ones, which as I recall were few and far between (and I lived in a purple state back then, so I would have expected to have seen a fair number of them, if so many had actually existed).

There is no doubt that there was a fringe element almost psychotic in its hatred of Clinton, accusing him, for example, of murdering Vincent Foster. These people I condemn in the harshest of terms. But, at least to my knowledge, this element represented a far smaller percentage of the Republican party compared to those who suffer from intense hatred of Bush, which is practically a mainstream position among liberal Democrats.

During the 2004 election, the ratio of Bush-hating to Kerry-loving bumper stickers seemed to be about 3 to 1. I believe that the degree of negativity in that 2004 campaign was an unprecedented event in modern politics. Let’s hope it’s not a trend.

Welcome: first day of spring (hope springs eternal)

The New Neo Posted on by

We here at neo-neocon (that’s me!) wish to officially welcome the first day of spring. It’s today, in case you didn’t know–I didn’t, myself, till I heard it on the radio this morning.

I’ve lived in New England for over thirty years, doing some time in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire, and I have to say that here, the first day of spring is usually met with a derisive snort: you call this spring? Today is actually rather nice and sunny, but there’s still quite a bit of snow on the ground, and I would wager there’s more to come. But we know that the snows to come will melt far more quickly than before, and that gives us hope. A corner has been turned (I didn’t want to make this post at all political, but it occurs to me that maybe this is a good metaphor for what’s been happening lately in the Arab world).

At any rate, I plan to start thinking about gardening. That’s what people do in New England on the first day of spring–think of the next task (is that a metaphor, too?)

And here’s an excerpt from a Robert Frost poem describing the time of year that’s about to come any moment now, known as “mud time” in New England, for obvious reasons (the poem takes place in April rather than March, but I hope you’ll grant me some poetic license):

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You´re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you´re two months back in the middle of March.

So, go out and enjoy that sun, and enjoy the hope that goes with it!

Fun with sitemeters

The New Neo Posted on by

According to my trusty sitemeter, already today I’ve gotten three–count em, three!–people coming to my blog as a result of Google searches for “Lebanese women cleavage flag.”

Welcome! Isn’t the blogosphere wonderful?

(For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, see here.)

How much credit? The AP gets into the business of editorial writing and answers, “not much”

The New Neo Posted on by

Ah, the AP. Read how they report Bush’s radio speech today, in which he claims that the war in Iraq has inspired democratic reformers from Beirut to Tehran.

Yesterday I asked the question: how much credit does Bush get for the anti-Syria protests in Lebanon? Today, the AP answers: “not much.”

To begin their article, the AP quotes a few lines from Bush’s speech. Then, without further ado, the writer of the piece, Jennifer Loven, skips to this:

With his primary rationale for the war ”” Saddam’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction ”” discredited, Bush has turned to the argument that the war in Iraq was justified because it freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator and now gives the Middle East a model for democracy.

Those who read blogs know that freeing the Iraqi people was always a rationale for the war, not one “turned to” because the “real” rationale was discredited. I would have hoped that newspaper readers–not to mention AP writers–would know that, too.

The article goes on with another quote from Bush about recent progress in Iraq. Then we hear some more from Ms. Loven about how bad it all is nevertheless:

Against that progress, insurgents have carried on a relentless campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings while rampant crime, power outages, unemployment over 50 percent and a fuel crisis in one of the world’s prime oil-exporting countries continues. Even as the Iraqi legislators convened, they did not set a new date to meet reconvene, elect a speaker or nominate a president and vice president. Some have questioned Bush’s repeated claims that recent democratic developments in several global hotspots are due to both the Iraq war and his second-term drive to push for reforms in friend and foe.

Hmmm, “some have questioned.” Is it possible that Jennifer reads Benjamin in Michael Totten’s comments section? Will wonders never cease?

She goes on:

Still, the President has pointed to democratic gains…

So still, still, in the face of all of this, Bush has the gall and the stupidity to point to those gains. Would that, instead, he had Jennifer’s ability to see the true picture.

EVENING UPDATE: Hindrocket at Powerline concurs. It seems that Ms. Loven wrote some AP articles in the lead-up to last fall’s Presidential election that were more or less indistinguishable from DNC press releases. I guess she’s nothing if not consistent.

How much credit does Bush get for the anti-Syria protests in Lebanon?

The New Neo Posted on by

No surprise that we’ve seen the usual disagreements about how much credit Bush gets for the recent dramatic “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon. For example, in the comments section of this post of Michael Totten’s, someone named Benjamin objects to Totten’s calling it a “revolution,” or tying it directly to Bush’s actions:

Although you [Totten] are anxious in your article to trumpet the apparent success of US foreign policy as regards Lebanon, you don’t acknowledge the internal dynamic of Lebanon’s politics which has been building since way before Dubya was President, and which is influenced by many other factors… Indeed, you are anxious to ‘claim’ the Arab street, just as the other lot did earlier. I am not sure how useful that is, or indeed accurate.”

Well, Benjamin, I hereby submit that it’s both useful and accurate. “Useful,” because it’s good to relate causes to effects, even if the causes might only be partial or contributing causes. “Accurate,” because simple logic indicates that there is some sort of causal relationship. True, we don’t have a classic experiment here in which we have an alternate universe as a control, a world in which the US never liberated (and yes, we can now say “liberated”) Iraq and Bush never criticized dictatorships in the Arab world, so we’ll never know for sure. But how useful or accurate is it to fail to connect some fairly obvious and close-together dots?

My take on it? Whatever gradual, step-by-step approaches Lebanon has taken since 1991 towards a more representative government free of the Syrian occupation, Bush’s contribution can’t be denied, unless one is desperately looking to deny it. It as though goods were being laboriously transported by mule pack through some steep canyon pass, and then suddenly a helicopter swoops down and hoists the mule, pack and all, aboard. The goods are going to get to their destination a lot sooner, and it doesn’t make sense to say, “Oh, well, the mule was carrying those packs there anyway, so what help was the helicopter?”

Just ask yourself: if not for Bush and the war in Iraq and most particularly the Iraqi elections of 1/30, do you think these anti-Syrian demonstrations would ever have happened? And, if so, how many people do you think they would they have drawn? The Iraqi war has energized and emboldened this new Arab Street, which may in fact represent a heretofore “silent majority” in the Arab world.

Comments are now more user-friendly–I hope

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve had a couple of complaints about the fact that this blog requires people to register fully with blogger before commenting. In the interests of becoming more comment-friendly (and because I finally figured out how to fix it), I’ve changed the settings and have now made it easier to comment here. Power to the people!

UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that, even though this represents improvement, there are still some folks who are having trouble posting. So, I offer this comments tutorial for those who are even more computer-challenged than I.

The following sounds complex, but it’s really very very easy. Trust me. Take a few deep slow breaths and I’ll walk you through it.

1) Click on “0 comments” (or whatever the number of comments happens to be) beneath the post, on the right. On the left of your screen, you will then be able to view whatever comments have already been made.

2) Click on “post a comment” on the lower left.

3) Write your comment in the blank box on the right of your screen under “leave your comment.”

4) Under that box, you are given three choices for signing in under “choose an identity.” You need to choose one of the three by clicking in the circle before your choice: “blogger,” “other,” or “anonymous.”
–If you choose “blogger”: this means you have to create an account with blogger. Those who already have an account, no problem. Otherwise click on “sign up here” and follow the instructions.
–If you choose “other”: this means you just sign in with a name of your choice. There is also a space to fill in your web page URL, if you want, but you don’t have to do this.
–If you choose “anonymous,” you’re all set to post a comment.

5) After typing your comment in the box and choosing your identity, you now can post your comment, or you might want to preview it first. If posting, just click “login and publish” (if you’ve chosen “blogger” as your identity), or click “publish your comment” (if you’ve chosen “other” or “anonymous” as your identity). That’s all you need to do.

If you prefer to preview your comment before posting it, click “preview” intead. Afterwards, if you look on the lower left, you will see your comment in a yellow box. Look it over, and if satisfied, click on “publish this comment.” Otherwise, click on “edit comment,” and then fix the comment. Then click on “publish your comment” (or “login and publish,” if you’ve chosen blogger), and you’re all set.

Simplicity itself, isn’t it?

Anti-Bush bumper stickers: changing with the times?

The New Neo Posted on by

I live in a liberal Democrat “blue” town in a “blue” state. Back when I was blue myself, I wasn’t even aware of this; it was like background music. But this fact of blueness, or the characteristics that went with it, must somehow have been part of its attraction: good theater, open-minded people, great food, funky little clothing shops, tolerance, all that jazz.

In the build-up to the 2004 election, anti-Bush bumper stickers proliferated on cars like mushrooms on the lawns after a week of rain. My neighbors’ car sported, not just a Kerry bumper sticker, but a “Regime Change Begins at Home” bumper sticker. Almost overnight, before I even knew what it signified, the cars around me sprouted different versions of that “W” sticker with the black slash across it (for the first few days, I actually thought it was some sort of new municipal parking sticker). A good friend of mine, a lovely and ordinarily gentle woman, had one that read “Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot.” The only anti-Bush bumper sticker I saw that seemed to display any sort of wit was the one that read “Fermez la Bush.”

Pro-Bush stickers were few and far between, although sometimes I wondered whether those yellow-ribbon “Support the Troops” stickers were a coded way of supporting Bush, like a secret handshake. But I always imagined, without even thinking much about it, that after the election the stickers and signs would come down pretty quickly, no matter who had won.

Months later and I still couldn’t go for a drive without seeing them everywhere: a few bumper stickers for Kerry; but, far far more commonly, bumper stickers ridiculing and demonizing Bush. I couldn’t remember anything even remotely like this after previous elections. The closest I could recall were the bumper stickers I used to see when I lived in Boston right after Watergate: “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.” But that was after the fall of a president, not the election of one.

It couldn’t be that these people thought Bush would magically go away and that Kerry would somehow still become president. No, something else must have been going on. It occurred to me that these stickers must be acting as a signaling device, sort of like the displays of birds in mating season, or the sonorous cries of humpback whales calling out to others of their ilk . The stickers said something about the driver, not about the election. They said, “I am good, I am wise, I am smart, I am sophisticated.” In particular, they said, “I am not fooled by the simpleminded simplicity of the simpleton Bush.” But, most of all, they said, “I am like you; I am not like them. Are you like me, too?”

They were a form of both communication and of fashion, like having a trendy haircut or cutting-edge clothes (or, for that matter, long hair, no makeup, and Birkenstocks). As such they worked very well, helping people to recognize each other from afar, and to feel comforted that, even though Bush had become President, they themselves had managed to live in a community of like-minded individuals who saw right through him.

But a couple of days ago I was parking at the local health food supermarket, usually a treasure-trove of cars sporting Bush-hating stickers, and I noticed something odd. The cars were bare, stripped of their messages.

What had happened? Had there been a recent special on sticker-scrapers? Or was it something else? Did everyone get the signal all at once–like when the leaves turn colors and drop from the trees because the days are getting shorter and the nights colder–that the time had come? Did it have something to do with the wave of demonstrations for democracy hitting the Arab world? Is there some sort of realization dawning, slowly but surely, that perhaps, perhaps, Bush isn’t so very awful after all?

UPDATE: Welcome, Ann Althouse readers!

Why I love the internet

The New Neo Posted on by

Because we can do these instead of these.

Remember whiteout, typewriters, erasable bond? And even further back into antiquity, remember carbons? (I have to say even I don’t remember carbons too well, but I distinctly recall watching my mother type with them. She was a pro.)

Typing was hard, kids. And when you made a mistake, you swore and tore your hair out, cause it meant typing the whole page over. If you were anything like me, you’d come into your dorm at curfew (yeah, curfew–eleven PM on weekdays, twelve-thirty AM on weekends) sit down in that hard little wooden chair in front of your hard little wooden desk, pack of cigarettes by your side, favorite form of caffeine at the ready, and start typing.

Ten page assignment? Okay. Back to the wall, time running out, no outline and no plan, I’d sit down and type page after page, and when I’d reach that magic number ten, I’d simply stop. Finito.

Those Lebanese protestors have got nothing on this liberty babe

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you’ve undoubtedly seen the photos of those attractive Lebanese girls in the anti-Syria demonstrations. That male-dominated institution, the blogosphere, has done quite a bit to guarantee their–errr–exposure. The blogosphere seems to approve of the liberty babes of Lebanon, not to mention their pulchritude.

But plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Impressed by the cleavage of the flag-waving pro-liberty women of Lebanon? Well, they’ve got nothing on this babe in that department (even if she is an older woman):