Worth reading

An exploration of the press's responsibility in the face of hypocrisy, by Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute.


Good discussion going on in the comments, too. Worth checking out.

Rushing to judgment

Some things are just right, or wrong. Some things, it's not quite so clear-cut.

Take, for instance, criminals. You've heard of them. They're bad people. They do bad things and they go to jail. They break the laws of our land, and they get their just punishments, and they deserve our contempt.

But: Let's say you know the person behind the rap sheet. Does that make things any different?

Let's first walk through a completely hypothetical situation.

Nasty car accident. Other person dies. Sad all the way around, isn't it? We're not talking about an out-of-the-ordinary car accident; just your basic collision, but at just the exact miles-per-hour or angle that caused one of the drivers to die. We feel terribly sorry for the surviving driver; imagine bearing that guilt? In some ways, he or she is a victim too.

OK. Now let's look at the surviving driver's driving record:

4/85: Failure to yield, non-injury accident
4/87: Speeding
4/87: Speeding
6/87: Speeding
10/88: Failure to yield, non-injury accident
6/90: Speeding
10/93: Speeding
9/96: Failure to yield, no accident
6/97: Speeding
4/00: Speeding
10/01: Lane usage violation
11/05: Failure to change lanes when officer is on side of road
6/06: Speeding, construction zone.

Suddenly, that's no accident. That's vehicular homicide. This driver was clearly a menace and probably should never have been on the road. Sumbitch should be locked up and never allowed behind the wheel again. Perspective changes a bit, yes?

Well, now, let's change the perspective again: That's my driving record.

Those who know me know that I'm not a dangerous driver, other than that I've had a lifelong tendency to view speed limits as guidelines. But those who don't know me would not give me the benefit of that doubt. They'd want me locked up.

You, who know me, would argue vigorously against locking me up. After all, it was an accident, and excessive speed wasn't even involved. But somebody reading about my hypothetical wreck in the paper -- or in a manila folder on a bench wearing a funny robe -- would hypothetically recommend I spend some time in a hypothetical prison.

Now let's walk through a real situation.

In a really cryptic post below, I refer to a "good person who's done a bad thing." The good person is a former co-worker of mine. He was the person assigned to make me feel at home when we first moved to the Edge of America 11 years ago. He did the same job as I did at the paper, and did it pretty well. He was extremely helpful, and became a good friend. He was funny and talented and fun-loving, and kept the entire department laughing even during times of the highest stress.

I haven't talked to him in years; we each moved on in our careers, in different directions.

He stands today accused of a pretty heinous felony. Nobody got hurt, and there was no real possibility that anyone would have been hurt, but it was likely very scary for the victims just the same.

I knew he treated himself occasionally to substances that were a bit stronger than Bud Light. Word is he's been treating himself lately to substances stronger yet, substances that have ruined his career and are likely responsible for the position he's in today.

I want him to get help. I know he needs to be punished. I know the general public thinks he's just another criminal. I think that sucks. But I can understand why.

If you've known somebody or had a family member who found himself on the wrong side of a correctional facility, you understand the conflict in emotions it causes. It throws off the whole right-and-wrong, don't-do-the-crime-if-you-can't-do-the-time simplicity of it all. I have some pretty solid ideas on right and wrong; I still stand by my contention, for instance, that anybody who does hard drugs deserves whatever he or she gets, whether it be rehab, prison or untimely death.

And maybe it all really is that simple. But I'm not convinced of that.

This week's desktop background

During our trip to Colorado, we rented Jeeps from this fellow in a hotel parking lot in Frisco. His business model is pretty simple: "Here's the keys, here's a map, trust your Jeep, have fun."

The words "Trust your Jeep" rang in my head frequently as I drove my wife and two younger children over small boulders, through creeks, up and down hills on this path that bore some resemblance to a road. We were in low-range 4-wheel drive for nearly 40 miles on the odometer. It was the most fun I've ever had covering 40 miles in 7 hours.

Here's one of the hundreds of fantastic views from that trip. This was at about 13,500 feet, somewhere between Keystone and Breckenridge. To the right you'll see the road we were on; that was the smoothest, safest part of it:



Happy Friday. I'm headed for the mountains, if only in my mind.

First-day jitters

It's nice to see that, nearly 18 years after I was actually last in a classroom, I still have insomnia on the Sunday before the first day of school.

I'm not going to school tomorrow, except to make sure my first-grade daughter and third-grade son get there safely. The eighth-grade daughter has a bus; she's on her own, mostly.

Outfits are selected and have been modeled. Lunches have been planned. Forms have been filled out. Summer 2007 is officially over here on the Western Edge. It's been a good one; I think I'm gonna miss it.

Life's ugly turns

I'm sad today. A bad side of a good man I knew was exposed to the world in an ugly way earlier this week. I'm going to keep the details to a minimum, for now, and hope that this person I know gets the help he needs.

Road warrior loses battle

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- I'm sure, after a good week of getting the system ready to unveil for the users after months of work and setup, I'll feel better about things. After a week of clicking here and having good stuff happen up there on the screen, I'll stop bitching.

But until then, if I ever get on an airplane again, it will be too soon.

Wh- wh- wha - ... ?

ERLANGER, Ky. -- I'm not supposed to be waking up in Greater Cincinnati this morning. Yet, somehow, I am. Thanks, Delta.

Whew

Good news: Doctors say they got it all, and no bad drugs or nuclear options are necessary. All indications are a full recovery lies ahead.

It doesn't get any better than that. A big thank you is due to the medical professionals who made it happen, and to St. Stepmom, who once again is the rock on which my dad and all her family lean.

Update No. 1: Week 2

RALEIGH, N.C. -- I just spent probably two full minutes trying to put a title up there. That's a good sign that you should just hit the tab key and start writing. So I will.

It's been two weeks of bullshit and bliss, two weeks of heart-warming and heart-pounding. Two weeks of wonder and two weeks of fear.

Each week was highly emotionally charged, for completely different reasons. At some point soon, I'll write about each.

I'm going to write about them in reverse, and separately.

The thing which I kind of glossed over earlier for Week 2 was this:

My father was diagnosed with colon cancer. He had surgery Aug. 2.

Right now, all is as well as it can be. The upsides are that he's relatively young (57) and it was found relatively earlier. The downside is that he's profoundly disabled as a result of a 1987 car accident, and that adds a serious level of complication to, well, everything. Oddly, even that has an upside; because of his disability, they were able to remove more of the parts that might be cancerous because they didn't have to worry about his future mobility; to put it simply, they could safely remove more of him and leave more of him disassembled 'cause he wasn't using it anyway. Or something like that.

We await results of testing to determine whether the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes. Those results were supposed to be available Monday. We're still waiting.

The rest of the family is waiting back in Anytown; The Wife and our kids wait in Florida, and I wait in North Carolina this week and Iowa next week.

The Wife, the Mini-Humans and I arrived home from Colorado in the single-digit hours of July 31. In the single-digit hours of Aug. 1, we had deposited the kids with a friend and were on another plane to Missouri. I've driven nearly 2,000 miles in the last 20 days, none of which were in my car.

I don't know how everything is going to turn out, but I have no reason to believe it'll be anything other than OK. We're survivors; my dad and his brothers have cheated death in some highly creative and stunning ways, and my dad's parents lived way longer than any actuarial tables would have expected them to. So we wait, and try to keep the worry to a minimum as things move on.

But I can tell you this: I've never wanted to go home more than I do right at this very second. Never.

I'll go back and write that head now, and do Week 1 later. Something tells me I should be sleeping now.