Did you hear the one about the guy who feeds 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread? Read all about it in Mark 6: 30-44. I know this opening line makes me sound like a religious zealot. So I will analogize by referring to a more secular character—the guy planning to provide health coverage to 32-million uninsured Americans without raising taxes on middle-class folks. Are Jesus and Obama socialists, liberals, progressives, miracle workers, or all of the above? Whatever the label, I would rather be like them than the Party of No Conscience and Compassion.

Before you criticizze, be assured that I’m certainly not comparing myself with Jesus or anyone of note. I leave those comparisons to Sarah Palin and her self-proclaimed links to William Shakespeare, who she cited as a justification for making up words like “refudiate.” My references to Jesus and Obama is a ?clever? way of arriving at the central point of this missive. I try to answer the question of how an under-educated redneck like me drifted from right to left. It has been a strange transformation and I sometimes wonder why my politics are so different from family and friends. 

In the beginning (don’t you love my use of phrases from the bible), my daddy was a “yellow dog Democrat.” The characterization stems from an old southern expression, “I’d vote for a yellow dog before I’d vote for a Republican.” However, voting for Democrats in daddy’s day was a far cry from being a “liberal.”

In Alabama where I grew up and in my family, racism was rampant. Black people were expected to stay in their place at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. My family was only a few rungs above, separated from the bottom by a class called “poor white trash.” Still, the “N” word was part of my vocabulary, as well as that of every kid in the low income projects and neighborhoods where I lived.

As I write in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger and have mentioned in a previous blog post, my first memory of flinching at the word followed a brief encounter with Jackie Robinson.

I was thirteen years old and working as “roof boy” for the minor league Mobile Bears, retrieving foul balls that landed on top of the grandstand. A screen at the rear of the roof prevented them from going into the parking lot. Before and after games, I ran errands for players. I was paid fifty cents a night, plus tips, to watch baseball games and hang around professional athletes. It was great.

On trips north from Florida spring training in those days, major league teams played exhibition games in the cities of minor league farm clubs. The Bears were affiliated with the old Brooklyn Dodgers. And when the team bus arrived at Mobile’s Hartwell Field in 1949, I helped the Major League’s first black player carry his equipment bag to the clubhouse. When I excitedly told daddy, he was not impressed.

“Hey, Marie,” he called to mother. “Come and listen to Johnny brag about carrying a nigger’s suitcase.”  It was supposed to be a joke―a symptom of culturally ingrained Southern prejudices.

In dad’s defense, when I took up the civil rights banner years later, he bragged to friends about my support of the cause.

So what caused a radical change my in racial, societal and political attitudes? Actually, there was no sudden epiphany or single event that formed my views. Indeed, it was a gradual evolution that probably began in the military. For reasons I don’t recall, I became close friends while station in Okinawa with a young black airman from Washington D.C. In 1954, Jesse James White and I became the first mixed race roommates in our barracks. Although the military had been fully integrated for six years, we were considered oddballs—especially me, an 18 year old kid with southern redneck roots. J.J. and I didn’t hang around much outside the base, but we respected one another as equals and that was an important lesson for me.

I guess the next major step toward my enlightment occured in the early 1960’s during my tenure as a radio newsman in California at stations in the Sacramento Valley. Luckily, I have another opportunity to plug my book with an excerpt. 

I was influenced in large part by seeing societal ills first hand, such as migrant worker abuses and poverty. Nearby ghetto-like labor camps were the underbelly of agriculture. Already paid low wages, migrants were assessed outrageous rents for shacks with no running water or electricity.

I also saw first hand the gloom of farm workers in my daily stops at the Marysville Police Department. Because of the volume of arrests on skid row, a makeshift courtroom was set up inside the jail to avoid stinking up the courthouse. A judge conducted daily proceedings. He imposed sentences that were practical and compassionate. If a drunk showed symptoms of DT’s, he was sent to the county penal farm to get medical attention. If still able to navigate, he was usually cut loose after paying a small fine, which was determined by the amount of money in his pockets. Most were white male Americans, rather than blacks or Hispanics. Illegal immigration had not yet become a big issue in the country.

Simply seeing the plight of these people instilled in me a degree of compassion. I knew that they were victims of necessity and a lack of opportunity.

After leaving California in the mid-sixties to become News Director 0f a Baton Rouge radio station, my politics were already moving to the left of center. In Louisiana, I moved farther left during the civil rights era, especially after becoming a radio talk show host. For three years, race and poverty were regular topics on the show. My guests included civil rights leaders like John Lewis, then head of Voter Education Project and desciple of Martin Luther King. At the other extreme were the hate-mongers like David Duke and the late Judge Leander Perez. In addition to the talk show, I was covering civil rights, poverty and other societal ills on the street and becoming convinced of the need for radical changes in the country.

Adding an exclamation point to my political transformation was an “opportunity” to spend a year in a mostly black workplace—though it was not by choice. In 1971, my broadcast career almost ended as a result of booze. After landing on skid row in New Orleans, I was jobless and seemingly unemployable. My career was salvaged by a black programmed radio station in Baton Rouge that hired me to start its first news department.

Being a shameless self-promoter, I will add another excerpt to describe experiences that had a significant impact in shaping my politics.

It didn’t take me long at WXOK to realize that my “enlightened” understanding of discrimination was superficial at best. I had never been the victim of blatant bigotry. Nor had I experienced the humiliation of being turned away from a segregated school, public facility, or denied a job because of my skin color. I came close―an experience that was more comical than sinister.

In the course of building a news department, I had an ongoing dialogue with a black-owned syndicated news service that provided the station with national material for our newscasts. In turn, we fed Louisiana stories to the network. Since Louisiana was then a civil rights hotspot, there were plenty of stories to pass along. Indeed, my feeds became so frequent that the New York based company made a job overture.

“You realize I’m white,” I asked the recruiter. There was a long pause. I heard him take a deep breath. “Yes, of course,” he said unconvincingly. “We’ll be getting back to you real soon.” I’m still waiting.

Sadly, many young blacks faced the same wait from white-owned companies. Also disheartening was the ignorance and bigotry of friends. My barber once asked if the body odor of co-workers bothered me. Such misconceptions were deep-rooted in Baton Rouge and most parts of the South. Working at WXOK taught me lessons that I could only learn in predominately African-American surroundings.

It also helped me later on to empathize with a black high school girl I interviewed while producing a documentary on poverty in Baton Rouge. Breaking into tears, she told of missing the senior prom at her integrated school because her mother couldn’t afford a nice dress. In the same program, a teen-aged boy said his most memorable meals were leftovers momma brought home from her job as a maid at an LSU sorority house.

More tragic were the struggles of poor and elderly blacks in getting medical care. “I don’t know how I gonna breathe if the welfare don’t get me my medicine,” an asthmatic woman cried in the documentary. Six hours after the interview, she died of heart failure while waiting for a welfare worker to deliver the prescription. 

But despite my self-proclaimed empathy for those deprived of the American dream, I was a phony. My outsized ego had been severely damaged by the tumble from News Director, ace reporter and talk show host at Baton Rouge’s leading radio station to my job as WXOK’s token white boy. And instead of feeling gratitude for a career reprieve, I began fabricating an excuse for my presence at the station. I would tell former colleagues that the job was an assertion of my commitment to civil rights―foisting myself off as a self-sacrificing Peace Corps journalist.

The opportunity to promulgate the fiction presented itself at an NAACP news conference. For the first time since my failed attempt to succeed as a skid row bum I was about to come face-to-face with reporters that I had avoided since my day of reckoning. The prospect of seeing them at a Baton Rouge hotel was so unnerving that I sat in the parking lot for several minutes trying to summon the courage to go inside. Entering the lobby, I immediately ran into Louisiana’s Associated Press bureau chief, Charles Layton. He greeted me with a smile and a handshake.

“Where have you been, John?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” My answer was so stunning I thought it was the voice of another person.

“WJBO fired me for being a drunk,” I blurted out. “I’m working at WXOK, trying to get things back together.” Had I actually made this humbling admission to someone? I could not believe my own words. Charlie took the sting out of my confession.

“That’s great. I knew you were having problems. I hope things work out.” It was no big deal to him. Like most Baton Rouge reporters, he knew about my drinking. Acknowledging my alcoholism outside of AA meetings was an important step in maintaining sobriety. 

It was significant in seeing my deep-rooted hypocrisy and seeing myself as others saw me. For anyone who has read this far, my apologies for the length of the post. At least you will know the experiences that are the basis of my political views and opinions.

I wish I could say my rants fall within the realm of WWJD. But I’m certain that is not the case. By the same token, observing the actions of the Party of No Conscience and Compassion—aka Republicans and tea partiers—I have a strong sense they represent what Jesus would not do.   

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Glenn Beck has reached a milestone by signing up the 400th radio station for his syndicated show. Being a fair guy and knowing that a few drooling right-wingers scan this blog, I refer readers to Glenn’s website listing all the stations that air his rants. 

http://media.glennbeck.com/content/radio/

Happy now?

The headline of today’s blog post refers to the dilemma faced of AM radio station ownrs. Over the past two decades, listeners have deserted AM radio with the speed of folks fleeing a theater following a shout of “fire.” That is, of course, until Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other talk show hosts representing the lunatic fringe came along.

In a strange turnabout, listeners tune in to hear these characters shout “fire.” They have become the ”saviors” of AM radio. Otherwise, folks listen to FM stations, satellite or personal digital collections. Air America was once a liberal alternative. But nobody cared. Or listened. The network went into bankruptcy earlier this year.

There are also a few stations that depend on ESPN for programming. However, all sports, all the time can get boring for people who don’t go to sleep wearing baseball caps and/or football helmets.

That brings me to Savior with a capital “S.” Many AM stations around the country have been “saved” by religious programming. In fact, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries controls 28 radio stations—AM and FM—mainly in the south and midwest. And his programs are carried by many other stations. In fact, radio was the financial salvation of the disgraced preacher’s ministry following sex scandals that nearly destroyed Swaggart’s $150-million a year organization.

Moreover, religious and Gospel music programming has salvaged untold numbers of AM and FM radio stations—especially in rural areas. On long drives, it is interesting and sometimes entertaining to scan stations and listen to preachers of every persuasion. Radio time is relatively cheap on small stations. So just about any pastor can afford to spread his or her message on the airwaves. And they can recoup the investment with a pitch to listeners for contributions. Long before TV evangelists spiritually manipulated audiences for a few dollars, preachers found radio to be a lucrative venue.

The irony in contemporary radio is that the Becks and Limbaughs violate every principle of Christianity. Their messages of hate, distortion and misinformation contaminate the airwaves. Even more curious is that a large segment of their listening audiences profess to be “good Christians.” Yet, they have no qualms about proselytizing the gospel of the loonies.

By the way, is Rush Limbaugh gay? I don’t have any evidence to suggest that he is, but why shouldn’t I ask questions and spread unfounded rumors in the same manner as Limbaugh and his ilk. After all, he paid Elton John a million dollars to play at his recent wedding to bride number four. And right-wing homophobics like Limbaugh often get caught in gay scandals. Just asking. Sometimes, I can’t resist taking cheap shots.

Anyway, this whole issue of choosing between Glenn Beck, et al, and Jesus causes me to wonder about my own choices as the owner of a radio station on the brink of bankruptcy. I’ve been in that position.

After starting my broadcasting career almost a half century ago in a tiny radio station in Northern California, I began harboring a dream of ownership. In my minds eye, I could see me in the owners chair, making all the decisions about programming and format. Twenty years later, I fulfilled my wish. A partner and I bought KCLF, an AM station in New Roads, Louisiana. Its signal barely reached across the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge, where I was then a mini-Mike Wallace exposing crime and corruption in the Capitol City.

Absentee ownership of KCLF provided me an AM radio education. I learned it was a shortcut to bankruptcy. My big mistake was programming the station with what I liked—old time rock and roll from the fifties and sixties. In a small community with a large population of African Americans and an equal number of young people, all of whom preferred FM, I was doomed from the get-go. The station eventually put me in bankruptcy court.     

Glenn, Rush and the others were not around to offer me salvation. Although KCLF carried a few religious broadcasts, Jesus was not present enough to keep the creditors from the door. Its now easy for me to criticize station owners who opt to carry hate-filled programming to avoid financial ruin. But in retrospect, WWJD? What would John do? Or have done? 

I’m lucky. I never had to make the choice.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.   

Aside from drunken stunts during my booze years, one of the most embarrassing moments of my career was providing the first ever public forum for a pimpled face 19 year old lunatic named David Duke.

In 1969, I was host of a radio talk show on WJBO in Baton Rouge called Topic, a public affairs program that featured in-studio guests along with call in questions and comments from listeners. Although the practice is almost unheard of today on AM radio, I tried to present balanced views—partly because of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine that was then in effect. So it is not surprising that I sometimes got careless when booking guests with contrasting viewpoints. Such was the case with David Duke. He contacted me following a show in which the head of an LSU student group voiced criticism of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. As I write in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, the show was an embarrassment to me and the station. 

     David Duke won Topic’s title as the most uncontrollable guest to ever appear on the program. It was his first exposure to an audience larger than a few people who had heard him rant and rave on LSU’s Free Speech Alley. Claiming to be a spokesman for the National Socialist Movement, Duke seemed relatively articulate, and I didn’t check his background until the day of the show. That’s when I realized he was a member of George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party. Though disconcerting, I figured to easily send Duke away with a swastika tucked up his ass. After all, I considered myself an accomplished interviewer accustomed to one-on-one confrontations with crazies.

He did me in, responding to rational questions with irrational speeches. But as a free speech advocate, I toughed it out. Using terms like “nigger” and “kike,” the racial slurs and anti-Semitic comments were so inflammatory, I asked if he were under psychiatric care.

When David Duke emerged years later as founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, a Ku Klux Klan Wizard, a successful political candidate and a symbol of racism in America, I was embarrassed to admit that I provided an early forum for his malevolence.

More disturbing was the reaction of several call-in listeners, who agreed with his views. These same listeners would picket the station a few weeks later when I refused to bring them on as guests.

I don’t recall the precise reason for denying their request, but they were probably advocating the return of slavery or something equally as stupid. The lesson I learned was that there is an audience for every cause, no matter how crazy. David Duke’s supporters expanded for beyond “Free Speech Alley” and WJBO listeners. After getting a facelift, beefing up his frail body and refining his racist rhetoric, he became a factor in Louisiana politics—serving a short term in the state House of Representatives and then running a credible campaign for governor in which he received more than 600,000 votes, prompting him to brag that he received 55% of the white vote. Duke was beaten by notorious political scoundrel Edwin Edwards in a campaign that featured bumper stickers supporting the three-term governor stating, “Vote for the Crook. It is important.” 

Duke has since faded from the political scene, but clones march on as radio and television personalities, and political candidates. The tone of racial hatred is not as overt as David Duke’s rhetoric. But listening to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, I hear subtle echoes of David Duke. They exploit the hysteria that prompted Arizona to adopt draconian measures to deal with illegal immigrants—a law that empowers lawmen to profile Hispanics.

At the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Charolotte, North Carolina this past weekend, the gun-toting advocates were dazzled with disinformation dispensed by the trio of Palin, Beck and Gingrich. Miss Sarah claimed that Barack Obama wanted to ban guns and ammunition, Beck did his gig about the nation heading for socialism, and former House Speaker Gingrich discussed the threat of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. The NRA is a particularly gullible audience to right-wing propaganda. Members apparently live in fear. Why else do they want to carry guns into Starbucks, churches, and other locations they perceive as dangerous?

Indeed, fear has taken a segment of society to the brink of panic. The David Dukes of today exploit the fears of people caught in the throes of economic uncertainty and fear of an unprecedented unknown—a black President. In troubled times, there are always people willing to cash in on fear. As Paul Krugman writes today in the New York Times, “Right-wing extremism may be the same as it ever was, but it clearly has more adherents now than it did a couple of years ago.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17krugman.html?ref=opinion

David Duke was last reported living in Salzburg, Austria and running an Internet blog, although he still claims to be a resident of Mandeville, Louisiana. But no matter where he is, the professional hater must be proud of those following in his footsteps.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

I don’t believe all Louisiana lawmakers are stupid. Most are pretty smart. But serving in the House and Senate are a few legislators, who bring down the collective I.Q. of the body as a whole. Granted, this is a rush to judgment. But the proposed bill allowing worshipers to carry concealed weapons in church seems to have been born in idiocy. My opinion is re-enforced by the comment of one state representative, who points out that there is nothing in the Bible banning guns from church. You can’t argue with his interpretation of God’s Word—unless, of course, you have more intelligence than a moron.

I’m an expert when it comes to dumb politicians. As a Baton Rouge radio newsman too many years ago to count—I will round off the number at 40—I covered the Louisiana legislature. It was saturation coverage considering that the newsroom had open lines to record all the proceedings of both the House and Senate. Moreover, I my evenings freeloading booze from lawmakers, who gathered in the Hunt Room bar at the old Capital House hotel. I remember overhearing conversations that would have formed the basis of terrific investigative stories. However, as an alcoholic on the fast track to a New Orleans gutter, I didn’t want to jeopardize my supply of free drinks. Journalistic integrity be damned.

There was, for instance, the night that one of the legislature’s most powerful senators sat with the city’s most notorious madams at an adjoining table and discussed pending legislation that would have made a third time prostitution arrest a felony. At some point, an attractive young woman arrived at the table and escorted the senator out of the bar. A few days later, he killed the felony provision of the prostitution measure.

While on the subject of whores, I recall a more humorous incident involving an encounter in the hotel between a lady of the evening and a state representative, who I will call “Smokey.” As he exited an elevator in the lobby, a prostitute approached him. ”Smokey, where have you been? I haven’t heard from you in days.” Unfortunately, Smokey was accompanied by his wife—heiress to a department store fortune. “I don’t know who you are, young lady,” Smokey replied. “But I would advise you to leave this hotel right now.”

The following day, Smokey gave a short speech in the House of Representatives. “Baton Rouge has become the Sodom and Gomorrah of America,” he passionately intoned. “Last night, my wonderful wife and I were harassed in the lobby of the Capital House by a common streetwalker. Never were we more insulted.” It took several hours for fellow lawmakers to stop laughing and get on with the business of government.

By the time I stopped drinking in 1971 and began adopting a bit of journalistic integrity that is necessary for building credibility as a muckraker, the legislature was changing. A group known as the “young turks” had been elected to office by reform-minded voters. Even so, a few ”Neanderthals” remained in office. I use the term because a friend said I should be able find the humor in recent research linking ancient DNA of Neanderthals to the evolution (bad word, John, bad word) of humans.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/kissing-cousins/?ref=opinion

The finding is not surprising. Earlier research of cave carvings uncovered music that included the classic song, Neanderthals Get Prettier at Closing Time. Okay, Richard. That is my feeble attempt at Neanderthal humor.

Speaking of which, I relate my encounter with a former mafia boss who I described as a descendant of Neanderthals. Before returning to New Jersey to head a notorious mob family, Anthony (Tumac) Accetturro was living in south Florida during my tenure as an investigative reporter for a Miami TV station. I had spent a consideable amout of time tracking the mobster with an undercover camera. Ironically, I ended up being subpoened as a defense witness on behalf of Tony. He was charged with battery on a police officer, stemming from an incident that I witnessed and my cameraman caught on film. In short, there was no battery.

Anyway, I’m standing in the corridor of the Broward County courthouse entertaining fellow newsmen with smart-ass remarks about Neanderthal Tony scaling the side of the building like King Kong for his trial, rather than taking the elevator. I notice odd expressions on the faces of my audience as they peered over my shoulder. Standing behind me and taking in my one-liners was Tumac, himself. He did not smile.

His attitude would change, though. Based on my testimony and the film, he was acquitted. Afterwards, he told me what a fair guy I was by telling the truth. “If you ever need a favor, John, just call Tony,” he said, referring to himself in the third person. So far, I haven’t needed anybody whacked. However, I did ask Tony for one favor. He was later convicted in New Jersey of being involved in multiple mob murders. While at CNN, I asked his wife to arrange an interview. He refused. So much for the myth of mafia characters keeping their promises.

On a more serious note, the Baton Rouge Advocate has a special ten page supplement today on under-age drinking. Based on personal experience, I recommend it to every parent. I had my first drink at the age of twelve. Five years later, I was a full blown alcoholic. And until I was 35, tragedy was a constant companion. As I write in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, the wreckage of my past is still being repaired.

That’s it for this week. And unless I’m caught in the crossfire of a gun battle in my little Presbyterian church Sunday, I will return next week. 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Republican friends and family members regularly accuse me of being one-sided in my blog posts. And I agree. The purpose of the blog is to be provocative. No, I got to be honest. The true purpose of the blog is to get people interested in my blabber so they will invest twenty bucks to buy the damn book. I promise a lot of laughs. Today, for a change, I will try to present both sides of an issue that is the most debated in recent weeks. I am referring, of course, to immigration. My friend, Dale Brown, often forwards me Internet commentary and asks my opinion, which deludes me into feeling important. What follows is my version of presenting both sides. First, an unedited viral e-mail from the the political spectrum’s right.

I’m Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen. I want to explain SB 1070 which I voted for and which was just signed by Governor Jan Brewer. Rancher Rob Krantz was murdered by the drug cartel on his ranch a month ago.  I participated in a senate hearing two weeks ago on the border violence.  Here is just some of the highlights from those who testified. 

The people who live within 60 to 80 miles of the Arizona/Mexico Border have for years been terrorized and have pleaded for help to stop the daily invasion of humans who cross their property . One Rancher testified that 300 to 1200 people a DAY come across his ranch, vandalizing his property, stealing his vehicles and property, cutting down his fences, and leaving trash. In the last two years he has found 17 dead bodies and two Qu’ran bibles. 

Another rancher testified that on a daily basis drugs are brought across his ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way. This was not the only rancher we heard that day that talked about the drug trains. 

One man told of two illegal’s who came upon his property, one shot in the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced them to carry the drugs and then shot them. They listen to gun fire during the night; it is not safe to leave his family alone on the ranch and they can’t leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left when they come back. 

The border patrol is not on the border. They have set up 60 miles away with check points that do nothing to stop the invasion. They are not allowed to use force in stopping anyone who is entering. They run around chasing them, if they get their hands on them, then they can take them back across the border. 

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal’s incarcerated, and 20% of Arizona prisons are filled with illegals who have committed felonies. In the last few years, 80% of our law enforcement personnel who have been killed or wounded was done by an illegal alien. 

The majority of people coming now are people we need to be worried about. The ranchers told us that they have seen a change in the people coming they are not just those who are looking for work and a better life. 

The Federal Government has refused for years to do anything to help the border states. We have been overrun and once they are here, Arizonans have the burden of funding state services that they use. Education cost have been over a billion dollars. The healthcare costs for illegal aliens runs into the billions of dollars. Our State is broke, $3.5 billion deficit and we have many serious decisions to make. One is that we do not have the money to care for any who are not here legally. It has to stop.

The border can be secured. We have the technology, we have the ability to stop this invasion. We must know who is coming and they must come in legally so that we can assimilate them into our population and protect the sovereignty of our country. We are a nation of laws. We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to protect the integrity of our country and the government which we live under. 

I would give amnesty today to many, but here is the problem; we dare not do this until the Border is secure. It will do no good to forgive them because millions more will come behind them, and we will be over run to the point that there will no longer be a United States of America but, a North American Union of open borders. I ask you what form of government will we live under?

How long will it be before we will be just like Mexico? We have already lost our language, everything must be printed in Spanish. We have already lost our history since it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our borders. 

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany. Are you kidding? The ACLU and the leftist courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but it was an effort to try and stop illegal’s from setting up businesses, and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause, such as a traffic stop to determine if they are here legally. Federal law is very clear if you are here on a visa you must have your papers on you at all times. That is the law. In Arizona all you need to show you as a legal citizen is a driver license, MVD identification card, Native American Card, or a Military ID. This is what you need to vote, get a hunting license, etc.. So nothing new has been added to this law. No one is going to be stopped walking down the street. The leftists here and in DC are angry because we dare try and do something. They want the “Transformation” to continue. 

Maybe it is too late to save America. Maybe we are not worthy of freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I can to protect our Constitutional Republic. Living in America is not a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American is a responsibility, and it comes through respecting and upholding the Constitution, the law of our land which says what you must do to be a citizen of this country. Freedom is not free.

I don’t know if the Senator’s facts and figures or correct or not. But she probably reflects the views of many Arizonans. And I agree that illegal immigrants are a major problem—not only in Arizona, but in many other states. However, there is hyperbole that borders on hysteria from both the left and right. I can understand the fear and frustration of Arizonans, as well as people in other places that experience a disproportionate impact from illegal immigration.

But sometimes we fail to point the finger of blame at the people who facilitate illegal immigration. I’m referring to individuals and companies that provide the jobs. Admittedly, my experience in covering the issue as a reporter is limited. And also dated. Like many stories I investigated, my perspective was altered after research. I don’t recall the precise date but in the late nineties, immigration authorities in Atlanta encouraged me to do a story on the influx of illegals to north Georgia—Dalton, specificially.

Dalton is the home of the nation’s largest carpet mills and the center of what is referred to as the tri-state industrial area. The carpet mills employ hundreds, if not thousands, of Mexican workers—all of whom carry “green cards,” though many are obviously counterfeit. Nonetheless, employers were then willing to accept them as real–mainly because the workers accepted lower wages and demanded fewer benefits.

In addition to extensive interviews with immigration officials, I spent time in Dalton with agents, who accompanied me to the city’s Hispanic barrios where most illegals resided. Nearby were printing shops suspected of providing  phony green cards. Agents were frustrated over the magnitude of Dalton’s illegal immigrant problem. They said rounding up bus loads of illegals was easy. But new bus loads soon arrived as replacements. Employers were reluctant to cooperate because raids on the mills slowed production and ate profits. There was also spill-over opposition by merchants who lost customers. So the city simply tried to adjust.

While I was working on the story, the school system was recruiting bi-lingual teachers in Mexico City. And beyond the borders of Dalton, there was yet another major obstacle to a crackdown on illegal immigrants. Highly sophisticated transportation systems—most based in Texas—smuggled workers into the United States and in some instances expedited their trips to East Coast destinations. For reasons I don’t remember, my research did not result in a CNN story. I believe 60 Minutes or some other news organization beat us to the punch.

In addition to researching immigration at CNN, I was a radio newsman in California’s Sacramento Valley many years ago when Cesar Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association. The employer abuse of illegals that I witnessed—economic and physical—involved the worst kind of exploitation. It was all about profits. But thanks to mechanization and the efforts of labor leaders, working conditions improved on the big farms, many of which are now owned by agriculture conglomerates. And that places even more emphasis on the bottom line. As a result, profits influence many employers in making decisions about hiring workers—a condition that often causes temporary blindness in checking the authenticity of green cards.

As an aside, one of my radio employers experienced temporary blindness in overseeing what went out on our airwaves. The station carried a pre-daylight Spanish speaking program as a public service to the market’s large Mexican population. Owners didn’t know that the host of the show was a farm worker contractor, who provided field laborers for growers. We found out that little piece of information on the day that Cesar Chavez was conducting a rally in the area. The station was flooded with complaints by bi-lingual farmer workers informing us that the morning host announced he planned to attend the rally to take names and any worker he identified would never again work in the Sacramento Valley.

Washington Post op-ed columnist Eugene Robinson offered interesting left-leaning observations on illegal immigration today.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050303383.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

So much for both sides of an issue. This post is twice the length of my normal rants. Tomorrow, I can tell you how a really feel about Time naming Glenn Beck as one of the country’s most influential people. Have we become a nation of clowns? 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

On my blog today, I’m taking an “easier softer way,” a phrase that is familiar to my friends in our society of ex-drunks. I travel to Georgia this weekend to attend the funeral of my brother-in-law. He was quite ill for several years and his death was not unexpected. Even so, my wife, Annette, faces the pain of losing a sibling.

To fulfill my goal of four posts a week, I steal an excerpt from my book today. I wrote earlier about March being the twenty year anniversary of the biggest art heist in history, which reminded me that the month marks other anniversaries for me. I joined the Air Force in March 1953, took my first broadcasting job nine years later in mid-March, and reported my first investigative story in March, 1972.

The title ”investigative reporter” was never a career goal. I wanted to be a rock and roll disc jockey when I took my first broadcasting job in Sonora, California—a tiny town in the foothill’s of the Sierra Mountains. Actually, I was hired as an announcer/ad salesman by KVML Radio, which proclaimed itself as The Voice of the Motherlode.

Selling KVML ads required more skill than my previous jobs that included hawking Bibles, books, bouncing chairs and Fuller Brushes. Merchants were reluctant to advertise on a station they couldn’t find on the radio dial. The tiny 250-watt station reached about as far as two tin cans connected by string. Nor did folks listen to KVML after finally finding it on the dial. Fully automated, the station featured toe-paralzing  elevator music. The liveliest tune was The Stripper, which the owner considered dropping because of its suggestive title.

Repetitive music was intermittently interrupted by too few commercials and too many public service announcements. ABC News ran at the top of the hour, local newscasts at noon and six, and Paul Harvey commentary twice a day. The only other break from tedium was Don McNeil’s Breakfast Hour, network radio’s last variety show. Since automation replaced disc jockeys, my dreams of being a record-spinning star were dashed.

Though automated, FCC regulations required that someone man the station during broadcasting hours to monitor equipment, maintain logs and handle other trivial chores. KVML was too small to be a network affiliate. Our national news programming was picked-up via KGO in San Francisco.

My shift was sign-on to noon. I spent the time writing and recording commercials, and scheduling sales appointments. Afternoons were devoted to soliciting new accounts. Driving around the county, I kept the dial on KVML as far as the signal reached, listening to the joyful sound of my voice delivering commercials that I recorded earlier in the day. Advertisers fell into categories of small, tiny and miniscule. It was not unusual to spend two hours selling fifty-dollars worth of radio spots to a Dairy Queen to earn a seven-dollar commission.

Although my disc jockey dreams were on hold, KVML satisfied a childhood fantasy of being a play-by-play sports announcer. As a kid, I spent many hours giving vivid accounts of my own athletic feats of running for game-winning touchdowns, hitting home runs and winning championship prizefights―all in the confines of my bedroom. Announcing imaginary feats prepared me to do a pretty good job as a football and basketball play-by-play broadcaster for the Sonora High School Wildcats. 

But even before the opening kick-off of football season, a career-altering event took place. The station’s newsman quit. He was the only fulltime employee besides me. The departure caused a crisis. Two sponsored newscasts were vital to the station’s financial survival. The owner didn’t do on-air work, meaning that I was the lone remaining Voice of the Mother Lode. “Have you ever done news reporting?” he asked. I hadn’t done anything in a radio station before. It made no difference. I was appointed “News Director.”

Putting together a newscast was a complete mystery to me. I always figured somebody handed announcers a script and they read it. My ignorance was compounded by another problem. United Press International had repossessed KVML’s wire machine, our only source of state and regional news. Finding material to fill two newscasts seemed an impossible task.

I knew it was inappropriate to make up stories, though later events in the national media disabused me of the belief that it never happened. The second option was to blatantly plagiarize Sonora’s eight-page Union-Democrat. But it wasn’t available until late afternoon, which didn’t help me with the noon newscast. The final alternative was to go out and find stories. This was problematic since I didn’t know where real reporters found news. My predecesaor once took me around the police beat. He also left behind a list of news sources. Thus began my journalism career.

My beat covered the Sheriff’s office, the Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. I jotted down names of everybody arrested, and reported details of assaults, burglaries, thefts and fender-bending traffic accidents. The town’s two funeral parlors furnished names of the newly departed, along with a list of survivors that included the immediate family, nephews, nieces, dogs, cats and livestock. On slow days, I hoped a lot of people died. The boss banned the use of “in lieu of flowers.” He didn’t want to alienate Sonora’s biggest florist, who was a regular KVML advertiser.

But regardless of the number of funeral notices, traffic accidents and crime reports, coming up with ten minutes of news each day was an awesome challenge. I filled  newscasts with public service announcements and news releases. Most were read verbatim. Steadily, though, my judgment and writing skills improved. A Broadcast News Stylebook had been left behind by UPI when the wire machine was repossessed. It became my first journalism textbook. I learned the old radio adage, “Tell’em what you’re going to tell’em, tell’em, and tell’em what you told ‘em.”

I soon went beyond the bare-bones stories written by the man I replaced. For weeks, he repeated the same story word-for-word. “KVML talked to Mr. Momyer at Pickering Lumber Company today and he said there is no change in the strike.” End of story. Pickering was the county’s biggest employer and labor strife at its plant crippled the local economy.

I believed listeners deserved a more comprehensive report. In a burst of journalistic creativity, I wrote, “KVML talked to Frank Momyer at Pickering Lumber Company and he said there is no change in the strike.” Using his first name was my initial enterprise report. Encouraged by my sudden creativity, I added a new line. “KVML also talked to representatives of the Sawmill Workers Union, and they report no change in the strike.”

In a matter of weeks, I was reporting underlying issues that caused the labor discord, as well as the obstacles to settling the dispute. To my surprise, an addiction to newsgathering took hold. I grabbed the Union Democrat each day to see what I missed. Significant omissions were stories of government meetings and court proceedings. So I added the courthouse and City Hall to my news beat. To spice newscasts, I acquired a portable tape recorder to do interviews and provide tape-delayed, on-the-scene reports. Concurrent with major national stories, I conducted man-on-the-street interviews.

As I became more comfortable in my role as the Voice of the Mother Lode, the newscasts began sounding almost professional. I covered meetings of the City Council, County Board of Supervisors, School Boards and other government entities. Trips to the courthouse taught me how to track criminal and civil cases, read docket sheets and gather information from interrogatories, affidavits, and depositions. I learned judicial procedures and protocols, and the rudiments of real-estate title searches. Working at a station with out a wire service machine was  turning me into a reasonably competent newsman.

Indeed, the skills I learned in Sonora were the most important component of my investigative reporting career, forming the foundation of my success as a journalist. All news is local. And Tuolumne County’s issues and government record-keeping were not much different than Baton Rouge, Miami, Boston and other metropolitan areas.

As the Voice of the Mother Lode, I was also introduced to live remote broadcasts. In addition to play-by-play and occasional in-store promotions for advertisers, I did live reports of events like the annual county fair. Every politician in a hundred mile radius came there to solicit votes and to be interviewed on KVML. The highlight of the fair was the crowning of Miss Tuolumne County. We carried the pageant live, including a marathon talent show that seemed to feature every child who took tap dance lessons, played a musical instrument, sang a song, or otherwise had an inclination to go on stage. A formidable challenge was describing juggling acts. “Now it’s up, now it’s down. Oops, now it’s on the floor.”

In addition to on-the-job training as a reporter, I took flying lessons by taking advantage of a  broadcasting benefit called “bartering.” Radio stations swapped ads for merchandise and services from advertisers, who were unlikely to spend hard cash. In lieu of a pay raise, I was allowed to barter flying lessons at Columbia Airport, the nation’s only air field offering stagecoach service. Columbia is a restored Gold Rush settlement. Visitors arriving by air could arrange a stagecoach ride into town.

Flight instructor, Lennart Strand, rarely advertised. Hence, he accumulated a decade worth of radio spots in our trade deal by giving me lessons and taking me as a passenger in my capacity as an “airborne reporter.” I taped eyewitness accounts while soaring above fires, ground searches for lost hunters and other mishaps in adjacent national forests and parks.

Noteworthy were my attempts to track the legendary Abominable Snowman. Every so often, a hunter, hiker or resident claimed to have sighted a six-foot tall, howling beast scampering through the woods. Like the Loch Ness monster stories, the reports coincided with the beginning of the tourist season. As KVML’s intrepid journalist, I taped stories from two thousand feet, intoning something to the effect, “I don’t see any sign of the creature, but in this heavily forested area he could easily be hiding.”

Twenty air miles from Columbia airport across the Stanislaus River canyon is a county made famous by Mark Twain’s short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The annual Jumping Frog Jubilee attracts “thoroughbred” frogs and their owners from across the country. Before the 1963 jubilee, I climbed into the PA-11 and made the short hop to a grass airstrip at the Calaveras County fairgrounds. It would have been just as easy to drive. But that didn’t have the exhilarating effect of landing my plane and taxiing up to frog jumping headquarters, where I recorded interviews with promoters and competitors. The result was a three-minute feature for my newscast.

For the hell of it, I sent the tape to an ABC radio show called Weekend West. The five-minute program ran each Saturday. Surprisingly, I got a response from ABC programming executive, Ted Toll. “Very nice handling of the frogs,” he wrote. “I’ve got it tentatively spotted for 9:30 network airing Sat., the 18^th.”  The letter caused my knees to get weak and my bladder to contract. Not only did he like the piece, the network was paying me twenty-five dollars. It was my biggest broadcasting thrill to date.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career. 

Yesterday’s blog post, The First Black Whatever,  really pinched a few nerves. I’m not surprised. Race is one of the most sensitive subjects in America. And perhaps the most important. The portion of my post that stirred the kettle was a suggestion of subtle and sometimes overt racism exhibited by a lot of folks involved in the Tea Party movement. I was accused of race-baiting in comments that ranged from “Democrats do it” to “What difference does it make the color they (the tea partiers) are?” Indeed, there were even Google searches of Tea Party demonstrations to find a black face in the sea of white and prove me wrong. Sure enough, one was found.

Let me be clear, I don’t know shit about what it is like to be an African-American in this country, which is the case with most so-called enlightened white liberals. One has to be black, to live black and have the experiences of blacks to understand what it is like. Over the years, I’ve had opportunities to learn just a little bit about the black experience. Most recently, I attended a six week Racial Dialogue workshop in Baton Rouge. It taught me again how much I don’t know. Learning anything requires willingness. The point of my essays is to share experiences have made me the person Readers who don’t care can tune out, or take me to task when they disagree. I have thick skin and a sense of humor that allows me to laugh while standing at fresh graves.

Excerpts from Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger provides insight into the early lessons I learned about race and I pass my perceptions along free of charge. Apologies about my repetiveness to those who read the book.

Like a majority of native born Southerners, I grew up in a family that used the “N” word. My parents denied being bigots. They just wanted “blacks to stay in their place.” I have a lasting memory of daddy’s reaction following my encounter with baseball star, Jackie Robinson.

I was thirteen years old and working as “roof boy” for the minor league Mobile Bears. The job entailed retrieving foul balls that landed on top of the grandstand. A screen at the rear of the roof prevented the balls from going into the parking lot. Before and after games, I ran errands for players and was paid fifty cents a night, plus tips, to watch baseball and spend time around professional athletes. It was great.

On trips north from Florida spring training in those days, major league teams played exhibitions against minor league farm clubs. The Bears were affiliated with the old Brooklyn Dodgers. And when the team bus arrived at Mobile’s Hartwell Field in 1949, I helped the Major League’s first black player carry his equipment bag to the clubhouse. Daddy was not impressed. “Hey, Marie,” he called to mother. “Come and listen to Johnny brag about carrying a nigger’s suitcase.”  It was supposed to be a joke―a symptom of culturally ingrained Southern prejudices. In dad’s defense, when I took up the civil rights banner years later, he bragged to friends about my support of the cause.

It is important to know that in later years my dad was later willing to re-consider ever so slightly the racial attitudes that were part of his upbringing. To me, that is a key to gaining knowledge and growing spiritually. Yes, I said spiritual. Read the New Testament. 

As I wrote yesterday, the only radio station willing to hire me after I plugged the jug in 1971 was Baton Rouge’s black programmed station, WXOK. Before getting fired by the city’s most prestigious station for being a drunk I was a talk show host for three years—a liberal voice of sorts during a time of racial discord in Louisiana. I thought I knew some stuff.  After all, I was the first airman in my barracks on Okinawa in 1954 to choose a black roommate. But after listening to African-American guests on my talk show, I began to recognize that I knew so litte about the black experience.

It didn’t take me long at WXOK to realize that my “enlightened” understanding of discrimination was superficial at best. I had never been the victim of blatant bigotry. Nor had I experienced the humiliation of being turned away from a segregated school, public facility, or denied a job because of my skin color. Working at WXOK taught me lessons that I could only learn in predominately African-American surroundings.

But despite a self-proclaimed empathy for those deprived of the American dream, I was a phony. My outsized ego had been severely damaged by the tumble from News Director, ace reporter and talk show host at Baton Rouge’s leading radio station to my job as WXOK’s token white boy. Instead of feeling gratitude for a career reprieve, I began fabricating an excuse for my presence at the station. I would tell former colleagues that the job was an assertion of my commitment to civil rights―foisting myself off as a self-sacrificing Peace Corps journalist.

The opportunity to promulgate the fiction presented itself at an NAACP news conference. For the first time since my failed attempt to succeed as a skid row bum, I was about to come face-to-face with reporters I had avoided since my day of reckoning. The prospect of seeing them at a Baton Rouge hotel was so unnerving that I sat in the parking lot for several minutes summoning up the courage to go inside. Entering the lobby, I immediately ran into Louisiana’s United Press bureau chief, Charles Layton. He greeted me with a smile and a handshake.

“Where have you been, John?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” My answer was so stunning I thought it was the voice of another person. “WJBO fired me for being a drunk,” I blurted out. “I’m working at WXOK, trying to get things back together.”

Had I actually made this humbling admission to someone? I could not believe my own words. Charlie took the sting out of my confession. “That’s great. I knew you were having problems. I hope things work out.” It was no big deal to him. Like most other reporters, he knew about my drinking. 

So there it is—a combination of claiming to have knowledge of the black experience, fooling myself into believing I understood racism from the perspective of African-Americans, and a dose of attempted hypocrisy in trying to conceal my embarrassment I felt of being relegated to an all black environment—even though ten months at WXOK saved my career and very possibly, my life.

I admit my shortcomings when it comes to underlying prejudices. But I continue to have a willingness to acknowledge my ignorance. It is a step toward brotherhood.

Am I hokey, or what?

This past weekend, the New York Times Magazine did a feature story on the Reverend James Fields—a black preacher and retired state employee, who was elected in 2008 to the Alabama legislature. He represents Cullman County, in which only 401 of the 81,000 registered voters are African-American. Fields falls into the well known category of “the first ever.” In his case, the first black to win a county-wide election in Cullman.

The election is significant. As late as the 1970’s, the town of Cullman was among the infamous southern communities where signs were posted at the city limits by the KKK and other racists groups warning, “Nigger, don’t let the sun go down.” Ironically, Cullman has another distinctive first that is quite the opposite of the road sign and parallels the breakthrough of Fields.

Sixty years ago, then Governor (Big) Jim Folsum—a Cullman resident—was the first southern governor to explicitly voice support for racial integration. Other governors like Louisiana’s Long brothers, Huey and Earl, were moderately supportive of blacks. But they kept their views quiet. This was not the case with Big Jim. In his 1949 Christmas Day address, he stated, ”As long as the Negroes are held down by deprivation and lack of opportunity, the other poor people will be held down alongside them.”

It was a radical statement given the time and mood of Alabama. I’m well aware of the ingrained racism that existed in the state since it is where I spent most of my childhood and adolescence. I grew up hearing the “n” word. The only thing I recall about Cullman, other than it being the hometown of Jim Folsum, is that on trips through north Alabama, my parents usually planned to eat at a steakhouse in the town that was well-known throughout the state.

Governor Folsum politically survived his break with Dixie racism. He was reelected after a one term absence from office as required then by state law. A quarter of a century after Big Jim’s death, the election of James Fields creates a bit of symmetry for Cullman.

Reading the Times article brought back memories of more than forty years ago when I was a radio talk show host in Baton Rouge and regularly introduced “the first black ever.” Among the guests was New Orleans political figure Ernest (Dutch) Morial. In 1967, he was the first African-American elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives since post-Civil War Reconstruction. After leaving the legislature, he became the first black juvenile court judge and then the first black Mayor of New Orleans. His son, Marc, followed in Dutch’s footsteps. He was the city’s Mayor for eight years.

Fried chicken entrpreneur Joe Delpit broke the racial barrier in Baton Rouge in 1969, becoming the city’s first African-American councilman. He was later elected to the Louisiana legislature and became Speaker Pro Tem, then the highest state government position of any black since reconstruction. In many respects, Joe Delpit paved the way for present Baton Rouge Mayor, Kip Holden, again a first ever African-American elected to the office.

Kip and I have our own “first ever” symmetry. Many years ago, he followed in my footsteps as a news reporter at WXOK radio, Baton Rouge’s only black programmed station. I was the ”first ever” fulltime white on-air newsman. In fact, WXOK saved my career. After a failed skid row audition in 1971, the station hired me to set-up its news department.  No other radio station in Louisiana was willing to take a chance on me because of my reputation as a drunk. But during my ten month tenure at WXOK, I stopped drinking. It has been 39 years and I’m still counting.

Anyway, four decades-plus have rolled by since my “first black ever” talk shows. And it seems to me that the  term, “first ever” in reference to African-Americans, should have been retired by now—especially with the election of a black President. It was a leap forward that many of us could not envision in the 1960’s and early seventies.

Even so, progress in race relations remains gradual. Sometimes when it seems that giant steps forward are being made, there are reminders that racism is still alive, but in more subtle forms. Indeed, groups that are not so subtle have found refuge in Tea Party organizations that have been recently established around the country.

Watching the tea partiers at protest demonstrations and other gatherings, I can’t help but wonder, “Why are there no black faces in the crowd? None, zilch.”

Are the tea partiers and other white-only protest groups a true face of America? It’s worth pondering.