Sluggo Needs a Nap

SLAPP stands for strategic litigation against public
participation. SLAPP suits are most typically aimed at
groups and individuals who raise objections to
development projects based on issues such as land use
and environmental concerns. In response, corporations
or developers file lawsuits claiming public statements
made by the protestors are defamatory and caused them
economic hardship. Courts tend to see such suits as an
attack on free speech and often strike them down. But
the aim of a SLAPP is not just legal victory: it's a
retaliatory move with the intent of tying up foes in long
costly legal battles. Since the most typical SLAPP
launchers are corporations and developers, the action
by Stevens Institute of Technology, a university,
against Hine, Lewit and FBW was unusual. However,
what touched off the suit was a dispute over a Stevens
development project. One which raised issues of land
use and environmental concerns.

The government compelled conformity, controlled speech
in ways, frightening ways, not known in America before
or since. Soon after the declaration of war, Wilson pushed
the Espionage Act through a cooperative Congress, which
balked only at legalizing outright press censorship -- despite
Wilson's calling it "an imperative necessity".

Nobody likes overcrowding, but the Japanese salamander
Hynobius retardatus has an unusual way of dealing with it.
During is larval stage, if its corner of the pond is chockablock
with fellow salamander larvae or tadpoles, H. retardatus can
develop a broader head, the better to eat them.

In response to the commentors' complaints that I'm letting
bloggers' glosses (or Peggy Noonan's glosses) trump the facts
in the case, I would say this: please, read the court's original
decision. It bases the decision to cease feeding Schiavo on
comments that she reportedly made in passing at a funeral,
and to her husband after watching a TV movie. Under Florida
law, this may well be the correct decision . . . but if so, then I
think Florida law ought to be changed. I would be very, very
upset if I went into a vegetative state, and decisions about the
disposition of my life were made based on some random,
undocumented comments I'd made to my spouse after
watching a movie about comas. In the absence of a living will
or similar document -- and particularly when there are people,
like your parents, who are willing to care for you in perpetuity --
I think the presumption should always be to leave people who
are alive, well, alive, no matter what state their brain tissue is
in. Not because I think Terri Schiavo is coming back to
consciousness. I'm sure she's not. But because I think the state
shouldn't be in the business of ordering the killing -- and that's
what withholding a feeding tube is; it's not the same as taking
someone off life support -- of an innocent human being, even if
that person is lost to us, and even if that person's husband says
that it's what she would have wanted.

And I don't mean to suggest that Michael Schiavo is an evil man
who wants to kill his wife so he can marry some floozy; as the
commentors point out, he could get a divorce easily enough. No,
I'm sure that he honestly believes that he's doing the right thing.
But I'm equally sure that people's motives in something like this
are a mixed and messy bag, and I wouldn't be surprised if Mr.
Schiavo's eagerness to put his wife to sleep once and for all has
at least something to do, on a subconscious level, with his
obvious desire to make a fresh romantic and marital start. Which
is why he shouldn't be able to make the choice for her.

I think this issue is confused by misconceptions on both the left
and right. On the right, that Terri is alive. That which was Terri
ceased to exist in this world a long time ago. On the left, I think
there's a fear of how awful it'd be to "imprisoned" in a vegetable
body. This is a fallacy caused by looking at it from the perspective
of our current self. However, if we go brain dead our current self
will be gone, and we won't have the faculties to consider our
vegetative state tortuous. Being a vegetable is not horrendous
for the vegetable, though I do wonder if being cruelly starved to
death does cause them distress...

To give the husband credit, I think he does believe in what he's
doing, that this is what "Terri wants." The error of course is that
Terri doesn't want anything, she's long dead. And the vegetable
that Terri's become certainly doesn't "want" to die, if it wants
anything it's to take in nutrients/air, sleep, and eliminate.

Which makes this a somewhat low stake issue as there's nothing
in reality that's being fought over; there is no Terri for the right
to save the "life" of, and there is no Terri for the left to liberate
from her "imprisonment". The husband would lose nothing if
Terri was spared.

However, and this is what I think is key, her parents will suffer
greatly if she's killed. Yes, this is because of their misconception
that Terri is still alive, but the fact is that that's how they are
perceiving reality, and there's nothing that can be done to change
that. If Terri's killed, they'll experience the horror of believing
their precious daughter was cruelly murdered by an adulterous
monster posing as her husband. Only and utterly insensitive jerk
would inflict such suffering upon parents. A bitterness like that
will stay with them like poison the rest of there lives. If the
parents can pay for her treatment costs, then let them keep
their comforting little delusion alive. The husband may currently
have the legal right to end her life, but it's not the right choice.

To the Editor:

Gale A. Norton's attempt to soften the effects of oil
exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is
disingenuous at best.

I have never visited Alaska, much less the refuge. But
just knowing that it's there, wild and intact, serves a
deep spiritual need for me for open space. I will gladly
commute by bicycle and turn down the thermostat to
help preserve it.

Alice Erickson
Minneapolis, March 14, 2005