Thanks Sebastian,
 
It's an interesting question, actually, and certainly a moral confound (confound for some, I suppose, more than others) that is worth considering.
 
I'll go in reverse for this. Firstly, at the end of the day, I would keep Ashley alive (and the mentally and physically disabled, in general). But there are a few issues in this, on a few levels. So, let's take a stroll through a couple.
 
I say "would keep Ashley alive", referring to being a parent, because firstly, I think what has to be said is that it must be a question, at very least, asked only to a parent. We certainly couldn't have a situation where any external force could decide to have anybody killed (that borders on a policy of natural selection). Euthanasia is something I do believe in - but I believe in it as an individual's choice. In this case, the individual in question cannot make the choice, so at very least, it would have to be her parents, and certainly nobody else. We definitely can't have euthanasia as an enforced social policy of any kind.
 
Now, the belief in euthanasia I refer to having is in regards to the "normal" (it's a strange term to use, I know, but you know what I mean) kind, in relation to terminal illness. People who are dying slow, painful deaths should, in my opinion, be allowed to end their lives peacefully and painlessly. To force these people to endure their own agonising demise is something I cannot see beyond being a question of selfishness and egocentricity on the part of others. Again, it has to be the individual's choice in this, and granted, I have seen a few dying people who would not want to end their lives, and whether that's out of a rational valuing of their time alive, a kind of hopelessness or a failure to resolve their mortality (though in that case, perhaps they need more time in a psychological sense, because I think the psychological resolution of the dying - the fact that their life is about to come to an end - is an important part of their death), that's their right. But most people I have seen die (and I've seen quite a few) have all expressed the longing to be euthanased, and I have to say that I would do the same thing. I don't view it in the manner you do, I suppose - I have thought this for a long time, but I have never even considered the element of economics (and I realise that the role of economics for you is related to the wellbeing of others, so I'm not necessarily saying that your emphasis is callous, as such). For me, it's simply a question of the quality of that person's life, and the right they have not to be forced to endure their deaths simply because we cannot deal with the subject, and as a result (I believe this is the main factor), cling to "life", even in cases when death is clearly much better.

 

It leads me to remember my Great Aunt, who, like far too many Australian women, had her life cut short by breast cancer (that eventually spread to her lungs). She held on like the tough woman she most certainly was, and often told me that however painful her illness was slowly becoming, she valued the time spent with her family enough for it to be worth that pain. But eventually, of course, the scales on that blance tip increasingly to one side. 

 

I wasn't there for her death, but eventually, she became so ill, she could no longer be at home, and was moved into the hospital (the meaning of this moment will be understood by anyone out there who has also been through this - it's the "well, here it comes" moment, where the mode entirely shifts into waiting for the inevitable and now achingly near end). My Great Grandmother (her mother) has told me the story many times (I respect her need to externalise, and pretend I've never heard it), of those final, awful days, culminating in a moment she has never been able to shake from her mind, and never will. She recounts it with an almost unbearable vividness (no matter how many times I have heard it, I cannot keep from falling to pieces); holding her daughter in her arms, an oxygen mask covering her face, moaning from the pain, looking into her mother's eyes, and being able to articulate only three simple words; "Now, Mum, please".

 

She knew what this meant, and she wished she could grant her wish. Many wouldn't; but I suggest this is potentially a selfish, somewhat delusional, belief - and certainly a hopeless one. But my Great Grandmother, I must say, is my true idol in this world. I've never been a Mummy's boy (it's smoothed out, now, but it's certainly been a... what's the word... "unconventional" and bumpy ride with my mother), but I'm proudly Nanna's little apple. It wasn't for herself that she wanted to grant her dying daughter's wish. It was for her dying daughter.

 

But she knew there was little she could do, and the doctors and nurses - as doctors and nurses do - were in fact spending pointless hours and money in an effort to keep her alive so that she may lay on a hospital bed, drugged out of her mind, conscious for only a few hours a day, where she would moan from the pain, cry, and communicate only her wish for it to end, as she held her mother for what she now hoped was the last time. 

 

"Soon," her Mother would whipser to her through the tears, stroking her hair. it was all she could do.

 

This went on for five pointless days, the cruelty steadily increasing with every hour she was conscious. By the fifth night, her moans had turned to outright screams ("though, it was a scream that had only the energy to sound more like a whimper", my Great Grandmother told me - "But it was clearly a scream"), and she could no longer even talk. Her mantra had now deteriorated only to the first syllable of addressing her Mother; "Ma-a-a-a-a", she would drool, with glassy, pleading eyes. In the end, of course, even the morphine stops working. It gets to a point where there is really nowhere else to go.

 

Devestated and helpless to a degree that no clever writing could accurately describe, my Great Grandmother finally went to the nurse; so distraught, she still remembers how hard it was to articulate her words through her emotion. She pleaded with the nurse to kill her daughter, to do something - anything - she could to end it, or at least speed up the process. The nurse, as obliged, told her it was illegal, and assured her it would come soon enough. She assured the nurse that the family would remain silent, and that to keep this poor woman alive was a moral reality that defied the law. She was sure the nurse understood, but in return, the nurse offered nothing but the assurance that however long it would take for the disease to finally steal her daughter's life, it wouldn't be much longer.

 

My Great Grandmother gave up, and went to return to the her daughter's side, but was so distraught, she made it only a few metres down the corridor before having to sit down. There, she heard the nurses talking, both agreeing that they were themselves finding it emotionally taxing to watch the demise of this woman. One of them even admitted, "I'm not even sure that it will be any moment, now - her body just won't give up. And everyone just wishes it would." Eventually, they decided to ring the doctor, and my Great Grandmother listened, silently, hidden around the corner, as the nurse expressed the cruelty she found in this woman's far too slow death, and how the family were now pleading with them to euthanase her. Of course, she couldn't hear the doctor's response, and eventually went back to her daughter's side, none the wiser.

 

Soon, the doctor came. It was the middle of the night, there was no reason for him to be there (her daughter had now drifted back into sleep, at least), and she presumed that this was clearly in response to the nurse's phonecall. She repeated her requests to the doctor, and he seemed sympathetic, and again reminded her that their job was to keep people alive, not to shorten their time. Again, she appealed to his conscience and logic, and assured him there would be no objection from the family. He said nothing in response to this (she said that she knew very well he was deliberately steering the conversation away from the subject), but eventually he took her hand, and told her that she should go home and sleep, and that things would change, very soon. My uncle was summoned, and my Great Grandmother was taken home.

 

The next day, she woke to the knocks of her other daughter, who stood at the door with tears rolling down her face, but with what my Grandmother instantly recognised as a look of relief.

 

"Please tell me she's gone," she said to her.

 

"She's gone, mum," she nodded. The two embraced each other in a strange paradox of the most unthinkable grief, and yet with that awful relief I think very few of us have the right to question. She later found that her daughter had died within the hour of her leaving the hospital, in the care and assurances of the doctor who had rushed to her care for a reason that was never properly explained.

 

Now, to this day, she speaks of "what we all know very well, but would never dare mention". She respects it enough not to say it outright, but she has told me many times how this doctor was a "good man", and how "lucky" they were to have him in those final hours. She even puts it down to being in the care of a small, country hospital; "They probably wouldn't be able to do it in Sydney", she often says. And it's certainly a big call to make, and I will choose not to say it, either. Part of me thought, "Well, surely, it's a coincidence," and part of me couldn't help but join the dots together similarly to my Great Grandmother. If I was that doctor, what would I do? Perhaps, it's lucky I am not a doctor.

 

So, yes, I believe in euthanasia. And I challenge any of the Christians (or those who are against it for non-religious reasons) to please explain to me the sense in prolonging that woman's agony - or that of her family. How does their God justify the deaths of all the people who have fallen at the hands of holy wars, but insist we cling to the concept of life, in moments such as these?  

 

But the moments of such cases like Ashley X are a very different story, and here's where things get tricky in the example your referring to. Now, Ashley can't tell us whether she wants to be euthanased - she can't tell us anything. So what we have to do is apply the concept of "quality of life" to her, for her. But this is death we're talking about - killing someone - so the thing is, when it comes to this situation, we must be sure. We can think in practical terms about her quality of life, which is why I agree with the procedures her parents have undertaken. Ashley can't tell us if she wanted these procedures, of course, but these have been performed on a judgement that they will improve her quality of life, and I agree that they will. If she cannot be moved and has to deal with periods, etc, then her quality of life is compromised. She may not be able to interact with her world very much, and she may not experience consciousness in the same way we do - but she can still feel pain and discomfort, and she can still respond - all be it in the most simplest fashion - to very basic stimulation. So we can say with great certainty that her quality of life is "improved" by this procedure.
 
However, death isn't about improving quality of life, it's about ending it because there is NO quality of life to be experienced. I don't think we can safely make this call on Ashley. And here's the age old philosophical question it boils down to...
 
We can never experience her life - what it is to "be" Ashley - in order to make this kind of call. We can only ever presume. The unnecessary pain caused by her periods, the fact that she will be able to go outside and be dealt with by parents who are themselves able to care for her better (and are therefore happier parents - and that's fair enough, it annoyed me that people dismissed their role in it as selfish, when of course having unduly stressed and tired parents is a reality of caring for the disabled and in turn affects the quality of her life, too) is a call we can make, it's a logic that can be bet upon. Period pain is period pain, and without any hope of conception (unless it's in the very worst of circumstances, as we discussed), it has no point. But to say her life means nothing? We can say she will not contribute anything to society because she can't interact with it - but we're not really talking about her quality of life for her, there, we're talking about it for us. And certainly many normal people don't offer a great deal, and I'd never suggest we should kill them! But one has to (well, I suppose they don't; but I do - as would most, I would like to think) value life in terms of simply how it is experienced for an individual (why euthanasia for those who are dying and want to die before their demise is fine with me). How can we make this call on Ashley?
 
Ashley can still smile - which she does, from time to time - and would be able to cry. If she feels pain, she will cry. Now, her "system" (let's call it) may be very, very different to ours. It may take as much as the feeling of sunlight on her face to make her smile, and she may only feel pain in relation to physical sensation (she certainly will have no constructs of thought that would lead her to feel great emotional pain), but for Ashley, that is "being". She cannot assess the quality of her life in the same way we can - she would not have the capacity or the inclination to "assess" the quality of her life, at all. So, this can only ever be us projecting our conept of consciousness upon hers - which is impossible, and unfair.
 
We can't imagine what it is like to be Ashley - we simply cannot know. People spend a lot of time "imagining" what life would be like "as" something (or someone, more to the pont) different, but it's not a realistic imagining, we have no way of knowing what it is like to be anything other than what we can perceive in accordance to our own exprience of consciousness. I can't imagine what it is like to be a cat, for example, because I have no point of reference (I can only be a human imagining what it is like to be a cat, which is nothing more certain than that I am simply experiencing what it is like to be a human imagining they are a cat - and nothing more). And we can't imagine what it would be like to suffer from what Ashley suffers from. In fact, our term "suffer" is interesting, in itself. Who is to say she "suffers", at all, when it comes to her overall experience of life? If we stick a needle into her arm, we can say she "suffers" - we have a collective point of reference as humans, and Ashley still has nerves connected and working very much like ours (as opposed to cognitive processes Ashley doesn't have like ours, so therefore, we have no point of reference of understanding) . But to go beyond that, to imagine what her life is "like", to the extent that we might kill her because we decide her life has no meaning or quality? No, we can't do that. Even this comparison we find in the media to that of a "three month old baby" - in truth, it's not really accurate. Her doctors use it (fairly) to try, the best they can, to explain Ashley in terms people can comprehend, so that they may morally assess what is being done, and why. But realistically, babies can do many things she cannot, it's not really that she's frozen at the stage of a three month old baby - what this actually more accurately expresses is that she cannot do anything a normal person older than three months can do, nor will she ever be able to (which is different to saying that she "is" a three month old baby).

"Ignorance is bliss", so they say. And I think it's a very fair thing to consider in this. I'll tell you something I learnt very quickly being with the mentally disabled. The less disabled a disabled person is, the unhappier their life is. This is because as their mental capacity increases, they begin to have a concept of being disabled, and they grasp themselves in contrast to the rest of the world, and furthermore, understand what is happening around them (and to them) in relation to the self-perception of "being" mentally disabled. I'll use two examples to show you what I mean.
 
The most disabled in the group I knew was named Kerry-Anne. Now, Kerry-Anne was severely disabled. Not to the point of Ashley, of course - she could talk, and walk (albeit with difficulty), etc. But still, her mental capacity was very low, and she was extremely disabled (having mild physical disabilities, as well). The only time she ever expressed suffering to me was one day when she told me how someone had endeavoured to teach her to tie her shoelaces, assuring her it was simple enough for her to grasp. Unfortunately, after weeks of trying, she was forced to concede that she simply couldn't do it. She could almost do it - she could tie the first bow, but could never get any further - but it was simply too much for her brain to be able to process (her memory could not store sequences of thought beyond the first steps). Her best friend at the center, Robbie, had also been given the same lessons by the same carer, and had managed to accomplish this (it said so much to me that a 43 year old man who could be taught to do something like tie his shoelaces - in fact, I would realise Robbie was remarkably capable - had never had anyone bother to, and this is a great example in itself of the level of care they are given... one that never extends beyond babysitting). Unfortunately, Robbie liked to rub it in a little, and would deliberately tie his shoelaces in front of her, teasing her that he was smarter than she was. She would tell him to go fuck himself (quite literally, in fact!), but one day, she confided in me how it secretly bothered her, from time to time, and that she would spend moments alone in thought feeling bad that she could not tie her shoelaces. But even so, this was an infrequent occurence - she was so disabled, even constant thoughts would simply slip her mind, and it would require Robbie to make fun of her again (something that, sadly, he would always inevitably do), in order to recreate the feelings of inadequacy. Most of the time, she was a reasonably happy girl.
 
She was so unaware, that when we would catch the bus into town, she actually had no idea when people were teasing her. Cruel little schoolboys would often ask her questions to enjoy her retardation as amusement.
 
"What's one plus one, Kerry-Anne?" they would ask her.
 
"Two!" she would tell them, beaming ear to ear with pride.
 
"What's fifteen minus five?" they'd then ask her.
 
Kerry-Anne didn't know, of course; but she saw this as a game, and she would naughtily respond, "four!", with a mischievous awareness that she was lying because she didn't have the faintest idea. But it never actually occured to her that this was something she didn't know because she was disabled, and she probably presumed most people didn't know, either (because clearly - as far as she could see it - the boys mustn't have known the answers for themselves). At very least, she'd no doubt think others knew because they were simply "smarty pants" (as she would often call others who were more able, and who knew answers to things in classes that she did not); but she certainly never had a concept of them knowing this because they were not disabled, and she was. The boys would roar laughing, finding her incapability as a thirty year old woman most amusing, and Kerry-Anne, thinking the boys were amused by how clever she was (which she in turn found amusing because she thought she had fooled them, and that they clearly didn't know the answer, themselves), would simply roar laughing with them.
 
I, of course, would feel pain. It would hurt me to see these vile little creatures collectively ridiculing the disabled for their own amusement. But Kerry-Anne could not feel the pain, becaue she was so disabled, she had no concept of what was happening, in order to feel it. Igorance is bliss.
 
Sally, on the other hand, was by far the smartest in the group.  She had a much more advanced cognitive capacity, and she perceived herself in relation to broader society with much more depth than the others. She fully understood she was disabled, and had a good understanding of what this "is". Not only was she smart enough to qualify for the handicapped employment placement programme with K-Mart (a programme that - whilst I'm not sure if it still exists, admittedly - I was forever conflicted over because it did, on the one hand, provide an opportunity that was wonderful for them, and was a miracle in contrast to what else was now available to them - nothing - but it was, essentially, favorable to K-Mart because they were essentially cheap labor, the minimum wages being ignored in light of "do gooding"), her ability was quickly noted by her employers, who gave her tasks far beyond what the others in the programme were given. Within three months, she was working at the tobacco counter (a role usually given to checkout operators who were deemed good enough to leave the checkouts), while the rest of her fellow handicapped employees were scrubbing floors.

Here's how intelligent she was, in comparison...

One day, I noticed her sitting pensively and clearly melancholic (I say "one day", but it was most days, really), and as always, I asked her what she was thinking about (introspection isn't something you'll find many of them doing, but Sally was a thinker, there's no denying). She told me how she was now performing duties that the "norms" (as she called them - I never met a single other mentally disabled person who actually had a term in response for people who were not disabled) were doing, and that she was considered to be in a completely different league to the others.

"Well, that's good, Sally, isn't it?" I shrugged.

No, it wasn't. "But I only get paid the same as them," she explained. "That's not fair. I can do things the norms can do, but they get to pay me nothing because I'm handicapped."

"You're special," I responded. It was a "rule" at the center that we were only ever to refer to them (when talking to them) as "special". Something I must confess I found mildly uncomfortable doing . Sally found the term extremely condescending.

 

"No, I'm not," she said, with a hint of aggression. "I'm retarded. Special means better - I'm not better. I'm retarded."

"They're just words, at the end of the day," I said to her.

"But words mean something, don't they? People use different words because they mean different things, don't they? You're just trying to make me feel better by using a word that means something nice. You just want me to feel better. But I'm not special. I'm stupid. I'm doing more than the norms now at work, but I get paid half as much, because I'm retarded." And here's the really phenomenal part... "So in the end, it's just the word. And no matter what I can do, I'll still be retarded. Because when work finishes, the other girls can drive home, and I can't drive a car. And so they get to pay me nothing, because I'm retarded."

"Handicapped," I said, at least trying to find a slightly better middle ground.

But she went me one better. "Spastic," she said. "I'm a spastic. This is the spastic center, isn't it?"

"Not anymore, no," I said. The center had been renamed, after the term, "spastic", became the insult du jour in our culture (as did the term, "retarded", so admittedly, it was a valid attempt to defy the usurping of the term by culture - exactly what happened with the term "psychopath" and why it was removed from psychiatry - by sneakily using a term that couldn't be used as derogatory slang, "special").

She pointed at the entrance to the center. "Look," she said; "They tried to cover it. But they couldn't." She was referring to the plastic lettering on the brick wall leading into the center. "Special Care Center", it said. But underneath the words, "Special care", you could still see the marks left behind by "spastic", clearly on the bricks. Sally had studied this, and in her surprisingly intelligent mind, it had become a metaphor for her struggle. "It's still there," she said. "You can't just change a word and make things go away."

There was still something I felt was missing from all this. And after pressing her more on the matter, I discovered that Sally had actually gone to her boss to request to be put on the standard wage (you go, girl!). She felt - quite rightly - that she had earned it. The boss politely refused, and explained that she couldn't. And why? because she was "retarded". Amazingly, this left Sally strangely conflicted. She partly admired that at least this ridiculous white trash who had reached the pinnacle of K-Mart supervisor had been honest enough not to call her "special". But the fact remained - this company was using this word, this label, to conveniently save money. These kids happily did tasks most employees would complain of doing, threw themselves into the job with a great sense of importance (which was what was so beneficial, though, for them, and why I was begrudgingly happy the programme was in place), were much more trustworthy (they were punctual, and would never have dreamt of stealing from their employer - like most of the able teenagers who worked for them). They deserved a proper wage. End of story. And even though Sally's argument to her boss was logical to the point of being seemingly indisputable on face value - she even used examples of other employers who contributed much less and made constant mistakes - it all came back to that word. She was mentally disabled. For the company, this was the end of the story. No further discussions. Thanks very much, Sally, now get back to work at an otherwise illegal wage.

And Sally understood it all: the exploitation, the hypocrisy, her limitations (both of her disability and of the society she existed within), the odds that were going to be stacked against her for the rest of her life. Sally was much better at maths than Kerry-Anne (though it has to be said that I left understanding that they were capable of much more than they knew - it was simply that nobody had ever bothered to teach them), but certainly she had limitations, and was probably at about the level of a ten year old, at best. She'd know what fifteen minus five was; but she couldn't divide ninety by three. But she realised that this was because something was "wrong" with her. One day, when the boys were teasing Kerry-Anne on the bus, I glanced over to find Sally on the seat beside me, a small tear silently rolling down her cheek.

"Sally?" I prompted her.

She smiled - a gentle, hopeless smile of sorrow and cruel understanding.

"She doesn't realise," she said softly.

My heart broke. But not for Kerry-Anne. I sat beside her, and squeezed her hand. It was all I could do. I had no solutions. I could give her only the connection, the understanding (story of my life, in so many ways).

"I know," I nodded. We sighed, together. There was nothing else that needed to be said.

And yet, whenever people would meet them, they would be overcome with pity for Kerry-Anne. They talked a great deal about her "suffering", which they imagined, because she was, on face value, seemingly the most unfortunate. Seemingly. Nobody ever felt sorry for Sally. If anything, she arguably received less attention, because it was perceived she didn't need as much. She "suffered" the least, apparently. They couldn't have been more wrong.

So where do you draw the line? How can you draw it with any great conviction, and how can we possibly be as cold as to deny anyone the right to their life with such little understanding of the "quality" of it? Would you kill Sally? Sally suffered a great deal, emotionally. But she never wanted to die. Quite the contrary; her struggle was that desire, that drive so central to being human, to move forward, to excel, to essentially attain a higher quality of life. She saw much of this as hopeless, but the fire was never extinguished. Perhaps, it ironically fueled it, in a strange way. That's something many of us share with Sally. I know I certainly do.

It's a strange confound. And without being condescending to the plight of the "Special", it's something I've even considered with myself. I think I may be so presumptuous to say that most of us here at this website are fairly intelligent people. And when I was younger, I set myself up for a difficult period of my mid-twenties, where I quite naively presumed that everything would magically unfold for me in my life because I was smarter than everyone else. I was declared "gifted" as a child, and placed in school a year earlier, and my family were pretty much in the same boat as what i thought this would eventually come to. Surely, little Aaron was the ticket. But it doesn't work like that.  By 25, I had probably the lowest year of my life, when I thought, quite simply, "Is this going to be it? Is this all what I have - something I presumed, however arrogantly, was "better" than most - will give me?" It seemed to give me me more pain, in the end, and it seemed so unfair, so illogical. Who was I to look down on those I saw as "stupid", or unable to feel in the same way I did? I pitied the masses. But, you know, they seemed decidedly happier, viewed from one angle. And I eventually came to realise that this was the unmistakable aversion people can have to being provoked, or being "enlightened", to becoming "smarter", or whatever you want to call it. We see that, in the recent political landscape. So many of us say, "Surely, people can see what's so wrong with all this." Perhaps, part of them (for some of them, of course, we could never say "all") can. Perhaps, they don't want to. If "ascending" in their perception and comprehension just makes things painful or difficult, humans can often have a strange tendency to avert the process.  It's as if they keep themselves down on the spectrum of mental capacity. Perhaps, it's logical. Perhaps, they're just protecting the quality of their life. Perhaps, they pity us just as much as we pity them. What side of the bars you're on is a subjective matter, of course. I'm not saying I wish I was what I would refer to as "stupid" - I'm ultimately glad I am how I am, and that moment of my mid-twenties passed. But it still taught me a great lesson, and it lingers, from time to time, in various ways. At very least, I have to concede the complexity of how we value one over another, and how there is no objectivity on the matter outside of our own experiences.

 

So, there's no set of objective values with which we can measure the quality of life in this situation of Ashley X, to the extent of which you are bringing into the picture - certainly not the question of mental capability. Ashley X is also an instance of severe physical incapability, of course - but because of the mental context that comes with it, things are changed. The "quality" of one's life is a question not of physical capabilities, but of mental perception of one's situation. You're quality is only as good or bad as you perceive it to be. And there comes a point where you are so mentally incapable, you are incapable of perceiving how mentally incapable you are. It seems a horrible thing to say, from one angle - it seems repulsively selfish and ungrateful, I know - but who is to say that Ashley's quality of life is any greater or worse than the quality of our own? And I'm not suggesting I'd want to be Ashley rather than myself (boo hoo, etc), but at very least it remains a complex question that I am unable to answer. We are certainly unable to answer it to the point where we could make decisions on whether she should be kept alive. And next to this incredibly complex question, the operations to relieve simple measures of pain that we can be relatively sure of - that there is no need for her to feel physical pain of menstruation, etc - by no means warrant the immense fuss that has been caused by them. You say we keep people alive who "really don't have any quality of life". And as I said, I agree in instances such as terminal illness (though again, it's their decision to make and not ours), but I could never apply it to the case of Ashley X. Not because I "know" she has a high quality of life, but because it would be grossly unfair of me to suggest I can presume to know what her quality of life will be. At very least, I have viewed a spectrum before that has forced me to concede that for these cases, there is at least an argument to be made that the more severely mentally handicapped someone is, the higher their perceived quality of life will be. That's enough, for me, to count what you are suggesting out. Improving the quality of life in areas we can be sure of, is one thing. Ending her life based on a criteria we are in no position to presume, is quite another.  

So, that's my position! I respect yours, of course - it's yours, you have a right to it. I get the feeling from your letter you're no doubt smart enough to understand that I'm not attacking, as such, by responding in a way that disagrees; but you'll probably understand that in cyberspace, in a forum such as this, it doesn't hurt to make that clear! So, thank you for your letter, and for the stimulation, and providing the catalyst for the train of thought. 

 

Cheers.