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Lou Pickney's Online Commentary

Media Wolfpack

Saturday
March 25, 2005

"To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question."
-Eric Hoffer

I continue to be astounded by the massive amount of media coverage being given to the Terri Schiavo case. It seems like everyone is latching on somehow, mostly those with a political agenda that can be furthered as a result. Michael Savage somehow managed to blame the ACLU for it yesterday. Normally I enjoy Savage's show, even when I strongly disagree with him, but he was so far over the top yesterday with his rant on the subject that I had to turn him off. Politicians on both sides are trying to play this up as a Right To Life case. It seems to me that very few people are seeing this for what it is.

Simply put, the Schiavo case is a battle between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Under Florida law, the spouse of an incapacitated adult is that person's guardian. The Schindlers petitioned to have Michael Schiavo removed as Terri's guardian. They lost.

That means that legally, the decision belongs to Michael. He says that Terri told him that if something like this ever happened, she wouldn't want to live in that condition. There's no way to verify that, but Michael is the legal guardian and thus the decision belongs to him.

The best explanation of Terri's condition that I've found is here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/23/TERMS.TMP. If the link is no longer working by the time you read this... well I'm sorry. You snooze, you lose, as Grandma Pickney would say.

To put it simply, Terri is in a persistent vegetative state. Her cerebrial cortex is believed to be destroyed. She is almost certainly unable to ever return to a state of awareness. Doctors say she can't feel pain in this condition, much like someone who is under anesthesia.

It's a sad situation, but the reality of it all is that legally the call is in Michael Schiavo's hands. And that is that.

I wrote this on here before, but I want to reiterate: if something like this ever happens to me, pull the plug or pull the tube. To me, this is not living. Now for someone who wants to be kept alive in a vegetative state, or a guardian who wants to keep someone alive, that is something I respect. But for me, that means it's checkout time.

Darren Oliver
Bees attacked Colorado's Darren Oliver yesterday.

The spring training baseball game yesterday between Colorado and Arizona in Tucson had to be cancelled due to a bee attack. That's right, a bee attack. Dozens of them threatened players in the outfield, in the infield, and even on the pitching mound. Some of them even chased Colorado Rockies pitcher Darren Oliver off the mound. The funniest part was Oliver's rationale on why the bees came after him. According to several published articles, Oliver "thought the bees were attracted to coconut oil in his hair gel." I don't have anything to add to that.

Somehow today at work the topic of angry phone calls and rude people came up. This lead to me telling some people about some memorable calls I had when I was running syndication for Bubba The Love Sponge. If you've never seen it, check out the "West Coast Call" from February 2003. It's pretty funny. And no, I never found out who made that call, not that I care anymore.

If you missed the first four minutes of the Illinois/UW-Milwaukee basketball game last night... you missed an amazing segment of college basketball. It was shades of Loyola Marymount circa 1990. Both teams were going up and down the court, scoring fast and nailing outside shots with pinpoint precision. I haven't seen anything like that since the 2002 Kings/Mavericks NBA Playoffs, and even that didn't have a four-minute sequence like the start of the Illinois/UW-Milwaukee game. Things slowed down after the first TV timeout (no way they could keep that up for 40 minutes), and it was obvious that UW-Milwaukee was in trouble when they came out on fire and Illinois matched them shot-for-shot. But what a great run by Bruce Pearl and UW-Milwaukee; in another bracket they might've had a shot at the Final Four. But Illinois is very, VERY good.

The Office debuted on NBC last night, and I liked it. And remember, most network comedies I hate. We'll see how the character development goes with some of the secondary characters, but the boss (who seems as aloof as every male on-air talent from the movie Anchorman) had me laughing out loud. The guy who was anal about nothing overlapping his desk was funny, and the receptionist girl character has promise. The way they brought out that she's been engaged to this loser guy for three years (with a wedding date that keeps getting pushed back) is true to life. I think the key for the show is for the one "normal" guy to become likable enough for the audience to become interested in how he relates to the others in the office.

On imdb.com, the reviews have not been very kind, though they have come from people who saw the British version of the show. I haven't seen the BBC version, so my perspective is, understandably, quite different.


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