Back again...sorta/kinda...

Well, well...here we are a full six friggin' months since my last post.

It doesn't look like anybody missed me at all.

...

Just so you know, I have missed doing this to a certain extent, and this time I don't think I'm going to make any assertions about posting every day or trying to keep up with any sort of self-imposed schedule.

A personal update to start with: I've not kept up with my Scripture reading as often as I should have. When I was posting every day, I was reading every day, but when posting dragged, so did the reading. Maybe getting back into the blogging bit will help with that.

I have applied for Federal Student Aid, and hopefully I'll be attending classes at ODU this fall. I'm aiming towards an Education degree, but we'll see what happens when I get there.

My NaNoWriMo project got nowhere. I got a decent outline out of it, but that was about as far as it got. I'm still palying with it, building up little parts here and there, adding things in my spare time at work, etc. Maybe I'll have a first draft done by the start of the fall semester. Just in time for NaNoWriMo 2005. Maybe I should start working on new outlines now.

Ugh, it's 10pm on a Tuesday night. Band practice was cancelled, so I blew 2 hours waiting at the church (6:30pm-8:30pm) for nothing.

*yawn*

Oh, yeah! The whole reason I actually got the guts to log back in to blogger.com: the Terry Schiavo matter.

It occurs to me this whole thing is really just a big out-of-control abortion case. You have a person incapable of caring for herself whose guardian does not wish to be responsible for her. To this, I answer as I would for any other abortion question: If the guardian seeks relief of responsiblity for his ward, put her up for adoption. With Terry's parents aching to care for their daughter, this seems like a no-brainer. Under no circumstances do you just kill the invalid.

But no, there has to be a big political statement involved. Regardless of the whole "Congress shouldn't get involved" issue (and I think that it should NOT get involved), the fact remains that if Michael Schiavo is permitted to let Terry die, this will set a bad precedent. Think about it: when the courts uphold Michael's right to order Terry's death, it WILL be referenced as precedent for parents who want to let their handicapped chilren die, for older children who want to be rid of aging invalid parents...the consequences of this case are going to be far-reaching and it's going to set the stage for a lot more "medically advised" death that's purported to be for the patient's benefit, because "they wouldn't want to live like that".

However, on the flip side you have more precedents being set for the federal government to weasel itself ever deeper into our thoughts, minds and actions. As much as the Religious Right wants to use the office of the President and the Congress to push their agenda, if we allow the Republican majority this much power now, trust me, the liberals will not hesitate to use it (and cite this as precedent) when the power-pendulum swings back the other way as it eventually will.

So our future hangs on the life of one woman. Upon allowing her death-by-request, we set the stage for more killings of convenience. Upon using federal authority to save her life, we build the basis for further government intrusion into our lives and decisions.

Either way, we lose.

Sorry to sound so cynical, but the only way I see everyone (Terry, Michael, and the American people) getting out of this safely is for Terry to have a resurgence back to full mental health, even if it's only long enough to clarify what to do with her if she relapses back to her invalid state.