A PLEA TO PROTECT FUTURE SONYA MASSEYS

My message to the upcoming National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago is basic: Report and tell us the truth on the police slaying of a Black woman in her Illinois home. 

Yes, send a delegation to Springfield to investigate how the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department could hire Sean Grayson in the first place. I ask because I saw his skull tattoos on his arm in the booking photo after his first-degree murder indictment. I ask because I am curious why the state’s Fraternal Order of Police is rallying for Grayson’s reinstatement, calling his firing unjustified.

How many other Deputy Graysons are on the sheriff’s payroll? I cannot trust the emaciated local newspaper to explore this and a range of other questions simmering like the boiling pot of water that triggered Grayson to shoot Sonya Massey below her left eye. In his callous inhumanity, Grayson didn’t even want to try to save her life as she succumbed on her kitchen floor. “Nah, she’s done,” his partner’s bodycam footage reveals. 

Why wasn’t Grayson’s bodycam activated?

Indeed, many questions are unanswered— and likely won’t be unless some truth is shined on this official darkness.

For my part, today I submitted my own Freedom of Information request to the sheriff’s department. At the end of the online form, they asked for a photo ID. 

I declined.

Still, I urge the NABJ, as they celebrate their existence and push the next generation, to send a team from Chicago to Springfield. Show journalistic integrity, strength and excellence in an era of distrust, division and detraction. 

Sonya Massey was unjustifiably killed. Let’s not be desensitized when any police officer exceeds their authority to protect and serve.

My freedom of information request asked for:

1– The initial police report of the encounter with deceased and Grayson. (Grayson’s family was first told that she had been killed by an intruder.)

2– For Grayson, any prior disciplinary or commendation reports.

3– Post-incident statements from sheriff’s office.

4– Racial composition of sworn sheriff deputies and other officials.

5– Demographic information on civilian and uniformed officers.

6– New training for officers, and other efforts for community engagement, sensitivity training,

Certainly, more probing questions loom. Like how could someone with two DUIs, with a bad conduct Army discharge, a man who worked for six law enforcement agencies in just four years, a deputy known for disobedience to superior officers — how could this be so egregiously missed and Grayson still hired?

The sad truth is we all could wind up as Sonya Massey. One answer is to have journalistic watchdogs who can help get to the root of the problem — before there is another corpse in the kitchen.

Democrats Gone Wild

The DNC is our democracy’s new WMD — Weapon of Mass Destruction.

For months, maybe years, they have disgracefully promoted Joe Biden, with full knowledge that he needed to be shielded because of his declining health, both mental and physical. He was protected by his inner circle, with few public appearances, no press conferences. All the while with him as the lone viable candidate on the Democratic primary slough. 

The party platform was weak as well. “Let’s trumpet fighting against Hitler 2.0 and for women’s reproductive rights. And, just as an added carrot, we have the courts to come after Trump, so that after he’s convicted, the GOP will be in utter disarray with their champion disgraced and hopefully behind bars.”

That didn’t work out so well, did it, DNC? Just like America’s failed search for Saddam Hussein weapons of mass destruction, which was the excuse to launch a full-scale war in Iraq, the DNC — for years— has been on its own fools’ errand. They have failed to develop a bench, abandoned any mass-appealing platform planks and proved themselves as enablers rather than coal mine canaries.

Now, we are faced with all kinds of slings and arrows, directed at our attempt to save this democracy from MAGA. I can’t wait to learn what the DNC‘s strategy is now. Whatever it is, I probably won’t be believing that it will be a sound one. Like our disastrous, multi-trillion-dollar Iraq War, which claimed thousands of GIs, the DNC has us in perilous, uncharted territory. 

Bye, Felicia (er, Joe)

Bye, Felicia (er, Joe)

What our democracy now must try to salvage is some kind of Plan ‘B’

By Dwight Cunningham

There hasn’t been this much carnage in Georgia since Gen. William “Tecumseh” Sherman burned Atlanta down almost 160 years ago.

Of course, I'm referring to President Joe Biden’s conflagration of a presidential debate performance against the known insurrectionist, serial liar, rapist and felonious business chief Donald Trump. One could add COVID-19 denier and disinformation guru to Trump’s infamous resume. His malfeasance undeniably took thousands more American lives.

All of that was low-hanging fruit for Joe Biden to just pluck with able, confident pricks. Done with any aplomb, he could have ground Trump into political dust.

Instead, Biden nosedived, crashing quickly into a firestorm where even the embers of his stellar presidency are no longer recognizable.

What our democracy now must try to salvage is some kind of Plan “B” — a hard handoff that could easily be fumbled with just mere weeks before Election Day.

At least Sherman knew his mission: To put insurrectionist Confederate rebels out of commission for good. History says Sherman’s men had begun firing Atlanta on Nov. 12, 1864, targeting places of military importance, such as factories and railroad depots. A subordinate general had issued a $500 reward to anyone who caught Union soldiers committing arson at private residences.

Nonetheless, wayward troops did torch plenty of homes and shops. Entire neighborhoods were burned to the ground, and with the destruction of Atlanta, the Union was saved.

Today, in a last-ditch attempt to save our precious union, now is the time for Biden and his Democratic handlers to reckon with the obviously hard truth: He just isn’t up for four more tough years.

Sadly, only Biden can shift his aged focus to what much of America witnessed with dread in the first — and maybe the only — presidential debate of 2024.

There is no denying that the president looked frail, weak and lacked mental acuity. He stumbled over set pieces on many subjects over which he has a clear policy edge.

Doubtless, the pundits and pollsters will hang onto flubs that point to an 81-year-old president. But who among us fortunate to live that long want to work? And, worse, with the toughest job on the planet?

Trump’s nefariousness is a smoking gun that is willing to load up with a new brand of facism run amuck in America. Again, low-hanging fruit.

But with his debate debacle, Biden may not even survive a second term, given that he would be 86 at its end. Not to mention the rigor to put in 16-hour workdays (or more) and few weekends off while overseeing an ever-complicated world stage.

We Americans deserve better. The world deserves better. Heck, this universe deserves better with no Donald Trump possessing the nuclear codes to oblivion.

Here we are, contending with the ever-faithful survivalist Trump uttering a plethora of powerful falsehoods and lies that likely will crush coming eons, given the opportunity.

We, therefore, will get no shot at good outcomes for our national security, veterans care, Social Security protection, immigration reform, women’s reproductive rights — none of that will matter in a few more weeks if Biden (and Vice President Kamala Harris, for that matter) fail to put egos aside and deal with Biden’s declining health issues.

At least Gen. Sherman knew when he embarked on his Atlanta journey to put the South out of business that he had the blessing of the Lincoln White House to do whatever was necessary to win.

Apparently not so with the Biden White House, who are blessing themselves with a blind spot for the ages. It is a fearful reality that their guy may be riding a pale horse.

It is time to take the reins away from Joe.

These days, when an older person is no longer able to drive without endangering themselves and others, the kids have hard talks before taking away the keys. With love, they convey the painful message that untold lives depend on the sickly person’s self-sacrifice.

Joe Biden may not be at that point yet. And there may not be too many among his inner circle — including his consoling wife and sister — who will have the moral courage to save him from an election defeat and much American chaos to follow.

As an adolescent, my first typing book had an exercise: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.” I must’ve typed that hundreds of times in those early years, without truly understanding its meaning.

Today, I do. More than ever, I know that now is the time for all good men — and women — to come to the aid of their country. Party be damned.

(Dwight Cunningham is a retired journalist, college educator, emergency manager and U.S. Air Force veteran. He resides in South Carolina.)

An American Lament

By Dwight Cunningham

It’s tough being an American. It's hard to know your worth when you're Black, or Latino, Native American or Asian, Muslim, gay or whatever. Seems today’s patriotic ideal American isn’t any of “those people,” as the powerful spend considerable time and nefarious energy to exert dominance by any means possible. 

It’s done through gerrymandering, through restricting hard-won voting rights — but most of all through intimidation. Witness armed Americans challenging the Michigan Legislature, and then going criminally further with a faux militia plot to kidnap the governor.

Of course, nothing can approach feeling less than American as we watched an armed mob storm the United States Capitol in the immediate aftermath of a presidential election. They were led by folks with such lovely monikers as Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Even the wife of a Black Supreme Court Justice took part in that beauty. 

Remember, some called it an insurrection. Others called it a riot. Many of our congresspeople euphemistically and unapologetically called it a whimsical stroll through the Capitol — when mere days earlier they were hiding, fearing for their lives as the Confederate flag waltzed through the National Statuary Hall. 

It's tough being an American when you see spiraling homelessness in the world’s most prosperous country. It’s tough being an American when there’s 50 percent more carbon dioxide in the air than before the Industrial Revolution. It’s tough being an American taxpayer when one’s disappearing wages go to Uncle Sam in outsized amounts compared to the wealthy. It’s tough being an American woman who has no say-so over her fertility or pregnancy in an increasing number of states.

It’s tough being an American when schoolchildren engage in duck-and-cower exercises in case of an active-shooting scenario. It’s tough to be an American parent when teachers and librarians fear for their livelihoods if they promote equality or diversity. American parents also must contend with the sad trend of declining test scores in math and reading among 4th- and 8th-grade kids.

American patriotism has faced a steep decline among young adults over the last decade, and now sits at a record low, according to a recent Gallup survey. Bigger picture: Younger adults are significantly less proud to be an American than older generations; only 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they are “extremely proud” to be an American, also near a record low.

National service is a relic, a thing of a more harmonious past. And for today’s populace to not harbor patriotic mindsets is arguably a clear and present danger to our democracy’s best interests.

It’s tough being an American, considering that only about 1 percent of adult Americans are in uniform, with most young people saying they don't want to engage in some dreamed-up war, or they just don't want to die for their country. 

The all-volunteer military is in a crisis, with 2024 on track to see a record low in military recruitment, our government says. Consequently, we will have the smallest active duty force since 1940. 

Defense Department officials are at wit’s end after last year’s 41,000 shortfall, which hit the Army, Navy and Air Force. (Only the Marine Corps and Space Force met recruiting goals.)

Things are so bad that the Air Force last October raised its maximum age limit for recruits to 42. The new age limit is the latest in a series of military leaders’ concessions to recruit more GIs. Qualified applicants can retest if they test positive for marijuana use. Relaxation of fat composition rules and allowing small hand and neck tattoos are also today’s norm.

Moreover, the military has to contend with drawing recruits from a stressed-out society. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic, global conflicts, racism and racial injustice, inflation and climate-related disasters are all weighing on the collective consciousness of Americans,” according to the latest “Stress in America” survey conducted by the Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association.

What once was pride in our nation has been hijacked, with contemporary concepts of patriotism now worn with skewed stripes of red, white and blue. Red states, Blue states — but White Supremacy is trying to reign throughout.

How can we be considered great as the nation struggled through a pandemic where 1 million Americans died, in large measure because their government promoted lies and conspiracies led by a president who trumpeted drinking bleach and shining light inward instead of wearing masks?

It’s tough being an American when that same former president and presidential candidate today sits in a criminal courtroom, with a bevy of federal and state trials on his horizon — including storing top-secret war plans in his bathroom. 

Why on earth would anyone want those? Except Iran, where we are in a proxy war with Israel leading the genocidal charge. And with our nation’s blessing, more than 33,000 Palestinians have died — so far. Most of them were women, children and the elderly as Israel uses American-made munitions to kill, maim and otherwise obliterate the Gaza homeland and Palestinian culture.

It is tough being an American living with such unpatriotic and undemocratic actions — and fearing for our collective future. It is just so un-American.

Dwight Cunningham is a retired journalist, an Air Force veteran, emergency manager and former college instructor. He resides in South Carolina.

An Election Response To My Clan

So, first thanks for your feedback. You are among a select few, (meaning less than 10), whom I solicited for thoughts about me working at the polls in a few days here in South Carolina. Your input is valued, and I have decided to move forward on November 8. The reasons are clear: A couple of my respondents said, "They don’t wanna mess with you” because I am just not one to be messed with, LOL

Most, however, cautioned against me going, saying it wasn’t worth risking my safety.

But I say that I’m not going to let the dogs win — nor bite me. I trust your wisdom, and I understand there may be some personal peril. That’s life. What’s more important than individual safety is to let folks know that we are STILL in a democracy, and this great experiment may soon be over… Unless people of good conscience and spirit move forward to challenge the cruel, narcissistic, corrupt world that too many Americans now want.

As you know, I am a student of history, and clearly can see it repeating some of its Facist/Nazi influences in the encroaching future. We cannot let that happen, because we know the outcome. It would be a tragedy. The vote is all we Americans were given. 

It is all that’s left. Moreover, it would be an ultimate disservice to the ancestors who died to give us the opportunity to vote — not to mention being a Black poll worker in the Deep South at this moment.

So, as I said, we can’t let the bastards win. See ya at the polls. Vote 🗳 

Emergency: Somebody Please Dial 9-1-1

Oh, please — Stop equivocating with this Trump nonsense. Remember, this is the Central Park Five non-apologist; the Obama birther liar; the monster who called Sen. John McCain “a loser” for becoming a Vietnam War POW (while he shirked the draft); the “Stand Back And Stand By” racist hate-monger; the Insurrection Leader; the former president who clearly — and illegally — took the USA’s top secrets (for no good earthly reason, to be sure). 

From the moment he descended on his Trump Tower golden escalator to decry Mexicans, the sorry media has given this guy a platinum pass. Let him hide his taxes. Let him keep making money and enriching deals as prez. Let him shake Putin’s hands while shoving aside NATO ally Montenegro’s leader in a photo op. Let him have extramarital affairs with hush money at hand. Watch him get impeached — TWICE.

Suffer as we watch him let hundreds of thousands of Americans die needlessly from COVID-19 because, he says, he didn’t think Americans could handle the awful truth. Let him declare, without any real pushback, that he does not believe in science when climate change is closing upon us. Let him toss paper towels in Puerto Rico as hundreds of Americans perish and billions get spent to enrich his cronies. See his daughter and son-in-law get rich in the White House (although they can’t get security clearances). Watch the Trump Hotel host lavish soirées, paid by the Saudis who dismembered an American journalist.

The list goes on, and on, and on, and…Just call 9-1-1, for the sake of democracy.

A Rush To Judgment Day

A RUSH TO JUDGMENT 

The Republicans are absolutely bonkers. Fueled by conservative talker Rush Limbaugh, who died today, they now embrace the stance that if it makes sense for most Americans — then they must be against it.

Latest example: Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott blamed green energy on his state’s deadly freeze. Then there’s the former Texas governor and energy secretary, Rick Perry who proclaims the feds need not get involved to help fix Texas’ electric-grid debacle. 

Meanwhile, much of Texas is a disaster zone as the state’s Republicans twiddle their frostbitten thumbs.

Then there’s the mayor of Colorado City,Texas, another Republican, who just resigned under fire because he told his small town’s residents that they should just stop whining and figure out how to stay warm on their own.

Throughout the GOP, it’s anything liberal or progressive that helps Americans, they’re vehemently against. COVID relief, no. Fair housing, equal rights, police reform, immigration reform — all nada. 

The Arkansas governor, another Republican, says President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is too much, that whatever money is coming should be distributed on a per capita basis. The poor people of Arkansas are hurting, and yet this guy is playing politics.

Clearly, Republicans throughout America are and will continue to be obstructionists. They know they have lost one election after another. They know that Donald Trump is their Death Star.

And yet they will continue to orbit around him as he draws them into his own black hole of nativist succor.

Rush Limbaugh was an enabler of this mean-spirited stupidity. He was a racist, a drug addict, and a hypocrite who dishonorably received the once-revered Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

Wonder whether Rush sees the light now.

 

The mortal storm of deadly force on Black Americans

Fatal inaction: Deadly force by police on Black Americans has morphed into a curvature of the American soul.

The mortal storm of deadly force on Black Americans

Divided we stand, rooted in the past. It’s a history of symbols of traitors, slaveholders, and racist practices propelled through the decades into a distressful legacy.

Laws have been published and not enacted. A system of inferior education, swollen prison populations of Black Americans, and starkly inequitable hiring and pay standards — the list is a multitude of systemic failures leading to systemic racism.

It starts in the womb. Black mothers have a considerably  lesser opportunity to bring healthy children to life. Racism continues in a black child's educational path. Much more funds go to "good schools," meaning white schools, than "bad schools" nationwide. 

In the same neighborhoods, a white homeowner’s property has more value than his Black next door neighbor. If he’s a high school graduate and his Black neighbor has a college degree, the white guy still will earn considerably more. 

And when they go to the hospital, the healthcare system will value his care more than the black guy. Just ask any insurance actuary what happens when both are killed in  auto accidents. In wrongful death suits, payouts are exponentially higher if the victim is white.

The wealth gap in America is growing for whites, and stagnant for Black Americans. Statistics bear out every assertion.

Yet, the institutional powers will never admit that they are part of systemic racism. Corporate America will talk day long about diversity and inclusion. But schools suspend black children disproportionately. Banks redline with impugnity. The news media shies away from divulging their own hiring practices. Police departments will say they view everybody the same. 

Political leaders jump at every opportunity to proclaim that all men and women are created equally. America’s military leaders say they are a bastion of equal treatment -– yet black Americans receive more disciplinary punishment and far more undesirable and dishonorable discharges per capita than their white counterparts.

There is a curvature to America’s spinal cord, bent through years, indeed centuries, of arthritic buildup of institutional racism. 

Now a storm is gathering — and it may clear a path to national recovery or damnation. But this time, the shockwave may be too much to bear. 

For my part, no matter my life of wartime military service, an award-winning career and accomplishment in the news media, and years as a college professor and federal employee, nonetheless I hold no value on the streets of America.

I can only hope — but I can no longer pray — that my grandchildren will fare better.

Of two dictators and madness in Miami

I treasure my 2015 trip to Cuba. Nine days with real Cubans, learning how they believed in Fidel Castro's vision of racial equality. They also looked forward to better relations with the United States, and praised President Obama at every turn. My hope is that the two nations continue to move closer economically and democratically. But I also remember when I was an editor at The Miami Herald that Cubans fleeing Castro's Cuba got 40 acres and a mule (symbolically) -- but immigrant Haitians fleeing dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier's brutalty were imprisoned in detention camps in South Florida. That blatant racial discrimination lives on today; just examine the upward mobility of the expatriate Haitian community compared to their Cuban counterparts. There really is no comparison.

On Veterans Day – Never Mind

Fifty years have passed since I last saw many of my high school classmates. Frankly, I could have waited another 50 before seeing them again.

No bitterness here, just the realization that most of them remain so out of touch with the sacrifices and service made by me and a handful of their Vietnam veteran classmates. That our McKinley Tech Class of '65 reunion committee in Washington never thought of recognizing their veteran classmates shouldn't have come as a surprise.

After all, when it comes to those Americans who halted teenage lives to join the military for wartime service to this country, self-fulfillment, self-indulgence and outright hatred for the war were ways of life for the non-serving. Few in power even wanted to admit it was a war, with politicians and the media alike euphemistically calling it "the Vietnam conflict."

Still, this slight may have hurt the most, more than being slurred by fellow Americans, of being spat on and turned down for jobs because of the myth that Vietnam veterans were “crazy” and “baby killers,” even after decades of rejected Agent Orange claims and Vietnam buddies' deaths at the hands of the Veterans Administration.

One would have thought that my ex-classmates would have been the first to celebrate our collective sacrifice, that they knew and appreciated that it was also for their future security that we enlisted or were drafted. I allow that maybe they couldn’t have understood the political ramifications of the Vietnam War, but I thought surely they, as witnesses to headlines and history, would have celebrated their old classmates who became casualties of war in one way or the other.

I don’t know whether I should be ashamed of them or for myself for daring to suggest that their weekend of reunion memories should have included a brief recognition of their veteran classmates. Most of those things school chums at my predominantly black high school's graduating class (99 percent) went on to college, created successful careers in education, government, law, medicine – you name it, these middle-class children did it. For me, I had little choice except join the military. My parents weren’t able to afford college and, frankly, my grades were only so-so back then. 

So, it took me a few years to catch up after my four-year Air Force enlistment. It took 10 years to earn that bachelor’s degree. After my cut-rate GI Bill for college stipend ran out in three years, I left college to work full-time as a court stenographer, later re-enrolling to get that elusive degree in journalism. My professional life has since taken me around the globe and across this nation as a newspaper reporter, editor, college professor and public relations practitioner.

This Veterans Day, and with each passing November 11^th I find the moment less authentic. For me, and I am sure with countless other Vietnam vets, “the Vietnam conflict” simply mirrors the widening schism between those who served in the most unpopular war in American history and the rest of the nation. Today, less than 1 percent of all Americans are in the uniformed services. That’s the lowest percentage of Americans in uniform in the last 100 years. Most military families will attest to their second-class status as citizens, with many depending on food stamps and food banks while their loved ones are deployed.

Seems that this country – along with my now-senior citizen classmates – remain all too happy to get on with their lives and leave the fighting to someone else. National service was and tragically remains absent from the American agenda.

So be it! It will be the nation's loss, sadly, when most Americans fail to have their own skins in the game of serving this great country.

As for us Vietnam Vets, we are more than willing to thank our own selves for our service. We did our duty – no thank you is necessary.

Duane, Larry and Jimmy: yesterday's heroes, today's conscience

Duane, Larry & Jimmy: Yesterday’s Heroes, Today’s Conscience

January 1, 2011 at 5:11pm

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Duane D. Jackson, 63, a Times Square street vendor, saved New York and the country as a whole from a tragedy that could have derailed our peace of mind and sense of security. Jackson risked his life when he peered into a suspiciously smoking SUV. He immediately summoned a police officer, who then cleared out the tourist-heavy district as the country watched and prayed.

Jackson is a Vietnam veteran.

Larry Platt, 62, took the nation by storm on last year’s “American Idol” auditions with a side-splitting, mocking message to America’s black youth:

Pants on the groundPants on the groundLookin' like a fool with your pants on the groundWith the gold in your mouthHat turned sidewaysPants hit the groundCall yourself a cool catlookin' like a foolWalkin' downtown with your pants on the ground, get it upHey, get your pants off the groundLookin' like a foolWalkin', talkin' with your pants on the groundGet it up; hey! Get your pants off the groundLookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground

Too old to go beyond auditions, the message resonated with TV hosts and celebrity everywhere.

Platt is a Vietnam veteran.

Jimmy McMillan has a painfully clear mantra: The rent is too damn high, and it's hurting the economy, not to mention the quality of life of New York, his home city. Hailing from Flatbush, Brooklyn, the 63-year-old didn't win the state’s gubernatorial election -- though he did receive an astonishing 40,916 votes, which was 0.9 percent of the total. But for a while, he won the hearts of struggling Americans and earned a host of Internet tributes. He became a 2010 cult hero, showing courage in the face of inestimable odds to tell the nation that something was terribly wrong with our economy.

McMillan is a Vietnam veteran.

By now, you might have guessed that I love black Vietnam veterans. Now in their senior years, they went to that war young and drafted, baby boomers with little opportunity, but they were young men who saw their way to a good future through life-threatening service to their country.

Today, as America is ensnarled in another conflict of questionable merit, with trillions of dollars siphoned from economic progress, another group of American heores will need your support when they return home.

And while one might question how well Duane, Larry and Jimmy individually won their shares of the American Dream, no one can doubt that their ethos of service to America has ever waned. They, like many veterans from all of our wars, continue to push the envelope for the sake of others.

That is our hope for tomorrow. That is the lesson we learned in Vietnam.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIENDS.

Since my youth, my only 'crime' has been my skin color

Since my youth, my only 'crime' has been my skin color

I didn't sleep well last night. Was up until 4 a.m., I guess too wound up to let my body do its job over my mental anguish of seeing a human being -- a BLACK human being, like myself -- murdered before my eyes. 

I spent much of the day after the fateful video surfaced reading the comments from various news sites. To be sure, 95% of them were equally appalled. I found, and verified the irony of ex-police officer Michael Slager's surname. In the Dutch language, "Slager" means "butcher shop." 

I ran back my own memory of being stopped by police...once as a 16-year-old high schooler, while walking to the bus stop after a classmate's birthday party. I was accused of stealing a car. Again, I was walking.

I was stopped in Prince George's County on my birthday (some 40 years ago) for speeding. I knew there was a cop car behind me, and knew the highway I was on, so I slowed down. Nonetheless, the officer lit me up, pulled me over and cited me for speeding. I went to court, armed with a photograph I had taken of the speed sign showing 35 mph. I didn't need that proof, however; the cop never showed and the case was dismissed. But I lost a day's pay back in the day for that foolishness.

It was 1985 in New Jersey, when I was pulled over by a state trooper on the NJ Turnpike; I had just relocated from The Miami Herald, and had Florida tags. The trooper did his usual protocol of running my tags, etc. About 20 minutes later, he returned to my car and said I could go, offering a lame explanation that there were a lot of drugs running up from Florida and that was why he pulled me over. Then, he had the audacity to ask me why I was even in New Jersey.

I told him, "I just relocated here from Florida. I am the new city editor of The (Bergen) Record," and I'm on my way to work. His face turned fire-engine red. 

Today, more than ever, I shudder that there are few black journalists in America's newsrooms to fight the power that be. I am no public enemy. Peace!

A drink of freedom

When I was 18 and in the Vietnam War, I couldn’t drink legally. I remember an editorial cartoon depicting GIs in a foxhole, bombs bursting in air, and one saying to the other, “If I couldn’t drink, then why am I here to die?”

The cartoon brought a brief, knowing smile to my young face, knowing well that, worse, I couldn’t vote myself out of the war, either. You had to be 21 to vote and to drink, yet most of my bros were my age or not much older. We knew the law, but we also knew how to get fired up while “in country."  We all needed numbing to get through that unreal, and no one asked for our IDs back then, not that it mattered. 

Years passed, and I moved on from Thunderbird -- the vintage of black choice in ‘Nam -- to Boone’s Farm, then onward to something with a cork. In between, there were some name brands as I grew toward sanity after a tour of the duty with Uncle Sam. 

Strange how Election Day brings out the patriotism and memories in me. Today I wore my Vietnam veteran baseball cap while waiting in line to vote. I never said a word to my fellow Americans, except to the poll workers when required. I heard my companions banter about Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, same-sex marriage laws and legalized gambling in Maryland.

And I silently rejoiced. For I made their banter possible. I stood there, knowing they were free because I did what was asked of me when I was but a child. I enlisted in the U.S Air Force at exactly 17 years and 9 months old; I needed my parents’ signatures to enlist, and they grudgingly signed. 

It was the best move of my life. 

Back then, I began to learn how to survive in an unfair world. I learned how to communicate in spite of ignorant and intolerable rants from folks who thought themselves superior in rank, intellect, good manners and beyond. I learned about hate and rage and heroic acts that ultimately bested the former. 

Reflecting on that young life brought forward through the crucible of war and a career in public service through the art of journalism, I understand the cries of democracy and the unrelenting forces that seek to mute it. 

I remain a warrior for good thoughts and deeds. Today, while waiting in line, I changed my vote to allow children of illegal immigrants to receive low-cost college tuition. That’s because I saw a young Latino couple cradling their playful infant daughter. They too had come to vote.

They, too, are part of my America. I figured that out while waiting in line. I changed my mind because I can.

Because I am an American. 

Siding with the truth

Who’s watching the watcher, now that political hay can be made from untruths that go on and on?

No one is watching -- or seemingly caring -- as this debacle of an American presidential election continues to go down Pinocchio’s unseemly path.

Ethical and professional lapses darken our doorsteps with increasing frequency. A meningitis outbreak kills at least 16 Americans so far, and has tragically sickened thousands more. All because a Massachusetts pharmaceutical company was left to its own devices and allowed a fungus to contaminate its drug stock.

The Bay State also has to come up with a tough explanation about how a state police lab technician willingly falsified thousands of drug cases. Her false reports imprisoned hundreds, but no one was watching her for years.

As a crisis communicator, I continue to be amazed by the mirage people and corporations create to uphold their lack of character.

• Pizza Hut reverses itself on a “Free Pizza For Life" contest if someone at tonight's presidential debate asks the candidates whether they prefer sausage or pepperoni toppings -- diminishing the seriousness of the moment.
• American Airlines fails to answer questions today regarding the conviction of a long-time baggage handler who got other airline employees to secrete drugs on passenger jets -- at the risk of downing a jet because their hiding places were in the planes' control systems. His drug ring netted millions.
• A Maryland lawmaker last week pleaded guilty to using $3,500 in campaign funds to pay for her wedding and a second charge in which she was found guilty of using $800 in state funds to pay an employee at her law firm. The woman still believes she should keep her post.
• Lance Armstrong, the doper. 'Nuf said.

Such arrogance is an appeasement to vanity. Trouble is, today it boils over in more public scenarios than one can list. Yet, the perps think nothing of it, like tailgating speeders with no fear of consequence.

There is no prescription for humanity to act in a humane way. Which is why, in conscience-free 21st Century America, we need watchers empowered with the soul and commitment to know right from something less -- no matter someone’s ill-conceived definition.

The truth will always outflank a lie. It just takes longer today.