Red Rocker

Mary has been looking for a wood rocking chair to compliment our red front door and the Japanese Maple tree on our porch.

After several unsuccessful trips to flea markets, furniture stores, junk shops and yard sales, we finally found one at an antique store next door to Sweetwater Flea Market.

Our new chair had obviously been neglected and left out in the weather but the wood was sound and the price was right so we chucked it in the back of the truck and brought it home.  Mary sanded the old peeling varnish and cleaned the dust off before we broke out the Fire Engine Red paint for the coup-de-gras!  Three coats of paint and the rocker was ready to assume its rightful place on the front porch along with the Red Door, Japanese Maple Tree and our Welcoming Loon. Ya'll come on in!


Welcome!



Voter confusion, ballot overcrowding, and frivolous candidacies?

In a decision frought with circular logic, the North Carolina Supreme Court has rendered a decision insuring that political minorities will continue to be discriminated against in North Carolina elections.

"Here, the avoidance of 'voter confusion, ballot overcrowding,' and 'frivolous candidacies' is an important regulatory interest," (Justice) Timmons-Goodson wrote in the first constitutional challenge to the ballot-access law the high court has considered.

Isn't it interesting that we live in a country where our governmental bodies supposedly applaud democratic elections in other countries that have dozens of parties and hundreds of candidates but here at home our courts make statements like the one in red above?

In North Carolina, nearly half of the congressional races have only one candidate because a "Major" party has chosen not to run in the race and write-in candidates are not counted without first having been vetted by the local boards of elections. 

That sure reduces "Voter confusion" - give them but a single choice and they will not be confused at all!  Oh, a ballot with only a single choice is certainly not overcrowded,  and, lest we forget, those evil "Frivolous candidates" that might actually bring a fresh idea or a new perspective to the process.

I say shame on the North Carolina Supreme Court and State Legislature for actively working to disenfranchise a very large percentage of voters.  Most of all, I say shame on the citizens of North Carolina who do not demand that their elected officials correct this wrong.

Jim Crow is alive and well in North Carolina, it just wears a better disguise than in years past.