One would think that, a diagnosis having been reached, there would be no more need for MRIs. But at 1 a.m., I was wheeled out the door and down the hall to the elevator. Next came the injection of Xanax®. More Pink Floyd-esque pounding of the magnets as the machine scanned the body that lay in its tube. Sleep was impossible with all the noise.

   Altogether I had four MRIs. An MRI is expensive. Of course, at 1 a.m. the machine sat in the basement, unused. The place could turn a…

   There were positive aspects to my having been given so many drugs since my admission to the hospital. Given my jolly nature, I was chuckling and having a rousing time. The neuro wore a long, serious face as he sat down. There probably is a course in medical school: "How to deliver REALLY BAD news to patients." Given how many MDs lack traces of personality, the course would about have to be required. If there was such a course, and he had taken it, that was years ago and he had not…

   On May 5, 2012, I shall walk in my fourteenth consecutive 500 Festival MiniMarathon®. We shall have surprise coverage of the event by Civil Discourse Now. This is the part three of a series about MS and vehemence about the Mini.®

   Breakfast of my first full day on the neuro ward was not bad. As soon as the meal was rolled away, an orderly appeared with a wheelchair. Sarah was there, but had to leave for work. She is an accountant and January is when tax season ramps up. She…

   What does my 1994 diagnosis with MS have to do with "civil discourse"?

   There are a lot of pressing issues that we face today. One example is that the United States Attorney General has stated a (false or, to be stylish, faux) legal distinction between "due process" and "due judicial process" to validate the United States government’s killing of its citizens. I am a lawyer. I can/should/will address this issue.

   Another major issue has to do with health care. "Health…

   On May 5, 2012, I shall walk in my fourteenth consecutive 500 Festival MiniMarathon®. We shall have surprise coverage of the event by Civil Discourse Now. This is the second part of a series about MS and my vehemence about the Mini.®

   When Sarah came into the examination room and sat down, the neuro explained we had "a complete neurological emergency." He said I either had a tumor on my brain—"tumor" got my attention—a tumor on my spine, multiple sclerosis, or a couple of other…

   On May 5, 2012, I shall walk in my fourteenth consecutive 500 Festival MiniMarathon®. We have a surprise for Civil Discourse Now with coverage of the Mini. I shall not miss a Mini. Last year I walked the 13.1 miles after having been diagnosed, the previous weekend, with pneumonia. After I completed my first Mini in 1999, I swore to myself I never would miss a Mini—unless I was dead or the MS finally had beaten me.   

   MS? Why the vehemence about the Mini? You need to know the…

   There are many problems in today’s world. People die. Despotism reigns. Chaos flourishes. In the Grand Scheme, athletic competitions seem trivial, at best a mere allegory for life: there is a start, a meaning (goal), and an end (death), unless the game is baseball and the contest, technically, never would end where the two teams could not break a tie in extra innings.

   If we set aside for a moment the question of whether there is importance for sports in the Grand Scheme, next is…

   Yesterday, March 7, was quite warm for this time of year in Indiana. I wore a t-shirt outside part of the afternoon. The wind was brisk, but the sky was clear.

   The weather of one day, taken alone, is not indicative of world climate change. The weather of one year, taken by itself, is not indicative of world climate change.

   "Climate change" is short-hand, today, for the discussion about whether humans have caused, principally through their of fossil fuels, significant…

   Advertisers are in a rush to abandon Rush Limbaugh for Limbaugh’s on-air rant against the Georgetown Law Center student who had sought to testify at hearings on a Congressional hearing concerning contraceptives.

   First, the dispute is not one over freedom of religion. If one wishes to advance a religious cause in this context, we should turn first to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. That precedes the Free Exercise Clause. If one wishes to advance his religious…

   Before the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1969, we were treated with interesting spots on the evening news. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River, in beautiful downtown Cleveland, burned. When one approached Gary on I-65, the sky was orange from the effluents of the steel mills.

    Yesterday, in response to my blog about the environment, Mr. Wheeler claimed "you posit an extreme example from your childhood days as that somehow…

   Rick Santorum spoke a couple of weeks ago about President Obama’s attitude toward environmental matters. In dismissing concerns for the environment, Santorum said his god gave people this planet to use.

   How can a person be so short-sighted and such a poor student of history? When Richard Nixon—yes, that Richard Nixon—signed into law environmental protection laws, there were a lot of problems with our environment.

   On the west side of Kokomo was a steel mill. When I was…

   As a kid I watched Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and inspiring movie about an honest, everyday guy who by happenchance is appointed to the United States Senate from an unnamed Midwestern state. The movie reaches its peak when Senator Jeff Smith filibusters to block a bill that is backed by the corrupt political bosses who seek to have him removed from the Senate.

   Frank Capra’s film is a classic. Also, it explains how the filibuster is an important part of our…

   In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut statute that not only prohibited the use of contraceptive devices, but made it a criminal offense for anyone to give out information of instruction on their use. The case is cited by many as having begun the concept of the right to privacy as a part of the U.S. Constitution. The concept goes back earlier in the Court’s history, though. In Oldstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438…

When Europeans first came to the shores of this continent, Europe was in turmoil over religion. Between Luther’s 95 Theses to the Treaty of Westphalia over one hundred years of bloodshed passed. Some who came to the North American shores sought refuge from religious persecution. Others came for economic reasons. Some came through no choice—chained and sold, once they arrived here, as chattel. They were slaves.

   Rick Santorum is an odd person to advocate rejection of the separation…

   On our March 3 Show we shall discuss the presidential primaries and look forward to SuperTuesday®. (I used the trademark thingy there because I was not sure if some opportunistic bastard already had taken it.) The two hotly-contested races in the ... I’ll back up. There are two political parties. Those parties have funneled the system into two channels. An eligible, registered person can vote either Republican or Democrat, as those parties represent both sides of all political…

   I went on a rant at the start of yesterday’s fifth segment.

   Usually we do four, 14-minute segments of "Civil Discourse Now" on Saturday mornings. If we are having fun with a particular topic, or it is proving too difficult to cover in only four segments, we will go five segments.

   Yesterday, our guests were Jeff Cox and Kurt Lorey. We discussed whether the United States is biased toward Israel. Co-host Paul Ogden, between segments, commented that the discussion of…

   I never understood why some Christians blame Jews for killing Jesus.

   First, let me say I am an atheist. Some who read this blog will say I therefore have no right to comment, and no knowledge upon which to comment competently, on or about any matter related to Christianity. As to the former: when candidates for political office practically have to pass a religious test to be considered for office, then Christianity affects us all. As to the latter, I was raised as a Christian.…

   Our guests on Saturday will be Jeff Cox and Kurt Lorie. We shoot at 11 at Big Hat Books, 6510 Cornell in Broad Ripple.

   All of us should be alarmed by Rick Santorum’s views. He is ignorant about history. For example, Thomas Jefferson argued for having the Feds in education during his 1806 State of the Union address. The public high school I attended took more of an interest in athletics than it did academics, but the skills I learned there enabled me to compete with others, and complete the degree requirements, at DePauw University.

   Santorum chose to home-school his children. Home-schooling might…

   I first became aware of the modern state of Israel during the Six Days War in 1967. The images that played on the evening news were of an underdog country engaged in a battle for survival with bully opponents. I was unaware of the societal guilt built up over two millennia of Western persecution of the Jewish people. Nor was I aware of the manner in which Jewish settlers, desperate to escape persecution sharpened in the 1920s and made even more acute in Germany with Hitler’s ascendancy to…