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Can The Commissioner of Labor Make A Difference

September 16, 2020 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Can You Live On Your Wages

Are You Drowning In The Status Quo

On Tuesday November 3rd we will be electing a new commissioner of labor for the State of North Carolina.

This is an exciting year because it’s an open election. The previous Commissioner, who held the office for five terms changed little. This time around, hopefully, things will be different.

The two candidates are Jessica Holmes for the Democratic Party and Josh Dobson for the Republican Party. Both candidates have political experience.

Jessica Holmes served for 7 years on the Wake County Board of Commissioners, which is no mean feat. Wake County is now the largest county in North Carolina. Not only has she served on the largest county but she also has the distinction of being the youngest person to serve as a commissioner and also the youngest person to serve as the board’s chair.

Jessica earned a law degree from the University of North Carolina.

Faith Over Fear Tees

Josh Dobson served 8 years in the North Carolina House of Representatives and during that time was involved in a ton of legislation. One bill in particular represents where his head is on financial issues, SB 820 which was signed into law on December 3, 2018. Simply put, the bill increases the cap on incentives paid to corporations that move premises to North Carolina. On the surface, it sounds promising but it’s mostly about big money and deep pockets. You can read about a few of the problems with the bill on NC Policy Watch.

Josh earned a Masters of Public Administration from Appalachian State. [Read more…] about Can The Commissioner of Labor Make A Difference

Filed Under: Personal Development, Philosophy, Political Issues

In Quiet Moments by Tim Pepper

September 11, 2020 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Praying on the beach.

Torn Between Furious Action and Patient Waiting…

God has a plan for you… That’s what I was taught. What do I do with that information though?

“God can steer a moving object.”

“Prayerfully wait on the Lord’s timing.”

“Put feet to your prayers.”

These are all things I’ve heard people say about what we are supposed to do with the knowledge that God has a plan for us. They are contradictory and platitudinal at best. What do they even mean and is there any truth to them?

I pray a lot. In quiet moments at work sometimes I breathe the words, “God, get me out of here….. Please?” I pray at night when I’m going to sleep. I pray throughout the day. My prayers have changed in later life. They used to just be angry rants about what I thought I deserved from life. Now I’ve learned that none of us deserve anything from life really. But I still sometimes pray those prayers.

What they really mean is that I’m not happy with where I am, or with what I’ve achieved, or with what I believe my hope for change is. I want someone to blame for it all. God’s an easy target. So I vent. I let all my anger out and direct it at my loving creator.

I think about what I must look like to Him sometimes when I see my 4-year-old melting down in tears because he can’t put his pants on straight. I think I must look like that to God, crying over my lot in life. He sees the bigger picture. I see the bigger picture too and help get the pants straightened out. I often can’t resist making some comments about how all that crying didn’t really help things much. God doesn’t add those insults to my injury. He just helps out and keeps the earth revolving around the sun so that I don’t die in flames or ice. [Read more…] about In Quiet Moments by Tim Pepper

Filed Under: Christian Living, Faith, Religion

The Good, Bad, And Ugly In Racial Politics

September 5, 2020 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Variety is the evidence of God's creative genius.

All Lives, Including Black Ones, Matter To God

George Floyd’s murder caused a fundamental change in the psyche of our nation. It didn’t change the facts surrounding racial issues – yet – but it did change how those issues are viewed by the white public. That is an important first step.

Floyd’s death is only one among many but its galvanizing effect has reverberated around the world.

Even law enforcement is coming around. Although the killing of African Americans in similar situations in the past was often explained away as the police doing their duty to protect the public, an astonishing number of law enforcement leaders have referred to Floyd’s death as “murder.”

However, my focus in this post is not on law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies don’t make the laws, they enforce them and it isn’t strange to believe they take on the attitudes and sentiments of the legislators who authorize their work. So, we need to look at Republicans and Democrats. What is their track record on the matter of race? What have they done or not done relative to racial issues? That is the focus here.

One clarification, though, before I say more.

“Black Lives Matter” (BLM) was catapulted into celebrity following Floyd’s murder but it isn’t a new movement. It got started in 2013 just after the murder of Trayvon Martin. From the beginning, though, they have been the object of ridicule, mischaracterization, and suspicion.

As an example, shortly after recent protests began, I was told on one occasion that BLM, the organization, is communist, and on another that BLM opposes the concept of the nuclear family. That’s just the start. The misrepresentations and insults never end.

If you research the issue you’ll find that BLM is decentralized. It’s chapter-based so you find individual groups spread throughout the States and those groups don’t necessarily connect. There is no single person dominating leadership. The group is concept-driven and the concept is simple: black lives matter.

I’m sure if you look closely you might find a few unsavory individuals involved but isn’t that true of all organizations. The bigger the organization the more likely you are to find individuals harboring off-kilter ideas.

But before you cut me off, and to be quite clear, no, I’m not a communist. In fact, I have no leanings toward any totalitarian forms of government and I’m very much in favor of the nuclear family. From what I can tell, most of the BLM folks are democratically minded salt of the earth types, which means the accusations are more a smokescreen than a concern.

It’s a deflection. It’s an expression of insecurity.

And to be fair, President Trump’s personal life and political manner are arguably the worst of any President to date and it isn’t a matter of debate. Everyone agrees even his staunch supporters and that’s kinda the point. His faults – the ones we know of – are routinely dismissed even his fascistic tendencies, which isn’t communism but it is totalitarian none the less. To quote a member of the Republican Party and an ardent supporter of Trump:

He is egotistical, bombastic, and brash. He often lacks nuance in his statements. Sometimes he blurts out mistaken ideas…that he later must abandon. He insults people. He can be vindictive when people attack him…He has been married three times and claims to have been unfaithful in his marriages. These are certainly flaws, but I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws in this election.

In a word, he’s erratic. Not even Trump knows what he will do next and that should be a concern for all of us. Wars have been started for less.

Make sure you clarify who you’re talking about when you insult BLM because unknowing listeners may think you’re talking about Trump. If you can stand the President’s dirt which glaringly affronts every decent person every moment of every day, then maybe we should give BLM a little slack.

For the sake of clarification, though, when I refer to Black Lives Matter I’m talking about racial issues, not the organization. The organizers – who are relatively few – and their personal philosophies – whatever they are – have nothing to do with the protests. You don’t need to agree or disagree with their personal views to react to the brutal murder of a civilian.

The protests associated with BLM are driven by justice and freedom for all (the ideas we pledge allegiance to in the national anthem). Racial disparities and discrimination are the issues. When I refer to BLM, that’s what I’m talking about.

We must keep the main point the main point: all lives, including black ones, matter. And they are equal.

It’s an unfortunate fact that there are still people who don’t believe that. Racial bias has a long shelf life. It’s been around a long time and it won’t fade easily but the protests are proof that things are changing at least where the white public is concerned.

Minorities, by the way, have understood the problems all along. I’m sure they are happy to see change occurring and this post is focused on the what and why of that change.

Public Sentiment Changes Slowly

With the clarification aside, what is happening right now is quite remarkable because public mindsets don’t move quickly. On most issues, sentiment remains boringly steady but that’s not the case at the moment.

Within two weeks of George Floyd’s murder, public sentiment gained an incredible eleven points and that upswing follows two years of steady upward trends.

Two and a half years ago, January 2018, public support for BLM averaged out at zero. Some were for it and some were against it and the average rating was zero. The movement started in 2013 and it took five years (2018) just to get to a neutral rating. By January 2020 the average moved seventeen points to the plus side. That’s seventeen points in a span of two years.

Then, two weeks following the murder, average public sentiment moved an additional eleven points to twenty-eight!

That’s twenty-eight points over two and a half years and eleven of those points came in just two weeks.

The breakdown in where the support came from shows that everyone except Republicans are seeing the light. The following stats are courtesy of Civiq.com. The NYTimes also has an article on the topic here.

  • Democrates: +84
  • Independents: +30
  • Republicans: -39

Most Democrats get it, a large number of Independents are catching on but Republicans are backpedaling. [Read more…] about The Good, Bad, And Ugly In Racial Politics

Filed Under: Change, Philosophy, Political Issues

The Long Journey From Racism To Equality

August 3, 2020 by EnnisP 2 Comments

Diversity isn't bland.

The End of Slavery Was Not The End of Slavery

I was born in the deep south.

The city was Jacksonville, Fl.

The year was 1949.

It was a time and place where racism thrived.

What I didn’t know until recently is just how bad Florida’s racism was. In my recollection, states like Alabama and Mississippi got most of the bad press so I thought of them as the real offenders but Florida, it seems, was just as bad if not worse.

Florida has a checkered past. It is recognized as the first location where free people of color first arrived in the early 1500’s and is also home to the first settlement of runaway slaves, Fort Mose. The Fort is situated two miles north of St. Augustine and was established under Spanish authority in 1738. It was a safe place for slaves to settle after escaping from plantations in the north. According to history, these liberated slaves bravely fought alongside the Spanish against English invasion.

Contrasting that, however, is the fact that Florida is the place where slavery first began in the Continental US (1526) and where it was practiced for decades even after the Civil War. Though history offers a flicker of decency in the early years, slavery and racism dominate the record.

I was surprised to learn that the U.S. Sugar Corporation was federally indicted for enslaving black sugarcane workers through debt peonage on Florida plantations as late as 1942. I wasn’t taught that bit of history in school but you can read about it here. The indictment was ultimately quashed on procedural grounds but it and the reasons for it are on the record.

The horrors of that historical fact should be unacceptable to any decent, fair-minded, rational person. Seventy-seven years is a long time to NOT figure it out, but that’s how long sugar cane farmers flouted the 13th Amendment of the Constitution with their slavery workarounds.

It begs the question. Do slavery loopholes still happen today? If businesses, aided by sentimentally aligned policymakers, could get around the law for seventy-seven years, is it improbable to think the same mindset could be driving segments of the business community today?

Innocence By Ignorance

As a youngster growing up in Jacksonville, I didn’t know enough to ask these questions. I was innocent but only because I was ignorant and I was also immersed. I was surrounded by racism. Things were better in Jacksonville than on the plantation but not by much. You didn’t need to look hard to find the evidence of Jacksonville’s racism everywhere: public transportation, public facilities, education, politics and even the workplace.

Racism was the norm. It was accepted. It was entrenched. [Read more…] about The Long Journey From Racism To Equality

Filed Under: Christian Living, Human Relations, Political Issues

I Still Like The NFL

July 13, 2020 by EnnisP Leave a Comment

Biden- Trump Photo

Biden/Trump courtesy Dallas News

And I Still Won’t Vote For Trump

To be clear, I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. I did predict that he could win the election but I was never convinced he was the right person for the job.

Most of my colleagues, many of my friends and a large number of family members did vote for him but that was mostly because he was Republican and some people never cross party lines.

I, on the other hand, have been a crossover vote ever since Nixon. His presidency was a watershed moment for me. He broke all the rules and did so while spouting religion. Fooled many people, even me but not after that. I concluded then that candidates must be judged on background criteria more than campaign soundbites. If the candidate has the qualifications and a good track record – not what they think, not what they say they will do but what they’ve actually done – he or she will get my vote regardless of party affiliation.

Does Trump have any experience? No, not even a little, other than contributing to political campaigns on the odd occasion.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, was a different story. I voted for Hillary and the reason is simple. Not because she was a Democrat. Not because she wasn’t Republican. I voted for Hillary because she was highly qualified. We’ve never had a candidate with her mix of education, exposure and experience in the political process. Never!

I also didn’t buy into all the conspiracy theories about Hillary and Bill. If they were as guilty as Republicans suggest and all of our investigative agencies couldn’t find the evidence and bring them to justice, then we might as well hang it up. We’re done for.

I do admit that I didn’t agree with Hillary on every issue but that’s true for every candidate. And since candidates are usually saying what they think we want to hear anyway, the only metric to go by is their track record.

  • Do they care about people?
  • Do they have the ability to build consensus?
  • Can they legislate effectively?
  • Do they understand the legal ramifications of their official actions?
  • Are they deliberate or impulsive?
  • Can they build a competent team?
  • Do they defuse or ignite potential flareups?

These are important questions and Trump scores on the wrong side in every case. I don’t trust him and, given his unpredictability and vindictive nature, I wouldn’t be surprised if he provoked the next world war. For me, there are no qualifications in Trump’s resume that make him a viable candidate. [Read more…] about I Still Like The NFL

Filed Under: Making Money, Philosophy, Political Issues

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