Issues
Valentine’s Day
When the State Ethics Commission ruled that a lobbyist having sex with a legislator didn’t violate the ban on gifts to legislators because sex acts do not constitute “things of value,” it got the attention of the redoubtable Ira David Wood, who’s surely NC’s most respected artist. Woods posted the entire newspaper article on…
Read MoreBlindness
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt looked the American people in the eye and said, December 7th is a day that will live in infamy forever. After ISIS burned a hostage alive, President Obama told the American people, We’ve done some pretty bad things ourselves. Which is the proper response to…
Read MorePure Baloney
Reverend William Barber went down to the newspaper and sat down with Ned Barnett to have a chat about the state’s soul. Now the main problem with the state spiritually, according to Reverend Barber, is Republicans. He’s thundered from podiums from Asheville to Wilmington that Republicans are heartless varmints who stomp on women, children,…
Read MoreNo Saints
Once when Democratic County Commissioner Betty Lou Ward was in the hospital she asked the Republican Commissioners to allow her to participate in a board meeting by phone – but the Republicans said no. Another time, in the middle of a fight, the Republicans waited until Ward left the board room to go to…
Read More1939
Robed in black from head to toe, a hood covering his face, with a hostage kneeling at his feet, he lifted a knife and started his litany. Know, oh Obama, he said, that we will cut off your head in the White House. He wasn’t done. This is my message to…
Read MoreIn the Morgue
EMS medics found Larry Green lying face down by the road with a head wound and no vital signs – he’d been hit by a car. But, then, when a state Medical Examiner, Dr. J.B. Perdue, arrived and opened Green’s jacket his chest and abdomen moved. A medic asked if Green was breathing. The…
Read MoreVows Sworn in Churches
Lord, deliver us – the Supreme Court is about to tell us who can and can’t marry. Marriage as an institution twists and turns back into the mists of time but will a judge even ask how – and why – it began? Are roots of marriage biological? Anthropological? Or theological? Is marriage a…
Read MoreCurses. Foiled Again.
Not long ago, I blogged that Democrats in the legislature should help Governor McCrory expand Medicaid (“Pass McCroryCare”). With Democratic votes and some Republicans, McCrory could overcome opposition from the legislative leadership. But a Raleigh group called the Carolina Partnership for Reform, which says it “was formed to advocate for a freedom-based agenda in…
Read MoreOne God? Or Two?
A young chaplain at Duke Chapel announced it was time for the University to transform its gothic cathedral into an enlightened multicultural center with Muslims chanting azans from the bell tower while Methodists prayed in the sanctuary below – and without knowing it she crossed an invisible line. Word spread and praying to two…
Read MoreProdding a Sleeping Tiger
ISIS lined up a firing squad to machine-gun 13 teenage boys for watching a soccer game (which violates Sharia Law). They flung two men off a tower in Mosul (they were homosexuals). They threatened to cut off two hostages’ heads unless Japan paid $200 million then, when the ransom wasn’t paid, they killed…
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