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Today is the March for Life, the annual event to protest Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that overturned abortion laws nationwide and that has resulted in the death of nearly 50 million innocent American children since that date. You may not be able to get to Washington today to join the march, but you can show your support by registering as a virtual marcher. So far over 65,000 Americans are participating virtually, including leaders like RNC Chairman Michael Steele, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio, Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com, and Americans United for Life CEO Charmaine Yoest.

You have likely heard about the lawsuit by abortion advocates seeking to halt implementation of Oklahoma's newly enacted abortion reporting legislation, due to go into effect on November 1, 2009. Here is a news release from Oklahomans for Life debunking a number of claims made in the lawsuit:

NEW OKLAHOMA ABORTION-REPORTING LAW DESIGNED TO HELP WOMEN Abortion advocates, news accounts misrepresent law

TULSA - Abortion advocates, aided by several recent news accounts, continue to misrepresent a new Oklahoma law strengthening abortion reporting in the state. The Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act, set to go into effect on November 1, 2009, was passed by large majorities in the Oklahoma House and Senate and signed into law by Governor Brad Henry in May. It is being challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

"Abortion advocates either don't understand - or else are intentionally misrepresenting - Oklahoma's new abortion-reporting law," said Tony Lauinger, state chairman of Oklahomans For Life. "It is not true, as alleged, that reports about individual women's abortions will be posted online, nor will reports about individual abortions contain personal identifying information: no name, no address, no hometown, no county of residence, no patient ID number. To say otherwise is clearly false and misleads the public."

The Center for Reproductive Rights has persistently misrepresented the Oklahoma law, claiming that it requires doctors to provide information about where women live. These assertions are absolutely false.

As written, the new law requires that a report for each abortion be sent to the Oklahoma State Department of Health. The questionnaire gathers demographic information including age, race, marital status and educational level and gathers information on the method of abortion used. Numerous states have similar reporting requirements, and the abortion industry collects and publishes similar information through annual surveys by the Guttmacher Institute (formerly the research arm of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America).

The new reporting form also asks for the reason the abortion is being sought. The reasons for the abortion listed on the questionnaire are adapted from the September 2005 report, "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives" published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health by the Guttmacher Institute.

Contrary to claims of abortion activists, the new law actually protects a woman's privacy more extensively than current Oklahoma law. The current reporting form asks for the woman's county of residence. The new law, however, repeals the existing law and any identifying residential information has been eliminated in the new reporting form.

Reports gathered in Oklahoma's three abortion facilities would be submitted on a monthly basis to the Department of Health which will "ensure the security" of the reports. Further, reports may be "accessed only by specially authorized departmental personnel" who will not be able to identify the woman or know in which of Oklahoma's 77 counties she lives. The Department of Health will then produce an annual statistical analysis of the demographic information. Individual abortion reports will not be published.

"It is hoped that the information gathered will make it possible in the future to address some of the underlying societal problems, such as absence of child support or lack of childcare, which lead some women to seek abortions." Lauinger noted.

Abortion complications will also be reported under the new law. Abortion advocates frequently refer to abortion as being "safe, legal, and rare." However, very little data exist regarding abortion complications. When a lawsuit is filed over a botched abortion, there is typically an out-of-court settlement, so there is very little statistical data about the extent of the damage that abortion inflicts on women.

"Abortion is the most under-regulated, under-investigated, and under-researched procedure done on American women today, yet it is the most common and most potentially dangerous to their health and well-being," noted National Right to Life Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., in a September 29 release. "If a state can get a handle on the reasons women have abortions, it can lead to better programs that will make it easier for women to have their children rather than resort to abortion."

"Reducing the number of abortions is a goal that even abortion advocates claim to support. This legislation could help achieve that objective by identifying the problems that lead Oklahoma women to seek abortions. Important public-health benefits will be achieved by Oklahoma's Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act," Lauinger added.

The text of the law is available here: http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/2009-10bills/HB/HB1595_ENR.RTF.

The case is Davis v. W.A. Drew Edmondson.

Oklahomans For Life is the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee. The National Right to Life Committee, the nation's largest pro-life group, is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters nationwide.

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If you follow BatesLine on Twitter (and you should), you'll have seen my tweet yesterday about Americans United for Life live-blogging the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. AUL has a legal focus, researching state and federal legislation, court cases, and court nominations that affect issues like abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

As soon as the nomination was announced AUL launched Sotomayor411, which provides the paper trail to show that, as bad as Justice David Souter has been on life issues, Sotomayor would be far worse. Another site, AskSotomayor.com, listed AUL's top ten questions for senators to ask the nominee and asked readers to vote for their favorite.

Veteran pro-life blogger Dawn Eden, AUL's Senior Fellow for Publications and New Media Outreach, is providing the Judiciary Committee play-by-play, with commentary from AUL president Charmaine Yoest. Eden is well-known for her thorough research on pro-life issues and for her knack for brevity, honed by years of headline writing for New York tabloids.

Here are a couple of updates from Okla. Sen. Tom Coburn's questioning of Sotomayor:

12:24 p.m. - Coburn continues critiquing Sotomayor's past statements. "You've taken the oath already twice, and if confirmed, will take it again." Reminds her of what the oath says -- "I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties ..." Notes that it doesn't reference foreign law, whereas Sotomayor has said we should take foreign law into consideration.

12:23 p.m. - Coburn says concerns over Sotomayor's past statements will guide his questioning. Is "deeply concerned" by Sotomayor's saying the law is "uncertain" and her praise for an "unpredictable" system of justice. We want justice to be predictable, he says.

Even if you aren't concerned about the sanctity of human life, a Supreme Court nominee who looks beyond the written Constitution and laws to "empathy" and foreign precedents as a basis for her rulings is a threat to the life, liberty, and property of every American, whether born or unborn.

Beyond the life-and-death issues at stake in these hearings, what AUL is doing should be of interest to organizations looking for social media best practices. Just as food needs to digested down into nutrients to get into circulation and reach all parts of the body, a complex news story needs to be digested into pieces that can easily be circulated via blogs and Twitter. There are sympathetic bloggers and Twitter users willing to spread the word, but they don't have time to do the digesting themselves.

Many organizations blast out detailed press releases to bloggers by e-mail (too often accompanied by unsolicited high-res publicity photos). These releases often sit unread and unblogged because they require too much time and effort to digest and turn into a blog post. They can't be turned into a tweet because the press releases exist only in e-mail and so can't be linked. Brief highlights that can be passed along with a couple of mouse-clicks, accompanied by pointers to more detailed analysis and documentation, are far more useful to a blogger/tweeter and more likely to circulate widely.

As James Lileks tweeted, "You want to be quoted? Speak in Lego pieces, not bolts of cloth."

I have only one suggestion for AUL: Post some of the live-blog updates to Twitter (@AUL) in real-time, with appropriate hashtags (#sotomayor and #sotoshow seem to be the most popular) with a shortened link back to the AUL's Sotomayor hearing live-blog.

This morning an off-duty Tulsa city planner tweeted a link to a "memorial" -- a petition seeking the impeachment of State Rep. Sally Kern. A number of the 150 or so signers commented that they consider Kern, who is, like Pres. Obama, Gov. Henry, and nearly every member of Congress and the State Legislature, an avowed opponent of same-sex marriage, an embarrassment to the state of Oklahoma.

Here's the text of the petition, which is intended to reverse the damage that the petition alleges has been caused by Kern to the state's image and reputation (emphasis added, but spelling and punctuation left as is -- consider the whole thing [sic]):

To the Honorable House of Representatives of the great State of Oklahoma

The petition of _____________________, a citizen of the State of Oklahoma, and of the United States, respectfully showeth:

That, Article III, Section 1, of the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma, sets forth the article for impeachment and that in such article it states "The Governor and other elective state officers, including the
Justices of the Supreme Court, shall be liable and subject to
impeachment for wilful neglect of duty, corruption in office,
habitual drunkenness, incompetency, or any offense involving
moral turpitude committed while in office."

That, Jefferson's Manual section LIII, 603, states that impeachment may be set in motion by charges preferred by a memorial, which is usually referred to a committee for examination; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, Sally Kern has displayed to the citizens of her district and of the great State of Oklahoma incompetency while holding the office of State Representative; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, the actions, public address, legislation, views of Sally Kern have had a negative impact on recruiting and retaining businesses to the State of Oklahoma; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, Sally Kern has committed acts of moral turpitude while in office; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, Sally Kern's primary agenda is insight hate and rage towards the citizens of the State of Oklahoma; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, Sally Kern has violated the convent of the seperation between Church and State; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, Sally Kern has wasted taxpayer dollars pening legilsation that has added no value to the great State of Oklahoma; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, Sally Kern has shown support to repress the freedoms, rights, and privliges afforded to the citizens of the great State of Oklahoma by states constitution and the constitution of the Unites States of America.; and

The memorial goes on to set forth that, In all of this Sally Kern has acted in a manner contrary to her trust as State Representative, subversive of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury and oppresion of the people of the State of Oklahoma.

In conclusion the memoralist says:
Having thus submitted to your honorable body the facts of his case, your petitioner begs leave to observe that it appears from those facts:

First. That said Sally Kern is no longer viewed as a representative of the people of the great State of Oklahoma.

Second. That said Sally Kern has in the view of these people displayed incompetency in her ability to perform, enact, and carry out the duties of a Representative for the State of Oklahoma.

Third. That said Sally Kern has displayed poor judgement and moral turptitude in the her actions thus far as a Representative for the State of Oklahoma.

Wherefore, and inasmuch as the said Sally Kern has violated the most sacred and undoubted rights of the inhabitants of the State of Oklahoma, your petitioner prays that the conduct and proceedings in this behalf, of said Sally Kern, may be inquired into by your honorable body, and such decision made therein to impeach, to appoint managers to conduct the impeachment trial in the Senate, and to inform the Senate of these facts by resolution (Manual Sec. 607; Deschler Ch 14 Sec. 9) for trial and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the State of Oklahoma;

And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will pray.

Sincerely, We The Undersigned;

As serious as the allegations against Kern are -- violating "convents," moral "turptitude," "insights" of hate and rage, and "pening legilsation" (an act that looks awfully turptitudinous) -- someone needs to hold the authors and signers of this petition accountable for an assault on the English language. All y'all are making us look like a bunch of ignorant hicks.

Alisa Harris posted a clip from the movie On the Waterfront on the World Magazine Blog in memory of Karl Malden. It's a powerful speech in which Malden, as Father Barry, gives last rites to a longshoreman who was ready to testify against the Mob and paid for his courage with his life. Father Barry finds in Christ the courage to take his own stand in the face of a hostile crowd. It had me in tears.

I came down here to keep a promise. I gave Kayo my word that if he stood up to the mob I'd stand up with him -- all the way. And now Kayo Dugan is dead. He was one of those fellows who had the gift of standing up....

Now what does Christ think of the easy money boys who do none of the work and take all of the gravy? And how does He feel about the fellas who wear $150 suits -- and diamond rings! -- on your union dues and your kickback money? And how does He, who spoke up without fear against every evil, feel about your silence?

You want to know what's wrong with our waterfront? It's the love of a lousy buck. It's making the love of the lousy buck - the cushy job - more important than the love of man. It's forgetting that every fellow down here is your brother in Christ. But remember, Christ is always with you - Christ is in the shape up. He's in the hatch. He's in the union hall. He's kneeling right here beside Dugan. And He's saying with all of you, if you do it to the least of mine, you do it to me!

And what they did to Joey and what they did to Dugan, they're doing to you -- and you -- you -- all of you! And only you -- only you with God's help have the power to knock 'em out for good!

(If you're reading this on the home page, you can watch the clip in the extended entry. Otherwise, scroll down.)

Less eloquently, I tried to make a similar point in my November 2, 2005, column in Urban Tulsa Weekly on faith and political courage:

But faith is more than reciting a creed or performing certain rituals. Faith involves confidence and trust. During a worship service you profess certain things to be true about God's nature and character. During the rest of the week, your true faith--what you really believe about God and his dealings with you and the rest of the humanity--becomes apparent in the way you live your life, and particularly in the way you deal with adversity.

For that reason, what an elected official really believes about God's nature and character affects how he conducts himself in office. Someone who has genuine confidence and trust in God as He is revealed in the Bible will have courage and persistence in the face of discouragement, danger, hostility, oppression, and injustice....

The usual pressure tactics won't succeed with the politician who reads and believes the Epistle to the Philippians. He turns his anxieties into prayers to his all-sufficient Father. You can threaten his job or his wife's job, but he reads that God will supply all his needs. You can threaten him with removal from office, but he is learning, with Paul, to be content in any situation.

You can threaten his reputation and position, but he is a follower and servant of Christ, who forsook his heavenly throne, "made himself of no reputation, and took upon [himself] the form of a servant." You can threaten his life, but he knows that "to die is gain"--the worst you can do is send him on to his heavenly home earlier than he expected. He expects to share in the sufferings of his Lord, but also in his Lord's resurrection.

If you're a Councilor steeped in Scripture you aren't going to be deterred when a big donor threatens to fund your opponent; when someone from the Chamber or the Home Builders corners you to cuss you out over a vote, or when the morning paper does another front-page hatchet job on you....

If we want elected officials who are fearless to do what is right, we ought to look for men and women whose character has been shaped by confidence in a God who is bigger than any adversary they may face.

MORE:

From 2005, some reactions to that column, including this from Councilor Rick Westcott, then a first-time candidate:

I also think that a person's faith gives them a sense of identity which helps ground them in times of trouble. Because I know who I am in Christ, who God made me, because I know He has a plan for me, it gives me a sense of identity that isn't shaken by those who might attack me. I don't need the external validation that some seek from others.

Frustrated by meetings that drag on and on without ever reaching a conclusion? Angry at members who seem to delight in postponing a decision? Feeling steamrollered by the majority?

If you're an officer or a member of a neighborhood association, committee, or civic organization, some knowledge of the basic rules of order -- parliamentary procedure -- could help your organization have more enjoyable, efficient, and productive meetings.

The Oklahoma State Association of Parliamentarians is holding a training seminar on parliamentary procedure this Friday from 9 to 4 and Saturday from 1 to 4 in Oklahoma City.

Friday morning's workshop covers parliamentary basics: quorums, abstentions, different kinds of motions, the process of handling motions, agendas.

Friday afternoon moves on to more advanced topics: Handling amendments, keeping minutes, nominating and electing officers, maintaining decorum in debate, and methods of voting.

Saturday afternoon will cover substitute motions, the motion to lay on the table ("the most misused and abused motion"), and "bring back motions" ("how an organization can change its mind").

You can find full information on the seminar flyer. For more information and to register, call 405-330-9273 or 405-524-8953.

If you're going to be involved in your community, you're likely to end up on a board or committee at some point, and you'll want to know the rules of the road.

I learned parliamentary procedure from watching my dad run monthly business meetings at our Southern Baptist church, and it's been helpful knowledge at Republican Party conventions and City Council meetings. Robert's Rules of Order are the product of a hundred years of experience and refinement, providing you with simple rules that work 95% of the time and with precedent to handle the difficult cases, too.

I made up a punny word for the headline of a 2007 blog post on Barack Obama's lament, at an Iowa campaign appearance, about the high price of arugula at Whole Foods Market. A few other bloggers, including Michelle Malkin and see-dubya, picked up on it. (The graphic at right is by michellemalkin.com reader Tennyson.)

The word in question -- "arugulance" -- appears to have gained some degree of popular acceptance. Barry Popik, the pop-culture etymologist who searched out the origins of New York City's "Big Apple" nickname, has traced the term from its origins to the present. It appeared in a headline over Maureen Dowd's April 18, 2009, column: "The Aura of Arugulance." The copy editor appears to have pulled it from San Francisco restaurateur Alice Palmer's quote in the story about being derided as a food snob: "I'm just put into that arugulance place. I own a fancy restaurant. I own an expensive restaurant. I never thought of it as fancy. People don't know we're supporting 85 farms and ranches and all of that." It's interesting that she uses the term without defining it, suggesting that she doesn't perceive "arugulance" as an obscure word.

A day later, Josh Friedland at The Food Section offered a definition of "arugulance":

a·ru·gu·lance (noun): a (perceived) attitude of superiority and snobbery manifested in an appetite for pricey -- yet delicious -- peppery greens.

On April 20, an alternative definition was offered by Isaac Seliger at Grant Writing Confidential:

Ordinarily, I don't read [Maureen Dowd's] column, as she is usually even too cynical for a inherently cynical and grizzled grant writer like me. This time, however, the headline caught my eye because it used the term "arugulance," which I learned is shorthand for the arrogance of the grow local/buy local/shop at Whole Paycheck movement.

The next day, Urban Mennonite called "arugulance" "one of five words with which I am newly in love."

An October 2008 entry on Target Rich Environment about Philadelphia talk radio host Michael Smerconish takes Smerconish's unfamiliarity with "arugulance" as an indicator of the host's lack of contact with conservative thought:

He's embraced the Huffington Post and other left-of-center sources for some time, and seemingly ignores all voices on the right (for example, when a caller a few months ago brought up Obama's "arrugulance," Smercommie had no idea what he was talking about).

The blogger takes it for granted that by sometime in early 2008, arugulance is already in common use on the conservative side of the blogosphere. michellemalkin.com's link in April 2008 seems to have launched the term's currency among conservatives.

It would be interesting to know the path the word took to get from Michelle Malkin and her readers to Alice Palmer. Like an underground stream, it disappeared for some distance before re-emerging. At some point it must have crossed the conservative-liberal linguistic divide. Or it may be that a lover of wordplay in Palmer's circle of acquaintances independently coined the term.

"Arugulance" won't have the impact of "blogosphere," but it fills a niche.

The Oklahoma House voted Tuesday to prohibit state government funding for the destruction of embryos for the purpose of stem cell research in the state. (The legislation does nothing to hinder the many other forms of stem cell research -- marrow, cord blood, various forms of adult tissue -- which do not require the destruction of a human life.)

SB 315 passed by a wide bipartisan majority of 85-13. The version passed by the House now goes back to the Senate for final approval. If a business is involved in "nontherapeutic research that destroys a human embryo or subjects a human embryo to substantial risk of injury or death," that business does not qualify for any Oklahoma income tax credits or incentive payments. The bill prevents tax dollars from directly or indirectly funding the destruction of human life.

The 13 naysayers were Auffet, Brown, Cox, Hoskin, Kiesel, McAffrey, McDaniel (Jeannie), Nations, Renegar, Roan, Scott, Shelton, and Smithson. Christian, McPeak, and Morrissette were excused from the vote. Everyone else voted yes.

The Tulsa Metro Chamber and the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce have been lobbying Gov. Brad Henry to veto any such legislation when it reaches him. In response, pro-life legislators boycotted a legislative event hosted by the two chambers.

State Rep. Pam Peterson (R-Tulsa) said today, "The idea that Oklahoma should condone the destruction of innocent human life in the name of 'economic development' is indefensible. Our law clearly states that human life begins at conception. Now the chambers are advocating the destruction of a legally recognized life in exchange for research dollars, saying the state should determine the best use of a person's life for the state's purposes. That's a huge paradigm shift that runs contrary to the basic values of our nation."

I'm happy that pro-life legislators are voicing their objections to the Chambers' crass and callous stand on this issue.

But if you're a Chamber member, and you oppose the destruction of innocent human life for the sake of economic development, you need to take a stand, too. You need to e-mail Gov. Henry, tell him to sign the bill, and tell him that your Chamber of Commerce doesn't speak for you on this issue.

Then you need to make some calls and do some legwork to find out who authorized your Chamber to speak on this issue. Find out when the board voted on it, which board members voted which way, then make your displeasure known to the executive director (Mike Neal here in Tulsa) and the pro-killing members of the board.

Finally, the pro-life majority on the Tulsa City Council should refuse to continue to give millions in city tax dollars to an organization that advocates using tax dollars to kill people for profit. The Council has the power to end the City's exclusive deal with the Tulsa Metro Chamber for economic development and convention and tourism promotion. Put the contract up for bids in a full and open competition and use our City hotel tax dollars to hire a more competent outfit -- that needed to happen anyway.

Here is the full statement from Rep. Pam Peterson (R-Tulsa):

OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma City and Tulsa chambers of commerce support for embryonic stem cell research, which requires the killing of human embryos, will damage Oklahoma 's reputation as a state that values life, state Rep. Pam Peterson said today.

"The chambers' support of embryonic stem cell research as an 'economic growth' tool is a shocking violation of the public trust and basic moral values," said Peterson, R-Tulsa. "The chamber is effectively advocating the worst kind of discrimination based on age, size and place of residence."

In the past week, both chambers have urged Gov. Brad Henry to veto legislation that would make embryonic stem cell research illegal in Oklahoma . Both groups argue the ban will hinder economic development, be an embarrassment for the state and make it hard to attract "researchers."

"The idea that Oklahoma should condone the destruction of innocent human life in the name of 'economic development' is indefensible," Peterson said. "Our law clearly states that human life begins at conception. Now the chambers are advocating the destruction of a legally recognized life in exchange for research dollars, saying the state should determine the best use of a person's life for the state's purposes. That's a huge paradigm shift that runs contrary to the basic values of our nation."

The ban was supported by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both the state House and Senate.

Even as they have worked to outlaw embryonic stem cell research, state lawmakers have also voted to provide millions for adult stem cell research. Unlike embryonic stem cell research, adult stem cell research does not require the destruction of human embryos.

Adult stem cell research also has a proven track record of results - there are more than 70 research treatments that use adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cell research has been plagued with failure.

"If the chambers were serious about economic development and growing Oklahoma 's biotech industries, they would only support research with a proven track record requiring no moral compromise - our adult stem cell plan," Peterson said. "It's clear that these organizations care more about catering favor from radical groups than improving our economy."

As a result of the chamber's call for vetoing the embryonic stem cell ban, Peterson and other pro-life lawmakers will not attend a legislative event tonight jointly hosted by the Oklahoma City and Tulsa chambers.

MORE: HB 1326, which has similar language, was passed by large majorities in both houses last week (82-6 in the House, 38-9 in the Senate) and is on the governor's desk. This morning, State Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-Owasso) called on pro-life business owners to express their support of this legislation:

State Senator Randy Brogdon called on the Pro-Life members of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce to join with him in support of HB 1326, which outlaws embryonic stem cell research.

"It's simple," said Brogdon. "HB 1326 says that we won't let Oklahoma businesses profit from the destruction of human life."

Brogdon, a co-author of HB 1326, continued, "And it's a travesty that the Oklahoma City and Tulsa Chamber leadership are more concerned about profit than the protection of human life."

"And I'm sure if the Pro-Life members of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City Chamber knew what HB 1326 entailed, they would not be happy knowing that their leadership was lobbying for Governor Henry to veto this bill," said Brogdon.

"That's why I am calling on the Pro-Life business owners of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce to join with me in support of this bill and call on their leadership to halt their lobbying against this Pro-Life legislation," said Brogdon.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the economic downturn is hurting corporate sources of revenue for sports teams and venues, including luxury boxes, club seats, naming rights, and other forms of sponsorship:

In a case of monumentally bad timing, this year three of the biggest names in pro sports -- the Yankees, New York Mets and Dallas Cowboys -- are opening three of the most expensive stadiums ever built, filled with premium-priced seats and luxury amenities. At a combined cost of more than $3.5 billion, the stadiums were conceived and financed in a vastly different environment, a time when corporations and municipalities were flush with cash. Now they're opening just as corporate America is going through a massive belt-tightening -- and trying to avoid the appearance of extravagance at all costs.

"Let's face it, if you're taking TARP funds, it's really hard to justify getting a [luxury] box," says Neal Sroka, a luxury real estate agent hired by the Yankees to help sell the team's premium seats, referring to the funds distributed to banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

With just weeks before their new $1.1 billion stadium opens, the Cowboys still have 2,000 premium seats and about 50 of their 300 luxury suites left to sell. The Yankees have hired Mr. Sroka to drum up buyers for the hundreds of premium seats still in their inventory. The Mets, who once had deals for all 49 of their luxury suites, say they've had to go back to the market after one customer, whom they declined to name, backed out.

(Via Field of Schemes.)

We've already seen an aspect of this here in Tulsa: Before SemGroup went bankrupt, the company was expected to be a $7.5 million donor to the new downtown Tulsa Drillers ballpark. It's worse for the Mets: They sold their naming rights to a company that's getting billions in federal aid.

Citigroup, which has received billions of dollars of federal aid, has been forced to defend its $400 million marketing deal with the Mets that includes the right to name the park Citi Field. The Mets have endured weeks of jokes about renaming their field "Taxpayer Stadium" or "Bailout Park," but the deal with Citigroup looks safe for now. A Citigroup spokesman says no taxpayer money will be used for the marketing deal.

You'd think a bank spokesman would be aware of the fungibility of money.

I was sad to learn tonight of the passing of legendary radio broadcaster and Tulsa native Paul Harvey at the age of 90.

Harvey grew up at 1014 E. 5th Pl. -- the house is still there -- went to Longfellow School at 6th and Peoria, and then Central High School, starting his radio career at KVOO when he was still in high school. (They were all within walking distance of each other back in the '30s -- KVOO was in the Philtower.) A few years ago he reported receiving a letter from a more recent resident of that house, who had found a wood-shop project in the attic with his name on it -- bookends, I think it was.

I started listening to Paul Harvey's broadcasts in the mid-1970s, at a time when he wasn't carried by any Tulsa station, at least none that I could find. I listened to him on KGGF 690 out of Coffeyville, Kansas. Eventually -- sometime in the late '70s, I think -- KRMG picked him up.

When I started working in Tulsa after college, I often ate my lunch in the car at a nearby park, listening to his noontime broadcast. If I missed him on KRMG at noon, I could catch him on KGGF at 12:40.

It could be hard to listen to Paul Harvey's broadcasts over the last few years, as time finally took its toll on his vocal cords, but it was still the same interesting variety of news, still the same distinctive speech pattern.

See-Dubya has a fitting remembrance over at Michelle Malkin's blog:

Paul Harvey put news out there that no other outlet touched. His Paul Harvey News and Comment scoured the wires for random stuff-and ideologically inconvenient stuff- you just didn't hear on the Big Three mainstream TV news, and crammed it all in to crisp five minute chunks, complete with terse commentary and the occasional wry thwack of sarcasm-and he still had time for the inevitable personalized pitches for Buicks and the Bose Acoustic Wave Radio. Here's what he had to say about his advertisers:

"I can't look down on the commercial sponsors of these broadcasts," he told CBS in 1988. "Too often they have very, very important messages to put across. Without advertising in this country, my goodness, we'd still be in this country what Russia mostly still is: a nation of bearded cyclists with b.o."

Zing. He was always like that. Paul Harvey invented blogging; he just did his blogging on the radio....

His radio show wasn't particularly ideological-you could tell he leaned right but it was mainly through the choice of stories and headlines he picked out. He also had a syndicated column back in the day that my state paper carried, and he was a rock-ribbed Middle American (Tulsa native, in fact) social and fiscal conservative with a heart of gold, a deep love of country, and no illusions about the stakes of foreign policy. He was a Reaganesque thinker, as well as a Reaganesque communicator.

(See-Dubya notes: "I kind of trace the groundswell of interest in [Fred] Thompson back to his time broadcasting from Paul Harvey's chair, and likewise the deflation of the Thompson bubble to the time he left it." Hearing Fred in that setting certainly sparked my interest,)

THE REST OF THE STORY:

You can hear Paul Harvey in full voice in this clip on Lileks.com from 1968.

This page about Tulsa radio on Tulsa TV Memories notes that he was a student of Miss Isabelle Ronan at Central High School, and includes a Real Media clip of Paul Harvey speaking on the Larry King Show about his education, his career, and his optimism.

Here's Paul Harvey's entry in the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.

AND THERE'S THIS:

WGN radio, his Chicago home base, has audio clips from Paul Harvey's broadcasts and speeches and the ABC News radio special on the life and career of Paul Harvey which was heard this morning on KRMG.

KOTV has a story that includes video from his 1994 speech at a Tulsa fundraiser for the Salvation Army.

Route 66 News remembers Paul Harvey's support for a couple of Missouri Route 66 businesses.

Washington Post obituary: "Broadcaster Delivered 'The Rest of the Story'" (It's by Joe Holley. Wonder if he's any relation to the southpaw fiddler.)

Paul Harvey, 90, a Chicago-based radio broadcaster whose authoritative baritone voice and distinctive staccato delivery attracted millions of daily listeners for more than half a century, died Feb. 28 in Phoenix.

A spokesman for ABC Radio Networks told the Associated Press that Mr. Harvey died at his winter home, surrounded by family. No cause of death was immediately available.

Mr. Harvey was the voice of the American heartland, offering to millions his trademark greeting: "Hello Americans! This is Paul Harvey. Stand by! For news!"

For millions, Paul Harvey in the morning or at noon was as much a part of daily routine as morning coffee.

HERE IS A STRANGE:

Aaron Barnhart gives a couple of examples of Paul Harvey's impact -- one coming from Keith Olbermann. Keith Olbermann?

"I was his official fill-in from 2001-03 and I was overwhelmed by the thought that went in to the selection and flow of stories. Even when he was off, his rules were in place: each segment began with hard news, moved on to commentary, ended with celebrity and then something light or silly. Then a commercial. Then repeat. Then another commercial, etc.

"I stole it almost entirely for 'Countdown.'"

Bathtub Boy's interpretation of Harvey's demand that ABC replace him as his heir apparent seems a little off:

And though he liked my work, and consented to let ABC groom me to succeed him, when an executive flew to Chicago to get his consent to the network giving away free a Sunday version of his show, done by me, he immediately told them not only would he not agree, but if they did not find a different back-up and write it into a new contract, he would not go on the air the next day. Probably the most job-secure, most irreplacable man in broadcasting, without whom the franchise would sink to 10% of its value, and yet he was convinced he was about to be shown the door. The mind reels.

I don't think Paul Harvey was afraid of losing his job. I think he was afraid of the franchise he had built over 50 years being handed over to a nutter like Olbermann.

But wash your ears out with this, from Barnhart's closing paragraphs:

Finally, a word about Paul Harvey's non-verbal communication. No one in radio got away with the silences that he did. His pauses weren't just pregnant, they were Nadya Suleman pregnant. They were amazingly long, by radio standards. They challenged the listener's assumption that an interruption to the flow of continuous noise meant something was wrong. Nothing was wrong; Paul Harvey just wanted the listener's attention back, in case it had drifted. The great communicator was speaking to his invisible audience with invisible words. And they listened.

So now, as you finish this, don't just observe a moment of silence for Paul Harvey. Listen to the silence.

AND MORE:

Kimmswick, Mo., home of his Reveille Ranch, remembers Paul Harvey

Some childhood details from the New York Times obit:

He was born Paul Harvey Aurandt in Tulsa, Okla., on Sept. 4, 1918, the son of Harrison Aurandt, a police officer, and Anna Dagmar Christian Aurandt. His father was killed in a gun battle when he was 3, and his mother rented out rooms to make ends meet. He was raised a Baptist, and it influenced his views.

As a boy he was fascinated with radio and built a receiver out of a cigar box. As a teenager, he had a strong resonant voice, and in 1933 a teacher at Tulsa Central High School escorted him to local station KVOO-AM and told the manager: "This boy needs to be on the radio."

He was taken on as an unpaid errand boy, but soon was allowed to deliver commercials, play a guitar and read the news on the air; two years later, he got his first paycheck.

Christopher Orlet remembers the broad appeal of Paul Harvey's "Rest of the Story":

I remember crawling in from college football practice at 5:30 p.m. -- this was the early 1980s -- and collapsing on a locker room bench while over the loudspeaker came The Voice halfway through his evening broadcast, which wasn't news at all, but a feature story where some famous person's identity was revealed in a surprise, twist ending....

Talk about a surreal scene: fifty exhausted college football players from all across the country lying all over a locker room floor in silence waiting for Paul Harvey to reveal the identity of today's subject. "And now you know...the rest of the story...Paul Harvey...Good Day!" Only then would we hit the showers.

Columnist Bob Greene remembers the many times he sat in the studio for a performance of Paul Harvey News and Comment:

He would make these warm-up noises -- voice exercises, silly-sounding tweets and yodels, strange little un-Paul-Harvey-like sounds -- and he showed no self-consciousness about doing it in front of someone else, because would a National Football League linebacker be self-conscious about someone seeing him stretch before a game, would a National Basketball Association forward be worried about someone seeing him leap up and down before tipoff? This was Paul Harvey's arena, and he would get the voice ready, loosening it, easing it up to the starting line.

And then the signal from the booth, and. . .

"Hello, Americans! This is Paul Harvey! Stand by. . . for news!"

And he would look down at those words that had come out of his typewriter minutes before -- some of them underlined to remind him to punch them hard -- and they became something grander than ink on paper, they became the song, the Paul Harvey symphony. He would allow me to sit right with him in the little room -- he never made me watch from behind the glass -- and there were moments, when his phrases, his word choices, were so perfect -- flawlessly written, flawlessly delivered -- that I just wanted to stand up and cheer.

But of course I never did any such thing -- in Paul Harvey's studio, if you felt a tickle in your throat you would begin to panic, because you knew that if you so much as coughed it would go out over the air into cities and towns all across the continent -- so there were never any cheers. The impulse was always there, though -- when he would drop one of those famous Paul Harvey pauses into the middle of a sentence, letting it linger, proving once again the power of pure silence, the tease of anticipation, you just wanted to applaud for his mastery of his life's work.

He probably wouldn't have thought of himself this way, but he was the ultimate singer-songwriter. He wrote the lyrics. And then he went onto his stage and performed them. The cadences that came out of his fingertips at the typewriter were designed to be translated by one voice -- his voice -- and he did it every working day for more than half a century: did it so well that he became a part of the very atmosphere, an element of the American air.

Steven Roemerman noticed an unusual accent at the Mexican fast food drive-thru:

We decided to eat Taco Bueno for lunch today because it's well...more Bueno. I pulled into the drive through and noticed something interesting. Based on his accent, I determined that the gentleman who was taking my order was Indian. No not Oklahoma Indian...India Indian.

I became suspicious; when I pulled forward to pay, I asked if the gal who took my money if the person that took my order was actually in the building. She said no, that he was in a call center somewhere. "I'm not sure where," she said. I thought to myself, "Yeah, I know where it is." I bet you $10 bucks Taco Bueno's drive through call center is in India. "Thank you, come again."

Steven's e-mailed query to TB HQ about the call center location received a lengthy and polite reply but no direct answer:

Our intention is not to deprive the hard working citizens of the Tulsa community employment, but to find a solution to a lack of applicants willing to work in the quick service environment. The call center is a test to see if it can be a solution by having someone full-time, 100% dedicated, to just taking drive-thru orders. It is a response to guests' needs, but if it fails to help, we will discontinue. We have been listening to feedback for years from our guests about being shorthanded, having long waits, and inaccurate orders.

The note makes reference to other tests Taco Bueno is conducting. It's interesting click through and read the whole thing. In the comments, David Schuttler wonders if Sonic is next. I was at a Sonic the other morning, and the manager was having to take orders and deliver them because someone didn't show up to work that day. Sonic could have done a lot more business if they had someone somewhere concentrating only on order-taking.

Some questions:

What does it say about the economy that businesses are still having trouble finding workers? Are things not that bad or are people still too complacent?

What does it say about American workers if call center agents from a different culture who speak English as a second (or third) language and have probably never seen a Muchaco can do a better job of getting a food order right?

Finally, on the jump page, here's a classic from the Dr. Demento vault -- Stevens & Grdnic's "Fast Food" (1982):

Via Instapundit, I found this article by Kevin Kelly about the Amish and technology. It jibes with a similar story I read some years ago in Technology Review. The Amish aren't anti-technology; rather, they're careful about the impact of technology on the integrity of their community and their independence from outsiders:

In any debate about the merits of embracing new technology, the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative of refusal. Yet Amish lives are anything but anti-technological. In fact on my several visits with them, I have found them to be ingenious hackers and tinkers, the ultimate makers and do-it-yourselfers and surprisingly pro technology....

The Amish, particular the Old Order Amish -- the stereotypical Amish depicted on calendars - really are slow to adopt new things. In contemporary society our default is set to say "yes" to new things, and in Old Order Amish societies the default is set to "no." When new things come around, the Amish automatically start by refusing them.

The story points out the differences in practice among different Amish communities, but common motivations to protect the cohesion of the community against technologies like the car and the telephone which exert a centrifugal force and to protect the distinctives of the community against technologies like grid electricity which bind them too closely to the rest of the world.

Within the confines of those aims, the Amish can be quite creative. Kelly tells us about "Amish electricity" at one farm -- a massive diesel generator powers a pneumatic system which drives power woodworking tools and can also be used for specially adapted kitchen equipment.

In fact there is an entire cottage industry in retrofitting tools and appliances to Amish electricity. The retrofitters buy a heavy-duty blender, say, and yank out the electrical motor. They then substitute an air-powered motor of appropriate size, add pneumatic connectors, and bingo, your Amish mom now has a blender in her electrical-less kitchen. You can get a pneumatic sewing machine, and a pneumatic washer/dryer (with propane heat). In a display of pure steam-punk nerdiness, Amish hackers try to outdo each other in building pneumatic versions of electrified contraptions. Their mechanical skill is quite impressive, particularly since none went beyond the 8th grade. They love to show off this air-punk geekiness. And every tinkerer I met claimed that pneumatics were superior to electrical devices because air was more powerful and durable, outlasting motors which burned out after a few years hard labor. I don't know if this is true, or just justification, but it was a constant refrain.

At another farm, Kelly encountered a $400,000 computer-controlled CNC machine, used to make precision parts for pneumatic machinery and kerosene stoves. It was operated by a 14-year-old girl in a bonnet.

The story describes the typical pattern for testing and evaluating new technologies and addresses the dilemmas posed by off-the-grid electricity (solar) and telecommunications (mobile phones).

It's interesting too to read that the Amish (at least some of them) embrace technologies like disposable diapers and genetically-modified corn that city-dwelling crunchy conservatives reject.

Will the Amish way of life survive? In technological terms, they have a better shot than we "English" of surviving a situation like "The Long Emergency" -- the massive, painful societal readjustment that Jim Kunstler predicts as the age of cheap energy ends. Or even a short emergency: As I noted in the aftermath of the December 2007 ice storm, we've forgotten how to build homes and arrange our lives so that we can be well-fed and comfortable without the grid in any weather.

It seems to me that the true heart of Amish culture is not technological aversion or pneumatic ingenuity but mutual subjection to a common rule of conduct, grounded in the principles of their faith.

That's extremely countercultural. The broader American culture seems to have lost the impulse to live up to the expectations of the group. Voluntary societies like churches and clubs often have to choose between enforcing standards and retaining membership. (That's a topic that deserves further consideration.)

As long as Amish communities are successful at screening out socially corrosive technologies, they should be able to maintain the cohesion required for their way of life. The decentralized aspect of Amish culture may help preserve it in general even if a particular community is disrupted.

One last anecdote: Last fall, we went with our homeschooling group to a hearty dinner at an Amish home near Chouteau. The dining room was lit with what appeared to be propane -- brightly glowing net wicks of the sort I remember from Coleman lanterns. As we were leaving, my wife told me that one of the Amish men was trying to figure out how to set up a photocopier he just bought.

Via Instapundit, I found this headline on the CNN website: "Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant."

I was curious. I figured it was some form of adult stem cell therapy, but I imagine that many people reading the headline and nothing else would have assumed it involved embryonic stem cell therapy, since that's the kind that gets all the attention, even though adult stem cell therapy has gotten all the therapeutic results to date.

So I read further:

A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"The patient is fine," said Dr. Gero Hutter of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany. "Today, two years after his transplantation, he is still without any signs of HIV disease and without antiretroviral medication."

Pretty exciting! The story mentions that the stem cell transplant was for the purpose of treating the leukemia, but they chose a donor with a "gene mutation that confers resistance to HIV."

Donor? I read further:

While promising, the treatment is unlikely to help the vast majority of people infected with HIV, said Dr. Jay Levy, a professor at the University of California San Francisco, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. A stem cell transplant is too extreme and too dangerous to be used as a routine treatment, he said.

"About a third of the people die [during such transplants], so it's just too much of a risk," Levy said. To perform a stem cell transplant, doctors intentionally destroy a patient's immune system, leaving the patient vulnerable to infection, and then reintroduce a donor's stem cells (which are from either bone marrow or blood) in an effort to establish a new, healthy immune system.

So they "destroy a patient's immune system," and then introduce cells "from either bone marrow or blood" from a "compatible donor."

Doesn't that sound like what they used to call a bone marrow transplant?

Some medical expert correct me if I'm wrong, but bone marrow cells are stem cells, so the story isn't inaccurate. But it would have been more informative to the public and to the debate over embryonic stem cell research for the story to use the familiar term of bone marrow transplant, to state clearly that the cells came from an adult bone marrow donor, and to state that no human embryos were destroyed as part of the treatment.

I notice that googling "bone marrow HIV" turns up stories about the same patient from last November. I have to wonder if the scientists changed their terminology to "stem cell" for the New England Journal of Medicine story in hopes of attracting more funding.

The National Health Service website in Britain has an article about the treatment which refers to it as a bone marrow transplant. The NHS article goes into much more detail on the science behind the story and mentions that the patient underwent two transplants from the same donor.

There's a much-linked recent story in the New York Post by Charles Platt, who "went undercover" to work on as a Walmart sales associate. Something that impressed him impressed and surprised me too:

Having pledged ourselves, we encountered the aspect of Wal-Mart employment that impressed me most: The Telxon, pronounced "Telzon," a hand-held bar-code scanner with a wireless connection to the store's computer. When pointed at any product, the Telxon would reveal astonishing amounts of information: the quantity that should be on the shelf, the availability from the nearest warehouse, the retail price, and (most amazing of all) the markup.

All of us were given access to this information, because - in theory, at least - anyone in the store could order a couple extra pallets of anything, and could discount it heavily as a Volume Producing Item (known as a VPI), competing with other departments to rack up the most profitable sales each month. Floor clerks even had portable equipment to print their own price stickers. This was how Wal-Mart detected demand and responded to it: by distributing decision-making power to grass-roots level. It was as simple yet as radical as that.

We received an inspirational talk on this subject, from an employee who reacted after the store test-marketed tents that could protect cars for people who didn't have enough garage space. They sold out quickly, and several customers came in asking for more. Clearly this was a singular, exceptional case of word-of-mouth, so he ordered literally a truckload of tent-garages, "Which I shouldn't have done really without asking someone," he said with a shrug, "because I hadn't been working at the store for long." But the item was a huge success. His VPI was the biggest in store history - and that kind of thing doesn't go unnoticed in Arkansas.

He was invited to corporate HQ as a guest at a management conference. "It was totally different from what I expected," he told us. "I thought it would be these fatcats talking about money, but no one even mentioned money. All they cared about was finding new ways to satisfy customers. I met everyone including the chairman of the company."

Another surprise, in the answer given by his pet-department supervisor as to why he had been with Walmart for 15 years:

His answer lay in the structure of the store. "It's deceptive, because Wal-Mart isn't divided into separate stores like a mall," he said. "But really, that's how it works. Each section is separate. This is - my pet store! No one comes here and tells me how to run it. I could go for weeks without a supervisor asking any questions." Here was the unseen, unreported side of the corporate behemoth. Big as it was, it was smart enough to give employees a feeling of autonomy.

Back in July 2007, I recounted how the auto department manager for the Chickasha Walmart kept his shop open late for our family, when our van lost a tire tread on the H. E. Bailey Turnpike, heading home from Texas. We had first called the AAA emergency number, which pointed us to a local repair shop, which didn't have the right tire in stock, and the tire store wouldn't be open until the following morning. The Walmart manager's initiative allowed us to get home that night. Otherwise we'd have had to stay the night in Chickasha or limp slowly home on the compact spare.

Oklahoma has inadequate protections against SLAPPs -- strategic lawsuits against public participation. So argues Laura Long in the Summer 2007 issue of the Oklahoma Law Review. (Click here for a direct link to the PDF of her article.)

If you're not familiar with the term, here's the description from Wikipedia:

A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation ("SLAPP") is a lawsuit that is intended to intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. Winning the lawsuit is not necessarily the intent of the person filing the SLAPP. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate.

While the term originated with reference to suits against people petitioning the government -- e.g., suing homeowners who file a suit to stop a zoning change -- the concept has been extended to comprehend both the Petition and Speech clauses of the First Amendment.

Oklahoma does have a statute, 12 O.S. 1443.1. Long writes:

Oklahoma's anti-SLAPP statute, section 1443.1 of title 12, provides immunity from libel suits upon certain conditions, but does not address other common SLAPP suit causes of action. The statute states that, with the exception of falsely imputing a crime to a public officer, statements made in or about a legislative, judicial, or other proceeding authorized by law shall not be punishable as libel. Further, the statute protects criticism of the official acts of public officers. For a plaintiff to recover in a libel or defamation suit, the public official must show actual knowledge of probable falsity prior to the publication. Short of a deliberate factual lie, a plaintiff may not sue a defendant for defamation even if there were serious doubts as to truth.

Long writes that one of the drawbacks of the existing statute is that it only applies to defamation and doesn't address the many other causes of action used in SLAPP suits, such as business interference, abuse of process, and conspiracy torts.

While the Oklahoma courts have taken an expansive view of protected speech, Long notes, the problem is that the remedies provided are "reactive." They may be helpful once a case goes to trial, but by then the damage has already been done to a SLAPP victim:

Like the statute's narrow scope, the lack of an effective court review process renders Oklahoma's statute inadequate to combat SLAPP suits and their ill effects. Without procedural mechanisms to prevent or cure SLAPP suits in their infancy, the statute fails the third prong of Canan and Pring's test. Due to the costs and anxiety associated with lawsuits, lengthy SLAPP suits discourage targets from continuing their petitioning activities and intimidate future petitioners for fear of similar retaliation. Moreover, prolonged suits often cause support for the original issues to wane, rendering the petitioning activities futile. Implementing procedures that allow for quick dispositions of SLAPP suits while discouraging future suits can mitigate many of these ill effects. Unfortunately, Oklahoma's statute does not provide a method for early review and dismissal, and is therefore inadequate to protect petitioning activity.

In addition to Oklahoma's anti-SLAPP statute, other statutory mechanisms for combating frivolous suits likewise fail to establish adequate protection for targets. A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim generally proves ineffective as a remedy because filers can easily frame petitioning grievances in the form of legitimate tort claims. Further, targets must still spend considerable time and money for pre-trial practice and discovery, and even if the court grants the motion, dismissals do little to deter future SLAPP suits. Similarly, motions for sanctions and shifting of attorney fees often increase total litigation and do little to discourage suing in the first place. Motions such as these may be difficult for targets to invoke and occur too late in the litigation process to prevent the chill on petitioning. Reactionary solutions may effectively vindicate defendants in ordinary lawsuits, but their impact is minimal when the purpose of the suit is to intimidate targets through enormous court costs and time commitments.

Long recommends California's comprehensive anti-SLAPP statute as a guide:

To cure a SLAPP suit with as little impact on petitioning activity as possible, an effective statute should include a special motion to dismiss, an articulable burden of proof for the filer that may include a requirement for more specificity in the pleading, suspended discovery, and an award of costs to the successfully moving party. To prevent future SLAPP suits, the statute should include a specific authorization for serious penalties and accompanying SLAPP-back suits. Together, these elements provide a quick and cost-effective escape route for targets of SLAPP suits and may even discourage filers from attacking the target's First Amendment Right to Petition in the future....

Courts should treat special motions to dismiss as final summary judgment motions with a time period appropriate for expedited motions. As with typical motions for summary judgment, if a trial court denies the motion or fails to rule in a speedy fashion, then a moving party should have a right to an expedited appeal. Further, all discovery should be stayed pending a decision on the motion and appeals. A method for early review and a stay of discovery greatly reduces the time commitment and the financial resources needed to combat the SLAPP suits, thereby lessening the chill effect on petitioning activity....

Regardless of whether a statute contains a probability standard for the motion to dismiss or a standard developed from the Mountain Environment or Omni decisions, every state with an anti-SLAPP statute except Delaware, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Washington, includes some form of early review. If enacted properly, special motions to dismiss are quick, cheap methods to cut off harassing discovery and ensure quick closure.

I understand that there is a move afoot to pass a comprehensive, effective SLAPP law for Oklahoma. This is something that should have overwhelming bipartisan support.

More SLAPP shots:

• California Anti-SLAPP Project: Survival Guide for SLAPP Victims, which has a good description of how a SLAPP suit serves "as a means of transforming public debate into lawsuits."
• SLAPP Resource Center: Frequently Asked Questions
• Judith Miller writes in City Journal about how anti-SLAPP statutes in California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota protected critics of Islamist organizations from being SLAPPed: "While authoritarian regimes silence critics by murdering or jailing them, journalists (and other critics) in the United States face gentler, but still effective, intimidation: libel lawsuits." Two of the three cases mentioned involve the Speech clause, rather than the Petition clause.
• A blogger in India writes that industry there uses SLAPP suits to silence critics.
• Portsmouth, Ohio, blogger Robert Forrey writes about efforts by a local city councilor to SLAPP him into silence.
• A threat to pursue Who Owns Tulsa? for violations of the Fair Housing Act looked very much like a SLAPP action.

NBC banned the following commercial from running during the Super Bowl.

Political advocacy, NBC says.

(Via Ace.)

Earlier this week, actor Patrick McGoohan died at the age of 80. He created and starred in the late '60s series The Prisoner. I caught glimpses of the show as a four or five year old when it first aired in the US -- Dad watched it -- and I was terrified by the sight and sound of Rover.

When I was in high school, it was shown on public TV. I was hooked, and so was a classmate of mine. He and I weren't friends otherwise, but after we learned of our mutual interest in the show, he'd call after an episode to talk about it. When the last two episodes were aired, there was a lot to talk about. It ran in Boston during my senior year in college, and several of us took to using the "Be seeing you" salute, just for fun. During a business trip to Shropshire in 1999, I made a point of visiting Portmeirion, the Italianate village on the west coast of Wales, used as the setting for the series. (Number 6's place is now a gift shop.)

I read somewhere that McGoohan was in line to play Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films or Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies but ill health prevented him from taking either role.

As I mentioned over at The Judge Report, McGoohan was married to the same woman for over 50 years, his first and only wife, and insisted that his on-screen characters would never so much as kiss another woman, a stipulation that ruled out playing Simon Templar and James Bond. It would be interesting to know something about his faith and how it influenced his ethics and his artistic vision. So far I've seen nothing on that, but, as we know, "the press doesn't get religion." (I did find this mention, at Reason's website of all places, that McGoohan was a devout Roman Catholic.)

Ricardo Montalban, who also died this week, is another rare example of a Hollywood actor with a long marriage. He had been married for 63 years, from 1944 until his wife's death in 2007. Mark Evanier has an anecdote about a sketch he wrote for Montalban's cameo on a short lived comedy series. Montalban didn't care for the sketch, but why he didn't like it and how he went about making his objections known are remarkable for Hollywood.

I suppose most people will remember Montalban as Mr. Rourke on Fantasy Island. I'll remember him for his role as Khan in Star Trek II, perhaps the greatest of the great even-numbered movies, and for his role as the grandfather in Spy Kids 2 and 3, movies my kids have watched over and over again. By that time, a spinal injury from the '50s was causing him so much pain that he was confined to a wheelchair, and he appeared in the wheelchair in both films. But in Spy Kids 3, in which the characters wind up in a video game, director Robert Rodriguez used the magic of CGI to put Montalban back on his own two feet.

As we get closer to the debut of AMC's new version of The Prisoner, starring Jim Caviezel, the network has placed all 17 of the original episodes on its website for streaming, along with photos and trivia.

There's no place for "plaice" in this dictionary. Words about Christianity (vicar, sin, parish), Christmas (carol, mistletoe), the monarchy (coronation, duke, monarch), seafood (lobster, mussel), pets (corgi, goldfish, hamster), fairy tales (elf, goblin), woodland flora (tulip, sycamore, pasture), and fauna (doe, starling, terrapin) are gone, too, from a popular children's dictionary:

Oxford University Press has removed words like 'aisle', 'bishop', 'chapel', 'empire' and 'monarch' from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like 'blog', 'broadband' and 'celebrity'. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

How can you read Winnie the Pooh or The Wind in the Willows without words like stoat, beaver, gorse, or (oh, bother!) piglet? And what fiend would flush "budgerigar" down the lexicographical loo? As one commenter on the linked story wrote:

What a pity! Future generations will not be able to understand Monty Python until they've studied it at university.

(This isn't necessarily a new phenomenon: Some advanced individuals in previous generations used comedy and comic strips as a personal curriculum in cultural literacy.)

Another commenter writes:

I've got to 62 and have survived life still not quite knowing what a trapezium is. But the same could not be said had I not known the meaning of buttercup, fern and hazelnut. Our children's lives are being impoverished by this kind of misguided editorial policy.

As a teacher for 30 years, I was saddened by the increasing disappearance of basic idioms from children's language; the Oxford Dictionary policy is symptomatic of the cultural impoverishing of children's vocabulary, language and its use.

And another:

Take away our language and who are we? Our beautiful words, many of which date from Anglo-Saxon times, are now taken from us and generations of future children. They are more than words, they are the golden threads that bind together the rich tapestry of our country's story.

Reading the words taken out is absolutely heartbreaking. They read like the roll call of honour for a country that is dying.

This seems to put it all in a nutshell, referring to the sets of words deleted from and words added to the dictionary:

It would be interesting to try to write two poems: one with the first set of words, the other with the second.

The list of removed words brings to mind "Last of the Summer Wine," "The Archers," and All Creatures Great and Small. The list of added words brings to mind "Only Fools and Horses" and "The Office."

This sentence from the Telegraph story suggests that the shift away from church and countryside has already taken place in children's literature:

Oxford University Press, which produces the junior edition, selects words with the aid of the Children's Corpus, a list of about 50 million words made up of general language, words from children's books and terms related to the school curriculum. Lexicographers consider word frequency when making additions and deletions.

This defense of OUP's omission of these words didn't give me any comfort:

Critics tend to assume that children either read dictionaries for fun to learn new words (which they probably don't) or look up words that they meet in reading or in everyday life. In fact, it's older children who use dictionaries to look up the meanings of words; children aged 7-9 tend to use dictionaries to help them with spelling when they are writing out what they did at the weekend, or keeping a diary - typical school writing tasks. Therefore the contents of the dictionary need to reflect children's actual lifestyles, not an idealised picture of how we would all like childhood to be.

This suggests that children 7-9 aren't reading good books in school, where they might encounter unfamiliar words.

Read the full list here.

(Via Roger Kimball, via NRO's Corner.)

Two University of Tulsa conservative student groups are bringing a scholar and author to speak about economics, women, career, and family. Jennifer Roback Morse describes herself as "your coach for the Culture Wars."

Timeless values are the core of prosperity for business, families and society. The Culture Wars are bad for business. The attacks on timeless values-- including marriage, the two-parent family and religion--increase costs, undermine productivity and demoralize your work force. As your Coach for the Culture Wars, Dr. Morse is prepared to defend against these attacks. Using economics, statistics and history, Dr. Morse will help you take ground and avoid losses in the Culture Wars.

Morse was involved in the campaign for California Proposition 8, which passed on Tuesday, overturning the California Supreme Court's judicial fiat that redefined marriage. In a recent blog entry, Morse explains that CSC's ruling represented the breach of a compromise -- California's domestic partnership law:

There was a compromise. It was called domestic partnerships. Many fair-minded Californians thought that the very generous DP legislation over the last 8 years was the basis for a stable compromise: hospital visitation, insurance, survivorship benefits, adoption, the whole enchilda. But what we saw as a compromise, the gay lobby saw as a stepping stone toward their final goal of gay marriage. The compromise was not disrupted by putting Prop 8 on the ballot. Those law suits that resulted in judicially imposed [same-sex marriage] this spring broke up the compromise.

So now I ask you: why should anyone compromise with the gay lobby? Why should any sensible person give an inch? Particularly when they have so little respect for the democratic process that they are out protesting in front of the Mormon Temple in LA. They are treating their opponents with contempt. Why should we pretend that compromise is possible?

Here are the details for Morse's visit to TU:

For women torn between career and family, Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., offers help and insight. On Wednesday, November 12th, two student groups at the University of Tulsa will sponsor a talk by Dr. Morse. Dr. Morse's research has led her to promote a new model of feminism that supports women both at the workplace and at home. Dr. Morse shows how some feminist policies had negative effects. Her new model for feminism offers greater options for women in all walks of life.

The lecture will take place Wednesday, November 12th, at 7:00 p.m. at the University of Tulsa, in the Allen Chapman Activity Center.

Dr. Morse's findings are drawn from a prestigious scholarly career. She taught economics at Yale University and George Mason University for 15 years. Currently, Dr. Morse is the Senior Research Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.

Through her popular books and articles, Dr. Morse takes her research to the public. Her books include Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World (2005) and Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village (2008). Her public policy articles have appeared in Forbes, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

The lecture is sponsored by the TU Law chapter of the Federalist Society and the TU Intercollegiate Studies Group. The Federalist Society stands for the Constitutional separation of powers. The TU Intercollegiate Studies Group promotes the study of Western civilization through book discussions, lectures, and essay contests.

Kudos to these TU students for continuing to bring provocative conservative scholars to speak here in Tulsa.

One-man global content provider Mark Steyn says we haven't been fighting the war for hearts and minds:

It was in many ways the final battle in a war the Republican Party didn't even bother fighting -- the "long march through the institutions." While the Senator certainly enjoyed the patronage of the Chicago machine, he is not primarily a political figure.... He emerged rather from all the cultural turf the GOP largely abandoned during its 30-year winning streak at the ballot box, and his victory demonstrates the folly of assuming that folks will continue to pull the lever for guys with an R after their name every other November even as all the other institutions in society become de facto liberal one-party states.

....Go into almost any American grade-school and stroll the corridors: you'll find the walls lined with Sharpie-bright supersized touchy-feely abstractions: "RESPECT," "DREAM," "TOGETHER," "DIVERSITY." By contrast, Mister Maverick talked of "reaching across the aisle" and ending "earmarks," which may sound heroic in Washington but ring shriveled and reductive to anyone who's not obsessed with legislative process. This dead language embodied the narrow sliver of turf on which he was fighting, while Obama was bestriding the broader cultural space. Republicans need to start their own long march back through all the institutions they ceded. Otherwise, the default mode of this society will be liberal, and what's left of the Republican party will be reduced (as in other parts of the west) to begging the electorate for the occasional opportunity to prove it can run the liberal state just as well as liberals can.

The latter being the fate of, e.g., the Conservative Party in the UK.

On The Corner, Steyn raises a related point

Acorn is still a disgusting organization and Obama's fundraising fraud is still outrageous. But nobody wants to hear that now. The problem for us is more basic - the Dems control the language on such issues ("count every vote", etc), and they're much better at demonizing. Why did McCain talk about Ayers but not even mention Wright? Because he was terrified someone would point a finger and cry "Racist!" And in four years' time the Democrats' media-cultural-organizational advantage on such subjects will likely be even greater.

Oklahomans for Life, the organization that advocates at the State Capitol for the sanctity of human life, has published the responses to its survey of candidates for the November 4 general election in the October 2008 issue of its newsletter. There are separate surveys for federal and state candidates; both surveys ask about concrete policies and bills that are likely to come before Congress and the Oklahoma Legislature. Topics include abortion and abortion funding, cloning, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. The federal survey includes a couple of questions about rationing of federally-funded medical care:

10) Some hospitals have implemented formal policies authorizing denial of lifesaving medical treatment against the will of a patient or the patient's family if an ethics committee thinks the patient's quality of life is unacceptable, even though the patient and family disagree. The federal Patient Self-Determination Act currently requires health care facilities receiving Medicare or Medicaid to ask patients on admission whether they have an advance directive indicating their desire to receive or refuse lifesaving treatment under certain circumstances. Would you support preventing involuntary denial of lifesaving medical treatment by amending the Patient Self-Determination Act to provide that if failure to comply with a patient's or surrogate's choice for life-saving treatment would in reasonable medical judgment be likely to result in or hasten the patient's death, a health care provider unwilling to respect the choice for life-saving treatment must allow the patient to be transferred to a willing provider and must provide the treatment pending transfer?

11) Would you vote against any bill that imposes price controls or otherwise limits the right of older Americans who choose to do so to add their own funds on top of the government contribution in order to obtain Medicare health insurance that is less likely to ration medical treatment and prescription drugs?

The same issue of the newsletter includes a response by OfL director Tony Lauinger to Jerry Riley, husband of State Sen. Nancy Riley (D-SD37), who took exception to OfL's characterization of Sen. Riley's voting record. Lauinger points out that the votes a legislator casts trumps the position a legislator claims, and Nancy Riley's two no votes on SB 714 in 2007 made the difference in the legislature's attempt to override Gov . Brad Henry's veto. Lauinger reminds that Sen. Riley's votes on SB 714 contradicted her responses to the Oklahomans for Life survey in 2000 and 2004 (as a Republican candidate for State Senate) and in 2006 (as a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor).

Lauinger's letter addresses the matter of the rape and incest exception, and why the consistent pro-life position permits abortion only when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. (Riley cited the lack of a rape and incest exception as the reason for her opposition to SB 714, but she failed to offer such an exception as an amendment, either in her committee or in the Senate as a whole.)

Ethel Waters, the revered African-American vocalist of blues and spirituals, had occasion near the end of her life to recount its beginning: "My father raped my mother when she was twelve years old, and today they've named a park for me in Chester, Pennsylvania." Recounted in her autobiography, His Eye is on the Sparrow, her life is but one of many of children conceived in rape who went on to make great contributions to this world.

She might wonder how it makes sense, in logic or in law, to execute a child for the crime of his or her father? Abortion does not erase the trauma of a rape. Abortion compounds the first tragedy with a second tragedy - one for which the woman herself is responsible.

It is not valid to assume the best thing for a victim of rape or incest is to abort her baby. For society, abortion might seem to "solve the problem." But for the woman herself, it does not. Abortion often leads to psychological anguish and emotional devastation. Britain's Royal College of Psychiatry issued a warning in March that women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions. They advised that women should not have an abortion until they are counseled about the possible risk to their mental health.

There are more than one million unborn babies being killed by abortion in our country every year. One could rely on the absence of a rape exception as an excuse for opposing all manner of bills that seek to reduce abortions and save the babies we can. Or one could support these reasonable, modest regulations which, while not making abortion illegal, at least give some unborn children - and their mothers - a chance to avoid catastrophe.

That's why Nancy's votes against SB 714 were so disappointing. When the opportunity to help these babies came, she didn't give the benefit of the doubt to life.

While Sarah Palin was speaking to the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, Michelle Obama was hitting two Hollywood fundraisers, giving subtly different messages to different audiences.

Patrick Range McDonald of LA Weekly, who covered the events as the designated pool reporter. Here's his description of the first stop of the night:

Dressed in a purple tank top with a purple floral skirt and black high heels, Obama first addressed a largely gay and lesbian audience at the home of Bryan Lourd, managing partner of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), and Bruce Bozzi, Lourd's companion. The event was described by the Obama campaign as an "LGBT Reception."

Approximately 300 donors attended the fund raiser, which took place in the wealthy, Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Minimum contribution for a guest was $1,000 to get through the door. Supporters who raised $25,000 were given access to a VIP room, where Obama met with them and briefly spoke. All money went to the Obama Victory Fund.

Speaking at the fundraiser, Mrs. Obama insinuated that she doesn't think Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is very bright:

Obama then moved on to politics, where she first brought up her husband's vice-presidential choice. "I think it was a really good pick--Senator Joe Biden," she said, and later added, "People say they have amazing chemistry, and it's true."

Obama continued with talk about Biden when she said, "What you learn about Barack from his choice is that he's not afraid of smart people." The crowd softly chuckled.

Later, she spoke about gay rights:

Mindful of the audience in front of her, she then touched up gay and lesbian issues. "In a world as it should be," Obama said, "we repeal laws like DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'" She also said an Obama Administration would "recognize" gay adoption rights. Both lines received loud applause.

Later that evening she spoke at a fundraiser at the home of Samuel L. Jackson:

Located in the gated community of Beverly Park Estates South in the city of Beverly Hills, approximately 300 people attended the event. Minimum contribution for a guest was $2,300, with VIP access for supporters who raised $25,000. All money went to the Obama Victory Fund.

Another star-studded crowd was on hand. Among the celebrities were actor Denzel Washington, actress and singer Barbra Streisand, actor and Streisand's husband, James Brolin, former Lakers star Magic Johnson, actress Scarlett Johansson, actor Ryan Reynolds, and former California governor Gray Davis. Guests gathered poolside in the backyard of Jackson's home and drank red and white wine. Golden shallot pancakes with brie and fig preserves and grilled vegetable torte bites with roasted pepper sauce were served. Bread & Butter Catering provided the food at both fund raisers.

Even in front of a presumably gay-friendly, left-wing Hollywood audience, part of her earlier remarks were omitted from the second appearance:

Obama did not mention anything about gay issues, but much of the rest of the speech was the same.

(Via Wilshire and Washington, Variety's blog on the "intersection of entertainment and politics.)

The New York Sun reports that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has confirmed that the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA), which, as an Illinois State Senator and committee chairman, Obama voted to kill, had the same language as the federal bill which Obama claims he would have supported. The federal BAIPA passed the U. S. Senate by a 98-0 vote in 2002. The Illinois bill was killed in the Health and Human Services Committee after it was amended to include the same "neutrality clause" contained in the federal law.

Sen. Obama appears not to have gotten the memo from his campaign staff:

The dispute flared again last week when a leading opponent of legalized abortion, the National Right to Life Committee, posted records from the Illinois Legislature showing that Mr. Obama, while chairman of a Senate committee, in 2003, voted against a "Born Alive" bill that contained nearly identical language to the federal bill that passed unanimously, including the provision limiting its scope.

The group says the documents prove Mr. Obama misrepresented his record.

Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported "was not the bill that was presented at the state level."

His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.

Sevugan's statement makes the eleventh reason Obama or his surrogates have given for his vote against protection for infants who survive an attempted abortion.

Jill Stanek, the Illinois nurse who pushed for the bill because she witnessed infants being shelved to die after surviving an abortion, writes:

While the Obama campaign tonight finally admitted Obama has misrepresented his Born Alive vote all these years, it had the audacity to offer a ludicrous excuse, an excuse Obama himself contradicted only 24 hours ago, as he has for years, that "I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported."

(Hat tip: Dawn Eden.)

MORE: Via Kevin McCullough, Rick Warren wasn't satisfied with Barack Obama's "above my pay grade" answer to Warren's question, "At what point does a baby get human rights?"

No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that. Like I said, he's a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, 'Oh, sorry, I didn't take the time to figure out' because if I was wrong then it had severe implications to my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it. He should either say, 'No scientifically, I do not believe it's a human being until X' or whatever it is or to say, 'Yes, I believe it is a human being at X point,' whether it's conception or anything else. But to just say 'I don't know' on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me.

Warren also challenges the notion that evangelicals are leaving behind the issue of the sanctity of human life:

That's why to say that evangelicals are a monolith is a myth, but the other thing is that you've been hearing a lot of the press talk about 'Well, evangelicals are changing, they're now interested in poverty and disease and illiteracy, and all the stuff I've been talking about for five years now. And I have been seeding that into the evangelical movement and it's getting picked up and a lot of people are talking about doing humanitarian efforts. But I really think it's wishful thinking on a lot of people who think they're going to drop the other issues. They're not leaving pro-life, I'm just trying to expand the agenda....

Don Surber says "above my pay grade" was a "staff sergeant's answer to a general's question."

Not only that, it's a staff sergeant's answer to a "Why?" question. The staff sergeant would be able to answer a "When?" question. "Above my pay grade" means the establishment of that policy was made by a Higher Authority; I can't change it, but I can tell you what it is, and I can carry it out. That makes me wonder just what Higher Authority set the policy that Barack Obama is following. I'm pretty sure that on this issue, for Obama, the Higher Authority isn't the God addressed in Psalm 139.

STILL MORE: Get Religion is a blog that examines the mainstream media's coverage of religion. Terry Mattingly notices that Warren asked Obama a political/legal question regarding recognition of human rights; Obama's defenders in the commentariat are treating it as a moral/religious question.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, when he is crowned in two weeks as the Democratic presidential nominee, will be distinguished as the first major party nominee to oppose restrictions on infanticide.

Before Obama came to the U. S. Senate, that body approved the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA), legislation that affirmed the personhood of any baby that managed to be born alive in the process of an abortion. Surely even a supporter of abortion rights would acknowledge that once a baby is alive and separate from its mother, the only rights that matter are the baby's rights.

You might call it the Gianna Jessen bill. Jessen survived an attempted saline abortion. Once she was born, no further attempts were made to kill her, and she received medical treatment (the attempted abortion left her with cerebral palsy and other medical problems) and ultimately was adopted. But not all abortion survivors receive the same respect. Babies who survive abortions are sometimes denied medical treatment and left to starve to death.

Jill Stanek was a labor and delivery nurse in an Illinois hospital when she discovered that unwanted babies who survived abortion were being left to die in the hospital's soiled utility room. When the hospital refused to correct the situation, she took it public and began advocating for state and federal laws to protect babies who survived abortion.

When BAIPA came before the U. S. Senate in 2002, before Obama came to that body, the bill passed 98-0. Not even the most ardent abortion advocates opposed the bill.

The Illinois version came through the legislature when Barack Obama was serving as a state senator and as chairman of the Illinois State Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. It never reached the floor, because Obama and his fellow Democrats killed it in his committee.

Obama has tried to explain his vote by saying that the bill considered in Illinois didn't have a key clause that was present in the federal BAIPA bill. But researchers have found records from Obama's committee that show the two bills were nearly identical, and in fact he voted to amend the bill to include that key clause, before voting to kill the bill entirely.

Jill Stanek has a summary of Obama's involvement in killing the Illinois bill.

New documents just obtained by NRLC, and linked below, prove that Senator [Barack] Obama has for the past four years blatantly misrepresented his actions on the [Illinois] Born-Alive Infants Protection bill.

Summary and comment by NRLC spokesman Douglas Johnson:

Newly obtained documents prove that in 2003, Barack Obama, as chairman of an IL state Senate committee, voted down a bill to protect live-born survivors of abortion - even after the panel had amended the bill to contain verbatim language, copied from a federal bill passed by Congress without objection in 2002, explicitly foreclosing any impact on abortion. Obama's legislative actions in 2003 - denying effective protection even to babies born alive during abortions - were contrary to the position taken on the same language by even the most liberal members of Congress. The bill Obama killed was virtually identical to the federal bill that even NARAL ultimately did not oppose....

Documents obtained by NRLC now demonstrate conclusively that Obama's entire defense is based on a brazen factual misrepresentation.

The documents prove that in March 2003, state Senator Obama, then the chairman of the IL state Senate Health and Human Services Committee, presided over a committee meeting in which the "neutrality clause" (copied verbatim from the federal bill) was added to the state BAIPA, with Obama voting in support of adding the revision. Yet, immediately afterwards, Obama led the committee Democrats in voting against the amended bill, and it was killed, 6-4.

The bill that Chairman Obama killed, as amended, was virtually identical to the federal law; the only remaining differences were on minor points of bill-drafting style.

Via Dawn Eden, who asks pro-life bloggers to call attention to the story, since the mainstream media probably won't. Ed Morrissey has more at Hot Air.

I'm very happy to pass along the news that friend and top talk host Kevin McCullough is back on the air with his pale Stephen Baldwin (the conservative Baldwin brother). Baldwin/McCullough Xtreme Radio launches tonight from 8 - 10 p.m. Tulsa Time (9 - 11 Eastern) on 21 stations from Cape Cod to St. Augustine, FL, from New York City to Salt Lake City:

New York City - AM 970
Washington DC - AM 580
Salt Lake UT - AM 820
Jacksonville FL - FM 91.9
Charlotte NC - AM 960
Richmond VA - AM 580
Newark NJ - AM 970
Virginia Beach VA - AM 1010
Trenton NJ - AM 970
Greensboro NC - AM 830
Hartford CT - AM 970
Winston-Salem NC - AM 830
Cape Cod Mass - AM 970
High Point NC - AM 830
Roanoke VA - AM 910
Hackensack NJ - AM 970
St Augustine FL - FM 103.7
Danbury CT - AM 970
Statesville NC - AM1400
Mocksville NC - AM 1520
Bridgeport CT - AM 970

You can also listen online via Blog Talk Radio.

Here's what Kevin says we can look forward to:

Here's part of what we're hitting on tonight - so be by the radio:

1. If the top song in the country (especially for those 15-34 female) is, "I kissed a girl and I liked it..." we'd sort of love to get your idea as to WHY it is number 1. Some say it's due to the fact that society and culture have pushed the envelope right over the cliff. The pressure to be funky - the influences of where it comes from and how we respond to it...

2. Brooke Barrettsmith (www.brookerocks.com) is a rising star in the music world. Her new single "Farewell" has been climbing charts. She will join us LIVE to tell us the story behind the song. You may remember Brooke from American Idol season 5 - the most talented Idol class ever.

3. Kevin McCullough will go see it! But Stephen Baldwin has refused to see the newest Batman movie 'The Dark Knight'. The character of The Joker as played by Heath Ledger is a large part of the reason why. Some think Jack Nicholson intimated some sort of supernatural involvement with evil when he played the role years ago in the Michael Keaton/Tim Burton version. As you may know Heath Ledger committed suicide shortly after finishing work on film. Upon hearing the news Nicholson could only reply, "I warned him." We'd like to know whether you think Heath's death was influenced at all by supernatural evil. Which also begs us to consider how we intersect with the supernatural on a daily basis.

4. Music Guests tonight feature: Brooke Barrettsmith, Jonas Brothers, Pillar, Demi Lovato, Tenth Avenue North, Leona Lewis, Natalie Grant, and Duffy!

We'd like to thank our sponsors for making it all happen: Christian Values Network, Compassion International, GLYBooks.com, and Hit Me Energy Shots.

You can get a sense of the entertaining way Stephen and Kevin deal with serious issues by heading to the BMXRadioNow website and listening to their conversation with KISS's Gene Simmons about merchandising and child-rearing.

It's just under two weeks until the state primary election, and a number of organizations are out to help you make up your mind by asking candidates for their positions on key issues.

Oklahomans for Life has responses from state and federal candidates to a 12-question survey dealing with the issues of abortion and euthanasia, and in ways that are likely to come before Congress and the State Legislature.

It's disappointing that so few Democratic candidates bothered to respond to Oklahomans for Life. The usual excuse is that the survey responses will be used against them by Republican opponents, but that doesn't explain why Democrats don't respond even when no Republicans are running -- e.g. House Districts 72 and 73.

My blogpal Anna Broadway has her first book out: Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity. It's an entertaining read, especially for those who grew up in the same evangelical subculture that shaped Anna's view of the world. The heart of the book is the conflict that arises as she moves out of that hothouse environment and into the Big City. The resulting collision of values helped to demolish her inadequate, sometimes idolatrous, notions of sex, love, romance, and marriage, making it possible to rebuild on a firm, God-centered foundation.

Last week, Carla Hinton, religion editor for the Oklahoman, interviewed Anna and wrote an insightful account of the conversation:

The book "Sexless in the City" is lighthearted enough that it should keep the reader laughing and wondering what Broadway is going to say next. The humor does not hinder or water down her thought-provoking message for singles attempting to maintain a chaste lifestyle in a society that says the very idea of chastity is crazy and out of touch with reality....

"I really hope that it raises questions about what the basis of our identity is," Broadway said of the book.

"You know, when I started the book, I would say I was closer to the perspective I describe in the prologue -- of being torn between wanting to serve God but thinking that sex is the ultimate experience in life. So, in other words, if I was chaste my whole life and died without having sex, I pretty much thought, even if I hadn't admitted it to myself, that I was going to die with an unfulfilled life.

"But in the course of having the blog and writing the book, I've come to realize that that's only true if my identity is rooted in my sexuality and if I believe that my sexuality is the most important part of me.

"But if my identity is based on something else, then I can have a fulfilled life no matter if I ever marry or not. My fulfillment is not dependent on the number of lovers or sexual experiences I have. I really hope that is the message people can take away from the book, regardless of whether they share all of my values or not, that they find hope in that -- that who we are as people doesn't have to be just limited to and defined by one part of us."

That same link includes a brief audio interview.

I was happy for Anna's book to get coverage in Oklahoma, but I also came away very impressed with Carla Hinton. She comes across as not only knowledgeable but also understanding of the people and ideas she writes about. That's not always true of the religion writers in the mainstream media.

Carla Hinton's Religion and Values blog is a place where she can offer more personal reflections than would be appropriate in a news story (for example, this item on her love of Vacation Bible School), provide links and additional context (e.g., this item relating to a story about bloggers who write about the Southern Baptist Convention, and summarizing reader reaction to a story (such as this entry about a story on tithing). It's a good example of a reporter using a blog to complement her reporting.

Ocean City, Maryland, seems to mock climate change alarmism in its bid to draw tourists to its famous boardwalk this summer. In a funny ad which uses retro elements like test patterns, animated space graphics like something out of a Harvey cartoon, and the shimmy and chatter of a scratchy 8 mm instructional film threading through a school projector, Mayor Rick Meehan advises tourists to book their Ocean City vacations now, in light of a recent study predicting that our oceans will evaporate in a billion years as the earth moves inexorably toward the sun.

Found via Todd Seavey (suffering in New York through near-hundred-degree heat, evidently in a building that doesn't have air conditioning), who initially identified the beach resort as the Ocean City in New Jersey, America's Greatest Family Resort. I have happy memories of the OC in NJ. I spent the summer of 1982 there on a summer project on a leadership training / beach evangelism project with Campus Crusade for Christ. It's worthy of a retro-journal entry of my own some day.

Although bits and bytes are its bread and butter, no major studio better embodies humanity in film than Pixar. A recent interview with Pixar director Brad Bird presents ten ways that Pixar promotes innovation. (Hat tip to Joe Carter's Evangelical Outpost.)

I found two points especially interesting. This one ought to interest Forrest Christian, who has been writing about adult underachievers over at his Requisite Writing blog:

Lesson One: Herd Your Black Sheep

The Quarterly: How did your first project at Pixar--The Incredibles--shake things up?

Brad Bird: I said, "Give us the black sheep. I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody's listening to. Give us all the guys who are probably headed out the door." A lot of them were malcontents because they saw different ways of doing things, but there was little opportunity to try them, since the established way was working very, very well. We gave the black sheep a chance to prove their theories, and we changed the way a number of things are done here.

Later, Bird explains how geography contributes to creativity.

Then there's our building. Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People who work on software code are here, people who animate are there, and people who do designs are over there. Steve put the mailboxes, the meetings rooms, the cafeteria, and, most insidiously and brilliantly, the bathrooms in the center--which initially drove us crazy--so that you run into everybody during the course of a day. [Jobs] realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen. So he made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.

There are urban design parallels: The layout of some cities makes chance encounters likely; in others a serendipitous meeting is all but impossible. Chance encounters enable the cross-pollination of ideas, which makes the whole city smarter.

If you are walking to work, riding the bus, hanging out a neighborhood coffeeshop, walking across downtown for a meeting, you're more likely to bump into someone you know and have that conversation you've been meaning to have when you get some time. If you're going from place to place in your car, you might wave at someone you know, but you're not going to stop for a chat.

Reader Ted King writes to tell me about a film well worth seeing. It's showing at Tulsa's Circle Cinema through May 15.

It's called The Singing Revolution, and it's about Estonia's struggle for independence in the late 1980s, and the role that patriotic songs played in that successful overthrow of Soviet rule. From the film's website:

Most people don't think about singing when they think about revolution. But song was the weapon of choice when Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. "The Singing Revolution" is an inspiring account of one nation's dramatic rebirth. It is the story of humankind's irrepressible drive for freedom and self-determination.

You may find yourself getting choked up watching the trailer. I did.

Here are the remaining showtimes at the Circle Cinema:

Friday, 5/9: 2:00pm, 5:45pm
Saturday, 5/10: 4:00pm
Sunday, 5/11: 2:00pm, 5:45pm
Monday, 5/12 & Tuesday, 5/13: 3:30pm, 7:15pm
Wednesday, 5/14: 5:15pm
Thursday, 5/15: 3:30pm, 7:15pm

Circle Cinema is located at Admiral and Lewis in Whittier Square, an area on the upswing. Just next door to the Circle is a soon-to-open French coffeehouse called Alisée MoMo. It looks very cool.

(Happily, the dirty bookstore on the opposite corner is gone.)

Good news! SB 1878, an omnibus bill containing several related provisions regarding abortion, was passed into law today as both houses of the Oklahoma Legislature voted to override Gov. Brad Henry's veto. The bill had passed both houses with veto-proof majorities (80-12 in the House, 38-10 in the Senate). In the override vote, only one Senator shifted from yes to no, for a vote of 37-11, while the House override passed 81-15.

This bill has five key provisions, according to Oklahomans for Life:

SB 1878 has five parts:

1) protecting health care professionals' freedom of conscience and right to refuse to participate in the taking of an innocent human life;

2) regulating the use of the dangerous chemical abortion pill RU-486, used when the unborn child is about two months old;

3) ensuring that a mother's consent to an abortion is truly voluntary, and safeguarding against coerced abortions;

4) providing a woman an ultrasound of her unborn child which she may view prior to undergoing an abortion; and

5) fostering respect for children with disabilities by disallowing wrongful-life lawsuits which claim that a baby would have been better off being aborted.

(This link is to SB 1878 in Rich-Text Format.)

According to NewsOK.com, this is the first time the legislature has overridden Henry's veto. Congratulations to all the lawmakers who supported this, but particularly to Sen. Todd Lamb and Rep. Pam Peterson who shepherded the bill through their respective houses.

Good news from the State Capitol -- State Rep. Pam Peterson and State Sen. Todd Lamb's omnibus pro-life bill is on the way to the Governor's desk.

Via Steve Fair:

Today the Oklahoma State Senate passed SB 1878 authored by Senator Todd Lamb(the former Secret Service Agent, not the race car driver), R-Edmond, and Rep. Pam Peterson, R-Tulsa. It passed the Senate 38-10 with a bipartisan vote. The bill contains several pro-life initiatives. By combining various pieces of legislation from Lamb and members of the House, the bill now creates the Freedom of Conscience Act which protects the rights of healthcare providers to refuse to take part in the destruction of human life.

Via Mike McCarville:

By combining various pieces of legislation from Lamb and members of the House, the bill now creates the Freedom of Conscience Act which protects the rights of healthcare providers to refuse to take part in the destruction of human life (SB 1878--Sen. Lamb, Rep. Peterson); regulates the use of the dangerous chemical pill RU-486, used when the unborn child is about two months old (HB 2181--Rep. McNiel); ensures the mother's consent to abort is truly voluntary, and protects against coerced abortions (HB 3059--Sen. Williamson, Rep. Hamilton); provides a woman with an ultrasound of her unborn child which she can view prior to undergoing the abortion (HB 3144--Sen. Lamb, Rep. Billy); cultivates respect for disabled children by banning the wrongful-life lawsuits that claim a baby would have been better off aborted (HB 2814--Sen. Crain, Rep. Sullivan).

While the bill had bipartisan support and will probably be signed by Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, such a strong pro-life bill would not have made it this far when the Legislature was fully under Democratic control. Republican leadership (complete in the House, shared in the Senate) means that pro-life advocates control the flow of legislation in both houses. While some individual Democratic legislators are pro-life, their leadership hasn't been pro-life for many years.

Another step forward for the protection of unborn children in Oklahoma, thanks to Republican control of the State House and solid pro-life legislators like my friend Tulsa State Rep. Pam Peterson. Here's the press release from the Office of Speaker Chris Benge.

Omnibus Pro-Life Bill Passes House Committee

OKLAHOMA CITY (March 26, 2008) -Legislation further defending the unborn child passed the House Judiciary and Public Safety Committee today.

Senate Bill 1878, by Rep. Pam Peterson, combines several previously-passed pro-life measures into one bill. The legislation:

• Protects health care professionals' freedom of conscience by affirming their right to refuse to participate in the taking of a human life.
• Expands on pro-life legislation passed in 2006 that required abortion doctors to tell a woman she had a right to a free ultrasound at an off-site location. This legislation would provide an ultrasound at the clinic where the abortion would be performed.
• Bans wrongful-life lawsuits that claim a baby would have been better off being aborted.
• Ensures that a mother's consent to an abortion be truly voluntary and safeguards against coerced abortions. It requires posters to be placed in abortion clinics informing mothers of their rights and requires abortion clinics to verbally tell minors that having an abortion is their decision alone.
• Regulates the use of the chemical abortion pill RU-486, which is used when the unborn child is about two months old.

This omnibus pro-life legislation will have the indirect effect of saving the lives of innocent children, Peterson said.

"This legislation is about giving mothers as much information as possible in advance about this irrevocable, life-altering decision. We must do all we can to ensure every woman has all the facts so she can make the most informed decision possible," said Peterson, R-Tulsa. "The bill also protects the integrity of medical professionals who do not wish to participate in performing abortions."

The bill passed the House committee today and will next be heard on the House floor.

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that overturned restrictions and prohibitions on abortion in all 50 states.

To mark the day, there's a special Blogs for Life event happening at Family Research Council HQ in Washington, overlooking the annual March for Life. Kevin McCullough, who can be heard on BlogTalkRadio and read online at Townhall.com is broadcasting live from Blogs for Life today at 1 p.m. Central Time. The live call-in number is (347) 205-9765.

There are two fronts (at least) in the fight to protect innocent human life in the womb -- the political front and the hearts-and-minds front. We are closer than ever to having a Federal judiciary that recognizes Roe v. Wade and its companion decision Doe v. Bolton as, in Fred Thompson's phrase, "bad law and bad medicine." Sadly, the prospects of progress on the political front in the Federal realm are not looking good right now. (There's still hope of progress on the margins in states like Oklahoma, where pro-life bills have enjoyed broad bipartisan support and newly installed Republican committee chairmen have allowed those bills to progress.)

But if you follow the BatesLine linkblog, you've already seen that there is encouraging news on the hearts-and-minds front. Stephen Chapman's latest column, "The Growing Aversion to Abortion," shows changes in attitudes reflected in public polls and a declining abortion rate:

In 2003, Gallup found, one of every three kids from age 13 to 17 said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. More revealing yet is that 72 percent said abortion is 'morally wrong.'... The report on abortion rates from the Guttmacher Institute suggests that the evolution of attitudes has transformed behavior. Since 1990, the number of abortions has dropped from 1.61 million to 1.21 million. The abortion rate among women of childbearing age has declined by 29 percent.... In 1990, 30.4 percent of pregnancies ended in abortion. Last year, the figure was 22.4 percent.

Chapman presents one explanation for the shift in opinion:

This growing aversion to abortion may be traced to better information. When the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, most people had little understanding of fetal development. But the proliferation of ultrasound images from the womb, combined with the dissemination of facts by pro-life groups, has lifted the veil. In the new comedy "Juno," a pregnant 16-year-old heads for an abortion clinic, only to change her mind after a teenage protester tells her, "Your baby probably has a beating heart, you know. It can feel pain. And it has fingernails."

"Juno" has been faulted as a "fairy tale" that sugarcoats the realities of teen pregnancy. But if it's a fairy tale, that tells something about how abortion violates our most heartfelt ideals -- and those of our adolescent children. Try to imagine a fairy tale in which the heroine has an abortion and lives happily ever after.

On a partly personal note: One of the speakers at this morning's Blogs for Life session was author Dawn Eden. It was three years ago today that she and I were in Oklahoma City at a blogger bash, a chance for her to meet a number of blogpals she had made here in the state. It was a tough time in her life: Just four days before, she had been fired from her job as a copy editor at the New York Post, mainly because of the ardent pro-life views she expressed on her blog.

As that door closed, many others opened. Since that time, Dawn has published a highly regarded and successful book on chastity for single young adult women and has had the opportunity to speak to groups across the U.S. and overseas. It's exciting to see how God has given her ever-broadening scope to use her gifts to influence and educate on important issues, such as the sanctity of human life, which are dear to her heart. On the acknowledgments page of her book, she mentions the editor who fired her and the reporter who pushed for her firing and cites Genesis 50:20: "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."

You'll want to check out her recent entry, Supreme Irony.

MORE: In a lovely "coincidence," the Academy Awards nominations came out today and Juno, notable for its pro-life elements, was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (for Jason Reitman), Best Actress (Ellen Page), and Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody).

Brian Ervin has the story in this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly about the attempt to ban Southwestern Oklahoma State University employees from using the word "Christmas":

While there wasn't an outright "ban" on the holiday or its mention, [SWOSU spokesman Brian] Adler said university employees were told to refrain from including "Merry Christmas" in e-mail tag lines, which are only to include an employee's name, title and contact information.

Adler insisted that whatever "ban" SWOSU imposed on Christmas was confined to e-mail signatures, but not from e-mails themselves, nor from any other means of expression.

He said the policy was implemented for the purpose of ensuring that the "Merry Christmas" greeting wasn't mistaken by recipients as a sentiment officially expressed by the university, rather than from the individual sender, to the exclusion of other holidays or of well-wishing for students and university affiliates of other faiths.

That story doesn't match what Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel was told:

As Staver explained, it all started on the Wednesday before Christmas when Liberty Counsel received a call from Weatherford City Councilor Warren Goldman, who told them of SWOSU banning Christmas on Edmondson's advice.

The Liberty Counsel front man told UTW that he's never had any direct information about the AG office's responsibility for the policy, but said he spoke with the SWOSU Provost, Dr. Blake Sonove, who confirmed to him that the policy was in place and that it was implemented upon advice from Edmondson.

He also said Admissions Coordinator Connie Phillips, Human Resources Director David Misak and Vice President of Finance Tom Fagen each confirmed the same.

Edmondson's involvement may have been a misunderstanding on Councilor Goldman's part, although, if Staver's accounts of his conversations with SWOSU staffers is correct, it was a widespread misunderstanding.

"In my conversation with Dr. Sonove, I told him, 'Your attorney isn't the one who's going to foot the bill for these lawsuits,'" Goldman explained.

"I don't remember exactly how the conversation went," he continued, explaining that when Sonove mentioned something about the state Attorney General ultimately being responsible to defend against potential litigation against the state university, Goldman left with the impression that Edmondson had been the source of the bum legal advice.

"That was a misperception on my part," said Goldman.

Taking the new information from Ervin's story with the earlier statements by university officials, I'm still persuaded that some official at SWOSU tried to pull a fast one and got caught.

The European Union has given up trying to force Britain to conform to metric measurement:

Britain's citizens are now free to buy their ale and milk by the pint and their bananas and potatoes by the pound, then measure the distance they drive back home in miles -- all without threat of interference from the European Union.

The Brussels-based European Union, evidently exasperated, announced yesterday that Britain could carry on indefinitely using its centuries-old system of imperial measures.

Here's a link to the statement by EU Vice-President Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, who seems to be saying that it was all a big misunderstanding, that it was the British government, not the EU, pushing for metrication. And there's some truth to that.

This announcement follows years of "metric martyrs" -- British shopkeepers being penalized for selling certain items using imperial measures. Many imperial measures were still in use -- miles for road travel and imperial pints for beer -- but were due to be banned as many already had been.

It is a fundamental conservative instinct to prefer systems and customs that have evolved over time to those that are artificially constructed and imposed from above, no matter how elegant and theoretically perfect. A conservative believes there is wisdom in tradition that may not be easily articulated or quantified. There are hidden interdependencies that a wholesale change to a system may unwittingly disturb or destroy. (See "Urban Renewal.")

George Orwell was able to articulate the benefits of traditional units of measure, as See Dubya notes:

In 1984, there's a passage about Socialist metricization being an extension of demoralizing mind control. I remember it concerned an old prole lamenting, over his beer, that a half liter was too little, and a liter was too much, and that he missed his old comfortable pints which had been just right. That's it exactly. Feet and inches are a likewise a useful, human scale. NOTHING is a meter long. (Or are we supposed to switch to one-third-meter hot dogs at ballgames?)

Another example: almost everyone is between one and two meters in height. Centimeters are too small. But five feet six versus six foot two is a useful gradation of measurement, and those gradations have survived because they are part of a system that describes the everyday world and its usual proportions pretty well.

One could say the same thing for acres for land, hands for horses, yards for cloth, and teaspoons and cups for cooking. One useful traditional unit that the British use but which isn't common in America is the stone (14 pounds) as a measure of adult weight. To those used to the system, it's a very natural way of classifying people by weight. For the weight-watcher, measuring in stone gives a plus or minus seven pounds range of fluctuation without inducing anxiety.

Even the European Union acknowledged the intuition of standard quantities appropriate to a given item, although they did it in their usual heavy-handed way. The EU requires (or required) certain products only to be sold in authorized sizes, for example, 330 ml cans of soda and 236 ml containers of fruit cocktail.

The about-face is a happy one, and Simon Heffer suggests it could be the first shot in a revolt against an oppressive and untouchable multinational regime:

Fired up by this victory on metrication, we should all realise how vulnerable this mendacious enterprise is to sheer, relentless opposition.

The question of Europe also has the power to destroy governments, and it could well do so again.

Whatever they believe caused it, the Conservatives are in their 11th year in opposition because of John Major's treachery at Maastricht and his dishonourable behaviour after our eviction from the ERM on Black Wednesday.

The anger Europe stirs up reminds us why Mr Brown wants to avoid a referendum on the new EU treaty, a document unacceptable to this supposedly free and democratic nation.

It should also, though, remind him why he should have one, to get the issue out of the way so he can get on with being Prime Minister. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't hang around, either.

Many more of these "pointless" interferences in our way of life, and much more evidence of our impotence at the hands of the international unelect, and it won't be a referendum on the treaty that we will be calling for. It will be one on whether we want to stay in this oppressive and unsavoury club at all.

Until I get the linkblog integrated with the new template, here are a few interesting links for your perusal. For more links, check out the BatesLine blogroll headlines page, now relocated and cleansed of PHP:

Slate: The Dangers of Reclining Your Car Seat

"Tilt your car seat back in the front, and you'll find that the seat belt no longer rides the way it's supposed to--the upper strap moves up toward your neck and the lower one up from your pelvis to your middle. And it turns out that is dangerous--though somehow neither the government nor car manufacturers think they need to clearly tell us so."

Slate: William Saletan: Buried Alive in Your Own Skull

"Five days ago, Science published a report on a young woman devastated by a car crash in England. For five months after the accident, tests showed no signs of awareness. Doctors declared her vegetative. Then, scientists put her in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner, which tracks blood flow to different parts of the brain. They asked her to imagine playing tennis and walking through her home. The scan lit up with telltale patterns of language, movement, and navigation indistinguishable from the brains of healthy people.

"Something was awake inside that woman's skull. Without the scanner, no one but her would have known."

TIME: Best 100 TV Shows of all Time

Via WorldMagBlog, where a commenter complains that the Andy Griffith Show is the "single best show, and it isn't even listed."

New English Review: Theodore Dalrymple: How To Hate The Non-Existent (Via WorldMagBlog.)

"Suffice it to say that I have never received such hate mail as when I suggested that religious people were better than non-religious in their conduct. It seemed that many of the people who responded to me were not content merely not to believe, but had to hate. Although I had not denied that religious motivation could motivate very bad behaviour, something which indeed can hardly be denied, I was treated to a summary of the historical crimes of religion such as many adolescents could provide who had recently discovered to their fury that they had been made to attend boring religious services when the arguments for the existence of God had never been irrefutable....

"Perhaps one of the reasons that contemporary secularists do not simply reject religion but hate it is that they know that, while they can easily rise to the levels of hatred that religion has sometimes encouraged, they will always find it difficult to rise to the levels of love that it has sometimes encouraged."

dustbury.com: Remembering Lane Bryant

"In 1909, Mrs Bryant remarried, to Albert Malsin, who took over the business end of the Lane Bryant shop while she concentrated on design. New York newspapers, however, would not accept advertising for the store, what with all those evil maternity outfits on display. Eventually one paper did agree to run an ad, and when it appeared, the store was completely sold out within twenty-four hours. A second store had been opened in 1915, in Chicago, but feeling that they could not rely on newspapers, the Malsins opened up a mail-order branch, which by 1917 was bringing in $1 million a year."

Last night I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment of the seven-book series. Wow. All I will say at this point is that I am very impressed with the way J. K. Rowling tied everything together. There's a depth here that I've never seen in recent children's literature, with many echoes of classical literature.

I went looking for serious online discussions about plot points and literary allusions. Initially, I found some blogs that were inhabited by "fanfic" types -- people who will take a science fiction or fantasy universe and extend it with their own stories. Some of them were rather upset with the way things turned out -- not so much the main conclusion of the book but the fact that the romantic couples they had been cheering for didn't come to pass.

I found better. Here are some links that will be of interest to fans of the series, but only if you've already finished the book, because they are full of spoilers.

First, Rowling has given an exclusive interview to NBC, and you can find it on the MSNBC website. They've cut the interview into a couple of dozen separate stories all linked from that page. Now that the final book is out, Rowling is very happy to clarify plot points and to tell us about details that for various reasons were left on the cutting room floor. (For example, she "knows" much more about the futures of the various characters that she left out of the epilogue, which she didn't want to become too unwieldy.) At some point in the future, she plans to take her notes and publish a definitive encyclopedia of the Harry Potter universe.

Second, Entertainment Weekly did an entire issue about the final book release, including an interview with the actor who plays Harry in the movies about his reaction to reading the final book.

I found both of these via an unofficial but well-designed fan site called The Leaky Cauldron.

I finally found a couple of sites providing some serious literary discussion of the series and the final book, delving into structure, literary technique, and classical and religious allusions, from a Christian perspective: The Sword of Gryffindor by Travis Prinzi and Hogwarts Professor by John Granger. Prinzi is a Presbyterian and is getting a graduate degree to become an English teacher. Granger is an Orthodox Christian and a Latin teacher.

Granger wrote a book, Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader, and you can find brief descriptions of those five keys here. With the release of Deathly Hallows, he has posted a series of 25 thought-provoking discussion questions; I'm starting to go through them with my son as a starting point for our own discussions.

Both Prinzi and Granger started out as "Harry Haters" before becoming fans of the series. In an interview, Granger tells how he first encountered the books:

I read the first book in order to explain to my oldest daughter, who had been given a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, why we don't read serial trash like this. I assumed it was something like Goosebumps. I didn't know anything about Christian objections to the book. I read it – and loved it. Ms. Rowling is a classicist and an acerbic critic of Muggledom. The alchemy and profound Christian imagery of the books I thought (and still think) were wonderful and edifying.

PETA president Ingrid Newkirk to Michael Moore (PDF file), on the release of his new film about America's health care system:

Although we think that your film could actually help reform America’s sorely inadequate health care system, there’s an elephant in the room, and it is you. With all due respect, no one can help but notice that a weighty health issue is affecting you personally. We’d like to help you fix that. Going vegetarian is an easy and life-saving step that people of all economic backgrounds can take in order to become less reliant on the government’s shoddy healthcare system, and it’s something that you and all Americans can benefit from personally.

PETA's never been known for tact.

(Via Weasel Zippers.)

Oh, heck, let's pile on with some Weird Al:

John Gravois, writing an open letter to Oprah Winfrey in Slate, praises Karen Cerulo's book Never Saw It Coming as an antidote to the Oprah-promoted "law of attraction" craze:

The Secret tells us to visualize best-case scenarios and banish negative ones from our minds. Never Saw It Coming says that's what we've been doing all along—and we get blindsided by even the most foreseeable disasters because of it.

Americans don't like thinking about likely negative outcomes. Only 30% of us have wills, despite the fact that 100% of us are going to die.

We dislike thinking about negative outcomes so much, we resent anyone who tries to make us face up to the hard facts:

But unfortunately, we go to great lengths to make people who think negatively feel unwelcome....

Just think of all the pejorative and even pathological terms we have for doomsayers. Like, for instance, doomsayer. Also alarmist, naysayer, paranoiac, complainer, defeatist, downer, and killjoy. Rack your brain: It is hard to think of a laudatory term for contemplating the worst-case scenario.

He forgot fearmonger, nattering nabob of negativism, and Ken Neal's favorite, grump, which he could use as both noun and verb.

But we need naysayers to keep things running smoothly:

Cerulo argues we have a lot to learn from two groups of people who have emancipated themselves from the pressure to think positively. She points out that medical workers and computer technicians—the professional troubleshooters of the world—keep our bodies and mainframes running by being paragons of pessimism. When doctors and IT workers take up a case, they begin by dispassionately assuming the worst and then move up from there.... While this may sometimes make doctors and techies a drag, it also helped them avert worldwide disasters like the SARS outbreak and the Y2K bug.

Say it loud, I kvetch and I'm proud.

Usually it's the other way around. Since Republicans gained control of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, several significant bills have been passed and signed into law which advance the cause of the sanctity of human life. In 2006, a bill providing for informed consent passed both houses by a wide margin and was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Brad Henry, who was then looking ahead to his re-election campaign.

This year, veto-proof majorities in both chambers approved a bill (SB 714) that would have restricted abortion in state-owned facilities. This time Henry, now term-limited and a lame duck, vetoed the bill. I'll take that to mean he isn't running for U. S. Senate or any other office in this pro-life state, and that his retirement plans depend on making nice with a key national Democratic constituency, namely the abortion industry.

Brandon Dutcher sums it up nicely:

We know that Brad Henry doesn't want to go down in history as the lottery governor. Well, perhaps he'll be able to shed that moniker after all. Perhaps he'll be remembered as the abortion governor.

Would that the governor would remember: These blobs of tissue are only four years away from being revenue units for Oklahoma's vaunted pre-K program!

Please contact the State Reps and State Senators who voted for SB 714 and encourage them to vote to override the veto. You'll find the list of State Senators voting yes, with their e-mail addresses, in Oklahomans for Life's latest legislative alert (PDF).

Meanwhile, the U. S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, upheld a federal law banning partial birth abortions. For all the other problems with the Bush administration, his court appointments made this decision possible. Ruben at ProLifeBlogs noticed an interesting remark in Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion -- she doesn't think the doctrine of stare decisis ought to apply to this ruling.

ProLifeBlogs notes that Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is promoting his bill to provide federal funding for research using stem cells extracted from living human embryos, and he had this to say:

Think about it: If you were treating someone with embryonic stem cells, would you rather use stem cells that came from a healthy embryo, or a dead embryo? The dead embryo died for a reason. There's something wrong with it. Chances are, the stem cells that come from that dead embryo aren't so great, either. So why does anyone think a dead embryo holds the secret to curing juvenile diabetes?...

If this year's debate goes like last year's, then we can also expect opponents of S. 5 to make a lot of unfounded claims about adult stem cells. To repeat, I'm all for adult stem cell research. Adult stem cells are being used successfully today in treating several blood-related diseases. Our scientists should continue this area of research.

But adult stem cells have their limits. They can't do everything that embryonic stem cells can do.

As it turns out, the secret to curing juvenile (Type 1) diabetes isn't in embryonic stem cells at all:

Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again.

What kind of stem cells? Embryonic cells, you ask? Nope. (Emphasis added.)

In a breakthrough trial, 15 young patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were given drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood.

The results show that insulin-dependent diabetics can be freed from reliance on needles by an injection of their own stem cells. The therapy could signal a revolution in the treatment of the condition, which affects more than 300,000 Britons.

(Via Dan Paden.)

MORE: The Times writer added this irrelevant detail to the story:

But research using the most versatile kind of stem cells — those acquired from human embryos — is currently opposed by powerful critics, including President Bush.

Penraker notes the distorting effect of media bias:

Damn George Bush! He and his cronies are sentencing millions of people to death!

Or so they would have you believe. This is the worst, most repulsive kind of journalism - the kind that actively tries to mislead the public by leaving out information. Nowhere does it tell you that Bush explicitly endorses the kind of research on adult stem cells that produced this breakthrough. It tries to mislead the public into thinking that this result was brought about by the type of stem cell research Bush opposes.

Some readers will fix on that line while skimming this story and come away with the impression that this was the result of embryonic stem cell therapy.

Not only does the statement misdirect the reader's attention, Michael Williams points out that it's flat out wrong:

The claim in the first phrase above is false: embryonic stem cells are no more "versatile" than stem cells taken from, e.g., amniotic fluid. Furthermore, embryonic stem cells tend to turn cancerous and cause brain tumors.

So why are leftist politicians and reporters such enthusiastic promoters of research that has yet to show promise of a cure and so dismissive of research that has accomplished a great deal already? Here's Williams's answer:

Why are so many people so eager to slaughter babies and harvest their stem cells despite the fact that embryonic stem cells can't cure anything? I can think of only two explanations. First, scientists who have invested their careers in this direction want to keep the grant money flowing. Second, pro-abortionists recognize their need to increase acceptance of abortion among an increasingly pro-life population.

I'm reminded of a bit in the satirical book The 80s: A Look Back (published in 1979): The humane objection to clubbing baby harp seals for their pelts vanished when it was discovered that the brain fluid of clubbed baby harp seals cured cancer.

At some point, with enough funding, they're bound to find some cure involving embryonic stem cells. Many Americans, pragmatists that we are, will conclude that the destruction of embryonic human life is worthwhile, which will encourage a more cavalier attitude toward life in the womb.

But if more Americans come to understand that all the cures to date have come from non-embryonic stem cell research, the push for embryonic stem cell research will dry up.

Melungeons. Rom. Ramapo Mountain People. Irish Travellers. Lumbee Indians. Black Irish. Black Dutch. Indians speaking Welsh. Ancient Irish script in West Virginia. Runes in southeastern Oklahoma.

Patrick Mead is weaving a fascinating story of hidden people groups -- nomadic or isolated peoples here in the US -- and stories that defy the standard theories on how and when different groups came to North America. Interwoven with stories of various hidden groups, Patrick tells his own story of discovering his Scottish Traveller and Melungeon heritage -- getting his father to spill some closely-held family secrets -- when he contracted a rare lung disease that white people aren't supposed to get.

RELATED (4/12/2007): Julie R. Neidlinger writes about a case in North Dakota in which a juror admits to using a defendant's Roma (Gypsy) Bosnian ethnic background against him during deliberations. "I used my own experiences with ethnic groups, specifically Bosnians and/or Gypsies, to influence the jury.... I told the jury that I had personal experience with Bosnians and that they stole from my business and in the same experience lied to me regarding the theft and their conduct. Even though I had never met Mr. Hidanovic, or any of the witnesses, Mr. Hidanovic and the witnesses' race was discussed in a negative way.... I interjected into the deliberations the concept that if Mr. Hidanovic wasn't guilty of this crime he was guilty of something else."

An incredible dispatch from Las Vegas over the JYB newswires:

For Marvin McJimpsey, Vegas is truly Sin City. His faith prohibits playing cards, but his job as a blackjack dealer at the Luxor Casino requires him to shuffle, deal, and slide cards across the green felt to eager gamblers who don't seem to appreciate the profound conflict of conscience McJimpsey's job entails.

McJimpsey belongs to the Seventh Day Adventists, a conservative Christian denomination whose doctrines forbid drinking, gambling, and dancing.

"Dude, are you deaf?" demands Jeff Chen, a florist from Pasadena, who has a four showing. "I said hit me!"

"I'm sorry, sir," replies McJimpsey. "You'll have to take the card yourself. For religious reasons, I'm not allowed to touch them." After walking around the table to pick up his card, Chen cashes out leaves the casino, complaining that someone with religious objections to touching cards "probably shouldn't be dealing blackjack for a living"....

Find out why the casino can't fire McJimpsey, and more, at JunkYardBlog.

Publishing O. J. Simpson's "hypothetical" murder memoir damaged Judith Regan, but it wasn't the final straw:

O.J. Simpson's kill-and-tell book sickened America, but it was the crass sullying of New York hero Mickey Mantle that finally toppled publisher Judith Regan, according to New York magazine....

"The supposed sullying of Mantle's name hit the cover of the Daily News," says the New York magazine piece, published tomorrow. And "[Harper Collins' CEO Jane] Friedman hit the roof."

"By this point, Friedman was sick of playing nice," the mag continued. "News Corp. executives were appalled, as was [News Corp. mogul] Murdoch."

"Mickey Mantle felt like another major blunder," says one executive of the book, which was to be called, "7: The Mickey Mantle Novel." "It just reinforced the sense that [Regan was] an irresponsible editor."...

The magazine said talk of Regan's firing at the holiday party was met with applause by many News Corp. staffers.

"Friedman told editors that she had fired Regan," says the article. "When she said it, people began to clap."

(Via Mike McCarville.)

Yesterday, Michael Spencer posted five reasons he doesn't like Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. He writes as an admirer of King, not a detractor, reflecting on reactions to the annual observance from African-Americans and from white Evangelicals.

Spencer says that the observance has been treated as the exclusive possession of African-Americans, when it belongs to all Americans:

My African-American students almost universally resent that we do not dismiss school in deference to “their” holiday. (If any holiday should be celebrated by GOING to school, this one should.) When we’ve been asked to have MLK programs, students protest if the program is not all African-American, and for African-Americans. Virtually every image of MLK, Jr. day on the media is dominated by African-Americans.

It’s an American holiday. Dr. King said he wanted to see the day we stopped celebrating skin color and made up a community of love based on character. To make MLK, Jr. day an African-American holiday has the potential to increase the resentment many Americans- particularly in poor, rural areas like ours- already feel toward minorities.

If we can’t celebrate it as an American holiday, then let’s just don’t.

Neither, says Spencer, should it be a liberal holiday to celebrate liberal solutions:

Dr. King’s ideas on social justice hardly resemble the solutions of today’s race baiters and misery pimps. The dignity of suffering, the advocacy of truthful speech, the refusal to whine, the call for conscience and action: these things, not government spending on more and more government programs and employees, are what Dr. King advocated. A role for government? Sure. Government as the savior and solution to every injustice? No way.

He goes on to say that the day ought to celebrate and acknowledge King's legacy in the progress that has been made in the 43 years since his march on Washington, but too often is marked with speeches that suggest that King's work was all in vain; that teaching the history of the civil rights movement would be more valuable than another day off; and that white Evangelicals need to fix their attitude toward the man, warts and all:

We ought to be glad King’s vision was of the peace of Christ and treating people as the images of God. We should thank God he was willing to suffer, be bold and go to the cross. We should see him as an American martyr and thank God for his faith, Christ’s power in his life and his love for all persons, especially his enemies. We can learn a lot from him and we should embrace him.

Spencer suggests marking MLK Day by reading his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," so I did, for the first time. It is a reply from King to white ministers who wrote him to question his promotion of non-violent civil disobedience. In response to their criticism, he defends his decision to come to Birmingham, where he was regarded as an "outside agitator," and his decision to lead sit-ins and marches to challenge the laws of segregation. Here are a few excerpts that grabbed my attention, which I present in hopes that you'll read the whole thing.

King explains how pressure from "gadflies" is sometimes required to bring about negotiation:

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

Then he responds to their counsel to have patience, to wait for southern whites to decide to obey the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection:

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Regarding the morality of disobeying unjust laws:

Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.... Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong....

King cites openness as an essential element of civil disobedience and sets out honorable examples of such disobedience in history:

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's anti religious laws.

King expresses his disappointment with "peace at any price" moderates:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

... and his disappointment with the white churches of the South:

So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Also in this week's issue is a Jamie Pierson op-ed responding to the "Birth Control Is Harmful" billboards that Catholic-affiliated Respect Life Tulsa has placed around town. Jamie talks about double standards, and birth control, in her opinion, levels the playing field in the power struggle between men and women. I've got some comments, but given the subject matter, I'll put them after the jump....

Interesting bit stuck into the Whirled's story about newly-elected Oklahoma State Representative John Enns, a Republican from Enid. Enns sustained a spinal injury in a farming accident two years ago which left him unable to walk. He gets around mainly in his wheelchair, but through therapy he has regained some ability to use a walker. Among his legislative interests, the story mentions stem cell research:

Enns also wants to do what he can about furthering stem-cell research. It is something that he is told could help him with his condition. Scientists are thinking that stem cells could possibly help grow nerve tissue in his spine.

Enns, who has degrees in biology and chemistry, said he believes stem cells could be taken from adults as well as umbilical cords, and do not have to come from embryos. He blames the media for emphasizing the embryo source rather than other means of obtaining cells.

I appreciate Rep. Enns for making that point in his interview, and I have to give credit to the Whirled Capital reporter, Mick Hinton, and the editors for making that point a part of the story.

ELSEWHERE on the stem cell research front, there's this item from BBC News about a study showing that progenitor cells (similar to stem cells) on the surface of the heart can be used to regenerate heart blood vessels in the presence of a certain protein, thymosin beta 4.

Lead researcher Dr Paul Riley said: "We found that, when treated with thymosin ß4, these adult cells have as much potential as embryonic cells to create healthy heart tissue."

Dr Riley said using thymosin ß4 could lead to a more effective way to repair damaged hearts.

He said: "Our research has shown that blood vessel regeneration is still possible in the adult heart.

"In the future if we can figure out how to direct the progenitor cells using thymosin ß4, there could be potential for therapy based on the patients' own heart cells.

"This approach would bypass the risk of immune system rejection, a major problem with the use of stem cell transplants from another source.

"And, it has the added benefit that the cells are already located in the right place - within the heart itself."

(Via Dawn Eden, who is understandably proud of her father, who discovered thymosin ß4. How wonderful it must be for her as an advocate for alternatives to embryonic stem-cell research to be related to someone who is making those alternatives not only possible but a reality.)

On Evangelical Outpost, Joe Carter looks at seven votes in the U. S. House of special concern to social conservatives, then compares the voting records of the current Republican House committee chairmen with those who would replace them if the Democrats win a majority of seats in November. While not all the Republican chairmen have stellar records on this set of votes, all but two are over 50% (Jim Leach of Iowa and Howard Coble of N. C. only voted the right way on 3 of 7), and 8 of the 13 chairmen voted the right way on at least six of the seven votes. Meanwhile, most of their Democratic counterparts scored a big fat zero. (Three exceptions: One chairman voted the right way once, another voted the right way twice, and Ike Skelton of Missouri, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who scored a 71.)

I've heard politically-active evangelicals around here say that "the lesser of two evils is still evil." Carter leads off with a quote from Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ: "Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen." To choose otherwise is to let the greater evil prevail. Refusing to choose, waiting instead for some ideal to fall from the heavens, is to make a choice for the greater evil.

Overall, under Republican leadership in the House, the desired result for social conservatives was attained in five of these seven measures. (A sixth, regarding embryonic stem cell research, was stopped by President Bush's veto.) Looking at the scores of these current and potential committee chairmen, I have no doubt that under Democratic leadership, legislation that protects the sanctity of human life and the traditional definition of marriage would never make it out of committee.

We've seen exactly that situation here in Oklahoma, where, despite a professed pro-life majority in both houses, a Democratic Senate committee chairman, supported by the Democratic Senate majority leadership, blocked pro-life bills from being debated on the Senate floor. The lead story October 2006 issue of the Oklahomans for Life newsletter (PDF) tells how this year's landmark pro-life legislation nearly didn't make it to the Governor's desk:

Senate Democrats were determined to prevent any pro-life legislation from being enacted this year. Senate Democrats facilitated the killing of seven (7) prolife bills that had passed the House this session. The bills were killed by a Democrat committee chairman, serving at the pleasure of the Democrat Senate Leader, who, in turn, serves at the pleasure of the Senate’s Democrat members.

When the Republican House of Representatives reinserted five of those bills in another piece of legislation which had already passed the Senate (and, therefore, did not have to go through committee in the Senate again), the Senate Democrats resisted as forcefully and as long as they possibly could. They were fully prepared to ignore the rules of the Senate by refusing to allow the Republican author of SB 1742 to present the bill for a Senate vote.

The Democrat Leader of the Senate told the bill’s author as late as May 17, the day before the bill ultimately passed, that the bill would not be granted a vote on the Senate floor. It was only when Republicans made it clear that they would attempt to force the issue through a procedural
motion (which would have been voted on in public) that the Democrats relented and agreed to let the vote occur.

With great reluctance, the Democrat Leadership of the Senate allowed the bill to be voted on when the political pressure had built to such an extent that they could no longer contain it.

Once the bill was allowed to come to a vote, SB 1742 passed the Oklahoma Senate 38-8.

At the state level and at the federal level, which party will have control of the chamber is as important as which individual will represent your district.

Here's the conclusion Joe Carter draws:

Social conservatives have reason to be disappointed in the Republicans in Congress. As these scores indicate, though, we will be even more disappointed should the Democrats gain majority control. The GOP doesn't deserve to win; but if the Democrats regain power, it will be society that loses.

RELATED: Paul Weyrich points to the Bush Administration's solid record on judicial appointments and says you can expect strict-constructionist nominees like Samuel Alito never to get a hearing in a Democrat-controlled Senate. "I understand, and am sympathetic to, the reasons not to retain the current crowd in office. But there are two very big reasons why they should be re-elected. If they do not improve their performance in the 110th Congress, recruit primary candidates and replace them."

AND THIS: Are social conservative voters budding theocrats? Bill Rusher hits the nail on the head:

What has happened is that, in the past thirty years, a large number of Americans whose deepest beliefs and concerns are not political but religious have concluded that they have no choice but to gird themselves for participation in the nation's political wars. There are quite enough such people to influence the election returns, and they have been doing so.

But -- and this distinction is crucial -- their posture is essentially defensive. They are not seeking to turn America into a theocracy. They are simply trying to preserve, and where necessary restore, the politico-religious balance that has been traditional in this country. It is the intellectuals, with the critical support of the courts, and above all the Supreme Court, that have successfully eroded that balance, seeking to marginalize religion and convert the entire civic framework of the nation into a purely secular arena, on the pretense that this is required by the First Amendment's supposed erection of a high "wall" between church and state.

Those who imagine that it is religion's defenders who are the aggressors here are simply not paying attention to the increasingly sharp attacks on religious faith that can be found today in such influential places as The New York Times.

I know this is an old story, but anyway: NBC will be airing episodes of Veggie Tales on Saturday morning, but they've made some alterations. Initially, NBC claimed that the edits were to meet the time constraints of commercial TV, but later they 'fessed up:

“NBC is committed to the positive messages and universal values of ‘VeggieTales,’” the statement said. “Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages, while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view.”

Terry Mattingly at Get Religion comments:

This is a really interesting claim, since the key statement that has been banned is the VeggieTales motto used at the end of each episode, which is: “Remember kids, God made you special and he loves you very much.”

This statement was removed to avoid advocating “any one religious point of view.” This would be the controversial doctrinal point of view which maintains that God loves children. Of course, NBC leaders may have assumed that the statement that “God made you special” could be taken as an attack on evolution. That’s the ticket. Meanwhile, I should stress that Bob the Tomato does not do anything faith-specific while making this closing benediction, such as falling on his knees and making the sign of the cross. Bob the Tomato (see second image) does not have knees or arms.

What else was cut? Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer provided some details to The Tennessean:

Eliminated lines from one episode included “Calm down. The Bible says we should love our enemies.” In another episode, Vischer said, NBC allowed the line “the Bible says Samson got his strength from God.” But the next line — “And God can give us strength, too” — was out.

The changes included cuts in dialogue where characters utter the word “God” and were so last-minute and awkward, Vischer said, that in some cases “it makes the stories not work very well.” For the sign-off, where the original words were simply voiced-over, “the lips don’t match, so it kind of looks like a Japanese cartoon with lips moving” out of synch with the words, he said.

A commenter on the Get Religion post points out the absurdity of NBC acquiring the rights to air Veggie Tales, but then stripping out the religious content:

This is like “Gunsmoke without the guns”....

But it still strikes me as mind blowingly stupid and ultimately self-defeating for NBC. They pay good money for a unique property that comes to them with a built in audience. They then proceed to deliberately remove the one thing that makes the property unique and valuable while simultaneously alienating said built in audience.

It reminds me of what CBS did when they gave Riders in the Sky their own Saturday morning show. The Riders perform cowboy music in the tradition of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and the Sons of the Pioneers, leavened with a lot of comedy that appeals to grownups and kids alike. (If they ever come to your town -- here's a list of tour dates -- take your family -- great music and a lot of fun.) I first got to know them through their weekly Riders Radio Theater. Every episode of the show features a sendup of the old Saturday morning cowboy serials, complete with bad guys (the mustache-twirling melodramatic Slocum and his goon Charlie) and their Gabby Hayes-like geezer of a sidekick, known as Sidemeat.

(This article, from 1997, does a good job of explaining what Riders in the Sky are all about.)

So CBS thought they'd be great for Saturday morning. They could do their cowboy stuff on TV -- but no guns. Not "no shooting guns" but "no guns visible at all." And the villains weren't allowed to be really villainous. This from the network that aired Gunsmoke.

(It must be noted that, even when they're allowed to have guns, the Riders' weapons of choice are Ranger Doug's hypersonic yodel and Sidemeat's biscuits -- "the hardest substance known to man.")

Not only do the networks not "get religion," I don't think they "get" much of anything outside of the very narrow perspective of Hollywoodland.

People who can't find something interesting to do in Tulsa just aren't looking hard enough.

Tulsa is home to a chapter of the Altarnet Film Society, a group that exists to promote films "that have a transcendent theme, story, or experience." The AFS website asks and answers the question:

Could there be films that positively communicate wonderful deep concepts? Is it possible to have stories that encourage the heart and inspire personal greatness without being cheesy or corny? At AFS we have discovered that there are just such films, some only a minute long, others 10:00, still others 30:00 long. Let’s screen them together and then talk about what we have just experienced!

The Tulsa chapter holds a screening the last Saturday of each month, and this Saturday they'll be showing Secession, written by Tulsa-based blogger Earnest Pettie, a graduate of OU's film school. Here's the film's synopsis:

An under-appreciated, under-loved housewife decides to move out... or rather, in... to her own pantry. In a war of wills, her husband and son must come to terms with this housewife's unorthodox decision.

It's based on a short story that Earnest wrote, and it was directed by Kate Christensen. Following the film, Earnest will take questions.

The screening will be Saturday night at 7:30, at the Agora Coffeehouse, just northeast of the fountain in the Fontana Shopping Center, 51st & Memorial.

MORE: On his MySpace blog, Earnest wrote about the travails of location shoots for his latest production, "A Man and His Mustache."

AND YET MORE: Here's a short trailer for A Man and His Mustache.

BatesLine has saluted the paintings of William Bouguereau on several occasions in the past, so I was excited to read in the latest Urban Tulsa Weekly that Tulsa's Philbrook Museum is hosting an exhibition of Bouguereau's work and that of his students, beginning on Sunday and running through the end of the year.

Holly Wall's story about the exhibition puts Bouguereau's life and career in the context of the artistic trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Popular in his lifetime, his work was obscured within a few years after his death by the rise of impressionism. At long last it's respectable again to enjoy realism in painting.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Lost amid the veto politics this week was the fact that Congress also moved in other ways on ethics and medical research. Mr. Bush signed a bill passed unanimously by the House and Senate that outlawed "fetal farming," or the practice of raising and aborting fetuses for scientific research. The Senate also passed legislation that would have encouraged greater research into exploiting the stem cells scientists need without destroying embryos, as well as research into adult stem cells. That bill failed in the House, mainly because Democrats think they can use stem cells as a political issue against Republicans this fall.

The bill, S. 2754, passed the Senate unanimously, but for some reason needed a two-thirds vote to suspend the rules and pass the bill in the House. The vote was 273-154, with nearly all Republicans voting in favor, and two-thirds of the Democrats voting against.

Only stem cells from non-embryonic sources have found therapeutic uses. Pro-Life Blogs has a list of recent stories about adult stem-cell breakthroughs.

From an e-mail alert from Tony Lauinger, chairman of Oklahomans for Life:

On Tuesday, July 18, the Senate will vote on H.R. 810, a bill that would force taxpayers to fund research using stem cells obtained by killing human embryos. This bill, which is strongly opposed by Oklahomans For Life and National Right to Life, would overturn President Bush's pro-life policy against federal funding of any research that requires the killing of human embryos.

The Senate will vote the same day on two good bills, S. 3504 and S. 2754.

S. 3504, the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act, would make it a federal offense for a researcher to use tissue from a human baby who has been gestated in a woman's womb, or an animal womb, for the purpose of providing such tissue. Some researchers have already conducted such "fetus farming" experiments with animals -- for example, by gestating cloned calves to four months and then aborting them to obtain their kidney and heart tissues for transplantation.

S. 2754, the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, would require the National Institutes of Health to support research to try to find methods of creating pluripotent stem cells (which are cells that can be turned into any sort of body tissue) without creating or harming human embryos.

Please urge Senators Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn to vote against H.R. 810, and in favor of the ban on fetus farming (S. 3504) and the ethical-alternatives bill (S. 2754). Tell your senators that you are in favor of research, but not the kinds of research that require the killing of human embryos.

The NRLC has a Legislative Action Center page to make it easy to communicate with your U. S. Senators, or you can call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

I'm happy to see one bill (S. 2754) with a positive focus on stem cell research that doesn't involve destroying embryonic human life. All the breakthroughs in the therapeutic application of stem cells have involved stem cells derived from adult tissue or umbilical cord blood, not from embryos.

I'm fairly confident that Coburn and Inhofe will do the right thing on these bills, but there are some ostensibly pro-life Republican senators (like Majority Leader Bill Frist) who have been seduced by the celebrity supporters of the destruction of embryonic human life. They need to hear from us.

It's worth remembering, too, that the issue is one of funding. Embryonic stem cell research is legal, but adult stem cell research has been more successful at attracting private funding because it has shown the most promising results.

MORE on the issue, found via Pro-Life Blogs:

Buried toward the end of a pro-embryo-destruction story in the July 24 issue of Time:

The good news for all sides is that over the course of this long argument, researchers have learned more about how stem cells work, and the science has outrun the politics. Adult cells, such as those found in bone marrow, were thought to be less valuable than embryonic cells, which are "pluripotent" master cells that can turn into anything from a brain cell to a toenail. But adult cells may be more elastic than scientists thought, and could offer shortcuts to treatment that embryonic cells can't match.

Researchers have discovered that many tissues and organs contain precursor cells that act in many ways like stem cells. The skin, intestines, liver, brain and bone marrow contain these stem cell-- mimicking cells, which could become a reservoir of replacement cells for treating diseases such as leukemias, stroke and some cancers. "Brain stem-cells can make almost all cell types in the brain, and that may be all we need if we want to treat Parkinson's disease or ALS," says Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, who directs the University of California at San Francisco's Institute for Regeneration Medicine. "Embryonic stem cells might not be necessary in those cases." When it comes to treating heart disease, "if you could find a progenitor cell in the adult heart that has the ability to replicate," says Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, "then it's likely easier to start with that cell than begin with an embryonic stem cell, which has too many options."

Cheerleaders for adult stem-cell research point to progress on everything from spinal-cord injuries to diabetes. Scientists at the University of Minnesota have used umbilical-cord-blood stem cells to improve some neurological function; in a paper published last month, Dr. Carlos Lima in Portugal wrote about restoring some motor function and sensation in a few paralyzed patients. At a recent conference of researchers from around the world, a team from Kyoto University in Japan reported success in taking a skin cell, exposing it to four key growth factors and turning it into an embryo-like entity that produced stem cells--all without using an egg. The Kyoto group has submitted its work for publication, after which it will be open to the scrutiny of the scientific community. If successful, it could turn stem-cell science from a tedious, finicky process into a relatively straightforward chemistry project.

(Found via Pro Ecclesia.)

Here is how House members voted on H.R. 810. All four Oklahoma Republicans voted against; lone Democrat Dan Boren voted for the bill.

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost reports that supporters of H.R. 810 are trying to achieve Clintonesque moral hair-splitting:

Congressional bill H. R. 810 seeks to codify the Clinton workaround by circumventing the Dickey Amendment. They don�t want to have the blood on their hands (hence their refusal to fund embryo destruction) but once the human has been killed, they�ll fund the subsequent research.

The fact that so many legislators can be duped into believing that ESCR will ever lead to cures is simply astounding, and shows the paucity of intellect and discernment on Capital Hill. Ignorance, however, is excusable; cowardice is not. If the �party of death� (which includes 93% of the Democratic party and 21% of the GOP) truly believes in this research, then they should at least have the courage to sign the death warrant for the humans being destroyed.

Columnist Michael Reagan sums up the state of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR):

Far from curing everything from Alzheimer�s Disease to spinal cord injuries, and a whole host of other medical problems as proponents promise, all ESCR has produced thus far is cancerous tumors in lab animals. And even top ESCR scientists now admit that any progress in the field is 25 years away, after they stop killing lab animals, that is....

The ESCR community based most of their inflated claims on the work of South Korean scientist Huang Woo-suk, who claimed to have created the world's first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them, raising hopes of cures for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Dr. Huang was widely acclaimed as a world-class stem cell pioneer and treated as a hero until investigations disclosed that he had fabricated key data in two papers published in the U.S. journal, Science. He has now admitted the fraud and has been indicted along with five of his associates.

I think Dan Paden has this exactly right:

The real issue when it comes to the hard-core homeless is this: a sense of independence carried to an almost pathological extreme, such that eventually, one has no friends, no relatives, no support network, or at least none of these that are willing to help. Imagine, you who belong to a thriving church, who thrive on close family connections, being out of work and not having anyone who will tip you off to an opportunity in their company, no one who will recommend you to anyone, no one who will take phone calls for you, no one who will so much as let you sleep in their garage while you beat the streets looking for work--and that you'd rather have it that way than put up with the way that they want you to do things, rather than have to listen to their advice.

Social capital may be more important to survival and success than financial capital. I think about all the help we've had over the years from family, friends, fellow church members, and political allies.

For example, we have in our home an impressive amount of baby clothing, equipment, and toys for which we didn't pay. Some of them were gifts, but most of them are loaners. There's a $200 baby hammock -- never would have spent the money for it, but someone in our church had one, their baby had grown out of it, and they were happy to lend it to us for a few months. When our baby has grown out of it, we'll give it back, and the owners will likely pass it along to another church family with a new baby.

You don't get that kind of help unless other people feel they know you and can trust you, and you build that kind of knowledge and trust by being faithfully and consistently involved with other people over a long period of time, helping others with what you have to offer.

In order to build social capital, you have to do some things even when you don't feel like doing them. You have to avoid speaking your mind when it might be hurtful. You have to try not to burn bridges, even when you really want to. And when you do screw up and burn bridges, you try to rebuild them, even if it means eating your words.

I'm reminded of C. S. Lewis's depiction of the Grey Town in The Great Divorce. Because its residents could build a new place to live just by willing it into being, people would part company over the most minor offences, moving further and further away from each other. No interdependence, no community, complete autonomy. (The Grey Town, as it turned out, was Hell.)

A few days ago I told you about Yale University's admission, as a special student, of an official from Afghanistan's brutal Taliban regime and about Yale alumnus Clint Taylor's creative way of expressing displeasure with the university.

To provide continuing coverage of the nailing of Yale and to keep public scrutiny and pressure on the university as they consider admitting Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi as a full-fledged undergraduate, Taylor and a few others have set up the Nail Yale blog at townhall.com. The blog's witty tagline: "Fighting the Talibanality of Evil in the Ivy League." You'll find a link in the blogroll on the right side of my homepage.

Defenders of Yale are accusing Taylor and other critics of SRH's admission of being xenophobic. Taylor responds:

"Xenophobia" is the weakest, most ridiculous attack against our campaign the Yale Taliban's few defenders have managed to come up with yet. It's baseless and desperate. Debbie and I have stated again and again that there are so many qualifed people in the Middle East--democrats and reformers instead of theocrats and fascists--who could have taken Mr. Rahmatullah's spot in Yale's special student program.

Our beef is about Mr. Rahmatullah alone. The man served the Taliban. That's evil. You know why we're having this discussion about Mr. Rahmatullah and not about any other foreign student in the special student program? Because Mr. Rahmatullah is the only one who has business cards from the Taliban bearing his name. That's not xenophobia. That's just basic moral clarity.

Hooray for basic moral clarity, and a hearty "Boola, Boola" to Yale alumni who are continuing in the proud tradition of God and Man at Yale.

To the young lady who waited on me in the department store this evening:

I felt sorry for you, as I walked toward your counter with my purchase. From 30 feet away I could see the bright red spot there at the fold of your nostril. That's a spot that's prone to clogged pores, I thought. It was obviously inflamed, festering. It almost seemed shiny.

When I got to the counter, I realized it really was shiny, and it was a tiny red gem, not a zit. (It might have been a carbuncle, albeit not the kind you lance.)

You seemed to have a flawless complexion, and you must spend a lot of time caring for it. Why would you mess it up with a piece of jewelry that looks like a bad skin condition? Are you wearing it to demonstrate solidarity with your acne-afflicted peers?

I don't get it. Do any of my fellow fortyish fogeys get it?

There's an oddly ambivalent editorial about abortion in today's Daily Telegraph, Britain's leading conservative broadsheet, citing the University of Oslo study on the psychological effects of abortion. The paper calls for tightening abortion laws by making the gestational age limit earlier than the current 24 weeks. The article's headline is "The shame of our abortion laws." The editorial is careful not to condemn abortion:

Abortion, like miscarriage, involves the loss of a baby; unlike miscarriage, the loss is the result of a conscious decision. And the operation itself, as Germaine Greer has taken to reminding her fellow feminists, is a gruesome one. No wonder that a fifth of women continue to feel depression, shame or guilt.

At this point we should stress that those feelings may be (and probably are) inappropriate. This newspaper has never offered a view on the morality of abortion per se.

So, according to the Telegraph, the feelings of guilt, shame, and depression are inappropriate, and they say that presumably because they believe there's nothing wrong with having an abortion. Yet they chide Prime Minister Tony Blair for not supporting an earlier cutoff for late-term abortions:

In the short term, more post-abortion counselling is needed. In the long term, the need for it should be reduced by a change in the law. The current limit of 24 weeks is appallingly high; yet Tony Blair, a practising Christian, has opposed efforts to reduce it even slightly. It is he, rather than women who have been pressurised into having abortions, who should feel ashamed.

While I'm glad to see the Telegraph support any further restrictions on abortion, the reasoning in this piece is incoherent, and it reflects an incoherence that I observe in the British Conservative Party, and in the Republican Party in the "blue states". There's a recognition that sound traditional values are being violated, to the detriment of individuals, families, and society, but there's an unwillingness to contradict the spirit of the age by bluntly calling a practice wrong, immoral, or evil.

Voters who hold to traditional values in Britain and in Blue State America have no political home. No major party is speaking to their concerns and priorities, so they stay home on election day. The Conservative Party in Britain and the Republican Party in the US should be the natural homes of these voters, but they're kept at arms' length by the entrenched party apparatus. In Red State America, these motivated values voters have been able to dominate state and local Republican organizations, but the older, once-influential Republican organizations in the Blue States are designed to resist grassroots influence and keep the same people in control of an ever-shrinking party.

The British do obituaries better than anyone else. Far from foisting the duty off on entry-level reporters, British newspapers seem to put their best writers to the task of remembering the recently departed. Even if you've never heard of the deceased, the obituary will draw you in with vivid detail and anecdote. It's not unusual to see an obit of someone who was never particularly famous, but nevertheless lived a fascinating life. For example, today the Telegraph has obituaries of Kenneth Swan, proprietor of a cruise line that featured on-board lectures on ancient history, Steve Marcus, saxophonist with Buddy Rich's band, and American playwright August Wilson. The death of the chemist who invented Valium provides occasion for a glimpse at the societal impact of anti-anxiety drugs.

As distinctive as British obits are, I never expected to read a death notice as blunt as the Telegraph's post-mortem of American pop-psych author M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled:

Its opening sentence, "Life is difficult", introduced a tome which argued, uncontentiously and sensibly, that human experience was trying and imperfectible, and that only self-discipline, delaying gratification, acceptance that one's actions have consequences, and a determined attempt at spiritual growth could make sense of it. By contrast, Peck himself was, by his own admission, a self-deluding, gin-sodden, chain-smoking neurotic whose life was characterised by incessant infidelity and an inability to relate to his parents or children. "I'm a prophet, not a saint," he explained in an interview earlier this year....

Latterly he suffered from impotence and Parkinson's Disease and devoted himself to Christian songwriting, at which he was not very good.

He married Lily Ho in 1959; they had three children, two of whom would not talk to their father. She left him in 2003. He is survived by his second wife, Kathy, an educationalist he picked up, while still married, after a lecture at Sacramento, and by his children.

(Hat tip to Joey McKeown.)

You can find Telegraph obituaries here -- free registration required.

Via Mister Snitch!, there's news of a woman, 19 years a paraplegic, who has regained some feeling and movement in her legs following infusion of stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

Mister Snitch writes: "If this, again, is valid, it probably also marks the beginning of the end of principled resistance against stem cell research in this country. The political tide will quickly swing overwhelmingly in favor of more research, and quickly."

I am not aware of any opposition to any form of stem cell research. The principled resistance is to embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Extracting stem cells from an embryo results in the end of that human life; extracting stem cells from cord blood, bone marrow, fat cells, or mucous membranes -- "adult" stem cells -- does not destroy the living human being from whom the cells are taken.

Adult stem cell research has produced real therapeutic benefits, but for some reason it is overlooked by celebrity proponents of embryonic stem cell research. Perhaps it's because it undermines the argument that ESCR is essential. Some ESCR supporters seem desperate to find some positive benefit that can justify the destruction of human life, but so far, all the results have come from non-controversial adult stem cell research.

It reminds me of the lifeboat scenario used to teach "values clarification": There are too many people in a lifeboat, so you have to decide whose life is worth saving and whose should be sacrificed. Ideally, you figure a way so everyone can be saved and no one has to be thrown overboard. That's what adult stem cell research offers.

If there is any political tide resulting from this development, it ought to sweep away federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and deposit those dollars with researchers who are achieving cures using stem cells from cord blood and other sources that respect the sanctity of human life.

Karol, a Russian immigrant herself, notes that there are now more abortions than live births in Russia each year and says that "Russians are the only people I've heard actually be pro-abortion and unapologetically so." She reports some jaw-dropping conversations that reveal an amazingly casual attitude toward abortion among her Russian friends and acquaintances.

The history lesson this week at Audience of One was about
temperance activist Carry A. Nation, which gets Brian to musing about America's love/hate relationship with alcohol.

In the entry following that one, Brian, a middle school administrator, writes what he'd like to put in the annual start-of-the-school year letter to parents, about grades, homework, projects, and behavior.

That's right, its not all about the grade you get. This isn't high school and you aren't polishing a transcript to show off to colleges. At this age it is about learning skills and establishing habits that will carry you through those high school and college years. Organization. Prioritizing. Goal setting. Finding your passions. Learning social skills. How to make sense of a mass of information. Of course you want your child to make good grades. So do I. But what we both should really want is for him/her to LEARN. Its not the same thing. If you focus on learning the grades will take care of themselves.

Read the whole thing for more wise words.

Memorial Bible Church, on 61st Street east of Memorial, will host a rally celebrating this year's passage of significant pro-life legislation -- an informed consent law, a parental notification law, and a law concerning unborn victims of crime. The event is from 2 - 5 p.m., Sunday, August 14, and many of the legislators involved in the passage of this legislation will be in attendance. The Tulsa Beacon has details.

The passage of these bills demonstrates that it does matter who gets elected to the legislature and which party controls the legislature. None of this would have happened if the Democrats still ran the State House. Despite the large number of pro-life Democratic voters and pro-life Democrats in the legislature, in the past, the Democrat legislative leadership bottled up pro-life legislation in hostile committees. This year, the Republican leadership in the House took the initiative, and with the help of a handful of pro-life Democrats in the Senate, Senate Republican leaders were able to get the bill through the legislative process, bypassing the committee of virulently anti-Christian Sen. Bernest Cain.

This is an achievement worth celebrating, a reminder that progress is possible in politics. Hope to see you there.

Tulsa blogger Matt Galloway has a lengthy, fascinating, and instructive entry on trendsetters, the adoption of new technology, and how to reach the people who are the trendsetters. The Influentials who set the trends are increasingly resistant to traditional marketing approaches, but guess what? The Influentials are blog readers and blog writers.

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this on the radio. Sen. Bill Frist, once considered a contender for the 2008 presidential nomination, pretty much killed his chances by stating that he believes that parents should have the option of destroying their unborn children if it's for a good cause.

Specifically, Frist now favors federal funding for stem cell research involving the destruction of human embryos. He insists, however that the "parents" should make the choice. Um, if they're parents then doesn't that make what they're destroying a .... y'know?

Joel Helbling has details and analysis worth reading.

If you assumed that the "Reverend" Fred Phelps was a right-wing Republican, you assumed wrong:

Rev. Phelps has run in numerous Democratic primary elections for governor of the state of Kansas in 1992, 1994, and the last time in 1998, when he came in last with 15,000 votes out of a total of over 103,000 votes cast, or 15%.

Phelps and family campaigned for Bill Clinton in 1992 and was invited to and attended Clinton's inaugural ball in 1993.

Hat tip to Karol, who says she's never been happier to find out someone is not a Republican. Me, too.

A friend e-mailed asking for comment on the Supreme Court's rulings on the two Ten Commandments cases before it.

Very well.

Were you really expecting coherent jurisprudence on religious expression in the public realm from this Court?

After reading in USA Today about the premiere tonight of the PBS documentary series P.O.V., I made a note to tune in:

High-schooler Shelby Knox � who pledges celibacy until marriage � spearheads a campaign for comprehensive sex education.

Unfortunately, the sound was out on the local PBS affiliate, and efforts to notify someone about the problem failed.

The gist of the USA Today story was about liberal bias in public broadcasting amidst plans for cutting Federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). I was curious to see if a bias toward left-wing views of sexual morality was evident in tonight's documentary. Now I'll have to find out second-hand.

CPB mainly funds program development -- the operation of your local public broadcasting outlet is paid for by listeners, local sponsors, and state and local government.

Actor Robert Redford isn't happy about the proposed CPB cuts:

The United States "was built on a foundation of diversity and of protecting the rights of all people," Redford said. "When I see any attempts by one group to take all absolute power to corrupt our democratic principles that might be narrow or ideologically driven, then I know we're in trouble. PBS belongs to the public."

How does cutting funding to CPB "corrupt our democratic principles"? Is there a fundamental right to have the propagation of your opinions funded by the government? And if PBS belongs to the public, shouldn't it cater to majority tastes? Somehow I don't think that's what Redford has in mind. PBS doesn't need to cater to majority tastes because the market handles that quite efficiently. The market even does a pretty good job of "narrowcasting" to smaller but substantial minority interests, thanks to cable and the Internet. What public interest is served by government funding for one TV station out of 100?

Cutting CPB funds won't mean the end of NPR or PRI or PBS. No one is going to declare Sesame Street blighted and bulldoze it. Boohbah and Teletubbies will still be there to hypnotize children, annoy parents, and enhance the recreational use of controlled substances. Barney's position is, alas, secure. Click and Clack will still dispense automotive wisdom. You'll still be able to wake up each morning to the reassuring tones of Bob Edwards -- no, wait, NPR fired him for being too old. If a program is good enough to attract an audience, companies and viewers will see value in contributing toward its production and broadcast.

A couple of weeks ago I critiqued Ken Neal's op-ed attack on the pro-life stance on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I acknowledged that he made a valid point about in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and the creation of "surplus" embryos that are routinely frozen or destroyed. If those embryos are human life, as I believe, then we have to question the practice of IVF on moral grounds. The ends -- having a baby -- can't justify the means if the means involve destroying human life.

Today, Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost examines the ethics of IVF and other means of dealing with infertility from a Christian perspective. He links to an article on reproductive technologies by Daniel McConchie of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. McConchie suggests that by taking certain precautions IVF can be used in a way that does not involve destroying embryos or exposing them to a greater level of risk than would be encountered in nature.

There's a vigorous discussion in the comments to Joe Carter's post, and rather than try to duplicate that here, I'm going to turn off comments on this entry. If you have a comment, please post it over there.

Another stem cell research advance that doesn't require destruction of human life: Australian researchers have harvested adult stem cells from the nose which have the potential to be developed into heart, liver, kidney, muscle, and blood cells.

(See my earlier item rebutting Ken Neal's op-ed in Sunday's Tulsa Whirled for more links and information about the ways adult and cord-blood stem cells are already being used therapeutically.)

A while back I alerted you to Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn's Star Wars-themed lunchtime talk on sexually transmitted diseases, featuring free pizza. The intended audience was young Capitol Hill staffers. Both Washington papers covered it. From the the Washington Times:

Mr. Coburn, a family physician, later said he doesn't do the slide show for shock value but sees it as a way to get medical facts to young people.

'They don't get enough information,' he said. Most new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) occur among people younger than 25, and if people know the science, they can modify their behavior, he said. ...

Yesterday, as he has done before, Mr. Coburn advised adults to refrain from having multiple sexual partners and engaging in unsafe sexual activity.

'What would happen in this country if the young women would say no [to sex] until they're 20?' he asked. 'Disease would go down, the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers would go down, the social costs for the next two generations would go down.'

Mr. Coburn also encouraged sexually active youth to use condoms.

'Condoms make a difference,' he said, cataloging the effectiveness of condoms in protecting against fluid-borne STDs such as HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea.

The problem is that condoms don't offer much prevention against several other diseases, such as herpes, human papillomavirus and syphilis, that are transmitted by skin contact, he said.

The Washington Post reports the audience reaction when the first diseased body part photo appeared on the screen:

This image was now projected up on a wall of the U.S. Capitol, and the mood shifted instantly. None of the 160 or so audience members shrieked, or giggled, or ran out of the room. They're not 15 anymore, and this is a professional environment. The chatter stopped; everyone looked straight ahead, or down at their BlackBerries. A large number of women crossed their arms over their chests. Most everyone seemed encapsulated in the bit of air around them, afraid to move or touch the person sitting next to them. The half-eaten slices of pizza, now cooling on laps, seemed deeply unappetizing.

Lest you think Capitol Hill staffers are too worldly-wise to need this sort of instruction, the Post piece includes this anecdote from a previous lecture:

"You keep mentioning the word 'monogamy'," a staffer named Roland Foster recalls one young woman asking after a lecture. "What is that?"

"That's when you have sex with only one partner," Coburn responded.

"You mean at a time?"

Editorial page editor Ken Neal, in Sunday's Tulsa Whirled, displays both ignorance and disingenuousness on the issue of federal funding for stem cell research. Where to begin with this mess?

It's difficult to understand President Bush's opposition to embryonic stem-cell research.

The president appears to believe that "life" is being destroyed to "save life" if the fertilized human eggs headed for destruction are used for medical research.

Ken, if it's a fertilized human egg, it is life -- a distinct human being that will, unless it's destroyed, grow into a potential Tulsa Whirled subscriber. (You're losing those quickly enough as it is, Ken.)

Much has been made about this president's intelligence. Yet he has demonstrated a very high intelligence, often outthinking and outmaneuvering his opponents. There is nothing stupid about this president.

But he appears to have a mental block on stem-cell research. Or perhaps it is a desire to please the radical right wing, which does seem unable to understand stem-cell facts. The president continually discusses adult stem-cell use, apparently thinking adult stem cells are as therapeutic as embryo cells.

They aren't. They can play a role in fighting disease, but the real potential lies with embryo stem cells. Those stem cells hold
the possibility of curing many problems, including Alzheimer's disease, various spinal cord problems, Parkinson's disease and other maladies for which science might develop cures if given permission and money.

Right, Ken, adult stem cells aren't as therapeutic as embryonic stem cells. They are far more therapeutic. There are actual cures using stem cells from sources that don't require the destruction of human life, but none to date involving embryonic stem cells. Patients with congestive heart failure have been treated with their own stem cells (from bone marrow), resulting in improved heart function. A seven-year-old girl with a severe skull injury was treated with fat-derived stem cells which resulted in new bone formation -- she no longer has to wear a protective helmet. Cord blood stem cells have been used to cure infants who have Krabbe disease, a rare and fatal genetic disorder.

(Hat tip for above links to Joel Helbling, for his handy tabular synopsis of stem cell research from December 2004 through February 2005, based on data from the Stem Cell Research Foundation.)

Back to Ken Neal:

Bush steadfastly opposes "killing life to save life," and if that were an accurate statement he would deserve support in that position.

Yet that statement is tantamount to setting up a straw man to beat on.

No one plans to kill in order to save life.

The president's position is particularly perplexing because he has already approved federal funds for use of embryos fertilized in fertilization clinics before Aug. 9, 2001, provided these embryos were headed for destruction anyway.

This is precisely what science wants: The right to experiment on embryos conceived outside the womb since then. Question: Are embryos conceived before Aug. 9, 2001, any less "life" than those conceived after that date?

To be consistent, the president would have to make that contention.

Here Ken is either sloppy or deliberately deceptive. The date of conception was not an issue in President Bush's directive, which allowed the use of federal funds for research on stem cell lines derived from human embryos prior to the date of his order. That means that the embryos had already been destroyed by that date. Bush's order was intended to remove federal funding as an incentive to destroy any more embryos, regardless of when they had been conceived.

Speaking of straw men, the President isn't challenging science's "right" to experiment on human embryos -- although he should. The issue before the government is federal funding for such inhuman experimentation. Isn't that a chilling way to put it? "Science wants the right to experiment with embryos."

Ken wants freedom for scientists, complete freedom from ethical constraints:

Science is continually advancing in the ways that stem cells taken from embryos, umbilical cord blood and human adults can be used. It is constantly learning. But in order for it to learn, even develop uses for stem cells from other than embryos, it must have the right to experiment without Big Brother looking over scientists' shoulders.

Calling Dr. Mengele! All is forgiven. The Tulsa Whirled is ready to set you up with a new lab and plenty of victims, um, subjects, and without any nosey Big Brothers looking over your shoulder worrying about the sanctity and dignity of human life.

Ken goes on to make a valid point about in vitro fertilization:

All over the country, fertility clinics work daily to help couples conceive. To do that, potential mothers are given fertility drugs resulting in the release of many human eggs. In most cases, there are surplus eggs, most of which are fertilized in a petri dish. Some of these are implanted into prospective mothers, but most are either frozen or discarded.

This is true.

Why not use these embryos for scientific research? Bush and those who support his position never discuss this situation. If one truly believes these fertilized eggs are life, then there would be a hue and cry to find women who would accept them and carry them to full term and develop babies. Some estimates are that there are 400,000 surplus fertilized eggs in these clinics.

There is an organization called Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program devoted to this purpose.

Or, one would expect a demand to ban fertilization in vitro in order to bring a few of the eggs so fertilized to life. Why are Bush and those who support him so quiet about this?

Fertilization clinics routinely "kill" hundreds, perhaps thousands of embryos, which "pro-life" proponents choose to ignore.

Ken's back with another straw man to beat up. In fact, many pro-lifers make exactly this point. You may recall reading about someone who lost her job earlier this year in part because she thought this fact should not be obscured.

Back to Ken, who is now worrying about President Bush's legacy:

Future historians are apt to wonder why this country chose to follow ignorance and fall far behind the rest of the world in developing cures for dreaded diseases. It is as if an earlier president had banned government research into smallpox, leaving the war on that killer disease to other countries because he had misguided moral scruples against such research.

President Bush should quit listening to a small, but noisy, part of his constituency, remember he is no longer running for office and do the right thing on stem-cell research.

Ken Neal apparently believes that the President is as disingenuous as he is. President Bush actually believes in the sanctity of human life, beginning at conception. His moral scruples aren't misguided, and he is doing the right thing on stem-cell research by announcing his plan to veto federal funding for the destruction of human beings in the name of progress.

In the June 9 issue of the New York Review of Books, Joan Didion has a wide-ranging 8000-word essay of the details of Terri Schiavo's life and death. As familiar as I am with the controversy, it was still eye-opening to see all the key issues, medical details, and turning points outlined in one place.

Here's Didion on the use of language in the public debate over Terri's fate:

During the period this spring when the spectral presence called "Terri" dominated the national discourse, such areas of confusion between what was known and not known and merely assumed or repeated went largely unremarked upon. Taking a position, which had become the essence of that discourse, demanded impenetrable certainty. There were two entire weeks during which it was possible to hear the Schiavo case debated all day and all night and still not get it straight whether there was, as people were actually shouting at each other on the cable talk shows, "anybody home." ("You're wrong, Pat, flat line, nobody home.") Theresa Schiavo was repeatedly described as "brain dead." This was inaccurate: those whose brains are dead are unable even to breathe, and can be kept alive only on ventilators. She was repeatedly described as "terminal." This too was inaccurate. She was "terminal" only in the sense that her husband had obtained a court order authorizing the removal of her feeding tube; her actual physical health was such that she managed to stay alive in a hospice, in which only palliative treatment is given and patients without antibiotics often die of the pneumonia that accompanies immobility or the bacteremia that accompanies urinary catheterization, for five years.

Even after the removal of the feeding tube, she lived thirteen days. The removal of this feeding tube was repeatedly described as "honoring her directive." This, again, was inaccurate: there was no directive. Any expressed wish in this matter existed only in the belated telling of her husband and two of his relatives (his brother Scott Schiavo and their sister-in-law Joan Schiavo), who testified in a hearing on a 1998 petition that they had heard Theresa express the thought that she would not wish her life to be artificially prolonged. One time she was said to have expressed this thought was when Michael and Scott Schiavo's grandmother was on life support. "If I ever go like that, just let me go," Scott Schiavo said that he had heard Theresa say. "Don't leave me there." Another expression of the thought, Joan Schiavo testified, occurred when the two women were watching a television movie about a man on a feeding tube: according to Michael Schiavo's attorney, George J. Felos, what Theresa said was this: "No tubes for me."

This may be the first time that the blue-state readership of the New York Review of Books encounters some of the facts and connections that were well-known to readers of Blogs for Terri but which never seemed to make it into the mainstream media coverage of the case. Didion challenges the conventional wisdom on many fronts -- here, the idea that a "living will" is the answer to the dilemmas presented by Terri's situation:

There was considerable fuzziness here, not least in the reverence accorded the "living will," which seemed increasingly to be another of those well-meant and seemingly unassailable ideas that do not quite work the way we are encouraged to think they work. The chances of being admitted conscious to a hospital without being pressed to produce a living will have become virtually nil, yet any "living will" prepared in advance (as in "advance directive," exactly the document we are pressed to produce) requires us to make specific medical decisions about situations we cannot conceivably anticipate. According to studies cited last year in the Hastings Center Report by a medical researcher and a law professor at the University of Michigan, Angela Fagerlin and Carl E. Schneider, almost a third of such decisions, after periods as short as two years, no longer reflect the wishes of those who made them. The "health care proxy" or durable power of attorney, through which we assign someone we trust to make the decisions we can no longer make, is the better document, but it optimistically presupposes that we will each have with us at end of life "someone we trust."

The further problem with such directives is that they can be construed as coercive: no one wants to be a "burden." Few of us want to be perceived as considering our own lives more important than the ongoing life and prosperity of the family. Few of us will sit with a husband or wife or child in a lawyer's office or a doctor's office and hesitate to sign the piece of paper that will mean, when the day goes downhill, the least trouble for all concerned. For all the emphasis on the importance of "choice," the only choice generally approved by the culture is to sign the piece of paper, "not be a burden," die.

Whatever your position on the Terri Schiavo case, and whether you paid close attention or not when it was happening, this piece is worth your time and attention.

(Hat tip to Galley Slaves for the link.)

Not the best of the six by any means, but still a very impressive movie. Even knowing how it must end, and even knowing how each scene must end, I still found myself surprised, and I jumped and my jaw dropped at Anakin's actions during the confrontation between Windu and the Chancellor.

The part of the evening that really got my heart going, though, was the trailer for "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." The title isn't revealed until the end of the trailer, and it was fun to watch my son's face as he began to recognize bits of the story, and he looked back at me with a huge grin of anticipation.

One thing about "Revenge of the Sith" especially bugged me, and it's bugged me since the very first movie:

They were able to build spectacular cities, intelligent and versatile robots, massive and fantastic space vehicles that could leap in and out of hyperspace, and a Death Star that could take out a planet with a single blast.

So how come no one in the Star Wars universe ever figured out how to build a simple guardrail?

The right of the disabled to choose to continue to receive food and water is being contested in court in the United Kingdom.

The Daily Telegraph reports that the General Medical Council (GMC) is appealing a 2004 British High Court decision that gave a terminally ill Lancaster man the right to insist on receiving food and water through a tube, regardless of the opinion of his doctors.

Last summer, the High Court ruled in favor of Leslie Burke, who was diagnosed over 20 years ago with a degenerative neurological condition that will eventually cause him to lose the ability to swallow, while still retaining full awareness. Burke does not want to die of thirst, a process that can take two to three weeks. Because he may also lose the ability to speak by that time, he wants to ensure that his wishes are followed while he can still express them. Burke went to the court to challenge GMC guidelines that would let the doctors, not him, decide whether he should have a feeding tube:

GMC guidelines published in 2002 tell doctors it is their responsibility, rather than that of the patient, to decide whether to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging treatment.

Paragraph 81 effectively allows doctors to withdraw artificial nutrition or hydration from a patient who is not dying because it "may cause suffering, or be too burdensome in relation to the possible benefits".

At the time, the GMC said that the court ruling was unnecessary, that nothing in its standards would require or encourage a doctor to withhold food and water. Now the GMC has filed an appeal, arguing that the ruling gives a patient too much power:

Yesterday, Philip Havers, QC, for the doctors' governing body, said the judge's ruling had effectively "extended the reach of patient autonomy" and redefined the test as to what treatment was in a patient's best interests.

Mr Havers said there was "no evidence" that any member of the medical profession was likely to treat Mr Burke, or apply the GMC's guidance, in the way that he feared.

Follow that? The GMC is saying we're pretty sure we'll give you food and water, but we don't want the law to require us to do it if we don't want to.

In written submissions, however, Mr Havers told the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, sitting with Lords Justices Waller and Wall, that Mr Justice Munby's conclusions put doctors in an "impossibly difficult position".

The result would be that a patient could require a doctor to provide a form of treatment that the doctor considered of no clinical benefit if not harmful.

"Such a conclusion is not in the best interests of patients," said Mr Havers - both as a matter of principle and because it would gravely undermine the "therapeutic partnership based on joint decision-making between doctors and patients".

It would also put the doctor "in an impossibly difficult position, for a doctor should never be required to provide a particular form of treatment to a patient which he does not consider to be clinically appropriate".

Requiring doctors to provide such treatment would undermine the relationship of trust that doctors have with the public they seek to serve, Mr Havers added. It would also be inconsistent with the Hippocratic oath that doctors used to take.

Notice that the GMC is classifying food and water as "treatment," not as basic necessities of life. Notice, too, the gobbledygook about how giving a patient the right not to die of thirst would undermine the "therapeutic partnership" and the "relationship of trust" between patient and doctor.

I think Leslie Burke would not care much about the state of his "therapeutic partnership" with a doctor who is trying to starve him to death.

Read what Burke had to say after last summer's court ruling:

Mr Burke said it seemed as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "I am ecstatic," he said. "I can't tell you what it means to me.

"Anybody could be in the same situation so this has far-reaching consequences. It could happen to somebody in a car accident, not just people with a disability.

"A doctor could decide to withdraw hydration and nutrition and effectively starve a person until they die.

"Doctors have told me I'm going to deteriorate to the stage where I need to be hospitalised and need artificial nutrition and hydration. This could be in 15 or 20 years, but my communication and speech is already deteriorating and is a problem now.

"I won't be able to communicate my wishes either way and this could just be withdrawn without my consent. I would be fully conscious the whole time and it could take two or three weeks to die.

"It's not any way to treat vulnerable people. In a civilised society, it can't be right to allow vulnerable people to effectively starve to death."

Hear, hear. Let's pray that the appeals court agrees.

I get Steve Fair's "Fair and Biased" updates via e-mail (subscribe at okgop -at- aol.com), and the current update contains the following item from Roll Call magazine about Oklahoma's junior senator:

You won't want to miss the next big blockbuster thriller, "Revenge of the STDs," coming soon to a theater near you.

A takeoff on "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith," the STD flick -- yes, it's about sexually transmitted diseases -- is a tradition sponsored by Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn. (He held six annual safe-sex slide shows during his three terms in the House.)

Coburn has been sending around a "Star Wars"-themed flier touting this year's slide show with a picture of Yoda declaring, "Stop the STDs, we must," and Darth Vader warning, "Never underestimate the power of the STDs."

The spacey flier opens much the same way "Star Wars" does: "Not so long ago, there were only two known sexually transmitted diseases. Today there are more than 25 STDs which infect more than 19 million Americans each year. ..."

Coburn notes that many people are not aware that the human papillomavirus infects 5.5 million Americans each year. "Studies have shown that condoms do not provide effective protection against HPV infection," Coburn states, adding in a "Dear Colleague" letter that as a physician he personally has witnessed the "ravaging effects" of STDs. "In many cases, STDs lurk undetected in the body for months or years before unleashing their terrible effects," he writes.

Coburn is inviting all Members of Congress, staff and interns to attend the slide show on May 26 (one week after the opening of the final installment of the "Star Wars" saga) at 11:45 a.m. in HC-5 of the Capitol. "A free pizza lunch will be served but attendees should be advised that some slides contain graphic images."

Sen. Coburn has been under fire from the Senate Ethics Committee for wanting to continue practicing as an OB/GYN, as he did during his years in the U. S. House. If you can look beyond the Star Wars gimmickry, this presentation illustrates one of the benefits of having legislators who are still connected with a profession. Coburn can speak on this public health threat from experience; other senators are getting information from lobbyists from Planned Parenthood or SIECUS or other pressure groups. Coburn is able to challenge the conventional wisdom about condoms, and to call his colleagues' attention to the fact that condoms can't protect against HPV, which causes cervical cancer, a fact that deserves consideration as Congress debates funding for abstinence-based sex education.

I hope Coburn gets a good turnout, but I wonder about the wisdom of choosing pizza for the entree.

Matt of Overtaken by Events tells us about another non-profit organization with an innocuous name and a positive reputation that has been captured by the forces of political correctness. The YWCA's position page advocates for unrestricted abortion, for the registration of firearms and a ban on handguns, and is "pro-LGBTQ rights," using after-school programs to "promot[e] awareness with workshops on sexuality."

Matt writes: "If you were confused when little Sally came home from her swimming class and burned her training bra, wonder no longer."

Several pro-life bills passed the Oklahoma House last month but have been bottled up in committee in the Democrat-controlled State Senate. In his weekly Capitol Update, Rep. Kevin Calvey reports that some of these proposals are going to be considered after all, having been attached as amendments to a Senate bill that came through the House corrections committee:

Senate Bill 807, by State Sen. Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City, and State Rep. Fred Morgan, R-Oklahoma City, would target criminals involved in pornography and the abuse of women and children.

The bill was amended in committee to include three pro-life measures. The measures include the Oklahoma Unborn Victim of Violence Act (a �Laci & Conner Peterson� law) (previously introduced by Rep. Pam Peterson (R-Tulsa)) and the Women�s Right to Know and the Family Protection Act (previously introduced by me, Rep. Kevin Calvey).

Among other reforms, the bill would allow individuals who attack pregnant women and cause the loss of the unborn child to face criminal charges for the death of the baby.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act is modeled after federal legislation passed last year, prompted by the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, in California.

The amended Senate bill would also institute an �informed consent� law requiring that women be given all pertinent information about the potential consequences of abortion, information on fetal development and the gestational age of the unborn child at least 24 hours before the procedure occurs.

The amended bill passed also requires parental notification before an abortion can be performed on a minor. Morgan said parents have a right to know if a daughter is pregnant and warned that the lack of parental notification can encourage the abuse of children.

He noted there have been cases where grown men have molested underage girls and then taken them for an abortion without the parents� knowledge to hide the crime.

Another section of the bill would make it a crime for any school employee to have a sexual relationship with a student. Under the bill�s provision, any school employee engaged in a relationship with a child younger than 20 could be charged with rape.

The bill also outlaws �drive-by porn,� ensuring that individuals with pornographic films displayed on a car�s television monitor while driving could face fines of up to $500 per violation.

Senate Bill 807 passed the House Corrections Committee on a unanimous vote and is now headed to the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

If the House passes the amended bill, I believe it will go to a conference committee next, and not to the Senate Human Services Committee, the lair of Sen. Bernest Cain.

You'll find an archive of Calvey's Capitol Update on his website. (This week's has been sent out by e-mail, but hasn't been uploaded to the website yet.)

Yesterday, in an entry about the 1982 "Baby Doe" case in Indiana and the Terri Schiavo case, I wrote:

Preventing similar tragedies in the future will require ... that we understand the laws as they are today and then work with legislators to build in safeguards against the kind of judicial tyranny we saw at work in Pinellas County, Florida.

Proving that great minds think alike, Corie Schweitzer, of Insane Troll Logic, e-mailed to let me know that she has begun that task in Texas:

I think it would be a fitting tribute to Terri to work on finding out what each state's laws regarding end of life issues with respect to incapacitated persons and then working to have those laws changed to ensure that, in the absence of many safeguards to ensure that the incapacitated person's explicit wishes are explicitly known, that no one may be deprived of their life.

Corie contacted her state representative and state senator, who pointed her to the applicable section of law. She began looking through the statutes for potential problems, and here's one she found:

� Subsection C says that the decision to withhold life support "must be based on knowledge of what the patient would desire, if known" [emphasis mine].

1) It does not define what exactly constitutes "knowing" what the patient desires, since the statute is already dealing with patients WITHOUT AN ADVANCED DIRECTIVE. The law should specify exactly what kinds of evidence could be presented as proof of wishes and what could not be presented.

Corie has some good suggestions for how to work with your state legislators to address the problems you find. She deserves encouragement and emulation. I will look forward to following her progress in Texas and hope that she will serve as an example to pro-life bloggers in the other 49 states.

Think a living will can protect you against being dehydrated to death against your wishes? Think again.

In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.

Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.

Also upon Gaddy's request and without prior legal authority, since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer. ...

In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice.

Magouirk lives alone in LaGrange, though because of glaucoma she relied on her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, to bring her food and do errands.

Granddaughter just got tired of looking after Grandmama:

"Grandmama is old and I think it is time she went home to Jesus," Gaddy told Magouirk's brother and nephew, McLeod and Ken Mullinax. "She has glaucoma and now this heart problem, and who would want to live with disabilities like these?"

What's shocking is that the hospice would comply with Gaddy's request without verifying her legal authority to act on her grandmother's behalf. I used to think well of hospices, but I'm starting to wonder if there's a chain of them owned by the Soylent Corporation.

So the hospice pulled the tube, then put it back three days later at the request of relatives who did have that authority. Within hours Gaddy applied to a probate judge and was granted emergency guardianship for the weekend, long enough to order the feeding tube pulled. Mae Magouirk has gone without food and water for over 10 days.

Georgia law requires that a hearing for an emergency guardianship must be held within three days of its request, and Magouirk's hearing was held April 4 before Judge Boyd. Apparently, he has not made a final ruling, but favors giving permanent guardianship power to Gaddy, who is anxious to end her grandmother's life.

That's putting it mildly. There are other relatives ready to step in and care for Magouirk, but again a judge, one judge, stands in the way of saving a life.

Hat tip to the Bayly Brothers.

UPDATE: Jack Lewis provides a helpful timeline of the situation.

Jared of Mysterium Tremendum is retiring from the blogosphere for a time to finish his novel. His final entries focus on the art of writing -- a collection of links to his best pieces on writing and literature, a quote from C. S. Lewis on the importance of consistency and discipline in writing stories, and writing tips from Lewis.

I especially liked an entry called "The Primacy of Artistry in Christian Art." There's an excerpt from a conversation between C. S. Lewis, Kingsley Amis, and Brian Aldiss, in which Lewis explains that in writing Perelandra he did not build the story around what became the central theme:

Lewis: The starting point of . . . Perelandra was my mental picture of the floating islands. The whole of the rest of my labours in a sense consisted of building up a world in which floating islands could exist. And then of course the story about an averted fall developed. This is because, as you know, having got your people to this exciting country, something must happen.

Later in the conversation:

Lewis: . . . I�ve never started from a message or a moral, have you?

Amis: No, never. You get interested in the situation.

Lewis: The story itself should force its moral upon you. You find out what the moral is by writing the story.

Jared says that most of the books you find in the Christian fiction section were written in the opposite direction -- the author started with a topic or a moral and then tried to construct a story around it.

We have plenty of Christian medical/legal/military/crime thrillers, but the problem with so many of them is not that they are a type of story but that the story itself seems only tangentially important to their purpose. ...

Christian Writers, just write good stories, let the story take over. If you let the story tell itself, your faith will out.

The same thing could be said about Christians working in drama, music, or any other art form. Christians have too often excused mediocrity, as if it were impossible for a follower of Christ to create something beautiful and excellent, as if sincerity relieved an artist of striving for excellence. Your creation is going to reflect your worldview, and if you make it excellent, you will glorify the Lord, and you will draw others who come for the beauty hear the message between the lines.

Indeed, beauty and excellence in the work of a Christian artist is itself a message: That the artist serves a Lord who is worthy of nothing less than his finest efforts.

UPDATE: Joe Carter of the Evangelical Outpost has been writing along similar lines, asking whether Christians can save the visual arts:

For Christians to be able to save the visual arts we must first stop treating �Christian art� as a distinctive genre, as if the value of an artwork depended on whether it fell on the �correct� side of the sacred/secular divide. Art must have an intrinsic dignity as a work of art. What makes it worthy of the modifier �Christian� is not a matter of theme or content but that it is produced for the pleasure of our Lord. We create because we are made in the image of our Father and, like our own children, we should honor him with the gifts of our creativity.

Carter has been running a series called "The Gallery," posting a work of art each Sunday. Easter Sunday's post was Bouguereau's "Les saintes femmes au tombeau" ("The holy women at the tomb").

Mark Steyn writes in the Spectator (free registration required) about a case from California in the 1990s which was very similar to Terri Schiavo's case:

[Robert Wendland] was injured in an automobile accident in 1993 and went into a coma. Under state law, he could have been starved to death at any time had his wife requested the removal of his feeding tube. But Rose Wendland was busy with this and that, as one is, and assumed there was no particular urgency.

Then one day, a year later, Robert woke up. He wasn�t exactly his old self, but he could catch and throw a ball and wheel his chair up and down the hospital corridors, and both activities gave him pleasure. Nevertheless Mrs Wendland decided that she now wished to exercise her right to have him dehydrated to death. Her justification was that, while the actual living Robert � the Robert of the mid-1990s � might enjoy a simple life of ball-catching and chair-rolling, the old Robert � the pre-1993 Robert � would have considered it a crashing bore and would have wanted no part of it.

She nearly got her way. But someone at the hospital tipped off Mr Wendland�s mother and set off a protracted legal struggle in which � despite all the obstacles the California system could throw in her path � the elderly Florence Wendland was eventually successful in preventing her son being put down.

You can find more about Robert Wendland's case here.

Steyn says there's a large portion of the populace who just don't want to think about situations like this and comfort themselves that the Schiavo case is nothing special -- tragic, yes, but it happens every day. They take some comfort in the media assurances that all the legal processes were followed. He equates it to a child sticking his fingers in his ears and singing "la-la-la, I can't hear you."

Michelle Malkin called Steyn's column, "hands down, the best piece written on the case. Ever." I'd agree, for this next paragraph alone, especially the last sentence (emphasis added):

One consequence of abortion is that, in designating new life as a matter of �choice�, it created a culture where it�s now routine to make judgments about which lives are worth it and which aren�t. Down�s Syndrome? Abort. Cleft palate? Abort. Chinese girl? Abort. It�s foolish to think you can raise entire populations � not to mention generations of doctors � to make self-interested judgments about who lives and who doesn�t and expect them to remain confined to three trimesters. The �right to choose� is now being extended beyond the womb: the step from convenience euthanasia to compulsory euthanasia is a short one. Until a year or two back, I spent a lot of my summer Saturdays manning the historical society booth at the flea markets on the town common, and I passed many a pleasant quarter-hour or so chit-chatting with elderly ladies leading some now middle-aged simpleton child around. Both parties seemed to enjoy the occasion. The child is no doubt a �burden�: he was born because he just was; there was no �choice� about it in those days. Having done away with those kinds of �burdens� at birth, we�re less inclined to tolerate them when they strike in adulthood, as they did in Terri Schiavo�s case.

Elsewhere, Don Danz looks at the legal issues surrounding "what Terri would have wanted":

One of the primary problems in discussing Terri's case is that many people simply have the issues confused which, not surprisingly, results in inappropriate conclusions. I've heard and read a hundred times, "Well, I wouldn't want to live that way." People who express this are stating a personal fact that is wholly irrelevant to Terri's situation. It's best to just walk away as logical discussion is not likely to follow. The primary issue is what did Terri want and what should be done when there is no objective evidence of her desires?

There was no written evidence of what Terri wanted to be done in her situation or in any similar situation. Five people testified as to Terri's verbally expressed desires: Terri's mom and one of Terri's friends who said she would want to live and Michael, Michael's brother and Michael's sister-in-law who said she wouldn't want to keep on living. Some people find her mother and friend more credible, while other people are more inclined to believe Michael's brother and sister-in-law. Personally, I think it's a wash between the four of them, which leaves us with Michael. ...

Now for just a little legalese. The standard which the courts must determine whether Terri expressed her desire to have her feeding tube removed is by "clear and convincing" evidence. This is the highest burden in a civil case. It means that, even if everyone agreed that it was more probable than not that Terri would want her feeding tube pulled, the court still could not order removal. Only if the evidence was clear and convincing that such were her express wishes, would it be proper to allow her to die in that manner.

It is my contention and that of many conservatives that under the clear and convincing standard, looking at the case as a whole, and being cognizant of the very narrow primary issue, there is insufficient evidence to support the pulling of Terri's feeding tube and allowing her to die.

Dan says he's not finished with this entry, so we'll check back.

The Penitent Blogger is annoyed with a Fox News interview about the autopsy, and the claim that it will be able to determine whether Terri could have recovered:

Of course, what was NOT discussed during these interviews was whether discontinuation of all rehabilitative therapy at the insistence of Michael Schiavo, would have contributed to Terri's state debilitating to the point where recovery would have, in time, become impossible.

Why, in the minds of the judiciary, the doctors and much of the public, was it more desirable to deny Terri adequate care, let her die, perform an autopsy and then state, "oh well, she was too far gone; she would have never recovered?" Why was is not more desirable to let Terri live a bit longer, perform full neurological testing, resume the therapy she should have had throughout these many years, and come to more definitive conclusions at a later time? Why jump headfirst off the bridge of death rather than stretch out the safety net of life?

Robert Williams of Dead Man Blogging has some powerfully provocative posts in the aftermath of Terri Schiavo's death. He asks whether it is a worldview-shaking event for Christians, as 9/11 was for the nation:

When those towers fell, we saw the world differently. Maybe I�m overreacting, but when Terri Schiavo died of thirst, I saw the world differently.

• I see a nation that recognizes no higher authority than �we the people� and the laws we make.
• I see an executive and legislature dominated by the judiciary.
• I see a Republican party unable or unwilling to act effectively. Janet Reno was willing to defy the courts and seize Elian Gonzales to send him back to a communist state, but nobody was willing to defy Judge Greer and save Terri Schiavo. I see that the lesser of two evils is still not good. I see that I didn�t even get half a loaf. I see that I voted to win, but still lost.
• I see a fallen, godless culture. I see a culture that doesn�t need to be engaged or transformed. It needs to be supplanted, replaced, defeated, destroyed.

What do you see?

In an earlier post, he asks some questions about the relationship between church and state which deserve every Christian's consideration.

Karol Sheinin asks whether, given the state of marriage in this country, it's reasonable to give a spouse full control over an incapacitated person's fate:

A good friend of mine recently married a friend to let him stay in the country. They had an engagement party. They got married, didn't tell her family, and then went home to their respective apartments. If something would happen to her, this man would have control over her fate.

A friend's sister got married. She had work to tie up at her job and her husband went ahead to Europe where they would meet to honeymoon. On the flight over, he met a woman for whom, a year later, he would leave his wife. ...

Call me unromantic. Tell me I don't know. But the truth is, marriage is in crisis. It's time to reconsider whether a spouse, with a 50% chance of being an ex-spouse, should have the level of control that they currently do. I vote 'no'.

Finally: As usual, Charles G. Hill speaks volumes with a single sentence.

Dave Curell, one of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) pastors who kept vigil outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was starved to death, committed an act of civil disobedience by trying to enter the hospice without the permission of the administrator and spent the night in the Pinellas County jail. In a lengthy entry, he describes the work they did outside the hospice, the decision for civil disobedience, and what went through his mind as he went forward with that decision. He sets the scene shortly after their arrival:

In this environment our role was quickly defined. As we told people we were pastors we were welcomed and invited to do what pastors are supposed to do: care for the sheep. The lack of pastoral presence was obvious from the first. As one man we met early put it, �Where are the pastors? Where the hell are the pastors?� Even the Roman Catholic faithful welcomed us as they lamented the absence of their priests. They were as sheep without a shepherd.

The days were long and the ministry opportunities were constant. It was as if everyone there--police, protestors, and press--had their chest cavities opened for work on the heart. We were all laid bare by the reality that a woman who had committed no crime was being dehydrated and starved to death in the building next to us and that the �justice� system of our country had ordered it.

On the eighth day after Terri's death sentence began, when hope of government intervention was all but gone, Dave made the decision to get arrested. He spent some time writing a statement and praying in his hotel room then returned to the hospice:

I finished writing and got into the car to drive back to the protest site. My head started spinning. I arrived, greeted David Bayly, and told him of my intentions. For the next hour I was on overload. David introduced me to a reporter and I gave her my statement. I proceeded to the gate and invited anyone who was interested to hear my statement before I entered. My friends were there and a couple of members of the press. I remember one cameraman vividly because he would not point his camera at me and it was obvious that he despised me. I am thankful for this man most of all because he humiliated me to such a point that, as I began the process of my arrest, I was completely undone.

I've been reading Witness by Whittaker Chambers and am nearing the end of the book. That last sentence strikes me as something Chambers could have written. If Curell had gone forward for arrest filled with pride and self-righteousness at his bravery, the witness he bore would somehow have been cheapened. Instead, he went to his arrest as a broken man, representing the broken state of a nation in which a woman could be starved to death by court order.

Curell finishes his account by recounting the cool reception he received from his five-year-old daughter, who had learned of his arrest. I encourage you to read the entire article.

From Blogs for Terri: She passed away at around 10 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. There is word that her parents were not allowed to be with her at the end.

May the Angels lead you into paradise;
may the martyrs greet you at your arrival
and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem.
May the choir of Angels greet you
and like Lazarus, who once was a poor man,
may you have eternal rest.

Kevin McCullough has a sharp rebuttal to an all-too-typical angry attack on those of us who are supporting Terri Schiavo's right to live. Kevin's correspondent hits all the usual talking points, some of which have appeared in comments on this site, and Kevin's response is worth reading.

Kevin has also assembled a moving audio montage about Terri, backed by Phil Collins' "Another Day in Paradise" -- you'll find it here, and Kevin is offering it to any radio host who wishes to use it on air.

Here is a stunning essay in the Harvard Crimson by Harvard student Joe Ford. Joe has severe cerebral palsy, bad enough that people assume he is cognitively disabled because of his articulation and muscle tone. Only have time enough for one excerpt:

The result of this disrespect is the devaluation of lives of people like Terri Schiavo. In the Schiavo case and others like it, non-disabled decision makers assert that the disabled person should die because he or she�ordinarily a person who had little or no experience with disability before acquiring one��would not want to live like this.� In the Schiavo case, the family is forced to argue that Terri should be kept alive because she might �get better��that is, might be able to regain or to communicate her cognitive processes. The mere assertion that disability (particularly cognitive disability, sometimes called �mental retardation�) is present seems to provide ample proof that death is desirable.

Essentially, then, we have arrived at the point where we starve people to death because he or she cannot communicate their experiences to us. What is this but sheer egotism? Regardless of one�s religious beliefs, this is obviously an attempt to play God.

Hat tip to Sierra Faith.

No one can say now that Terri Schiavo was on artificial life support. She has survived ten days without food or water, and it is reported that she is still responsive to visitors and that there are indications that she is not completely dehydrated. It may be that she is being sustained in some miraculous way, and we need to pray that God will deliver her from the hands of those who seek her death.

Many have said that Terri isn't there any more, just an empty shell, and it's time her family let her go to be with Jesus. There are complaints about the hypocrisy of conservatives for seeking Federal intervention in what should be a state matter. Certain blasé bloggers prefer to shrug their shoulders -- it's tragic, sure, but there are plenty of other tragedies in the world.

Here is what seems so outrageous to me. This is why I cannot let go of this situation: Despite credible testimony that Terri is responsive and therefore not in a persistent vegetative state, despite credible testimony that she could take nutrition and water by mouth, Judge Greer refuses to hear any new testimony, refuses to permit new testing, refuses to consider that his finding of fact from nearly 10 years ago may have been in error. He is so determined that this woman die that no one is permitted to attempt to give her nutrition and water by mouth. If Terri were miraculously to get up from her bed and try to get herself a drink, I wouldn't be surprised if the judge ordered her bound and gagged. Her death seems to be the only satisfactory outcome to Judge Greer.

We need to continue to pray that God would sustain Terri physically and emotionally, as well as her parents; that God would change Michael's heart; and that God would change Judge Greer's heart, too.

Tim and David Bayly, the PCA pastors who have been blogging from outside the hospice, are headed back to Ohio. Their last entries from the scene are well worth reading and pondering. One of these entries is a doctrinal statement on euthanasia, footnoted with Scripture and the PCA's doctrinal standards. (In the excerpt, I've interpolated the text of the footnotes.) The statement makes an important distinction between treatment and care:

Today there are mounting pressures upon medical professionals, pastors, families, and individuals to hasten the death of those under their care or authority. Such hastening sometimes takes the form of direct action, such as a lethal injection. More commonly, it takes the passive form of neglect or withdrawal of the necessary means of preservation of life. (Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 135,136.) Such means include medical treatment, both extraordinary and ordinary. But they also include basic provisions historically understood as care: warmth, cleanliness, food, water, and love. Christians must distinguish between "treatment" and "care."

Where medical treatment which is not gravely burdensome is necessary for an individual to continue to live, the withdrawal of such treatment--except in cases where death is imminent and inevitable and to continue such treatment would pose a grave risk or cause more of a burden to the patient than it would alleviate--is a violation of the image of God which all men and women bear.

Loving care for all members of the human community is a fundamental Christian teaching and an obligation of Christian discipleship. (1 Timothy 5:4-8; James 1:27) Therefore it ought never to be withheld. This includes providing liquids and nutrition through spoon-feeding or tubes where the patient is unable to take them by another manner. Withholding such necessary means for the preservation of life must, therefore, stand under Scripture's condemnation, (Exodus 20:13; Matthew 25:31-46; James 2:14-17) even in the case of those who are perpetually comatose or in a persistent vegetative state. Christians should also ensure that members of the human community are upheld with the warmth and love of human contact.

Although it doesn't bear directly on Terri's situation, the final post from the site has some interesting observations on the way Protestants and Catholics worked together outside the hospice.

Be sure to keep an eye on Blogs for Terri for the latest news and what you can do to help.

David Bayly has all the day's developments from outside Terri Schiavo's hospice.

Dr. Boyle at CodeBlueBlog is a radiologist. He has looked at the CT scan of Terri's brain from 1996 and takes issue with the oft-repeated assertion that Terri's brain has "liquefied":

First of all, the University of Miami's appellation for this scan is inaccurate. "Cortical regions" are not and can not be filled with spinal fluid. The sulci (spaces between cortical ribbons) are enlarged secondary to cortical atrophy and these sulci are filled with cerbrospinal fluid.

The most alarming thing about this image, however, is that there certainly is cortex left. Granted, it is severely thinned, especially for Terri's age, but I would be nonplussed if you told me that this was a 75 year old female who was somewhat senile but fully functional, and I defy a radiologist anywhere to contest that.

I HAVE SEEN MANY WALKING, TALKING, FAIRLY COHERENT PEOPLE WITH WORSE CEREBRAL/CORTICAL ATROPHY. THEREFORE, THIS IS IN NO WAY PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE THAT TERRI SCHIAVO'S MENTAL ABILITIES OR/OR CAPABILITIES ARE COMPLETELY ERADICATED. I CANNOT BELIEVE SUCH TESTIMONY HAS BEEN GIVEN ON THE BASIS OF THIS SCAN.

He notices a shunt in her left ventricle, and that raises all sorts of questions, questions that can only be answered by a repeat CT scan, as well as an MRI and a PET scan. He sees all the classic signs of hydrocephalus.

Dr. Boyle also looked at the 1991 bone scan report:

Certainly IN A CHILD (which Schiavo, obviously was not), the combination of posterior rib fractures, vertebral compression fractures, and distal femoral periosteal elevation is ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY DIAGNOSTIC for child abuse and any radiologist who missed this diagnosis would be subject to disciplinary action from his peers and state licensing board.

The Evangelical Outpost points out the effect on this case of Florida's abolition of common-law marriage and adoption of no-fault divorce laws.

David Wayne, the Jollyblogger, asks if Christians are viewing this situation, and in particular, Michael Schiavo, from a cross-centered perspective:

Viewing Michael through a cross-centered lens won't change the sinfulness of his actions. Viewing Michael through a cross-centered lens won't change our obligation to rescue those being led away to slaughter. Viewing Michael through a cross-centered lens won't change our obligation to voice our opposition to the laws that make the starvation of a person like Terri possible.

But we are also faced with how we are to respond to Michael as a person. Put more precisely, how does the gospel guide our response to Michael as a person? If all should go his way, how should the Christian community react to him in the future? ...

I fear that, for the rest of Michael's life, Christians will be praying for his comeuppance more than they will for his salvation. Christians will be mostly concerned that Michael receive justice for his part in this rather than mercy.

I also fear that Michael will receive a lifetime of hate messages from professing Christians. ...

I have to confess that, until now I have not looked at Michael through gospel eyes, or through a cross-centered lens. I have committed the sin of moral indignation, forgetting that I am the chief of sinners. I have also forgotten my favorite of Jonathan Edwards' resolutions:

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. July 30.

None of us should dare think that Michael has sunk to a level of "vileness" to which we ourselves have not sunk.

Read the whole thing.

(Hat tip to Michael Spencer, posting at Boar's Head Tavern for the links to the Evangelical Outpost and Jollyblogger entries.)

My friend John Eagleton, an attorney here in Tulsa, just called me with an idea for saving Terri Schiavo's life, now that the Federal appellate court has ruled against the Schindlers' appeal. He says it will require some guts on the part of the executive branch, either in Florida or at the federal level, and a prosecutor willing to fudge a little.

Everyone is guilty of breaking some law. A prosecutor could charge Terri with a crime, issue a warrant for her arrest, and take her into custody, at which point the state would be responsible for maintaining her well-being until she can stand trial. That would mean medical care and food and water. The state would not be allowed to starve to death someone in custody awaiting trial. Of course, the trial would have to be stayed until such time as Terri is competent to defend herself.

Seems to me that venue would matter in this case -- the prosecutor would have to cooperate, as would the judge to whom her criminal case would be assigned. Which crime is used for the charge would matter, too. How would you keep Michael Schiavo from bailing her out so he can continue to starve her to death?

As Dave Barry says, "I am not making this up." X-ATI Guy links to the website of Wait Wear, which offers a line of pro-chastity T-shirts and underwear. The underwear comes in bikini-cut, "bum bottom classic" and boy brief styles and sports slogans like "No vows, no sex," "I'm saving it," and "Traffic Control: Wait for Marriage."

I appreciate the intention, and it certainly sends a better message than, say, a thong with a built-in condom pocket, but I'm inclined to think that the pro-abstinence message will be lost once he and she are down to their skivvies. And if there is any hope of stopping the countdown to ignition at that point, it will be undone by the presence of words which invite the other party to gaze intently at the groinal region of the wearer.

As tiny as the lettering is, one of the slogans ought to be, "If you can read this, you're too close."

Wait Wear underwear is available in Atlanta at Tease, 1166 Euclid Ave. and other fine stores nationwide.

UPDATE: Oh, my. Wait Wear wants their customers to send in pictures of themselves wearing Wait Wear products. For their online gallery. Right. Online pictures of teenagers in their underpants is a well-known encouragement to chaste thinking and behavior.

As X-ATI Guy responded to a commenter: "'Chastity is not a joke.' Agreed. But proclaiming your chastity on your underpants is."

PCA pastor David Bayly continues his thorough and thought-provoking reporting from the Pinellas Park hospice where Terri Schiavo is being starved and dehydrated to death. From his latest dispatch:

Perhaps one of the more pressing questions facing many at the site is what role disobedience to the law should play in seeking to preserve Terri's life....

The police presence is so heavy--increasingly so as time goes by--that any action seems hopeless practically, and thus only useful as a statement. Yet many are questioning whether such a statement should be made. Should a hopeless-but-righteous action not be taken because it appears hopeless?

On the other hand, the desire of the Schindler family not to have their daughter's suffering become more of a circus is also significant, and until such time as appeals are exhausted, it would seem their wishes should be respected.

Still, there is more.... Terri's case has come to represent abiding and fundamental principles of justice and righteousnes. What is at stake in her treatment by society will influence our nation for years to come.

In the end, while we follow the will of God established in His Word and applied by the Holy Spirit to our lives, our hope remains in Him and His power alone.

Earlier, Bayly posted news from those who have visited Terri inside the hospice and some analysis of the cynical gamesmanship he sees in Judge Whittemore's ruling on the Schindlers' motion to reinsert Terri's feeding tube:

In court yesterday it was clear that David Gibbs was making a charged decision in answering Judge Whittemore's question about Judge Greer's status in his complaint and whether he wanted to attach Judge Greer personally to the complaint. Gibbs hesitated, then stated that he saw no reason to attach Greer personally and only sought to deal with his rulings in his legal capacity as a judge. Though Gibbs did say that he might wish to expand his suit later to include others, including the possibility of charging Michael Schiavo with perjury, he confined himself to the record in his initial filing.

I remember praying for wisdom for David at that point in the trial. It seemed like Judge [Whittemore] was asking, �Are you really going to go after my fellow judge personally?� Today, it looks like Judge Whittemore had indeed set a trap with his insistent questions, a trap which last night he sprang shut by saying that since no new issues were raised there was nothing beyond the previous court record to consider and because that was completely against the Schindler family, there exists no possibility of winning after further review and thus there is no cause for injunctive relief.

Clang. The cynic springs his trap. But it�s not David Gibbs or Terri Schiavo whose soul lies in chains as a result of Judge Whittemore�s legal niceties.

Psalm 140:5-8 (ESV) 5 The arrogant have hidden a trap for me, and with cords they have spread a net; beside the way they have set snares for me. Selah 6 I say to the LORD, You are my God; give ear to the voice of my pleas for mercy, O LORD! 7 O LORD, my Lord, the strength of my salvation, you have covered my head in the day of battle. 8 Grant not, O LORD, the desires of the wicked; do not further their evil plot or they will be exalted! Selah

There's more, and Bayly is updating regularly throughout the day.

Another insightful report from PCA pastor David Bayly, who is keeping vigil outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is being starved to death by judicial fiat.

Before other observations, we must start with the grave observation that Terri has now been deprived of nutrition and water--has, in a word, been starved--for over three full days. This is incipient murder. No opinion poll, judge, politician or law on earth can make it anything else. May God have mercy on America for this blot upon our national conscience. Judges of America, there is a higher tribunal, a bar before which you will one day answer. But just as Daniel includes himself in his prayer of repentance for the national sins of Israel, so all Americans must seek God's forgiveness for this sin WE are committing.

Bayly observes: "A strange brotherhood of Roman Catholic believers and Reformed Protestant believers has developed at the site." He speaks admiringly of the Christ-like character evident in some of the protesters, such as this man:

David Gibbs, the Schindler's attorney, has a brother who pastors a Baptist church in this area. Members of the church have been wonderfully faithful in demonstrating for Terri. One young father, (what was his first name?) Adams, was exceptional last night. He witnessed with such kindness for hours to the lone anti-Terri protestor (actually, just a hurting young man) that by the end of the night the protestor was saying that he supported Terri and wanted to see her fed.

In an earlier entry, Bayly gives a report from the Federal courtroom in Tampa. Michael Schiavo's attorney is arguing that the law passed by Congress is unconstitutional. Gibbs must file a brief in reply, and it has to be thorough enough to respond to the judge, but ready early enough to help save Terri. For whatever reason, the judge has not granted injunctive relief to keep Terri alive while arguments are heard.

In case you're wondering, yes, Federal Judge James D. Whittemore is a Clinton appointee.

As soon as Terri's Law was signed by President Bush, Terri Schiavo's parents, the Schindlers, filed a motion in Federal court to have Terri's feeding tube reinserted. For whatever reason, the assigned judge, James D. Whittemore, did not grant the motion immediately. The hearing will be at 3:00 p.m. at Tampa's Federal courthouse.

David Bayly, a blogger and PCA pastor who has been keeping vigil outside the hospice, writes:

By faith we have the avenue of greatest power at our disposal. Will you join us in prayer to God the Father Almighty for Terri and the Schindler family?

Patsy Brekke posted a comment on that entry worth meditating on:

You are right, we need to look up and out, to the Cross, to Christ, to God the Father of Life first and foremost - not to man, politics, the media or our own wisdom and strength.

Lowborn men are but a breath,
the highborn are but a lie;
if weighed on a balance, they are nothing;
together they are only a breath...

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
My hope comes from Him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
He is my mighty rock, my refuge.

Trust in Him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to Him,
for God is our refuge.

from Psalm 62

The House just adjourned, having passed the Senate version of Terri's Law (S. 686) by a vote of 203-58. All but a handful of Republicans voted in favor, joined by about 40 Democrats present. The bill now goes to the President for his signature.

Watching C-SPAN's coverage of U. S. House debate on Terri Schiavo bill. Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, speaking from the well of the House, told his colleages that 10 courts and 19 judges have heard all the testimony in the case and all reached the same conclusion. Utter baloney -- only one court and one judge heard all the testimony and saw all the evidence, and that's the heart of the problem.

Barney Frank, D-Mass., is managing the opposition to the bill. He just declined to give one of his speakers a turn, reserving time for later, making some comment about an imbalance between the two sides, which would seem to suggest that there is more support for congressional intervention in this case.

If you don't have access to cable TV, but do have broadband, you can watch the debate via C-SPAN's website.

When I read something like this, I feel like I was born too late and missed out on all the good stuff. Jeffrey Hart, who at age nine had a season pass to the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, remembers the fair, "the last great fair, innocent in its faith."

It believed in Progress as a comprehensive idea. We no longer have that kind of belief. We believe in advances�in transportation, medicine, communications, computers, longevity, and so on, but not in Progress as a central animating idea, one that gives meaning to life.

Hart takes us inside the Perisphere to Democracity, the planned model city (residences, industries, and offices carefully segregated from each other) of America's future, then out to the Amusement Zone with its parachute rides, Zombies, and freak shows.

Hat tip to Power Line's Big Trunk, whose entry includes links to an earlier essay by Hart and to a collection of images from the fair.

Google News shows nearly 200 news stories covering a study recently published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The story the mainstream media seems so anxious to report is summed up in the Tulsa Whirled's headline: "Virginity pledges are ineffective in curbing teen STDs, study finds." The story in the Whirled is actually out of the Washington Post, where it bears the slightly more balanced headline, "Teen Pledges Barely Cut STD Rates, Study Says."

How could this possibly be? It appears to hinge upon what teens are taught and made to understand about the meaning of abstinence:

David Bayly, who is outside the hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, where Terri Schiavo is put to death by starvation and dehydration, has been posting some challenging observations on the interaction between protesters on both sides of the issue, the media, and the authorities. Here's a sample from yesterday:

...[N]on-Christians at the scene could easily come to the conclusion that Christians trust primarily in the power of government. There was little sense of reliance on a transcendently powerful, sovereign God in press conference performances (though an evening sermon by a Pastor Rob Schenck did provide such hope). Our trust, it seems, is in Messrs. Hastert, DeLay, Bush, etc. The arm of God is puny in the eyes of some, the arm of man all-too-powerful. This attitude seemed reflected in public prayer sessions which occasionally descended into Potemkin prayer villages. Perhaps the desire for ecumenicity blunted the power of prayer times, though ecumenicity was solely Christian and did not extend to denying the name of Christ.

Bayly, a PCA pastor, would like to see more of his compatriots on the scene:

How wonderful it would be to have 100 normal, thoughtful, engaged Reformed evangelicals here to witness. Opportunities are frequent and powerful, but there don't seem to be many here who are seeking to engage the other side. There's a fair bit of niceness to the other side and a fair bit of anger, but not much attempt at engagement.

And here's an observation from earlier today:

Many opportunities to witness here. Fantastic opportunity. Sadly, however, several conversations with media personnel and pro-Michael demonstrators have been cut short by angry and intrusive pro-Terri demonstrators. Dave and I are wearing navy sportcoats, and it may be that pro-Terry demonstrators feel free to interrupt us assuming we're journalists they're helping by adding to the color of our stories.

Pray for Terri, pray for those who are causing Terri's death to have a changed heart, and pray for those who are demonstrating to bear witness in word and deed to God's power and goodness.

The defiance of Judge George Greer continues to block every effort to allow some other body to consider the facts of Terri Schiavo's situation, rather than relying on Greer's own very suspect findings of fact. Greer rejected the subpoena ordering the appearance of Terri Schiavo before a congressional committee and ordered the execution to proceed.

As you pray and seek for other ways to help Terri, here are some sources of information, in addition to Blogs for Terri and Terri's Fight:

Last night through the fog of congressional maneuvering, Google News seemed to be the best way to find an aggregate of the latest developments. Here's a link to a Google News search on "Schiavo" sorted by most recent.

David Bayly, a PCA pastor and a blogger for World Magazine, is in Pinellas Park, Florida, keeping vigil outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo is now being starved and dehydrated to death. He is reporting from the scene as news filters out to the crowd gathered there. Tomorrow he'll be joined there by other PCA pastors and World Magazine publisher Joel Belz.

I'm seeing conflicting information about the status of legislative efforts to prevent the starvation execution of Terri Schiavo, which will begin, by order of Pinellas County, Florida, Judge George Greer, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time today.

The U. S. House passed a bill (HR 1332) on Wednesday that would give a Federal court an opportunity to review the facts of such cases. According to the Tampa Tribune, a unanimous consent request to hear the bill in the Senate failed because of the objection of Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a pro-death advocate. The newspaper reported that the Senate succeeded later in passing a private relief bill applying only to Terri, but by then the House had recessed for the month. There's talk of reconvening the House, but many members have already gone back to their districts. Blogs for Terri still seems to hope that this is possible.

Meanwhile the Florida Senate defeated a bill, by a vote of 21-16, which would have set a higher standard for withdrawing food and water from a PVS patient -- there must be either a written advance directive from the patient, or clear and convincing evidence of the patient's wishes. Nine Republicans voted with the Democrats to stop the bill.

As I've said before -- local and state elections matter to the cause of protecting human life. Primary elections matter to the cause of protecting human life. Terri's situation is the result of an elected judge who rejects crucial evidence, the elected sheriff and district attorney of Pinellas County, who refuse to intervene in an apparent case of abuse and neglect, and the Florida legislature, which passed legislation about five years ago categorizing food and water as "life-extending" treatment. Don't assume that if your state legislator is Republican that he's on the right side of this issue.

Last night the U. S. House of Representatives passed, by voice vote, HR 1332, the Protection of Incapacitated Persons Act of 2005. This bill gives an incapacitated person, or the "next friend" of an incapacitated person (a term that would include parents), the right to pursue a cause of action on behalf of the incapacitated person in Federal district court. The Federal court would be authorized determine "whether authorizing or directing the withholding or withdrawal of food or fluids or medical treatment necessary to sustain the incapacitated person's life constitutes a deprivation of any right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States." Unlike HR 1151, this bill makes no reference to habeas corpus.

The determination would be made de novo -- that means the court would hear the case as if it had never been heard before and would consider arguments and evidence. In a situation like Terri Schiavo's, it would mean an incapacitated person's life would not be in the hands of one judge only. Yesterday's NRO piece by Rob Johansen documents Pinellas County, Florida, Judge George Greer's shortcomings in considering medical evidence and explains the bizarre reality that Judge Greer's findings of fact can only be reversed by Judge Greer.

Judge Greer has decreed that Terri's slow death will begin tomorrow at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Everything now depends upon the U. S. Senate taking action quickly. Please contact Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (phone 202-224-3344, fax 202-228-1264) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (phone 202-224-3542, fax 202-224-7327) and urge them to move this bill forward. If you're a Floridian, there is legislation pending in Tallahassee that needs your help -- click here for more information.

NOTE: Action is urgently needed on the Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act. Please contact Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (phone 202-224-3344,
fax 202-228-1264) and Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (phone 202-225-2976, fax 202-225-0697) and plead with them to expedite passage of this bill.

Today on National Review Online, Rob Johansen has a thorough rebuttal to those (like one persistent anonymous commenter on this blog) who claim that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and that her brain has liquefied. Johansen reviews the decisions made by Judge George Greer, the qualifications of the expert witnesses whose testimony he allowed and of those he disallowed. Regarding the PVS diagnosis, Johansen has been interviewing neurologists:

Almost 50 neurologists all say the same thing: Terri should be reevaluated, Terri should be reexamined, and there are grave doubts as to the accuracy of Terri�s diagnosis of PVS. All of these neurologists are board-certified; a number of them are fellows of the prestigious American Academy of Neurology; several are professors of neurology at major medical schools. ...

One such neurologist is Dr. Peter Morin. He is a researcher specializing in degenerative brain diseases, and has both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Boston University.

In the course of my conversation with Dr. Morin, he made reference to the standard use of MRI and PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans to diagnose the extent of brain injuries. He seemed to assume that these had been done for Terri. I stopped him and told him that these tests have never been done for her; that Michael had refused them.

There was a moment of dead silence.

�That�s criminal,� he said, and then asked, in a tone of utter incredulity: �How can he continue as guardian? People are deliberating over this woman�s life and death and there�s been no MRI or PET?� He drew a reasonable conclusion: �These people [Michael Schiavo, George Felos, and Judge Greer] don�t want the information.�

My friend Dave Russ sends along a link to this 20-question Southern dialect quiz based on Harvard's survey of regional dialects. The quiz looks mainly at word choice: Is the generic term for a soft drink soda, pop, or Coke? Do you carry groceries in a bag, a sack, or a poke? Is the second person plural "you all," "y'all," "youse guys," or "you'uns."

I had a strongly Southern score, which I partly owe to my Connecticut Yankee eighth grade Latin teacher, who taught us to conjugate verbs after this fashion: "I love, you love, he loves, we love, y'all love, they love."

Dave, a Mobile native, only scored a 60, his dialect no doubt compromised by years in southern California and south Florida. I outdistanced him with a 76. Top that, y'all!

Andrew Dobbs of the Burnt Orange Report, a left-leaning Texas political blog, was appalled by news of infant euthanasia in the Netherlands. His dismay at that news led him along a chain of reasoning to a conclusion he did not expect to reach:

Mikki went to the annual banquet for MEND Pregnancy Resource Center this evening along with several friends. (I hated to miss it, but I had to attend the City Council meeting and then rehearse with Coventry Chorale for an upcoming evensong service.)

The speaker tonight was Valeska Littlefield, who has been leading the charge in Oklahoma for informed consent legislation -- to insure that women who are considering an abortion go into it understanding the developmental stage of their baby and the short-term and long-term medical risks. She is executive director of Pregnancy HopeLine, a 24-hour referral network for all area pregnancy resource centers, and Life Network of Green Country. That website provides information for women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy situation. The hope is that by providing information and support to women in crisis, abortion will truly become rare.

Valeska told about getting an abortion as a young woman, not because she wanted to, but because her parents insisted. When her younger sister later became pregnant, but went to a crisis pregnancy center and decided to keep the baby, her parents kicked the sister out of the house and changed the locks. Valeska resented the fact that her sister didn't get an abortion, but also grew to hate and distrust women, because the woman who was supposed to protect her -- her own mom -- didn't. Mikki got choked up all over again relating this to me.

Some years later Valeska was invited by a friend to attend a fashion show. It was a benefit for MEND, and Valeska learned about the organization and joined a 12-week support class for post-abortive women. She went through the class three times in the process of grieving and healing. Valeska said she's thankful for all those who fight abortion for the sake of the unborn, but she's in the fight for the sake of the women who have been wounded by abortion.

Related resources:

• Here's MEND's January newsletter (Adobe Reader required).

• The blog After Abortion is a resource for women who have had an abortion. You can find the guiding principles for the blog here.

No time or energy to blog tonight. I'll be on the air again with Gwen Freeman on Tulsa's Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ from 5:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Central time. As always, you're encouraged to check out the blogrolls to the right on the home page. On my main blogroll, the most recently updated blogs are at the top.

Some links of note:

• Tulsa Topics has thorough coverage of yesterday's council meeting (here and here) with links to video and a comparison of the standards used on the 71st and Harvard protest petition and the recall petitions.

• HFFZ has more commentary on the meeting.

• Here's KTUL's coverage.

• And some discussion on the recall on TulsaNow.org

• Dan Lovejoy liveblogged a conservative (Dinesh D'Souza) v. libertarian (Doug Bandow) debate on America's role in the world.

• The Penitent Blogger wants those who have hijacked the Episcopal Church to find themselves another name:

  The reality, therefore, is that traditional Episcopalians have the right to refer to themselves as such, while those members of ECUSA who have hijacked the Church from Her faithful and abandoned two millenia of Scripture, history and tradition should stop calling themselves Episcopalians and should choose another term which more adequately describes the new religion they have invented.

  (For some reason, I'm thinking of cowbirds right now.)

• In the comments to an earlier post, Charles G. Hill manages to combine two prominent BatesLine topics in a single sentence. If you're an observer of Tulsa land use policy, click that link.

• Scott Sala got some training on how to collect petition signatures. In NYC, it's complicated enough that you need some good training to make sure the petition is treated as valid.

• Kevin McCullough alerts us to the firing of a professor at the University of Colorado. No, not pro-terrorist pseudo-Indian Ward Churchill, but Phil Mitchell, an award-winning history professor, who is Christian and conservative.

Hmm. Guess I blogged anyway.

Just got an e-mail from the office of Tulsa's congressman, John Sullivan. Rep. Sullivan is one of the co-sponsors of H.R. 1151, the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act.

In the U. S. Senate, the same bill has been introduced by Florida Sen. Mel Martinez as S. 539. Half of the four co-sponsors are Oklahoma's senators, Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) are the other two sponsors.

Isn't it nice to be represented in Congress by men who know the right thing to do and will do it without needing to be pressured and prompted?

If you are not so blessed, get on the phones to your congressman and senators and urge them to support H.R. 1151 and S. 539 and to help move these bills along through the legislative process. Time is of the essence -- the court order that allows Terri Schiavo to be starved to death is still in force and will take effect in just 9 days.

Here is the Family Research Council's summary of the legislation, which is S. 539 in the Senate:

The right to counsel is a right even criminals enjoy, so why shouldn't Terri and others like her have that precious right? The bill, called "Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act" will not apply to circumstances where an advance medical directive is in effect. Terri never signed such a directive.

The Act simply provides a final avenue of review of the case to insure that a disabled person's Constitutional rights are protected. It is hard to believe that Terri's Constitutional rights have been protected by her husband and his attorney, euthanasia advocate George Felos. Terri's husband has refused to allow her to be represented by separate counsel. He has also refused to allow the rehabilitation therapy that some prominent experts say would help Terri to improve. He has often prohibited her own family and priest from visiting her.

And now the clock is ticking. A judge has ordered that Terri's husband can stop Terri from being fed on March 18. Euthanasia advocates say that she should be "allowed to die" - and FRC agrees. That time will come for one and all! But Terri should not be killed - and what else do you call starvation?

Rob Johansen of Thrown Back reviews Judge Greer's latest rulings in the Terri Schiavo case, denying nearly everyone of her parents' requests, including the request that she be allowed to die at their home, instead of in a hospice and that she be allowed to receive her last communion by mouth. Greer has yet to rule whether Terri should be fed by mouth when the feeding tube is removed. Johansen shows that these rulings aren't about ending artificial life support but making absolutely sure that Terri ends up dead:

Judge Greer's rulings against the Schindlers on the matter of feeding by mouth and viaticum seem to me most indicative of his frame of mind: By precluding attempts, as a "last ditch" measure, to feed her by mouth, the Judge shows that his object is not merely to stop what he might argue (erroneously) is an "extraordinary" means of support, but to see to it that she dies. One might make an analogy to someone on a respirator: frequently respirators are removed from patients, but sometimes they continue to breathe on their own without support. It is as though a judge were to order not only that a respirator be removed, but that the patient's mouth and nose be sealed with duct tape, just to make sure he can't get any air by any means.

Charles G. Hill writes about the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act, a bill in Congress that would extend habeas corpus protection to ensure that there is due process when there is a dispute about the wishes or interests of an incapacitated person regarding medical treatment. The constitutional basis of the bill is the Fourteenth Amendment: Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, "No State ... shall deprive any person of life ... without due process of law...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

You can help Terri and others in similar situations by writing your congressman and encouraging him to support this bill, H.R. 1151. Here's a link to help you contact your U. S. Representative and your U. S. Senators. And here's the press release from the bill's House sponsor, Dave Weldon (R-Florida).

This topic isn't on my usual beat, but I have to give credit to a local TV station for handling it with a degree of maturity and depth. It got me thinking about why people would do such a thing, and that got me thinking about the nature of genuine intimacy.

It's not even a ratings period, as far as I know -- maybe February sweeps extends a few days into March? -- but KTUL, Tulsa's ABC affiliate, did a story about "swinging" couples earlier this week. What was notable -- and commendable -- about the story was that, after a bit of obligatory luridness, they spoke to a Christian counselor about the effect of this form of adultery on relationships and emotions:

A commenter on an earlier entry wrote:

I'm afraid it's too late for Terri Shiavo [sic] for a more political campaign. It should be a lesson to all of us; If you state your wishes for euthanasia, get it in writing.

So the claim here is that Terri Schiavo stated a wish to be euthanized if confronted with the kinds of disabilities she now suffers, and that there would be no controversy if only she had committed her wish to writing.

Assuming that's true, for the sake of argument, is euthanasia what Judge Greer has ordered for Terri in just over two weeks' time?

As one of over 200 bloggers writing to support Terri Schiavo's right to receive food and water, despite her physical handicaps, I appreciate the hard work of the organizers of Blogs for Terri. I admire their efforts to think outside the box -- to find some creative way to break through the fog of mainstream media misconceptions about Terri's condition, to help Floridians understand what is really going on, so that they can apply pressure on all branches of Florida government to see that justice is done. What I'm about to say is offered in the spirit of constructive criticism.

I was pleased to see the effort to place a newspaper ad in the St. Petersburg Times, the daily paper in Pinellas County, where Terri is being warehoused by her husband. The purpose of the ad was to put out the truth about Terri and direct readers to online resources where they could get the details. I was pleased to see that the fundraising effort succeeded. I was disappointed to hear of the Times' threats to censor the ad, but happy to learn that the Tampa Tribune agreed to run it as is.

But when I saw the ad, my heart sank. As I thought about it, I started to think about the problem in a different way, which pointed to an entirely different approach.

NOTE: Blogs for Terri has a fact sheet on Terri Schiavo's condition and the history of her legal situation. If you're just learning about Terri's situation, the fact sheet is the place to start.

If you think the title of this entry is too melodramatic, just read the order Judge Greer issued today (Adobe Reader required). Terri's parents had asked for an indefinite stay pending their appeal of his February 11 order, a hearing of their petition to remove Michael Schiavo as guardian, and their intention to seek review of the case by the U. S. Supreme Court. Although the judge has given Terri three more weeks to live, he has set a "date certain" and will no longer grant any more stays to prevent his execution order from being carried out. If Terri's parents want a stay, they'll have to make their case to an appeals court. From the order:

The Court is persuaded that no further hearing need be required but that a date and time certain should be established so tha tlast rites and other similar matters can be addressed in an orderly manner. Even though the Court will not issue another stay, the scheduling of a date certain for implementation of the February 11, 2000 ruling will give Respondents ample time to appeal this denial, similar in duration to previous short-time stays granted for that purpose. Therefore it is

ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Motion for Emergency Stay filed on February 15, 2005, is DENIED. It is further

ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that absent a stay from the appellate courts, the guardian, MICHAEL SCHIAVO, shall cause the removal of nutrition and hydration from the ward, THERESA SCHIAVO, at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, March 18, 2005.

DONE AND ORDERED in Chambers, at Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida, at 2:50 p.m. this 25 day of February, 2005.

Note the language of that next to last paragraph -- "shall cause," not "may cause." Judge Greer has sentenced Terri Schiavo to be starved to death for the crime of being unable to feed herself.

It is good news that the judge has granted three more weeks. Keep praying.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Grogan has had second thoughts about Terri's situation. Although he still believes that Terri lacks awareness, he points out that Terri is not dying and is not comatose. He also mentions that allegations of physical trauma causing Terri's condition haven't been fully investigated, and that her parents believe she could swallow again with therapy:

An AP story, found via Drudge:

In an investigation conducted secretly for months, the Kansas attorney general is demanding that clinics turn over the complete medical records of nearly 90 women and girls who had abortions.

Two abortion clinics are fighting the request in Kansas Supreme Court, saying the state has no right to such personal information. But Attorney General Phill Kline insisted Thursday he is simply enforcing state law.

"I have the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children," Kline, an abortion opponent, said at a news conference.

Kline is seeking the records of girls who had abortions and women who received late-term abortions.

Sex involving someone under 16 is illegal in Kansas, and it is illegal in the state for doctors to perform an abortions after 22 weeks unless there is reason to believe it is needed to protect the mother's health.

So Kansas may see men held accountable for exploiting young teenage girls, and abortionists held accountable for killing babies that had reached viability. A salute to Phill Kline for having the guts to enforce the law in the interests of protecting the innocent.

It appears that Florida Governor Jeb Bush has found a way to intervene on behalf of Terri Schiavo and stave off her husband's attempts to starve her to death.

The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) has filed a brief with Circuit Judge George Greer. The judge didn't allow a DCF attorney to speak during today's hearing, and DCF isn't saying what's in their filing, which is sealed, but the lawyers for Michael Schiavo and Terri's parents both said it had to do with allegations that Michael Schiavo abused Terri. This goes to the question of whether he is fit to act as her guardian and to make decisions about her care.

Judge Greer extended his stay until Friday at 5, and said he'd be considering whether to allow further tests to determine the level of Terri's awareness.

My friend Dave Russ sent along the official summary of HB 701, a bill that will help Terri and other similarly afflicted people:

Withholding or Withdrawal of Nutrition or Hydration from Incompetent Persons: Declares that an incompetent person is presumed to have directed health care providers to provide the necessary nutrition and hydration to sustain life; prohibits a court, proxy, or surrogate from withholding or withdrawing nutrition or hydration except under specified circumstances; provides that the presumption to provide nutrition and hydration is inapplicable under certain circumstances; conforms provisions to changes made by the act; declares that the act supersedes existing court orders otherwise applicable on or after the effective date of the act.

Effective Date: upon becoming law.

Florida readers, contact your legislators and urge them to move this bill along. Here's the committee that currently has the bill. Here's a link to the bill's status. And everyone, keep praying, especially for Judge Greer.

A commenter called MikeC, writing in response to a post on, of all places, the humor blog IMAO, proposes a common-sense approach to the ethics of Terri Schiavo's situation. The concept is brilliant, although his explanation isn't as clear as I'd like, so I'm going to paraphrase it:

Look at the two parties in this case -- Terri's husband and Terri's parents -- and the result each party is seeking. Then ask, for each party, what are the consequences of getting it wrong, if the judge grants their request.

What if Michael Schiavo succeeds in removing the feeding tube, but is wrong in his claim that Terri is a vegetable? A thinking, feeling woman will die a slow and painful death from starvation and dehydration.

What if the Schindlers succeed in taking over Terri's care, but are wrong in thinking that there is hope for rehabilitation? As MikeC put it, "they get to pay a bunch of medical bills and live with false hope." Terri, if she truly is PVS, isn't going to know or care.

If the judge decides for the husband and he's wrong, the consequences are cruel and irreversable. Terri will pay the ultimate price for her husband's error. If the judge decides for the Schindlers and they're wrong, the Schindlers will toil in vain, but they alone will bear the consequences.

WriteWingBlog has links to several testimonies from people who have first-hand experience with acute rehabilitiation or with a misdiagnosis of PVS. Hyscience's Richard has a moving story to tell, and you can understand why Terri's situation matters so much to him. And Rus Cooper-Dowda's story is amazing -- like something out of Kafka -- you must read it:

In February of 1985, I woke up in a hospital bed in Boston, MA. I couldn't see very well and I couldn't move much -- but boy could I ever hear!

I heard a terrifying discussion then that I will never, ever forget.

Around the end of my bed were a "school" of doctors in their white coats, planning when to disconnect my ventilator and feeding tube. I immediately started screaming, "I'm here!!" No one but me heard me.

They did notice my sudden agitation. They heavily sedated me. For a time, everytime I woke up I would make as much noise and move as a much as I could to show them I was "in there."

And they would, in response, heavily sedate me...

I then started spelling the same word in the air, "Don't! Don't! Don't!...."

The doctors decided that the letters I was spelling in the air were repetitive seizure activity and just happened to occur most often when they were in my room discussing killing me...I even took to writing them backwards to make it easy for them to read...

I was using Technorati to see what bloggers are saying about the Tulsa World's threats against BatesLine. Chellee of Telling Deeds posted an entry calling the World's missive "wonderfully fascist" and praising Joel Helbling's wonderful parody of it.

What caught my attention was this comment from "Apathy Bear":

Yeah, I just checked out this guy's site. His blogroll's got some interesting links. "Club for growth" is not a good sign... Also, the guy's name-dropping people like Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin. Malkin, for example, is an apologist for the Japanese internment of WWII. On the surface, Bate's claims appear legit; I have my reservations, however. I'll look into it some more. Something tells me that we're not getting the whole story from Mr. Bates.

Be sure to check out his take on the Terri Schiavo deal. I'm smelling the unpleasent reek of fundy mindrot here...

For the most part, left-leaning bloggers who've commented on the World's threats have focused on the copyright issue. They recognize that the matter affects every blogger, regardless of your ideology. So this comment shouldn't be taken as typical, but it is revealing of a certain mindset. He appears to have reservations about my credibility, reservations which are based entirely on his finding that I have conservative bloggers and organizations on my blogroll. It's as if he were saying, "I'd believe him if he were a Daily Kos reader, but Club for Growth supporters are shifty and dissembling." It really is another form of the World's blindness -- the idea that anyone with a different perspective must be stupid, unbalanced, or disingenuous.

And what about my "take" on Terri Schiavo is evidence of "fundy mindrot"? If "fundy" means someone who believes in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, I plead guilty, but it doesn't seem to have eroded my mental ability enough to keep me out of MIT or Phi Beta Kappa or to stop me from writing software for the last 25 years.

Anyway, what's "fundy" about believing that you shouldn't kill a human being by depriving her of food and water? I'd hope every one would agree with that.

Chellee's reply was quite decent:

I saw that the site has definite conservative ties. I'm not one to defend conservatives, except when it comes to constitutional issues. I believe in freedom of speech, and threatening someone in the name of copyright to shut them up doesn't sit well with me.

Judge Greer issued a temporary stay until 5:00 p.m. Wednesday. Terri's parents are seeking the opportunity to have new neurological tests performed, taking advantage of recent advances to determine her level of awareness. Greer will hear their request Wednesday at 2:45.

The effort to raise money for an ad in Sunday's St. Petersburg Times to raise public awareness is nearing its goal. You can contribute here.

There's a video I haven't seen before, showing Terri responding with laughter and other vocalizations as her dad reminisces about how, when she was a girl, she would upset her mom by letting her lazy eye turn in. If you believe that Terri is comatose or in a persistent vegetative state, you need to watch this minute long video. And if you won't watch it, ask yourself -- are you just afraid of changing your mind?

I've seen an increasing number of references to a website that has the trial court's determination of Terri's condition. But it's the trial court's findings that are at issue -- suppression of evidence, ignoring evidence. Judge Greer's findings of a persistent vegetative state don't line up with the videos and the testimony of caregivers about Terri's responsiveness and vocabulary. As I understand it, even if Judge Greer had some hidden conflict or bias that is coloring his judgment in this case, his findings of fact wouldn't be overturned, as long as he follows proper procedure. We need to pray that he will have a change of heart or that he'll be removed from the case. The videos don't show someone who has constantly been in a PVS for 15 years. Doesn't Terri deserve a judge who will give her the benefit of the doubt?

Here's a list of e-mail addresses for submitting letters to Florida newspapers. And there's a link to an example letter.

More in later entries.

PiratePundit has some original reporting on a Texas case in which a hospital wants to stop treatment of an infant with a genetic disorder and to evict him from the hospital, despite his mother's wishes that treatment continue.

In Texas, a baby has been in effect sentenced to die. He is hospitalized with a disease called thanatophoric dysplasia. A website devoted to genetic disorders says that �Infants with this condition are usually stillborn or die shortly after birth from respiratory failure; however, some children have survived into childhood with a lot of medical help.� The child in question, Sun Hudson, is four months old and has obviously survived the danger of stillbirth and has not died shortly after birth. Sun�s mother wants him to live. Doctors at the hospital where Sun was born no longer want to supply him with the �lot of medical help� he needs, and plan to shut off his oxygen supply.

PiratePundit interviewed the mother's attorney and writes that this story is not about money (the patient is covered by Medicaid), not about an untreatable condition (the hospital boasts on its website about the resources of its genetics clinic for dealing with such conditions), and it's not about pro-life politics (the attorney isn't a pro-lifer and points out that Sun Hudson has already been born).

This is about one judge who has by any objective standard allowed no due process to the child who may soon be killed or to the child�s mother. Attorney Caballero subpoenaed hospital records of Medicaid payments for the child�s treatment. The judge quashed the subpoena (meaning that he voided it) and refused to allow the mother to view those hospital records. Caballero subpoenaed the person in charge of records who could testify about the medical bills and payment. Judge McColloch quashed that subpoena. Instead, the judge ruled that the mother, in seeking to save her child�s life from a deliberate cessation of medical treatment, had �no cause of action�. The judge made that ruling based only on the petitions filed, not allowing the mother�s attorney to conduct any discovery under the normal rules of court procedure. ...

Finally before the probate court, the mother was not given the opportunity to call any witnesses or present any evidence in an evidentiary hearing. Instead, the judge ruled that the hospital may discontinue treatment of the child, based on facts not even alleged by the hospital, specifically that the judge believed the child was suffering �significant pain.� According to Caballero, when he asked how the judge had reached that finding of fact without ever having heard any testimony or conducting a hearing on the merits of the case, the judge replied, on the record, that he �probably got it from the newspaper.� Having visited the baby in the hospital, Caballero flatly denies that the child is in pain. After reflection, Caballero asked Judge McColloch to recuse himself from the case. McColloch refused.

So this poor baby is stuck with a judge that doesn't seem interested in the facts. As I understand it, the appeals court will defer to the judge as the trier of fact, as long as he made no procedural errors. This is the same problem that Terri Schiavo faces -- you may have an unjust judge who suppresses important evidence, but you're stuck with him and his rulings as long as he follows procedure.

Hat tip to the Dalek Weblog, which I found because they also have an entry about the Tulsa World's legal threats against BatesLine: "Is Tulsa the new Bunker Hill?"

The judge has denied all stays of execution, and it may be beyond the Governor's powers to grant clemency. Today at 1 p.m. Eastern time, the attorney of Terri Schiavo's estranged husband will order the removal of Terri's feeding tube and allow her to starve to death in a Clearwater, Florida, hospice.

There are still things that can be done to try to save her from that fate:

Here's what we need to do in order of priority:

1. Support (give and get readers to give) to place the [St. Petersburg Times] ad.
2. Email and telephone support HB701
3. Deluge Jeb Bush [Jeb Bush, jeb.bush@myflorida.com, 850 / 488-4441, 850 / 487-0801 (fax)]
4. Deluge President Bush
5. Blog like crazy to keep the information circulating.

The purpose of the ad, which would go in Sunday's St. Petersburg Times, is to break through the mainstream media and get the attention of Tampa area residents to hear the facts about Terri's condition.

I'll be making some phone calls to Tallahassee in the morning to the governor and legislators. I hope you will, too.

And if you're still not sure if Terri ought to be allowed to live, if you still buy the idea that Terri is comatose or in a "persistent vegetative state," please click here and see for yourself.

This item is from the satirical news blog ScrappleFace:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has, at least temporarily, saved the life of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, the Florida woman whose former husband, Michael, had planned to disconnect her feeding tube on Tuesday.

The 11th-hour reprieve came in response to a plea from the Schindler family to have Terri classified as a silver rice rat (Oryzomys argentatus), considered an endangered species by the state of Florida and the USFWS. ...

"If we can apply to get Terri classified as a different endangered species each month, we can give her several more years of life," Mr. Terry said. "I know it sounds dehumanizing, but under our laws a rat has more of a right to life than this woman."

Go read the whole thing.

(You've got to love a humor blogger who includes Calvin's Institutes and the works of B. B. Warfield in the list of Amazon recommendations on his home page.)

Dawn Eden has an entry about Planned Parenthood's objection to a Bush administration requirement that organizations must explicitly oppose prostitution in order to qualify for global AIDS funds. Not too surprising that PP would object to any policy aimed at encouraging sexual restraint.

What I found really shocking was something mentioned in a quote from an article by Population Research Institute president Steven Mosher:

"While USAID is not perfect," Mosher writes, "many in the agency would have difficulty accepting the notion, bruited about by both [the World Health Organization] and [International Planned Parenthood Federation], that abortion ('termination of pregnancy') should be used to prevent the spread of AIDS. After all, half of all babies born to HIV-positive mothers do not have the disease. As for the half that do, their plight does not justify killing them in utero, any more than it would justify killing them after birth. The position of WHO and IPPF that the spread of AIDS can be checked by abortion is no less reprehensible as saying that abortion should be used as a means of population control�an idea that many nations have forcefully rejected as genocidal."

Read that a couple of times, and let it sink in: The World Health Organization and the International Planned Parenthood Federation advocate killing the babies of HIV-positive mothers because there is a chance that the babies might be HIV-positive. Forget about the success in Uganda and elsewhere of programs that encourage abstinence and fidelity. The abstinence approach for containing AIDS is no good for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood's approach means plenty of victims to offer to their god, not to mention plenty of funding to "process" all the victims.

And, good grief -- the WHO is supposed to be in the business of preventing deaths caused by infectious disease -- encouraging immunization, developing safe supplies of drinking water, improving sanitation and nutrition. This approach to AIDS prevention is like preventing the spread of chicken pox by pumping Zyklon B into kindergarten classrooms.

US taxpayers have already donated over a billion dollars to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The Gates Foundation has given $150 million.

Here's one paper from the WHO website that advocates abortion as a way to "prevent" mother to child HIV transmission: "Anti-Retroviral Regimens for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV-1 Transmission: the Programmatic Implications." I'm sure there's more documentation to be found. Dumpster-divers, on your springboards!

Next week, a Florida hospice may stop giving food and water to a young woman who, because of injuries to her brain suffered 15 years ago, cannot feed herself. They will let her starve to death, because her husband wants her dead, and because a judge will tell them that it is OK to starve her, because her husband says so.

I say "young" -- she's my age, 41. Her name is Terri Schiavo. You have probably read about her in the news or heard about her on TV, but what you have read and heard is probably wrong.

Terri Schiavo is not comatose, nor is she in a "persistent vegetative state". She is awake, and she responds and interacts with those around her, although her ability to express herself and to interact is limited by her injury.

Terri Schiavo is not on life support. She is not on a ventilator, a heart machine, or dialysis. Her autonomous bodily functions all work without assistance.

Terri Schiavo does not have a terminal illness. She doesn't need anything more than you or I do to keep on living. She just needs help getting food and water in her.

Terri Schiavo is not a burden to her husband; at least she need not be. Her parents made a very generous offer that would keep him financially whole and allow him to "move on," if only he would commit her to their care. He rejected the offer. He just wants her dead.

Because