Larry King: ‘Is He Happy? Is He Alright?’
“I’ve had listeners send pictures: ‘This is me, listening to you,’ ” King says, amazed. “I swear to God. ‘Here I am, listening to you.’ … Sometimes, they write poems to me.” He thinks about this, wondering who else might inspire such a thing. “Would people write a poem to Walter Cronkite? I would bet not. But he came into their homes every night too. They would to Johnny Carson. They wouldn’t to Koppel. They would to Jane Pauley. They certainly would to Jane Pauley. Might to Bryant Gumbel. Would to Phil Donahue. Maybe.”
My First Time: A Political Novice Runs for Office
I ran for Congress in Maryland’s 8th District because I thought the government was spending too much money. I had no idea how much I’d be spending, or what I’d have to show for it when the ballots were counted. My rookie stats — 2,242 votes, 15.25 percent of the total — are a matter of public record, although the public’s not exactly clamoring for a look-see. Which could be the harshest lesson from all of this.
Since Beating that Left Student in Coma, His Father Has Kept a Constant Vigil
Ken quit his job running a health club in Loudoun County to care for his only son. Every day, he brushes Ryan’s teeth and bathes him, administers 50 medications, feeds him through a tube attached to his stomach, changes his catheter, stretches his limbs and talks to him with the hope that his son can hear and may one day respond. His commitment is unwavering, yet not without moments of doubt. Would it have been better for Ryan if he had died that night? Ken has asked himself.
The Waiting
Survivors of the Ted Stevens plane crash in Alaska wondered if help would reach them in time. The plane, full mostly of men and boys, fathers and sons, poker buddies on a fishing trip into the exotic and remote wilderness, had crashed without hint of warning, everything ripped from its rightful place and hurled forward into a single mangled heap of living and dead.
Traumatic brain injury leaves an often-invisible, life-altering wound
The doctor begins with an apology because the questions are rudimentary, almost insultingly so. But Robert Warren, fresh off the battlefield in Afghanistan and a surgeon’s table, doesn’t seem to mind. Yes, he knows how old he is: 20. He knows his Army rank: specialist. He knows that it’s Thursday, that it’s June, that the year is 1020. Quickly, he corrects the small stumble: “It’s 2010.”
Joseph Cao, the unlikely congressman from New Orleans
On a sultry July morning, Cao, the first-term Republican congressman from New Orleans, walks out of his house in the Venetian Isles neighborhood in the easternmost part of the city, a low tentacle of land rising, just barely, above the waters of Bayou Sauvage. A dawn fog sits heavily over the adjacent swamp; a dead palm leans in memoriam to Hurricane Katrina (or maybe Gustav; both of them devastated his house).
The Peekaboo Paradox
If you want to understand why the Great Zucchini has this kind of success, you need look no further than the stresses of suburban Washington parenting. The attendant brew of love, guilt and toddler-set social pressures puts an arguably unrealistic value on someone with the skills, and the willingness, to control and delight a roistering roomful of preschoolers for a blessed half-hour. That’s the easy part. Here’s the hard part: There are dozens of professional children’s entertainers in the Washington area, but only one is as successful and intriguing, and as completely over-the-top preposterous, as the Great Zucchini. And if you want to know why that is — the hook, Vicki, the hook — it’s going to take some time.