Archive for January 2015
In 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 MoreBig Staff Envy
A TAPster with long experience in the General Assembly offers this: In reaction to Gary’s blog about “Big Government” and Speaker Moore’s laughably large staff, here are the three popular theories in Raleigh today about why Republican leaders like the Speaker and Lt. Governor think they can singlehandedly solve the state’s unemployment problem by…
Read MorePolite? Us?
Things have come to a pretty pass when a photo and story about Carter and me run under the headline: “Polite Disagreement.” This is our reward? After all we did to make Hunt-Helms one of the most bitter, negative and expensive races ever? After years, decades even, of earning reputations as tough, give-no-quarter political…
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…
Read More1K = 3 Front Pages
Yes, 1,000 wins in college basketball is remarkable. But three front pages? That’s what greeted readers of the N&O print edition Monday morning. First there was Page One of the main news section. In approximately the same size type that might say “WAR!” was “1,000” – in Duke Blue, of course. Beneath were a…
Read MoreAnswering Obama
It was a rare feat: Frank Luntz somehow found the twenty maddest-at-Obama people in the country and put them in a ‘focus group’ on Fox News after the President’s State of the Union speech – and they didn’t have one kind word to say. But you have to give the devil his due: Barack…
Read MoreBig Government
The government is too big, Republicans say. Too much bureaucracy, too much waste, too many overpaid, do-nothing chair-sitters mooching off hard-working taxpayers. Presumably, House Speaker Tim Moore agrees. He’s as eager as any other hard-nosed Republican to cut out the deadwood. But first he has to hire a staff. Here, thanks to Under…
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