Bob Buckley turns in a BEAUTIFUL story about tobacco barns

When it comes to North Carolina architecture, there is no more ubiquitous an example than the humble tobacco barn. You can barely drive half a mile in the rural farming areas without seeing at least one or two dotting the landscape. With some of them dating back a century and more, they once exemplified this state's agricultural acumen like nothing else could.

And it is not without some sadness that in the modern era, most of them have fallen into disuse. Once they hummed with hard work and a handsome payoff. Now, no more. But the barns still stand: a testimony to times gone by and a tradition that many families maintained for generations.

For those reasons and more (not the least of which is the gorgeous cinematography and editing by Stewart Pittman) I can't recommend enough that y'all check out this Buckley Report story by WGHP Fox 8 reporter Bob Buckley. Buckley and Pittman deserve an Emmy for this, easily...

Special thanks to good friend Mark Childrey for being the first to spot this and passing it along!

(Along with props to historian extraordinaire Bob Carter for a great exposition about tobacco farming :-)

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Dad gets his turn in the newspapers

That's my father Robert Knight in the photograph on the right, sitting next to friend and fellow farmer John Ashe, in a pic taken for a news story that's gotten national circulation (The Republic out of Columbus, Indiana has it along with a whole slideshow of photos) about tobacco farmers trying to stay profitable in spite of new trade deals.

I've known John for most of my life. He's a solid dude and everyone around here is proud of the success he's had as a farmer. It's really good to see him getting coverage like this on behalf of farmers everywhere. But I want y'all to click on the link and see the full photo taken by Ted Richardson. The entire pic of Dad and John sitting on the tailgate of Dad's truck, it's just a classic pic about modern farming. I'd even say "award worthy" :-)

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Bev Perdue - AKA "WORST NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR EVER" - signs smoking ban into law

It's a scene I've watched on television damn too many times: a chief executive like a president or governor sitting behind a desk and smugly signing away another right or liberty, with a backdrop made up of the sorry-a$$ed legislative bastitches, also grinning like they've just made some legitimate contribution to the betterment of mankind, who passed the effin' law to begin with.

In today's case it was Bev Perdue - who I have already declared to be the worst Governor that North Carolina has ever had with just four months into her term - signing the state-wide smoking ban into law.

That dumb blond and the twits who stood next to her today are now patting themselves on the back for their show of force over the common people of this state. Because, let us be candid folks: the legislators in the General Assembly who passed this, by and large (and even that might be too kind) do not give representing their constituents the greatest of priorities.

Here's what one person observed in my last post about this...

The story the newspapers aren't telling you is this . . . .

A private, non-profit foundation that receives funding from such people as Ted Turner, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, The Times Company, Time-Warner, Media General, and the Heinz estate is hiring lobbyists in every state legislature for the purpose of doing whatever is necessary to ensure that public bans on smoking are passed.

Tactics include taking legislators out for meals, buying them vacation trips, bringing movie productions to targeted states and (when all else fails) outright bribery to gain votes for this legislation.

The end goal is to provide unchallenged legal precedent that can one day be used to outlaw the use of tobacco products, or beyond that, any product or behavior that this foundation disapproves of.

This is definitely anti-populist behavior, because this foundation seeks to "educate" legislators on the dangers of smoking (something we all know about) and the advantages of defying the ill-formed public opinion that no real harm comes from smoking.

They have a word for this . . . . it's called Oligarchy. Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

That commenter is most correct.

And like I said in that post last week: I do not smoke. I wouldn't encourage anyone to take up smoking. Believe you me, I have seen the deleterious effects it can have on one's health. But I would never stoop so low as to attempt to use the force of government to either compel someone to not smoke or to obligate a private business owner into prohibiting smoking on his or her premises against his or her will!

That's all that this is about, my friends. It has nothing to do with "public health" or "it's for the children" or whatever other mealy-mouthed bullcrap the politicians are claiming. It's all about flexing the might of the collective against the individual.

Just one more incremental loss of liberty, that is damned hard to get back once it's gone.

So... what to do about it?

Personally, I think that every restaurant and bar owner in the state of North Carolina that wishes to do so, should outright damn ignore Governor Dumb Blond and her contingent of Nicotine Nazis.

According to the story above...

The law, which takes effect in January, authorizes fines of up to 50 dollars for people who smoke after being asked to stop, and up to 200 dollars for managers of establishments who have twice been warned to enforce the law.

Or what? Is Guvner Bev gonna close down a business just 'cuz its owners ignore this silly law? WHERE is the power to enforce this nonsense?

This is something that the free market, not the government, should determine. It's very very simple, friends and neighbors: if a restaurant owner wants to have smoking in his establishment, he should be free to do that. Just as much as nobody has to eat in that restaurant if they don't want to on account of the smoking. If enough customers ask nicely for it to be a tobacco-free place, the owner can make that determination on his own and also be free to end smoking in his joint.

Nobody needs or even really asked for Bev Perdue and her legislative lackeys to make that determination for them.

What do I think needs to happen in this state?

A hella lotta rebellion against the General Assembly and Governor Bev Perdue.

They passed this law and she signed it. Now let's see them enforce it.

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No jokin' about no smokin': North Carolina to ban lighting up in public

For the record: I don't smoke. I don't recommend anyone taking up smoking. It's a nasty habit and I've seen what it can do to one's health. It's not something I'd wish on anybody.

But I'm also of the mind that it's left to the individual whether or not he or she chooses to smoke. And that means that it should be up to business owners to decide whether or not they allow smoking in places they own like restaurants and bars.

And I also have come to believe that in the few short months since she was sworn in, that Bev Perdue has already become the worst Governor that I have ever seen North Carolina have in my lifetime. She's already "effed"-up our educational budget bigtime. Now this...

"An important and historic day for North Carolina." That's what Perdue declared today as she announced she would immediately sign a bill just passed by the state's General Assembly that will BAN smoking in ALL public places.

In all honesty, I never thought I would live to see the day that smoking in public was outlawed in, of all places, North Carolina: the biggest tobacco-producing region in the world.

And as I said before: I don't smoke, and wouldn't want anyone to take it up either. But as an infringement on individual liberty, what Governor Perdue and the General Assembly are doing is wrong.

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'Fess-up time for today's April Fools prank

Just to be clear on some things...

1. There is no such thing as the U.S. Department of Public Health.

2. Reidsville does not have a deputy mayor.

3. Irving "Bud" Wombler is a fictitious character that I made up this morning.

4. Rockingham Regional Medical Center only exists in my mind, and will likely never be built in the Midway area.

5. Fritz Hippler was a real-life filmmaker who ran the Film Department of the Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels during the reign of Nazi Germany. I "borrowed" his name since this story needed someone likewise doing propaganda. And I'll admit that I liked the sound of the name. But other than that there was no other reason why I chose to use it, in case anyone's wondering.

6. The murals are not in any danger.

7. This whole thing was not meant to be a reflection at all on Reidsville mayor James Festerman, the mayors and city councils of the other towns in Rockingham County, or the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners.

8. The two comments on the post were my own creation.

9. The federal goverment is not offering Rockingham County $180 million.

10. Finally: no one is going to take tobacco away from Rockingham County.

But in spite of those facts, a lot of people seriously believed this year's April Fools gag that I posted early this morning! How many? Well, two reporters from long-established news outlets contacted me wanting to do stories about Rockingham County banning tobacco and how the federal government was asking for the murals to be destroyed. A number of e-mails came in and I received an outraged phone call this morning demanding to know more about the "ban". Mark Childrey made mention of it on tonight's edition of Star News (he admitted to me last year that my previous April Fools gag that had Lisa and me joining the Amish had really convinced him) and a few others have written in or otherwise told me in person that they had bought this year's gag also, to varying degrees.

So all in all, this year's April Fools joke was an unexpected success! I'm not as satisfied with it as the Amish one last year, 'cuz I literally waited months to unload that one and the idea for today's only hit me this morning and it was finished in fifteen minutes. But still, I can't deny that this one was a lot of fun :-)

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EXCLUSIVE: Rockingham County, per federal mandate, to ban ALL tobacco farming and products

EDIT 9:50 p.m. EST 04/01/2008: Click here for a MAJOR BREAKING UPDATE regarding this news story!

Details about this will soon be released to the press via regular channels, but here is what The Knight Shift has learned...

Rockingham County, North Carolina - the #1 tobacco-producing region in the entire country - will soon become the first 100% tobacco-free area in the United States.

What this means is: no smoking anywhere in public, no smoking in private homes, and no cultivation of tobacco on the many farms throughout the county.

It's part of a deal between county officials and the U.S. Department of Public Health. In exchange for "willingly" giving up tobacco, the federal government will disburse $120 million to assist Rockingham County's medical and preventative health infrastructure.

If all goes according to plan, there won't be a cigarette, cigar, pouch of chewing tobacco, or can of tobacco seed in sight by spring of 2009 anywhere in Rockingham County.

County officials reached late last night said that they felt they had little choice but to accept the deal. "Look Chris, Rockingham County needs all the help it can get right now," Reidsville deputy mayor Irving "Bud" Wombler told me via telephone. "I know it seems like we're going to be giving up a lot of our culture and our industry, but these are modern times and it's time we embrace that."

Wombler told me that in addition to shoring-up the county's health services, that part of the money would be used to establish a new state-of-the-art hospital in southern Rockingham County, which is seeing enormous population growth as people from Guilford, Forsyth and Alamance counties move to Rockingham to enjoy relatively lower property taxes. "We are considering land along U.S. 158 in the Midway area for the Rockingham Regional Medical Center," Wombler said. When I asked if this would be near what is locally known as the Cheap-Cheap Curb Market, Wombler could only give a curt "no comment" reply. When I notified him that $120 million would not come anywhere near close to covering both the full cost of a new hospital (the new county jail alone is expected to cost $40 million) and providing medical services, Wombler could only mumble something about "bond referendum".

Fritz Hippler, Municipal Relations Director with the U.S. Department of Public Health, returned my phone call late yesterday evening. He was polite, but he was also resolute in his department's policy: "Right now it's just a pilot program," Hippler told me, "but we are looking at expanding it to other cities and counties throughout America. The reason we approached Rockingham County, North Carolina first is that if it can be made to work here, it can be made to work anywhere."

At this point I asked him about whether there had been any consideration about personal liberty in this. Hippler told me: "It's the belief of the current administration that the American people should and are willing to give up a little liberty for a little security. Isn't being able to go into a smoke-free town worth all the money that it will be getting from the federal government to improve health and well-being in that city?"

Hippler further suggested that more money would be sent to Rockingham County if it took steps to "cleanse" its tobacco-centered culture. "It is my understanding that City Hall in Reidsville has a mural depicting tobacco farming," Hippler told me. "We would grant the City of Reidsville additional funds if it paints over it and removes that image from public display." When I informed Hippler that there is also a very large mural on Scales Street that depicts rows of tobacco being farmed, he told me that "of course that would have to be removed also, if Reidsville wanted the additional funds."

Wombler told me that Reidsville mayor James Festerman would be appearing in a joint press conference along with the mayors of Eden, Stoneville, Madison, Mayodan, as well as the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners before the end of the week to discuss the deal and how Rockingham County will make "the transition to a completely tobacco-free society". As part of the grace period, Wombler told me that the federal government would be sending coupons to eligible residents of Rockingham County that will be redeemable for free nicotine patches and "nicotine chewing gum".

I'm going to stay on top of this story, folks, and report anything else that I find. In my opinion this is going to be a disaster for Rockingham County: I'm not a smoker, but I'm no fool and this is going to destroy this area's economy like nothing ever has before. What the hell are these people thinking?!

Stay tuned.

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