March 27, 2005 - The path from Tampa to Tallahassee to Atlanta to Washington DC is well worn. In the last seven years it has been traveled again and again. A panoply of judges; state and federal; liberal and conservative; Democrats and Republicans have ruled on the case. From the trial level to the highest courts in both the state and federal systems the answer has been the same. There is no further judicial appeal available to Robert and Mary Schindler. The man-made appliance by which liquefied nutritional elements and water have been delivered directly into the digestive system has been withdrawn. The hand of man has been lifted from her and the life and death of Theresa Marie Schiavo has been delivered back unto the hands of God. It is significant that the curtain is falling on this drama just as the Christian world prepares to celebrate the discovery of the empty tomb and its evidence of a triumph over death.

It is hard to reconcile that core Christian belief in the promise of resurrection and eternal life celebrated each Easter with the passionate fear of death exhibited in the streets outside the hospice in Pinellas Park. It is harder to reconcile a sincere religious belief with the political exploitation of a tragic drama. Spouting platitudes in public and only privately acknowledging that their purpose is to energize the Republican base the President and his Congressional leaders have seized on Terri Schiavo as their latest wedge issue designed to divide one America from the other. They claim to be motivated by the purest of motives, a Christian reverence for life. That reverence was absent when they voted to slash appropriations for Medicaid....click here for entire article.

March 19, 2005 - We are born. We grow up. We grow older. And then we die. That is the way life works. Birth and death come one each to each customer. Between those signal events we live – at least that is what we hope we do. I visited a friend in the hospital. He was lying in the bed unable to move his body below chest. The cancer he was enduring had attacked his spinal cord and Arnold knew that his appointment with the dark angel was soon. With a book propped on the over-the-bed table he was able to read. The television was tuned to his beloved White Sox. We talked about some pending cases. I asked his advice on how to handle some of the puzzles they presented. Arnold turned the conversation to the subject I was avoiding – his impending journey.

“You know we live in our heads”, he said. “Life is consciousness. So long as I can read and watch the ball game I am alive. So long as I can think and talk to you I am alive. When that goes it will be time for me to go.” He said it with a smile on his lips. It was time for me to go. My leave taking was awkward. He knew and I knew that it was our last conference. I mumbled and stumbled and Arnold set me at ease. “Say goodbye to your mother for me”, he said. They had been friends since they sat next to each other in the first grade. My mother and I attended his funeral the next week....click here for entire article.

March 3, 2005 - As it is presently structured the Social Security System is financed by a flat rate tax on work. Weather the taxpayer works for another or is self-employed the first $90,000.00 earned is subject to the same 12.4% tax. The system rewards success and investment. Every dollar in earnings over $90,000 is tax free. Every dollar of income generated by savings or investment is tax free. Because of the changing demographics of the population the actuaries tell us that in 13 years the tax on work will result in less money being paid into the system than is needed to pay the retirement benefits promised to retiring workers. They also tell us that the excess tax collections accumulated since in the 70 years the system has been operated will be exhausted by 2042 according to one projection and by 2052 by another. Thereafter the payroll tax will generate only 72% of the money required to cover the promised benefits. In order to address this apparent dislocation the President proposed to permit workers who will retire in 2018 or later to divert 1/3 of the payroll tax on their earnings into privatized investment accounts....click here for entire article.

March 2, 2005 - Judge Barwez Mohammed Mahmoud al-Merwani of the Special Iraqi Tribunal preparing to try the members of the former Ba`athist regime and the judge’s son are shot dead in Baghdad. The husband and mother of United States District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow are shot dead in Chicago. In both cases investigators are at work trying to determine whether the motives for the murders are something other than terrorism. In Baghdad Saddam Hussein and his henchmen are held incommunicado awaiting trial. In Chicago Matthew Hale the self-styled Pontifex Maximus of the Creativity Movement, formerly the World Church of the Creator is held incommunicado awaiting sentencing after having been convicted of plotting to kill Judge Lefkow. While the investigation in both cases continue the finger of suspicion in Baghdad naturally comes to rest on Ba`athist insurgents and in Chicago on the proponents of RAHOWA, the Creativity Movement’s coined code-word for Racial Holy War....click here for entire article.