Monthly Archives: December 2017

Alabama election results

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It was with vastly swinging emotions that we followed the election in Alabama of a US Senator. I was driving/working late, receiving updates from my wife about how the results were going. At the beginning Roy Moore was running ahead, by as much as 10 percentage points. I was so discouraged. “When will we learn to not keep electing scuzzy men?” It just seemed like more of what we’ve experienced in the past. People keep getting elected not for the strength of their character, but for their political connections. I was really very depressed.

As I continued to get election updates, Doug Jones began to move closer in the results. I thought, oh, perhaps there is some hope! But I didn’t want to get my hopes too high because I had been disappointed too often in the past. So it was with very guarded hopes that I hurried home after work.

By the time I arrived home, my wife had texted that they were tied at 49%. I fixed myself some food, and settled down in front of the TV. As the evening wore on, I became more and more excited!! And when Jones won by quite a large margin, over 20,000 votes, I was over-the-moon positive!!!

As I listened to news commentators, I dampened my response a bit, realizing that Moore had been a very damaged candidate, and his demise was not necessarily a sign of things to come, a sign of a significant shift in the US political scene. But still, for a Democrat to get elected in a solidly Republican state like Alabama, signalled that there are some people who still take their democratic responsibility seriously.

When Breath Becomes Air

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This book, by Paul Kalanithi, is an incredible story of dying. Paul Kalanithi was a medical student, specializing in neurosurgery. He was in his last years or months of residency, nearing the end of his training. He was good, very good, at what he was doing. He was being noticed already, even as a resident surgeon.

He got lung cancer, had never smoked, but knew the seriousness of his diagnosis. As a doctor, especially one who took very seriously helping his patients die well, he took his own diagnosis as a chance to experience this in his own life.

The book details his path through medical training, and through his own disease. Throughout he showed incredible integrity, a calmness with what was happening to him. He details going through the various stages of grief, in a somewhat backwards order from the usual.

I can’t say enough good about this book. Kalanithi details very carefully his brief life and his travel through his disease. He does so with great articulation, no preachiness, no life-changing revelations.

His wife finishes the book after he dies, carrying out Paul’s final project.

It was a breath of fresh air (to paraphrase the title!) to read this account. Anyone would be well-served reading this story.