I've avoided this for a long time. You can skip this post if you like. No hard feelings. I'll understand completely. There are a few things I won't feel right about unless I get them down, though, so here goes.

First of all, I have not delved into all the details of the case - the science, the testimonies, the legal issues and events. In fact, I've been studiously avoiding it. I've just never felt willing to dedicate the hours necessary to really get a grasp on the issues here and do them justice. I regret that somewhat now, but not too much. My feeling is that this issue has gotten so much attention, so much has been written, there have been so many people stepping forward with both overt and unknown agendas that my personal time-expenditure early-warning radar sounded and indicated that there were hours to be spent with still no good conclusion to be had.

But the fact is the issue has been impossible to ignore. First in the blogosphere for months, and now on radio and TV...there hasn't been a radio talk show in the Boston area over the past week that hasn't had the case front and center all day long. Even the local sports station morning guys can't get enough of it. Consequently, it's been impossible not to at least take in some data via osmosis, or at least react to the people voicing their reactions.

As I've been reading about, or hearing about, the case at this point I may have lasted a few minutes or a paragraph or two before tuning out and moving on. No meaning there in my reaction, no anger over the fact that people are interested in this - on the contrary, I think it's completely natural and even a good reflection on our society that people are so interested in this one case. As I said though, I've personally had my fill early and move on.

However, a good way to assure that I not only tune out or click on, but that I tune out or click over with disgust, is to start vilifying the people on the other side - whichever side they're on. There are plenty of reasons and plenty of data for people to feel justified on either or any side here. I wish I had saved the front-page photo from the Boston Globe a couple of days ago - the Globe staff loves to show religious people in the most unflattering poses possible, and there they were, praying their hearts out in as ugly a way as possible. That's our lovely liberal-establishment's preferred portrayal of people of religious faith - as though you need to be some sort of religious fanatic to feel just a little bit horrified that this woman is being slowly starved to death. Horrified that a woman who is apparently suffering no pain and has others who are ready and willing to take care of her is going to be intentionally starved to death anyway.

That's not to judge whether what's being done is right, wrong or indifferent. It's an imperfect world. Life is imperfect. Our choices are imperfect. But you don't need to be super-religious to come down on one side of this question or the other, you just need to be human. Sometimes life is a horror.

I've been hearing a lot about the Founders lately, and of the system they set up. Now I'm a big admirer of the Founders and their system. And again, I'm going to say the following while acknowledging that there may be arguments that the system as geared worked flawlessly without being interfered with, or it may not have, but I want to make a couple of observations.

No system is going to be perfect. That's just one of those realities of living in an imperfect world. No system set up to govern all can possibly render perfect justice (if any such thing exists) in every individual's case. Sometimes you have an occasional injustice (and again, let me emphasize that I'm not concluding there's an injustice here, I'm just holding forward the possibility) in order to avoid the anarchy of endless individual exceptions. That situation would bring on its own suite of problems - maybe worse than the first.

But that doesn't mean we can't lament that truth. That doesn't mean that when this great, huge, society actually has an individual case that actually manages to catch its attention that there's something necessarily wrong with that. It doesn't mean that when the Congress of the United States manages to focus its attention on one individual - in spite of the fact that the polls show that doing so is widely unpopular (so much for a pandering charge) - and that they try to find some way within the system to do something...it doesn't mean that's such a horrible thing. You can't blame people for feeling that their job description doesn't include standing by and doing nothing as a woman is starved to death in front of them.

The Founders understood the importance of a State based on secular law. They didn't necessarily want God personally in the courtrooms of Men, but they also were certainly not against God. And I cannot help but feel that standing back and watching a woman slowly killed when there are people ready to provide for her care...that the Founders would recognize that as being against God. So don't put this on old John Adams's shoulders. I think if any of those old boys were called before God to justify this right now, and saw that people were transferring their own personal responsibility on to them and the system they put into motion, that they would stand up and look God straight in the eye and shout, "We didn't mean THAT!"

I can't help but feel that all this talk about Constitutional tradition, judicial procedure, appeals and the like...that to the person suffering and their family, it must all be some much talk of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...that they must be ready to shout, "OK, but where am I in all that?!"

No matter what happens, there will be no happy ending. This is why the word "tragedy" was invented. It's that - a tragedy...a fucking tragedy. If she's not turned over to her parents she'll be dead, and not just dead but starved to death. If she is, she'll still be living a questionable existence from which, well, she won't be waking up in the morning.

It doesn't make you evil to want to see she and her family moving on. It doesn't make you a fanatic to want to see her cared for.

As ever, all that's left for most of us mere-mortals to do is to plead for some semblance of reason and understanding of the impossible...

...and scream into the face of God.