Goodbye to an Old Friend

Just recently, a friend of mine, Randy Gulledge, told me about another friend who had recently passed away.  I say passed away, but in truth he faced a difficult quality of life decision and opted out.  It’s a difficult subject, and usually leaves more questions than answers, and for me, it poses a moral question.  This column is focused on that question.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian was an active advocate for assisted suicide who spent some time in prison because of it.  What we miss about his case isn’t that he ended up in prison, but the question about whether a human being has the right to determine when “to shuffle off this mortal coil.”  Especially today, that is a huge question.  There are really only two schools for it:  hang in there and suffer or take the early exit.

There’s a lot to be said for both points of view.  How I feel about it personally is my own opinion and I can see myself in either camp depending on the situation.  Still, it’s not my right to instill my opinion, good or bad, on anyone.

Several years ago, my wife and I had a friend who opted for the alternative route.  She decided to fight her cancer-death-sentence, and while she still lost in the long run, it was a long run.  It’s a matter of the tradeoffs, the quality of life, and what things are undone that you hope to see done, before the ravages of years and the hundreds of chemo bouts gets the best of you.

From my own life, I have seen people who suffered beyond comparison.  A very old friend who was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer, who was here one day and gone six months later.  And who had been in horrible pain for the last six months of his life.

What quality is there in a life like that?

Spare me the whole thing about it not being personal.  There is nothing more personal and no time when a person shouldn’t be thinking about “me first.”  Sure, there are times when the ones left behind are left wondering about what happened, but that is just selfishness.

Does the person do such things to hurt the family, or their loved ones?  I argue by that time they are way beyond the idea of affecting anyone else. 

No question, it’s a matter of personal choice.  Take a look at how the medical profession reacts to such diagnoses.  Many doctors don’t bother trying to get “healed.”  No, they face the reality of the dilemma and make the choice of not fighting it back with pills or shots or radiation.

Don’t take my word for it.  Stephanie O'Neill, on Southern California Public Radio, presented an article entitled “How Doctors Want to Die is Different than Most People.” In it, she sites two points:

• A Stanford University study shows almost 90 percent of doctors would forgo resuscitation if facing a terminal illness.
• Doctors are more likely to die at home with less aggressive care than most people get at the end of their lives.

If that’s so, then why is it that we have these huge cancer clinics?  Why do we put ourselves through months and months or worse yet, years of less than what one might consider a high, or even just a moderate, quality of life?  Why not do what the doctors do?  If the medicine was good, why wouldn’t the doctors follow the same course of treatment?

It is the ages old argument about quality of life verses length of life.  Everyday people are faced with having to make this decision.  It’s a difficult thing to decide, or maybe not.  But there are tradeoffs.  In some circumstances I can see myself battling through, providing the value is worth the price.  But just as easily, I can see myself deciding that no value is worth the price.

Goodbye Ricky Gray-the world's a better place without you in it

Sorry Mr. Gray, but sometimes you need to reap what you sow.

If you were living, and in the Richmond area back in Jan. 1, 2006, I’m sure you remember the story about the Harvey family and how they were murdered.  It wasn’t just a run of the mill home break in, it was the deliberate and horrific murder of Bryan Harvey, Kathryn Harvey, and their two daughters, Stella 9 and Ruby 4.

It’s not just that they killed this family, it’s as much the manner in which they went about their evil work:  they were tied up, they were beaten, they were hit on the head with a hammer.  Gray and his accomplice Ray Dandridge then went on a romp and killed another accomplice, Ashley Baskerville, and her mother Mary Tucker, 47; and stepfather, Percyell Tucker, 55.

And so, now, a week away from his date with some lethal injection drugs, we are asked not to impose that punishment.  Really? 

Some crimes by their very nature merit the ultimate punishment.  I suppose, for some people, the 11 years that have passed since that horrid act will have softened them to the execution of this monster.  But, some say, he is now remorseful.  He had a tough child hood.  There are probably a hundred dozen reasons why someone might think Mr. Gray deserves a break.

But he never gave the Harvey family a break.  He never gave the Baskerville’s a break.  How would you feel if that happened to someone in your family?

There are few cases that merit the death penalty more than this case.  The brutal murder of two very small children.  It’s hard for me to think that anyone could forgive someone of those kinds of actions.

As a reporter back in the day, I sat through two capital murder trials while covering Chesterfield County.  Both cases came back as death sentence cases.  One was similar to the Harvey Murder in terms of depravity.

Charity Powers was 10 years old when Everett Lee Mueller abducted, raped and murdered her.  Mueller’s actions were in a class about equal to Gray’s, except that it was only one little girl.  At that point, Gray’s case diverges from horror into something far worse.

When we swirl around the kinds of human beings there are in this world, we know about good and bad and the many varieties in between. We have friends, we have acquaintances, and we have enemies—point blank everyone does.

But people like Gray and Dandridge fall into a different group totally.  Like the old “world” maps show as they reach the borders of known areas, “here there be monsters.”  In Chester, where Charity Powers was so brutally slain, the Chesterfield Police Department said there were about 20 people in the area who they felt could have been responsible for such a reprehensible crime.  Does that scare anyone?  It ought to.  CCPD already were pretty sure who it was, but it took them four or five months to finally get enough proof to arrest him.

Gray and Dandridge are living proof that monsters exist.  Yes, it’s been a long time for Gray to work his way through all of the legal niceties involved in a capital murder case.  And, I am sure, that he is sorry for his actions now.  But has that length of time dulled our senses to what really took place 11 years ago?

Not mine.

I can only imagine the horror and fear they instilled in the Harvey family.  The courts acted properly, the jury did their work properly, and the result will take place next week properly.  It sorrows me that a man is being put to his death, but in the scheme of murders few reach the level of depravity that the Harvey family’s murder did.

Goodbye, Ricky Gray, you have reaped what you have sown.

Peaceful transition - NUKED!

I can’t speak for you, but for me the current state of the Presidential transition is a bit frightening.  I’m not so worried about Trump starting to straighten out the economy and bringing back jobs while he is only the President-elect. I mean, that’s what he said he wanted to do, right?

He has also caused some terrific changes to the economy in terms of consumer confidence, what is happening on Wall Street, and how he has stepped in to work with companies that were going to leave the US behind.  Despite what all the pundits, provocateurs, politicians, and media pranksters have said about him, he apparently is the kind of guy who can get things done.

All of those positive things seem to flash in the face of the out-going party and President Obama.  But what was supposed to be a calm transition is turning out to be anything but.

While Trump may be acting like a president and not just the president elect, it seems as if the current president is doing whatever he can to make the world situation difficult, to say the least.  Why on earth would someone want to kick all the sleeping dogs before leaving office?

The only reason, and I have tried to think this through, the only reason for mucking up the works on a world-wide basis is to create havoc for the incoming president.  For my entire life, our country has been a friend to Israel.  And yet, now we are taking the side of those who wish to see Israel wiped from the map.  What’s to understand here?

Tying up drilling rights is another step in getting in the way of the new president.  It won’t stop oil exploration, but it will be another extra step that has to be cleared along the way.

Where was this president eight years ago?  You know, back in the days before he told Russian President Medvedev that he would have more room to operate after the 2012 election.

Where was this president when he drew a line in the sand in Syria concerning the use of chemical war fare?  Where was this president when four people were murdered in Benghazi?  Sure, we the people like to hold Hillary up for ridicule about that, but the president is just as responsible.

Why can’t the politicians just put things on hold until January 20^th?  Doesn’t it seem a bit unfair to start all these problems and then simply walk away, leaving the incoming president to handle the fall out?

And now we are talking about dealing with Russia over the so-called election and DNC hacking incidents.  So far, no one has shown any proof that Russia is behind those hacks.  Certainly, they are capable of doing it, but so are many other governments and organizations.

Looking back at Israel, it seems to me that Israel has not provoked the problems in the mid-East.  They have had to scrap to keep their citizens safe for ever.  Last night on TV they showed a comparison picture of the Mideast and barely noticeable was the small crescent that is Israel. They have endured great hardships over the years, including bombing, missile attacks, the 1967 war, and the constant grinding of the neighbor states.  And now, the current administration decides to blame Israel for all the violence and for not cooperating.  It seems to me I remember Israel ready to cooperate but the PLO bowed out.  At some point, one is forced to believe that the Palestinians, or at least the leadership, isn’t really wanting peace.

I guess this is just how the current administration treats its allies.  The Israelis have every right to feel as if they have been stabbed in the back.  But the even more interesting thing is the timing.  Secretary of State John Kerry said he has wanted to make that speech for some time.  I’m just wondering why now, with one foot out the door and the other on a banana peel, it seems like the right time?

Never mind, we do know why.

CH Council Outlaws Exotic Flappers

At some point, I suspect, Buddy Waskey will realize that he needs to move out of Colonial Heights.  It’s a shame really, because Buddy is truly a shining star in the city because of his aviary, despite what City Council thinks.
While he does have quite the menagerie of birds, he has shown time and again his willingness to do whatever he needs to do to keep his birds in place.  And, perhaps, they get a bit noisy at times, but where else can you go and see the kinds of macaws that he keeps?  Nowhere in this state, that’s for sure.
When I was a kid, my parents hauled us down to Sarasota, Florida, for what amounted as the biggest vacation boondoggle of my life (I think I was about 8 at the time).  We headed out of Long Island in a beat up old Ford station wagon, with my parents, all four siblings, and my grandmother.  My father sent a picture he drew of us down to my other grandparents, showing all of us kids leaning out windows and my grandmother on my Mom’s side riding shotgun in a rocking chair on the roof. That was in the Spring of 1962, a little ahead of the Beverly Hillbillies, which first aired in September of ’62.
I know, I know, so what’s the point? The point is that while we were in Florida, we went to the Sarasota Jungle Gardens.  While there, my brother and I, both pretty young at the time, got to have a macaw put on our shoulders for a “photo op.”  I laughed, because the one on my brother’s should periodically grabbed some of his hair and pulled.
My point here is that these kinds of birds are intriguing.  Notwithstanding how Buddy’s neighbors feel about the whole thing, imposing the strict rules that council stands up for seems out of place in this case.
Buddy is part of some free flying organization that works with the birds so that they can fly around rather than be stuck in exile in some cage.  Watching his birds in flight is amazing, to say the least. They are well trained and, as far as I know, have never caused any harm to anyone and are less of a nuisance than those other illegal alien Canadian geese that seem to flourish around the mall, Wally World (WalMart), and behind and beside Sam’s Club.  And that’s not to mention the abundance of Ring Billed seagulls that fly overhead in formations looking for something to attack.
At some level, I understand that City Council wants to hold the line on the city’s ordinances. I mean, how else can we get people to put their trash cans behind the front line of their homes, or pick up unsightly objects in their yards?  Still, the point is that City Council has the discretion to override some ordinances via the Conditional Use Permit.
The City may be right to hold the line on this matter. I mean, perhaps the noise that that many birds makes is too much, no matter how hard Buddy has tried to dampen the squawking.  But still, there has to be some other compromise that could have been reached.
When I lived in Italy, a friend of mine had four Doberman’s and a pair of mastiffs.  The City of Milan sent him a letter explaining why he could not have so many dogs.  So he got rid of some of his Dobies.  He then proceeded to buy a lion.  The lion was allowed by the city, but now instead of some occasional barking, his neighbors, who lived in a high rise apartment complex, got to hear the lion roar on occasion.
In this case, I don’t think a lion would be appropriate.  I think the city needs to take a different perspective on things like Buddy’s birds, which don’t really fit into the ordnance as written.  But then, I suppose if the city is stuck on beautifying the area via ordnance it may be time to move out.
The idea of voting out members of council fell flat on its face last November.  The only seat that changed was Diane Yate’s seat, and there only because she chose not to run.  For those who think that is the way to fight back, God bless you, but there isn’t enough support to change Council.
I applaud Council for enforcing the City Code rather than creating other pesky changes that are annoyances because the code hadn’t been enforced.  But there are times when we end up pounding the square peg through the round hole and standing on principles that should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.  Buddy may in fact be the one who free flies from the city.

Homo Simpleton and Huckleberry Finn, et al

Ahh sweet censorship; I know thy stench.

The recent ruling by the Powers of Appropriateness in Accomack County deciding that perhaps they should look again at banning such books as “Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” have now shifted their perspective to non-banning. Of course, they should not be banned.

In most cases, IMO, censorship is at best wrong-headed and at worst the imposition of a few incompetents over the rest of us somewhat sane people. It’s outrageous to me that a book like Huck could get shelved because someone’s sensibilities seizes on a scrap of language, doesn’t take into account how it fits into the theme of the work, and then extrapolates their unease to such an extent that they feel it best to keep everyone away from such a thing.

No doubt, they are saving the world from having to actually think. Huckleberry Finn is a condemnation of racism. Not addressing the very thing that it is condemning is tantamount to not calling the current anti-social activities that drive things like 9- 11, the Orlando shootings, and the incident in California by its true name: radical Islamic Terrorism.

And yet, how many people have actually read the darn thing? People cast about and see a word they don’t like and immediately assume the worst of its use. But how can you write about an evil thing without defining it? In Twain’s case, most of these “inappropriate” comments and language are there to prove a point. They cast Huck’s naiveté in the midst of one of the most horrendous ethical dilemmas of his and our time. Heck, it’s still an ethical dilemma and it likely won’t get “fixed” until we the people expunge it.

 Look how far our country has gotten away from racism to date? How far we have come since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke his “I have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, and spoke about having his children judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Sadly, I don’t think we have come very far despite the intervening 55 years.

Racism is a multi-headed beast. It is hidden in our society except when dredged up by various circumstance. It is also not a one way street. Racists come in all kinds of varieties. It is also a tool for some who when on the beach see the stone and not the sand it has become.

We all need to do better about race. We all need to be sensitive to others and their feelings when it comes to race. As a white man, it’s impossible for me to understand that kind of oppression.

In discussion with one of my friends a decade ago, he told me that the problem with being an African-American is that every morning when he woke up he’d look at his hands and his skin was still black.​

Race is something that we cannot simply set aside like an old suit. We wear it every day. But ignoring it, or not taking it into account, is fool hardy. Later this week I will turn 62 years old and if there is one thing that I know it’s that people are good and bad and indifferent. What really matters is the content of their character.

And to bring that back around to Huck, we need to see what his character says and does and then we may be able to judge the literature. But if we get caught up in the surface, if we think the suit is too old, then we may as well not try to make things better. We may as well just wallow in our own self-pity and think the sun revolves around the Earth

CH City Council Elections-Now get to work!

And so we come to the close of the 2016 Election Process to find that the three incumbents on the ticket, Mayor Greg Kochuba, Joe Green, and Kenny Frenier all earned their reelections.  The new guy on the block, Mike “Picka” Cherry isn’t as new as some would think.  He has been around, and I think this is his third attempt to get on City Council.

Mike replaces Vice Mayor Diane Yates, who opted to step down from her council seat where she has stood for many years as an effective voice for the people of the city.  While we applaud her for the years she has spent trying to make the City a better place to live for everyone, her loss on council sets up the potential for a new face from within the community in Mike.

Greg, Joe, and Kenny have all been effective administrators to the public.  Greg, due to his financial background, is perhaps the most knowledgeable budget man in the city.  He has shown a steady hand in keeping council on point and working the sometimes squishy ground between the administration and the residents.

Joe Green is the consummate constituent’s candidate.  In my experience, there are few people in government who at heart have more concern for the individual voter.  He is not afraid to voice his opinion on subjects and is more than willing to take the best stance when there are “issues” between a council action and the people it affects—the citizenry.  If you run into a concern, be sure that Joe will be at your door at some point to see what can be done to ameliorate the problem.

Kenny Frenier has a very long relationship with the residents of city that dates back before his earliest days with the fire department.  I would venture to guess that of all council members, not one is more familiar with the lay of the city than Kenny.  He is an honest and straight forward kind of guy; with Kenny you get what you see and that’s a good thing.

We welcome you back and hope that you continue to lead in the same manner as you have in the past.  I am sure you will.

This election was more contentious than almost any I can remember in the near 30 years I have lived in this city.  We had a number of citizens who came out to try to grab one of the four council seats up for grabs.  These people need to be applauded:  Christy Palmer Archileti, David P. Hoopsick, Tricia L. Palmer, and L. P. "Buddy" Waskey IV.

The one thing I know about Colonial Heights politics is that if you really want to be part of the City Council you have to be willing to give it more than one shot.  For most people in the city, they hardly know who all these candidates are.  They wonder, as did many I am sure in this cycle, what these people are really running about?  Is it just one issue that inspired them to run for council, or are they truly concerned about the city and how it serves the community?

These results show very much the conservative nature of the city’s voting bloc.  Things are not bad in the city; there have been a few high-interest issues, but I believe the constituency understands what council is about and approves of how they are handling things.  The proof, as the saying goes, is in the pudding—or in this case the election.

Sometimes things don’t go the way one might want.  Certainly, those issues need to be brought to council’s attention; although I am sure they are already aware of most of the problems.  Come out to a city council meeting and see what goes on.  Take an interest in the community, find an area that concerns you and volunteer to help out.

It’s striking to me that one council matter was behind three of the five new comers coming out for the election.  And the truth of that is that council actually did a good job during the public hearing about City Code changes and parking vehicles in or on personal property.  The citizens spoke and council listened.  That’s how things need to be handled in any democratic process.

To everyone who participated in this election, speaking on behalf of the city’s 17,000 residents, owe you our thanks.  To those who managed to earn a seat on city council, we the people of Colonial Heights say, “Get to work.”

Not my President? Maybe you should vote then.

Here’s one final comment on the Presidential election.  In terms of winners and losers, it would appear that the Democratic Party is somewhat to blame for the outcome. There are many who would like to say otherwise, but the bare fact of the matter is that turnout, or the lack thereof, doomed Hillary Clinton’s attempt to replace President Barack Obama.

Yes, there were other issues, like FBI Director Comey’s reopening of the investigation into Hillary’s email issues. And the constant dripping of information from Wikileaks. But even with them, the truth of the matter is that Hillary was her own worst enemy.  She often stated that “setting up her own email server was a mistake and she would not do it again.”  But that she did so in the first place added to the negative perception that many people have of her. It certainly helped swing those final few undecided voters, but there were many other problems along the way.

For instance, Hillary was unable to get the kind of turnout she needed from the African-American voting block, which in the end killed her in Florida and in Pennsylvania.  Ironically, in both states she held a slight lead going into the final minutes of their respective elections.

In Florida, she had the lead coming out of the I-4 corridor, but it was nowhere near what she needed to secure the victory.  Most of the panhandle and western side of the state vote republican, and as things turned out that was enough to turn the state for President-elect Donald Trump.

In Pennsylvania the results were similar.  Hillary had a small lead with the eastern portion of the state already counted.  She easily won the Philadelphia area, a Democratic stronghold that determined how the state vote went for both President Barack Obama elections in 2008 and 2012.  As the vote tallies progressed toward Pittsburgh and the adjacent counties, where there was a huge turnout for Trump, it was enough to overcome the Philadelphia effect and turn the state to favor the Republicans.

But those two huge states were sort of put in the background as the AP declared Trump the winner in Wisconsin.  At that point, the Democratic party started to sweat a bit.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the whole pre-election stuff was trying to figure out how the polls, which seemed always to favor Hillary, could be so far off?  What was bothersome was the size of the crowds that would come out, and in some instances wait hours, for Trump to make a speech.  In Michigan in particular, the crowd waited for three hours as Trump was delayed in getting to the airport.  How is it that that kind of support didn’t show up in the polls?

Some of the post-election punditry is explaining how perhaps the polls counted too many Democrats or this or that.  It seems that perhaps the applied the wrong data about what made up the voting constituency.  The pollsters were using turnout results from 2012 and applying it to the data from this year.  But in the end, the turnout data for 2016 was a bit different.

Only two polls were even close:  the LA Times tracking poll and the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) tracking poll. All other polls got it wrong, by varying degrees.

As it turns out, the least likely person in the world nailed it.  Michael Moore called the race for Trump back during the primaries.  He noted that more republicans voted than democrats in the Michigan primaries.  In the end, he said this election amounted to the American people saying they had had enough with the political elites and voted to turn them out.  Of course, he used language to express this which isn’t appropriate for this blog, but you can easily Google it and see for yourself.

In the end, it was the late breaking independents and the lack of turnout for key Democratic voters that “done her in.”  Sure, there may have been other problems, but even so, you have to get the voters to come out.  The people that did turn out were coming to see Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z, and Beyonce.  They really weren’t that interested in voting apparently.