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Scalawag (https://www.scalawagmagazine.org/2017/05/north-carolinas-strange-election/)
Photos from the 2017 HKonJ March in February, 2017. Photos by Jade Wilson.
North Carolina's strange election
By Sammy Feldblum | May 11, 2017
Moral Mondays
The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished.
If you don't vote, you don't count.
—Ronald Reagan and NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, respectively
In December, before Trump's inauguration and his whirlwind of vengeful executive action, before counter-protests sprawled across the country, state Rep. Mickey Michaux stood on the red-carpeted floor of North Carolina's lower house and blasted House Bill 17. From under a prodigious mustache, his hair slicked back, Michaux addressed the bill's sponsor: "I don't see why, because we've had a change in the governorship, you want to deprive the new governor of the power that all of our—"
Someone stood up in the audience and bellowed, "All political power comes from the people, Mr. Speaker!" Michaux paused, congressmen looked up in wonder. Soon, the galleries were erupting with defiant chants. State policemen deftly escorted the protesters out, arresting over a dozen.
The bill was designed, with its state-senate counterpart, to strip incoming Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, of many of his appointive powers before he even took office. Despite Cooper's wickedly close election, the GOP retained supermajorities in both houses of the state's legislative General Assembly. With no meaningful opposition, their rollback of gubernatorial powers easily passed: they mandated that the State and County Boards of Elections, which had until then been controlled by the governor's party, be split evenly along bipartisan lines and chaired by Republicans during election years; they required congressional approval of the governor's cabinet; they drastically slashed the number of positions directly hired and fired by the governor; and they stripped Cooper of his power to appoint trustees to the University of North Carolina's campuses.
Michaux considers the moves "an attack on democracy in North Carolina." North Carolinians flocked to the General Assembly to sit in on the days of legislative hearings for what they called the "Carolina Coup." Crowds at times stood witness; at times they protested loudly. After being kicked out of hearings repeatedly, demonstrators lined the entrances, chanting "shame, shame, shame" at the cops parading arrestees by, knocking on the locked doors to the legislative chambers. More than fifty protesters were taken into custody. A man in a Santa Claus outfit was among them. A woman turned to her lolling baby amid a Thursday protest to tell her, "we're going to be kicked out! Oh, yes we are!"
That baby may as well learn the lesson early, for North Carolina's partisan politics are moving—like the nation's—toward the extremes. The power "redistribution" orchestrated by North Carolina's GOP flies bluntly in the face of American traditions of democratic rule and respect for electoral results. But it was hardly a flash in the pan: the laws were only made possible by a skewed district map guaranteeing overwhelming Republican control of an evenly split electorate; they follow logically on a longer-term project by state conservatives to redefine whose votes count.
Disregard for the messy business of democracy is a practiced habit: having crept into the state's margins years ago, it had worked its way to the government's core. As the same tendencies worm their way onto the national stage, it is critical to understand how North Carolina's democracy came undone.
North Carolina Republicans had a long wait for their chance to flex political muscle. After Reconstruction, conservative Democrats controlled the state for decades. But Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's signature on the Voting Rights Act in 1965, ensuring ballot access for Black Southerners, and Republican Richard Nixon's follow-up courtship of unhappy Southern conservatives, led Whites to abandon the Democratic Party in droves. Still, in North Carolina, thanks to maps drawn by Democratic legislators, Republicans' foothold in the state legislature lagged behind their ascendant popular support.
In the early 2000s, under Democratic control, the General Assembly passed a series of reforms designed to expand ballot access in the state: increased early voting opportunities, for example, automatic registration of high-school students, same-day voting registration, and admission of provisional ballots from out-of-district voters. Voter participation skyrocketed, Black voter turnout in particular: in 2008, boosted by Barack Obama's name on the ballot, Black voting rates surpassed those of White North Carolinians.
North Carolina swung blue for a president for the first time since Jimmy Carter's election in 1976. By last year, North Carolina had jumped to 13th among states in eligible voter turnout, up from 43rd two decades ago, according to the United States Elections Project at George Mason University.
But Obama's victory sparked the meteoric rise of the Tea Party movement, and in 2010, riding an ailing economy and vociferous anti-Obama rhetoric—alongside customarily low Democratic turnout in non-presidential elections—Republicans retook both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1870. The new majority promptly set to work securing their electoral bounty. The strategy was two-pronged: Republicans in North Carolina would draw themselves advantageous maps, and they would work to lower voter turnout of unfriendly voting blocs.
In 2010, the Republican Party's Project REDMAP focused campaign money and efforts nationally down-ballot to state legislatures tasked with redistricting. In North Carolina, the effort was a wild success. The Republican State Leadership Committee, who masterminded REDMAP, sent a letter to state lawmakers after the election, anticipating that "the ongoing redistricting process will impact the legislative lines that we will have to defend in 2012 and beyond," offering "a team of seasoned redistricting experts that we will make available to you at no cost to your caucus." The experts did their job, contorting the lines just so: the following election cycle, Republicans won 51 percent of the vote for the North Carolina House of Representatives and 77 of 120 seats, a veto-proof "supermajority." In the North Carolina Senate, 53 percent of the vote garnered 33 of 50 seats, also a supermajority. And in the U.S. House of Representatives, less than half the total votes cast won Republicans nine of 13 seats.
"It was very fortunate for state Republicans that they won their majority in the year when the political district lines were redrawn," says Bob Hall, executive director of progressive watchdog group Democracy North Carolina "So they could gerrymander their own districts to protect themselves, essentially insulate themselves from voters. That kind of set the stage for anti-democratic politics that have just continued."
Gerrymandering is a long-standing American tradition, and North Carolina Democrats certainly bloodied their hands during their lengthy period of control; given access to bountiful data and computing power to crunch it, though, the 2010 map was particularly effective.(1) Most districts became uncompetitive, as the new lines packed Democrats (and especially Black Democrats) into a few districts, and ensured Republican control of the rest. This has political consequences, as Tom Ross knows well. Ross, who served as president of the University of North Carolina for five years before losing his job to the partisan hatchet in 2015, presides over the nonpartisan Volcker Alliance studying good governance. He believes unrepresentative districting makes government less effective. "I think that when you have a group of elected officials in either party—and right now we have them in both parties—that are essentially in safe districts, if they listen to the voters at all, they listen to the voters who think mostly like they do," Ross said. "And not hearing all the voices can sometimes not give you a clear understanding of where the public is. It leads over time to more extremism in both parties, and that makes it more difficult to compromise and find solutions that are good for the state and for all people."
As North Carolina was being divvied up into reliable electoral parcels, Republicans also worked to limit who could even vote in them. The Tea Party victory brought along with it renewed focus on the issue of voter fraud. To conservatives, voter fraud is a national bête noire, tainting the electoral process; to liberals, attempts to battle illicit voting mostly prevent eligible voters from casting ballots. For those who believe, or at least espouse a belief, in voter fraud, the solution is to make it harder to vote. But the suspicions are nothing new; some White citizens began worrying that Black Americans would cheat as soon as they were belatedly granted the right to vote. In that light, the recent efforts to "protect elections" look quite a bit like Jim Crow-era restrictions dressed up in new language.
For in-person voter fraud, the type targeted by North Carolina's voting restrictions, almost never occurs. While North Carolina was expanding its voting process, George W. Bush's Justice Department began a national crackdown on illicit voting. Attorney General John Ashcroft, apoplectic at having lost his 2000 Senate race to a dead man, launched a Voting Access and Integrity Initiative, claiming "votes have been bought, voters intimidated, and ballot boxes stuffed." In the five following years of intensive investigation, prosecutors charged about 120 people total. Most of those charged had misunderstood eligibility rules or mistakenly filled out registration forms; virtually no evidence turned up of widespread voter fraud schemes.(2)
Nevertheless, the effort metastasized into state-level pushes to address the issue. After the Tea Party's 2010 landslide, half the states in the country passed laws making it harder to vote. By 2015, hundreds of new voting restrictions had been introduced, spanning 49 states. North Carolina was in the vanguard. When the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 2013—allowing states with troubled voting histories the leeway to change their voting laws without federal pre-approval for the first time in nearly 50 years—the legislature took advantage, passing what was at the time the most restrictive voting law in the nation. Republican Governor Pat McCrory signed it. By limiting early voting and same-day registration, and by requiring state-issued photo ID to register—but not accepting student IDs, even from state schools—the law affected especially groups that tend to vote Democratic: minorities, the poor, and students.
For Representative Michaux, the issue is personal. His career in the General Assembly began in 1973 in the heady afterglow of the VRA's passage, when hurdles to Black participation at the ballot box were being wiped away. He grew up Black in an era of laws designed to bar people who looked like him from holding office. Now, as he watches what he calls "retrogression" in voting rights, he grows melancholy. "House Bill 589, you cannot forget that number," Michaux told Scalawag. "That's the bill that took away everything that so many of us worked hard for. Every bill improving voting rights in this state has my name on it somewhere or other. And to see them just completely thrown out, thrown down the drain—it hurts."
By 2013, North Carolina Republicans—having been elected, it must be noted, quite fairly—had both shunted votes into the most favorable electoral containers and trimmed the group of potential voters in their stilted grid. In the service of being anti-Democratic, they became anti-democratic. The voting law, on top of earlier decisions unpopular with the state's left, sparked the first Moral Monday protests in the spring of 2013. Led by Rev. William Barber II, the twinkle-eyed, gravel-voiced President of North Carolina's NAACP chapter, demonstrators of all races marched weekly on state offices in Raleigh to protest the North Carolina GOP's agenda, voting restrictions especially, and organized civil disobediences. The spark caught: for weeks, then months, then years, the movement gained steam, crisscrossing the state to turn political issues into moral ones.
Protesters disrupted proceedings at the statehouse, resulting in a steady stream of trespassing arrests and some wider media attention alongside. Afterwards, the arrestees regularly had their charges dropped. Much of the next three years proceeded to script: Republicans, with ironclad and assured control of the state, implemented their plans, while Democrats largely belly-ached and protested through unofficial, extracurricular channels. At the state level, there was little Democrats could do, but a habit of public grievance took root.
Even by the state's heightened standards, the lead-up to the 2016 election in North Carolina was particularly turbulent. In March, North Carolina came under national fire for passing the H.B. 2 "bathroom bill" dictating who could use which gender's facilities; Governor McCrory became the law's public face. In July, a federal court struck down North Carolina's voting restrictions, finding they targeted Black citizens "with almost surgical precision." The following month, the gerrymandered districts were also ruled unconstitutional, as race was found to play an overwhelming role in their shape.(3) But state Republicans had come to believe, it seemed, their own mistruths about the need for voting restrictions.
North Carolina GOP Chairman Dallas Woodhouse, a dynamo in perpetually ruffled button-downs and short black hair that changes with his mood, was a ubiquitous figure throughout election season. To his credit, Woodhouse is a good sport, happy to defend his party's maneuverings to the press, and is personally agreeable. He is not, however, a champion of the franchise. When the federal court order on the omnibus voting restrictions came down, Woodhouse wrote an email to state Republicans decrying the decision, maintaining that "we are under no obligation to offer more opportunities for voter fraud." As such, he urged everyone to get in touch with their County Board of Elections members to remind them of their duty as "partisan [R]epublican appointees" in shaping the conditions of early voting, used largely by Black voters.
Emails obtained by Reuters show that Republican officials lobbied at least 17 county elections boards to reduce early voting during nights and weekends, times that tend to be used more by Democratic voters; in some cases, the pressure worked. Early voting in the state closed with the Black vote down 8.5 percent from 2012 levels, and the "Caucasian" vote up 22.5 percent, according to a contented press release from the North Carolina GOP. Obama, of course, was no longer on the ticket, which surely accounts for some of the downtick. But the sustained attention the GOP gave early voting seemed to have paid dividends.
Targeting "voter fraud" dampened the Black vote. But because Black voting patterns were equated with opportunities for voter fraud, dampening of the Black vote was itself the strategy aimed at quelling "voter fraud." The North Carolina GOP had decided, by 2016, that fraudulent votes were Black votes. Whether this is due mostly to race or to the fact that Black citizens reliably vote Democrat is beyond the scope of this essay, but the upshot remains. (Dallas Woodhouse and the state GOP did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
When the election results came in, Donald Trump won a more-comfortable-than-expected victory in the presidential election, and Republican Senator Richard Burr held his seat. Republicans maintained their vise-grip on North Carolina's national House seats and on the state legislature, both of whose districts were drawn by the General Assembly in 2010.
But McCrory was booted in favor of Roy Cooper, with pundits suggesting H.B. 2's influence. Republicans retained a veto-proof majority in the legislature; the state's laws remain their plaything. Still, Democrats seemed to have clawed back toward having a voice in state affairs, even if that voice's veto was symbolic at best.
But change can hurt, and Governor McCrory wasn't happy to have to go house-hunting. His campaign, alongside a coterie of concerned citizens, launched challenges to the voting process in fifty-two counties in North Carolina, more than half. The pettiest complaints were what journalist Barry Yeoman terms "voter defamation"—scattered votes allegedly cast by dead people or ineligible felons or twice-voting out-of-staters, many of whom in North Carolina turned out to have done nothing wrong.
Further accusations included medium-scale fraud operations—as alleged against a Black-run Super PAC in rural Bladen County—and massive suspicion. In Durham County, voting-machine issues required by-hand tabulation of ballots, a process which meant delays for around 94,000 votes delivered to the State Board of Elections late that night. On Election Night, in his non-concession speech, when McCrory mentioned a "major new vote coming out of Durham, North Carolina in the last forty minutes," the crowd booed lustily. One member, picking up on the cue, yelled back "they stole it! They stole the election!" (Durham is the most liberal county in the state; its electorate is nearly forty percent Black.)
Even as the individual challenges came to naught, Tom Stark, North Carolina GOP General Counsel and concerned Durham County resident, protested the legitimacy of the late-arriving Durham votes. In a Durham County Board of Elections hearing—where the protest was unanimously dismissed by the majority Republican Board—and again in an appeal to the State Board, Stark cast doubt in frantic sweeps.
Nearly every piece of the voting process came under fire for its potential for hijacking: voters, voting officials, machines, memory cards. Paranoia had its day: the State Board of Elections upheld the protest along party lines, citing "irregularities" that deserved a second look. They ordered a recount of the Durham votes even while their general counsel advised them the order did not quite pass legal muster, with no evidence suggesting any part of the voting process had actually gone awry.(4) McCrory conceded during the recount, without waiting for the tally to be completed. The initial vote totals had been correct.
A cynic, then, would have little trouble imagining that the protest was made not because McCrory and Stark believed there to be any grave error in the vote count, but simply to have the recount ordered. Stark, bespectacled, bejowled, aw-shucks in his casual concern for the sanctity of elections, had generated a flurry of press about Durham's electoral "irregularities," and consequently lodged suspicions in the minds of those paying only passing attention. Regardless of the immediate goals of the voter challenges, then, the challenges were conscripted in the larger project to cast doubt on the validity of North Carolina's elections.
It is fair to wonder, moreover, who is taken to belong in the body politic by those who would limit the vote. Expanders of the franchise—for whom, to be sure, more voter participation is often politically advantageous—believe that answer to be "everybody." Those who would limit it, though, have various criteria for eligibility in mind. Over time, those criteria have been land, white skin, a penis, money, and abstruse knowledge of cherry-picked readings. Most Americans still agree, at least by acquiescence, that a felony conviction should preclude casting a ballot for a time or forever.
Where once the denial of suffrage was based on a belief that certain categories of people were less than fully human, a charitable reading now is that membership in particular groups becomes a proxy for political leanings, and these groups are obstructed at the ballot box as a matter of expedience. But the beauty and the curse of democracy is the reckoning that its constituents make with each other: we are all one body and must relate to one another accordingly. The effort to deny the vote to political opponents bespeaks a different sort of bargain, between only those in power and those who voted them there, to hell with the rest of 'em.
Pat McCrory conceded on Dec. 5, 2016, declaring it "time to celebrate our democratic process." (He also mentioned, Socratic to the end, "continuing questions that should be answered regarding the voting process.") He previewed a "special legislative session to help our citizens and communities impacted by Hurricane Matthew and by the current wildfires in the western region of our state." In closing, he said, "I encourage everyone, now more than ever, to respect all of our public servants and the offices that they were elected to hold."
Just a week later, the special session to address the natural disasters snowballed into another special session to address the disaster of North Carolinians electing a Democratic governor. There followed three days of legislative kangaroo court. On Dec. 14, both houses of the General Assembly convened to propose their final bills of McCrory's tenure. Protesters, thanks to a swirling (but untrue) rumor of a plan to pack the state Supreme Court, showed up by the dozens and found that, not an hour before the close of a special session called just twenty-four hours prior, Republican congressmen—with zero support from across the aisle—introduced the bills to neuter the governor's appointive power.
Two days later, after sustained protesting and gratuitous congressional recessing, McCrory signed the bills, celebrating our democratic process and showing great respect for all of our public servants and the offices they were elected to hold.
There are two obvious ways to interpret the legislature cooping Cooper, and the demonstrative response. In the first, propounded by the protesters, the legislature has become undemocratic, losing touch with voters, advancing instead its own interests; the protesters, in this telling, represent The People against a proximate but aloof oligarchy, in a morality play with everything at stake.
To hear it from the legislators, though, or from North Carolina GOP Chairman Woodhouse, this is all in the proverbial game. The public hubbub is sour grapes from electoral losers. Democrats took similar, if less drastic, measures in the '70s and '80s, as was pointed out ad nauseam in both chambers; liberals are mistaking—willfully or through ignorance—simple party politics for something grander, and thus fundamentally missing the point.(5) As Dallas Woodhouse told "Meet the Press" in December, "This is what happens when you have divided power in a state that, since King George's time, loathes executive power. Wrong is always in the eye of the beholder of whose ox is getting gored."
But the GOP's opponents are not so naïve as Woodhouse thinks. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill political science professor Andrew Reynolds, whose Electoral Integrity Project rated post-election North Carolina no longer a fully functioning democracy, told Scalawag: "If that is what politics looks like, then we need to change the rules of the game. Because it is clearly pernicious to the state of government in North Carolina! If it continues to be this chicken match, this trade-off of the two sides in power, then we are never going to dig ourselves out of this very polarized hole. It's a cycle to the bottom." Reynolds notes that the Democrats are far from guiltless, but calls the General Assembly's 2016 power play "excessively larger" than anything that's come before. "All of this," he notes, "stems to districting. All of this stems to the fact that the incentives on the legislature are not to appeal to the middle ground."
Here Michaux, who is now 81, speaks like a politician from a different era. "When Cooper won, [legislative Republicans'] attitude reminds you of what Mitch McConnell said about Obama: 'we're going to work to make sure that this is his one and only term, and anything he puts in here we're going to negate.' That same attitude exists here. Well, you've got to think beyond that, and think about what's being put out there for the good of the people, rather than being angry because you don't have anybody you can control in the governor's mansion."
There has been no substantial philosophical defense offered for the special session legislative measures. As Democracy North Carolina's Bob Hall says, "Dallas Woodhouse looks at it as a game. He gets kicks out of winning versus losing. When people get caught up in that very small world inside that building, inside the political bubble—they start to view everything as you're either with us or you're against us." That hyper-adversarial logic lays the foundation on which an anti-democratic political project can flourish. If all politics is simply oppositional, then there is no philosophically sound disagreement, there is only power, its pursuit, and the ability to wield it. The disempowerment of opponents becomes nothing more than smart strategy; of course their votes are watered down and discounted, little wonder they are excised from the electorate. The party in power begins to identify its partisan interests as intertwined with those of the state. In that framework, Democratic votes in North Carolina—especially from traditionally maligned groups—become fraudulent votes, and consolidating power in the face of a disappointing election is justified as in the state's best interest.
The polarization, in turn, further prevents communication across the aisle, precluding reference and deference to shared values. Democracy North Carolina's Hall tells of his group's dismissal as a liberal mouthpiece by the right-wing powers that be: "Democracy North Carolina was very critical of Democrats when they were in power. We filed complaints against a number of them, their donors—we helped put one of their Speakers, Jim Black, in prison for corruption. Nobody ever accused us of 'you're Republicans, you're just stooges for the Republicans.' Now, when we criticize Republicans, they say 'you're just being a stooge for the Democrats.' There's nothing in between." After publishing his op-ed about North Carolina's flailing elections, Reynolds was flooded with threats.
Michaux comes from a time when state-sponsored repression was as American as apple pie, in plain view for the world to see. Now, in his ninth decade, he is watching a rollback toward the bad old days. He shakes his head: "The thing that I tell folks, when I go out and speak to them, is: 'You'd better watch out. Many of you don't know where you are today, and how you got where you are today; don't worry, it's coming back to remind you. If you don't know your history, it has a tendency to repeat itself. Racism is far from being dead."
Democracy North Carolina's Hall sees deep-seated fears of usurpation(6) as at root of the North Carolina GOP's anti-democratic politics: "It begins in a kind of defensiveness. It seems to me that there's a nervous anxiety that we're about to lose control," Hall says. "There's not a graciousness, a sense of confidence that what we say is right, and if you think about it and we have time to argue about it, you'll see the value of it. It connects to this cultural anxiety of White North Carolinians, and across the country, that you've got a Black guy elected to the White House, gay folks marrying—they're losing control of their culture. They've gotten somewhat desperate, and they see it as a cultural war, as a political war."
Under an outlook, moreover, wherein retributive justice is standard, there is a projected anxiety that comes from the buried sense of having done some wrong. In the American South, the great unspoken fear is that Black Southerners, after bearing generations of mind-bending violence, will take power and there will be hell to pay. If we don't keep the Blacks down, worry the guilty-minded, then we will be the ones with the boot on our necks. The prophecy justifies injustice: fearing domination, conservative Southerners have long been happy to double down on a dominating style of politics that requires oppression of the sort that gives their fears added oomph. The erosion of voting rights is anxiously self-protective, a defense by way of attack.
Of course, if the prophecy is anywhere true, it is self-fulfilling. Any political action redefines the norms of the political process, as what is done becomes a model for what might be done in the future. Thus does ugly politicking sow the will for more of the same—the justification for the Republican legislature's power grab, remember, was the memory of a perceived injustice decades ago. That snowball effect makes bad-faith politics the thorny beast they are: the health of a democracy depends on observing certain political norms—like, say, respecting the results of a gubernatorial election. When eroded, such norms cannot be easily recovered.
A federal court mandated that North Carolina redraw its federal and state legislative districts by March 15, 2017. That task will again fall to the state legislature. A newly conservative United States Supreme Court could well put the kibosh on the redistricting order, which is under appeal. But if it does proceed as planned, the map may look quite familiar, for while federal jurisprudence has slapped down egregious racial gerrymanders, it has been more generous thus far in allowing partisan considerations.
Looking further ahead, an editorializing author might argue that non- or bipartisan redistricting is one obvious and urgent fix for political polarization and poor governance in North Carolina and beyond. The process could begin to remedy a system that incentivizes using power to straightjacket the vote into prepackaged districts and effectively write off the members of the sure-to-be minority party in uncompetitive races.
Districting, though, is dry, math-ridden. For that reason, the University of North Carolina's Professor Reynolds is not thrilled about the prospects of redistricting reform, not least because North Carolina Democrats still do not support it in force. "The trouble with districting is that, at the same time as being the most obvious remedy, it is the least sexy remedy," Reynolds says. "You don't get an Occupy movement, or a mass mobilization, on the basis of drawing maps. It doesn't fire people up."
Even if it did fire people up, districting reform is a technical solution unfit to solve the broader quandary of a fractured electorate whose representatives have nothing to offer their opponents but venom. The habit of disregard for democracy grew from distortions of the voting process to outright contempt for electoral results; designs for a more robust democracy must venture from outrage at results to outrage at process. It should be bad politics to disenfranchise voters and ignore their will.
Authoritarianism should not be, cannot be, must not be good electoral strategy. The stakes are high: nationally, a reflexively autocratic regime has also circled its wagons, declaring anyone in disagreement with any part of its agenda illegitimate. American democracy, imperfect though it has always been, was built on the hope that a shared vision of effective governance might unite disparate groups into a functional political body. Even when that vision wanes, there is opportunity for a newly positive framing of values to emerge, to galvanize and restore our body politic. Who knows—with Moral Mondays hard at work, that restorative vision may well grow from North Carolina's red clay.
Besides precinct-by-precinct voting histories and census data, political parties can now buy the same digital residue that online marketers use to target particular customers. Taken together, these give an incredibly precise spatial view of how people have voted and might vote in the future.
Here, it may be instructive to keep in mind a top Bush advisor's pooh-poohing of the "reality-based community" to The New York Times. "We're an empire now," the aide told Times reporter Ron Suskind in 2004, "and when we act, we create our own reality."
This is a tricky question. The Voting Rights Act, as interpreted in later iterations, encouraged the creation of districts that would allow candidates from sizeable minorities of a state's population to get elected; such considerations ensure that race does in fact play a role in districting. However, when such districts become too densely packed with minority voters, they act less as assurances of minority representation and more as sponges to absorb minority votes, blanching the surrounding districts Whiter. The balance is delicate, but in North Carolina's case it would be hard to argue that balance was the goal.
Deeming unwanted votes "irregular" is an old electoral trick. Ari Berman, in 2015's Give Us the Ballot, describes a challenge in Selma, Alabama by right-wing sheriff Jim Clark to his defeat at the hands of a moderate. The election was the first since the Voting Rights Act was passed, greatly expanding Black access to the ballot across the South. "The next day," Berman writes, "Clark appeared before the Dallas County Democratic Executive Committee, which was controlled by segregationist hard-liners, and persuaded them not to accept six boxes of ballots from Black wards in Selma that overwhelmingly favored Baker. Of the eighteen hundred disputed ballots, more than sixteen hundred were for Baker. Without those votes, Baker would have to face Clark in a runoff. 'The boxes were so infected with irregularities as to make it impossible to determine which were proper and valid ballots and which were not,' said the Democratic chairman, Alston Keith." That challenge, too, ultimately proved unwarranted and fruitless.
State Representative Michael Speciale sees the protesters a third way, according to his Facebook page: as "a group of malcontent thugs who are likely paid and bused in to disrupt the business of those who represent the people."
In the crass parlance of our times, of being "cucked"
About Sammy Feldblum
Sammy Feldblum recently moved from Western North Carolina to Albuquerque, NM. He reports from all over the map.
What the Moral Monday Movement can teach us about resisting Trump
By Katherine Demby | January 20, 2017
The Moral Monday Movement and the pursuit of a Third Reconstruction.
Constituting North Carolina
By Jedediah Purdy | July 9, 2015
From John Locke's colonial constitution, through radical reconstruction to today's Moral Mondays, the unfinished legacy of Carolina-style egalitarian democracy.
The Police, the Law, and the Unjustified Use of Force
By Irving Joyner | July 8, 2015
Law Professor Irving Joyner explains the near impossibility of prosecuting police officers for using excessive force, and suggest what we can do about it.
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Tottenham Hotspur took advantage of their timely break last week as they managed to get all three points at the Liberty Stadium with goals from Fernando Llorente and Dele Alli. Manchester City got back to winning ways as they thrashed Watford 3-1 at the Eithad to increase their lead to 15 points.
With manager Mauricio Pochettino deciding to keep Harry Kane on the bench, Spurs fans had their reservations, but summer recruit Fernando Llorente cleared them all with a 12th-minute header to give his side the lead on a wet and windy day against his former club. With the pitch not ideal for passing the ball, which Spurs specialize in, the goal unsurprisingly came from a free-kick by Christian Eriksen that was clinically headed in by the Spaniard.
However, the South Wales club didn't make it easy for the visitors from thereafter with the likes of Luciano Narsingh, Jordan Ayew, and Mike van der Hoorn, all coming close to equalize as half-time approached. However, they were made to regret their missed chances right in the 89th minute when Alli scored from a rebound after collecting a marvellous pass by Kane. Spurs have now moved up to fifth on the table with this win while Swansea remain rooted to the bottom of the table four points from safety.
In a season that is increasingly likely to see Manchester City go unbeaten after the Arsenal Invincibles of 2004, the Sky Blues got a real scare in the last game as Crystal Palace came agonizingly close to breaking it, but for a missed penalty at the last minute. However, Pep Guardiola's men shook it off in no time as they managed a convincing win away in Watford with Raheem Sterling taking as little 39 seconds to score the fastest goal of the season.
Leroy Sane put in a cross into the back-post right after the kick-off that found its way to Sterling, thanks to some slack defending by Watford, who was waiting to tap it in. As if that wasn't sufficiently discouraging for the Hornets' defence, Christian Kabasele then managed to divert a Kevin De Bruyne's cross into his own net 12 minutes later.
Striker Sergio Aguero piled more misery on the hosts with a goal in the 63rd minute after goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes had spilled from De Bruyne's cross. Andre Gray, however, got a late consolation for the hosts from Andre Carillo's cross.


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Stephen M. Kaus
1 Sugar in Our Wounds New York City Center/ Stage II 06/19/2018 Associate Artistic Producer
2 Actually New York City Center/ Stage II 11/14/2017 Associate Artistic Producer
3 Fulfillment Center New York City Center/ Stage II 06/20/2017 Associate Artistic Producer
4 Cost of Living New York City Center/ Stage I 06/07/2017 Associate Artistic Producer
5 Vietgone New York City Center/ Stage I 10/25/2016 Artistic Producer
6 Sell/Buy/Date New York City Center/ Stage II 10/18/2016 Artistic Producer
7 The Ruins of Civilization New York City Center/ Stage II 05/18/2016 Artistic Producer
1 Twelfth Night Delacorte Theater 06/25/2009 Production Stage Manager
2 Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them Joseph Papp Public Theater/ Newman Theater 04/06/2009 Production Stage Manager
3 Streamers Laura Pels Theatre (Current) 11/11/2008 Production Stage Manager
4 The New Century Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater 04/14/2008 Stage Manager
5 Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater 02/24/2003 Assistant Stage Manager
6 Gone Home New York City Center/ Stage II 12/17/2002 Assistant Stage Manager
7 The Butter and Egg Man Linda Gross Theater 10/02/2002 Production Stage Manager

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Passing by reference NSString *firstName2 = @"foo";
NSDictionary *dict = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:firstName2, @"storeData", nil];

NSString * __strong *storeData = NULL;
storeData = &[dict objectForKey:@"storeData"];

*storeData = @"bar";

When setting storeData, I want that firstName will be changed as well.
I get a build error: "address expression must be an lvalue or a function designator"
How should I do it?
EDIT
In the big picture, I'm trying to create a subclass of UITextField that gets a reference to a variable and sets it in the textField:DidEndEditing method.

A: That code doesn't make sense and C (Objective-C) doesn't work that way.
The return value of a method is generally in a register and, thus, has no address.   Even if it did, getting pointers to the innards of objects so you can muck with them directly is a really bad design pattern.

A: I don't think you need to subclass UITextField to accomplish your goal.  In any case, the solution you are trying to implement has a philosophical flaw because it breaks encapsulation.
How to solve?  Your text fields are almost certainly owned by a view controller subclass.  So long as that object conforms to the UITextFieldDelegate protocol and each of the text fields has the controller object as its delegate, you should be good.  The only task remaining, then, is to map the text fields to a property on your controller or other object.
Let's assume for a second that your controller owns an instance of some data object whose properties you are trying to set with the controller's UI.  We'll call it MyDataObject:
@interface MyDataObject : NSObject

@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *firstName;
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSString *lastName;

@end

@implementation MyDataObject
@end

To map the text fields to the properties on this object, you could do something like:
- (NSString *)propertyNameForTextField:(UITextField *)field {
    static NSDictionary *map;
    static dispatch_once_t onceToken;
    dispatch_once(&onceToken, ^{
        map = @{(id)self.fnField: @"firstName",
                (id)self.lnField : @"lastName" };
    });
    return map[field];
}

Then in our UITextFieldDelegate method, we do:
- (void)textFieldDidEndEditing:(UITextField *)textField {
    [_dataObject setValue:textField.text forKey:[self propertyNameForTextField:textField]];
}

Note that I'm doing no error checking, validation, etc. etc.  This is just to show one way of mapping UI elements to properties they should affect.  This is on iOS; on Mac OS bindings are available for this use-case.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


This Mini Fairy Bomb Fun-Sized Glittering Pom Pom is purely magical – and you'll want to get your hands on one as soon as possible! The little white fluffy ball of fun is the newest (and cutest) new product from Celebrity, Rihanna's cosmetics brand that features the most stunning body illuminiser you've ever seen. The new special Christmas product is jam packed full with Fenty Beauty's signature next-level 3D shimmer and glitter. Not only is this puff a beauty product to use all year round, but it'll also look as good hanging on the tree as it does on your skin.
Any beauty fan would squeal over this deluxe-size palette from the notorious brand, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. This deluxe sized palette is packed with everything needed to create countless eye and cheek looks over the holiday season and beyond into the new year. The set includes 12 eyeshadows, one bronzing powder, one blush, one blinding highlighting powder, one eyeliner, one mini mascara, and two brushes to complete the set, providing an individual with everything they need to create a gorgeous look.
Holiday time is the perfect time to shine, and these Mini Macarons produced by Becca Cosmetics are providing the perfect glow for every skin tone this holiday season. This set includes four different shades of the famous Shimmering Skin Perfector that Becca Cosmetics became known for. The size of these Macarons has particularly also a become a fan-favourite among customers for being the perfect size for using them as stocking stuffers.
This eyeshadow palette by the famous YouTuber Jaclyn Hill just can't seem to stay in stock – and for good reason!. YouTube beauty guru Jaclyn Hill's Morphe eyeshadow palette contains 35 completely new shades that blend out to perfection and will be an asset for any beauty lover.
Spoil your mum, sister, or even yourself this Christmas with this lavish gift from Louis Vuitton. Cast in handmade ceramic, each Louis Vuitton scented candle doesn't only spread a gorgeous aroma, but also doubles up as an elegant ornament or decorative piece around your home. With a leather handle, they are designed to be travel-friendly so she can recreate the ambience of home wherever her journeys take her. Best of all? These hand-poured candles are made of wax that is of the finest quality that is infused with fine fragrance materials suitable for any environment.
Take your own self-care game to another level with these natural bath and body products from KORA Organics. The Kora Organics Body Exfoliator has a refreshing gel texture that gently buffs away dry skin cells and purifies your skin while infusing it with a layer of botanical extracts that soothe and hydrate your skin in unison.
Kora Organics also offers an Enriched Body Lotion which is said to replenish and fortify your skin thanks to its blend of organic jojoba, macadamia and rose hip oils, cocoa butter and sandalwood.
The Olay Total Effects Day & Night Duo Gift Pack is a great gift for every mum or generally any skincare lover. Not only does the Total Effects day and night duo come in a beautiful little gold bag, but inside of the package you'll find two hardworking and nourishing skin care products, including the Total Effects Day Cream Normal SPF15 and the Total Effects Night Cream. Each of these products have since received a 4.5 stars in reviews and is said to truely be the gift of well protected and anti-aging skin.


Spirit Lords is a mobile dungeon crawler RPG developed by KABAM games. In a unique real-time adventure designed exclusively for mobile devices, players can battle dozens of unique races and vile bosses through a variety of landscapes; from lush forests to subterranean caves and crypts.
iOS: Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.


text:
Home / IndyCar Series / NTT Signs-up With INDYCAR
NTT Signs-up With INDYCAR
By Paul Gohde
Internet speculation has been rampant this past year following the announcement that Verizon would not renew its sponsorship of the Indy Car Series after the end of the 2018 season.
September became December and the calendar changed to 2019 with no announcement of a new series' title replacement.
But a recent trip to Japan by INDYCAR officials resulted in an announcement today as the 150-year-old Japanese global information technology and communication giant NTT was announced as the "multi-year" entitlement sponsor for the trending IndyCar Series.
The announcement was made Tuesday in Detroit at the North American International Auto Show before hundreds of the world's automotive industry elite. Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Company; owners of INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, spoke of the upside the sponsorship would bring to the series beginning immediately.
"Having a strong technology partner is critically important to Indy Car's continued growth, so we are thrilled to welcome NTT as our new title sponsor," Miles said in his opening remarks that announced the partnership.
"Indy Car's rise in popularity is a testament to the fact that we've made the sport accessible as possible to our fans, and we plan to continue in that mission," he noted.
Jun Sawada, president and CEO of NTT, spoke earlier in a release of the contribution that NTT (whose annual revenue is more than $110 Billion) can bring to the race series. "Technological innovations have the potential to change the sport and fan experience drastically. We will help to create the next generation of fans globally who aspire to enjoy racing through a more digital experience with INDYCAR," also noting that NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) has been looking for more ways to become recognized in North America.
Along with Miles, drivers Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan, team owners Chip Ganassi and Bobby Rahal, and engine suppliers Jim Campbell (Chevrolet) and Art St. Cyr (Honda) spoke briefly before a large gathering of media.
Ganassi is perhaps more familiar with NTT than the others, as his cars, driven by Tony Kanaan and more recently 2018 IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon, have been sponsored since 2013 by NTT Data, the U.S.- based subsidiary of parent company NTT.
The sponsorship isn't only for the IndyCar Series, but also includes becoming the official technology partners of INDYCAR, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and NASCAR's Brickyard 400, all beginning in 2019.
No word was given as to the actual length of the agreement, nor whether the sponsorship with Dixon's car will continue long-term.
Paul Gohde
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950's, Paul had no idea what "that noise" was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner's autograph in the pits, something he couldn't do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt's first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark's historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, "a factor that got me hooked in the first place."
racingnation.com
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About 6 days ago I realized the Tour de Pork, a 25 or 50 mile route bike ride, was on August 10 and not August 18. And also I haven't ridden the bike outside at all since October 2012. Um. Okay.
My first problem is I'm not exactly sure how my balance is taking the bike off the trainer. I'm wobbly walking on a path nevertheless using clipless pedals. Even before my injury there was a 100% chance I'd fall at some point off or with the bike trying to do something simple like stopping. Or moving. Or trying to get a drink of water. Nope. So I changed the pedals back to the kiddie traditional ones. Easy enough. I don't intend to crack another helmet and have neck pain for a month.
Second was plain old saddle time. When I had surgery, I splurged on a selle italia nice little cutout seat that is way more comfortable than the one that came with the bike. Considering I had to ride at least 20 minutes a day from the day after surgery, it was more like a necessity than a splurge. I got in an hour today without any issues except wishing I still had my clipless pedals on.
Next problem was getting my bike computer to register both the pace and the cadence on the trainer. I figured it out. I can't have my laptop on the aerobars and the wireless bike computer working at the same time. Ah ha! And ughhhh. I watched an entire season of Wilfred that way, it's not fair! And that's enough yuppie problems from this girl.
I'm aiming to swim 2 miles tomorrow at 5am. That was my aim the last two days and I slept until 6am instead.
One last note. And it's a bad one.
A woman in my swim group who recently moved away lost both her father and stepmother to a horrible crime this past weekend. It's made it hard to sleep at night knowing all these details. Apparently two teens robbed them at their home, stabbed her dad 23 times and left. Then they came back a little later and bludgeoned her stepmother who is sick and uses a wheelchair. The kids were arrested a few blocks from my office for an unrelated crime when one of the pair shot at his own twin brother.
The worst of coincidences Stephanie's family suffered the stabbing of her brother 20 years ago by his roommate in Texas.
My friend Anna (who introduced me to the swimming group) and I are going to make a donation in their memory which will go towards the cost of the funerals. I have a card but I have no idea what to say yet. I purposely tried to stay away from the word 'memories' because every time I read it in a card, I flashed to the number 23. I can't stop thinking of that number. I imagine they can't, either.


Hindu communities are worried about a reclamation plan in Benoa Bay in Bali that could threaten the existence of at least 24 temples in the area.
'€œThe project could cause our temples to sink,'€ said I Wayan Widyantara, a member of Pengempon (temple management group) over the weekend.
Widyantara said his Deluang Sari temple was one of 24 temples located in Tanjung Benoa village, next to the Pudut turtle island in Benoa Bay.
To reach the temple, he said, people used traditional canoes.
The temples aside, Hindus consider Benoa Bay a sacred area because of the presence of 60 natural sites, including 19 loloan (estuaries) and 17 muntig (small islands that emerge during low tide).
Locals are worried that the reclamation of at least 700 hectares of the bay, for an integrated tourism development project proposed by a private developer, will damage their sacred area.
Researcher Kadek Suardana from the Hindu University of Denpasar said some of the temples were centered at the bottom of sea in the bay, including the Karang Tengah temple.
'€œNo one knows exactly where the [center] point of the temple is. But, people agree to place a buoy above the temple as a symbol of the temples'€™s point. People hold ceremonies at that point,'€ Suardana said during a discussion on social and cultural aspects of the planned reclamation in Denpasar, Friday.
Another researcher, Sugi Lanus, said that the reclamation would threaten the indigenous rights of Balinese living around the bay.
'€œFor hundreds of years, the Bali indigenous society has been living around the bay and has kept the bay as a spiritual site. The government should consider these social and cultural aspects. If the reclamation is forcibly carried out, it would violate indigenous rights. There is traditional knowledge and local wisdom that should be respected,'€ Sugi said.
Sugi added that the government and investors should not only consider spatial aspects. '€œIt is about more than space. It is about people'€™s beliefs and their spiritual lives,'€ he added.
Presidential Regulation No. 51/2014 that approved the reclamation was issued by then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono only several months before he left office.
The regulation has twisted previous spatial planning bylaws by redesignating Benoa Bay as a business site, no longer an environmental buffer zone and green-belt area.
Despite the presidential regulation, Sugi asserted that there were many regulations that must be considered, including the Bali spatial planning bylaw No. 16/2009 that banned any development in sacred areas. The bylaw was adopted from a bhisama (religious edict) issued by the Indonesian Parisadha Hindu Council (PHDI) in 1994.
Meanwhile, a representative of PHDI, Putu Wirata Dwikora, said that there was no doubt that Benoa Bay was a sacred area as there were many temples around the bay.
'€œBenoa Bay is a sacred area. No one can debate that,'€ the chairman of the council'€™s intellectual study group said.
Wirata explained that the reclamation plan had been discussed at a recent council meeting in Jakarta.
He added that a special team of nine sulinggih (High Hindu priest) had been established to discuss the matter. '€œWe already have a study that shows that there are many sacred points in Benoa Bay. This study will be used by the sulinggih team to decide,'€ he said.
Wirata emphasized that the PHDI had never declared its support for the reclamation plan.
He denied a recent statement by the PHDI'€™s I Ketut Wiana, to the national media, saying that the PHDI supported the reclamation in revitalizing the area.
'€œI would like to emphasize that the PHDI never declared that we agree with the reclamation plan. It was his personal statement,'€ he stressed.


text:
A cautionary tale or a promotion of violence? As Oscar weekend approaches, "Joker" controversy reenters the conversation
Katherine Sturdevant, Herald Contributor
With 11 nominations announced last month, "Joker" received the most Oscar nods of any film in the 2020 awards ceremony. Despite its acclaim, the movie has and still continues to garner controversial opinions across the globe.
In early fall of last year, the trailer for the movie made its way into the public and unfolded the story of how the Joker came to be. One of the biggest concerns of the movie was the way it portrayed Arthur Fleck (the Joker) as an anti-hero and made him look like a victim.
The problem with this was that for years, the Joker had been seen as a sadistic killer who'd only been portrayed to inflict violence upon others. If you give this type of person any kind of sympathy, a lot of people will feel uncomfortable about it.
The general fear behind "Joker" is connected to the horrific Aurora theatre shooting of 2012. The shooting occurred during "The Dark Knight Rises" where the shooter, James Holmes, mimicked a Joker-like look with his hair dyed a bright orange. This tragic event played a big role in why this movie was so controversial.
It was feared that "Joker" might influence people to commit extreme acts of violence. Before the movie was released in theaters, the family members of the Aurora shooting victims asked in a letter to Warner Bros. to take things seriously, and to make sure everyone was safe. In addition, these individuals asked Warner Bros. to help contribute to the issue of gun control in America.
Director Todd Phillips said the movie didn't focus on the issues of guns but on the character itself. The connection between the Aurora theatre shooting and "Joker"has consumed the public because of the connections between the character and Holmes. It came down to the color of his hair and the movie he chose.
"My friend dyed his blue, so I said I'd dye mine too and I just picked red," Holmes said.
Even if there isn't a strong correlation, these little things still seem to haunt us. George Brauchler, an attorney who prosecuted Holmes, spoke about the connection between the mass shooting and the movie "Joker" with Vanity Fair's Yohana Desta.
"I don't think it'll ever go away because it's just too easy. It's almost like people want it to be true," Brauchler said.
Due to the outcome of this horrific act, people had trouble fathoming why someone would do something so nefarious. At the end of the day, the best answer to that question was the influence of a horrific character. But in reality, people find it difficult to understand that there are people in the world who commit terrible acts upon others.
"Joker" is a disturbing movie for many people, which is understandable due to the nature of the main character. A lot of people and critics do not like the movie because they believe making Fleck an anti-hero promotes the wrong message. Others believe the movie did a good job of telling Fleck's story and tied in the harsh reality behind suffering with mental illness while being a part of an unjust system. In the eyes of many, the movie is well-crafted and award worthy.
People are also raving about the performance the main actor, Joaquin Phoenix, gave in the movie. He managed to take the audience through a slow journey into madness. In a way, the movie seems to comment on how our systems work and the people left behind. In the letters between Warner Bros. and the families of the Aurora theatre shooting, the studio said, "Warner Bros. believes that one of the functions of storytelling is to provoke difficult conversations and complex issues."
The movie is a tale for some people and a topic of how mental illness is treated in this country. For others, the movie is too close to home and makes them uncomfortable. When "Joker" was released, it was one of the biggest openings the theaters have seen in a while. No matter how much criticism or how many Oscars the film receives, one thing is undeniable — this movie had a huge impact on the public.


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Deksalgin toothache may stay within Thirty minutes of the administration, and is effective size 5 hours. For highly severe pain it does not apply, and is contraindicated in the elderly, infants, pregnant women, men with diseases of a stomach and asthma sufferers. This medicine may cause allergies.Similar articles: Facials and masks in 20 years Face after cleaning Masks and skin care permanently. . . .
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Great teeth - is now a required attribute for a successful contemporary man. To keep the teeth longer remain nice and healthy learn How to look after for them. Dental attention is composed of 2 components: a daily home attention and regular visits to the dental office.Daily home leavingThe main thing regularity. Brushing the teeth need be each day twice daily at least, and preferably of the any meal prima. The process for cleaning a teeth need finish no less than 3 min. Do not forget to go done all a approachable surfaces of the teeth.
And now the toothpaste - what is it for? It is understood that a pastes contain limited substances that enhance a impact of the toothbrush, destroying bacteria and protect a tooth enamel, and most pastes comprise abrasives and foaming agents. The paste must choose a suitable, like a brush, if a teeth are sensitive, do not put abrasive paste - pick pasta with strontium chloride or potassium.Similar articles: Masks and face care any time Facials and masks combination facial skin Masks for fase aging body 40 years. . . . .


Bladder and bowel problems are part of daily life for millions of people across the UK. And yet they remain one of the most enduring health taboos in modern society. Symptoms are often kept hidden and when people do seek help, NHS services too often fail to offer timely access to the right treatment and support, evidenced through national clinical audit and the serious failures exposed by the Francis Inquiry. The expert group on lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) was set up with a simple goal: to address the legacy of unmet need and secure improvements in the quality of care for people with continence needs. Sustained engagement over time, and a readiness to adapt both the tone and the message, were key to reaching and influencing target audiences on a sensitive subject and establishing a powerful policy platform and the right tools to deliver meaningful improvements in patient outcomes over the long-term.
They took on the difficult area of incontinence through a renewed focus on dignity following the Francis Enquiry. It delivered lots of positive engagement at different levels of the healthcare system and patient communities. Through great execution, with good objectives it clearly delivered what it aimed to achieve.


Affordable living in White Rock! This one bedroom unit is newly painted, carpeted & new lino in kitchen & bathroom. This home has in suite storage plus storage locker. 40 sq. Foot balcony. Maintenance Fee includes hot water, heat and management, maintenance and PROPERTY TAXES. well run building with large contingency fund and depreciation report. Walk to shopping & enjoy the White Rock life style. Call today for private showings. Age Restrictions, no pets and no rentals. .
Welcome to Blackwood Manor! This well appointed TOP FLOOR one bedroom suite is located in Central White Rock. If you are looking for an opportunity to get into the market in a great Building this is absolutely IT! With East facing exposure, NEW FLOORING AND PAINT throughout - this unit is neat as a pin. One underground parking stall and one storage unit. This building is pet friendly and minutes to all buses. Heat and hot water is included. Call for a private showing. .
45+ Age restriction.... SHOWS LIKE A 10! FULLY RENOVATED Cozy and Quiet White Rock Condo! MOVE IN READY. Features beautifully renovated Kitchen and Bathroom complete with designer finishes and a stunning modern look. This condo is a one of a kind. Designer Swedish Bianco engineered laminate flooring that runs seamlessly throughout the condo is a very light grey wood grain offering a very beachy and clean feel. High Quality Paint throughout light grey fresh and clean, 4� baseboards throughout. Brand New appliances, portable island, and huge pantry. Good size enclosed balcony with sliding glass doors. No rentals, 1 cat allowed, 45+ Age restriction. OPEN HOUSE SUN MARCH 24th 3-4 PM or call now for your private viewing! .
THE DORCHESTER - Outstanding location & fabulous building. This building is walking distance to 5 corners, UPTOWN White Rock, Peace Arch Hospital, White Rock Beach (Marine Drive) and more! Perfect for someone who wants to live in a QUIET AREA, and yet be close to the excitement of Uptown White Rock! Spacious 1 bdrm condo with large living area and enclosed sundeck. Bring your ideas - This unit has loads of potential and must be seen to be appreciated. Ideal for first time buyer or downsizer - DON'T MISS OUT! Call now to book your private showing! .
Life in this building is laid back and neighbourly. Friendly strata council that allows pets (1 cat/dog up to 12kg are welcome) and all this in sunny White Rock! Enjoy the day by stopping at a local cafe and getting the days groceries at local shops. Farmers market in the summer, and all amenities nearby, even dry cleaners! Every day can be a holiday. Quiet and lots of privacy. Spacious and airy hallways. Stainless steel appliances in a high-quality renovation 6 years ago. Spacious one bedroom and den, community workspace, underground parking, and storage. Right on transit route to make commuting easy into Vancouver or elsewhere. No rentals and no age restrictions in an increasingly family-oriented building loving life. .
Top floor, corner unit condo with large wrap around balcony, partial view of Mt Baker and lots of natural light. Across the street from White Rock Elementary, close to Peach Arch Hospital, transit, shopping, restaurants, churches, 10 minute walk to beach. 2 bedroom unit with in-suite laundry and hot water tank, one secured parking stall, Beautiful Hardwood flooring with cork underlay, Peaceful, clean, and quiet building, Lots of closets for storage, newer white Bosch dishwasher, Great unit if you have your own design idea's, fibre optic has recently been installed, New Torch on roof recently, QUICK POSSESSION possible. .
A well kept and renovated 2 bed 1 bath spacious south east facing corner unit in White Rock BC. An easy walk to all amenities including the beach! This is a well cared for 20 unit building Heat and Hot Water incl with Free shared laundry! Interior updates include appliances, flooring, bathroom paint and flooring which are in great condition. The condo is move in ready and date are very flexible. Price includes 1 underground secure parking spot & a locker. No rentals and a 19+ building makes this a great place to own and live in, with easy access to the highway, shopping and transit just steps away. Open House Sat and Sun 2 to 4 pm Mar 30 Mar 31. Or call for your own showing. .
Walk to the Beach! This cozy quiet 2 bedroom top floor corner condo is right in the hub of White Rock living and has a walk score of 91! Clean, tidy and freshly painted this low maintenance unit can give you that calm life-style you are looking for. Just steps to numerous coffee shops, eateries, boutiques and the White Rock playhouse as well as transit, you won't even need a car. Relax on the quiet deck with ocean peek-a-boo view. Laundry room on first floor is free. Building also has a multi-purpose meeting room, storage, and workshop area. A bargain in today's market! OPEN HOUSE Sat & Sun Mar 30/31 2:00 - 4:00 .
BUY WITH CONFIDENCE in this age restricted 50+ happily well maintained and managed building. Underwent a complete envelope restoration in 2010. Including new windows, exterior siding. Roof was replaced 4 years ago! Very quiet, steps to all the White Rock amenities. Private setting ONLY 12 units in the building. FLOOR PLAN! w/ enclosed sunroom giving up to 1400sq ft of finished living space w/ enclosed balcony. this TWO large Bedrooms and 2 bath is a spacious corner suite, sunny bright with a light ocean breeze. Maintenance fee includes heat, hot water and large 5'x7' storage space. MAJOR INVESTMENTS HAS GONE INTO MAKING THIS BUILDING PURR WITH PERFECTION. .
WHITE ROCK CENTRAL LOCATION. Walk to everything from this 2 bdrm/2 bath unit WITH solarium. (not incl in sq ft). Very well laid out, second floor Corner Unit in 18 Unit Strata. Sep Dining Room with Window, Sunny Living room walks out to West facing Solarium. Bedrooms on opposite sides of Unit, BIG Laundry Room with space for Freezer or Pantry, abundance of closets. No Pets, Over 55 Age Restriction (Occupant) and No Rentals Allowed. New Roof 2014, Exterior Painted 2017, Hall/Stair carpets 2/19, Entrance upgraded. Very Attractive Building. Proactive Strata. Bring your ideas. .
THE SANDRINGHAM - Sought after 2 bedroom, 2 full bathroom condo in central White Rock close to shops, restaurants and transportation. Bring your ideas to this 1,008 sf home. Bright, east facing unit offers large main living area, in suite laundry and 2 storage lockers. Generous 17' x 5' patio. This 50+ building is run by a proactive strata - newer roof and elevator. One cat or one dog allowed (14" at the shoulder). Schedule your private viewing. .
Top floor totally renovated condo on quiet side of building. Large private balcony to enjoy a sunrise in the morning and barbeques in the evening. Beautiful laminate flooring, stainless steel appliances, white shaker kitchen cabinets all brand new with a renovated bathroom which is move in ready. Close to transit, shops, restaurants and White Rock's beach and pier are nearby which makes this a great place to call home. 45+ adult occupancy only, pro active strata and low strata fees include heat and hot water. .
Welcome to Clifton Lane in the heart of sunny White Rock! Spacious 1 bedroom with an open and inviting floor plan. Very quiet, clean & tidy unit secluded from all neighbours. No one living above, similar to a penthouse. Condo comes with insuite laundry, 1 secured underground parking stall, and 1 storage locker. No upcoming levies. Recent interior building upgrades and over 1 million dollars spent on the exterior including newer siding, windows w/ flashing, doors, patios, paint, etc. Peace of mind, problem-free condo living at an affordable price. Awesome location: close to shopping, restaurants, parks, transit, hospital, library, White Rock Beach, and quick access for commuters to Hwy 99 and the USA border. Enjoy! .
Kensington Manor ground level corner unit. New roof (2008) Building rainscreened and new hardi-plank siding plus new vinyl windows, decks, and doors (2009). Ample light though all the windows in this NW facing corner unit with 2 spacious bedrooms and 1 bath. Unit features laminate floors, fixtures, mouldings, kitchen with tile backsplash, stainless appliances, bathroom vanity, toilet & floors, newer 2" blinds. You won't believe all the STORAGE. Storage space in unit, many closets, plus additional common storage locker on same floor. Set up for in-suite laundry combo plus free shared laundry on every floor. Age restricted to 19+, no pets & no rentals. Maint. fee $356.93 includes heat & hot water. Depreciation report complete 2016. .
A perfect Condo in the heart of White Rock, only a short level walk to shopping & transportation. Top floor spacious unit includes a multi-window enclosed sunroom exposing the partial ocean view. Beautifully renovated. Eat-in kitchen boasts white quartz counters & gorgeous new stainless steel dbl sinks, goose neck spray faucet, backsplash, lighting, S/S fridge, stove, range hood & dishwasher. Both full bathrooms have new sinks, faucets, sparkly white quartz counter tops, toilets & lighting. New flooring throughout; high-grade soft carpet & vinyl plank have double insulation for quiet comfy walking. There's a large storage room off the sunroom & another secured on the underground parking level. No pets, no rentals, age 55+. .
LARGE AND SUPER BRIGHT!- SPACIOUS SOUTH FACING 2 large bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms plus bonus enclosed solarium perfect for gardening or a den! CORRIDOR OCEAN VIEW. Rarely available and cozy, well managed, 55+ building. PRIME LOCATION in the heart of White Rock. 1/2 a block to Johnston Road with simple transit to Downtown Vancouver. Short Walk to shopping, restaurants, recreation, etc. Very functional and useful floor plan. Large In Suite Laundry Room as well as lots of storage and locker! No pets or rentals. Vacant, easy to show and ready for quick possession! OPEN HOUSE SAT/SUN APRIL 13/14... 2 to 4PM. .
Your search is over! Incredible 18 unit complex in the heart of WHITE ROCK! 45+ age restriction. This completely updated & SPOTLESS ground floor corner unit offers incredible space. 941 Sq ft of BRIGHT, living area with tile floors, updated fixtures, a BEAUTIFUL kitchen with updated cabinets & white appliances! Electric fireplace in cozy living room with sliding leading to oversized patio to enjoy the afternoon sunshine! Brand new LG washer/dryer. Warm design paint colors throughout. Master features sliding door to deck as well, walk though closets and cheater door to full ensuite bathroom. Well maintained complex that has new boiler and new windows. Secured underground parking & storage locker. Footsteps to Mall & restaurants! .
Beautiful Cypress Manor Two Bedroom suite. Awesome Storage space for a Condo. Lots of Light. Generous rooms. Fabulous location. Close to the beach, shopping and transit. Fresh paint. New fridge. Bathroom has new shower insert. Well loved and cared for. Your fusiest client's will love it. .
Martinview Manor, spacious well laid out corner condo located on the second floor. Completely renovated featuring two bedrooms, one bathroom and spacious living dining room. New kitchen with quartz countertops, tiled backsplash, barista bar and stainless - steel appliances. Bright bathroom with large walk-in shower. Surprise, a generous size storage room located in the suite as well as one in the locker area downstairs. Very private east facing balcony. 45 plus age restriction, one cat allowed. no rentals, BBQ's allowed, heat & hot water included in the strata fees. Free shared laundry & workshop. STRATA APPROVAL FOR A PORTABLE EUROPOEAN WASHER/DRYER UNIT. Wonderful location within walking distance to Semi Mall, transportation, amenities & restaurants. QUICK POSSESION POSSIBLE! .


A blood sample drawn from a vein in the arm. Your doctor will advise you on how frequently this testing is required.
The test measures how long it takes for your blood to begin to form clots. Prothrombin is a plasma protein produced by the liver. Clotting is caused by a series of chemical reactions (coagulation cascade), including the conversion of prothrombin to thrombin. The test used to measure this clotting factor is called prothrombin time or PT. It may be standardised as the International Normalised Ratio (INR).
The prothrombin time (PT) test, standardised as the INR test is most often used to check how well anti-coagulant or 'blood-thinning' tablets such as warfarin and phenindione are working. Anti-coagulant tablets help prevent the formation of blood clots (they do not 'thin the blood' as is popularly thought). This is particularly important in people with heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation or artificial valves, or people with a history of recurrent blood clots. The drug's effectiveness can be determined by how much it prolongs the PT (measured in seconds), or increases the INR (a standardised ratio of the patient's PT versus a normal sample). The test is not helpful with monitoring the "new" anticoagulants such as dabigatran, rivaroxaban or apixaban.
If you are taking warfarin or a similar anti-coagulant drug, your doctor will check your INR regularly to make sure that your prescription is working properly and that the INR is appropriately increased. There is no set frequency for doing the test. Your doctor will order it often enough to make sure that the drug dose is right. Occasionally the PT or INR may be used on a patient who is not taking anti-coagulant drugs — to check for a bleeding disorder, liver disease or vitamin K deficiency, or to ensure clotting ability before surgery.
Most laboratories report PT results that have been adjusted to the International Normalised Ratio (INR). Patients on anti-coagulant drugs usually have a target INR of 2.0 to 3.0 (i.e. a prothrombin time 2 to 3 times as long as in a normal patient, using standardised conditions). For some patients who have a high risk of clot formation, the INR needs to be higher: up to 3.0 to 4.0. Your doctor will use the INR to adjust the dose of your drug to get the PT into the range that is right for you. An increased prothrombin time or INR means that your blood is taking longer to form a clot. If you are not taking anti-coagulant drugs and your PT is prolonged, additional testing may be necessary to determine the cause. Result of the PT is often interpreted with that of the aPTT in determining what condition may be present.
Some substances you consume — such as alcohol and different drugs, can interfere with the PT test and give a misleading result. Antibiotics, aspirin and cimetidine can increase PT. Barbiturates, oral contraceptives and hormone-replacement therapy (HRT), and vitamin K - either in a multivitamin or liquid nutrition supplement - can decrease PT. Make sure that your doctor knows all the drugs you are taking so that the PT results are interpreted correctly.
Yes, although it may be harder to guarantee the accuracy of tests performed at home. Ask your doctor whether home testing using a point-of-care testing device is appropriate for you.
Only in the induction period, when a 'loading' dose is frequently given and correctly timed INRs are important for predicting the long-term 'maintenance' dose. You should ideally take your anti-coagulant tablets in the evening because this allows your doctor to modify your dose up or down on the same day as your INR test.
The use of any of the drugs mentioned above can alter your results, as can the use of diuretics and antihistamines and the onset of illness or allergies. Certain foods, such as beef and pork liver, green tea, broccoli, chickpeas, kale, turnip greens and soybean products contain large amounts of vitamin K and can alter PT results. The blood collection technique and the difficulty in obtaining the blood sample can also affect test results.


Thank you so much for all the wonderful work you did in transforming my bedroom into the beautiful space it has become. Your attention to detail and complete organization made my life so easy during the entire process. That said, you asked for my input every step of the way and I never felt that the design ever lost sight of my tastes or personality. The entire process from start to finish was both efficient and thorough.
The bedroom looks so complete: everything coordinates in a way I could not have even tried to orchestrate on my own. The room looks so sophisticated and polished, but feels comfortable and livable. I couldn't have asked for an easier process or better outcome in redesigning my bedroom, and for that, I can't thank you enough. I have been showing off the room to everyone who comes to the house, and everyone's response is the same as mine- the room looks absolutely beautiful, and feels so me. What more could I ask for?


High-waisted and relaxed Kimomo jeans with a slightly tapered leg, cropped to perfection. Yaas!
In a size 28 the waist width is 76 cm and the inseam is 72 cm. These jeans have been made with non-stretch 100% organic cotton, so they can feel a little smaller in size than our stretchy jeans <3 The model is 170 cm and is wearing a size 26.


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Home Tomorrow (2022 Reissue)
Tomorrow (2022 Reissue)
by Silverchair
LP-Yellow - £23.00
LP-Yellow Format
Tomorrow is part of the Silverchair Collection, presented by Music On Vinyl. The EP is available as a limited edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on flaming coloured vinyl and includes an insert with other titles from the Silverchair Collection.
The Australian rock band Silverchair released their debut EP Tomorrow in 1994, after winning a radio contest on Triple J. The extended play already became the band's big breakthrough. Its title single reached #1 on the Australian Single Chart and remained there for six consecutive weeks. After re-recording the songs, the band also started to book major successes internationally. The EP was certified 4-times Platinum, received an award for Single Of The Year and Highest Selling Single at the ARIA Music Awards in 1995, where Silverchair also went home with the award for Breakthrough Artist.
Cat: MOV12039C
Label: Music On Vinyl


An island with many faces, cosmopolitan coast towns, traditional mountainous villages, astonishing natural beauty and exotic beaches; an island that charms on first sight. Zakynthos, or as the Italians used to say, the Zante, the flower of the Mediterranean, proudly remains one of the top destinations in Greece.
Zakynthos is the second most populated island of the Ionian and administratively belongs to the Heptanese, along with the regional districts of Corfu, Lefkada, Kefalonia and Ithaca. It is 15 km far from the northwestern coast of the Peloponnese, 13 km from Kefalonia and 300 km from the country's capital, Athens.
The known historical course of Zakynthos begins back in the 16th century BC, when a man called Zakynthos, the son of Dardanus, king of Phrygia, settled on the island. Dardanus had Peloponnesian descent, while the island's ancient castle bears the name of Psofis, once powerful town of the Peloponnesian region of Arkadia.
From the early centuries the island became part of the kingdom of Arkeisios of Kefalonia and his successor, Odysseus; the great hero of Homer's epic poets, Iliad and Odyssey. A democratic political system was established in Zakynthos and lasted for more than 6 centuries, while it maintained its political autonomy during the Macedonian, as well as the Roman rule.
In the medieval ages Zakynthos was a province of the Byzantine Empire, under the regional theme of Cephallenia until 1185, when it was taken by the Sicilians and was ceded to Venice in 1479, under a feudal system.
Once the Republic of Venice disintegrated in 1797, Zakynthos, along with the rest of the Ionian Islands, came under the occupation of the French, the Russians, the Ottomans and finally the British, in accordance with the Tilsit Treaty in 1809. From 1815 to 1864 it was part of the Ionian State, before the whole Heptanese was unified with Greece.
Despite having experienced more than 680 years of foreign occupation and foreign cultural influence, the Zakynthians preserved the Greek language, traditions and orthodox faith. During the 19th century, the island had evolved in one of the most prominent centres of culture and literature in the Mediterranean. Zakynthos was the birthplace of respected and renowned artists and authors, such as Andreas Kalvos, Dionysios Solomos and Gregorios Ksenopoulos.
Zakynthos is graced with a mild Mediterranean climate, daintily caressing its versatile terrain, which combines valleys in the east and highlands in the north and west. On the central part of the island rises the largest mountain, Vrachionas, reach 758 meters altitude at its highest peak. The uplands are gravelly and pine-clad. Fertile plains lie on the eastern part of the island, rich in calcium carbonate.
This geological wealth and the abundant waters granted by frequent rainfalls constitute the main factors for the island's floral lush and fauna. Numerous local goods are produced in excellent quality; olives, olive oil, oranges, other citrus fruits, grapes, wine, but also rare flowers, such as the Heptanesian orchid (Serapias ionica).
Moreover, Zakynthos serves as shelter for the rare turtle species Caretta caretta and the Mediterranean monk seal Monachus monachus. Turtledove populations also migrate to the island's forests every year. Zakynthos has also several natural beauties to boast on; the magical Blue Caves and the famous Shipwreck beach, a singular sightseeing in the world. Countless sandy, exotic beaches at the south, east and north, grandiose rocky cliffs at the west draw a thrilling scenery.
History has blessed Zakynthos with decades of cultural tradition, comprising of its own architecture; old neoclassical constructions and arch-shaped roads, castellated belfries and majestic temples. The cosmopolitan city of Zakynthos is adorned with lovely squares, the historical hill of Strani and Bochali district hosting the Venetian castle. Our island has been, for several centuries, a historical crossroads of cultures and civilization, a centre of flourish for the arts, poetry, theatre and literature.
Last but not least, visitors are excited to taste the delicious Zakynthian cuisine that promises delightful flavours with a touch of spices grown on the Zakynthian lands.


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What Should We Expect from a Tea Party Congressman?
Posted on April 30, 2012 by DRenegade
The Tea Party's efforts in 2010 allowed the Republican Party to regain control of the US House of Representatives. Did we vote for a candidate who understood our founding principles or did we vote against the Democrat usurpation of the government? What did the "Tea Party" candidates promise if elected and how did they fulfill their campaign commitments? If you are now represented by a candidate whom you feel is a one of these candidates, this is a question that you should be asking yourself. If we do not learn from our mistakes (and history), we are doomed to repeat them. North Carolina's Tea Party only successful candidate in 2010 was Renee Ellmers. I would rate her performance (or lack thereof) as an F.
What we should expect from a Tea Party Congressman:
1. Holding town halls during recesses.
2. Fulfillment of their campaign promises.
3. Fulfilling the duties of their oath of office and responsibilities every day, not when it is expedient to their own agenda.
4. Understanding that civil service supersedes reelection campaigns.
5. Supporting the people over their political party's leadership.
6. Speaking out against usurpation of the legislative branch by the executive branch and holding the president accountable for illegal expansions of power through executive orders or regulatory authority.
7. Holding hearings on corruption that actually will restore moral government instead of becoming a political campaign promotion. Fast & Furious is a good example.
8. Understanding the Constitution's limitations on federal power and restoring states' rights as intended instead of expanding the federal power base.
9. Understanding that they were elected to save our children's future freedom.
10. Most importantly, we should expect no more of them than what we should expect from ourselves.
What should we expect from a Tea Party Congressman? The same standards and integrity that all Congressman should be held accountable to. We MUST ask ourselves: how effective is voting if we do not do our own due diligence prior to casting a ballot. We MUST hold all politicians accountable for their actions. Should we hold Tea Party Congressman to a higher standard? Isn't that why we voted for them? Are we doing our due diligence in this year's elections? I pray that we learn from the 2010 elections and do not reelect a House of Representatives that will continue to raise the debt ceiling (or continue to cede this authority to the executive branch to make a campaign issue). This election is still about both the legislative and executive branches of government in Washington: a Congress that has integrity and morally will be able to hold any president in check as our Constitution has outlined.
David DeGerolamo
Tea Party Congressmen Accept Cash From Bailed-Out Bankers
Tea Party favorites such as Stephen Fincher of Tennessee were swept into Congress on a wave of anger over government-funded bailouts of banks.
Now those incumbents are collecting thousands of dollars for re-election campaigns from the same Wall Street firms whose excesses they criticized. They have taken no significant steps to curb them or prevent future taxpayer-financed rescues.
Republican freshmen have made clear their disdain for expanding government, and openly opposed a financial regulatory overhaul enacted by Democrats in 2010 before the newcomers arrived in Washington. Their ranks include ten Tea Party-backed freshmen on the House Financial Services Committee, part of a force that won election in a populist backlash to government spending that included emergency lending to major banks and bailout of firms including U.S. automakers.
Still, the lawmakers haven't passed, considered or even introduced legislation to address concerns about "too-big-to- fail" banks voiced by members of both parties and suchFederal Reserve bank presidents as Richard Fisher of Dallas and Jeffrey Lacker of Richmond, Virginia.
"I haven't seen any of them putting forth legislation on breaking up the big banks or on other things that would genuinely prevent a bailout next time," said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a Washington- based umbrella group of organizations that supported the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and other financial regulations.
The following story outlining Renee Ellmers' "rediscovery" of the Tea Party has another point that is being overlooked. Would anyone seriously send a Tea Party candidate to Washington to draft legislation on a Federal level that would override an individual state's authority?
Renee Ellmers getting back to her Tea Party roots
Congresswoman Renee Ellmers has re-discovered her Tea Party roots just in time for the 2nd congressional district's GOP primary. Many political observers say the work of The Tea Party was CRUCIAL in her 2010 upset of incumbent Bob "Boom Boom" Etheridge.
This entry was posted in Editorial, Elections and tagged NC Renegade, Renee Ellmers, Tea Party. Bookmark the permalink.
randysright
Ellmers is a fraud, she now has a advertisement to vote against the Marriage Amendment. So now she's going against her Catholic church here in NC who is supporting the Marriage amendment…hypocrite!!
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