Featured Column

Take heart! Warmer weather is on the way and it won’t be long before Old Sol will break forth in all nature’s glory. And, in a few months, we will hear complaints about how hot it is rather than the current grumbling about cold weather.

Summertime comes with a little different essence than it once did. Before it was decided that sunshine caused cancer and other maladies, the custom was, at least among white people, to garner a tan whenever springtime broke across the land.

Millions would spread their pale bodies out in the sun in an attempt to bake their skin to as golden a tan as heredity would allow. But misery soon followed for those of us with fairer skin as dusk inflicted sunburn pain upon our blistered surfaces. Ouch! I can still feel the epidermal lava pouring across my back, shoulders and legs. It was painful but after the customary peeling of dead skin, we were right back into a practice we called “sun-bathing.”

I have no idea how the idea originated that tanned skin made one more attractive but it still remains fashionable among an uninformed few to bake one’s skin. When it was determined that ultraviolet and other rays of sunshine caused severe problems, in some perverted sense of reasoning, many folks decided that instead of sprawling in the sun, they would crawl into a shiny cocoon called a tanning bed to be bathed with the very same harmful rays. Go figure.

I truly believe that the invention of sunscreen is one the modern science’s finest hours. How it works, I have no idea but a thin coating of liquid can prevent the misery that fair-skinned folks long endured. It’s a miracle!

No visit to the dermatologist today is complete without the admonition that the failure to go outside without sunscreen will come back to haunt, maybe even kill, you in years to come. But still folks insist on “getting a tan.”

For young redheads like me, sun was anathema. We burned, peeled and burned again throughout the summer. Of course, we had sun tan lotion, which was nothing more that a little grease mixed with the latest concoctions of scents and coloring. Baby oil was promoted as a purveyor of a golden tan. The makers would add a little coconut oil or exotic ingredient and proclaim a giant step forward in sun-tanning science. None of it worked that I could ever tell. Adding a little iodine was supposed to promote tanning but all it ever did was dye the skin to an iodine hue.

The most miserable I have ever been with sunburn occurred the second year after my wife and I got married. We decided to take our first vacation. Daytona Beach seemed like a good destination; so, we left after work one July night and drove down. The first day we decided to spend on the beach. I fished, but with a T-shirt on. By nightfall, we were both miserable. Motels were not air-conditioned back then and we spent a torturous night or two above the sheets, which had been lightly covered with sand blown in by ocean breezes through open windows. I was blistered even through my shirt. You could actually see where the neckband had partially protected my neck and read the “Hanes” label tattooed on my skin.

As a teenager, I worked at Ocean Drive Beach one summer and another as a counselor for a boy’s camp in upper South Carolina. I stayed fried both summers. But I enjoyed walking down the beach while viewing the young ladies who had determined to get a suntan on every available inch of her body allowed by law. Some were more adventurous than other in this all-over technique. The guys enjoyed it. But in engaging in our fantasies meant we had to be out in the sunshine along with the bathing beauties, so, redheads like me couldn’t even enjoy this simple pleasure without suffering the pangs of sunburn.

Sometime in the late 1950s or early 60s, someone came up with the brilliant idea of a lotion that became know as ‘Quick-tan”. It worked to a degree in that it caused the skin, upon contact with the sun, to form an odd-colored haze on the epidermis. In some cases it turned the skin a deep orange instead of tan.

I was on the beach when my sister introduced me to this newly minted miracle. I rubbed the lotion over my body but found that it had left a heavy, greasy residue on my hands. I had to get it off because I didn’t really want tanned palms. So, what did I do? I rubbed my hands through my long auburn hair. Big mistake.

When I went inside to view my new tan in the mirror, I discovered that the lotion that had come off when I rubbed my hands through my hair had turned my hair a brilliant orange! I had to explain my hideous new hair color for months before the putrid color finally grew out.

I never tried any more sun-tanning products until the miraculous sunscreen appeared on the market.

Today, I just wear long sleeves and a broad brimmed hat and stay out of direct sunlight as much as possible. My dermatologist is thrilled.

Merciful heavens! A reader felt compelled last week to accuse me of having a biased point of view. What? Me? Biased? I had really big news for her: Of course I write with a bias. That’s what editorial commentary is all about. Why else would the editorial pages be referred to as “opinion” pages?

Bias can be defined with various connotations but generally it is defined: “…inclination or prejudice in favor of a particular person, thing, or viewpoint.” Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we all have our biases. A proclivity toward a bias is inborn. It’s part of our DNA. We are just naturally inclined toward or against individual ideas, people, places or things.

Editorial commentary is simply one person’s opinion and opinions cannot be presented without the prejudices of the writer showing through. Unlike news reporting, editorial writers make no attempt at hiding their personal opinions. Likewise, letters-to-the-editor always illustrate the bias of those writers as well and is why they appear on the “editorial” spread.

News columns, on the other hand, are generally thought of as straight reporting of actual facts without the opinions of the writer showing through. But is this possible? Individual bias is part of our genes. We are all biased – toward family, friends, environment, favorite flavor of ice cream, various ideas, etc. It’s part of being human and anyone claiming no bias, whatsoever, might not be espousing the complete truth. All humans are biased about something (if not most everything) in life.

Most news reporters lay claim to being unbiased in their reporting and most make an honest effort to be completely so in their reporting of the news. But these folks are human and, therefore, not immune to bias. Many times the bias of some reporters is flagrant and shows prominently in their reporting. Like every other human soul, all journalists have opinions based on their personal experiences and individual philosophies.

Most reporters make a sincere attempt to avoid even the hint of personal opinion in their writing. But if you observe the work of reporters, you will eventually have little difficulty in ascertaining the biases of the author. Likewise, most news editors may try their best to be unbiased in their presentation of news pages but after a while their tendencies toward one general view or another can show through as you note their selection of news stories and their positioning in the paper.

Journalism across America today has a dramatic inclination that falls heavily on the liberal side. In fact, more than 80 percent of news personnel across the land admit to being liberal (sometimes extremely so) in their views. That is their absolute right.

Newspapers are not public institutions. They are business ventures without restraint (within legal bounds, of course) on their right to express whatever role they so choose. Although most newspapers are avid in their claim that they are totally unbiased, there is no constitutional dictate that says newspapers must be unbiased. Throughout the history of journalism in America, some newspapers have even professed bias in their mastheads: “New England Democrat,” “Kansas Republican,” “Christian Science Monitor,” ”Catholic News,” “Daily Communist,” etc. In a past era when most cities and a sizable number of towns had two newspapers (or more), one often represented a liberal leaning while the other boasted of their conservative view. That’s the American Way.

Newspapers are private enterprises and are free to openly offer whatever philosophical persona the owners choose. We have no cause to question this fact. But, as astute business people, publishers are deeply conscious of the mood of the community. Most will only go so far in crossing that boundary. It’s just good business sense.

Unlike print media, radio and television media have traditionally abided by a once mandated responsibility to remain neutral on matters of religion, morality, politics, etc. They are private enterprises just like newspapers and other print publications but the difference is that the public airways are just that – owned by the public and in exchange for the right to claim use of a radio or television frequencies, broadcast stations traditionally do not represent solely one segment of the population. But much of that has changed in recent years with the advent of talk radio. Cable channels have never been obligated to the same restrictions and many electronic outlets are quite often flagrant in their espousal of individual points of view on both sides of issues.

So, the press – just like speech – is protected by the Constitution in the Bill of Rights. And that protected speech and press bestows the right to express your biases as individuals or via various media.

So, yes I am biased in most of my views. I am, among other things, Southern born, a Baptist and a political conservative which will continue to peek through in my musings. But, I will continue to try to remain as fair as my biases allow and that’s about the best I can offer.

If editorial opinions offend, you can always turn the page. Or, express you own brand of bias in a letter to the editor, fax, or Email. Many of you do.

The United States has not tasted total military victory since World War II. It makes sense to try to determine why this is true. I know that I am going to get in deep trouble with this but some folks refer to our recent failures in wartime as the “feminization of society – can’t we just talk it out?”

Men in general are aggressively warlike and women as a group are more gentle and nurturing. It’s a biological fact. We owe our survival as a human race to that difference. We can make all kinds of suppositions but we cannot escape the fundamental fact that the genders are wired differently. Men are from Mars; women are from Venus, as they say. There is a different approach to life as viewed from the male point of view compared with the female outlook. The differences are embedded deeply in our DNA and there is little we can do about it. Men have always fought the wars, hunted, etc. and; women, thank goodness, have always been the glue that holds civil society together by their inherent nurturing genes. I am certain that some feminists will label me chauvinistic but we should be thankful for the differences. I don’t know why some women appear to be ashamed of femininity.

My theory holds that our modern American culture, because of the merging of the gender roles, cannot stomach the horrors of war and, therefore, we have come to expect a “humane” or “controlled” war. There is no such thing. Both a Union and a Confederate general had it about right when Northern Gen. Tecumseh Sherman said, “War is hell.” And went about proving it by laying waste to every square inch of Southern soil and soul he could place his invading feet upon. The Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest opined in the Southern vernacular that the army that always won was the one that got there “the furstest with mostest.”

We have not heeded either in recent wars and things have often ended in a stalemate (Korea) or actual eventual defeat (Vietnam) as soon as we pulled out. Are we about to do even worse in the Persian Gulf wars? A large segment of the US public has spoken of withdrawal for years and many folks started calling for withdrawal a moment or two after the military action got underway. Wars don’t have deadlines. We could win with honor if our fighting forces were allowed to take off the kid gloves and wage a war reminiscent of the distant past. It is unfair to our fighting forces to place them in harm’s way and not give them complete support and encouragement to protect themselves – whatever it takes.

Last year my associates and I interviewed and videotaped about 70 World War II veterans. Without exception, they seemed to agree that if you are going to fight a war – fight to win! Our recent wars have been controlled actions by not allowing our fighting forces to make on-the-spot decisions regarding attack and kill. In Vietnam, it is reported that some units were told how many rounds of ammunition they could fire in a day.

I think the sissyfication of war began in Vietnam because it was the first televised war. Folks at home turned on the evening news and were eyewitnesses to the horrors of war. It was then that the public began to push for a “humane” war. Our brave troops are now forced to get permission from higher up command before taking out an enemy. Many have found themselves before courts-martial because they have acted in self-preservation during a hostile moment.

Put yourself in the position of a US soldier being fired on from a building in the heat of battle. You rush in and there are a dozen people in the room but you must stop and calculate which ones might shoot you before you decide which ones to take out. It’s impossible to make these sorts of calculations and stay alive. So, you protect yourself and your cohorts. Sometimes civilians get killed. That’s just the nature of war. Remember? War is Hell!

US military forces have always been conscious of protecting the civilian population but it simply cannot always be done and expect our forces to come out alive. But let one civilian fall victim and a large segment of the public is ready to hang our patriots.

It was not this way in earlier wars. You know — the ones we actually won. There will always be collateral damage and sometimes it’s planned that way. Take the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for instance. We knew that tens of thousands of civilians would die when we dropped the nuclear bombs but we elected to do it anyway because, by so doing, the war was shortened and hundreds of thousands of lives were undoubtedly saved — including both American and Japanese.

And don’t forget the massive bombing of Germany during WWII. We made every attempt to target military sites but perfection is impossible in war and tens of thousands of civilians died.
Americans don’t like war and we find it hard to stomach but if we are going to win, we must do whatever is necessary to bring the effort to a successful conclusion.

War is, indeed, hell and there is little we can do to change that fact short of giving up to the madmen of the ages and living in subjugation.

Some of you will term me a “warmonger” or perhaps a little bloodthirsty when, in fact, I wish we never had to send another soldier into battle. Although I was never in combat, I was rigorously trained as a combat infantry rifleman in the Korean War Era and we were taught without exception to shoot first and ask questions later.

Absolute peace will not come to pass in this world as long as the sinful nature of mankind prevails. No, we cannot just “talk it out” when we are dealing with insane folks who are incapable of compassion. Sometime armed conflict is the only answer.

All of history provides ample proof of this fact.

The beast of national debt has grown too large for America to lift. But, we keep feeding the monster!

In the early days of network television, there was a show that decided to test an old notion that if you lifted a young calf every day, then, little by little, you would develop the strength to lift a fully grown cow.

The TV producers invited a robust young farm lad to bring his small calf to the studio every week and lift it in order to test the concept. The farm boy came on week after week and was able to heist the animal until one day, when the cow reached a nearly mature size, the poor lad was no longer able to lift the almost fully grown cow, thereby, proving there are universal limits to our abilities.

Politicians have never learned this lesson. Democrats, Republicans and Independents have fed the federal financial calf until the animal has grown into a raging bull that we can no longer lift. The solution proposed by the current administration is to stimulate economic growth by piling on even more debt in a futile attempt to stimulate our ability to somehow lift the fully grown economic burden. It ain’t gonna’ happen. The task of trying to lift this monstrous beast of debt will fall to our children and grandchildren who won’t be able to lift it either – leading to the eventual downfall of the American Dream.

If we don’t stop feeding the economic monster NOW, we will never recover. It may already be too late.

Unfortunately the free enterprise amateurs we have in charge of the present administration don’t understand this basic concept. The entire cadre of the White House and Congress is made up mostly of people who have never experienced the real world of economics. Oh, some of them are good in theory but, as we all know, theory never trumps reality. The majority are professional politicians and political hacks who have made their living feeding from the public trough. Their solution is to simply raise taxes (especially on that segment of Americans who really do create jobs) to provide additional revenue for supporting their expanding agendas. Feed the calf!

Too few of them have never had to meet a payroll; deal with real-world economic concepts; face business competitors; create a private sector job; pay for their own health care; run a real business and deal with the realities of life. Some of their actions often cause me to suspect that their spouses don’t even allow them to handle family finances.

Folks of this ilk decided decades ago that the secret to reelection was to create, among voters, the illusion of a government endowed “heaven-on-earth.” So-called social programs fell into line — one right behind the other. In their grand view, no one should have to work very hard for basic subsistence. The government should create a net underneath those who fail to take full charge of their own basic needs. The net grew larger and larger to the point that it is now possible for generations of families, who have become so dependent on government support, that they no longer have reason or ability to climb out of the cycle. And, they vote accordingly.

Before knee-jerk liberals term me “hard-hearted,” let me once again point out that I have always supported those among us, who simply cannot for reasons of health or economic distress, provide for themselves. But I have little sympathy for others who simply refuse to meet their human obligations.

To add even more weight to the economic beast, this same coagulation of “do-good” Americans and their politicians decided, along the way, that we must also bring prosperity to the whole world – using the taxes gleaned from Americans who do work hard and achieve varying degrees of financial success. Foreign Aid was invented after WWII. We have sent hundreds of billions of tax dollars from hard-working Americans to former enemies, present enemies and dubious friends that have oft times wound up in the hands of crooked politicians around the world. Southerners would have enjoyed some degree of this benevolence after the Civil War but none was forthcoming. Instead we are among the Americans today providing our tax dollars to benefit unappreciative foreigners.

And now, unbelievably, many Americans and their like-minded politicians have decided that we owe this same heaven-on-earth existence to everyone who enters our borders illegally. This administration believes it so strongly that it is willing to drag into court any state that tries to meet the problem head-on because the federal government has not met its constitutional obligation to secure our borders. The federal court has issued a stay on the meaningful provisions of the Arizona law, thereby, thwarting one state’s effort to correct the federal government’s failure to uphold the law. So, it’s time for the Obama gang to put their efforts where their mouths are and start enforcing the federal laws already on the books. And, secure our borders!

Meanwhile, the massive feeding of the federal financial cow goes on and on.

If we don’t stop it soon (November, 2010 and 2012?) we will go completely over the cliff of no return.

That’s if we haven’t already done so!