Gov. Roy Cooper and Democrats in the state legislature continue to make a lot of noise about repealing House Bill 2 (HB2), the bathroom bill. But the fact is that when a straight up or down vote on repealing HB2 was put before the state Senate, only 16 senators voted for it and all 16 were Republicans. According to one Democratic state senator, the reason the Democrats all voted against a bill they had previously claimed to support was that Cooper told them to vote against it.
If the Democrats really wanted to repeal HB2, they could have voted for repeal in December and it would all be done with. The truth is that Cooper and the Democrats don’t want HB2 to go away because it allows them to raise money from gay rights supporters nationwide. When HB2 goes away, so will the money.
If Cooper had a legitimate proposal he would have discussed it with President Pro Tem of the state Senate Phil Berger and state House Speaker Tim Moore before going public with it. Cooper’s proposal was for show.
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A law has been introduced in the General Assembly to make it illegal to drive with a pet on your lap. No doubt this will prevent a few fender benders, but why pick on pets?
Fender benders are also caused by people eating, drinking, changing the radio station, being distracted by screaming children in the back seat, looking at the passenger, trying to see the map on the screen in the dash, having a tennis ball roll under the brake pedal, putting on makeup, reading a book or newspaper, combing hair, talking on the phone – whether it is hands free or not, having their hands in improper positions on the steering wheel and simply not paying attention to what they are doing.
Why doesn’t the legislature make a law that when driving a vehicle on public roads and streets that the driver has to have their hands at 2 and 10 on the steering wheel and when traveling forward must be looking through the windshield at the roadway in front of the vehicle.
Alternatively, they could allow drivers to use their best judgment when driving and leave it at that.
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I was listening to NPR – something I keep trying not to do – and the story being reported was the shocking news that a rugby team in Great Britain was taking ballet classes. I first heard a version of this story when I was about 10 years old, and although I have no proof, I think I’ve heard it about every two or three years in the intervening 52 years. Football teams and rugby teams taking ballet for balance flexibility and coordination is evidently a story that never gets old.
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The cabinet-level appointees have gotten most of the press, but in Washington, DC, a new administration means that just about all of the presidential appointees lose their jobs. And that was the case for former Greensboro City Manager Denise Turner Roth, who was head of the General Services Administration (GSA). She resigned effective Jan. 20.
Roth left her job as Greensboro city manager to accept a position as deputy administrator at the GSA, and, when the administrator resigned, was acting administrator for several months until being appointed by former President Barack Obama to the top position. She was confirmed by the Senate in August 2015.
The GSA has about 12,000 employees, a budget of over $26 billion, controls a fleet of over 210,000 vehicles and owns or leases over 377 million square feet of space.
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How soon they forget. The News & Record online claims Robert Sylvester Alston, who was convicted of killing four women in the early 1990s, is the city’s only serial killer.
Evidently the editors didn’t do quite enough research because in the 1980s, in what was an extremely popular series in the News & Record, Jerry Bledsoe wrote about Fritz Klenner, who murdered five to eight people along with himself, his girlfriend and her two children in a fiery explosion on NC 150 when being chased by police. The accepted definition of a serial killer is someone who kills more than three people over a period of time, although some say killing four people is the minimum.
Bledsoe turned his News & Record series into the true crime book Bitter Blood, published in 1989, and it became The New York Times No. 1 bestseller. Maybe somebody at the News & Record should purchase a copy.
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The warm up for Mardi Gras Rhino Times Schmoozefest will be held at 1618 Midtown at on Thursday, Feb. 23 from 6 to 8 p.m. As always beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served gratis to those who sign in and where a name tag.
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We have an extremely shady yard and the first daffodils bloomed on Feb. 9. In yards that get more sun the daffodils are in full bloom. Back when I was a child, daffodils were a spring, not a midwinter flower. If I didn’t know better I’d think the climate was changing.
