It was December 30^th, 11:56 PM.  The client sent me a question via email and had every expectation that I would immediately answer her.  She was wrong.  I had turned off my computer about five minutes earlier.

14 hour days in December?  Crap, I thought that I was a kid again working in retail.  I told a friend that once October hit that I wouldn’t have a full day off the rest of the year.  I’m sure that he thought that I was exaggerating.  I wasn’t.

The last three months have been my industry’s perfect storm.

• Many of my business clients focus on January 1^st.  we review their policies and make any changes, including switching carriers, with the goal of having everything in place for the first of the year.
• The annual Medicare open enrollment is October 15^th to December 7^th.  Many of my senior clients come and visit for coffee and reassurance after the seasonal barrage of TV commercials, junk mail, and the phone calls from insurers and AARP.
• October 1^st was the first day of open enrollment for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or Obamacare).

Rules changed daily.  A large part of my time was killed by redoing whatever I had done a week or two before.  Websites crashed like junkers at a demolition derby.  No one really knew what was really right, what was really going to work.

 The only thing I knew for sure was that anyone on television speaking with absolute certainty was undoubtedly wrong.

I have been getting up at 5:20 AM and going to bed around 12:30 AM.  The first thing I noticed, the first casualty, was that my Blackberry was dying in the early evening.  It took a few days to realize that the phone wasn’t the issue.  It wasn’t getting properly charged at night.  Damn, the phone needed more rest than me.

The second casualty was this blog.  I wanted to post.  I tried to write at 11:30 or midnight, but I couldn’t.  I had nothing left in the tank.

I have been writing, just not here.  And I missed you guys and I missed this platform.  Since October 1^st I have posted seven Health Insurance Issues With Dave and emailed seven full-length updates about the PPACA to my health insurance clients.

I love my job and there isn’t anything I’d rather be doing, but it can’t be healthy to live and breathe anything non-stop fourteen plus hours most days.  And when you find yourself in the office on Thanksgiving or knocking out a quick four hour shift on New Year’s, you know that you may be in too deep.

I had to stop and take my temperature.  I needed to know how much of me might have gotten lost along the way.

This blog, which is a large part of me, didn’t get lost, just misplaced.  Jennifer, my daughter, contends that I need to write even if it is only to vent.  I thought about this blog every day.

I replayed in my mind much of the last three months.  Even with all of this work, I found time to visit Jen and her husband Matt; my son Phillip, his wife, Allison, and her parents Bill and Anita; and Sally’s children Alec and Raqui.  I was wherever I needed to be and never rushed through the moment.

A client came by the office last month to tell me that he was dropping his health insurance.  His employer was finally ready to cover him and his family.  I congratulated him and wished him well.  And I meant it.  It is important to me that I didn’t lose my empathy nor my focus through this.

A group of us, agents with over thirty years’ experience, were talking last week.  One compared the last few months to the Medicare Part D (Rx) roll out of 2005.  Others thought this resembled the melt down of 2008-2009.  But the fall of 2013 remind me of the preparations we all endured for Y2K.  The turmoil.  The computer issues.  The gigantic waste of time, energy, and resources.  And we survived.

So I wish all of you a Happy and Healthy New Year.  And if I don’t post quite as often as I have in the past, it is not for lack of interest.  I will be back when I’ve got the time.

The following was posted in July of 2011. Will someone or some community apply this lesson learned from Woody? We will know in a few days…

Woody Hayes once noted, “There are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them aren’t good.” That little math formula applies to any number activities in our daily lives.

The other day a friend of mine told me that the mayor of his bedroom suburb was running unopposed. That isn’t uncommon in Cuyahoga County. We have 50+ municipalities in our county. We couldn’t possibly have enough qualified people to occupy the nearly countless elected and appointed positions of all of these fiefdoms. Once someone manages to get in, they stay in. Mayors, Councilmen, they either get wheeled out feet first or are led out in handcuffs. This is countywide. Eastside, Westside, South, if the harbor patrol were elected, they would serve for twenty years at a minimum.

So I bring you back to Woody Hayes. There are three reasons why an elected official continuously runs unopposed, and two of them aren’t good.

1. They are truly loved and admired by the community
2. Nobody respects the position enough to want it.
3. Businesses and community leaders have already figured out how to get around the guy holding the job.

The last one is the most interesting. If a politician continuously runs unopposed, he/she has no need to raise a big campaign war chest. This is great for the bottom line. If you as a business can get what you want without having to invest in the politician through the donation/election process, you are ahead of the game and the envy of businesses locked in competitive districts. Nothing beats FREE.

Is there a cost associated with the time and energy a business has to expend to stroke the fragile egos of some local politicians? Sure. But that is negligible, at best. We are ramping up for the election season. Karl Rove’s Super Pac, Crossroads GPS is already running ads on TV. Those cost real money. Hiring a caterer to do an extra ribbon cutting is just an expensive lunch.

So the next time someone brags to you about being unopposed, ask yourself why. Is it #1? Is it #2? Or are you standing next to a walking, talking embodiment of #3?

Today’s title is an elegant sentence written by Martin Amis in his book, Ronnie and the Pacemakers which was excerpted in the November 1988 edition of Esquire Magazine.   Mr. Amis neatly sums up the polarization of American politics in the 1980’s.  Of course, Mr. Reagan had been a polarizing figure for years.   In 1961 he recorded his infamous rant for the American Medical Association attacking the socialized medicine program that would become Medicare.  And Joan Baez and Jeffrey Shurtleff dedicated a song for the Governor of California, “Ronald Ray-guns” at Woodstock.

Having contempt for political figures is nothing new or even uniquely American.  But there must be a line, somewhere, between the disdain or even benign revulsion one may have for members of the political class and the dangerous, barely controllable hatred that was on display this past weekend at the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C.

The speaker was Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, an organization dedicated to someone’s freedom, just not necessarily yours or mine.  A protest at the World War II Memorial that had been organized by a veterans’ group was hijacked by Senator Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Mr. Klayman.

We are now ruled, quote unquote by a president who bows down to Allah… This president is not a president of we the people.  He is a president of his people.  He is to be the president of all of us…In the course of history there have been many who have used peaceful, non-violence to change history.  I do not advocate violent revolution…I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out.

Forget the fact that the President is a self-proclaimed Christian who took more than a little grief thanks to the Pastor of the church he attended in Chicago.  It isn’t relevant.  When did Muslim become a slur?  Read the above quote or if you can bear it, listen to him spew this rant by clicking on the link.  He bows down to Allah?  Substitute the religion of your choice.  All belief systems other than the speaker’s would neatly fit in that space.  We, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, etc.., are all OTHER.  We aren’t real Americans.  We can’t really lead this country, not Larry’s country.  We’re not white enough.  Not Christian enough. 

I am not Barack Obama’s biggest fan.  Yes, I worked on the 2008 campaign and I voted for him both times.  So What?  It is not like we had any great choices.  But, he, like George Bush before him, is the President of the United States.  And there is a line.  And I’m not sure that I could define that line or tell you where it is.  But much the way Justice Potter Stewart identified pornography, I know it when I see it.  

And if you don’t call it out, if you stand idly by when you hear such talk, then you are complicit in the spread of this hatred.  And you can’t be surprised when someone, uncontrolled by logic and unmoored of reason, takes this to its illogical extreme. 

 

 

My daughter was born in Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital.  St. E’s was the best hospital in Youngstown, Ohio at the time and her mother had had difficulties in the past.  Excellent doctor.  Acceptable facilities.  And on the wall in front of each bed was a wooden cross complete with the depiction of the guy nailed to it.  I found it more than a little disconcerting.  But, it was their building, so we put a towel over the artwork and tried to ignore it.

There are Jewish hospitals, Catholic hospitals, Methodist hospitals, etc…  Are these institutions gifts from a particular faith community for the general good?  Are the hospitals designed as a way to increase cash flow?  Do some religions view the hospitals they create as a way to spread their faith and proselytize for new members?

Hospitals provide needed services for the general public.  The funding may come, in part, from the faith community, but private insurance and the government are the principal sources of revenue.  There are tax breaks, Medicare, and Medicaid.  Does the faith, the name on the door, affect the type of care provided inside?  I am concerned when the religion sponsoring a medical facility chooses to do more than decorate the rooms.

Catholic Health Partners is Ohio’s largest hospital system.  This is a big business.  CHP has two dozen hospitals and over $5 billion in assets.  CHP recently purchased Kaiser Permanente’s Ohio operation.  They also committed $250 million to purchase a minority interest in Akron’s SUMMA Health System.

Everything was proceeding smartly until our local Bishop attempted to kill the deal.  According to published reports, Bishop Lennon stopped the SUMMA deal because “SUMMA publicly stated plans to continue providing sterilization, contraceptives and abortions on a limited basis when medically necessary.” (emphasis mine)

Catholic Health Partners restructured the deal by running it through their auxiliary organization, HealthSpan Partners.  HealthSpan Partners is tax-exempt, secular, and beyond the Bishop’s reach.  I think this raises some real concerns.

What is and isn’t beyond the Bishop’s reach?  What happens when your doctor determines that you NEED a particular procedure, but the Bishop forbids it?

I have a vested interest in this discussion.  The Ohio Kaiser program was lining up to work well with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  The doctors work for the plan.  Kaiser has added new, state-of-the-art facilities.  The patient records system is excellent.  Adding a solid connection to SUMMA is really positive.  I have recommended Kaiser to many of my clients.

But before I recommend Kaiser to anyone else, ever, I need to know who is the final arbiter of what is and isn’t medically necessary.  We are about to enter a long national discussion concerning our government’s involvement with health care funding and care choices.  But for good or bad, we elected the government and we have a role in the creation of our rules and regulations.  I don’t have a say as to who serves as our local Bishop, nor do I care, as long as he doesn’t endanger my clients.

Not paying attention to this would be malpractice.

 

This post originally appeared September 11, 2013.  Then it disappeared!  Luckily I don’t depend on the web to archive my writing.  I have a printed copy of all of my posts.  Why did the server eat the post?  Why is it difficult to post pictures now?  No one knows.  Thank G-d for paper…

 

The client didn’t mince words.  He saw an article in the Plain Dealer about retired workers getting free or almost free insurance under the new health care law.  “WHY CAN’T I GET THAT RATE?  Please don’t refer me to your blog—I don’t have the inclination to read/learn that much about the situation in general.  I’m looking for something specific to me.”

I was not pleased.  The whole point of my Health Insurance Issues With Dave blog is to provide context to the health care debate.  By-pass the details and you end up with the one-sided TV reports.  MSNBC – Rainbows and unicorns.  FOX – We’re all gonna DIE!

I was tempted to remind Chuck that more knowledge is better than less, working within the system is preferable to being victimized by it.  And then I jumped off my soapbox before I was pushed.

We’ve had a tough computer month.  First the server crashed.  Then I replaced my office computer, a box that was less than three years old, with a new top-of-the-line Dell.  Windows 7.  Office 2013.  The newest Outlook.  It took a week to get Internet Explorer to work.  The rest of the stuff SUCKS.  Sure, there is an online Windows video that might answer my questions.  There are tutorials and classes available, too.

But I don’t have the time or interest to learn that much about Windows 7.  I just want my issues to be resolved.

I am trying to find someone to spend an hour with me to get my stuff to work.  And I answered Chuck’s questions without mentioning my blog.

II

My Republican friend couldn’t wait to ask his question.  A few of us were talking and Ron patiently stood nearby, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.  At first I thought that he needed to use the restroom.  And when his time came, he looked me in the eye and asked his question, “Syria?”

Even though I am a moderate Democrat, I am the go to guy of this group, the guy called upon to defend or explain every action taken by this President.  Today the question was Syria.

Ron was loaded for bear.  He was ready with every FOX talking point.  But to be fair, this situation, a stop and start military / diplomatic debacle that appears to be more reaction than the culmination of a well-defined strategy seemed to confirm every impression the Right has of President Obama.

I disappointed Ron.  I noted that I have never fired a weapon.  The only uniform I’ve ever worn is the suit and tie of a middle-aged Jewish businessman.  I can answer questions about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  I know nothing about war.

No fight.  No vigorous defense of the President.  I could tell that Ron had been hoping for so much more.  So I agreed with him.  I guess if I was really that exercised by the use of chemical weapons (again!), I would have taken immediate action.  If I needed Congressional involvement, I would have pushed for it THEN.  I don’t pretend to understand the President’s strategy.  And I don’t know where or why we should bomb Syria.

And by the way, if you bomb Syria and you accidently topple the government, name one Syrian, any Syrian, who is any better than Bashar al-Assad.

III

Bruce the Microsoft tech and I stared in amazement.  Bruce was in my office to resolve a nagging issue on my new computer.  He couldn’t get started because my computer was still under the control, by remote access, of an Indian technician attempting to install my client contact software.  For an hour.  Even I could tell that this guy had no idea what he was doing.  An hour on the phone to India.  An hour tying up both my computer and the server.  An hour of listening to him guess how his software worked.

Bruce and I took control of the cursor and got the program to run.  It had never occurred to me to question the competency of the guy at the other end of the phone.  I just assumed that the software companies would only connect us to qualified, well-trained techs.

I should know better.  If you have ever called in to a major insurer to purchase health coverage, you have been connected to their internal sales staff.  The price of coverage isn’t a penny less even though you get someone stuck in a cubicle instead of a real broker.  I can always tell, just by looking at the policy, if someone worked with an independent agent or a company drone.  The quality of their work reflects the bleakness of their work environment. 

 ***

We are being herded into a new insurance system, one that is reliant on computer portals that have yet to be completed, that puts a great deal of emphasis on self-reporting and previously undemonstrated math skills, and in the end, depends on the kindness of strangers.

We may be asking too much.

 

 

The Indians won last night.  I know because I got home in time to see the eighth and ninth innings.  I had heard parts of the game on the radio.  And at 5:20 this morning I went to my door to get the paper, eager to read the box score from the game.  And as I reached the door knob I remembered that today is Thursday and that I live in Cleveland. 

A sports page delivered to our door on Thursday?  Where do I think I live, Akron? 

The (formerly Cleveland) Plain Dealer wants to break up with us, but breaking up is hard to do.  Monday and Tuesday it disappears.  It is back on our doorstep Wednesday morning and tries to make amends.  Thursday?  Gone again.  On Friday the P.D. is back, but it seems distant.  The next thing you know it is Sunday, and like the girlfriend who is always available for the Hanukkah gift exchange party, the Plain Dealer is at your door hoping that all will be forgiven.  The whole cycle starts again Monday morning. 

Sting may have been right.  If you love somebody you should set it free.  If the Plain Dealer is too wishy-washy to terminate our relationship, we may have to, out of kindness, set them free. 

I don’t pretend to understand what Advance Publications, the owners of what was once a good daily paper, are doing.  I’m not alone.  Crain’s and other publications have also wondered about this strange behavior.  Massive lay-offs.  The elimination of home delivery.  A reliance on syndicated columnist who can be easily found elsewhere.  It looks like they are attempting to commit suicide with a butter knife.  

The 1996 season was our first without the Cleveland Browns.  As a way to make professional football relevant, I joined a fantasy football league.  I recruited my then stepson, a gifted mathematician who had a passing interest in football but a real love of pancakes, to be my partner.  Every Monday morning we grabbed the Plain Dealer sports section and headed for Big Al’s Diner.  While waiting for our food we would compile our points and map our strategy while I drank coffee and the ten year old downed large glasses of orange juice.  I dropped him off at school after breakfast. 

I can’t be the only Dad in Greater Cleveland who read the sports pages with his kid. 

Does that work with the online Plain Dealer?  Try it and get back to me.  Newspapers are a shared experience.  A computer screen in a restaurant is a party of one.   

And if you are going online, why go to the Plain Dealer site?  When I finally made time to read the box score of yesterday’s Indian’s game, I cut out the middle man.  I just Googled Indians and the box score came up. Cleaner.  Quicker.  Easier to find.  And if I want more details, I can always go to the team’s site. 

My fellow bloggers laugh when they learn that I compose most of these posts, including this one, with a pen on a legal pad.  I am committed to the written word.  The Plain Dealer had some great writers.  Most of them are now gone.  Others, like Chuck Yarborough, are left to do the work of three.  I still read all of his reviews, even the ones about Country acts, because I enjoy his perspective.  But you have to wonder how long this sort-of paper will bother to pay for local, professional writers. We aren’t that far away from a paper comprised entirely of wire service reports. 

So, you will be reading this on Friday, the paper will be on your coffee table, and you may even believe that everything is back to normal.  OK.  Check back on Tuesday.  Let me know if you still feel like there’s nothing missing.  Or better yet, let me know your thoughts on Monday, a few weeks from now, after the season opener.

 

  

The deer was on the wrong side of the barrier wall.  Blissfully eating what was destined to be his last meal, he grazed in the high grass mere yards from the I 271 southbound lanes.  There was nothing I could do.  His fate was sealed.  It was highly unlikely that he would find his way back and nobody would save him. 

The postcard came in Tuesday’s mail.  A financial services company in Mentor had all of the answers a Baby Boomer should ask about Social Security.  All of them.   The special meeting to share all this valuable information will be next Tuesday.  The same mail also brought a letter from Oregon about the importance of long term care insurance.  A free booklet and a helpful salesman were readily available.   And Wednesday’s mail brought an invitation for yet another dinner at The Olive Garden with those helpful people who want me to learn how to retire comfortably.  

Well, not really me, Al.  Al Cunix.  Everyone loves Al Cunix and wants him to be happy and wealthy. 

Al Cunix only exists on marketing lists.  He gets mail.  He gets emails.  And until the Do Not Call list became the law of the land, he got phone calls.  Lots and lots of phone calls.  I received four emails last week advising Al that Obamacare now required him to have health insurance. 

Some of the solicitations are inadvertently humorous.  Some of them are offensive, like the above emails.  But the truth is that most of the offers that come to Al’s attention are just depressing.  Did you ever wonder who would give up a couple hours of their life to be locked in a chain restaurant for a crappy dinner and an even crappier sales pitch?  Worse, it must work.  These “dinner” seminars must be separating hard working Americans from their money since the invitations keep coming. 

The letters, postcards, and emails are dripping with concern.  They love Al.  They want nothing but the best for him.  But like the deer, Al is really on his own.  And whether we are talking about oncoming traffic or unsolicited advice, we are our own best advocates and the only person we can really count on to keep us out of trouble.

 

Roy Hobbs, bleeding and no longer armed with his favorite bat, stared at the opposing pitcher and steadied himself at the plate.  Once thought to be a budding superstar, mysteriously missing from the baseball scene for years, the entire team’s fate was on his shoulders.  The pitch.  The swing.  The Natural.  

My last post mentioned that our art is an integral part of our office.  So is the music.  I have almost 9,000 songs on my computer.  One by one I loaded my CD’s on to my system.  My collection is mostly rock, pop, new age and jazz, though I have a little classical and dance, too.  Jeff probably has as much music on his computer, though we’re pretty sure it is all the Grateful Dead!

 The other difference between Jeff Bogart and I is that while I always have music playing in the background while I’m alone in my office, he is often listening to sports talk radio.  Jeff has absorbed hours and hours of interviews and commentary.  I always thought that this prepared him for the 15 minutes of hope all Browns fans feel just before the start of each season.  It turned out that the ESPN radio program was more than just background noise for Jeff. 

About a year or so ago Jeff created Yogic Investing, a business that brought the principles of Yoga to personal investing.  For those who view Yoga as something more than aerobic exercising and a great opportunity to sweat with beautiful people in tight clothing, there is much to learn about bringing balance and abundance to the world of personal finance.  It is not my thing, but I have talked to Jeff and many of the people who practice Yoga and I appreciate the spirituality and seriousness that they bring to the subject. 

Jeff recently took this to an entirely new level.  Three weeks ago he began a new project, a radio show, The Yoga of Money.  The show is found on the The Empowerment Station on VoiceAmerica, an online radio station.  We set up a studio in our office and once a week he does a live hour of radio.  The show is then available whenever you have time to listen. 

The most amazing part of this is that Jeff is a natural.  He’s terrific on the radio.  He conducts interviews and fields live calls.  Who knew?  Last Wednesday I was listening to his show in my office, 30 feet away from our studio, and if I hadn’t just had lunch with him before he went on air, I would have thought that I was listening to some guy in New York. 

We all have talents.  Some of us our lucky enough to have the opportunity to use those talents.

 

 

“He’s the best plumber you’ve never heard of…” 

Have you ever heard that?  Someone is supposedly a great chef, or mechanic, or even insurance agent, but he/she has never achieved success or recognition.  Why?  The individual’s fans either don’t know or won’t say.  And if you ask this person toiling in anonymity you may hear how the fates have conspired against him, or how she was just too busy to do the marketing, or worse, how others have sold out, but he has remained true to himself. 

They have failed to master the whole job. 

We just got back from Ann Arbor.  I was multi-tasking, first meeting with a Michigan based health insurer and then looking for more stuff for the office at the Ann Arbor Art Fair.  Once I knew that my Detroit-area client will be properly insured, I was free to enjoy the show. 

The art is an integral part of our office.  We were once featured in the Plain Dealer and people visit just to see the collection.  The pictures, wood work, and sculptures aren’t expensive, just meaningful to me and generally fun and appreciated by our guests.  In fact, I did not pay over $2,000 for any item.  What makes the art cool is how we, our guests and I, react to each piece and the story that goes with it. 

This was my 21^st year at Ann Arbor.  I stop and thank every artist I have ever patronized.  I don’t know if I’ll ever purchase another piece of glass from Rollin Karg, but I’m truly glad that I’ve got the one I have.  I enjoy sharing with Jerry Farnsworth that adults and children love his kaleidoscopes.  And a visit with John Russell, the guy who makes my wood pens, is worth the three hour drive. 

I purchased a wooden coffee cup last year.  I had never seen a coffee cup made of wood and was instantly intrigued.  The booth was busy and I didn’t get a chance to get to know the artist.  A year later I had questions about cleaning my mug and wanted to buy a couple more.  There was no one in the booth Wednesday, not even the artist.  We waited a few minutes and were intercepted as we were leaving.  I thought asking how to safely remove the coffee residue from my cup was a reasonable question.  He thought that I was wasting his time.  We left empty-handed a moment or two later. 

My cupmaker is only good at part of his job.  Why pay the money, schlep your goods, and pitch a tent on a hot Ann Arbor street (or at any show) if you don’t want to talk to the public? 

My major 2012 purchase was from Beau Tudzarov.  Clients and I have admired this creative piece of digital art since it arrived last September.  I have been looking forward to discussing the picture with him.  We had a great conversation Wednesday.  He confirmed some of what we had found, the influences of Salvatore Dali and M.C. Escher. 

Beau’s wife is also an artist and he credits her as one of his artistic influences.  Her work was being displayed in the next booth.  He showed me a picture that predated mine.  He felt that her tree, which had bubbles instead of leaves, had found its way into several of his pieces.  It was a revealing insight and it put my picture into sharper focus for me.  It also fostered a greater appreciation of his art. 

Did I buy another Tudzarov?  Not this year, but I’m sure I will one day. 

I also got a chance to visit with Greg Billman.  I have given Billmans’ as gifts and have work from Greg and Jane hanging in the office and at home. 

Over the two days we were in Ann Arbor we visited with over a dozen artists, some old friends and some new.  And I made a couple of trips to the car to stow the special art that had to come back to Mayfield Heights.

 

We finished our trip at the Zeber-Martell booth.  Claudia and Michael create and display amazing clay works in their Akron studio.  They are socially conscientious active participants in the Akron art scene.  They are a wonderful couple, talented and loving, who work hard at the entire job.  They produce terrific art and they enjoy a well-earned, loyal following.  We seem to get a couple of things from them every year. 

The whole job.  It doesn’t really matter if we are talking about Michael Martell or Attorney Mark Obral.  The best are those professionals who master the whole job. 

 

Pardon me if you’ve heard this before.  It was May of 1974 and I was sitting in my dorm room on Case campus.  I was a double major – English and Religion.  I was trying to decide whether to be an attorney or a rabbi.  But on that spring day I had an epiphany.  I realized that I wasn’t holy enough to be a rabbi and not amoral enough to be an attorney.  And with that I set my sights on a different future, one that allowed me to be me and to never be forced, as part of my job, to do anything I didn’t believe. 

I write this as I am watching the two defense attorneys conduct a post-verdict press conference. To be honest, I am not shocked by the verdict.  I am not pleased, but I am not shocked.  But these two attorneys, too skilled at manipulating the English language, too proud in their willingness to win at any cost, and now, in victory, too joyful in their victory lap on Trayvon Martin’s grave, make me physically ill.  I have come full circle.  

I turned to Sally who was watching this with me and I said “I was right”.  I didn’t need to explain.