Three horrible little words:"In a minute"

It's been awhile since I posted, and even longer since I posted about MG, who would say herself that she's reached a bit of a plateau - or at least what feels like a plateau - where change is incremental.
It's therapy and rest, therapy and rest. Even her therapist has said that she should probably shoot for about 45 minutes of activity, followed by 20 minutes of rest. The pain has been so persistent, that the thought now is that maybe MG was working too hard and needs to back off - which is hard for her, because that's not MG's personality.
If there is one phrase that runs throughout our home, that is common to myself and the kids, it's "In a minute." And it drives MG crazy. Whatever needs to be done, whenever someone is asked to do something, the answer seems to always be "in a minute" - which could mean a minute, or it could mean an hour, or a day, or never.
That's my influence, I'm afraid; I'm the procrastinator. MG is always the one that sees a task and says, "right now."
So for this new course of action to encourage inaction is difficult. Even as her therapist told her that they should back off some of the therapy (that includes sessions with a wonderful exercise physiologist), MG's fear was that she would run the risk of losing what progress she'd made.
On top of that all, we continue to find little injuries that we weren't aware of before. Whether these are injuries from the accident that seemed so incidental as to be overlooked initially, or maybe compensation injuries that occurred in the aftermath, the way walking with a limp can cause muscle damage because it's not a natural gait, we just don't know. 
And the question that hangs over every day remains, "Is this the new normal?" I still don't believe it is, but then I may have been in denial since the morning of the accident, refusing from the beginning to believe everything would not, some day, be all right. So it's hard for me to accept that it might not be, even as doctors and therapists tell us that these injuries were so severe that it's almost certain there will be life-long consequences. The only question is, how serious, how debilitating will they be?
And how long will it take?

But along the way, we still stumble into unexpected blessings.
Shoes remain important (as I wrote about here, in "Hell on heels.")
As the weather started to get cooler, we needed MG was going to need something better than the sandals she's worn all summer. So we went to a local Academy Sports to buy some tennis shoes.
We found a pair and were trying to get them on over the orthotic, struggling. MG was starting to get emotional again because it wasn't working, and I realized we needed a shoe horn.
I went from aisle to aisle until I found this guy who worked in the shoe department, and asked him for a shoe horn. I could tell he was annoyed at first, looking at my feet because he thought it was for me. I said, "It's not for me, it's my wife - she's been in an accident and we're trying to find a shoe that will fit over this brace she wears." Still somewhat grudgingly, he came down to where MG was sitting ... and suddenly, just like that, his entire attitude changed.
He couldn't have been more helpful. It turns out, he once owned his own shoe repair place, so he was incredibly helpful. He had his own shoe horn, but more than that he looked immediately and saw we had the wrong width, what size we needed, which brand would work best, how we could take the inner sole out of one shoe and double it up in the other to even out the height of the shoe.
When MG walked in these shoes, her hips were even and her walk level. I could tell MG was so encouraged, if not excited. This man said the shoe horn he had was his own personal one, but he offered to give it to us (we didn't take it, but he did give us good direction on what kind we should get and how to find it). I can't tell you how what an encouragement this gentleman turned out to be and, I think, even he felt good about being able to provide a solution to a real problem. I hope he walked away feeling as blessed as we did.
Then .... one night, driving back to Birmingham, my sister and I were talking and she mentioned that she had a friend with drop foot who found she could wear a boot without a brace because the boot worked to keep her foot at a 90-degree angle, and wondered if that would work for MG.
I got home, and without even telling MG about that conversation, MG said she wanted to go shopping for some boots because she was worried about being cold. So we drove to - where else? - DSW.
As we walked in, I did feel a sense of dread. The last time here was so disappointing and discouraging. And I admit to being afraid.
And once inside we saw row after row of boots, and as first it seemed all of them had heels- mostly high, very stylish, and completely out of the question.
But we started looking. I found a flat boot, and MG tried it on. It kind of worked. I went looking for more options, and MG tried on another pair and then walked down the row to get a feel and look for more.
She came back with a pair of Ralph Lauren boots that I could tell she liked. We got them on - without the brace - and she started walking. I  watched, admittedly holding my breath.
When MG turned to come back, she was smiling. The boots seemed to work. We sat down and I heard MG say, "Thank you Ralph Lauren."
I don't know what the trip to DSW did for MG - I can imagine - but I can't tell you how thankful I was to leave having made a purchase, to see MG smiling, to see her encouraged at yet another option for footwear!

Now, here's the deal. The tennis shoes are great. MG wears them all the time for her therapy and workouts, and around the house. The boots? Well, the reality is they may not work like we first hoped they would. They remain in her closet, and we'll see.
But what is important is the blessing that both shopping trips represented. It was "normal" - MG looked for shoes, tried some one, walked around in them, bought them and brought them home.
That sounds crazy, the kind of thing that most of us take for granted or - in the case of whoever is paying for the shoes - might even dread.
But among the many lessons we've been forced to recognize is to not take simple things for granted; in fact the very word "simple" becomes non-existent because so very few things are "simple" anymore.

Hopefully, we'll get there and one day simple things will be simple again.
But when?
Dare I say it may be ... "in a minute?"

Do you really know who you're disagreeing with?

Interesting debate.
Not the one on TV Tuesday night - although that was interesting, too.
No, the interesting debates are the ones that take place on the web - on facebook, in chat rooms.

I admit to getting sucked in to the conversation. You read something in a blog or a post from a friend, and then see a follow-up comment from someone else, and someone else, and sometimes it strikes a chord and you feel compelled to jump in.
For the most part, these are good. Usually I find these to be interesting exchanges of ideas. Most of the people I tend to converse with over the internet are thoughtful, or at least funny, and pretty respectful of other people's ideas.
Another public discourse I like to read - but almost never join in - are the 'comments' section under stories posted on web sites. Those are the ones where you get people whose idea of combating ideas they don't like is the old "yo momma'' approach; where they don't offer a rational or thoughtful argument but just accuse the other person of being stupid, a redneck, a misogynist, a racist ... whatever.

Recently I got into one of those on facebook. It was a friend's page - which I have access to, obviously - on which he started a political discussion. Then one of his friends, someone I don't know, jumped in with a comment that I found to be ridiculous, so I responded.
And he responded.
And I responded.
Until it occurred to me, I don't know this guy. I don't know if he's being serious, or ironic, or sarcastic, or just trying to be funny.
Maybe he's trying to get a rise out of someone and laughing as he realizes he got to me.

I should know better.
I have a friend who started a very popular web site that includes a 'chat room.' The site deals with sports, and is incredibly popular. My friend has done quite well, since it's a pay site.
However, I once was talking about the arguments that took place in the chat room between people with made-up names (since very few people on the internet ever use their real names in posting comments).
And he told me something I should have known but hadn't thought of.
He told me he knows who all the people are who are members of his private pay site, and he knows them by their "screen name." He said he reads the discussion that takes place in those chat rooms and laughs. He told me if people knew who they were arguing with, they'd be embarrassed.
I asked what he meant, and he told me about 56-year-old highly respected and brilliant lawyers who get caught up arguing with 13-year-olds; about all kinds of professional men who get worked  up arguing with college kids.
In other words, people who, if they were actually face to face, would have a completely different tone to their conversation will, online behind screen names, get worked up because they assume everyone they are talking to is like them - similar age, similar education, similar experience.

I like to express ideas and opinions. I enjoy having people disagree with me, or sharing divergent thoughts. Those challenges are what either strengthens my conviction or causes me to re-think a position.
But hopefully with respect.

Although occasionally, a good "yo' momma'' makes me laugh.

Saturday night: more thoughts on fandom

So I find myself in New Iberia, La., at the World Championship Gumbo Cook-off.
It's not far from Baton Rouge, where that evening LSU will play South Carolina. Since this is Louisiana, and Baton Rouge is not far from here and this festival really is a big deal, there are lot of people wearing their LSU gear, and a few people who support South Carolina.
Actually, there are fans of other schools showing their support, too. The "Ragin' Cajuns" of Louisiana Lafayette are well represented, as are the New Orleans Saints; I saw a couple people wearing Texas A&M stuff, a Grambling t-shirt, and even one lady wearing a Georgia shirt.

But sometimes the mind goes goofy, I'll admit.
I was standing with a guy wearing an LSU game jersey, and this other guy walks up and says, "LSU, huh? Are you guys going to stay with Zach Metzenberger at quarterback if you lose tonight?"
And I couldn't help myself. I said:\

"Wait a minute. You understand this guy is just wearing an LSU jersey he probably bought at sporting goods store somewhere, right? He doesn't really play for LSU. I mean, I know it's a nice jersey. It looks like one of those 'authentic game day' jerseys.
"But I don't think the administration at LSU is sitting around thinking, 'if our quarterback doesn't play well tonight, what do we do?' And some guy then says, 'We need to find a guy wearing a really good-looking, authentic game-day jersey and ask him! He'll know what we should do!"

OK, I'm being hard on a college football fan who was just making the kind of conversation fans make every day, every where. You see somebody wearing a t-shirt of a team and say things like, "Who are you guys going to start tonight?" or "What in the world were you guys thinking in that last game?" or my favorite, "Who are you guys going to hire as your next coach?"
As fans, we love to offer our authoritative opinion on any topic knowing we have nothing to lose - it's not our job, we're not getting paid, we're not playing the game. Heck, most of us don't even invest in tickets to the game but sit at home and watch on TV or listen on radio. Other than our emotion, our investment is limited to paying the cable TV bill every month and maybe buying a bunch of t-shirts, caps, posters, and other stuff that keeps sports from being the one business that truly seems recession-proof.

Which, come to think of it, means we do have a lot to lose. We don't want to be that guy wearing the Kentucky t-shirt during football season, knowing people are feeling sorry for us (but of course all that changes once basketball season starts).
There is a certain amount of belonging that comes in wearing team gear, particularly if you're away from home.
In the middle of the crowd, I saw a nice lady wearing a red t-shirt with the familiar black "G" of the University of Georgia. As I walked by, I gave a nice "Go Dogs!" to her.
She didn't hear me.
Or else it wasn't really a "G" for Georgia.

I remember a missionary friend who was high in the mountains of Peru and came across a villager wearing a Georgia t-shirt. The missionary said to the villager, "Hey, I like that shirt. Are you a Georgia fan?" To which the village got real excited and said to the missionary in his broken English, "How 'bout them Dawgs?" And followed it up immediately with the question, "What does that mean? An American gave me this t-shirt and told me if I ever met someone from Georgia, that's what I was supposed to say. But I don't know why."
My missionary friend said that taught him how much easier it is to convert someone to college football than to faith.

A long time ago, in an attempt to make a point, I once wrote, "You know religion is important in the South because it keeps getting compared to football."

My preacher actually used that line in one of his sermons once.
I  think some of the congregation was offended, thinking he was making light of college football.

More issues on ballot than future of Big Bird

Maybe you've noticed there is an election coming up.

But beyond concerns over Big Bird and health care and who is paying enough taxes, there are a few other things that I'm wondering about.

Massachusetts will be voting on something called  "Question 2," also known as the “Death with Dignity” Initiative, which would establish a state statute by which physician-assisted death, also known as euthanasia, would be legal.

Oregon, Colorado and Washington all have ballot initiatives for the legalization of recreational marijuana consumption within those states.

And Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington state will have gay marriage proposals on their ballots.

I'm not going to debate the individual pros and cons of these initiatives.

What concerns me is if all these pass, much like the recent immigration laws passed by states like Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, and others, who will be responsible for enforcing what law?

What happens when state laws violate federal laws, or federal laws violate state laws? We've seen instances where a state says it will usurp federal authority to enforce federal immigration laws because the state doesn't believe the federal government will enforce its own laws; and then we see the federal authority say the states are acting without authority. Or states pass immigration laws, which the federal government then challenges in court, creating the argument over federal vs. state's rights.

And if that paragraph leaves you scratching your head ... that's kind of what these divergent opinions on "law" are causing me to do.

We could substitute almost any of the above laws for this, but let's look at the marriage issue.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton (a Democrat) signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law with a large bi-partisan majority in Congress approving the legislation. That act established that the United States government would recognize only the union of a man and a woman as marriage, and no state would be required to recognize a same-sex union performed in any other state.

Now, President Barack Obama (also a Democrat) has ordered the Attorney General of the United States not to defend DOMA in the Federal Courts. And in fact, President Obama and the party of Bill Clinton are actively promoting what that federal statue - which, by the way, still bears the full force of federal law - prohibits.

I bring up the fact that both Presidents Clinton and Obama are Democrats only to show how different in roughly 16 years time the Democratic party has become. The same President who signed DOMA into law has actively endorsed the President who refuses to uphold that law.

What about swearing to defend the Constitution and uphold the laws of the United States?

Let's consider another potential conflict: What happens if one of those states does indeed pass a law legalizing recreational use of marijuana? Will local police then ignore federal  drug laws? Could individual cities in those states' then pass their own laws making marijuana illegal, furthering the confusion over who is in charge?

And if a state refuses to recognize federal law, could the Federal government choose to declare marshall law in those states so the federal laws are enforced? I know that seems like a stretch in these circumstances, but isn't that what the Federal government is supposed to do when a state or community chooses to disregard Federal law - as in the case of Phenix City, Al, in the 1950s, and did sporadically throughout the South during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960?

Obviously I'm not a lawyer. Maybe there is a simple explanation for this. I know the "Supremacy Clause" of the Constitution says (Article VI) says: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. 

This seems to mean that any federal law trumps any conflicting state law.

That is, if the federal government is willing to back up its own laws.

Another thing to consider: what starts as a law at the state level very often eventually winds up becoming law at the national level. (Case in point: we often forget how a majority or near-majority of states had banned alcohol before prohibition became the law of the land in the 1920s).

We all know how different regions of the country are from each other, and certainly how different states can be. Sometimes you almost think you need a passport to go from one state to another.
Somewhere I remember reading a German philosopher who said, "Democracy requires of its citizens qualities that it cannot provide." I took that to mean that democracies may give us hope for having an educated, healthy, prosperous, and free society, but no government can provide the qualities of integrity, self-sacrifice, and personal responsibility required to make such a vision come true.

I know you may be reading this and getting all worked up over the law or the proposed law itself, but that's not my intent here.

My concern is confusion over the law - whatever the law is.

There is an election in November, but it is starting to look like it's a lot more than just about who will be the next President of the United States. Decisions made in individual states will say a lot about the character of America, of where America is going and what Americans believe.

Having forgotten how tough it can be to be a fan

Weekends like this may be why I enjoyed being a sportswriter more than being a fan.

As a sportswriter, I loved going to the games and looking for the good story - why a game was won or lost, that decision or action that might have played a major role in the outcome that perhaps wasn't obvious to someone just watching the game, the importance of a play or a decision not just in that game but perhaps on the season or program overall.
Every game has subplots - key match-ups between individual players, the chess match between offensive and defensive coordinators. One of my favorite stories remains from the first Southeastern Conference Championship game, between Alabama and Florida at Legion Field in 1992. The first half, Florida was having great success with this little inside shovel pass until - according to then-Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Oliver - Tide defensive back Sam Shade actually blew his assignment but wound up quite by accident in the right place to stop the play. Florida's Steve Spurrier didn't go back to that play because, Oliver thought, Spurrier was convinced Oliver had adjusted when in fact Shade's play was an accident.
 On such moments and sometimes accidents are championships often won or lost. That was what I tried to bring to sports writing - things that you couldn't get just by watching the game.

But I'm out of the business now. I'm re-learning how to be a fan, to care about the outcome of the game more than how the outcome came about.
So yes, I have managed to care again about how Georgia does in football. I am, after all, a Georgia graduate (even though I've now lived more of my life in the state of Alabama). Not that I ever thought this year's Bulldog team was up to the level of an Alabama - certainly defensively - but I believed the offense was good enough to score on anybody.
And then came Saturday against South Carolina.
It was a game that reminded me of one of the classic Lewis Grizzard columns of all time, a column that showed just how much influence and popularity Grizzard had in Georgia and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Grizzard loved Georgia football, and after one particularly galling loss to Georgia Tech, Grizzard's column was one sentence: "I don't want to talk about it." And the rest of the left hand side of the page, which Grizzard's column was supposed to fill with prose, was left blank. In the business, we'd call this "creative use of white space."
That's how I feel about the Georgia-South Carolina game this weekend.

It's also how I feel about the Atlanta Braves' one-game playoff with the Cardinals. My best friend in high school was Mitch, and we loved baseball. We used to go down and sit in the cheap seats in the outfield, and even though the Braves were terrible back in those days (the days when all Atlanta sports teams were so bad the city was nicknamed "Loserville"), year after year we had hope.
It was a hope that was finally driven out of me. Even in the decade of the 90s when Atlanta had one of the best regular-season teams in baseball, I refused to get back on the Braves' bandwagon.
Well, not entirely. Come playoff time I'd find myself daring to hope and, other than one year when the Braves managed to win the World Series, year after year I'd be disappointed.
Somehow I thought this year might be different. Maybe it's because it was Chipper Jones' last year. Maybe because .... I don't know, maybe because I'm just a sucker who hasn't shaken my childhood allegiances as much as I'd like to think I have.
It didn't help that Mitch kept texting me during the game. I wasn't watching; I was at a company-sponsored function. I kept trying to text Mitch back to quit texting me, but he kept texting me (it's OK). But do you know how frustrating it is to get cryptic text messages and have no idea what's going on, other than it's not good for your team?
I finally saw the "infield fly'' controversy, but I still haven't seen Chipper's throwing error, and have refused to watch his last at-bat.
The only good thing is that so much of my family lives in St. Louis and we're Cardinals' fans, so there is that.
However, later that night I turn on to watch the Rangers - who I cheer for because my buddy Shayne is on the coaching staff - lose 5-1. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs, and the season ends on a pop up to the outfield. Two straight years going to the World Series (Shayne wasn't on the staff the last two years), and I was sure my buddy would get to enjoy a deep run into the playoffs this year.

These are the kind of emotional letdowns that I didn't suffer as a sportswriter. I covered games and certainly for the sake of the story I was writing there were times I wanted the team I was covering to win (it's always more fun to write a "team wins championship'' story than a "team blows championship'' story). The standing joke among beat writers is that during the NCAA Tournament, all sportswriters become fans of the team they are covering because we all wanted to go as far into the tournament as we could.
People accused me of being 'for' one team - like Alabama, the team I was assigned as the beat writer for 15 years - but the truth is, while I became close to individuals who played or coaches and worked at Alabama, I was never a fan of "Alabama."
As Jerry Seinfeld so aptly put it, fans are really fans of laundry. Tide fans, for example, love the uniform and, truthfully, whoever is wearing the uniform matters to them only because they are wearing the right laundry. Players and coaches come and go, but the laundry remains. ("Tide fans love laundry" - I had to laugh at that one).
The essence of being a fan means you come to support laundry. If you don't like that, you can say fans support the team, the school, the program, and that's appropriate. You are a fan of the team that represents your city or state or country (in the case of the Olympics or World Cup or international competition). Or maybe, as a kid, you just 'decide' you like a team for whatever reason. When I was a kid, I loved the Green Bay Packers, a fandom that started before Atlanta got the Falcons; I have a brother-in-law who did not grow up in Minnesota and as far as I know has never even been to Minnesota, but long ago he decided he was a Vikings fan.
But really, we're cheering for laundry, or colors, or an idea. Not people.

As a sportswriter, I found myself pulling for people, and that loyalty transferred as players and coaches and administrators moved on. It's one reason I like Clemson now - I've known and liked Dabo Swinney since he was a walk-on at Alabama way back in the day. It's a reason I hope Akron does well, because I've always enjoyed being around the Bowden family and I'm happy to see Terry Bowden back at the Division I level.

But now that I'm not in the business anymore, I find myself going back to being a fan - Georgia, the Braves, the Falcons, and, yes, Alabama because a lot of my personal history is tied up in that school (although I like Auburn, too, for the same reason; people forget I was an Auburn beat writer before I moved to cover that school in Tuscaloosa, and still enjoy a good relationship with Pat Dye and Terry Bowden and even Tommy Tuberville. When MG and I were dating, I was covering Auburn and she went with me to so many games, sitting in the stands while I sat in the press box. Auburn fans in those sections were incredibly nice and 'adopted' her, looking out for her while I worked. So Auburn remains special to me).

And being a fan is tough. I'd forgotten how tough until this weekend.

But ... How 'bout them Falcons?

Yes, I watched the debate; but why?

I  watched the first debate Wednesday night, between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

If you read this blog before "the accident,'' you know that normally I love these debates. I love the exchange of ideas. I love to hear how these people think. I think it is important to hear the people who want to lead us, to lead our country, and try to figure out how they'll do.

But this one was different. I honestly don't think it matters. I fear most of us have already made up our minds. As I posted on Facebook, I have this feeling like it's all been decided ... that 47 percent (to use Romney's phrase) know they are voting for the President, 47 percent know they are not, and so it all comes down to the "missing" 6 percent who - I'm afraid - won't even be watching the debate!

And nothing that I've seen on the post-debate analysis tells me otherwise. I hear the Republicans talking about how their guy romped with the greatest debate performance in 50 years; I hear the Democrats saying the Republican lied even as they lament that the President didn't do a very good job ("altitude" got him, according to Al Gore).

But all the self-congratulation on one side and the grumbling on the other seems to me to lack serious discussion and only add to the noise that already divides this country so deeply.

Jobless numbers came out. Unemployment went down. The President will argue that's progress. Romney will argue that the number doesn't reflect those who are underemployed (people working part-time jobs who can't get full time employment) and those who have given up looking (both groups, to me, have to be counted - particularly the underemployed who seem ast least to be trying to stay off unemployment).

Perhaps I'm cynical, but as someone once said, there are "lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics." I have a sports background, so I know baseball players in particular - because no other sport uses statistics like baseball does - who go in to argue for a raise with their set of statistics, only to be told why they don't deserve a raise based on another set of equally impressive statistics. Statistics can say what you want them to say ... or rather, they will say whatever the person paying for them wants them to say.

Meanwhile, has the bias of the so-called "news" channels ever been more obvious?

If you had any doubt that MSNBC (whose motto "Lean Forward" sounds an awful lot like Chairman Mao's 1958 "Great Leap Forward") is doing all it can to support President Obama, that doubt had to be removed in the aftermath of the first debate. Chris Matthews  literally begged the President to watch his network because - according to Matthews - the hosts on MSNBC have been shooting down Republican positions and Mitt Romney for months. Matthews said they'd been delivering the President his talking points every night, and was literally begging the President to pay attention. Clearly the folks at MSNBC believe they've already provided everything the President needs to win this election and are frustrated that the President won't follow their advice.

Not that Fox News was much better. The Fox folks aren't quite as apoplectic; they don't appear to be about to have seizures and spit all over themselves when they talk about the other side the way the folks at MSNBC do, but they too made no bones about their belief that they have been carrying the flag for Romney and if Romney would just listen to them, he'd win.

And CNN ... well, nobody apparently watches CNN, judging by that network's ratings. I did, simply because I get this sense that CNN has made a business decision to try - as hard as it is for them to honestly try  - to offer some conservative viewpoints without sounding condescending in doing so. Maybe it's just me (and it probably is) but I get the sense the folks at CNN have been told to reign it in because the ratings are terrible and  if they're going to keep their  jobs they need to offer some of whatever it is that keeps Fox's ratings so remarkably high (this is television, after all, which means entertainment. If you don't think ratings don't matter when it comes even to news, ask Katie Couric, or Connie Chung, or any number of network anchors who have come and gone in an attempt to get a majority of the American people to trust them).

Ah, but there is value to all of it. I make myself watch a little of all three "major" cable news networks even though I think Sean Hannity is the right-wing version of Chris Matthews, and Greta grates on my nerves as much as Rachel Maddow.
I watch, because somewhere in the midst of all this propaganda there has to be some truth, some sense to be made out of what is going on.

On the other hand, I listen to young people and realize they're getting their news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on The Comedy Channel. Somehow, the Comedy Channel has become the most trusted name in news for folks under 30.

But it's not really that different than the late 1800s-early 1900s, when every city had multiple newspapers, and they competed was by taking extremely different positions to try to appeal to the most people. I have a feeling William Randolph Hurst or Joseph Pulitzer would feel right at home owning CNN or MSNBC or Fox News, that their editors could step right into a modern TV news room and feel right at home (once they adjusted to technology).
Sometimes we forget the term "Yellow Journalism," which means "a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism," or "biased opinion masquerading as objective fact. Moreover, the practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales and exciting public opinion."
Change out "newspaper sales" for "television ratings" and you have too much of what passes for journalism today, too.

And don't even get me started on polls. All the polls do is create an expectation so that, should the candidate who is behind in the polls win, the people who support the loser have grounds  to claim voter fraud because there is no way the polls could say one thing the day before the election and the election turn out so differently. Some thing must be illegal - hanging chads or voter intimidation or fraudulant voting taking place.
I've even heard that the company that will count the  votes is a Spanish company that is owned by George Soros! (I always believed votes were boxed up and taken to a vote counting facility in each district, usually a government office, where they are counted by machine or by hand under the watchful eye of a representative from all parties involved. Sure, there was corruption ... but it was good old fashioned American corruption - like losing a box or two of ballots, or producing an extra box or two at the last minute that no one "knew" about).

Still, I will vote. And I admit I'm not crazy about either major candidate. I admit I'll be voting against someone rather than for someone, and that isn't the way it should be.

Which means I'm one of those people who watch the debates with a 99 percent certainty of who I will vote for.

Why? I guess because I'm hopeful that one or both of these guys will be struck with some unusually solid common sense and maybe, just maybe, make me change my mind.

Tired of the sensitive stuff; looking for the scar

I appreciate those of you who have been kind enough to ask me about my blog, but I just have nothing worthwhile to say (not that I did before).

For what it's worth, I'm reading a lot, and I get inspired. But when I turn the laptop on and get in this  space, I just go blank.

Some of you - maybe many of you - come here to see updates on MG. I don't know that I can do that because of where things are right now. It's difficult, but it's not really different. We knew this would be a long, long process ... and it has been all that and more. We are trying to determine what "normal" is, and pray that it's not this, that there is something else coming.

I will say something, however, that struck me as I was thinking about this stuff.

There is this one particular incision on MG, from one of her surgeries. They didn't close the wound because they said it needed to heal from the inside out. Apparently - and I'm not a doctor and wouldn't even begin to play one - the sensitive, connective  tissue inside had to grow back and reconnect before it could be covered by the outer, tougher, protective layer of skin.
And then comes the scar.
The scar usually is a sign that we're healed, that we no longer hurt, but it's a reminder of what happened.

I think that's the way it is for many of us, too. We want the tough, protecting covering when what we need is to have the sensitive, connective tissue grow back first.

I want the tough protective covering; I want the scar. I'm tired of the sensitive stuff.

But I have this feeling that for proper healing to take place, this is what has to happen and to try to jump over one step will only cause me problems down the road.

Which sounds like so much psycho babble ....

The other thing that occurred to me was how many people are involved in MG's recovery. Teams of people - doctors, nurses, physical therapists, family, friends.

And it seems to me we make a mistake when we try to heal on our own. 

We have family. We have friends. We have professionals - pastors, counselors, doctors. 

As much as I like my solitude, as much as I like to live inside my head, as much as I think I should be tough and responsible for myself, that's not the way God  created us to be.

I am reading Genesis (again). God said "it's not good for man to be alone." He said that even though He and Adam apparently communed regularly. Adam had God all to himself, and yet God still said "I am not enough; Adam needs someone else." And God provided that someone else.

Because in the end, God knows our needs, and He is enough in the sense that He provides for those needs.

I hope that makes sense. It seemed terribly profound to me at the time.

And  I hope the words start coming again, for my sake.