….Blogging about cabbages and kings since 2005.

This is macabre.

It’s so bizarre that I thought it was a hoax. But I looked up the author of the reported story, and she is a CBS.com reporter. I looked at a few of her articles, and they look similar. I don’t know. This is just… I’m flummuxed to describe it. Keep reading.

CBS accidentally released their pre-written obituary for Terri Schiavo. I understand the need for pre-written obits in the news. It saves time to have the outlines of an obituary sketched out in advance. But once more CBS is making up details- or maybe this time performing acts of divination.

The obit showed up on CBS News.com’s website on Monday, March 28th at this URL. CBS has taken it down now, but Glenn Beck saved a cache of it. You can read it here.

“Short, Sad Life Of Terri Schiavo
NEW YORK, March TK, 2005
This story was written by CBSNews.com’s Christine Lagorio

Surrounded by stuffed animals and medical equipment in her small hospice room in Pinellas Park, Fla., Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo died TK.

[snip]

Michael Schiavo, who was at the bedside of his wife Terri when she died, told Larry King that he lives now with another woman with whom he has two children.

[snip]
“

She’s not dead yet, in spite of their best efforts, but CBS knows that Michael was at her bedside when she died dies. I guess Michael is her once and future husband?

CBS. Just. Makes. Things. Up.

Pulp Fiction writers.

Nat Hentoff says the following:

For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.

…Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her.

Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere reflexes.

…. Contrary to what you’ve read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo’s long merciless journey through the American court system.

“As to legal concerns,” writes William Anderson—a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University—”a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit.”

But the guardian has withheld drinking water. The court has prohibited Terri from receiving drinking water. Police officers are enforcing that prohibition by arresting people who try to bring it to her. Four guards are stationed outside Terri’s room, and they search Terri’s parents when they go in to see her, in order to make sure that nobody places so much as an eye dropper of water in this woman’s mouth because she has commmitted the unspeakable crime of being disabled and brain damaged.

A few years ago I participated in an online discussion with a woman who said that she wanted to work outside the home because her family wanted to provide extra cultural experiences for the children, and that could not be done on most single incomes. I’m not really sure what she meant- she was rather vague about it all. It’s possible that the kinds of things she had in mind could not be done on one income. For my family, if it can’t be done on one income, then we won’t be doing it. But it’s surprising what can be done on a single income. Our single income hasn’t really been that large, either, as the Headmaster just recently retired from twenty years of military service- enlisted, not officer. That was a choice, btw. He could have gone to school early on and gotten his degree and bootstrapped into the officer side. But it’s as important to him to spend time with our children as it is for me, and he knew that he’d have to sacrifice a lot of hours with the family for that. We’re very happy with his choice.

To return to the topic of culture on a modest income, below you will find some ideas.

Instead of eating out, fix a fancy dinner at home. Set the table with the best dishes and candles. Have everybody dress up and pretend to be eating out, practicing table and restaurant manners.

Invite people over often. Make sure to include interesting, fun people; eccentric, odd people; tourists and immigrants, and unusual people. Include old people with stories to tell and young people with dreams to share. Include missionaries, former and current. Include your minister and the elders of your church. Ask for storied of faith, stories of when God blessed them, and stories of dark days.

Art museums often have free days. Check out the one nearest you. We’ve often taken advantage of this, even when the museum was an hour or two away. We packed a nice picnic lunch and ate at a park when the weather was nice, in the car on the way home if it wasn’t. Always keep your eyes open for free or inexpensive attractions.

We buy a year’s family pass to a different attraction each year. It may be the
zoo, the children’s museum, the children’s theater, or the symphony. We can’t
afford to do them all at once, and with a family our size the cost of a yearly
pass is seldom more than it would cost us to get in once, so we choose one each year and immerse ourselves in that one, attending at least a dozen times a year.

Study another country/culture in our homeschool once a year, learning the
customs, meals, holidays, and so on, and incorporating something of your studies into your daily lives.

We study art and artists using old art calendars. We hang works by a particular
artist each month, discussing the paintings and the artists.

Take advantage of NPR and other radio stations. Listen to classical music all the time, studying the lives of composers at the same time.

Call local colleges and ask if there are any international students who like a home-cooked meal with an American family.

Volunteer at the nursing home. We have met natives of several different European countries in a small Midwestern nursing home (I won’t embarrass myself by trying to spell them).

Read, read, read. Spend lots of time at the local library. Once we lived in a home that was not was not very near to any library. Paying the extra fee for a library card was my birthday present from husband and I loved it.

Every once in a while the older children and I get out the Shakespeare and read it aloud together, each taking a few parts.

My husband chooses a different classic to read aloud to the kidlets at bedtime. He’s done Pilgrim’s Progress, Farmer Boy, Bread and Butter Indian, some of the Childhood of Famous American books, and many, many more.

Vacations? As a military family every time we moved we tried to make part
of the move include visiting an interesting spot. We did stay in two locations
for five years each so we took lots of short jaunts to places of historical or
environmental interest. We prefer camping to staying in motels (family size,
again. With a family this large most hotels want us to pay for two rooms.

Have poetry recitations at home.

Plant a garden, perhaps an historical herb garden.

Collect sea shells, stones, or pressed flowers- label them with their Latin names.

Many libraries in larger cities like Chicago and Boston hold passes to museums and
other educational attractions, and sign them out to local residents.

If you live near a college, look in to their music and drama productions. Sometimes tickets are very inexpensive. Sometimes you can attend rehearsals for free.

Host a hymn singing.

And, as I said, read, read, read. Discuss what you read together. And then read some more.

Works for us.

After work today I was supposed to head to the hospital to get my last rabies vaccination, and this turned out to be a good thing because I had to get gas on the way and therefore had a heart attack that needed treating, too.

So this shot. We’ve explained to most of you, I think, that what I’m getting is not the shot you get when you’ve been exposed, only a preventative series of vaccinations. I don’t mind explaining this to all of you, but today it was a little different. I had to explain this to the woman giving me the shot. Telling the doctor who’s about to give you a shot just what shot she is supposed to be giving you is a disturbing thing to have to do. And just when I thought when we understood one another, she said “And it goes in your abdomen, right?” “No!” I said. “It goes in my arm. “Oh,” she said, surpised. “I guess I’ll just read what the directions have to say when I get it out.”

She did. She got out the directions that came with the vial and read them out loud to herself. I can’t tell you what this didn’t do for my confidence.

Eventually she thought she had figured out the highly complicated procedure of inserting a needle into an upper arm, and gave me the shot.

Either I am the first person she has ever in her life vaccinated, or she is just sadistic. You know how most people will use both hands, one to give the shot and the other to support your arm? She vaccinates one handed. As in, she walked up and stabbed me in a particularly gung ho and cowboy fashion. Perhaps she was neither sadistic or inexperienced, but only deluded and under the impression that I was a courderoy pincushion?

But anyway. It hurt more than the first two shots, it bled more than the first two shots, and I have no doubt that it will bruise more than the first two shots. *whimpers pathetically*

The Fates hadn’t had their fill of fun with me yet, apparantly. I just had to get a flat tire on the way home and be rescued by my grandfather and a county sherrif.
My mother was very encouraging, of course. “Don’t worry dear”, she said. “It happens. It just usually happens to you.”

Why, thank-you. That was absolutely guaranteed to make me feel better.