Terri Schiavo, RIP
terrischiavo is dead. (CNN story.)
I hope she died peacefully, whenever it was all those years ago that she actually died, and I’m sure I echo the sentiments of millions when I say that we profoundly regret the way in which her name came to symbolize the very worst aspects of our culture. From what we’ve read she was a dynamic person in life, and it’s a sign of the appalling amorality of our nation’s technical/medical policy that she was deprived of the opportunity to pass on in dignity.
That her tragedy become a political football is something I hope several dozen cynical politicians get an opportunity to account for when finally they stand before their god.
lullaby pit 
No, not “political football.”
Political necrophilia.
P.S. – In the German newspapers I read online, I’ve discovered what Germans call a “feeding tube”: Magensonde
What we can see from that word is (a) the German propensity for building compound words, and (b) the German tendency to be hyperliteral in their naming of things. Your “Magen” is your stomach. And the words “Sonde” means probe.
Magensonde == Magen + Sonde –> (translated) Stomach Probe
Which, really, is exactly what it is.
So, I wonder how many people would still be talking about “starving poor Terri” if we here in Amerrrika called a spade a spade? What if, instead of using a dianty euphemism like, “feeding tube,” we’d heard reports of Terri Schiavo’s Stomach Probe being removed?