This is what I’d like to see. Yeah, it’s a TV show but it’s inspiring nonetheless. I’ve had what the younguns call “a day.” Allow me to get West Wing on.

Not too shabby.

I’m in Memphis right now. A stranger gave me a lesson on her views of the infrastructure here and why her city’s politics were fascinating. She did this while she was playing a Megatouch game that was somewhat like a Scrabble game.

“You new here?” she asked while staring at the screen, hitting letters to create words faster than the Blue Angels. My back was to her, so I was surprised that she had spoken to me. She was older, I’d say in her mid-50s, and was wearing a Beale Street T-shirt from 2003.

I nodded. She said she was a schoolteacher and noticed I was taking everything in. She called over the owner of the small bar I stopped into last night and introduced me to her. You could tell that she was somewhat of a regular, as their was an easiness between patron and owner. I told them who I was and we started talking. The conversation inevitably turned to politics when I told them about my part-time job. She told me her name was Sheila. The owner saw a friend of hers and left us to greet one of what I can only assume was a regular customer.

“Memphis politics is an odd funny game,” Sheila said, putting another quarter into the machine, her hands moving automatically into the creation of more words quickly. She eyed the machine and then gave me fleeting glances as to let me know that she was involved in the conversation and the game. “You just learning some of this stuff?”

I told her that I had watched Memphis politics for years, but always from outside the looking glass. She nodded as if she understood.

“I’ve been in the school system here for nearly 30 years. Herenton wasn’t a bad superintendent you know back in the beginning. He fought for us for some things we needed. Then he became mayor and we saw less of the man we knew. You familiar with him?”

I said that I was and that I’d seen him speak a few times.  I told her I didn’t understand why he’d run for mayor again only to say he was going to resign not even three months after the last mayoral election.

“I guess I just don’t get it,” I countered. “That just seemed like a colossal waste of time.”

She laughed, “No one does when it comes to him. You aren’t alone.”

Her game was over and she turned toward me. “Memphis is one of those places that politics doesn’t always make sense. We are the largest city in the state, but it’s like there are two or three cities here. The infighting in this town in incredible. I’ve been in the system myself for a long time and I can tell you that the thing that not only Memphis needs, but this entire state, is for people to be clear so we know what we are getting when we vote. I guess that is everywhere but it makes me lose faith. I want to know what’s going on. I don’t want politicians dumbing it down for me.”

She sighed. I was surprised she was being so frank with me, a total stranger, about her politics. Politics, such as topics such as religion, usually isn’t thrown out there within 15 minutes of meeting somebody.

“The thing is that we watch the fights, and then we find out about the bills these guys pass after the fact. But maybe it’s our fault too. I gave up on being a voice a long time ago when I thought I wasn’t making a difference. Do you think you make a difference?” Sheila looked at me intently.

The question, although not unexpected, caught me off guard. I told her I didn’t know but I hope I could.

Sheila smiled at me. “That’s good. You’ve given me some food for thought today.”

“What grade do you teach?” I asked.

“Sixth-graders, who are just old enough to be smart-asses, but young enough that I think maybe each day I might have some hand in making a kid do something that might not thought they could do.”

The issue steadily went into what it’s like to be a schoolteacher and how she really wishes that politicians trusted teachers a little more before the owner came over and gave me her business card.  Sheila and I’s moment was done.

I still feel like I’m standing on the outside looking into a snowglobe, but I also feel like I learned something too.  The Sheilas of the world quit using their voice because they didn’t feel like it mattered. I found that incomprehensibly sad but I did feel by the end of our conversation, she might find that voice again as well.

There are a lot people in this world with a lot of different voices. I’m glad that Sheila shared hers with me. Maybe it’s just finding the right letters to put together the words that we all need sometimes.

I find it mind-boggling that people are blaming Elizabeth for being angry about her husband’s infidelity. I’m also perplexed that anyone would make this a political issue about her being a co-conspirator as Katie rightfully points out.

And that brings me back to Elizabeth Edwards. As John Edwards’ filth has become public in a steady stream of increasingly more disturbing information over the past nearly three years, she’s had to live with it in a way that no one else did. We now know that for some months before he dropped out of the primaries, she knew to some degree that he had become involved with Rielle Hunter. So even as she had to get out there and stump for her husband’s campaign – something into which she had devoted the previous five years of her life – WHILE SUFFERING WITH CANCER, she was at the same time reeling from the news that her husband had cheated on her, or might still be cheating on her.

She’s now being criticized for not having immediately told all of America the news that her husband had committed adultery. She’s been called a “co-conspirator” in keeping his secret and for continuing with the campaign. That’s absurd, of course.

I have been touched by cancer profoundly. I’ve written about it quite a bit here at ‘coma as well. When my mother was sick, she honestly just wanted to be left alone. It was hard enough for her not to puke every hour on the hour while her doctors concentrated on not only saving her life, but giving her a quality of life.

I can’t imagine what Elizabeth Edwards was feeling knowing that she has a disease that is eventually going to kill her, as B. said:

She’s dying of cancer and her husband was auditioning her replacement.

She was supporting her husband for president, but take that quotient away and he was still her husband. They have children together. They lost a child together. Blood is thick and her anger was valid, but do you think she wanted this to be drug through the tabloids first and finally through MSM where her every move is being critiqued. When the door shuts at night and the cameras go home, there is still a family there and you and I both know that she wanted to kick his ass up one side and down the other because she had been devalued. Not only publicly, but as a woman, by her very own husband of many years.

Katie knocks it out of the ballpark talking of recent books that focus on Elizabeth Edwards acting like a “shrew” and not compassionately looking at the fact that she was battling cancer, taking drugs that would halt some aspects of her disease that also destroy healthy cells or the fact that she never stopped being a mother during this time.

That Elizabeth has had to endure public scrutiny due to her husband’s behavior. She’s fighting cancer, looking at what was going to happen to her children, and her husband decided to move on with another woman without a thought or care in the world for her feelings.

There are elements in any relationship that are unpleasant and we’ve all been through something that took the wind out of our sails. When a person is betrayed, be it privately or publicly in the case of Elizabeth Edwards, a little compassion goes a long way. I’ve known several woman, and men, whose spouses committed adultery. They tried to work it out in some cases, they didn’t want other people to know because it was so painful and, in many cases, the marriage was over after a reconciliation was impossible because the pain cut too deep.  Sometimes this took a matter of days, other times over years so let’s keep that in mind.

Of course she wanted to keep this private.  Who wouldn’t? Of course she was pissed and it bubbled over in front of other people.

Wouldn’t you be pissed? I know I would be.

Vibinc writes this morning about patience, defining and recognizing the existing process of getting to a goal and that, as the Stones sang, we can’t always get what we want. But he expands on it quite effectively of trying to get what we want.

Or, if you KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY WANT, you can educate yourself about the issues and the process, insert yourself into that process, focus your attention on the path most likely to get you where you want to be, and slowly, and patiently build consensus around this idea until it gradually and deliberately becomes the change you wanted in the first place.

This means you don’t just hurl your marble forward and pray you don’t run into any obstacles, but you deliberately direct your marble through the maze of the process an inch at a time, knowing that the path will take you both forward and backwards, left and right, all the while grounding yourself in that ultimate goal. By doing this, keeping your perspective, and most of all, exercising patience, you WILL get to that goal eventually, despite the setbacks, obstacles, trials and tribulations that come with anything in this world that is worth a damn.

You’ve got to stay focused, and that’s hard. You’ve got to be patient, and that’s hard. But most of all, you’ve got to control your marble, and that’s, by far, the hardest part of all of it.

I like the analogy of the marble. Life is a series of taking two steps forward and three steps back at times. The issue comes down, the conundrum really, is do we continue walking forward even if it feels like we are in quicksand? As a person who is not necessarily the most patient person in the world, I have to remind myself that not only is it the destination I’m looking towards, but that the journey is just as important.

Do we continue to get our marbles in place for the next challenge over the bent and bubbled hardwood floor?

I say we do.

It made me laugh out loud.

As you know, this is the time that a president speaks, the opposition party rolls their eyes, the supporting party (this year it was different because elected democrats are up for reelection this year and more concerned with that than they are anything else) claps and the vice president and house majority leader sit behind the president smiling and nodding.

Not a lot different from the last president and the one before him but it’s just part of the tradition of the State of the Union.

There are things I liked about the speech. Pres. Barack Obama appeared to be on the attack. Not only with the GOP but with his own party, who have had opportunities and have squandered them to the point of making democrats like me, want to take a stick to the television everytime they appear telling an American People that although we voted Yes We Can, that they believed No We Can’t.

I agree with some of the reports that say that he had found his spine, because I had wondered. When he said earlier this week that he’d pretty much rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president, I thought to myself that the speech was probably going to address the issue of the polarization of Washington right now that has basically stymied an American public.

Leadership isn’t easy. When anyone takes on a leadership position, there will always be second-guessing, power struggles, character assassination and hard work that will virtually eliminate any semblance of a normal life. But being a leader means you just lead, despite the hardships. This goes for anyone in an elected position.

Doing the right thing for those who gave you the privilege of an elected office isn’t easy. Leaders don’t look short-term, they look at what their children will be dealing with as well in the future. It’s not an easy, but if you ran for office, you asked for it. And yes, there has been a deficit of not only money, but trust.

I think what I saw last night was a man elected by this country saying to his peers in the house chamber that everyone knew it was going to be hard, but it can’t just be hard for the American people. It’s like the words basically were that the elected can’t make the American people carry this on their backs while they go home and have a latte.

I do believe that elected officials on both sides of the aisle know what they have to do. Now they just have to be leaders and do it.  Maybe, and I’m pushing it here, they are as scared as many constituents are. It’s a difficult time in this country. Our backs are getting sore.

As for Supreme Justice Samuel Alito mouthing “that’s not true” when Obama busted SCOTUS and the media thought this was the big news of the night, well, it wasn’t. Nixon didn’t have a kajillion networks taping every move he made, neither did Truman, both Roosevelts, and everyone else ad nauseam so let’s be clear, this has happened before. Pundits, who represent no one on any network, just wanted to find the tabloid moment. Now everyone just sees these things broadcast live as it happens. And that ruling created just another deficit of trust with folks on both sides of the aisle.

What happened this first year is over. Let’s get on with the next year. If we don’t like what happens, we do have a vote for everyone sitting in that house chamber and we can use it.

Don McLeary of Jackson announced today that he will seek the Republican nomination in the race for state Senate District 27.

So the Jackson Sun is reporting that he announced his running in the republican primary.

This should be interesting.

And by interesting I mean something else entirely.

We were going through a very local, and contentious, fight about school consolidation at that time.  It was ugly and I mean downright vicious. People would shout at commission meetings, it took up pretty much all of  my time as a very young, and arrogant, buck reporter at the local radio station. These guys made teabaggers look like puppies because this was personal and it was local. One night the room was so full that I ended up having to sit in the the chair of the county executive (they are now called mayors) while he squeezed into a very tight table of 20 commissioners, all on different sides of the issue. It was a warm evening and as people came in from their day jobs at the field, or from the factories, the room smelled a bit ripe with sweat and anger.

It was one of the few times in my life that not only could you feel the coils of hostility, but you could smell fury. Don’t mess with people’s community, church or kids and that was the elephant that protesters brought into the room.

The meeting wasn’t that much different than many of them during that particular issue. There was shouting, an occasional fist wave and I remember one particular commissioner, who I won’t name, looking pretty much terrified. These people were angry that the commission wanted to shut down four of six high schools. They saw their communities potential deaths with that action, which came down to countywide matching funding and having to accommodate bonds bricks and mortar projects as well as maintaining what we already had..  Proponents felt two larger schools would give more opportunity and extra state funding. Some of the older schools were in disrepair and they knew that it was going to cost hand over fist to get them up to code. And this was long before the recession that we are undergoing now hit.

It was a dilemma.

Nothing was really resolved that night and the meetings would continue for weeks with much the same results. I remained neutral even though I did have an opinion which doesn’t matter now. I edited sound diligently every night (on carts, you old time radioheads and even won a few awards for my efforts) and each morning we would have those one to two minute soundbites. As it continued, we broadcast the meetings live because it was all that anyone was talking about.

It was the big news.

On that particular night, Westbrook, who is one of those bulldog politicians with a booming voice who can roll his eyes at what he perceives to be unseemliness very easily, tried to make the peace that night because he realized that no one was in the mood to talk. I don’t remember everything he said as he had the floor, but basically it was that no one was going to be able to have a conversation when they were mad as rip and that everyone needed to clear their heads.

That’s the way things are done here in Hoots.

After the meeting, I asked for a quote to use on the next day’s broadcast, which he gave me. After I had put the mic away, I asked him if this was ever going to get better. I was exhausted, the commissioners were exhausted but more importantly, the entire county was worn the hell out from the sheer emotion of it all.

“The thing is that we all need to live together. After any bit of politicking, you need to be in the right mind, that even if you disagreed on something completely, to be able to sit down and have a cup of coffee or a beer with that person you were arguing with before. That’s the way things work. Some times you are going to win, and other times you are going to lose, but we still live together. We forget that sometimes.”

“Do you think we will ever get back to that point?” I asked.

“I do, but I also want you to know that if you are able to have that cup of coffee,” he said. “Then the other sides knows you mean business when you pick a battle you believe is worth winning.”

That’s how I remember it. My grandfather, who was a republican, taught that lesson as well although he died nearly a decade before the consolidation issue hit the county. I guess those were just different times.

We all have to live together.

The issue, as controversial things do, winded down after time. Other issues replaced that one but maybe with not the fervor that the school one did.

I learned something from both men at different times in my life.

So if you were ever wondering, that’s where I came from. You may disagree with me sometimes, but I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and we’ll talk about it.

We can at least figure it out if we are having a conversation because, as they said, we have to live together despite it all.

And then I found this at the Commercial Appeal.

An East Tennessee lawmaker has filed a bill to make it a criminal act for the state to contract for any work on any portion of Interstate 69 or any other highway project designed to link Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The design, and in some places the construction, of Interstate 69 is slowly moving along in West Tennessee.

But Rep. Matthew Hill, R-Jonesborough, has filed House Bill 2785 to make it a Class E felony under the state’s criminal code for any officer of the Tennessee Department of Transportation to enter knowingly into any contract for work on I-69.

Gobsmacked.

As I live in this fine area that would benefit from I-69 (inner 12-year-old always comes out so let’s ignore that) and you may ask why but it’s rather simple.

Roads mean industry. One of the most common known issues facing counties like Perry Co. is the lack of four-lane roads to that area. Has dude seen our desperate need for job creation in this area. Even where I live, where we are lucky to have four-lanes all over the place, it is still roughly an hour before I can get to the interstate going to either Nashville or Memphis. Trucks, for distributing products built in factories, sort of rely on interstates to get things from Point A to Point B. I realize much of this area’s manufacturing boom ended about the time I was in cloth diapers but it would help.

In an area that is suffering staggering unemployment numbers, I can’t believe the tomfoolery of Hill’s bill. I realize that some folks don’t agree with me, but looking at it from the perspective of long-term assistance to northwest Tennessee, it only makes sense.

We don’t have flying cars yet campers, so from an industrial standpoint, this would help. I covered this story when I was in radio nearly 20 years ago.

And Hill wants to put TDOT in the hot seat by creating a criminal code if anyone does contract work on this? Unbelievable.

And I was looking for a half-glass full this morning. I really was.

Okay, where are the bills that are supposed to help with job creation and the real plights of the average citizen in the state of Tennessee?

In a word, wow.

I have seen former Mayor Willie Herenton speak before in 2007 at the Media Reform Conference (he was with Rep. Steve Cohen on the stage which when you look back in the time machine is a bit ironic), but  it’s been awhile and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him stumping it. Later in the day when I met up with Steve Ross, who had Mabelsat for me for the part of the afternoon, I told him that Herenton’s body language was a sight to see.

He smiled deliberately at me.

“You ready for some Memphis politics?” he grinned. “There is nothing like it.”

“Herenton’s got moves,” I responded because I’m always fascinated by politicians’ body language. How they move says a lot. The Herenton I saw yesterday was much different than four years ago. “It was almost like a work of art.”

“He doesn’t like Steve Cohen very much, does he?” I knew the answer to this question, incidentally. I’m not naive.

Ross just smiled again. I realized at that moment that I have a lot to learn about Memphis politics. Not the big picture stuff, but those things lurking right below the surface so attending the services yesterday basically was just the tip of the iceburg in my education of political wrangling in the River City.

Ross asked who else was there and I told him that Mayor AC Wharton took to the stage as did Shelby Co. Mayor Joe Ford. Kind words of MLK’s dedication to fighting injustice. How his actions have molded generations throughout the year. Preachers took to the stage telling of how King had to keep knocking for three loaves of bread at midnight and that he kept on knocking when the door was slammed in his face referencing Luke 11:5.

Money was taken up for Haiti and Dr. Kenneth Roberson said it was midnight there now just as it had been midnight in America before King kept on knocking.

The event lasted more than three hours.  Yet I was still fascinated with Herenton, who told the crowd that Martin Luther King was a “man” who did things to break down doors and had to go through being scrutinized continually by J. Edgar Hoover.

“I’m know the man is dead and I’m going to say something that you aren’t going to like,” he said. “But I understand now what King felt like when it comes to bedrooms being bugged if you know what I mean.”

As his speech went on, there was a hypnotic quality to him talking around the issues that have been going on.And that’s kind of how I saw it. He talked around things, not coming out and saying them. He said repeatedly that he wasn’t going to talk about politics, but I found that everything he said was exactly what he was doing with double meanings pressed directly into the bulk of his speech.

He continued to say that he was a “man” but he was born a boy in 1940. It was the spine of the 20 minutes speech. Although he never said it, you knew he was referring to Cohen. The message was “I’m the man, he’s the boy” which Ross said he has done repeatedly. I’ve seen it from the outside looking in, but I’ve never seen him doing it.

A woman next to me who’s small, absolutely beautiful daughter kept offering me cookies and trying to put lip gloss on me, said, “I guess he isn’t going to bring up the child support.”

I just smiled. I didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t say it with any inflection, so I wasn’t sure how she really felt regarding Herenton. She said this to me knowingly as if we had just shared a secret. I honestly don’t have an opinion on that but she apparently did.

I just didn’t know what it was.

I’ve often said that I’d love to live in Memphis just for the mere joy of going into the voting booth to hit Cohen’s name for whatever office he’s running for. I’d still love it. With that said, I want you to know the main thing I learned yesterday watching  Herenton. Cohen is going to have a race in front of him. Herenton didn’t hold back and his body language was what held my attention as much as anything, his former training as a boxer, which Ross informed me about, had him weaving ever so subtly, floating like a butterfuly, to quote the wonderful Muhammad Ali.

But his words stung like a bee.

Later in the evening, sitting with LWC and Ross, I was given a Cliff’s Notes version of Memphis Politics 101.

Needless to say, I find this all to be fascinating.