*This year, 2006, marked the third year in a row that I was invited to
speak at the State Democratic Unity Dinner. This dinner is a tradition
started by **US Representative Lane** Evans. It has been held for the
three years that I have been involved with it, at the **Crown**
**Plaza** in **Springfield**. This event consists of a cocktail hour
followed by dinner, during which the state Democratic leaders & other
invited dignitaries are invited to speak. (I surely do not consider
myself a dignitary, so they must think that I’m much more connected than
I really am!!) This year the speakers*

*Included Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Lane Evans (who managed a few
almost indecipherable words before he had to leave), Judge Vickie
Wright, the female president of the state AFL-CIO, Congresswoman Jan
Schakowski, Congressman Jerry Costello…...and me. Thank you to my
friends Karen, Robert & Heather and Dr. & Dr. Craig and Mary Cady for
being there with me. Here is a copy of my speech:*

* *

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

/It is a fact: /I don’t know Phil Hare as well as I know Lane Evans.

Lane & I share a common disease that lends itself to a somewhat “cosmic
consciousness” of knowing what the other is thinking without speaking.

But over the years that I have known Lane, I have had the opportunity to
watch Phil in his dealings with Lane. That relationship tells me all I
need to know about Phil Hare and to support him in his run for the House
of Representatives.

I understand the almost unbearable strain that comes with seeing someone
you love being stolen away by a disease that you are /powerless/ to deal
with. Phil never treated Lane with anything but the utmost respect.

It is easy for a person with Parkinson’s Disease to fall into the role
of victim; or take up the /“poor pitiful me”/ routine and allow the
caregiver/employee/friend to assume a more vigorous role in this
complicated alliance.

/_It becomes easy to assume that just because a person’s body goes to
hell that his mind isn’t also out to pasture. Andrea Lane Zigna has yet
to figure this out._/

/_ _/

In all the times that I saw Lane with Phil, Phil never once talked down
to Lane, never got cross because it took Lane perhaps more time to get
up and get moving, never indicated irritation with Lane’s soft voice and
*/_never spoke to him in that annoyingly cloying way that people reserve
for idiot savants._/*

This tells me that Phil has many of the qualities that I wish to see in
my elected official:_compassion,_ _integrity, commitment, the ability to
empathize, devotion and a humanness in his heart._

_ _

I have never met anyone so willing to take the pitches, the swings, the
misses, the outs, the home runs and the grand slams, the wins and the
losses as Phil Hare.__

He realizes that this is an awesome task for anyone to attempt…to fill
the shoes of a bona-fied hero but yet he has the/_ gumption_/, /_the
good ideas, and the brains_/ to know that in this country, *_we can do
better_*.

*We can do better* than to let our children and our brothers and sisters
go to die in a country that spurns our desire to help them and mutilates
our soldiers.

*We can do better* in treating our seniors on fixed incomes who must
decide to buy either home heating fuel or prescribed meds.

*We can do better* in our attempts to bridge

the gap between church & state to find some common ground for the
majority of the people rather than to be _held hostage by one group and
one faith._

*We can and we must do a better job* of what is a cause near and dear to
my heart: stem cell research*.*

* *

*I am a Roman Catholic; proud to call myself pro-life and I am also a
firm believer in embryonic stem cell research.*

* *

We cannot continue to tie our scientists hands behind their backs and
expect to remain a leading contributor to world health. We do this when
we keep our researchers even the opportunity to go down certain paths
towards that elusive CURE.

*_We cannot continue to equate stem cell research with abortion. The two
are not the same. _*

*_ _*

Which seems to you as the more pro-life position:

to protect the divided cells which have been frozen from eggs which were
fertilized in a petrie dish rather than from an act of love? These
frozen cells were created in order to help childless couples conceive
in-vitro. These leftover cells, _which will never become implanted in a
woman’s womb and will never become a baby, are destined for incineration
as medical waste. _

Or could we use these undifferentiated cells to help, say a man like my
friend Allen in Texas?

Allen is a 50 year old, married father of three, who always lead a
productive life. He worked as the sound director at his local public
broadcast TV station, paid taxes and would _never think of accepting a
handout…until pd entered his life._

Now Allen sits in an apartment alone because his wife took the kids and
split-which is a common fact of life for People with Parkinson’s. She
was overwhelmed by the far-reaching consequences of this damn disease.
Now Allen spends his days reaching out to people on his computer, trying
to help others in his situation not to loose hope. He hasn’t worked in 5
years and collects social security disability. _Allen never
complains-most parkies don’t-they know that others have heavier crosses
to carry._

/I don’t see a moral dilemma here./ What I see is is yet another wasted
chance to find a cure for parkinson’s disease and a myriad of other
neurological disorders.

*_I, for one, think that Bush’s veto of the stem cell legislation passed
by both houses of Congress, was a crime against humanity._*

*_ _*

Having said this and hoping that there are no FBI-types nor homrland
security guys hanging around, I would like to introduce to you a
gentlemen sitting with me at my table.

Dr. Craig Cady who is a professor and a stem-cell researcher at Bradley
University and has given me and many others in the PD community hope
that we will see a cure in our lifetime? Each week, it seems he is
finding more & more reasons why he needs to add embryonic stem cells to
their work with adult stem cells and rat stem cells and umbilical cord
blood stem cells.

This is a fact that even his students recognize.

The following is a quote from a second year medical student at SIU, who
is interning in Dr. Cady’s lab this summer and who has decieded to
specialize in Parkinson’s Disease and Stem Cells.

Adree Venatta says: “The primitive nature of

embryonic stem cells makes their use in research an absolute necessity
to understanding the potential of all stem cells for the treatment of
all varieties of diseases.”

/_ _/

/_I believe that a cure is out there._/

/_I believe that Phil Hare is the man that we need in the _//_United
States_//_ House of Representatives to help us get the legislation
passed that will override a president’s veto._/

/_ _/

*_I believe in you and the rest of the district _*

*_ _*

*_to vote for the man whom you know in your hearts will carry on the
great work of Lane Evans._*

*/_I believe in Phil Hare for the House of Representatives!!!_/*

*/_ _/*

* *

--
Joan Blessington Snyder   54/16
[log in to unmask]
www.calipso-pd.org
“Hang tough……..no way through it but to do it.”
Chris in the Morning      Northern Exposure

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