Excerpts from
"The Culture of Each Life: There are those of us who believe that under certain conditions the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love is to force them to live." by Anna Quindlen
"Arguments about Terri's case centered on something described as a "culture of life." It is an empty suit of a phrase, absent an individual to give it shape. There is no culture of life. There is the culture of your life, and the culture of mine. There is what each of us considers bearable, and what we will not bear. There are those of us who believe that under certain conditions the cruelest thing you can do to people you love is to force them to live. There are those of us who define living not by whether the heart beats and the lungs lift but whether the spirit is there, whether the music box plays...
"There are many ways in which this case has been divvied up in public. Spouse vs. parents. Liberals vs. conservatives. Secular vs. religious. But it is truly about that thing that defines free human beings: the right to self-determination instead of a one-size-fits-all approach in private matters, in those issues that take place in bedrooms and kitchens and hospices. It's a primal demand for a personal sense of control in the face of intrusive government, intrusive medicine and intrusive strangers who think holding a crucifix like a blunt instrument makes them righteous when it really only makes them sanctimonious...
"Once the feeding tube was removed, polls showed that the majority of Americans believed Terri Schiavo should be allowed to die. That's probably because they've been there. They are the true judges and lawmakers and priests. They've been at the bedside, watching someone they love in agony as cancer nipped at the spine, as the chest rose and fell with the cruel mimicry of the respirator, as the music of personality dwindled to a single note and then fell silent. They know life when they see it, and they know it when it is gone."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7305204/site/newsweek/
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Brenda RIP
I only knew Brenda for a few years. I wish I'd known her longer. She attended the local UCC church we are visiting. My daughter thought that she was great--Brenda helped out in Children's Church. I thought she was one of the bravest and most courageous people I have ever known.
My sister is the first truly courageous person I've known--not just rolling with the punches life gives out, but rising above the water. She fought and won a very serious case of colon cancer. Pretty brave stuff.
Brenda was the next brave person I've met. She was transitioning from being a male to being what she felt herself to be--a female. Not a cross-dresser as some called her. She was a female 24/7. I will really miss her. She fought a whole bunch of things, social stigma, and a lot of terrible stuff any poor soul in her situation has to endure to just be themself.
So here's to you Brenda. I'll never forget you. Neither will my daughter, who you blessed with the love and kindness you gave freely to everyone. You and my sister have given my daughter great role models. You show that women can be brave, courageous, and kick butt just like the boys. That's a precious gift in this time of renewed misogny.
________________________
Feb. 26, 1958 — March 15, 2005
Thomas RobertBROCKISH of Longmont, formerly of Boulder, died Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at his home. He was 47.
He was born Feb. 26, 1958, in Denver to Robert F. and Carol M. (Scott) Brockish. He was raised in Brigham City, Utah, and the Boulder area and graduated from Fairview High School in 1977. He moved to Longmont in 1980.
He married Linda Conlin in 1982 in Longmont. They divorced in 1984.
Mr. Brockish had worked for nearly 25 years at King Soopers. He later worked as a caregiver at Cinnamon Park in Longmont, and until his death at the Mary Sandoe House in Boulder.
He was a member of Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Mead and had been involved in the Knights of Columbus and the Legion of Mary. He also attended First Congregational United Church of Christ in Longmont.
Mr. Brockish was also known as “Brenda” by some in the community. He will be remembered for his thoughtfulness, love and compassion for his family, the elderly and the disadvantaged. He volunteered for The Center for People With Disabilities. He greatly enjoyed following local sports teams.
He is survived by his parents of Lafayette; two brothers, Tim and his wife Wendy of Idaho and Ted and his wife Julie of Saudi Arabia; five sisters, Mary Dravis-Parrish and her husband Steve Parrish of Fort Collins, Margie Padron and her husband Balt of California, Madeline Brockish of Lafayette, Milissa Brockish of California and Amy Kenney and her husband Jeff of Lafayette; seven nephews; four nieces; and a host of friends.
Mr. Brockish was preceded in death by his grandparents; and by a nephew, Ben Dravis.
Cremation arrangements have been handled by Howe Mortuary of Longmont. Mass of the Resurrection will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, March 21, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 323 Collyer St., with the Rev. Robert Whipkey as celebrant and will be preceded by a rosary at 9 a.m.
Memorial contributions may be made to Imagine! Foundation, Attn: Susan LaHoda, 1400 Dixon Ave., Lafayette 80026-2790.
My sister is the first truly courageous person I've known--not just rolling with the punches life gives out, but rising above the water. She fought and won a very serious case of colon cancer. Pretty brave stuff.
Brenda was the next brave person I've met. She was transitioning from being a male to being what she felt herself to be--a female. Not a cross-dresser as some called her. She was a female 24/7. I will really miss her. She fought a whole bunch of things, social stigma, and a lot of terrible stuff any poor soul in her situation has to endure to just be themself.
So here's to you Brenda. I'll never forget you. Neither will my daughter, who you blessed with the love and kindness you gave freely to everyone. You and my sister have given my daughter great role models. You show that women can be brave, courageous, and kick butt just like the boys. That's a precious gift in this time of renewed misogny.
________________________
Feb. 26, 1958 — March 15, 2005
Thomas RobertBROCKISH of Longmont, formerly of Boulder, died Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at his home. He was 47.
He was born Feb. 26, 1958, in Denver to Robert F. and Carol M. (Scott) Brockish. He was raised in Brigham City, Utah, and the Boulder area and graduated from Fairview High School in 1977. He moved to Longmont in 1980.
He married Linda Conlin in 1982 in Longmont. They divorced in 1984.
Mr. Brockish had worked for nearly 25 years at King Soopers. He later worked as a caregiver at Cinnamon Park in Longmont, and until his death at the Mary Sandoe House in Boulder.
He was a member of Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Mead and had been involved in the Knights of Columbus and the Legion of Mary. He also attended First Congregational United Church of Christ in Longmont.
Mr. Brockish was also known as “Brenda” by some in the community. He will be remembered for his thoughtfulness, love and compassion for his family, the elderly and the disadvantaged. He volunteered for The Center for People With Disabilities. He greatly enjoyed following local sports teams.
He is survived by his parents of Lafayette; two brothers, Tim and his wife Wendy of Idaho and Ted and his wife Julie of Saudi Arabia; five sisters, Mary Dravis-Parrish and her husband Steve Parrish of Fort Collins, Margie Padron and her husband Balt of California, Madeline Brockish of Lafayette, Milissa Brockish of California and Amy Kenney and her husband Jeff of Lafayette; seven nephews; four nieces; and a host of friends.
Mr. Brockish was preceded in death by his grandparents; and by a nephew, Ben Dravis.
Cremation arrangements have been handled by Howe Mortuary of Longmont. Mass of the Resurrection will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, March 21, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 323 Collyer St., with the Rev. Robert Whipkey as celebrant and will be preceded by a rosary at 9 a.m.
Memorial contributions may be made to Imagine! Foundation, Attn: Susan LaHoda, 1400 Dixon Ave., Lafayette 80026-2790.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Quote re Bush and Terri
"The case is full of great ironies. A large part of Terri's
hospice costs are paid by Medicaid, a program that the
administration and conservatives in Congress would sharply
reduce. Some of her other expenses have been covered by the
million-dollar proceeds of a malpractice suit - the kind of suit
that President Bush has fought to scale back."
- NPR commentator Daniel Schorr.
Frank Rich's "The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/
27Rich.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print&position=
"Senator Bill Frist, the Harvard-educated heart surgeon with presidential aspirations, announced that watching videos of Ms. Schiavo had persuaded him that her doctors in Florida were mistaken about her vegetative state - a remarkable diagnosis given that he had not only failed to examine the patient ostensibly under his care but has no expertise in the medical specialty, neurology, relevant to her case. No less audacious was Tom DeLay, last seen on "60 Minutes" a few weeks ago deflecting Lesley Stahl's questions about his proximity to allegedly criminal fund-raising by saying he would talk only about children stranded by the tsunami. Those kids were quickly forgotten as he hitched his own political rehabilitation to a brain-damaged patient's feeding tube. Adopting a prayerful tone, the former exterminator from Sugar Land, Tex., took it upon himself to instruct "millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend" to "not be afraid."
"The president was not about to be outpreached by these saps. The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Within hours he turned Ms. Schiavo into a slick applause line at a Social Security rally. "It is wise to always err on the side of life," he said, wisdom that apparently had not occurred to him in 1999, when he mocked the failed pleas for clemency of Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Texas death-row inmate, in a magazine interview with Tucker Carlson."
27Rich.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print&position=
"Senator Bill Frist, the Harvard-educated heart surgeon with presidential aspirations, announced that watching videos of Ms. Schiavo had persuaded him that her doctors in Florida were mistaken about her vegetative state - a remarkable diagnosis given that he had not only failed to examine the patient ostensibly under his care but has no expertise in the medical specialty, neurology, relevant to her case. No less audacious was Tom DeLay, last seen on "60 Minutes" a few weeks ago deflecting Lesley Stahl's questions about his proximity to allegedly criminal fund-raising by saying he would talk only about children stranded by the tsunami. Those kids were quickly forgotten as he hitched his own political rehabilitation to a brain-damaged patient's feeding tube. Adopting a prayerful tone, the former exterminator from Sugar Land, Tex., took it upon himself to instruct "millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend" to "not be afraid."
"The president was not about to be outpreached by these saps. The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Within hours he turned Ms. Schiavo into a slick applause line at a Social Security rally. "It is wise to always err on the side of life," he said, wisdom that apparently had not occurred to him in 1999, when he mocked the failed pleas for clemency of Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Texas death-row inmate, in a magazine interview with Tucker Carlson."
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Quotes
"Silence kills the soul, it diminishes its possibility to rise and fly and explore. Silence withers what makes you human. The soul shrinks, until it's nothing."
-- Marlon Riggs
"Always admit when you're wrong. You'll save thousands in therapy later -- and a few friendships too."
-- Harvey Fierstein
"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."
-- Jane Addams
"I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty."
-- Georgia O'Keefe
"As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress."
-- Marcel Proust
"Change your mind as often as possible. Just because you thought something yesterday doesn't mean you have to think it today. Don't ever become a prisoner of your own opinion."
-- Harvey Fierstein
"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."
-- Audre Lorde
"A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled."
-- James Baldwin
"Equality is more than tolerance, compassion, understanding, acceptance, benevolence, for these still come from a place of implied superiority: favors granted to those less fortunate. These attitudes suggest that there is still something wrong, something not quite right that must be overlooked or seen beyond."
-- Suzanne Pharr
"The trouble is that not enough people have come together with the firm determination to live the things which they say they believe."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
"To me an unnecessary action, or shot, or casualty, was not only waste but sin."
-- Thomas Edward Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia")
"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."
-- Michelangelo Buonarroti
"They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up at school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality. Do I hire Don King?"
-- Barney Frank U.S. Representative
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best night and day to make you everyone else, means to fight the hardest battle that any human being can fight, and to never stop fighting."
-- e.e. cummings
"Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge."
-- Gordon W. Allport
"I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot."
-- Horace Greeley
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
-- Aldous Huxley
-- Marlon Riggs
"Always admit when you're wrong. You'll save thousands in therapy later -- and a few friendships too."
-- Harvey Fierstein
"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life."
-- Jane Addams
"I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty."
-- Georgia O'Keefe
"As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress."
-- Marcel Proust
"Change your mind as often as possible. Just because you thought something yesterday doesn't mean you have to think it today. Don't ever become a prisoner of your own opinion."
-- Harvey Fierstein
"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."
-- Audre Lorde
"A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled."
-- James Baldwin
"Equality is more than tolerance, compassion, understanding, acceptance, benevolence, for these still come from a place of implied superiority: favors granted to those less fortunate. These attitudes suggest that there is still something wrong, something not quite right that must be overlooked or seen beyond."
-- Suzanne Pharr
"The trouble is that not enough people have come together with the firm determination to live the things which they say they believe."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
"To me an unnecessary action, or shot, or casualty, was not only waste but sin."
-- Thomas Edward Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia")
"A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."
-- Michelangelo Buonarroti
"They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up at school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality. Do I hire Don King?"
-- Barney Frank U.S. Representative
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best night and day to make you everyone else, means to fight the hardest battle that any human being can fight, and to never stop fighting."
-- e.e. cummings
"Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge."
-- Gordon W. Allport
"I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot."
-- Horace Greeley
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
-- Aldous Huxley
Friday, March 18, 2005
The Fundamentalist Agenda
The Fundamentalist Agenda
is absolutely natural, ancient, and powerful—but the liberal impulse makes us humane.
By Davidson Loehr
The most famous definition of fundamentalism is H. L. Mencken's: a terrible, pervasive fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun. There's something to this. Fundamentalism is too fearful, too restrictive, too lacking in faith to provide a home for the human spirit to soar or for human societies to blossom.
But there are far more fundamental things to understand about fundamentalism, especially in this age of terrorism. An adequate understanding also includes some inescapable and uncomfortable critiques of America's cultural liberalism of the last four decades. The attacks on September 11, 2001, provided us a rare revelation about fundamentalism that arrived in two installments.
First, we became vividly aware of the things some Muslim fundamentalists hate about our culture:
* They hate liberated women and all that symbolizes them. They hate it when women compete with men in the workplace, when they decide when or whether they will bear children, when they show the independence of getting abortions. They hate changes in laws that previously gave men more power over women.
* They hate the wide range of sexual orientations and lifestyles that have always characterized human societies. They hate homosexuality.
* They hate individual freedoms that allow people to stray from the rigid sort of truth they want to constrain all people. They hate individual rights that let others slough off their simple certainties.
Not much was really new in this installment of the revelation. We had seen all this before, when Khomeini's Muslim fundamentalists wreaked such havoc in Iran starting in 1979. We have long known that Muslim fundamentalism is a mortal enemy of freedom and democracy.
The surprise second installment came just a few days after 9 / 11 in that remarkably unguarded interview on The 700 Club when the Rev. Jerry Falwell told Pat Robertson, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'” These men are so media-savvy it's amazing they would say such things on the air. But it's also remarkable because in their list of “causes” of the 9 / 11 attacks, we heard almost exactly the same hate list:
* They hate liberated women who don't follow orders, who get abortions when they want them, who threaten or laugh at some men's arrogant pretensions to rule them.
* They hate the wide range of sexual orientations that have always characterized human societies. They would force the country to conform to a fantasy image of two married heterosexual parents where the husband works and the wife stays home with the children—even when that describes fewer than 25 percent of current American families.
* They hate individual freedoms that let people stray from the one simple set of truths they want imposed on all in our country. Robertson has been on record for a long time saying that democracy isn't a fit form of government unless it is run by his kind of fundamentalist Christians.
Together, the two installments make vivid the fact that “our” Christian fundamentalists have the same hate list as “their” Muslim fundamentalists.
Excerpt from a great article at
http://www.uuworld.org/2004/01/feature2.html
is absolutely natural, ancient, and powerful—but the liberal impulse makes us humane.
By Davidson Loehr
The most famous definition of fundamentalism is H. L. Mencken's: a terrible, pervasive fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun. There's something to this. Fundamentalism is too fearful, too restrictive, too lacking in faith to provide a home for the human spirit to soar or for human societies to blossom.
But there are far more fundamental things to understand about fundamentalism, especially in this age of terrorism. An adequate understanding also includes some inescapable and uncomfortable critiques of America's cultural liberalism of the last four decades. The attacks on September 11, 2001, provided us a rare revelation about fundamentalism that arrived in two installments.
First, we became vividly aware of the things some Muslim fundamentalists hate about our culture:
* They hate liberated women and all that symbolizes them. They hate it when women compete with men in the workplace, when they decide when or whether they will bear children, when they show the independence of getting abortions. They hate changes in laws that previously gave men more power over women.
* They hate the wide range of sexual orientations and lifestyles that have always characterized human societies. They hate homosexuality.
* They hate individual freedoms that allow people to stray from the rigid sort of truth they want to constrain all people. They hate individual rights that let others slough off their simple certainties.
Not much was really new in this installment of the revelation. We had seen all this before, when Khomeini's Muslim fundamentalists wreaked such havoc in Iran starting in 1979. We have long known that Muslim fundamentalism is a mortal enemy of freedom and democracy.
The surprise second installment came just a few days after 9 / 11 in that remarkably unguarded interview on The 700 Club when the Rev. Jerry Falwell told Pat Robertson, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'” These men are so media-savvy it's amazing they would say such things on the air. But it's also remarkable because in their list of “causes” of the 9 / 11 attacks, we heard almost exactly the same hate list:
* They hate liberated women who don't follow orders, who get abortions when they want them, who threaten or laugh at some men's arrogant pretensions to rule them.
* They hate the wide range of sexual orientations that have always characterized human societies. They would force the country to conform to a fantasy image of two married heterosexual parents where the husband works and the wife stays home with the children—even when that describes fewer than 25 percent of current American families.
* They hate individual freedoms that let people stray from the one simple set of truths they want imposed on all in our country. Robertson has been on record for a long time saying that democracy isn't a fit form of government unless it is run by his kind of fundamentalist Christians.
Together, the two installments make vivid the fact that “our” Christian fundamentalists have the same hate list as “their” Muslim fundamentalists.
Excerpt from a great article at
http://www.uuworld.org/2004/01/feature2.html
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Rep. Barney Frank to Secretary of Ed Spellings
"No one - not even you - has suggested that anything particularly intimate was being portrayed in this TV show, so it is apparently simply the fact that two women love each other and live together that you find so shocking that it is not fit to be broadcast. And of course that only makes sense to those who have such a negative view of those of us who are gay or lesbian that believe that we ought to be shunned in various ways.... I am by now myself used to the kind of meanness which was the basis of your decision, but I am sorry that young people all over this country who happen to be gay or lesbian have now learned that the person who has been picked by the President of the United States to help with their education has such a fundamentally negative view of their very existence."
- Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, in a letter to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings after she pressured the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) to withhold an episode of a popular children's television show "Postcards From Buster" because it included a visit to a maple sugar farm in Vermont that was run by a lesbian couple with children.
- Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, in a letter to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings after she pressured the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) to withhold an episode of a popular children's television show "Postcards From Buster" because it included a visit to a maple sugar farm in Vermont that was run by a lesbian couple with children.
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