In Defense Of Morris Dees

On one level, I admired a reader's protest of the appearance of famed civil-rights attorney Morris Dees at Longwood University in January.

The reader wrote a letter of protest to Dr. Patricia Cormier, Longwood president. In the letter, he attacked Mr. Dees as being on the "far-left" and "anti-Christian" who opposed a judge placing the 10 Commandments in Alabama courts.

While I honor the reader for making his views known, he is wrong to protest this.

A university campus should be the haven of free speech and of as many diverse views as can be conceived. Get the opinions out front, then dissect, disagree or whatever with them, but don't try to hang the speakers ahead of time.

Yes, I am a child of the 1960s. Yes, I am a graduate of the first interracial college in the American South (Berea in Kentucky). I grew up in an era when free speech also was under attack across America. And I have grown older in a society that moved from that tyranny to one of much greater magnitude. On the left, we have the Political Correctness crowd that is ready to hang anyone who says anything with which they disagree. On the right, we have ideologues who want muzzle people like Mr. Dees.

They both are wrong. Instead of going after the ideas, the speakers themselves are attacked.

Just as an aside here, Morris Dees and others were more than correct to oppose the Alabama courts placing the 10 Commandments in the courthouses. If that grand document is placed there, the fine people of Alabama and elsewhere better be prepared to place the Torah and other religious documents on display. They better be prepared, too, to dispense with the constitutional value known as separation of church and state that has served this country well.

I do not know whether Morris Dees is "anti-Christian," as the Backtalk reader charges. But anyone familiar with Mr. Dees’ background quickly understands that the gentleman had something of a conversion akin to that of the great Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road.

The story was told in The Crewe-Burkeville Journal story.

Mr. Dees was running a very lucrative direct mail company. He was on a trip to Cincinnati and was snowed-in at the airport. It proved to be a night, in his words, of "soulful searching."

He sold his business and took up the cause of the poor and oppressed in the Deep South. Mr. Dees has found their their interest case by case ever since.

My late mother told me not to judge people. But Mr. Dees' approach to life sounds very Christ-like to me. Christ sought to help those left behind by society. He sought to bring light into the dark corners of the world.

Morris Dees, like all of us, is a mortal man. But he has done some very Christ-like things, at least in my mind.

But if he were Hannibal Lecter or someone about that evil and received an invitation to speak at a great college or university such as Longwood, then he should be entitled to have that forum.

A university, if it is anything, is a forum for learning and hearing differing points of view.

I suspect that the Longwood administration will not bother to respond to our reader's letter of protest . I hope my little words help filled that void.

Curt Gowdy Is Gone

You know you are getting older when the icons of your youth begin dying. Three such icons, and I probably am overlooking three or four others, crossed the river in recent days.

One was Curt Gowdy, the famed sports broadcaster. He, more than Joe Namath or Weeb Eubank, or their kindred spirits, gave legitimacy to upstart American Football League, now the American Football Conference.

If Curt Gowdy believed in the league, then it had to be legitimate, at least in my mind.
Years later, I rediscovered Mr. Gowdy as the narrator of "Where Are They Now?" -- a segment of HBO's "Inside The NFL"

Then the powers that be revamped the show and the segment and Gowdy were jettisoned. I have never felt the same about the program, although I still watch it.

The second icon to depart us was actor Darren McGavin. His role as the newspaper reporter Kolchak in "The Night Stalker" always broke me up. Mr. McGavin was fine in any role he portrayed, but Kolchak was endearing and enduring.

Then was Don Knotts, alias Barney Fife, the bumbleheaded, skinny and lovable nerd who portrayed Deputy Barney Fife in "The Andy Griffith Show" in the 1960s. Mr. Knotts was the creator of classic stuff that still makes me laugh.

God, rest their souls. They enriched their fellow human beings through their work and art.

Warner Overlooked Southside

CREWE, VA -- Mark Warner completed his term as governor of Virginia in January and his fellow Democrat, Tim Kaine, was inaugurated to succeed him.

Let's get something straight at the outset. I like Governor Warner. I voted for him and I endorsed him in The Journal when he sought the governorship four years ago. He is intelligent and humane, and he possesses the other attributes that voters should appreciate in a public leader.

But I still am more than a little angry with Mr. Warner and his departed administration. My grievance comes down to this: Mark Warner did precious little to improve the lot of Southside Virginia and its people during his four years as governor.

Maybe I am overlooking something. But I worked every day at this newspaper day and The Journal during the Warner administration and received literally thousands of faxes and other communications about what he and his administration were doing. But if my life depended on it right now, I could not point to one thing Mark Warner did for Southside Virginia, which remains the orphan of the commonwealth in one administration after another.

What got me hopping mad about all of this was a newsletter I saw last week extolling all that the exiting governor had done to improve the quality of life in Southwest Virginia.

Well, good for that region of the state. But we in the great Southside region are residents of the state, too.

Governor Warner and his folks appeared to think that Southside Virginia begins and ends in Danville. In fact, I don't think of Danville as part of our region at all, but that is another issue for another time.

Our region yet again has been slighted by the powers that be in Richmond, and so what's new about that?

Some former Warner official may read this and send me a laundry list of what was done to lift the stock of Southside, but I do not think the list would be very deep.

Again, I know of nothing that I could list on such an accounting.

What can be done about this deplorable situation? Leaders and residents in this part of Virginia should yell "FOUL!" and demand that the state find every and all means to help the Southside region to better its lot. I am not asking for a handout out, but rather a hand up. There's
a big difference.

As for the new governor, Tim Kaine, I am not holding my breath. If he is like is immediate predecessor, he will do little, if anything, to help our region, either. This is all the more reason for regional leaders to lobby this governor often that, yes, Virginia, there is a great Southside region and it has been neglected by Richmond for too long.

Outdoors Writer Bob Gooch Dies

Bob Gooch, who wrote an outdoors for decades in Virginia, has died. His column, Virginia Afield, appeared in The Crewe-Burkeville Journal and many other weekly and daily newspapers.

Look for a complete story on Mr. Gooch in the coming week's Crewe-Burkeville Journal that will be on the streets March 15, 2006.

Federal Judge Hands Down Decision

A senior federal district judge in Richmond has issued a ruling in a show cause proceeding filed against the Town of Crewe by businessman Ben Jones and his wife Sherry.

Full details of the decision will be published in the print edition of The Crewe-Burkeville Journal in the coming week.

First Posting

March 10, 2006

This is my first posting. I intend for this blog to provide commentary and news to those who find their way to this part of the blog world on the World Wide Web.

This blog is written by a career newspaperman who will strive to provide insight and truth-telling in anything posted on the Journal Standard.

More next time.