rights

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.

There have been lots and lots of reduction in our rights as photographers to make images in the past 7 years. I am amazed at some of the stories I read and hear about these days.
As American citizens, we have THE RIGHT to make any photograph at any time in public. We have the RESPONSIBILITY to make sure those who work for us (police especially) are doing their jobs, and there is a long-standing, historical interest in documenting our society.
Recently, there have been a number of camera confiscations, photographer detentions, arrests, and outright harassment cases in NYC and elsewhere.

Get ready for tomorrow if you haven't already voted.

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At meetings of both the Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Commissioners last night, two important issues were addressed.
The City postponed a decision on a "steep slope" development regulation. Meanwhile, across the alley, the County approved its first zoning law 3-2.

Early voting started in North Carolina this past week and my wife and I wanted to take advantage of it. I am glad we did.

From what I understand from the BOE workers, local BOE databases were swapped over to a single state-wide database in Raleigh this past spring. That kind of database merger sweeps in all the problems you can possibly imagine. I was listed as inactive, even though they have me voting every two years since, like, forever. And my wife's data was also wonky - they still had her maiden name, we have been married for 13 years. The main problem stemmed, I think, from the 'geoloc' database. Our residence is on Brookstone Court - least that is what the street sign says. Nothing could be changed with our registration until we figured out Raleigh thought we lived on Brookstone DRIVE. Just that basic error locked up everything.