The 76th National Folk Festival will be held in downtown Greensboro, Friday, Sept 9 through Sunday, Sept. 11. The festival organizers have been busy this week getting the downtown ready for more than 300 performers and a crowd that is expected to top 100,000 for the three-day event.
The National Folk Festival will have seven stages in operation from 6 to 10:30 p.m. Friday night, noon to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 6:15 p.m. on Sunday. For complete schedule, go to nationalfolkfestival.com.
The performances are all free. Parking in the city parking decks is $10 a day, but there is plenty of free parking in the surrounding area if you don’t mind walking a few blocks.
There will be a wide variety of food available from food trucks as well as craft beer.
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The next Rhino Times Schmoozefest is Thursday, Sept. 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. at The W on Elm in downtown Greensboro, 324 S. Elm St. Business professionals who sign in and wear a name tag are invited to enjoy free beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres.
And with kids back in school, it’s just a matter of time before the holidays. The Rhino Times is asking loyal schmoozers to help make Christmas special this year for the 470 children in Guilford County foster care by bringing an unwrapped toy for a child or a gift card for a teen to Schmoozefests through November. Tax-deductible donations can also be made out to Celebrate the Children, the organization that will distribute the presents.
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Anybody who expected 6th District Congressman Mark Walker to go to Washington, keep his head down and vote how he was told doesn’t know Walker very well.
Tuesday, Walker, who is in his first term, announced he would be running for chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) and has already attracted a broad base of support.
Since 1973, the RSC has provided legislative analysis and advocacy for the members of this voluntary committee. Current Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and former North Carolina Congresswoman Sue Myrick are past chairmen.
Walker already has a reputation in Congress for helping to bridge the gaps between the different Republican factions and this will give him a strong base to continue that work.
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The News & Record’s attempt to rewrite history in it’s editorial “For better districts” on Thursday, Sept. 1 is incredible. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”
The editorial correctly notes that in the 1980s the 6th Congressional District was extremely competitive. In 1980, Republican Eugene Johnston stunned everyone by defeating the popular and long serving Democrat Rep. Richardson Preyer. In 1982, Democrat Robin Britt defeated Johnston. In 1984, Republican Howard Coble defeated Britt and then, in an even closer race, defeated Britt in 1986 by a mere 79 votes, thus earning the nickname in Congress “Landslide” Coble.
Coble served 26 more years in Congress and never faced another serious challenge, but it wasn’t because of Republican redistricting in 1986 as you might surmise from the editorial. Democrats controlled the state government in the 1980s as they had for the entire 20th century.
The difference was that the US Justice Department ordered the State of North Carolina to create two minority-majority congressional districts, a fact conveniently left out of the editorial. The result was the bizarre and much litigated 12th Congressional District, which, as originally drawn by the Democrats, stretched from Durham to Gastonia along I-85. That district, only as wide as half of the interstate in some areas, was deemed too radical even for the Justice Department and the district was modified to stretch only from Greensboro to Charlotte along I-85. It was still a bizarre district with most of the voters in the district having only two things in common: One, they lived near I-85 and, two, they were black.
The result of creating the minority-majority district was that a large number of black voters were taken out of the 6th District. Since black voters overwhelmingly register Democrat and vote Democrat, Coble’s district became a safe Republican district.
But it wasn’t the Republicans who created the absurd redistricting. Republicans had no say in it. It was all done by the Democrats. That ridiculous district existed for over 20 years until the federal courts controlled by liberal judges decided that for Democrats to draw ridiculous districts was acceptable but for the Republicans to do the same was unconstitutional.
What the Republicans, to their delight, and the Democrats, to their chagrin, discovered is that by creating minority-majority districts in North Carolina, they also created safe Republican districts.
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To have all the world’s information at your fingertips is something that people younger than me have always had and I have grown to expect. So when I got some of the words to “Time in a Bottle” stuck in my head, I simply typed Jim Croce and was listening to the song in no time.
But what I want now from the internet is the rest of the story. I knew someone who sang backup on one of Croce’s albums and I can’t for the life of me remember who it was. I have narrowed it down, but I can’t look it up because she wasn’t a union member, so she sang under one of those ridiculous made up names like W. Irish Rose or something.
When they develop a computer that can search my brain and find the tidbit I’m looking for then I’ll be impressed.
By the way, Croce wrote “Time in a Bottle” about his son shortly after he was born, and unfortunately he didn’t have much time with his son because Croce died in a plane crash two years later.
