Life begins at conception, and so do rights

The National Rifle Association and the National Republican Campaign Committee announced today a new initiative for the 2020 elections and beyond. In a move that consolidates two major Republican campaign themes — guns and abortions — the initiative proposes arming fetuses, or, as Republican literature prefers to call them, "preborn voters."

This proposal dovetails with the stand of some anti-abortion activists who have sought to declare "personhood" as beginning at the moment of conception; therefore, preborn voters have, from the moment of conception, all of the constitutional rights of post-born voters, including the right to bear arms.

NRA researchers are working on miniaturizing AR-15 assault rifles so that they can be inserted into the womb. After such an implant, the preborn voter would be able to defend himself/herself against an abortion doctor, just as post-born voters can defend themselves from burglars, rapists and IRS agents.

"We see this as a combining of two great cultural movements," said a spokesman for the NRA's Guns for the Preborn Committee, who asked not to be named.

More than millions marching will be needed

A skeptic though I am, I was impressed by the numbers of marchers and the number of marches by (mostly) young people Saturday to protest school shootings and advocate for stricter gun laws. Washington, D.C., was the primary focus of the marchers, but demonstrations were held all around the country and in foreign countries as well. Collectively, it was quite impressive.

I hope the protesters were not naive enough to think that their demonstrations will bring about immediate change in the form of federal restrictions on gun purchases, types of combat-style weapons that can be sold to the general public, and various efforts to make schools safe from deranged killers.

Although the numbers on the streets Saturday were impressive, soles on the pavement rarely sway those who hold the reins of power in Washington, or in state capitals. To succeed in their goals, these youthful protesters — some of them survivors of school shootings — will have to take actions that will directly influence votes on the Senate and House floors. That means putting political careers on the block by voting out those who oppose "sensible gun laws." Or it will mean buying their own members of Congress, as the National Rifle Association has done for years. The second alternative will be more difficult because of the deep pockets of the gun lobby.

To their credit, some demonstrators carried signs reading "Vote Them Out." That slogan epitomizes the real key to effecting change in Washington. Changing the minds or removing from office a majority of 535 members of the House and the Senate is no easy task. It will require organizing in all 50 states and in all 435 House districts. It will also require finding and supporting qualified and appealing alternative candidates to run against incumbents who can't be swayed.

The road to success will be treacherous. I heard a Fox News commentator claim that the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are "pawns" of a powerful, secret, unnamed organization that is financing and using the naive student protesters. Some Americans will believe that.

The path the change in Washington runs through the ballot box in thousands of precincts across the country. It will take millions of dollars and years of effort to shift Congress' perspective on gun regulations.

To gun loyalists who claim that cars kill more Americans than guns every year "so why not ban cars?" I remind them of some essential flaws in their analogy:
     ° Motor vehicle deaths are almost never deliberate acts. People are killed by cars in accidents, not preplanned, malicious acts.
     ° In order to operate a motor vehicle, you must have an operator's license issued by the state, certifying that you are competent to operate the vehicle and are responsible for any damage caused by your driving of the vehicle.
      ° All vehicles must be registered with the state and must meet federal regulations to ensure the vehicles are safe and cannot be easily stolen. Visible tags must be displayed so the vehicle can be easily identifiable and traced back to the owner. Unsafe vehicles can be removed from road.
      ° States require that vehicle owners have liability insurance on the vehicle that will cover the costs of any personal injury or property damage caused by the vehicle.

I suspect that Saturday's marchers would be happy if the state and federal governments would use automobile registration and regulation as a template for improving gun safety and eliminating school shootings. As for the gun lobby's canard opposing gun registration because it will lead to "confiscation," there is no proposal to "confiscate all guns." Gun ownership is not in danger. The Second Amendment as well as the Fourth would prohibit any confiscation proposal.

Why would you expect lower taxes?

For years, I looked forward to the day when filing an income tax return would be simpler and less painful, but this year's struggle with my 2017 tax return has shown me that nothing associated with taxation ever gets simpler.

I had anticipated having a lower tax bill in 2017. After all, I worked for only half the year. My small pension and Social Security income were unchanged, so I should be paying less in taxes, right?

Not really. Even after a serious drop in income, we still had to pay more than $800 to the IRS. At least that was down from the more than $1,000 I had to pay last year. What really surprised me and galled me was the estimated tax I am having to pay this year. I fell into the estimated tax trap three years ago, when I began receiving Social Security income (on top of the small pension I took the year before). Although I had taxes deducted from my SS payments (and the pension), that extra income threw me into a higher tax bracket. The IRS requires individual taxpayers to pay estimated taxes if they owe more than $1,000 at the end of the year. If you fail to pay estimated taxes, the IRS will not only collect the extra taxes you failed to pay but will impose a penalty for underpayment. For 2018, I will have to pay an additional $200 per quarter in estimated taxes, even though I will not be receiving wages for the entire year.

My wife (we file jointly and always have) is still working, but my only income this year will be the pension and SS. The only positive is that we should receive a huge refund on 2018 taxes, assuming no major changes, for the first time in decades. My wife tried to calm me down by pointing out that we no longer have dependent children to claim, we have no mortgage interest (paid off), no child care credits or other deductions except for charitable donations.

The big unknown in all of this is the impact of the December 2017 changes in the tax law. That's the law that was supposed to give all middle-income taxpayers lower taxes. I'm not sure we'll benefit from this. Our tax rate will be about what it was before, according to an online chart I found. The big change is that the standard deduction will rise to $24,000 for joint filers. Although we give a lot of money to charities, we don't quite exceed $24,000, so the tedious work to retain donation records and record each donation in the tax return (I use Turbo Tax) will be eliminated; itemizing deductions will not be advantageous.

I was not counting on a big tax break for 2018, but I certainly wasn't anticipating a big increase in estimated taxes (I had hoped estimated taxes would be eliminated because of our lower combined income). Last year's tax proposal was originally touted as a tax simplification bill. 

Nothing about taxation is simple.

A Blessing to Four Generations

A huge part of this family's history is up for sale. I was asked to write a short history of the house, as recommended by the Realtor, who said buyers may want to get an understanding of the home's emotional ties. My brief, one-page history is below.

The Lake House:  a blessing to four generations

            Four generations of this family owe a great debt to M.P. “Pat” Witherington, a World War II Navy officer and then a CPA in Statesville, who selected a waterfront lot off Morrison Farm Road in 1964 before Lake Norman was filled. He stood at the edge of the unpaved and unnamed road and knew it was the perfect spot with one of the finest views of any place on the north end of the new lake. Pat, who grew up near waterways in eastern North Carolina, chose a lot at the end of a protected cove with a miles-long view of the lake. At first, his family of his wife, Harriett, and four children enjoyed the water and the view on weekend adventures involving tents, a picnic table and lots of relatives and friends. Pat and Harriett loved it so much, they decided to sell their home in Statesville and build a new home at the lake.

            The house was completed in 1967, and the family moved to the lake permanently. Each teenager had her own bedroom, and all the children grew up on the water, boating, swimming, water skiing and watching new homes appear as lake living grew more popular. Sometimes, Pat would get home from a long day at the office and immediately take a quick swim off the dock.

            In 1972, by-then-widowed Pat remarried, and he moved to his new bride’s home in Statesville. For the now mostly grown children, The Lake House, as it had come to be known, would always be home. Pat kept the Lake House as a gathering spot for his children, their spouses and their children and grandchildren. Second generation families spent their vacations and special weekends at The Lake House. Each new generation fell in love with the house and the water and the heritage and history the house represented.

            The extended family continued to gather at The Lake House over the decades for Thanksgiving, Christmas, graduation celebrations, weddings, childbirths and other special occasions. The original siblings, scattered by careers, would all gather at the lake with their children, which forced some crowded sleeping arrangements but resulted in immutable memories. The third-generation cousins would form a Cousins Club and conspire to play tricks on their parents or produce talent shows for them, and those precious moments would return two decades later, when the fourth-generation children formed the same group dynamics during vacations at The Lake House.

            Each generation has found solace at The Lake House. During times of discord or crisis, they could escape to the lake to sit on the porch and look out across the water. Whether the lake sparkled with sunlight or roiled with an approaching rainstorm inching its way toward the cove, the second-floor porch was the spot to see nature’s beauty and to feel all tensions and worries drain away. If the weather was too cold for porch sitting, the living room fireplace could provide nearly as effective emotional healing.

            When Pat died in 2010, he left The Lake House to his children, who cherished it as the greatest bequest they could ever receive, and they and their children and grandchildren continued to enjoy the lake. Sadly, the expense of maintaining the house and the distance from their primary homes made keeping the house indefinitely an impossible dream. The calming, relaxing, ideal spot will have to bless another family.

Marching for something, getting nothing

Students walked out of classes yesterday, one month after 17 people were massacred at a Florida high school. Students, many of whom had the support of school administrators, were protesting the lack of progress on school safety and gun control legislation and vowing to never again allow crazed gunmen to kill innocent students in school buildings.

Hundreds of thousands of students protested Wednesday, and many expressed optimism that their vocal support for restrictions on gun sales and their massive numbers of protests would turn the tide in favor of greater security against massacres at the hands of demented young men. With perhaps millions of determined young people — voters — lined up in favor of change, how could they not succeed?

Wednesday's nationwide protests merely convince me more than ever that lining up thousands upon thousands of people to march in protest in hundreds of cities and towns across the country is not a successful strategy for change. If it were, previous marches and protests after earlier mass shootings would have succeeded. Thousands marched and protested after innocent children were killed. Sobbing parents described their losses. The inconceivable grief of burying one's children shined in the eyes of American voters and elected officials, who had to be moved by the survivors' anguish. But nothing was changed.

Donald Trump's inauguration protesters filled the National Mall, perhaps the largest demonstration in U.S. history. The marchers were determined, filled with zeal, determined to counter the Trump presidency. Fourteen months after the march, Trump is still president, still doing what he does, and his supporters appear more pleased than ever with their choice of president.

Women around the world have marched in protest of the lewd behavior, sexual harassment and sexual extortion by men in entertainment and politics. These marches have raised some awareness, but it's doubtful that misbehaving boys will suddenly be embarrassed into behaving themselves and respecting women they encounter.

When I was younger and less jaded about the way things work, I participated in a couple of protest marches over the Vietnam War, the celebrated cause of that day. Those protests appear successful; Lyndon Johnson declined to run for another term, and casualties began to decline. But what really ended the Vietnam War protests was Richard Nixon, a man as shrewd as he was dishonest. He realized he could defuse the protests by first limiting the military draft through a lottery system that reduced the uncertainty and motivation of protesters with high draft numbers. He completed his strategy by eliminating the draft altogether, and the protests quieted.

But the civil rights marches of the 1950s and '60s worked, didn't they? Yes, they did, but their success was not so much the result of the protesters' moral, ethical and humanitarian arguments against segregation. What shifted public opinion was not so much the cogent, eloquent arguments of Martin Luther King Jr. and others. It was not the protesters but the violence launched against the protesters that changed America's mind. The cruelty of the police dogs, billy clubs, fire hoses, tear gas, gunshots and firebombs — all played out on the nightly television news — shifted public opinion. Even then, the change took decades to take hold.

Protest as you please. It's your constitutional right, but don't expect speedy change unless you partner street protests with direct appeals to elected officials, voter turnout in elections, fundraising for like-minded candidates, advocacy for change in the system that makes political office holders pay more attention to big corporations than to their own constituents.

The Founding Fathers did not protest in the streets and expect miraculous changes. They organized meetings and developed new systems of government with guarantees against the abuses they saw in the status quo. The sold their concept to the public in all 13 colonies, and then there was change!

An epic career and a muted voice

Rest in peace, Woody Durham.

The "Voice of the Tar Heels" died today at his home from a rare disease, Primary Progressive Aphasia, after a 40-year career of calling UNC football and basketball games. To many thousands of UNC fans, Woody's voice was as recognizable as their own mother's. We would mute the television and listen to Woody's distinct, well-informed, detailed, professional, entertaining and mostly objective broadcasts of the games. You knew where his feelings lay, but he was too much of a professional to play cheerleader.

His death came nearly seven years after he pulled the plug on his microphone when, he said, he realized that his commentary was not as sharp and cogent as it used to be. In a terrible irony, the Voice of the Tar Heels was losing his voice and losing his ability to string together words. He chose to leave the broadcast booth while his mind and his vocal chords were still in reasonable shape.

I had heard Woody's sportscasts before he became the game announcer for UNC sports. I had seen his work on WFMY-TV in Greensboro, so when his voice moved to Tar Heel Sports Network games, it was warm and familiar. I had been a fan of his predecessor, Bill Currie, the "Mouth of the South." Currie was in many ways the opposite of Woody. Listeners (and broadcast executives) never knew what Currie might say or how he might say it, but he was funny, even if tasteless at times. In the heat of a game, he'd get so excited and tongue-tied that his commentary fell well behind the action on the field or the court. Woody brought professionalism and hard work to the UNC broadcasts, and fans soon forgot Currie's antics in favor of Woody's thorough preparation and exacting details.

Today, I can hear Woody's voice occasionally on the broadcasts anchored by his son, Wes, who looks and sounds much like his dad. We hear Wes, and our hearts throb at the sound ("It's Woody") on Raycom and Fox Sports broadcasts. Like aging relatives who disappear into nursing homes, alive only in a medical sense of the word, Woody disappeared years ago, when his voice failed and his memory faded. In this, he was like Coach Smith, who left the greatness of his life long before his heart stopped beating.

Every UNC fan envied Woody, the man who got to attend and to discuss 1,800 UNC football and basketball games. He knew all the coaches, beginning with the immortal Dean Smith, and all the great players over the decades. He interviewed them and watched them develop and became friends with many of them. Woody was the ultimate fan, the one who attended every game, pronounced every player's name correctly, knew all the statistics, and could tell listeners, in times of tumult, to "go where you go and do what you do" to pull the Tar Heels to victory.