Two years ago, my son Ben was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. For days after the diagnosis, I anchored the KTLA Morning News and then retired to my office where I closed the door and wept. I was grieving the loss of the carefree life my son and every 12-year-old boy should enjoy. I was terrified about the life-threatening disease he now faced. I was mad. We were good parents who had done everything we could to make sure our child was healthy and thriving. We made him eat healthy foods. We made sure he exercised and was fit. We took him to the doctor for physicals and other regular check ups. When he was born healthy, the doctor told us he had 10 fingers and 10 toes and everything was where it was supposed to be. How could doctors now come to us and say that our precious son actually faced a life-threatening disease?

Thankfully, our son's type 1 diabetes was discovered during a routine physical and not during an emergency hospitalization. Some families have to rush their children to the hospital in an ambulance when blood sugar levels go so high that their children suffer seizures or fall unconscious. Like many of them, we had no experience with diabetes and didn't know anything about it. We would soon learn that our son's life and our family's life was about to change in a big way.

One day Ben was a healthy, athletic and happy 12-year-old boy. The next day he was learning how to check his blood sugars and how to inject himself with a syringe.  Two years later, Ben is an experienced young man who deals with the challenge of type 1 diabetes with aplomb. Several times a day, Ben has to prick his finger with a needle to make himself bleed. He does this to check his blood sugars. Before he eats or drinks anything, he has to estimate the number of carbohydrate grams in a meal or snack to determine how much insulin he has to either inject through a syringe or put in to his body through an insulin pump. If he does the math correctly and puts in the right amount of insulin, he simply continues about his day. If he gets it wrong and doesn't use enough insulin, his blood sugars can spike to dangerous levels--contributing to the long-term effects of diabetes which include kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, amputation, heart attack and stroke. If he uses too much insulin, he "goes low" and my son feels uncomfortable at best. I don't want to think about the worst case scenario but all of us who have children who are facing type 1 diabetes every day know that extremely low blood sugar levels can also cause seizures, unconsciousness, or even death.

I share these things with you because my job is to inform and my son has allowed me to share our story with hopes it might help you.  Researchers don't yet know why some people are stricken with type 1 diabetes. They believe there's a genetic component to it and that environmental triggers cause some people to get it. But we had no family history and to this day we don't know what triggered Ben's onset of the disease. And yet, our son has type 1 diabetes.

These are the kinds of stories being told this week in Washington DC at the Children's Congress--a project of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. A delegation of 150 young people, 4-17 years old, will be led by International Chairman Mary Tyler Moore as they meet with lawmakers to tell them their stories and to encourage them to continue funding research. Among the delegates are seven-year-old Jonathan Richard Platt and Michelle Smolarski, 17, who are representing the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the JDRF. Here are a couple of links to videos so you can see these wonderful kids:

http://cc.jdrf.org/delegates-2011/ca/jonathan-1.php

http://cc.jdrf.org/delegates-2011/ca/michelle.php

All of this is to say: It can happen to you too. Three million Americans are living with type 1 diabetes and 80 new patients are diagnosed every day. That's why it's important for everyone to recognize the symptoms of type 1 diabetes so that if it does, you won't find yourself in a hospital emergency room. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the warning signs that you or your child may have type 1 diabetes are extreme thirst, frequent urination, sudden vision changes, sugar in urine, fruity, sweet or wine-like breath odor, increased appetite, sudden weight loss, drowsiness and lethargy and heavy labored breathing.  If you or your child are experiencing any of these symptoms, you should call a doctor. If you want more information, you can go to JDRF's website at jdrf.org or jdrfla.org.

On Tuesday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Olympic gold medalist and swimmer Gary Hall Jr., NFL football player Kendall Simmons, recording artist Crystal Bowersox and others who have type 1 diabetes will participate in a Town Hall panel "Role Models with Type 1 Diabetes" at 10:30 a.m. EDT (7:30 a.m. our time). If you'd like to watch or participate, go to www.cc.jdrf.org/LIVE. You can also join the conversation at @JDRFAdvocacy on Twitter and add the hashtag #JDRFcc11.

I took the Buckley boys to Dodger Stadium last night and...had a good time. It's true. The British Mrs. Buckley still doesn't get the poetry of baseball so we took along my pal from my days as an intern at the Los Angeles Times, Jesse Katz, who absolutely does get the poetry of the game (if you want proof check out his book The Opposite Field) and we met up with another friend and die hard Dodgers fan Billy Ray and his son. Sure, we spent some time talking about the McCourts and payroll and all of the stuff that's making the headlines these days. But it turns out Dodgers baseball is bigger than all of that. Dodger Stadium is still standing and welcoming fans and families and is still a great night out in LA.

We watched a star in the making--23-year-old Dee Gordon (whose uniform looked a size too big on a kid who looks like he weighs 110 pounds) make three huge defensive plays right in front of us. We enjoyed a beautiful evening at Chavez Ravine. We felt safe thanks to the presence of the other boys in blue--the LAPD. And it was easy to get in and out of the parking lot because well, the place was only about a third full (the announced attendance of 31,372 was not even close to the number of folks actually in the stadium). 

Maybe it's time for you to get back to the stadium?

I know what some of you are saying--I'm not going to give another dime to Frank McCourt. I want him to fall short of payroll so he has to give up the team. I'm not taking my family to the stadium because it encourages a thug element and isn't safe. You're certainly entitled to your take on McCourt and I was with you on the security aspect of things in the wake of the Bryan Stow beating. But after taking in our first game of the season, I have to say it was great to be back at Dodger Stadium. The Dodger Dogs (and I took one for the team and had TWO--one all beef AND one Dodger Dog for "research purposes" for you, the home viewer) still taste mighty fine. The peanuts still go perfectly with that beer they serve. The folks who work at Dodger Stadium are still as friendly and inviting as they've always been. The fans we encountered were still happy to be enjoying a major league baseball game.

No, it's not perfect. Parking is still too expensive and so is the beer. I had to reach back in to my pocket when the $20 I pulled out for a couple of beers was a couple of bucks short. The Dodgers are down in the standings and they're plagued with injuries. The McCourt drama is still a huge distraction. But the kids are out of school. The Dodgers are doing their best on the field. And Dodger Stadium is still a place where memories are made. The smiles on our faces last night--especially the ones on my sons' faces--are ones I'll keep in my memories as they and I grow older.

Rep. Anthony Weiner's admission that yes, it was indeed his crotch in the photo and yes, he indeed tweeted that photo to a young woman despite his lies to the contrary is just the latest pathetic admission from an elected official about his secret sex life.

Last week, it was former U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate John Edwards who lied about having an affair with a woman and impregnating her while his wife was dying of cancer. The week before it was former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who had an affair with his housekeeper and impregnated her. Go back a bit further and we had former president Bill Clinton who had an affair with an intern. And then, it turned out his chief critic,  then House speaker Newt Gingrich, was having his own secret affairs. There was moral crusader and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who claimed to be a "George Fox" when he was "Client Number 9" when he was using the services and the prostitutes of the "Emperors Club VIP." 

And now we have Rep. Weiner--the guy with the unfortunate name who wasn't a very convincing liar when he couldn't confirm or deny that the photo of a guy's crotch was a photo of  his crotch. Ask a Hollywood writer if you could submit a script with a storyline as dumb as this one. You wouldn't get it past a development assistant. I can just see the note to the writer: "Would a powerful congressman really be that stupid? Of course not. Thank you but we'll take a pass on this one."

What's wrong with these guys?

Look, the truth is I'm not a prude and I'm not judgmental about people when it comes to matters of the heart. People--even elected officials--have a right to a private life. The problem though is when their weird private lives become public through scandal. That's when they begin to lie. And if they're such good liars about their private lives, one begins to wonder what else they're lying about.

Even worse, is the distraction that comes with the scandal. How many hours of cable news and how many inches of the nation's newspapers will now be spent talking about something as stupid and embarrassing as Anthony Weiner's crotch?  People wonder why nothing gets done in Washington and Sacramento? Sounds like there's actually alot of action going on behind closed doors. But we want action on unemployment, budgets, school funding, health care policy and a million other issues. We have so many problems in this country that need the attention of serious lawmakers who want to make a difference. Those folks still exist, right?