Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

Tag: Nashville

Fourth of July Wilson Family Fest, 2022, One for the Books

Front row: Stacey Wilson, Ava Wilson, Elise Wilson ad Aaron Eddy (in glasses).
Rachel (girlfriend) and Michael Wilson (full beard).
Jessica Wilson in center, wearing hat. Owen Castelein (9 years old) next to his father Chris Castelein (my nephew on the Corcoran side). Scott Wilson with hand up (the host); Hannah Wilson Poffenbarger (glasses on head in center). Megan Wilson Eddy with baby Winnie; Matt Wilson and Mark Wilson; Regina Wilson Nelson; Samantha Liss Wilson (back right, mouth open, hat on head). Sophia Castelein, daughter of Chris (above Jess’s hat). Standing on steps to pool: Craig and Connie Wilson. Standing, clothed, by pool’s edge: Steve Nelson.

Celebrants traveled from Denver, St. Louis, Nashville, the IA/IL Quad Cities, and from the local neighborhood of Austin, Texas, to add up to, at times, a total of close to 30 Wilsons and friends, celebrating the Fourth of July with delicious home-cooked brisket, ribs, sausage and side dishes with an active slate of competitions, including bags tournaments, a new Skip-and-Toss in-pool game, pool volleyball, foosball, and (at a nearby Armadillo Garden bar night), a game involving hooking a metal loop onto a hook.

The temperatures were near 100 degrees and that sounds as though it stretched across the U.S., as friends I spoke with in Des Moines and Minneapolis were complaining about the excessive heat, as well.

Big debts of gratitude are owed the host and hostess of the event, Scott and Jessica Wilson, who had 13 people sleeping at their house at one point. My small ranch hosted two of the guests, and a For-Rent-By-Owner house with 3 bedrooms housed most of the 8 people from St. Louis who flew in.

Along with the back yard festivities a water park and a go-kart track have been scheduled into the mix and, in other years, we rented a traveling bar and peddled it around town, took the Austin bat cruise at night, and rented a pontoon boat for floating on a nearby lake. All-in-all, it sounds like a massive undertaking to bring all the elements to fruition at the right time and in the right sequence, and when you add in at least 6 school-age children of various ages and an 11-month old baby about to turn one on August 23rd, satisfying everyone’s expectations for the holiday is quite a chore.

In a previous pre-pandemic year the fireworks, visible from the house driveway, were spectacular, but the dry conditions existing in this area now brought many words of caution regarding the locals setting off fireworks. While we could hear fireworks, we really couldn’t see that many and ended up watching fireworks mostly on television.

Daughter Stacey; Granddaughters Elise (with baby Winnie) and Ava Wilson.

The news of the Highland Park Massacre of spectators at a Fourth of July parade in their downtown area was a constant background noise. We held this event—mostly outdoors—during the pandemic and barely left the house that year. With the violence in this country extending to malls, houses of worship, concerts, parades and other gatherings, one wonders if staying away from crowds at all times is going to become de rigeur The first thing I said to my husband after the Highland Park massacre was that my literary agent lives in nearby Deerfield and that the towns, like Skokie, Illinois, have a sizable Jewish population. I wondered if this kind of hate crime was a factor?

Just a moment ago, on CNN, a local rabbi appeared, supposedly to share an encounter he had had with the shooter in the months before the cowardly attack, but the rabbi, Rabbi Yosef Schanowitz had been told not to talk about his April encounter with the accused shooter. It’s a sad commentary that this rabbi sketched how his religious group has to have armed guards (off duty policemen) and other synagogue members who are legally armed to protect worshipers in America from violence.

Those who know the history of the Holocaust know that Hitler made the Jews and gypsies the whipping boys and girls for his subsequent crimes and it is tragic to think that people who merely want to pray have to be protected against acts of random violence.

Cousins Chris Castelein (Hiawatha, IA), and host Scott Wilson (Brodie Springs, Austin, Tx). Chris and Scott were college roomnates and Chris was Best Man in Scott’s wedding 20 years ago.

Although this event injected a note of extreme sadness into the otherwise joyous weekend, this event in the very community where the films “Risky Business,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and “Home Alone” were filmed will remain linked with this year’s Family Fest.

This one is in the books and hats off to the Chief Organizers (Scott & Jessica) who put up with the presence of 21 family members, plus others, for periods of up to a week. Most began drifting out on the actual Fourth of July and the remnants of the party group, with the exception of Yours Truly, who will be here until July 11th have now properly celebrated our nation’s birthday. Since we’re in Texas and one never knows what the Texans will want to do about remaining in the United States (of America), this is one for the books and here is an Emily Dickinson quote that seems appropriate.

 

The Family Fest Beckons on June 30th

The Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum in the distance.

We begin the journey to the Family Fest in Austin, Texas, at 10:30 p.m. tonight.

We will leave for Midway at 6:45 p.m. because the reports say this is going to be “the busiest travel day of the year.” We are not sure why this day would beat Christmas or Thanksgiving or any of the bigger holidays, but we are aware that we may end up right back here, enjoying the view from my condo and sleeping here, if something goes awry.

Meanwhile, the temperature here has dropped slightly into the eighties, while the temperature in Austin has not. We hope it doesn’t rain, as that appears to be a possibility for tomorrow, Friday, July 1st, my sister’s birthday.

Twenty-two out-of-towners are making the trip and some of the locals will join us, so it should be a good time—if we all make it. I will have all bedrooms at my house full and, since it is a winter home, we are hoping that we have enough sheets for the blow-up queen-sized bed. (The king-sized guest bedroom is good to go.)

Cities represented will include St. Louis, Denver, Nashville, Moline, East Moline, Hiawatha (IA) and the Austin locals.

Should be a good time!

Nashville, TN: Labor Day Weekend

Nashville's scale model Parthenon in Centennial Park.

We’re here in Nashville and have been visiting the Parthenon, a left-over from the Nashville Centennial Celebration and other points of interest.

There was a Friday night beer-tasting event in a park, similar to others held in 14 other cities. It was well-attended, and various beers could be sampled.

After the event in the park, we attended a concert by a group called “Westfolk.”  The band consists of lead singer Oscar Anthony of Chicago, who resembles Abbie Hoffman of the 60’s. On guitars and synthesizer is John Shaw. Brady Surface plays bass guitar, Ross Ridgeman helps with vocals and plays keyboards, Jared Ziemba and Houston Matthews on drums round out the group. We met Houston’s parents, who were in town from Little rock, Arkansas. Dad was frantically trying to Skype the concert “live” to Houston’s girlfriend in Los Angeles. Houston was definitely my favorite of the musicians and the last encore song was the best.

Tomorrow we plan to drive to a glass exhibit by the world renowned Dale Cihuly, whose last name I have probably just misspelled. Wish us luck!

Sit-ins, Nashville, Civil Rights, the ’60s and Me

Today is a good day to write this for my daughter, who lives in Nashville and attended college  (Belmont University) in Nashville. It may (or may not) enlighten her to an anniversary being hailed by USA Today in their Monday, February 1, 2010 issue, in a front page story entitled “How a Demand for Lunch Fueled a Push for Rights.” The story, written by Larry Copeland, references the 50-year anniversary of a sit-in by black students and their white friends at the businesses along Fifth Street in Nashville, Tennessee.

Although Nashville’s sit-in protesting racial discrimination at the city’s lunch counters like Woolworth’s (then a staple) was upstaged by an impromptu sit-in the day before, [on February 1, 1960], at North Carolina A&T College, by four black students (all freshman African American students at AT&T College)—Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond and Franklin McCain—the Nashville protest movement involved many more students, both local residents and many who were urged, as I was, to get on buses and travel South to be part of the protests. Many of these Freedom Riders, as they were known (or trouble-makers, if you were a local in the Southern community being visited), were organized by SNCC (the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee).

SNCC was organized in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1960 to help coordinate sit-ins and freedom rides and marches. Most were unpaid volunteers, but some were paid $10 a week to help the organization. Initially, the organization was meant to be non-violent. In its later incarnations under Stokely Carmichael, when the Black Power salute came into being, etc., the organization’s leaders said, “I don’t know how much longer we can remain non-violent,” and, indeed, it did not stand fast to Martin Luther King’s original nonviolent protest principles and passed out of existence in the seventies. However, during the hey-day of the sixties, SNCC was instrumental in helping organize protest movements in the United States, both by raising funds and by recruiting sympathetic students from across the northern part of the United States, who traveled South to help win civil rights for the black residents.

One of the most influential, in fact, would be an English major from Chicago, Diane Nash, who emerged as a key spokeswoman and ultimately confronted Nashville’s Mayor, Ben West at the height of the city’s sit-ins of 1960 (.

Nashville, Tennessee in 1960 was still a segregated city in the South, although it prided itself on being “the Athens of the South,” with its model Parthenon in the park and what officials felt was an enlightened attitude. But the black students who could not be served at Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress, McClellan’s, Grant’s, Walgreen’s and Cain-Sloan along Fifth Street didn’t quite see it that way.

Today, with the benefit of looking back from the vantage-point of 50 years in the future, it is apparent that the Nashville protest for civil rights was far better organized than many of those being staged in 112 Southern cities by October of 1960 (as documented in Juan Williams’ book Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil rights Years, 1954-1965).  Of the 112 sit-ins and other demonstrations staged, many were ineffectual. It is a tribute to the preparation and planning of leaders like Chicago’s Diane Nash that Nashville’s sit-ins and protest movement yielded fruit that today’s college students benefit from, even if they cannot remember and, sometimes, cannot believe that this sort of unrest occurred in their fair city.

 

While Joseph McNeil, one of the original sit-in demonstrators at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, had simply “had enough” and did what he did with little preparation or forethought, simply because, “I didn’t want to see my children have to face the same problems.  We just felt that this certainly was a time to act. If not now, when? If not my generation, what generation?” others spent more time preparing and planning. McNeil is now 67 and a retired Air Force Reserve major general who lives in Hempstead, New York. He adds, “My parents grew up and carried the scars of racial segregation.”

Lest readers think that Nashville, with its reputation as the Athens of the South, was so much better than Greensboro, North Carolina, let me quote 82-year-old John Seigenthaler in the USA Today front page article (Feb. 1, 2010) who was then the weekend city editor of The Tennessean, Nashville’s leading newspaper. Said Seigenthaler, “It (Nashville) was as segregated by race as any city in South Africa during apartheid.” Seigenthaler went on to become the first editorial director of USA Today, after serving as editor and publisher of The Tennessean.

When 124 students who had been coached in non-violent reaction by groups such as SNCC, dressed in their Sunday best, marched quietly, 2 abreast, from a nearby church to Fifth Avenue in Nashville and entered Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress, and McClellan’s, stores that, today, we would describe as “dime stores,” they were told by a waitress, “We don’t serve niggers here.”

The students waited quietly while other shoppers stared.  The protesters sat for a few hours and then left. However, the students returned over and over again during the next 2 weeks and added a fourth store, Grant’s, and a fifth, Walgreen’s.  (None of these stores remain on Nashville’s Fifth Avenue, today, except Walgreen’s, which hasn’t had a lunch counter in decades, as that particular American cultural phenomenon has been supplanted by fast food places like McDonald’s and Burger King.)

Each subsequent sit-in grew larger, attracting more students to the cause, but each subsequent sit-in also attracted supportive, idealistic white youths of the era. Protesters were heckled, beat, and spat upon the protesters and all this has been documented on film. By February 27, 1960, Nashville had decided to crack down on the disruption(s) to the local businesses and 81 students had been arrested.

Seigenthaler remembers, “For the white community, there was shock, anger, overwhelmingly negative feelings. The business community adopted a very steel-backed approach, rigid and very negative.”

I remember that, in my own case, I only took part in demonstrations that were held on the campuses of the universities I was actually attending. My parents decreed that there would be no bus trips to Southern cities for this college co-ed. But the colleges I was attending during the years outlined in Juan Williams’ book (see above) were the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. (If you think things were “all quiet on the western front at Berkeley,” you have not read many history books about “Berzerkley” in the sixties.)

I remember that all the bookstore windows were broken out during demonstrations, to the point that the bookstores on both campuses replaced their previously glass windows with a bricked-up substitute. I remember the (repeated) occupation of Sproul Hall (the administration building) on campus at Berkeley and many protest rallies and concerts by such luminaries as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and, in one memorable poetry reading, Alan Ginsberg.

Ginsberg, the much-acclaimed author of “Howl” and one of the Beat Poets (like Jack Kerouac of “On the Road”) was so high on something that the janitor had to be summoned to actually physically lift the man, (squatting cross-legged in yoga lotus position onstage with finger cymbals), and remove him from the stage (stage left, as they say). I remember Mario Savio, now deceased, who was constantly rallying the student demonstrators, and just as constantly being hauled off to jail. [Imagine my surprise on a return trip to Berkeley recently to discover a life-sized statue of this leader of the Free Speech movement and civil rights activist right on campus. (“The times, they are a’changin’,” for sure.)]

But back to Nashville, so that my daughter, born in 1987, may read some reminiscences of others more central to integrating the city she now calls home.

Sit-ins had been tried in more than 12 cities, beginning in Wichita, Kansas in 1958, but the one in Greensboro, North Carolina described above ignited the most passion and reignited Dr. Martin Luther King’s movement, which had flagged after the Rosa Parks bus incident in Birmingham, Alabama, faded from memory. Without the students leading the way, Dr. King’s movement might well have faltered, but the unbridled enthusiasm of youth—harnessed again in Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008—rescued a flagging Civil Rights movement back in the sixties.

 

By February, 1960, sit-ins had taken place in 31 cities. By March, 1960, sit-ins had taken place in 71 cities (USA Today article of Feb. 1, 2010, by Larry Copeland, p.2A). By October, 1960, sit-ins had occurred in 112 Southern cities. The movement was growing and, in Nashville, at least, students from all over the country and all over the world were feeding it.  Said Representative John Lewis, (D, Ga.) who was then 19 and among those in the Civil Rights movement in 1960, “Students would come to Fisk to watch films and plays, or come to the Fisk Chapel to listen to unbelievable music, but they could not eat together downtown in racially mixed groups.”

For 2 years prior to the Nashville movement of 1960, Lewis was among a group of students learning non-violent tactics from James Lawson, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. (Again, at Iowa, the group was SNCC, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). This is where Diane Nash from Chicago, mentioned earlier, studied the movement and where Bernard LaFayette, who later became a college president, would take part. C.T. Vivian, who later became an Atlanta city councilman was there and Marion Barry, later the Mayor of Washington, D.C. whose antics in office earned him a less-than-stellar reputation for drug use and womanizing, decades afterwards.

All these disparate people came together and planned, for 2 years, to hold mock sit-ins and studied how NOT to respond if attacked or arrested. Test sit-ins were held in late 1959 at 2 Nashville department stores, Harvey’s and Cain-Sloan. All this was in preparation for “the real deal,” which rolled out on February 13, 1960.

Says LaFayette, today, “There was an ongoing debate between the students and their parents.  They (the parents) feared for our safety, because we were going up against a system that was not known to be very sympathetic or humane, particularly law enforcement in the South.”

I had grown up in the lily-white town of Independence, Iowa. I did not have…then or now…. one shred of prejudice towards any other ethnic group. It isn’t that I can claim any moral high ground. I just had had no bad experiences of any kind (nor good, for that matter) with the students referenced as “colored.” Basic human decency and logic would dictate that people are people, no matter what color or religion they are, and should be treated equally well. Isn’t it the Bible that says, “Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you?”

It didn’t take me long to decide where I would stand on this issue, but how active I could/would be in the movement was dictated by my conservative Midwestern parents who controlled the purse strings. However, when I was on campus where it was all happening (as at Berkeley and Iowa)…(finish that thought). My parents were completely clear that I was NOT to sign anything, NOT to get arrested, and NOT to get on a bus heading south.

However, as long as I didn’t sign anything (“Do NOT sign anything,” said my stern father.) nor get on a bus for parts unknown, like the hapless college students whose short lives and brutish murders are so compellingly portrayed in the 1988 Alan Parker film “Mississippi Burning” (Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe), I could take part in protests on the campuses I was actually attending without repercussions that would cause trouble with the authorities (and, in that group, I include my conservative parents). I remember particularly vividly giving blood to be thrown on the steps of Old Capitol in protest, but the protest was an anti Vietnam War protest, not a Civil Rights protest.

 This period of time stretched from 1963 to 1968, later than the period (1960) being discussed in the USA Today story. Still, I remember that the beacon burned bright in those years of the sixties, especially as anti-war protests against the Vietnam War, fueled by our nation’s draft system, began to become part of the mix.

As for sit-ins, perhaps 100,000 participated in them, according to historian Clayborne Carson, and 3,000 were arrested in 1960, alone, so demands that you “not get arrested” were reality-based when delivered by a worried parent to an idealistic would-be participant.

 

The sit-ins in Nashville carried on in to April of 1960, costing local merchants money. Easter was approaching and the large black middle class in Nashville organized a “No New Clothes Easter.” “Jim Crow” laws in at least 11 Southern states prohibited inter-racial mingling between blacks and whites, but, in 1954, the Supreme Court had ordered the schools desegregated. Ordering it didn’t make it happen, however, and there have been books written about the integration of the South’s most revered black institutions (colleges, universities, public schools), including a famous Norman Rockwell painting depicting a small black girl walking into a previously all-white school.

Said a Nashville student who was part of the protest movement of 1960 (Mitchell) of the “No New Clothes Easter:” “People were very serious about this.  They didn’t shop.  Anyone who had new clothes that Easter stood out.” Naturally, this hurt local merchants and Mayor Ben West proposed a compromise whereby a 3-month trial period would allow blacks to be served in a separate area of the local restaurants (Remember “separate but equal?”). This angered the black students and it was rejected. The sit-ins continued.

On April 19th, the home of the students’ attorney, Z. Alexander Lobby, was bombed. Thousands of people, both black and white, marched in silence to City Hall later that day, where spokeswoman Diane Nash (the Chicago convert) addressed Mayor Ben West, saying, “Mayor, do you recommend that the lunch counters be desegregated?”

The Mayor—who had always been viewed as a moderate and who was a white man presiding over an integrated city council—hesitated briefly and then said, “Yes.” (This version comes from Seigenthaler, who was present.) Says historian Clayborne Carson, “The sit-ins were the real starting point of the protests of the 1960s.”

By May 10, 1960, six Fifth Avenue stores (Kress’, Woolworth’s, McClellan’s, Grant’s, Walgreen’s and Cain-Sloan’s) seated black customers at lunch counters for the first time. When Reverend Martin Luther-King came to Nashville mere days after the confrontation between Chicago’s Diane Nash and Mayor Ben West, he told a capacity crowd in the Fisk auditorium, “The Nashville sit-ins were the best organized and the most disciplined in the Southland.” (Parting the Waters by Pulitzer-prize winner Taylor Branch).

As a sometimes Chicagoan who participated in protests during the troubled decade of the sixties, it is difficult for me to explain to my 22-year-old daughter, who lives in the very city where much of this occurred, how it is conceivable that a white minority would or could attempt to keep down a black majority. One has only to look to apartheid in South Africa with the Dutch colonial settlers (and this year’s “Invictus” film by Clint Eastwood) to realize that the history I lived through and participated in (to a lesser extent than these pioneers, but to the extent that I was able to do so) really did occur.

As Seigenthaler put it, “It’s really tough to understand how a city could be so insensitive, and, in some ways, so dumb, but Nashville’s ability to resolve it within a relatively short period of time and put it behind them is worth considering.” Says Mitchell, “Nashville, today, is a city that’s very respected in race relations. It’s a diverse, international community.  The present generation is often shocked when we refer to the sit-ins. They see a very open and urban community, and they don’t believe that that happened here.”

As you drive down Fifth Avenue in Nashville, today, little remains to remind of the history that took place in these streets. There are no signs or memorials and, although the sign is still up at the old Kress store, it’s been converted into loft apartments.  Walgreen’s, the only store of those mentioned that remains, has no lunch counter, and has had no such amenity in decades.

Nashville residents, like my daughter, can sit together and eat lunch wherever they want with whomever they choose, today. But they owe that freedom to Freedom Riders (as they were known), youths like me, who often boarded buses and traveled South (at considerable risk) to join their oppressed fellowman, in the hope of assuring “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” just as our Constitution has assured our citizens since the 1700s. It was justice and equality for all under the law, regardless of race, color or creed that the children of the sixties stood up for.  I hope today’s youth and tomorrow’s youth-yet-to-be-born remember this history 50 years from now.

Traveling to Tennessee

StaceyGrad-010staceyinhatWe’re here in Nashville, Tennessee, awaiting the Belmont University graduation ceremony to take place on Friday, August 14th, at 7:30 p.m. The daughter will graduate (after 4 years) with a degree in Business, with a Music emphasis. So far, we’ve given her half of her presents and taken her out to dinner. The boyfriend (Austin) went to dinner with us and Austin’s parents are in town, so we may have the opportunity to meet them, as well. It’s sultry and warm here. We saw two serious accidents on the highways while driving here.

Presidential Debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee

Greta VonSusternbelmont-mansion-002belmont-mansion-021belmont-mansion-006Connie Wilson at Belmont

In a CNN poll of undecided voters, 12 thought that Barack Obama had won October 7th‘s Presidential debate in Nashville at Belmont University, and 10 thought that Senator John McCain had won.

I was present in the Press Room during the Belmont Debate, sitting next to Joan Canete Bayle, U.S. Correspondent for Spain’s “el Periodico” out of Barcelona. One area that Joan was most surprised about was the part of the debate that centered on health care. He said, “The European view is that health care is a right,” stating that Europeans cannot understand our health care system. At one point in the debate, Senator John McCain, the Republican Presidential nominee, said, “Of course they (small business owners) all want to do that (insure their employees and insure their kids).”

No, Senator McCain, they do not all want to do that. I was a small business owner for close to 20 years and I had 2 full-time employees. I made sure that my 2 full-time employees were insured, but my successor had no intention of going the extra mile to insure anyone and, in 900 other franchise centers, there was a real determination to avoid having to insure full-time employees, if it was possible to do so.

The weather was bad at Belmont, but one of the things that impressed the press, with whom I was sitting, was the quality of the free buffet served them. It involved scalloped potatoes, smoked turkey, ham, pecan pie, two kinds of salads and, as one other media worker said (Joe, from the Nashville ABC affiliate in town, who said he had only had 4 hours off in the last 3 days), “It was the best food we’ve had anywhere.” I actually interviewed 2 of the women responsible for the food, Denise Rucker and Kelly Johnson, who work for Sodexho Food Service that put on the great free feed, which I was told was at least partially underwritten by Anheuser-Busch. One neat thing: the famous correspondent in line ahead of me.

The reporter from Spain and I not only discussed health care, he also enjoyed seeing a copy of the Palin drinking game that my daughter provided me with, whereby those who correctly predicted that Palin would say such words as “maverick” during the VP debate would get an “X” and, eventually a “bingo.” We discussed the fact that McCain had said that the U.S. should not sit down with Spain, during a recent appearance, something that struck both of us as incredible, since Spain is (ostensibly) one of our allies.

There was some criticism of the format that I heard after the debate. The Town Hall is one that McCain relishes, but he did not seem to warm to the topics this night, and he did not seem to “win” the debate, which CNN reported as having been seen as going to Obama by 54% to 32%.  While Obama’s numbers went up from 60 to 64% on his favorables at the end of the debate, McCain’s remained unchanged.

McCain did seem condescending at times and he left the room early and journeyed back to his room, which we heard was near Vanderbilt University. (The daughter and I were caught twice in the traffic that was stopped while McCain’s motorcade crossed the town, once as he came in from the airport and again as he left in a huff after the debate.)

McCain came across as a man who did not seem that happy to be in his favorite debate format and he seemed old and cranky. I constantly kept checking his back to see if there was a wind-up key lodged there. He tottered out on the stage looking quite feeble next to his forty-something rival.  The only new piece of information that I heard, from McCain, was that he wants the government to now buy up the mortgages of middle-class people caught in the recent sub-prime mess. McCain, as usual, did not say where the money to do this would come from, and, in fact, kept repeating that taxes must not be raised.

Senator McCain was asked who he would tap to replace Henry Paulson when he leaves, and mentioned someone like Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay. “Someone who inspires trust and confidence,” said McCain.  When Obama was asked the same question, he acknowledged the support of Warren Buffett and, giving no specifics, said, “I’m pleased to have his     The support,” and commented on how the “trickle-down economy” theory espoused by his Republican opponents for the past 8 years just have not worked. He repeated his plan(s) to give 95% of middle-income Americans a tax cut (incomes under $250,000).

At 8:10 p.m., a young girl wearing a “McCain-Palin” baseball cap came by with the first of what would (eventually) become  26 pages of pro-McCain/Palin print material. The Democrats counter by sending out e-mail periodically.

The first “zinger” that I heard either candidate get in was shortly after that, when Obama talked about McCain’s long-time reputation as a fan of “deregulation” and spoke about how he had gone to Wall Street one year ago with warnings about the sub-prime mortgage. He said, “This is not the end of the process. This is the beginning of the process.”

McCain came out, again, with his proposal for a spending freeze that would affect everything except for defense and a few other choice areas to be named later.  This, to me, seems very simplistic, much like Bush’s giving back rebates to the American people in lieu of a workable, realistic plan to address our economic problems.   Obama, when addressing the same question(s), disagreed, saying that he wanted to use ‘a scalpel, not a hatchet” to address the mess in Washington. It was McCain who brought up the figure of 700,000 jobs lost, and he is the heir apparent to his Republican predecessor who set us on this path, so that seemed odd, to me. Obama, instead, mentioned that he got the impression that the American public was willing to come together after 9/11 and that he got a sense that the youth, in particular, were hungry for leadership and a “call to service.” He mentioned doubling the size of the Peace Corps, for example.

I felt that, at this point, Brokaw was a bit unfair to Senator Obama and was, in fact, less-than-fair to him on two occasions during the debate. Senator McCain claimed that Obama’s tax plan would raise taxes on small businesses and, when Obama wished to respond to that, Brokaw cited time constraints and would not allow him to do so.

The question was posed about whether either candidate would give Congress a 2-year ultimatum regarding Social Security. Obama said he would probably need a 4-year term, not 2, and got in another zinger with “The Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one.” He pointed out that Senator McCain’s health care plan would impose a tax on small employers’ health care expenditures and also added that CEO wants to give the average CEO on Wall Street a tax cut.

When the discussion turned to energy programs and Obama said, “This is not just a challenge. It is an opportunity,” going on to say that 5 million new green jobs could be produced if we put U.S. efforts into solar/wind/geo-thermal/nuclear and other alternative energy sources, he got in the zinger:  “The big problem was inactivity over the last 30 years, and Senator McCain was in office for 26 of them.” Obama went on to note that the United States has only 3% of the world’s oil reserves, but uses 25% of the world’s oil reserves.  At this point, Brokaw once again shut down Obama, saying, “Gentlemen, you may not have noticed that we have red and yellow and green lights.”  Obama countered, “I’m just trying to keep up with John.”

It was shortly after this that Brokaw said, to McCain, “Thank you very much, Senator McCain,” when he gave a brief response.

Health care received a stirring response from Barack Obama when he said, “I think it (health care) should be a right.  For my mother to have to die of cancer at the age of 53 and to have to spend the last days of her life arguing about whether it was a pre-existing condition,” scored well with female voters. When he followed this fact up with the additional information that John McCain had voted against the extension of the Children’s Health Care Act, it hit home and he ended by saying that it was important to crack down on insurance companies that are cheating their insured.

Obama also noted, of McCain, “he believes in deregulation in every circumstance.”

When asked what they don’t understand, Obama also got in another zinger, saying, “I don’t understand why we invaded Iraq” (rather than Afghanistan.” He made mention of the $700 billion spent, so far, on the Iraq War, the $10 billion a month the nation is spending on this ill-fated conflict and said, “It has not worked for America.”

I was quite amazed at the response to Brokaw’s question about what an “Obama Doctrine” or a “McCain Doctrine” would be.  McCain referenced the fact that today’s troubled times require “a cool hand at the tiller.” He said this more than once this night. All I could think about was McCain’s much-deserved reputation as a hothead and how this qualified him—of all people— as “a cool hand at the tiller.”

Another “zinger” that I felt Obama got in was the mention of the “Bomb, bomb, bomb…Bomb, bomb, Iran” gaffe that McCain committed. McCain—somewhat testily—responded, “I know how to handle these situations and I’m not going to telegraph my punches,” referencing comments that Obama has made about dealing firmly with Pakistan.

Brokaw brought up the news that Britain’s Sherrod Cooper Coals has said that Afghanistan is unwinnable and that “what we need is an acceptable dictator” in that country.  This led Obama to say,

“We are going to have to pressure the Afghanistan government to take more responsibility, and we are going to have to withdraw troops in a responsible way over time.” I talked with a British soldier recently (8/08/08) who had just completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan and said that the situation was deteriorating and was unwinnable.

I thought that Obama’s “ending” statement, made in response to the question from Peggy in New Hampshire (“What don’t you know and how you will learn it?”) was eloquent and inspiring. “The question in this election is:  Are we gonna’ pass on the same American dream to our children?  We need fundamental change. I hope that all of you are courageous enough to move in a new direction on this journey called America.”

McCain’s closing, in response to the same question, was that what he didn’t know was “what the unexpected will be.” He repeated the “steady hand on the tiller” line, which gave me pause, once again, knowing his hair-trigger temper and his tendency to fly off the handle and call his own wife “a trollop” and (the “c” word) on his campaign bus with reporters present. This is not “a steady hand on the tiller.”

As the debate ended, I moved on to a rally for Democratic Senatorial candidate Bob Tuke, who is running against Lamar Alexander, former Secretary of Education.  Three bands played at a rally aimed at Obama supporters and Bob Tuke was present and addressed the crowd, accompanied by his wife and daughter. I exited the hall in a pouring downpour, getting completely soaked, and then had to sit in traffic for the second time today while McCain’s motorcade passed by. (Obama was presumably on his way to a party hosted by former Vice President Al Gore at his Nashville home.

Meanwhile, word came that the Asian market had plunged by nearly 10%, that Toyota stock had plunged 11.86%. that British banks were being injected with $90 billion (and another $200 billion available if they needed it) and that  the Korean Wan had falled on the Asian-Pacific Stock Market, while the Russian markets were down 14%. Hong Kong had cut interest by 1% and Australia’s markets fell 5% before rebounding some.  It was enough to make you feel like Chicken Little saying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” but it is not difficult to understand why the Japanese may be getting nervous about whether cash-impaired Americans are going to be able to buy as many Japanese cars and plasma TV’s in this economy. Paris currency fell by 3.42%. The Bank of Japan announced that it was pouring $20 million into money markets. After 16 days of relative stability world-wide, we now have a global credit crisis with fears of a global recession.

Does anyone anywhere doubt that we need to set sail on a new course of action in the United States both politically and economically after the ship of state has not only floundered here, but is causing the currencies of most other countries to become unstable?

In a CNN poll of undecided voters, 12 thought that Barack Obama had won October 7th‘s Presidential debate in Nashville at Belmont University, and 10 thought that Senator John McCain had won.

I was present in the Press Room during the Belmont Debate, sitting next to Joan Canete Bayle, U.S. Correspondent for Spain’s “el Periodico” out of Barcelona. One area that Joan was most surprised about was the part of the debate that centered on health care. He said, “The European view is that health care is a right,” stating that Europeans cannot understand our health care system. At one point in the debate, Senator John McCain, the Republican Presidential nominee, said, “Of course they (small business owners) all want to do that (insure their employees and insure their kids).”

No, Senator McCain, they do not all want to do that. I was a small business owner for close to 20 years and I had 2 full-time employees. I made sure that my 2 full-time employees were insured, but my successor had no intention of going the extra mile to insure anyone and, in 900 other franchise centers, there was a real determination to avoid having to insure full-time employees, if it was possible to do so.

The weather was bad at Belmont, but one of the things that impressed the press, with whom I was sitting, was the quality of the free buffet served them. It involved scalloped potatoes, smoked turkey, ham, pecan pie, two kinds of salads and, as one other media worker said (Joe, from the Nashville ABC affiliate in town, who said he had only had 4 hours off in the last 3 days), “It was the best food we’ve had anywhere.” I actually interviewed 2 of the women responsible for the food, Denise Rucker and Kelly Johnson, who work for Sodexho Food Service that put on the great free feed, which I was told was at least partially underwritten by Anheuser-Busch. One neat thing: the famous correspondent in line ahead of me.

The reporter from Spain and I not only discussed health care, he also enjoyed seeing a copy of the Palin drinking game that my daughter provided me with, whereby those who correctly predicted that Palin would say such words as “maverick” during the VP debate would get an “X” and, eventually a “bingo.” We discussed the fact that McCain had said that the U.S. should not sit down with Spain, during a recent appearance, something that struck both of us as incredible, since Spain is (ostensibly) one of our allies.

There was some criticism of the format that I heard after the debate. The Town Hall is one that McCain relishes, but he did not seem to warm to the topics this night, and he did not seem to “win” the debate, which CNN reported as having been seen as going to Obama by 54% to 32%.  While Obama’s numbers went up from 60 to 64% on his favorables at the end of the debate, McCain’s remained unchanged.

McCain did seem condescending at times and he left the room early and journeyed back to his room, which we heard was near Vanderbilt University. (The daughter and I were caught twice in the traffic that was stopped while McCain’s motorcade crossed the town, once as he came in from the airport and again as he left in a huff after the debate.)

McCain came across as a man who did not seem that happy to be in his favorite debate format and he seemed old and cranky. I constantly kept checking his back to see if there was a wind-up key lodged there. He tottered out on the stage looking quite feeble next to his forty-something rival.  The only new piece of information that I heard, from McCain, was that he wants the government to now buy up the mortgages of middle-class people caught in the recent sub-prime mess. McCain, as usual, did not say where the money to do this would come from, and, in fact, kept repeating that taxes must not be raised.

Senator McCain was asked who he would tap to replace Henry Paulson when he leaves, and mentioned someone like Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay. “Someone who inspires trust and confidence,” said McCain.  When Obama was asked the same question, he acknowledged the support of Warren Buffett and, giving no specifics, said, “I’m pleased to have his     The support,” and commented on how the “trickle-down economy” theory espoused by his Republican opponents for the past 8 years just have not worked. He repeated his plan(s) to give 95% of middle-income Americans a tax cut (incomes under $250,000).

At 8:10 p.m., a young girl wearing a “McCain-Palin” baseball cap came by with the first of what would (eventually) become  26 pages of pro-McCain/Palin print material. The Democrats counter by sending out e-mail periodically.

The first “zinger” that I heard either candidate get in was shortly after that, when Obama talked about McCain’s long-time reputation as a fan of “deregulation” and spoke about how he had gone to Wall Street one year ago with warnings about the sub-prime mortgage. He said, “This is not the end of the process. This is the beginning of the process.”

McCain came out, again, with his proposal for a spending freeze that would affect everything except for defense and a few other choice areas to be named later.  This, to me, seems very simplistic, much like Bush’s giving back rebates to the American people in lieu of a workable, realistic plan to address our economic problems.   Obama, when addressing the same question(s), disagreed, saying that he wanted to use ‘a scalpel, not a hatchet” to address the mess in Washington. It was McCain who brought up the figure of 700,000 jobs lost, and he is the heir apparent to his Republican predecessor who set us on this path, so that seemed odd, to me. Obama, instead, mentioned that he got the impression that the American public was willing to come together after 9/11 and that he got a sense that the youth, in particular, were hungry for leadership and a “call to service.” He mentioned doubling the size of the Peace Corps, for example.

I felt that, at this point, Brokaw was a bit unfair to Senator Obama and was, in fact, less-than-fair to him on two occasions during the debate. Senator McCain claimed that Obama’s tax plan would raise taxes on small businesses and, when Obama wished to respond to that, Brokaw cited time constraints and would not allow him to do so.

The question was posed about whether either candidate would give Congress a 2-year ultimatum regarding Social Security. Obama said he would probably need a 4-year term, not 2, and got in another zinger with “The Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one.” He pointed out that Senator McCain’s health care plan would impose a tax on small employers’ health care expenditures and also added that CEO wants to give the average CEO on Wall Street a tax cut.

When the discussion turned to energy programs and Obama said, “This is not just a challenge. It is an opportunity,” going on to say that 5 million new green jobs could be produced if we put U.S. efforts into solar/wind/geo-thermal/nuclear and other alternative energy sources, he got in the zinger:  “The big problem was inactivity over the last 30 years, and Senator McCain was in office for 26 of them.” Obama went on to note that the United States has only 3% of the world’s oil reserves, but uses 25% of the world’s oil reserves.  At this point, Brokaw once again shut down Obama, saying, “Gentlemen, you may not have noticed that we have red and yellow and green lights.”  Obama countered, “I’m just trying to keep up with John.”

It was shortly after this that Brokaw said, to McCain, “Thank you very much, Senator McCain,” when he gave a brief response.

Health care received a stirring response from Barack Obama when he said, “I think it (health care) should be a right.  For my mother to have to die of cancer at the age of 53 and to have to spend the last days of her life arguing about whether it was a pre-existing condition,” scored well with female voters. When he followed this fact up with the additional information that John McCain had voted against the extension of the Children’s Health Care Act, it hit home and he ended by saying that it was important to crack down on insurance companies that are cheating their insured.

Obama also noted, of McCain, “he believes in deregulation in every circumstance.”

When asked what they don’t understand, Obama also got in another zinger, saying, “I don’t understand why we invaded Iraq” (rather than Afghanistan.” He made mention of the $700 billion spent, so far, on the Iraq War, the $10 billion a month the nation is spending on this ill-fated conflict and said, “It has not worked for America.”

I was quite amazed at the response to Brokaw’s question about what an “Obama Doctrine” or a “McCain Doctrine” would be.  McCain referenced the fact that today’s troubled times require “a cool hand at the tiller.” He said this more than once this night. All I could think about was McCain’s much-deserved reputation as a hothead and how this qualified him—of all people— as “a cool hand at the tiller.”

Another “zinger” that I felt Obama got in was the mention of the “Bomb, bomb, bomb…Bomb, bomb, Iran” gaffe that McCain committed. McCain—somewhat testily—responded, “I know how to handle these situations and I’m not going to telegraph my punches,” referencing comments that Obama has made about dealing firmly with Pakistan.

Brokaw brought up the news that Britain’s Sherrod Cooper Coals has said that Afghanistan is unwinnable and that “what we need is an acceptable dictator” in that country.  This led Obama to say,

“We are going to have to pressure the Afghanistan government to take more responsibility, and we are going to have to withdraw troops in a responsible way over time.” I talked with a British soldier recently (8/08/08) who had just completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan and said that the situation was deteriorating and was unwinnable.

I thought that Obama’s “ending” statement, made in response to the question from Peggy in New Hampshire (“What don’t you know and how you will learn it?”) was eloquent and inspiring. “The question in this election is:  Are we gonna’ pass on the same American dream to our children?  We need fundamental change. I hope that all of you are courageous enough to move in a new direction on this journey called America.”

McCain’s closing, in response to the same question, was that what he didn’t know was “what the unexpected will be.” He repeated the “steady hand on the tiller” line, which gave me pause, once again, knowing his hair-trigger temper and his tendency to fly off the handle and call his own wife “a trollop” and (the “c” word) on his campaign bus with reporters present. This is not “a steady hand on the tiller.”

As the debate ended, I moved on to a rally for Democratic Senatorial candidate Bob Tuke, who is running against Lamar Alexander, former Secretary of Education.  Three bands played at a rally aimed at Obama supporters and Bob Tuke was present and addressed the crowd, accompanied by his wife and daughter. I exited the hall in a pouring downpour, getting completely soaked, and then had to sit in traffic for the second time today while McCain’s motorcade passed by. (Obama was presumably on his way to a party hosted by former Vice President Al Gore at his Nashville home.

Meanwhile, word came that the Asian market had plunged by nearly 10%, that Toyota stock had plunged 11.86%. that British banks were being injected with $90 billion (and another $200 billion available if they needed it) and that  the Korean Wan had falled on the Asian-Pacific Stock Market, while the Russian markets were down 14%. Hong Kong had cut interest by 1% and Australia’s markets fell 5% before rebounding some.  It was enough to make you feel like Chicken Little saying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” but it is not difficult to understand why the Japanese may be getting nervous about whether cash-impaired Americans are going to be able to buy as many Japanese cars and plasma TV’s in this economy. Paris currency fell by 3.42%. The Bank of Japan announced that it was pouring $20 million into money markets. After 16 days of relative stability world-wide, we now have a global credit crisis with fears of a global recession.

Does anyone anywhere doubt that we need to set sail on a new course of action in the United States both politically and economically after the ship of state has not only floundered here, but is causing the currencies of most other countries to become unstable?

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén