Let the Blog Wars Begin! The Boss vs. Ol' Ball Coach and Patti Scialfa too!

Springsteen or Spurrier? Gentleman or Jerk? RocknRoll Vs. College Football?

Normally these two worlds spin on separate axles but reading a little blip about the upcoming Springsteen release and tour in Sean Daly's St Petersburg TImes music column got me in a ranting mode. (Click on the title of this post to read what got me going -- be sure to read all the comments . . . )

It wasn’t Sean's words that got me -- he is very funny, entertaining and knows his stuff. (As opposed to the old music critic where I used to live: Dan McDonald of the Times Onion in Jacksonville. Dan would go to a bar to review a band and spend half his article talking about the chicken wings he ate. Dan wrote a column before the Born in the USA tour that was named something like "I liked Bruce better when he was skinny". It turns out that this musical "expert" had never seen Bruce in concert, yet felt confident in spending an entire column reminiscing about the good old days of Rosalita and what a great job Manfred Mann did with Blinded by the Light.

Here is the thing. I don’t care if you don’t like Bruce. I don’t like Celine Dion but I won't hold it against you if you have all her CDs (to your face, anyway). I can respect someone who has different musical tastes from me. But don't sit there like the great expert, licking the chicken grease off your fingers as you wax poetic about how great Bruce USED TO BE. And then admit you have never seen him in concert. Please.

Well of course Dan came back after having seen BorninUSA tour and of course he had changed his mind. He thought Bruce was great. But it was too late. I had already fired off a letter to the editor asking them to please get a decent music writer who was as passionate about music as Dan was about chicken wings. I probably said some other insulting things about Dan's taste that I can't remember now, but when I met him a few years later I said, "Yeah, I wrote you this letter after you blasted Springsteen BEFORE you went to see him in concert. I was pretty hard on you.” He was like, "You wrote that letter? I still have that letter!"

BTW, Dan is now the Food Critic for the Florida Times Onion. I kid you not.

But I have digressed. The point I wanted to make a couple of paragraphs ago was that my crazy meter goes off when someone says something uninformed about one of my heroes. A couple of dingbats wrote in the comments section of Sean's blog "Pop Music" about how bad Bruce had gotten . . .how political . . . how Pete Seger-ee. And I was off and running. It probably has to do a lot with the fact that the last couple of months have been really bad for me: my cancer has returned and spread to my spine and ribs so I’m back in treatment so my hair just fell out again . . . but that was nothing compared to losing my dad (my ultimate hero) on July 24, the day before my 46th birthday. Then last week I went to hang and mourn and rest at a friend's lake cottage and instead came home with a horrible infected abscess at the base of my spine that had to be surgically drained and yeah, I'm just looking for some poor smoe to make a dumb remark about the Boss.

But I got that out of my system and even was able to work in a little dig at old visor boy himself -- Steve Spurrier. And get this -- the guy who posts after me is so mad I bashed Spurrier he told me to go jump off the Skyway Bridge. Nice! Some people just don’t know how to express their anger in a proper forum. Harrumph.

So please, go read the comments and add your own outrage to the fire. In a couple of weeks, I will be in NYC listening to Patti Scialfa sing her heart out on the David Letterman Show. Mrs. Springsteen and I have both been told to jump off a few bridges before, so I am sure she will inspire my next rant and rave. Stay tuned.

Educator butted heads with Ku Klux Klan

Jane and Garfield Wilson at their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary, December, 2006.

A man of quiet strength, he and his family were ostracized as he pushed for school integration.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published July 27, 2007

PLANT CITY - The Ku Klux Klan filled the room. Garfield Wilson, superintendent of the Walton County, Ga., school district, led the board meeting.

Wilson's wife was steamed.

"I want to tell you one thing," yelled Jane Wilson. "When my husband gets up and looks in the mirror, he sees a man, not a coward under a bed sheet!"

That man - the man she loved passionately for 50 years - died Tuesday of heart failure. He was 76.

Wilson of Plant City was a desegregation pioneer. During the civil rights movement, he championed a plan to gradually integrate Walton schools.

It didn't go over well.

Klansmen would stalk Wilson's three daughters on the playground, and gather on the lawn outside the house. Jane and the girls would hide in the bathroom, the only room without windows, and pretend it was a campout.

But Wilson never changed his tune. He was always soft-spoken and calm, never flashy. He wasn't the type to get up and make a fist-pumping speech or point fingers.

"There were so many nameless, faceless people like my dad who took these quiet stances," said daughter Jill Wilson, who works for the St. Petersburg Times.

When the family was no longer welcome in white circles, they attended black churches. Eventually, the family left town.

They settled in Thomasville, Ga. There, Wilson led a new district. Desegregation challenges were more subtle, but they persisted.

When one of Wilson's black principals was barred from a country club, Wilson played golf with him at a black course, his daughter said. Soon, other white principals followed.

Wilson learned leadership early. As a boy, he suffered rheumatic fever, but he still raised chickens and drove a tractor on his family's farm.

His mother studied to earn a master's degree, a scandal in those days, Jill Wilson said. While Mrs. Wilson took classes, her son cared for four younger brothers.

In college, he met Jane, who was wooed by his country values. His big brown eyes and sculpted build didn't hurt, either.

"He was all muscles. He weighed 185 pounds when we married. He was just out of the Army. I weighed about 104, and he could just pick me up and run upstairs," she said, giggling.

Wilson would cook for the family and patch the girls' pants when they wore thin. She never heard her husband raise his voice or lose his temper.

Still, if he had a point to make, he'd make it. He'd lower his eyebrows and look at you with those big brown eyes. And you knew.

Stephanie Hayes can be reached at shayes@sptimes.com or 727 893-8857.

Biography

Garfield Wilson

Born: March 3, 1931.

Died: July 24, 2007.

Survivors: Wife, Jane Wilson; daughters, Jenny Burke, Jill Wilson and Krista Komosinski; son-in-law, Ron Komosinski; granddaughter, Sara Burke; brothers Ed and Jim Wilson.

Services: 11 a.m. today at Bowdon Baptist Church in Georgia. Memorial donations to Hospice or the Salvation Army.

© 2007 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times

Dr. Garfield Wilson March 3, 1931 - July 24, 2007

My wonderful father passed away on July 24 2007. He went just as he wished. Playing golf with friends, he collapsed on the course and was rushed to the hospital. A doctor was in Dad's group and did CPR for 45 minutes with little result, but he hung on until all his girls (wife Jane, daughters Jenny, Jill and Krista and granddaughter Sara) could be at his bedside. We sang his favorite song to him (I'll Fly Away) and each told him how much we loved him. Then we let him go.

Because of my own terminal cancer diagnosis, Dad and I talked a lot about living with long-term illness and end of life issues -- not in a morbid way, mind you, but as a practicality. One of Dad's greatest fears was to finish out his days as an invalid, unable to care for himself. HE had a very specific "do not resuscitate" order in his living will and my mother bravely followed his wishes.

Dad's heart was damaged by rheumatic fever as a boy, then he had his first quadruple bypass surgery at age 41. Back then, this was a new procedure and few survived it. But my father had the strongest will to live of anyone I have ever met and he went on for another 35 years living each day with joy and passion. This was in spite of a massive heart attack, second quadruple bypass surgery and congestive heart failure in his fifties, and various scares and hospitalizations in his 60s and 70s. These visits usually ended with him coming out of an operating room doing the Seminole Chop, sporting some new electronic device (Pacemaker, Defibulator) implanted in his chest and cracking jokes to sooth my mother's fears.

I have a lot more to say about my dad so keep checking back with jillabuster in the months ahead. He was a great man, but an even better father and husband. The St. Petersburg Times wrote an article about him and his fight with the KKK Click here to read and my sister Krista and I will be working on his papers and news clippings to try and retell the remarkable story of this quiet man.

Here is the obituary I wrote for my father, which ran in the Atlanta, Tallahassee and Tampa/St. Petersburg newspapers.

Garfield W. Wilson, 76, of Plant City, passed away July 24, 2007. Dr. Wilson is survived by his wife of 50 years, the love of his life, Jane; daughters Dr. Jenny Burke, Tampa; Jill Wilson, St. Petersburg; and Krista Komosinski, Dunedin; granddaughter, Sara Burke; son-in-law, Ron Komosinski; and brothers, Dr. Ed Wilson, Bowden, Ga., and Jim Wilson, Concord, Calif. Wilson was born on March 3, 1931, in Bowdon, Ga. He graduated from Bowden High School and West Georgia College, served in the U.S. Army with distinction, then went on to earn his bachelor's and master's degrees from Auburn University and doctorate from Florida State University. He was a lifelong educator who fought on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement, serving on President Lyndon Johnson's desegregation task force while superintendent of schools in Walton County, Ga., one of the first large southern school districts to implement a comprehensive desegregation plan. Wilson started his education career as a high school math teacher, then was the first principal of Towers High School in Decatur, Ga., before moving on to serve as Walton County superintendent of schools. Wilson next served as superintendent of schools in Thomasville, Ga., then moved his family to Tallahassee, where he taught in the doctoral program at FSU and served as director of teacher education and certification at the Florida Department of Education for 16 years. He finished his career as a senior consultant with MGT of America and his own firm, Continuous Improvement Consultants. In 1995, Wilson and wife Jane retired to Mexico Beach. One year later, they lost their home in Hurricane Opal, but rebuilt and continued to enjoy their life playing golf, fishing, and watching sunsets each evening. Wilson was one of the founding members of the Mexico Beach Artificial Reef Association, serving as president during the years after Opal when reef restoration was critical. Wilson also served as board president for the St. Joseph's Country Club and as honorary "mayor" of 27th Street, where he watched over all his neighbors' properties, baited hooks, untangled fishing lines and fixed the bikes of all the neighborhood children who learned from him the healing power of WD40. The Wilsons moved to Plant City in 2002 to be near their children. Wilson was proud to watch his daughter Jenny defend her doctoral dissertation at USF in Human-Robot Interaction, read work published in the St. Petersburg Times written by daughter Jill, and walk daughter Krista down the aisle at her wedding to son-in-law Ron. Services will be held at Bowdon Baptist Church on Friday, July 27, at 11 a.m. Arrangements entrusted to Rainwater Funeral Home, Bowdon, Ga. Memorial donations can be made to Hospice or the Salvation Army. Condolences can be sent to the family by CLICKING HERE to go to guest book.

Back in the saddle again

Well, as Molly Ivins said upon hearing of her diagnosis with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, "Well, what the hell, it's been a good run." Click here to read her IBC story. I had quite a run myself there for a while. From August 23, 2005 until May 24, 2007 I was a proud member of "Club NED (no evidence of disease). Almost two years... But in May I started having severe pain in my ribs and back. The rule of thumb for me which I learned from the IBC support website is to give it a week or two and see if it goes away. To be honest, if you didn't do this, you would be at the doctor's every week, because something is always not quite right. You learn to just deal with it.

Anyway, I had a PET scan and they found some large "mets" on my ribs and spine. I had three weeks of radiation to try and shrink the large spots that were causing the pain (imagine a cracked rib) and it definitely helped although for about a week I had to resort to the heavy duty drugs. . . a rarity for me.

So now that my cancer has metastasized (spread to distant organs), I have moved from stage IIIC to stage 4. If you have ever wondered what the staging numbers mean, here is a chart and explanation from the American Cancer Society.


I started chemo last week and will continue with weekly treatments for the next 3 months. If I respond to this treatment, I should have a break then. If not, we will try something else. As I am wont to do, I must again steal from Whit Stillman's "Last Days of Disco"

"There are a lot of choices out there."

And I am just getting started.
More tomorrow.

Summer Yorkie fun

The Bank

Incompetence and abuse of power like this belongs on sitcoms, not at the World Bank (or the Attorney General's office, or the White House, or FEMA, or USDOE . . .)

Democrats: There are a lot of choices out there. . .

The democratic debate last night had me thinking about the scene from Whit Stillman's "Last Days of Disco" when Alice and Charlotte are looking down over a huge dancing throng and one of them muses (somewhat wistfully),

"There are a lot of choices out there."

As a life-long Democrat, I have had many opportunities to be dissapointed by our party's habit of stumbling all over ourselves when given the chance to shine. An old Sat Night Live skit mimicking the Bush-Daddy/Dukakis debate said it all for me. After Dana Carvey's dead-one Bush rambles incoherently, Jon Lovitz's Dukakis mutters,

"I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."

This is a talented field of candidates. My early crush on Richardson wained a bit tonight. The "big three" all did well but the one who I would chose if I had to right this minute was-- Hillary. (Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am by that). But she was posed, prepared and knowledgeable. We are ready for "the best and the brightest" to come try and clean up this mess the Bushies have made, yes?

Hillary gave an answer to the health care question that really resonated with me and I NEVER hear people talk about it -- those of us in the middle class who have health insurance who also need health care relief. I have a good job with a decent salary, but after being diagnosed at age 44 with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, a particularly aggressive form of the disease, I found that even my company's excellent insurance was not enough. My treatment cost almost a quarter of a million dollars and I paid over $20,000 out of pocket in co-payments and related costs. Every one of us in the middle class is just one catastrophic health crisis away from losing everything we work so hard for. Reform has to be more than just universal coverage.

Stay tuned. It's not too soon to be paying attention.

We are the deciders. Molly Ivins said so.

Molly Ivins has always been my favorite newspaper columnist and finding out that she and I had the same rare form of cancer, (Inflammatory Breast Cancer, or IBC) only made her even more inspirational if that is possible. I saw Molly in person years ago at the SXSW music festival in Austin Texas. She sat in with the world-renowed rock band, "The Rock Bottom Remainders" (http://www.rockbottomremainders.com) which includes Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, and Kathi Kamen Goldmark. People more commonly known for their bookwriting skills (but they HAVE played with Bruce Springsteen (so in my book, they are utterly, completely - IN!) Molly didn't really sing that night -- unless you consider what Rex Harrision did with his songs in My Fair Lady singing. SHe did a more of a Ginsbergian-Howl-cadenced rant, which she read off what looked to be a bar napkin. Of all the memories that chemo has washed away, the specifics of that night are some I would pay dearly to get back. (OK, maybe I can't blame chemo on the memory cells lost that night. Instead, I will blame it on the evil Hacking Cat Productions gang who forced me to drink heavily through out that vacation. I also forgot that I saw Junior Brown at the Continental Club play "My wife thinks youre dead." But it came flashing back to me when he came to St Pete.

Molly Ivins checked out last month after living seven years with IBC. As she said herself, "It was a good run."

A friend of Molly's wrote that her greatest words of wisdom came with three children's books she gave his son when he was born.
" In "Alice in Wonderland," she offered, "Here's to six impossible things before breakfast." For "The Wind in the Willows," it was, "May you have Toad's zest for life." And in "The Little Prince," she wrote, "May your heart always see clearly."

Now those are some words to live by. The last column she wrote was not a walk down memory lane or an Oscar-style thank you speech. IT was a call to arms. It was angry. And not just at the idiots in charge. She is angry with us for watching from the sidelines. "We are the deciders!" she cries. Raise hell! Hit the streets!

It is not to late to start paying attention. Start reading newspapers and watching CSPAN, Olbermann and Face the Nation. Make Real Time with Bill Maher and The Daily Show required viewing and realize that while they are making jokes, the situations they are calling attention to are real, and scary, and that we are all just one freak storm away from living the Katrina life. really.

Make Molly proud. It is not too late to be one of the deciders.

oh, and that last column? Here it is. . . Read it and don't weep. ACT!

Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Ivins: Stand up against the surge
POSTED: 4:59 p.m. EST, January 11, 2007

(CREATORS) -- The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue.

It is not a matter of whether we will lose or we are losing. We have lost. Gen. John P. Abizaid, until recently the senior commander in the Middle East, insists that the answer to our problems there is not military. "You have to internationalize the problem. You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically," he said.

His assessment is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only recommend releasing forces with a clear definition of the goals for the additional troops.

Bush's call for a "surge" or "escalation" also goes against the Iraq Study Group. Talk is that the White House has planned to do anything but what the group suggested after months of investigation and proposals based on much broader strategic implications.

About the only politician out there besides Bush actively calling for a surge is Sen. John McCain. In a recent opinion piece, he wrote: "The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own -- impose its rule throughout the country. ... By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed." But with all due respect to the senator from Arizona, that ship has long since sailed.

A surge is not acceptable to the people in this country -- we have voted overwhelmingly against this war in polls (about 80 percent of the public is against escalation, and a recent Military Times poll shows only 38 percent of active military want more troops sent) and at the polls. We know this is wrong. The people understand, the people have the right to make this decision, and the people have the obligation to make sure our will is implemented.

Congress must work for the people in the resolution of this fiasco. Ted Kennedy's proposal to control the money and tighten oversight is a welcome first step. And if Republicans want to continue to rubber-stamp this administration's idiotic "plans" and go against the will of the people, they should be thrown out as soon as possible, to join their recent colleagues.

Anyone who wants to talk knowledgably about our Iraq misadventure should pick up Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone." It's like reading a horror novel. You just want to put your face down and moan: How could we have let this happen? How could we have been so stupid?

As The Washington Post's review notes, Chandrasekaran's book "methodically documents the baffling ineptitude that dominated U.S. attempts to influence Iraq's fiendish politics, rebuild the electrical grid, privatize the economy, run the oil industry, recruit expert staff or instill a modicum of normalcy to the lives of Iraqis."

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on January 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"

Inflammatory Breast Cancer Newscast Gets 10 Million Hits

Wow. I was surprised to see that this story on the cancer I have has aroused such interest. Perhaps there will now be more interest in a cure for all of us. Check out the original video by clicking on the title of this post.

SEATTLE - On May 7, Seattle's KOMO 4 News' Michelle Esteban reported on a little-known type of breast cancer that is difficult to detect: inflammatory breast cancer.

Little did we know the impact the story would make.

In the weeks after the story aired, some people wrote an e-mail to their friends warning them about the cancer, and then urging them to watch the video of our 6 minute segment.

Those friends forwarded it on, and then those did the same. The e-mail spread like wildfire across the globe. It's even been posted as truth on popular Urban Legend sites such as Snopes.com, Urbanlegends.About.com, and www.truthorfiction.com

We've also seen hundreds of e-mails from people asking for more information, and we're told that IBC support groups have been getting a lot of people calling with questions.

As of Thursday morning, amazingly, the video has been accessed a total of 10 million times, and has helped shed light on the important subject to several news agencies across the nation and world.

We continue to hope the video helps provide important life-saving information and helps bring more awareness to a subject that not many people knew about.

To read Michelle's story and to view the video, go to our IBC site at www.komotv.com/ibc. We encourage you to e-mail the link to whoever you'd like, but please use the www.komotv.com/ibc link in your e-mail.

NPR's My Cancer and MY CANCER: Parallel Universe?

I suppose I like reading other people's blogs more than posting in my own regularly. One that I enjoy most is MEDIA IN THE MIRROR, written by St. Pete Times media critic, Eric Deggans. Now that I am moderating another blog for the Times' younger readers, I can see who has recently posted from our family of bloggers and the faux-ADHD part of me goes, "ooow, what's that?!?" Early this morning, after reviewing and posting student comments on our Summer Times Reader blog, I clicked over to read Eric's latest post, Can Cancer Struggle Make Good Radio?

Eric's entry posed the question that I often asked myself when working on my blog, Jillabuster. Just how much do people really want to know about "My Cancer"? When I was diagnosed with a particularly lethal form of breast cancer in Sept. 2004, I thought my blog and web site would be good resources to send my friends and family to for information and updates during my treatment. But I found myself hesitating to write about the bad stuff. No one wants to read about that, I thought. Why depress people? So my posts were few and far between and probably did not do much to inform folks about how I was doing.

My blog and website became a repository for my other interests: Springsteen, politics, FSU Football and recipes. One thing I discovered was that I really didn't like being defined as, "the one with the bad cancer."

But boy, am I interested in reading other cancer warriors' accounts.

Leroy Siever's My Cancer series and blog drew me in from the minute I heard about it and the former executive producer of ABC's Nightline (back when it was Koppelicious) did not disappoint. One statement in particular jumped out at me:

"For those of us directly affected, cancer opens up a whole new world. I like to call it a parallel universe. It looks like the regular world, but it's very, very different. It's populated by other patients with whom you share war stories. 'What drugs are you on?' 'How are your side effects?'"

That parallel universe was mine! Although my family, friends and co workers were incredibly supportive during my 12 months of treatment, there really was a world where in some ways I felt more at home. At Gulfcoast Oncologists, I could walk into the chemo room and actually breath a sign of relief. No need to fake it here. Morbid jokes? No problem! Feel like pulling the wig off? Go right ahead. No one here gives a second look at bald (or breastless) women. When fellow Times employee, metro editor Barry Bradley wrote a series about his final days living with lung cancer, he spoke of the chemo infusion room like it was a quiet, sad place:

"People don't chat much in the infusion room. There's the woman alone with her John Grisham book, the man who is taking a nap, a woman doing some kind of knitting. We all know why we're there and we have little reason to discuss it."

My colleagues at the Times, Gretchen Letterman and Jill Deisler, both had been with me to chemo at the same place where Barry received his treatment. We all marveled at the different take Barry had on place I viewed as a combination coffeehouse, therapy session and sanctuary. Barry and I were in treatment at the same time, and met because of this. We would stop and chat about our treatments when ever we saw each other for the next few months and I got to know him a bit through that lens. Although his thoughts on Gulfcoast's chemo room were nothing like mine, we were in agreement about the expertise and kindness of the staff there. His "war stories" as Siever calls them, were profoundly different from my own but his experiences gave me great insight into this universe I now inhabited.

Which is why the following comment from a reader of Eric Deggans's blog struck me cold when I read it this morning:

i suppose some people can gain insights from these kinds of maudlin reports. however, i find them more than a bit self indulgent. millions of poor people get fatal diagnoses every day, but they don't have access to media where they can publicly engage in personal therapy to help them get through.

then when these poor reporters inevitably die after leaving behind their final dramatic thoughts, they are, well, always simply forgotten.

harsh? yes. but am i wrong?

uh, yeah.

When Barry wrote about his struggle with lung cancer, the comments poured in and they were not just from those of us living in the parallel universe. They came from our caretakers, our co-workers, our bosses, our neighbors, our friends, our families, our lovers. Believe me, they want to know what is going on in a cancer patient's head. Because most of us aren't telling the whole story. And they know it.

And "Self-indulgent"? Lord help us.

This must be the same guy who thinks I'm lucky because I get to use handicapped parking now.

That's right, buddy, I endured a year filled with rounds of dense dose chemo, chemically-induced "freight train" menopause, image-altering surgery and hair loss, more cancer found, more chemo, and finally, the creme-de-la-creme of treatments, daily radiation/chemo combos for weeks on end -- AS A SCHEME TO GET A BETTER PARKING SPACE??!?!?

Apparently, this guy lives in the same parallel universe as a security guard at work who stopped me one morning on my way into the Times building. I needed to pick up some materials for a workshop I was presenting later that morning. Because I was running late and already exhausted just from getting ready for the day, I pulled into the handicapped parking space in our visitor's lot. Any steps I could save would help me get through what was sure to be a challenging day.

Anyway, the guard stops me as I am passing through security and asks, "Ma'am, what kind of handicap do you have?"

Dumbfounded, I found myself stammering a reply, "Breast cancer, . . . late stage," (as if that would make me more worthy of a handicapped space).

But he didn't stop there. I guess I had done a good job with my wig and makeup (usually the no eyelashes/no eyebrows gave me away) because he then asked me if I had a handicapped sticker on my car.

"Of course," I replied, and started to move toward the elevators.

But the handicapped parking vigilante was hardly finished with me. "Well ma'am, we have to be careful that people who aren't handicapped don't use those spaces, and you just didn't look too handicapped coming in from the lot."

If he only knew the mental pep rally I gave myself every time I stepped out in public. ("Be energetic! Smile! Don't feel sorry for yourself!") Do you think he might be well served to read about a cancer patient's experiences? Even if it happened to be a member of the main-stream-media? Apparently, working at a major media outlet doesn't give you a free pass-- even into your own building! (NOTE: This one person does not in any way reflect the service of the rest of the fantastic professional security team where I work. They were some of the most supportive and caring members of the Times family upon my return to work).

So, speaking as one of the "millions of poor people (who) get fatal diagnoses every day, but don't have access to media where they can publicly engage in personal therapy to help them get through. . ." that "formerly mr anonymous" refers to in his post to Deggan's blog, I say,

You don't speak for us. You don't speak for the legions of friends and family who are going through our cancer journey with us. And since you don't have the nerve to sign your real name, "formerly mr anonymous," you don't even count as one person to me. So lay off all us cancer patients, buddy. Go find a puppy to kick.

Back with a Vengeance

I know, I've been off the ranch for a while, but I'm back! Between Bush's foibles, a new Springsteen CD and, uh, Spring . . . I actually might have a take for a change. Stay tuned!

Did you get a pony for Christmas?

Merry Christmas, everyone. Here is my gift for you. Click on the title of this post to read MY MOST MISERABLE MERRY CHRISTMAS, a favorite story from my childhood. Then, I loved it because like the young boy in the story, all I ever wanted was a pony for Christmas (or any other day of the year). But as time passed its theme has become my personal philosophy: I want the pony or nothing. To me it is all about not settling. Being determined and focused and honest about what you need from the universe.

Written by one of America's greatest journalists, LINCOLN STEFFENS, it is actually a chapter from his autobiography. Steffens was one of the original muckrakers, back when that word had a more noble connotation. He wrote sensational articles exposing municipal corruption; they were later collected in The Shame of the Cities (1904), The Struggle for Self-Government (1906), Upbuilders (1909), and other volumes. His autobiography (1931) contains not only personal reminiscences but also some keen insights on the leftist movements of his era. It is a wonderful read if you ever come across it. I found this copy in Haslams, a great local bookstore in St Pete.

Even if you are not shopping for a new way of life, this is a magical story to read during the holidays. Let me know what you think, and post a title or two of your favorite holiday stories. Or at least tell me what cha got!

Dad-Gum-It! Fire Jeff Bowden--NOW

The Crying Game . . .for Gators!

It's been that kind of a year.
Seminole have a very young team. Not to be outdone, the Gators go and hire a crybaby.
The Florida/Florida State game is always a tough one, no matter what the teams' W-L records are. I'm betting on my beloved Noles, of course. Here are a couple of cartoons I made up using the national geographic cartoon factory. Send me your captions and I will make a special page to highlight them on my website. For inspiration, however corny, click on the headline of this post.

WWJFKD?

Below are a few words President John F. Kennedy would have said in his speech prepared for November 22, 1963 in Dallas. Click on the header to see the entire speech.

"It should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society."

The trials of Travis Bickle Turkey

I'm working on a publication at work to help students do better on the FCAT, our state assessment test.

Worst. Assignment. Ever.

Until I decided to try a cartoon-graphic novel style! Now I am having fun making really tedious stuff somewhat entertaining. While doing some serious research on the web (hee-hee), I found some cartoon generators that students can use to make their own strips. Basically, they give you the pictures and you create the captions. Naturally, I had to try a couple. Here is one I did for Thanksgiving.

If you want to try it yourself, click on the title of this post and it will take you to National Geographic Kids. I'll share another site tomorrow.

Lege et lacrima - Read it and weep

Bob Graham is one of the few politicians I have known to be in politics for the right reason. . . to help make peoples' lives better. I interned with Graham's press secretary his first year as governor of Florida. I saw up close how hard he worked, how much he cared and how honest he was. Sometimes this worked against him and maybe that is why he is not president today. (He certainly would have done a better job of articulating Democratic values had he been the nominee rather than the man he is pictured with here). But the man speaks the truth. He voted against the war and was a lone voice before the election about the trouble this administration was getting us into over seas. He wrote a powerful and terrifying book called Intelligence Matters which I believe should be required reading for all Americans.

Gerald Posner, New York Times bestselling author of Why America Slept said about Graham's book, "Intelligence Matters is a work of great patriotism, a searing insider’s account of the government’s ineptitude, and at times deceit, both on 9/11 and in the war in Iraq. Senator Graham is unflinching in a damning and persuasive indictment of President Bush, the FBI and the CIA. This is no liberal, conspiratorial, antiwar polemic, but rather a convincing argument by a hawk in the war on terror as to why the country is less safe today because of blunders made by President Bush. Intelligence Matters also makes a meticulous–and at times startling–case for official Saudi Arabian complicity in the 9/11 plot. This is an important book and a must read for anyone concerned with the war on terror and the future of America."
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Today Graham has written an editorial in the Washington Post on what he knew before the invasion of Iraq. Maybe then he was dismissed as a Chicken Little, but three years and over 2000 American lives lost later, I think most all Americans agree: The sky is falling. Maybe now people will listen to Bob Graham. Click on the title of this entry to read his Post editorial.

Loser Republicans Refuse to Honor Springsteen

By DONNA DE LA CRUZ, Associated Press Writer Fri Nov 18, 8:33 PM ET

Bruce Springsteen famously was "born in the USA," but he's getting scorned in the U.S. Senate.

An effort by New Jersey's two Democratic senators to honor the veteran rocker was shot down Friday by Republicans who are apparently still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

The chamber's GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen's long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, "Born to Run."

No reason was given, said Lautenberg spokesman Alex Formuzis. "Resolutions like this pass all the time in the U.S. Senate, usually by unanimous consent," he said.

Telephone calls to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Lautenberg said he couldn't understand why anyone would object to the resolution.

"Even if the Republicans don't like (Springsteen's) tunes, I would hope they appreciated his contributions to American culture," Lautenberg said.

Corzine said he, Lautenberg and other Americans appreciated Springsteen's contributions to American culture.

"We'll never surrender looking for ways to honor our local hero who made it big in this land of hopes and dreams," Corzine said.

Springsteen endorsed Kerry last year, and made campaign appearances that drew huge crowds who came to hear music described in the resolution as "a cultural milestone that has touched the lives of millions of people."


Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

A short tour of my long journey with the Boss

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore. Show a little faith, there's magic in the night. You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright. Oh and that's alright with me.

Aaahhh, Springsteen's Thunder Road says it all. We are all older and maybe wiser these days...Who ever thought we would see ourselves with a touch of gray (or for some of us, a touch of bald!) a middle-aged paunch (where beer bellies go to retire), or wearing the dreaded "mom jeans?"

Back in 1984, My concert buddy Anne Turner and I were young silly teachers who decorated bulletin boards in their classrooms and wore black armbands when Bruce married that actress. We are still going to concerts together. Tonight will be our tenth. For Springsteen's concert in Tampa this evening, the St. Petersburg Times is running fans' memories of their first Bruce concert.
go to Times story


I thought I would share my memories on my web site, jillwilson.com. Go to Glory Days on the menu or click on the title of this post to link directly.