The Miller Spotlight

Last month, my husband Ron found himself facing an even more interesting challenge than the ones he encounters every day, as a paraplegic who navigates through life from a motorized, six-wheel monstrosity known as a “power wheel chair.” His new challenge came the same day I was forced to grab one of his four-wheel walkers that had me scooting around the house from a sitting position, flying around the house backwards for the next few weeks—all because of an injury I self-diagnosed as “only a sprain.”   After all, I'd had a similar injury on the other leg a few years back. When nothing showed on an x-ray, I'd turned to a chiropractor that time, just to speed things along. In short order, I'd been able to shed my cane.   "Not nearly as bad as first time. Nor is being on wheels as terrible as you might think,” I say to friends, minimizing this interesting dilemma the two of us are managing to cope with fine as long as I don't try to venture out. Getting b...

"It's all related," my friend across the table from me at the Christmas party said yesterday. Bob, like everyone at the party has had his own life greatly impacted by disability. Even though four of the seven of us, including Bob, had arrived in wheel chairs, he wasn't referring just to civil rights issues having to do with disability. To him, all civil rights issues are related. And those who suffer do not need to suffer aloof from the other groups. That's the beauty of the advocacy world. While we may not all see eye to eye, we understand oppression from the underside--for most advocates have experienced great losses, either personally or vicariously through a dear friend or family member. Empathy is the connecting piece. Along with courage. Bob was talking about gender issues, racial issues, and the lack of government funding for the most economically disadvantaged families in our society--each an issue requiring a thorough understanding of power dynami...

It's been over six decades now--December 17, 1956, to be exact--when my status as an only child ceased. Oh, happy day!  I doubt any 10-year-old in America was happier than I was that night, eight days before Christmas. The occasion at Will Rogers International Airport was topped off by a rather unusual event in Oklahoma City, at least for mid-December.  Not a blizzard, but a pleasantly snowy night greeted the little wharf who had come to America, who would likely have been dead within a few weeks if she'd been forced to remain in the orphanage back in Korea. She arrived, weighing fifteen pounds, within days of turning fifteen months old, unable to even turn over on her own, literally packed into an open cardboard box, with scores of other infants in similar states. A photo of her was captured, as she was somehow picked from the lineup for a op-ed in a small newspaper that arrived in our box weeks after her arrival!  It ready "Precious, Little Cargo." The infants...

Desperate, tongue-tied people in power end up saying the strangest things.  With the oddest gestures that speak louder than the babble. Repeating oneself, as if to convince "the children" one is addressing. Or, to put it another way, the adults that the powerful would like to pretend are children.....this repetition can be amusing to watch for those with a sense of humor. Having a healthy sense of humor is getting far more difficult these days, however, as reality dawns. Looking closely, the transparency that's so readily evident and becoming clearer all the time holds exactly the same dynamics of  insight into this word, collusion,  which very few even understood at all twenty-five years ago. Collusion operates freely in closed systems of "faith," that are actually systems of fear in many cases, systems filled with paranoia and narcissism that acts only out of immaturity and self-protection, when faced with the preponderance of evidence of serious sexua...

My husband Ron, up before me on November 29, was still glued to the TV minutes after Savannah Guthrie's shocking announcement , given with amazing poise and heartfelt sorrow. The allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Lauer, she'd received only moments before. Now, on stage for the whole world to witness her personal shock over the sudden loss of her colleague, this news she was forced to deliver rivaled the coverage of the  frightening news that North Korea had successfully launched its most ominous nuclear missile yet that could easily hit the United States. I grabbed a cup of coffee as Ron flipped over to Morning Joe in hopes of gaining further perspective.  In less than sixty seconds, the two of us sat in awe, discussing the way Willie Geist, unknowingly, had set a new standard, unlike anything we'd ever witnessed in three decades as the two of us have studied the systemic issues of complicity with sexual violence in all its forms and in multiple institu...

“They should be heard,”  These words, spoken by U. S. Ambassador Haley, appear to be a bold step, breaking ranks with others in the Trump Administration, who have continually denied and ignored the stories from more than a dozen women reporting  gross sexual misconduct prior to the election of President Trump.   So why would President Trump commend the ambassador?  Until this moment, if one journalist has picked up on the double-speak, I've missed it.  Perhaps 90% of Americans never heard the end of the sentence, but I can guarantee you our Twitter-in-Chief certainly did.  So did I. He's thrilled with what the ambassador said for exactly the same reason I'm sounding the alarm.   "They should be heard, and they should be dealt with ."  Anyone who has listened to even a tenth of the stories I have, involving re-victimizing messengers know the rest of Haley's sentence is an ominous sign. These are buzz words for the pathology of col...

Make no mistake about it.  The majority of journalists have it wrong. Roy Moore is NOT a pedophile. Nor are the allegations against him merely about sexual misconduct. Roy Moore is an ephebophile. That's a word I find harder to spell than to explain. Apparently, the same with Newsweek Magazine, where the spelling was recently inconsistent.  Spelling it with a "d" instead of a "b" is no big deal, though I do find it annoying that spell checks do not routinely recognize the word anymore than many educators. In this day and age, for average citizens not to know the difference between this term and pedophilia or sexual misconduct, however, is something I consider huge. For a full explanation, I encourage you to  check out Newsweek . While at least one of Moore's accusers was, at the age of her assault, only fourteen years old (one year under the strict definition of the term), an ephebophile is an abuser of minors who are still in their teens--a fact that ...

We needed some comic relief last week, after I'd traveled from Kansas on Monday to help celebrate my mother's 92nd birthday in Dallas.  By Tuesday, things had turned into a disaster of gloom. For only three hours of my arrival, she began getting sick with an ordinary sore throat, followed by a urinary tract infection, that always plays havoc with cognition and agitation level in Alzheimer's. So, I'd been forced to postpone all plans for celebration and feared I'd be cancelling the celebration entirely.  By Friday, we were back on course. The week ended up gloriously, with TWO parties--Mom's birthday plans carried out the day before I left her, and a large, lively Christmas party with "ordinary" folks outside her care facility the next day, hours before I left. Meantime, it wasn't just Mom's condition, but my own, that made our success at getting her to see her cardiologist on Wednesday into a small miracle. I'd come with a leg injury...

"That's all noise, Mom. Just ignore it," my son advised this past summer when I was in the midst of trying to sort out benefits for my mother, listening to one government official, then another--seldom with two of them agreeing about what was really about to happen. I tried to take his advice, and it worked. At least, helping me get a better night's sleep. As it turned out--the outcome, that is.....well it was better than I could have imagined. Despite all the naysayers, telling me I was spinning my wheels for something that was impossible for me to win on the part of my mother, I succeeded.  Got the money coming in each month to meet her needs while I am able to sit back and sigh with relief, only concentrating on making trips to the airport, as I am today, going down to see others who are providing TLC and some who will help me celebrate her 92nd birthday!  What joy!! My daughter, who is at the bottom of the totem poll economically, in many ways, as an under-val...