|
|
Exhibit 2
Terri Schiavo.
"Terri Schiavo was a woman whose medical and family circumstances
attracted media attention and led to several court decisions in the
USA around the turn of the twenty first century. After an extensive
appeal process the courts found her to be in a Persistent Vegitive
State and held that she should not be artificially kept alive. Her
feeding tube was removed on March 18, 2005 and she died of dehydration
thirteen days later."
This is pretty much what a normal encyclopedia might have to say about
Terri Schiavo, if anything at all, but many Roman Catholics regard this
case as legalizing euthenasia in the USA.
A group of zealous Roman Catholics including Musical Linguist (aka AnnH)
and Str1977 has taken possession of the Wikipedia article on Terri Schiavo.
They have converted it into a long rambling discourse with a sub-text
designed to show that her husband Michael was an unpleasant man who managed
to trick the legal authorities into killing his wife.
The article as it stands is about 80 times as long as it needs to be
and almost unreadable, but if you can bring yourself to go over it several
times and if you aware of traditional catholic views on matters like euthenasia,
last rights, and cremation you will see the subtext very clearly.
If you can manage it, there is some light relief in the amount of irrelevent
detail included, such as gems like "On January 23, 2006, Michael
Schiavo married his long-term fiancée, Jodi Centonze, whom he met
in a dentist's office in 1995." From time to time particular zealots
add mention of Michael breaking his sacred marriage vows and of his basterd
children. Again, the whole section headed Last Rights is a delight.
The Catholic owners of the article are not willing to countenance the
inclusion of information that does not suit their POV, and AnnH has veen
responsible for dozens of reverts. Str1977 true to form, removes any reference
to the political right. DJ Clayworth's contribution has been to revert
edits that reduce the size of the article to something reasonable.
Here are a few examples of the partisan approach (missing out an inexplicable
desire to avoid any mention of the eating disorders which may have accounted
for Terri's initial coma, the persistent blackening of Michael Schiavo's
character, and extensive repeated quibbling about Roman Catholic terminology):
- Str1977 removes the unremarkable and factually accurate statement
that President Bush was under right-wing pressure to interfere in the
legal process.
(16:06, 28 April 2005)
- Str1977 invents without citation "numerous physicians" who
believe that Terri displayed some cognitive behavior
(17:56, 5 May 2005 )
- AnnH (Musical Linguist) makes the important point that it is hereretical
to refer to the host, ie consecrated bread, as "bread".
(07:51, 25 October 2005)
- AnnH (aka Musical Linguist) reverts a reference to Terri Schiavo's
gravesone on the grounds that it (the gravestone) is POV! User PMA had
made reference to the fact that the gravestone reads "Departed this
earth February 25, 1990. At peace March 31, 2005". AnnH annotated
her revert "... her gravestone is POV; Wikipedia is not supposed to
be".)
(22:43 on 3 February 2006)
- Str1977 added a piece of hearsay text to the effect that a nurse had
claimed that Michael had said "When is that bitch gonna die?".
He marked this as a minor edit.
(17:10, 5 February 2006)
- Str1977 replaced the word claim by the word said on
the grounds that claim is a weasle word. The effect is to give
additional credence to a nurse hostile to Michael Schiavo at the cost
of poor English. The new text now reads: "One of the nurses, Carla
Sauer Iyer said in her affidavit that her initial training in 1996 consisted
solely of the instruction, "do what Michael Schiavo tells you or
you're terminated." She also said that Michael said "When
is that bitch gonna die?".
(18:00, 5 February 2006)
- AnnH (aka Musical Linguist) removes mention of the cause of death
(dehydration). The explanation for this removal is style, but if there
was a stylistic problem why not amend the sentence to read better. Could
it be that he real reason behing this edit is that this is too much
of a reminder that her death was nature taking its course rather than
deliberate killing?
(19:15, 2 March 2006)
- An editor named Samsara added a link to an external website at 16:33,
10 March 2006. The link is reproduced here: Biggest
Myth On Schiavo Case That Everyone Keeps Repeating. This was edit
was reverted a few minutes later by AnnH at 16:59, 10 March 2006 with
the comment "removed linkspam". Now the link is clearly not
spam. It may by right or wrong, it may be debatable, but a look at the
site in question will confirm that it is clearly not spam.It is difficult
to find any explanation other than that AnnH removed it because it did
not accord with her POV. She has never removed any weblink that did
accord with her POV.
|