Author: John Turley Page 9 of 13

A Requiem for Our Newspapers

On June 11, 2023

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
Thomas Jefferson

When I was growing up in Charleston WV in the 1950s and early 1960s, we had two daily newspapers. The Gazette was delivered in the morning and the Daily Mail was delivered in the afternoon. One of my first jobs as a boy was delivering The Gazette. It worked out to be about 50 cents an hour, but I was glad to have the job. (It was good money at the time.)

Ostensibly, the Gazette was a Democratic newspaper, and the Daily Mail was a Republican one. However, given the politics of the day there was not a significant difference between the two, and most people subscribed to both.

There weren’t a lot of options for news at the time. Of course, there were no 24-hour news channels. National news on the three networks was about 30 minutes an evening with local news at about 15 minutes. By the late 1960s national news had increased to 60 minutes and most local news to about 30 minutes. Although, given the limitations of time on the local stations, most of the broadcast was taken up with weather, sports, and human interest stories with little time left to expand on hard news stories.

We depended on our newspapers for news of our cities, counties, and states. And the newspapers delivered the news we needed. Almost everyone subscribed to and read the local papers. They kept us informed about our local politicians and government and provided local insight on national events. They were also our source for information about births, deaths, marriages, high school graduations and everything we wanted to know about our community.

In the 21st century there are many more supposed news options. There are 24-hour news networks as I’ve described in my previous post Too Much Time and Too Little News. And of course, there are Twitter, Facebook and the other online entities that claim to provide news.

There has been one positive development in television news. Local news, at least in Charleston, has expanded to two hours most evenings. There is some repetition between the first and second hour and it is still heavily weighted to sports, weather, and human interest, but there is increased coverage of local hard news. However, this is somewhat akin to reading the headlines and the first paragraph in a newspaper story. It doesn’t provide in-depth coverage, but it is improved over what might otherwise be available to those who don’t watch a dedicated new show. Hopefully, it motivates people to find out more about events that concern them.

But it’s still been the local newspapers that have provided the detailed news we want about local and state events. Here in Charleston our newspapers were consolidated into a single daily paper several years ago. Despite reduced staffing and subscribership, they still make a valiant effort to cover our local news. Eric Eyre provided Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the opioid epidemic. Currently Phil Kabler continues to provide outstanding coverage of the legislature and state government. Mike Tony, another reporter deeply involved in the community, provides coverage of West Virginia energy issues and the governor’s ongoing business foibles.

Will TV news be able to provide the details about our community? The format of the newspaper allows for more detailed presentations and for a larger variety of stories. The reader can pick which stories to read, when to read them and how much of each to read. The very nature of broadcast news doesn’t allow these options.

I worry about the future of newspapers. More than 360 newspapers have closed nationally since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Since 2005 over 2500 newspapers, more than 25% of the nation’s total, have closed. It would be a tragedy to continue losing newspapers at this rate.
I beg everyone to please subscribe to your local newspapers. I prefer the hands-on, physical newspaper. I understand many people prefer to keep up with the digital age. If so, please subscribe to the digital editions of your local newspaper and don’t pretend that the other online sources, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will provide you with local news rather than just gossip.
If we lose our local news, we are in danger of losing our local freedom and if we lose our local freedom, we’re in danger of losing our country. For those of you who think I’m fear mongering, countries that have succumbed to dictatorship have first lost their free press (More about that in a later post. If you know anything about The Grumpy Doc, you know he’s never short of opinions.)

I believe that broadcast news will never be the free press that print journalism is. The broadcast is an ethereal thing. You hear it and it’s gone. Of course, it is always possible to record it and play it back, but most people don’t. If you have a newspaper, you can read it, think about it, and read it again. There are times when on my second or third reading of an editorial or an op-ed article I’ve changed my opinion about either the subject or the writer of the piece. I don’t think a news broadcast lends itself to this type of reflection. In fact, when listening to the broadcast news I often find my mind wandering as something that the broadcaster said sends me in a different direction.

Also, in my opinion, broadcast news is controlled by advertising dollars and viewer ratings. News seems to be treated like any entertainment program. I recognize that this can be the case with newspapers as well, but it seems to me that it’s much easier to detect bias in the written word than in the spoken word. Too often we can get caught up in the emotions of the presenter or in the graphics that accompany the story.

With that in mind, I recommend that if you want unbiased journalism, please support your local newspapers before we lose them. Once they are gone, we will never get them back and we will all be much the poorer as a result.

I will leave you with one last quote.

A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.
Winston Churchill

The only way to preserve freedom is to preserve the free press. Do your part!
And you can quote The Grumpy Doc on that!!!!

Presidential Trvia

By John Turley

On May 29, 2023

In Commentary, History

Who Am I?

Two of my favorite subjects are American history and trivia. When Margie and I first got married one of our favorite ways to spend time with friends was to play the then popular game Trivial Pursuit. That’s when I discovered that I am the master of useless information, the repository of all things that will never earn me any money. But it’s still fun and when I can combine my love of trivia with my love of American history, so much the better. This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts about American history trivia. We’ll start with the presidents. A subject that most of us know a fair amount about but maybe not as much as we think.

Before I go into the questions, we’ll start with the mystery man above. That’s James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States. Now The Grumpy Doc must admit that he did recognized this fellow. If you did, bonus points for you. However, no prize for beating The Grumpy Doc beyond a sense of satisfaction that comes from besting the master. Did I mention that not only am I grumpy, but I’m also cheap?

The first question should be an easy one.

Who was the first president to have a full beard while in office?
Who was the last president to have a full beard while in office?
What president had the first telephone installed in the White House?
What two presidents had only a letter for a middle name?
What president established the first National Park?
Who was the first president to serve in the Navy?
Who was the first president to write a best seller?
Who was the only president to remain a bachelor throughout his life?
Who was the first divorced president? (Should be another easy one.)
What president had the most children?
Who was the first president to ascend to the presidency from the vice presidency upon the death of the president?
Who was the first president to have impeachment charges filed against him?
Who was the only president to commit treason against the United States?
And now, a question of great national significance. What president installed the first bathtub in the White House?
Who was the first president born in a hospital?
What presidents attended military academies?
Who was the last president not to have a college degree?
A final question with significance to current events. Who was the only president to have completely paid off the national debt during a period of his administration. I don’t mean balance the budget; I mean zero national debt.

ANSWERS

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to have a full beard while in office.
Benjamin Harrison was the last president to have a full beard throughout his term of office. However, there is a slight trick to this question. Harry Truman, during a vacation in 1948, briefly sported a goatee. However, it was gone by the time he returned to Washington.
Rutherford B. Hayes had the first telephone installed in the White House. Not only did he have it installed, he was so fascinated by it he frequently answered it himself.
Both Ulysses S. Grant and Harry S. Truman had S for a middle name. However, the story behind the S is significantly different. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. The congressman who signed his recommendation for West Point mistakenly listed his name as Ulysses S. Grant. Grant never disputed it and retained the S throughout his life. Biographers have reported that this was because he did not like the initials that spelled HUG. The rumor spread that the S stood for Simpson, his mother’s maiden name, but it never really stood for anything. Harry Truman’s middle name at birth was S. Both his maternal and paternal grandfathers had names that began with S and a significant family conflict arose about who he would be named after. The compromise was the initial.
Although it is widely believed that Teddy Roosevelt established the first National Park, it was Ulysses S. Grant who signed the legislation creating Yellowstone. The National Park Service was created by legislation signed by Woodrow Wilson.
The first US president to serve in the Navy was John F. Kennedy. Interestingly, the next four presidents also served in the Navy, three of them in World War Two.
Teddy Roosevelt was a best-selling author before he became president. He wrote histories, biographies, essays, and memoirs. His books were widely distributed and very popular. And this was in the era before presidents “wrote” their memoirs as a way of supplementing their post presidential income.
This was our mystery man, James Buchanan who never married.
The first man elected president who had previously been divorced was Ronald Reagan.
John Tyler had 15 children with two wives.
Once again, John Tyler. He was elected as vice president with William Henry Harrison. He became president when Harrison died shortly after assuming office. At the time, no one was sure if the vice president would become president or simply assume the duties. Tyler solved the problem by quickly having himself administered the oath of office. Tyler was never popular with his party and was referred to as “His Accidency”. He was not nominated for an independent term of office and left after his first term.
This is one The Grumpy Doc missed. I thought it would be Andrew Johnson. But, once again it was John Tyler. The charges were not successful, although surprisingly they were brought by his own party, and he completed the term.
You may have noticed a trend here; this was our old friend John Tyler. He was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives but died before actually taking office.
The first permanently installed bathtub was during the administration of Millard Fillmore. This may be the most significant thing that happened during the administration of this otherwise undistinguished president.
Jimmy Carter, born in 1924, was the first president born in a hospital.
Both President Grant and President Eisenhower graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and President Carter graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.
President Truman was the last president without a college degree. He attended business school and law school but did not graduate from either. At that time, it was possible to attend law school without an undergraduate degree.
Andrew Jackson achieved his campaign promise of completely paying off the national debt on January 8th, 1835. However, this proved not to be a good thing. The practices he implemented to pay off the debt led directly to the panic of 1837, one of the worst recessions in U.S. history and a significant increase in national debt.

There is a lot more presidential trivia, but this is enough for our first go around. Please send me comments about your success in answering these questions. My score was right around 70%. Hopefully some of you can do better. But of course, if you do, The Grumpy Doc will never admit to having been beaten.

The Best President Ever

By John Turley

On May 16, 2023

In Commentary, History

As we get closer to the upcoming presidential election, I’m looking forward to the latest round of articles about “the best president ever”. These lists usually include Abraham Lincoln, FDR and Thomas Jefferson somewhere in the top three or four depending on where in the cycle of historic popularity their reputations happen to be. Other presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan will go on and off the list depending on the whims and the political orientations of the list makers. JFK has occasionally been on the list of best presidents since shortly after his assassination. The more recent a president, the more likely he is to show up on these lists. This is due partly to the fact that we tend to give higher regard to those things about which we have firsthand knowledge. Any list done over the last 15 to 20 years may include Clinton or Obama or Trump, although, given the polarization of the political process today it’s unlikely that all three would be on the same list.

But what exactly does “best president” mean? How would you come up with quantitative measures that can be used to grade presidents and create a reproducible list? Of course, being “best “ largely depends on the severity of the problems faced by the president and the success of his solutions. It also seems to me that all such lists must be subjective and influenced by the political ideology, social position, financial status, education, and region of the country of the list maker. Personally, I don’t know how to even begin to rate a best president.

While I may not know who the best president was, I strongly believe I can tell you who the most important president was and always will be, that is George Washington. To borrow a phrase from historian James Flexner, Washington was the indispensable man. He had the combination of experience, strength and dignity that was necessary to guide this country through those first critical years. Without his initial leadership it’s possible that the country may have disintegrated it into several smaller bickering independent states that likely would have been annexed by the European powers. George Washington is the man who turned These United States with an emphasis on States into The United States with an emphasis on United.

George Washington’s importance began before there was a presidency or even a formal government. Without his leadership as the commanding general of the Continental Army there likely never would have been a United States at all.

Washington was never a great tactical general. He had very few battlefield victories, although his victories at Trenton and Princeton came at an important time for the fledgling revolution. They might even be considered strategic victories and it was his role as a strategic general that led to eventual victory.

Washington recognized that he did not have to win on the battlefield but only had to maintain the Continental Army as a field force and outlast the British will to conduct an overseas war. At a time when others were urging him to meet the British in a large European style battle, he recognized that losing decisively on a battlefield may have been enough to shatter the Continental Army and with it the entire Revolution. If you are not familiar with the many attempts early in the Revolutionary War to oust Washington from command, it will be well worth your time to read more about it.

At the end of the Revolution, Washington returned his Commission to the Continental Congress and retired to Mount Vernon. He expected to spend the rest of his days managing his estates. But his country was not yet done with him.

After the Revolution, the country was governed under the Articles of Confederation, a document that Washington called …” a rope of sand.” Multiple attempts were made to revise the articles, including a failed convention in Annapolis in 1786, to which only five states sent representatives.

When another convention was called in Philadelphia in 1787, Washington initially declined to participate, believing it would be no more successful than the Annapolis convention had been. Finally, James Madison and Henry Knox persuaded him to attend.

Washington arrived in Philadelphia and was promptly elected president of the convention. It was his presence that largely influenced every state except Rhode Island to send delegates. His presence also emboldened the delegates to embark on the creation of a new Constitution, rather than a simple revision of the articles as they had been tasked by their states.

As president of the convention, Washington maintained a non-partisan role. He seldom participated in debate and generally joined in the voting without comment. He felt it was his role to maintain the decorum of the convention, something he could do only by remaining above the fray.

Currently, there is much debate about the three-fifths clause and the role of slavery in the shaping of the Constitution. At the time, this was not the only contentious issue being debated. The role of a chief executive had the potential to be equally divisive.

Having just fought a revolution against a monarchy, many of the delegates had a strong distrust of centralized power. An initial proposal was to place executive power in a three man board. Prolonged discussion revolved around how to choose the board and how it would function. As it became clear that Washington could be the first president under a new constitution, support solidified behind the single chief executive. Without his presence, there may never have been a presidency at all.

Much has been made about the role of the Federalist Papers in the ratification of the Constitution. While they undoubtedly influenced the wealthy and the well-educated, the knowledge that Washington supported the Constitution and would be, without doubt, the first president was more important to the average citizen.

Washington was so popular at the time that some even suggested he be made “King of America”; an idea he would never even acknowledge.

In sum, even before he took the oath of office, George Washington was indeed our most important president.

Further reading:
Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow.

George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father, David O. Stewart.

Washington: The Indispensable Man, James Thomas Flexnor.

George Washington’s Journey: The President Forges a New Nation, T. H. Breen.

The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution, David O. Stewart.

George Washington: A Biography, Douglas Southall Freeman. This seven-volume set is the gold standard of Washington biographies.

1975: Adventures in Tokyo and Hong Kong

By John Turley

On May 2, 2023

In Food and Drink, Reminiscence, Travel

**In our Changing world, one of the best parts of being a Grumpy Old Doc is wonderful memories!**

Will We Find Each Other?
Margie and I hadn’t been together since February when I left for a 13-month unaccompanied tour with the Marine Corps in Okinawa. I took leave at Christmas time 1975 and Margie flew from Charleston, WV to Tokyo to meet me for the holidays. I went to the airport to meet her only to discover that her flight had been cancelled. Remember, there were no cell phones, e-mail, or texts. The airline didn’t know if she had been rescheduled or not or when she might arrive. After waiting through the last flight of the day, I decided to come back for the first morning flight.

I arrived at the airport the next morning to wait for the San Francisco flight. The Tokyo airport, like everything else in Japan, was very crowded. I was wondering how I would find Margie in that crowd, but it turned out not to be a problem. She was six feet tall and was literally head and shoulders above everyone else in the arrival area. I could see her from across the terminal.

Transportation In Japan
Fortunately, I had the hotel’s name written in Japanese on a piece of paper. I’m not sure we would have made it to the hotel had I not been able to show that paper to the cab driver. It was difficult to find a driver who spoke English. The cab ride to the hotel was fascinating; as we were absorbing the sights, the driver pointed to a McDonalds, then newly arrived in Japan, smiled, and said, “Big Mac-San.”

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by the doorman who was wearing a top hat, white gloves, and a morning coat. He opened the door and smiled and said “Hi ya Joe”. That was the only thing he ever said to us in English the whole time we were there. He was about the right age to have been a young boy during the American occupation right after World War II. I suspect that’s where he learned that phrase and it was probably the only English he knew. But I don’t even know that much Japanese.

Japanese public transportation was also quite an experience. There’s no lining up to get on or off buses or trains. As soon as the doors open everyone rushes in or out. Margie is always trying to be polite and to let other people go ahead. I tried to tell her we would never get on if she kept deferring to everyone else. When the doors of the train opened, I got behind her and just pushed her on board.

I found this behavior by the Japanese to be strange given what I thought was excessive politeness about everything else and every other encounter we had in Japan. We even had a salesclerk apologize to us because we thought the price was too high on something we were considering. The only thing that I can think of is that public transportation was not a one-to-one personal encounter but was more of a group event and didn’t require the same degree of civility.

An Unusual Photo Op
There was one interesting thing about being so tall in Japan. We were walking together when a Japanese man came up to us with his camera, pointed to it, and said something. I thought he was asking us to take his picture. But he quickly turned around handed his camera to a friend and then, stood between us to have his picture taken with the big, tall Americans; his friend followed suite. It’s nice to think that our pictures are somewhere in a Japanese family’s photo album.

Christmas, Japanese Style
Christmas is a big deal in Japan, but it has no religious connotations. It is strictly a commercial holiday. Neon snowflakes and candy canes and Santa Clauses were everywhere. Needless to say, we did a little Christmas shopping while we were there.

This was the most unique Christmas Eve we have ever spent. We had dinner in a French restaurant in a Japanese hotel. After that we went to a movie in a Japanese theater. We saw the Steven Spielberg film “Jaws”. It was in English with Japanese subtitles. They don’t have popcorn in Japanese movie theaters (at least they didn’t then). We had Tangerines and sushi rolls.

On To Hong Kong!
From Tokyo we flew to Hong Kong. We stayed in a little more upscale hotel than I had on my first trip; on my second trip I stayed on board ship. I was determined that our reunion trip was going to be first class and we stayed at the Hong Kong Hilton. It was a beautiful place and had a Rolls Royce fleet parked in front. Of course, they weren’t there for our use. Apparently, a lot of very wealthy people stay there.

Shop ‘Till You Drop
Hong Kong was literally a shopper’s paradise. You could go bankrupt saving money! The exchange rate was about six Hong Kong dollars to one U.S. dollar. It seemed to us that things were really cheap; we just divided the price by six. You bargained for everything, even a pack of gum. We bought a lot of gifts and souvenirs and thoroughly enjoyed this new (to us) style of shopping.

Finally, a potential major purchase caught our fancy. While window shopping at a carpet store, we noticed one of the most beautiful rugs we had ever seen and maybe the most beautiful we will ever see. It was a deep crimson hand-woven rug known as the five-dragon rug. There was a large dragon in the center and a smaller dragon in each corner. We stood there looking at it and trying to figure how we could fit it into our living room. The price on it said $5000. Thinking it was Hong Kong dollars, we decided if shipping wasn’t too much, we should just go for it. We went in and asked the clerk exactly how much the price was in U.S. dollars to start the bargaining. He looked back at me and said “$5000 US, firm”. (Just to put it in perspective, my annual salary at the time was $9500.) So, of course you know there is no five-dragon rug in our living room, although I still regret not having figured out some way to make it work.

Eating Out And A Lesson Not Learned!
Despite my experience with bitter melon and pigeon, we decided to try for a real Chinese dinner. (I can be a slow learner.) We were advised to look for a restaurant where there were few or no westerners in the dining room and where the women were playing mahjong.

We found our restaurant and it looked good. Most of the restaurants where we had eaten served ala carte where we ordered dishes individually and they were served in small bowls that we shared. The menu had very little English and none of the typical Chinese restaurant dish names that we recognized. We found out much later that such staples of western Chinese restaurants as Chop Suey and General Tso’s Chicken were not actually of Chinese origin. Our most popular “Chinese” dishes would be a mystery in China.

There was one waiter who spoke limited English. I would point to something, and he would explain it to us as best he could, and we would decide whether or not to order it. We ordered a number of dishes expecting they would all come in small bowls that we would share.

We should have been suspicious when the waiter came and set up a folding table beside us. He then proceeded to load the table up with several large serving bowls. It seems this restaurant served family style.

Each bowl held enough food for somewhere between four and six people and we had seven bowls. As if having all this food on a table beside us wasn’t enough, the staff then lined up behind the table to watch the big Americans eat. Well, we gave it our best effort, but we couldn’t get through even a small amount. We took a little sampling from each and left most of it. (We both hoped that someone would be able to use the leftovers.) We had several more days in Hong Kong but never ventured into another Chinese restaurant.

A Trip Ending Too Soon
Reluctantly, we parted in Hong Kong. Margie flew back to West Virginia and her classroom. Fortunately, her return trip was less eventful than coming over. I headed back to Okinawa for the rest of my tour. We had a wonderful two weeks and would be together again in three months. We are both thankful we never had to be apart that long again.

We hope you also have wonderful memories of bygone trips and adventures. And, there’s more yet to do!

The Classic Martini

By John Turley

On April 28, 2023

In Food and Drink

I can remember when I was younger watching old black and white movies on TV. I was impressed by the elegant ladies in evening gowns and the suave men in tuxedos. They looked so sophisticated sipping crystal clear martinis while smoking cigarettes. A few years later it was James Bond in a white dinner jacket instructing the bartender “Shaken not stirred.” Oh boy, I couldn’t wait to get my first martini, but I must confess, it is an acquired taste.

The martini is a very simple drink, only two ingredients. Yet so many bartenders make it so badly. There are as many recipes as there are martini drinkers and each is sure that his or hers is the best. Although, unless they’re using my recipe, they’re probably wrong.
So here it is:
Five parts gin. (Yes, gin)
One part vermouth.

So how can you go wrong? For one thing you can skimp on the ingredients. Go for quality not price.

For gin I use Plymouth or Tanqueray. A gin that is too smooth will give a bland drink. A gin that has too many botanicals will give a muddy drink. There are a lot of new craft gins on the market. Most of them command an elevated price. While some are quite good, others can best be described as awful. While you are learning your martini basics, stick to the classic London Dry Gins. If you have any questions, contact The Grumpy Doc. I’ve tried most of them and of course, you know I have an opinion.

For vermouth I use Noilly Prat or Dolin (harder to find). The single biggest mistake of the novice martini maker is to follow the recipe found in many bar guides that calls for a 2:1 gin to vermouth ratio. This leaves you tasting a drink that like it can’t decide what it wants to be. Some people are vermouth minimalists. They either leave it out all together or add only a few drops. Vermouth adds complexity (I know, a nerd word) and without it you have a glass of chilled gin. If that’s what you like, fine. Just don’t call it a martini.

Now for the garnish. The short answer is: “I don’t use one.” I don’t like anything distracting from the crisp flavor of a properly proportioned martini. The classic picture is always two olives on a cocktail pick. But unless you can find olives packed in vermouth, even a small amount of brine will ruin the drink. (Don’t get me started on that crime against nature, the dirty martini.) Occasionally on a hot summer day when I’m on the deck I’ll add a lemon twist, but it can overwhelm the drink.

Finally, we come to Mr. Bond’s instruction. Sorry 007, it’s not shaken. But you weren’t entirely wrong; it’s not stirred either. It’s poured. Mix your martini and pour it into a flask or a cocktail shaker (without ice) and put it in the freezer until it looks like it is starting to thicken. Don’t worry, it won’t freeze. So why poured? If either shaken or stirred for too little contact with the ice, you’ll get a warm drink, and no one wants that. Too much contact with the ice results in a diluted drink. If you like a little dilution in your martini (misguided though that may be) add a tablespoon of water to your mix. Depending on the ice for dilution leaves too much to chance.

Finally, don’t forget to put your glass in the freezer as well. The only thing that keeps your drink cold is the initial chill on the liquid and the glass. A stemmed glass will keep it cold longer; just remember to hold it by the stem.

The Grumpy Doc says “Cheers.”

The 24 Hour News Cycle: Too Much Time, Too Little News

By John Turley

On April 18, 2023

In Commentary

And That’s The Way It Is.

Growing up I can remember anxiously awaiting the news. Either a newspaper arriving twice a day on our doorstep or a well-known news anchor at 6 o’clock on the television. Either way, we trusted we would receive a detailed and thoughtful analysis of current events to give us a basis for understanding what was going on.

I would like to think that those journalists, both print and electronic, were careful about their facts, that they checked sources, that they double checked, that they confirmed wherever possible, and that they didn’t publish a story until they knew they had it right. Newspapers were known to hold back stories, sometimes for weeks, until they could verify all the sources before putting the story on the pages of the paper. They stood behind what they said and had to issue very few retractions. Editorial opinions remained on the editorial page and were seldom ever reflected in the news stories. Walter Cronkite always said when he reported a story “That’s the way it is”. It wasn’t the way it might be or the way he wanted it to be, but it was the way it was.

CNN launched the 24 hour news cycle when it went on the air in 1980. Fox News and MSNBC followed in 1996. They all seemed to present a fairly straight forward reporting of names, places and events, with the major difference being their approach to political stories. I remember during the 2000 political conventions, I enjoyed switching back and forth between CNN and Fox to get a simultaneous view from both sides of the political aisle. But they were the types of differences I expected from differing political parties.

With few exceptions, these were the networks I turned to for the latest update on breaking news like hurricanes, earthquakes, and airplane crashes. It didn’t matter which network I watched because there didn’t seem to be any editorializing of the stories. I usually watched the one that wasn’t showing a commercial when I turned it on.

It seems to me that this changed after 9-11. I had started to notice an increase in partisanship with the coverage of the controversy of the 2000 election, but I expected that would pass after the court cases were settled. However, post 9-11 coverage of the debates over weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq war seemed to increase the polarization, something that has continued to worsen.

With TV 24-hour news channels in constant competition, can reporters take time to check their sources and to verify their stories or must they rush to get on the air? Is it more important to be first than to be correct? Or, are the ratings, and more importantly, the advertising dollars just following the desires of the viewers? Have people come to care less about being informed than about having their preexisting opinions reinforced? Or, do they simply want to be entertained?

It seems to me the news networks now present stories the way they believe the viewers want the story to be, not what is actually true. The founder of a major news network recently admitted in court that his reporters selectively edited stories to create misleading conclusions and at times they reported stories they knew to be false.

Fortunately, there are still print journalists and local broadcast journalists who value integrity over notoriety. Unfortunately, judging by the diminishing number and size of daily newspapers, this option, limited though it is, may not be around much longer. To paraphrase Gresham’s Monetary Law that “Bad money drives out good”, we now have The Grumpy Doc’s Broadcast News Law, “Sensational news drives out accurate news.”

I don’t want to be entertained by the news; I want to be informed. I don’t want to be indoctrinated; I want to get the facts. I don’t want a news reporter to tell me what to think; I want them to give me information so I can make my own decisions.

I’m concerned about the future of news. Will the 24 hour news networks become little more than the province of those who yell first and yell the loudest without regard to the truth of their stories? If they do, where will we go to find out the way it is?

Walter Cronkite would be ashamed.

Ramps Redux

By John Turley

On April 12, 2023

In Appalachia, Commentary, Food and Drink

The advent of spring in Appalachia brings about another ramp season and with it all things ramp. I’ve decided to get lazy today and repost my blog from May 2021.

What Is It About Ramps?

Continuing my reminiscences about growing up in West Virginia I’m going to visit the subject of ramps. For those of you who haven’t been blessed to live in Appalachia, ramps are a type of wild leek in the onion family. They have a very pungent flavor that is like a highly garlicky, sulfureous onion. They have a short season in the spring and are highly prized by those who enjoy them.

If you think politics can be contentious, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the disagreements about ramps. You either hate ramps or you love ramps. There is no middle ground and almost no one is neutral on the subject.

Those unfamiliar with ramps might think, “If you don’t like them, just don’t eat them.” Well, it’s just not that simple. If you think garlic or onions can give you bad breath, just standby.

Ramps may give you the harshest breath that you’ve ever experienced. But that’s not the worst part. The odor of ramps will radiate from your body for several days. Despite much folklore about the best ways to rid your body of the odor, the only thing that works is the passage of time.

I can remember many years ago when I was in school, kids who would eat too many ramps sometimes would be sent home because the odor was just too much to bear in a closed classroom. There were times when I thought eating ramps might be worth it if I got a day off school. Ultimately, I decided maybe school wasn’t so bad.

The spring of my senior year in high school a buddy and I decided to go to Richwood for the annual ramp festival. Richwood sits in a river valley and as we started down the hill, we could see a haze hanging over the town. As we got closer to the festival site I was almost driven back. I grew up in a town with several chemical plants so I thought I was used to bad odors in the air, but was I ever wrong. The only thing that kept us going was free beer. We had both just turned 18 and could legally drink.

Even the federal government has declared ramps to be a public nuisance. The editor of the Richwood weekly newspaper once mixed ramp juice with the ink for a special edition. The smell was so bad the post office refused to deliver the paper and destroyed all the copies in its possession.

People who love ramps talk about the many ways to cook them. In the spring in West Virginia restaurants seem to continuously look for new ways to present ramps during the few weeks that they are available. They have ramp burgers, ramp pimento cheese, ramp jelly and ramp omelets. There has even been the misguided ramp infused wine. It seems to me that most recipes involve ways to disguise the flavor of ramps.

It’s not just when they’re cooked that they put off this objectionable odor. Even raw they can be hard to deal with. I was out in the country with my brother and his wife when she decided to pick some ramps (leaves only, the bulb is left to grow next year’s crop). Let me say I was glad we drove out separately. He said it was at least three days before the smell of ramps was cleared from the car. He joked that while ramps may not be grounds for divorce, they certainly could be grounds for temporary separation.

If you love ramps, I hope you enjoy them. Just make sure everyone else has enough warning to avoid you during ramp season. And that is The Grumpy Doc’s opinion about ramps. Be sure and leave a comment with yours.

By Any Other Name: An Obsession with Titles

By John Turley

On March 31, 2023

In Commentary

Titles are everywhere and they likely have existed since humans began forming groups larger than the individual family. Almost all societies in every part of the world have evolved titles of one form or another. The Europeans, however, have raised titles to a whole new level. Kings, queens, princes, dukes, duchesses, lords, ladies, barons, viscounts, the list is endless. It seems almost everyone in Europe has a title of one type or another.

The European fascination with titles followed the colonists to America. As an American elite arose, they too began to award themselves titles, from the political such as burgess to the religious such as deacon and to the title of master in the slavery system. Some southern planters liked to refer to themselves as “a simple farmer,” though they were far from simple and I doubt that any of them dirtied their hands in the fields. Also, they were also quite fond of the title squire.

Two of my favorite titles are from colonial New England. Elite men were referred to as Worthy, as in Worthy Jones. I wonder if common men were considered unworthy. Married women were referred as Goodwife, often shortened to Goodie.

From the beginning of the United States, we were involved in creating new titles. After the adoption of the constitution, titles, specifically a title for the new chief executive, took up a portion of the first meetings of Congress.

Vice President John Adams suggested the following titles: “His Elective Majesty”, “His Mightiness”, and even “His Highness, the President of the United States of America and the Protector of their Liberties”.

Adams, who might kindly be described as portly, was mockingly referred to as “His Rotundancy”. Fortunately for succeeding generations, Adams’s recommendations were ignored, and Mr. President became the accepted title.

The use of titles, real or imagined, seems to have become particularly widespread in the times of the Internet. We constantly receive emails that include the name of the sender followed by multiple titles, often in the form of abbreviations and strings of letters that we seldom understand. These are meant to add an air of importance to the message. Often, we are impressed without really understanding why.

Some titles are honorary such as those awarded by universities or other such honorary titles as Kentucky Colonel. Others are just for fun such as the title I recently received, Admiral of the Cherry River Navy, the world’s only navy where every member is an admiral.

Please don’t think that I am mocking or dismissing the importance of titles. It’s their misuse and overuse that concerns me. Professional titles have an important place in professional situations. They help establish the expertise and credentials of people who will be working together but may not know each other. In this professional situation they can also help to establish educational accomplishments, political or social authority, or even honorary positions.

I’ve heard the argument’ “I’ve worked hard for that title and I’m going to use it.” I have some sympathy for that position, particularly for someone newly graduated with an advanced degree. But in general, use of professional titles in a nonprofessional setting strikes me as bragging.

Like everyone else, I have a title. However, unless you are seeing me in a professional situation or we are in a situation where all people are expected to use their professional titles, you won’t see an MD after my name. Occasionally when I’m having my name listed in a program or on a group roster, I tell them not to add the title, and I’ll be asked why. My standard response is that it isn’t relevant to the group.

Occasionally I’ll be working on a committee or other group with another professional and invariably they will list all their credentials in all our correspondence. For example, recently I was working with a group completely unrelated to medicine that also included another physician. We are well known to each other and know each other’s credentials. I signed all my emails with a simple John. In his emails, his full name was always followed by MD, MPH, FAAP. I know all about the automatic signature block and use it in professional correspondence, but there is a time and a place for everything. Perhaps he thinks I forgotten who he is since we talked last week.

The Grumpy Doc, HSE, AKMU

For those who don’t recognize my newly self-awarded titles, they are His Serene Excellency, All Knowing Master of the Universe. I will expect appropriate deference from now on.

The Contradictory Life of Thomas Jefferson

By John Turley

On March 18, 2023

In Commentary, History

Part I, Liberty and Slavery

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These stirring words that Thomas Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence put forth a clear statement of his political philosophy. Unfortunately, the man behind the words is not nearly so self-evident. To borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, he is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in an enigma. Biographer Joseph Ellis referred to him as The American Sphinx.

He was a man of the enlightenment, but he was also a man clearly bound to the brutal slave economy. He dreamed of a bucolic America peopled by hardworking yeoman farmers while he lived the life of a wealthy British aristocrat. He abhorred the thought of banks and bankers but spent his entire life mired in debt. He wrote and spoke often of the need to avoid factionalism in politics but was a skillful practitioner of political intrigue. He constantly argued against expansion of governmental power but as President, without having the authority, he undertook to expand the United States to more than double its size.

So, how do we reconcile the words with the man? Perhaps we don’t. Perhaps the best we can do is try to understand the world in which he lived and the circumstances that led him to take such contradictory positions in his political and personal life. Tens of thousands of pages have been written trying to understand and explain Thomas Jefferson. Now, I’m only going to look briefly at his relationship to slavery. In a later post I’ll be looking at Thomas Jefferson as the master of political manipulation.

Of the many contradictions in Thomas Jefferson’s life, his relationship to slavery is the most difficult to reconcile. One of his first cases after becoming a lawyer was to represent a slave seeking his freedom on the grounds that his grandmother was a mulatto which would require him to be in bondage only until age 31. In an argument to the Virginia court Jefferson said, “Everyone comes into this world with the right to his own person, this is what is called personal liberty and is given them by the author of nature, under the law we are all born free.”

Both the judge and the jury were outraged that Jefferson would propose freeing a slave. The judge refused to hear any further such talk and ruled against Jefferson’s client. According to historian Winston Groom the fact that Jefferson had such a position at that time (1770) is considered significant and was a milestone in the evolution of his thought.

About that same time Jefferson was elected to the House of Burgesses and he introduced an act that would allow masters to govern emancipation of their slaves rather than having to seek the permission of the courts and the royal officers. This was met with strong opposition and did not pass. It is significant that Jefferson did not pursue either the court case or the legislation.

As a member of the Continental Congress, Jefferson prepared an amendment to the Ordinance of 1784 (a precursor to the Northwest Ordinance) stipulating the freedom of all children born to slaves after a certain date but requiring that they be deported to either the Caribbean or Africa. This amendment failed by a single vote in Congress. Reflecting on the decision Jefferson wrote: “Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man and heaven was silent in that awful moment”. But Jefferson was to remain silent as well!

To Jefferson it was unimaginable that free whites and free blacks could live together peaceably. Even years later when writing about it he said that it was “inconceivable [then] that the public mind would bear this proposition, nor will it bear at this day”. He also wrote “Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it or worse will follow, nothing is more surely written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.” According to Jefferson’s biographer Jon Meacham, he was never able to move public opinion on slavery and his powers failed him and they failed America.

As president, Jefferson signed a law making it a crime to import slaves. But at the same time, he believed that if slaves were set free, they must be deported to Africa or the Caribbean. Most of his contemporaries agreed; they felt that American slavery was equivalent to “holding the ear of a tiger”, but they saw no way to let go.

So again, we return to the question of how to reconcile Jefferson the philosopher with Jefferson the enslaver. Jefferson was a man who enjoyed luxury and the finer things in life. Today he is viewed as a wealthy planter. However, he was what we would now consider cash poor. All his wealth was tied up in property and his slaves were a large portion of that property. His land was heavily mortgaged, and his slaves were his collateral. Jefferson’s wife was the daughter of a wealthy man and when her father died Jefferson inherited his 135 slaves and his land, which was also heavily mortgaged. He also inherited his father-in-law’s other considerable debts. He worried constantly about his financial status, yet he could not control his lavish spending. Freeing his slaves would have lost him the collateral against which his many loans were guaranteed.

Jefferson recognized the evil of slavery but also benefited greatly from it. He was unable to give up his comfortable life even while bemoaning the institution which made it possible. His relationship with Sally Hemmings has been a subject of much debate and is beyond what I can address here but if you are familiar with her story, you know that this a singular example of Jefferson’s inability to subordinate his desires to his principles.

During his lifetime he freed only two of his slaves and in his will, he freed only an additional three. This compares to some other founders who freed all their slaves in their wills. Perhaps he recognized that freeing his slaves would have resulted in an immediate foreclosure on his beloved Monticello.

It is long been axiomatic among historians that people should be judged by the time in which they lived. Jefferson was a man of his times, an exceptional man without doubt. However, his was a time that was consumed by one of the great evils of history. And that evil will always reflect on his memory. Each of us will have to make our own decision about Thomas Jefferson.

A Visit to the Vortex

By John Turley

On March 14, 2023

In Food and Drink, Travel

Nacho Tots and Other Strange Things

A few years ago, Margie and I used to love watching Diners, Drive Inns and Dives on the Food Network. The host Guy Fieri would travel around the country, supposedly in his vintage Camaro convertible, visiting local restaurants, dinners, and bar and grills, in search of unique experiences. We especially liked to watch it when we were getting ready to take a trip and we were looking for places that we might want to visit.

Our daughter and her family live just outside of Atlanta and on one show Guy visited a place there called the Vortex. After watching the show, we decided we had to go there. It looked like one of the most interesting places we’d seen in this series. Of course, that doesn’t count that West Virginia gem, Hillbilly Hot Dogs that was featured in another episode of the show. (More on it in another post.)

Even before you walk through the door you know you’re in for a unique experience. You enter the Vortex through the gaping jaws of hell, and that’s just the beginning. The interior is crammed with more unusual things than you could ever see in a single visit. There are signs, posters, and artifacts of all kinds, including full-sized motorcycles attached to the walls and suspended from the ceiling. At one point we sat under a suspended motorcycle, and I was wondering just how securely it was fastened to those roof beams.

This may be the only restaurant I have ever been to where they present you with two pages of “house rules” before you get the menu. They called it Stuff You Really Need to Know. Among the many things on their list are the topics: Read Our Menu, Idiot Free Zone, No Whining, and Tip Or Die. Each of them has a paragraph long description that goes with it. They’re written in a humorous style, but I think there is absolute seriousness that underlies them. Check it out on their website www.thevortexatl.com, because even if you never go there, it’s worth reading this list.

On our first visit (yes, we’ve been several times) we decided to sit at the bar. The first time we visit a new place we often like to sit at the bar and talk to the bartender and get an overall feel for the restaurant and its environment.

Our bartender was a young gal probably in her mid-20s. She had spiky hair, multiple tattoos, and very dramatic makeup. But most dramatic was the fact that she was wearing a tank top which showed off her sculpted biceps and her full sleeve arm tattoos. She came up to take our order, Margie ordered a salad, and I ordered a burger with fries because that’s one of the things they’re known for.

Just as the waitress was getting ready to leave with our order Margie said, “I’d like the dressing to be fat free”. The waitress stopped in her tracks. She turned around, walked up to Margie, put her hands on the bar, leaned forward, and said, “This is the Vortex, we don’t do fat free!” Margie was intimidated and told her that regular dressing would be fine. I was also intimidated and thought, just to be safe, I should order a side of grease to dip my fries in.

After we finished eating the bartender who let us know that the Vortex was too tough for fat free, came by and offered Margie a drink called The Firefly, which was a tea-based drink with grapefruit vodka and a girly flavor. The guy sitting beside us started to laugh. I couldn’t reconcile “We don’t do fat free” with the frou frou Firefly. Apparently though, my beer was a manly enough order.

On our next visit I decided to be daring and try an appetizer that I had never heard of but have since seen in a few other places. That is the nacho tots mentioned in the title of this post. Imagine your standard nacho chip order but with tater tots instead of tortilla chips. The tots are roasted first then covered with melted cheese, jalapenos, onions and ground chorizo or beef and then given a quick spin under the broiler. When they first come out and they’re still hot they’re really good but when they start to get cold, not so much. I asked our waitress if these were popular and she said, ”Oh yes, drunk people really like them.”

They are justifiably well known for their burgers, but one group of burgers needs special mention. These are the coronary bypass burgers. They begin with the single coronary bypass which can be ordered anytime and then they progress through the double, triple and quadruple which can only be ordered between 2:00 o’clock and 5:00 o’clock PM with no takeouts and no substitutions. They recommend you order in advance. I’m not going to go over the details of all four, but I will summarize the quadruple coronary bypass burger.

This may be the biggest monster of a burger I have ever seen, and it is hugely stacked up. First, I’m going to tell you about the buns and there are four buns, a top and bottom bun and two middle buns. Each “bun” is a full grilled patty melt on Texas toast. In between these buns are 32 ounces of grilled sirloin patties, 28 slices of cheese, 27 strips of bacon, four fried eggs, grilled onions, relish, and mayonnaise served with 20 ounces of French fries and tater tots topped with melted cheese and bacon bits. The total calorie count for this meal is estimated to be in excess of 9600 calories.

If this sounds like something you might want to give a try, you should investigate their Super Stack Challenge. In this challenge you eat the entire quadruple coronary bypass burger and all of its sides together with two 32 oz soft drinks. If you want to take the challenge, they request that you call ahead. Oh, and you have to do it in 30 minutes. Apparently, a number of people have tried and failed because they also give you a bucket in case you need to throw up during the challenge.

So, what do you get if you pass the challenge? Of course, you’re going to get a T-shirt, you get a T-shirt for everything, and you get the burger for free. Your name and photo will appear on their wall and on their social media pages but that seems to be about it. They don’t cover any of your subsequent visits to the cardiologist.

Apparently, only two people have ever completed the challenge. That’s two more than I would have ever thought could possibly have done it. If you decide that’s something you’re up for, let me know and I’ll do my best to try and talk you into ordering something not as insane. But, if you decide to go for it, make sure the bucket is close by.

Just Remember, they don’t do fat free.