April 08, 2005

The One Thing We All Agree On

Make sure you draft a living will so your wishes will be known and honored accordingly:

85 year-old Mae Margourik of LaGrange, Georgia, is currently being deprived of nutrition and hydration at the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy. Mrs. Margourik suffered an aortic dissection 2 weeks ago and was hospitalized. Though her doctors have said that she is not terminally ill, Ms. Gaddy declared that she held medical power of attorney for Mae, and had her transferred to the LaGrange Hospice. Later investigation revealed that Ms. Gaddy did not in fact have such power of attorney. Furthermore, Mae's Living Will provides that nutrition and hydration are to be withheld only if she is comatose or vegetative. Mae is in neither condition. Neither is her condition terminal.
But pay no mind; this just comes from some wacky Catholic priest on a Blogspot blog, and anyone can start a Blogspot blog. Why, he may not even be a priest at all! Could just be some kid taking a break from Halo 2.

Though he probably is a priest, because we all know how militant those obnoxious Catholics can get about this trifling state we call Life. You know all this carping about a "culture of life" is just further evidence of a papist plot to keep women barefoot and pregnant, right? Everyone knows that. We all saw Meaning of Life. These priests--you know what they're up to when they're not fooling around with children? They're using these hospice cases to fight a stealth war against abortion rights, that's what they're doing.

Well, sisters, they'll get control of our collective uteri only when they pry them from our cold, dead abdomens; which I guess means they'll be welcome to Mrs. Magouirk's soon enough, provided she hasn't had a prior hysterectomy.

Via Asymmetrical Information. Incidentally, you slackers, not one of you told me that for months, I mean MONTHS, I had that on the blogroll as ASSymetrical Information. What a good thing I don't have to spell for a living!

(There, I updated. Who's happy?)

UPDATE: Edited to correct the spelling of Mae Magouirk's name. And a note: No, I do not know whether this has been verified beyond the report on (sigh) World Net Daily. I make no promises as to accuracy. Magouirk's nephew, Ken Mullinax, was interviewed on the Glenn Beck show, and that audio is available here (via Straight Up with Sherri).

Posted by Ilyka at April 8, 2005 11:33 AM in i don't know you tell me
Comments

I'm happy!

Posted by: Jim at April 8, 2005 02:06 PM

Who's happy?

I am!

On an unrelated note, I think my ass is slightly asymmetrical.

Posted by: Hubris at April 8, 2005 02:53 PM

Me too, especially since the previous post looked like a goodbye.

Posted by: Joe Geoghegan at April 8, 2005 02:54 PM

Dang, look at those posting times. My "Me too" is an echo of Jim's happiness, not Hubris's ass. For the record.

Posted by: Joe Geoghegan at April 8, 2005 02:55 PM

Joe, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Posted by: Hubris at April 8, 2005 03:06 PM

What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame my fearful symmetry?

Seriously. Get the calipers.

Posted by: Joe Geoghegan at April 8, 2005 03:27 PM

Get the calipers.

HELL, NO.

I'm torn between clucking my tongue at the speed with which this turned into a dialogue about the human posterior, or wasting the next half-hour on the web trying to figure out why we often say "asymmetrical" and not "asymmetric." Do we really NEED that -al on the end?

Sadly, these are the things that consume my days upon the earth.

Posted by: ilyka at April 8, 2005 08:05 PM

You can count on me to lower the dignity level of any comment thread.

Russell of the erstwhile Cosby Kids would no doubt say I'm like school in the summer - no class.

Posted by: Hubris at April 8, 2005 08:39 PM

It looks like -ic was used to make an adjective out of nouns that ended in -r in Greek or -ria in Latin, so: "Histor," "historia," "historic."
However, some nouns, like "rhetoric," come from roots that already had a c/k ending: for example, Latin "rhetorica" by way of Greek "rhetorike." So, to make an adjective, -al was added. I suppose over time they just got mixed up a lot, with some word pairs having different meanings from one another, such as "economic" and "economical," whereas some are interchangeable, such as two very good words for describing Hubris' buttocks.

This is penance for the calipers, which I blame on Hubris.

Posted by: Joe Geoghegan at April 8, 2005 08:43 PM

If I had a dime for every time I'd been blamed for the involvement of calipers, I'd be a rich man.

Posted by: Hubris at April 8, 2005 08:59 PM

Happy - and probably asymmetrical too. But since I'm a guy I don't worry about stuff like that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 10, 2005 01:39 PM

happy? yes.

Posted by: rammer at April 11, 2005 06:49 AM