Charlotte.com: Ed Williams

In world rankings, U.S. is No. 1, but …

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:03 EDT

Natalie English of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce invited Ed McMahan and me to talk with a dozen or so Marshall Fellows from Europe who were touring this country a couple of weeks ago.

It's always interesting to talk with smart, well-informed visitors from abroad. Their questions make me think about American peculiarities that I take for granted.

Natalie, the chamber's senior vice president for public policy, had been a Marshall Fund fellow herself, traveling around Europe and absorbing ideas and experiences. She asked us to talk about the American political system.

Ed – an architect, businessman and former state legislator – did a good job of explaining the nuts and bolts of the various levels of government. I discussed North Carolina history and politics. Then we took questions.

As the conversation progressed, differences between our country and theirs became apparent. One involved government's role in society. The European countries seem to me to provide more security for their citizens – meaning health care, jobs, old age assistance, etc. – than America does, while America provides less security but greater opportunity.

I thought about that discussion recently as I was reading the World Economic Forum's 2007-08 Global Competitiveness Report.

First, some background. The forum, based in Switzerland, draws together international leaders to discuss issues affecting the world. Its high-powered board includes Michael Dell of the computer company, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jordan's Queen Rania Al Abdullah.

Measuring productivity

The report asserts that true competitiveness is measured by productivity. It defines productivity as the value of a nation's products and services and the efficiency with which they can be produced.

The ratings are based on evaluation of a dozen factors, including a nation's infrastructure, health and education, market efficiency, technology and financial market sophistication.

The competitiveness report ranked 131 countries. The United States is No. 1, followed by Switzerland and Denmark. At the bottom are Zimbabwe, Burundi and Chad.

These were among America's strengths:

No.1 in innovation

No. 1 in business environment

No. 1 in venture capital availability

No. 1 in university-industry collaboration

No.1 in rigidity of employment (meaning labor mobility)

No. 2 in local availability of training and research services.

But other numbers in the report were signs of U.S. problems:

32nd in infant mortality

24th in life expectancy

43rd in (primary) education expenditure

28th in quality of primary education

45th in quality of math and science education

75th in macroeconomic stability (preventing fraud and mismanagement, maintaining consumer and investor confidence, etc.).

A message for America

The report made some comments that our nation's business and political leaders should take to heart:

“An economy is well served by businesses that are run honestly, where managers abide by strong ethical practices in their dealings with the government, other firms, and the public.”

“The government cannot provide services efficiently if it has to make enormous interest payments on its past debts.”

“Lack of basic education can … become a constraint on business development, with firms finding it difficult to move up the value chain by producing more sophisticated or value-intensive products.”

The problems the report noted are no surprise. They're created by us, not by outside forces. We can solve them. What's surprising is that our great nation can't seem to summon the will to do so.

On energy, politicians are Marxists

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:18 EDT

Many politicians are rushing to support President Bush's call to permit oil drilling in the Atlantic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. Is that a solution to our energy problem?

No, it's an affirmation of Groucho Marx's definition of politics. “Politics,” the comedian said, “is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”

The U.S. Department of Energy says the oil in those places wouldn't be available in significant amounts for a decade or more. When it did become available, it likely would have little or no effect on the price of gasoline. And it wouldn't come anywhere close to freeing the United States from dependence on foreign oil.

That's why for politicians, it's a dream solution. They can act as though they've done something when in fact they haven't.

Salvation in the Arctic?

What is the energy potential of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain?

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent statistical agency within the Department of Energy, concluded that if Congress voted to open the refuge to exploration today, new oil from ANWR would lower the world price of oil by no more than $1.44 per barrel – and possibly as little as 41 cents per barrel – and its largest impact would come nearly 20 years from now.

For comparison, last week crude sold for $145 a barrel, so if ANWR oil were available today it would lower the price by about 1 percent.

How much oil would ANWR supply? The EIA's estimate is 0.4 percent to 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030. Imports would still supply two-thirds of U.S. oil needs.

America's oil problem isn't insufficient supply, it's voracious consumption. Unless that changes, finding a little more oil would be like putting another Twinkie on a glutton's plate.

Remember 1973, when the Arab oil suppliers cut supply sharply to punish nations that backed Israel in the Yom Kippur war? That was an early warning about the danger of our addiction.

Back then, about 24 percent of the oil our nation used was imported. In 1990, at the start of the first Gulf War, we imported 42 percent. Today, as another war in the Middle East drags on, we import almost 70 percent.

Overall, the United States – with 4 percent of the world's population and 3 percent of its oil reserves – uses nearly a quarter of the world's oil.

Think the price is steep now? Imagine how it will be when people in China and India decide they want to drive cars, too, and world demand for oil grows as predicted by 50 percent between now and 2030.

Agenda for Washington

Rather than squabble over a small amount of untapped oil, what should our nation be doing?

Extend the federal tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. This is a key element in encouraging the development of low-carbon alternatives to oil and coal. The House has approved it. Surely the Senate will soon.

Devise incentives to improve the efficiency of cars and small trucks. Though all of us wish we owned a car that got 35 miles a gallon, America's 250 million automobile fleet won't be replaced overnight. There are ways to convert many of those vehicles so they can use a blend of gasoline and ethanol. Congress should push that.

Electricity is the ideal energy source. It can be produced with a variety of fuels, all available in this country. Our nation should be on a crash course to develop rechargeable batteries that will enable electricity to power our automobiles.

Coal is our nation's most plentiful energy resource, but it contributes heavily to global warming. More research and development are needed so we can use it safely. And we need a carbon cap-and-trade program that will reward companies that cut emissions and encourage others to do so.

In short, there is much America could have been doing, but hasn't.

The problem is no surprise. In reaction to the 1973 embargo, President Nixon launched Project Independence, with this national goal: “in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation moving.”

Why are we even farther from that goal today? Groucho got it right.

Charting N.C.'s transportation future

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:11 EDT

Brad Wilson has seen the future of transportation. It's the Volt.

For a man leading the effort to figure out how North Carolina will meet its future transportation needs, that's sobering news.

Why? A sales tax on motor fuels is the biggest generator of revenue for our state's highway funds. But the fuel efficiency of new vehicles continues to increase, especially hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles. Among them is the eagerly anticipated, battery-powered Volt, which GM hopes to market by late 2010. Its designers envision a car that in a typical American's driving day will use no gas at all.

That means as drivers and automobiles on our highways increase, sales of gasoline won't keep pace, and funding for road building and maintenance will lag. Some state officials look toward 2030 and see a $65 billion gap between transportation needs and revenues.

That gulp-provoking gap is not the only bad news. Our transportation system is overloaded and getting more so, for these reasons:

Population is growing rapidly. By 2030, it's expected to increase from 9 million to 12 million, making this the seventh largest state.

While state revenues for road construction have remained relatively flat, construction costs have soared – up 75 percent from 2002 to 2006.

A recent study found vehicle miles traveled in the state increased by nearly 50 percent between 1990 and 2002 and are expected to go up another 50 percent by 2020.

‘Good Roads State' no more

The result? North Carolina's one-time reputation as the “Good Roads State” is gone. A national study published a year ago put North Carolina:

Fourth among the states in worst congestion on urban interstates.

In the top 10 on rural interstates and rural primary roads in poor condition.

Twelfth highest in percent of deficient bridges (31 percent).

Wilson, a lawyer and chief operating officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, heads the 21st Century Transportation Committee, a 24-member panel appointed by the governor and the legislature to recommend ways to meet our transportation challenges. Area members include Rep. Becky Carney of Mecklenburg County, Sen. David Hoyle of Gaston County and Bank of America executive Charles Bowman of Charlotte.

Some of its recommendations will surely involve major changes in funding – probably starting with a bond issue of more than $1 billion.

But a big bond issue isn't a fix. Nor, Wilson says, would the problem be solved by dealing with the usual political talking points: stop transferring revenues out of the state Highway Trust Fund; reform the state Department of Transportation; root out waste, fraud and abuse in road funding. The problem, he says, is structural: A funding system designed decades ago doesn't meet today's needs, let alone tomorrow's.

The funding gap is a national challenge. Mary Peters, the U.S. secretary of transportation, observed, “We're burning less fuel as energy costs change driving patterns, steer people toward more fuel efficient vehicles and encourage more to use transit,” she said. She thinks new sources of revenue are needed at the federal level, too..

What other states are doing

Several states are considering other variations of the user-pays model.

Oregon is piloting a road user fee, taxing motorists not for the amount of fuel they use but for the number of miles they drive. The Iowa Public Policy Center is road-testing a study of road user charges in five states, including North Carolina.

Florida is building a lot of toll roads. Indiana leased a toll road to a private firm for $3.8 billion. Texas and California are using HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes.

Wilson's committee has established one point beyond doubt: Motor fuel taxes alone won't pay for the roads we need, and haven't for years. It's time for a new approach.

Are politicians wary of being witty?

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:26 EDT

When Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry of Cherryville denounced his Democratic opponent as “Nancy Pelosi's chosen recruit” who had “pockets stuffed with cash from Washington liberals,” he was indulging in a timeless political tradition: the colorful insult.

McHenry was portraying his Democratic opponent, Daniel Johnson, as a political tool of Pelosi, the speaker of the House from San Francisco whom some conservatives hope to turn into a political hobgoblin.

That's not an easy match to make. Johnson, after all, served in the U.S. Navy from 1998 to 2000 and received the Navy Marine Corps Medal – the Navy's highest peacetime award for heroism – for saving a crewmate during an accident on the U.S.S. Blue Ridge. Then for three years, he was a Wake County prosecutor whose cases included drug trafficking, robbery and murder. In 2007, he moved back to his hometown of Hickory to run for the U.S. House.

Still, McHenry is noteworthy as a politician who likes to use lively language. Few politicians these days do. It's up to the paid professional talkers – Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann and the like – to hurl the oratorical rotten tomatoes.

Maybe it's the influence of public relations consultants, or maybe today's politicians are more earnest and fervid than witty, but there's clearly a decline in the use of the well-crafted insult. Consider these examples from livelier days.

Sam Houston, the general who became the first president of the Republic of Texas, described a political opponent as having all the characteristics of a dog except loyalty.

Mackerel by moonlight

Virginian John Randolph said of a rival, “Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks.”

Of William Jennings Bryan, politician David Houston said, “One could drive a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact.”

Alexander Hamilton was harshly insulting to Thomas Jefferson, whose moral character he considered repulsive: “Continually puling about liberty, equality, and the degrading curse of slavery, he brought his own children to the hammer, and made money of his debaucheries.”

Henry Clay was equally harsh with South Carolinian John Calhoun, calling him a “rigid, fanatic, ambitious, selfish partisan, and sectional turncoat with too much genius and too little common sense, who will either die a traitor or a madman.”

The British have always been good at political insults. The 18th-century reformer John Wilkes was in a heated exchange with John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, who shouted, “I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox (venereal disease).”

Wilkes responded, “That sir, depends on whether I embrace your Lordship's principles or your Lordship's mistress.”

Two centuries later Jonathan Aitken had this description for what he considered Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's ignorance of the Middle East: “She probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus.”

Winston Churchill was a master of the craft. He described Prime Minister Clement Atlee as “a sheep in sheep's clothing.”

Shooting at Quayle

Wit does sometimes flare in modern campaigns, as when Adlai Stevenson said Richard Nixon was “the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.”

Among recent politicians, Vice President Dan Quayle was notable for inspiring memorable insults. Ross Perot called him “an empty suit that goes to funerals and plays golf.”

When Quayle declared after the 1992 Republican convention that he'd be “a pit bull” in the campaign, Bill Clinton responded: “That's got every fire hydrant in America worried.”

Are we descending into an age of stupidity?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:16 EDT

It was Forrest Gump's Mama, I think, who observed that "Stupid is as stupid does." It's becoming the motto for our time.

Consider just last week.

First there was the insipid yammering of Sharon Stone, the movie star best known for -- WARNING: THE REST OF THIS SENTENCE HAS AN R RATING -- crossing her legs in the movie "Basic Instinct" in a manner that disclosed the absence of underwear.

In an interview at the Cannes film festival, she offered this comment about the earthquakes in China that killed tens of thousands of people and left millions homeless.

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," she said. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

She also said she has been "concerned about how should we deal with the Olympics, because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine."

You'd have thought she was channeling John Hagee, the televangelist who said Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution, punishing New Orleans for "a level of sin that was offensive to God."

Or maybe Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, who blamed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on "pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People For the American Way."

Christian Dior, the French fashion brand, had hired Stone for its advertising campaigns in 2006, citing a variety of appealing qualities, including "clever and independent."

After her karmic calamity, Dior dropped her from its campaigns in China. Apparently one out of two wouldn't do.

A triumph for idiocy

At least Sharon Stone paid a price for her stupidity. That wasn't the case in the furor over a conservative blogger's claims that perky TV foodster Rachael Ray was promoting terrorism in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial by wearing a scarf called a kaffiyeh that's worn by Arab terrorists.My reply to the blogger would have been buzz off. Anybody who thinks Rachael Ray is promoting terrorism has been munching too many marijuana brownies.

Dunkin' Donut executives, alas, were not so dismissive.

They replied that Ray was wearing "a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design that was purchased at a U.S. retail store. It was selected by the stylist for the advertising shoot."

But they also dropped the commercial.

Amahl Bishara, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago, offered this sensible assessment to the Associated Press: "Kaffiyehs are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East -- by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm."

Dunkin' Donuts' fear, of course, was that the blogger's nonsense would be broadcast by radio, TV and on-line commentators and besmirch the brand.

More, or more noticeable?

It's sad -- but not surprising -- that the company would take seriously a harebrained charge from a clever self-promoter. Corporate image makers know well the experience of Proctor & Gamble. That company has been plagued for decades by a baseless rumor that P&G's president had said its corporate giving program included donations to the church of Satan.

Examples of stupidity abound. Members of Congress, who've failed to meet our nation's energy challenges, blame oil companies for our problems. The numbskullery of preachers becomes a big issue in the presidential campaign.

Is there in fact a stupidity epidemic? Oor does the communications revolution just make it more noticeable?

The late British philosopher Bertrand Russell observed, "The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts."

The result, of course, is the world as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats saw it:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Williams

Bill James knows exactly what he is doing

Sun, 25 May 2008 02:05 EDT

I talked some years ago with Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James about his view of the role of an elected official.

It consists of two parts, he said. One is to work for and vote for actions on issues that are in keeping with your views and your constituents' interests. The other is to seize opportunities to advance your side politically.

It's his way of doing the second part of the job that keeps him in the headlines.

James isn't wrong about that. In our partisan political system, the majority rules. If your party is in the majority, you want it to stay there. If it's not, you want it to be there.

That's the nature of the system. But how you do it matters.

Watch James in action. For him, almost any debate may offer a political opportunity. If the board comes anywhere near a hot-button social issue, he'll jump on it -- especially if it allows him to denigrate the Democrats.

He often states his case in uncommonly inflammatory language. He wants to make it clear that his side is different -- and in his eyes better -- than the other.

Thus he not only opposes county funding of artistic enterprises such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Angels in America." He also asserts that 45 percent of homosexuals eat feces from another male's rear end.

He not only highlights the problems of inner-city blacks. He says they live in a "moral sewer."

He not only wants tough action against illegal immigrants, he sees them as criminals like "prostitutes and drug dealers."

James holds safe seat

James isn't one to form coalitions to work on tough problems. His forte is the intemperate denunciation that focuses attention on him and his political stance.So far his approach hasn't caused him problems in his district. He is a Republican incumbent in a county commissioner district that always elects a Republican. He's unlikely to lose his seat unless he faces a strong challenger who's also a Republican.

But many of the people he works with in politics -- including fellow Republicans -- find some of his comments offensive.

His Republican colleague Dan Ramirez, an immigrant from Colombia, objected Tuesday night to James' "denigrating statements" about illegal immigrants.

Ramirez made it clear he wasn't excusing illegal immigration, but said James' choice of words offended the Ramirez family and an entire segment of our community. He said James should apologize.

That wasn't the first time James' intemperate language provoked sharp reactions.

His "moral sewer" statement spurred a response from County Manager Harry Jones, a man of patience and personal reserve. Jones said the comments "smack of racism in the highest form."

Twenty current and former Republican officials agreed. In a statement, they said they "fully and completely censure" James for comments they said were "inflammatory, demeaning and inconsistent with our efforts to uplift all citizens." Among the signers were Mayor Pat McCrory and former mayors Richard Vinroot and Ken Harris.

Even conservative talk show host Sean Hannity rebuked him.

When James was interviewed on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," Hannity said, "There is a way as a leader in your community to discuss serious social issues, and there is a way that is callous, harsh, unfair and insensitive, and you've chosen the latter."

James later apologized for not choosing his words carefully.

How to tackle tough issues

After the criticism of James at Tuesday night's county board meeting, Republican commissioner Dan Bishop offered a limited defense.

Bishop said elected officials must take on some issues that are controversial and potentially divisive. "We need to be kind to one another," he said, but officials mustn't shy away from significant but touchy issues.

Kindness doesn't seem high on James' priority list, however.

"In Charlotte," James once explained, "our tendency toward polite civility extends to the point where it is damaging our community's health."

Maybe so. But also damaging to our community's health are politicians who can't -- or won't -- debate difficult issues without demeaning their adversaries.

Bill James is one of those politicians. To say he's harsh, insulting and divisive doesn't faze him. He knows what he's doing.

Williams

Remember who got your vote in judicial races?

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:04 EDT

These names were on the Mecklenburg ballot Tuesday in nonpartisan races for judgeships:

James A. (Jim) Wynn

Sam J. Ervin IV

William R. Soukup

Charlotte Brown-Williams

Thomas F. Moore Jr.

See if you can match the names to these descriptions:

1. A judge for 17 years who's also a captain in the U.S. Navy reserves and a military trial judge.

2. A graduate of Davidson College and Harvard law school who's on the N.C. Utilities Commission.

3. The former general counsel of Livingstone College who's also an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church pastor.

4. A veteran public defender whose supporters include not only defense attorneys but also members of what might be considered the enemy camp -- two of Mecklenburg County's top veteran prosecutors.

5. A judge who's a former district attorney, police officer and school teacher.

The answers are at the end of this column.

Voting in the dark

My point is this: These are the easiest questions I could ask you about judicial candidates, for the descriptions cite memorable aspects of their backgrounds.If I asked about the more commonplace aspects of their careers -- the years of thoughtful and successful practice that help prepare a lawyer to be a good judge -- you'd have little or no way to know or evaluate them.

More information is available about Paris Hilton's latest boyfriend than about candidates for judgeships. Yet judges are among our state's most powerful officials. They decide issues involving who gets custody of children, how money is divided in divorce settlements, whether a person goes to prison and who wins all sorts of business disputes.

In 1996, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by then-Chief Justice Jim Exum looked at our state's court system and recommended, among other things, that judges should be appointed, not elected.

Why? Unlike political races, there are rarely "issues'' in judicial races. All judges must follow the law. The legislature defines the crime and sets the punishment. A prosecutor decides whom to try and on what charges. A judge makes sure the proceedings are fair and lawful.

The differences between judicial candidates involve personal philosophy, temperament, experience and legal ability. Few voters have any idea how the candidates compare on those qualities.

Maybe that's why on Tuesday 25 percent of those who voted in the parties' gubernatorial races didn't vote in the judicial races.

Voters don't know much

In support of appointing judges, the blue-ribbon panel cited findings from a survey of N.C. voters taken after the 1994 election, including these:

• Of the 60 percent who said they voted in 1994, only half recalled voting for judges, and three-fourths of those couldn't name a single judge on the ballot.

• Asked about their general impressions of the state's courts, 30 percent said they didn't know enough to have an opinion.

The commission recommended replacing the election of judges with an appointive system that also would empower voters to remove a judge they disliked.

Here's how it would work. When a judgeship comes open, lawyers apply for it. A panel of lawyers and non-lawyers interviews the applicants, examines their qualifications, then recommends three for the job. The governor appoints one of them.

Voters wouldn't pick the judges, but they'd soon decide whether that judge stayed in the job. Every new judge would be on the ballot, unopposed, in the first general election more than a year after the appointment.

Voters would be asked a yes-or-no question: "Do you want to retain Judge ----- on the bench?''

If a majority voted "yes," the judge would stay on the bench for a fixed term -- the panel recommends eight years -- and then go before the voters again. If a majority voted "no," a new judge would be appointed.

This appointive system wouldn't take the politics out of selecting judges. But it would make the governor and a panel of citizens accountable for the quality of judges. And it would empower voters to oust judges they disapprove of. I think it would be an improvement over the present judicial selection crapshoot.

Answers to the candidate quiz: 1. Wynn. 2. Ervin. 3. Brown-Williams. 4. Soukup. 5. Moore.

Williams

Don't try to make Wright '08's Willie Horton

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:09 EDT

Jeremiah Wright is not the Willie Horton of 2008.

Remember Horton? He's the murderer who in 1986 was released from a Massachusetts prison on a weekend pass and fled to Maryland, where he committed brutal assaults and rapes.

Earlier Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis had vetoed legislation to eliminate furloughs for first-degree murderers. When Dukakis ran for president in 1988, ads used the Horton case to portray him as soft on crime.

Wright was thrust into the spotlight when controversial excerpts from a few of his sermons were widely broadcast because he was Obama's pastor and spiritual adviser at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

There's a big difference between Horton and Wright. Horton was free because of Dukakis' action, so the case raised questions about Dukakis' judgment. But Wright's statements were not written or authorized by Obama. When asked, Obama said he disagreed with them. That should be the end of it.

What did Wright say? This is from a 2003 sermon:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes three-strike laws and wants them to sing God Bless America. No! No No!

"God damn America for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating citizens as less than humans. God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme."

He also said, "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color."

Three questions about the resulting uproar occur to me.

1. If Obama disagrees with his minister, why is he in that church?

I'll speak from my own experience. The relationship between a church member, a church and a pastor is complex. Membership doesn't require agreement with everything the pastor says.

Look at Catholics. Priests warn that use of artificial birth control is a sin, but polls show more than 75 percent of U.S. Catholics say it should be permitted. They embrace their church while disagreeing with some of its leaders' teachings.

Why doesn't Obama leave the church? Maybe he's like me, and perhaps like you. My church is my religious family, my community of faith. I support its missions. A few differences of opinion with the preacher wouldn't drive me away.

2. What was Wright saying?

Though Wright seems to me a bit too eager to provoke, his "God damn America" exhortations fit within the prophetic tradition.

"Damn" sounds harsh, but I looked it up in a couple of dictionaries. Here are some definitions: "to condemn as harmful, illegal, or immoral;" "to pronounce an adverse judgment upon;" "to condemn as a failure."

Look at how Wright framed his statements: He says when a nation kills innocent people, treats people as less than human and acts as though it were God, it deserves to be condemned.

I love America. But it's a large and powerful entity run by people who sometimes make choices or take actions that Christians should condemn -- though I expect Wright and I might disagree on which ones.

3. What about Wright's suggestion that the government is giving blacks drugs and AIDS?

That strikes me as pandering to racial conspiracy theorists -- similar to the nonsense spouted by white supremacists.

But concern that the government might use blacks as laboratory animals isn't baseless.

For four decades beginning in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. Most of them were illiterate sharecroppers from one of Alabama's poorest counties. They were told they were receiving free medical treatment for "bad blood." In fact, they weren't being treated, but observed.

Even when penicillin, the first real cure for syphilis, was discovered in the 1940s, they weren't treated with it. Some of them died of syphilis and related causes. Many transmitted the disease to their wives. Several children were born with syphilis.

The U.S. surgeon general knew of the experiment. It ended after a newspaper reporter found out about it and told the public.

1997, Bill Clinton apologized to the survivors. The government "did something that was wrong -- deeply, profoundly, morally wrong," the president said. "It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens ... and I am sorry."

That's not myth. It's history.

Williams