Triangle

For those citizens of North Carolina who live outside the radius served by the Independent Weekly, they recently published an excellent article about House Bill 129. The innocently titled "level the playing field" bill is a Civitas/AFP-backed agenda item to prevent local governments from establishing their own municipal broadband service and thereby compete with the big telecom companies. The same companies who currently enjoy big tax breaks to bring us overpriced broadband services that still ranks among the slowest in the developed world.

"Was it all a Dream?" of course is the opening line of Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 911. I love that quote because it reminds me to put things in perspective.

Putting things in perspective as Election Day 2010 approaches is a good thing (lol).

Organizing For America is inviting us to revisit and reignite the temper of the times of Election Day 2008.

North Carolina was and is "in play" as a Red State that turned Blue in 2008.

And we have not forgotten and we are not going back.

Cross posted at Daily Kos:

It was eleven o’clock just yesterday morning in the board room of the North Carolina Association of Educators’ offices in Raleigh. Twenty or so community leaders were gathered for a press conference calling for meaningful healthcare reform on a day that would include a vigil by supporters outside of NC Senator Kay Hagan’s office.

Just as the press conference was about to begin, Rhonda’s right hand began to shake.

“I’m going to have a seizure. Call 911.”

This can’t be happening. Not here. Not now.

Seeing that my chair had wheels, I helped Rhonda onto it and pushed it past the twenty or so community leaders gathered to promote meaningful healthcare reform and past the media representatives with their cameras and notepads out of the NCAE Boardroom and into the lobby.

“Call 911!”

www.ncpride.org

NC Pride is this weekend. It marks the 25th anniversary of this celebration. Of course the main event is the Parade at 1pm today. But there are speeches, festival grounds, food, vendors, booths, and lots of fun to be had. I'm about to head over to NC Pride, check out what is going on, and then volunteer at the Equality NC booth for a while.

I would argue that it is important for as many people to turn out to this parade and rally as possible, because it is the first one since prop 8 & the protests, and it is important to see this as not only a good time, but also a large political rally with a positive message. I also want to take a second to share some info on the Parade Marshall Mark Kleinschmidt, a Chapel Hill town councilman who is running for mayor, and for whom I am the campaign's volunteer coordinator:

Campaign Website
www.mark4mayor.com

I wanted to pass this along for folks in the triangle. Sorry for the cut and paste.

Dear Fellow Advocates,

I am writing on behalf of my colleagues in the Franciscan Coalition to invite you to our upcoming conference entitled "Hunger No More."

Hunger is a pervasive problem in our world. We produce more than enough food to feed everyone across the globe, yet from Raleigh to Ramallah to Rio, people go to bed hungry.

The Franciscan Coalition knows hunger is a problem that can be solved if only we band together and demonstrate the will power to do so. That is why we have organized a major, interfaith, "green" summit to address this issue – and what people like us can do to solve it.

The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro-MPO created a Special Transit Advisory Commission, which has done a hard year's worth of work to create the STAC report.

I dunno, maybe a big story fell through and they had to think of something quick, but the front of today's Life section of the N&O--The Seven Wonders of the Triangle--was l-a-m-é. Their picks: RTP, Cameron Indoor Stadium, that damn Acorn in Raleigh, Cameron Village (note obsession with things named Cameron) and a few others. (I kinda agree with Crook's Corner Shrimp & Grits, but I'm not sure if it's a classic wonder.)

Here's some of the short descriptions of the wonders (wherein the paper of record does snark, I think):

The Acorn
Big and fun and metal and hoisted by a crane on New Year's Eve. . .

RTP
. . .RTP is populated by all sorts of wonderfully smart people who tinker with test tubes and microbes and whatnot. . .