Four guns, two shootings, no armed heroes

Gabrielle Giffords is well known, Joy Logan was not. Giffords was shot on January 8 in an assassination attempt. Logan was shot by mistake on January 10 and died that night.

Gifford’s’ shooting was international news. What we know about Joy Logan’s death, we know from a short story in our local newspaper. It did not make the front page.

Giffords is a Congressional Representative from Tucson, Arizona. Logan was a student at Faulkner State Community College. She lived in Bay Minette, Alabama.

As we know, the Gifford shooting that resulted in six deaths and thirteen wounded happened when a lone gunman emptied one magazine, 30 shots, from a pistol. He was stopped while trying to reload. We don’t know anything about the gun that killed Joy Logan.

Giffords was shot while meeting with constituents. Joy Logan was shot while entering her Aunt’s house. Her 18-year-old cousin killed her.

The Giffords shooting was a targeted assassination attempt. Joy Logan's cousin thought she was a burglar breaking into the house.

After the Giffords shooting, Arizona Congressman, Rep. Trent Franks said “I wish there had been one more gun in Tucson.” The implication is that if there had only been an armed hero there with a gun, the shooting could have been stopped. What the Congressman was apparently ignorant of is that there was another gun there. In fact, there were at least two others. Jared Lee Loughner planned his attack well. His approach to the Congresswoman was not threatening. When he got close, he raised the hand with the gun in it and started firing. No one had time to react. The second gun, that of a bystander, came out after the shootings stopped. By then unarmed members of the crowd had grabbed Loughner. Joseph Zamudio had the third gun, a 9mm semiautomatic. When he heard the shooting, he ran to the scene. He saw the gun in the hand of the armed bystander and assumed that he was the shooter. Before he could pull his gun, members of the crowd identified the shooter to him. He admits that without that intervention he could have shot the wrong person.

Unfortunately, Daniel Johnson did just that. After the BCS Championship Logan decided that, rather than drive all the way home, she would stay at her aunt’s house. Daniel Johnson didn’t know she was coming. The gun was in the house for protection and Johnson used it against the intruder. Obviously, he didn’t identify his target before firing.

Jared Lee Loughner will be charged with multiple murders. Daniel Johnson will not be charged but he will have to live with what he did.

The United States is well armed. Gun advocates tell us that an armed population is a safe population. It didn’t work for Gabrielle Giffords or Joy Logan. Joseph Zamudio was armed, but he could not stop an ambush. No one could. Daniel Johnson was armed and he shot his cousin. Yes, he should have identified his target. But if you heard someone coming into your house, when your adrenaline starts flowing and you start believing that you are in a life and death situation, how would you react?

We have a gun problem. It is not that there are too many guns in the US, although that may be the case. It is not that too many guns are in the wrong hands, although that is definitely the case. It is the faith we put in guns.

We live in a gun fantasy. Many of us believe that our guns will make us safe. When trouble shows up, we will invoke our inner Charles Bronson and watch the bad guys fall. Except that too often, it is not the bad guys who fall.

How often do you listen to the local news and hear about a hero who defends life and property by using a gun? It is an unusual event. Much more common is the gun used in anger, the gun used in ambush or the gun used in error. I enjoy shooting. But I don’t fantasize about being a hero, using my guns to deal out justice in a lawless world.

The leadership of the NRA is obsessed with guns. To them any regulation of guns or ammunition is an affront to the Constitution. But if we step back and think, do we really need pistols with 30 shot magazines? Do we need to be able to buy unlimited numbers of rifles, including assault weapons?
To hear gun advocates, the streets are filled with violent crime. Perhaps their streets are, but mine are reasonably safe. In my world, I’m more likely to be shot accidentally than by an attacker. Your world is probably like that too, even if you don’t believe it.

What does our gun obsession say about us as a people? Why do we choose a gun fantasy over the reality of gun violence?

Where do you put your faith? Some put theirs in money. Some put their faith in possessions. Some people put their faith in God. If you are an average citizen and you put your faith in guns, I pity you.

Good and evil in the land of guns

The stretch of interstate between Greenville and the exit for the Beach Parkway is monotonous and even in the morning I need the radio to keep me alert. If you aren’t a country music fan, the pickings are slim, so I was happy that our old Honda has XM radio. Sometimes I listen to talk radio, especially those shows whose hosts I might disagree with. And that is how I found myself listening to Glenn Beck in late December.

There was a caller talking to Mr. Beck and for a while it seemed like a normal, almost boring conversation of a fan gushing over talking with his hero. But then the conversation turned serious. In short, the caller was agreeing with Mr. Beck that the Democratic leadership was not just wrong; they were evil. Now Glenn explained it this way – that most of the people who supported Democratic policies were not evil, they were dupes and that only a small percentage, the leadership, was evil.

If you were involved in a fight of good versus evil, what would you do to stop evil? Would you fight? Would you pick up arms? Would you kill?

Gabrielle Gifford’s assassination attempt may have happened whether or not the rhetoric from talk show hosts was heated or not, but casting your opposition as evil adds nothing to our national debate on issues and can set off a tragedy. To Mr. Beck’s credit, his web page today condemns, in no uncertain terms, all political violence. But when you cast your fight not as a disagreement of ideas and ideologies, but of good versus evil, what can result?

And then there’s Sarah Palin. By now, we all know that Ms. Palin put out a map with Rep. Gifford’s district in the crosshairs. Democrats have done similar things, so this is not just a Republican tactic. But to Ms. Palin’s discredit, her spokesperson, Rebecca Mansour, denied that the crosshairs were an allusion to a gun scope, but were instead “surveyors symbols”.  Is there anyone out there so naïve as to believe that? Why can’t she just accept responsibility that it was a bad idea and move on.

No, we can’t know Jared Loughner’s intent and influences unless he tells us. But if the heated language, the threats, including threats of armed resistance, and the casting of opponents as evil adds nothing positive to the national debate, why utter the words? 

January 2011 - The Censored Column - Greek Desegregation at the University of Alabama

Perhaps it is exaggeration to say that this was censored. This column was rejected by the Huntsville Times editorial staff in October for (a) having unsupported facts and (b) being too “hard news”. I forwarded support for the factual assertions to the paper, but could not overcome the objection for being hard news. I believe that this is opinion, involving only a little bit of investigative work. You be the judge. 

On Jun 11, 1963. Alabama Governor George Wallace fulfilled his campaign promise of “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” by standing in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to stop desegregation. He then promptly got out of the way and let the adults in attendance get on with registering the first black students at the University. That moment in history didn’t end segregation at the University. The basketball team was integrated in 1969; football followed in 1970. By the time I arrived on campus as a student in 1976 there was only one segregated area of student life – the Greek system. Fraternities and sororities were a powerful force on campus and for whatever reason they had not changed. In the decades since, news about the University’s Greek system seemed to have been only negative. We heard about embarrassing incidents evidencing disharmony, but little else. We’re now in a new century. Thirty-four years have passed since my time in Tuscaloosa. Has the Greek system changed?

First, the good news. The University has been working on the problem of a segregated system. There are now multicultural and Christian sororities and fraternities as an alternative to traditional organizations. New “traditional” Greek organizations have been organized that have been integrated since their founding. For all Greeks, the University offers a diversity lecture series, a Greek Leadership Summit consisting of the presidents of sororities and fraternities (to discuss and solve problems within the community) and a New Member Institute designed to improve the sense of community among Greeks.

The result is a system that has greater diversity now than it has ever had. It is a system that has all members working together for the betterment of the overall University community and I applaud the University’s efforts. Only one gauge of progress remained to be examined - the extent to which the traditional black and white sororities and fraternities have changed.

Why does it matter? There are now 57 sororities and fraternities at Alabama with over 6000 student members. The University has made over $36 million in loans available to fraternities and sororities for house construction. These houses are on University land, and the University has plans for the construction of four new sorority houses on campus in 2011. To oversee the system the University maintains a permanently staffed office of Greek affairs. Because of the University’s financial and organizational ties to the Greek system, I believe that UA implicitly endorses the operations of the sororities and fraternities on campus. If segregation still exists, it is state supported and financed.

After emailing 24 Greek organizations and reviewing public information on fraternity and sorority web pages as well as Corollas (the University’s annual) over the last decade, I found little evidence that the old line Greek organizations have made substantive and permanent changes in the makeup of their memberships. Except for better hairstyles in the more recent pictures most of the membership pictures could have come right out of the 1970’s. The University’s Greek diversity progress to date should now be extended to the entire Greek community. Fortunately, the University has the tools it needs to make this happen.

First, the University should make the lots for the four new sorority houses available to only those organizations that have integrated. This is a simple means to reward those sororities that have been willing to change. Second, the University should establish long range targets for improving diversity in those organizations that have not changed. And finally, the University should recognize that students have a right to associate with whomever they wish – but not with University support. Those Greek organizations that do not meet the targets established should be invited to leave campus.

Notes: Thank you to the University’s Office of Greek Affairs and its director, Gentry McCreary; the University’s Office of Media Relations Director Cathy Andreen and Zack Stillings, President of Sigma Pi on the UA campus. They help me to see the progress that has been made.

 

The Huntsville Times Columns - December 2010 - You don't lead looking backward

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on December  19, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title. This column was also edited for content. I had a couple of sentences in the column calling for Senators Sessions and Shelby to be held account for their part in creating the systemic budget deficit. Since they had such a large part in creating the deficit and they condemn the President for the deficit, I find their hypocrisy to be galling.

The Times may be happy that this is my last column as a Community Columnist. Instructions for columnists state that features are preferred and that the hard-nosed stuff should be left to the syndicated columnists. I have not done a very good job of that. I even had one column, on progress in desegregating the Greek system at the University of Alabama, rejected outright. I started the year intending on writing about a variety of lighter subjects, such as cigar box guitars, motor-scooter commuting in Huntsville, and Hollywood promises (my son's experiences in the movie industry). I wrote some of these columns, but when I read The Times' syndicated columnists, I thought that none of them presented my point of view and I aimed my columns at other subjects.

I still feel that way and have encouraged The Times editorial page editor to start a local version of the On the Left/Right columns. With the machinations of Goat Hill, the power of the Alabama Education Association, electronic bingo and our dysfunctional state constitution, the subject matter would be near limitless.

Thank you to everyone who has written to me about a column. I've received many kind comments and a few e-mails taking strong offense to my point of view. In answer to my critics, yes I can be a jerk, but I'm flattered the labels "politically correct" and "apostate" considering the views being peddled by the critics that gave me those labels.

The rest of this last column consists of my topic outlines for four planned columns. Alas, I have run out of months. You can use your imagination to guess where they would have gone.

1) The women of Gees Bend can take scraps of material and make quilts that rise to the level of art. The politicians of Goat Hill Alabama can perform no such miracle with the scraps (known as amendments) that they have blended into our already flawed 1901 Constitution. After the last election my previous belief that only a fresh start can fix Alabama's constitution was reinforced. Not only were most of the amendments we voted on completely irrelevant to Huntsville residents, I believe that the wording we saw on the ballot for these amendments was intentionally obtuse. The arguments I have heard against constitutional reform to date have all been based on fanciful fears that do not equate to the real damage caused by this out-of-date document.

2) The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office determined that unemployment compensation results in more economic stimulus than any other spending, and that tax cuts for high income Americans are among the least effective economic stimulants. When Republican senators held up extension of unemployment benefits they claimed that it was because these payments added to the deficit. Yet they defended tax cut extensions for the highest income Americans, also unpaid for, on the grounds that they would stimulate the economy. Why would anyone reject the most effective stimulus in favor of the least effective?

3) I was wrong about there not being government-led death panels. The new health care bill contains no such animal, but the Republican controlled government in Arizona has rescinded previous approvals for some Medicaid organ transplants. It will save the state $4.5 million over the next year; a savings truly measured in lives lost and shattered families.

4) Alabama has demanded little of its leaders throughout our history and they have delivered. They have diverted our attention from important issues by playing to our fears and prejudices.
Leaders cannot lead by looking backward. Listen to Alabama's leaders; are they looking forward, or performing sleight of hand to divert your attention from their lack of achievement?

Thanks to The Times for giving me a platform from which to vent this year. Huntsville is a truly extraordinary place that has never settled for mediocrity, even when that has been the norm and expectation of much of the rest of the state. I'm lucky to have been born here and happy to have returned after being gone for so many years.

The Huntsville Times Columns - November 2010 - Squirrels for Sanity

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on November 21, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.


The Roots, John Legend, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Ozzy Osbourne, The O'Jays, Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. If it had been a concert it would have been incredible. Add Father Guido Sarducci, Sam Waterston and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the lineup becomes more impressive and stranger. Mix in the guys from Mythbusters, Tony Bennett, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert and you have the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D. C. on Oct. 30.

Many of the press didn't understand what Jon Stewart was trying to do by holding a rally in Washington. Columnist Richard Reeves thought the rally was to make fun of politics and politicians, that Stewart is all about parody. That was not its purpose, although many politicians deserve to be the butt of jokes. On the right side of the aisle the gathering was derided. Rush Limbaugh called Stewart and Colbert "half baked comedians" and predicted that the rally would draw only 65,000 people.
To him, the comedian's purpose was to excite Democrats in advance of the election. Of course, he was wrong on both counts.

What was absent from the stage on that Saturday was political humor or talk. The crowd of over 200,000 didn't know what to expect but in interviews in advance of the rally, Stewart indicated that it would not be political. He kept his promise.

Although the rally began at noon, we arrived at 9:30 a.m. to get a good view. By arriving so early, we were able to get within two blocks of the stage. We spent the wait by talking to our neighbors and passing crowd members. I've attended concerts and rallies for over 35 years and this was easily the largest and nicest crowd I have ever been a part of. Most of the attendees heeded Stewart's plea for signs to be civil, so humor (Tights are not Pants!) and absurdity (Squirrels for Sanity) ruled over anger.
The rally was a serious plea for civility in our communities and our politics, delivered with silliness and in the end, a heartfelt plea from Jon Stewart.

If there was a target, it was the media and in particular the opinion media. Stewart's idea is that while it is OK to disagree about political ideas, you do the country a disservice if you demonize those that disagree with you.

Because our country has so many serious issues to work through, our leaders must be able to sit across the table from each other and work through their differences. Opinion leaders, whether politicians or pundits, are making this process impossible when they spread unsubstantiated rumors, when they condemn opponents for saying or doing the things they themselves do, or when they exaggerate the importance of a fact or incident.

Repeating a rumor does not transform it into a fact, correlation is not causality, and an outlier should not be mistaken for the average.

Humor is serious. Humor as a tool can cut through hypocrisy, inflated egos and vanity. If you have watched "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central you've seen this in action. The cast is silly, sometimes profane and immature and almost always effective. For me, the unseen stars of the show are the video librarians that locate the news clips played during the show's opening sequence.

Network news shows rarely call out politicians and pundits on hypocritical or contradictory statements they make. Jon Stewart shows the video evidence. Don't talk show hosts and politicians understand that people keep tapes and they can be fact-checked?

So did Stewart's target "get" the rally? For his part, Keith Olberman bristled at being equated with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, but he pledged to stop running his "Worst person in the World" TV show segment to try to cool down the rhetoric. Unfortunately, many on the right don't seem to have listened. While President Obama visited India, right wing superstars such as Michelle Bachman, Limbaugh and Hannity broadcast false rumors that the trip was costing taxpayers $200 million a day.

As Jon Stewart said in his closing remarks, "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing".

The Huntsville Times Columns - October 2010 - Defending the Faith of Others

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on October 17, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title. 

This was a column that I wrote under a very tight deadline after my original column for October was rejected by the Times editorial staff. According to the rejection I received the original column, on desegregating the Greek system at the University of Alabama, contained too many unsupported facts and was too "hard news". I provided support for the facts, but the column was not published. I will publish it here in this blog.

On Sept. 11, 2010, Huntsvillians of all faiths spent the morning performing service to our community.
I had the good fortune to work with believers in the Christian, Islamic and Hindu faiths at the Huntsville Islamic Center assembling several hundred food packs for Huntsville's homeless community.

Every year the Islamic Center celebrates the end of Ramadan with a community service project and this year the Saturday at the end of Ramadan happened to be Sept. 11. Our local group was supplemented by a group of Presbyterians visiting our area from South Africa; one room, many faiths, many accents, a kaleidoscope of skin tones, all devoted to helping our community.

I have been deeply disturbed by much of the anti-Islamic rhetoric on television and on the editorial pages lately. Newt Gingrich seems to be trying to make a comeback based on demonizing Islam in general and American Muslims in particular. Sarah Palin warns us that no one will tolerate the imposition of Sharia law, but of course no one has seriously proposed using Sharia law in the U.S.A. We have a thing called the Constitution that is the supreme law of our land. You have probably heard about it.

Locally, some letters against the free practice of Islam in the U.S. have pointed out that in several Muslim nations the building of Christian churches and the free practice of Christianity is not allowed.
Quite true, but are we not better than that? Do we not hold our Constitution dear and believe that the First Amendment really means something special?

Where are the Muslims who condemn violence? They are here, quietly working to make our community stronger. They have been here and they have never wavered in their condemnation of the terrorists that struck America. On Sept. 11, 2001, they felt the same pain we did, but that pain has been magnified by ignorance and intolerance as they and the faith they practice has been blamed for the attacks of fanatical terrorists.

Timothy McVeigh was a believer in Christian Identity theology, a racist theology that, while labeled as Christian, has nothing to do with the Christ I know. Would the victims of the Oklahoma City attack oppose the building of a Lutheran church near the Morrow Federal Building site? Of course not, because they know the difference between McVeigh's extreme ideology and that of a mainline church.
When Reverend Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church spews his hate near the funeral of a fallen soldier, do we blame the Southern Baptists for his sick behavior? It's an absurd idea, yet all Muslin believers are being equated with the acts of terrorists.

Have you read the Koran? Yes, it has passages that seem to advocate violence against non-Muslims. But it also has passages that condemn violence.

Have you read the Bible? It too has passages that advocate violence against non-believers, some quite horrific.

Yet in the Bible Jesus commands us to feed the poor, heal the sick and welcome the stranger. Paul tells us "do not return evil for evil." A complete reading and a study of context are essential to understanding each of these books of faith.

I'm a Presbyterian deacon. It may seem odd that I feel the need to defend a faith that is different than my own. But I think that there is a need to speak, to support religious freedom and to support some good Americans in our community who just happen to practice a different faith.  Practicing freedom is about protecting the rights of the minority.

Going along with the crowd requires no courage and little thought. Isn't it time to park our fears and learn more about fellow Americans who practice a different religion? The Constitution lives when we practice the freedoms that it guarantees. This is one such time.

The day of service opened at St. Mark's Lutheran Church. Before we left for the Islamic Center the Golden Rule was read from each of the world's great faiths. Every one was a version of the same thought, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you."

The Huntsville Times Columns - September 2010 - Do Not Forward!

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on September 19, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title. Unfortunately, this mythology still is still given weight by primarily right wing politicians and pundits - the mythical death panels are still being discussed.

Stop. Step away from the mouse. Do not hit the send button.


That's the message that should go off in your head before you forward that political e-mail. Especially if it has any language the writer proclaims that "they swear it's true", "they saw it for themselves" or they heard it from a reliable source. Over the last two years I've received dozens of these and each e-mail had two things in common; it was not true, and it was against President Obama or his policies.
According to Factcheck, the vast majority of these e-mails are against Democrats and their policies. I wonder why?

Although I'm a certified fraud examiner I didn't need forensic skills to debunk these. Within five minutes of beginning to check these e-mails I've been able to find documentation to disprove every one. For the record, President Obama was born in Hawaii, does put his hand over his heart to say the Pledge and during the National Anthem, is a Christian and did not rename the White House Christmas tree a "holiday tree."

He did participate in the National Day of Prayer. Michelle Obama is not doing away with Christmas at the White House and the taxpayers did not pay for 40 of her friends to fly to Spain.
The Nuclear Security Summit logo is not a disguised Islamic crescent, nor is the Obama logo, nor is the Missile Defense Agency's.

The radicals who attacked us on Sept. 11 are not the people who want to build an Islamic Center in New York. Confusing clerics like Iman Feisal Abdul Rauf for the terrorists is like mixing up Southern Baptists and the Westboro Baptist Church.

On the immigration front, headless bodies are not being found all over the desert in Arizona.
We now know that not only was the Shirley Sherrod tape heavily edited to be misleading, but so were the Acorn tapes that made so much news last year. Did anyone receive an e-mail retraction over that?

One of the most despicable themes of these e-mails is the attempt to scare senior citizens about the contents of the health care bill. It never contained language creating death panels nor did it propose anything even closely resembling Canada's or the UK's health care systems. Most of the horror stories about these systems are also untrue, but the e-mails keep coming.

Based on what I've seen, the bill passed would most resemble the Swiss system, but I guess it's just not very sexy to pick on the Swiss.

What did the bill do? It extended the soundness of the Medicare Trust Fund by 12 years among other benefits. Don't believe me? Fine, but please don't send me another doctored photograph, or copy of an easily provable phony document. You should be checking these yourself. Factcheck.org, Snopes or the wire services are useful in debunking sham emails.

Why are outrageous e-mail claims accepted as fact without checking? Could it be that the senders are looking for reasons to demonize the opposition? They don't need to verify the facts, because in their feedback loop the rumor is already fact in their mind.

Why does any of this matter? It's very simple. In order to make this country better we need to be working with facts, not fiction. You don't have to like the president, but should you dislike him for fictional evils? Should you base your vote on far-fetched conspiracy theories or reasoned arguments? Do we want to exhume McCarthy?

Are you OK with character assassination and witch-hunts as political tools? Are anonymous writers spreading libelous rumors OK as long as they support your point of view? Certainly, by repeating the latest conspiracy theory or e-mail rumor, you can make the other guy less popular. Should we, the mob, react to every unchecked rumor or should we ask for proof? What will you do with your next forwarded e-mail?

The Huntsville Times Columns - August 2010 - The Russians are coming

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on August 15, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

How large is your comfort zone? What does it take to move the boundaries? Ten years ago a wonderful misunderstanding helped me to consider new possibilities. We were living in Florence, S.C., at the time.

I was the president of one of the local Kiwanis clubs and had received a call from an organization with what I thought was a simple request: to host a small group of Russian business people for a short period while they studied U.S. marketing techniques. (This is where I stop to encourage all readers to get involved in civic organizations. Your community needs your help and you will meet all sorts of interesting people while you have fun doing good). We had a strong Kiwanis club, so how hard could it be to host a few people for a day?

I never found out, because we ended up hosting 13 people for 17 days. The organization sponsoring the trip handled all of the details, except for setting up the program, finding housing, and feeding and entertaining everyone for the length of the stay. The business community and a local university all pitched in to make the program a reality. We had everyone from the mayor of Florence to the governor's office and the Darlington NASCAR track participating.

Housing was more difficult to find, but our church and club members all helped and no one ended up in a tent. Still, we were short of hosts and so we housed four members of the group - those that seemed to be the most difficult to place from the profiles submitted in advance.

The day the group arrived we waited at the airport with other host families. Oh my Lord, what have we done? We were about to have four strangers who did not speak much English living with us for over two weeks.

When the visitors arrived they all stood together at one end of baggage claim while we stood at the other. The separation was as awkward as boys and girls at a middle school dance.
One by one hosts and guests were matched up and we were off to 17 of the most rewarding days of my life.

My hard-to-match guests ended up being the natural leaders of the group; brilliant, hard working, charismatic and as far from the stereotype of Russian men and women as you can get (which is not really true anyway). Andrey is a principal in a marketing research company in Kolumna, Evgenia operates an accounting and tax law practice in St. Petersburg, Valeri is a business consultant/entrepreneur in Moscow and Nellie works in marketing in Volgagrad.

We kayaked, studied, went to church, rode a roller coaster, took a lap at Darlington, and saw alligators and art together. We learned that even with qualified translators in tow, some Southern cuisine does not translate well. Hushpuppies and catfish evoked a puzzled look as the translator asked "What is this quiet dog?" and "Is it a cat or a fish"? I presented a class on detecting fraud in your business and found out that many business terms did not yet have Russian equivalents.

Our guests absorbed the classes and the culture. What had been dread about having strangers in the house now seemed to be one of MY great ideas. After all, who wouldn't want good friends to stay when they come to town? When our friends left it was hugs and goodbyes, stories about Evgania's yoga in the back yard, Valeri's ability to eat massive quantities of ice cream and Andrey's ever present cell phone deal making.

If I had understood the commitment I was making when I was first contacted none of this would have happened. Seventeen days? Setting up the program? Finding housing and food? No way. Yet thanks to my misunderstanding, I now have lifelong friends and, with help, I think I can pull almost anything together.

And without this happenstance event, I never would have been backstage at the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg, had a private violin concert, toured the Kremlin Armory with a private guide, or flown a plane over Moscow in a rain storm. But those are stories for another day.

The Huntsville Times Columns - July 2010 - Travel changes you

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on July 18 , 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title. This was difficult to write and is still difficult to read.

In June, two major events happened in our family related only by the calendar.


Travel changes you. In June I had the good fortune to travel to Scotland on business.  My wife came along and after my meetings were concluded. We rented a car and headed to the Highlands. The castles and museums were great; the terrain of Fort William and Skye stark and beautiful, but it's the people that left a lasting impression.

Whenever we could, we struck up conversations with the people we met. We talked to waiters and restaurant owners, fellow worshipers at St. Giles Cathedral, people waiting at bus stops with us, and the bed and breakfast owners we stayed with in the Highlands. Wherever there was an opportunity we tried to see Scotland through Scottish eyes. The people we came to know are a hard-working entrepreneurial type who love their heritage and country and want to protect its environment.
They often feel that the government in London does not understand their problems, but their desire for complete independence from their fellow British citizens does not burn as brightly as it has in the past.
In other words, they're a lot like us.

In all of my travels, the people I've met want the same things out of life. They want to find meaningful work and make a good living for their families. They want a quality education for their children.
They love their respective country, even while acknowledging its shortcomings.

Most of them know a lot more about our country than we know about theirs. They're interested in the United States and our politics. As for knowledge of Alabama, without Lynyrd Skynyrd (or now the BP leak), we would be invisible - part of the great blank between the east coast and Texas.

In the U.S, when I have discussions with people about our foreign policy, I sometimes hear "I don't care what those people in ________ think of us." Well, I care. For example, I care about what the people of Russia think of us. I care because of their stockpile of nuclear weapons, I care because they have huge deposits of oil, gas and strategic minerals. But most of all I care because of my friends there.  Evgenia, Igor, Valeri, Andrey and Olga are people whose friendship is valuable to me.
And I care because the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches that our neighbors are not just those next door, in our town, or even in our country.

So in Scotland, I got to know more of my neighbors. Then, as we were driving through Perth on our way to Stirling we got the phone call you never want to receive.

The death of family members changes you.

There is very little that leaves you feeling as isolated as being 5,000 miles from home when disaster strikes. My sister's husband, David, had died from a heart attack at 53 years old. There was no previous indication of a heart problem. When we got the call, I was so deeply in shock that I couldn't drive. The pain was amplified because I was not there for my sister. We ended the vacation and flew back to the United States the next day.

My brother in law's career shows that government can work for the good of the people. He was an industry recruiter for the state and was involved in many successful industrial recruiting efforts in Alabama over the last 23 years. His work legacy will impact Alabama for generations in the thousands of jobs created and billions of dollars of economic impact from plants like the Toyota facility in Huntsville or the Hyundai plant in Montgomery. For his family, his legacy is more personal, a legacy of care and love for my sister and nieces. He will be missed.

The change in subjects in this column is jarring, like the change in our perspective when we received the call.

What have I learned from these events so far? Live every day like it was your last. Make peace if you are at odds with anyone; don't let the sun go down on anger. See the world, meet the neighbors. Open yourself to new experiences, but hold on to what is precious. Grow and be changed.

The Huntsville Times Columns - June 2010 - Alabama Beaches and Oil

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on June 20 , 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title. This was the first of my columns where content was edited out. I had some additional things to say about Haley Barbour and some speculation about the motives of  Jeff Sessions. The Times editorial staff did not wish to create more controversy by publishing these comments. The column here is as printed in the Times.

I am beginning to write this column from Foley on May 15. The weather is great and the beaches are clean. So far.

Tourists are staying away, so the BP spill is causing havoc here without coming ashore. Of course other areas are not so lucky and it will be years before we know the full effects of this disaster.


I grew up in Alabama. I have been coming to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach for vacations most of my life. As a child I remember playing on the white sand and swimming in the ocean, catching a mouthful of saltwater when I mistimed jumping a wave. As an adult I've paddled my kayak the length of Cotton Bayou many times, seen the sun come up as I fought the tide next to the Alabama Point Bridge and landed on the small islands next to the bridge to watch the hermit crabs.

All of this is at risk now.

My wife is an Alabama girl. She spent many weeks in her uncle's beach house on Perdido Bay as she grew up. She watched the bay as it was polluted by a nearby mill, then observed its recovery and rebirth when the mill was forced to clean up. Forced thanks to federal regulations that were enforced.
Likewise, our coast will recover from whatever damage is coming. But if it suffers damage, it will take years to recover and it will not be the same.

As the Swimming Pool Cues sing, "once you've broken a beautiful thing it can never be the same." This is a place of my past, my present and my future. These are my memories and, for me, this oil spill is personal.

It is now May 24. The spill has come ashore in Louisiana and residents of the Alabama coast continue to hold their breath. Weeks Bay and the shrimping waters are under dire threat. We now know that BP made numerous safety shortcuts that led to the disaster, yet Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul said this about the president blaming BP. "I think it's part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen."
I do not respect his opinion. This was no simple accident.

In my opinion, this was negligence and it is entirely reasonable to blame BP. It should not only pay the full price of correcting the damages it causes, but it should pay significant punitive damages if the damage is the result of more than just "simple negligence." How many safety shortcuts must you take before you are no longer simply negligent? I'm sure our courts will be deciding.

I'm finishing this column on June 7. The spill has come ashore in Alabama now and it is moving east.
Over the weekend, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour spoke about the oil now coming ashore in Mississippi, saying, "once it gets to this stage, it's not poisonous. But if a small animal got coated enough with it, it could smother it." He should help with the cleanup. In shorts. And flip-flops. I'm glad we have Bob Riley as governor.

Finally, while the oil continues to spill, Republicans in Congress have stopped efforts to raise the liability cap for oil companies from $75 million to $10 billion. Our own U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, offered an alternative that would cap the limit at the most recent four quarters of profits or $150 million, whichever is greater, to hold companies responsible without running them out of business. Why should there be any limit for damages? If you can't fix what you spoil, don't drill for oil.

I wrote the June section of this column in my head as a rode my bicycle up Monte Sano. As I was riding I was listening to Midnight Oil singing Blue Sky Mining - "Nothing is a precious as a hole in the ground." It was followed by "Amazing Grace".

Lord, may we be granted grace for the holes that spoil your ground. Amen.

The Huntsville Times Columns - May 2010 - Religion and Politics

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on May 9 , 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full." Matthew 6:5 
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Article VI, U.S. Constitution

It's political primary season in Alabama and even though no religious test is required or allowed by the Constitution, candidates are touting their religious virtues and, in at least one case, attacking the religion of a candidate. Most of the race to Montgomery through the pulpit is going on in the Republican Party, but the Democrats are not above bringing religion into the mix as well.
Before I go on, I'd like to comment on the attack against one candidate's religion. The person being attacked is Bradley Byrne.

In a series of ads and annoying robocalls as well as an attack web page, Mr. Byrne's religion (as well as his profession and other tidbits from his past) is attacked. The attack web page quotes Mr. Byrne as having said, "There are parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not."
Of course, it is easy to see how issues of Biblical inerrancy are relevant to balancing the state budget. And I'm sure that we all would want tornado responses to be handled only by post tribulationists.
Seriously, I don't know the specifics of Mr. Byrnes' beliefs, but I do have some idea that those who are attacking Mr. Byrne are persons of low character.

The fact that they are hiding behind a recently set up PAC rather than standing up and admitting their participation in the attacks is proof of that belief. I performed a very unscientific survey of candidate religiosity by reading the web pages of all candidates for statewide office. Many mentioned their church affiliation and all who did so were Christian. So how do I think that a Christian politician should behave?

First of all, I believe that a Christian politician can live his or her faith without violating the First Amendment. The love of Christ can be reflected by working hard for the good of the people without proselytizing. Let me give you a hypothetical example. Let's say I was a judge and wanted to acknowledge God in my life. I could do it by fulfilling my oath of office by being the best judge that I could. I could reflect God's role in my life by scrupulously performing legal research in all cases before my court and, when the law allows for latitude in my rulings, rule in a manner that reflects the justice demanded by God, and the grace called for by Jesus. My oath of office and my duty to God need not be in conflict because both would be well served if I behaved in this manner. What I would not need to do is violate my oath of office by erecting monuments to call attention to myself. I would not ignore higher court rulings, believing that I was not answerable to anyone whose opinion differed from my own.

If a politician professes faith my warning sirens go off immediately. As an Alabama native I have seen faith issues used to divide the state too many times; religion is a powerful weapon in the hands of the opportunist. From those who talk the loudest about their faith, I hear a lot of fire and brimstone, but very little that reflects the love and grace that Jesus offers us sinners. Show me results; don't tell me about your good intent.

To all Alabama politicians who run on their religion, isn't it time to stand on your Bibles a little less and to read them a little more?

The Huntsville Times Columns - April 2010 - Unsweetened TEA

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on April 18 , 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

On Sunday, March 21 the United States as we know it ceased to exist. On Monday morning, March 22 the sun did not rise. Although the stock market already crashed after the Socialist Obama administration took office, what was left of the Dow disappeared. In Huntsville, administrators of Huntsville Hospital announced that the hospital would be closed. All because the deadly health care bill passed.

Oh wait, none of that happened. Although, if you attended the TEA Party protest on Easter in Huntsville at the Space and Rocket Center you would think that it did. Spring is here right on schedule, Huntsville Hospital is still gobbling up downtown and the stock market, the most purely capitalistic of institutions, has soared.

Meanwhile at the TEA Party, signs and speakers lamented a government takeover of the health care system. I need some help here. I have a hard time understanding how eliminating rescission, allowing those with pre-existing conditions to have access to insurance, or allowing parents to carry children on their insurance up to age 26 contributes to the Socialist downfall of the USA. But the TEA party attendees weren't into the details. Maybe their objection is the requirement that all of us should have private health insurance (which was originally a Republican idea). When originally pitched, the mandate was to prevent freeloading on the system; it was for everyone to accept personal responsibility for their own health care. Somehow when Democrats signed up for this idea, it suddenly became socialist tyranny.

So how would I describe the TEA Party in Huntsville? This was a pep rally for conservatives. Yes, the crowd is angry about what is going on in the country, but there was no room in Huntsville for the racist signs and behavior that have been filmed in other rallies.

The Tea Party Express is a traveling medicine show delivering a patriotic hodgepodge of ideas, some fact, many fictional, between pitches for magazines, CD's, DVD's, T-shirts and direct donations. By the end of the show, everyone was well aware that it took $400 to fill up the tanks of each of the three busses. I could not help but chuckle when I heard one audience member reply after one pitch "why don't you drive a smaller bus?"

The speakers tailored their messages to fire up the crowd, so we heard only talking points without depth. Complex issues were reduced to slogans. The deficit is bad, but no one tried to connect the dots on who to blame for it. I did not hear any mention of the Bush tax cuts, Medicare part D or the Iraq war as contributing to the systemic deficit - all unfunded, all Republican (thanks Richard and Jeff).
The perception that the deficit suddenly happened since the Obama administration took power seemed to be the norm.

The crowd cheered at the idea of taking the country back from "them" whoever they are. The people they listen to tell them that their America is being taken away. No one seemed to believe that this is simple hyperbole. The mention of the names of the disciples of Democratic doom, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, brought up a cheer from the crowd. These are the true believers. Many of the signs decried high taxes and crippling deficits. They want to cut taxes and cut the deficit. Let's see, 2 minus 1 still doesn't equal 3 does it? The argument that we can cut taxes and grow our way into a surplus has lost all credibility.

It was true in the 1960's when the maximum individual rate was 91 percent, but with marginal rates in the 30's now, the tax disincentive factor is simply not there.

Of course, we heard the usual pabulum about cutting government waste, but if you believe that we can balance the budget by cutting taxes and cutting waste, I have some Gulf front property in Oklahoma that I can make you a real deal on.

On the whole, Easter afternoon with the TEA Party Express national tour was an entertaining time.
Every good medicine show has to have effective shills and these entertainers knew how to captivate the crowd between the commercials. But if you attended expecting to hear a serious discussion of the issues facing our country or wanted to learn about credible conservative ideas then you were bound to be disappointed.

The Huntsville Times Columns - March 2010 - Experiencing North Alabama

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on March 21 , 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

Have you experienced North Alabama? I didn't ask if you have seen North Alabama. The question was, have you experienced it? When you experience something, you do it with all of your senses. You can see North Alabama from a car but you'll miss many of the wonderful details. You can see something on your television; hear it as well. But you cannot experience a place from inside your house or from a moving metal box.

Experiencing a place involves feeling the wind on your face, sensing the temperature, smelling the flowers in the spring or feeling your temperature rise as you exert yourself climbing. My preferred method of experiencing North Alabama is from the seat of a bicycle. Yes, I'm one of those grown men wearing spandex. Before I go on, I'll answer some of the standard questions male bicycle riders get.
Yes, I do like women and I've been married over 30 years. I walk funny because there are cleats on my shoes, not because of embarrassing chafing. No, the seat is not nearly as uncomfortable as it looks. No, I'm not riding a bicycle because I lost my license.

North Alabama has been blessed with great beauty. For example, we have one of the country's great rivers. As you ride over the Tennessee River on the Natchez Trace you can feel the temperature drop and smell the water. If you stop at Colbert's Landing, you can ride down to the river and hear the water lap against the bank. Further up the Trace, your bicycle may silently come upon grazing deer or wild turkeys crossing the road. They won't be visible from your car, because they run from engine noise.

On Lauderdale County Road 8, east of the Trace you'll glide by Tom Hendrix's wall. If you are in a car, you might drive by, never knowing that you have just passed the largest un-mortared stone wall in the USA. If you see Tom there, he'll tell you that the wall is a memorial to his great-great-grandmother, who walked back to Alabama from Oklahoma after surviving the Trail of Tears.

If you take a winter bicycle ride up Bankhead Parkway to Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville, you'll feel the mountain through your legs as the grade increases and decreases. You'll feel the temperature drop noticeably as you climb, even while your body temperature rises from the effort. If you turn your head to the side, you may see small frozen waterfalls. Maybe you would see this from your car but you wouldn't see the detail or feel the chill while passing these ice formations.

If you really want to feel the mountains of North Alabama, climb Green or Keel Mountain.
With grades of up to 19 percent, you will appreciate the steepness as you struggle against gravity and your falling momentum.You can reward yourself by flying down the slope at up to 50 miles per hour, carving the curves in a way that a car can only envy.

Or you can simply ride. North Alabama has thousands of miles of good (and not so good) country roads where you can follow a stream, appreciate this year's cotton, see a new neighborhood sprout up from nothing or simply enjoy the sunshine and breeze.

If you are nervous about riding on the road, you can experience North Alabama on bicycle trails. The family biking trail in Monte Sano Park is a good start. The trail is a roller coaster on the top of the mountain that will have you appreciating the many plants that grow on the mountain, while perhaps you curse the rocks and roots you cross.

Not up to trying the trails, but nervous about cars? Try the area greenways. My favorite is the Aldridge Creek Greenway, a 3.5-mile paved path from Mountain Gap Road to Ditto's Landing. Enjoy following the stream and be sure to stop at the marina to see the boats. Bring all your senses into play and experience North Alabama by riding a bike.

The Huntsville Times Columns - March 2010 Bonus column - The Power of Labeling

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on March 3, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

Comrades and Fellow Travelers. You know who you are. Or maybe you don't, because you have not been labeled yet. On Feb. 21, my second Community Columnist column ran in the Times. The column itself was as I wrote it, but there was a little problem with the verbiage after the article. It listed me as a "Communist Columnist" rather than "Community Columnist". Ouch. I had not noticed, but on Monday at work, I started to get some strange greetings.

"Hello Comrade!" seemed to follow me around the office. Finally, someone showed me a copy of the column cut from the newspaper. My co-workers and I got a good laugh and I got some good natured ribbing such as "I thought you were a socialist and not a communist" but to people that don't know me, these labels could be taken seriously. The power that a label carries can make or destroy. In politics, labels are weapons to use in attacks or shields to show one's virtues. For example, if I were to call you a socialist, you may be offended. But if I were to ask you if you supported government-provided police, fire and military protection and you said yes, I have just proved that you are, at least in part, a socialist, because you believe that these are proper activities to be provided socially. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we have defined what you are; now we are just negotiating on price.

Do I really believe that most of you are socialists? Don't be silly, of course not.

In Alabama we are already suffering though a season of political ads. Our congressman informs us 20 times a night that he is fighting for our "conservative values." What values are those? I want details.
He labels the president a "radical." OK, what, specifically, makes someone a radical? He tells us that he is opposed to the deficit, but he does not tell us what he would do to balance the budget, because he knows it can't be done without massive cuts in spending and tax increases.
It's easier to paste on the label of deficit hawk than for that bird to fly.

In Alabama, candidates have rallied around "family values" for a generation. In this election year, I'm sure that we will be hearing more of the same. But what does that label mean? What have any of the family values candidates done to promote families? Have divorces been averted? Have broken families been reunited? Have troubled youth been turned away from drugs and crime? There are heroes in every community working to achieve these goals, but rarely do you see our state politicians making a real difference in these areas. I'm sure there are exceptions to my cynical point, but a label that a politician puts on himself should be earned, not merely pasted on for effect.

Likewise, a label put on another person should be based on facts and not merely to smear. Therefore, I challenge you, the reader, to set aside labels and to do some homework. Find out what is really going on in our government, locally, in Montgomery and in Washington. Then let's have a real discussion on the role government has in providing its citizens protection, whether that be national defense, local police, protection from disease or protection from hunger for the poor.

Reject labels and learn. Because no one and no issue can be reduced to a label.

Finally, "I am not a communist, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party". Thank you, Sen. McCarthy. This concludes my testimony.

The Huntsville Times Columns - February 2010 - We don't serve Negroes here

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on February 22, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title. For more information on the Civil Rights movement in Huntsville, read "The Agitator's Daughter" by Sheryll Cashin, or watch "A Civil Rights Journey" by Sonnie Hereford III (available at the Huntsville Public Library)

"We don't serve negroes here." It's early 1962 in Huntsville. Segregated Huntsville. If you were black and tried to eat at a downtown lunch counter that's what you'd hear (or worse). In July 1962, Huntsville will become the first city in Alabama to desegregate lunch counters. You don't know that yet. When it desegregates, it will do so without violence. But that's in the future; violence in response to demands for civil rights is the norm you have seen. Huntsville will go on to be the first school system in the state to desegregate, again without violence. None of that has happened yet. It is early 1962. You live here. Will you do the right thing? What side of history will you be on?

To be black in Huntsville was to be denied access to hotels, restaurants, schools and parks. If you were a black businessperson, you had difficulty renting office space. Newlywed? You could not run your bridal picture in the newspaper. If you were black you knew that separate was not equal. You could tell from the water fountains, you could see it in the school buildings. There had already been limited progress on civil rights in the South, but progress bought with blood. Now the movement had come to Huntsville and the Community Service Committee was organized, committed to change using nonviolent tactics.

It happened without violence against the protesters because there was a line the white leadership of Huntsville would not cross. While the majority of white citizens sat out the fight, protesters picketed the downtown lunch counters, demanding the right to sit and eat. That's all - they wanted to be treated like everyone else. In the end, it was economics, not a desire to do the right thing that ended segregation in Huntsville; actions like Blue Jean Sunday for Easter 1962, an economic protest organized to punish merchants with segregated lunch counters. Protesters urged black church members to wear blue jeans to Easter services and forgo new Easter clothes. Segregation simply became too expensive to Huntsville's future to continue. Greenbacks in the register were more important than the color of faces at the counter.

Almost 50 years later, the controversy seems absurd. There are very few that would argue the morality of segregation. Yet supporting segregation won political races in Alabama in the 1960s.
Jesus may have told us to "love your neighbor as yourself" but to most Alabama's white population in 1962 that did not extend to blacks. Of course, most of the white population did not act openly against the protesters. Their silence and their lack of support for change were how they expressed their opinion.

In 2010, racism still exists, but most of us recognize that segregation costs all of society. We understand that such an evil damages the soul of the oppressor as well as the oppressed. In 2010 it is easy to choose which side of history we would be on now. But if you were around in 1962, which side of history were you on?

I was 2 years old in early 1962 and unaware of what was going on downtown. It would be hubris to say that if I had been an adult then, I would have done the right thing. It would have taken a level of courage that I'm not sure I have. Silence was an easy choice and I might not have seen this as my fight; the cost of standing up as too high a price.

Certainly, there are still pockets of segregation around today, but they are anachronisms of an earlier day that has thankfully passed. Now, whenever I hear someone talking about the good old days, speaking wistfully of the past, I think of 1962 and ask "good for who"? Nostalgia is longing for a time that never was. A look at history through a cataracts-clouded lens. No one should forget the real progress that we have made. Nor should they deny the progress yet to be made.

It is now 2010. Who is your neighbor? What are the issues that we face today? In 2058, when you look back in hindsight to today, which side of history were you on?

The Huntsville Times Columns - January 2010 - Changing History

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on January 17, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

I was born the son of a poor aerospace worker. We were so poor that our carport was for only a single car. We were so poor our second car was bought used. We were so poor we drove to launches at the Cape. When I tell that story I never receive any sympathy, nor should I. I was born in Huntsville, a solidly middle class Southern city that changed history during my childhood.

Like many others here, I was a NASA brat. My parents moved to Huntsville just before my birth.
My father first worked for Thiokol but soon moved over to NASA. We lived in Fleming Meadows in southeastern Huntsville, close enough to the Marshall Space Flight Center to have the ground shake under us whenever rocket boosters were tested.

As an adult I have come to appreciate that each of those man-made earthquakes was history in the making. Our parents were small parts of something big and I'm proud of that. They made the impossible possible. And in July 1969, when a small spacecraft landed on the moon, the Eagle carried not just two astronauts; all of Huntsville rode along.

My father was also a Korean War veteran. His Purple Heart and Silver Star are displayed on my den wall. If you asked him about those medals, he would only say "We took a hill. I got shot, but it was not bad so I kept going until the battle was over." Like millions of our parents he was a war veteran who helped shape our history. Like most, he did not brag about what he did.

My mother was born in Birmingham, but during World War II she lived in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Her father was a factory worker. Oak Ridge was a closed city doing military research. The factory helped create the atomic bomb, changing history forever. In 1970, my mother became one of the first women CPAs in Alabama. Because of the rules then in effect, she was able to do this before she completed her college degree. She went on to complete both her bachelor's and master's degrees. Her story was also history in the making. The role of women in the U.S. was changing and my mother was quietly (or if you knew mom - not so quietly) participating.

The point is not to brag about my family but to point out that everyday people are the ones who move history forward. In most history books we read about generals and politicians making history, but they are impotent without millions of ordinary people who do the real work. Among us are veterans of wars, the civil rights movement, of the fight against disease and poverty; ordinary people who accomplished the extraordinary believing rightly that their efforts would improve our world.

Because of my childhood in Huntsville, I'm an optimist. Our parents didn't listen to pessimists who thought that going to the moon was a fairy tale. They simply went to work. Reaching the moon was a problem to be broken down and solved. The U.S. was not built by pessimists. Our ancestors did not cross an ocean with an expectation to fail. They sought a better life and were willing to work hard together to achieve it. We now face challenges of war, recession and political differences that divide us. When I hear someone argue that the U.S. can't do something simply because it is hard, or they offer no solutions, only criticisms of those who are trying to improve things, I wonder about the hardy people who built this country. Is it that we are suffering from our success; from laziness or selfishness and simply choose not to do the hard work needed to succeed?

I grew up in Huntsville, where ordinary people did the impossible. If our parents could achieve the impossible, isn't it our turn to quit listening to the whiners and get to work?