Alkahest my heroes have always died at the end

March 3, 2010

Turn about and all that

Filed under: Pique,Political,Social — cec @ 9:38 pm

So maybe in my last post, I was a bit hard on Louisiana because it’s the state I’ve left.  It’s not like we don’t have our own wackos in NC.  Two examples:

  1. One of NC’s representatives, Patrick McHenry (R) has proposed that we put Reagan’s face on the $50 bill.  Maybe for his work on voodoo tinkle on trickle down economics?  Although there is some appropriate irony to giving Reagan the $50… it’s a bill that most people don’t use.  Personally, I’m not rich enough to deal in $50s, $20s maybe.  Hey, if we’re redesigning money, why don’t we give more important presidents more prominent spots.  Jefferson definitely outranks Reagan and he’s on the never used $2 bill.  What about Madison?  The dude practically wrote the Constitution.  Shouldn’t those of who don’t use $5,000 bills get a chance to see him?
  2. And closer to home, the newly minted republican majority on the Wake county school board has succeeded in rolling back a nationally recognized program to improve educational outcomes by ensuring socio-economic diversity.  Sure, I was bussed in elementary school.  It wasn’t the most enjoyable experience of my life, but at the same time, I think that it was good for me as a person to be exposed to other socio-economic groups at school.  Moreover, the program in Wake has demonstrated that it reduces the achievement gap between poor/minority students and rich/white students.  That’s gotta be worth a little time on the bus.

<sigh> Music for the evening: Danger Mouse’s and Sparklehorse’s Dark Night of the Soul and Titus Andronicus’s The Airing of Grievances.  They seem to capture the mood.

Seriously, W… T… F?

Filed under: Political,Social — cec @ 9:15 pm

Every once in a while, something from Louisiana will catch the national attention, or at least the political bits that I care about, and I’m once again reminded of why I’m happy to have left.  The latest?  Apparently, the Bossier Parish sheriff is creating himself a militia.  No really.  It’s called “Operation Exodus,” which according to the sheriff’s press release is an allusion to the biblical Book of Exodus.  I’m not certain if that worries me or makes me happy that it’s not a reference to secession.  I think I’ll go with worry since it’s a biblical reference to secession.

Now, in fairness, the sheriff claims that the program is not a militia, but rather:

The plan, known as Operation Exodus, will provide for self-sufficiency in the event of a manmade or natural disaster or a terrorist attack. Exodus will take local volunteers, train them and use them in response to a catastrophic disaster in the area. These volunteers will work in conjunction with the Bossier Sheriff’s Office to secure and protect viable resources in such an event.

For the record, this is B.S.  The sheriff wants the operation to sound like an adult version of the Boy Scouts where his parish will “always be prepared.”  But I was a cub scout, I’m pretty certain that I would have stayed on for the Boy Scouts if we were going to have access to “the war wagon”  with a .50 caliber  machine gun mounted on top.

Apparently, the militia concerned citizens are mostly past middle age [no!] white [really?!] men [shocked!!].  Women will be given the support roles and apparently, the five black members of the militia operation will be in charge of stepping and fetching [okay, i made that last one up].

The sad part is that things seem worse in Louisiana than they were 16+ years ago when I left.  But maybe I just hear the worst of it from here.  Or maybe I wasn’t paying attention to the social and political environment until after I left.  That last option has a lot of support: hell, I voted for Ross Perot in ’92 🙂

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