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Corrosion of Conformity member’s parents tell hilarious tale of legendary 1984 punk riot show
10.17.2016
09:41 am
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Corrosion of Conformity have been at it for over three decades now. Formed in 1982 as a hardcore punk band in Raleigh, North Carolina, within a couple of years of existence they came to the forefront, along with DRI and Suicidal Tendencies, of the burgeoning “crossover” scene, which was the initial melding of hardcore punk and thrash metal—two subcultures that were strangely previously at odds with one another in the early ‘80s.

COC has continued successfully, throughout the years, eventually settling in to a slower, heavier, bluesy-metal sound.

This week, COC will be playing the North Carolina State Fair, but it’s not the first time they have made an appearance on that stage, as The News and Observer reports:

Thirty-two years ago, Dorton was the site of a battle of the bands called “Battlerock ’84.” COC, whose members were still teenagers, was among the contestants. And no one outside of Raleigh’s punk cognoscenti knew what to make of them.

COC’s performance would end almost immediately after security mistook the crowd response for a riot and shut it down. In the ensuing scuffle, COC vocalist Eric Eyche was arrested, COC guitarist Woody Weatherman’s mother had an altercation resulting in charges – and a legend was born.

The scene, as described by band members, was a misunderstanding between security and concert-goers with the officials being confused over the slam-dancing, freaking out, and shutting the show down, which merely escalated the volatile situation.

They moved to shut COC down and pulled the plug. The head of the stage crew wound up onstage in a confrontation with [vocalist Eric] Eyche, and he sustained injuries after being thrown into the crowd. That got the cops’ attention.

“What ensued was a misunderstanding,” said Steve Bass, the promoter. “They saw Eric as instigating a riot, so they tried to restrain him, put hands on him and it did not go well with the crowd.”

Once the music stopped, multiple altercations broke out between band members, State Fair police and the stage crew. Eyche was the only one arrested on the scene – taken offstage as the crowd chanted “T.J. Hooker,” a reference to the cheesy cop series starring William Shatner.

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In Eyche’s telling, the cops’ treatment of him was not exactly gentle.

“When they took me out back, a female officer was detaining me by a squad car,” Eyche said. “I kept asking her what I’d done, she kept telling me to shut up and I finally said, ‘Baby, (expletive) you.’ She grabbed the back of my head and slammed me into the car. ‘You shut up now,’ she said. ‘O.K., got it!’ ”

But Eyche wasn’t the only one who got into trouble with the law at that fateful show…

See who else ran afoul of police at the show, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Christopher Bickel
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10.17.2016
09:41 am
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Heartwarming video of lesbian couple applying for marriage license in NC: ‘Y’all sign right here’
10.15.2013
04:26 pm
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This morning, Drew Reisinger, Buncombe County, North Carolina’s Register of Deeds became the state’s first government official to seek approval for the granting of same-sex marriage licenses.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has already signaled that the licenses will not be given—although he claims to personally support marriage equality—but Reisinger was undeterred and has forced a bit of a public confrontation over the matter.

“I will let each couple know that it is my hope to grant them a license, but I need to seek the North Carolina Attorney General’s approval,” he said. “I have concerns about whether we are violating people’s civil rights based on this summer’s Supreme Court decision.” (He’s referring here, in part, to North Carolina’s constitutional “Amendment One” banning gay marriage which passed with a comfortable margin—61% of the vote to 39% against—in 2012. Civil unions are not recognized in the state either.)

From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

With a crowd of about 100 in the deeds office lobby cheering them on, same-sex couples filled out paperwork for marriage licenses beginning about 8 this morning.

Brenda Clark and Carol McCrory, of Fairview, were first in line. “We are hopeful that Attorney General Cooper will do the right thing and recognize our right to marry after 25 years in a committed relationship,” Clark said.

Reisinger said he will accept and hold same-sex marriage applications and push the question of equal marriage rights to Cooper, the state’s chief legal adviser, Reisinger said in a statement Monday night.

Drew Reisinger, you are truly a fine example of a public servant. And talk about the rock and the hard place that Drew and these charming ladies have put poor Cooper between. The guy says he’s pro equality. If so, why would he choose to vigorously oppose it in his state?

Cooper is widely expected to make a bid for governor in 2016. That’s why. Marriage equality isn’t something a pol in North Carolina—even a Democrat—wants hanging around his neck right now. He personally supports it, but so what if it’s politically risky? Cooper shouldn’t be able to have his cake and eat it on this issue. This is a matter of right and wrong and not political expediency. If this video makes the rounds the way it seems poised to—have your Kleenex ready—it’s going to put a lot of pressure on Roy Cooper to do the right thing.
 

 
Via Joe.My.God

Posted by Richard Metzger
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10.15.2013
04:26 pm
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North Carolina church refuses to perform any marriages until gays can marry
03.19.2013
10:45 am
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Salon reports that the Green Street United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem will stop performing weddings for straight couples until same-sex marriage is legal in North Carolina (Emphasis added):

As an Anti-Racist, Reconciling Congregation, Green Street United Methodist Church seeks to be in faithful ministry with all people in the brokenness of our world. This statement is being adopted as a sign of our commitment to love and justice for all people.

The Marriage Covenant between two people is a ministry of the church. Couples making a commitment to one another need a supportive community of faith to sustain and uphold them so as to grow in faith and love. Weddings are the occasion for covenant making, a time to seek God’s blessing on their commitment to one another. When a couple chooses to be married in the church, they should also be conscious that they are making a declaration of their relationship as a new ministry for the congregation and the world. At Green Street Church, we claim the committed same-sex relationships as no less sacred in their ministry to us and the community.

But sadly, at this time in the United Methodist Church, marriages, weddings and holy unions are limited to heterosexual couples. As our nation struggles to provide legal recognition to people in same-sex relationships and provide them the privileges allotted to opposite-sex married couples, our denomination struggles to overcome the sin of reserving these sacramental privileges for straight people only. We, the leaders of Green Street Church, see people in same-sex relationships as completely worthy of the Sacrament of Marriage. We reject any notion that they are second class citizens in the Kingdom of God.

WOW. Just wow. That’s some statement.

Tell me again, “What Would Jesus Do?”

Although support for gay marriage has reached a new high of 58% of the American public—including 81% of 18-29 year olds—same sex marriage is constitutionally prohibited in North Carolina. It’s worth mentioning that the Green Street United Methodist Church are also bucking the 2012 vote of their own church elders by supporting gay marriage rights. 59% of Catholics, 62% of independents, and 34% of Republicans are pro-gay marriage according to recent polling.
 
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Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.19.2013
10:45 am
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Reality is what you make of it: North Carolina outlaws sea level rise

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Is the Tar Heel State getting jealous of Arizona’s reputation for bad craziness and low IQ buffoonery? WTF, North Carolina?

Scott Huler writes at Scientific American:

In a story first discussed by the NC Coastal Federation and given more play May 29 by the News & Observer of Raleigh and its sister paper the Charlotte Observer, a group of legislators from 20 coastal NC counties whose economies will be most affected by rising seas have legislated the words “Nuh-unh!” into the NC Constitution.

Okay, cheap shot alert. Actually all they did was say science is crazy. There is virtually universal agreement among scientists that the sea will probably rise a good meter or more before the end of the century, wreaking havoc in low-lying coastal counties. So the members of the developers’ lobbying group NC-20 say the sea will rise only 8 inches, because … because … well, SHUT UP, that’s because why.

That is, the meter or so of sea level rise predicted for the NC Coastal Resources Commission by a state-appointed board of scientists is extremely inconvenient for counties along the coast. So the NC-20 types have decided that we can escape sea level rise – in North Carolina, anyhow – by making it against the law. Or making MEASURING it against the law, anyhow.

Here’s a link to the circulated Replacement House Bill 819. The key language is in section 2, paragraph e, talking about rates of sea level rise: “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly. …” It goes on, but there’s the core: North Carolina legislators have decided that the way to make exponential increases in sea level rise – caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists – go away is to make it against the law to extrapolate exponential; we can only extrapolate along a line predicted by previous sea level rises.

Which, yes, is exactly like saying, do not predict tomorrow’s weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don’t use radar and barometers; use the Farmer’s Almanac and what grandpa remembers.

Willful ignorance will not be a valued survival skill for the species as time goes on…

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.01.2012
04:14 pm
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In North Carolina, you can marry your first cousin, *but*

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“North Carolina allows first cousins to marry but not double first cousins (the offspring of two siblings who marry two siblings)”

Via Buzzfeed

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.09.2012
01:22 pm
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