North Carolina
Heart of North Carolina turns spooky as Halloween approaches
ASHEBORO, N.C. — In terms of scary, terrifying, ghoulish, jump-out-of-your-skin Halloween points of interest, there’s not a lot you may say together with your coronary heart pounding inside your throat. However, the haunted locations within the coronary heart of North Carolina round Asheboro, Seagrove and Archdale garner fairly the excitement amongst media retailers that critique such issues.
Hang-out World Journal positioned Kersey Valley’s Spooky Woods at No. 8, whereas each Martha Stewart and the Atlanta Journal-Structure ranked it at No. 3. A brief drive away, Spooky Backside Haunted Path is a two-time winner of the Victims Alternative Awards for finest haunted attraction within the Carolinas.
Simply ask anybody and so they’ll inform you that the enjoyable Halloween actions and trick-or-treating in downtown Asheboro and on the Courthouse Cruise-In’s model of Trunk or Deal with are frighteningly spooky.
Remaining dates on this 12 months’s schedule are Oct. 22-23, Oct. 28-31 and Nov. 4-5. Spooky Woods, at 1615 Kersey Valley Highway in Archdale, noticed about 40,000 guests final 12 months.
For individuals who plan manner forward, be sure you put The “Historic Downtown Asheboro Ghostwalk” on the calendar for subsequent 12 months. This standard, long-running, dramatic attraction sells out in a short time and tickets are all taken for 2022.
North Carolina
How the reversal of Roe v. Wade reshaped American life
It’s been nearly two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the federal right to abortion. Shefali Luthra, a health reporter at The 19th News, spoke to a variety of Americans about how their lives have been upended by the court’s decision for her book, “Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America.” She joined Laura Barrón-López to discuss.
North Carolina
NC’s public university system to vote this week to repeal diversity policies
The efforts to repeal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at North Carolina’s public universities come amid a broader backlash in conservative circles against affirmative action and other more recent racial justice reforms that passed after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Web Editor : Heather Leah
Posted
North Carolina
Opinion: Politicians ignore truth: NC lags behind in health care, education, wages
Moe Davis quotes H.L. Mencken who said “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety.”
“No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
This oft-repeated observation is by H.L. Mencken, a journalist, satirist and cultural commentator from Baltimore, who made it almost a century ago. Some say Mencken was racist, misogynistic and antisemitic, while others say he used provocative language to stimulate thought rather than to advance a position. Regardless, I’m struck by how prescient he seems today.
Early in my campaign for Congress in 2020, I talked about people voting against their own interests. Advisers warned me to stop saying it because it implied that people are stupid.
In hindsight, I wish I had ignored the advisers and been more like Mencken. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the election, but I should have had the gumption to tell people the truth, even if it hurt their feelings. So here it is now: Stupidity is no path forward for Western North Carolina.
More: Opinion: Republicans hope to demolish democracy that was cherished by Ronald Reagan
Mencken’s famous quote is from his book, “Notes on Democracy,” published in 1926. The passage reads:
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
We’re witnessing the enormous power of galvanizing individual ignorance to achieve political aims. It’s how the wealth gap grew into a wealth chasm as ordinary folks swallowed the notion that “trickle-down economics” would lift their rafts along with the rich man’s yacht, and that the “right to work” was good for them and their families when it really meant “the right to live impoverished while the rich grow richer.”
It’s how pro-lifers can argue that every life is precious while cheering the execution of death row inmates and the drowning of migrants snared in razor wire strung across the Rio Grande. It is how lies can masquerade as truth, cruelty as compassion, immorality as virtue, criminality as law and order, sedition as patriotism, and an election that was lost as one that was stolen. Mencken warned that “truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.”
Many haven’t just gotten used to fiction, they gleefully wallow in it and turn hostile when confronted with facts.
More: Opinion: Considering Asheville, Buncombe candidates, nothing will change in 2024 elections
The truth is WNC lags behind and it has for years. Take your pick — health care, education, broadband, wages — so many areas where we could do better if we just tried. Instead, many of us fall for charlatans who ignore facts and pander to feelings, even when those feelings are untethered from reality.
To quote Mencken again, “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” It reminds me of the anti-crime summit Congressman Chuck Edwards held last summer where he spoke in ominous terms about “lawlessness” and the need to act before Buncombe County and WNC “turn into another crime-ridden Chicago or San Francisco.”
Sheriff Quintin Miller responded that Edwards’s statement sounded like something “from Fox News” and was not supported by crime statistics kept by the State Bureau of Investigation. As the Sheriff said, “it’s irresponsible to have a conversation about public safety that is not rooted in data.” Unfortunately, truth becomes irrelevant when politicians ignore it to manipulate the feelings of the electorate to enhance their own political fortunes.
Perhaps it’s a pipedream, but I hope voters will ask politicians what they plan to do for “us” rather than what they plan to do to “them,” the imaginary hobgoblins they whip up to manipulate the malleable masses. And make them back it up with facts, not with just a play on feelings. Mencken said, “the most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.” WNC can move forward, but only if it is willing to think.
Moe Davis is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and the former head of the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division at the Congressional Research Service. He is currently writing a historical fiction novel set in Western North Carolina.
-
World1 week ago
India Lok Sabha election 2024 Phase 4: Who votes and what’s at stake?
-
News1 week ago
Skeletal remains found almost 40 years ago identified as woman who disappeared in 1968
-
Politics1 week ago
US Border Patrol agents come under fire in 'use of force' while working southern border
-
Politics1 week ago
Tales from the trail: The blue states Trump eyes to turn red in November
-
World1 week ago
Borrell: Spain, Ireland and others could recognise Palestine on 21 May
-
World1 week ago
Catalans vote in crucial regional election for the separatist movement
-
World1 week ago
Europe matters to consumers, and so does your vote
-
Politics1 week ago
North Dakota gov, former presidential candidate Doug Burgum front and center at Trump New Jersey rally