Thoughts from the (no-longer) Dark side

 

It’s soooooo nice to have heat, lights, wi-fi, cell phone service, power-in-general, hot water and a whole host of other modern conveniences.  Here in Moore County, we spent the good part of five days with NONE of that.

I woke up one morning actually being able to SEE my breath.  No joke — it was colder in my house than it was inside my refrigerator.  Like so many others,  I escaped to a locale that actually HAD all the aforementioned conveniences and waited for Duke Power to do their thing.

Here in Pinehurst, there is a strange aversion to street lights.  We have very few.  So, it is really hard to see outside at night when we actually have power.  (Try going to someone’s house, for the first time, to have dinner.  It’s, um, *interesting* trying to see street signs and house numbers at night.)

The outage made it extra special dark around here. I’m talking tough-to-see-your-hand-in-front-of-you-dark.  None of the stoplights were working, and (of course) there were a lot of people out on the roads.  The cops were not very visible, so a lot of people utilized rules-of-the-road straight out of that classic Mad Max: Road Warrior film.

It was shocking to hear that I was living at ground-zero for something that may well be terrorism.  New York or DC or Jerusalem, maybe.  But not HERE!

Kudos.  Harris-Teeter deserves a pat on the back for its hustle during the outage. Moore County is home to three of the chain’s larger stores.  All of them have killer generators.  When the power went out, most folks were unable to cook food.  Restaurants could not cook food.  Folks needed to eat.  So, H-T powered up their hot bars at their three county locations and the hungry folks came out in droves.  The grocery chain also gave out free bags of ice at each location.  For roughly 48 hours, Harris Teeter was the only game in town for accessing wi-fi or getting something hot to eat.

It was also great to see that the good-neighbor spirit is still alive and well. Folks checked in on each other.  Younger folks looked in on their older, retired neighbors. Helping hands were extended at every opportunity — with little to no taxpayer money being spent.

Stupidity.  This phenomenon is always with us, in one shape or form.  Though, it tends to be a lot more noticeable in high-profile media circuses or times of crisis.  A local crackpot posted on Facebook that she “knew” why the power went out. She suggested it had something to do with a drag queen performance in downtown Southern Pines.

Of course, the sheriff and reps of other law enforcement agencies went to visit her.  After the visit, our sheriff told the media circus her statements were “determined to be false.” I saw him quoted a few more times basically dismissing the crackpot’s claims.  You would think that would have been enough for the drive-bys. But, hell no.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, WRAL, and even our local leftist rag ran with the angle that conservatives angry over the drag show shot up two power substations and knocked out all the county’s power.

Never mind that a simple Google search revealed that similar attacks had occurred last month in eastern North Carolina,  as well as in Washington state and Oregon. Earlier, South Dakota, Oklahoma and California had all experienced similar attacks.  But no, it was much more fun for these leftist media morons to stir up the gay-hate theme. Screw the facts.  Screw the truth.

I say SHUT UP, let the cops do their jobs, and reserve commentary until after arrests are made.

 A good rule to follow?  If you know something about criminal activity, like this appears to be and that hasn’t already been in the media, go tell law enforcement. Don’t keep it to yourself, or gossip to your friends, or put it on Facebook.  You can make a whole lot more trouble for yourself, and make a situation worse, by circulating stuff you don’t know to be 100 percent true.

It’s looking more and more like this was an organized operation by people who knew their way around an electrical substation.  Not exactly a drunk redneck with a hunting rifle. 

Speaking of stupidity, it was interesting to see all the politicians out jostling for camera time.  *Too bad that most of the people directly affected by this mess could not watch them perform.*

Roy Cooper was the, um, *best.*  Drive-bys ran to him like good little stenographers and sycophants.  Roy spit out a lot of the same stuff our sheriff had already said.  The drive-bys still ooohed and aaaahed.

Cooper chastised government types for not doing a better job of securing these substations.  Never mind that he spent 16 years as state Attorney General and a bunch of years in the General Assembly and had little to NOTHING to say about substation security.  Who, besides US, is going to fact-check His Buffoonness?