Monday, May 29, 2017

THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2005

Loose Endings 3-31-05

It's nearly midnight at the end of an exhausting day. I spent most of it scrambling for one more contact, one more contract to squeeze in before the buzzer ended the first quarter. Our gracious employers fed us pizza and hot dogs and donuts to keep our spirits up and energy high, yet still you could only see frustration even as the books slowly closed on this strategic first quarter for my company.

It was a consistent theme throughout this month; our manager called it "March Madness" and punctuated every sale with a Dick Vitale-style basketball metaphor: "SWISH!" "ALLEY-OOP,""Buzzer-Beater!" Of course, having four contracts and getting one (maybe two) of them in closes you with enough brick shots, air balls and technical fouls to staff the 1972-73 Sixers reunion.

Things quickly jolt into perspective. By now, you know of Terri Schiavo's passing and despite it being expected for a long time, it still felt like a seismic shock. All deaths do. You feel for the parents who lost a child and battled federal, state and local governments and brought the Vatican and even Hollywood to their fight. (Side note: TV star Patricia Heaton, a member of "Feminists for Life" who spoke out for Terri Schiavo and against the foolish, foul-mouthed "Osbournes," is one cool chick.) 

Post-mortem, who would Michael Schiavo's allies be? His lawyer, whose loopy sensibility combined New Age mysticism with huge cujones to seal Terri's fate. He somehow equated Michael's need to have his estranged wife die with James Meredith fighting George Wallace to enter Alabama University, then described a death from hunger and thirst in the false pastels of soft music and stuffed animals. This after Teri was refused Holy Communion today after receiving yesterday. 

And the policemen arresting protesters at Woodside Hospise? They must now share lineage with the Roman soldiers at Golgatha 2000 years ago, violenting bending, breaking and shocking those who dared fight an unjust decision under the pretense "we are a country of laws and not of men." This does not justify this barbaric, unjust act; Raymond Arroyo correctly called it "demonic" tonight on EWTN. I only hope one among them walked out saying, "Truly this was an innocent..."

Michael Schiavo should know today the culture of death is done with him. He has been paid his 30 pieces of silver and fame for his betrayal, splitting with George Felos and his embarassingly false conversations with Larry King, Diane Sawyer TV's false gods. He was and is a puppet to Peter Singer, Ronald Crawford, and an objectivist philosophy, and will now know the contempt and ostracism handed but a few citizens society hasn't quite been able to forgive or forget (O.J. Simpson only among the most recent.) No one who physically or spiritually set foot near Pinellas Park can leave it unchanged. 

The spotlight has already turned to the Vatican and our ailing Pope John Paul II, who today received last rights after a high fever and urinary tract infection. Every day he shows his public face to cheering young people he loves and built his papacy around, he defies Anna Quindlen and contemporaries claiming no culture of life. For the Holy Father and those willingly shepherded by him, the false term is "quality of life." His is the quality of life God gave him, and he will keep it until joining Terri Schiavo and a body of believers where all things are renewed.

The battle rages on...talk to you soon.

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