Triad Today

Much has been said about the importance of adult role models, and the positive impact they can have on children. But for those of us little buckaroos who grew up in the 1950s, there was no finer role model than Johnny Crawford, himself just a kid when he starred as Mark McCain on the hit TV series The Rifleman. On screen, Johnny seemed like a great guy, so we just assumed he was like that in real life. Turns out, we were right. Johnny could ride and rope with the best of them. He was a talented actor and an accomplished musician. He had a genuine smile, and a genuine interest in people. He had a great sense of humor, and an even greater sense of humility. He was the kind of guy you wanted to be like, whether you watched him as a kid or got to know him as an adult. I was lucky. I got to do both.

Johnny’s big break came in 1955 when Walt Disney tapped him to be one of the original Mouseketeers on the new Mickey Mouse Club television series. But when producers decided to pare down the large group, Johnny was an early casualty.

“They went from twenty-four Mouseketeers down to twelve,” he told me, “and I was let go after the first season. It was very disappointing, but having done The Mickey Mouse Club gave me confidence.”

In fact, young Crawford’s talents were in constant demand, and he stayed busy as a guest star in numerous TV series. That led to an audition for The Rifleman. In an interview with TV Guide, Rifleman star Chuck Connors said, “The producers and I interviewed 20 or 30 kids to play Mark. Then Johnny came in the room, and before we even talked to him I said, ‘That’s him. That’s the Rifleman’s son!’”.

During the run of The Rifleman, Crawford was nominated for an EMMY, and became a teen heart throb with hit songs like “Cindy’s Birthday”, which reached number 8 on the Billboard charts. But unlike so many child actors who struggle with the transition to adulthood, Johnny stayed out of trouble, and stayed active, first in film, then in the Army, and later as the leader of his own orchestra. In 1990 he reconnected with his high school sweetheart Charlotte Samco, and they married in 1995. In his later years, Johnny was a fan favorite at nostalgia conventions, while continuing to conduct his band and act. In 2019 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and he died on April 29, 2021 after battling COVID and a bout of pneumonia. Johnny Crawford was 75 years old.

I met Johnny in 2014 when he attended the Western Film Festival in Winston-Salem, and in the years since I would call him on his birthday and exchange holiday cards. Our last conversation was just prior to his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and we talked about his role in Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws, a western film in which he portrayed silent movie star William S. Hart. Later that year, I interviewed Johnny’s pal, Paul Petersen (a fellow Mouseketeer and co-star of The Donna Reed Show), who told me about the diagnosis, and his plans to start a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for Johnny’s medical care. I asked Paul when he first knew that Johnny was sick.

“My wife and I, Tony Dow, Johnny and others were at the Hollywood Museum to honor Annette (Funicello), and we noticed that something was amiss with Johnny. He seemed to be a little confused, but we covered for him because that’s what you do for your friends. Later, when Charlotte had to put him in a facility, we knew what it was, and how severe it was.”

In one of my earliest conversations with Johnny, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was a regular guy, just like those of us who had watched him on TV every week.

“Yeah, I was just like you and other kids at the time. I watched B westerns on Saturday mornings. I had all of the toy guns, and the Hopalong Cassidy stuff, and cap pistols. We all played cowboys and indians, and my bicycle was my horse.”

In one of our more serious conversations, I asked Johnny to comment on the amount of violence in The Rifleman.

“The father/son relationship WAS the show. It gave the show a dimension that other shows didn’t have, which was a family of two people trying to make it in the Old West when it was pretty lawless. But it was always understood that killing was a last resort, and the violence wasn’t to be used frivolously.”

My funniest memory of Johnny was when I was introducing him for a TV segment. During my opening remarks, I held up various memorabilia to the camera, including a Rifleman comic book, and a 1973 Playboy magazine, featuring a revealing photo of Johnny from a film in which he had appeared. “You’re my hero,” I said. “For which one?,” he replied. We both had a big laugh.

Speaking of heroes, there were plenty of TV cowboys who I enjoyed watching as a kid, but it was Johnny Crawford who I wanted to hang out with. Six decades later I finally got my chance, and he didn’t disappoint. A real role model never does.

Donations to Johnny Crawford’s Alzheimer’s Fund can still be made at JohnnyCrawfordLegacy.com.
 
 

We are a nation that has become obsessed with side effects. First, we wanted to know the side effects of COVID-19, then we wanted to know the side effects of COVID vaccines. Collaterally, we wanted to know the side effects of COVID on our economy, and on our ability to financially support ourselves and our families. And why not? By late last year, the pandemic had destroyed millions of families and jobs with lightning speed, so once Joe Biden took office, he moved quickly to build upon existing relief measures, while creating others that would ease our collective burden. The problem is that no one accurately predicted the side effects which would result from massive government assistance. Ironically, Biden’s efforts to restore our economy on the macro level could be backfiring on the micro level.

Federal, state, and local relief measures have included such things as: extended unemployment benefits, with $300 added on; a series of stimulus checks to individuals, with additional amounts per each child; extended deadlines for paying taxes to the IRS; deferment of student loan payments; a moratorium on foreclosures; a moratorium on evictions for not paying rent; and, in some cases, deferment of utility payments. In addition, Biden is proposing a $1.8 trillion dollar “American Families Act” which, among other things, will extend the original pandemic-related paid leave plan through September for employers who want to participate. It would give workers up to 12 weeks of guaranteed pay for parental, family, and personal illness leave, three days of bereavement leave, and would extend the child tax credit program. And while these and other measures have been a welcome sight to struggling families, the unintended side effect has been a false sense of security among many of those who lost their jobs due to pandemic-related closures, and are now in no hurry to return to work.

Take Johnstown, Pennsylvania, for instance. According to a story in the Tribune Democrat, a recent survey of 34 area companies showed that there were 580 job openings and very few takers. Debra Balog, director of Johnstown Regional Industries Workforce Development told the Trib, “Local companies across the board are hiring, but job-seekers are light. Stimulus checks and unemployment benefits with $300 extra during the pandemic, may have been disincentives to work.”

Then there’s Peachtree City, Georgia, where M.A. Industries has an abundance of job openings, but is having trouble finding people who want to work. Back in February, owner Bill Martin told NPR, “I keep hearing about all the unemployed people. I certainly can’t find any of those folks.”

And here in the Piedmont, the stories are similar. A local landscaping company with hundreds of clients, can’t find anyone to mow grass. A large North Carolina-based company recently hired 80 people, but within a week, 60 of them quit because they didn’t want to go through the required training. And at a recent, well publicized Triad job fair that normally attracts hundreds of job seekers, only 2 people showed up.

According to the Labor Department, America lost over 20 million jobs during the throes of the pandemic, and only a little more than half of those have been recovered. Yet, job openings are at a five-month high, and employers are struggling to find workers. And while it’s true that, early on, many folks were afraid to accept a job that might require them to work around other people, that fear is virtually moot, now that half of all adults have been vaccinated. It’s also true that many people who worked remotely prior to being laid off, are holding out for jobs that will allow them to continue to work from home. But as ZipRecruiter executive Julia Pollak told NPR, “The problem is that those are not the jobs available right now.”

Don’t get me wrong. I support most of the relief efforts put in place by the federal and state governments. After all, extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. But sometime soon, the bill for all of this assistance will come due. So will loan payments, rent, taxes, healthcare and utility bills. When that happens, those who have let a plethora of job openings pass them by, may suffer some unpleasant financial side effects.

Scarlett O’Hara, one of fiction’s greatest procrastinators, is noted for saying, “I’ll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.” Right now, the government is making it easy for some of us to sit at home and put off looking for a new job, but we might be better served to plan for tomorrow by looking for a job today.
 
 

I suppose it’s natural to blame someone else for our own mistakes and short-comings, or when something happens that we don’t like. We blame the teacher when we get a bad grade, and we blame the boss when we get fired. It’s always someone else’s fault but ours. We’re all guilty of this behavior, even politicians. In 2016 Hillary blamed Bernie Sanders and James Comey for her loss to Donald Trump, and in 2020, Trump blamed fake ballots and fake news for his loss to Joe Biden. But the worst kind of “blame game” is when a spouse blames a third party for the dissolution of a marriage.

Here’s how it goes: Jane and Joe have been married for 10 years, then Joe has an affair with Betty, and leaves Jane. Not only will Jane probably get a big divorce settlement from Joe, but she sues Betty for breaking up the marriage in the first place. The legal term for this archaic madness is “Alienation of Affection”, and, believe it or not, it is still legal in six states, including our beloved North Carolina. State Representative Pricey Harrison of Guilford wants to change that, and hopes that House bill 489 (which she co-sponsored) will do the trick.

Harrison recently told the Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver that more than 200 Alienation of Affection cases are filed each year in North Carolina, “some of which have resulted in multi-million dollar verdicts…and are often used to create problems for a defendant, such as attorney’s fees, or to intentionally inflict emotional distress, or as leverage in a divorce or custody proceeding.” Said Harrison, “I, like many, feel that these laws are outdated, based on 17th century English law that viewed a married woman as her husband’s chattel.”

The legal precedent may be four centuries old, but you only have to go back a few years to understand how bad it is. In 2010, a North Carolina wife was awarded $9 million dollars in a suit against her husband’s mistress. That same year, a wife prevailed in court against her best friend, who she said, seduced her husband. Not long after that, a Burke County wife was awarded $1 million dollars because she said her husband’s secretary dressed provocatively at work, resulting in an affair that destroyed her marriage. In 2012, the wife of former Winston-Salem DASH co-owner Flip Filipowski sued Flip’s alleged mistress for $20 million dollars. In a 2017 case involving a married Forsyth County physician and his mistress, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that Alienation of Affection was constitutional. And last year, former state senator Rick Gunn was sued by a Wake County husband, who claimed that Gunn was having an affair with his wife, which broke up a 20-year marriage.

One reason that Alienation of Affection suits are unfair is that the accusing party has a pretty easy burden of proof to meet. According to MyFamilyLaw.com, a spouse only has to prove three things: that love existed between the married spouses; that love between the married spouses was destroyed ; and, that a third party’s malicious conduct contributed to the loss of affection. The problem is that jury awards are often based on the aggrieved party’s feelings and testimony, rather than on hard facts.

Alienation of Affection laws essentially condone extortion, and accept the premise that a lover can steal someone’s spouse. In the 2017 case of the married physician, the Court justified its ruling, saying, “…a broken marriage can mean the loss of all the benefits that a healthy marriage brings to a society. The state has a legitimate interest in protecting the institution of marriage, ensuring that married couples honor their vows, and deterring conduct that would cause injury to one of the spouses.”

Newsflash: It’s not Big Brother’s job to maintain or sustain marital relationships. And here’s another shocking truth: No one can break up a marriage except one or more of the spouses themselves. House bill 489 bears this out, and I wish Ms. Harrison success in getting it passed.
 
 

I suppose it’s natural to blame someone else for our own mistakes and short-comings, or when something happens that we don’t like. We blame the teacher when we get a bad grade, and we blame the boss when we get fired. It’s always someone else’s fault but ours. We’re all guilty of this behavior, even politicians. In 2016 Hillary blamed Bernie Sanders and James Comey for her loss to Donald Trump, and in 2020, Trump blamed fake ballots and fake news for his loss to Joe Biden. But the worst kind of “blame game” is when a spouse blames a third party for the dissolution of a marriage.

Here’s how it goes: Jane and Joe have been married for 10 years, then Joe has an affair with Betty, and leaves Jane. Not only will Jane probably get a big divorce settlement from Joe, but she sues Betty for breaking up the marriage in the first place. The legal term for this archaic madness is “Alienation of Affection”, and, believe it or not, it is still legal in six states, including our beloved North Carolina. State Representative Pricey Harrison of Guilford wants to change that, and hopes that House bill 489 (which she co-sponsored) will do the trick.

Harrison recently told the Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver that more than 200 Alienation of Affection cases are filed each year in North Carolina, “some of which have resulted in multi-million dollar verdicts…and are often used to create problems for a defendant, such as attorney’s fees, or to intentionally inflict emotional distress, or as leverage in a divorce or custody proceeding.” Said Harrison, “I, like many, feel that these laws are outdated, based on 17th century English law that viewed a married woman as her husband’s chattel.”

The legal precedent may be four centuries old, but you only have to go back a few years to understand how bad it is. In 2010, a North Carolina wife was awarded $9 million dollars in a suit against her husband’s mistress. That same year, a wife prevailed in court against her best friend, who she said, seduced her husband. Not long after that, a Burke County wife was awarded $1 million dollars because she said her husband’s secretary dressed provocatively at work, resulting in an affair that destroyed her marriage. In 2012, the wife of former Winston-Salem DASH co-owner Flip Filipowski sued Flip’s alleged mistress for $20 million dollars. In a 2017 case involving a married Forsyth County physician and his mistress, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that Alienation of Affection was constitutional. And last year, former state senator Rick Gunn was sued by a Wake County husband, who claimed that Gunn was having an affair with his wife, which broke up a 20-year marriage.

One reason that Alienation of Affection suits are unfair is that the accusing party has a pretty easy burden of proof to meet. According to MyFamilyLaw.com, a spouse only has to prove three things: that love existed between the married spouses; that love between the married spouses was destroyed ; and, that a third party’s malicious conduct contributed to the loss of affection. The problem is that jury awards are often based on the aggrieved party’s feelings and testimony, rather than on hard facts.

Alienation of Affection laws essentially condone extortion, and accept the premise that a lover can steal someone’s spouse. In the 2017 case of the married physician, the Court justified its ruling, saying, “…a broken marriage can mean the loss of all the benefits that a healthy marriage brings to a society. The state has a legitimate interest in protecting the institution of marriage, ensuring that married couples honor their vows, and deterring conduct that would cause injury to one of the spouses.”

Newsflash: It’s not Big Brother’s job to maintain or sustain marital relationships. And here’s another shocking truth: No one can break up a marriage except one or more of the spouses themselves. House bill 489 bears this out, and I wish Ms. Harrison success in getting it passed.
 
 

I can tell you from personal experience that hospice care is a blessing, and the professionals who administer that care are angels. Traditional hospice care is available to anyone who is diagnosed with a terminal illness, and has six months or less to live. In that regard, end-of-life care typically seeks to keep the patient comfortable and pain-free after aggressive medical treatments have been suspended. Hospice care also helps to facilitate quality time that the patient can spend with loved ones. And while it’s true that a serious illness can lead to the need for hospice care, it’s also true that such
illnesses can be treated and managed for years before hospice care is indicated or appropriate. That’s why Mountain Valley Hospice & Palliative Care has just expanded its services and facilities to help patients who can benefit from longer term comfort care.

Mountain Valley has cared for over 20,000 hospice patients since opening its first office 37 years ago, and today their service area includes 18 counties in North Carolina and Virginia. Earlier this month, the agency opened an office in Winston-Salem dedicated to serving patients with a serious illness.

“Over the years we’ve witnessed a growing need to reach and serve a widening population of patients facing serious illnesses, such as heart disease, lung disease,dementia, and cancer,” said Mountain Valley President and CEO Tracey Dobson. “The opening of this office reflects the organization’s commitment to ensure that patients with serious illnesses have access to high quality palliative care services, which can extend the life of the patient by months or even years.”

“Serious illness services are for patients who have a very advanced illness that is upstream from hospice. They may be struggling with symptoms, or with making decisions about what they want to have done for their healthcare,” said Kristie Szarpa, senior director of practice management for Mountain Valley. “It’s a complex process and it can be a very long journey, sometimes over many years, and so to walk that journey alone is a heavy load to bear.”

Mountain Valley’s serious illness team includes doctors, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, chaplains, and social workers. And, unlike end-of-life hospice care, palliative services for patients with a serious illness allows for traditional medical treatments to continue.

“All of your specialists, all of your interventions you might have such as chemo therapy or surgery, all that stays in place, and we are a supplement. We are another layer of the medical team to bring support, and our focus is a bit less on the disease, and a bit more on the symptoms,”

Mountain Valley’s new office is located at 3069 Trenwest Drive in Winston-Salem, and anyone with a serious illness is invited to make an appointment to discuss a palliative care plan.

“As with our hospice services, you don’t need a physician referral to set up a consultation to talk about serious illness services. The patient or their family members can call us directly,” said Dobson.

Hospice and serious illness services are covered by most insurance, but, as a non-profit agency, Mountain Valley will not turn anyone away who is in need of care and cannot pay. For more information, call (888) 789-2922 or visit www.MtnValleyHospice.org.
 
 

A wise man once advised me never to complain about a problem unless I was prepared to offer a solution, and, where possible, I’ve always tried to adhere to that advice in my newspaper columns. For example, I’ve criticized long-serving politicians by advocating for term limits, and I’ve criticized the practice of jailing people for smoking dope, by advocating for legalization of drugs. I’ve also proposed various solutions for solving our nation’s problem with gun violence, but I’ve since come to realize that neither my solutions nor those of anyone else, are likely to work, so long as we live in such a politically divided nation. Here, in no particular order, are some of the initiatives that have been proposed to combat gun violence:

Ban the Sale of Assault-Style Rifles

We tried this back in 1994, but six years later the law was repealed as soon as Republican George W. Bush took office. In the intervening two decades, assault rifle sales have enjoyed unchecked growth. Biden and his majority might re-institute a ban, but unless such a provision is formed into a Constitutional Amendment, then it’s subject to another repeal whenever Republicans re-gain control of government. Also, we now know that assault-style pistols can be just as deadly, as we discovered recently after the Boulder massacre. Thus, any new legislation must be careful to use the word “weapon” rather than just “rifle”. Finally, even if we suddenly made it illegal to purchase all guns, it won’t solve our overall problem, because currently there are more guns in circulation than there are people, so anyone who wants to commit murder, can easily get his hands on a weapon.

Regulate the Sale of Ammo

This hasn’t worked with gun sales, so why would it work with ammo? Also, most gun owners already have a stockpile of ammunition, and those who don’t, can beg, borrow, steal, or import what they need.

Ban the Manufacture of Large Ammo Clips

This would be a good idea except for two things. First, these mega mags are already plentiful, and second, any sicko determined to kill innocent people, can do so with a semi automatic handgun and several standard-size clips.

Confiscate Guns

If police went door to door to confiscate all weapons, it would violate the Second Amendment and start an all-out civil war. This is the ultimate fear of Q-Anon nuts, but it’s also a concern for law-abiding citizens who would get swept up in escalated gun violence.

Arm Every Citizen

There is a long-standing theory among many conservatives that if everyone was packing a gun, then one or more of us would be able to stop a demented shooter before he can massacre a lot of people. There is, however, no data to show that ordinary citizens would know how to react quickly enough to prevent a massacre, nor that they wouldn’t end up shooting an innocent person in the process.

Institute a Buy-Back Campaign

No matter how many cities seek to buy back guns from residents, those campaigns only collect a tiny fraction of guns already in existence. Besides, the kind of men who shot up Atlanta and Boulder would have never participated in such an initiative.

Install Metal Detectors

I have long been a proponent of requiring metal detectors in all schools, shopping malls, and other large public venues, and installing sophisticated remote monitoring and door lock devices. I still believe this is logistically viable, but unless subsidized by government, these upgrades would be cost-prohibitive for most businesses, churches, and schools.

Require Extended Waiting Periods

There’s nothing wrong with enacting a mandatory 90 day waiting period for purchase of a gun. But while such a delay could prevent some spur-of-the-moment murders, it would only prolong a planned massacre. A longer waiting period would, however, allow for more extensive background checks.

Enact Mandatory Background Checks

Most localities have a system in place for checking the background of someone who wants to purchase a gun. The problem is that unless the purchaser has been in jail or hospitalized for mental illness, a background check is useless. Some Sheriffs have suggested that such checks should include a shared national data base that red flags anyone who has been visited by police or social workers on multiple occasions, but never arrested or committed.

Hire More School Counselors

The one thing on which everyone agrees is that mass shooters are mentally ill. The problem is that we never seem to know about their illness until AFTER a massacre. Having a social worker or psychologist in every school would give us a fighting chance to detect early-warning signs of deviant behavior and violent tendencies. It’s an investment we should make, but it’s not a quick fix.

The reason why these and other measures won’t succeed right now is because our political leaders are working at cross purposes. While Biden is considering taking executive action to ban certain weapons, state legislatures are making it easier to own and carry a gun. For example, fifteen states now allow concealed carry without a permit, and nine other states are about to follow suit. And twelve states are now debating a law that would prohibit local police from enforcing any new federal gun control laws. Meanwhile the body count keeps rising from mass shootings.

No one is safe anymore, and the conservative leaders who should be concerned about that, seem to fear their political base more than they do the shooters.
 
 

The late great Ernie Banks, a Hall of Fame baseball player, once said, “the measure of a man is in the lives he’s touched.” If that’s true, then Daniel Seaman must be one of the most successful men in Heaven. He was a devoted husband and loving father. He was a loyal friend and confidant. He was a musician, a craftsman, and an award-winning theatre director. And to thousands of high school drama students (dozens of who went on to become teachers), he was an innovative educator who they affectionately called “Sea.” Dan passed away last December. He was 69.

I first met Dan when he was a graduate assistant at UNCG in what was then called the Speech/Communications department. Under his tutelage, I learned the art of debate and honed my public speaking skills. More importantly, we formed a friendship that would last for nearly 50 years. By the time I graduated, Dan was already making a name for himself as a think-outside-the-box drama instructor at Dudley High School in Greensboro. He mentored and nurtured his students, most of who had never set foot on a stage, and then took them to state and regional competitions, where they excelled in ensemble theatre. Dan’s next challenge was to help shape the drama program at Weaver Academy and inspire a whole new generation of theatre actors, directors, and technicians. Over the course of his career, Dan’s students won the North Carolina Theatre Conference’s prestigious “Outstanding Achievement in Ensemble Theatre” award an unprecedented 16 times. It’s no surprise, then, that when Dan retired from teaching high school drama, the NCTC Board renamed its highest award in his honor.

Dan, of course, never really retired. In his “senior” years, he served as an adjunct professor at Greensboro College, an instructor at UNCG, and directed countless community theatre plays in Greensboro, High Point, and Kernersville. Along the way, he and his wife Marion (an accomplished costume designer) had raised two kids and were well known in craft circles for their beautiful stain glasswork. And there’s something else. Dan’s students loved him, and they loved to keep in touch with him. They also never forgot what he did for them and for so many other kids. That’s why earlier this year, some of his former students got together to establish an endowment for the Daniel Seaman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Ensemble Theatre. I recently spoke with Marion about the project.

JL: Tell me about the endowment.

MS: Every year, a secondary educator wins the NCTC top prize in the Ensemble category. But there was never a monetary award connected to the honor. So Dan’s friend Keith Martin, an advocate for NCTC, suggested that many of the students whose lives Dan had touched might want to create an endowment to be given to the winning troupe each year. The funds would allow them to move on to the next level and compete at the Southeastern Theatre Conference.

JL: How does the award and endowment reflect Dan’s career and legacy, and the commitment he had to his students?

MS: Dan was a lifelong educator. This wasn’t a second career or second choice for him. It was a passion. He felt that theatre provided a community for teenagers in which they could express themselves in a safe environment, have a chance to learn, and share new ideas.

His shows were most often ensemble productions, so he wanted his community of actors to win the Best Ensemble Award as an affirmation of their work and as a result of working together for a common goal.

Today, many of Dan’s former students are still working together, this time to raise enough money to match a recent challenge grant that would fund the endowment in perpetuity. Tax-deductible donations can be made at www.nctc.org/donate/ensemble.

JL: What would Dan think of having an endowment named for him?

MS: He would be overwhelmed at the outpouring of affection and fond memories that have accompanied the donations from so many of his students and their parents. Dan was doing what he loved with every show that he directed, and he would be touched to be on the receiving end of such “Love and Laughter.”

By the way, “Love and Laughter” is the phrase that Dan used every time he signed his name. They’re also the two things he gave to everyone who knew him.
 
 

Every family in America has been affected by COVID-19, some from loss of life, and others from loss of employment. But another casualty of the pandemic has been education. To put things in perspective, there are approximately 74 million children under age 18 living at home, and another 20 million enrolled in college. That means over the past year, about 90 million young people and their parents had to deal with stay-at-home-ordered distance learning. Many parents who were lucky enough to still have a job, had to either resign or take extended leave in order to stay home and supervise their offspring. Meanwhile, not every child could even receive online instruction. In Guilford County alone, it is estimated that, in 2020, over 2,000 children had no access to high speed internet service. Now, thanks to an increase in numbers of people having been vaccinated, local schools and colleges are starting to resume classroom instruction, but not without having already made some concessions to the pandemic, including lowering or removing GPA requirements, and instituting or extending the “Pass/Fail” grading system.

“Pass/Fail” is nothing new. Yale, for example, was using the system as far back as the early 1960’s. But last April, Yale became the fourth Ivy League school to adopt a mandatory “Pass/Fail” grading system, following the likes of Harvard, Columbia, and Dartmouth, and all because of the pandemic. College students across the country complained that distance learning hurt their grade point average, including kids at Penn, who told InsideHigherEd.com that “many of their classes do not properly translate to an online environment.”

Naturally “Pass/Fail” is more popular with kids than is a quantifiable grade, and why not? As TFDSupplies.com reports, students are under less stress with “Pass/Fail”. However, “Pass/Fail” also has its drawbacks. According to a study by Connect US, “Pass/Fail” promotes unhealthy learning habits. TFD adds that students are less competitive under “Pass/Fail”, and that the system offers no incentives for doing better. Perhaps none of this should matter to most of us who could care less if Johnny simply passes English, instead of getting an “A”. But what if Johnny held your life in his hands? Well hold onto your internal organs, because last month, the United States Medical Licensing Exam announced that their traditional method of grading was changing to “Pass/Fail”. Yikes!

Thanks to COVID, an increasing number of high schools have also adopted a “Pass/Fail” system. Last year when Governor Cooper closed public schools, the State Board of Education authorized a “Pass/Fail” grading system for approximately 100,000 high school seniors. It seemed like the only fair thing to do. But was it in the best interest of the students? Earlier this year, the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools also floated the idea of lowering the GPA requirement for student athletes, so that those who didn’t do well with online learning, could still participate in sports.

On a recent episode of my Triad Today television program, I asked the Roundtable panelists if making such concessions like “Pass/Fail”, and lowering GPA requirements, would help or hurt students in the long run. Taylore Woods, CEO of Ashtae Products, said that it would not only hurt the students, but the community as well. And Keith Grandberry, former CEO of the Urban League, and now founder of Helping Hands Consultants, said he was against lowering GPA requirements. They were not alone in their criticisms of pandemic-era grading.

Mark Lee, director of the MBA programs at Trinity Western University told Study International that making such concessions as “Pass/Fail” is like “…handing out a participation ribbon at a sports tournament, where there are no winners or losers. You end up with a bunch of students with a ‘good enough’ mentality, rather than striving towards excellence. Business doesn’t work that way.”

Neither should public schools and colleges, which are supposed to prepare students to think for themselves. We’ve seen what a lack of education and critical thinking has produced among violent right-wing conspiracy groups, and we certainly don’t need to add to their numbers by watering down the learning process for tomorrow’s adults.

The pandemic has presented our young people with unprecedented challenges, including everything from limited access to the internet, to fighting off depression and suicidal thoughts due to isolation. But those disparities aside, there’s no excuse for most students not to apply themselves to the best of their ability, even if politicians and educators continue to lower the grading bar around them. “Pass/Fail” was never meant to be a mandatory grading system across the board, and I hope that once we get back to “normal”, it will be stored away with face masks, hand sanitizers, and other reminders of COVID-19.
 
 

Every family in America has been affected by COVID-19, some from loss of life, and others from loss of employment. But another casualty of the pandemic has been education. To put things in perspective, there are approximately 74 million children under age 18 living at home, and another 20 million enrolled in college. That means over the past year, about 90 million young people and their parents had to deal with stay-at-home-ordered distance learning. Many parents who were lucky enough to still have a job, had to either resign or take extended leave in order to stay home and supervise their offspring. Meanwhile, not every child could even receive online instruction. In Guilford County alone, it is estimated that, in 2020, over 2,000 children had no access to high speed internet service. Now, thanks to an increase in numbers of people having been vaccinated, local schools and colleges are starting to resume classroom instruction, but not without having already made some concessions to the pandemic, including lowering or removing GPA requirements, and instituting or extending the “Pass/Fail” grading system.

“Pass/Fail” is nothing new. Yale, for example, was using the system as far back as the early 1960’s. But last April, Yale became the fourth Ivy League school to adopt a mandatory “Pass/Fail” grading system, following the likes of Harvard, Columbia, and Dartmouth, and all because of the pandemic. College students across the country complained that distance learning hurt their grade point average, including kids at Penn, who told InsideHigherEd.com that “many of their classes do not properly translate to an online environment.”

Naturally “Pass/Fail” is more popular with kids than is a quantifiable grade, and why not? As TFDSupplies.com reports, students are under less stress with “Pass/Fail”. However, “Pass/Fail” also has its drawbacks. According to a study by Connect US, “Pass/Fail” promotes unhealthy learning habits. TFD adds that students are less competitive under “Pass/Fail”, and that the system offers no incentives for doing better. Perhaps none of this should matter to most of us who could care less if Johnny simply passes English, instead of getting an “A”. But what if Johnny held your life in his hands? Well hold onto your internal organs, because last month, the United States Medical Licensing Exam announced that their traditional method of grading was changing to “Pass/Fail”. Yikes!

Thanks to COVID, an increasing number of high schools have also adopted a “Pass/Fail” system. Last year when Governor Cooper closed public schools, the State Board of Education authorized a “Pass/Fail” grading system for approximately 100,000 high school seniors. It seemed like the only fair thing to do. But was it in the best interest of the students? Earlier this year, the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools also floated the idea of lowering the GPA requirement for student athletes, so that those who didn’t do well with online learning, could still participate in sports.

On a recent episode of my Triad Today television program, I asked the Roundtable panelists if making such concessions like “Pass/Fail”, and lowering GPA requirements, would help or hurt students in the long run. Taylore Woods, CEO of Ashtae Products, said that it would not only hurt the students, but the community as well. And Keith Grandberry, former CEO of the Urban League, and now founder of Helping Hands Consultants, said he was against lowering GPA requirements. They were not alone in their criticisms of pandemic-era grading.

Mark Lee, director of the MBA programs at Trinity Western University told Study International that making such concessions as “Pass/Fail” is like “…handing out a participation ribbon at a sports tournament, where there are no winners or losers. You end up with a bunch of students with a ‘good enough’ mentality, rather than striving towards excellence. Business doesn’t work that way.”

Neither should public schools and colleges, which are supposed to prepare students to think for themselves. We’ve seen what a lack of education and critical thinking has produced among violent right-wing conspiracy groups, and we certainly don’t need to add to their numbers by watering down the learning process for tomorrow’s adults.

The pandemic has presented our young people with unprecedented challenges, including everything from limited access to the internet, to fighting off depression and suicidal thoughts due to isolation. But those disparities aside, there’s no excuse for most students not to apply themselves to the best of their ability, even if politicians and educators continue to lower the grading bar around them. “Pass/Fail” was never meant to be a mandatory grading system across the board, and I hope that once we get back to “normal”, it will be stored away with face masks, hand sanitizers, and other reminders of COVID-19.
 
 

US map showing the states with active governor recall efforts in red, and states that allow governor recalls in orange

The COVID-19 virus has taught us some painfully valuable lessons. For starters, it showed us how ill-prepared we were to deal with a pandemic, and it underscored disparities in our healthcare system. The pandemic has also given our elected officials an opportunity to either shine or shrivel under pressure. For example, it is widely accepted that Donald Trump lost last year’s election, in part, due to his inept handling of the virus. But while the White House fell short in identifying a national strategy to protect us, it was the state houses that people blamed for restricting our movements and closing our local economy. Even those who supported their governor’s attempts to stop the spread of COVID could be heard complaining about closures and lay-offs. Then there were those who took their complaints to extremes. In Michigan, a radical mob stormed the state capitol in protest of Governor Gretchen Whitmire’s handling of the pandemic, and a gang of conspirators even plotted to kidnap her. In California, New York, and other states, governors were called out for inconsistencies in determining which types of businesses would be closed. Now, after nearly a year of shutdowns, public complaints are turning into political action.

As of last week, no less than eight governors were the subjects of a recall campaign. They include: Kate Brown of Oregon; Doug Ducey of Arizona; Mike Dunleavy of Alaska; John Bell Edwards of Louisiana; Phil Murphy of New Jersey; Gavin Newsome of California; Jared Polis of Colorado; and Gretchen Whitmire of Michigan. If petitioners gather the required number of signatures, they can force a recall election, but doing so is a long shot. In fact, only four recall attempts have ever made it to the ballot, one of which was in California back in 2003. That’s when Democrat Gray Davis was recalled, and Republican movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor. One reason that recalls are rare is that only 20 states allow them. They are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Reasons for recalling a governor vary from state to state. In Alaska, a recall can proceed if the chief executive has, among other things, neglected his or her duties. In Georgia, misappropriating funds will do the trick. A Montana governor can be recalled for lack of mental fitness, while in Rhode Island, being indicted for a felony is sufficient grounds for removal. In Virginia, a conviction for a drug-related misdemeanor qualifies. Of course, in this COVID era that we inhabit, terms of a recall can be applied and interpreted in a number of ways. Again, though, that’s only in states where it’s legal even to attempt a recall. For example, an increasing number of New Yorkers want their Governor removed for allegedly causing the deaths of thousands of seniors living in nursing homes. However, in the Empire State, a recall is not allowed. Nor is it here in North Carolina where Democrat Roy Cooper has been accused of abusing his emergency powers during the pandemic. That brings me to the need for enacting reforms and redefining roles.

Former Lt. Governor Dan Forest took Cooper to court last year for failing to consult with the Council of State when making decisions to close schools and businesses. Cooper prevailed, but he shouldn’t have. No governor should have unlimited emergency powers. That’s why, at the very least, our General Assembly needs to redefine the terms of executive powers during an emergency. For example, a governor’s ability to act unilaterally during a pandemic should be limited to a finite term, such as 90 days (Cooper has been a virtual lone wolf since last April). Second, state lawmakers should hold a special election for voters to decide if we want the power to recall a governor. If these reforms succeed, we’ll have the pandemic to thank for teaching us that people deserve more power and governors deserve less.
 
 

For over 20 years now, Richard Burr has managed to enrich himself through unethical means, mislead the American people about a deadly virus, oppose letting Americans buy cheaper drugs from Canada, take money from industries he was supposed to regulate (then push for tax breaks for them), and vote against the creation of a job corps that would employ veterans. And after all that, the only rebuke he’s ever received was from the State Republican Party, who, earlier this month, censured Burr for voting to convict Donald Trump of behavior which Burr had enabled for four years. This would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

Burr is being hailed by Democrats and the media alike for “voting his conscience,” but if that’s the case, then it may be the only time the Senator has ever done so. Let’s begin with Burr’s vote against the passage of The Stock Act. In 2012, members of the United States Senate overwhelmingly decided to take action to make it illegal for a member of their body to profit financially from insider information derived from Senate briefings. Only two senators voted against The Stock Act, and Richard Burr was one of them. Burr’s vote should tell you something about his priorities and his proclivity for making money the easy way. According to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, when he entered Congress in 1994, Burr’s net worth was under $190,000. By 2018, opensecrets.org reports that his net worth rose to over $7.4 million. That’s an increase of 3,600% at a time when, according to Ballotpedia, the average American’s income rose by less than 1%.

Of course, that 7.4 million dollars could now be approaching $9 million after Burr’s controversial stock trades of 2020, and that brings me to the second example of the Senator’s so-called conscience. On January 24th of last year, Dr. Anthony Fauci briefed Burr and other senators about the seriousness of the spreading COVID-19 virus. According to Reuters, three days later, Burr as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, began receiving daily COVID updates. Then, coincidentally Burr began to liquidate his stocks, including all of those in the hotel and hospitality industry. On three separate days, January 31, February 4, and February 13, he made a total of 33 stock trades worth an estimated 1.7 million dollars. But what makes these suspicious transactions even more odious is that several days prior to the stock dump, Burr penned an op-ed for FOX News in which he assured the public that America was “better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats.” And you’d think that Burr knew what he was talking about. After all, he wrote the Federal Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act in 2006. But Burr knew what he’d written in the op-ed was at best misleading and, at worst, a lie. Still, he had to protect the value of his stocks before he could unload them. After doing so, Burr came clean when speaking to the Tar Heel Circle, a private group of high rollers. Having just profited from the 33 trades, Burr told the group that COVID-19 “is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything we have seen in recent history.”

When news of Burr’s stock trades was made public, Democrats and Republicans alike started calling for him to resign. Some said that if Burr had been straight with the American people right after his first briefing, he could have helped to save lives. Even FOX’s Tucker Carlson excoriated Burr, saying, “There is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time of crisis, and that appears to be what happened.” The FBI investigated Burr’s stock transactions to see if he had traded on insider information. However, Burr claimed he only used public information to make the trades, and the FBI bought his story.

The point is that Burr could have been censured long ago, not just for his stock trades or for taking money from industries he was supposed to be regulating, but the Republican Party chose to look the other way. Now, with plenty of money in the bank and nothing to lose, Burr is retiring from the Senate, so he took no risk in voting to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection. On the flip side, if Burr were running for re-election, you can bet your portfolio that he would have voted to acquit the former president. Thus, Burr didn’t cast a vote of conscience. He cast a vote of circumstance. That’s why I have two problems with the GOP censure. It was issued for the wrong reason, and it came 20 years too late.
 
 

During his storied career, Hal Holbrook portrayed, among other things, a president, a senator, a secretary of state, and a “Deep Throat” whistle-blower, all of whom spoke eloquently about life, politics, and the human condition.

But it was Hal himself who often articulated views that were befitting of the characters he played, such as this gem from a private conversation we had in 2013:

“What’s more important in a democracy, that somebody should become a billionaire at the expense of others, or that people who run things should make sure that the people of the United States have work, and can feed their families?”

It’s unfortunate that Hal never was a senator or a president in real life, but he left us with a body of work that entertained and inspired us, and we are better for having experienced it. Hal Holbrook passed away on January 23. He was 95.

Harold R. Holbrook may have lived a storybook life as an adult, but his childhood was almost Dickensian. Abandoned by his parents when he was only two years old, little Hal was shuffled off to live with his grandparents for a while, then sent away to military school. From there he made his way to Dennison College where he studied acting, and met his first wife, Ruby. The couple developed a two-person stage show in their senior year, prompting their drama teacher, Ed Wright, to help them make an important career connection. Hal recalled the story to me:

“Ed ran into this man from the Southern School Assemblies company who was looking for actors to perform educational plays. Ed told the guy that Ruby and I did scenes from Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Mark Twain.”

That led to a job touring a variety of venues.

Hal: The first time we performed a Twain number was in the suicide ward of the Chillicothe insane asylum, and the next time we did it was for the Kiwanis in Newark, Ohio.

Jim: What was the difference between the Kiwanis and the asylum patients?

Hal: Well, mainly we didn’t know which ones were nuts.”

After the tour was over, the Holbrooks only had $200 dollars in the bank and a baby on the way, so Hal went looking for work. That’s when an agent suggested that Holbrook start doing a one-man show of Twain. Hal took his solo act on the road and, buoyed by an album and a spot on Ed Sullivan’s show, he signed with CBS to televise a live performance of Mark Twain Tonight in 1967. He would continue to portray the famous humorist for another fifty years.

Along the way, Holbrook starred in such films as The Fog, The Firm, All the President’s Men, Star Chamber, and Midway, and in countless television shows, including The West Wing, Evening Shade, North & South (as Lincoln), and the ground-breaking 1972 TV movie, That Certain Summer, about two gay men. Hal also headlined a one-season run of The Senator, for NBC. His many awards included four Emmys and a Tony.    

I first met Hal through his third wife, actress Dixie Carter (Designing Women) who had participated in a panel I convened for the Television Academy in 2000. During that event, titled, “Women in Drama”, Dixie recounted stories of how she loved to read as a child. Naturally, then, I assumed that Hal had read all of Mark Twain’s books when he was growing up. I was wrong, as Hal explained.

“I didn’t know anything about Mark Twain at all. He was a total stranger to me. But I do remember reading “The Rover Boys” books. You could call them corny, but they must have implanted something in me that gave me the kind of drive and work ethic that I began to develop through my life because I had no family, and I had to develop stuff on my own. I think reading those books gave me a sense of purpose.”

Hal and I met up in 2013 when he performed Mark Twain Tonight at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro. Dixie had passed away three years earlier, and the tour was starting to tire him out. Hoping to lift his spirits, I showed up backstage with an early edition of his favorite “Rover Boys” adventure. His long-time friend and assistant Joyce Cohen would later tell me how touched Hal was to receive the book.  

I once asked Hal if he ever changed his Twain material from one performance to the next, and he said that he did. Just prior to visiting Greensboro, for example, he had played in Nashville, where he allowed Twain to ponder the “hypocrisy going on in religious circles.” But hands-down, my favorite piece from Mark Twain Tonight is about the time that the author arrived in San Francisco with a really bad cold. Said Hal as Twain, “A lady at the hotel advised me to drink a quart of whiskey every 24 hours, and another friend recommended exactly the same thing. That makes a half a gallon.”

Hal is survived by his children Victoria, David, and Eve, and by millions of fans around the globe who have enjoyed his stage and screen performances over the years. Rest in peace, Rover Boy.