HillWilliam's blog

With your indulgence, I'm using my blog-space today with some thoughts that aren't NC-specific, but ones that I hope will be shared with all citizens. Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King's death. I remember the grief, shock and fear I felt that day when I first heard the news. Funny; forty years have past and that grief is still as strong today as it was then, but in the meantime, it has been tempered with words and actions.

Still, I long for A Voice that will unite people once again for justice, equality and human dignity. Perhaps, we are the ones we've been waiting for.

From the News and Observer

Titan Barksdale, Staff Writer

As a federal prosecutor, Sam Currin spent six years prosecuting drug dealers, pornographers and other criminals. Now, he will spend nearly the same amount of time in prison himself.

Currin, 58, whose career included stints as a judge and as chairman of the state's Republican Party, became the latest North Carolina leader to be sent to jail when he was sentenced this week in federal court to 70 months behind bars on money laundering and obstruction charges.

His attorney, Mark Calloway, would not comment about the sentence.

This atrocious news came across my desk a few minutes ago and I'd like to pass it on. It used to be that "conservative" meant being good stewards of the bounty our land had, its beauty and promise, to be able to hand down to our childen and grandchildren. By ample demonstration, the term has been co-opted by a few self-servatives whose greed and lack of concern over the consequences of their actions have soured the taste of the very word in the mouths of a growing majority.

I got this in the email yesterday, but haven't had a minute until now to cross-post.

The Republicans have recently (and belatedly, of course) admitted that Democrats and Progressives have leveraged the web to stay in contact with one another and to react quickly to changing political situations. Of course, they're trying their best to catch up, but we mustn't allow that.

Let me quote Josh McConaha from the DNC:

We're working full-time to make sure we don't let the Republican candidates and their allies get away with anything.

Fortunately, thanks to our crack research team, we have all the information we need to make that happen -- all the speeches, transcripts, video footage, and voting records.

Tonight, I suppose, more than any other in my life, do I feel the press of 300 years of American ancestry. Tonight, more than any other so far in my life, do I feel such an anxiety about what kind of world I'm soon (well, in the next score-or-so of years) to hand down.

It is with many an emotional and tearful redaction that I humbly offer this petition to you, my American brothers and sisters.

Nothing makes one evaluate one's legacy until some kinfolk with "grand" in their kinship arrives. We are most certainly closer to a constitutional crisis than ever before in American history, albeit in the scope of world history, a short, but colorful one.

This morning has brought some interesting posts to the DNC's Kicking Ass open thread. I posted a response that I hope will provoke some thought and (somewhere, somehow) promote thought and truth to action. Herewith:

The thread started with still-more shocked posts at the Sunday bobbleheads who are praising the still-dead Falwell. I had to respond: Falwell? A hero? A man who committed daily sedition, trained moles to infiltrate the government, emplaced them in the loving arms of the Bush administration for the sole purpose of overturning the Constitution, overthrowing our system of laws and replacing our government with a twisted, Moon-soaked theocracy at which, naturally, only he and is closest adherents would be at the top? Falwell is no hero to any patriotic American.

Event: Human Rights Campaign Meeting
When: May 18, 2007, 7pm
Where: Q Lounge
708 West Market St.
Greensboro, 27401
Type: Progressive Organization
Map: Google | MapQuest

We just achieved unprecedented success on our anti-bullying bill! The House Education Committee voted down by a wide margin the egregious Hilton Amendement seeking to remove not only LGBT youth but also other always-bullied groups from protection through our anti-bullying bill. The unamended bill then passed the committee, taking us one step closer to protecting our young people.

This is a huge victory for Equality North Carolina and we couldn't have done it without our online activists--thank you! Special thanks go to our legislative allies and especially to Representative Rick Glazier for his courageous sponsorship.

As I write this, I'm humming "I can get by with a little help from my friends" :-)

Y'all know that I've been hot and heavy into pushing clean and alternative energy source. My parter and I have been burning up the Tubes looking for individual/household-level grants and incentives for co-generation. From the appearance, unless you are a school, a non-profit entity, a local government or a small business, th'ain't any.

By now everyone has heard the endless headlines of a horrible turris plot being broken up in New Jersey. Keith Olberman (whom I've come to respect, even if I don't agree with just everything he says) pointed out what the sensationalist, breathless MSM neglected to tell.

These clowns videoed themselves in their "practice" then took the tape to the equivalent of a Photomat and transferred the tape to DVD.

Catch that, if you will. Went to a photomat to make a DVD. Hardly the hallmark of a secretive turris bunch. Had this been an actual emergency, they would have kept their "plot" completely secret until it was executed.

Never mind that they had no money, no workable plan and were stupid enough to use a very public method of documenting their harebrained scheme.