For the past year, North Carolinians have been under siege from an angry mob -- and the only thing standing between us and them has been a 110-pound blonde gatekeeper who has held them off all by herself, not with a sword, but with a pen.
Yesterday, that gatekeeper, Governor Bev Perdue, announced that she would not seek re-election. She was, in effect laying down her sword. Read more about why we owe her our thanks and then please sign our petition to thank Governor Perdue for standing up to the far right in North Carolina.
Yesterday marked the start of a campaign to urge North Carolinians to oppose an amendment to our state constitution scheduled for a statewide vote this spring. Some people call it the "the anti-gay marriage amendment" and even the "anti-gay referendum." Others call it "the marriage discrimination amendment." To make things simple, we call it Amendment One as it will be the first (and only) amendment on the ballot. 
Pending legislation to allow "fracking" (drilling for natural gas through hydraulic fracturing) in NC does not restrict drilling to a designated zone -- and maps from the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources show that the areas likely to hold natural gas deposits are 
Last week, through my sister, I learned that a friend of hers in Raleigh had lost his little shepherd mutt named Mocha. Rick and Mocha are inseparable and his friends knew he'd never be the same if they couldn't find her. As the days unfolded, person after person joined in the search to bring Mocha home. They gave up their evenings after work to search for her and they spread the word on social media to keep an eye out for a shy, fearful dog unlikely to come to anyone who called her. A sighting of Mocha at a specific crossroads would be quickly posted to Facebook, sending people to their cars to canvas the area in hopes of finding one lost and hungry little dog. Soon, complete strangers were following the story and searching for Mocha. In the end, a miracle of sorts occurred. 
January 5, 2012 will go down as a sad day for North Carolina -- it will be remembered as the day that leaders of our state government met in the dark of the night to elude public scrutiny and then shut down debate by their opposition in an attempt to ram their extremist agenda through our state house with as few people participating or watching as possible. 
Almost nine years. 4,500 service members killed. 
Come on over and 
