Category Archives: Current Events

Mar15

Tommy John Is Not a Doctor!

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Dr. Frank Jobe 1925-2014 The Surgeon

Dr. Frank Jobe
1925-2014
The Surgeon

I was reading through the sports pages on MSN today and amidst all the bracketology talk and bubble predictions about the upcoming NCAA tournament, I saw an article stating Frank Wilson Jobe had passed away March 6th at the age of 88. I figure only the most diehard baseball fans would know that name, but Frank Jobe, in my opinion, should go into the Baseball Hall of Fame on a special ballot even though he never played baseball at any level, never threw a pitch, or fielded a grounder. Instead, DOCTOR Frank Jobe developed a procedure which altered the way injured pitchers looked at their futures and to date has saved the careers of some of baseball’s most noted pitchers including players like Chris Carpenter, John Smoltz, Ben Sheets, and quite recently Stephen Strasbourg. The procedure is properly termed “ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction” but baseball fans everywhere refer to it by the name of its first recipient — then Los Angeles Dodgers left-handed pitcher Tommy John.

Tommy John was a pitching star in the Dodger organization when he blew his elbow out in 1974. At that time, John’s injury was considered career ending. In fact, the fantastic career of another Dodger – legendary Sandy Koufax – had been truncated in 1966 by the same injury John was facing. Tommy John, however, refused to accept such a bleak diagnosis and approached the team’s orthopedist, Dr. Jobe, about ANY possible fixes. Dr. Jobe had a colleague who had used ligament harvesting to treat polio patients’ paralysis and the two doctors mulled over the idea of using a similar technique to replace the ruined ligaments in John’s throwing elbow. From the start, Dr. Jobe was bluntly honest with Tommy John. In an interview I heard on ESPN radio Tommy John recalled, “I asked Dr. Jobe what would happen if I didn’t have the surgery and he said, ‘You’ll never pitch major league baseball again.’ So I asked him what would happen if I did have the surgery and he said, ‘You’ll PROBABLY never pitch major league baseball again.'”

The Guinea Pig Tommy John in 1975, his rehab year.

The Guinea Pig
Tommy John in 1975,
his rehab year.

But the surgery was a success beyond anything Dr. Jobe could have hoped for. After a complete year of rehabilitation – a practice still followed today — Tommy John returned for the 1976 season and went 10 – 10, which was considered completely miraculous at the time. He also showcased the durability of the reconstruction by pitching fourteen more seasons before he finally retired in 1989. Today, estimates vary, but most hover at around one-third of all major league pitchers have (or will have) some degree of Tommy John Surgery. Thanks to a pitcher who wasn’t ready to throw in the towel and a doctor who was willing to try something entirely untested to put him back on the mound, a blown out pitching elbow no longer means an end to a career, but for many pitchers – the original recipient among them – it signals the beginning of even better performance.

Hopefully, Cooperstown will think the same way I do and eventually, Dr. Frank Jobe will have a bronze bust in the special wing of the Hall of Fame to honor the man whose procedure saved the careers of nearly 100 major league pitching stars even if the non-baseball public continues to think Tommy John was the surgeon and not the patient!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Feb25

Cauliflowers to Canteloupes

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Michael-Sam-Jason-CollinsTwo days ago, Jason Collins became the first openly gay player to participate in an NBA basketball game. Michael Sams, a linebacker from the University of Missouri, stands to become the first openly gay player to be drafted by an NFL team at some point during the upcoming Draft. Both of these men are obviously making waves in their respective sports and driving conversation throughout the country about civil rights, inclusion, and tolerance in locker rooms and beyond. Collins’ and Sams’ sagas are a mirror of the current state of American society. Seventeen states have already legalized same-sex marriage and others have legislation pending. No doubt the times they are a changin’ to quote Dylan.

That’s great. I don’t have a problem with same-sex marriages or gay players in pro sports (or college, high school, rec leagues, and intramural), or two guys holding hands or two girls kissing. Live your life as you want to live it. I take flack from some devout Christian friends, but I’m okay with that. My religious views and views on civil rights do not interfere with each other. In many ways, I have a “wall of separation” between my religion and my politics.  Having said all that, I do have one serious problem with the rash of Sam and Collins supporters — especially sportswriters and sports announcers who should know better — I’m tired of hearing these two guys compared to Jackie Robinson. Let me be clear, what Sam and Collins are doing is vitally important, but THEY ARE NOT JACKIE ROBINSON and putting them with Jackie is comparing cauliflowers with cantaloupes.

First off, neither is the talent Robinson was. Collins is an eight-team journeyman player who had been out of basketball nearly a year before the also-ran Brooklyn Nets signed him to a ten-day contract. Sam is an unknown commodity yet to play in the NFL, but it’s not like he set the world on fire at Mizzou. Jackie Robinson was a six-time All-Star. He was the Major League Rookie of the Year in 1947. He won the 1949 batting title and was twice the stolen bases champion. Doesn’t matter that he broke the color barrier as well — he had the goods on the field too.  Jackie broke the color barrier, not because he was a black player, but because he was the BEST black player. He might have been many things, but Jackie Robinson wasn’t a gimmick. I may be proven wrong, but neither Collins nor Sam is likely to have their jersey number retired by an entire league.

Secondly, neither Sam nor Collins have had to endure ANYTHING approaching the abuse Robinson faced in his early MLB career and they NEVER will. It’s a different country now and people would go to jail for Federal hate crimes if they talked the way crowds spoke to Robinson. When Sam takes the field for whatever team drafts him, no one — especially an opposing manager — is going to yell out “Faggot! Get back to the gay clubs,” but a Philadelphia Phillie manager screamed at Jackie to “get [his] nigger ass back to the cotton fields!” Any team Sam or Collins plays for will not have to choose between sleeping in a hotel without them or sleeping as a team on the bus with them the way the Brooklyn Dodgers sometimes had to choose on their road trips. Perhaps people’s feelings about those who are different from them haven’t changed, but today’s bigots can’t hide behind badges and laws  . . . at least in America — in Uganda or Saudi Arabia, you’ll have to take your chances.

Also, a rabid bigot may see gays and lesbians everywhere, but demographic experts put the HIGHEST number of gays at 10% of the American population while a reputable Gay and Lesbian think tank put the numbers between 5% to 8%. By contrast, 15% of Americans are Black and that doesn’t include the further people the census say identify as “other race.” Sam and Collins are representing a sometimes vocal community, but Jackie Robinson had the hopes of an entire PEOPLE on his broad shoulders, and those people were in constant danger just for being themselves. According to the Tuskegee Law Institute, 3445 black men were lynched —  murdered without trial — in the United States from 1882-1968. 240px-JrobinsonSure, gay people have endured violence, but nowhere near the scale black people faced. A black child could be murdered WITHOUT PENALTY in parts of the US as late as the 1950s just for “talking fresh” to a white woman. Don’t think so? Google Emmitt Till. That is the kind of vitriol Jackie Robinson faced when he was out on the playing field.

Finally, and this won’t be popular, but all Sam and Collins had to do to live quiet normal lives was simply to keep their mouths shut. They chose to come out; no one twisted their arms. I realize no one should have to hide being gay to play his chosen sport much less live a regular life. I agree, I understand the argument, and sooner or later it’s not going to be that way, but the fact remains, a gay person can hide being gay, but a black person has ZERO chance of hiding being black. People are arguing both ways about homosexuality — is it birth or is it choice? The jury may be out on what makes people gay, but no one is debating what makes a person black. White people are born white; black people are born BLACK. You have more chance of hiding a golf ball in a glass of spring water than being a “closeted black man.”

So, Michael Sam and Jason Collins are definitely moving the conversation on equality of sexuality in this country forward, but to put them into the same mold of Number 42 is a poor comparison at best and cauliflowers to cantaloupes at worst.

Hope I didn’t make anyone too mad, but if I did, it’s like a bridge . . . you’ll get over it. In any event, love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Jan30

Those Who Can, Do; Those Who CARE, Teach

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Atlanta school snow“Teachers get paid entirely too much!”

“Teachers only work half as much as everyone else!”

“It must be nice having summers off!”

“Teachers couldn’t handle a REAL job!”

“Education students couldn’t handle a REAL major!”

I spent fifteen years in public education as a high school teacher and a middle school librarian; my wife is currently in her 11th year as a fourth grade teacher, and statements like these are just some of the hurtful barbs I’ve had hurled at us over the years. Public school teachers make wonderful policy whipping boys. Regardless of what is wrong with the country, be it a stale economy, high crime, unemployment, or any other issue — regardless of how tangentially the connection may be — blaming education and teachers is a sure fire way for a talking head to get some applause.

It doesn’t matter what the problem is. It doesn’t matter many decisions by people who last saw a classroom when Ancient History was Current Events. The song remains the same — if it’s broken, blame the teachers. The Left takes potshots at us as being too conservative and teaching “ignorance” like Intelligent Design, even though WE didn’t elect the people who passed the law. The Right blasts us for being in the pockets of the “radical ____ agenda” and filling their children’s heads with all kinds of socialist, communist drivel. You can put whatever you want in that blank as well. I’ve heard “anti-family,” “pro-abortion,” “homosexual” and others I can’t put in here even if Mama isn’t around to read my blog anymore.

But we teachers are still here and we’re still teaching (well, not me anymore, but anyway.)

When Winter Storm Leon (one quick tangent — whose the idiot who thought naming winter storms like we do hurricanes was thing? And they say TEACHERS waste taxpayer dollars!) slammed into Atlanta — totally by surprise OR after many unheeded warnings, depending on who you want to believe, nothing short of chaos ensued. All over the city, people stranded in cars took off hiking home. Some sheltered in the stores of compassionate managers and owners. Many, many teachers were not among those. They had work to do.

Once it became obvious the storm was getting worse and the traffic was hopeless, principals and teachers realized many of their pupils wouldn’t be getting home that day. With no prior preparation, schools all over Atlanta became de facto Hotel 6’s as educators prepared to take care of “their” children for the night. Many of these teachers had children of their own who needed attended to, but duty was calling louder than even motherly (and fatherly) instincts. A storm was raging and Atlanta’s educators rose to meet the monster with gym mats and cafeteria food, stage curtain blankets and bedtime stories from principals.

Just for a moment, please put yourself in the shoes of a child in K4 and yes, we do send them to school THAT little these days. Mommy put you on the bus this morning like she always did and told you she’d see you at home in the evening. You’ve never spent a night away from home; you haven’t had a sleepover yet that didn’t involve grandparents. Now, it’s getting dark. The bus you got on you thought was going to take you home has taken you back to school and you are just about to go into K4 meltdown mode.

Then, you see her — it’s Mizziz Smif’. This woman and her steadfast aide beside her have watched over you for the last 100 days as if you were their own. You are still terrified and most likely hungry, but you feel a little better. The lady from the office who usually terrifies you takes you out of a line of your classmates and puts a phone in your hand. Mommy is on the line. “Sweetheart,” she says, “You are staying at school tonight! Won’t that be fun?” Well, you don’t know about “fun” but now you know two things: 1) Mommy knows where you are and that’s a BIG HONKING DEAL to a four-year old and 2) you are somewhere the people know you and have done everything but swear oaths to take care of you. This may be scary, but you think it may turn out alright.

Stories have come in from all over Atlanta of teachers reading bedtime stories to children, of principals organizing early morning snowball fights to take the children’s minds off the gravity of the situation, of cafeteria workers staying to make sure the children had hot food to eat.

In. Loco. Parentis. Yes, it’s a legal term dripping with all the crap an army of lawyers can hang on it, but at the heart it means exactly what it says — “In the place of a parent.” It’s what every teacher worthy of the title holds closest to his or her heart whenever he looks at the young lives in his or her charge. For the 8 to 10 hours a day these children are with their teachers, their teachers ARE their parents and most of the time consequences be damned. People who think teaching is about 7 to 3 with summers off have no clue. The teachers in Atlanta who did not sleep so their children could weren’t thinking about the summer vacation. Teaching is more than that.

Happily, the debacle in Atlanta has passed with no children harmed . . . except maybe from a snowball to the nose, but teachers everywhere have stood in the place of parents and given the last full measure of devotion with no worry about what was to come.

Victoria Soto wasn’t worried about Common Core when she put her own body between a madman and her precious Sandy Hook first graders — taking bullets meant for them. Professor Liviu Librescu wasn’t thinking about his tenure hearing as he held the door of his Virginia Tech classroom shut even as the deranged gunman fired shot after shot through the door and into the Holocaust survivor’s body. The Sisters of Charity who taught at St. Mary’s Orphanage in Galveston, TX were not champing at the bit to get home on that dark September day in 1900 when all ten perished — each with her portion of the 90 children in her charge tied to their waists with clothesline as The Great Galveston Hurricane drowned the island.

All teachers. In loco parentis.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

 

Jan10

First You Say It, Then You Do It

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wheels-falling-offI almost died Christmas Eve, and I’m told it would have put a damper on the holidays.

Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday so, like every Tuesday, I went to Clinton to National Health Care to check on Granny Ima and see if she would let me clean and polish her nails. Now Mama and I used to go to Columbia to spend every Christmas Eve with Granny when I was a child so in some ways, I found the whole trip ironic. Granny was happy and she smiled and said a few words, which was the best Christmas present she could give me, but she didn’t want her nails messed with, so I sat and talked to her until her CNA came to get her for lunch. Then, I kissed her goodbye, got in my truck, and headed home to get ready to go to Rob’s for Christmas Eve supper.

I bought my 1994 Ford F-150 with a little of Mama’s insurance money so it’s extremely special to me.  Anyway, as I was leaving Clinton on State 308, I called my great-Aunt Pearl (Ima’s oldest sister) to apprise her of Granny’s condition and state of mind. We were talking as I merged onto I-385 and when I gave the old girl some gas, I felt a pronounced thump. I told Aunt Pearl I’d have to call her back, hung up and concentrated on the sound.

It was an intermittent noise, which is aggravating to diagnose, and I’m not an accomplished mechanic, but I was pretty convinced it was a universal joint needing replacing or maybe an exhaust hanger had popped loose when a woman in a PT Cruiser had tapped me in the rear end in downtown Clinton that morning. I sped up to 85 mph and the noise went away. I gently applied the brakes and the noise didn’t come back. So I turned the radio back up, passed a few slow-moving cars, and continued on my way.

When I went under the State Road 92 bridge, the thump became a clunk. I had tons of ideas running through my head and all of them centered on how I was going to pay to fix whatever u-joint or exhaust hanger needed attention. I also considered the motor might be going and just about cried. I call her “Mama’s Final Gift” and I’ve become seriously attached, but all the gauges read okay so I kept on and the sound stopped eventually.

I exited I-385 and turned left onto State Highway 418 about 23 miles later and when I hit 60 mph, the noise came back. I was almost home though, so I just started the “c’mon, baby, hold together” Han Solo talk. Then, quite literally, the wheels fell off the apple cart. I slowed down to a crawl to turn right onto the road to home and saw a tire and wheel pass me. My brain had just enough time to register the thought of “that’s strange; someone’s wheel is rolling down the road,” before the left front end of the truck slammed into the pavement and the truck jolted up and down with enough force to knock my head smartly on the roof of the cab. Then an awful grinding noise filled the air and I realized the wheel in question was mine. I drove on the brake rotor about ten yards until my brain finally got the message to my foot that it was still pressing the gas instead of the brake and I stopped. Then, it hit me.

My wheel fell off my truck!

I just lost my freaking wheel!

I followed my first instinct when something crazy like that happens to me and started to call Mama, realizing just in time my long distance plan wasn’t quite that good. So I switched gears and called Budge six times and she didn’t answer the phone. It didn’t bother me though; I think I was still in shock because, you know — wheel fell off and all. In fact, some primitive part of my brain still functioning correctly posed a very good question: what was Budge supposed to do if I DID talk to her? Raise the truck with telekinesis? Realizing I had not, in fact, married Carrie White, I called Rob, my stepdad, just as he was pulling into the yard from work. I explained my predicament and he said to sit tight, he’d get Baby Huey (my 6’6″, 375 lbs “baby” stepbrother Travis) and he’d be right on.

By then, Budge had finished her shower and called me back. I think all she heard was “wheel fell off.” Ten minutes later she found me sitting on the lowered tailgate of my truck having spoken to a few friends I’d called just to pass the time. It was while sitting there calmly drinking a bottle of water the reality and gravity of the situation. The noise I’d heard coming out of Clinton was the wheel wobbling as one or more lug nuts decided to take a vacation. The second noise was the exodus of even more of these vital little hunks of metal. The terrible vibration I felt on the off ramp and 418 was the wheel wobbling on the studs devoid of attachments.

I started to shake a little. As slow as I was going as I turned onto the road, the wheel leaving still caused a bad jolt. Now, imagine for a moment: What would have happened if that same wheel had flown off while I was on I-385? wheel

I KNOW what would have happened because I’ve seen it happen during NASCAR races. The rotor would have dug into the asphalt, Newton’s First Law of Motion would have taken over and I’d have started either flipping end over end or doing some sweet barrel rolls down the highway. Since I wasn’t wearing my seat belt (they are under the seat cover) I’d have been ejected through the shattered windshield or the shattered side window, the truck would have hit me or the care behind would have run me over, I would have died on Christmas Eve 2013 and that would have sucked.

I don’t know why the wheel stayed on until I was going slow enough to survive the results. I know a lot of people would call it a neat coincidence. I don’t. See, as I was putting the wheel back on the truck, I asked myself why the lug holes in the rim were threaded while the studs were smooth. That’s when I realized the rim had ridden on the studs long enough to smooth them out while cutting threads into the rim. That’s not all; when I borrowed a lug nut from the other wheels, I discovered every lug nut was loose. Y’all skeptics think what you want and call me whatever you please, but I think Jesus and Mama were watching out for me one more time and I’m certainly thankful they were.

Love y’all and hope the new year is off to a great start! Keep those feet clean!

Nov22

Why I Believe the Warren Report

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I concur, but I wish I didn't.

I concur, but I wish I didn’t.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated fifty years ago today as he wrote in a convertible limousine through Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The imagery of that fateful fall day are forever etched in the minds of Americans of that generation. Several times as I was growing up, Mama told me the story of being eleven years old in gym class at Gray Court – Owings School when the principal came over the PA system and asked teachers to get their classes seated and quiet for a very important announcement. She said several of the teachers cried and many of the older students did as well. Mama always said she didn’t think about the President much, but she was very concerned for “Mrs. Jackie” and her well-being.

Ten months and 889 pages after the events in Dallas turned America upside down, The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy told the public Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy and Jack Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald. Never in the course of human events has such a document caused so much furor. The Warren Report has been vilified and vindicated; it has been pooh-poohed and propped up, but it has never ceased being controversial.

For better or worse, a significant portion of Americans, and the world at large as well, believe the Warren Committee got it wrong. My generation grew up hearing conspiracy theories abound implicating everyone from LBJ to aliens in killing the President and framing Oswald. Try to read all the books, articles, and web pages on the assassination and you will never finish. As far as I’m concerned, however, the committee was correct, but my opinion doesn’t give me much comfort. In fact, I think Oswald acting alone is much scarier than any grand conspiracy.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a complete nobody with strange political ideals and odd habits. He wasn’t on any FBI or CIA radar because he was just a nobody . . . but with three shots from a cheap Italian rifle, he changed the world. THAT is scary. See, a big conspiracy would be comforting for me. Smart people run conspiracies and dangerous organizations. The world has agencies who can protect us from a group of boogeymen; sooner or later, someone will talk to the wrong person and the group will be broken up and we’ll all be safe again.

Locating and limiting a loner loser like Lee, however, takes nothing less than lots of luck. That is terrifying.

“Lone wolfs” are the most dangerous of all terrorists and criminals. They report to no one; they are in league with no one; they are, quite simply, alone with their thoughts of murder and mayhem, and that makes them supremely dangerous. As a people, we don’t like the thought of such dangerous people walking around among us. It’s unsettling to realize that one person — a “shadow person” at that — can rip the fabric of a nation into tatters and change the way we live in our day to day world. It’s better, safer at least, to believe only big organizations with heads and resources and charts and data can pull off something like a Presidential assassination. Big particles get caught in a sieve quickly, but the tiny singletons pass right through.

Oswald wasn’t the first person to act alone and change the world and he hasn’t been the last. Look at Charles Whitman, the University of Texas Sniper. Nothing about him suggested he was anything other than a mild, hard working veteran, student and husband . . . until the day he murdered his mother and wife then climbed into the clock tower on the UT campus in Austin and shot fifty people, killing seventeen.

With just a minimum of help from a couple of friends, Timothy McVeigh carried out the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the country’s history when he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 men, women, and children. During his trial, McVeigh made a statement I think sums up what I’m trying to get across. People speculated McVeigh had co-conspirators and pressured him to name them before he exploded saying

You can’t handle the truth! Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building and isn’t it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?

Isn’t it scary indeed? Time and again in our history, one person with an attitude, a vendetta, or just a chip on his shoulder has carried out an act so heinous it has altered the way we conduct our lives. Thanks to Oswald, Presidents are vastly less accessible than they once were. No one ever heard of crime in Norway, much less mass murder, but one violent true believer in “antizionism” changed that when Anders Behring Breivik bombed several government buildings in Oslo before donning a police uniform and traveling to an island full of teenagers at summer camp and shot and killed 69 of them. Mehmet Ali Agca swore allegiance to no particular group but still decided to shoot and very nearly kill Pope John Paul II. That act gave the world The Popemobile, but imagine if Agca’s bullet had pierced the pontiff’s heart.

Finally, do any of you parents feel as safe sending your children to school as you felt when you were going to school? Lone, disturbed, and disaffected people have made school a terrifying place. From the Columbine Massacre to the latest mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary almost a year ago now, we have to worry that some person with a beef and a gun is going to break into our schools and kill our children.

I understand people want to see conspiracies, but in Kennedy’s case, I think Oswald acted alone, like so many others before and since, which proves to me no well thought and planned conspiracy is nearly as terrifying as the twisted human nature of a lone killer.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean.

Nov10

This is NOT a Movie

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enders_game_ver12Budge and I went to see Ender’s Game Saturday afternoon. I read the book eons ago and Budge knew enough that we both expected the “twist” at the end. I sat through the movie, which was beautifully shot and orchestrated, but after it ended, Budge and I walked back to the car in depressed silence.

This movie is not — let me repeat that to be clear — NOT a faithful representation of the source material in Orson Scott Card’s novel. What it is, and in spades I’ll add, is a blatant and scathing indictment of America’s actions towards foreign countries over the last two Presidential administrations.

It doesn’t bother me that the movie could have been a Michael Moore rag; what bothers me is how spot on it was in its satire in places AND how simple it was for me and Budge (who abhors politics) to pick out the director’s theme.

I don’t usually put spoilers in my movie posts, but I’m making an exception in this one, so if you’re planning to see it 1) don’t say I didn’t warn you and 2) don’t read any further down this post.

In the BOOK, Earth is attacked TWICE by “Buggers” who show every intention of returning again, which establishes a pretty good case for some type of preemptive action on the three NATIONS of the Earth. The BOOK has two important sub-plots that involve Ender Wiggins’ psychopathic brother Peter and his beloved sister Valentine. In the BOOK, we look like a species trying to defend ourselves from another eminent attack from space.

In the MOVIE, we look like bullying, Nazi-esque douchebags.

Our planet is attacked one time. The “Buggers” show no sign of coming back, propaganda to the contrary, and the globe is depicted as a single New World Order type unified one-nation entity, thereby discarding the three warring “mega-nations” that gave purpose and tension to the novel. The book is subtle in it’s Cold War political message; the movie isn’t subtle at all. Instead, the movie invokes the old saw that, “If the only tool in your box is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Children are taken from their homes at ridiculously tender ages and sent to “Battle School” where they are pitted against each other in a series of Darwinian tasks that make The Hunger Games look like an afternoon of croquet.

The book has those elements as well, BUT in the movie, everything is stripped down. NO allowance is made for the fact THESE ARE CHILDREN, and in the end, one of those children — the eponymous main character — becomes the architect and executor of a genocide Hitler, Stalin, and Mao couldn’t have imagined in their collectively most coked out acid trips. In the movie, our wonderfully united species spends 50 years building a space-faring fleet with one purpose in mind — eradicating the “Buggers.” We don’t try to communicate with them because the bodies we discovered after the “invasion” show no vocal cords so naturally a species capable of interstellar flight couldn’t POSSIBLY have some other way of communication than spoken words.

Nope, they are different from us, they apparently don’t like us — but we don’t bother to ask them, so obviously, we have to kill every single one of them in order for our world to be safe. Does any of this sound the slightest bit familiar? If it doesn’t, turn off Rush Limburger and Sean Hennessy and think about it for a minute. If you do, you’ll see it’s a perfect picture of American foreign policy for the last 12 years.

The USA was attacked on 9-11-2001 by elements of Al-Qaeda under the influence and command of Osama Bin Laden. Quite predictably — and I think appropriately — we flipped our collective lids and beat our pruning hooks into swords overnight. All of our intelligence, indeed all of the WORLD’S intelligence, pointed to Bin Laden hiding out in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, with revenge on our minds, we gear up for a massive beat-down such as the world has never seen. We load up the transports and carriers with men and weapons and we head across the waters to kick the everloving sh . . . I mean poop out of — wait for it — IRAQ!?

W.T.F? Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda people are in Afghanistan / Pakistan. Why are we invading Iraq? Bin Laden is not in Iraq. Bin Laden is in Afghanistan / Pakistan somewhere. Yet for reasons NO ONE can adequately explain, we roll in to a sovereign nation, shoot the place up, destabilize the entire region, and ultimately kill Bin Laden? NO. BECAUSE BIN LADEN ISN’T IN IRAQ!! No, we kill Saddam Hussein, who, yes, is a raging asshole who killed his own people (with a lot of weapons he got from us in America) and turned the country from something resembling a nation into a festering bed of warring sects who hate each other AND, incidentally, HATE US TOO.

Only after we tidy up the loose ends that Dubya’s daddy left hanging in the family closet do we go flounder around in the deserts and badlands of Afghanistan for ten years and finally manage to kill the ONE GUY we’ve been looking for as he was kicked back and relaxing in our supposed “ally’s” backyard.

The 9/11 attacks changed everything. I know that. I sat and bawled like a baby for six hours watching the news after I got home from teaching classes that day. Unfortunately, they destroyed our country and no one seems to mind. The best estimate I can find is 2,996 people died in the attacks. In the Iraq War that followed — tell me why did that happen again — 4,486 American soldiers died. That doesn’t include the 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed because when everyone looks the same and there is no real front line, you kill them all and let God and Allah fight it out.

Despite all those casualties, the worst face of the Iraq War / “Global War on Terror” is the face of the soldiers who are coming home. It’s bad enough for our regular forces to have to face combat, but so many of the troops who’ve fought this war AREN’T regular forces. They’re National Guard troops who signed up for some extra money and to help fill sandbags during floods or look for missing people during a hurricane. They were never trained to go to a foreign country, meet interesting people, and kill them.

Now they are back and they are broken inside and from what I can see, no one gives a really good damn about it. THAT is what saddens me most about what our country has become and that is what’s brought to the fore so painfully in this mockery of Ender’s Game: the movie. One line in the movie says it best of all. The psych officer is confronting the main training colonel about his harsh training tactics and the line she delivers is one for the ages:

“You are turning these children into KILLERS and when it’s over and they finally get to come home you want ME to try to fix them. Well, they can’t BE FIXED!”

I lost my daddy in Vietnam . . . another war eerily similar to the Iraq War. Oh, he’s alive and probably sitting in his recliner watching westerns on tv as I’m writing this, but he went to Vietnam a 19 year old kid from Fountain Inn, SC who’d never been on a plane and he came back 13 months later and 100 years older. I never got the chance to know the man my mama and Granny Wham talked about.

And now, it’s happening again.

Love y’all. Keep your feet clean and I’m sorry I don’t know the answers or what else to say.

Nov4

Mayday! Mayday! We’re Going Down In Flames!

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hindenburg-wide

Unfortunately, that’s not a Led Zeppelin album cover, but a fairly close rendition of the state of my project.

I thought y’all might like a progress report on my project for NaNoWriMo. After all, I did make a big splashy announcement in my last post about how I was going to finally start that novel so many people have been pestering me about. Well, here is my report:

OH LORD! The HUMANITY! THE HORROR!

Truthfully, I don’t think Hemingway or Faulkner either one did it this way. Of course, they were most likely drunk during the entire time they were writing so they may not have noticed anyway. The short precise’ is, this has so far been an unmitigated disaster, heavy on the unmitigated-ness. Let me give a bit of a rundown.

First, for over a week before Friday, I would have trouble falling asleep because the characters and plot points were dancing like sugar plums in my feverish little mind. I practically had the entire first chapters ready to go, and I was just waiting on Friday to begin like the rules stated. Woke up Friday ready to start . . . nothing. The blank page with the accusing little blinking cursor at the top was a Xerox of my mind. Everything was gone as completely as degaussed hard drive. I had one page of notes I’d made and I started getting them somewhat organized, but everything else was, to quote Mortal Kombat, “Toasty!”

On top of my sudden loss of information, I started suffering from my first cold of the season. My head was completely stuffed and my chest — the real worry — was as tight as Dick’s hatband. I was wheezing and trying to cough, but the cough was nice and dry and hacky. Long experience with my doctor let me know it would be futile as resisting the Borg to bother scheduling an appointment. Dr. Lopez does not believe in antibiotics for “colds.” I agree, since colds are viral and antibiotics are useless against viruses, but I’ve also suffered from recurring bouts of walking pneumonia since I was in kindergarten so my chest being so tight bothers me. Oh, and there’s the little matter of the rasping and wheezing which didn’t do much for my nerves since it hasn’t been all that long that I watched Mama DIE rasping and wheezing. So, the cold triggered unwanted memories of Mama’s last days sending me into a nice depression that even now is spiraling downward as I write this.

Those little tidbits would be enough to put the quietus on the project but I’m not done recounting this Job-ian disaster just yet. I soldiered on through the weekend typing what I could remember into this amazing new word processing program I found that is JUST FOR NOVELISTS!! It outlines your novel and keeps up with your character biographies and lets you storyboard the plot points . . . using it early Saturday morning had me thinking I’d found a successor to sliced bread. I typed in several character biographies and outlined parts I couldn’t completely remember. I was slowly making headway even as I fought the black dog down from my throat. One of the greatest points of this program is it runs off a flash drive so I can move between computers as the mood to change scenery takes me.

Except . . . it doesn’t.

Nope. I moved from the desktop to my laptop just fine. I typed up a few hundred more words, saved and backed up everything, then took a break. I took the flash drive BACK to the desktop, and that’s where, to quote the band Citizen Kane, “The bottom dropped out.” Not only was my project gone . . . the entire PROGRAM was gone from the thumb drive! I didn’t panic, because I backed everything up on my laptop . . . except I didn’t. While sorting out this whole sordid debacle, I found in the “readme.txt” file on this program (you know the ONE thing people read LESS than the EULA for new software?) that running the program on a jump drive requires you to create an empty .ini file, which I did not. As a result, my project saved partly on the desktop in some strange location and partly on the laptop in an equally strange location. When I FOUND the two projects and tried opening them, Marilyn, my trusty desktop, told me they were corrupted. Well OF COURSE they were!

So, I’m back to square ZERO and if I choose to continue on this path of agony, I’m going back to OpenOffice or MS Word.

I say “if” because of the LAST piece de resistance I discovered last night reading some headlines on MSN. Harper Lee, author of my second favorite novel — To Kill A Mockingbird, is suing her hometown for copyright violations relating to her work and the museum the town erected years ago in her honor. Apparently, as she has gotten older and more infirm, Miss Lee — or someone representing her — has become quite litigious over her sole written work. This isn’t the only lawsuit she has in the works. So, why should I care? Well guess what MY NaNoWriMo project novel was to be based on? The events and some characters from To Kill A Mockingbird!! Well OF COURSE it is!

I had planned a continuation of sorts delving into the behind the scenes actions in the jury deliberation room and the eventual fates of some of the characters. It was all going to be derivative which is supposedly fair use under copyright law, BUT I’ve found the law to be what the judge SAYS it is and the judge SAYS what the person with the highest paid LAWYER wants him to say. I don’t have a lawyer, highly paid or otherwise, so I’m at an impasse. I don’t want to waste time writing unpublishable fan-fic BUT, I don’t want to get sued by a little old lady from south Alabama either.

So, I’m in the shadow of my own end zone and I’m punting. What’s coming next is anyone’s guess but y’all will be among the first to know!

TIl then, love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Oct11

The Nobel Putz Prize

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Alfred Nobel is thrashing about in his grave.

You gave my award to whom?! I want my money back.

You gave my award to whom?! I want my money back.

The cause of his unrest is once again the prize for peace he established to salve his conscience after inventing dynamite has become a farce. Since 1901, The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded annually (with some exceptions like during both world wars) to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”. Since its inception, an amazing array of people and organizations have won the prestigious award.

In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt won the prize for brokering the peace treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War. The International Red Cross won in 1917 and 1944 — the only awards given during a world war — for helping ease suffering. In 1953, Gen. George Marshall received the award for successfully pushing his plan to rebuild war-ravaged western Europe. The list of people and organizations rewarded for promoting peace goes on and contains names like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Andri Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Elie Weisel and Nelson Mandela.

Many times in the last several years, though, the awards committee was apparently drinking heavily before picking the winner of the prize meant for promoting peace. For example, in 2007, Irena Sendler was a front-runner for the award. This elderly Polish lady had helped save 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto at the cost of imprisonment and severe torture. Instead of giving her the award, however, the committee chose Al Gore for his “work” on bringing attention to global warming . . . because that certainly counts as working for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. Similarly, US President Barack Obama won in 2009 after doing . . . pretty much nothing to win the award. He was only nine months into his first term as President! Then last year, the European Union won the award. Why? Inquiring minds would love to know. As bad as those picks were, this morning’s announcement represents one of the worst miscarriages of justice in the 112 year history of this prestigious award and is proof to me the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has become just another geo-political shill peddling some kind of watered down political correctness.

Is it just me or does Al Gore look like a dead ringer for Jimmy Hoffa?

Is it just me or does Al Gore look like a dead ringer for Jimmy Hoffa?

The apparent front-runners for the award this year seemed to be poised to reverse the specious trend, however. Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist who pioneered ways to rebuild women’s insides after they were destroyed by gang rapes common during the region’s civil war. He and his clinic fellows have treated over 30,000 women brutalized by soldiers. At age 86, Lyudmila Alexeyeva is one of the old school Soviet dissidents still actively speaking out against the now Russian government. She started her protesting during the black days of Soviet oppression and she’s still going strong opposing the new laws concerning homosexuality in Russia. She gets death threats often, but at 86, she figures it doesn’t matter much! Claudia Paz y Paz is Guatemala’s first female attorney general and — again despite death threats — is the first government official to arrange and pursue prosecution of the people responsible for the human rights abuses committed by the military dictatorship during Guatemala’s civil war. Until she took her post, no one had thought to try bringing these madmen to justice.

Then you have Malala Yousafzai. At the jaded and cynical age of TWELVE, she started a blog speaking out against the Taliban who held sway over her home region in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. She was upset that girls were treated so poorly and denied education and she spoke out about it, loudly. Her blog started picking up viewers and by the time she was fourteen, she’d caught the notice of Taliban “officials” to the point she was getting warnings to stop. Instead, she upped her efforts. This enraged the rabid followers of the peaceful Islamic religion to the point on October 9, 2012, a Taliban gunman stopped the vehicle she was riding home from school in and SHOT HER IN THE HEAD! Instead of dying like a normal person, she survived and was airlifted first to a big hospital in Pakistan where she was stabilized then flown to the UK where she had as much of the damage repaired as possible.

At this point, most people would get the message and just shut up. Instead, Malala kept right on going and as soon as she was able, she resumed her blogging and on July 12, 2013, she addressed the United Nations about acting to ensure the right to education for females all over the world. She’s still writing, still blogging, and still speaking. Oh, and the Taliban leadership have gone on record stating they will finish her off as soon as they get the chance. In an interview with CNN, Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said Malala was targeted because she was used in propaganda against the militants. The Taliban would target her again if given the chance, just as it would target anyone who opposes the group, Shahid told CNN. “She accepted that she attacked Islam so we tried to kill her, and if we get another chance we will definitely kill her and that will make us feel proud,” he was quoted as saying. Wow. Just, wow. Real peaceful religion y’all got there Shahid.

Yeah, girl, you got ripped off, but keep on smilin'.

Yeah, girl, you got ripped off, but keep on smilin’.

So with all these worthy candidates, the committee had hard work ahead of them. Or so it seemed. Instead, they ignored all the people making a huge difference and awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons “for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”. Who? Better yet, WHAT? This year’s prize was awarded to a bureaucratic agency supposedly overseeing the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons, and MY, MY, MY haven’t they done a bang-up job?! So Peace takes a backseat to politics once again and I’m surprised that I’m actually surprised!

What. A. Joke.

Well, as Chicago Cubs fans always say, “Maybe next year.”

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Sep19

Somebody Just Got Rich, but It Ain’t Me!

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powerball-ticketAs I write this, someone, somewhere here in my beloved Palmetto State is the nouveau-est of the nouveau riche.

Someone in South Carolina purchased a PowerBall lottery ticket yesterday and for his or her trouble is now $400 million richer. Let that sink in just a minute. Yesterday morning, this person got up and maybe went to some dead-end job to give a little more sweat and time to The Man in exchange for enough of a paycheck to get by. All day long yesterday at his machine or behind her desk, this special someone was working away without the slightest idea the Long Black Freight Train of Fate was rolling down the tracks right towards him or her. For once, the light at the end of the tunnel WAS a train — metaphorically at least — and this time, that wasn’t a bad thing.

I like to picture this soon-to-no-longer-be-a-drone getting off work and starting towards home in a car or truck with broken air conditioning, four bald tires, and a drooping headliner. He sighs as he pulls out of the parking lot. She waves goodbye to the security guard at the gate. Either way, one of them turns into the late afternoon sun for a hot, sticky ride to the house. Suddenly, the headache that’s been building all day gets annoying so she pulls into a Quickie Mart clone near home to grab a Pepsi Max to wash down a few Advil in hopes of taking the edge off the pounding before facing the kiddos.

He’s a decent guy so he’s probably making some small talk with Apu behind the counter when he notices the sign stating the PowerBall jackpot is up to $400 million. He figures, “Eh, what the Hell?” and gives over a couple of dollars, fills out the ticket and heads home laughing at himself a little at the silliness of buying a lottery ticket. What would his sainted grandmother think if she could see him now?

Just as an aside, this is one of the quirks of lotto ticket buying I’ve never understood. I’ve actually heard people say, “Ah, the pot’s only at $50 million . . . I don’t even bother getting a ticket if it’s less than $200 million.” That’s crazy talk! You are standing on a sidewalk in front of a 7-11 looking like death on a stick and you’ve come to the conclusion a mere $50 million wouldn’t be worth your while? Now I read somewhere that Bill Gates would actually lose money if he stopped to pick up a $100 bill off the sidewalk. I have no idea if that’s true, but I know none of us are Bill.

Anyway, our erstwhile worker ant gets home, talks to the significant other, plays with the kids . . . whatever. Supper’s ready then the dishes get washed and he turns around to the TV just in time to catch the day’s numbers. Funny . . . those sound familiar. Not even seriously hoping for anything and certainly not expecting anything, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his lotto stub with the numbers he chose. He takes one look at his ticket, looks back at the screen, and the next thing he knows his wife is kneeling beside him fanning him and dabbing his neck with a cool cloth. When she asks him what happened, he shows her the ticket, points to the TV, and just manages to catch her head before it hits the floor. They won. They have hit the big time.

Dude is now LOADED. He woke up in the morning wondering how he was going to stretch the money to the end of the month and he’s going to bed tonight with visions of Maserati and mansions dancing in his head.  Of course he can’t sleep. First thing this morning he called in sick to work. Dude’s tickled to death about he money, but he’s smart so he called the lawyer who helped him close on the double wide. Then he called a buddy of his who is an accountant. THEN, the three of them went down to the store to turn in that ticket.

Now here’s another thing that cracks me up. I was reading some of the comments on the stories about the winning lottery jackpot. One guy, obviously eating a bushel of sour grapes, remarked how sad it was $400 million gets taxed down to $145 million and “no one seems to care.” WHY WOULD YOU CARE!!!??? The day before, stand up weenies and saltine crackers were a gourmet lunch because this guy was one paycheck away from the poor-house and today he has $145 Million after taxes? Sure, Uncle Sam, take your chunk because I’m STILL RICH!! ONLY $145 million. That’s like saying the Star of India is ONLY a diamond or the Grand Canyon is ONLY a hole in the ground.

So this guy is set for life now, whoever and wherever he is and I’m truly happy for him. If there is any real justice in the world, he or she is a teacher with the class from Hell this year and now gets to quit if she wants to because that brings up my final funny point . . . all these people who win these millions get interviewed and say “I just don’t think I could stay home all day so I think I’ll keep on working like always.” RIIIIGHT! When I was a high school teacher I used to talk about hitting the lottery with my students and I always told them the same thing, “Folks, if you see Coach Wham on the news holding up one of those big paper checks that says ‘Lottery Winnings: $X millions’, DO NOT look for me at work the next day! I will hire my OWN substitute, but I’m going fishing!”

So here’s to you Mr. or Mrs. Lottery Winner. I hope the wealth doesn’t change you — unless of course you are a raging asshole and then hopefully it will change you for the better, and to all the dreamers who have worthless slips of paper in your pockets, all I can say is “better luck next time.”

Til then though, I love y’all — rich or poor — and remember to keep those feet clean!

Sep10

Life is a Circle, but not like Disney

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Nothing prepared me to be bitten multiple times by my grandmother.

kelloggwomanWhen I entered this world, I had four living grandparents AND four living great-grandparents. Granny Matt (short for Mattie) and Papa Hurley passed before I developed memories of them, but family members have told me both loved me tremendously. It’s not good to grow up with six doting grandparents; it’s not so much the danger of being spoiled rotten — which I was — so much as such excess love doesn’t prepare a person for what a terrible place the world is.

Papa Wham passed in 1995 — the first person so close to me to die. I was attending a wake for a student who’d been killed in a car wreck when my brand new cell phone rang. The first cell phone call I ever received was to let me know Papa Wham was gone.

Little Papa Hughes, my maternal great-grandfather, died on New Year’s Day 1997. He was a tiny man with a heart entirely too large for his slight frame. He was also a bit of “a character” and I have stories on top of stories about him.

Big Granny Hughes, whom Mama (and pretty much everyone) called Maggie-Valmer went Home in February 2001. I call it a testament to her life that it took three preachers — including me — to do her life justice.

After losing those three wells of my adoration, the next few years were quiet. Then Papa John died October 17, 2006. I didn’t grieve Papa’s death for 18 months because Mama was in such a terrible state I wasn’t sure if I was going to lose her as well. I can say from personal, painful experience it is dangerous to one’s mental health to suppress a terrible grief because once Mama came somewhat out of the fog, I had the nervous breakdown that ultimately cost me my job, my second career, and almost my sanity.

I came out of my breakdown just in time to lose Granny Wham on February 5, 2008. As much as I adored Granny Wham and as much as I know she loved me, her passing was easier to take. After Papa died and she became unable to care for herself or be left alone, we had no choice but to place her in a facility. My Aunt Cathy wore ruts in I-385 between Fountain Inn and Laurens going to see her mama; Uncle Larry stopped by on his way to and from the Roadway terminal in Columbia every time he had a trip; and I tried to see her at least once a week, but she missed being home tending her family. Still, miserable though she was, she soldiered on three years at Martha Franks Retirement Home.  A week before she passed I went to see her; she told me, “Mama {her mama} came to see me last night.” I knew it wouldn’t be long. Now Granny Wham is waiting on the other side of those Gates of Pearl (with Papa Wham nearby and most likely seated on a golden bench talking baseball with St. Peter).

So Granny Ima (for Imogene) is all I have left. She’s under hospice care at NHC nursing home in Clinton. I go to see her at 10:00 AM every Tuesday, and I leave a sliver of my heart each time I turn from her bed to come home. Ima has dementia. She knows who I am, who Rob is, and who my Aunt Pearl is, but she can’t say our names. All she can say clearly is “yep” and “nope.” I took Mama to see her twice a week as long as she was able, then once a week, then once every two weeks . . . then I took her when she could rally the strength, but one thing never changed — Granny always said, “My baby girl’ whenever Mama asked her who she (Mama) was. I haven’t told Ima that Mama is gone. I tell her the truth — Wannie (her name for Mama) can’t get up anymore to see her, but she loves her very much. Every time I tell her, Granny nods.

Unfortunately, though, Granny’s mind is riddled with holes and she’s lost control of her emotions (especially her temper) just as she’s lost her language. She can’t stand being poked and prodded and she seems to see everything as being poked and prodded. She has a hissy fit whenever she gets a bath — or what passes for a bath when you’re bedridden. I gave my signed permission today for the nursing staff to stop sticking her fingers twice a day for blood sugar samples to control her diabetes. Dr. Blackstone told me years ago diabetes wasn’t what was going to kill Granny. I told the head of nursing today, there are worse ways to die than diabetic coma.

Granny saves a special rage for anyone who tries to clean her hands and especially her fingernails. She cannot abide having her hands or nails messed with, which wouldn’t be so bad, but Granny’s mind wanders now and she will not stop digging in her disposable briefs. Maybe she itches, maybe it’s something else, but whatever the cause, she can’t tell us. I’m not going to be graphic, but you can draw your conclusions as to the state of her nails. Mama cried every time she saw Granny’s nails, but the staff can only do so much because Granny is “combative” which is nicely saying she gets pissed off when you touch her too much.

However, as family, I am not bound by the facility’s rules against restraints, and her nails and hands were so hideous today that I held my precious grandmother while two nurses cleaned and trimmed her nails. I linked my fingers in hers like we used to do crossing the street. She fought but her strength was no match for mine, just as mine was no match for hers long ago when I had to have childhood shots. As I cupped her arthritic fingers gently as I could so as to not hurt her, the tears ran down my face just as they ran down hers long ago. Then I knew with perfect clarity what a parent means when he says, “This is hurting me more than it hurts you.” At one point, she managed to get my hand near her mouth so she bit me. It seemed to make her feel better, so I just left my arm where she could gnaw on it at will — a small bruise or two (she has no teeth) are a small price to pay for her hands to be clean. After we finished, a nurse brought her a strawberry nutrition shake and the nurses were forgiven . . . her look told me I was not, even though next Tuesday she won’t remember a thing. I sat with her a while longer, then kissed her cheek, placed today’s sliver on her pillow, and turned to come home.

The old proverb, “Once a man; twice a child” is painful to see in someone you love.Freshly pressed

Love y’all; keep those feet clean.