Another week, another batch of House Bill 2 stories, most of them about this or that event canceling in protest. David McKnight writes that these cancelations are counterproductive: “This would be a good time to survey the overall political terrain on the question of how liberal-minded people in North Carolina are treated by supposedly liberal interest groups at the national level. It seems to me frequentlyand also in the case of HB 2that some of the very people and organizations who are trying to do the most to advance equality and fairness under the law here in North Carolina are often the very folks targeted by national liberal groups purporting to act on behalf of equal rights and individual liberty and dignity for all. Why would a performance at the annual Eno River Festival, of all places, be canceled in the name of national quest for justice and equality?”
Terry J Tolbert offers similar thoughts on Pearl Jam’s cancelation, which he believes is “moronic and naive.” “Hold the show, tell people why you object and ask for change. Don’t cancel.”
ThatManThatOversThere concurs: “Thanks Pearl Jam, now can I get a refund please, and spend my hard-earned money on food at a local market to support my locals? You have so much money, why don’t you use it for a better cause?”
And commenter Travis Smith 1 says that Pearl Jam’s decision to call off the show is no big loss. “Good,” he writes. “Take your fairy, mumblemouth shitty music and go play your concert in some weirdo bathroom.”
On to other subjects. In response to our piece on downtown Raleigh residents complaining about too many events [“Keep It Down, Kids?”], retailer and Special Events Task Force member Pam Blondin says that the city’s processes are improving. “There is so much banter and negativity about this sort of thing,” Blondin writes. “I, for one, would love to see more productive, collaborative, and active problem-solving and a
lot less complaining. We are growing and evolving as a downtown. These conversations are important. It is also important to acknowledge the positive steps that have been taken in direct response to this discussion, stop blaming organizations like the city and DRA without knowing what they are actually doing to address these issues, and be a little bit patient. Change doesn’t happen with the snap of a finger.”
On to other subjects. In response to an article last week on Durham’s solar ambitions [“Sun City”], Rusty Haynes offers a correction: “A recent INDY article alleges that solar costs ‘over $10,000 per panel’which is woefully misleading. A residential photovoltaic system is composed of numerous individual PV panels. An investment of $10,000 is around enough to buy an entire three-kilowatt residential PV system (installed), which could power an entire small, energy-efficient home. The real barriers to solar energy in North Carolina are backward-looking state policies and crummy electric tariffs cooked up by Duke Energy.”
You’ll get no disagreement from us on that.
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