Contrary to the race baiting information being pushed on the radio by the NAACP and others, the legislation promoting voter ID cards, preferably with pictures, is not a poll tax. These cards are consistent with the US Constitution’s 24th Amendment Section 1.which is to ensure that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” In section 2 of this amendment legislation is allowed which will enforce this provision.

Should the Scouts keep gay folk on the outs recognizing its promise “. . .To keep . . . morally straight.” Noting that children mimic the behavior of adults what is the data showing about adoptions by gay parents which is being treated as a given while so many straight couples are going overseas for children?

During this my 65th year of being, Black History Month is a time to remember from whence we came, what we went through, what we have achieved and where our promise lies. My mother used to leave me exasperated referring to us as Colored People; until I found my birth certificate and appreciated that I was listed as Colored.

The cry of physicians and hospitals for state governments to join the exchanges is all about insuring that they receive some money for services not that patients get the best of care. For North Carolina, if this state accepts the program, it means adding over 660,000 new patients into an already bankrupt system.

First and foremost this is not your father’s America and fast becoming not that which our forefathers would recognize. Did you think the day would come when alternative lifestyles would be more accepted than traditional values where folks would have to fight to keep marriage between one man and one woman?

Too frequently the news media is replete with stories of handgun violence taking the form of massacres involving innocent young. The homicide/suicide of a Kansas City Chiefs player with his baby’s mother and other violence featuring packs of gangs raise the deluded specter of just taking away guns which will stop the problem. It is not unexpected that many will call for control of hand guns in the wake of the murder of 26 victims from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The nation would be ill served if the Republicans loosened the reigns on taxes or failed to insist on cuts to non-essential programs. Raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year generates only enough money to keep the budget going for less than a few months while allowing millionaires hiding money in off shore accounts from Google to Buffett to still not pay any more in taxes due to their capital gains income.

The bad advice keeps coming for how Republicans should recover their 1994 advantage. Many are wrongly eviscerating Romney as the source of the 2012 losses without understanding that without him, the Republicans would likely not have been able to raise the one billion dollars they received which kept them in the game.

Again as in the 2008 election, the Republicans left their votes on the table with 3 million no shows this time as oppose to 4 million in 2008. The pundits and paid analyst are reading the wrong tea leaves from Karl Rove to Dick Morris to Fox News who lost their objectivity in pushing their books and consulting services or as with the liberal media in trying to shield Obama. Why this trend?

Having become exhausted by the constant campaigning done by so many and the barrage of negativity sweeping the air waves, what better time to take in a poetry class with Jenny Hubbard of Salisbury, NC’s Center for Faith and The Arts than on election day.  She had one agenda but I wanted to talk about Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken for in reading his commentary Frost spoke of people’s misinterpretation of what his words meant.