scharrison's blog

Recently I considered "less ranting" for possible inclusion on a list of New Year's Resolutions. I am going to adopt Dan's already broken "stop sleeping late" resolution, at least until tomorrow anyway. But going rantless or even "rant-lite" is going to have to wait until at least a year from now, because I've got a rant that's been building since early last year, and previous mini-rants on this subject haven't sufficiently scratched my rant itch. For those familiar with earlier rants, I'll do the freshest rant first, so you can avoid any rerun rants.

North Carolina's Coastal Plain is an enigma to most of us. Vast stretches of flat nothingness to traverse on our way to the beaches. But that nothingness is actually an incredible and precious world of wonder and diversity, and it may be one of the first casualties of our lack of foresight in our continued addiction to fossil fuels.

I've done my fair share of traveling over the years. I've climbed pyramids on opposite sides of the planet, walked in the footsteps of warriors and kings in places where human history is sometimes measured in millennia, as opposed to centuries. And I plan on doing that some more, before I retire to the rocker. But I'm also going to take the time to get to know and enjoy the vastness and beauty of North Carolina, which, for too many years, I have paid little attention to.

Don't spank me Betsy, but I'm going to use up some more bandwidth. While I can paint a decent picture with words, it's still not really a picture, if you know what I mean. ;)

With the possible exception of the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency has seen its effectiveness, credibility and mission wither more than any other Executive arm during the administrative nightmare of the last eight years. Respected environmental experts and scientists have seen their findings and recommendations marginalized, edited or downright ignored. In cases where the data was simply too strong to ignore, the Bush administration took the back-door route by concurring, and then selecting wide swaths of industry to be exempted from any corrective actions resulting from said studies.

I'm still having a little trouble comprehending the scope of our success in the election. Races I thought we might barely lose we won, and ones I thought we might barely win ended up being blowouts. Amazing. But hovering over the post-coital bliss is the horrible state of our economy, and the fear that the changes we need will be lost in the desperate struggle to survive until the economy turns around. But if North Carolina is going to not only survive but prosper, we're going to have to find the resources to take bold, innovative steps, especially in the area of energy production and usage.

This election cycle has brought into focus the performance (or lack of) from Senator Dole, and for many North Carolinians, the person they're seeing now barely resembles the Florence Nightingale they thought had been sent to Washington six years ago. That second person never really existed, as a close scrutiny of her career of disservice plainly proves, but we do love our fantasies and don't surrender them easily.

I know many of my fellow environmentalists are weary of this election season, as they are finding less and less evidence of real concern for the environment in the tone and stance of candidates from both major parties. While this is discouraging, it is (still) important to keep our focus on what the candidates' positions on the environment are. In that respect, Beverly Perdue is so far ahead of her opponent they're not even in the same league.

It should come as no surprise that Liddy Dole has supported the failed policies of President Bush ever since we made the huge mistake of sending her to the Senate six years ago. She'd been doing the same for three decades since Nixon appointed her to the Federal Trade Commission back in 1973, and she's made an art of ignoring learned opinion and common sense in favor of blind allegiance to whoever her current master is at the time.

I'm sure most of you are (by now) aware of what happened to Joe Killian at the Palin Rally the other day, where he was kicked to the ground by an irate Palin supporter. Not only was this an attack on the 1st Amendment, it was an attack on a fellow blogger. You would think this would generate some sympathy, solidarity and possibly a modicum of outrage from all local bloggers (imagine how we would react if this happened to Justin or BJ or Ray), but unfortunately that's not the case. Some Greensboro bloggers have chosen the very low road on this, and I hope this stink follows them for a long time.

Hat tip to Mark Binker over at Capital Beat for pointing me to Joe's blog:

“Oh, you think that’s funny?!” the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. “Yeah, that’s real funny…” he said.

And then he kicked the back of leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.