NC Renegades

Pearl Jam is canceling its concert in North Carolina later this month because of the state’s new law on LGBT rights.

In a statement issued Monday on the band’s website, Pearl Jam called the new law “a despicable piece of legislation that encourages discrimination against an entire group of American citizens.”

The statement says the band has communicated with local groups and will give them money to oppose the law.

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I will take faith over Pearl Jam.

David DeGerolamo

Boston founder Tom Scholz announced with “deep regret” the cancellation of three shows scheduled for North Carolina next month, noting that “human rights are more important.”

On his web site, Scholz said that he is canceling shows slated for Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh on May 4, 5 and 6, “in order to raise awareness, and protest in the strongest terms, the recent passage of HB2, the so-called ‘North Carolina bathroom law.'”

HB2, which passed in March, prevents cities from creating non-discrimination policies based on gender identity and mandates that students in state schools use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate.

“HB2 has the appearance of an oppressive discriminatory law against a small minority,” said Scholz.

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The first time around in Iraq, I had the honor of serving in the 101^st Airborne on the Invasion.  I would be lying if I said I do not miss the excitement that was unique to the Invasion.  Everyone I have met that went on the “run and gun” ground assault race to Baghdad, with stripped down HMMWVs, in unbreathable NBC suits, surrounded by 140 degree heat ,with very little water and no air conditioning, tends to compare every other bad event in our life to that year.  I was completely undertrained and underequipped, but I was simply too ignorant to know the difference.   That was the first time.

On November 3^rd of 2007 I happily left the oppressive heat of Kuwait and went back to Iraq for the second time.  I remember the date exact as it was the same day that I got the call on my cell phone that my second Son, Gabriel, was born.  Due to some serious differences between my boss and I about how he treated the Soldiers, I was asked to take an assignment as the Squadron’s, (it was a Cavalry, i.e. light Infantry unit) public affairs officer.  My mother was a union boss and my father was a militia leader so I guess I was just not built to shut up and mind my own lane.  The sunny side of the incident was that it gave me the freedom to step away from a life as a TOCroach or Fobbit, (to those unfamiliar with the terms please see “Bob on the Fob”) and go Soldier.  Some of what I wrote went through sites like DVIDS and can still be seen online if you Google hard enough.  But I digress.

Lesson 1: Know your neighborhood

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h/t Sam Culper

by Robert Gore

You went out last night for “a couple of drinks,” but you knew you were going to get drunk. You paid attention to someone who was not attractive or interesting, but you wanted to have sex. You and your newfound partner got in a car that neither one of you should have been driving, managed to avoid the police or an accident, and made it somewhere where you could copulate. That wasn’t what it is made out to be—it never is when you’re drunk—and the pleasure you managed to extract, if you were able to function at all, was minimal and forgettable.

Except circumstances won’t let you forget. After you pass out into a few hours of something that is not sleep, you wake up and there next to you is the hideous thing, name unremembered, with which you coupled. You stumble into the bathroom, drink copious amounts of water, take multiple Advils, and stare at yourself in the mirror. Suddenly, up it comes, that noxious combination of alcohol and bar food; you toss your all in the porcelain pit. And you realize it isn’t the residual beer and whiskey in your system, it’s absolute self-contempt, self-loathing, and self-abasement: your body and your barely functioning mind rendering their verdict on what you did.

Having much for which to loathe itself, America needs a painful but purgative puke, one that prompts a wholesale reexamination. Some people when they reach bottom realize that they have not only screwed up their own life, they have grievously harmed others, especially family and friends, if there are any left. Look at the mess the US has made of what it claims as its remit: the entire world. Considering itself exceptional and indispensable, it tells both friends and foes what they can and cannot do, and throws its weight around to get its way. Wars have been fought, governments subverted and deposed, bribes proffered, tyrannies succored, as a small coterie, drunk on power, tries to order the world as they see fit.

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It appears that only a few people recognize LaVoy Finicum’s Stand For Liberty emblem. I felt it was fitting to replace 50 divided stars with one symbol of Liberty. I look forward to the day when the nation actually has a government which respects its flag, its people, its traditions and its values. That day may never come unless we stand up.

David DeGerolamo

h/t Matt Bracken

North Carolina has become a battleground for LGBT rights after the state passed an anti-discriminatory law that excluded protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The law is best known for requiring transgender people to use the bathroom in public buildings that match the gender on their birth certificate.

The backlash was swift and intense. McCrory issued an executive order intended to assuage the concerns of those who believed the law would legalize rampant discrimination. He said he wanted to set straight the “great deal of misinformation, misinterpretation, confusion.” Yet his announcement on April 12 added to the confusion as to what actually changed.

Let’s take a look at whether his words have any meaning in this debate: What did the law do, and what did the executive order change?

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h/t Keith H

h/t Bart G