David McElroy

When you’re a kid, life seems to stretch out forever ahead of you. Waiting until Christmas is all you know of eternity. The idea of being old enough to live on your own is incomprehensible. As for older people who are in their declining years, they might as well be from another planet. You can’t imagine what they’ve seen and heard and felt and experienced.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Youth is wasted on the young,” and he was right. When we have youth, we’re not experienced enough or mature enough to appreciate it, but as we gain experience and maturity, we lose the youth which would allow us to make better decisions and spend our time in ways that would lead to wiser outcomes.

When I was 20, I thought I was pretty smart and pretty wise. By the time I hit 30, I was wise enough to know how ignorant I’d been at 20, but I was arrogant enough to believe I’d learned enough by then.

The only thing I understand now is that age and wisdom can be proportional. It isn’t always true, it’s possible. I’ve known some people who become adults and quit learning and growing. I’ve said for years that most people I know hit the age of 30 and then just get numb and get involved with the pragmatic part of life — and quit changing. Over the next 30 years, they don’t get 30 years of experience. They get one year of experience 30 times.

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During the huge Chick-fil-A debate a few weeks back, I encountered someone on the pro-boycott side claiming that women should boycott Chick-fil-A because the company doesn’t want female managers. Since I happen to have known a number of female managers with the company — including the general manager of the store nearest my house — I knew it wasn’t true. So I challenged him.

He pointed to a lawsuit by one female manager at a Georgia Chick-fil-A. She has been a manager for decades, but the lawsuit alleges the she was forced out as a store manager because the chauvinistic upper management had decided she needed to be home with her children. I pointed out to the guy that this was one woman who had made one unsupported allegation, with no proof. I also pointed out that the vast number of female managers in the company make it obvious that there’s something unusual about that particular case, so it’s unfair and dishonest to use that allegation to state something as fact with no evidence.

“Do you think they’re fair to us?” he replied. “Why should I care about the facts when they’re the ones who are wrong?”

That was a snapshot of much of what’s wrong with political debate in this country. Almost nobody cares about facts, honesty or fairness. The latest example is that of U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, who claimed Sunday that a woman who is raped won’t get pregnant.

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There was a fire Friday morning in the Eagle River community of Anchorage, Alaska. Janet Seitz’ house sustained an estimated $70,000 worth of damage. I don’t know what all she lost, but I do know that her world was saved when a firefighter brought her cat, Max, to her from the still-smoking house. Seitz broke into tears when she got Max back safely in her arms.

Here’s the original photo at full size. Blow it up and see the emotion on the woman’s face clearly. Feel the honesty and immediacy of real life as it happens. This is news that matters to me.

We have something on television today called “reality TV.” It’s about 80 percent fake. It’s a phony. A lie.

We also have something we call news. It’s on television, online and in print. Even though I spent more than 10 years in news, I suggested last week that news is really just trivia that makes us feel smart and educated, but it’s almost all worthless — and it diverts us from things that matter in life.

Maybe this story from Eagle River is an example of news that matters, because it’s news that connects to the part of all of us that feels emotion — and we can briefly connect with an emotional and overjoyed woman.

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