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I interviewed two former football players this week. One, a crowd favorite who suddenly left the game. Another, a UCLA player who didn't get to fulfill his NFL dreams and is now an actor. 

What happened to Isaac "Red-Zone" Redman? 


Donovan Carter: End of NFL Dream Leads to Stardom

I also wrote about what it is like to be a victim and how to support a victim. You can find those pieces at my Huffington Post blog. 

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Informative read on the use and misuse of HIPAA in the New York Times. Hipaa's Use as Code of Silence Often Misinterprets the Law.


There is a lot of news about PTSD in veterans, most of whom happen to be male. What about PTSD in women? What risks to they face? CNN reports that PTSD can increase heart attack and stroke risk in women.

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Why men might not go to therapy (Good Men Project).  Some thoughts on how therapy is often marketed (to women) and how to find a therapist. 

Football character & Steelers rookie Gerod Holliman: The Blame Game (Behind the Steel Curtain). Sometimes what scouting reports refer to as "football character" reminds me of what some teachers call "laziness." Both labels are often cop-outs and don't take into account other factors that could be at the root of substandard performance.

Ray McDonald arrested for domestic violence: Learning from tragedy (Behind the Steel Curtain). Domestic violence is not just an NFL problem, and incarceration is not the only solution.

The fun run: Kindergarten's greatest sporting event (Crooked Scoreboard) A fake (well, not entirely fake, but mostly fake) pep talk before the Kindergarten fun run. 

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A summer reading list from top business leaders (LA Times). I didn't read many books during the past few weeks, but I did read this article on what books CEOs recommend. One of them, Dead Wake by Erik Larson, I am in the middle of.

Mourning the loss of a dog can be a lonely endeavor (Boston Globe). Losing your best friend, as in your own personal man's best friend-- your dog, can be devastating. This article described the struggle of mourning the loss of a pet.

The secret sadness of pregnancy with depression (New York Times). Longform article about dealing with depression while pregnant.

Obesity is coming for your pets, a Washington Post article from 2014 discusses the impact of the obesity epidemic on our furry friends. Excerpt: "In the case of pets, we are killing them with 'kindness.'

Take off that Fitbit. Exercise alone won't make you lose weight, another Washington Post article that states the obvious: If weight loss is your goal, you need to take a look at your diet. Exercise has many benefits other than weight loss, and I personally love my Fitbit. Still an important reminder that working out will not help you downsize if you don't pay attention to what you eat. Excerpt: "A growing body of scientific evidence shows that exercise alone has almost no effect on weight loss."

Don't let cyberbullying ruin fitness. Sue Scheff writes in the Huffington Post that cyberbullying and fat-shaming can discourage people from working out. Excerpt: "Bullying individuals about their weight has become such a critical issue that British researcher Dr. Sarah Jackson believes mocking overweight individuals should be illegal." 

Preschoolers aren't getting enough exercise, study says. A Time article about children and physical activity. Exercise used to be called simply "play time." These days, though, kids are more sedentary, a trend that will have long-term, negative consequences for individuals and the public. Excerpt: "Getting plenty of exercise at a young age is essential for a child's development and for preventing obesity."

The Dinner Party facilitates pot luck dinners for people in their 20's and 30's who have suffered significant loss. Not a therapy group, the dinner party provides a source of community and support for people who are grieving and provides a safe place to express grief honestly. I love this idea, and think groups like this would be helpful for issues beyond loss (PTSD, pregnancy loss, terminal illness). Isolation is the enemy. 

Mom: The Designated Worrier A thoughtful NYT article about division of worry in a parenting relationship. (Most articles focus on division of labor, so this was an interesting take.) 

Excerpt: "One reason women like me get stuck with the micromanagement is that we don't see it coming, not at first." 

Split Image ESPN did a piece on suicide and the discrepancy between what people put on social media and their actual state of being. Suicide is a highly stigmatized topic, so ESPN did important work by delving into the issue.

Excerpt: "Young women growing up on Instagram are spending a significant chunk of each day absorbing others' filtered images while they walk through their own realities, unfiltered."


Orangette I don't follow many blogs, but this one has excellent writing and even more excellenter (is that a word?) recipes.

Character in the NFL has been a hot topic lately. I wrote about it recently for Crooked Scoreboard. Here’s an interesting Bleacher Report article about how the Chicago Bears handled the situation of a La’el Collins, a talented offensive lineman connected (though not suspected as of now) to the murder of a young woman and her child.  


Excerpt: “Also in play: the league's ability to be fair with a prospect; the machinery of a collective bargaining process that cannot account for everything; the problem of having to quickly evaluate a player as a human being in crisis. All of this had to be confronted while remembering there were actual victims: a woman and a child.”


Talk about persistence. Almost 20 years ago, John Krakauer  authored Into the Wild (link), book about the last months and death of Christopher McCandless in a remote area of Denali National Park. Krakauer has been attempting to figure out the cause of McCandless’ death for nearly two decades. Teaming up with a chemist, Krakauer may have finally found the answer. NPR reported on this recently. 

Excerpt: "What he did was not easy. He lived for 113 days off the land in a place where there's not a lot of game," says Krakauer. "And he did really well. If he hadn't been weakened by these seeds, I'm confident he would have survived."


Are  you passive aggressive? No? Check out this Washington Post article  to see if some of your passive aggressive behaviors are flying under your radar.   

Excerpt: “Passive-aggressive behavior has 100 percent deniability and zero percent accountability,” Gilbertson says. “You can always say you didn’t receive the invitation, you lost it, or it completely slipped your mind, while your true motive — to turn down the invitation — remains hidden.”

A story of hard work paying off and dreams coming true reported in the Wichita Eagle (and all over the Internet at this point) 

Silence is Violence on the Good Men Project blog.  "Words can be really cruel, but the can't hold a candle to silence. Silent treatment adds worse insult than injury to a person. It adds invisibility." So true. When there are angry words, there is still a connection, a hope for resolution and restoration of the relationship. Silence creates distance and completely discounts the existence of the other- and the relationship. 

This past week, I also discovered PTSD Jedi, a site curated by a survivor of the 2004 tsunami. Sam shares his raw and powerful experience with trauma. 

To keep him here: Suicide and mental illness in 'modern' America in the Harvard Review.  Author brings up important questions about the stigma associated with mental illness and PTSD, but what resonated with me the most was her discussion of the "Pick yourself up and brush yourself off" mentality so prevalent when it comes to mental illness.  Excerpt: "I pretended to be fine and cried alone at night." So many of us have been there, yet we're alone.

On a lighter- or maybe heavier- note, Food 52's article on fried toast will change the way I do breakfast.

Did you encounter anything interesting or helpful on the internet this week? If so, please share.