TELECOM Digest     Mon, 4 Apr 2005 16:15:00 EDT    Volume 24 : Issue 144

Inside This Issue:                            Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Anonymous E-mailer Steps Forward After Supreme Court Order (M Solomon)
    Fourth Man Indicted in Republican Phone-Jamming Scheme (Monty Solomon)
    Increasingly, the Bells See Their Future on a Screen (Monty Solomon)
    Some Colleges Falling Short in Security Of Computers (Monty Solomon)
    Music Rules (Monty Solomon)
    NYS AG Spitzer Gets Verizon to Wake Up. A Bit (Danny Burstein)
    Bidfraud Website "Grand Opening" -- Read Capabilities (Stop Fraud)
    USB to RJ-45 console cable? (JXM2119)
    Wired: Word From on High: Jam Cell Calls (Lisa Minter)
    Re: Prepaid vrs. 'Regular' Cell Phone Service (Joseph)
    Re: The Real Reason Why SBC Won't Work With Vonage on E911 (Justin Time)
    Re: Blackboards vs. Whiteboards (Tony P.)
    Re: Does Your Computer Look Like This? (DevilsPGD)
    Re: Sprint PCS Vision Added to Open Relay DataBase (SELLCOM Tech)
    Re: Cell Phone Service Comparisons (Justin Time)
    OpinionJournal Article: The Soul of a Controversy (Withheld)

Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet.  All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and
the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other
journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are
included in the fair use quote.  By using -any name or email address-
included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article
herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the
email.

               ===========================

Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without explicit written consent.  Chain letters,
viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome.

We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because
we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands
against crime.   Geoffrey Welsh

               ===========================

See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 22:43:49 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Anonymous E-Mailer Steps Forward After Supreme Court Order


PORTLAND, Maine --After a year of court wrangling, the sender of an
insulting e-mail who fought to withhold his identity in a case that
tested the waters of Internet anonymity has stepped into light.

James Stanley Jr., president and CEO of The Liberty Group, said
Thursday that he sent a satirical e-mail to a half-dozen Great
Diamond Island residents on Christmas Eve 2003 under another island
resident's name.

"I regret that the entire incident ever took place," Stanley said in
a statement. "It was a spontaneous, tongue-in-cheek bit of silliness
that for reasons that are still unfathomable has taken on a life of
its own."

Ronald Fitch, whose identity was used to send the e-mail, had
contended the e-mail amounted to identity theft and fraud. But
through his lawyers, Stanley claimed it was anonymous free speech,
protected by the Constitution.

Two weeks ago the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ordered, without 
addressing First Amendment issues, that Stanley's identity had to be 
revealed.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2005/04/01/anonymous_e_mailer_steps_forward_after_supreme_court_order/


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'The Liberty Group', a right-wing
organization, should have known it was identity theft and fraud if
they specifically gave some other person's identifiable name and
address. All they had to say, if they had wanted to avoid that 
problem was state, "there is no such real person as Ronald Fitch" and
been vague on his address or not given an address at all. I have had
people do that same thing to me; there was nothing I could do about
it under those circumstances.  PAT] 

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 23:05:25 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Fourth Man Indicted in Republican Phone-Jamming Scheme


April 3, 2005

CONCORD, N.H. --A fourth man has been charged with taking part in a
Republican scheme to jam Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone lines on
Election Day 2002.

Shaun Hansen, of Spokane, Wash., headed a former telemarketing company
that placed hundreds of hang-up calls to five phone lines run by
Democrats and one run by the Manchester firefighters union.

Prosecutors say Hansen's Mylo Enterprises of Sandpoint, Idaho, was
hired by Republican operatives to place the calls.

Hansen is accused of violating a federal law that forbids placing
anonymous telephone calls to annoy or harass someone. He has not
entered a plea, but is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in
Concord on May 9.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2005/04/03/fourth_man_indicted_in_republican_phone_jamming_scheme/

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 01:45:20 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Increasingly, the Bells See Their Future on a Screen


By MATT RICHTEL and KEN BELSON

SAN FRANCISCO, April 3 - The telephone companies are desperate to be
seen, not just heard.

In the coming months, the Bell telephone companies, including SBC and
Verizon, will start selling television programming in their most
recent effort to crack a market in which they have had almost no
presence.

The cable industry, meeting here this week for its annual trade show,
is already bracing for the assault on its prime turf.

To offer paid TV services, the Bells are spending billions of dollars
to expand their superfast fiber optic networks and improving
technology that can send video to their phone and Internet customers.
SBC alone is expected to spend about $4 billion over three years to
install fiber lines to reach neighborhoods where half of its 36
million customers live.

But in addition to laying new fiber lines, the phone companies also
must acquire expensive programming rights, go through the tedious
process of getting permission from municipalities to sell television,
and master the Internet-based technology that sends video programming
over the same crowded network that now delivers voice and data
streams.

And even after making these gargantuan investments, the Bells will
face formidable challenges to break into the saturated market for pay
TV. To lure customers from the cable and satellite providers,
analysts said, they have to offer better programming and features at
a lower price compared to cable.

They have little choice but to take the gamble.

Cellphone carriers are chewing into the Bells' traditional landline
business. And cable companies -- leaders in the high-speed Internet
access business -- are fast entering the phone market with
Internet-based services. To compete with cable's offerings, the phone
companies are pushing to sell an array of services -- Internet
connections, wireless and television -- in a bundle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/business/04iptv.html?ex=1270267200&en=d0a786872bb8af85&ei=5090

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . Hundreds of new articles daily.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 01:46:43 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Some Colleges Falling Short in Security Of Computers


By TOM ZELLER Jr.

If the computer age is continually testing how well institutions
protect personal information, the nation's colleges and universities
may be earning a failing grade.

Last Monday, administrators at the University of California, 
Berkeley, acknowledged that a computer laptop containing the names 
and Social Security numbers of nearly 100,000 people - mostly 
graduate school applicants - had been stolen. Just three days 
earlier, Northwestern University reported that hackers who broke into 
computers at the Kellogg School of Management there may have had 
access to information on more than 21,000 students, faculty and 
alumni. And one week before that, officials at California State 
University, Chico, announced a breach that may have exposed personal 
information on 59,000 current, former and prospective students.

There is no evidence that any of the compromised information has been 
used to commit fraud. But at a time of rising concerns over breaches 
at commercial data warehouses like ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, these 
incidents seem to highlight the particular vulnerabilities of modern 
universities, which are heavily networked, widely accessible and 
brimming with sensitive data on millions of people.

Data collected by the Office of Privacy Protection in California, for 
example, showed that universities and colleges accounted for about 28 
percent of all security breaches in that state since 2003 - more than 
any other group, including financial institutions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/technology/04data.html?ex=1270267200&en=c1009f3311210ac6&ei=5090

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 21:19:01 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Music Rules


A Supreme Court ruling against peer-to-peer network Grokster would do 
more than punish music pirates. It would affect the future of the 
Internet.

By Andrew Leonard

March 30, 2005 | I decided to rip my vinyl in honor of MGM vs.
Grokster, the case heard before the Supreme Court on Tuesday that will
likely result in a landmark ruling on copyright law.

"To rip one's vinyl" means to convert long-playing records to digital
files. And if some doomsayers are correct, it's the kind of thing the
music biz would be able to prevent me from doing if the Grokster
decision goes their way. In a worst-case scenario, anything that would
allow me to copy music, whether it's a CD-burner, some audio-editing
software, or a peer-to-peer network like Grokster, would be illegal.

But to be honest, stopping me from taking moldering P-Funk, Rolling
Stones and R.E.M. albums and transforming them into MP3s for my own
enjoyment is not the highest priority for the entertainment industry.
In the Grokster case, a roll-call of music and movie studios are
targeting their sights on file-sharing peer-to-peer networks. Their
argument is that the creators of those networks should be deemed
responsible for what people do with them -- technically, that means
they should be found guilty of "secondary liability" for the copyright
infringement committed by file sharers.

The case before the Supreme Court does not pertain to whether the
actual act of file sharing is illegal. Let's accept for now that when
you or I grab a copy of the newest Aimee Mann track from Kazaa or
LimeWire, we are committing intellectual-property piracy, stealing
royalties from starving artists, and threatening the entire economic
basis of the music industry. Personally, I enjoy supporting the
artists I like by purchasing their records on iTunes, and I especially
savor doing so after I have heard a free sample of their music over
the Net. But that's an entirely separate issue from what's at stake in
this case. MGM vs. Grokster deals with whether the creators of a
technology are responsible for how it used. It's not an understatement
to say that the case could influence the future of the Internet.

This is why the "secondary liability" charge makes a lot of folks,
particularly those in the computer, consumer electronics and telecom
industries, very nervous. A decision in favor of the plaintiffs would
represent a reversal of the precedent set 20 years ago in the famous
"Sony-Betamax" case, which held that Sony was not liable for any
copyright abuses likely to be perpetrated by owners of VCRs because
there were "substantial noninfringing" uses of the product. In other
words, because the VCR could be used for perfectly legitimate
purposes, like watching a rented movie, it was OK for Sony to sell it,
even if some people were going to use it to tape copyrighted
television shows.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/03/30/grokster/


TELECOM Digest Editors's Note: Salon.com is available on line here
daily by setting your browser to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/nytimes.html (far right column,
botton of the right column), new articles daily. PAT]

------------------------------

From: Danny Burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
Subject: NYS AG Spitzer Gets Verizon to Wake Up. A Bit
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 22:24:43 -0400
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC


"Verizon to block `cramming' of computer charges on phone bills

By MICHAEL GORMLEY,  AP Writer April 3, 2005, 12:16 PM EDT

"Albany NY - Verizon Communications Inc. will fight the 'cramming ' of
unauthorized charges by companies such as Internet providers that
appear on phone bills.

"New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said the settlement is the
first time a telephone company has been required to monitor and
correct the fraudulent billing practices by other companies on phone
bills. The action follows complaints about the unauthorized charges by
Internet providers, Web hosting and other services on Verizon phone
bills.

"Spitzer said small businesses and residential customers in New York
claimed Verizon did nothing to help them resolve the charges and
instead told Verizon customers to solve the matter with those
companies. The agreement applies only to New York customers.

[snipppety snip. There's nothing yet on Spitzer's web site so I don't
know quite how extensive this agreement is. As we all know, there's
plenty of sleaze in the entire "third party" billing the telcos handle
and the phrase in the article about "Internet providers, Web
hosting..." is very selective ... ]

rest at:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--phonebillcramming0403apr03,0,6464120,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

------------------------------

From: Stop Fraud <thankyou@x.com>
Subject: Bidfraud Website "Grand Opening" -- Read Inside for capabilities
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 12:10:24 GMT
Organization: Road Runner


After 1000 plus hours in development -- Bidfraud.com is "breathing."

http://www.bidfraud.com

Features:

Capable of archiving ebay auction transactions locally on our server.
This is important, as ebay deletes transactions every few months.  It
is as simple as entering an ebay item number when creating a report.

example of archived ebay page:

http://www.bidfraud.com/cachedpages/6113839605/alouette-amusement/6113839605.html

The above archived page, while it still exists at bidfraud.com, no
longer exists at ebay.com

Report templates contain an area to write a narrative as well as an
interface to upload as many as 10 images/files (word & excel, etc.)
The use of pictures as well as other supporting documents will help to
substantiate and validate a claim.

Example of report with pictures:

http://www.bidfraud.com/example.php

Easy search interface capable of finding a suspect by user name, email
or item number at various sites.

Simple private messaging, including a chat system are provided.

Registration is Free.

Easy to use interface.

If you wish to advertise on the site, it is free, but space is
limited.  Please use contact page on www.bidfraud.com to make a
request.

Example of ad layout/dimensions:  http://www.bidfraud.com/ads.htm

Next time you leave negative feedback at ebay or any other site,
please reference them to bidfraud.

Thank you. 

------------------------------

From: JXM2119 <>
Subject: USB to RJ-45 Console Cable?
Reply-To: jxm2119_AT_rochester.rr.com@syrcnyrdrs-01.nyroc.rr.com
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 22:41:33 GMT
Organization: Road Runner


Hi All,

I have read numerous threads on Google goups and cannot come up with
an answer on this one.

I have already read and seen that there are cables/adapters that
go from USB to DB-9. That would allow you to connect your standard
serial console cable as you normally would. I am trying to find a way
to eliminate this.

I would like to buy/make a cable that will have a USB connector on one
end and an RJ-45 on the other. I'm not sure if it is as easy as
cutting off a connector on the usb and just terminating the RX/TX/GND
like you can do with a serial cable (DB-9).

I know there may be some issues with going from USB to RS-232
signaling and I could always build some kind of breakout box in the
middle.

Any thoughts?????

- Jay

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 16:45:51 PDT
Subject: Wired: Word From on High: Jam Cell Calls
From: Lisa Minter <lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com>


Word From on High: Jam Cell Calls

Four churches in Mexico have unobtrusively installed Israeli-made
cell-phone jammers to thwart those who don't seem to understand they
should turn the things off during services or weddings. They're not
the only ones to install the jammers.

http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,65378,00.html?tw=wn_story_mailer

------------------------------

From: Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Prepaid vrs. 'Regular' Cell Phone Service
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 10:07:47 -0700
Reply-To: JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com


On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 18:37:21 EST, TELECOM Digest Editor
<ptownson@telecom-digest.org> wrote:

> Can any reader familiar with GMS and
> AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless help me figure this out?  I am
> willing, and desirous of using my old Nokia phone as long as I can;
> the Cingular phone is perfect for me

I assume you know that GSM is a totally different system than you use
with your Nokia 5165.  The Nokia 5165 is a TDMA (IS-136) phone and
absolutely will not work with anything other than IS-136.  It
absolutely will not work with GSM at all.  If your handset works stay
with it.  Cingular will not activate any new TDMA service.  If you
find another TDMA phone which is/was used on cingular's TDMA service
you can probably switch it out, but AFAIK cingular does not sell any
new TDMA IS-136 handsets any longer.  They really want to transition
people to GSM (and of course they want their customers to pay for the
"privilege" as well!)  

Welcome to Cingular!  Resistance is futile.  You have been
assimiliated.



[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that is true, but all I wanted to
do was swap my existing area 316 (Wichita) prepaid number on AT&T with
an area 620 (Independence area) prepaid number on AT&T (now
Cingular). But the phone is several years old (dating back to my
Chicago days) however it works quite well. If I am going to absolutely
have to (some day) go with GSM, maybe I will chat with the ladies who
run the Cell One store or the United States Cellular place here, and
see if I can get any better deals from them.   PAT]

------------------------------

From: Justin Time <a_user2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: The Real Reason Why SBC Won't Work With Vonage on E-911
Date: 4 Apr 2005 05:15:05 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com


The better rumor regarding Verizon and their plans is on the wireless
front.  They will let Sprint merge with Nextel and then take Sprint
Wireless.  Sprint PCS is the only other major CDMA carrier.  Nextel,
using Motorola's iDEN, is actually fairly close in its operation to
CDMA (a lot closer than to GSM or TDMA).  The real piece the carriers
want is Nextel and their "Direct Connect" or walkie-talkie feature.

Rodgers Platt


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note:  Two questions for you Rodgers: One, 
which in your opinion is the bigger threat right now, Verizon or SBC
(which of course is also Cingular Wireless)?  My second question is,
isn't the walkie-talkie feature of Nextel really just a fancy sort
of speed dial which transmits over the speaker phone? If I had a
Nextel 'walkie talkie' style phone and my friend in Chicago used his
Nextel walkie-talkie phone to call me, it surely would not go over
some airwaves would it?    PAT]

------------------------------

From: Tony P. <kd1s@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net>
Subject: Re: Blackboards vs. Whiteboards
Organization: ATCC
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 11:58:52 -0400


In article <telecom24.140.11@telecom-digest.org>, nmclain@annsgarden.com 
says:

> Dale Farmer <dale@cybercom.net> wrote:

>> That this has nothing to do with telecom ...

> Unless it's an electronic whiteboard.
> http://tinyurl.com/3u8xe

At my last job we had one of those Smart Boards. It's a whiteboard
that you don't use traditional marker on. You project the image and
then pick up the tools from the tray to mark up that image.

You can then save the marked drawings. BTW, this doesn't preclude you
from using it as a whiteboard. I used ours plenty of times as a true
whit board without having to use those damned markers.

------------------------------

From: DevilsPGD <ihatespam@crazyhat.net>
Subject: Re: Does Your Computer Look Like This?
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 21:38:32 -0600
Organization: Disorganized


In message <telecom24.142.15@telecom-digest.org>
bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I said in the last issue, it is very
> hard -- damn near impossible -- to pull the wool over you guy's eyes.
> Try as hard as I may.   PAT]

Why would you want to?


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I don't especially want to, but
it was April Fool's Day and I thought some laughs would have been fun.
Too bad my joke was ruined.  :(    PAT]

------------------------------

From: SELLCOM Tech support <support@sellcom.com>
Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Vision Added to Open Relay DataBase
Organization: www.sellcom.com
Reply-To: support@sellcom.com
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 18:25:49 GMT


jmeissen@aracnet.com posted on that vast internet thingie:

> In article <telecom24.138.7@telecom-digest.org>,
> Eric Friedebach  <friedebach@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> It seems that Sprint has been added to the Open Relay DataBase
>> <www.ordb.org> by mistake somehow. Sprint has no idea how this
>> happened, and they can't tell me when this will be resolved.

If you trace route to many of the spam / porn sites being spamvertised
you will find that their websites are provided US connectivity by the
scum at sprintlink.net.  I have had some that I have received spam for
weeks and sprintlink.net continues to enable the foreign spam websites
in spite of repeated notice.

Steve 

http://www.sellcom.com
Discount multihandset cordless phones by Panasonic 
5.8Ghz 2line; TMC ET4300 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Brickmail voicemail
Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Firewood splitters www.splitlogs.com
If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz.  New www.electrictrains.biz

------------------------------

From: Justin Time <a_user2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Service Comparisons
Date: 4 Apr 2005 05:23:19 -0700


Hey,

If you can find a site that manages even to keep up with all the
different cell plans offered by the carriers it would be something!
Carriers change their plans to react to market pressure and to create
a new market.  That is why you cannot find any two plans from
competing carriers that line up item-for-item.  That, and the fact new
plans are announced quarterly -- or more often if market conditions
warrant -- make the job of any telecom manager even more hectic.  Just
try adding a new phone to that great plan you got only 3 weeks ago ...

Rodgers Platt

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 18:41:45 -0400
Subject: OpinionJournal Article: The Soul of a Controversy
From: Telecom Digest Reader via OpinionJournal <editor@telecom-digest.org>


Pat:

Please consider posting this in Obituary thread about Terry Schiavo.

The writer clearly understands the Descartian Duality.  If this topic
is going to be in the digest, we need to elevate the discussion.

For fairly obvious reasons, wish to remain anonymous -- I don't need
the hatemail from either side of this controversy.

The Soul of a Controversy: After Terri Schiavo's death, questions
remain. 

BY DAVID B. HART

Terri Schiavo has now died, but of course the controversy surrounding
her last days will persist indefinitely.  Most of the issues raised as
she was dying were legal and moral; but at the margins of the storm,
questions of a more "metaphysical" nature were occasionally raised in
public.

For instance, I heard three people on the radio last week speculating
on the whereabouts of her "soul."

One opined that where consciousness has sunk below a certain minimally responsive level, the soul has already departed the body; the other two thought that the soul remains, but as a dormant prisoner of the ruined flesh, awaiting release. 
Their arguments, being intuitive, were of little interest. 
What caught my attention was the unreflective dualism to which all
three clearly subscribed: The soul, they assumed, is a kind of magical
essence haunting the body, a ghost in a machine.

This is in fact a peculiarly modern view of the matter, not much older
than the 17th-century philosophy of Descartes.  While it is now the
model to which most of us habitually revert when talking about the
soul -- whether we believe in such things or not -- it has scant basis
in either Christian or Jewish tradition.

The "living soul" of Scripture is the whole corporeal and spiritual
totality of a person whom the breath of God has wakened to life.
Thomas Aquinas, interpreting centuries of Christian and pagan
metaphysics, defined the immortal soul as the "form of the body," the
vital power animating, pervading, shaping an individual from the
moment of conception, drawing all the energies of life into a unity.

This is not to deny that, for Christian tradition, the soul transcends
and survives the earthly life of the body.  It is only to say that the
soul, rather than being a kind of "guest" within the self, is instead
the underlying mystery of a life in its fullness.  In it the
multiplicity of experience is knit into a single continuous and
developing identity.

It encompasses all the dimensions of human existence: animal functions
and abstract intellect, sensation and reason, emotion and reflection,
flesh and spirit, natural aptitude and supernatural longing.

As such, it grants us an openness to the world of which no other
creature is capable, allowing us to take in reality through feeling
and thought, recognition and surprise, will and desire, memory and
anticipation, imagination and curiosity, delight and sorrow, invention
and art.

The fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nyssa calls the soul a
"living mirror" in which all things shine, so immense in its capacity
that it can, when turned toward the light of God, grow eternally in an
ever greater embrace of divine beauty.

For the seventh-century theologian Maximus the Confessor, the human
soul is the "boundary" between material and spiritual reality --
heaven and earth -- and so constitutes a microcosm that joins
together, in itself, all the spheres of being.

I doubt even the dogmatic materialists among us are wholly insensible
to the miraculous oddity that in the midst of organic nature there
exists a creature so exorbitantly in excess of what material causality
could possibly adumbrate, a living mirror where all splendors gather,
an animal who is also a creative and interpretive being with a longing
for eternity.  Whether one is willing to speak of a "rational soul" or
not, there is obviously an irreducible mystery here, one that commands
our reverence.

Granted, it is easiest to sense this mystery when gazing at the
Sistine Chapel's ceiling or listening to Bach.

But it should be evident -- for Christians at least -- even when
everything glorious and prodigious in our nature has been stripped
away and all that remains is frailty, brokenness and dependency, or
when a person we love has been largely lost to us in the labyrinth of
a damaged brain.  Even among such ravages -- for those with the eyes
to see it -- a terrible dignity still shines out.

I do not understand exactly why those who wanted Terri Schiavo to die
had become so resolute in their purposes by the end.  If she was as
"vegetative" as they believed, what harm would it have done, I wonder,
to surrender her to the charity (however fruitless) of her parents? Of
this I am certain, though: Christians who understand their faith are
obliged to believe that she was, to the last, a living soul.

It is true that, in some real sense, it was her soul that those who
loved her could no longer reach, but it was also her soul that they
touched with their hands and spoke to and grieved over and adored.

And this also means that it was a living soul that we as a society
chose to abandon to starvation and thirst -- which should, at the very
least, give us cause to consider what else we may have abandoned along
the way.

Mr. Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, is the author of "The Beauty
of the Infinite" (Eerdmans).


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you very much for this fitting
conclusion to the 'Terri Shiavo Obituary Thread', which itself has 
now been declared dead, unless anyone absolutely has something they
wish to add.   Seriously, this is _not_ going to become the 'Terri
Shiavo News All the Time' corner of the net. There are lots of such
places and URL's which will live on and on and on, I suspect, and they
do not need, nor welcome my assistance in their debates. 

My _original intent_ in allowing the first message of the thread to
see the light of day here last week was to lead up to the message by
Monty Solomon posted yesterday telling how greed had once again taken
root in the net, with the sale, for purposes of spam, the email names
and mailing list of those folks who had presumably expressed their
condolences to the family and/or the husband; either their condolences
or their hatred, one or the other, or both. That, and the fact that
Ms. Schiavo had been employed years ago for a short time by Bell of
Pennsylvania then later as a clerk/telephone operator for the
'insurance company' in Florida, seemed to make the message at least
a wee bit relevant here in this forum on communications. 

And what should have been a very private, personal matter between a
husband and his wife turned into such a three-ring circus with the
politicians, legislators, judges and other 'professionals' getting
involved. I know, that as a disabled person myself -- though hardly
in the category of Ms. Shiavo -- I would be greatly aggrieved by the
notion of someone deciding for me that 'my time had come'. In this
lose-lose situation one good thing _did_ come out of it for me at
least, and perhaps some of you.  If you have not written a living 
will, and instructions for (a) your treatment if you get in Ms. Shiavo's
situation and (b) the disposal of your remains, consider doing so
_today_. 

Most of you long term readers know that I was 'as good as dead' back 
in 1999-2000, following my brain aneurysm. I was comatose for two
months, and like Ms. Shiavo, fed through a tube in my stomach. The
doctors and therapists 'did me a favor' -- or did they? -- by bringing
me around two months and a few days following November 26, 1999 (in
late January, 2000). To this day, April, 2005 I _still_ feel groggy
and dizzy, with very poor memory skills, and a variety of other
incidental problems. Sometimes I have to wonder, I really do. Why I 
was brought back to life (?) after two months and left as essentially
a half-person is not something I can understand. Those of you who were
readers here back in the 1980's and 1990's know many of my ideas and
attitudes were much, much different, when I felt like a whole person,
something that has remained evasive to me now for several years. 

Do yourself and your partners/companions a _big favor_. Write up those
living wills today, please. You don't know when your time is up, any
more than I knew on that Thursday morning that I would wind up
comatose in a hospital in Topeka -- a hundred miles away -- by
nightfall. Now, is there any more to say on the obituary thread? I
hope not.    PAT] 

------------------------------


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