Midsummer Night's Scheme

Tomorrow night at precisely 1:04 a.m., the sun will appear to stand still for an instant as it reaches its highest excursion point above the equator, otherwise known as the summer solstice. It's actually the earth, of course,  that has tilted its northern hemisphere as far as it will go toward the sun and will begin at 1:04 to tilt the other way. ("Solstice" translates as "sun standing still.")

If you're a Druid, or other enlightened pagan, it's the holiest moment of the year. Many, many early cultures began calendar keeping after observing both the summer and the winter solstices. The winter solstice got highjacked centuries ago for Christmas, which is why pagans still hold tight to the summer solstice. At Stonehenge, they'll be having a par-tay.

Shakespeare wrote Midsummer Night's Dream to celebrate the appearance of fairies in the woodland landscape on the solstice, when some men can also become asses and everybody falls in and out of love, willy-nilly.

Herbs have stronger healing powers on the solstice, and magic spells have greater range and effectiveness.

If you love the earth and gardens and the eternal turn of the seasons, you'll know where to be tomorrow night at 1:04 a.m.

A Distinction Without a Difference

Republican Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis sez there's a "philosophical divide" separating his House budget from the NC Senate budget.

Yeah, riiight!

Is there a difference between hatred and contempt? Is there a difference between blight and contamination? Is there a difference between decomposition and putrefaction? Which snake on Medusa's crown do you prefer to be bitten by?

If you can find a difference worth writing home about between two horrible, backward, cruel North Carolina budgets, one written in the Senate and the other in the House, then you're welcome to your hair-splitting.

The only actual difference we see is that Thom Tillis is running for the U.S. Senate and therefore needs to appear more moderate than the far-right let-them-eat-wallpaper-paste NC Senate.

But Tillis is as big a jerk and vandal to the public good as any of the senators. He's just slicker.

We Have an Idiot for a Governor

Why is this man laughing?

Because he doesn't have a clue.

Because he couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a head start.

Because he's much more interested in playing catch-the-baseball than in meeting with North Carolina students and a former Congressman who were petitioning him not to destroy the state's educational system.

"What, me worry?"

Jim Holshouser, Mountain Republican

Gov. Jim Holshouser, who died yesterday at age 78, was born in Boone and represented Watauga County in the General Assembly for three terms before becoming state GOP Chair and then governor in the election of 1972. I had been in Boone two years at that point, voted for his Democratic opponent Skipper Bowles in that election, but Holshouser was a good governor and a good mountain Republican of the sort that North Carolina used to have plenty of.

Hell, going back to the 1890s, moderate mountain Republicans formed a Fusion Party with former slaves to briefly take control of state government. That's what mountain Republicans used to be.

Gary Pearce summed up some of Gov. Holshouser's accomplishments, which would get him barred from the NC GOP today: "Big pay raises for teachers ... Statewide kindergartens ... Coastal Management Act ... Rural health centers ... Expansion of the state park system ... More African-Americans and women in government ... Help for black business enterprises...."

Actually, Pearce notes, citing Rob Christensen, the Jesse Helms Republicans threw Holshouser out of the party in 1976. The Helms Republicans booed Holshouser at the state GOP convention and denied him a seat as a delegate to the national convention.

This Republican bunch now in control in Raleigh, who are defecating on everything that represents moderation, fairness, and sympathy for the poor and weak, are certainly the Helms progeny, grown even more rancid than ole Jesse could even imagine.

The Way-Back Machine

So the GOP in our state has been preaching that Democrats ruined North Carolina during 140 years of one-party rule. "Hell," shouted those same Republicans, "we can accomplish that job in two!"

Looking at the faces of those 80+ citizens arrested yesterday at the General Assembly building in Raleigh, we can certainly sympathize with Gov. Squishy McCrory, who's been squeaking about "outside agitators." Elderly white men and women in clerical vestments and in need of knee replacement surgery are downright frightening when they come to petition this particular government to stop being such complete dicks.

"Dirty hippies!" a Republican operative was actually overheard calling them. Seriously? Talk about being caught in a self-defeating time-warp, seeing the world around you with those Nixon lenses that proved so effective back then.

"Morons," yelled Republican Senator Thom Goolsby of Wilmington, channeling himself as an 8-year-old on the playground.

Yep. We've got the Right government in Raleigh for a truly glorious 1850.

NC GOP: Happy To Be Gutting the Public Good

You wanna know what they've been doing in Raleigh? Here's yet another handy summary:

"Generations of programs involving education, the environment, health care, election laws and economic development are being eliminated or gutted in the budgets proposed by either Gov. Pat McCrory, the Senate or the House."

If it was suggested by a Democrat, enacted by a Democrat, supported by a Democrat, it is now marked for death. That's called "wise governance" by a handful of idiots. It's stupidity of the sort that the Taliban made infamous when they blew up a centuries-old statue of the Buddha. Destroy it because we didn't build it.

Democrats in North Carolina have spent decades creating an educational system second to none in the South. Who knew how much the Republicans were stewing about it? Who knew how much they hated the very idea of public education for all? If it's not clear to you by now that their goal is to end public education and punish the teachers who slave for its success, you're blind, not paying attention, or you're as stupid as the Taliban that blows up statues they didn't build.

There's a rally for public education in Boone tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. at Jaycees Park on Horn in the West Drive. Time to stand up and show that we support what past generations sacrificed to build.

Party of "Small Government" in Raleigh Intrudes Even More Fiercely Into Local Government

The Republicans in the NC General Assembly hate the Democrats on the Wake County School Board, and the Republicans in the NC General Assembly intend to get rid of them the same way they got themselves into what looks like perpetual power in Raleigh ... by gerrymandering school districts and by "double-bunking" their least-favorite sitting school board members, including at least one Republican who sometimes votes with the Democrats.

Ruthless power that knows no limits. If there is a god, there'll be a day of reckoning for these assholes.

The New Inquisition: Jonathan Jordan Kisses the Pope's Ring

Jonathan Jordan (bless his heart) offered a compromise amendment to the state budget being debated in the NC House that would have preserved public financing for appellate judge races in the state. "Public financing" has been voluntary under NC law; you can mark the "tax check-off" on your state income tax returns, or not, and $3 goes into a fund to help our judges stay above big-money politics.

Jonathan Jordan (bless his coward's heart) withdrew his amendment after Art Pope, the Dark Lord of Let's-Buy-Us-Some-Patsy-Politicans and Gov. McCrory's Budget Director, came down on him for showing dangerous independence.

According to the News & Observer, "Pope has been a long-time foe of public financing, going back to his days as a state legislator. The various organizations that he and his family have helped start and finance, such as the John Locke Foundation, have been outspoken in their opposition to such programs."

Plus he owns Jonathan Jordan's sorry ass, and the rest of the anatomy attached: "Jordan has close ties to Pope. When he was first elected to the state House in 2010 he received $16,000 from Pope and his family, according to The Institute for Southern Studies. Three groups associated with Pope – Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action, and Real Jobs NC – gave $91,500 to Jordan’s campaign. Jordan worked two years in the late 1990s as a research director at the John Locke Foundation, a group started and funded by Pope and his family."

Jonathan Jordan (bless his unaccountable coward's heart) "was not immediately available for comment."

Can no one free us of this puppet representative?

Fouling the Street

When the Republicans in Raleigh run out of harm they can do to others in the state, they begin working on each other.

You go, boys!