Morning all:

This was the week that was, and it “was” ever so quickly. Having said that, let me slow down a moment and refill my mug. Actually I was to have spent the weekend in the Seattle and Vancouver areas but plans change so here I am at home.

In reality, being home has brought a couple of very pleasant surprises. Last night an old friend from work came through town along with his wife and son. You might guess the rest of that story and you’d be correct, yes we had a wonderful dinner. Then tonight brother Pieter is spending a couple of nights with us as he has business nearby starting Monday. So you see my initial frustration of having to deal with rescheduling travel turned into a fantastic bonus.

Normally I ramble on about the foibles and trivialities of life, usually mine. Marcia says (and maybe correctly so) that oftentimes I do this way too much. Politics I tend to keep private, other than occasionally letting out that usually I tend to see the glass as half full. At work I keep getting threats that I’ll be supplied with a pair of rose colored glasses for one meeting or another—so today let me get serious and write from my heart. Yesterday one individual was able to obtain a court decree that set into motion a process that will slowly but surely starve another person to death. No living will, no family consensus, no input from ethics specialists, no private decision with doctors; but a decree based on legal wrangling by a judge who has not even seen the patient. I find this horrific. Aside for the immediate devaluation of this single life the awfulness of this moment goes well beyond. It sets into motion a condition where incrementally legal precedent has gained a bit more of a finger hold. Precedent that over time will see society walk on an ever slicker slope. Sixty-six years ago in Germany the idea of an “untermensch” was given not only credence but also formality, framework, and direction. The direction it was given led to the direct murder of over six million innocents before the world, at a horrific cost, put an end to this repulsion. Sixty-six years of continued “betterment” of civilization have passed, till now, in Florida, there is once again a new “untermensch”. And in the tomorrows, how will the framework that was put into place yesterday be expanded upon? Who will become tomorrow’s weakest, tomorrow’s new expendable person du jour: who will be the new gypsies, the new Jews, and the new out of favor infirm? I find it frightening.

That this action was allowed to take place in a nation founded on a document reading in part: “…..self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” , I find amazing.

My prayers are with Mrs. Schiavo and her family.
Cheers,
Dirk