Comments by Gene Scarborough | Eastern North Carolina Now

It sounds like you have given up, Bobby Tony, on living together in peace and under law fair to all citizens. If we go back to the wild west pistol packing days, if is my view we have lost more things than we have gained.

One of the great basic concepts of a United States was free speech where we can entertain other ideas and compare them for a better union of BOTH ideas. Jesus was inviting his followers to become fishers of men and the enterprise was the JOY of salvation and PEACE.

The basic question I asked first is "How can we honor diversity without killing one another?"

Commented: Friday, July 17th, 2015 @ 3:51 pm By: Gene Scarborough

This new Peace Treaty is a great step forward in international relations. If the President did everything you conservatives want---he would still be criticized by the "Party of Criticism," in my view.

I want to say something real straight and real ugly about shutting your pie hole, but propriety and trying to be a little more nice keeps me PC today!

Commented: Friday, July 17th, 2015 @ 9:11 am By: Gene Scarborough

"THE SKY IS FALLING," said Chicken Little!!!

Commented: Friday, July 17th, 2015 @ 9:01 am By: Gene Scarborough

Stan---how quickly you forget how Reagan traded arms for hostages in the Middle East!

It is the US official policy to NOT NEGOTIATE over hostages. If you take one, then you had best release him or face our military force. The trouble always comes in the details of where you are holding them / how can we free them and they stay alive.

Had President Carter had a successful rescue mission, he would have been a hero. It is historical fact that Reagan used back channels to assure the Iatolla that they would get a better deal on hostages if he were elected and then in charge. They kept our hostages until AFTER HIS ELECTION as a political ploy by the Reagan Campaign . . .

Commented: Friday, July 17th, 2015 @ 6:41 am By: Gene Scarborough

(1) The US does not negotiate over hostages.
(2) The Treaty is yet to be fully disclosed so your comments are far too premature.
(3) The power to veto any stupidity from Congress puts them in the position to either be wise or show their conservative monkey tails.
(4) Thus far all Republicans have to offer are clowns growing from car to bus to cruise ship!!!

Do and say as you please, time will tell, good buddy!

Commented: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 @ 8:52 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Only an arrogant young man with Tea Party training can be so sure so soon of a deal we don't even begin to know the details about . . .

Commented: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 @ 10:40 am By: Gene Scarborough

You sure as hell love your labels, Stan . . .

Commented: Tuesday, July 14th, 2015 @ 6:29 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Bernie Sanders is saying essentially the same things Teddy Roosevelt / FDR / Ike said---"We don't need the rich running the show so diversify and get your hands out of buying politicians to keep you rich . . ."

Commented: Tuesday, July 14th, 2015 @ 2:20 pm By: Gene Scarborough

It begins to match the fact that most small businesses are making anywhere from 20-60% of what they made pre-Recession. Is there a problem with government reflecting the state of its citizens in this mess --- brought on by banks "too big to fail?"

I have a problem with what you are paying the new County Manager / how many millions are in the County bank account / how nothing seems to get done these days with money except to squirrel it away . . .

Last time I checked, Stan, -30% for me amounts to $400 and that could pay my water and light bill now overdue, bud!!!

Commented: Monday, July 13th, 2015 @ 9:41 pm By: Gene Scarborough

The photo credit goes to Ted McD with my thanks. I hoped one of us (Stan, Ted, me) might come up with a open place of worship pic, but so far---no luck. . .

Commented: Monday, July 13th, 2015 @ 7:44 am By: Gene Scarborough

Good observations, Diane. Written much more concisely this time around too!

Every government and society is in constant flux. Rome lasted as a big empire for 400 years. America is at its 200+ time and it is yet to be seen if we can bring off the "Great Experiment in Democracy."

The key is "men of good will working together for the better good of all --- not a "Perfect" good, but a better good. Let's admit we have done better and worse in fulfilling the dreams of the Founding Fathers. Then, as now, a few do the debating and the majority of voters adopt whatever we are given by the leaders.

I am seeing a 100 year cycle from "good government to corrupted government." The same is true of "rich running the show vs. workers having opportunities." Another is "run by the many vs. run by a few." The dream involved "liberty and justice for all men created equal."

The Civil War was the most bloody war in our history. It was over States Rights to secede vs. "do in the South as told by the North." We are the only nation of its size in the world. The European Union is getting together. Russia is the "Union of Soviet States." That is enforced with a gun and they fell apart over war expenditures. We are working hard to bankrupt our country over watson.brown.edu . . .

Since the death of John Kennedy at the end of a gun, deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy with gun violence, the nation has not been the same as it was when Eisenhower left office with his warning over the Military/Industrial Complex.

States Rights was settled with a bloody ending and the destruction of the agricultural South as Sherman marched to the Sea with abject destruction of our heritage and farms. The Civil War involved the first use of modern weapons of accuracy and massive human fodder. Our weapons mounted on the Apache and guided bombs from stealth aircraft costing millions each is beyond description. They can turn a human body into a pile of mush out of the black night sky!

Now we are engaged in negotiations over nuclear weapons in the hands of Middle East countries with nothing to lose by a repeat of 9/11 or worse! In the mix is OUR lust for THEIR oil. ALL our bases just "happen to be" on a line in the desert put there years ago to pipe oil to the Gulf of Acaba! The real elephant in the room is GREED, in my view. Killing begets revenge / technology grows with the more we spend on war vs. spending on infrastructure and internal growth.

The Military / Industrial Complex is more real today than in 1958! I was 12 then and knew little about politics and economics. Now, at age 69 and struggling just to pay my Beaufort County Property Tax, I think Bernie Sanders needs to be our next President. Like Teddy Roosevelt, he believes in spreading wealth and minimized power to the few with all the bucks in America these days---and paying a pittance in taxes!

Commented: Monday, July 13th, 2015 @ 7:19 am By: Gene Scarborough

Bobby Tony --- I have met and talked with many public servants who have not forgotten from whence they came. Sorry your connections have been limited so much that you have not met such and have lost your hope for good government.

Commented: Sunday, July 12th, 2015 @ 2:11 pm By: Gene Scarborough

I think the problem is with the "me first" attitude of the spoiled kids of enough wealth to buy beer, concert tickets, sports tickets and party their way through their best years of open minds and critical thinking POSSIBILITIES.

I attended Emory University in 1963-67 / Southeastern Seminary in 1967-70. Emory was a serious academic school which opted out of intercollegiate sports in favor of focusing on the courses and books we were exposed to. The serious drinking and partying was confined to Fraternity Row. When I attended college gatherings with students all over Georgia participating, it was interesting to see the difference between us Emory students and, say, the University of Georgia folks.

They came out of their vehicles with their tennis rackets and sports gear / we came out with a pile of books because papers were due on Monday and assigned reading was going to be checked first thing in class! It was a seriously different outlook on education between the majority and the Emory minority then.

As to "liberal vs. conservative" thing, I saw many fellow theologues at Southeastern come expecting their Sunday School faith and knowledge to be validated ONLY. Any who got it challenged and expanded called our professors "liberal." Compared to Emory, they were conservative and only made us examine a wider picture of religion. Those same "education-fearing folks pastor many NC churches today.

A prime example of "free speech" at Emory came with the "God Is Dead" controversy that hit the cover of Time Magazine. Average Methodists were aghast that such could come from the lips of an Emory Professor, Thomas J.J. Altizer. Instead of firing him, Emory wisely called for a Colloquium at Glenn Memorial Methodist Church in which Altizer presented his views and the Methodist Chaplain presented an explanation and analysis. We quickly found that the theological concepts of Immanence (God with us in Christ) and Transcendence (God out there above and beyond the world) were the real issue being discussed. The term "dead" for a person of faith simply referred to a transition rather than "the end." The Auditorium was overflowing with Atlanta citizens and the media.

Those who still rant and rave about "God died at Emory" missed the entire point and only show how pagan their view of death is! Tune in any mega church preacher today and in his fundamentalist anger he is still saying, "My God is alive and I talked with him this morning---sorry about yours." The stupid conservatism of such people who want to rule their church and make 6-digit incomes from their poor and struggling masses is more than evident to me. I was a student exploring the realm of TRUTH and having to present both sides of any issue with a third part showing "what I believe and for the following REASONS!"

Drink and party while you enjoy your parents paying the bills, if you want. I was working my way through at the end of a Trim Carpenters hammer and value what I learned from 2 master carpenters as much as what I learned and was exposed to at Emory University in Psychology. By the way, I was President of the Baptist Student Union that year and met with all the other religious groups as we tried to discover what the heck Altizer was trying to say---and he was intoxicated when he did his presentation and it made not one dab of sense to me! Drinking and Thinkings are poor bedfellows, folks . . .

Commented: Sunday, July 12th, 2015 @ 8:46 am By: Gene Scarborough

The magic of good sales is to make complex things simple. In this case, a complex thing is still complex!

I would appreciate a simple and rational summation of what Diane is really trying to say. I think it is good, but far to complex for most to understand.

Commented: Saturday, July 11th, 2015 @ 8:15 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Thanks for including the pictures, Stan. I can tell you are having to hit the trail of sales so good luck on that as well. Thanks for the great job of help to me, my friend.

Commented: Saturday, July 11th, 2015 @ 8:43 am By: Gene Scarborough

Most interesting research, Bobby Tony! The parties I know of relative to slavery were, first, the African tribes who sold their enemies into slavery with the jingle of gold as their reward.

Next, were the slave traders who transported and sold them in America on the auction blocks of Fayetteville, Charleston, and other prominent southern cities.

They were considered PROPERTY of their owners. They attended the same frontier churches as their owners. I found such names in the old Noonday Baptist Church minutes of Cobb County and the Georgia Archives. Their simple rocks in the old Noonday Cemetery, just south of Woodstock and north of the present Noonday Baptist Church, show no separation even in death.

The British and other Old World conquers somehow thought they were give rights by God to take what they visited and the Native Americans were the first ones robbed in America. Is see ARROGANCE and GREED as the core of early discrimination. For "civilized and cultured" folks with light skin~~~they appear barbaric to me, brother!

Commented: Thursday, July 9th, 2015 @ 7:06 am By: Gene Scarborough

This Resolution does not deal with proper use of funds held in escrow by Beaufort County! I assume that is part of the final general statement relative to "meeting between Viadant and Hospital Commission."

I KNOW Vidant is a tax-exempt non-profit entity and the same as a church or other civic group like Boys Scouts or Red Cross. I have had part in the ending of a church and transfer of funds associated with the sale of the property. In such a case the NC statute on 501(c)3 specifies that funds may only be transferred to a similar type organization upon termination and disposal of all assets.

I have emailed the Chairman, Vice-chairman, and one other Commissioner yesterday to this effect prior to the vote last night. I further assume our County Attorney is fully aware of this stipulation, overseen by the NC Secretary of State, Molly Marshall.

It would seem to me that money used in one hospital should go to help resolve the Belhaven Hospital situation. Last time I visited Belhaven, their county line sign was after you leave the area to Hyde County.

Since it deals with AREA Healthcare and the lack of NC reception of Medicaid funds (which help rural healthcare)---is there a problem with using the millions involved in addressing their needs?

Commented: Wednesday, July 8th, 2015 @ 3:12 pm By: Gene Scarborough