Lent Carr was removed from the ballot for Raleigh City Council District C today. The Wake County Board of Elections took less than five minutes to make its decision, ruling that as an inmate in federal prison Carr cannot serve in office.
It’s a sad situation all around. Once again, I hope that Carr can get the help he needs and become a productive member of society.
We’re in the middle of our vacation and making the most of every minute. Thus, no daily blogging.
We’ve tromped around Moran State Park a few times, strolled around downtown Eastsound, toured Rosario, walked along the low-tide East Sound beach, and visited my friend Ron and wife, Shelley. We’ve taken a sailboat with Ron out around West Sound, watched float planes soar a few hundred feet over our heads, visited our friends the Taylors at their rental home in Beach Haven, spotted young eagles perched in trees near the water, dove in 50-degree water, gone sea kayaking, spied seals frolicking in the water, hosted a dinner party, dodged multiple deer standing around in the roads and lawns, walked around an old lime kiln in a park, relaxed in our hot tub, and toured the amazing homes around Orcas Island. And we still have two days here!
Today we hope to get to the salmon hatchery to watch the salmon leap up the ladders. It should be an interesting sight. After that we may take another stroll around town and explore some more of this magical place.
In the meantime, you can see our pictures on my Facebook page from Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. More extensive blogging will have to wait!
View on Orcas Island
We’re settled into our home for the week on beautiful Orcas Island! We were fortunate to find lodging on the island Saturday night at the end of our travel day. As a result, we were able to spend more time on the island and not at one of the motels in Anacortes, waiting until the next ferry would take us out.
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We’re in the air over central South Dakota now on our Midway-Seattle leg of our flight, with two hours of flying to go. The Southwest WiFi that I thought was so great before has turned out to be pretty sucky today.
The trip’s been smooth so far. We had plenty of time to board our flight in Raleigh and found combined seating on both legs of our flight. In Raleigh we had a really nice chat with a friendly TSA officer at the gate who’s a Chicago native. He gave us a tip on the only Chicago-style pizza he will eat in Raleigh: the Gino’s East brand that only that Harris Teeter sells. We’ll have to check it out.
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We’re waiting for our plane to take us to Orcas Island for the week. The neighbors are checking on our Dobermans while we’re gone, which is nice of them.
We’re looking forward to some time spent hiking, Orcas-watching, exploring the village of Eastsound, and generally relaxing for a while.
We’ll check in again once we’re destinated. The family is so excited!
On my daily dog walk through the neighborhood, I encountered an elderly neighbor I’d never seen before, also out walking her dog. After exchanging pleasantries and walking on, I hit upon a thought that should have been obvious all along.
When we were living in North Raleigh I saw the writing on the wall that one day I will be too old to drive safely around town. Since I expect to retire in Raleigh some day, I wanted to live where driving wasn’t necessary. Thus, we now live within walking distance of downtown, buying our house as much as an investment for our twilight years as much as an investment for right now.
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Since Wake County Board of Elections Director Cherie Poucher told the News and Observer that no one has stepped up to challenge Lent Carr’s candidacy now that he’s back in federal prison, at least one District C citizen has. The Board of Elections has received word that at least one citizen intends to challenge Carr’s candidacy based on his status as an active convicted felon.
North Carolina’s election law states as follows:
§ 163?55. Qualifications to vote; exclusion from electoral franchise.
[snip]
Except as otherwise provided in this Chapter, the following classes of persons shall not be allowed to vote in this State:
(1) Persons under 18 years of age.
(2) Any person adjudged guilty of a felony against this State or the United States, or adjudged guilty of a felony in another state that also would be a felony if it had been committed in this State, unless that person shall be first restored to the rights of citizenship in the manner prescribed by law.
Yesterday came news that Raleigh City Council District C candidate Lent Carr was sent back to federal prison for violating his probation.
While some folks on the WRAL message boards (okay, nearly all of them – WRAL’s boards are typically clogged with knuckle-draggers) think his predicament is funny, I think Carr should’ve been sent off to a mental institution rather than prison. Carr clearly has mental health issues and even today we as a society do not treat this issue seriously.
Then again, maybe prison is the best place for him. Maybe now he’ll get the help he needs. It’s a sad fact that if you want free healthcare in America you have to get locked up.
I got an email from Hani Durzy, LinkedIn’s Director of Communications, alerting me to a LinkedIn blog post by LinkedIn’s Ryan Roslansky, clarifying LinkedIn’s use of social media advertising. Hani said:
Heads up that we just published a blog post on the issue around social ads that has come up over the last few days. In it, we clarify a few inaccuracies that we’ve seen in some of the recent media coverage, and detail a change we are making to part of our social ad offering — specifically, the use of individual names and images associated with certain actions in ads served to their networks.
The description of this feature on LinkedIn’s account settings page (and referenced above) remains pretty vague, leaving open its interpretation. After reading Ryan’s post I feel much more comfortable with LinkedIn’s approach. I would hope LinkedIn would better describe its intentions on the settings page, too.
Also, kudos to LinkedIn’s PR department for its swift and proper reaction to the backlash. Well done.
I’ve been pondering the crazy state we find ourselves regarding politics in this country. Getting elected today (particularly to a national office but local ones as well) comes down to two things:
1. Raising gobs of money
2. Getting your message out.
This tends to get politicians chasing the big donors (i.e. large corporations when aiming for Congress or higher) when they really should be responsive to their constituents instead. Lately we’ve seen how that’s working out, aren’t we?
It’s obvious that we need to do something about the money. So, why are gobs of money needed? To accomplish goal #2: to get your message out. Buying broadcast time is hugely expensive but it’s the quickest way of reaching voters. What if candidates didn’t have to raise money for broadcast time, though? What if air time was made freely available in the name of patriotism?
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