did you know???

how did you feel about terri schiavo's husband having the right to terminate her life?

how do you feel about a hospital deciding to withhold nutrition to a baby because they felt palliative care was the best option?

if i understsand correctly: the baby, emmie rose, was born in july at 23 weeks. weighing 1lb 5oz, she survived for 44 days. if a micropreemie survives the first month, their chances are looking pretty good. emmie rose was moving toward the two month mark when she was struck with NEC, an intestinal issue common in preemies. life threatening. the doctors operated, but soon declared that the child would die. and they would not intervene. apparently, not intervene also included cutting off not just medicine, but food.

here is the parents blog:

http://23weeks.blogspot.com/

agree or disagree with the hospital's policy and decision, this is a heartbreaking situation.

*************

did you know that this so called peaceful coup in thailand is also quiet?

quiet because residents no longer have access to typepad and overseas tv channels like cnn or the beeb. here's an email i received last night at around midnight bangkok time from a friend there. (she hasn't responded to any of my emails today, nor have any of my other friends who live in bangkok. my calls aren't getting through. i tried calling the hospital, just to see if that call would get though, no luck.)

actually right now i can barely type, my fingers are shaking badly

from being woken up by an sms from a friend that said "school closed

tomorrow, wednesday, due to military coup". local news channels are

all just playing thai muzak and flashing images of the king and his

subjects. i can see patches of international cnn, but it keeps cutting

out and the other news channels like bbc are cut out.

just this week thaksin shinawatra has been in cuba attending the

summit of the world's 'nonaligned nations', ie venezuela, iran, north

korea, and my husband and i have been sardonically joking about how he

talks out of boths sides of his mouth, cosying up first to the states

and britain, and now...hugo chavez?! well apparently the thai military

have had enough as well, so for the first time in 15 years this

country's thin veil of attempts at democracy has been lifted again.

my isp is the telephone organisation of thailand, and i noticed before

going to bed that i couldn't access typepad to update my blog. now i

realise that i can't access any typepad blogs at all, much less the

homepage from which to work on my own. following the suit of china,

which has blocked all typepad access due to the blogs' subversive

potential, perhaps t.o.t. set their servers to block typepad (and

other blog hosts as well; i have yet to check).

by theway, as I've typed, cnn has gone out for good. tess, if this blows into something

big, and if typepad continues to be blocked, could you please consider

quoting this on your own blog if you allude to the coup? readers need

to know that the new (temporary?) powers-that-be in thailand are

preventing people from seeing the news and apparently from spreading

our views of it. call me alarmist, but a mid-evening coup accompanied

by the cutting of all news broadcasts doesn't soothe my jangled

nerves.

****************

there are a lot of prayers going out tonight, for people around the world. in "free" countries and in countries that don't know what they are.

Comments

[joeinvegas]

Not much news on it here other than it happened. No details like this.

[Leggy]

How scary for your friend to be suddenly cut off from the outside world.

As for the other stuff, how heartbreaking for that family. My personal opinion is that its the parents (in the case of a minor child) or the spouse if an adult, that should make decisions, not the hospital or God forbid, the courts. How sad that they have lost their daughter.

[Lori in YK]

The last two entries break my heart.

I thought of how you were just in Bangkok and now nobody really knows what is going on. Your friends message was insightful as well as a little forbodding...my thoughts are with those who now have seem to have no voice!

Which brings me to the other entry...how absolutely horrifying to have to sit back while doctors decide that your child is not worth hope. Sometimes I think that we (humans) treat our pets lives with more respect..I just cannot fathom......what a terrible loss, my prayers are with the babies parents.

[Cristy]

Oh wow. I feel for her I know that has to be scary. As for the baby that should be the parents decision. The hospital should be charged with something!

[Bangkok Expat Mama]

Thank you, Tess! Thank you for everything. We are very relieved that the coup has been non-violent. However, democracy sure took a blow with this move -- elections were right around the corner, so why did the military pull this now?! This evening there will be a protest against the coup at Siam Paragon. I hope no one gets hot-headed on either side there.

I'm in a Starbucks using their wi-fi with a non-T.O.T. server, so I can see Typepad sites. The Bangkok Post had a story today that described how the coup folks are predicting 12 more days of weird internet blocking. Meanwhile, I will switch my ISP next week from the government

[Maggs]

This just SUCKS