Monthly Archives: May 2006

I am delighted to share with you a new addition to our collection of translations of The Internet Prayer which has been diffused throughout the world.  Check this out!  Indonesian!  One of the readers of WDTPRS took the bull by … Read More →

EXCERPT:
Put yourself in their straitjacket.

What happens to you when you die from dehydration? First, think about going for a day without a single drink of water, two days, three . . . nothing. You would find something to drink, urgently crave it, set aside every other goal to get water in any way. You would suffer. Then what?

Imagine that you are unable to move or communicate according to your wishes. Maybe you are strapped down, gagged, blindfolded, isolated. The people around you decide that, since you are not communicating with them, or demonstrating that you are a “human being” because you are not revealing use of your higher functions, you should die. They stop feeding you or giving you anything to drink. Period. How long before you are mildly hungry and thirsty? Before you are really thirsty? When doctors decide to withhold nutrition and hydration from PVS people, who are cognitively disabled, they die of thirst long before they die of starvation: The cause of death is severe dehydration.

So, as you lie there, what is going on in your body? When your body’s fluid supply is severely depleted (because you are taking none in) and down by around 15%, hypovolemic shock or “physical collapse” occurs, that is, your blood supply gets lower and lower until you don’t have enough blood volume to function.

Your skin becomes pale and clammy. Your heart starts to race and your breathing becomes rapid and shallow. Unless you get water soon, it will get harder and harder to reverse your condition. You soon desperately need medical care. Your blood pressure drops so low that sometimes it can’t be detected at all. Then your extremities become blotchy and mottled as your body starts to shut down the periphery, shunting an ever-decreasing volume of available blood to the core, the heart and vital organs.

If you are conscious, your thirst is agony. Your temperature rises and when it hits 107°F (41.7°C), it starts to damage your brain and other organs. Your lips and tongue crack. Your nose bleeds from the dryness of the mucous membranes. You are wracked with pain from the heaving and attempts to vomit. You can’t tell anyone how much you are suffering. Since those around you don’t see your suffering, they think you must not have any pain. This appears to be “merciful.”

This is how they purposely kill helpless people. Let dehydration happen to a football player during practice on a hot summer day and everyone goes crazy, pointing fingers and making accusations, filing lawsuits and suing everyone in sight. But this is done daily in the USA and other countries to people who are otherwise healthy, and simply need the love and care that any person with a disability needs. Lock a horse in a stall without food and water and you will go to jail.
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I tip my biretta to the one who alerted me to the existance of the photo spread by Time on Pope Benedict’s first year as Roman Pontiff. o{]:¬)

Did you take a careful look at photo #12? This is the Pope at the monumnent in honor of Pius IX’s infallible declaration about the Immaculate Conception. As Benedict is passing by the monument you can see in the background that someone has with a floral arrangment displayed the word “INDULTO”, which of course is “INDULT”. Read More →

EXCERPT:
My experience is that many people, and also prelates, have as their greatest fear BAD PRESS. Their greatest fears swirl about news stories putting them in bad light.

The words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet spring to mind. In Act II scene ii, the Players come to the castle. Hamlet is excited at their arrival. Read More →

Did you know that Geoffrey Chaucer hath a blog?   His latest entry is very good provender for all of who know that the only thing worse than getting spam is not getting anything at all.  In another post I asked … Read More →

Over at The Cafeteria is Closed Gerald has posted something too funny for words. I tip my biretta in his direction. o{]:¬) I made it the wallpaper on my cellphone. Read More →

There is a fun piece over at SI today about notorious brawls. Great photos. Check it out! Read More →

Today is the feast of St. Vincent of Lérins (5th c.).  He is the fellow who gave us a famous rule for distinguishing true Catholic teaching from heresy.  In a work called the Commonitorium, written ostensibly to help us remember … Read More →

I am sure all of you, and especially fellow patristicist Mike Aquilina watch the blog Laudator Temporis Acti. But if you didn’t get it today, do check out his messgae on frogs which the author called after the famous line from the play by Aristophanes.

In the meantime, I wish you all a good day with a hearty chorus of Brekekekex koax koax. Read More →

I fixed a link to an audio clip of His Holiness speaking in Latin to a group of students during his Regina Caeli address a couple weeks back. Sorry about that. I hope it works for you now. Read More →

I wonder where Il Poeta would have put spammers in the Inferno. I recently put some spam catching plugins into the software running this blog and they are saving me a great deal of work.  However, I do have my … Read More →

While I am pondering the subject, here is a super informal poll:

How do you pronounce “coadjutor”?

Do you say A) “coádjutor” or B) “coadjútor”?
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…but let me throw this out there for your consideration. After thinking about the declaration concerning the public ministry of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Rev. Fr. Marciel Maciel Degollado, I had an idea this weekend out in … Read More →

COLLECT: Concede, misericors Deus, ut, quod paschalibus exsequimur institutis, fructiferum nobis omni tempore sentiamus. This prayer was not in any previous edition of the Missale Romanum, but it is to be found, exactly as is, in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary. … Read More →

I got an e-mail from a distinguished person who sometimes is kind enough to check in on this blog. He expressed approval of a commentary I made in my WDTPRS article for the 6th Sunday of Easter.  Given the recently … Read More →