Beating up on poor little disadvantaged kids

Got to tread lightly here. Any time you start criticizing kids - especially minority kids - you run a risk.
But I was at this fund-raiser last night for a group that is really a great organization. In fact, I used to go one of these clubs when I was a boy and was fortunate enough to be part of their boxing program. They were connected to the Golden Gloves.
I probably belonged more in the Copper Gloves, or Tin - and slightly tarnished at that.
Anyway, this was a really nice fund-raiser, a dinner with a silent auction at a really nice venue. And there was a lot of money raised for this worthy organization.
But the organization of the organization for this dinner was awful. And unfortunately some of the performances by the kids was, well, minimal at best.
That's not the kids fault. I blame the adults. And while I don't really know for sure, I can't help but feel the problem is that the adults in this organization simply didn't have high enough expectations for the kids they work with.
And even though I watched and applauded with everyone else when the kids did their thing, down deep I felt like we were simply applauding the kids for showing up.
Kind of like handing out participation trophies.
I honestly believe these kids could have done everything they did better.
When did we set our expectations for kids so low? Particularly kids from "tough" circumstances, whatever those tough circumstances - one parent, lower economic situation, "bad" neighborhood - might be.
This is a bit of a ramble, but hopefully you'll see the point in here somewhere.
I can't help but remember back in the 1980s, when the world finally realized what many of us knew all along: that too many of our highest level of college athletes were uneducated, if not in some cases actually illiterate. There are documented cases of this, and many more that I knew first-hand but out of respect for the athletes themselves I never reported.
So embarrassed college officials decided to raise academic standards on athletes with minimum test scores and grade point averages.
Who do you think complained? Black coaches, administrators, pastors, etc. They all said that raising these academic standards would punish black kids who came from disadvantaged environments. Oh, they screamed racism.
But you know what happened? These poor disadvantage kids - not all black, by the way - met the minimum standard!
Now, it's easy to be cynical and say that the teachers started fixing grades and other people were taking tests, and undoubtedly there was some of that. But I talked to these athletes almost every day over the course of 25 years, mostly kids in the Southeastern Conference, which recruited the best athletes in the country, many of them minorities, and many from what we'd consider disadvantaged situations.
And the truth is, every year they showed up articulate, better educated, more confident - simply smarter.
It wasn't the last time academic minimum standards were raised, either. And every time the standards  - the expectations - went up, the kids that were supposedly going to be discriminated against improved and met the standard. At least, a lot of them did.
Now, it's a whole 'nother discussion about whether these kids even belonged in college in the first place. That's something I'll blog about on another day.
But every time the NCAA raised minimum academic requirements - over the loud objections of coaches and well-meaning interested parties - the kids invariably met the standard.
RABBIT TRAIL: Survey after survey lists education as a top priority of citizens of this country, and yet those same surveys say those citizens don't want taxes raised to contribute to education. I saw one today. And while it seems like an inconsistency, I  wonder if the citizenry may not be smart enough to realize throwing more money at a problematic education process is not the answer - at least, not until schools make better use of the resources they have now. And I'm convinced that if the citizenry saw better results coming out of the public school system, they'd be more in favor of improving funding. Of course, they may also discover that public schools don't really need more funding at all, just better accounting.
Anyway, do you see my point? Somehow, too many of us feel like kids want to be appreciated for simply being kids. So we give trophies for just being on the team, we give trophies for finishing in last place, we put kids up on stages and call them "choirs'' when all they're doing is singing in unison (and off-key) to a tape, or we dress them up in nice costumes and let them "dance'' and we all applaud and cheer because, well, "they tried - and we don't want them to get discouraged and quit."
Guess what? Discouragement is part of life. And the sooner we teach our kids that, the sooner they learn how to deal with it and learn to overcome it.
And I'm convinced they will. I read a study about gangs - tough gangs, in inner cities, the kind that makes outsiders terrified to go downtown. The "expert" was talking about something called "Maslow's hierarchy of needs," where this guy Maslow said humans have a descending order of fundamental needs: physical fulfillment (food, warmth, etc); safety (love, belonging); and self-esteem.
The idea was that whoever provides those three will command love and loyalty, and a lot of well-meaning organizations provide the first two. What they don't do a good job of is building true self-esteem.
Gangs do that, by making the kids do hard things to prove themselves. And there are consequences for those kids that fail to do the hard things. Yet the kids gravitate to the gangs.
But here's the final thing, as I try to wrap up and get myself out of this mess: you don't give a kid self-esteem by handing out trophies or telling them they are great for simply showing up. Kids aren't that dumb. They will accept that, because all human beings want that sense of love or belonging.
But down deep, they know they didn't deserve anything. They don't feel any better about themselves simply because they go home with a trophy. Chances are, they wind up with so many trophies that the trophies themselves become meaningless.
Gangs do that for kids. They accept them, but they make them earn respect. They're often unforgiving and judgmental, but the kids flood to the gangs because the atmosphere provides them with their basic needs - including a sense of pride in carrying out assigned difficult (often illegal) tasks that give the kids a sense of self-esteem.
The best thing we can do for kids is challenge them. That's how they learn self-esteem.
And it's up to us - the adults - to be willing to do it.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

My Life at Sea

Wham! Wham! Wham!
The speed boat raced across the Mississippi Sound, over what I'd estimate to be two-to-three foot waves - although the way the boat was bouncing, they felt more like seven or eight foot waves, as if we were riding the crest of a virtual sunami.
My kidneys felt like they were slamming into my shoulder blades, then falling back down into my hip bones,   settling into place only to slam back up into my shoulder blades again.
The captain, who admitted he'd only laid eyes on this particular boat the day before, was standing as he steered, taking us toward a very dark horizon where we could see it had been raining and, apparently, raining hard.
On board where the sister of the girlfriend of the young captain, myself, and the two guys of the video crew that came into town to put together a video on the Pass Christian Regatta that we were sponsoring. There were several classes of sailing boats engaged in races of different lengths and tests of skill, but we were trying to get good video of the big boats.
Now, I'm not a boat guy. I'm not a beach guy or an ocean/Gulf guy, or even really that much of a water guy. There was a movie many years ago called, "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea." Awful movie, really (don't rent it), but I always loved the title. It was me - if I'd ever been a sailor to begin with.
In fact, I try to avoid going out into the Gulf or ocean as much as possible, but sometimes my job requires me to go, usually with media heading out to some of the barrier islands to demonstrate the condition and detail with which they are being cared for.
I didn't really expect to be on this boat trip. But there is that whole responsibility thing of over-seeing the video, and I did think it could be very cool to see these big boats out on the open water, tacking and jibbing and whatever else sailors do on the open sea.
We went out, careful to stay out of the wind of the sailboats, but trying to follow along side as close as possible to get good footage. We shot some, and were heading back in when it started to rain. However, it wasn't raining further out in open water, so we figured we'd go on out to the turning point of the race, to watch the boats make the turn and put up the bright, colorful spinnakers.
After shooting awhile, we decided to risk the weather and head back in. Girlfriend's sister was talking about being worried about giving orders to captain/sister's boyfriend and saying that her mother was opinionated and she was opinionated, but not as opinionated as her sister and she wondered if captain boyfriend knew what he was getting into - not serious, of course; just the kind of talk you have out there among relative strangers thrown together in a boat, having fun.
Anyway, I was sitting up by captain boyfriend, and I jokingly said to him, "You better run." Only I meant from this family. I think he took it as "you better run back to shore."
He opened up the Johnson 115 about as far as it would go, and we were flying - bouncing wave to wave, water flying into the boat, kidneys bruising.
Captain boyfriend was standing, with girlfriend's sister standing behind him. Morris and Dan were sitting in the back on their gear, and I was standing next to the captain, looking over the windshield and holding on for dear life.
"Kidneys are overrated," I said.
"I hear you only need one,'' said Dan.
In a few minutes, we can't see any boats. We can't see land, either Cat Island that was somewhere behind us and to the east, or the mainland that is to the north.
"Is this how Gilligan got lost?'' someone said, laughing.
"Is that an ice berg up ahead?" someone else said.
"Does the compass work?" asked girlfriend's sister. Then, looking down at the compass, "It's not working! It's broken!"
"OK," I said. "We've got five lunches and a cooler of drinks. We can ration food."
Captain boyfriend doesn't slow down. He doesn't even really join in the conversation. He's focused on the horizon, like Ahab chasing Moby Dick.
The captains' chair behind him suddenly falls of its connectoin and clatters to the deck of the boat.
"Don't sit down!" girlfriend's sister said.
"Suddenly losing a kidney doesn't sound so bad, consider what you'll lose if you fall backward,'' one of the guys says.
"Is that chair supposed to come off like that?" I ask.
"So that's what they mean by using your seat as a floatation device,'' Dan said.
I hear Morris say to Dan, "Are these screws supposed to be coming out of the side of the boat like this?"
Sure enough, they are.
Water is gathering in the back. (Aft?)
"Do you think the boat will hold together?" Dan asks.
"Hey, now I understand Captain Jack Black's opening scene in 'Pirates of the Caribbean,''' I said. "You know, how the boat slowly sinks as he comes into port until he steps off on to the dock just before it sinks?"
"Will this boat hold together that long?" someone asks.
Still, captain boyfriend doesn't seem interested in slowing down - until we suddenly come up on some of the smaller classes of sailing boats, and he slows down so as to not interfere.
The good news is, we realize he actually did bring us back to the dock we left from.
And the boat is still in one piece as we pull behind the break wall and to an open boat slip.
We got back onto dry land, opened the coolers to share lunch.
With our kidneys intact.
Later, one of the captains offers to take me out in the actual race the next day.
I declined.
Visions of "The Perfect Storm'' always come to mind when I'm near the open water like this.
That movie still gives me the creeps.

What's the greater offense?

We were shooting a video to highlight our involvement in a sailing regatta and, as you'd particularly expect here in the Deep South - the Buckle of the Bible Belt as it's called - the event opened with a color guard, the raising of the flag, the national anthem, and the blessing by a local Catholic Priest.
(See http://raymelick.blogspot.com/2011/06/blessings-and-demons.html )
Later, as we discussed what we had, the videographer said in passing, "We'll edit out the Christian stuff, of course ... "
Of course.
Now, this is not to knock the video crew I work with. I don't believe this had anything to do with their personal beliefs, but rather the idea that we were making this video to share with as large an audience as possible, to get across the idea that the beaches are clean, the water is clean, the seafood is safe to eat, so come on down to the Gulf Coast.
But it did remind me that hearing an overtly "Christian'' message can be, to a lot of people, offensive.
And it should be.
Because Christianity is not "inclusive,'' not in the way the world thinks of the word "inclusive."
Which makes it, from the world's point of voice, "exclusive;" and there is nothing more offensive in today's politically correct view than being "exclusive."
Now Christians - at least the ones who follow what the Bible actually says and not what they "feel" the Bible must "mean" in an effort to make Christian theology more appealing to the masses - will tell you that true Christianity is incredibly inclusive, because anybody and everybody is invited to be a Christian. In fact, Christians will tell you that Jesus died for everybody, and God as Christians understand Him delays bringing ultimate justice to the world because He wants as many people as possible to choose (the free will that God allows all humanity to have, which is what really makes people crazy) to follow Him.
But to suggest that someone who does not accept Christ as described in The Bible is not going to heaven offends people; in fact, it offends some people who believe themselves to be Christians and want everyone else to be Christians so bad that they come up with some interesting twists of theology.
Because these Christians believe that God is Love, and Love is kind, and therefore it can't possibly be Love if it offends or hurts someone.
That's ridiculous, of course. Some people think it's "love'' to give their kids everything they want, which turns their  kids into brats who grow up thinking the world is all about their wants and desires. These people do not understand that sometimes love hurts - like when my mother took her belt to my backside because I'd climbed the neighbors fence and gone into their backyard when she'd expressly told me not to go into the neighbors yard or else I'd be spanked.
That hurt, but it was love. Because it eventually taught me that when my mother told me not to do something, sometimes it was because if I did it I could get hurt (who knew the neighbors had gotten a Rottweiler who reacted rather violently upon being surprised by a little kid dropping over the fence into his backyard?)
Today, of course, we'd blame the neighbor for having a mean dog. Back in those days, my mother blamed me for disobeying her in the first place. Which side you come down on tells me a lot about you.
But I will say this: getting spanked followed by a hug from my mom was not nearly as painful as being treated in an emergency room for dog bites, followed by a series of shots from a nurse with the delicate touch of an iron worker.
A lot of people seem to think how you get to heaven is purely a matter of personal preference, like choosing country music or rap; diesel truck or hybrid car; football or futball.
Again, even some within the Emergent Church movement of Christianity teach that everyone is going to heaven unless they choose not to. In other words, you're saved even if you don't know it, unless you make the active choice to reject the gospel.
If that's true, then Christians should just shut up about this whole sharing the Gospel thing because people can't reject it if they never hear it - although there is that troubling little issue of this guy Jesus telling us to go out and make disciples of all nations and share the gospel with the world.
Listen, there are nice things taught by Mohammed and Buddha and Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard. The problem is that Jesus Christ created those men. Mohammed and Buddha and those guys didn't create the universe or the planets; they don't even claim to have done any creating.
But Jesus (as God-in-action), did. And when you create the universe, you get to make the rules.
Let me stop right here and say I fully understand that message should be delivered with kindness, And the truth is, the way the message is received very often depends on the way it's delivered. It really doesn't work if your idea of sharing the Gospel is wearing a t-shirt that says, "Don't believe in hell? It's still there. You're still going."
But I hear all the time from people who say "You shouldn't tell other people what to believe. People should be allowed to believe what they want to believe."
If that's the case, then shouldn't people be allowed to believe they can tell other people what to believe?
Aren't the people who use lack of tolerance as a reason to restrict Christianity demonstrating a lack of tolerance toward Christianity?
In college, I had a couple of nice Morman guys stop by my apartment to share their faith. I invited them in, and they gave me a copy of The Book of Mormon. When they came back, I began to ask them serious questions about their faith, their religion. One of the guys got up, all angry, and left. The other sat there and we had an interesting - to say the least- exchange of ideas. Neither of us converted the other, but we treated each other with respect.
(This was back in the days before Mormons decided they wanted to be included in mainstream Protestant Christianity, back when they believed their faith was exclusive for The New World, and the Bible as Christians use it was meant for The Old World ... not to mention that Mormons believed Jesus and Lucifer were brothers who were fighting over this world and you could tell the followers of Lucifer because they had darker skin and therefore could not be saved. "Christians'' might have treated people with darker skin like slaves and second-class citizens, but we always believed they should have the chance to be included in that number when the Saints come marching in).
Now I understand the damage that has been done by followers of Christ who have thought they were better than everybody else. But you can't say that about Jesus. You can raise a lot of doubts and problems with the teaching of every other founder of a world religion, but it's pretty hard to find something bad to say about the actual Jesus.
Still, we get back to the idea of Christianity being offensive. Back in the days of Jesus Freaks and the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s-early 1970s, I heard a guy say he felt it significant that no one used the name of any other religious figure as a curse word other than Jesus. You don't get mad at your boss and mutter, "Buddha!" You don't smash your thumb with a hammer and yell, "Muhammed, that hurts!"
But they'll yell "Jesus Christ!"' without thinking about it. This guy said he believed maybe this was a purposeful strategy by the devil (who was not Jesus' brother, by the way) to turning the name of Jesus into a word of annoyance, to be spoken hundreds if not thousands of times a day by people who don't begin to understand what they're saying.
The simple truth is, if you believe in heaven (and if you don't, why have you read this far?), the world says there are a whole bunch of ways to get there. They don't all agree, although many have a lot of similarities.
But the idea behind Christianity remains unique: God actually chosing to take on the punishment that was due humanity for their rebellion against him because while He is a God of Love, He is also a God of Justice and He couldn't contradict Himself by just ignoring the whole Justice side of things.
Sure, it's complicated. But the truth very often is.
I know a minister who is frustrated because the people of his church believe that ministry shouldn't be hard, that if they decide to do something and it just doesn't go easily, then they decide Jesus must not be behind it so they leave it and go on to something else.
I wonder if God doesn't find that offensive.
Good thing Jesus didn't feel that way when confronted in Jerusalem on what we now call Easter.
Going to the doctor and getting a shot to stop the possibility of a life-threatening infection is offensive.
But it beats dealing with the life-threatening infection. And I'm glad when someone loves me enough to share with me the exclusive and often painful knowledge of medicine.
What would be the greater offense?

The economics of history; or everything I know about the economy I learned while being in debt

I'm no economist. If you don't believe me, ask my mortgage company, check my credit rating and bank account ... never mind. Don't bother. Trust me. Investments and all that have never interested me.
But history does. While in college, even though it was not my actual major, I took enough hours in history to have a degree, enough to get me into graduate school where I hoped to get a masters in history with the idea of teaching.
I never finished graduate school, simply because it is difficult to work the crazy hours and writing deadlines of the sports section of any newspaper and take classes and work on writing a thesis.
However, I did get to teach history for about seven years - high school history, American history mostly but also some world history. I did well enough that when some of my students went on to some of the better high schools in the area and took history, they felt they were ahead of what they were being taught. It was gratifying.
Over the years, I developed two theories of history. One is that everything is financial. Follow the money. Economic history is usually the key to any incident in world history.
The second - and the one I tried to use to help my students understand events - was that events that motivated conflicts between nations or competing parties can usually be broken down to the same motivations that create conflict between people. Nations and governments are, after all, made up of people. And whether kings or premiers or generals - they're still just people.
What I'm trying to get to is this economic crisis our country finds itself in - you know, out-of-control debt and loans that we're having to borrow just to make interest payments and looking at where the money goes and seeing everything as a necessity and nothing is a luxury.
So one side, the liberal side, says the answer is we have to just raise our debt limit so we can borrow more money. Or else we need to print more money.
Of course there is the option of earning more money - but let's face it, anyone of us knows that's the hardest way to go. It takes work. And there are only so many hours in a day and so many jobs to go around, and borrowing based on the idea that I'm going to get a better paying job somewhere in the near future is kind of how the housing market bubbled and burst.
Further compounding the issue is that government really doesn't earn money. It collects money based on what its citizens earn. Import taxes, export taxes, income taxes, interest earned - it's all off money made by what someone else produces, and the government simply expects its cut.
And that's OK. It's what we do to fund government to provide the truly necessary services like national defense, courts, protection, roads.
Wow, I'm preaching.
But here's the thing: what do you do when your own personal debt is getting out of control? Well, you can borrow more hoping that you'll get a better job or win the lottery or Publisher's Clearinghouse will ring your doorbell or that somehow, magically, the bank will lose your note and suddenly you're free and clear...
Or, while hoping those things happen (after all, they could), you take what you have and start to figure out what you don't need, what you can sell, what you can do without ... you know, the same way that your parents got out of debt, the same way your grandparents got out of debt, the same way their parents got out of debt, and their grandparents and their grandparents and their ... do you see the pattern?
The fact that some generations cut back and reduce debt and the nation's economy improves and creates an economic environment that the next generation abuses and gets into debt and drives the economy back into trouble is not the fault of the system. It's the fault of people not understanding some things always hold true, that eventually you pay the piper and if you do it on a loan, there will be interest involved that has to be paid.
What I don't understand is why certain people in government or public policy seem to think that despite generations and thousands of years of the repeating cycles of history, they have a better way.
Instead of looking at what has gotten people out of debt for centuries - or what has kept people out of debt - they are convinced this other way that has failed so often in the past will work this time because this time is different.
And they refuse to recognize that what works in their own house is also what works for a nation. Economic principles are the same.
Over-simplification? Probably. But tell me that it doesn't work, that it wouldn't work.
Did you hear Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tell Congress that gold is not money? That it's just "tradition" that we value gold so much?
There they go again, trying to throw out thousands of years of economic history to try something that has never worked.
Sure, we could use other things to back the value of money: silver, copper, clam shells, bubble gum wrappers. It has to be something we all agree has a certain amount of value however.
And since the world has already accepted gold has having value, why change? Why not just use the tried and true practices that have been proven over time and centuries, and stay with them?
I absolutely believe in the need for two political parties. And I absolutely believe the two parties can have different priorities, and different ideas on what is crucial to the well-being of the country.
But when we forget history, as Santayana said, we're doomed to repeat it.
Which means ultimately we have to look to the same solutions to get us out of whatever mess we've gotten ourselves in.

One small step backwards for America?

Sitting the office the other day, I got to watch what we're told is the final blast-off of America's space program: the last launch of the space shuttle.
If it was the last, I'm glad I got to watch. After all, I can remember as child how big of a deal it was to watch the blast-offs of the Mercury program. While I don't know that I remember Alan Shepard's actual lift-off to be the first American in space (1961), I do remember watching John Glenn as he lifted off to become the first American to orbit the earth, in 1962.
I think I was in first grade, or maybe kindergarten. But I do remember the teacher having us all sit around the TV to watch not only the lift-off, but the re-entry into earth's atmosphere.
The re-entry was the really exciting part for us back then. The capsule floating down to the waters off the coast of Florida ... the helicopters leaving the air craft carrier to go prepare for the splashdown ... the capsule hitting the water, and divers almost immediately being there to attach cables and pull the astronaut out ... the site of the astronaut being pulled up into the helicopter and flown back to the air craft carrier ... and finally the arrival on the air craft carrier, and all the hoopla of welcoming the hero back to earth.

RABBIT TRAIL: My friends and I used to pretend to be astronauts. We'd go to Ray O's basement and he and his sister and I would turn chairs on their back and crawl into some tight space and pretend; taking turns being the astronaut and the other two as mission control. Then afterward, we all smoked the obligatory congratulatory cigarette. We'd roll up little pieces of paper about the size of cigarettes and pass them around, acting like we were smoking. Remember when that's what they used to do? A wonder that none of us - to my knowledge - ever actually started smoking.

This was something that the Russians (our dreaded enemy back in those days of the Cold War and the height of the Red Scare) had achieved before the US, having taken advantage of the "freed" - or captured - German scientists from Hitler's rocket program before the U.S. thought to do so.
We often forget it was "rescued" German scientists who were the brains behind America's early space program, too. Amazing how close Hitler was to something even more frightening.
But it was a matter of pride. The Russians were ahead, our country was threatened, and our president threw down the gauntlet, stating that before the end of the decade we'd blow the Russians out of orbit and put an American on the moon.
This was one of the greatest examples of what made America great. Once we, as a nation, committed to something, we got it done - spectacularly. This was American know-how, American will, American excellence. You had to be growing up in the 1960s - a decade of such turmoil - to understand the source of pride in the space program that transcended all the other issues that were tearing America apart.
And my parents did keep me up, in 1969, to watch Apollo 11 land on the moon and then, shortly thereafter, to watch Neil Armstrong make that first step, fulfilling President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
Over the years, of course, we began to take the space program for granted. Lift-offs took place with hardly anyone noticing; certainly regular television programming wasn't stopped, and schools no longer halted class for kids and teachers to gather 'round the TV sets to watch lift-offs and splash-downs (especially after splash-downs were replaced by routine-looking landings).
I don't know what to think about the current state of America's space program. Maybe it has run its course. Maybe it is now just a matter of ego, like Bret Favre hanging on too long just because he could or a band like Three Dog Night that once packed stadiums and could charge whatever people would pay now appearing for $5 a ticket to appear inside a casino (not even in a concert hall!) because, well, because that's what they could still get.
If this is the passing of the space program, I wonder what will take its place.
Because we need to excel. That's why people came to America - for the chance to prove themselves, to be the best they could be or at least lay the foundation for their children to be the best they could be.
In 1969, we assumed that it was one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind - but there was nothing wrong with America taking that step and leading in that leap.
There is nothing wrong with being the best. Of course, we can't all be the best (by the very nature of the definition of 'the best'), but we should not be embarrassed at trying to be  the best we can be.
We used to call it the Protestant Work Ethic, or the Puritan Work Ethic. The idea was that man didn't work for his own glory, but for the glory of God. We were driven to be the best because of the quaint notion that it somehow honored God, and God was pleased with our effort.
That led to all kinds of problems, of course, because it didn't take long for the whole idea to become perverted.
But the core value was excellence for its own sake. Not excellence for money or power or glory, but for the sake of being excellent.
That's what the space program exemplified.
Where do we look for that kind of excellence now?
I'm sure it's out there. But right now, I can't think of anything because our country seems to caught up in being embarrassed at being a leader, and our leaders seem to feel we need to be 'citizens of the world' rather than Americans.

Casey Anthony's power and responsibility

Little gap in the blog there. But again - after years of writing on deadlines, it's kind of nice to not 'have' to write. Not sure why it comes and goes, but it does. For roughly 30 years, I didn't have the luxury of allowing it to 'come and go,' even when sometimes it was obvious (at least to me) that "it" - whatever 'it' is - had gone.

Even so, a lot has happened.
The case of Casey Anthony certainly captured a lot of attention. And while I'm not commenting on the verdict because I do believe in the America justice system (flaws and all), it seems apparent that Ms. Anthony should share a rather large responsibility for the death of her daughter.
As people, we know the verdict was flawed when it comes to common sense; even as we have learned that the law is about rules and order, not appearances and even, at times, common sense.
The legalities were followed and protected Ms. Anthony from being held publicly responsible. Sometimes the system works; sometimes it doesn't, but that's the price we pay for a system that is about law and trial by jury.

That being said, this is how my brain works: as I drove along thinking about the Anthony situation, for some reason the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility" popped into my mind.
RABBIT TRAIL: I learned that phrase from Uncle Ben in Spiderman, so maybe the credit goes to Spiderman creator Stan Lee. But the thought - if not the actual words - go back to at least French philosopher Voltaire, if not all the way back to Greek philosopher Socrates (see "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"), who said something like, "Rule worthy of might."

We humans have great power, and perhaps the greatest is the power to create life.
Now I understand and recognize that all life comes from God, but let's not pick nits here. Two people - a man and a woman - come together to create life. Even in a test tube, currently it takes part of a  man and part of a woman to create life.
And with that great power comes great responsibility.
It is a responsibility that Ms. Anthony, in her selfishness, didn't want. She's hardly alone in that. But she's a prime example of a culture that believes that first and foremost, the rights of the individual are preeminent. We even argue, "How can I expect my children to be happy if I'm not happy?" And it sounds good, because we want it to sound good.
 And if it took this extensive fantasy life created in the warped mind of Ms. Anthony to make her feel happy - a life populated by fictional friends, fictional jobs, fictional child care - well, her fantasy life is extreme, but is it really that far from the fantasy life that many embrace through the internet or other forms of escapism that we embrace as more real than reality, because it's more fun and makes us happy? 
It's wrong, of course - at least in the way popular culture would mean it. Being consumed with satisfying our own selfish desire - which sometimes includes the selfish desire to have a child - does not make us happy. We don't have to look far to see the miserable lives of the self-consumed, compared to the apparent satisfied lives of those who understand sacrifice (would anyone really argue that Mother Theresa didn't feel fulfilled? And what if she'd rejected the notion of self-sacrifice and going to India to serve those that could give nothing material in return, but remained comfortable in her first job, that of well-cared for Swiss-based tutor to the children of the wealthiest families of Europe?)
Or, as it says in a country song I just heard with Jimmy Buffet, "Losing yourself is the key to paradise."

As soon as the Anthony verdict was announced, I knew she'd got what she wanted. The offers of money began to pour in. I told a co-worker that, at the very least, she'll earn a fortune posing for Playboy, and almost immediately word came that she had been offered a lucrative contract to become pornography's newest "star."
There is no indication that she's accepted that offer or any other, and I do hope she takes this time to look at her life and accept some responsibility, particularly before she embraces that great power again.
We all have a lot more power than we realize, just by being alive. We exercise it every day.
 The question is, are we willing to accept the responsibility?

I was going to hit a bunch of topics here, to catch up. But that's enough for now.
If there is anything I learned in all those years of deadline writing, it's not to use up too much material in one writing when you hope to have more.

Until then....