In Memoriam: George Richard Tiller, MD, 1941-2009

I had never even heard of Dr. George Tiller before last weekend. To a great many women in dire need of an abortion, he was a life-saver...in some cases, quite literally. And in the eyes of a greater many on the self-styled "pro-life" side of the national debate on reproductive health, he was a despicable killer of unborn children.

Yesterday, one of those in that last group decided that since the government would not stop Dr. Tiller from doing this work, he would take it upon himself to do so. This alleged human shot Dr. Tiller dead in the vestibule of the Lutheran church in Wichita, KS where he was serving as an usher. The surpassing irony of taking an innocent life in the name of saving other innocents, or of profaning the very house of the God to whom this killer and his ilk profess fealty, is doubtless utterly lost on him, as is the idea that the Fifth Commandment (or Sixth, depending on which church you grew up in)—"Thou shalt not kill"—might apply equally to both himself and the good doctor. Tiller had already been shot once previously and his clinic bombed, and he was a frequent target of threats and harassment from the anti side; Wikipedia's page on him lists some of the history. What made Dr. Tiller especially controversial was his willingness to perform so-called "late-term" abortions (or as the antis prefer to call them, "partial-birth" abortions), i.e., after the 21st week of pregnancy, well beyond the cutoff point of most US and Canadian abortion providers.

Police have today released the name of the suspect apprehended yesterday: one Scott Roeder, 51, of the nearby town of Merriam, who is alleged to have been a subscriber to a militant anti-abortion newsletter and a member of a radical militia group. The New York Times reports more here. Naturally, Your Humble Correspondent will not speculate on whether Roeder is in fact the gunman, as that is more properly the purview of the judge and jury which shall shortly be empaneled to consider the case. Anti-abortion groups including the National Right to Life Committee and Randall Terry's Operation Rescue, to their credit, have promptly and forcefully denounced the murder, insisting that they only practice and condone peaceful protest and political activism; how often they themselves have honored this proclaimed tenet more in the breach than the observance is left as a research exercise for the reader. This may be sincere expression of horror, or simple political savvy on their part in not letting themselves be tarred with the brush of extremism charges in a time when the pendulum of public opinion is swinging away from them; I leave it to you to judge which.

My heart goes out to Dr. Tiller's widow Jeanne, their children and grandchildren, and Dr. Tiller's staff, friends and colleagues. He becomes the eighth abortion-services worker, and the fourth doctor, in North America to be slaughtered for doing his job. May justice come to his murderer swiftly and harshly...and may this cause all of us on both sides to be more respectful of opponents' views and cautious about our use of incendiary rhetoric (most certainly not excluding myself).

Catching up on my friends' birthdays

Fellow Pegasus Award nominee catalana has a birthday today. Hope it's been a swell one, hon, and thanks for all the nifty tunes. Here's hoping you win one soon.

And a great big mea maxima culpa to the following folks whose birthdays I missed noting the last couple weeks: my old and dear friend nancylebov (Sat. 5/30), paltergo (Mon. 5/25) and twfarlan (Sun. 5/24). I hope you all also had marvelous birthdays.

The 1990s' best mini about Hollywood finally makes it to DVD

In 1992, Turner Network Television aired a three-part mini-series celebrating what was then the upcoming 80th anniversary of one of the greatest dream factories ever built in a city full of them, MGM: When the Lion Roars. Hosted impeccably by Patrick Stewart, this seven-hours-and-change clipfest took us through the founding, heyday and sad decline of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, not sparing the lows among the highlights and taking us behind the scenes of such MGM classics as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind to see the wheeling, dealing and star-power-wielding that got them made. It was a shameless bit of corporate synergy—the Turner media empire, after all, got its start in part by buying up and airing MGM's classic-film library—but it was still fun to watch. To this day, many people have no idea that what went on off-screen in the making of the studio's greatest films was often every bit as dramatic and exciting as anything that got put on the screen...thanks in no small part to the involvement of temperamental, larger-than-life personalities such as studio founder and paterfamilias Louis B. Mayer, stars such as Greta Garbo and Judy Garland, and filmmakers such as Buster Keaton and King Vidor.

Ever since, the only way you could watch it again was if you had the presence of mind to tape it when it aired (I did) or if you wanted to buy a set of VHS tape cassettes. Now, at last, the TNT folks have gotten around to doing what they should have done years ago and put the silly thing out on a spanking-new 2-disc DVD set. Even if you aren't a fan of Patrick's from his Star Trek: TNG days, this is still worth seeing for its exclusive interviews, photos and screen tests featuring the likes of Charlton Heston, Stanley Donen and Katharine Hepburn...and, of course, those unforgettable scenes from great MGM films: Kate getting pushed down by Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story; Dorothy and her friends being terrorized by the Wizard in his Emerald City throne room; and Vivien Leigh getting the movies' most famous—and expensive—kiss-off from Clark Gable: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" (The studio had to pay the Hays Office a hefty fine for that "damn" in those pre-MPAA-rating days.)

If you haven't seen this yet and you're any kind of movie fan, you want this box set; trust me, you want it bad. If you have and taped it, now you can see it without having to wear down your tapes yet again. You should also check out the companion coffee-table book that was issued alongside it, a good read in itself even if you haven't seen the mini.