shan't claim authorship of the following ideas for they appeared in this morning's edition of the Los Angeles Times. The first is from a column written by one of my favorite columnists, Al Martinez, who always has fresh ideas, never wastes words, and makes a lot of simple good sense.
The headline was "Soldiers die - but for Schiavo we cry." He pointed out that a society is often defined and shaped by the way it kills. By that measure we are one of the world's most schizophrenic cultures. Here's the quote to ponder, "On the one hand we are immune to the deaths of thousands on the battlefields of Iraq, accepting as residual damage the innocents who lose their lives in the way of war. On the other, we wail and pray for a woman who had been brain-damaged for fifteen years, moving like fools along a path determined by politicians seeking nothing more than the pleasure of the crowd."
Thank you Al, for I share your belief that it wasn't simply the life of Terri Schiavo that the politicians alleged to be protecting. They were playing politics ...Republican conservatives out to please the crowd. The President even flew from Crawford, Texas, to help her cause; a lost cause. She was, already, essentially, dead.
Those self-same people who find justification in the savagery of war in Iraq, cannot find mercy enough to let her die.
Martinez writes of the case of Army Captain, Rogelio Maynulet, who is on trial for a "mercy killing" that is sure to find backers. He admits to killing a wounded Iraqi prisoner, "to put him out of his misery." He is further quoted as saying, "it was the honorable thing to do." The captain was told by a medic that the Iraqi was beyond help. He was shot. By contrast, the Schiavo decision was made by medical experts after years of testing. We are a nation of contradictions.
Al Martinez dispenses wit and wisdom in the L.A. Times every Monday and Friday.

The other issue is the substance of the lead editorial in this April 4th edition of the L.A. Times. The headline, "Guns for Terrorists."
Quote: "If a background check shows that you are an undocumented immigrant, federal law bars you from buying a gun." Make sense? It does to me, but not to the NRA. If the same check shows that you have ties to Al Qaeda, you are free to buy an AK-47. That's how screwed up our gun laws are, in large measure thanks to the National Rifle Association. As the editorial points out it is unfortunate, but factual, that the NRA, rather than keeping the national interest paramount, is far too frequently the driving force on gun policy in Congress. Surely keeping terrorist suspects from buying guns should be an idea that the entire nation can agree to. The NRA is, as usual, fighting even the most reasonable regulation of gun purchases.
The Times points out that there is some encouraging news as a recent report on this issue by the Government Accountability Office (examining FBI and state background checks of gun sales), is possibly prodding Washington to act. The FBI director, Robert Mueller, has announced that he is forming a study group to review gun sales to terror suspects. We can but hope!