Tuesday News

I don't watch the news on TV because you get bombarded with all sorts of sad stories and there's no escaping the words when they're being broadcast into the airwaves. And I don't want those airwaves bouncing around my home. It makes for bad karma, in my opinion. I do, however, read The Houston Chronicle every day, from the first page to the last, with just a skim over the first pages of the sports and business sections.

The main section of today's Chronicle was very sad. Two stories that just tear at your heart and make you sit there and shake your head. And you can't help but read them, from the first word to the last.

The first tragedy in today's paper was a shooting at a high school in Minnesota. One boy with a gun...... he killed his grandparents, then went to school and continued shooting. Students, a teacher, a security guard. By the time he was done, and before he ultimately killed himself, ten people were dead and fourteen were injured.

It saddens me to think that parents can't send their kids to school and not know if they're safe. If they can't be safe at home or at school, then where else is left? We already know that safety isn't guaranteed on the streets, no matter where you live.

I'm anxious to see what tomorrow's Chronicle will say about this boy who did all that shooting. Was he a quiet child? A loner? A trouble-maker? An "A" student or one just getting by? No matter how he will be described, one thing is for sure...... he needed help and no one noticed. How very sad.

The other story is about the Florida woman who has been in a coma-like state for over 15 years. Her husband has been trying for the past seven years or so to have her disconnected from the machines/feeding tubes keeping her alive. (Alive? Does that define alive?) The husband says that his wife wouldn't have wanted that kind of existance. The wife's family has taken this matter to the courts. They don't want anything disconnected. They want to keep her just as she is, in a vegetative state (as the doctors call it). They think she could eventually come out of it.

I can understand both sides of this story. The husband wants to do what he thinks his wife would've wanted, and he needs to get on with the rest of his life. The wife's family wants to keep their daughter/sister hooked up and on life-support so they can keep her in the family rather than buy a headstone for her grave.

The bottom line in all of this: who has final say in this kind of situation? That is the only issue that should be brought before the courts. According to established law, that husband has the right and responsiblity to make the decisions for his wife. Case closed, in my opinion. The courts shouldn't have allowed the family to drag this case through the legal system for the last seven years. And as far as all the politicians getting involved with this case, they're only doing so for the publicity. Why aren't they so concerned about the general state of health insurance (or lack of it) for the rest of the country?

Kids having access to guns...... unreasonable people having access to the court system. There's never a happy ending in either circumstance.