Triad Today

Following the first round of debates between and among 20 Democratic candidates for president, Donald Trump proclaimed that the 2020 race was already over. It may be the first thing he has ever said that isn’t a lie. That’s because with the exception of a few comments by Washington Governor Jay Inslee, nearly every word uttered during last week’s bifurcated debates was far left, far out, or far off-base from what mainstream America cares about or supports.

What specifically spurred Trump’s tweet was when the Thursday night debate group all raised their hands to affirm that they would provide free healthcare to undocumented and illegal immigrants. The President wrote, “All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American citizens first? That’s the end of the race.”

In fact, the Democrats seemed to be at odds with their own philosophies.

For example, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and others support Medicare For All. But three years ago when Bernie first calculated how that care would be paid for, we weren’t taking in over 100,000 illegal immigrants every month. Now, by the time a Medicare For All advocate can be sworn into office, we’ll have an additional 2 million illegal immigrants to care for, in addition to the 12 million already here. That doesn’t just skew Bernie’s numbers, it screws Bernie’s numbers.

And what about Kamala Harris’ show-stopping line when her competitors were shouting over top of one another? Said Harris, “Hey guys, America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how they’re going to put food on their table.” She received a huge and well deserved ovation for that reality check. But no one asked her to square that remark with a vote that House Democrats took the day before, when they allocated 4.5 billion dollars to care for detained children who came here illegally. So much for Harris’ “food on the table” quip, because, as it turns out, there are 15.5 MILLION American children here legally who are living in poverty, and who don’t have enough food or proper medical care. Suddenly, Trump’s tweet, “How about taking care of American citizens first”, seems more relevant.

Meanwhile former Texas congressman and RFK-wannabe Beto O’Rourke said, if elected, he would enact a “War Tax” which would be imposed on all non-military families to help care for veterans who return from “future wars”. Future wars? That’s as wacky as Bernie pledging to allow convicted murderers and rapists to vote WHILE they are in prison. Or how about Marianne Williamson, a spiritual adviser to Oprah, who told the debate audience that she would beat Trump with love. Hey Madame Moonbeam, I think 20 other women are already in court about love-beating right now.

Then there was the contest between O’Rourke, Cory Booker, and Julian Castro to see which one could speak the most Spanish at the most inappropriate times.They did it to impress Hispanic and Latino folks at the Miami debate venue, but what about the mainstream majority they claim to covet? According to the American Community Survey, only 13% of American families speak any Spanish at home, so how is randomly breaking into a foreign language going to endear the Dems to the 87% who ONLY speak English?

The objective of Democrats should be to deny Donald Trump a second term, yet while the debaters on stage criticized the President, very few said anything to attract his voting base. Harris did take on Trump for bragging about low unemployment, saying, “He [Trump] points to low unemployment. Yeah because people are working two and three jobs. In our America, no one should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table.” That’s the kind of tough talk that we need from whoever hopes to stand alone on a debate stage with Donald Trump, and take him to task. It is, however, now painfully obvious that Joe Biden isn’t the person to do that. During the televised debate, he constantly slurred and stumbled over his words. He stopped in mid-sentence on two occasions and pretended he was out of time, rather than finish another incoherent thought. And he couldn’t even effectively apologize for or defend his own past positions while serving in the Senate, and as Obama’s VP.

In my February 19 column, I predicted that Kamala Harris has the best chance to break the glass ceiling in the Oval Office. After last week’s Democratic side show, I’m still convinced of that, so long as she doesn’t veer off too far into the left lane. Moreover, nominating Kamala may give us our only shot at getting Trump on the same public stage with a real prosecutor. Seeing her take Donald apart could change a lot of minds, and draw a big audience. Of course, a love-beating might do well in the ratings too.

Next week we celebrate our 243rd anniversary of independence from Great Britain. A few weeks earlier, we celebrated Memorial Day, where we honored men and women who had made the ultimate sacrifice. I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but over the years I have come to dread these and other holidays, and I can explain my disdain in one word: Fireworks.

Despite what we see in old movies, war is not glamorous. It is not glorious, and it is almost never necessary. And so there’s a morbid kind of irony about the fact that we honor those who died in war, by firing off a barrage of mortars and rockets designed to recreate the violent sounds of war.

In my neck of the woods, fireworks are shot off by neighbors in their back yards, and by so-called professionals who are hired by the city to punctuate community gatherings. During a previous Independence Day fete, the combination of private and municipal rocket fire caused the windows of our house to vibrate, and the constant barrage of scud-like missile activity also caused our rescue dogs to shake uncontrollably, and become so upset that they suffered with GI difficulties for two weeks. Meanwhile, the noise disrupted bed rest at area nursing homes and retirement complexes, and wildlife fled from their limited wooded habitats, and ran nervously into on-going traffic, where at least one deer met his doom. These are all too common scenarios across the country, and are of particular interest to Chapel Hill-based Noise Free America.

NFA acts as a clearinghouse for noise complaints, and as an advocate for a ban on fireworks altogether. In a 2014 email exchange with NFA Director Ted Rueter, I learned that noise wasn’t the only problem resulting from our annual Independence Day fireworks displays. Serious injuries and deaths also occurr. That year, those included three small children and an infant who died in a Philadelphia house fire, which had started when a firecracker was thrown onto a sofa on their front porch. And then there was the man from Michigan who lit some fireworks which then flew back into his chest, killing him. Ted also mentioned another man who blew his arm off while using fireworks. It’s no wonder that Rueter referred to the 4th of July as a “deadly and very disruptive holiday”.

Unfortunately, fireworks related tragedies are not a recent phenomena. In 2017, the National Fire Protection Association reported that over 18,000 fires were caused by fireworks. Those included 1,300 total structure fires, 300 vehicle fires, and 17,000 other fires. That year, fireworks caused over $43 million dollars in property damage, and at least eight people died. Not surprisingly, more fires are reported on the 4th of July than on any other day of the year, and fireworks account for half of those fires.

According to a 2016 report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, hospital emergency departments treated nearly 12,000 people for fireworks related injuries, including 26% who were children under the age of 15, and 40% who were under the age of 20.

And, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about, now there’s a new kind of danger involving fireworks. In 2017, Forbes reported a rise in people flying their drones in the airspace just above fireworks displays. When rockets collide with drones, the latter can cause the former to detonate off target, and can force hazardous debris down onto unsuspecting spectators.

In addition to producing noise and causing fires and injuries, fireworks are also increasingly causing environmental damage. As cited by a May, 2019 article in ThoughtCo., studies by the EPA show that chemical residue from fireworks is polluting lakes, ponds, and even contaminating ground water. That, in turn, negatively impacts on the health of humans and wildlife alike.

Because of noise, air, and water pollution, commercial as well as consumer fireworks displays should be banned, with the caveat that localities can issue special permits for venues that aren’t near a residential area, don’t border on a body of water, and where qualified technicians use non hazardous materials.

Let’s face it, nothing particularly patriotic or even appropriate about shooting off fireworks in celebration of Independence Day, Veterans Day, or Memorial Day. Surely we don’t need to be bombarded with the sounds of war when pausing to recognize our freedoms or the sacrifices of our veterans. A simple parade, display of American flags, a brass band, and some small sparklers are more than adequate to present a safer, quieter commemoration. I just can’t imagine that anyone who died in battle would feel good about the injury, death, and damage caused by fireworks on his behalf. That kind of senseless loss only serves to dishonor those we seek to honor.

Last month, Abigail Disney, granddaughter of The Walt Disney Company co-founder Roy Disney, appeared on Capitol Hill before the House Financial Services Committee, for a hearing on workers’ rights. Ms. Disney’s Congressional testimony followed her very public criticism of Disney CEO Bob Iger’s $65 million dollar per year salary, which is a whopping 1,424 times what he pays his average employee. And while Iger may be the new poster boy for CEO excess, he has plenty of company in the pay gap arena.

Thanks to a 2017 addition to the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, corporations must now disclose not just the salary of a CEO, but the ratio of his pay compared to that of a median employee salary, and the figures are staggering. On average, CEOs now make 361 times the salary of their employees. Of course, many top executives (including some here in the Triad) far exceed that national average pay gap between boss and worker. The Winston-Salem Journal’s Richard Craver recently reported on local CEO earnings and found that, for example, Hanesbrands CEO Gerald Evans makes 1,392 times the salary of his median employee, a ratio that rivals that of Disney’s Iger.

In its defense, the Disney Company told CNN’s Katie Lobosco that so long as employees can support themselves, then the level of executive pay should be irrelevant. But it is very relevant, and not just at Disney. That’s because families across America are still struggling to make ends meet.

“We have chased large swaths of Americans into a box canyon, and then blamed them for being trapped,” Abigail Disney told Congress, adding that Iger’s pay has a “corrosive effect on society.”

Of course, the pay disparity problem is nothing new, but it’s also never been this pronounced or perverted. In 2017, Fortune.com reported that CEO compensation had grown by 930% since 1978. However, during that same period, Executive Paywatch, Inc. says that average worker wages have been stagnant.

“This immense inequality is a crisis for our economy and our democracy, and we need legislative action at the local, state, and federal level to address it,” said Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison as cited in Craver’s article.

Ms. Disney believes she has a solution to the pay gap problem. In a recent op-ed piece for the Washington Post, Abigail said that top executives like Iger should redirect 50% of their annual bonus money to their employees.

“When he (Iger) got his bonus last year, I did the math, and I figured out that he could have given personally out of pocket, a 15% raise to everyone who worked at Disneyland, and still walked away with $10 million dollars.”

Of course, any suggestion that includes redistribution of wealth will be met with fierce opposition in both chambers of Congress, by members who believe that just about any course correction is tantamount to socialism.

“Yes, managers have a fiduciary obligation to their shareholders. But they also have a legal and moral responsibility to deliver returns to shareholders without trampling on the dignity and rights of their employees,” Ms. Disney told Congress.

In other words, capitalism and salary reforms can co-exist, and, for proof, we need only look to Switzerland, where, in 2013, 68% of voters there passed the “Popular Initiative Against Abusive Executive Compensation Act”, which bans golden parachutes either at the point of recruitment or severance. The result? According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, Switzerland has the highest average wealth per adult in the world. So why haven’t Americans done something to reduce the pay disparity ratio between us and our CEOs? Author Matt Taibbi offers a possible explanation, saying, “In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.” OK, then, so we just need to get organized, and vote our economic interests instead of our political preferences. The Swiss did it, and we can too.

Sometimes social justice is just a voting booth away, and sometimes we can be inspired by our neighbors who live thousands of miles away. It’s a small world after all.

 
 

The Justice Department recently announced that it was planning to investigate giant tech companies for antitrust violations, but what it should really investigate is how those companies violate the public trust, especially Facebook, who has repeatedly had dirty hands when it comes to a variety of ethics issues, ranging from privacy to politics.

On the privacy front, Facebook has been lax for many years. In 2014, for example, over 11,000 users joined a European class action suit against Facebook for failing to protect their private data. Given that litigation and other complaints, you’d think that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would have self-regulated his empire. But four years later he was still fighting the same battles. That’s when the FTC opened an investigation to determine Facebook’s possible role in facilitating the sharing and selling of private information belonging to 50 million users, to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Meanwhile, that same year, Fortune.com reports that several users sued Facebook for illegally collecting logs of private phone calls and text messages.

On the political front, Facebook was, at best, an unwitting party to the hacking of our 2016 presidential election. It should have been enough for Zuckerberg that the Trump campaign spent the bulk of its $90 million digital ad budget with Facebook, but, according to Yahoo News, the tech wizard also accepted over 3,000 ads from a Russian company. He also allowed countless anti-Hillary fake news stories to be posted by Russian operatives, which, according to WIRED.com, helped Trump raise $250 million dollars in online campaign contributions from people who believed the fake news was true. The posting of disinformation is one reason that Robert Mueller handed down 37 indictments to thirteen Russian nationals, and three Russian companies who directly or indirectly influenced the 2016 election.

Thus far, Zuckerberg has escaped prosecution for aiding, abetting, or otherwise tacitly assisting individuals, companies and campaigns who violated the personal privacy of millions of people, and hacked our last presidential election, so I suppose he thinks he is invincible. Otherwise, he would have acted quickly to delete a recent video post of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appearing to be drunk during a press conference. Video of Pelosi had been expertly edited to make the Speaker look like she was slurring her words, but a side-by-side comparison proved that the video had been doctored. YouTube immediately took down the fake video, but Facebook left it up where it soon went viral, thanks in part to Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani. When asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper why Facebook didn’t remove the video, Monika Bickerts, Facebook Vice President of Product Policy and Counterterrorism said, “We think it’s important for people to make an informed choice about what to believe.” She also argued that leaving the doctored video up for everyone to see would spur public discussion. I’m pretty sure her lame response would have been different if someone had posted a fake video of Zuckerberg acting drunk.

So there you have it, folks. Facebook thinks it’s too big to prosecute, and too powerful to be held accountable for its actions. Facebook is no longer a social media platform, it is a social disease. It’s a cancer that is spreading and engulfing our entire democratic political process, while violating our own individual rights to privacy. That’s why Congress needs to regulate social media the same way it regulates the broadcast media. And when those regulations are violated, offenders like Facebook should be shut down by the federal government, the same way the FCC can pull the license from an offending TV station.

It’s no wonder that so many people are opting out of the Facebook universe. Unfortunately, millions more remain active on Zuckerberg’s power platform, including those who believe everything they read. If only the rest of us could reach them and tell them to beware of “Face News”.

 
 

Forget Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. Tony Kornheiser is the hippest septuagenarian on planet Earth, and he’s even seen on Uranus (I’ll get to that joke in a moment). So how does this veteran sportswriter and co-host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption stay so young and hip?

TK: I work with young people every day. I walk into an office where I am surrounded by people who are 20, 30, 40, and almost 50 years younger than I, and often I overhear what they say, and they treat me nicely in a grandfatherly way, and they laugh at the stupid things I say. And then if I say, “Tell me about this”, they’re willing to tell me about it, and that keeps you a little bit clear of that silo mentality.

Later this month, “young” Mr. Kornheiser will be in Winston-Salem for the National Sports Media Association’s annual gathering, where he will be inducted into the NSMA Hall of Fame. I spoke with Tony by phone last week, and among the topics we discussed were his early influences, and the success of “PTI”.

JL: Who had an influence on the career path you chose?

TK: I grew up on Long Island, so I read Stan Isaacs in Newsday, I read Larry Merchant and others in The New York Post, I read Dick Young, and I read Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill. I used to say, “Why can’t I be Irish? Look at these guys! [laughs] They got the genes, they understand what it is.” In high school I used to cut out columns by Breslin and Hamill and tape them up on my wall. I thought, “My God, if I could do this, if I could just be mentioned in the same sentences with those people. They were my idols, and I wanted to be a sportswriter, and that’s ALL I wanted to be.

True to his dream, Tony wrote about sports wherever and whenever he could, pulling stints at both his high school and college newspapers. In the early 1970’s he landed jobs with Newsday and The New York Times, and in 1979 he was hired by The Washington Post. While writing for the Post, Tony launched his own radio show in D.C. which was syndicated by ESPN, and in 2001, the network paired Kornheiser with his longtime buddy Mike Wilbon on a new, daily television show called Pardon the Interruption (affectionately known as “PTI”).

JL: For me, “PTI” is appointment television because it brings me up to speed on the world of sports, but, more importantly, I just love the chemistry between you guys.

TK: Mike has said that “PTI” is sort of a daily digest of sports, and the brilliance of the show is if you keep it short, you keep your viewers. The reason Mike and I have great chemistry is we worked together for 20 years before we ever went on TV. Newspaper sports writing is what we wanted to do, but “PTI” is so good because we actually still like each other, and think that the other one has something to say.

And what they have to say ranges from serious to the absurd. My favorite part of the show is the open, when Wilbon mentions an item in the news, and Kornheiser tosses back a quip. Example:

Mike: Tony, Oprah says she once lived with John Tesh. Who’s the oddest person you ever dated?

Tony: This is awkward…John Tesh.

But Tony’s favorite running gag is to use the planet Uranus as a double entendre.

Mike: Tony, NASA just scrubbed its Pluto mission.

Tony: Really? When are they going to scrub “YourAnus”?

Sometimes, though, even the most accomplished wordsmiths get into hot water, like the time Tony was suspended by ESPN for joking about an on-air colleague’s wardrobe choice.

JL: It seems like every week or so, a sports guy gets suspended, fired, or is made to apologize for something he said in jest. Have network executives, and society in general, lost their sense of humor?

TK: I would say that the cultural wheel turns, and you either adapt to it or you die. One of the great casualties in the very current world is humor. Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I fall down a manhole. Humor is when YOU fall down a manhole.” Humor has always been based on attacks on somebody, and in the world we live, those attacks are seen as much worse than they had ever been seen before. Some of the casualties of humor are in the day-to-day workplace, but you can still hang around with your friends and say terrible things. You just don’t say them out loud.

JL: We began by talking about the young folks you work with, so are you concerned that, with cutbacks in newspapers, today’s aspiring writers may not be able to have the kind of experiences you did?

TK: People will always want to read good writing, it’s just a question of where that writing is going to appear. I have great fears for newspapers in the short term, but this stuff is probably cyclical. If there were no more newspapers, there’s still writing, but I think they’ll come back.

JL: What about YOUR future, and the future of “PTI”? Is there any reason why you can’t be doing the show when you’re 90?

TK: Only if I’m drooling. Mike and I get the sense that as we get older and more hideous, and more curmudgeonly and more cantankerous, that young people actually like us. They think, “Wow, this is like watching my grandparents argue.”

You can catch Tony the curmudgeon and other sports notables at the NSMA Awards Weekend, which runs from Saturday, June 22 through Monday, June 24. For tickets and more information, visit NationalSportsMedia.org

 
 

Earlier this month during a CNN town hall, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris broke bad on companies who pay their female employees less than males doing the same job. If elected president, Harris would enact a mandatory federal “Equal Pay Certification” program, under which companies who don’t comply, would pay hefty fines. Said Harris, “Under our plan, for the first time in American history, companies will be held responsible for demonstrating they are not engaging in pay discrimination.”

By requiring companies to participate in the certification program, Harris’ plan represents a paradigm shift in the battle to end pay disparity. “What I am proposing is we shift the burden. It should not be on the working women to prove it. It should instead be on that large corporation to prove they’re paying people for equal work equally.”

Harris, a former prosecutor and California Attorney General, could be on to something. That’s because as an expert in enforcement, her plan purports to actually have teeth. Other federal reforms have netted disappointing results.

Take for instance the Equal Pay Act, which was signed into law by President Kennedy in 1963, a year when women made 59 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The problem is that, at first, the Act only applied to women in blue-collar jobs. Moreover, a woman with a grievance about pay had to file a sex discrimination claim, and then provide proof that she was being paid less money than a man in her plant who was doing the exact same work. And keep in mind that a woman who filed a grievance almost always had her case reviewed by a male supervisor. Talk about a stacked deck.

In 1972, the Equal Pay Act was finally amended to include women in white-collar jobs, but even then, progress was slow, and the pay disparity gap wasn’t closing fast enough. In 2009, President Obama introduced the Fair Pay Act, but it too failed to move the needle significantly. One reason? The FPA lacked any real punitive action against violators. Another obstacle is that most corporations were (and still are) run by male executives who don’t tend to see reduction of the pay gap as a top priority. According to a 2015 report by ThinkProgress.org, there are only 48 female CEOs heading up the top one thousand companies. That means in a society where women outnumber men, only 4.8% of the top jobs in America are held by women. Again, I’m not saying that male executives don’t care about pay disparity, but figures don’t lie. For example, in 2018, the American Association of University Women conducted a study of pay disparity in every state, and the news wasn’t good for working women. Nationally, white women make about 80 cents for every dollar a man earns doing the same job, but that number falls to 61 cents for black women, and 53 cents for Latina women. Here in North Carolina, women fare a little better than the national averages, or about 84 cents for every dollar a man makes, but that’s only up by a penny from four years ago. Even worse, the pay gap isn’t expected to close until the year 2060.

If the latest poll numbers hold, Senator Harris isn’t likely to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020, but that doesn’t mean her proposal won’t gain traction in the next session of Congress. Let’s hope that the Equal Pay Certification plan will survive her candidacy, and that women won’t have to wait forty more years for something they should have had in the first place.
 
 

Politicians love to declare “war” on social problems. We’ve had a war on AIDS, a war on hunger, and now, a war on opioids. Declaring such wars gives us a definable enemy to fight and the means to eradicate it, which begs the question: why haven’t we declared war on school shootings? Oh sure, some schools now run emergency drills so that students can learn how to hide in the closet if a bad person enters the classroom, but those measures are about as effective in preventing school massacres as when my teachers told us back in 1962, that if we put our head between our legs, we’d be safe from a nuclear blast.

Last week, just days after the 20^th anniversary of the Columbine high school massacre, 18-year-old Devon Erickson and 16-year-old Maya McKinney waltzed into the STEM School at Highlands Ranch near Columbine, and opened fire, killing one student and wounding eight others. It was the 35^th school shooting of this academic year, and just one more in a long line of school massacres, including at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 and Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018.

In the days following every school shooting, elected officials on the left say we need to ban all guns, while those on the right say we need to arm teachers, and offer more mental health counseling. Amazingly, both sides tend to agree that we need a School Resource Officer (or SRO) in every school, but thus far, that hasn’t happened, and even if it did, those officers would not be able to stop murderous intruders from entering the school. So what’s the solution? We must augment SROs with preventive security measures.

For years now, I’ve used this column and my Triad Today television program to advocate for limited ingress and egress, as well as the installation of electronically locking doors and metal detectors in every school building. Under my plan, all students would enter through one main set of electronically controlled doors, and be scanned for weapons while the armed SRO observes. After that, students and visitors would have to be buzzed in or out by the SRO, or by designated office staff who can view the entrance way on TV monitors. If there is more than one building on campus, then the same safety precautions and devices would be duplicated in each building.

Whenever I float this strategy, educators, law enforcement, and elected officials say, “It’s too expensive, the scanning delays would lengthen the school day, and keeping doors locked would violate local fire ordinances. Here’s my response: Will building security be expensive? Yes, but America is the richest nation on earth, and our government always seems to find money for everything except making our schools safer. Congress can mandate that every school be retrofitted with secure doors and detectors, and, that federal dollars be allocated to the Department of Homeland Security who, in turn, would subsidize the aforementioned upgrades in every locality. Would routine metal detection for every student entering the building cause delays that might lengthen the school day? Yes, but so what? Would locked doors put students at risk in the event of fire? No. The doors can be designed to open automatically with an emergency override function activated by the SRO or office monitor.

I don’t mean to oversimplify this, but I’ve visited a number of industrial plants where thousands of employees can only enter and exit through one main gate, and I’ve been buzzed in to countless office buildings over the years. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and there’s a way for this to work. I also realize that what I’m calling for will make our schools feel like prisons, and it pains me to have to make these suggestions. But before you email me to say how crazy I am, first go interview any one of the hundreds of parents who have lost their children to school massacres, and ask them if they would have minded locked doors, metal detectors, SROs, and longer school days.

In the late 1960’s when highway deaths were piling up, our government mandated the use of seat belts. Today, the government also mandates sprinkler systems for large commercial buildings, requires a blood test before a marriage license can be issued, and won’t let you drill a well or install a septic system until your land has been inspected. The fact is, government is there to protect its citizens, and the time has come for that protection to extend to children while they are in school. We’ve gotten really good at locking down schools AFTER a shooting has occurred, so let’s try something radical. Let’s get really good at locking down schools BEFORE a shooting occurs.
 
 

Since this week’s issue of Yes! Weekly is the annual Triad’s Best issue, Charles Womack, the publisher, asked me to add my two cents worth to the festivities. Here, in no particular order, are some of my picks for Triad’s Best, according to categories that often go overlooked:

Best Distillery: Old Nick Williams, where cousins Zeb and Matt Williams make Carolina Bourbon Whisley at the same farm in Lewisville as did their ancestor Joseph Williams back in 1768. The distillery was forced to shut down during Prohibition, but the Williams boys revived the operation several years ago. They have also preserved some interesting historic artifacts which are on display in the gift shop.

Best Garden: Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden, located in historic downtown Kernersville, actually has 7 different gardens, including a tulip garden and a kitchen garden. Staff horticulturists conduct tours and offer planting tips year round. The garden has also become a popular site for weddings and receptions.

Best Sports Complex: Proehlific Park in Greensboro offers a wide variety of indoor athletic facilities in its 86,000 square foot complex, plus a number of outdoor sports in its 22-acre park. But it is also headquarters to Ricky and Kelly Proehl’s P.O.W.E.R. of Play Foundation which offers young people a structured environment for growing their minds and bodies. The Foundation will also soon start constructing the area’s first all-inclusive playground for kids of all ability levels.

Best Bakery: Winkler Bakery, the oldest continually operating bakery in America, has been baking cookies, bread and sugar cakes in Old Salem since George Washington’s day, and in the same oven. I dare you to try to make it home with a hot loaf of bread without sneaking a taste on the way. Bakery staff is dressed in authentic colonial garb, or at least I think that’s who I gave my credit card to.

Best Stretch of I-40: NONE. If you have to commute between Winston-Salem and Greensboro, it’s probably best if you charter an airplane. Speaking of which…

Best Directional Signage on the Way to PTI: NONE. It’s so confusing that I once ended up in Galax, which, by the way, doesn’t offer flights to Tampa.

Best Live Performance Theatre: High Point Theatre gets high marks for offering up a diverse selection of concerts and events, season after season. One week there’s a military band, the next, a country music singer or hip hop group. You might see TV and movie stars one night, and a local talent competition the next. Kudos to my friend Dave Briggs for booking something for everyone.

Best Movie Theatre: Although the Carolina Theatre in downtown Greensboro offers live concerts and lectures, it’s also the best place to see classic films come alive on a big screen for the first time in generations. Historic films like Frankenstein deserve to be shown in an historic theatre. It’s better than blu-ray.

Best Community Haunt: Woods of Terror is widely recognized as one of America’s best haunts, but owner Eddie McLaurin also offers seasonal events, like Easter egg hunts and a breath-taking Christmas light show. And, during the Halloween season, Eddie regularly offers up free thrills to special needs kids, while providing employment for hundreds of actors. All that from a guy with a giant boa constrictor wrapped around his neck.

Best Science Fair: This category goes to UNCG for its annual “Science Everywhere” event, where students and faculty get kids and parents excited about science. The event features campus-wide displays, demonstrations, and family activities.

Best Public Relations Agency: Pam Cook Communications. Why? Because Pam uses her TV news background to help non-profit organizations advance their mission of service to others. Also, because she’s my wife, and I had to mention her because I don’t feel safe at home.

One last thing. For the past 10 years I’ve tried to get our communist publisher to create a category for “Best Locally Produced Public Affairs Television Program”, but he refuses because he says that Triad Today would be the only entry, since it’s the only locally produced public affairs television program in the Triad. I think that’s a lame excuse, so I’m going to move to Galax and write for their paper.
 
 

At a recent meeting of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School Board, a number of concerned parents rose to speak in favor of making African American history a mandatory course of study. Said Destiny Blackwell, “If we’re not teaching Black history, we are complicitly allowing it to disappear.” I agree with Ms. Blackwell’s assessment, however, the problem isn’t that Americans don’t know much about Black history – the problem is that we don’t know much about ANY history.

In February of this year, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (WWNFF) released the disturbing results of a new survey in which only 27% of folks under the age of 45 demonstrated a basic knowledge of American history. Of the 41,000 adults surveyed, only 15% knew what year our Constitution was written, and only 25% knew that free speech was protected by that great document. Said WWNFF President Arthur Levine, “Americans don’t possess the history knowledge they need to be informed and engaged citizens.” His conclusion comes as no surprise to those of us who have been tracking the problem for years.

In 2015, for example, Smithsonian.com’s Saba Naseem reported on a survey by Texas Tech University in which students were asked a series of basic history questions. Many respondents thought the South had won the Civil War, and hardly anyone knew who our vice president was. Naseem also re-hashed a 2014 study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which found that a mere 18% of 8^th graders “were proficient in US history.” Then there was the 2008 survey by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute which reported that only half of American adults could name the three branches of government. And if you really want to get depressed, then take a few moments to watch a video by PragerU.com, in which millennials were interviewed about their knowledge of American history. Asked who our 16^th president was, hardly any of the respondents knew it was Abraham Lincoln. This is particularly disturbing because they were interviewed in front of the Lincoln Memorial which they had just visited.

As a graduate of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County school system, I am saddened that today’s parents are even having to lobby for an expanded history curriculum. Granted we’re talking 60 years ago, but by the time I was in third grade, I could name the three branches of government and knew that honest Abe was our 16^th president. I knew about the educational and agricultural contributions of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, respectively. And though I couldn’t recite the purpose behind all of its amendments, I knew that the Constitution allowed me the freedom to speak my mind.

Last week, a group of parents spoke their minds, and I hope that their words will resonate well beyond Forsyth County. No, I don’t think we need a mandatory course on Black history, or White history, or Asian history. Those are classes that can be offered on the post-secondary level. What we need, though, is a more comprehensive and inclusive American history curriculum beginning in the primary grades, and continuing on into high school. We simply can’t afford to turn out another generation of uninformed citizens.
 
 

Last week Pat McCrory pulled up to an intersection in Charlotte, and politely stopped his car to let a man cross the street. The man looked at McCrory and started shouting that he recognized the former governor. The shouting then turned to cursing. Oh yes, and the man, who McCrory described as about 6’2” and built like a pro wrestler, was also carrying a tree limb with which he used to pound on the top of McCrory’s sedan. According to a police report, the man did about $600 worth of damage to McCrory’s car. Fortunately, Pat and his wife Ann (who was in the passenger seat) were not injured.

In a sense, the crosswalk attack was like a tangible metaphor for what McCrory’s life has been like these past three years. Take, for instance, what happened in Washington back in January of 2017. Pat and FOX Business anchor Lou Dobbs were strolling along a sidewalk in front of the Capitol Hilton, when an angry mob gathered and chased Pat into an alley. Within moments, Dobbs, his entourage, and D.C. police were able to rescue McCrory, but not before the former governor had been bombarded with shouts of, “Shame on you, you anti-gay bigot! You’re a bigot and an asshole!”

It’s a sad fact, but Pat McCrory seems to have a bullseye painted on his chest which attracts all sorts of slings, arrows, and outrageous tree limbs. However, as I’ve pointed out in past columns, the attacks on McCrory are misdirected and unjustified. To this day, most people only remember Pat for what they think was his role in passing the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, AKA HB2, AKA the “Bathroom bill”, AKA the “You can only use bathrooms that correspond to your biological sex” bill. Not only are provisions of the bill often misunderstood, but so is Pat’s role in signing it. Many folks believe McCrory planned, wrote, and lobbied for HB2, a law which large corporations, big name entertainers, and cowardly sports leagues, used as an excuse for not doing business in North Carolina. Truth is, Pat tried to stop the Republican-controlled General Assembly from passing HB2. In the end he was forced to sign a bill that he neither sought nor supported, in order to adhere to provisions in the state constitution which prevent local governments from assuming powers not given to them by the legislature. In a nutshell, here’s what happened.

In 2016, then-Attorney General Roy Cooper was running to unseat McCrory, who had been a successful, seven-term, coalition-building mayor of Charlotte. As governor, Pat tried to bring that same kind of bi-partisanship to Raleigh, including working with Democrats to pass an historic two-billion-dollar bond package that would modernize college campus facilities. He resurrected the state’s lagging economy, lowered unemployment, and under his leadership, North Carolina outpaced the nation in economic growth. Meanwhile, Donald Trump was poised to lead a GOP sweep through North Carolina. Cooper needed a miracle to beat McCrory, and Charlotte Democratic Mayor Jennifer Roberts handed it to him, giftwrapped. She and her council added “gender identity” as a protected class under the city’s public accommodations ordinance, and planned to enact and enforce it in a matter of days. If, for example, a business owner didn’t allow men who “identified” as women to use the women’s bathroom, then that owner would face a fine and possible jail time.

“I begged Mayor Roberts not to pass the ordinance,” Pat told me during a Triad Today interview. “I wrote her a letter saying, ‘You’re trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist’. The Attorney General should have declared the ordinance unconstitutional and intervened immediately, but he refused to do it because he was in the pocket, doing fundraisers with Mayor Roberts.”

By July of 2016, economic boycotts were piling up, but a little-known bi-partisan deal was in the works that would have removed enough controversial language from HB2 to end most of those boycotts. The compromise bill was supported by nearly every House Republican and by ten House Democrats. But according to a report by WBTV’s Nick Ochsner, Cooper torpedoed the effort by pressuring the ten Dems to vote against the bill.

Cooper stood by and watched HB2 burn red-hot because he knew it was his ticket to the governor’s mansion. Then, after taking office, he signed into law a so-called repeal of HB2, titled, HB142, which was a cosmetic bill with no teeth, designed to placate those who had boycotted our state. Ironically, HB142 pretty much just restored the status quo, and left gender identity issues up to the courts to resolve, something McCrory had wanted from the very start.

And so, boys and girls, Roy Cooper became governor by not enforcing the state constitution, while Pat McCrory became a private citizen for upholding it. Cooper got where he is by keeping HB2 alive, while McCrory got where he is by trying to prevent it. Today, Roy gets to go to ribbon cuttings, while Pat gets to be cursed at and have his car bashed with tree limbs. It’s just my opinion, but I think the wrong man is getting attacked.
 
 

Last week, Meredith College released a new poll showing that 56.7% of North Carolina voters believe a third political party would be good for our state and the nation. Moreover, those respondents agreed with a survey statement that said “…the two major parties do not do an adequate job of representing Americans.”

The Meredith poll results will come as no surprise to anyone who follows Tar Heel politics. After all, those of us who are registered as “Unaffiliated”, comprise the second largest voting block in the state, now numbering 2.1 million. That compares to 2.5 million registered Democrats, and 2 million Republicans.

Unfortunately, “Unaffiliated” is a designation, and not a political party. Absent being the latter, we alternative-seeking voters have always had a plethora of splinter parties to choose from. During the 2016 presidential election for example, there were 36 nationally recognized political parties, including the Libertarian party, the Green party, and the Socialist party. There were also over 30 active parties indigenous to particular states, like the Vermont Progressive party. The problem is that none of these parties have stood a chance in Hades of putting their candidate into federal office. In order to be viable, a political party has to be able to amass enough votes to win control of the White House, or a chamber of Congress, and right now, no such alternative party has that kind of strength.

In all fairness, though, the two major parties have done everything they can to prevent a national third party from becoming viable, including setting the bar high for upstarts who might dilute their power. For example, here in the Old North State, if a third party candidate wants to get on the ballot in 2020, her party must have garnered 2% of the total votes cast in 2016. Absent that, she must collect names totaling 2% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. Since over 4.6 million people voted for Cooper and McCrory, that means a third party candidate for president must collect over 9,000 signatures if she wants her name to appear on the ballot.

But let’s not forget that there are 2.1 million unaffiliated voters registered in North Carolina, so if we all organized into the official Unaffiliated Party, and if our counterparts in the other 49 states do the same thing, we can be a viable force, capable of winning elections instead of spoiling them. The down side is that once that happens, it won’t be long before leaders in the Unaffiliated party will require our candidates to only support other Unaffiliated candidates, and once they’re elected, only vote for legislation that is endorsed by the Unaffiliated leadership. In time, our grand new party would become as partisan as the two old parties. That’s because when we humans get organized, we tend to become more tribal. We conform rather than question. We become less independent and more intolerant. Even worse, we often lose sight of the principals which brought us together in the first place. Just think about some of the early settlers who came to America in order to escape religious persecution, then immediately started burning witches and redacting Mueller reports.

Ironically, the Constitution makes no mention of political parties, and yet today, the two major parties are charged with interpreting, amending, and subverting that very document. With all due respect to the Meredith poll respondents, forming a nationally viable third party might seem like the best way to “adequately represent the needs of Americans”, but it might also just lead to more partisan gridlock. There’s one last thing to consider. In 2016, third party candidates siphoned off votes in key states that would have gone to Hillary, and that put Trump in the White House. If you’re among the 2.1 million unaffiliated folks in North Carolina, or the 56.7% who say we need a third party, you might want to reflect on 2016, and be a little less independent in 2020.

Growing up in Greensboro, Billy Wayne Craddock loved two things, football and music.

Jim: Who was your favorite singer when you were a boy?

Crash: I had a lot of them, Hank Williams, Faron Young, Jim Reeves, but my very favorite was Carl Smith.

Jim: So how did you get the nickname “Crash”?

Crash: A lot of people think I got it from racing cars, and where that came from was Marty Robbins introduced me one night as a “race car enthusiast”. Actually, I got it from playing football, believe it or not. I played right half back and my brother played left, and I was the smallest man on the team. So when the guard or tackle would open up a little hole, I was gone, ‘cause the other guys were so big I didn’t want to get hurt. [laughs]

But young Crash dreamed of making hits, not getting hit, so in 1957 he made his first professional recording at a local studio, singing the rockabilly song, “Smacky Mouth”. The following year he was picked up by Columbia records as their answer to Elvis. In 1959, Craddock, the Everly Brothers, and several other performers were booked for a concert tour of Australia. Sometime earlier, Crash had filmed a black-and-white demo of Boom Boom Baby, but unbeknownst to him, the film had made its way to Brian Henderson, popular host of the “Bandstand” program on Australian television. Said Henderson, “We played the film many times, and we were able to promote Crash Craddock so successfully that he was able to fill stadiums all over the country, and made several live appearances on “Bandstand”.

Crash: When I landed in Sydney, there were thousands of fans waiting, and I thought they were screaming for the Everly Brothers, but they had turned out for me because of the video that had played on Australian TV.

In fact, Boom Boom Baby became a number one hit down under, and Crash became a superstar in the land of Oz. Over the next two decades, Billy became the international “King of Country Rock” music, and racked up a number of hits here in America, including the sexually suggestive, Rub it In. Not long after he was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, Crash went to see a comedian perform at High Point Theatre, and one of the ushers recognized him.

“You know, I’ve never played here,” Billy told the usher. “Wait a minute, I want to introduce you to somebody,” said the usher, who then brought Crash together with Dave Briggs, director of the Theatre.

Dave: Billy told me he had never played here, so I said, “We can fix that!”

Briggs and Crash finally got their schedules to jive, and Craddock headlined a special show in the summer of 2016. On April 27, Crash returns to High Point Theatre for a much-awaited encore performance. On a recent visit to Triad Today, I asked Crash why he chose to remain in Greensboro, when he could have lived in so many other cities.

Crash: Jim, I love it here. When I go somewhere, I know how to find my way back. They asked me to move to Nashville several times, but I told them, “Look, I love my hometown. When I die, they’re going to put me in a pine box and send me back home anyway, so there’s no need to move. I’ll just stay right here.” [laughs]

I also asked Crash, now 79 years old, if women still throw their under garments at him on stage.

Crash: No. Now they throw Depends. [laughs]

You can listen to, and throw your underwear at, Billy “Crash” Craddock on Saturday, April 27 at 8pm, at High Point Theatre. For tickets, visit HighPointTheatre.com or call the box office, (336) 887-3001.