Yes, it has. Not substantively, no. From a substantive perspective, I oppose anyone interfering with the gajillion prior courts’ findings that her husband has proven her wishes and that those wishes should not be disturbed. But that isn’t what is bothering me.
Yes, the protestors are annoying, if also entertaining in their radical delusions. However, I don’t watch television, and certainly not television news. So that isn’t what’s bothering me either.
So what’s my problem, you ask?
Below the flip.
I am sick and tired of reading about Schiavo. That’s it. I’m not blaming any one here; to the contrary, this has been a relatively peaceful and Schiavo-free refuge to which I find myself retreating, today and on many other days since that story heated up. Thank you for that!!!!
But I find this interesting (perhaps I’m the only one!):
I was totally, completely, irrevocably addicted to dKos, so much so that I withstood many adverse conditions, even attacks for my semi-libertarianism, my love of Ayn Rand, my insistence on rational approaches to the issues, my skepticism about Dean, my suggestion that we focus on the actual substantive mistakes by Shrub, rather than just calling him a drunk and leaving it at that. I outlasted all of those trials and more, but now find that this Schiavo onslaught has been just what it took to break of of my gripping addiction. Sure, I dip in for a few minutes a day to see if anything interesting is being discussed, but this is but a shadow of my former involvement there.
Anyway, enough rambling. Thanks for providing peace and respite, all. If I summon the spirit to speak about the issues again, I believe this is where I will do it (if you all will be so kind as to have me!).
Whining now complete!
Feel free to unload. I’m in that mood myself and am glad to declare this a Whine-Welcoming Zone.
Not that I’m the official welcoming committee or anything, but I’m glad to have you. I like it here and find I come here first and spend most of my “blog time” here, with a check-in at dKos.
No time for a whine – it’s already been a long day and I have two exams and a lab handout to make before I can go to bed tonight, with lecture notes on the cardiovascular system to make in the morning before I go to off to teach at 1:00, which I’ll do until 9:45pm . . . (oh wait . . .)
Sounds like you have a long night ahead of you! As for me, I’m writing a summary judgment brief. It does make me feel better to know I am not alone in my late-night labors.
Good luck, and thank you for the welcoming words!
one lab handout to go. The exams were pretty easy – for one class, an old exam fit perfectly with what we’ve covered, and the other one could be made by some cutting and pasting of several old ones and only having to write a few new questions. Onward to the lab handout! (It’s actually harder.)
I’m using a check-in here as a break between projects.
One reason I’m behind is that I finally got to go to my local Dem group’s meeting. (Very local – my precinct chair formed this group to spread some of the approaches that work – our precinct had an impressive turnout and was solidly Dem – to surrounding precincts.) This was the endorsement meeting for the upcoming city council race and most of the candidates were there.
They usually meet on Wed evenings and since I teach til 9:45 on Weds, I’ve been very bummed about not being able to participate. One thing I’ve gotten determined to do since that sad day last Nov is to get more active in local politics.
When I get overwhelmed by not having enough hours in the day, I think that maybe someday (if I don’t die first) I’ll be old and sick and not able to do much, and I’ll be bored and these will look like the “good old days.”
Hope your brief is coming along OK. Off to work on the handout. Have to find time for ice cream tonight too.
Are you really going to force me to whine because no one else wants to whine? 🙂
Actually, if I’m the only grumpy one tonight, that’s a pretty good ratio, donch’a think? 😛
I was a week or so ahead of you on the whining about schiavo and Kos replied and smacked me down-(hypocrite)- That stopped my dKos addiction in its tracks. My point was that the kos community sounded just like the wingnuts for awhile and was so diverted from real news. My personal opinion is that Kos is more invested in the traffic count than real discourse right now.
But I have decided that both parties are too much the same-meaning money- and am going back to Independent status.
Plus it encouraged me to do my own blog so that’s the good motivator factor for me regarding all the schiavo diaries.
AND I still think some group has infiltrated Kos and are purposefully undermining many diarists. Some of the comments of late are so mean, argumentive and off subject so that it felt personal. And that is not healthy for any blog.
Do you have a link to the Kos smackdown comment? I’d be very curious to see that (I’m not the world’s biggest Markos fan). Also would love it if you could point me to some of the “comments of late” you referred to (via email if you prefer).
TIA!
Alan
Maverick Leftist
Booman Tribune is a growing suburb. I do just the opposite that you do; I spend more time viewing dKos and check in to see if Booman has something worthwhile.
Frankly, I have been disappointed by BT ignoring the political significance of Schiavo as it relates to judicial nominees and the 2006 mid-terms.
but I’d rather think about and discuss them after this pathological circus dies down. Right now I’m with dfrancon – I can’t deal with it calmly anymore. I just oscillate at warp speed from outrage to sickened every time I’m forced to look at what’s happening now with this.
I spent some time today talking about this with a student who describes herself as conservative. She is deeply disturbed by it all, and angry at how “unconservative” (in her view) DeLay et al are behaving. I’m willing to have more conversations like this . . . later.
Did you get the email I sent you last week, just wondering?
I found it in the “Junk” folder just now. Those spam filters are useful, but sometimes they get it wrong. I’ve sent a reply.
Much of the Schiavo ‘news’ is sensationalistic and tiresome; however our opposition is actively promoting the need for ‘judicial reform’ as we speak.
We snooze, we lose.
I find this very serious – see this comment. Our constitution is under attack.
However, each of us is trying to find the best way to do what we can to fight back. When I said I was willing to have more conversations like the one I had with my student today . . . later, I meant, that when I can have conversations like that one in the blogosphere, I’ll be willing. In the meantime, I’m not sure what purpose it serves for me to read another diary like this one – currently on the recommended list and with 216 comments so far. I had already read Krugman’s column, so there was no new information in it, just more angst.
The conversation with my student was very thoughtful. It included end-of-life issues, the importance of a living will, but also the politics of it all, and the dangerous precedents that are being set. We both talked, we both listened, a conservative-to-liberal conversation, and interestingly, we had not a single disagreement on these topics.
I expect I’ll have similar discussions in my classes, especially since the students in two of my classes are primarily future nurses. This kind of person to person, kitchen table politics is what the radical right started doing so well 20 years ago – and while they were perfecting it, we were snoozing on that score. Right now, I feel like I do my best work trying to make sure the liberal perspective is heard by the people I come into direct contact with. There’s much more that needs to be done, but as I started out, we all do what we can.
This is only my personal view:
I offer the diaries to anyone to talk about virtually any issue they want. Poetry, favorite books, where to send your kids to school, or what people think about current events and news coverage.
I also have a variety of front-page posters who are free to write about anything they want.
So the fact that this site has very little Schiavo coverage is not entirely my decision.
But for me, I am not interested in the story at all and I have not read one diary about it, watched more than a few moments of television about it, or spent much time comtemplating the political consequences of it.
In spite of that I am familiar with the basic outlines of the story. I have glanced at some of Markos’s and Armando’s coverage of it. And it is bleeding into my consciousness like a migraine headache.
My, somewhat uninformed, opinion is that any political fallout from it benefits the Democrats, provided the Dems keep their traps shut and not join the crowd in trying to take overt advantage of a wingnut overreach.
I have a moral objection to trying to score political points off the issue. And that is why I shut it out the moment it became the dominant story in the newscycle.
I think my position is the principled position and one that would resonate with the American people if it didn’t depend on silence to germinate.
I respect others who want to strategize about the issue, but I think it will have almost no effect on the 2006 elections. I think speaking up about it will diminish whatever advantage it might have.
Finally, the attack on the judiciary will continue after this story is over, but the Republicans have lost this round (if the polls are correct) so I am happy to let them continue digging their hole.
Fran, you might want to shorten your subject line, can’t post comments without changing it.
Ok, I will whine too, since you asked.
I have been disheartened on DK lately also, they seem to be on attack mode over there lately, and a lot of “you must think like everyone else there or they flame you.” Then the troll patrol descends.
I am almost afraid to post anything, and when I do I wait and wait before hitting the post button to see if anyone can attack me for what I have said.
Yes thankfully I have found a new home here that I like a lot better. Just hope that when this site gets bigger it retains this flavor.
Wonder if DK was like this at the beginning.
Yes the Schiavo thing has gotten out of hand. I discussed one aspect of this last week, but not the case it self, but about how it is fracturing both parties.
Was just checking the Conservative Voice and there is an article posted by a prominent conservative who was on the “Dem” side of this issue and was thinking of leaving the party, but not to go to Dem side, however, “maybe” he said, “he would have to start a new party that would fit him better.”
It’s nice to meet you, dfrancon. Glad you came by to say hello and visit.
I know what you mean about Schiavo. I think I’ve posted maybe two comments on the entire deal and left everything else alone. I pity her family, but I pity everyone who is suffering through a similiar situation – and there are many of them.
I was never really a big poster at Kos – I felt like no one would ‘hear’ anything I had to say, anyhow. Here, it’s much different, and I’m enjoying it a lot.