Rant

Right, I've been listening to news radio today - ABC, BBC, NPR - and all I hear is about this Terri Schiavo case. This is amazing to me. With all of the crises going on right now, the US congress has stopped to try to force a feeding tube into the body of a woman in a persistent vegetative state (for 15 years!), who apparently never wanted a feeding tube anyway. As if the government weren't doing enough to embarass US citizens overseas already. I can't even imagine a similar debate in the Israeli Kinesset. The most disturbing bit was an interview I heard with a very religious activist, who proclaimed that the religious right "worked their tails off to put sympathetic people in power in the government", so it was about time the government did something to repay those efforts, and bloody well shove a tube in Schiavo whether she wanted one or not (my paraphrasing). The fact that the government has enacted emergency legislation for what is ultimately a personal (potentially religiously influenced) decision is really scarry.

I'll say it here, so plenty of people know just in case - I don't want a feeding tube. If I'm in a vegetative state with no realistic hope of returning to a meaningful quality of life, pull the plug, pull the tube, let me go. If I'm going to die, so be it. And bloody well leave congress out of the whole thing! They have enough to do - increase fuel economy regulations by 1-2 miles per gallon so we don't have to destroy ANWR for 6 lousy months of oil, finish the war in Iraq so we don't have soldiers dying for no reason, stop screwing up Social Security so those of us who aren't rich will be able to retire some day, give all loving couples the same legal rights regardless of what sex they are, stop mucking around with whether the science of evolution should be taught in science classes (it's a science class, not bloody sunday school!) and support the people who educate children by giving enough money to schools and especially to teachers so that we won't raise whole generations of ignorant, self-absorbed, isolationist, bigots.

Whew, I'm going back to doing science now...