Health-Care: Personal, Political or Judicial?

Awareness vs. wakefulness...living vs. existence...consciousness vs. brain-stem reaction. The case of Terry Schiavo continues to dominate blog discussions, with 20 of the day's top 40 links and 9 of the top 15 key phrases somehow related to the Schiavo case. Schiavo herself has overtaken President George Bush among key personalities, and Florida Judge James Whittemore emerged at No. 2 among bursty people for his Monday ruling allowing Schiavo's husband to honor his wife's wishes not to be kept alive artificially.

BlogPulse tracked references to the phrases "right to live" and "right to die" in blog postings and found this trend:



Politics has surely entered the debate, as bloggers keep track of Congressional votes for the weekend bill that allowed federal court intervention in the Schiavo case, to distribution of a GOP memo calling Schiavo's case "a great political issue" sure to rally the conservative base, to discussion of previous Bush-passed bills in Texas that give hospitals the right to terminate life support, even against a family's wishes, for patients unable to pay for long-term care in cases where there is no hope of revival.

Meanwhile, polls show Americans decidedly against federal intervention in what they consider to be private matters for families and their doctors.

Other BlogPulse tidbits of curious and notable interest: Internet buzz about a new resource called Our Media, (heavy traffic, so the site may or may not work), step-by-step instructions from 3-M (the Duct Tape folks!) on how to make a Duct Tape wallet (No. 33 link) and the winner of the worst-news-judgment award for today. No comment.

BLOGPULSE TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Basketball buzz is certainly in the air, and the NCAA is starting to show an upward trend as March Madness continues.