C1: Terri Schiavo weds illusionist David Blaine

VATICAN CITY -- An ailing Pope John Paul II conferred by phone Monday with American President George W. Bush to arrange an "emergency annulment from Michael Schiavo, and marriage by fiat" to illusionist David Blaine, for brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, the focus of fierce media attention in the U.S. over her former husband's legal battle to remove her from life support, Vatican officials said.

Blaine was chosen for his familiarity with dramas of individual starvation as a form of entertaining a nation. In 2003, the American spent 44 days suspended in a box above London, reportedly consuming only water.

Blaine and Bush co-signed an executive order at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina on Tuesday. Bush declared, "We are ordering that Terri Schindler-Blaine's feeding tube be reinserted. This is a victory for freedom. And for life." Bush received a 182-minute standing ovation.

"This is like President Reagan working with Pope John Paul in the 1980s to free Poland and fight the Soviet Union," said Max Boot, senior fellow at the Hoover institute. "Some people said in 2003 that Blaine's triumph was a meaningless stunt. But now look how relevant it is."

Boot noted that Schindler-Blaine will now be free to run as a Republican against one of Florida's Democrat party members of Congress.

Left grip is 46 pounds (43, 46, 43), right grip is 98 pounds (97, 97, 98), left leg balance is 15.14 seconds, and inhale volume is 4600 mL.

The visiting nurse inserted the new IV needle today and I resumed taking IV ceftriaxone. This time it is at 2 grams per day for five days. The needle is in my left arm, so I will not be taking a metric from that arm during the infusion period. Today's metrics were taken before the new needle was inserted. The "Cn:" indicator in the blog post title indicates that I am currently getting ceftriaxone. The infusion is done with a great big syringe instead of that baby-bottle-looking thing, which they call a "home ball."

For about the past week or so I have had stronger spastic twitching in my left thumb. It makes the thumb unusable some of the time. I assume that many for the rest of you with ALS, the twitching in various places is much worse. I was just commenting to my buddy today that, while I have the same ALS diagnosis, I feel that I have been fortunate that so far (touch wood), my progress has been slower than is typical.