Posts by Carter Wrenn
The End of the Post Racial Era
An odd thing happened on the way to the post-racial era. Mrs. Shirley Sherrod a black Department of Agriculture employee in rural Georgia gave a speech to the NAACP, admitted twenty years ago she discriminated against a poor white farmer, explained how she’d realized she was wrong and turned around and helped the farmer –…
Read MoreObama vs. Perdue: Taxing the Rich
I’m beginning to suspect there’s something out of kilter between the true-blue liberals in Washington and their gung-ho cousins (and fellow Obama supporters) here in Raleigh who’re running state government. Up in Washington the true liberals are about to launch the political equivalent of a Holy War to end President Bush’s tax cuts so…
Read MoreThe Most Mysterious Politics of All
Over the years I’ve watched Southern Politics and Irish Politics (in New York) and once even had a dose of Chicago politics but none of them were as byzantine as Italian Politics in Raleigh – for a week I’ve been trying to figure out if the Italians are surrendering or if they’re about to sneak…
Read MoreFictional Missiles in Cyberspace
I expect Andrew Breitbart was telling the unvarnished truth when he told CNN he did not mean to smear Shirley Sherrod on his blog – that he meant to blast the NAACP because it had blasted the Tea Party and Mrs. Sherrod’s wounding was the political equivalent of what’s euphemistically called ‘collateral damage’ over in…
Read MoreThe Forgotten Man
Let’s pass on talking about politics today and talk about something I know nothing about: Economics. My friend Richard, who’s a banker, just sent me a book called The Forgotten Man about the Depression. Now, normally, I’d run from a book about economics but Ms. Amity Shlaes has written a fascinating story about New…
Read MoreStooping Low
Everyday the bru-ha-ha between our local Progressives and the Italian transplants on the School Board gets more entertaining – the whole thing’s turned into a microcosm of modern life with far-left Liberals, Democrats, Progressives, Italians, Southerners, far-right Republicans, NAACP Reverends, a Duke Professor and a liberal Baptist Church all going at one another tooth and…
Read MorePraying in the State House
Back in May the State House invited Reverend Ron Baity down to Raleigh (from his Baptist Church in Winston-Salem) to be Chaplain for a week but when the minister got up and ended his first prayer with “In Jesus name” House Speaker Jack Hackney promptly fired him. Because, Hackney says, by tradition prayers in…
Read MoreObama and Wall Street
The anti-Wall Street talking Obama administration just let Goldman Sachs off the hook for bilking investors for billions with a wrist slap. Now, granted a $550 million fine sounds like real money. But consider this: It’s less than 5% of Goldman Sachs $12 billion in profits. And not one Goldman Sachs executive got…
Read MoreSurprise and Wonder
Politicians, like most people, are creatures of habit plodding along each day going through the same routines day in and day out – then just when you figure there are no surprises left in human nature (or, at least, in politicians) somewhere deep in subterranean caverns tides shift and suddenly you find yourself staring open-mouthed…
Read MoreThe Three Reverends
The Right Honorable (and Colorful) Reverend William Barber (head of the local NAACP) has laid the political birch-wood to the Italians on the School Board again; the Reverend Barber, who’s been holding demonstrations and protests lampooning the Italians, climbed up on his soap-box at his latest protest and announced the Italians are taking Raleigh back…
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