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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Sad husband: ‘My beautiful wife is dying; I’m so sad I can’t sleep’

By David McElroy · November 17, 2018

The yellowed face in the picture caught my attention when I noticed the pinkish color of the healthy hand on her forehead. And then I noticed the man’s summary of his story.

“Here she is, Teresa,” the anonymous man wrote on a social media post. “She’s the love of my life, and today is her birthday. And she’s dying.”

This is not my story. I have very little to add to it. But this couple’s story touched me. There’s nothing we can do to help them. But Teresa is dying of liver disease and he’s terrified and heartbroken. The very least we can do is listen to their story.

“She’s getting sicker every day,” the husband writes. “She gets confused from high ammonia levels. She’s yellow because her liver is failing. She’s in pain, and can’t take anything because of the bad liver.”

In the midst of their fear and pain, he recounts that he’s thankful that Teresa walked into the company where he worked around 8 a.m. on Sept. 23, 1983. He said he had to work up the courage to ask her out — and he worded the question vaguely in case she turned him down. But he had to ask her out, he said, because “I fell in love with her eyes the first time I saw her.”

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: disease, health, love, marriage

Lucy’s fun afternoon at my office reminds me that work needs play

By David McElroy · November 16, 2018

If you had stopped at the office of Bluff Park Realty in Birmingham, Ala., Friday afternoon, you might have met a furry new worker. Lucy is now trained in greeting customers at the front counter. She earned her treats and she had a good time.

I knew things would be slow on the Friday before Thanksgiving, so it was a good day for her to have a fun trip out. I was in the office for only four hours, so it was long enough for her to have a break from her normal routine but not so long that she would be unhappy.

I think both of us had fun.

I grew up believing that work was fun. I was excited about the things I planned to do — things other people consider work — and it never occurred to me that work could be boring. Having Lucy around this afternoon left me thinking about what changed for me along the way — and about what still needs to change.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: career, dogs, goals, lucy, work

I don’t care where Pedro is from, but I’m happy he’s my neighbor

By David McElroy · November 15, 2018

When I heard a loud crash outside my house Wednesday night, I thought a tree had blown over onto my roof.

It’s been stormy here for the last few days, so I feared that the rain and wind had weakened a tree enough to bring it crashing down. I didn’t see any breaks in the roof from the inside, though, so I ran out my front door into the cold rain.

My next-door neighbor came out of his house 30 seconds later, asking me if I knew what it was. It took us a couple of minutes to realize the crash had come from my back yard. We found several sections of a huge branch that had collapsed from a tree.

The falling pieces had avoided my house, but damaged the back-yard fence. The main section was about 25 feet long and there were several smaller sections. I was lucky that it was just some chain-link fence that was damaged instead of my house.

The neighbor told me he could help me fix the fence after work Thursday — although I didn’t figure anything would come of that — and then we both ran back inside to get out of the rain.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: hispanic, immigration, neighbor

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My Instagram

For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
The lights and color might have been more spectacu The lights and color might have been more spectacular a couple of minutes before this, but this was the best view I had of the Monday afternoon sunset from a bridge over I-20 in Moody, Ala.
I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hour I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hours ago of the fading sunset while I was in the Publix parking lot on the way home. If you suddenly find yourself craving Arby’s or Wendy’s, blame the giant icons in the sky, not me. 😃 (BTW, this was with the iPhone’s 8X telephoto lens.) #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night and was watching traffic through the distortion of the gently falling rain on my car window when I realized that the abstract view I had matched the way I was feeling tonight, so I turned it into a brief abstract video to match my mood.
Get ready for the next great animated Christmas cl Get ready for the next great animated Christmas classic, featuring singing and dancing and danger from Alex, Oliver and Sam. Coming soon to a theater near you. (The funniest part is that if I cared about this as anything more than a Christmas joke, it strikes me as something that could be profitable with the right story development and the right animators.)
Here are a couple of views of the sunset I just wa Here are a couple of views of the sunset I just watched on my way home after showing houses. I didn’t have my camera with me, so these are just iPhone shots. #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
This is what it might look like if the cats and I This is what it might look like if the cats and I were cast in a Wes Anderson film.
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Late Tuesday night, I couldn’t find Sam, so I was Late Tuesday night, I couldn’t find Sam, so I was looking all over the office and bedroom for him. It eventually turned out that I had been walking right by him. He had apparently dragged a dark blue blanket onto the floor and he ws blending into it so well that I didn’t realize he was there until he looked up at me and I saw his eyes.
When I got home just before midnight, Alex was asl When I got home just before midnight, Alex was asleep on top of the castle and he struggled to wake up enough to care that I’d returned.
When I got home Monday evening, Sam let me hold hi When I got home Monday evening, Sam let me hold him while we watched the neighborhood from an office window.
Alex has been sleeping in the hanging basket of th Alex has been sleeping in the hanging basket of the castle Monday afternoon, but he still wants to watch birds outside the office window, so he just lazily turns and watches from his bed.
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
When I got home late Sunday afternoon and laid dow When I got home late Sunday afternoon and laid down on the bed, Oliver climbed onto my chest to make sure I knew he had conquered me.
The sun has been up for nearly half an hour, but A The sun has been up for nearly half an hour, but Alex sees no reason he should follow suit — especially on a morning when it’s so dark and foggy outside.
This is a wide-angle view of Oliver trying to stay This is a wide-angle view of Oliver trying to stay awake as he relaxes on my arm late Saturday night.
When I told Alex that I was going out for the even When I told Alex that I was going out for the evening, he lifted his head, but only long enough to make it clear that he expected me home by the time he was hungry again.
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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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