north carolina

Bev Perdue – also known on this blog as “WORST GOVERNOR EVER!” – has done it again. ‘Course to be fair she had help from North Carolina’s lawmakers. Amazon.com has stopped doing business with all of its affiliates in this state: a consequence of, as Amazon.com puts it, “the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor.”

This is already the most taxed state in the southeast. Piling on more taxes is not a smart move by any measure. But sadly folks, this state’s head honchos have long been drunk on wild spending and are desperate for any way they can find to keep their mad orgy going.

North Carolina, ladies and gentlemen: “The California of the Eastern Seaboard”....

Read more

(I just wish that it didn’t have to be followed up immediately by MTV running all of Michael Jackson’s classic music videos…)

As several folks have written in about: Tonight’s episode of MTV’s new show DJ & The Fro, titled “Birds”, featured a good-natured mocking of my “Star Wars”-inspired campaign commercial for Rockingham County Board of Education in 2006.

In the episode someone calling himself “Inbred Velcro Warrior” sends the Fro a link to the commercial. “In space, nobody can hear you scream” notes Fro as he and DJ cheer on the Death Star destroying the little red schoolhouse. Fro continues: “That’s also true for his mother’s basement, where this guy clearly lives!” DJ says “That’s the biggest loser in the desert since Moses!” I had some friends over to watch this (‘cuz the good folks at Titmouse Productions told me last week it would air this ...

Read more

Actually, I was told that it’s bails of straw, but farmer though I’ve been I’ve never been able to tell the difference 😛

Just something that I thought would make a good photo while out and about this afternoon. That’s one of the largest family-owned dairy farms in the country in the background, here in Rockingham County, North Carolina. And that hay straw has been gathered up to eventually feed to the cows.

Maybe I’ll post a new picture of this field a few weeks or months from now, when the same straw comes back as spread cow manure....

Read more

If you are within driving distance of Rockingham County, North Carolina this coming weekend then you should seriously consider buying a ticket (or more than one) for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County‘s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I wasn’t able to be in this production ‘cuz of prior obligations, although I helped with set construction and that was the limit of my involvement with this show.

Well, I just got back from this afternoon’s performance and folks, NOTHING could have prepared me for the unrelenting spectacle that is what Rockingham County people have done with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s much-beloved take on the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers. The Theatre Guild’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is bar none the glitziest and most over-the-top musical that I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing! The Guild could take ...

Read more

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 ...

Read more

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 ...

Read more

This early on in the reporting of the story, I’ll admit to wondering if there’s more to this. But knowing what I do about how damned abusive and corrupt our own government has become, I’m also inclined to take this family at their word.

Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby, of Oxford in Granville County, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh) was the subject of a raid by federal agents who handcuffed him and took a LOT of his personal possessions. The feds claim that Lundeby made a bomb threat, but the family denies the charge, saying that someone hacked into their IP address and made crank calls through the Internet.

And now…

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there

...
Read more

That “North Carolina Education Lottery” that we’ve had for going on three years now? The one that was supposed to do nothing but supplement, you know, education in North Carolina?

Well, our newly-minted governor Bev Perdue has raided the lottery’s reserve fund of $50 million. And then she took another $38 million that was marked for new schools construction, and applied it to the state’s budget shortfall.

And now because of her fiscal shenanigans, Rockingham County won’t be getting those four new schools that it direly needs.

I have spoken to quite a few people in this county over the past few days who are, to put it mildly, extremely honked-off that this has happened.

The members of the Board of Education aren’t taking this quietly either. According to the above-linked article Tim Scales has remarked “You don’t want to know what I’ve got to say about it.” Reida ...

Read more

Remember the crazy fight that a lot of good folks here in Rockingham County, North Carolina fought in 2007 (at right) against Standard Mode of Dress: the euphemistic term for what are really school uniforms? It took about four months and the Board of Education had previously approved of the policy… but in the end, with a lot of passion and a little creativity, the board then reversed its decision and the school uniforms went down in flames.

Now comes word that much the same is happening to some of our friends a few counties over in Forsyth. Janet Marsh, the mother of a student at Wiley Middle School, alerts us to this story at the Winston-Salem Journal website. The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Board of Education unanimously voted to implement Standard Mode of Dress at Wiley Middle during its January 13th meeting. But opponents of the policy contend that ...

Read more