Daley Ponderings

Dave Ljung, the creator of Album, the program I use to generate my photo album, has some good stuff to say about the television.

This will be short because I really don't have time to type up the whole adventure (maybe Mom can pry it out of me before the next newsletter!) We went with Alissa, Will, and Nate. Jonathan's favorite parts were the fish and the llama. My favorite parts were the nursing gorilla and the sea dragons. Now I understand why children under 2 are free. They really don't get much of the experience. It's hard to see a lot of the animals, and Jonathan doensn't follow a pointed finger yet. But the rest of us saw most of the animals, and we had a fun time. Jonathan even got to pet a boa constrictor! The zoo lady said that he's braver than most parents... Maybe naive is more correct. (:

The Graduate Christian Fellowship at Carnegie-Mellon University has a group that meets weekly for discussion of various articles. I rarely make it to the discussion, but this week's topic was David Brooks's articles on Patio Man and the "Sprawl People".
I was asked for a summary of the conversation; hopefully, I did an ok job of representing the opinions that were spoken there. (More)

My mother-in-law complained that in the Lord of the Rings, they use blank stares to portray goodness. Apparently, this is not a new trend, as in this movie (made in 1977), Jesus (except for when he is angry) does not ever have an expression on his face. Sometimes when he is asked questions or spoken to, he will have his eyes closed, and open them slowly, look like he is about to keel over, and then speaks slowly. Maybe he just has a bad headache.
In the events, this movie is reasonably close to scripture, with a couple random sentences and things thrown in, for apparently no reason, I don't think too much to get worked up over though.
It is long - we are 5 hours into it, so hopefully there will be something to change my comments in the first paragraph, and nothing to change the comments in the second paragraph.
He did partially smile at a child once, but other than that, has a blank face a lot of the time.

The bike ride was tough, and my knees hurt a lot, but I made it the whole way.
I decided not to do the "century" ride, 100 miles in the first day, but just did 82 miles the first day, and 68 miles the second day.
I had friends that biked also, but mostly, some biked faster, and some biked slower, so I didn't get to spend too much time with anyone, although I did spend a little time with Paul Behrens, and some small conversations with "random" people as we biked along
The trip was well organized, plenty of food at the rest stops, and people at almost every intersection to direct traffic. (More)

Pittsburgh vehicle drivers need to learn the law. A guy swerved into me on my bike today. I honked at him, but he continued into my path. I yelled at him, and he stopped and got out of his car and made like he was going to do something. He then decided better of it (I guess I must have been bigger than he thought, ha...) then he continued to swear at me, and say I didn't belong on the road, etc. I told him I would get his license plate number, but of course the police don't do anything about near-misses. They have to wait until I am dead, then they will do something. The officer did say he understands and is sorry. Doesn't that make me feel better.

Well -- started into the world of blogging. I told Heather today that I had mostly ignored blogs up until now, as I had sort of categorized them as things for people younger than me, and people who use the word "phat" as part of their regular language. But, since I write all the HTML for Isaac's page by hand, I thought I would take a look at this. It seems pretty nifty. I am using pLog, as it was easy to install, and I liked the original layout. It is a little hard to find stuff sometimes, but I have only played with it for a day or so, so presumably it will get better.

I thought I would be writing this post to say how great Lingo is, and how you should all sign up for their service. They answer their phone within a couple rings, no matter when I called, and sounded like they would be able to fix any technical problems I had. However, after spending hours on the phone with customer support, I discovered that their customer support (in India, like so many other companies these days) doesn't really know anything, and can hardly speak English. (More)

I had a revelation today. While we felt very supported back in November, we have recently been more feeling on our own. Certainly, people want to care for us, and probably don't know how to do that. But, I think the bigger issue is that most people we know do not agree with our decisions about how the birth of our first (and second) child happened/will happen. So, that makes it hard for people to know how to talk with us, and they are, as Heather said, "holding their breath until this baby is born, then things will be more relaxed." There is petition circulating around Pittsburgh and elsewhere regarding our case in particular, but in a larger sense, who is responsible for making medical decisions. The petition will be delivered early next week, in hopes of affecting the district attorney's decision for this case. I was going to send it to people, but I am not sure who to send it to, as I think lots of our friends think that the doctor does always know best, and his opinion should outweigh your own in all cases. I think that is a pretty scary place to be, a place where the hospital is in charge and you have no say in what happens to you. Which is basically what is happening in this case. We signed an "informed consent" document, but apparently because doctors have people sign those forms all the time without really explaining things, "informed consent" no longer means anything legally.

As the coroner stated, "a woman in labor" (and apparently her husband by extension) "cannot make decisions rationally" and needs the care practioner to make all decisions for them. I guess that would lead to that all decisions are the medical practitioner's fault. Thus, know we know why the doctors are scared about the malpractice suits, since they have brought upon themselves this conundrum: they know everything, and don't allow patients to take responsibility for any decisions, but yet, the doctors don't want the responsibility either.

So, we are left with the problem, the state can sue whoever they want, parents or provider because everyone is shirking their responsibility to be accountable for their decisions.

If you don't think parents should be able to make decisions regarding their own care, you should think about what the alternative is.

Prayer requests:
Continued prayers for us to trust God's guidance in our lives, and for our faith as we seek Him.
Praise and thanks for the group of families in Pittsburgh who are uniting in support of us and Judy
For legal decisions, both by the district attorney and the Friends of Judy as they try to figure out what is the best course of action.
That we would be able to understand our friends, and that our friends would be able to understand us

These songs were sung at the memorial service, and have been very meaningful to us
Thanks to the writers and composers for providing a means of God's grace with these words.

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Copyright ©2003 Linda Wightman

When they put the sugar back into baby food, I should have known it was a bad sign.

Progress is often a tidal creek, not a river. Advancement is not inevitable. We gain in one era, or in one area, and lose in another.

The late 1970's and early 80's were good years for having babies in America. Women had rediscovered that childbirth is a good thing, a normal function, and were dragging their doctors along with them. Hospitals scrambled to keep up.

We were the rebels, the revolutionaries. The children of the 60's grown up. Our parents had been cheated by medical and cultural "advancement", giving birth under anesthesia, flat on their backs on a delivery table, their legs unnaturally elevated. Labor was often artificially induced, and the cesarean section rate was high. Once born, the babies were whisked away to nurseries, tended by professional nurses and fed commercial formula. As soon as possible their diets included solid food-commercial baby food, loaded with sugar and salt to suit the mother's taste.

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A number of you have asked why is this happening, ie. how did the district attorney, coroner, homicide detective and police officers get involved in the first place. Good question. One might wonder...

Whenever 911 is called involving a baby, they send police officers along with medical support, to investigate a possible child abuse situation. So, Heather and our midwife were separated and questioned by a homicide detective. (Heather was naked, cold and hungry, but the police refused her requests, except to allow her to get a towel to cover herself)

After Isaac died, the coroner performed an autopsy, as is required by law, whenever the cause of death is not evident. An inquest was then done, to determine whether or not a crime had been committed, and whether there was someone to blame for it or not.

The coroner said that our midwife had been "grossly negligent" in her care of Heather and Isaac, and therefore should be charged criminally. Fortunately, much of the evidence that was presented at the hearing was extremely biased at best, and outright lies at worst. During an inquest, there is not an opportunity for the "defense" to cross-examine, as an inquest isn't supposed to have a prosecution and defense, but everybody there knew which person was on which side. Due to the incompetence of the district attorney and the coroner's office, many witnesses were not able to attend the hearing as they had not been told about the hearing the first time, and then the second time, they were subpeonead 12 hours in advance of the hearing.

The coroner passes along his recommendation to the district attorney, (who was the prosecutor in the inquest), and the district attorney decided whether or not he thinks that he can win a criminal trial, as he doesn't want to lose a trial, because that looks bad for him politically, and as the he is hoping to be elected judge someday, he is very conscious of the publicity that he gets.

The district attorney and coroner fully understand that the only witnesses to this event believe that no crime was committed, but we live in a country where our liberties are slowly being eroded away as time goes on, and we will soon have no rights to make our own decisions, if they conflict with the popular beliefs of the times. Hm... seems a little similar to Ayn Rand's, "Atlas Shrugged". Different issues, but similar in terms of the political/social/liberty issues.

We were, and continue to be, overwhelmed by the support we have received from all of you.
From the numerous:

• phone calls
• emails
• visits to the hospital and home
  Sometimes staying for hours or overnight
• prayer lists to which we have been added
• food showing up in our refrigerator and doorstep
• prayers
• encouraging scripture verses
• removing air conditioners that were leaking cold air into our house
• caulking our bathtub
• grocery shopping
• miscellaneous shopping
• arranging housing for family
• driving us places
• cleaning
• flowers
• And other various requested tasks being joyfully completed

God is amazing: I know we have been covered in prayer on 5 continents. I figure Antarctica might be a little hard to find someone, and I don't know of anyone in South America praying for us, but after I have heard about all the people who have been praying for us, I wouldn't be all that surprised if there is someone there too. (Thanks to Nancy Brutt for offering to email someone in South America... (: ) (More)