Comments by Gene Scarborough | Eastern North Carolina Now

OUR solution is the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship which does what the old SBC did = work together on missions with a spirit of love --- and stop the theological nitpicking! The sad conclusion is that most organizations can become only so diverse before someone wants to take the money and run the real contributors off!

Check out the mega churches of Atlanta and see if you don't see BS at many corners posing as "We love Jesus only and serve others." If you can find one not paying their Christian entertainer pastor less than 6 figures---let me know!!!

Commented: Friday, May 29th, 2015 @ 5:22 pm By: Gene Scarborough

If you think Jesus was kidding with the Moneychangers on the Temple steps---you are seeing his words simply applied to the current Southern Baptist BS, my friend . . .

Commented: Friday, May 29th, 2015 @ 1:10 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Even Jesus said, "The poor will be with us always." He also said, "Love one another and forgive one another as my father forgives you.

To love your neighbor as yourself assumes you love yourself and are grateful to God for his blessings to you. Sometimes "success" has nothing to do with education of hard work. It is being in the right place at the right time.

If you were at the Hardee's restaurant on Raleigh Road in Rocky Mount, you would hear good black folks say the same of sorry people. Some of them are sleeping in their bathtubs at night lest a stray bullet in the hood go through and hit them.

"Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world . . ."

Commented: Friday, May 29th, 2015 @ 10:24 am By: Gene Scarborough

Stan commented: "If your argument is listen to me because I am old, you are prone to lose that argument."

Gene reply: My argument has to do with "wisdom comes with age," Stan. It also has to do with the the mental challenge and expansion I experienced as a young man getting through Emory with a Psychology degree / fully intending to go to Graduate School and get a PhD in Psychology and Counseling / insead, answering a call to ministry despite the Baptist firing given my father by a corrupt church in a corrupt small town in GA.

INTEGRITY is a quality not taught in any classroom, but exemplified to me by a real man of God rightly dividing the Word of truth from his pulpit, no matter what the threat or cost.

Listen to me ONLY if I make good sense in a nonsense world of Abject Conservatism --- only wanting to rule by force and the same deception of SBC Conservatives who now own Southeastern Seminary (Wake Forest, NC) --- and have turned it from a well-balanced Graduate School into a copy of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's Schools of Indoctrination.

Commented: Friday, May 29th, 2015 @ 6:27 am By: Gene Scarborough

If we followed this line of reasoning --- educational thought would still be pre-Renaissance! The world would be flat. You would fall off if sailing out of sight of land. We would be sitting in caves because electricity was never discovered . . .

College should be a time of reflection and challenge to consider new ideas---and then make up your mind for yourself as to who you are and what makes sense for now.

From there, with an ability to reason and make up your mind in a rational way --- instead of drunk on beer and in some costume to show your sports team pride --- you just might become the dream of the Founding Fathers. A dream that the public would elect a diverse representative body to Congress and then they could rationally debate any issue and reach an end --- with the best of all helping the most citizens achieve their dreams.

Our only real problem is trying to limit good thinking to "How much money can you send to support this school in it's shallow approach to secondary education . . ."

Commented: Friday, May 29th, 2015 @ 6:10 am By: Gene Scarborough

Stan, old sport---I am 69 and have a few years of experience you don't yet have. I saw the takeover of the SBC by Conservatives whose mantra was: "The end justifies the means to it." Their ethics went out the window when their egos took control of their Mega Church Mentality. . .

Commented: Thursday, May 28th, 2015 @ 5:52 pm By: Gene Scarborough

So---us working folks pay for highways and other public works while Corporations get a more free ride each year = BALONEY!!!

If NC is to keep from becoming a REGRESSIVE as other states, we need to tout our values of good working people / good education system / improving lack of prejudice and hate / keeping drugs and crime at bay and reducing.

This Bull Shit of giving corps a free ride is getting more smelly each year. You concept is "give workers jobs and they will pay." My concept is let all, rich and poor, corporate and individual share in the upward growth and good climate of NC!

Building a tax haven for the rich is the same as building a Third World cheap labor force and Offshore Banking for them in NC. Kill the Reaganomics mistaken dream of "TRICKLE DOWN" Conservatism --- and you once more build America and its good workers, in my view.

Commented: Thursday, May 28th, 2015 @ 12:45 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Stan---why would you ever see our President as anything but a janitor in the future?

Commented: Thursday, May 28th, 2015 @ 7:15 am By: Gene Scarborough

I am seeing most of these as positive in my view.

The problem with funding the State Budget is an altered NC Tax Code which has given the rich and corps larger deductions for Corporate items like a private jet. Meanwhile, a small business like me can no longer have it's $50,000 immediate depreciation for new equipment.

ALL working citizens I encounter tell me their state tax for the last 2 years was significantly UP ~~~ meanwhile, the Governor and Legislature are claiming they are "saving taxpayers money!" You may reduce deductions right-and-left, but YOU ARE NOT SAVING ANY WORKING NC CITIZEN MONEY ON STATE TAXES, FOLKS!!!

Commented: Wednesday, May 27th, 2015 @ 5:58 am By: Gene Scarborough

I love Robert Duvall as well. He was in Apocalypse Now as the arrogant officer/surfer and then did The Godfather as the company lawyer. He was on the back side of Charlotte with that racing film starring Tom Whatshisname.

The day after Memorial Day full of grandkids makes old PaPa's mind lapse . . .

Commented: Tuesday, May 26th, 2015 @ 12:31 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Like the Clown Club Car of the Republican nominees, the next 2 years will be "most interesting."

Commented: Tuesday, May 26th, 2015 @ 7:42 am By: Gene Scarborough

Let me put what you say here in plain terms: The Black President had little to nothing to do with Ben Laden being brought to justice / because he won't sign to double and triple our forces and spending when the Middle East ran out the Russians / he is a DAMN SORRY PIECE OF ISLAMIC CRAP. . ."

Commented: Monday, May 25th, 2015 @ 5:50 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Tony Bobby's cited article reads:

"1. In the city’s early days, the periodically-flooded area at the base of Capitol Hill was a problem that the shoddily built canal running through it did not solve. Instead of fixing the problem itself, the federal government handed the land over to private developers on condition that they drain it. Now the Capitol Reflecting Pool is where the swamp used to be.

2. The neighborhood of Swampoodle appropriately preserves the Irish pronunciation of “puddle” where the two main branches of Tiber Creek joined in a shallow valley. Drainage conditions got a lot worse before they got better for the immigrants who settled here in the mid-19th century.

3. Streams flowing out of the surrounding hills saturated the land where Le Droit Park was developed. A Florida Avenue combined sanitary and storm collector sewer only relieved local drainage problems for a while after it was completed in the 1880s.

4. The Anacostia River flowed too slowly to take away the effluent of the Florida Avenue sewer, so it settled on the foul tidal flats for decades while Congress refused to fund corrective re-engineering of the river.

5. The steep hills looming over the northwest perimeter of the city were drained by many small streams that saturated the sandy clay soil near S Street between 16th and 19th streets. Rising real estate values allowed this land to be improved before any substantial settlement occurred in the later 19th century.

6. Tiber Creek was first made into a canal, then into a sewer draining much of downtown. It flowed out onto the Potomac Flats, within easy smelling distance of the White House, and secured the city’s reputation for swampiness. Dredging the river solved that problem, with East and West Potomac Parks as pleasant and useful byproducts."

Our discussion pends on a formal definition vs. a logical one based on the nose of people who lived there and endured the heat of a muggy summer, gentlemen! As a child I visited my Aunt Eber Lieler (strange GA country name) who worked at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds and lived at Haver de Grace, Maryland. It was more than hot and sticky with heat waves rising off the marshes---swamps, maybe not---BUT enough heat and humidity to welcome a gator IF the winters were not so cold!

The rightness of any one of us 3 is beside the point --- as many of Stan's surveys are so lopsided as to make me laugh. If I were farming there at the inception it would have been the lowest kind of land on the Plantation and most unsuitable for agriculture.

I am just glad to live in the loamy soil of Beaufort County which is far superior to anything around DC in the beginning. Smelly and wet dirt stinks---not matter where it might be and that was DC in the beginning, my friends!

Commented: Sunday, May 24th, 2015 @ 4:34 pm By: Gene Scarborough

If you had a farmer in upstate SC as I did --- you would know a wetland when you saw it, Stan.

Go to the original maps and elevations and check my assessment on a topographical map / go to Google Earth and take a satellite view that discloses the extensive drainage work for land beside the Potomac River, my brother!

I use the term "swamp" to cover land not arable for farming of that era. . .

Commented: Sunday, May 24th, 2015 @ 12:09 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Great piece, Stan --- THANX!!

I note 3 things in the first page:
(1) It was a combination of General George Washington and General Robert E. Lee in the background of the story.
(2) There was property tax skulduggery which led to the confiscation
(3) The land was originally a swamp/wetland unfit for growing rice since it was too far north, but it was drained and then turned into a magnificent lovely city.

We must never forget that---without constant attention---beavers will quickly turn a drained place back into the swampy bog / beavers have no political party nor designation from Conservative to Liberal---they just love to build dams!!!!

Commented: Sunday, May 24th, 2015 @ 5:37 am By: Gene Scarborough

I did some tree work for Buddy after I had discovered his excellent wine at the Bath Store. He is one fascinating character full of common sense and mirth.

Ted came this way and I took him over for a sample of NC wine plus the unique things Buddy and I always end up discussing. We have plans to go back again and I took Ted some NC spirits on our visit about a year ago. If anything could make a fellow move to NC, it would be the Bennett Winery!

On my last visit Buddy was telling me of the interest California vintners had in his vines and how they did not listen carefully to instructions about their unique nature. As a result some 200 cuttings he sold them got killed by California growers pouring the fertilizer to them.

Buddy had a most interesting article the first time we met about NC having reputed "best American wines," but the Civil war destroyed it. He has found an old recipe and makes the best wine I have ever tasted from scuponons. I never go there with less than a hour of time---which usually stretches double with a zest for more.

I can say the same of you, Stan, but if you made such good wine, I might agree with you on more issues, my brother!!!

Commented: Saturday, May 23rd, 2015 @ 2:07 pm By: Gene Scarborough

Now I know the Emory hate generator, Tony!

He most likely had the same Southern Literature Professor who taught me at Emory, Dr. Floyd Watkins from Ballground, GA. Dr. Watkins assigned us papers which HAD TO BE 80 WORDS OF LESS. He was far tougher. A word over 80 got you an "F" at Emory!

Commented: Saturday, May 23rd, 2015 @ 8:16 am By: Gene Scarborough