I’ve been reading a lot about how horrible the Republicans in government are, to be dragging the very private, personal matter of Terri Schiavo’s care into the political arena. Excuse me? As much as I’d love to side against corrupt and opportunistic trolls like Tom DeLay, I take exception with this logic.

The Schiavo case has been a matter of public legal litigation in the courts of Florida for a long time, and not because the US Congress sued anybody. Lest we forget, it was her family who sued each other, openly and in public. They wanted the public, through the people’s courts, to render a legal enforceable public decision.

Just today there’s this AP headline: Warning that Terri Schiavo was “fading quickly” and might die at any moment, her parents begged a federal appeals court Tuesday to order the severely brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube reinserted. And over the weekend, I saw her Mom on TV, begging Congress to please please please save her daughter.

The matter of the disposition of Schiavo’s care would never have been in the public legal/political forum if the husband and parents of this woman hadn’t brought it into the courts of their own free will. In fact, I don’t think any branch or entity of government has butted in here without first being supplicated to intervene. Sorry, but if you don’t want to swim with sharks, it’s best to keep your butt in the boat.

I’m sorry for the suffering of these people, but the government didn’t put that poor young woman in that hospital bed. And the rest of us would never have been involved if these folks — God bless them — had been able to work out their personal, private pathos behind closed doors.

click to enlarge

Illuminated in this Citizen Dog cartoon.

I’ve just been wracking my brain, trying to think of something that will elicit some response from someone reading this blog. I haven’t had any evidence of other life on this planet since my root canal on Tuesday. And since then, I’ve posted on half a dozen of the hottest topics. Picture me sitting here, listening to crickets.

So I’ve decided to drop a bombshell on you all, and out one of the most beloved characters in the pantheon of human experience. You may hate me for it, but I’ll go down in a blaze of glory, happy in the knowledge that at least I got you to leave a comment.

Here it goes. Like it or not, Winnie the Pooh is essentially lazy.

Yep, that is one lazyass good for nothing bear. Have you noticed how he’s always got a bunch of mostly empty, dirty honeypots lying around? Can’t be bothered with the dishwasher. It’s pathetic.

This is bound to spark controversy. I can take it. Anything is better than this relentless silence. So have at me. Pooh is a bum; one long siesta and not a damn thing to show for it. … All you have to do is click the little link that says Comments … you know you want to.

I’d just like to say that I am freaking furious with Front Page. It’s the most non-intuitive, hairbrained, unpredictable pile of runny goo I could ever hope not to encounter. Aaaaagh!

I just wasted an hour and a half trying to set up a simple page of photos of dogs. It looks like roadkill. (OK, bad analogy. But I’ll bet no one can tell my why the little hyperlink hand won’t appear when you pass you cursor over the button at the bottom of the page.) So …

While I go watch something made for television, I’d like you to enjoy this fine cartoon. It depicts Bucky and Satchel from Get Fuzzy, coming across a copy of MS Front Page; possibly the very copy I just hurled out the window.

I was just reading Pete’s blog, about a houseplant that refuses to die, and thinking about the Terri Schiavo case. Not that the two are analogous, but they do drive the mind in a common direction: death. That crossing common to all life.

All is change; all yields its place and goes. – Euripides

I wonder about death, and I have some fear. Not of leaving the body and departing into Heaven, to sing in the choir invisible. But what if there’s some spark of awareness that remains with the body in the grave, conscious of the arms locked against the cushions, the padding of the inner lid sagging against the nose….

OK, eternal claustrophobia is bad enough, though probably not rational or justified metaphysically. I don’t really believe in such a consciousness. Death ends it, where the confines of the body are concerned. But between the full sun of life and the complete night of death, there is a ladder of shadows that we cannot comprehend. God knows.

So when I see someone like Terri Schiavo, and what she’s enduring, I feel a great, dark pity. She is somewhere on that ladder, in the half-light in between, imprisoned in a damaged vessel.

What if she is alert in there, aware of her life, family, love … but with communications off-line … the lights are on but the mail can’t get through. I mean she’s not brain dead, right? She responds to people. Maybe she loves them, knows she is loved. And maybe that’s enough, love being the best there is of human life. And besides, it’s not like her treatment is medically heroic or even substantial; it’s just food and fluids. If God wanted her home, she’d be home, don’t you think?

There is a test to know whether your task in life is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.

I wouldn’t want to go through it, to be trapped just outside the world, smiling and blinking and helpless to produce a word for the world, a complaint of pain, a yawp of joy. But I can’t say I’d be in a hurry to leave, either. Not if I knew I was loved, and Terri Schiavo’s parents have made a good case that she is loved and knows it.

Where there is love and life there is hope.

Today we blog forth birthday greetings to one of my favorite writers, John Updike. He was born in 1932, the same year as my Dad.

Updike writes beautifully, and it seems notable that he was encouraged by his mother to be a writer. Not many professional writers become successful without a day job, like teaching, and perhaps his success is somewhat owing to that encouragement.

My favorite of his books – so far – is Toward the End of Time. Here, check out the first page.

Happy Birthday, Updike.

Scott Peterson – by now, he’s all checked in and cozy in his new home at San Quentin. Death Row. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. And yes, I feel bad for his family; not their fault he went totally evil in the world. But this is what he was asking for when he did what he did. And I feel worse for Laci’s family. That’s the way it is.

Robert Blake – Wha what? I still think he did it, the crazy old hasbeen. I think she was asking for it, and he obliged. (Well, she was asking for trouble; no one deserves to get shot.) This one was like OJ – a problem with the burden of proof.

Wolfowitz – Oh give me a break. The guy’s sole qualification for running the World Bank is that he helped run the country hard onto the rocks of a misbegotten war. How do these guys get these jobs? The rest of us out here have to respond to job openings with some prior experience in the field. But like Bush, he can’t even point to a single thing on his resume that’s been accomplished with honor. Score another one for the neo-con brown shirts.

Well, St. Patrick’s Day has come around again. Hard to believe; the years are spinning by in greased grooves. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all who care.

Every year, I mark March 17 in a special way, for a special reason. On March 17, 1995, my friend Mark passed away at the age of 30, following a protracted illness. So now it’s been 10 years. I remember it clearly: the call from his mother, the drive to San Jose, the funeral.

Mark was a really good guy. Quiet and good natured. A good roommate and friend. We always got along. He taught me to play backgammon, though in the intervening decade, I’ve forgotten how. I miss him. And if he were still in the world as I know it, we’d go up to Mt. Lassen, and take a hike in the melting snow.

Well, the Ides of March are come and gone, and I had my root canal today. I was in the chair for just over 100 minutes, and really it wasn’t all that bad. For me, the worst part is having to swallow, with that little rubber tarpaulin over my mouth. I have a slight fear of choking in that situation, and have to consciously urge myself to relax.

I did relax. In fact, I came close to dozing off several times. And close to freaking out only a few times. I have a good dentist and I’m sure he was quite thorough. Now, over 7 hours later, it doesn’t hurt at all. I might not even be sore tomorrow. I’m just a little drained, and watching lots of TV.

Today is the first day of Lent for Orthodox Christians like me. Here’s a poem I wrote a long time ago, when I lived in an apartment which had suffered a leaky roof, about the day we lovingly call

CLEAN MONDAY

I have decided to follow Winter’s
last storm into the ditch
beyond the wall, which becomes
a drain, a pipe to the street,
the culvert under U.S. 101.
I have been treated well
and have reached the sea
at last. Remember me
by the dark rainwater stain
down the wall of my room
and in the winds of March
that sweep the shingles
and the gutters clean.
I will come home
for Bright Week, in April
with the willow blossoms
on the altar steps
the higher altitudes of birds,
bells at midnight, the turning
of the shrouds and vestments
white. Carried inland by
the softer, warmer tides of Spring.

© 1992 by Kyle Kimberlin

What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.
-Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)