American Hero of the Week

Doris "Granny D" Haddock is a 96 year-old activist whose long life is pure inspiration. Visit her web site, and hope that you and me can muster hald of this nonogenarian's personal courage, spirit and energy.

In this speech from 2002, Granny D attempts to answer the conundrum that perplexes me every day: how can people accept the direction in which our nation is being steered?

An excerpt: "If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not conservative versus liberal. The two camps are these: the politically awake and the hypnotized -- hypnotized by television and other mass media, whose overpaid Svengalis dangle the swinging medallions of packaged candidates and oft-told lies. It is all done to politically prolong the open season on us -- open season indeed, as the billionaire takeover artists bag their catch for the day. And in their bags are our freedoms, our leisure, our health care futures, our old age security, our family time, our village life, our family-owned businesses on Main Street, the middle class itself, and our position of honor and peaceful leadership in the world."


Granny D has two books out Granny D : You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell and Granny D : Walking Across America in My Ninetieth Year.