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Here in Rowan County, North Carolina, our County Commissioners are defending themselves against an ACLU lawsuit, because they refuse to open the meetings with an inclusive prayer.
Coming to their defense, our brave representatives in the state house took a shot at establishing a state religion.
There’s not a lot to say that hasn’t already been said — so why not let Spencer Tracy make the point. He said it very, very well!
The big news tonight in North Carolina is that amendment one passed.
According to ABC News (the site that rose to the top on my little Google search):
“The referendum- North Carolina Amendment One- goes a step beyond outlawing same-sex marriage, which was already illegal in the state. The law decrees that ‘marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State’- meaning that civil unions and potentially other types of domestic partnerships will no longer be legally recognized.”
Here’s my opinion (based on zero knowledge of the data):
Regardless of the impact, which will affect a lot of people, this outcome says very little about what people actually want.
It only indicates the generational divide in voting; old people like to vote young people don’t take the time. Period.
In the overall scheme of things, human rights flows in one direction, from slavery to freedom.
There are setbacks on the way, but they are reactions — little historical blips on the path to more freedom.
And this is one of those setbacks.
In a couple of decades, most of the people who voted for this will either be dead or too feeble to get to the polls — and the younger generations will vote to allow this freedom. They will laugh at us.
(For the record, I did vote against it and almost everybody I talked with about it voted against it).I thought the snow might be gone before I had a chance to blog about it.
It’s not.
I did post a Facebook status update about my inelegant fall down the concrete stairs at the back of my house. I must say that I’m quite touched at how many people commented with their concern.
It was a hell of a fall, and one of those lucky moments in life.
I didn’t hurt my back or crack my head. The only damage is a bruise that might keep me from sleeping on my left side for a couple of weeks — but it could just as easily have been an occasion for an ambulance.
I was taking out the garbage. We had had grouper for dinner on Saturday night, and there were fish bones in there. It needed to go out.
I should have put the bag on the porch and shoveled the snow first. Instead, I fell down the stairs first — landing on the ground, on my back — and then shoveled the snow.
When I was a kid, and when I was a teacher (for 24 years), I lived for snow days. I even liked ice days, as long as we didn’t lose power. Anything for a day off school.
I wanted time to write. If there was a forecast for snow, I would try to predict how much and how long we’d be out of school– and I’d start planning a project and watching the sky. Nothing was more joyful than getting up on a snowy day and taking a cup of coffee into my office, seeing the beautiful white coating outside my windows, knowing I had time to work on my own work.
Now that I’m self-employed as a Coffee News publisher, and largely make my own schedule, it seems like work never stops. I still love the snow, but don’t get the same thrill of vacation.
Last night, I had lots of recycling to take to the curb. Today is our pick-up day. I didn’t know if the city would pick-up today or not (they didn’t). My neighbors didn’t have any garbage, trash, or recycling in front of their houses.
But I missed last week, and we have a lot of recycling. We print about 12,000 papers each week, and a couple thousand come back. These add up, and I usually carry them out with a hand truck. Not possible in the snow.
So I made several trips to the curb last night, trudging through snow in my tennis shoes.
I’m glad I did.
It was quite cold, extremely clear, with a full moon. The street was spectacularly beautiful — bright enough catch with an iPhone.
This morning, I took a little more recycling out — and took a few pictures in the morning sun.
And tonight, there’s still plenty of snow on the ground — a pretty good run for this part of the world.