I hate North Carolina. With the exception of my family there (and my uncle’s girlfriend, who isn’t really family, but who I am counting anyway), I have serious doubts that anyone in the entire state understands the words “Excuse me.” I became convinced of that fact while trying to navigate the throngs of people while trying to pull off a simple feat like buying a couple of new CDs.

That’s not to mention the drivers. Apparently, all cars registered in North Carolina must have their turn signals removed in order to pass inspection. Either that, or not one person who lives there (this may or may not include all of my family, but it does apply to at least one of them) knows what those little blinking lights are supposed to signify. After getting slightly annoyed, I started paying attention. Every time I saw a turn signal activated, the car had an out-of-state tag. Changing Lanes? No signals from North Carolinians. Turning off onto another road? No signals. Making a freakin’ U-turn in the Interstate on-ramp while several other people are trying to get on the Interstate? No signal.

I’m home again now, and if my trip to North Carolina is indicative of how future travels will go, I’m never leaving West Virginia again.

I know that the Terri Schiavo case has more or less taken over the blogosphere. Part of the reason I haven’t posted for the last few days (in addition to the fact that I’ve been sick) is that I didn’t think I had anything to say about this situation that hasn’t already been said.

I discovered My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy today through Hog On Ice. If half the things that Beth says in her Schiavo category are true, then there are some definite aspects to this case that need a closer look.

Steve H. at Hog on Ice wrote a lengthy post, “The View from the Front of the Bus“, about the situation. While the whole post is interesting (especially the parts about the ‘culture of death’ in hospitals), the part that caught my eye was this:

That being said, there are many, many people out there to whom the marriage bond means much less than it does to me. These days, you marry someone you think you’ll enjoy “hanging out with,” and when it’s not fun any more, you move on, because hey, you’ve got to look out for Number One. If Michael Schiavo sees marriage this way, he clearly has no business running his wife’s life, and her parents should be in charge.

I’m curious how much of a husband you can consider a man who’s got a long-term girlfriend and a couple of kids by said girlfriend. (I’ve seen that some people have suspicions that she was his girlfriend even before Terri was in this state, but I don’t know one way or the other on that.) Unless they had an open marriage, I’m not sure why anyone would consider him her ‘husband’ any longer (Except, of course, that marriage as a term is meaningless if you try to define it using words like “love” or “commitment” in today’s society; it’s strictly a legal term to most people.)

I’ve been accused of being a Puritan, and I have a dear friend who calls me a “crazy Fundy“, so maybe my take on this is a little bit off, but would it have been so hard for him to either stay true to his vows or divorce his brain dead wife? I know, I know: How could I ever dare to say that this man didn’t have the right to move on, seeing as how his wife has been incapable of fulfilling his sexual or emotional needs? I’m not honestly looking too harshly on him and his new girlfriend; I’m just wondering why the husband who’s replaced her in his life is considered a bigger expert on what she’d want.

I know that Terri’s case is a contentious one, but I hope that everyone could agree on two things:

1. The ‘other side’ of this debate is not a homogeneous collection of rabid Christian fundamentalists, nor is it a group of Nazis drooling over the chance to start killing those they deem imperfect.
2. From all perspectives, this is a very sad situation.

Let’s suppose, first, that Michael Schiavo’s version of the story is true. His wife has been dead for fifteen years now. Her family, tragically, is clinging to something that used to belong to her and treating it as though it is her.

What if they’re right, and Terri is alive, and at least partially aware. She shows signs of recognizing those around her. She tries (and fails) to communicate. Whether her mind is truly human anymore, or if the brain damage has reduced her to something less, the cage that her body has become would be torturous. Especially if, as some of the proponents of letting her live claim, she could be helped by physical therapy but has been denied it for fifteen years.

If you fail to see the tragedy in either of those two situations, well, you’re lucky that we live in a society that, thus far, doesn’t encourage the execution of the less-than-human; being emotionally crippled is just as dehumanizing as anything Terri Schiavo’s gone through. (Though, I suspect the emotionally crippled would be the ones running the executions of the less fortunate, so you’d probably be okay.)

There are those on both sides of this debate who act as though it’s a simple dilemma. Either you should always aim for life, no matter the quality of that life, or you should let her go, period, no further discussion or thought necessary. Unfortunately for those people, whichever side they’re on, the world isn’t black and white. That doesn’t mean we just pick whatever we want to be the “right thing”, but sometimes finding the lightest shade of gray in the picture takes some time and thought. If they’re not capable of giving either, then they should just step aside and let others get the chance to speak.

For anyone who needs a good laugh, here’s the story of the attorney who sued himself!

Over at Dean’s World, Michael Demmons gives advice on getting a nice boost in traffic to a blog — he says that all you have to do is mention Mario Vasquez.

According to Michael, this has gotten him thousands of new visitors. I can’t compete with that, I’m afraid, but I’ve noticed an upswing in my traffic since I mentioned Warner Brothers’ plan to recreate Bugs Bunny and friends as the Lunatics on the WB. My current top 10 search strings:

• wb lunatics (39 hits using that string)
• lunatics wb (29)
• the lunatics wb (4)
• braxton teacher sex (2)
• kids wb lunatics (2)
• liability without fault (2)
• lunatics cartoon (2)
• new lunatics on the wb (2)
• richie robb (2)
• seventh circuit sperm oral sex (2)

I’m really surprised I didn’t get more hits off that last one (or the post before it, which mentioned sex toys), but I probably shouldn’t be. The competition for links in those topics is probably a lot fiercer than for the Lunatics (or even Mario Vasquez).

Anyway, it’s obvious that my search numbers aren’t as impressive as Michael’s. If we add all of those Lunatic numbers together, I still only get 78 hits from it (80 if you count the other listing further down the list). So, mentioning the Lunatics isn’t going to push you up into being an A-list blogger. Heck, it won’t even make you a B- or C- list blogger. If you’re like me, though, and you’d be content with just a handful of readers, mentioning the Lunatics travesty might just get you there.

I, as well as every other right-leaning blogger in the world, have already covered all of these points, but I figured I’d cover it just once more.

As I’ve said in the past, I usually agree with the staff of the local “independent” newspaper, the Clay County Communicator (and the associated website), on local issues. On national issues, though, I typically disagree vehemently.

Case in point, from their Current News page:

• March 15 pm Wedding Anniversaries are happy times. Anniversaries are for remembering good times, happy times. We’ve got a big anniversary coming this weekend but it’s not a happr one.
• March 15 pm This Sunday makes two years in Iraq for the Coalition of the Killing, the USA. A year ago, President W said the hostility was over. He was wrong. The quagmire continues as the body count rises. There have been 1,687 coalition troop deaths, 1,514 Americans, 86 Britons, eight Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 20 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 17 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of March 14, 2005
• March 15 pm We were told Sadamn had nasty weapons of mass destruction tucked away all over the country just waiting to do America in. We now know, that was a lie. We’re still there as occupiers. Our goal all along has been to gain control of the oil and payback Sadamn for trying to knock off King George the 1st.
  March 15 pm Our government started a policy of flying the wounded out of the war zone and landing them at hospital bases under the cover of darkness. The press is banned from taking pictures, witnessing the flights, or talking to the American heroes. To date, over 25,000 soldiers have been severely injured and removed from the sands of W’s oil war.
• March 15 pm Our government keeps something else very quiet. Nearly 6000 soldiers have gone AWOL or not reported to duty. That info is held close to the chest for fear others may get an idea to use their brains.
• March 15 So dismal is the recruiting of new soldiers, our government has issued orders that soldiers must remain on duty well beyond their assignments. We call that, “stop loss” orders. Our government is calling up soldiers who long ago served their country and returned to civilian life. Now talk is to resurrect the draft of old. To take our high school seniors into harm’s way.
• March 15 pm Two years into this unnecessary mess, mass media glazes over the stark reality of lies and cover up. To call this an anniversary, our English language is flawed.

Let’s start at the top, shall we?

“This Sunday makes two years in Iraq for the Coalition of the Killing, the USA.”

Is this supposed to indicate that the “Coalition of the Killing” only consists of the USA? If not, it’s poorly worded. (If so, then it’s blatantly wrong, as there are several other countries there.)

“A year ago, President W said the hostility was over. He was wrong.”

I’m still looking for the text of these remarks, but as I recall, the President’s speech had to do with the fact that Phase One of the campaign in Iraq was over, as we’d effectively toppled Saddam’s regime. I don’t remember any time when the President said that all hostilities were over — every speech I can find from that time period on the war in Iraq says things like this:

There are still violent thugs and murderers in Iraq, and we’re dealing with them. But no one can argue that the Iraqi people would be better off with the thugs and murderers back in the palaces. Who would prefer that Saddam’s torture chambers still be open? Who would wish that more mass graves were still being filled? Who would begrudge the Iraqi people their long-awaited liberation?

“We were told Sadamn had nasty weapons of mass destruction tucked away all over the country just waiting to do America in. We now know, that was a lie.”

Do we? High ranking officials in Iraq have pointed out the systematic way that some weapons depots were looted, and there have been rumors that other nations may have helped Saddam get rid of his WMD supplies. Even assuming none of that is true, there were a number of politicians (Including Former President Clinton and Presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry) who stated publically that Iraq had WMDs. There may have been a failure in Intelligence, but that’s not grounds for calling the President a Liar if he believed what he was saying was true.

“We’re still there as occupiers.”

Technically, we’re there to assist in the rebuilding of Iraq after the violence involved in liberation.

“Our goal all along has been to gain control of the oil and payback Sadamn for trying to knock off King George the 1st.”

If the goal is to gain control of the oil, then I’m looking forward to the release of the invoices that show that we’ve paid the Iraqis anything less than fair market value for their oil. If all we wanted was cheap oil, there are a myriad of much easier ways to get it. As a cost-benefit analysis will show, getting this oil through the Iraqi war is a pretty damned inefficient way of going about it.

As for the attempted murder of a former leader, yes, Saddam’s violations of cease fire agreements from the early nineties did contribute to our destruction of his regime in Iraq, and in fact, the multiple violations of those agreements was one of the reasons given for the invasion.

“Our government started a policy of flying the wounded out of the war zone and landing them at hospital bases under the cover of darkness. The press is banned from taking pictures, witnessing the flights, or talking to the American heroes. To date, over 25,000 soldiers have been severely injured and removed from the sands of W’s oil war.”

And the press should have the right to invade their privacy and harass them while they’re recovering. Obviously, that’s the stance of Claywestvirginia.com.

“Our government keeps something else very quiet. Nearly 6000 soldiers have gone AWOL or not reported to duty. That info is held close to the chest for fear others may get an idea to use their brains. ”

Are there more deserters in this war than in previous wars? Is the 6,000 AWOL an extremely high number of AWOL soldiers? I don’t know the stats, but without that information, it’s hard to know what this number means. “…others may get an idea to use their brains?” Is the Communicator implying that smart soldiers are the ones breaking the agreements that they signed when they entered the service? That they should get all the benefits of being paid by the citizens of these United States, but when they don’t like the services they’re expected to perform in exchange for those benefits, they should cut and run?

“So dismal is the recruiting of new soldiers, our government has issued orders that soldiers must remain on duty well beyond their assignments. We call that, ‘stop loss’ orders. Our government is calling up soldiers who long ago served their country and returned to civilian life.”

Unless the government has broken the terms of the original agreement with these soldiers, I can’t help but think this is a non-story.

“Now talk is to resurrect the draft of old. To take our high school seniors into harm’s way.”

The only talk I’ve heard of resurrecting the draft was from Democrats, as a scare tactic. I welcome links to any serious proposals having been put forth by the government after November 2nd.