Weather Report For Randolph County

It's very hard to impress my world-weary friend, Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-whose-family-name-graces-Randolph-Hospital's-Cancer-Center.  But sometimes I manage to do it.

Buzz didn't like the way I got jerked around this past week by April Thornton (aka "amt" on the hospital website's contact form), and has joined me in my public records request . . . mostly because he doesn't like what he's seen so far . . . and (unlike a certain well-named blogger in Greensboro) he's thinking some of the rest of the Armfields ought to be clued into what the family money is shoring up . . . and what their name endorses.  The CEO of Randolph Hospital skimming $702,020 off-the-top in 2008 is almost as criminal as repeatedly lying under Oath in the discovery phase of his own SLAPP-suit.  You really do have to wonder where the hospital's Board of Directors is hiding (my guess would be a golf resort) . . . and/or if they are all in a coma (my advice would be to hitch an ambulance and move on up the road).

(And yeah, baby. Keep telling yourselves that everything Steve Eblin does is all for the kids.)

But what I discovered last week (with a LOT of help from other friends) . . . and what I did with it yesterday (that was pretty much all me), has even Buzz reeling.

This was in my Inbox this morning:

And on the weather front this afternoon, Tropical Storm Mary became Category 2 Hurricane Mary. It is expected to increase to a Category 4 before making landfall in Randolph County later on . . .

The Hurricane herself is aiming to be a Category 5, with a storm surge that wipes out all the ugly (even I did not realize how ugly it was).

It's way past time.

Saturday Late Morning Update:  My sainted Mother (two real hurricanes have actually borne her name) firmly admonished me this morning to clean up my language (duly noted), and (a bit more gently) to remember that the First Presbyterian Church is no more responsible for the EVIL deeds of Steve Eblin than the Episcopals at Good Shepard are responsible for Bob Morrison's.  "I know that you're very angry about the way you and others in this town have been treated . . . and about what you've just discovered . . . but these church people do not understand what it is like to be forced to live with (and think about) something every single day for almost twelve years, Mary."

My Mother does have a point.  In short, the mostly-good people of Asheboro have lived their happy lives and don't have a clue . . . mostly because their suck-up/sold-out local newspaper won't tell them (we'll get to that very shortly).

But letting "the good people" totally off the hook is also a bone of contention with Mom.  Because I think it's time they did understand . . . that they took off the blinders and stopped focusing so determindedly on the positive to take just the slightest passing glance at the negative . . .

. . . and do something about it.

I've quoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. before on this blog, and it feels like the right time to do it again:

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words of violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and indifference of the good people.

Our generation will have to repent not only for the words and actions of the children of darkness, but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light.

Praise the Lord and pass the tea.