Inside Today's 6 News; The News Director's Blog

Why Every Bronco Fan Should be a Hawaii Warrior on New Year's Day

College football fans talk about Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl as if it is pretty much the same big bowl game BSU played last year.  A Cinderella non-BCS conference school playing against the big boys in which non-BCS conference Cinderellas are 2-and-0 so far.

It's not the same thing.  That's because as wrongly confident as so many were that Oklahoma would turn Boise State black-and-blue last year, there should be some real uneasiness about Hawaii's chances this year.  The Warriors are the unbeaten team in the BCS many skeptics aren't sure belong there.  If the skeptics are right ... and I'm not saying they are ... BSU has reason to worry too. That's because the BCS formula that has yielded Boise State University so much glory and money could be in jeopardy from bigger schools with much tougher schedules that are envious of what they see as an 'easy button' into a BCS Bowl Game for the BSU's and Hawaii's of the football world.

Just make a quick comparison of last year's BSU team and this year's Hawaii team, and it is easy to be skeptical.

• Last year's BSU team convincingly beat a tough PAC-10 Oregon State squad.  This year's Hawaii team needed a last minute comeback to defeat a lackluster PAC-10 Washington team.
• Last year's BSU team made the top 10 with an undefeated season in a year that had many strong one-loss teams.  Hawaii barely made the top 10 in a year when there will be a 2-loss team playing in the national BCS championship game and a 3-loss team in the Rose Bowl.
• Last year's BSU team had a well-rounded bank of talent including several seniors who would go on to be drafted into the NFL.  Hawaii has good players, but their success has come mainly on the shoulders of one player, QB and Heismann Trophy candidate Colt Brennan.

And then there is the strength of schedule issue.  Hawaii played one of the softest schedules in the nation this year, and only vaulted into the BCS after beating BSU, which also had one of the softest schedules in the nation (and then to make matters worse lost to East Carolina in the Hawaii Bowl).  No one can make a credible argument that Hawaill is in any way "battle-tested."  Their opponent on the other hand, Georgia, emerged as the second best team in a stacked, balanced and brutal Southeastern Conference.

So the Hawaii-Georgia Sugar Bowl looks to many like it has all the makings of a Bulldog blowout.  BSU fans had better hope the game isn't one, because while my crystal ball is as cloudy as anyone's, BSU could easily find themselves in the exact same position next year that Hawaii is in this year.

Boise State's 2008 schedule looks weak, weak, weak!  Likely the weakest for a major football program in the nation.  Their away game at Oregon will be against a depleted and rebuiding Ducks team.  BSU opens at home with ... ahem ... Idaho State.  They also get to square off early against Southern Miss and Bowling Green.  Not the kind of opponents that will impress those who dole out the real "bowling green."

Sure, the WAC may be improved next year.  Fresno State looks to be better.  Nevada could be a sleeper despite an embarrassing bowl game loss to end this year's season, and it remains to be seen if Hawaii can find a way to win next year without this year's amazing quarterback.

But for reasons that Boise State has little control over, their weak schedule will be a black mark for any BCS voter, whether it be human or computer.  It's entirely possible the Broncos could run the table and still be left out of the BCS Bowl party.  If Hawaii shows they can't play competitively in the big bad BCS Sugar Bowl sandbox on January 1st, that liklihood only grows.

That would be a shame.  If BSU can solve its offensive line and quarterback riddles, next year could produce one of the most fearsome teams they've ever put on the football field.  The 2008 Broncos will have so many quality running backs, it makes you think they could put Joe Hughes in at quarterback and still win.  Three words for you Coach Pete.  "Single wing formation!"  The receiver corps could be explosive as well, and from d-line to linebackers to corners and safeties, the defense looks to be stacked.

But the Broncos success is also their biggest hurdle.  No sane major college program wants to come play BSU on the blue turf of Bronco stadium.  Those school's head coach's jobs are tough enough without trying to end a BSU regular season home winning streak that's been so long, it feels like it dates back to the Clinton administration.  Oregon is so anxious to avoid coming to Boise for their scheduled game here in 2009, they've proposed playing it in China instead!

Right now, the Bowl Championship Series process is acceptable to the big conferences because it has produced good headlines and one unbelievable game.  But if teams from the major conferences start to get the feeling they are being pushed aside by far worse non-BCS teams with far easier non-BCS schedules, you had better believe things will change.  There is too much money and prestige at stake.

BSU could be 'scary good' next year, but if they manage to go undefeated, will they be respected enough to be in the running for a BCS Bowl Game?  The answer to that question begins January 1st with a game the Broncos can only helplessly watch and hope Cinderella's slipper kicks butt one more time.   

How Mike Huckabee Could Become Republican's "Biggest Loser"

I've never really bought into the saying "History repeats itself."  For example, there are anti-war activists who have said the War in Iraq is akin to Vietnam (it isn't).  Newsweek recently did a entire spread on how the 2008 Presidential Campaign reveals how we are all still living in 1968 (we aren't).  History really doesn't repeat itself, but there are times when history can 'resemble' itself.

And as I look at the Republican Presidential Campaign of 2008 and the rise of Mike Huckabee, I cannot help but see the resemblance to the disastrous Republican Presidential campaign of 1964 that led to a landslide loss by Barry Goldwater.  Huckabee is notable in the fact he has lost 120 pounds, but should he win the nomination, the stars are aligning for him to potentially be the "Biggest Loser" Republicans have ever put on the ticket, and I am not talking about his weight.

Full disclosure, I was a toddler when the 1964 campaign was waged.  My biggest issues in 1964 were eating solid food and the discomfort of diaper rash.  My mom tells me I was fascinated with red and green traffic lights, not Red and Blue states.  That said, I have a deep interest in American history, and the campaign on the Republican side keeps dropping hints to me of 1964. 

1964 was a year when the Republican Party was a mess.  The nation was still reeling from the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Democrats had huge momentum in Congress, and a left-wing southern liberal and former U.S. Senator turned Vice-President turned President named Lyndon Baines Johnson was to be the Democratic nominee.  It is telling that if the Democrats win the election of 2008 with either Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards, it will be the first time that a person who has served in the U.S. Senate will have won a Presidential election since LBJ in 1964.

The Republicans were badly divided in 1964 between two front-runner candidates in a crowded field, Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller.  Rockefeller was a New York moderate who had liberal leanings on social issues.  He was also problematic politically to some because of a recent divorce and quick marriage to another woman (The parallels here to Rudy Giuliani are hard to resist).

Goldwater on the other hand was a tried-and-true conservative who would tell fellow Republicans "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice."  Goldwater's nomination created a bitter rift at the Republican National Convention from which the party could not recover.  In fact, you could argue Goldwater's nomination came in part because many Republicans privately realized this was an election they could not win, and so they went with the candidate they believed in ... because as a Goldwater ad pointed out, "in your heart, you know he's right."  Goldwater meant "right" as in "correct," but many read it as "right wing."

As it turned out, Goldwater was all wrong.  He wanted to undo much of Roosevelt's "New Deal" reforms at a time when Americans were becoming more concerned about poverty.  Goldwater supported limited desegregation, but his opposition to the Civil Rights Act made him appear to have a tin ear to the growing racial strife and concerns about racial equality in America.  His extremism also left him open to fears that he would be more willing to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union at a time when Americans were building nuclear bomb shelters in their backyards.  Goldwater seemed to turn to rigid ideology at those very moments when a little pragmatism would have gone a long way.

Today's Republican Presidential contenders seem to be similarly on the wrong side of the big issues that concern Americans the most.  They don't like to talk about the economy because none of them seems to have a viable plan to improve it, and the topic invariably raises the issue of what to do about the Bush tax cuts.  That's despite polls that show the economy is the #1 issue for Americans.  #2 is Iraq, an issue upon which Republicans are also deeply divided and seem hesitant to overtly criticize President Bush.  The main issue in recent Republican debates has been immigration, an important issue to be sure but no where near the top of the list.

Meanwhile, Democrats are all over the economy and Iraq.  Clinton, Obama and Edwards all agree they'll roll back the Bush tax cuts which do favor the wealthy at a time when we are seeing the biggest income inequality in the U.S. since 1928 (And we all know what happened in 1929).  On Iraq, they all favor pulling out fast, a position that speaks to many Americans who have tired of the war even as evidence mounts the surge may be working.  Agree or disagree, these are the issues Americans want to hear about and will vote on, and Republicans aren't saying much of anything about them for fear of antagonizing "the base" that elected President Bush twice.

It's a much different Republican base from the base in 1964. Goldwater's nomination and election defeat turned out to be a disaster for "Goldwater conservatives."  Goldwater was annihilated by LBJ in a landslide, discrediting his conservative agenda and giving rise to more moderate forces in the Republican party that would lead to the nomination and election of Richard Nixon as President four years later.

Which brings us to the base that's helping Mike Huckabee, now the consensus choice for President of the Republican Party's religious right.  Huckabee has surged ahead in Iowa apparently for no other reason than he is a former Baptist minister who appeals to Iowa's evangelical Republicans much as Goldwater appealed to conservatives.  Huckabee is "one of them" in a party that is very fractured right now by a crowded Presidential field.  Surveys find that about 1-in-3 Republican voters in Iowa and about 1-in-4 Republicans nationwide are evangelicals.  It is true they were a solid voting block that George W. Bush could count on to help turn two close elections in his favor (even though Bush did lose the popular vote in 2000 to Al Gore).  Dissatisfaction with Bush, however, has clearly eroded the numbers and influence of religious conservatives.

In fact, the President's poor approval ratings have hurt Republican Party affiliation nationwide.  Some polls now find that people identifying themselves as 'Independents' outnumber those calling themselves 'Republicans,' with 'Democrats' far ahead of both.  Today's political landscape is different from 1964 in the fact that rather than fight conservatives from within the party, moderates have abandoned the Republican Party altogether and declared themselves 'Independents.'  Religious conservatives still have substantial sway over the Republican Party not because their numbers have grown but because their party has shrunk.  Some of Iowa's evangelicals have stated to the media their support of Huckabee is in part because they figure any Republican Presidential nominee is going to lose anyway, so why not lose with the man you agree with most on principle?  Shades of Goldwater and 1964.

But before the religious right rallies to nominate Huckabee, they should take a hard look at just how devastating losing a Presidential election in a landslide election can be to a political movement.  Goldwater conservatism was never the same after Goldwater lost to LBJ.  Many who shared Goldwater's conservative values can now best be described as 'Libertarians' and are perhaps best represented by Republican candidate Ron Paul.  The religious conservative movement that emerged during the Reagan years was not "Goldwater conservatism."  It was a movement Goldwater himself personally abhorred.

Liberalism suffered a similar blow after the landslide defeat of George McGovern to Richard Nixon.  No matter what you think of Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama, they are far less liberal than McGovern.  McGovern liberalism virtually disappeared as a political force after being so badly discredited in such a lopsided defeat.

And so it stands to reason that a landslide defeat of Huckabee against Clinton or Obama could discredit and virtually wipe out the political influence of the religious right for decades to come.

But maybe not.  After all, Huckabee is not Barry Goldwater.  Compromises Huckabee forged while Governor of Arkansas on issues like taxes and immigration show he can be pragmatic although he is certainly ideological on many issues.  Huckabee is also a genuinely nice guy who projects a warmth Goldwater never could.  There's enough 'anti-Hillary' sentiment out there too that if nominated, Huckabee could make a strong showing.

And Huckabee is still a long way from his party's nomination.  That landscape has changed dramatically from 1964 with so many big states moving their primaries up on the calendar.  These are the states where Giuliani is likely to do well.

Finally, there is the wild-card effect of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg entering the Presidential race as an Independent.

But Republicans should be cautious this election year, because the resemblances between 2008 and 1964 are pretty stark.  As the saying goes, "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it." ... or at least doomed to resemble it.

Can You Give One More Toy for a Child This Christmas?

Every once in a while, I get a letter or an e-mail from someone that really brings home the importance of a worthwhile project like 'Toys for Tots.'  Here is an excerpt of what a young woman from Boise wrote KIVI-TV asking where she could get help.

She writes, "I am not a "low income family" but I am struggling. I have three beautiful children and I work a full time job and do all that I can do but, during this season it seems that there is no way I can put a spare penny towards making their holiday what they deserve. I would not ask for much, just enough to make my children not losing faith in the season and the hope of what Santa can do. Anything would help! If you could please let me know what I need to do to get support during this hard year it would mean a million to me. They mean the world to me and I want to give them the world. Thank you so much!"

That couldn't have been an easy e-mail for her to write.  It takes a good deal courage to admit to a TV station no less that you are struggling to provide for your family.  The Marines who sponsor 'Toys for Tots' say its the kind of plea they are seeing more and more of this season.  In fact, toy donations are going out of their warehouse as fast as they come in with a demand no one expected.

Major Ron Storer says this year, they are seeing more middle class families who are struggling financially like never before.  They are typically employed but not making enough to make ends meet.  Toys for their kids for Christmas are a luxury they cannot find a way to afford, but also a necessity they cannot imagine a Christmas without.  So they turn to 'Toys for Tots,' many for the first time.

And the Marines can't keep up.  This year's 80,000 toy goal was set because of anticipated higher demand, and donations got off to a good start.  The Marines already had some toys in storage that were donated too late to be delivered by Christmas last year.  Corporate donations also kicked in early and the employees at Albertsons got together and made a very generous donation.  But since then, toy donations have slowed.  Many people who might normally give are clearly worried about the economy.  Higher gas prices, lower home values and concerns about an economic slowdown are naturally going to have some people being more careful and donating less.

So now the Marines need help from those who can help to fulfill their Christmas wish of every seeing every Treasure Valley child get toys on December 25th.  They realistically have little more than one more week to get it done.

And so I'm going to get a few more toys and drop them in the 'Toys for Tots' box at Albertsons when I go Christmas shopping this weekend.  I'll do it if for no other reason than I just don't want to think about the children of that young mother who wrote us ... children who are obviously so dearly loved ...  how they might have to go without on Christmas Day.  After all, I can afford to give a little more, and if you can spare a little extra this holiday season, I hope you'll join me.  One more toy can make a big difference!

Mitt Romney vs. Bill Sali on 'Faith in America'

On this Sunday, I'm thinking about Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recent speech on 'Faith in America.'

And Rep. Bill Sali keeps popping into my mind.  He does that a lot.  It's not what you think.

What hit me was the wide gap between Romney's take on 'Faith in America' and Sali's.

Romney's candidacy for President has been fraught with problems.  He's so compromised on some issues, I think he should just make a joke out of it and wear 'flip-flops' to debates.  And then there is his religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It is a real issue to some.  That's why I wonder why Romney didn't give his speech about faith and politics earlier.  Why not confront it head on sooner rather than later? 

Maybe Romney felt he just didn't have to discuss his faith until now.  After all, it is only recently that Mike Huckabee passed him in the Iowa polls despite being hideously outspent by Romney there.  Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and Governor from Arkansas, now seems to be the consensus candidate of the religious right in Iowa. 

Romney chose this moment because he can see how Huckabee's rise is tangible evidence that Romney's Mormonism is a dead weight on his candidacy in Iowa.  When it comes to Republican evangelicals, polls indicate he may be right.  The Mormon Church has its evangelical critics who do not believe its teachings are in line with those of mainstream Christianity.  Many of them just love peppering my e-mail inbox with detailed explanations of how Mitt's Romney's faith would force him to be beholden to the Mormon Church first, and the American people second.  It sounds a lot like what people were saying about JFK and the Catholic Church more than 40 years ago. 

So Romney makes his speech on faith and politics in America in an attempt to mitigate concerns about his religious beliefs and how they would manifest themselves were he to win the White House.  I confess I agreed with much of what he said, but Romney's views as stated in his speech also appeared to me to be the polar opposite of the views of Idaho Congressman Bill Sali, and I think that's indicative of Romney's difficulty courting evangelical voters.

For instance, Romney says, "A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith."  Well said, but I think Bill Sali would disagree.

Romney continues, "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions.  Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin."  A good description of the 'separation of church and state,' but if Romney is saying a President's faith should not enter into his decision making, I think Bill Sali would disagree.

Romney goes on to say, "I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God.  And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims."

Did he say Muslims?  Oh my!  What do you think about that one Bill?

A few months ago, I blogged critically of comments Sali made about a Muslim member of Congress.  Sali said that the founding fathers never envisioned that a Muslim might serve in Congress.  He also objects to non-Christian invocations on the floor of Congress.

Agree or disagree, this is what he truly believes, and he's hardly alone.  My own mother wrote me after that last blog saying that she agrees more with Sali on this point than she does with me (and I love my mom dearly in part for the fact that she is so willing to challenge her oldest son.  No wallflower is that mother of mine).  Sali may be to the right of many evangelicals on some issues, but he is clearly one of them, and these are the voters Romney needs to win over.

Romney also invoked John F. Kennedy in his speech, but there are problems with the analogy.  Kennedy was a member of a Democratic party that embraced a wide-array of faiths including his own.  Today's Republican party is more narrow in that regard and more heavily influenced by a powerful group of conservative evangelicals who are not Mormon.  Kennedy had also already earned his party's nomination by the time he gave his speech on religion in America, and so he framed it as a general appeal to all Americans.  Romney hasn't won a thing, and his target is a much more narrow group of Republican religious conservatives.

Romney made a political calculation early on that he could win over those religious conservatives.  His movement to the right on issues like abortion and gay rights may have been a true change of heart, but there is no doubt it also makes him more palatable to the Christian right.  Look at his speech though, and it is riddled with things the 'Bill Salis' of the world will not accept and do not agree with.  These people are just not going to vote for Mitt Romney, and far from reassuring them, his speech may have distanced himself from them even further.

I am not implying for a moment that Bill Sali in any way shares some of his fellow evangelical's concerns over Romney's Mormon faith.  Sali hasn't endorsed Romney because of political beliefs, not religious ones.  As Sali supporter Bryan Fischer points out, his and other Sali supporter's outspoken objections to Romney are because of his record as Governor of Massachusetts, which Fischer says is completely out of line with the values of conservative Republicans that they including Sali embody.  But there is also a philosophical divide when it come to applying faith to politics, and Romney's speech really does nothing to bridge that gap.

It was a very good speech, and if Romney is still in the race when the Idaho primary rolls around, I would seriously consider voting for him.   I'm just not sure when that it comes to talking about 'Faith in America,' Romney is preaching to the right choir.

A Win for Eagle's Mayor-elect, but Not a Mandate

There's an old Joni Mitchell song with the lyrics "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got til it's gone?  They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."  It was an obvious shot at the massive growth of California in the 1950's and 1960's that led to incredible urbal sprawl, fouled air, and all the other urban issues that have had so many flee from sunny California (and other major urban areas) for southwest Idaho.

Many of them have moved to the affluent suburb of Eagle, Idaho.

That's probably why it isn't hard to imagine many Eagle voters were whistling that tune as they drove to the polls Tuesday.  Eagle's growth issues pale by comparison with those of Southern California, but when you talk about a single housing development that will double the size of your city in one fell swoop, it is hard to imagine how that will not impact the quality of your life, and not necessarily for the better.  Many Eagle voters know what they've got, and they don't want to risk losing it.

The issues in the just held Eagle mayoral runoff election resonate with so many beyond Eagle because it is an issue that is impacting the entire Treasure Valley.  Growth, traffic, foothills development, air quality and our environment.  People are getting fed up enough to turn their complaints about them into votes against them.

That was certainly the case in Eagle.  By any objective analysis, Phil Bandy should have won this election over Saundra McDavid by a landslide.  Bandy is an experienced city councilman, McDavid a political newcomer.  Bandy has the support of businesses and political leaders in Eagle, McDavid does not.  Bandy was considered the logical successor to outgoing Eagle Mayor Nancy Merrill.  Many were absolutely stunned when McDavid won the most votes in the general election in November, even though she didn't quite get enough to prevent a runoff.

Now, Bandy has won the runoff election by a mere 150 votes, and will take the reigns of a city that is clearly deeply divided.  City council will be divided as well with the addition of two councilmen who ran and won on 'anti-growth' platforms.

The clear issue of demarkation between the two factions are two well publicized planned communities, Avimor and M3, especially M3.  Early on, M3 had the potential to dot Eagle's foothills with as many as 13,000 homes.  Public pressure has forced it to be scaled back.  M3's website now says the development will contain 7100 homes, still making it easily the valley's largest subdivision.

And yet this is happening without a lot of thought to the infrastructure needed to support a community that would essentially be a second Eagle.  For instance, there are no plans to build a major highway to it.  In fact, Eagle has had a dearth of progress in that area.  The Ada County Highway District has spent so little on Eagle, the city at one point threatened to pull out.  Once they drive out of the city, Eagle commuters choke State Street and Eagle Road with traffic.  Imagine what would happen with another 14000 cars or so.

Then there are the issues of air quality, open space, recreation, and public services like schools, sewers, water and police and fire protection.  If M3 goes through as proposed even now, Eagle will undergo dramatic change.  I think Bandy and others, including outgoing Mayor Nancy Merrill, may be underestimating just how dramatic that change may be.

Bandy makes the point that he feels public dissent isn't so much about growth as it is about education.  He thinks once Eagle residents who oppose him understand what is really happening, they'll support him, and he apparently has no plans to moderate his stance to push what he calls 'managed growth.' 

Perhaps ironically, it came during a week when we got a news release saying Eagle may get its first parking garage.  That's your cue Joni.

Straight Talk About the Stockdale Family

It's time we got all this back-chatter about the Stockdales out in the open.  The family that had a beautiful new home built for them by the Extreme Makeover, Home Edition crew and thousands of Treasure Valley volunteers has also been the target of some rather ugly gossip.  They've even received some of it directly.  Let's see if I can summarize these generally negative attitudes for you.

"The Stockdales didn't deserve the Extreme Makeover home because their woes are self-inflicted.  That's because the Stockdales are a Mormon couple who kept having kids even after it was apparent there was a serious genetic deformity in their children because of their LDS beliefs regarding having 5 children to achieve divine grace."  In other words, some believe the Stockdale's woes are self-inflicted through their own single-minded naivete and therefore are not worthy of our sympathy or our help.

Am I close?  Is that truly how some feel?  Do those resemble some of the whispers you perhaps have heard too?  After all, it certainly sounds like it is a view of the situation that could be correct.  How in the world does a family have four kids who are all so sick with a genetic disease?  Why wouldn't they stop having kids at the very first one?  It boggles the mind.

But as Michelle Edmonds points out in a recent story, the reality is quite different.  The Stockdale's kids were not obviously sick at birth, and by the time they had a definitive answer on what was really happening when the kids' illnesses became apparent, Karia had just had her fourth child.  Perhaps the most telling sign of the truth of this is the fact that despite being Mormon, the Stockdales have not and say they will not have a fifth child.  And it also needs to be noted that their LDS church family has been a tremendous source of strength for the Stockdales, including playing a critical role in getting Extreme Makeover Home Edition interested in the helping them in the first place.

The true story of this family is both heartbreaking and inspiring.  There is an inner strength in Karia and Ryan Stockdale that reveals itself in how they are doing everything they can for the four children they have now.  I have only met the family once, but their devotion to their kids is obvious from the very moment you meet them.  Take a glimpse into the Stockdale household, and there is no sign that this is a home filled with very sick children.  But as Michelle Edmonds showed us in one of her stories, there are agonizing private moments this family must constantly endure.  Seeing young Jetty screaming, clearly feeling incredible pain as he gets a shot in his stomach is gut-wrenching.  Then there is the specter of the unknown.  No one can know for sure if these children will even survive.  Just the fact the Extreme Makeover Home Edition crew designed the home so that a hospital gurney could be easily wheeled through it brings home just how close these kids are to a debilitating illness or hospitalization.  Something as simple as a common cold must strike incredible fear into the parent's hearts.  Yet Karia and Ryan wear these burdens seemingly effortlessly.  There is a sense of normalcy with the kids that is mind boggling once you consider the true reality. 

Now, the Stockdales are blessed with a little bit of comfort, but the burdens remain.  Their kids still require constant care.  The parents play a bizarre game of 'hide and seek' when it comes to the most basic human need for food so that their kids do not feel deprived.  Traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, Birthday Party cakes and picnics are all off-limits for them.  Can you even imagine raising kids that way?  How do parents cope with the temptations for food their kids must encounter every day?  Somehow, the Stockdales find a way.

Then there are the financial considerations.  $70 a day for formula to feed their kids!  The Stockdales still have a mortgage from the home that was demolished to make way for the new one.  Their property taxes are higher as are their heating and electric bills.  If anything, they now face more of a financial burden than they did before.  Despite it all, day after day, the Stockdales find a way.

The Stockdales were not some random choice by the crew of Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  They were nominated and chosen because they are an amazing family who deserve both sympathy and support.  I'm not saying they are heroes.  I'm not saying they are somehow extraordinarily courageous.  I am saying the Stockdales are 'salt-of-the-earth' people who are coping with amazing resiliency and strength against odds that would lead many of us to falter and despair.

There's an old axiom that mankind is at its best when things are at their worst.  What family personifies this better than the Stockdales?  These parents give their best to their very sick children every day, and for that, they are worthy of our admiration and praise and support ... as well as the efforts of so many to build them a really cool new home.