The Daily Babble: Saturday

This past week I pretty much stayed away from the so-called news, the basically toxic blather spewed over the airwaves and cyberspace. Call it a mental health break. Watching this country in the throes of a nervous breakdown isn't pretty. The left is disgraceful and hasn't learned anything. The right is unspeakable--the circus of panic, of one-upsmanship and exhibitionism of bigotry and ignorance.

Usually my first refuge online and on the tube in recent years is sports. But after a bit of excitement it looks like the SF Giants aren't going anywhere after all. And while the Steelers season is starting to look like it might be better than I thought a month ago, the pleasure I take in football is rapidly diminishing due to the onslaught of information about the effects of concussions, one of which came close to home as researchers theorize that particular cases of ALS (including that of Lou Gehrig, whose name is the popular one for the disease) may be the result of repeated head injuries. There's hardly an ugler condition than ALS. But due to its relative rarity and the strange variations, I have suspected it might be the name for more than one disease or condition. Here's another article on this research.

So I spent the resulting free time on other pursuits, like reading one of those things you hold in your hand and turn the pages of, oh yeah, books. And writing about my fourth grade year. Hard to fathom how full it was. And with no Internet, ipad, Facebook, cell phone or even cable TV. How is that even possible?