I couldn't help but notice this article on CNN today, under rubric: "Operation enables Reeve to breathe without respirator": The lead-in to this, from CNN's main page, purports to tell us how Reeve will be "freed from a respirator." What the heck is a respirator? The press continues to use a term that went out with the Iron Lung. It's a VENTILATOR, stupid!! I've been using the machines for 20 years, and they are great. Sure, it takes some adjustment to get used to, but ventilators can be seen as liberating devices, not enslaving ones. The newest models, by Pulmonetic Systems , are the size of a laptop computer and are very user-friendly and portable. I can't wait to take one on a trip! Why is it that people who use glasses, and can't leave home to go buy Budweiser at the 7/11 down the block without climbing into their 4,000 lb SUV (which needs extra wide seats to hold their waddling fat asses), look down their noses at people who use ventilators? Ever since Cro Magnon man first lumbered out of a cave, grabbed a stick and whacked an unwilling female over the head with it to take her as a bride, Homo Sapiens has been Homo Technicalis, Tool Man. We make use of everything in the material world for our benefit, but then suddenly some want to distinguish between the privileged and the "outré." Work to get BETTER! Work to get yourself off that damn machine, boy! Breathing is a rudimentary but ultimate necessity of living; how we breathe is nobody else's affair.