Latest / The Wes Carroll Morning Show / Governor Kemp Among Those Attending Rep. Smith's Funeral

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Governor Kemp Among Those Attending Rep. Smith's Funeral · The Wes Carroll Morning Show

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Start your day with Wes. You're listening to the West Carrol Morning Show Monday
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morning, fifth day of February. I'm West Thanks for joining me as we
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are hosting a number of folks to the area here in Columbus, home base
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for the show. I know you may be listening elsewhere. Many of you
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listening elsewhere, I know at one time passed through the area or you know,
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once lived here, spend some time here, possibly at the fort formerly
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known as Benning. Some of those folks still listen. I know some of
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you scattered throughout the southeast and some really around the world, and I appreciate
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all of you that you know still keep up with what's going on in the
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area. I know this is a mix of when we have local stories like
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a big one like the one for today, and that is, of course,
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the funeral for state Representative Richard Smith, who will be laid to rest
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today, funeral at eleven o'clock. Now, this is one of those things
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I don't do a lot of timely stuff as far as you know, oh
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we got breaking news, or oh here's the weather, those kinds of things.
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I've done extra content before. I've done interviews that were you know sort
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of add ons to the daily show that I do. I remember interviewing Governor
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Kemp sort of outside the purview of the Morning show, but as part of
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the Morning Show. But and speaking of which, Governor Kemp will be here
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for the funeral today, so there will be a little extra congestion in parts
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of Columbus that will be because of the funeral. There will be a lot
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of folks there. They are doing a streaming service I guess, on YouTube
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for the funeral for folks that want to be part of it but not necessarily
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able to fit. There's not a lot a room there. And because the
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governor, the Lieutenant governor, and the Georgia State Speaker will all be there
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so among others. And this is one of those things where you just it's
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it's unfortunate that I feel like we're getting to a point where and I don't
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know, maybe we got time to turn this around, but we just have.
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We're at this point now where we take politicians that are on the other
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side and just absolutely demonize them when they're living, and then at some point
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they pass and then folks are comfortable saying good things about him. I don't
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know that you know, Richard Smith was someone who had a lot of people
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demonizing him. I don't I don't know that I'd ever witnessed that or I'd
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ever seen it, but it is refreshing when we get to a point where
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someone passes and and and people on both sides of the aisle are speaking very
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highly of him, and and that's nice, and it does feel like that's
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kind of what it takes. Sometimes. We went through this with John McCain.
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John McCain was running for president, and you know, he was the
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devil to Democrats. He was the devil to a lot of Republicans who saw
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him as a rhino, saw him as, you know, someone who was
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not conservative enough. And then he passed, and then suddenly, you know,
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the dynamic changed of all of it. And people that I know that
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are lifelong staunch Democrats were so, oh, he should have given him a
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chance. You guys didn't do enough for him. And it's say you could
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have voted for him, you didn't vote for him, you voted for the
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other guy. So anyway, I just I hope that you know, there's
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these moments where we have life and death playing out, and we realized that
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we had an opportunity to be civil to one another when they were alive.
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And like I said, I don't I don't think of Richard Smith as being
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one of those people. I don't see his life is being one of those
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lives that was impacted in that way. But it's nice to hear so many
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positive things being said about him. And I know there will be folks on
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both sides attending the funeral today, So just prepare yourself around lunchtime if you're
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in the Columbus area and you're hearing this before lunch, or if you're hearing
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this after and you go, I don't know why things were so congested,
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Well that was why. So that and we know that the state of the
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country right now, and this is transitioning over to a couple of things I
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want to talk about today, but this the state of the world and our
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place in it as we tensions in the Middle East are getting real all over
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again, and we're just we're at a pivotal time, a very decisive year.
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And I know I often talk on the show about the fact that we
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go through this period of the hyperbole of every election. This is the most
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important and critical election in history, and we hear that a lot. We
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heard that during the midterms. We heard that in twenty twenty. We hear
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it over and over again. We're going to hear it a lot this year,
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largely from the left, because they're terrified of another Trump presidency, and
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they're going to tell their voters and anyone in the middle that's undecided that democracy
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is at stake in the very fate of the world hangs in the balance,
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and if Donald Trump becomes president, he will be a dictator. All the
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things that they said about him last time, by the way, that they
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said he would never leave the White House, that he would stay there no
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matter what. There was talk about how he was going to declare a state
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of emergency civil unrest, and he was going to dig in and never leave
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the White House and proclaim himself King of America and all these sorts of things
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that didn't happen. I do know people who speculated that that was going to
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happen with President Obama as well. That was I know people who said it.
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I don't know, I mean, not exactly people with credibility the ones
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I'm thinking of anyway, but they sort of expected that to be the case.
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I guess I mean, I don't know. I don't know based on
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what for either of those other than the fact that it's this need to try
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to scare people into running into the ballots or the voting boosts and casting their
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ballots. That's what they need. They need to freak you out, they
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need to panic you. That's what they think, because that's what's going to
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motivate you. It's not enough to have a good candidate. It's not enough
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because in some cases you just don't. Barack Obama was a good candid it
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on paper, he was not, but he was a good candidate for what
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they needed. And then Trump came along, and again, uh, he
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was a he was a good candidate, not on paper, but he had
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that something. Hillary Clinton was not a good candidate on paper. She kind
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of was kind of not not really, you know. She she had done
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some things on her resume that that built her up a little bit. Barack
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Obama and uh, and Donald Trump not so much. Not in a political
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uh platform, they didn't have that. Joe Biden, you know, I
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guess, I mean before the first time, he was a he was a
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good, great candidate on paper, he'd done his time. He was the
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he was the John McCain for Democrats, right, like like really for democrats,
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not like the rhino, not the not the rhino WWE style pull off
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the mask. And I was secretly Democrat the whole time. John McCain,
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he's the legit, you know, hardcore long term Democrat. That's just he's
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done his time. He's got that on paper. And you know, maybe
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you make the case early on in this process four years ago, maybe he
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was a good candidate also because people just liked him. They just had something
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about him that they liked and they wanted to vote for him, and they
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also just hated Trump. So there it was. And of course he ran
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the shadow campaign, stayed below the radar, stayed out of the public eye,
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tried not to embarrass himself and other people. And you know, ultimately
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we see what's happened over the last four years in this presidency with this president.
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We don't really know who's running things. I really don't know. I
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don't know many people who think that he is really the person that's making the
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decisions. He's not holding the strings, and I don't know many people who
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think that he is. So once again, we've got a good candidate now
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he's a candidate in Trump, I mean, who actually has the resume,
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and he's the person that could, hopefully as president again, get us back
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on track economically, get the world back under some sort of control, try
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to get things in a better place. I mean all of those things.
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You know, we would hope that there's a possibility at least for that to
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happen, but we have to get through these next several months. And I
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talked a little bit about the jobs situation, and we're hearing so many great
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things about job job growth is amazing, and we're hearing here in Georgia about
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a number of companies that are cutting people. And that's starting to be the
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message of early twenty twenty four, is that companies just can't sustain their workforce
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that they have in place. They're having to make adjustments, and that includes
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cuts. They're asking people to come back into work. In many cases,
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they want them back in the office. They don't apparently trust them if they're
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not visibly sitting there and being able to walk behind them and pace behind them,
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or stand there with their white collar on their blue shirt and say,
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eh, and I needed to come in on Sunday, Like they feel like
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they have to do that. I was at an event over the weekend.
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I'll get to that in a second, but I was at an event over
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the weekend and talking with some people, and I overheard I wasn't really part
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of the conversation, but I overheard some people talking about why it's important that
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people get back in the office and get back to work, and how people
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just aren't doing their job if they're not actually in the office, and I
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don't think that's fair. I do think that there are certainly instances where that's
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true some people, if they're not supervised or not going to get the job
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done, or maybe they're going to do just enough to get the job done,
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and they're not going to do extra things that maybe they would have done
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if they were in the office in the workplace, And I think that's I'm
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sure true in many cases. But I do think that there are a number
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of people that are doing just fine working on their own, working out of
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their home or working out of a satellite office or whatever the situation is,
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and able to navigate the challenges of that. Because if you've been doing it
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now for almost four years, if your job pushed you away and pushed you
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into a home office or some cases a home studio, and you start doing
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the job that way. You learn to do the job that way. One
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of the challenges that comes along is that managers also have to learn how to
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manage that way. See, employees in many cases can sit down and say
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I have ten things that I have to do today, and they do the
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ten things, they check them off, and then they're done for the day.
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Managers, if they're supervising those people, they can maybe see that the
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jobs are getting done over the course of the day. But they not all
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managers, I guess, adapted, just like not all employees adapted. But
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there's a lot of managers that they start to feel insecure and they say,
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well, when's someone going to stop and realize that maybe they don't need me
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if I'm not really supervising these people. See, there's there's levels of this.
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Supervisors had to learn how to supervise, managers had to learn how to
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manage remotely, and in many cases that wasn't the case. We talked about
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this on this on this show on radio and here four years ago about that
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very thing that that was going to be the biggest challenge is how management and
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how owners were able to work with their employees that were making adjustments with it.
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The event that I went to, by the way, was an annual
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event that is in support of music programs Schwope School of Music at Columbus State
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University called Gusto, and the first time for me to go. My bride
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has been before. She is part of the development team for Columbus State,
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so not necessarily involved in this event other than we were invited to attend,
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and it was nice to be at one of those events with her where she
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wasn't specifically working the event. She was kind of because again you're kind of
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always working in that job, especially when it's an event that does involve development
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and donations and things for any of the programs at the school, so there's
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always elements of working there. But it was just a fantastic event and the
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Columbus States Music program is just phenomenal. And over the course of the night,
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we had our meal and in between or while we were eating, but
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in between courses, they you know, would perform different aspects of different divisions
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or however it's broken down however they call it of the of the program.
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So we had singers, we had you know, obviously musicians. We had
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a full orchestra by the end of the night, and it was just incredible.
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It was a great experience, and I'm really glad that I was able
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to be there. Like I said, Jill's been before. This was my
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first time going and you know, got to go and eat a nice piece
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of meat, some potatoes and vegetables and a nice dessert and out of a
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martini glass and just here some incredible music and it was just a great event
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and glad to have been able to be there and be a part of it.
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And I'm just going to remind you they didn't nobody asked me to say
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this, other than they just reminded us occasionally during the course of the night.
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But they do a lot of free shows the Schwobe School of Music,
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and they're just incredibly talented, with the world class folks teaching and taking part
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in the program. So by all means, be on the lookout for some
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of those events and take part in them. And I mentioned some on this
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show as well as I'm Made of Stars coming up in early March a month
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from now. The Music under the Dome program that they do at the Coca
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Cola Space Science Center in collaboration with schwob They come in and perform there in
15:56
the Omnosphere Theater and it is unlike anything you'll ever see. The experience of
16:03
the live music set to this incredible show that takes place overhead like nothing there's
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you know, when I my first one I went to, I actually sat
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with Tom Scott, who's the brother of Dave Scott, the astronaut who went
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It's just such a great, crazy story. But we were there and sitting
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with him and just I just kept saying, to myself, how is this
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happening in Columbus, George. It's just an amazing like I could have been
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anywhere. I've been to a lot of shows and concerts and a lot of
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towns and a lot of states, and it's just it was like on par
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with any of those things that I'd seen. So that's just one of the
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events that take place over the course of the year. The upcoming Kaleidoscope show
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that will happen at the River Center is also one of their marquee events,
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but they also have a number of free shows that they do over the course
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of a year, and it's worth checking out and taking those in. But
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I had a really good time and it was great to be a part of
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the Gusto Dinner, the gala that took place over the weekend. Today's show
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brought to you by Columbus State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center, inspiring and
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educating the youth and future STEM leaders and STEM career holders that really of all
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in space and STEM fields are booming right now, and you can learn more
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about maybe getting your degree on their website CCSSC dot org. While you're there,
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also check out some of their upcoming programs. They've got this incredible collaboration
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that they do with the schwob School of Music from Columbus State University called Music
18:07
under the Dome. It's unlike any concert experience that you can get anywhere else.
18:12
It's one of those things that when you're watching it in Columbus, Georgia,
18:15
you think, is this really in Columbus Georgia. I mean, this
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is a major city attraction that happens right here in Columbus inside the planetarium at
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the Coca Cola Space Science Center and the new season of Music under the Dome.
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Check out upcoming dates for the shows, and also check out when the
18:37
next Astronomy Night's coming up. Where you can get outside. Sometimes you do
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it at the Cocola Space Science Center. Sometimes you get outside somewhere outside the
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city lights. You don't want any light interference, and you can do that
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as well. Upcoming Astronomy Night events also on their website, it's CCSSC dot
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org. As Sean Crusan says Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org, I just
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remind you that it stands for Coca Cola Space Science Center CCSSC dot org.
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seven oh six three five eight forty five hundred O dccolumbus dot com More West
20:41
Carol Morning Show right after the break well, the sad news over the weekend
20:55
about the passing of Carl Weather's I guess late in the week actually he passed
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away in his sleep on Thursday. What a great career Carl Weathers had.
21:07
I mean you look back at the movies anti just the franchises he was a
21:12
part of, and you think about just a significant part of all of them.
21:19
And obviously, I mean it's one of those situations where I mean he
21:22
has to be most known for Apollo Creed in in Rocky, you know,
21:30
part of that phenomenon that started with a with an oscar right for the movie,
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and you know, being a part of that really for uh, you
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know, four movies of the franchise. And then the legacy of course lives
21:45
on of his character in the in the Creed movies where his you know,
21:52
his son is taken over the boxing legacy from his dad. But Dinas leap
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seventy six. But you think about and what was also great about him,
22:03
and when I say franchises, Predator, which to me I mean, there's
22:10
a very small number of movies that I would put specifically in a category that
22:18
that's I mean, it's a very long series of qualifiers or a few qualifiers
22:22
in it. But the sci fi action horror genre, Okay, that's you
22:29
know, that makes it really specific, in Predator being you know, and
22:34
I say a small group of them that I would say are among the best
22:38
of that. I think of John Carpenter's The Thing, and I think of
22:45
like Aliens, I think of the Second Terminator. There's a handful of those
22:49
that are just really really good movies, and Predator is certainly one of those.
22:55
It's it's among my all time favorite movies period. But of that particular
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genre of movie, and it's I know, it's really specific, and I
23:06
know there's others. There's probably some of you shouting out a couple others,
23:10
and there are some other really good ones. I understand that. But to
23:14
me, when you throw that horror element in there as well, it just
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it's but and then part of the Star Wars franchise, in the Mandalorian Grief,
23:23
Karga a great character and in the fact that he also did comedy,
23:29
well, I mean, he was an important part of Adam Sandler's early career
23:34
and happy gilmore so, just a fantastic actor. I got to see him
23:41
in person at Star Wars celebration when they were launching and getting ready to kick
23:47
off the Mandalorian series, and he was there for that and by you know,
23:55
highly regarded by folks that worked with him, a lot of praise for
23:57
him. I can just imagine in what that set would have been like for
24:00
a Predator. Can you just imagine all those guys, I mean, just
24:06
all these you know, bodybuilder caliber guys doing this action movie. I mean.
24:12
Anyway, So just a sad news to hear about his passing and hearing
24:19
a lot from Adam Sandler made a great tribute to him, just praising what
24:27
a nice guy he was, how great he was with his family and all
24:30
those things. So all right, let's jump into sad news. Let's jump
24:34
into this is something that is a serious thing that we need to pay attention
24:41
to, and it concerns loneliness. And this is something I guess it's now
24:45
a carryover from the pandemic from COVID. A new survey done by the American
24:52
Psychiatric Association says that among US adults one third said that they feel lonely at
24:57
least once a week. One percent reported feeling lonely every single day. Young
25:03
people are especially likely to feel lonely. Thirty percent of respondents aged eighteen to
25:07
thirty four said they feel lonely every day or several times a week. Yikes.
25:14
Single adults were more likely than those in relationships to feel lonely on a
25:18
weekly basis, as far as the single adults thirty nine percent and those in
25:23
relationships twenty two percent, and the question of course comes well, how dangerous
25:30
is loneliness? The CDC says that loneliness has been linked to increased risk of
25:36
heart disease, stroke, type two diabetes, depression, anxiety, addiction,
25:41
dementia, and early death. The CDC says people can combat loneliness by spending
25:45
more time with family and friends, joining a group or club related to an
25:51
interest or hobby, expressing gratitude to others, spending time with others out in
25:56
nature, volunteering in community organizations, and getting to know your neighbors. Just
26:03
throwing that out there. I know it's a little somber. We got a
26:07
lot going on that's really serious, obviously. The Richard Smith funeral today and
26:12
the passing of Carl Weathers. You get a little heavy today, but that's
26:18
all right. Just just lobbing this info out there for those that might be
26:21
struggling with it. And if this many people are dealing with it, there's
26:23
a chance someone listening might be dealing with it. So we're just passing that
26:26
along. That'll do it for this Monday edition to the show. Thanks to
26:30
our sponsors and patrons. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you back here
26:33
tomorrow morning. This is the West Carrol Morning Show powered by Overhead Door Company
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