Alma Maters Hail (Today We Are All Hokies, Part II)
Precious Memories
Precious memories, how they linger
How they ever flood my soul
In the stillness of the midnight
Precious sacred scenes unfold–from the gospel hymn “Precious Memories”
Among the idle thoughts that rattled around in my brain driving back and forth to Birmingham this weekend was my earliest memory.
It must have been sometime in early to mid-1963 when I was around 18-20 months old. It’s the middle of the night and I’m waking up fussing and crying in my crib. I look up and my mother is standing over me, her hair matted and her eyes half-closed, and she hands me a baby bottle filled with Coca-Cola which I eagerly grab and begin to suckle vigorously like a new-born piglet on his mother’s teat.… Read the rest
How Not To Apologize
“To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect [emphasis mine], I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused.”
–former Durham County DA Mike Nifong
Thanks for the lesson, Mr. Nifong. And I think it would be more appropriate to use “who” instead of “that.”
One Man, One Slide
John had always told me, “Mike, when you walk into a room, you’ve got to make them believe that you’re the biggest gunslinger in the bar.”
He was referring to the way that I carried myself as I walked into the exam room. I guess he must have noticed the deer-in-the-headlamps expression on my face and the way that my jaw dragged along the floor as I encountered a dizzying array of eye disorders and diseases in those early days of my residency; nasty, often bloody, blinding stuff that never looked (or acted) quite the same way as the atlases and textbooks said it would.… Read the rest
Blue Devils Not So Devilish After All
That was some dog and pony show, Mr. Nifong.
Take cover everyone. The civil litigation is about to hit the fan.
PowerPointless in Huntsville
… Read the restPowerPoint also conditions worshipers to act and react in visceral ways, so that the character of their bodily actions and emotional responses are at times downright Pavlovian. The screen, not the altar or cross, becomes the all-consuming center of attention, an object of intense fixation which triggers predictable reflexes and behaviors. When PowerPoint malfunctions, for instance, people become nervous and lost; they become conditioned to worry that it will malfunction. They find themselves thinking more about the screen and the technician at the soundboard than about the God whom they’ve come to worship and the larger worshiping body of which they are a part.
The Gator Age
“I remember when I was telling people, ‘I’m going back to school,’ and they’re like, ‘Huh? What? Are you crazy?'” But you know what? I feel like now all of a sudden people understand that it’s more than money. It’s more than that…Money doesn’t always buy happiness.”
–Joakim Noah
Despite the goofy hair and the flailing chicken dance, I have to admit, he’s right.
I also have to admit that this is the best college basketball team that we’ve seen in quite a while. I almost hate to see the Gator Age end.
Almost.… Read the rest
I Hate Diplopia
I hate diplopia (i.e. “double vision”). When a patient presents with that complaint, it usually means that I have to slow down, change my exam, perform different tests and ask a whole different set of questions than I normally would. I deal with it, but it’s a real time sink. One of those, especially early in the morning, gets me behind schedule for the rest of the day.
If the Florida Gators win tonight, then I’ll have a whole new set of reasons to despise diplopia. For one, it would mean that those slimy reptiles would then have become the latest team to win two titles in a row, replacing my beloved but down-in-the-dumps Blue Devils who currently hold that distinction (’91, ’92).… Read the rest