So Terri Schiavo has died, and I'm sad about that, but why did the BBC describe her in their headline as 'brain damaged'? (I mean, not as a person who is brain damaged, but a brain damaged person, which though it might seem a pedantic distinction, is in fact what disabled people have long complained about in the presentation of their identities: disabled first, person second). Is this their tacit admission that they always sided with the group that put her in a special category of disabled ie., the vegetative one? Next time they report ex-Home Sec. David Blunkett I'll expect them to put 'blind (ex-Home Sec.) David Blunkett', not.

Post Updated: Melanie Phillips underlines the point.

Forgive another update: there's so much to say about the Schiavo case. There are those who will say this is opportunistically reading political concerns into a personal matter, but I honestly regard the Schiavo case as emblematic of a point in cultural history where we can go in several directions, but it's clear which direction has the greatest momentum.

Steyn touches many of the points of interest, dramatically. So, fascinatingly, does the more prosaic G.W. Bush: Terri and the War on Terror? (Via R.C.P.) W. undercuts the columnists. Who else would dare put it that way?