In the age of “fake news,” ultra partisan publications and broadcast channels, and nutjob websites, we—for the time being, anyway—enjoy a pretty robust press. It’s really easy to dump on “the media,” but that’s painting with too broad a brush. Good journalism and good writing are hard work. A lot harder (and generally, more time-consuming and therefore more expensive) than bad journalism.

The War Horse is always an interesting read.

It takes some work and some luck to find good stuff, but it’s out there.

Awhile back I bumped into a non-profit online publication called The War Horse. It’s chock full of reporting on the military, much of it by veterans or current service members. It provides what I think is a very useful and non-ideological point of view on defense and military issues, as well as the personal issues military members and family face. Check it out at https://www.thewarhorse.org

I also follow their Facebook feed, which spreads coverage from a range of publications on military matters. One headline recently caught my attention:

15,851 US service members have died since 2006. Here’s why.

At first, it was the number itself—higher than I would’ve imagined—that piqued my interest. But another number was just as interesting (and sobering): Of the 15,000+ who’d died, only 28 percent were deployed on the battlefield. I’ve always understood that apart from war, just beingin the service can be dangerous. My brother-in-law Rick flew helicopters, among other things, and though he was always circumspect in talking about it, it was clear to me that what were called training exercises were hair-raisingly dangerous. Anyway, the article appeared in Military Times, give it a read if you have a moment.

And then there are two pieces from our pal Lydialyle Gibson, a tremendous writer and reporter and just a swell gal from the South. She came to Chicago for a journalism education at Northwestern and after graduation sworked at a community newspaper that covered our Chicago neighborhood, then for the University of Chicago Magazine and now, at Harvard Magazine. She loves her gig because she gets to talk to people who do remarkable thjngs.

One of them being Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a Harvard scholar who wrote a book called “The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern America.” It looks at how public perception of crime in black neighborhoods largely populated by blacks who came North during the Great Migration differed from the perception of crime (and its roots) among the waves of Irish and European immigrants. More important, how the perception drove policies and government programs that treated the latter group much differently than the black communities. Lydia’s article gives a pretty full—and painful—accounting of those differences. It sure rang true and consistent with the various narratives I grew up with. We still have a lot of work to do. I hope you’ll give it a read.

And one more plug for our friend: She profiled Tom Nichols, the author of “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Expertise and Why It Matters.” The book explores ignorance and unreason in American public discourse—these days, that’s a lot to explore. He’s a very interesting guy, a lifelong, serious and intellectual conservative, and a member of the Never Trump club. He’s also on the faculty of the U.S. Military Collges, and previously worked as a nuclear policy analyst and Soviet specialist during the Cold War. The guy’s hardly a red meat ideologue of any stripe. I hope you’ll give it a read, too.

And remember, good journalism is hard, but it’s out there, thanks to some really dedicated people.

Dylan Covey, a 26-year-old pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, has type 1 diabetes. I have type 1 diabetes, too – that’s the disease that caused my blindness.

Blood glucose monitoring is undoubtedly a part of Covey’s routine now.

Covey was diagnosed during a standard physical in his freshman year of college, when the Milwaukee Brewers drafted him 14th overall in the first round of the 2010 MLB draft. What a blow that must have been. The diagnosis came just days before his signing, and he and his parents decided it’d be best for him to forego the Brewers’ offer and take advantage of his athletic scholarship at University of San Diego instead. “For whatever reason I wasn’t meant to sign with the Brewers,” Covey said in an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “My first couple years getting used to having diabetes, my body was changing so much and I was struggling in college a little bit…I went to college for three years and I do think that college helped me not necessarily grow up, but maybe mature a little bit and become a man.”

Most Americans who have diabetes have Type 2. With type 2, if you watch your diet and exercise, you have a fair chance of improving the condition — you can reduce or even eliminate the need for insulin injections. Type 1, the kind of diabetes Dylan Covey and I have, is an autoimmune disease. With type 1, the body attacks and destroys its insulin-making cells. No matter what we do (exercise, diet, whatever) our bodies are unable to make insulin. We either have to take multiple injections of insulin throughout the day, or wear an insulin pump. Type 1 is usually diagnosed in childhood (I was diagnosed when I was seven years old) but in recent years it has become increasingly common for people Covey’s age or older to be diagnosed with type 1. We prick our fingers to test our blood sugar levels and keep track of the carbohydrate levels we eat throughout the day to know how much insulin to take. The more we test our sugar levels, the easier it is to adjust our insulin doses and walk the tightrope between high and low blood sugars. It’s never a walk in the park, though, and I cannot imagine what it must be like to walk that tightrope as a professional athlete. Here from an article in the Chicago Tribune:

The first year and a half after his diagnosis were “really tough,” he said. Covey learned about counting carbohydrates and taking insulin. He lost weight before the diagnosis, and after putting it back on, he worked to turn it into muscle.
“Learning to do that at first is tough because you don’t really think about how many carbohydrates you’re eating every time you take a bite of food,” said Covey, who is 6-foot-2 and weighs 195 pounds. “It was definitely an adjustment period I had to go through.”

The Chicago White Sox signed Covey last year,and in that Tribune article I quoted above he said that his health has been fine since learning to manage his diabetes. “It took about a year and a half for me to fully grasp it,” he said. “But since then there’s been no issues whatsoever, being 18 years old and having a huge responsibility…but now it’s just kind of become everyday life.”

In honor of Father’s Day, I asked writers in my memoir classes to put together 500-word essays about the traits they share with their fathers. After reminding them that a trait is a particular talent, characteristic, quality, or tendency someone has, I gave some examples. “Do you and your father share a similar outlook on life? Did you both like to dance? Play cards? Read newspapers? Drive too fast? Tell jokes?” I wondered out loud if writers in my classes are stubborn/fastidious/considerate/kind/open-minded/short-tempered like their fathers were.

Sharon’s father, taken when he was in his 80s.

This prompt was difficult for many writers. Ones who disliked their fathers felt they had nothing to write about. Ones who worshipped their fathers said reminiscing through writing made them miss their fathers all over again. Most found that reading their essays out loud to supportive listeners in class helped them embrace what the struggles with fathers had taught them, and celebrate what strengths the fathers they loved had given them.

Sharon Kramer is one of the writers who adored her father. This playful approach she took to writing her essay helped her — and those of us fortunate enough to be in class and hear her read it out loud — smile to think of him. Now you can smile, too — here it is:

Just riding around
by Sharon Kramer

If I could paint a picture of my father, I would use primary colors with very little shading. I would paint a handsome man of medium height, a bit chunky due to wolfing down the foods he loved (which was all food) curly black hair and smooth skin that was envied by most women who met him — even into his eighties. He would be looking at you directly, with a smile that was warm but slightly controlled, possibly due to feelings of inadequacy because of his short-circuited education. He quit school at 16 to help support a family of 10 brothers and sisters.

In his right hand, he would be holding a 16-millimeter home movie camera ready to focus on whatever looked interesting — and a lot of stuff that wasn’t interesting at all. Scenes of his daughters playing piano, his aproned wife setting the table for dinner, an extended family gathered for a holiday. After the home movie was developed, we set up a movie theatre in the basement and laughed to the point of tears at seeing ourselves on a big screen.

The edge of the film had teeth that were supposed to fit into the projector’s sprockets but would often get stuck and need realignment. Sometimes, the film fell off the reel into a giant pyramid on the floor. My job was to untangle the mess so we could continue the show.

My love of the camera and the miracle of photography comes directly from my father.

In my painting of my father, his left hand would be holding a hammer and a box of nails, ready to use when any of his relatives or neighbors needed a quick repair — a squeaky door, a child locked in the bathroom, a toilet that didn’t flush. Although he grumbled about being asked to fix things (especially at dinner time) he was always generous with his time and skills. “He has more book learning than I do,” he might say afterwards. “But he can’t even fix a toilet.”

My respect for men and women who work with their hands began with my father.

My painting would have a table to the side with a large map of the United States and assorted yellow trip cards from the American Automobile Association on it. Whoever sat in the front passenger seat became the navigator and reader of the vignettes describing the places we were on our way to see.

I traveled much further than my father, but my love of adventure and travel came directly from him.

On a Saturday, my father might say to me, “Come on, let’s go for a ride.” I didn’t know where we were going, and neither did he. We could end up at a farm in Indiana, buying fresh eggs, or at a diner on the West Side of Chicago that boasted the best French toast in the world. These mini-adventures made me feel special, like a co-conspirator.

When we got home five or six hours later, my mother would scold, “Where were you?” Winking at me, he’d say, “Nowhere, just riding around.”

I loved having a secret with my dad.

Sharon Kramer compiles essays by writers from the “Me, Myself and I” class I lead at the Chicago Cultural Center at a blog called Beth’s Class. Visit there often to find essays by Sharon and her fellow Wednesday writers there.

Beth wrote about my sinus surgery last week—first, thanks for your thoughtful comments. They cheered me as I breathed through my mouth in pain-reliever land. Second, this surgery went a lot better than it did 21 years ago. (Still, I don’t ever want to do it again.) Third, my Wednesday surgery was the most mundane medical news in our extended family.

Early that morning, Beth’s nephew Ben, a vital 47-year-old father of four, was playing soccer to get some exercise before work. Ben doesn’t remember what happened, but he collapsed. Luckily, the facility had one of those AED (automated external defibrillator) things you see all over the place now, and someone there knew how to use it. Ben needed it to stay alive and get to the hospital.

Ben’s home already, and resuming normal activities. But hearing the story, even knowing in advance the outcome, made the ground shake under the feet of Ben’s friends and family.

I immediately got the same paralyzing fear I had a few years ago when I was told Beth’s heart had stopped, that she had been shocked back into rhythm, and that she was headed to emergency open heart surgery.

I can’t know, but Beth’s brothers and sisters had to have thought of their father—who at 47 had a heart attack and died shortly thereafter at home.

Ben’s immediate family was left to contemplate what had been imaginable—that the ever-reliable coach, devoted father and spouse was this close to vanishing from their lives.

I think we all contemplated what might have happened if the event had taken place elsewhere—some place where CPR and AEDs weren’t at the ready. I know I did—just as I did when Beth had her incident. And then I realized, as I did then, that the only thing that matters is that it did happen and life went on.

But not the same. Not for me, anyway. This happy ending had the healthy effect of reminding me that our lives, even when they feel like mundane grinds, are miraculous.

Ben and I always talk baseball and sometimes a little business at family gatherings. I always look forward to seeing him, now all the more. Ben’s one of those solid, low maintenance guys that are easy to take for granted—because that’s really the way they want it.

Sorry Ben, but those days are over.

Just got news that the Library of Congress Talking Book Service has created a Braille version of Writing Out Loud — it’s available free of charge to Americans who are blind or visually impaired. The Library of Congress administers the National Library Service (NLS), a talking-book and Braille program available for free to those of us whose low vision or blindness makes reading regular print difficult. This translation is especially important to me: I want Braille readers to learn how I manage to lead my classes — and my life, for that matter! Who knows? Maybe some of them will start similar classes of their own. I’ll say goodbye here and leave you with an excerpt from Chapter 67 of Writing Out Loud that explains why, even with new technology and fancy speech synthesis, Braille is still so important — especially to children who are blind.

Chapter 67: Introducing Bennett

So let’s talk about Braille. Here’s a little-known fact: less than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in Braille. The American Foundation for the Blind reports a severe shortage of certified teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs), especially in rural areas or in small school districts. Without qualified teachers around, it can be a lot easier for parents of children who are blind to just let their kids listen to books on audio or hear words on a talking computer.

You might think that’s no big deal. Isn’t it a good thing that technology is doing all the heavy lifting for these kids? But think about it. If children who are blind never learn Braille, how will they ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks, and so on? How will they be able to write clear communications for sighted people? And what if they want to be writers?