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| So A Race-Carder, A Vegetable, And A Catholic Walk Into A Bar... |
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| Lately it has seemed like we have all been surrounded by death. First came Johnnie "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" Cochran, from a brain tumor, last Tuesday; next came Terri Schiavo, who finally bought the farm last Thursday; and last came the death of Pope John Paul II, who finally succumbed to his ailing health on Saturday. Now that these people are dead, can we finally speak freely about them? |
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| I still remember Oct. 3, 1995. I was in a computer class at my middle school, and the nation was caught up in the much sensationalized trial of O.J. Simpson, who was accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. When that "not guilty" verdict was read, I distinctly remember cheers not only coming from the television, but also from inside my own classroom. Cochran did the impossible: he got a clearly guilty murderer off without as much as a slap on the wrist. |
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| I guess money can buy anything, especially freedom from guilt in a double-homicide. It also works wonders when you can convince a court of law that police officers planted evidence to take down a black celebrity simply because he was black, never mind the fact that the guy killed two people. By bringing forth the race issue in the first place, Cochran contributed to a divisive and dare I say, racist, atmosphere in America when it came to high profile black celebrities and their "innocence." Cochran was just another prime example of a guy who found it easy to play the race card and deceive the public, but then again, I suppose that is what lawyers are for. |
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| Now let us take some time to look back on the life of Terri Schiavo, who in 1990 suffered brain damage from a heart attack due to bulimia, and the ridiculous controversy that ensued recently, when her feeding tube that kept her alive was removed by a court order. Issues like this are not what the courts should be dealing with in the first place, as far as I'm concerned, but it happens all the time. What use is it to keep a person who is a vegetable, who has no redeeming qualities or characteristics, alive in the first place? Schiavo had been in a vegetative state for more than 15 years. When does the time come to pull the plug? Somebody should have put a gun to her head a long time ago and put her out of her misery. |
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| Thankfully, just as I was getting sick of hearing about Terri "No-Longer-Alive-O" Schiavo, the pope decides to check out, which was, for lack of a better term, a blessing in-and-of-itself. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think the pope was a bad person, but he had a few flaws which should be mentioned. He had a soft spot for Pope Pius XII, who turned a blind eye to the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust; he compared abortion to the Holocaust in his March 2005 book "Memory and Identity"; he criticized same-sex marriages, which he had no business to comment on in the first place, and in "Memory and Identity" referred to such institutions as "perhaps part of a new ideology of evil." Also, lest we forget, he sure as hell didn't do much to condemn (or even prevent) Catholic priests from having their fun with nubile and prepubescent altar boys. |
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| Death happens all the time, and when deaths of this caliber occur in such short succession of one another, it's easy to get caught up in the infinite praise and exaltation of the person and/or situation regarding the person's death. Luckily for you, there are people like me who are willing to bring up the issues not often discussed after a high-profile death, like what kind of a person they really were and whether they were actually a blessing to mankind. That being said, may our favorite race card lawyer, human vegetable, and holy pontiff rest in peace. |
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Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2005, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. |
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Letters To The Editor Regarding This Article: |
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Wachovsky Opinion Article Earns Its Proper Place As "Art" |
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(from April 12, 2005) |
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