Catching up.

Well, Spring has sprung and I am finally getting over my pneumonia. Fits of hacking are confined to a couple of fairly predictable times a day and getting up to walk across the room no longer requires a rest stop. Also found is a clarity of mind that I had forgotten existed. (Or what passes for clarity in my case, reminds the Wonderful Wife.) So here are some observations about recent events.

Terry Schiavo
The most striking fact about this entire ordeal is the lack of generally accepted facts about the health of Ms. Schiavo. Ask five people about her condition and what was being done for her and you'd get seven different answers. The courts' greatest failure was not ordering an independent medical evaluation of Ms. Schiavo's condition before condemning her to death. I expect to see the fallout from this in State legistatures. Oh, and Michael Schiavo is a jerk of the first order.

Living Wills
My wife is an R.N. and has spent many years working in intensive care units. Her observations through the years have stopped me from signing a living will. What I would like done at age 50 may be radically different than what I would prefer at age 80. We tend to think of what we want done in those latter years, but an automobile accident tomorrow may activate conditions in a living will that might prohibit life-saving measures that are quite reasonable under the circumstances. I can't begin to think of all the different things that might happen, so I have chosen a renewable medical power-of-attorney that delineates who makes decisions when I can't. Since it has to be renewed, periodic revisions could reasonably be expected to avoid the estranged spouse issues we saw in Florida.

Red Lake School Shooting
This is an incident which wouldn't have been averted by any gun-control measure that isn't blatantly unconstitutional. The preoccupation so many have blaming guns for every shooting like this obscures the personal tragedies that cause them and the societal issues that contribute to them.

Officer Grignon killed in Louisville
Why was this young man on the street? The person(s) responsible for the officer's death are the ones that allowed the boy that pulled the trigger to remain at large. Breakdowns in the system are inevitable, but why do they happen so often?

Social Security and Taxes
It's broke. Fix it. I like privitization and I like the National Sales Tax, but I'm open to other ideas. Just don't say it doesn't need fixing.

The Pope's death.
I am not Roman Catholic, so I really don't understand it from that viewpoint, but I admire him for his stand against Communism and his role in promoting freedom in the former Soviet satellite states.

Alaska National Wildlife Refuge
Drill.

Oil Prices.
My monthly gasoline bill has gone from about $70 to over $120. So we went to Iraq for the oil? Right. Just keep saying it, Moonbats, as the prices keep rising. So much for traveling this summer.

If I haven't made you made today, I'll try harder next time.
GBW