I love Erin.

A recent IM conversation with Erin. And by recent I mean approximately 30 seconds ago. The girl just gets me. I don't know what to say.

Me: I think more people should skip b-school and just apply for master's of douchery.

Erin: Same degree, half the study time!

In balance with this life, this death

As if attempting to control our every action in living weren't enough, our heady president is now attempting to overturn a widely-supported death with dignity law in Oregon, for those who choose to end their lives on their own terms to reduce suffering on their own part and their family's, as they battle painful, terminal illnesses. We got a taste of this during the Terri Schiavo debacle when radical fundies encouraged another Bush klansman to intervene into the uber-private matter of death of a woman long-lost to this world.

Though Schiavo could not speak on her own behalf, what is probably worst is that most with terminal illnesses CAN and are being told that the way they wish to carry on--or not-- with their own lives is not allowed, in lieu of a government that knows better.

I hardly see how it is more favorable for victims of terminal illnesses to have to kill themselves in more violent and radical ways (gunshot, hanging, poison, etc.) at their own hands, than to slip peacefully into brief comas with their loved ones present as they die.

Can someone please explain to me why battling death by any unnatural means possible to drag life out until the last possible second is more respectable and dignified than accepting that death is a natural parting from life? I hate to tell you, George W. Bush, but no one's getting out of here alive. Why must every death be as involuntary and cruel as those who die in your stupid war? Dying without a fight is hardly cowardice.

I, for one, and I know I'm not alone, am tired of being told what I can do with my body, my life, my death--and by someone else--especially someone so unknown to me, so foreign to everything I believe and stand for, and who I voted against twice. I'm quite aware that the USA is a republic and not a true democracy, but how are the voices of so many who feel as I do being ignored in favor of this kind of policy which defies conservative or liberal description and boils down to fascism?

Sadly, many more people will read People magazine today than the New York Times and one more mind-control policy will slip into existence. When will it stop? How will we stop it?