"Where were you on November 22nd?" Anyone who was old enough in 1963 to be cognizant still knows the answer to that question. Forty-five years ago President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed and, for a few days that November, the earth stood still.

I was an E-1 in...

I remember going into the Army in 1963. It was a different time then, in the early 60's, a tumultuous time really. President John F. Kennedy was killed while I was in artillery training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.

In my early basic and advanced individual training I remember some of...

Note:

If you would like to read about the lead-in to the second debate, here is a good thumbnail sketch of contemporary Nashville and a listing of events leading up to the main event.

Belmont University: 9:30 p.m.

Whew!

A summary of sorts: I think which ever...

Nashville has been abuzz with activity this past weekend leading into this week, not only with debate preparations but with traffic generated by a dozen major events each of which, individually, would clog the streets with participants and attendees alike.

Setting The Stage

The Al-Menah Shrine Circus is in the...

"What we have here is a failure to communicate." The iconic line from Cool Hand Luke could just as easily represent the current discourse between Democrats and Republicans. And, while life, truly, is for the living, it is sad to note that as of Saturday one of the major voices...

As thin as soup made from the shadow of a pigeon. That was an analogy made by Abraham Lincoln in response to a line of reasoning offered by Stephen Douglas during one of their debates in the mid 1800s. It is an appropriate analysis now when discussing the validity of...

A spokesman for the Obama presidential campaign has confirmed that South Carolina will have paid staff members to establish offices and conduct voter registration programs. When the campaign previously stated intentions to compete in 12 traditionally Republican states, South Carolina was not on the list.

Nick Shapiro, a campaign spokesman...

The Georgia Democratic Party has asked the courts for a temporary restraining order against the state's highly partisan voter ID law. The action is intended to stop the state from requiring photo identification of voters in the primary election slated for July 15.

Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican,...

Karl Rove, Republican grand strategist and now news analyst, has been booked as the keynote speaker for the Tennessee Republican Party's annual Statesman's Dinner July 26 at the Nashville Convention Center. The fundraiser is one of the state party's main events of the year.

Rove, who is working with the...

I remember the movie The Candidate in which Robert Redford played a charming fellow who decided he was going to save the world. He started running for president and he had nothing to lose so he shot from the hip. He told it like it was and the people loved...

Former Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell, 54, has been named the director of The Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The announcement comes nine months after he left office and ends speculation on his run for governor of Tennessee. He will start his new job on September 1.

One of the principle reasons for the current high gas prices is the rampant speculation of high-end, unregulated, money people whose rampant greed is fueled by the Republican's willingness to look the other way and do nothing to get in the way of profiteering. The willingness of OPEC countries to...

It is an area where you see signs that say Honey Run Creek and Cherry Mound Baptist Church. Northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky meet on a rolling green landscape that has seen American society evolve from the days before the United States was even founded and named.

If you were...

John McCain has said Obama's approach to foreign relations is "naive" and "shows a lack of experience." By taking that approach he leaves any claims to centrism behind. He is speaking in chorus with George W. Bush, who loudly proclaimed that engaging in negotiations with enemies is engaging in "appeasement"...

Tennessee Republicans did not waste any time chiming in on the state Democratic Party gaffe reported today, where a member of the Party's Executive Committee commented that Barack Obama "may be terrorist connected."

Posted on the top of the front page of the GOP website is a story titled...

There was an op-ed in the Sunday edition of The Tennessean, Nashville's daily paper, trying to make the case that white evangelicals hold the key to Barack Obama's white house bid. It made me think of the religious right, which I define as a body of people who say they...

I grew up in Fresno, California, and joined the Army after my high school graduation at age 17. It was during my time in the service in Germany when I began to develop my writing skills because I figured sitting at a desk in an office was better duty than...

The 2008 Democratic Primary is over. Hip, hip, hooray!

Well, actually, it's been over for quite a while now. It's just been one melodramatic, anti-climactic and sniveling scene after another, while the media kept breathing life into the nostrils of the "competition." The appearance of Harold Ickes on Meet the...

From the "Hindsight is 20-20 Department": Natalie Maines was correct. In fact, we should be ashamed that George W. Bush is president of the United States, not just that he's from Texas.

It has been a while, of course, since the Dixie Chicks appeared in London at the Shepherd's...

**Post Updated Below

It doesn't get any more rural than this.

Allen County is a conservative community located at the mid-southern edge of Kentucky just a very few miles from the Tennessee state border. Not too far across the state line, at the outskirts of town, drivers get a...