Happy with just a sprinkle

We’ve had sprinkles of rain throughout the night and this morning. To most people, that isn’t news, but in the parched southeast United States, it’s huge.

A report last night on the Weather Channel really drove home just how severe this drought is: as of this week, almost 38% of North Carolina is classified D4/Exceptional, the most severe rating for drought conditions. You can see a map of what this looks like at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln’s North Carolina State Drought Monitor page. Georgia is lucky, comparatively speaking. Only (only, he says!) 27% of that state suffers from the most severe drought conditions. Now take a look at Alabama. Over 50% rated D4.

Have you heard of the Jena 6?

If you’re watching national TV news, chances are good that you haven’t. If you read national newspapers, you may have missed the one or two brief stories they’ve published on the case. Let’s face it: the length of Britney Spears’s skirt and what clubs she is visiting is simply more important than an ongoing case of racial tension in modern day Louisiana.

Now MSNBC is giving a chance for us to hear more about the current difficulties facing race relations in this country, but there’s a catch: you have to vote for the story in order for it to be told. It’s the current Gut Check America vote, and the results of the vote lead to MSNBC’s report.

You can vote here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19876326/

“Can’t be any more complicated than my phone bill”

We were forced to watch seemingly endless hours of Judge Larry Seidlin presiding over the Anna Nicole Smith That’s-My-Baby-Oh-No-It’s-Not-It’s-MY-Baby case by MSNBC, CNN, Fox Noise Carnal, and even the crown jewel evening newscasts on NBC, ABC, and CBS.

Now, however, there’s a case that actually matters to somebody other than just the baby and the baby daddy, and we hear… nothing.  We’re too busy hearing about the fact that there are six miners still trapped down a mine, and that there’s no further information on whether they’re alive or dead or will ever get out.  Fine, I’m interested in the outcome, but could you drop the story until there’s some more story?  In the meantime, hundreds of people have died in Iraq every day, and they have warranted only a minor mention.  “We support the troops,” but we only support hearing about the ones who died doing their jobs if it can be told in under 15 seconds.  But I digress.

It appears, in the whole warrantless wiretapping mess, that we have some presiding judges who not only get it, but might even be sort of entertaining.  Unfortunately, I’m sure no cameras can be allowed in the courtroom, but why, oh why, do we not even see some poor windblown reporter standing on the courthouse steps every 30 minutes to update us on exactly how suspicious our government is of us?

Maybe the news networks think we Americans won’t be able to understand the subtleties of the complex issues involved.  I think we can.  After all, as Judge Harry Pregerson quipped, it “can’t be any more complicated than my phone bill.”

Happy Birthday, America!

Once again, the Americans will get the chance to prove that we do displays of national pride better than anybody else. This also happens to be the one day when we have a good reason for doing so. Of course, here in North Carolina we get another day to celebrate before it’s too hot outside to enjoy it. As an American it’s easy to become cynical and jaded about everything that makes America — well, America. Just the same, it’s hard to suppress that chest-swelling feeling of pride when you see Old Glory flying while the band plays that familiar Sousa march or the 1812 Overture (which is funny, since it has nothing to do with us at all — but it’s still over-the-top pomp and circumstance, and we just adore that).

This particular Independence Day we’ll also be celebrating the beginning of We the People taking our country back from the forces of fear and evil and returning it to the shining beacon of liberty and blind justice that it’s supposed to be.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Don Imus fired: have we ignored the First Amendment again?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What Don Imus said was tasteless. I am in full agreement with those who want to lambast Imus for his “nappy headed hos” comment. I’m somewhat disbelieving that it’s considered perfectly fine to print and say the phrase over and over, while the N Word, as it’s now euphamistically called, has finally become so taboo that even the outspoken Whoopi Goldberg says she will no longer use it. My only question is: why is “nappy headed hos” more acceptable than that word? Maybe it’s because this particular phrase could only be offensive to women, and not to men, since we rarely refer to male prostitutes as “hos?” It’s something to think about.