Triad Today

No matter how you spin or manipulate the statistics, and despite heroic efforts by a number of organizations and agencies, the fact is that drunk driving is still a huge problem. The Centers for Disease Control calculates that intoxicated drivers get behind the wheel no less than 112 million times per year, and that translates to 30 fatalities every day. M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) reports that one person dies every 51 minutes due to an alcohol-related crash, while the CDC says there’s one fatality every 48 minutes. The National Highway Safety Administration’s estimate is even more bleak. According to NTSA, more than 16,000 people die in alcohol-related crashes each year, and that translates to one death every 30 minutes.

Tragic as those statistics may be, they are only one-dimensional. Clearly, the drunk driver himself is primarily responsible for his lethal behavior, but sitting alongside him in the metaphorical passenger’s seat are the judges, district attorneys, and legislators who have enabled that behavior. How so? According to M.A.D.D., over one-third of people convicted of drunk driving are repeat offenders. They get caught, get a slap on the wrist, then, after a period of time, they drive drunk again, and again, and again.

Seven years ago the Charlotte Observer reported on something we already knew: DWI sentencing is inconsistent from county to county and from court to court. The Observer’s investigation found that judges in some North Carolina counties convict 90% of drunk drivers, while those in other counties only convict 10%. Overall, our judges acquit about one-third of all drunk drivers. Why the inconsistency? It boils down to a system of guidelines that allows a judge to weigh three factors in every DWI case. These consist of “Mitigating Factors”, “Aggravating Factors”, and “Grossly Aggravating Factors”. If a drunk driver has had an otherwise safe driving record, that’s a mitigating factor that often results in a small fine and a suspended sentence. If the driver has had two or more drunk driving convictions within the past five years, that’s an aggravating factor that sometimes results in a heftier fine and jail time of from 2 days to six months. If the intoxicated driver is operating a vehicle with a revoked license and causes serious injury to another person, that’s a grossly aggravating factor which can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.

And so, while judges weigh three types of factors, six levels of sentencing, acquit one-third of cases, and, in some counties convict only 10% of drunk drivers, the offenders they keep releasing and recycling continue to wreak havoc on society. Meanwhile, in some instances, drunk driving is more of a bargaining chip than a crime, and that brings me to the case of Taylor Roberts.

According to a story in the Winston-Salem Journal, Mr. Roberts appeared in Forsyth County court late last month for driving drunk at high speeds, crashing his car and killing his passenger, Kayla King. Oh yes, and Roberts was driving with a license that had been revoked. The incident occurred last July. If you guessed that Roberts was sentenced to life in prison, guess again. Instead, he reached a plea deal with Assistant District Attorney Matt Breeding and was only convicted of “felony death by motor vehicle”. Judge George Collins then sentenced Roberts to a prison term of from three to five years. But what happened to the drunk driving charge, driving at high speeds, reckless driving, and driving with a revoked license? Those charges were all dismissed as part of the plea deal for a lighter sentence. But why even approve a plea? Because Judge Collins said that Roberts had no criminal record.

First of all, even if Roberts had been an angel up until the time he drove drunk and killed Kayla King, the justice system should have allowed for more prison time. Second, Judge Collins and ADA Breeding likely knew that Roberts was no angel. At the time of sentencing for the fatal crash, Roberts was awaiting trial for allegedly one count of armed robbery, two counts of attempted armed robbery, one count of breaking and entering, and several other felony drug charges during a crime spree last September.

Taylor Roberts is a menace to society, but so is our criminal justice system, which often won’t consider past behavior or pending charges, and will routinely let drunk drivers off with light sentences even when someone dies as a result of their crime. Anyone who drives drunk should do serious jail time on the first offense, and if he causes the death of others, he should spend the rest of his life in prison. No deals, no pleas, no slaps on the wrist. Kayla King’s family deserves no less.

Last week I taped a segment for Triad Today that focused on the prevention of childhood injuries. My guest, a noted Pediatric Injury Prevention Coordinator at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, suggested, among other things, that parents keep their children away from all-terrain vehicles. Coincidentally, before that segment could air, the Winston-Salem Journal ran a front page feature story about a horrendous ATV accident which had occurred back in January, and nearly took the life of 13-year-old Tyler Hughes of Clemmons.

On that fateful day, Tyler got on his ATV and proceeded to drive fast along a snowy, curvy road. The ATV flipped over on him and the roll bar severed his left arm. The headline of the story was, “Quick Thinking Mom, Skilled Doctors Made the Difference”, a reference to how Tyler’s mother Crystal had applied a make-shift tourniquet to her son’s arm, and how surgeons at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center were then able to successfully re-attach the arm. It was a feel-good, human interest story with a happy ending, because Tyler is now almost fully recovered. It was also a grossly negligent story for what wasn’t written. The fact is, Mrs. Hughes should have never let her son operate an ATV in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Mrs. Hughes, who acted bravely under pressure, but I do have something against ATVs. As far as I’m concerned they are nothing but noisy death traps. But don’t take my word for it. Based on data extrapolated from a 2010 Reuters report, there are about 11,000 ATV accidents every year, and, according to ATVsafety.gov, those accidents result in roughly 900 deaths annually. Even more troubling, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission says that ATV deaths involving children have accelerated since the new millennium began. Sadly, here in North Carolina, 45 people lost their lives in ATV accidents in a two-year period between 2014 and 2016, and that makes our state 9^th in the nation for ATV-related fatalities.

Shamefully, the Specialty Vehicle Industry Association (the ATV industry’s answer to the NRA), has tried to divert attention away from the inherent dangers of ATV’s, by blaming accidents and fatalities on people who take their 4-wheelers onto paved roads, instead of driving them strictly off-road. S.V.I.A. would also have us believe that simply wearing a helmet will prevent all serious injuries. In reality, that is more true for motorcycle riders than for those who ride ATV’s. During a 2010 meeting of the American College of Surgeons, it was reported that when the severity of injury is the same in an ATV as it is in a motorcycle, those riding the ATV are 50% more likely to need treatment in an intensive care unit, and 50% more likely to die. Why? Mainly because unlike motorcycles, ATV’s are mostly operated by minors.

Tyler Hughes is the perfect example. He wore a helmet, but that did nothing to prevent the roll bar from cutting off his arm. So how, then, do we protect kids from being injured or killed on an ATV? It’s very simple, We keep them away from ATVs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends that no one under the age of 16 should operate an ATV, and I agree. Our state lawmakers should embrace that recommendation, along with three caveats. First, is that the 16-year-old must also have a valid driver’s license even when crossing a public road. Second, the age restriction must apply regardless of the size of the ATV’s engine (current NC law allows kids as young as 8 years old to operate smaller ATVs). Third, the new law should apply regardless of where the ATV is operated, and that means no one under 16 can ride on an ATV even on private land.

Without new laws that come with hefty fines, we’ll never be able to protect kids like Tyler from risking life and limb on an ATV. Think I’m overreacting? Then pay heed to Tyler’s own words, when he told Journal reporter Jenny Drabble that he “can’t wait to start riding again”. Children don’t know any better. Lawmakers and parents should.

Earlier this month the mainstream media decided to hype the plight of illegal child immigrants, but what most news outlets failed to report is that families from Central America have been sneaking into the United States for years, and, under President Obama, were often deported. No doubt President Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy (prosecution over deportation) has increased the number of illegals coming through our system. Moreover, by doing so, he has forced detention centers to care for a larger number of immigrant children, some of whom, under federal law, had to be separated from a parent awaiting trial. The optics of this mess have been terrible because it is never a good thing to separate a child from his parents. But the news media’s crusade to change public policy has been tainted by their own inflammatory and inaccurate reporting.

“IMAGES THAT MISLEAD”

When their crusade began, it was fueled by a photo of a crying immigrant child with his little hands poking through what appeared to be a wire cage. That image went viral, and the little boy became the poster child for the evils of Trump’s inhumane policies. The only problem is that the little boy wasn’t an illegal immigrant being held in a cage, and he wasn’t crying for his mother. In reality the photo had been taken at an anti-Trump rally, and the “cage” was a security fence erected by police to protect protestors. Then there was last week’s TIME magazine cover which depicted Donald Trump standing over an illegal immigrant child who had been separated from her family. But guess what? The girl’s father, Denis Valera, came forward and said that his daughter was with her mother and had never been separated. The father’s story was confirmed by Nelly Jerez, the Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister.

“NUMBERS THAT LIE”

CNN’s John Berman reported that 2,000 immigrant children had been separated from their families in recent weeks. Not true. In fact, according to Townhall.com, 83% of the people who crossed our border illegally were unaccompanied minors. The other 17% included some children who came here with an adult who may or may not have been their parent. Of those, some were separated from their parent only if that parent had been arrested and is awaiting trial. (That’s the same process we follow with our own citizens when there is no other family member to take care of a child whose parent has been charged with a crime). Also, since very few of the illegal immigrant adults have proof that they are, in fact, the parent of a child, it is incumbent upon ICE to separate children from adults in the detention facilities, in order to prevent abuse or trafficking. Berman and other CNN anchors also said that babies were being stripped away from their mothers. But CNN’s own field correspondent, Diann Gallager witnessed moms with infants and dads with infants. Gallager toured processing and detention facilities in Texas and Florida, and reported that, at the Homestead Florida center, less than 7% of the children had actually been separated from someone they said was a parent.

“TREATMENT THAT IS MISREPRESENTED”

Elected officials, political activists, and the media have painted a picture of illegal immigrant children being traumatized and placed in horrendous facilities. Former CIA director, General Michael Hayden compared Trump’s detention of immigrant children to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. Former First Lady Laura Bush and others, compared the ICE detention centers to the internment camps we built during WWII to detain Japanese American citizens. Such comparisons are shameful. CNN’s own Gallager and others have reported that immigrant children are being housed in buildings that look like old elementary schools, and they sleep in dormitory areas. The kids receive six hours of schooling every day, plus daily group counseling, and weekly individual counseling. They also meet daily with their case worker who is assisting them in either re-uniting with their parent, or temporarily placing them in a loving home. These children are well clothed, well fed, and safe from abuse.

“OPTIONS THAT EXIST”

Critics of Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy say that the families and unaccompanied children who came here illegally from Central America, were in fear for their lives, and had no other choice but to break our laws and sneak in. First of all, if they feared for their lives in places like Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua, why did they risk traveling all the way to America, when they could have taken refuge in Mexico? Second, all they had to do to escape arrest was to show up at a legal port of entry and ask for asylum. None of these people HAD to break the law. They just didn’t want to go through proper procedures to live the American dream. Simply put, they are “economic migrants”, says Steve Cortes, a member of the President’s Hispanic Advisory Council. And yet, no one in the media places blame on these immigrant parents for putting their kids at risk during a long journey, then breaking the law, and forcing us to take care of their children while they await sentencing.

“CONCLUSIONS THAT ESCAPE THE MEDIA”

Nidhi Desai, whose parents immigrated here legally, isn’t shy about categorizing people who game our system. The UNC student told Odysseyonline.com, “Illegals are cheating.” Illegals also put a strain on our resources. Today there are 13 million American kids who live in poverty, and more than that who go hungry every day. 78% of all Americans still live paycheck-to-paycheck, and tens of millions of Americans can’t afford proper healthcare. Bad optics or not, we cannot allow millions of people to enter our country illegally every year. Obama initially had the right idea – deport, don’t detain.

Last week President Trump announced that the news media are America’s biggest enemy. Thus far, however, Mr. Trump has only attacked his enemies with words. Not so with former President Richard Nixon who actually compiled a written list of enemies, and planned to punish them with IRS audits and other forms of government harassment. Fortunately, his IRS commissioner refused to issue the vengeful audits, and Nixon had to settle for just cursing about his media enemies in private. The truth is there have always been thin-skinned politicians who complain about negative coverage from the fourth estate, but, so far, freedom of the press has prevailed as a pillar of our society. After all, this is America, and no elected official is supposed to use his influence to ruin the lives of those who disagree with him. No elected official is supposed to disrupt commerce or threaten the financial health of a news outlet just because it didn’t endorse her candidacy. Apparently State Senator Trudy Wade didn’t get that memo.

Last year she went on a crusade to extract her pound of flesh from the Greensboro News & Record, the High Point Enterprise, the Jamestown News, and the Carolina Peacemaker, by introducing legislation that would allow Guilford County to publish legal notices on its own website, rather than having to do so in actual newspapers. Wade maintains that she is only trying to save the County money, and that she wasn’t trying to single out local newspapers who have been critical of her. Yet, strangely enough, her bill didn’t pertain to the other 99 counties in our state. It only focused on the county that was home to news outlets who hadn’t endorsed her candidacies. She has also suggested that her bill is just a pilot program, but North Carolina is a diverse state, and any legitimate pilot program should include data collected from several carefully selected localities based upon population, geography, income levels, and number of media outlets.

Senator Wade can try and justify targeting Guilford County, but try as she will, it is painfully obvious to the rest of us that she used her power and influence for payback. And this isn’t the first time she has thrown her political weight around. In 2015 she introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would have eliminated at-large representatives in Greensboro. Why? We can only assume it was because she wanted to weed out some of the Democrats on Council. It was an unprecedented move, and one that former Gov. Pat McCrory called “legislative over-reach”. In the end, Greensboro City Council survived Wade’s power play, but she was emboldened enough by the exercise to try her hand again two years later, when she successfully engineered passage of the newspaper revenge bill.

For awhile it looked as though Wade’s so-called pilot program would go unchallenged, but last week, the four aforementioned Guilford-based newspapers announced they were filing suit against the General Assembly and Guilford County on the basis that the discriminatory bill violates a general statute of the State Constitution. The statute requires that legal notices be published in newspapers circulating generally within the community affected by whatever action is being advertised. Former NC Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr is one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, and in his complaint said that his clients, “as members of the press, were specifically singled out for prior press coverage and editorials published by some or all of the plaintiffs involving certain acts by elected officials from Guilford County.” Translation, “certain elected officials” means Trudy Wade.

The legal battle will be costly and lengthy. According to Orr, the state has 30 days to answer the complaint, and can then ask for an extension. The state will also probably move to dismiss, then the case has to make its way onto the busy Wake County trial docket. “Realistically we could be looking at October before the first round of motions are heard,” Orr told me. That means a verdict won’t be reached until next summer, and then the losing party would most likely file an appeal. Meanwhile, everyone loses. The newspapers stand to lose substantial ad revenues until they can prevail in court, and taxpayers lose because we are footing the bill (directly or indirectly) for the Attorney General or General Assembly appointed attorneys to try the case. Only Trudy Wade escapes unscathed, even though she’s the one who opened this can of revenge-oriented worms in the first place.

There is only one way to send Ms. Wade the message that it is wrong to use her office to punish those with whom she disagrees, and that is to turn her out of office this November. When that happens, I look forward to a free local press giving her defeat the full coverage it deserves.

Earlier this month the UNC Board of Trustees voted to rescind Bill Cosby’s honorary degree. Their decision came just weeks after the once-beloved comedian was convicted on three counts of sexual assault against a former female employee of Temple University. UNC was one of the last hold-outs among colleges who had stripped Cosby of his largely ceremonial honors. Temple, Carnegie Melon, NC A&T, Johns Hopkins, Boston College, and Notre Dame had already distanced themselves from the man they once praised for his contributions to education and race relations. And while Bill Cosby is the first notable sexual predator to be convicted in the “#MeToo” era, he is joined by a growing list of high profile celebrities who have been accused of sexual misconduct, including Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Tom Brokaw, and Matt Lauer.

Common among these men is the power they had over their prey. In Cosby’s case, that power came from drugging his victims. For other alleged predators, power came from the positions they held. In recent months, scores of women have finally come forward to say they were afraid of either being fired or not being promoted if they refused (or talked about) advances from their celebrity higher-ups. Men like Rose and Lauer, for example, counted on those fears in order to sustain and protect their own bad behavior. These men were also wealthy and powerful within their sphere of influence. In Lauer’s case he was a major revenue producer for NBC, thus ensuring that even if a woman complained, she would not be believed, and punitive action against him would be unlikely.

That was then and this is now. The “#MeToo” movement is in full force. Lauer has been fired, Rose was dropped by PBS, and Weinstein is about to stand trial. Meanwhile they and other once powerful men are now persona non grata, which explains why so many colleges, studios, talent agencies, investors, sponsors, and fans have distanced themselves from these sexual bullies. The question is, should honors and awards bestowed upon them in the past, now be rescinded in wholesale fashion?

Brittney Cooper, professor of women’s studies at Rutgers University, told the Associated Press, “There’s an on-going conversation about ‘can we love the art, and dismiss or disavow the artist?’ But we have to stop deciding that art is a reasonable spoil of war, that we will ignore all the casualties. We can’t separate Cosby from his art.”

I tend to agree with Professor Cooper. After all, serial predators are only able to succeed professionally by protecting their public persona. They wake up every morning comfortable in the knowledge that their house of cards can’t possibly come tumbling down. Moreover, they count on the cooperation and silence of others to sustain their precious and profitable persona. As such, their “art” is informed by a protected environment that empowers their criminal behavior. Thus, any accolades ascribed to them, even by those who are unaware of that behavior, is based upon a false persona. Their contributions to society might have seemed significant at one time, but we look at things through a different lens now, and what we see is that the pain of long-suffering victims far outweighs the intrinsic value of a successful TV show.

In the end, if we don’t rescind honors and awards given under false pretense, then we become complicit after the fact in condoning and enabling these arrogant men and their abusive behavior. Besides, who needs an honorary degree in prison any way.

Down through the ages, school children have been known to blame someone or something else for their own shortcomings. Some of their more common excuses are: “I left my book report at home”, “I couldn’t study for the test because our electricity went out”, and their gold-standard excuse, “The dog ate my homework.” Fortunately, most kids grow out of playing the blame game, but others never do, and when you’re an adult who won’t accept responsibility for your actions, the blame game just makes matters worse. Such is the case with Roseanne Barr, arguably one of the funniest humans on the planet, and a pioneer in giving strong, middle class women a voice in prime time.

The original Roseanne show aired from 1988 to 1997, and it became an instant comedy classic. Then, last year, ABC decided to revive and update the series.

The new iteration proved to be a ratings blockbuster and a revenue windfall for ABC, who, to date has netted around $45 million dollars in ad sales. All was well in the Conner household until Barr, a serial tweeter and part-time conspiracy nut, went on a late night twitter rant in which she claimed that Valerie Jarrett (Obama’s former Chief of Staff) was the product of a marriage between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.

A short time later, ABC’s president of entertainment Channing Dungey (an African-American) reportedly consulted with her friend Michelle Obama about Barr’s appalling tweet, and, within hours, the Roseanne re-boot had been booted from the network. Roseanne Barr was suddenly persona non grata, and some 300 cast and crew members were out of a job with no notice.

Some media analysts have pointed out that ABC should have never re-hired Barr in the first place because they were fully aware of her proclivity for using social media to make very anti-social remarks. It’s a valid point, but it’s also spilled milk. What’s done is done. Roseanne offered a public apology, but her mea culpa rang hollow. Why? Because instead of taking full responsibility for her racist behavior, she blamed the Jarrett tweet on having taken Ambien. And so, what we have here is a big-name racist celebrity who is essentially saying that the dog ate her homework. Did she deserve to be fired and did 300 people deserve to be laid-off? No, but she should have been required to attend mandatory sensitivity training, and required to stop using social media while her TV series was still on air.

Nevertheless, high profile people who play the blame game must think that the rest of us are stupid. News flash! No one believes that a pill or alcohol can make you develop prejudices that weren’t already there to begin with. And yet, serial offenders of one kind or another continue to think that blame is the best policy. Mel Gibson thought so in 2006 when he was pulled over by a Jewish cop for driving drunk. “Braveheart” spewed anti-Semitic slurs at the officer, and later said that alcohol made him say those things. In 2015, the man who murdered students at an Oregon community college blamed his violent act on being a virgin. Last year a convicted killer in Ohio appealed his sentence because he said that pain pills had made him slaughter two people in cold blood. And every year or so, we hear of a young mother who kills her baby and blames it on postpartum depression. Meanwhile, men who get caught cheating on their wives blame their behavior on a sex addiction, and men who grope their female employees, blame their victims for not being able to take a joke. And then there’s Hillary Clinton who, to this day, refuses to accept blame for her loss to Trump. Instead of admitting she was a flawed candidate who couldn’t identify with us regular folks, she blames the Russians.

In the end, I think we would have more tolerance for troubled individuals if they would just come clean in the first place, instead of playing the blame game.

My advice? Just say you forgot to do your homework, and stop throwing your dog under the bus. The dog doesn’t deserve that, and neither do we.

As the lead character in the TV series Cheyenne, Clint Walker was often called upon to rescue a damsel in distress. It was a gesture that came easy to the 6’6” bodybuilder. But for Clint, helping people wasn’t just an act, it was in his DNA, so much so that he once rescued a real damsel in distress, and risked losing out on the chance of a lifetime in the process. On that fateful day, Clint, then a security guard in Las Vegas, was scheduled to meet with legendary director Cecil B. DeMille to see about a bit part in The Ten Commandments. A job like that could be the big break Clint had been waiting for, and no one in his right mind would do anything to jeopardize an opportunity like that. No one, that is, except Clint Walker, a man who always put others first.

A few years ago I asked Clint to recount that incident for a column I was writing about him. Here’s what he told me: “I was driving down the Hollywood freeway on the way to Paramount studios, and I saw an elderly woman on the freeway trying to change a tire, and it was obvious she couldn’t handle it. So I stopped and changed the tire for her. Afterwards, she said, ‘What do I owe you?’ And I said, ‘You don’t owe me anything Mam, I’m glad to do it.’ And she said, ‘Well I hope I haven’t made you late for anything.’ And I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I have an appointment at Paramount which may lead to an acting job, but I’m sure it will work out fine.’ When I got to Paramount I was very late, and had to sit outside Mr. DeMille’s office waiting, then I finally got called in. He was a commanding individual. He looked me up and down and said, ‘You’re late young man!’ And I thought this is probably the beginning and the end of my career. I said, ‘Yes sir, I’m sorry. I stopped to help someone on the freeway.’ And he said, ‘Yes I know all about that. That was my secretary you helped.’”

Needless to say Clint got the part, and later that same year he was hired by Warner Brothers to star in what was to be the first hour-long, filmed drama on television. Cheyenne ran for seven seasons, from 1955 to 1963, and was a huge success. Clint became a hot property and was sought after for a number of big screen action movies, such as Yellowstone Kelly, Night of the Grizzly, Sinatra’s None But the Brave, and The Dirty Dozen. Later he went on to star in a number of TV movies, then landed the lead in ABC’s short-lived drama, Kodiak. More films and guest starring roles would follow until he retired from acting in 1998. Ron Ely (TV’s Tarzan), who co-starred with Walker in Night of the Grizzly, was once asked to describe the big man. “Clint was a simple, straight-forward guy who always told the truth. He was a wonderful, terrific human being.

I first met that wonderful human being at an event in which he was being honored by the Paley Center in Los Angeles. I was excited to meet my boyhood hero and discover that he was just as nice in person as he was on screen. We stayed in touch several times a year after that, including my annual birthday call to him, which I had just put on my to-do list, when a friend told me that my idol had passed away. Clint died on May 21 from congestive heart failure, just nine days shy of his 91^st birthday. He is survived by wife Susan and his daughter Valerie.

On occasions when Clint and I would visit by phone, we often talked about his career. Here are a few excerpts from those conversations.

JL: How did you catch the acting bug?

CW: I thought that acting was kind of a silly way to make a living, but then I was approached by Henry Wilson at the Sands Hotel where I was working as a security guard, and I realized that carrying a gun and a badge the rest of my life wouldn’t get me very far.

JL: But you ended up carrying a gun and a badge a lot on TV anyway .

CW: Yeah, but the bullets weren’t real, and you get to kiss a pretty girl now and then. And I got paid better. [laughs]

JL: Why did you enjoy working in Westerns so much?

CW: Well I felt at home with them. I like the out of doors, especially the West. The mountains and the deserts, and the lore behind it, and the kind of people associated with it.

JL: If you hadn’t been an actor, what would you have done?

CW: Maybe an inventor. As a matter of fact, at one time while I was doing Cheyenne I designed a piece of exercise equipment, and also a camper tent to go on a pick-up truck.

JL: Cheyenne DVDs are still big sellers, the show still airs every day, and you still get fan mail. Why are you and the show still so popular?

CW: I have stacks and stacks of letters that are so wonderful. A lot of them say things like, “I lost my Dad at an early age”, or, “My folks went through a divorce, and you’ve become my surrogate father.” Some say, “I watched Cheyenne and wanted to grow up to be just like him.” Well that’s a heck of a compliment. Maybe I did something that has had a positive effect on other people’s lives, and I thank God for blessing me with that opportunity. I wish I was as perfect as the Cheyenne character, but I try to live up to those kinds of expectations.

By all accounts, Clint lived up to those expectations, and then some.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, but folks in these parts claim him as a native son because he graduated from NC A&T State University. In fact, Jackson will tell you that he found himself at A&T, where he was a star football player, student body president, and leader of a movement to integrate public facilities and businesses in Greensboro.

Jackson went to work with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 and in 1967 took over the Chicago-based “Operation Bread Basket”, where he was successful in persuading area companies to hire minorities. He became an ordained minister following Dr. King’s assassination, then founded Operation P.U.S.H. (People United to Serve Humanity) in 1971. He organized the Rainbow Coalition in 1984, and merged the two groups in 1996. Rev. Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988, and over the years he has been instrumental in freeing scores of hostages from foreign adversaries.

Earlier this month, Rev. Jackson was in Greensboro to deliver the Baccalaureate address at Bennett College, and, thanks to some creative wrangling by Bennett President Phyllis Dawkins, we were fortunate to have Jackson visit the abc45 studio, where I taped an extended interview with him for Triad Today. On that day, Rev. Jackson was greeted like a rock star by a large, enthusiastic, and mostly female studio audience. He stopped to shake hands and have photos taken with everyone, and gave my wife Pam a big hug before ascending to the stage. I asked him, “What IS it with you and women?” “We have an understanding,” he replied with a smile.

Age (Jackson is 76) and Parkinson’s have slowed his stride and softened his once booming voice, but his words are still filled with the fervor of a man on a mission of economic empowerment and racial unity. During our 25-minute conversation, Rev. Jackson talked about his early days at A&T, working with Dr. King, his two runs for the presidency, gun violence, racial profiling, social media, and Donald Trump. The Triad Today special airs this Sunday night. Here are some highlights.

JL: You played football, baseball, and basketball in high school. Which was your favorite?

JJ: Football ultimately because that’s how I got my scholarship.

JL: But which sport were you better at?

JJ: Maybe baseball, but football was my meal ticket.

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JL: Everyone knows about the Greensboro Four who staged the first lunch counter sit-in, but folks forget that it was you who organized “wade-ins” at all-white swimming pools, “watch-ins” at segregated movie theatres, and more.

JJ: The real deal was when the four brothers made that gallant step, but then the Bennett women sustained it. They showed the strength and courage to follow through.

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JL: Dr. King was sort of like a father to you. What did you learn from him?

JJ: Strong minds bring strong change. You have to study diligently and study every day, and pray fervently, and have the courage of your convictions.

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JL: You did well in the 1984 and 1988 primaries, but didn’t win the nomination. Why didn’t you run as an independent?

JJ: I was trying to honor the system. We wanted to expand the base of Democrats at that time. One of my concerns then and now is that people must run for change, not just run for themselves.

A special edition of Triad Today with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, airs this Sunday night at 8 o’clock, on MY48 (cable channel 15).

 
 

Let’s be brutally honest. Last week’s big launch of the “Be Best” campaign was nothing more than a transparent attempt to give Melania Trump a noble reason for spending time away from her husband. From now on, the media won’t have to report that the First Lady is traveling separately from the President because she doesn’t like flying with an adulterer, and instead, they can report that she is leaving D.C. to tour a school in Montana, or a hospital in Louisiana. The problem is that “Be Best” is as transparent as the reason for creating it.

Forget the fact that the name of the campaign makes no grammatical sense. It’s the broken English, twitter-age version of “Be Your Best”, which is a rip-off of the Army’s old slogan, “Be the Best You Can Be.” Beyond that, “Be Best” strives to tell us that cyber-bullying and opioid abuse are bad things. Thanks for the news flash. The question is: Why combine the two issues into one confusing campaign?

As you recall, Melania’s big issue from day one was cyber-bullying, but when you’re married to the nation’s leading cyber-bully, you can’t make your husband’s offensive behavior the sole focus of your campaign. And so, some brilliant White House advisor probably said, “Hey, let’s add opioid abuse to our program so that the media won’t attack us for the hypocrisy of a war on cyber-bullies.” The diversion didn’t work, and the First Lady is getting hammered by the media any way, as well she should. Her husband fills his daily tweets with disparaging remarks that serve to bully his intended victims, and there’s no indication that he will cease and desist that behavior out of respect for Melania’s campaign.

Beyond the hypocrisy of it all, “Be Best” also dilutes the message of its disparately dual objectives, and, in the process, does a disservice to both, each of which deserves its own campaign. True, some teens who are victims of cyber-bullying also turn to drugs, but the opioid crisis has more to do with adults who mix and abuse their meds than it does with kids who get high from their parent’s prescription drugs. At any rate, it’s no wonder that Melania couldn’t and didn’t announce any specific elements of her “Be Best” program because there are none, beyond a few lofty aspirations. Toward the end of her Rose Garden presentation, it looked like she was about to offer up some substantive ideas when she called on several teenagers to stand and be recognized for their achievements in the war against cyber-bullying and opioids. Instead, the three teens were trotted out for window dressing. Melania recognized one young man for encouraging every school in his district to install a “buddy bench”, where lonely kids could sit and invite a friend to join them. Pardon me, but what in the hell does a buddy bench have to do with preventing cyber-bullying and opioid abuse?

The First Lady’s moment in the sun was hard to watch. Her English was badly broken (it took me awhile to figure out that “body beach” meant “buddy bench”), she never spoke from the heart, her campaign had no substance, and, as it turns out, much of the language she used to describe “Be Best” had been lifted from an Obama-era brochure, a reminder of the convention speech she once plagiarized from Michelle Obama. But perhaps the most painful moment came at the end of her presentation, when she called on “The President” to join her at the podium. There was no affectionate hug, no kiss on the lips, no look of love between them. Instead they exchanged what can only be described as a diplomatic peck on both cheeks. It was a visual reminder of the chill that exists between the Trumps, and of why she needed a national cause that would give her a reason to keep her distance from her philandering, cyber-bully of a husband. It’s sad that our current First Couple can’t be more like some of our past ones. Bush 41 wrote daily love notes to his wife. Bush 43 and wife Laura worked puzzles together and bedded down each night at 9:30 sharp. Barack Obama made a point of eating dinner with the family every evening before returning to the Oval Office. In contrast, the lame, impersonal cheek peck by the Trumps wasn’t affectionate, instead it was like a greeting between two foreign adversaries. Maybe that’s what they are.

Up until now, Melania has kept a low profile, but this will be her first foray into the public policy arena, which means she will endure a different kind of public scrutiny. I hope “Be Best” can make a difference, but in its present form, the odds are against it. Right now, “Be Best” is in need of a reboot, and the First Lady is in need of a loving hug. I fear neither are forthcoming.

 
 

With America in the throes of WWII, FDR ordered that the military draft age be lowered from 21 to 18. Soon thereafter, Senator Jennings Randolph began lobbying for the voting age to be lowered as well. According to History.com, Randolph wrote, “They (young people) possess a great social conscience, are perplexed by the injustice in the world, and are anxious to rectify those ills.”

Randolph’s pleas fell on deaf ears, but in 1954, President Eisenhower rekindled the debate when, during his first State of the Union address, he said, “For years our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the political process that produces these fateful summons.” Again though, support for a lower voting age dwindled until over a decade later, when we were embroiled in the Viet Nam War. President Nixon supported a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18, and by summer of 1971, the 26^th Amendment was ratified. Ironically, the new law unleashed 11 million new young voters onto the political scene just in time to vote for Nixon’s anti-war opponent George McGovern. Nixon was still re-elected, but in 1972, 55% of the newly franchised young voters went to the polls.

Over the years, youth voting has been erratic. For example, according to the US Census, only 36% of eligible young voters turned out for the 1988 election. Four years later that number was 44% thanks in part to an interest in Bill Clinton. That percentage was duplicated in 2008 when young people were energized by Barack Obama, but by 2012, their participation dropped back to 38%. Reportedly, the 2016 election brought out young voters in numbers that nearly equaled those of 1972, although an informal poll, taken during the Portland Oregon protest rally the day after Hillary lost, revealed that nearly 70% of Millennials didn’t bother to go vote the day before.

Today, in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school massacre, young people ages 16 to 18 are more politically active than ever. Their fervor and anti-gun protests are even stirring up debate about lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. Late last month, the Washington, D.C. City Council voted to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections, with Councilman Charles Allen saying, “At the age of 16, our society already gives young people greater legal responsibility. They can drive a car. They can work. Some are raising a family or helping their family make ends meet. They pay taxes. And yet, they can’t exercise their voice where it matters most – at the ballot box.”

Mr. Allen’s comments harken back to Jennings Randolph, Ike, and Nixon, all who argued that if a young person can be called into battle, he should be able to vote. The problem is that D.C.’s action does not apply to federal elections. Short of Congress passing new voting rights legislation, a change to the 26^th Amendment would have to be ratified in order for the voting age to be lowered to 16. Theoretically there’s enough time to act on either option before the 2020 election, but to do so, members of both parties would have to put politics aside, and agree to let millions of young, angry voters have a say in national politics at a time when high school kids despise and distrust all incumbents.

It is unlikely that Congress will demonstrate the kind of non-partisanship it would take to lower the voting age, but we can only hope. Yes, I realize that some high school students are immature and lack an understanding of how government works, but those same shortcomings also apply to millions of adults whose political parties gave us Trump and Hillary to choose from in the last election. I doubt that 16-year-olds could do any worse than that.

Last month one of my Triad Today guests talked about Ridge Care’s wonderful “Hearts and Soles” program, which encourages senior citizens to walk around Hanes Mall in the mornings. The program promotes wellness and social interaction. That same weekend, about a hundred junior citizens were walking around Hanes Mall, but for a different purpose. The teens hung around past the mall’s 6pm curfew, and when they were asked to leave, violence erupted. Police arrived and were in the process of making an arrest when the mob interfered, resulting in more arrests. So there you have the great shopping mall conundrum. By morning, one group gathers to stay fit, and by evening, another group gathers to have a fit.   

The question is, why are young people getting into so much trouble at malls in the first place? I suppose that some scuffles develop organically. For example, Johnny and Jill run into Jerry who used to be with Jill, and all of a sudden, Johnny and Jerry are throwing punches. But, increasingly police say that mall violence is orchestrated, with unruly teens having been summoned via social media to show up and act up. Either way, the problem of teens misbehaving in malls is nothing new. In 2016 alone there were numerous incidents of mall violence, including in Manchester, Connecticut where 300 teens attacked police, and in Aurora, Colorado, where 500 teens faced off against 50 policemen. There were also similar confrontations in Ohio, Connecticut, Texas, and New York. The trend continued in 2017, including at a mall in Cherry Hill New Jersey, where over a thousand teenagers fought with police, and in Sacramento, California, where under-aged teens caused a disturbance in Arden Fair Mall the day after Christmas.

For now, there is some evidence to suggest that earlier curfews and parental escort policies can prevent teen violence. For example, immediately following the Hanes Mall incident, mall manager Charlie Gwinn moved the curfew back on Fridays and Saturdays from 6pm to 5pm, after which time, anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent. Since then, no other disturbances have been reported. Of course no good deed goes unpunished. Gwinn’s counterpart at Arden Fair Mall tried to enforce a similar teen ban, and now he has the ACLU on his case. Speaking on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, attorney Michael Risher said, “the Unruh Civil Rights Act prohibits businesses (including shopping centers) from engaging in wholesale discrimination against a specific group, and that includes children.” According to the L.A. Times, Risher also wrote to Arden Fair Mall, warning that they, “must treat people based on their conduct and not because they are part of a category.” Translation, only a relative few minors cause trouble, so why ban them all from a mall because other minors might cause trouble.

Risher has a good point, but a mall must also act in the best interests of all shoppers and merchants. One of Gwinn’s associates told me last week that since the earlier curfew has been in effect at Hanes Mall and other CBL Properties locations, the company has seen a “return of the family shopper,” and “fewer incidents of shoplifting among teens.” I also spoke with a Hanes Mall merchant who said the weekends are much more quiet now. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, ironically, curfews and bans are being enacted at a time when malls are in desperate need of more foot traffic. According to Newsmax, mall vacancies are at an all-time high with no signs of slowing down. It’s a trend that the Wall Street Journal refers to as a “Retail Apocalypse”.

Even so, malls can’t afford to attract the wrong kind of foot traffic. The solution then, seems to be for malls to work with local police to maintain a database of teens who have caused trouble in the past, and then ban those troublemakers altogether, but allow all other young people free access with no curfew. Law-abiding teens should enjoy the same freedoms as law-abiding seniors, no matter what time of day they gather at the mall.

 
 

Legendary television producer Steven Bochco had a wry sense of humor, so when I first heard that he passed away on April Fool’s Day, I held out hope that he had perpetrated a hoax on us. He hadn’t. Steven, who won countless awards and accolades across a career that lasted for half a century, finally lost his long battle with leukemia last week. He was 74 years old.

Like his virtuoso father, Steven had a talent for music, but it was writing that captured his interest. In the formative years of his career, Bochco took any job he could get just to be around the written word, first as a $50-per-week script reader for Sam Goldwyn, Jr., and later as a script fixer at Universal. His early writing credits for NBC included Columbo and McMillan and Wife but his first big solo series came while working for Grant Tinker at MTM studios. Hill Street Blues was a critical success, racking up 98 Emmy nominations and four wins as “Best Drama” during its seven-season run.

Bochco followed Hill Street with L.A. Law, another four-time Emmy winner, then signed a long-term development deal with ABC, where he co-created the ground-breaking cop drama, NYPD Blue, which ran from 1993 to 2005. Unlike Hill Street Blues, which one reviewer referred to as a “balance between comedy and drama”, NYPD Blue was mostly a gritty, edgy drama that pushed the envelope when it came to raw language and nudity. Not surprisingly, more than fifty ABC affiliates refused to air the first episode in which David Caruso and Amy Brenneman showed off their bare body parts during a roll in the hay.

After creating the short-lived Iraq War drama Over There, Steven returned to the legal and police genres with Raising the Bar (2008) and Murder in the First (2014-2016), respectively.

In addition to writing award-winning television scripts, Bochco also penned two books, Death by Hollywood, a tongue-in-cheek detective novel, and Truth is a Total Defense, his 2016 autobiography. I first met Steven at the Museum of Television and Radio (now Paley Center) in 1998, where he participated in a panel discussion about creating dramatic television. The following year I interviewed him for my first volume of TV Creators. Before the book went to press, I sent Steven a preview copy. A few days later, he returned the pages, and they were filled with handwritten notes in which he corrected my grammar, and even fact-checked some of my research. I still have that marked-up manuscript, and point to it with pride. After all, how many authors can say that they were edited by Steven Bochco? His notes made me a better writer, and a more thorough researcher, and for that I will always be grateful.

During our two interview sessions in the summer and fall of 1999, Steven revealed a lot about himself and his craft. Here are some highlights:

(On his early interest in writing): “My teachers always told me I could write, and so it just sort of seemed clear to me at a very early age, that that’s what I did better than anything else. I wrote a lot. I wrote short stories, I’d write poems. I always enjoyed the actual act of writing. I enjoyed expressing myself on paper.”

(On creating Hill Street Blues at MTM): “That was the most creative control I ever had. I had creative autonomy on that show, for the first time. […] Grant Tinker created an amazing company, and the environment was truly unique, in much the same way I hope that the environment of my company is unique, and a reflection of the environment that existed in those days at MTM.”

(On dealing with network censors): ”I’ve had horrible fights (with them), because even though you may have creative control, you still have to deal with broadcast standards. I‘ve been at war with those turkeys ever since I’ve been in television, but I’ve never lost an episode to it. I’ve never had to fundamentally alter an episode.”

(On pushing the envelope with NYPD Blue): ”We were being deserted in droves for cable, and I felt if we didn’t make this kind of show, and get people back in our tent by being more adult, and more contemporary in our use of language, then we were going to be out of business.”

(On trusting your vision): “If you start listening to everybody who’s telling you what’s wrong with what you’re doing, then you end up with the old cliché. You end up with a camel, and a camel is a horse designed by committee. My responsibility is to myself. I trust my judgement, and you’ve got to be true to your own vision.”

Steven Bochco was always true to his own vision, and he left behind an innovative body of work to prove it. He also left me with some notes on how to be a better writer. I hope I didn’t let him down.