16 JAN 05: JACKSON ACTION

Let's add up the score from a week of marching in Columbus: Jesse Jackson's group at least 3,000, David Glisson's group 150. Would the Glisson family please go ahead and write the check for damages?

Civil rights groups estimated "hundreds" of people might join Jesse Jackson's march from the Civic Center to the Government Center Saturday. Instead, TV reports put the crowd downtown at between 3,000 and 10,000. Now we're waiting to learn how many marchers Roy Bourgeois recruited from colleges up north.

The route of the "March for Justice" went through the Historic District - which was so fitting, since that area has more law offices per block than about anyplace in Columbus....

People came from as far away as California to join in the March for Justice. Maybe we should learn from some of the visitors - and rename the area around Cusseta Road "South Central Columbus."

Several speeches were given once the march reached the Government Center. Pastor Wayne Baker declared the fight for justice for Kenneth Walker "begins today, January 15, 2005...." Is that an admission that everything he did last year didn't amount to anything?

Antonio Carter of the National Action Network made an emotional plea to law officers: "Stop killing our black people!" Some law officers might respond that "going for the ankles" didn't work for St. Louis Saturday night against the Falcons....

But Jesse Jackson of Rainbow/PUSH was the main event at the Government Center. He warned Columbus in for a "15-round fight" in the Kenneth Walker case. But if a grand jury knocked out the case without an indictment, do we need a judge's decision?

WRBL found several white people in the crowd at the Government Center. I can't help wondering if some of those people got caught in the traffic, because they left pee-wee hockey games at the Civic Center too late in the morning....

(By comparison, I didn't see any African-American people marching in the "Friends of David Glisson" protest last Tuesday. aybe that next promised march needs to take place on a weekend - and go past Chester's Barbecue downtown, to entice a more diverse crowd.)

WRBL also noticed more than 100 police officers kept things secure at the March for Justice -- none of them Sheriff's officers. Police explained they didn't want to incite anything in the crowd. Sadly, I heard one person quietly hope the Ku Klux Klan might do that instead.

The big March for Justice made Saturday's Martin Luther King, Jr. "Unity Parade" downtown almost an afterthought. If you didn't know better, you'd think the parade had been organized by a group of Stepford Wives....

One African-American man along the parade route said Dr. King's dream was becoming reality. "You see white children and black children playing together," he claimed. Maybe they're not having target practice together outside Fort Benning, but otherwise....

Another front in the racial three-ring circus opened Saturday in the Ledger-Enquirer. Columnist Kaffie Sledge took on WRCG radio's "TalkLine," saying some of the callers are "stumbling blocks.... toward One Columbus...." Well, I think they DO want One Columbus - but they want all the African-American people to move to Tuskegee.

Kaffie Sledge went on to chastise TalkLine host Robbie Watson for chuckling as she said Rodney King's famous words: "Can we all get along?" To read Sledge's columns, I sometimes wonder if she chuckles at her own newspaper's comic strips.

So where was I as all the marching went on downtown? I went to church, as I do most every Saturday afternoon - to worship Someone who made all racial groups, and inspired someone to write if people love His law, "nothing shall offend them." Perhaps some people need to review their (ahem) law books....

An African-American man at church hurried to put things away after the closing prayer - so I asked half-jokingly if he was rushing to get to the civil rights march.

"I don't want anything to do with Jesse Jackson," he replied. "He covered up an affair.... and he consulted Bill Clinton on what to do about his affair, when he was doing the same thing himself! He only confessed it because he got caught! So I don't want to hear anything about Jesse Jackson." By the way, our sermon was NOT about forgiveness.

Later at dinner, a white man told me about a Jesse Jackson visit to Americus last year. "He stood on a street corner for a couple of minutes," the man recalled about a protest outside Sumter Regional Hospital. "Then he left.... I heard they couldn't afford to pay him any more than that." That explains what the Urban League President mentioned the other day - it's an appearance fee.

Let's ring the bell to end this round of Jesse Jackson's fight, and note other events from the weekend:

+ Auburn University held a "Parade of Champions" for the football team -- and WXTX "News at Ten" reported hundreds of fans showed up. Maybe if they had called it a "March for Ranking Justice," the crowd would have been bigger.

+ A West Point woman was arrested on charges of shooting circles of bullet holes in store windows in Lanett and Valley. Maybe it's time the Callaway Gardens Gun Club lowered its membership fees.

+ Which Warm Springs church is fighting an unusual problem - with bats living in its walls? Are visitors confusing their noises with a move of the Holy Spirit?

+ Instant Message to the Mandarin House restaurant on Airport Thruway: I enjoyed the meal you served me recently. But when your menu doesn't mention any Ledger-Enquirer awards later than 1990, it may be time for a change -- or at least a new printer.

CLASSIC BLOG: My next-door neighbor Lola was laid to rest Saturday in Society Hill, Alabama. We continue to reflect on our years living side-by-side, with this entry from 4 May 04:

"Today is the first day Alabamians can enroll for the Medicare prescription drug benefit...." said the Troy Public Radio newscaster Monday afternoon. Hmmmm - Troy Public Radio. TPR for short. Tipper! Yup, they're as liberal as Mrs. Gore.

But anyway: I turned up the car radio at the mention of the Medicare story, because my next-door neighbor was riding with me. She's well above age 70, so she'd certainly want to hear this. After all, our last stop was the Kmart pharmacy - where they don't tend to have "Blue-light specials" on blood pressure medicine.

"I wonder where folks in Georgia can apply for that thing," my next-door neighbor asked.

"The phone number he mentioned should work nationwide: 1-800-MEDICARE...."

"How do you spell Medicare?" she asked. I was so stumped by this question that she had to repeat it for me. But come to think of it, I don't recall ever seeing "Medicare" in my English and spelling textbooks.

By this time, we'd parked the car outside the Piggly Wiggly store on Buena Vista Road. So I used that moment to clarify what my neighbor was saying. "You don't know about Medicare....?!"

"No, sir. I've never had that."

My jaw dropped at the woman's statement, as yours may be dropping now. It was all I could do to keep it from becoming a second parking brake.

"I'd like to have it," my neighbor said about Medicare as she climbed out of the car. "It sounds nice, and I could use all the help I can get." Considering she had walked the wrong direction from my car leaving her last stop, I understood this statement in several ways.

As I write this, I'm still stunned by what my neighbor said. All these years, she's gone WITHOUT any sort of Medicare?! Was she at jobs with health care plans THAT generous?

This is a woman who relies on Social Security checks and occasional lottery wins to pay her monthly bills, and uses a PeachCare card to buy some groceries. How could she know nothing about Medicare benefits? I thought the only people in that position were billionaires like Warren Buffett and Leona Helmsley.

My neighbor apparently never noticed all the TV commercials in recent weeks, promoting the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has run ads about it - which makes you wonder how many drug companies REALLY paid for the time.

It simply shocks me that someone up in years and low in income never has used Medicare, and seemingly never has heard of it. My neighbor has the TV news on almost every morning - but apparently for decades, she's only done that for the time in the corner of the screen.

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