This is what was on my heart when I woke up this morning.  Sometimes I make jokes about praying, this is not one of those times.

***

I PRAY FOR my nation because it has lost its way and doesn't seem to know how to find it.

I pray for my nation where any crime can be readily ignored when committed by an ideological ally but is wholly unforgiveable when committed by an ideological foe.

I pray for my city, state and nation where selfishness regularly trumps responsibility as we expect someone else to carry our burdens, some other neighborhood to take responsibility for what should be taken care of in our own backyards.

I pray for my nation where venom from across the political spectrum so overwhelms ordinary decency that universally acknowledged problems can't be addressed sensibly -- whether it's healthcare, social security or our national security.

I pray for a world in which suicide bombers target public places filled with civilians, bomb the emergency responders as they aid them, and then the hospitals' emergency rooms when the wounded are taken there -- and think they are doing God's will.

I pray for my world where a committee of highly educated people can search the globe for someone who has furthered the cause of world peace and the best they can do is find someone who has talked about it.

I pray for my nation where you can go to the movie theater daily for months without ever hearing "God" or "Jesus" -- except in curses.

I pray for my nation where the religion of no religion is exalted while traditional faith is diminished, where ardent atheists and adamant agnostics can be paid for their views at public universities but believers of any stripe working in the same places are fearful of speaking a word of what they believe lest they violate the separation of church and state.

I pray for my nation so blessed with wealth that its citizenry has grown fat, figuratively and literally, but remains ungrateful for the material gifts it has been given, and unrepentant of the waste that it has made of them.

I pray for my nation that has become so filled with violence that an isolated brutal murder is practically un-newsworthy.

I pray for my world where God-given freedom, which was intended to give us the opportunity to be benefactors of blessing, has been turned into a license for licentiousness.

I pray for my nation where out-of-wedlock births are becoming the norm and two-parent families an aberration.

I pray for my world where the power of the Internet is used every day to expose hundreds of millions of innocent children, and billions of corruptible adults, to the vilest pornography.

I pray for my nation where gay and lesbian couples have a greater commitment to getting marriage rights than heterosexual couples do to keeping their marriages intact.

I pray for my state, where after decades of uninterrupted prosperity, none of our leaders prepared for the possibility of an inevitable economic downturn -- and then put the brunt of subsequent budget cuts on some of the most vulnerable, most underserved citizens: those with mental illness.

I pray for my nation where speculation passes for investing and the government promotes gambling.

I pray for my world where we hold well-intentioned ceremonies such as the blessing of the animals while simultaneously sacrificing the lives of millions of unborn humans each year because of their inconvenience.

I pray for myself that I don't start to think that these prayers are for others' flaws and failings, not recognizing my own face in the mirror.

I pray to God that he give us the grace to have mercy on each other for our sins and shortcomings, and, that as we turn away from our greedy and crooked ways, he will have mercy on us all.  And even in view of the unholy mess we have made of this his marvelous creation, I believe God is willing -- given what he offers us in the person of Jesus.

Gary D. Gaddy needs your help in prayer because he doesn’t pray nearly enough.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Friday October 16, 2009.

Copyright  2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:14 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, October 18, 2009 6:18 PM EDT

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CARRBORO, N.C. -- In the wake of the logistical nightmare that tried to pass as a U2 concert at Carter-Finley Stadium, I was expecting something similar with the Carrboro debut of the critically acclaimed Up Cane Creek.  In that respect, in only that respect, I was disappointed.

Despite the under-sized venue for such a notable musical milestone, the entire event went off without a hitch (if we don't count the bass amp going dead for several songs -- which I won't as the bass player covered for this potential disaster like a pro by upping his thumping volume and playing truly acoustically -- something which the bands on MTV's Unplugged never do.)

It is slightly curious that the home-grown Up Cane Creek had not performed before this week in Carrboro, given their touring history:  public performances in Maryland and Virginia, recording sessions on the coast of South Carolina and in the mountains of North Carolina, gigs in Bear Creek, Butner and Winston-Salem -- all in addition to their multiple Chapel Hill outings.  Up Cane Creek, as you might expect from their name, doesn't always go with the flow.

And it is ironic that the Creek's first club gig was not in a club (of the bar with bands sort) at all, but at Club Nova, the clubhouse rehabilitation program for people with mental illness.

Practicing each week on the western fringe of Orange County, on the banks of Cane Creek (thus the latter parts of the band name), the group is comprised of a couple of local couples, entrepreneur Jay Miller and his visual artist wife Ebeth Scott-Sinclair, and attorney Sandra Herring and her husband.

Already known as one of the best local cover bands for music from the 1780's (when big hair first entered the popular music domain), Up Cane Creek continues to expand its repertoire, its set list spanning the group's full range of Americana, bluegrass and gospel, being comprised of songs both traditional and original.

Beginning with a bluegrass "I'll Fly Away" and harmonized, a cappella versions of "Gospel Ship" and "If I Be Lifted Up," the show continued to the righteous rockin' and holy rollin' "Ain't No Grave," where the band showed its gospel streak, culminating in its own meditative "Walk Down to the Water."

The group unveiled its backwoods mountain heritage in light-hearted takes on "Cripple Creek," "Groundhog," and a mini-medley of "Old Joe Clark" and "June Apple," and then showed its roots-country roots with an edition of "Another Day Another Dollar" and their own working-class country compositions "Workin' on it Still" and "Leaving Danville," the latter of which was authored by Alabaman Miller and Wilson-bred Scott-Sinclair much to the dismay of the group's Danvillian bassist.

Vocalist Scott-Sinclair sang up a blue streak, literally, belting out not only their original "Blue Mist" but a Ray-Charles-derived, Patsy-Cline-influenced rendition of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and a modernized and feminized edition of Bill Monroe's "Blue Night."  I think the audience would agree that feelin' blue never felt so good.

In the band's Johnny-and-June tune, "Don't Ask Me to Explain," Scott-Sinclair and Miller sizzled with a Cash-and-Carter-like energy, which got a spontaneous ovation for the wild and creative banjo break.

The scariest moment of the noon-time concert came when the bass player did what sidemen are prone to do, got the group to let him sing lead, in this case on "Wreck of the Old 97."  Happily, it was not a train wreck -- and neither was "Mecklenburg Train," the band’s heart-rending original set in 1860's North Carolina.

Lower-key songs included Miller and Scott-Sinclair’s haunting "Restless Wind" as well as 1780's favorites "Fair and Tender Ladies" and "Wayfarin' Stranger" and what has a shot at being one of the year's top-rated, bassist-authored lullabies, the afternoon's finale, "Rock-a-Baby."

Gary D. Gaddy, the author of this review, is said to look a lot like the bass player in Up Cane Creek, but it's hard to know since he wore shades the whole gig.  (Go to UpCaneCreek.com to listen to several of the band's original songs.)

A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Friday October 9, 2009.

Copyright  2009  Gary D. Gaddy  

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:00 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, June 6, 2010 6:01 AM EDT

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THIS YEAR A GREAT MAN passed from this earth. That man was Robinson O. Everett.

Characterized by his Duke Law School colleague Clark Havigurst as "a gentle, unassuming force of nature" and equally aptly as "the slowest moving high-energy guy I have ever known," Judge Everett was also described by one of his former students, James Dever, as "utterly brilliant and disarmingly humble and kind."

Judge Everett was a remarkable and multi-faceted man: student, veteran, lawyer, professor, scholar, judge, legal advocate and constitutional activist. But he was much greater than any list of his achievements might imply.

But before we get to his real greatness, let me give you a sample, and this is just a sample, of what he accomplished in his lifetime. He graduated from high school in Durham at 15, from Harvard University magna cum laude at 19 and from Harvard Law, also magna cum laude, at 22. The same year he began teach at Duke University School of Law, remaining until today the youngest professor in the school's history. Upon graduating from law school in the midst of the Korean War, Everett joined the United States Air Force, where he was assigned to the Judge Advocate General's Corps. As a judge, he rose to the rank of chief judge of the Court of Military Appeals, the highest civilian court in the military justice system, just a step below the U.S. Supreme Court. He retired as a colonel. And he practiced law privately for more than 50 years.

Some of Judge Everett's most publicly visible acts were also his most controversial. In 1966, Everett, a protégé of Senator Sam Erwin and a yellow-dog Democrat, challenged a congressional redistricting plan for North Carolina that he thought was an illegal gerrymander aimed at preserving the incumbent's re-election, a lawsuit which forced the legislature to revise the districts, making them more compact and contiguous.

In the 1990s, as an attorney he was the legal force, and personal financier, behind the case of Shaw v. Reno. This case brought a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court against the racial gerrymandering as embodied in the creation of the long, snaking district for North Carolina's new 12th District. This district, Everett argued, amounted to legal segregation.

While he did succeed in forcing new districts to be drawn up, Everett did not get the courts to rule out racial considerations altogether in drawing districts. For his efforts to enforce the principle of color-blindness which he saw enshrined in the Constitution, Judge Everett was thought to be a racist by many who did not know him -- which he definitively and unequivocally was not.

Judge Everett's true greatness lay in his character, shown in part by his willingness to sacrifice his reputation to what he believed was right, and in a sterling character displayed daily in his interaction with those of every station in life. To the best of my observation, Judge Everett treated every person he ever met with the same warmth and respect. Looking into his face, you would never know whether he was greeting the chief justice of the Supreme Court or the homeless guy on Main Street, both of whom may well have known him by name.

His private, unpublicized and even anonymous acts of charity numbered in the thousands. In business, he rarely, it seemed, charged his many clients of modest income anything close to going rates, often working pro bono.

Unabashed in his Christian walk, he did not wear his faith on his sleeve, but he was unashamed to let anyone know "the hope he held within him." Judge Dever said that the Presbyterian Everett truly embodied Saint Benedict's first rule that those who learn to live their life in the spirit of thanksgiving will receive life's full promise. Judge Everett learned that and so he did. That is true greatness.

***

Special postscript

It just so happens that the day Ellie Everett was born, her aunt went and bought all of the local papers so that Ellie would have a record of what was happening on the day she was born.  Lo and  behold, there was an article about her granddad!  It was this one.

I am placing a bet now on Ellie.  Since her great-great grandfather, her great grandmother and her great grandfather, her grandfather, her uncle and both her parents are lawyers, I will wager that Ellie is going to be a basketball player.

Gary D. Gaddy was a friend of Robinson Everett for 15 years.

A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Friday October 2, 2009.

Copyright  2009  Gary D. Gaddy 

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:07 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 9:53 AM EDT

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HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. -- The Orange County Sheriff's Department has broken up what is believed to be central North Carolina's largest doggerel ring, an operation that officials believe may have been operating undetected in Hillsborough's literary underground for decades.

Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass said that the department’s big break in the case came when one of the Hillsborough ring's seasoned professionals, Elon G. "Jerry" Eidenier, " got a little careless" when he allowed his tennis and poetry circles to become conflated.

The sheriff's department first became aware of the illicit organization when the ring’s ringleader "slipped up" and gave a public poetry reading for his tennis team.  Several members of the team with humanity degrees from liberal arts universities recognized that the literary product that they had been exposed to was a subpedestrian form of poetry commonly known as doggerel.

The leak came through William "Bill" (aka "Loose Lips") McCaskill, Eidenier’s sometime tennis partner, who is said to have told "some of the guys" that Eidenier had written a "team poem."  This report sent up an immediate flag when received by sheriff’s department detectives.

Initially implicated as a principal in the operation was G. Douglas Gaddy, a local "writer" most well-known for his transparently faux "news" stories and slightly more than slightly out-of-kilter opinion pieces.  Pendergrass said Gaddy was taken in briefly for questioning and then released on his own recognizance.

Eidenier, according to Pendergrass, runs a front-operation as an "actual poet," writing what the area's literary community holds to be "actual poetry."  Said Pendergrass, "This gives Eidenier a cover for carrying around tiny notebooks where he is always scribblin' little sayin's and stuff without nobody suspectin' nothin'," he said.  "I can't tell no difference myself," said Pendergrass, "except maybe the doggerel rhymes better."

The primary foci of the doggerel ring are wagering events known as Poetry Smackdowns, which pit one poet against another in mano-a-mano competitions.

The sheriff said he was a "little at a loss" as to why the reportedly boisterous and sometimes bloody affairs had never drawn one disturbing-the-peace report, but thought perhaps it was because they were usually held in the subterranean basements of large estate homes, "typically near the wine cellars."

According to criminologist I.C. Hunter, who heads NC State University's Criminology Curriculum in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, each community is susceptible to different criminal vices according to its character, or characters, as the case may be. 

"For example, Charlotte tends toward financial crimes such as embezzlement and wire fraud, while Chapel Hill gravitates toward intellectual property theft," said Hunter. "I wouldn't leave even a half-baked idea laying around unguarded on Franklin Street.  It would last about as long as an untethered laptop in Davis Library," he added.

Prof. Hunter said that Hillsborough, as a "literary village," is prone to language-based crime such as "criminal uttering, con artistry of various sorts and, of course, doggerel rings."

"While poetry ring has a quaint sound to it, in the modern era literary rings are not of the innocuous sort that you might imagine with tea, crumpets and lace doilies.  When it comes to the acrimony among these poetry rings, they act more like Crips and Bloods," said Hunter.

"If you don't think this is so, just mention Doug Marlette, or Allan Gurganus, in the wrong Hillsborough literary circle, as I did once, and see if you escape with your eyebrows unsinged," said Hunter.  "Somebody may still think it's sticks and stones that break your bones, but not me.  I'd rather face a stone-hurling mob than face that gauntlet of flame throwers with their withering verbal fire," he added.

Eidenier, on the advice of his attorney, said he would decline comment on the charges against him but could not resist making one.  "I rhyme all the time," said Eidenier. "Is that a crime?" he asked.

A court hearing set for October 12, Dr. Hunter mused, may answer that question.

Gary D. Gaddy, who is a lyricist, not a poet, lives in the periphery of Orange County. 

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:08 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, September 26, 2009 8:10 PM EDT

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RACIAL PROFIING EXISTS.  Those who say it doesn't haven't been paying attention.  I know it exists because I have been racially profiled many times.

When I was in high school, my friend Maynard Reynolds and I used to play basketball on the playgrounds of Danville, Virginia.  When we first got to the courts often there was little obvious enthusiasm for our arrival -- unless they were really short of players.

Now, we weren't looked upon dismissively because of anything we had done or said or even anything that anyone of them had heard about us.  We were unknown commodities.  We were profiled because of how we looked -- extremely white.

Don't get me wrong, I understood.  We always went to play at the courts in the black neighborhoods, because, in some profiling of our own, we had decided that's where the good players were.

We did not decide this out of pure prejudice.  My older brother played for George Washington High School when they went to the state championship finals in 1965. GW had a good team – for a white school.  This was, as you might surmise, before the Danville school system was desegregated.

But I had been to a game at Langston High School, Danville's black high school as well.  For anything I could tell, Langston's team, a school with one third as many students, would have run GW out of the gym.

Here's the backstory.  The guys on the playground courts profiled us.  We were white, so, they thought that we couldn't play at their level.  You know what, they were half right.  Half of the two of us couldn't.

It didn't take long before they figured out the real story.  Maynard did have game.  He was a mini-Maravich.  Like Pistol Pete he could dribble effortlessly behind his back or between his legs, go to his right and to his left with ease.  He could shoot and he could score -- and he would pass to the open man.  He was a player.

It wasn't long before teams would grab him up before we got all the way to the court – despite his ghostly color.

Now, if my friend Maynard felt slighted that first time when he was picked next to last, I don't remember him showing it.  He just played and proved them wrong.  But, if he was miffed, who should he have blamed?  The guys at the courts who assumed we couldn't play?  Or the person who created the stereotype he had to break – me?  The guys at the courts were just trying to win, which is the point of the game, isn't it?

***

Carrboro goes dry as "Buy Local" hits stride

CARRBORO -- In the wake of its new "Buy Local" ordinance, Carrboro has become the first North Carolina town to go dry since Yadkinville voted in local prohibition in 1935.  The "Buy Local" ordinance requires that all Carrboro businesses buy and sell only products manufactured, produced or grown within the Carrboro planning jurisdiction.

"We had not realized that there were no breweries, distilleries or wineries in the greater Carrboro municipality," said Alderperson Burke O'Bailey-Smithwick, noting that she could now see how this could have an impact on alcohol sales within the town limits.

"The obvious answer is for Carrboro to legalize the sale and consumption of locally grown marijuana, which will boost the local farm economy as well as giving a kick start to the burgeoning hookah bar trade,” said Alderperson Albert Bosworth.

The Chapel Hill Chamber of Commerce was ecstatic at the news that Carrboro was going dry.  "This is the first time that we can remember a local government regulation of any sort actually helping business in Chapel Hill,” said Chamber spokesperson Milford Bunche, as he stood in line outside the Carolina Brewery.

Gary D. Gaddy played basketball for 40 years.  Most of time the players were divided by one clear and obviously superficial distinction: shirts or skins.

A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Friday September 11, 2009.

Copyright 2009  Gary D. Gaddy 

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:03 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, June 6, 2010 6:03 AM EDT

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IT IS THE TIME OF THE YEAR when the crisp evening air, the smell of freshly mown grass and the sight of the sharp white lines on the gridiron remind us that it's just a couple of months 'til basketball season.  But let's do talk briefly about football.

Chirpy Chirping and Chippiness

It's a new era in Big Four football when the Duke coach gets testy because he thinks his program might be being dissed.  Understand me, before David Cutcliffe they were getting dissed regularly, being clearly the worst team in all of Division I football over the last 20 years.  However, even during the brief glowing moment under Steve Spurrier, Steve Superior didn't get chippy -- mainly because he was too busy dissing everybody else.

But, to my mind, an even better sign of the new era is that an NC State/UNC football detente may not be in the offing.  My hope derives from this exchange last spring.

“We're the best football program in the state, without question,” said NC State football coach O'Brien following State's 41-10 win last year over UNC, referencing State's season sweep of North Carolina, East Carolina, Wake Forest and Duke.

When UNC football coach Butch Davis was asked to respond the following Monday, he said, “Last Saturday, they were the best football team.  But before anybody anoints themselves, I’d say there probably needs to be some time invested into the programs, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Then Cutcliffe added, “If I were Tom O’Brien, I’d be saying that.  This might be the only year he can ever chirp like that. When you’ve got chirping rights, you better chirp."

Wake Forest's Jim Grobe didn't enter the fray.  Why not?  I will venture a guess.  Because he actually has the best case for the best Division I  BCS program in the state -- and when you got it, no need to flaunt it.

Which bring us to the . . .

The Golden Age of Football

The other day I shared this little sports tidbit that I found in USA Today with my family.  It had a list in its pre-season college football issue giving the "Golden Age of Football" for each of the schools of the Bowl Championship Subdivision of Division I (that is, the "We Don't Really Have a Championship" Subdivision) football.

Here was what they concluded about the Big Four -- a sports designation derived from basketball, not football, it is worth noting  (I sent this to my family because between my parents and siblings, we have, by my count, 30 years of undergraduate and graduate degrees spread across all the Big Four universities.)  For UNC, the Golden Age was '46-'49 with Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice -- 60 years ago.  For Duke, it was '52-'55 under Coach Bill Murray -- 55 years ago.  For NC State, it was '72-'74 under Lou Holtz -- 35 years ago.

Which leaves us with poor podunk Wake Forest, the second-smallest school in the BCS.  Its Golden Age?  The era under Jim Grobe with Riley Skinner from 2006 up to right now -- which includes an ACC championship and an Orange Bowl appearance.  My advice to my Wake family fans: "Enjoy it while you can, Deacs."

My sister, the Bowman-Gray educated pediatrician, then asked. "When do Furman fans get their Golden Age?"  (She asked, being like me, a Purple Paladin.)  I answered: "Beets (her family nickname), sorry but Furman wasn't listed since the list did not include schools in the ‘We Actually Play for a Championship’ Subdivision."

For the record, Furman's Golden Age would be 1985 through 1988 when it appeared in the Division I-AA championship game twice, winning it once.

But who should be chirpy, or chippy, as to claims about the "best football program in the state"?  That would be Jerry Moore, head coach of Appalachian State, whose Golden Age is also now, having won three consecutive Division I FCS (then I-AA) national championships beginning in 2005, and whose team tops the preseason poll again this year.


Gary D. Gaddy is a Furman University graduate.

A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Friday September 4, 2009.

Copyright 2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 6:15 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 7:18 PM EDT

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IT SEEMS LIKE EVERY OTHER WEEK I am writing about the latest local outbreak of NIMBYism.  I hope you are not tiring of my writing about "Not in My Backyard" because I sure am tiring of having NIMBYs living in mine.

I have neighbors against having neighbors. Their protests and lobbying efforts got your tax dollars and mine to buy them a park along New Hope Creek instead of a new neighborhood.  Neighborhoods are fine, apparently, as long as they are in someone else's neighborhood.

I have neighbors against neighborhood schools.  (I'm not making this up.)  Their protests got the proposed high school at Cornwallis and Erwin roads cancelled.  I am sure they would say that they are not against "neighborhood schools," just a particular school on a particular parcel of land -- which coincidentally sits in their backyard.

Now it's the Sunrise Road people on their fourth, by my count, NIMBY campaign of the last three decades.  First they opposed the route of I-40, which they wanted near someone else's neighborhood.  Happily, for everyone else in North Carolina, they were unsuccessful.

Next they say, "In 1995, BellSouth . . . applied to build a 169-foot tower behind the Wesleyan Church at the corner of Sunrise Rd and I-40, but local residents organized successful efforts to oppose the towers."

Later the Sunrise Coalition opposed a Sunrise Road Habitat for Humanity housing project, greatly delaying it, managing to make it smaller, much more expensive, and thus helping poor people get, someday, what most everybody else in Chapel Hill already has, houses that cost way too much.

Question. If poor people can't live near people who aren't poor, where can they live?  Near other poor people?  We've tried that; they're called ghettoes.

Now, Sunrise Road is repelling another Attack of the Dreaded Cell Phone Tower, by spawning the Rural Buffer Defense Group which is "made up of the owners of all 10 properties immediately adjoining the Tower site, plus over 20 other families . . . [in the] neighborhood."

I don't want to judge any one individual's motives. They may be pure, but ain't it a coincidence these NIMBY groups are always opposed to things in their own neighborhood -- even when they have, do or will use the service this annoyance may provide.  In this respect NIMBY is really I-SELFY, In Somebody Else's Front Yard.

Now understand, the Sunrise Road cell tower opponents are not against cell phones. As their ugly sign next to the proposed cell tower says: "Cell Service? Yes. Ugly cell tower? NO."

Of course, there are explanations for why the group doesn't want to allow a neighboring landowner to lease a space on his 10-acre wooded lot to put a 149-foot cell phone tower for AT&T and other providers which will serve local citizens, including them, service that could have been available for 15 years if not for their earlier opposition.

One argument they offer is that the property immediately adjacent to the tower site is a “Tree Farm whose mature timber is due to be harvested in the near future," thus making the tower more visible.  My suggestion is to not cut down the 32 acres of trees.  It will become a forest not a farm.  Then let your neighbor do what he legally may with his forest.  It's his, you know, just like yours is yours.

I don't like telephone and power lines going by my house -- but I do like my neighbors and I like having telephones and electricity.  I don't like the road that goes by my house -- but I sure do like  that we all can drive our cars where we wish, so I put up with it.

And because I want to be a good neighbor to the Rural Buffer Defense Group, here’s some helpful advice for their upcoming court hearing.  My wife, who is an attorney, says so as not to get on the wrong side of the judge, before you enter the courtroom, make sure to turn off your cell phones.


Gary D. Gaddy is, coincidentally, an AT&T cell phone subscriber.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday August 28, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:00 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, July 8, 2011 8:32 PM EDT

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LAST TUESDAY NIGHT I was having a drink on the patio outside Panzanella in Carr Mill Mall following a meeting at Club Nova intended to help the board catch a new vision of the future of a great organization.   I have the privilege of serving on the board of this program which works with people with severe and persistent disabilities.  The other board members are some very smart, well educated and earnestly caring people; how I got on this board, I have no idea.

This group confounds one observation I believe generally holds true (often attributed to Winston Churchill):  "Anyone who is not a liberal when they are young has no heart.  Anyone who is not a conservative when they are old has no brain."

As we sat in the warm evening air, we discussed the sad state of care for those with mental illness before the conversation moved on to the current debate on health care reform.  I tried to stay out of the amicable agreementfest that was substituting for a serious discussion of the troubles reform was having but only could do so for so long.

I began my comments by saying I really didn't want to get into a political discussion because I doubted that any one of them would agree with me on much of anything.

In 1992, when Hillary Clinton was given the task of reforming our health care system, I observed, she blew it by following a faulty, secretive process.  The country was ready then for real change but not for change imposed from the top from behind closed doors.

The current effort, I noted, trying to hurry through Congress a 1,082-page bill that many of those sponsoring it hadn't read, and certainly didn't understand the implications of, wasn't a process that would have been used to implement so much as a new rule on snack bar hours at Club Nova, where members and staff diligently work together to make things work in genuine consensus.

My explanation for why so many ordinary people now felt like someone was trying to sneak something by them was simple: someone was trying to sneak something by them.

We also talked about spiraling medical costs, after it was mentioned how in our personal experience so many seemingly unnecessary medical tests get ordered these days.  I asked, "Do you know why that's so?  I'll give you a hint: My wife is a lawyer."  I then added that any reform effort that claimed to contain costs but did not include tort reform was not serious -- which was a kind way to word it.

In my next statement I might have been a little more diplomatic if we hadn't just spent 30 minutes talking about how Medicaid rations care via strangulation administered with bureaucratic red tape.  In that context, I had a hard time not rebutting our table's consensus that further nationalizing health care will solve all our problems.  "Correct me if I'm wrong," I asked, "but Medicaid is a federal government program, isn't it?"

One person pointed out that she gets her Social Security check every month.  My response was that collecting money from taxpayers and writing checks were things that government was very good at.

At that point the guest speaker at our board meeting pointed out that one individual at one of the health care town hall forums had asked, "The government runs Medicare and it’s going broke.  The government runs Medicaid and it’s going broke.  The government runs Social Security and it’s going broke.  Tell me why I should trust the government with my health care?"  Then he added, "It was a good question."

It was a heartening moment for me, a meeting of the minds, suggesting that perhaps real health care reform is possible.

Coming soon, maybe, a new column: Fixing what is broke without breaking what isn’t in American health care.

Gary D. Gaddy has a private health insurance policy with a $20,000 deductible and pays his doctor bills from a Health Savings Account.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday August 21, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:24 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:07 PM EDT

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AMERICA'S LEADING "Green Evangelist" died last month.  No, Al Gore is doing fine -- as far as I know.  It was the Reverend Frederick Eikerenkoetter II who passed from this life.

Eikerenkoetter, "known as Rev. Ike to a legion of followers here and across the nation to whom he preached the blessings of prosperity while making millions from their donations, has died,” reported the New York Daily News.

The Rev. Ike is gone and I am going to miss him.  Your ordinary run-of-the-mill charlatan is mildly amusing for a while.  The Rev. Ike never got old.

One of my favorite Rev. Ike quotes is "My garages runneth over."  In 1976, according to the Los Angeles Times, his church owned 16 mink-appointed Rolls-Royces.  One thing you could not accuse the prosperity-gospel preacher of was hypocrisy.  At one point he alternated among six homes.   The Los Angeles Times once reported that he wore a gold watch, a silver-and-diamond tie pin, a silver bracelet and a large gold ring studded with more than a dozen diamonds.

His ministry reached its peak in the mid-1970s, when his sermons were carried on 1,770 radio stations to an estimated audience of 2.5 million.

Preaching from the stage of a former New York City Loews movie theater that was transformed into the United Church Science of Living Institute, Rev. Ike would tell thousands of parishioners to "close your eyes and see green . . . money up to your armpits, a roomful of money, and there you are, just tossing around in it like a swimming pool," said the New York Daily News.

As payback for his spiritual inspiration, Rev. Ike asked for cash donations from the faithful -- preferably in bills not coins.  In addition to his refreshing honesty, he also had rhyming and timing.  "Change makes your minister nervous in the service," he would say.  He regularly told his listeners to "never mind that pie in the sky, in the sweet bye and bye, when you die, you need money now, honey."

Rev. Ike was a one-man anti-poverty program.  "The best thing you can do for the poor is not to be one of them," he preached.  “No one has a right to be a parasite,” he added.

The critics who called Rev. Ike a con man, saying the only point of his ministry was getting rich from the donations, wouldn't know a con man if they saw one.  One commentator said, "Reverend Ike was . . . a snake oil salesman of the first order."  This woefully understates Rev. Ike in his prime.  He could have sold snake oil for sure.  He could have sold it to the snakes.

But fakes resort to fakery.  Not Rev Ike.  He was completely transparent.  I remember watching television sometime back in the early 70's and being impressed by one of his commands: "If you think that money is the root of all evil, then send yours to me!"

Con artist, no; extortionist, yes.  One of the Rev. Ike's reported fundraising techniques was to send a letter containing a sliver of a prayer rug. The letter told the recipient to mail it back the following day with a donation -- at least $20 -- so that Rev. Ike could bless it.  Failure to return it, with a donation, could have dire consequences, the letter said.

Not to treat the man too casually, he was a heretic -- by traditional Christian standards -- putting love of money in the place of the love of God and the love of man that Christ commanded.  Rev. Ike taught that “The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

And finally, "If it's that difficult for a rich man to get into heaven, think how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in.  He doesn't even have a bribe for the gatekeeper," said Rev. Ike.  Here's hoping Rev. Ike took some of his with him.


Gary D. Gaddy is worried about how to get a camel through the eye of a needle.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Friday August 14, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:13 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:11 PM EDT

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I WAS SO GLAD TO HEAR that Cash for Clunkers, the Congressional program where ordinary citizens are given thousands of dollars to trade in their old wasteful, noxious-gas-spewing clunkers for new thriftier, cleaner replacements, was working so well that they are thinking about expanding it.  I was very disappointed, however, when I found out it wasn't a program for buying new congresspersons to replace our old ones.

Of course the actual Cash for Clunkers program is wildly successful.  Loose cash blowing down the street has always attracted an eager crowd.

Government at its best is a blunt instrument.  At its worst its power appears to be an instrument wielded by those who have suffered from blunt force trauma to the head.  Let us think for a moment about this program -- something few of our congresspersons did before they voted for this junker.

Here is how it works.  Officially known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, the CARS program allows individuals to trade in a vehicle which must be less than 25 years old and get 18 or fewer miles per gallon in exchange for $3,500 to be used to purchase or lease a new vehicle which gets at least 22 miles per gallon, or $4,500 if the new car gets five or more miles per gallon more than the trade-in.

Of course, the actual program is more complicated than this.  (I did say it was a government program, didn't I?)  Trucks, for example, have smaller mileage improvement targets.

According to the government, CARS is designed to help consumers buy or lease more environmentally-friendly vehicles which will "energize the economy; boost auto sales and put safer, cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles on the nation's roadways."

It will do these things, but at what cost?  One billion dollars -- to start with.  (More billions if it is extended and expanded.)

Showing that economic ignorance knows no party line when the proper state lines are involved, one Michigan Republican, Congresswoman Candice Miller, says, "There can be no doubt that the Cash for Clunkers program is a complete success given the fact that the entire $1 billion allocated to the program was expended in less than a week."

True, but one thousand Brinks trucks with their backdoors left open each with one million dollars in loose 20s driving our highways and byways would stimulate better -- and faster.

Consider that the real value of the discounts to consumers is $3,500 to $4,500 minus the value of the trade-ins, which must be destroyed.  This means only relatively low-value vehicles will be traded, otherwise it makes more sense to keep them.  That is, cars with little useful life left in them, thus big costs for small returns.

If the trade-ins are not of low value, vehicles with useful lives will be destroyed.  In both cases these discounts will assist wealthier buyers, people who had a car and could afford or almost afford a new one.  Meanwhile, the vehicles destroyed represent an implicit tax on poor people as a result of decreasing the supply of low value cars and trucks -- unless, of course, Congress repealed the law of supply and demand at the same time they passed this one.

What about energy savings?  Until the trade-ins and replacements are tallied we can't know precisely, but I estimate that it is likely to be only a little more than five or six miles per gallon per vehicle improvement.  Let’s assume that over each trade-in vehicle's remaining life when it would have been junked anyway, it would hang on, optimistically, 25,000 more miles. With a government-estimated 25.4 mpg for the new vehicles versus 15.8 mpg for the old clunkers, each trade-in will save about 600 gallons of fuel.  This equals, at an average $4,000 discount, a cost in the neighborhood of $6.67 per gallon saved.  Make sense to you?  Not for my money.

Gary D. Gaddy owns a used first-generation Prius that he bought with his own money -- sadly.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday August 7, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:07 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 4:25 PM EDT

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IN THE CHANGING MEDIA LANDSCAPE, we must change or die.  I ain't ready to die.  So, I guess I have to learn how to twitter.  So, I’ll start
***
I forgot. Twitters must be brief. You can only use 140 characters for any one twitter. This is great for readers with really short attention
***
Sorry, I’ll try to stay focused. You need to when you are twittering. And to think some people were impressed with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Addr
***
Terse Ol' Abe? His address is 1494 characters! That's 10 tweets. He may have been ahead of the curve then. The ol’ boy sure ain’t there now.
***
Twitter, they say, is ez. A column on tweets of tweets wld b harder. A whole column of tweets exactly 140 characters long, that wld b fun!!!
***
Twittering helps communicate concisely.  For example, doing it isn’t called twittering, it’s called tweeting.  This saves two whole characte
***
I'll get the hang of this. What we should do, tweeters say, is to use more abbreviations and special tweeting shortcuts. Let us learn a few.
***
Now, 4 u tweeting novices, some meta-tweets, ie, tweets about tweets. These self-reflexive tweets will help u twitter much more efficiently.
***
IRL = In Real Life. What’s true on Twitter may not be true IRL, believe it or not.  IRL things are borrrrrring, unlike life in Twitter land.
***
IMHO = In My Humble Opinion. IMHO usually indicates that: "This is an op-ed tweet, not a factual assertion." It is very rarely humble, IMHO.
***
BTW = By The Way. BTW is an easy way to add an aside. It’s Twitter’s version of a segue.  BTW, few twitters would know the meaning of segue.
***
F2F refers to meeting in person, IRL, ie, face to face. Can mean at a tweetup or other occasion where you might encounter another Twitterer.
***
NBFF = New Best Friend Forever. A nu type of deep relationship that can b established through the nu media like Twitter.  4ever is relative.
***
TWD = Tweeting While Driving. Xciting twittering xercise where you ndanger others while tweeting with your NBFF u just met while a-tweeting.
***
YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary. In other words (IOW), what’s true in my experience (IMX) may differ from yours. Especially if you tend to TWD.
***
b/c = because. Not the blind carbon copy (BCC) used in email. Why’s b/c mean one thing in one place and something else in another? Just b/c.
***
Now let’s add more abbreviations to the mix.  (Ever wonder why the word abbreviation is so long -- and there’s no good abbreviation for it?)
***
Starting with the B's, let us learn some fun nu twitter abbreviations:  btw = by the way, b4 = before, bfn = bye for now, br = best regards.
***
c itz ez:  btw, b4 i go, fyi b/c u were l8 itz 2 l8 now 4 me. plz, cld u c me l8er?  ru free this pm?  wld b gr8. Thx a mil. bfn & br 2 jack
***
c, itz ezier than u thght. u can do it, so can i. dont need apostrophes or capitals or gramer or speling. Itz gr8 4 passing notes n my skool
***
BTW IRL IMX meeting a NBFF F2F stinks b/c IRL people r borrrrrring, IMHO YMMV but IMX twitter columns beat Local Voices ez ez. Cu l8er NBFF.

Gary Douglas Gaddy, who isn't really that tweet proficient, yet, did manage to make this bio line precisely140 characters long, more or less

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday July 31, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:25 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:02 PM EDT

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GARY GADDY is going to miss Roland Burris.  In case you missed it, Roland Burris is the Illinois politician who took Barack Obama’s senate seat after being appointed by another Illinois politician we all will miss: former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.  In the past week Roland Burris said that Roland Burris will not seek election when his appointed term expires.

But rather than using this as an occasion to mourn, it something to be celebrated -- with National Week of the Third Person.

Get to know illeism

Roland Burris has often talked about himself in the third person, saying "Roland Burris" thinks this and "Roland Burris" will do that.  Some people find that egotistical.  Gary Gaddy does not.  If nothing else, Roland Burris’ work has helped expand all our vocabularies.

• lleism: Reference to oneself in the third person, usually to excess. (This definition is taken from the Logophilius blog. You gotta love words to appreciate Logophilius.  Frankly, it’s Greek to me.)

One famous illeist was Richard Milhous Nixon.  The classic example of a Nixonian illeism ("You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore.") was made on the morning of November 7, 1962 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles as Nixon gave what he called his "last press conference."  Unfortunately for us all, the press did have Nixon to kick around anymore.  This was not his last press conference.

But, let us not forget Roland Burris, if for no other reason than Roland Burris wouldn’t want us to.  Roland Burris is not just a person who speaks of himself in the third person.  He is much more than that.

According to Deanna Bellandi and John O'Connor of the Associated Press, in 1984, when Roland Burris ran unsuccessfully for the Senate, he once mused, "Illinois is the Land of Lincoln. Maybe someday it will be the Land of Burris."  He named his children Roland II and Rolanda.

"In addition to constructing a big mausoleum, he etched it with practically his entire resume, recording, among other things, that he was the first black Southern Illinois University exchange student to the University of Hamburg in Germany," said Bellandi and O’Connor.  And this is a notable accomplishment that II venture will never be duplicated by any person black, white or any other color.

“This is Rickey.  Calling on behalf of Rickey.”

But enough of Roland Burris.  Could it be a coincidence that Roland Burris was seated in the United States Senate during the same week that Rickey Henderson got voted into the Hall of Fame?

According to Wikipedia, baseball player Rickey Henderson was famous as an illeist.  Teammates reported seeing him standing naked in front of a mirror before a game, practicing his swing, and declaring, "Rickey's the best! Rickey's the best!"

It is also reported that during one off-season, Henderson left this message for Padres general manager Kevin Towers: "Kevin, this is Rickey. Calling on behalf of Rickey.  Rickey wants to play baseball."  This is, unequivocally, illeism at its highest.

Again, according to Wikipedia, in 2003, Rickey discussed his illeistic tendencies, saying, "People are always saying, 'Rickey says Rickey.' But it's been blown way out of proportion. I say it when I don't do what I need to be doing. I use it to remind myself, like,`Rickey, what you doing, you stupid . . . .'  I'm just scolding myself."

A sports reporter once asked Rickey if Rickey talked to himself, “You know, I never answer myself so how can I be talking to myself?”  And as to the degree of his illeiacal proneness, Rickey does use the first person, as when he defended his position during a contract dispute: "All I'm asking for is what I want."

But we should be careful of the facts on Rickey Henderson.  It is quite possible that the Wikipedia entry on Rickey Henderson was written by Rickey Henderson on behalf of Rickey Henderson.

Happy Illeism Week!


Gary D. Gaddy would like to thank Gary D. Gaddy for his assistance on this column which helped GaryGaddy.com to win the National Society for the Advancement of Illeism’s Blog of the Decade.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday July 17, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 7:14 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, July 9, 2011 7:17 AM EDT

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THE INTERNET IS GREAT!  You can find out all kinds of things with it -- without even getting out of your pajamas.  (Traditional journalists are often derisive of bloggers "blogging in their pajamas."  This leads me to a question:  How do these "real" journalists even know the bloggers wear pajamas?  Investigative research is my best guess -- using the Internet.)

Recently, after having been married to my lovely wife and sometime editor for 15 years, I realized that I knew almost nothing about her except what she told me.  It used to be that you would have had to hire a private investigator, someone like Magnum, P.I., to look into her supposedly unsordid past.  Now, I can just Google her.

Let me tell you just some of the fascinating facts about her that I found out in my investigation -- none of which she had seen fit to tell me herself.

The first thing I discovered was that in 1972 my wife, who then went by Sandra Lynn Herring, was not only Miss Portland but Miss Oregon and a winner of a "Non-Finalist Talent Award" in the Miss America contest.  She never told me any of this.  She brags about second place in a bare bow archery contest with two contestants, but doesn’t mention this?  Odd, don’t you think?  (Coincidentally, she also never said anything about living in Oregon.)

But beyond bald facts, the Internet can tell you how to manipulate those essential pieces of data to entertain yourself.  For example, the website www.isthisyour.name will tell you the "Top 5 Facts for This Name."

1. How well envoweled is Sandra Herring?  For this name, 31% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names, 74% have a higher vowel make-up.  This means you, Sandra Herring, are modestly envoweled.

2. In ASCII binary Sandra Herring is:  01010011 01100001 01101110 01100100 01110010 01100001 00100000 01001000 01100101 01110010 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111

3. Backwards, Sandra Herring is Ardnas Gnirreh.

4. In Pig Latin, Sandra Herring is Andrasay Erringhay.

5. In what is my favorite isthisyour.name Top 5 Fact: "Sandra Herring, your Power Animal is the Common Mule."

And in the most hidden part of her life, she never said a word about being the performing artist Sandra Herring on "Everybody Wants My Body: Remix."

But these facts about others are just the tip of a massive but highly informative Internet iceberg. You can find things out about yourself, things that even you didn't know.

I remember graduating from George Washington High School in Danville, Va., (class of 1969), but had forgotten about my stints at Parkway High in Bossier City, La., (class of 1975) and Henderson High in Henderson, N.C., (class of 1964).

I remember being in the Furman University classes of 1973 (projected) and 1975 (actual), but I didn’t remember my time at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., (class of 1974).

I had thought that I didn't play golf, but with the help of the Internet, I find out I was Larkhaven Golf Club (N.C.) Four Ball Champion in 1986, 1998 and 1999; Greenville County (S.C.) Amateur Champion in 1991; and on the Montclair (Va.) Men's Golf Association Fall Classic tournament winning team (net score) in 2008.

While I knew that I had once played JV football, I did not know that at Hay High in Buda, Texas, I am the JV Blue Coach, an assistant coach with the varsity, and, of course, a PE/Health Teacher.  And last year I was the JV girls basketball at East Hall High in Hall County, Ga., as well.

I also find, besides being a self-employed "writer,"  I am a bus driver with the Lincoln, Mo., School System, a director at Sunny Level Baptist Church in Ringgold, Va.; and in 1996 was named Principal of the Year in Beaufort County, N.C.

But, I would like to caution you, sometimes the Internet information you find can be misleading.  For example, in a lot of places they have misspelled my name as Garry Gaddy.  So, be careful out there.

Gary D. Gaddy is, according to the Internet, the author of this column.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday July 9, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 7:59 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 10:26 PM EDT

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This week’s local, state, national and international news pre-digested for your consumptive pleasure.

Carrboro to star in network TV series.

CARRBORO, N.C. -- The mid-season replacement television show The Goode Family, an animated comedy by  Mike Judge, the creator and star of the hit animated television series Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill, will be moving its locale to Carrboro for the fall season, ABC announced today.

While the current program does not directly reference Carrboro or list it in the show's credits, those knowledgeable about the show and Carrboro say the parallels are far too numerous to be coincidence, and moving the show to the small North Carolina town will enhance its gritty reality.

***

Easleys hire Burris and Blagojevich

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Former N.C. governor Mike Easley and his wife, former N.C. State University administrator Mary Easley, have hired Roland Burris, the U.S. senator holding Barack Obama's former seat, and ex-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, to advise them on managing their public images.  As Dr. Zach S. Kennagachi, a professor in North Carolina State University’s Department of Communication, noted succinctly, “It can’t hurt, now can it?”

***

Obama to appear on Letterman

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Barack Obama will be making an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman to apologize for appearing on Letterman’s show, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.  Gibbs said Obama's proposed Top Ten Apologies list is still being drafted.

***

Court protects melanin deficiency disorder

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In one of its last decisions before Associate Justice David Souter leaves the court, the Supreme Court ruled today by a five-to-four margin that melanin deficiency is a legitimate disability eligible for protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Melanin deficiency disorder (MDD) is characterized by a series of superficial symptoms, including most commonly pale to pasty colored skin.  Ruled eligible under ADA are a series of medical interventions which may ameliorate if not reverse the MDD condition, including ultraviolet treatments, lower extremity strengthening therapy and group cotillion.

In a related case, several close court observers say that had the Supreme Court not ruled in favor of the 19 white New Haven, Conn., firefighters, they may have had to void the outcome of the recent National Basketball Association championship.

According to Professor Claude H. Hinkle of the Tufts University School of Law, the criteria used in the firefighters' job promotion examination were no more valid than the statistics of points, rebounds, assists, steals and turnovers used to select starters for those games.

***

UN: Next North Korea resolution to be bolder

NEW YORK -- The United Nations vowed today that if North Korea persists in developing and testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry them, the next resolution that it passes will be even bolder.

"We have been working with typography experts and typeface designers to find the look that says, most clearly and cleanly, we are serious this time," said United Nations troubleshooter Ibrahim Gambar.

"We were very disturbed to discover that our last four resolutions were in Arial Light, which, obviously, has no heft or gravitas, and without a doubt, contributed to the North Korean response, which was, according to our envoy, in three cases to ball them up and throw them back in our envoy's face.  In the fourth case, Kim Jong Il lit a cigar with it -- and not a very fancy one at that," said UN's Kwang Trig.

Experts say the next resolution’s print will be much larger than used on any past UN resolution of any kind.  "We are examining the fonts to determine which one makes the most dramatic statement.  At this point we are leaning towards Bodoni Extra Bold, which expresses a sincere earnestness without being combative.  We want to come across as unwavering but we don't want to seem strident," said Trig.

Gary D. Gaddy was a journalist, briefly.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday July 2, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:14 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 5:53 PM EDT

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TEST YOUR POLITICAL IQ to learn what you may not have learned from the massive mass media.

1) In the first apparent action by the Obama administration which might lead to overt hostilities where none existed before, a U.S. Navy Aegis guided-missile destroyer shadowed the Kang Nam, a North Korean vessel suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear material, as it headed down the Chinese coast, perhaps on its way to Myanmar.  The name of the ship is (hint: it is the same ship whose sonar array collided with a Chinese submarine on June 11th, 2009):  a) The USS Theodore Roosevelt.  b) The USS Ronald Reagan.  c) The USS Harry S Truman.  d) The USS John S. McCain.  Answer, ironically, is:  d), the ship named after admirals John S. McCain, Jr. and John S. McCain, Sr., father and grandfather of the current Senator John S. McCain.

2) Under whose presidential administration was "extraordinary rendition" (that is, sending terror suspects to other less scrupulous countries for "interrogation") invented?  a) Richard Nixon.  b) George H. W Bush.  c) Bill Clinton.  d) George W Bush.  Answer is:  c) Clinton.

3) Under Reagan, the largest federal annual deficit was $208 billion.  Under Bush, the deficit hit $482 billion for the 2008-09 budget year.  These were both reported in the media as big problems.  The predicted deficit for 2009 is $1.2 trillion, perhaps more, but is not now widely reported as a problem because:  a) Those deficits were Republican deficits which are bad.  b) The current deficit is a Democrat deficit which is good.  c) The whole national debt will be paid off easily in a couple of years using Zimbabwean dollars, which will be worth more than American dollars after the coming deficit-driven hyperinflation.  Answer:  All of the above.

4) The most embarrassing acting vice president (based on his first 100 days in office):  a) Spiro T. Agnew.  b) Dan Quayle.  c) Richard M. Nixon.  d) Joseph Biden.  If the question had been the last 100 days in office, the answer would be obviously:  a) Agnew, as being booted out on your way to the jail cell especially reserved for Maryland ex-governors is hard to top.  If it were based on media coverage alone, the answer would be:  b) Quayle, who offered potatoe as the spelling of potato and questioned the value of celebrity role models promoting voluntary single parenthood.  Actual answer is:  d) Biden, who, so far, hasn’t gone a week without saying something that doesn't need to be retracted, clarified, glossed over or "qualified" by the White House press staff.

5) Which president invoked Jesus more often in his speeches and public pronouncements:  a) George W. Bush or b) Barack Obama?  In a contest that is no contest:  b) Barack Obama.  In the first year of his presidency, Bush mentioned Jesus several times -- but always in almost required contexts, such as an Easter proclamation, a Christmas message and in announcing “Salvation Army Week.”  Obama has invoked Jesus frequently in his first four months in office while talking about all kinds of topics including abortion, the Middle East and even the economy.

6)  Whose quote is this?  "In this dedication of a nation we humbly ask the blessing of God.  May He protect each and every one of us.  May He guide me in the days to come."  a) George W. Bush.  b) Ronald Reagan.  c) Jimmy Carter.  d) Barack Obama.  Answer:  None of the above.  These were the final words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address.

 If you scored five or below, you should seriously consider changing your news sources. (This column excluded, of course.)

Gary D. Gaddy got a 99 and 1/2 on Mr. Olson's final exam on 20th century history in 1968 -- and is still sure he got robbed on the 1/2 point deducted.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday June 25, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:17 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:11 AM EDT

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ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION, one of my putative readers (who would really admit to such a thing?) has said to me, and I paraphrase, "I like your column because it sounds just like you talking."  Honestly, I am offended -- though I am not sure if these supposed readers are maligning my conversational style of writing or my literary mode of speaking, or both.  I do not write like I speak.  (And you will thank God, atheists and believers alike, that neither are anything like my way of thinking.)

For example, the other day while reading the newspaper I was thinking about waterboarding, wondering why it raises so much brouhaha when my brothers and I used to waterboard as children every summer.  It was quite enjoyable way to spend a day at the lake.  A great way for a kid to get started, heading into the more challenging art of water skiing.

Then, my thoughts of summers at Buggs Island Lake were interrupted with the subsequent fantasy thought in which my wife says, "It's not the same kind of waterboarding, darling."  (She usually calls me darling, or sweetie, or some other term of endearment whenever I do or say something knuckleheaded.  This may be the reason we are such an affectionate couple.)

My next thought following my wife's kind reprimand is that I need to apologize to my readers before I go on.  Sorry, guys.

Anyway, I definitely do not write like I think.  For example, my thinking rhymes more frequently.  Sometimes I transcribe my thoughts and they come out as song lyrics, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

OK, I know what you're thinking at me now (which is probably a lot like what you would write to me if you were to write to me which many of you do not -- assuming, of course, that I have more than two readers -- which is not well established at this point.)

Anyway, what you are thinking is this: "What goofy kind of song lyrics would this loon write if he did actually write song lyrics, which I doubt he actually does?"

A very good question, which asks for, if not demands, a very good answer.  Sorry, don't have that but I do have some sample (rejected) song lyrics, however, which may answer the aforementioned question implicitly but not explicitly -- because I don't do rap.

***

                  Didn't Write Songs
                                           
Didn't write songs, but he did write song titles.
Didn't worship rock stars, did keep them as idols.   
Didn't have a band -- but thought up band names.
Didn't play an instrument but tried to play the music industry game.       

Had lotsa great ideas; very few, if any, deeds;
Could talk his way into anything that he might need.
Life for him wouldn't have been so very hard,
If it coulda been lived on four-by-six index cards.   
                   
     The would-be lyricist wrote lotsa words --
     Swore they were lyrics to his songs.
     But that assertion had to be inferred --
     Until some notes came along.

He was writing a musical, or at least that’s what he’d say.
Didn't like musicals, but wrote music-less ones anyway.
His life was very complicated -- and quite incomplete.
Spent lotsa time in bed -- but never did get much sleep.

No one understood him -- but, hey, neither did he.
This would-be lyricist, well, you guessed it, he would be me.

(Lyrical Copyright © 2009, Gary D. Gaddy   All rights reserved -- for what, God only knows.)

***

Now, you tell me, actual readers, could Barry Manilow write anything more authentically “me” than this?  I, and I wrote the song, or at least the lyrics, don’t think so.


Gary D. Gaddy really did write this "song."

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday June 18, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:31 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, June 18, 2009 8:39 AM EDT

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Congress today ordered General Motors to begin producing "as quickly as feasible" a brand new model for its Cadillac line of passenger vehicles, the Albatross.  The large, powerful, yet green, Albatross will be the first American-made automobile to come supplied with a driver and a full contingent of passengers.

"Redundant systems are the key to future of the American automobile which will be made, built, designed, engineered, created and assembled right here in the U.S. of A., the United States of America," said Sen. Dick Durbin, Senate majority whip.

"The Albatross will come with a government-supplied chauffeur and also a government-mandated designated driver and a government-employed backseat driver, in case the government-supplied chauffeur or designated-driver fails in some form or fashion to fulfill his or her navigational obligations," said Durbin.

The vehicle will be powered by a hybrid propulsion system of highly compressed thermally enhanced natural atmospheric gasses and combined with methane produced from bovine solid waste material.  Outside consultants were at first skeptical of the practicality of the drive system until government engineers demonstrated for them a similar but more primitive system of hot air and gas that has been harnessed to heat the United States Capitol for several hundred years.

One minor problem with the Albatross yet to be resolved is tailpipe odor.

As a flex-fuel vehicle the Albatross can also run by burning straight cellulose in what GM engineer Duncan Klein calls reverse ATM mode.

The massive Albatross uses the principle of buoyancy using human biologic systems to heat the atmosphere within the inflated cabin of the vehicle.  The same principle is employed to fill each of the Albatross' 100 naturally heated airbags.

Stylistically the Albatross has “aerodynamic lines reminiscent of the Von Hindenburg airship,” said Norma Slick of the NewWave AutoDesign Team.  At present, the Albatross is scheduled to be available in a single tint which GM calls Greenback Green.

President Barack Obama announced he is leading the way by adopting the Albatross as the new presidential limousine.  White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel said the first official use of the Albatross will be to ferry Obama to a speech to Congress tentatively entitled “Freeing Enterprise for the Twenty-First Century.”

In related news, the Department of Transportation announced today that in order to reduce costs to the government a $10,000 rebate will be given on all federal government purchases of any General Motors car.  The Government Accounting Office said that they expect this purchase incentive will save the U.S. Treasury more than $250 billion over the next ten years as the rebates revert to the federal government on planned purchases of more than 25,000,000 cars.

****

NC goes on Easley Plan

RALEIGH -- North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Senator Tony Rand of Fayetteville announced today that the state will be placing on a legislative fast track the "Easley Plan," a state stimulus package "for the ordinary taxpayer."  Under the proposal, every taxpayer in the state of North Carolina will receive an "Easley-like deal," worth $170,000 per year for the next five years.

Given the state’s constitutional restriction requiring a balanced budget, some legislative analysts had been skeptical of the practicality of the plan.  However,  following federal budget guidelines analysts in the legislature calculated that the total tax revenue generated by the Easley Plan payouts including income, sales and excise taxes, when combined with an economic impact factor multiplier, will exceed the cost of the payouts.

As with the original eponymous Easley Plan recipient, taxpayers receiving this stimulus payment will not be required to perform any useful work in return for their payments, and so the plan should not displace any of the currently gainfully employed workers left in the economy.


Gary D. Gaddy once owned a General Motors automobile and had a pre-Easley Plan job at the University of North Carolina, a wholly owned subsidiary of the North Carolina state government.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday June 11, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:01 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:07 AM EDT

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ADAVEN, Nevada -- Even as the Conservation Laboratory for Palindromes, plc, (CLP plc), a private-public partnership which seeks to preserve the palindrome for posterity, petitions Congress to add the palindrome to the Endangered Species Act, a bill sponsored by Sen. R. A. Barnes, Sen. Y. A. Haynes and Sen. O. J. Jones is working its way through Congress.

According to Bob "Otto" Bob, who holds the top spot at CLP plc, since the palindrome is neither flora nor fauna, the classification of the palindrome as endangered would break new taxonomic ground.  But, as Otto put it, "Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?"

To look into the inner workings of the Conservation Laboratory for Palindromes, GaryGaddy.com sent two crack reporters, Lee Keel and Lisa Basil, to listen to what gets said inside of one of America's top linguistic think tanks.  

***
As we toured the CLP plc campus, nestled in a valley sidled against the Humboldt National Forest, we eavesdropped, recording a small handful of the exchanges we overheard.

According to the CLP plc's Dr. Awkward, one of the institute's first projects was a history of the world in palindrome, beginning with the first instance ever recorded, "Madam, I'm Adam," (addressed to Eve, of course).

But, according to British historian Sir Roman A. Morris, while the fall of the palindrome began with the first mom and dad, it continues to this day.  As Morris noted, "Dennis sinned," and, shortly thereafter, "Dennis and Edna sinned."

As observed by Morris, other historically significant palindromes include Napoleon's unequivocally Napoleonic declaration ("Able was I ere I saw Elba!"), which inspired many more, notably Wake Forest University sophomore Bodo Beer's sophomoric boast: ("Remarkable was I ere I saw Elba Kramer!")

Dr. O. F. Mumford told us that the engineer of the lock-design for the first artificial inter-oceanic waterway John Frank Stevens was rightly immortalized with "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!"  But he also explained that others expanded on Stevens great life work: "A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal, Panama!"

In a conference room we witnessed this fragment of a theological debate between Dr. Allan Allard and the Rev. A. E. Deaver.
Deaver quoted the Devil: "Reviled did I live, said I, as evil I did deliver."
"Devil never even lived," replied Allard.
"Evil, a sin, is alive," responded Deaver.
Looking out the window, Allard exclaimed, "Aha!"  Then he asked, "Do geese see God?"

In one lecture, stats maven Dr. Ari Girard said that palindromic numbers, strangely, are "Never odd or even."  Then Girard whispered to us: "I prefer pi."

Overheard between two cubicles.
"Was it a car or a cat I saw?" asked Leon Noel.
"Racecar, a Toyota racecar," answered Ned Den.
"Civic?" queried Noel.
"A Toyota," responded an exasperated Den.
After Noel looked quizzically, Den added: "A Toyota. Race fast, safe car. A Toyota."
"I did, did I?"   Noel, then shrugged his shoulders, noting: "A Toyota's a Toyota."

In the break room, Lena H. Chanel was musing.
Lena: "If I had a hi-fi . . ."
"Abba?" asked Blake DeKalb
"Oh, no! Don Ho!" responded Lena.
Then the tattooed Blake said: "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!"

As we left, Bob Otto Bob told us the laboratory's next big project is finding a cure for aibohphobia (the fear of palindromes), a condition which strikes 11 out of every 121 Americans.

***
Did you know?  Emordnilap, the antonym of palindrome, is a word which spelled backwards is palindrome, which is a word which spelled backwards is the same as the word spelled forward, which emordnilap is, or is not, depending on how you look at it.
____________________________________

The first reader to identify all the palindromes of three letters or more in this column will be eligible for a drawing for an all-expense paid 7-day voyage on Cannard Cruise Line's flagship vessel, The Red Herring.


Gary D. Gaddy, oddly, isn't close to a palindrome

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday June 4, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 8:00 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 6:57 PM EDT

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THOMAS JEFFERSON AND I are both from Charlottesville, so that would make us natural allies -- or perhaps rivals.  I really admire the guy, though I think that if we had ever argued about anything for long, I am not sure a discussion would have ever broken out.

Thomas Jefferson had the chutzpa to make up his own version of the Gospels -- excising the miraculous.  Once, in a Barnes & Nobles bookstore, I looked through a copy of the rumored work -- a bowdlerized version of Jesus' life and teachings.  Hey, but that's ol' Thom.  Religiously, Jefferson was a precursor to the most modern of religions: "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know."

Like the most interesting among us, Jefferson was a tangle of contradictions.  So, I present to you, in the interest of free speech, Jefferson with no comments but his own, for the thoughtful among you to meditate upon in the light of modern times.

On Government

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government.  It is always oppressive.

That government is best which governs the least.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

On Media

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.  

The Republic

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at . . . war with the rights of mankind.

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail . . . to be rightful . . . the minority [must] possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.  

On Liberty

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.  

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

It is error alone which needs the support of government.  Truth can stand by itself.
 
On Religion and Religious Liberty

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.  

Some Jeffersonian Prophecies

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.  

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.  

If God is just, I tremble for my country.

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have.


Gary D. Gaddy really was born in Charlottesville, which may shortly be known as the birthplace of Gary D. Gaddy.

A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday May 28, 2009.

Copyright   2009  Gary D. Gaddy

Authored by Gary G. Gaddy at 7:53 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 7:58 AM EDT

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