Christopher Reeve is dead.

[conuly]

This has lead to a number of posts on my friends page, causing me to ask two questions:

1. Why is it "so sad" that he died? I mean, yes, it's sad for the people who knew and loved him, but since most of you do *not* fall into that category, why do you actually care? I'm honestly curious.
2. In some communities, his death is leading to people saying that Bush is evil because, of course, Christopher Reeve might've been walking (and possibly still alive) if Bush had allowed more stem cell research.

A. I don't think stem cell research would've led to any cures so early.
B. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I'm not in a wheelchair or anything, so I might be mistaken... but instead of waiting on the cureall of stem cells, wouldn't it be more effective to, um, have more buildings be accessible? And public transportation (I know that the NYC trains are essentially non-accessible)? And more strictly enforce handicapped parking laws? You know, that sort of thing? I mean, homes are still being built that aren't accessible, aren't they? That seems to be the impression of family friend Mr. Steve, who had a nice lovely debate about the cost of building accessible homes with my mom last time he visited, and how that's why people don't build homes to be accessible. My grandmother's fairly new home has a step in front of it, a completely pointless accoutrement. That's not accessible, right?

Seriously, for Bush to turn around on stem cell research, this would not come close to redeeming him in my eyes. That's nice, but I don't think it's particularily helpful to anybody living right now.

Edit: I think I've identified what's annoying me! It's what several people have said: he deserved to walk again. As one person put it "He might have gotten to walk again. The man deserved it. He worked SO damn hard." I don't know. Mihi, that's a lot like saying "some people don't deserve it. They just didn't work hard enough!"

I'm definitely going to bed. I'm taking this all way too seriously. If I sleep, I'll feel better, and I'll stop reading things wrong like that. Djusk' a.

Comments

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

Show jumping: when there's a course of jumps set out, and one horse at a time jumps over the jumps. Having seen video of the accident on various news programs when it happened, and then every couple of years when someone did a profile of him, it appeared that his was the only horse, and it was jumping through a course of jumps. I don't like steeple chasing that much, having been horrified by the number of horses that get killed or seriously injured in the Grand National every year, but the video made it appear he was show jumping. Unless someone uses "steeplechase" (a race with horses running and jumping over obstacles) and "show jumping" (one horse at a time jumps over fences and oxers and water jumps) to mean the same thing?

[thren0dy.livejournal.com]

That's a good question, I don't know if people use the terms interchangeably, I have only ever heard of steeplechasing. It's been too long for me to remember the footage, but I'll take your word for it; I just seem to remember all the references being "steeplechase," but that could very well be from the ignorance of the reporters.