License to blog?

By William R. Toler

I love North Carolina. It’s a beautiful state, from the miles of beaches on the Atlantic Coast to the hazy hills of the southern Appalachians. But sometimes the idoacy the “powers that be” make me sad to be Tarheel born and bred.

A blogger could be facing jail time. His crime: wrting about the Paleo Diet.

After Steve Cooksey was hospitalized with diabetes in 2009, he decided to fight his ailment by changing his diet, the Carolina Journal reports. After experiencing positive results from the low-carb, high-protein regimen, Cooksey decided to start a blog.

Depsite having a disclaimer at the bottom of his blog stating, “I am not a doctor, dietitian nor nutritionist… in fact I have no medical training of any kind,” Cooksey received a letter from the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition.

Isn’t that nice? We have a Nanny State agency to “protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of North Carolina from harmful nutrition practice by providing for the licensure and regulation of persons engaged in the practice of dietetics/nutrition and by establishing educational standards for those persons.” How did we survive before 1992?

Carolina crop circles

By William R. Toler

Courtesy WCTI-TV

Alien intervention, paranormal prank or weather weirdness?

Mysterious crop formations in western Craven County have locals buzzing.

According to NewsChannel 12, the formations appeared in several wheat fields nearly two weeks ago along Rollover Creek Road. The stalks were bent, not broken, as in most crop circle cases. Unlike most circles, some of the edges were squared off.

Thoughts on the fallout of Amendment One

By Adam Carlson

Well, the amendment passed and now the opinions are flying left and right like shit being hurled from the monkey house at the zoo.

There have been a lot of people who voted for this amendment stating that they did so and that they are proud of their choice to vote their beliefs. Furthermore most have also pointed out that they feel persecuted because those with progressive views (not to mention those of us who are actually educated and informed) are calling them ignorant for it.

For the record, if you voted pro Amendment One believing that it was really about blocking homosexual marriage from attaining legal status in North Carolina you did vote out of ignorance. Also, if you voted pro Amendment One believing that it was legislation to MAKE homosexual marriage illegal in North Carolina, you ARE actually ignorant (by definition). Gay marriage has never been legally recognized in N.C., part of this amendment was simply blocking the ability of any one judge to overturn that by writing it into our constitution. And that was just the bait!

Amendment One: A political powergrab

By Jennifer Nicole Howard

Why is it that so many conservatives are afraid of gay people? Something tells me they aren’t.

The North Carolina General Assembly, largely controlled by Republicans, has passed an amendment to the state’s constitution which will be decided on by voters next month.  NC Amendment One seeks to establish marriage between a man and a woman as the only legally recognized union in the state.  This objective will preclude legal recognition for all other domestic partnerships in the process. Same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, so why are the bureaucrats so apprehensive?

It seems that these politicians have passed the point of concern to control gays and have a concern to control society at large. The men behind such a disastrous policy have one thing: the control of other human beings. These men hold a view of life that is so narrow-minded that they feel the need to control others in order to keep its tradition. Man has long lived under the rule of brute force and its religious counterparts. History proves that these ideals are misguided, yet these cynical men want to hold back the minds of those who wish to evolve.

Senator Daniel Soucek, a Republican sponsor of the bill said, “It’s not just the term marriage; it’s all of the societal communal building blocks that make up traditional marriage. We think that’s the healthiest way to raise children.” The comment here proves my point. This law is based on an arbitrary opinion. These traditionalists are afraid of change.

Studies show that child-rearing in a same-sex household does not affect their self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional health. The vast consensus of these studies is that children of same-sex parents do as well as children whose parents are heterosexual in every way. The supporters of this bill don’t care to know that such studies have been done. These types of people are simply stuck in their ways. They never care to seek the vast amount of information available to a human mind if one chooses to think. Instead they clench to outdated traditions, refuting new information that will contradict their premises, of which they are incapable of repudiating.

Community colleges earn failing grades on free speech

By Corey Friedman

College is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas — a place where students examine a range of diverse viewpoints, champion some and challenge others. At some North Carolina schools, however, robust debate is off the syllabus and questioning authority is out of the question.

Just up the road in Hickory, Catawba Valley Community College suspended student Marc Bechtol for two semesters after he criticized the college’s partnership with a debit card company on the college Facebook page. Bechtol accused the college and its partner financial institution of selling student information to banks, and he suggested a tongue-in-cheek method of retaliation: Registering a college email address with pornographic websites to trigger a flood of spam emails.

It’s clear from the full text of Bechtol’s post that the proposal was made in jest. But CVCC administrators didn’t appreciate his sense of humor. They pulled him out of class on Oct. 4. Without a hearing, Bechtol was banned from the campus for two semesters for violating a college policy that bars anything the administration believes “may be contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community.”

The ‘Nanny State’ of North Carolina

By William R. Toler

My home state was recently the recipient of an award that’s not so honor-worthy. North Carolina was named Reason.tv’s “Nanny State of the Month” for May 2011.

The reason for Reason’s choice: a 1993 ban on rare hamburgers. According to AOL Weird News, the state has prohibited rare and medium rare burgers served in restaurants across the state “thanks to a state restriction that requires restaurants to cook ground beef to an internal temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit.” However, steaks aren’t included in the ban.

“I don’t believe in a nanny state when it comes to food,” said Steven Elliot, a rare burger lover. “I don’t like the government telling us what we can and cannot eat.” Elliot is the founder of RareBurger.com, a website that currently lists two restaurants in the Triangle area where you can order a juicy, red hamburger.

End of inspections?

By William R. Toler

Vehicle inspections may be a thing of the past if some state assemblymen get their way. While the notion does sound ideal…don’t count on it.

The News & Observer reported last week that there is a bi-partisan bill in the NC Senate that would do away with saftey inspections in the Tarheel State. You know, the tedious thing you have to do every year…or get a ticket.

The reason for the bill? A 2008 report that “determined North Carolina motorists may not be getting a satisfactory return on the $141 million they spend annually on inspection fees,” according to the N&O. The report also alledged that there was a lack of oversight that inspections were being properly carried out.

Garage owners and the Highway Patrol both support the inspections, citing the tired excuse of saftey. “The last thing we want is a vehicle to be traveling out there that’s faulty,” said Sgt. Jeff Gordon.

Pit bull bans miss the mark

By Corey Friedman

Government has a knack for using tragedy to justify tyranny.

Deranged gunmen open fire on innocent victims and lawmakers restrict responsible citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Would-be terrorists smuggle explosives onto commercial air flights, so travelers endure body scans and patdowns.

A pit bull (Courtesy ASPCA)

In Shelby, N.C.,  the City Council might consider placing restrictions on pit bull owners in response to the tragic mauling in Waxhaw last week that took the life of a 5-year-old girl. Councilman Joel Shores has recommended that the board examine pit bull-specific animal ordinances that he believes would help protect children from aggressive dogs.

Shores said some North Carolina cities require pit bull owners to muzzle the dogs when walking them on a leash, set rules for the size and type of cage they must be kept in and even make residents buy liability insurance in order to own pit bulls. While these rules stop short of an outright ban on the breed, they still interfere with private property rights and penalize responsible dog owners for others’ failings.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a study on human deaths from dog bites in 2000 and concluded that the data didn’t support increased regulation of specific breeds.

“Because of difficulties inherent in determining a dog’s breed with certainty, enforcement of breed-specific ordinances raises constitutional and practical issues,” concludes a CDC report on the study. “Fatal attacks represent a small proportion of dog bite injuries to humans and, therefore, should not be the primary factor driving public policy concerning dangerous dogs.”

Community colleges to ban ‘threatening’ students

By William R. Toler

By next spring, prospective students could be shown the door instead of an open door at their local community college.

The NC Board of Community Colleges voted Friday to ban “threatening students” just weeks after a former community college student allegedly attempted to assasinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) at a public event.

Board members told News Carolina 14 that the policy has been in consideration for about a year.

The policy, although adopted, still has to before a rules commission before it can take effect…G-d help us if it does.

N.C. smoking ban fouls the air

By Corey Friedman

The smoke has cleared, and the law still stinks.

A state law banning smoking in North Carolina restaurants and bars turned a year old this month. Restaurant owners across the Tar Heel State have gotten used to the ban, and outrage that many expressed before the law’s passage has dissipated like a wisp of smoke in a crowded diner.

The widespread ambivalence doesn’t show that burdening business owners with needless restrictions was the right thing to do, however. It proves only that restaurateurs have learned to live with a bad law.

Cigarette smoking is a dangerous habit, but it’s one that millions of adult citizens choose. Secondhand smoke causes nearly 50,000 deaths per year, according to the American Cancer Society. About 46,000 of those deaths are due to heart disease in nonsmokers who live with smokers.