Ed Weaver's column has been shifted from Tuesdays to Saturdays. Great, now instead of spoiling a day early in the week he gets to ruin the whole weekend.
Weaver is one in 300 million. I think he's the only person in the country defending Rush Limbaugh after he said Michael J. Fox was a faker during ads supporting stem cell research. And because he has an aunt with Parkinson's, apparently that makes Weaver is more of an expert on the disease than Fox who has it, lives 24/7/365 with it, has spent the better part of 15 years fighting it, and has a foundation that has raised over $85 million dollars funding research to cure it. I wonder how Big Ed's auntee feels about the fact that a celebrity is doing more for her condition than her darling nephew — who places more value on the 'life' of a clump of cells (about to be tossed in the garbage) than hers? Fox has made more of a contribution to humanity than Limbaugh and ditto heads like Weaver ever will.
Here are a couple of excerpts from Weaver's 10.28.06 article and my feelings about them:
About the beginning of life...
"Most of those of us who believe human life begins at conception agree with him."So why aren't you people leading the charge against in vitro fertilization? That's the process that generates all the fertilized embryos that would be used. I keep listening for the uproar but all I hear is silence. Don't talk to me about snowflake babies. How many women in YOUR family have volunteered to carry one to term and make the lifelong commitment to raise it? I guess that's a great solution...for someone else.
Neo-cons are long on hot air, short on consistency, absent on action. They're afraid to take a stand against in vitro because Suzie Q. Republican might want a baby and her vote is too important to piss her off. Kinda like not reprimanding Rep. Mark Foley because the Republicans might lose the seat. They spew self-righteous moral platitudes until it comes time for power and control. But for your vote, they'll look the other way while you throw that precious 'life' they hold so dear in the garbage. Oh, and dear auntee, just keep shaking baby 'cause I'm doing the moral thing.
About embryonic stem cell research...
"The bold, stark truth, folks, is that there is virtually no evidence that embryonic stem cell replacement has any hopeful effect on any disease. None."That's why we need the research! Don't you get it? Are you really that stupid? This is a new field of study that the scientific community almost unanimously agrees will yield dramatic breakthroughs not just for Parkinson's but a whole host of others illnesses as well.
This country need serious funding for basic research. We're not doing it but you can be sure China, Japan, and Korea are. The U.S. would never have gone to the moon if President Kennedy had said, "No one has ever gone to the moon so we're not going to fund it because there's no concrete evidence to demonstrate that the moon is anything other than cheese." Our lives would be drastically different today if all the research to make that program happen never took place. Would we have the microchips that power our military, financial institutions, medical devices, entertainment, and computers?
Ed Weaver's column appears every Saturday in The Record newspaper in Troy, NY. I'd say he's a right-wing conservative, but all indications are that he's even whackier than that. His views are so skewed, and based in a reality that I don't even recognize, that I think he sees the world through fun house mirrors‚ only it isn't funny. He's proof of the theory that hindsight is 20/20, only his vision is 20/100...20 for those things that support his views, 100 for those that don't.
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