Billy Liggett

I’m not one to tell somebody how they should vote … but I think the people of Lee, Johnston and Harnett counties can make a case for asking U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge to side with Hillary Clinton as his superdelegate choice … even with Barack Obama the apparent winner.

As we reported in Tuesday’s Herald, Etheridge has a superdelegate vote, one of many still left that will ultimately decide the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Just last week, Barack Obama (who leads the overall delegate count from the popular vote), overtook Clinton in superdelegate votes, too.

Obama also won the North Carolina primary, and only three of the 10 counties that Etheridge represents sided with Clinton. But those three counties — Lee, Johnston and Harnett — are three of the four counties completely represented by Etheridge (he shares representation with other counties). I say that puts Etheridge in a tight spot … does he represent the will of his people, or just vote the way he wants to? It could be a slippery slope for him, either way.

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler (a great college quarterback, not-so-great NFL quarterback and now successful politician) sided with Clinton because the people in his districts voted for her. Will Etheridge do the same?

Not that I care, mind you. I’m voting for Christopher Walken.

About 9:30 p.m. last night, my wife and I heard an ear-jarring “CRACK” and then our power went out for about 10 seconds during last night’s storm.
Because our power came on so quickly, and because we were watching movies … we really didn’t think twice about what that crack was.
Today, we found out.
A few houses down from us, a big, beautiful healthy tree was split near its base, and it came within just a few feet of nearly destroying the big historic home next to it. Herald photographer Brooke Wolfe shot a few photos this morning to show the damage.
It’s amazing what Mother Nature can do with just one crack of the lightning whip. The people trying to sell this house are thankful (and a bit lucky) it didn’t cause any damage, and we’re lucky it wasn’t one of our big old trees.

We have a great, great writer on our staff … too bad he wastes his talents on the Cubs.

Read Alex Podlogar’s touching Mother’s Day tribute. It’s worth your time.

My wife and I haven’t had a lazy movie Sunday in God knows how long. But this past Sunday’s circumstances — rainy outside, Jennifer feeling ill — made for the perfect Movie Day opportunity.
Seeing that neither of us had seen any of the Academy Award-nominated “best pictures,” we rented three of them Sunday (and I added Walk Hard for my own amusement).
Mini-reviews below, albeit extremely belated.

ATONEMENT

I admit, this isn’t one I wrote on the list, but it held its own on Movie Day.
Set in England during WWII, Atonment is the story of Cecilia and Robbie, she of wealth and he is the son of a servant of the home. The two are obviously in love — that kind of “meant to be” love — and when Cecilia’s younger sister Briony accuses Robbie of raping her cousin (a lot of things lead up to her accusing Robbie of doing it, even though she’s certain he did not) … he is sent to prison, and eventually to war.
As London gets bombed and bombed and bombed, Cecilia is a nurse and Robbie a soldier. The movie’s about their longing to get back to each other, and Briony’s ever-building regret for keeping them apart.
There are slow parts to the movie — like a scene with Robbie and two other soldiers milling about the countryside and coming upon their army. You learn later in the movie why the director chose to focus on this part for so long, and eventually, it pays off.
A slight twist of an ending will tug at your emotions, and even the guys out there will end up wanting these two to find each other.
I see why it was Oscar nominated (and can see why it didn’t win much, except Best Score).
My Score: *** 1/2 out of 5 stars

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THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance as Daniel Plainview is enough reason to see this movie, which many critics declared a “masterpiece” after its release.
I’m not sure of “masterpiece,” but it’s reminiscent of some of the more grand movies of our time — Gone with the Wind, Godfather come to mind. Day-Lewis’ performance takes it there, but without him, it’s just a pretty good movie.
There Will Be Blood follows Plainview as he is tipped off to an “ocean of oil” in a small town in California. He, his men and his son, whom he actually “adopted” after the boy’s real father was killed in a drilling accident when the boy was an infant, go to the town and buy up land owned by the father of a local preacher, Eli Sunday.
Sunday is skeptical, but when Plainview begins promising new schools, new roads and a new church, the townsfolk back him, and Sunday does as well.
While the plot revolves around oil and wealth, the two big parts of this movie are Plainview’s hatred toward most people (we’re never really certain if he loved his son or just “used” him to tell people he ran a family business) and Plainview’s lifelong battle with Sunday — one of morals, lies and backstabbing.
Watching the wheels fly off of Plainview’s sanity is a joy, and while many didn’t know what to think of the film’s ending (which begins with the now famous “I drink your milkshake), I thought it was brilliant. The ending brings a conclusion to Plainview and Sunday’s relationship. There is no need for a movie after that, because we really don’t care to see Plainview succeed … because we know he already did.
My score: **** out of 5 stars

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WALK HARD

Walk Hard had everything I wanted in a movie before I saw it — John C. Reilly in a lead role, directed by the “people who brought us Superbad” and pretty good reviews from major critics (a 74% “certified fresh” rating).
So you can imagine my disappointment when the closing credits came up.
In other words, I didn’t like it.
Meant as a spoof to movies like Ray and Walk the Line, Walk Hard “walked the line” of funny and amateurish … more often falling on the wrong side. Too many jokes fell flat, too much was hurried and when the writers couldn’t come up with anything creative, they resorted to penis jokes (and shots), John C. Reilly in his underwear (a carbon copy of Will Ferrell) and too many songs that weren’t funny.
Don’t get me wrong, the music was good, and Reilly’s Dewey Cox was a surprisingly good Johnny Cash knock-off, but when it was all said and done, I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe everybody hyped it up too much for me.
Sure, I laughed at times. I liked the on-running joke of Dewey Cox walking in on his drummer doing drugs, which always led to Cox doing drugs (until the end, when he finally said no, only the drug was Viagra) and I liked Cox’s tantrums, and the unbelievably-easy-to-break sinks. But even the “say everybody’s full name and where we’re at” joke got old.
I won’t beat this review to death. I’ll just say I was very “meh” at this movie. I expected a lot more.
Score: ** out of 5 stars

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JUNO

I’m probably the last person in the U.S. to see this movie, and now I see what all the buzz was about.
It was better than Little Miss Sunshine, the movie that — like Juno — came from nowhere and garnered Oscar nominations.
It’s a film that took a serious subject — teen pregnancy — and went a completely different route with it. Not all pregnant teens are misfits, not all parents completely flip out when their child makes a mistake, and not all “perfect couples” are perfect.
Juno got a lot of notice for the lead character’s quirky charms (and new pop culture expressions), but what I liked most about her was she was real. I’ve known people like her, and I know they would handle a complex situation like that the same way.
Sure, there is some drama in the movie (Jason Bateman managed to make me hate his character, which is hard for him to do since I’ve liked just about everything he’s been in), but in the end, it’s a feel-good film.
Plus, it had Michael Cera in it … which deserves an extra star in and of itself.
My Score: **** out of 5 stars

For the first time since 1979, Americans are driving less.
And I’m contributing to this trend.
Back in ‘79, the only place I needed to go was grandma’s house, and she lived two houses down from me at the time. My mode of transportation then was the trusty Big Wheel.
Today, the only place I am really “required” to go to each day is work, and ever since October, that’s meant a two-minute drive for me … one minute if I don’t hit any lights. For my wife, it takes three minutes to get to work (10 if there’s a train).
If you don’t count our recent 30-hour round trip drive to Louisiana last month, we’ve saved a ton on gasoline since moving to Sanford, and with gas at a record average of $3.65 a gallon and still climbing, this couldn’t have come at a better time.
We’re a two-car family right now. I drive a two-door car, and she drives a mini-SUV that gets fairly good gas mileage. Since we take the SUV almost every time we have to drive more than half an hour (to Raleigh, Chapel Hill or in the coming weeks, to the beach), my car is mostly my “to-and-from-work car.” I recently went nearly four weeks without having to fill up my car.
I’m not bragging. If I were, that’s really a sad thing to brag about.
But I’m proving the point that I’m contributing to the whole “Americans are driving less” idea. Believe me, it wasn’t always the case with me.
Ever since 2002, I’ve been a commuter. Over the years, the commute has gotten smaller and smaller, and if it gets any smaller in the future, that will mean I live at work. I shudder at the idea.
In 2001, I was a sports writer for a small town newspaper located about 45 miles from Dallas, but since my then-fiancé worked in Dallas, we chose to live there.
My drive took about an hour each day, since the first 15 miles were in Dallas morning traffic. The trip home was usually better, but the gas prices - then about $1.25 a gallon if I recall correctly - were even killing me then.
We moved to Houston in 2003, and again, I worked at a newspaper outside of the city limits while my now-wife worked in Houston. Being the gentleman that I am, I agreed to do the commuting, this time only 25 miles … but if you know anything about Houston traffic (why would you?), then you can imagine I still had one-hour trips on heavy traffic days.
In Louisiana, we lived in Lafayette (again, near the wife’s workplace), and I drove just 17 miles to work, taking me just under a half-hour. By then, 2004-2007, gas hovered around the $2-$2.50 mark. I think it may have hit $3 by the time we came to Sanford.
So today, I sat down and did some math, which is absolutely my weak point. Still, I wanted to know how much money I would have saved had I just lived in Sanford, one mile from work, for the past seven years.

• Dallas: 45 miles one way, 5 days a week for 70 weeks at about $1.25 a gallon in a 24 mpg vehicle = $1,640.62
• Houston: 25 miles one way, 5 days a week for 85 weeks at about $1.60 a gallon in a 24 mpg vehicle = $1,416.67
• Louisiana: 17 miles one way, 5 days a week for 150 weeks at about $2.25 a gallon in a 24 mpg vehicle = $2,390.63

Total amount spent on gas, just to and from work, in the past 305 weeks (just under six years): $5,447.92.
Now, if I had just lived one mile away from work this whole time, the total would have been: $233.30.
That’s a savings of: $5,214.62. That’s nearly $870 saved a year, had I chosen not to commute.

So add “not having to spend money on gas” as one of the many reasons I’m glad we moved to Sanford. I know many in our area who commute to Raleigh or Fayetteville, and I’m sure for many of them, the job in those towns is worth the commute. Besides, Lee County’s a great place to live.
Fortunately for me, it’s a great place to work, too.
Long gone are my commuting days, I hope. Sure, I don’t get to listen to entire CDs on the way to the office anymore, but I’ll take hearing half a song during a two-minute drive over spending thousands on gas any day.
I’m sure many of you would, as well.

Cabin Fever

There’s an organization I’ve dealt with on several occasions in North Carolina called the John Locke Foundation. My dealing with the foundation — named after the 17th Century English philosopher who maintained the people were born without inane ideas (in other words, we all come into this world with a blank slate) — usually deal with tax issues, locally. In the most recent vote for the .25-cent sales tax in Lee County (which failed), the John Locke Foundation joined Americans For Prosperity to fight it.
Their tactics are brash, but effective. In all honesty, they can be a pain in the ass … especially if you disagree with them (which I do, on occasion).
I’d never heard of the foundation until I moved to North Carolina last year, but the name always stuck out to me, not because of my familiarity with the philosopher, but because it’s also the namesake to one of Lost’s main characters — John Locke. Last night’s episode, “Cabin Fever,” showed us more about the life of my favorite show’s most beloved (and hated) character and led us to believe that John was always meant to be on the island. From his childhood encounters with the ageless Richard Alpert to his hospital encounter with Matthew Abbaddon — we understand that the universe knew Locke was meant for the island long before Locke knew himself.
Like the foundation that bears his name, Locke is stubborn. He’s bull-headed and he gets what he wants, even if he has to offend a few people along the way. At least “Island Locke” is this way … mainland Locke was always been indecisive (he failed the test at Age 5 … he’s had woman issues … he couldn’t help but latch on to daddy). I’m sure like the foundation, he’s opposed to taxes too. Keep that in mind if he’s ever president of the island.
We learn in “Cabin Fever” that Ben Linus is ready to hand the “chosen one” label over to Locke, or at least he’s pretending to. Possibly, he’s passing the “hot potato” to Locke so he won’t be the hunted one anymore. I’m never one for great insight into these episodes, but “Doc” Jensen at Entertainment Weekly is … and he offers this great breakdown:

Locke is born early. At age 5, he takes a test that most likely would have taken him to the Island if he had passed. He didn’t. That same year, Benjamin Linus is born. At age 16, Locke is invited to go to a science camp that again would have taken him to the Island. He refused. About that same time, Benjamin Linus and his father joined the Dharma Initiative. The implication, it seems, is that Ben has been walking the path that was originally meant for Locke. Ben was the contingency plan — the course correction — for Locke’s altered destiny. But Ben is his own person, of course, and he has done things differently from what Locke would have done, and this, in turn, has created further changes in the original order of things — changes that I think a certain ticked-off, Island-deprived billionaire named Charles Widmore is trying to reverse. The scene at the rehab center between paralyzed adult Locke and his wheelchair pusher, the creepy Matthew Abbaddon — who accepted the description of ”orderly” with knowing irony — was meant to suggest one way Widmore is scheming to restore the original order: by getting Locke on that Island and taking back the birthright that was supposed to be his.

And this:
Struck down by…well, we never saw who was behind the wheel, did we? Maybe that’s important, maybe not, or maybe not yet, but anyway, Emily was rushed to the hospital, and with that, John Locke entered the world three months ahead of time. ”He’s okay,” said the nurse. ”He’s just a little early.” As Preemie John was wheeled away in a toasty incubator that looked like a microwave oven (talk about cabin fever!), Emily cried out her wish that the boy be named John. Now, all of that should have sounded familiar to you. Flashback one year ago this week, in which Lost gave us another cheery Mother’s Day edition, ”The Man Behind the Curtain.” That episode told the origin story of Benjamin Linus, who, if you recall, was also born prematurely, and also born to a woman named Emily who cried out his name, although she did so as she died. Some points of difference: Ben was raised by his biological father (oops), while Locke was given up for adoption and raised in foster care. Also, Ben was born about five years after Locke; call it 1963. But as it so happens, Locke’s fifth year was a key marker in his fate-whipped trajectory, for it brought Richard Alpert into his life.
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE.

The writers of this show are brilliant, of course, and I’m ready to start trashing my childhood memories to make room for my mind being blown over the next two weeks (three hours of season finale greatness).
This week’s episode ended with Locke, Ben and Hurley finally finding the cabin, and once Locke was inside, he didn’t find Jacob. He found Jack’s father, Dr. Christian Shephard, and Jack’s half-sister, Claire (who I say died in the previous episode). Claire offered sly “I know what this is all about” smiles while Christian informed Locke that his job was to “move the island.”
Now, we have no idea what the means, whether he meant move the locale or move the time, but it offers something nice to speculate about.
Elsewhere in this episode, we see the freighter crew return with one dead, thanks to a mauling from smokey. The creepy gunman Keamy is upset and takes it out on the boat’s captain (shot through the heart), Michael (beaten to a pulp) and the ships doctor (throat slit, dumped in the ocean … he’ll arrive on the island yesterday). Yes, that wasn’t a mis-type. Yesterday.
We see Sayid escape the boat (Desmond stays behind) to warn the island folk, and we see the gunmen head back to the island to start the killing. Lupidus drops a warning down to Jack and the islanders as they fly by, only Jack thinks it could possibly mean “that’s where they want us to be.” I think Sayid’s purpose is to change his mind on that.

That’s all I got for this week. Great episode .. though I do have yet another CHARTER CABLE gripe. Four times in this episode, they broke into a “tornado watch” alert that blackens the screen, tells you to turn to Channel 10 (which has nothing about a warning) and then reverts back to UNC-TV for a few seconds before bringing you back to the show. This whole shpeel lasts 15 seconds, and it occured during a few big scenes — Locke talking to Horace the ghost and Locke, Ben and Hurley outside of the cabin. Grrr.

From Lostpedia:
• The second protocol Keamy grabs from the safe has the same Dharma symbol that Ben’s parka had in “The Shape of Things to Come”.
• The test given to young Locke by Richard Alpert strongly resembles the Tibetan Buddhist ritual used to confirm a reincarnated tulku (the Dalai Lama being the most widely known).
• Young Locke is playing backgammon, the game he attempts to teach Walt in Season 1.
• Back in Season 1, when Locke meets his real mother for the first time, he is hit by a car when he sees her. His mother was was hit by a car in this episode, resulting in Locke’s early birth.

From a one-day hiatus. I partook in the first-ever Salvation Army Golf Tournament at Tobacco Road yesterday, and looking at the rain and humidity we’re having today, the tournament couldn’t have come at a better time — weather was perfect and those of us in the newsroom who played needed the break after a long, long election month.

Back to the grindstone today, though. Not sure what I’ll be writing about today, but I’m hoping something interesting comes from tonight’s Small Business Banquet hosted by the Chamber of Commerce. Seeing that my wife works for the chamber, maybe I’ll get to sit at the same table as Charlie Daniels. If that happens, I’ll probably … you ready, Gordon … Twitter it ON MY BLOG. (sorry, inside joke … I’m not really going to do that).

UPDATE: Won’t be attending the banquet tonight (wife has the flu that I had about two months ago). Instead, I’ll be excited about tonight’s episode of Lost.
Click here to read a great preview of it.

USEFUL ELECTION LINKS
• Lee County Election Results (will begin posting around 8 p.m.)
• Election Results by other counties
• North Carolina’s Obama/Clinton results and other statewide races

Election Day Blog:

12:15 p.m.: Front page is done. Reporters are gone. Another election come and gone. Only got one more this year.
Here’s Wednesday’s front page. Good night everybody.

10 p.m.: Well, now’s the time we really get to work on the newspaper … but here are a few of my thoughts …
• I’m really surprised the sales tax failed, only because I thought it was a good campaign to get it passed. Turns out, people don’t like taxes, and it was an uphill battle all the way. Interested to see what the school board and county commissioners’ next move is.
• Cameron Sharpe was the only “challenger” to get on the school board, but Kim Lilley lost out to Bill Tatum by just a few votes. I’m not sure if the voters were trying to say something about Bill … but that was probably too close for his comfort. I’m wondering how the write-in campaigns affected this race.
• Chairman Bob Brown will not make it to the November election, which may also be a wake-up call to current Democrats on the Lee County Board of Commissioners.
My next post will come in the next hour. I’ve gotta get to work on the paper.

9:58 p.m.: COMPLETE RESULTS IN FOR LEE COUNTY. Here they are below:
LEE COUNTY
(9 of 9 precincts reporting)

‘For’ or ‘against’ a .25-cent increase in the Lee County Sales Tax
For —— 44.7% (5.728 votes)
*Against —— 55.32% (7,092 votes)

Candidates for Lee County Board of Commissioners at large nomination (vote for three):
*Jerry Lemmond —— 22.29%
*Richard Hayes —— 22.15%
*“Ed” Paschal —— 20.23%
Bob Brown —— 19.06%
Wade Childress —— 16.27%

Lee County Board of Education (vote for four):
*Lynn Smith —— 19.55%
*Shawn Williams —— 17.15%
*Cameron Sharpe —— 16.13%
*W.P. “Bill” Tatum —— 14.76% (5,715 votes)
Kimberly Lilley —— 14.42% (5,583 votes)
Mark Akinosho —— 12.06%
Write-ins —— 5.93%

9:31 p.m.: Five of nine precincts reporting … go to the Herald’s blog site to see the results.
My thoughts so far:
• It still looks bad for the sales tax, but not insurmountable.
• It looks better for Bill Tatum, who’s currently in fourth for the school board (4 get in). Kim Lilley and Mark Akinosho (as well as the write-in candidates) trail.
• Lee County Chairman Bob Brown doesn’t look like he’ll move on to the election this year. That’s gotta be disappointing for him. I would have blamed his teetering on the school tax issue, but seeing the tax fail right now, I’m just not sure anymore.
• Side note, Hillary Clinton’s winning Lee County by a good margin. Looks like Bill’s visit worked … at least here.

9:25 p.m.: Just learned that nothing will be posted to the state election Web site until all nine precincts report. To me, this is crap. But oh well.
Thankfull, we have R.V. Hight on the scene … and this is what he’s given me so far:
On the sales tax, with 2 precincts and the early voting,
For: 2,721
Against: 3,250
Not looking good for the tax, but it’s likely the portion of Sanford where students go to Lee County High School hasn’t reported yet (I know one of the reporting precincts sends students to Southern Lee). So we shall see.

9:14 p.m.: Barack Obama’s making his victory speech in North Carolina. He just congratulated Clinton for a win in Indiana … but today can’t be good for Clinton. She did a ton of campaigning here, and it looks like Obama completely stomped her here.
Sorry Bill.

9:08 p.m.: No results are posted, but this is what I’m getting from RV Hight.
From early voting and the Southern Lee County district:
• Looks like the sales tax referendum is ‘getting beaten pretty good.’
• Bill Tatum is finishing well behind in early voting and in the one precinct that has reported. The leaders so far are Shawn Williams, Lynn Smith, Cameron Sharpe and Kim Lilley. Again, this is just early voting and one district.
• He said these are just ‘early looks,’ but on the commissioner race, Chairman Bob Brown was in fourth place in early voting (top 3 get in), and he was fifth in the Southern Lee County precinct.

9 p.m.: It’s 9 p.m. and no results yet … though now I’m hearing after early voting, the sales tax is trailing, Cameron Sharpe is leading on school board and Richard Hayes is leading for the commissioner. Just what I’m hearing. Nothing official.

8:10 p.m.: The calm before the storm. Food has been ordered though. So that’s exciting.
No results in from Lee County yet … but a little birdy has told me the sales tax is expected to pass.

7:31 p.m.: One minute after the polls closed, Barack Obama declared winner in North Carolina. Luckily, I saw this coming … though it does look like Hillary will win Indiana.

6:10 p.m.: Just saw FoxNews talking about Clinton’s “small town visits” in North Carolina. The reporter said: “Stopping in towns with few, if any, stoplights.”
I know Sanford falls under the “small town” category, but last I checked, we have too many stoplights.
Don’t you love it when the ‘city folk’ come a callin’ in our backyards, ma?

6:03 p.m.: In one hour, one of the most important parts of election night will be upon us … the delivery call.
Last year’s Chinese food experiment was so popular, we’re throwing that in with the free pizza coupons we got.
So tonight, it’s Pizza and Chinese. Is it any wonder journalists rarely make it out of the 50s?

5:40 p.m.: Well, it’s been about two hours since my last post, and it’s been a lightning fast two hours filled with “mapping” today’s paper. Yes, at 5:30, the entire Election section of today’s paper is practically laid out. It’s all about filling in the blanks now. That’s called PLANNING, fellas.
On a side note, my dad and my stepmom visited me last night and today, and we had a great time together, although it was short (he’s on his way to visit my grandparents in Ohio). He got a new car — a Saturn Sky — and I got to test drive it yesterday with the top down.
I want a convertible now.

3:40 p.m.: Election Day has always been a hectic day for us … but it’s also kind of like a “finish line” for newsroom employees. You see, we do a lot of work making sure coverage is fair (even though nobody thinks it is) and all of our bases are covered … and by the time today comes, we’re exhausted.
Some of you, however, may be wondering why I haven’t blogged much about the election — save a few obama/clinton posts and a lot about Bill Clinton’s visit. The reason is this: I love politics, but I can’t stand arguing with some of the knuckleheads on both sides.
As a newspaper editor, I get a lot of flack from people who criticize us for not reporting on alleged election sign malfeasance (happens EVERY year). Every time a sign appears in a yard it wasn’t supposed to be in, we’re expected to do a front page story. Well, guess what, it’s not news. If the sign actually got up on its own and went to that yard, then MAYBE it’s a story.
And this year, I’ve been inundated with e-mails from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s camps. I get about 40 e-mails a day combined from the two, and that doesn’t count what I’m getting from the senate and governor candidates. I don’t read most of them unless the subject line grabs me. They rarely grab me.
What is funny to me, however, is the way our newspaper (and newspapers in general) is perceived by the aforementioned knuckleheads. Last November, we were the cigar-smoking staunch conservative newspaper that only supported tax-hating white male Republicans. This year, we’re the tree-hugging, tax-loving, Bill Clinton-adoring Democrats, according to the people who were “on our side” in November.
It’s all about perception, I suppose, but it all goes to show that this newspaper (I’m not speaking for all of them) makes its decisions based on reporting the news, researching the news and lots and lots and lots of discussion. We’re not the robots many would wish we were. We’re also not the evil machine many think we are.
Luckily, I’m thick-skinned and there’s little that can be said that will raise the hair on my back.
But now you know why I don’t talk politics much on here. I don’t like arguing with people who aren’t willing to listen.

3 p.m.: Well, I’ve voted today (at Deep River Elementary, which was my first visit to the school … very nice). I won’t tell you who I voted for (or which primary I voted in), but I will say it’s always refreshing to vote for races that I know a lot about. I can’t always say that’s been the case in the past. There were a few races I didn’t know much about, but even those, I heard of the candidates or saw their TV ads.

Third trailer for Batman: The Dark Knight.

Click here for the Hight Definition version.

Back in January, I introduced my readers to Miles — then a fuzzy little ball of terror my wife and I adopted from Carolina Animal Rescue and Adoption. Just over three months later, I’m writing about
again about Miles — now a fuzzy big ball of terror who keeps my wife and I on our toes like you wouldn’t believe.
I get teased by a few for bringing up my dogs a lot (in addition to Miles, a Bernese/lab mix, I also have a 7-year-old Jack Russell Terrier), and I take teasing in stride. I’ve always been a dog person,
and I’m not ashamed to admit I tend to treat them more like humans than the average person.
But it’s been a tough week to be a dog person. In addition to the awful, gut-wrenching news from Sanford this week about a man who allegedly shoved a deflated soccer ball on a dog’s head and led it
into traffic (the dog was hit and killed), my wife and I have been battling a disease Miles came down with just before our weeklong vacation in South Louisiana.
I had every intention on this column being a warning about erlichia — a tick-borne disease very common in the Southeastern United States and a disease that will kill a dog if untreated. We’ve been treating Miles the past nearly two weeks now with antibiotics intended to kill erlichia, which, much like AIDS in humans, attacks white blood cells and keeps a dog from being able to battle illnesses.
Miles had all the symptoms — urinating blood (and being in pain while doing it), having bruises and blood spots on his belly, slight bleeding from the gums and an overall “sickly” feeling that turned our bright, energetic, fun-loving dog into a moping, depressed little puppy.
Those of you who have met healthy Miles might find it hard to believe anything could keep him down … but it did.
While in Louisiana, our former veterinarian told us the disease could be erlichia, but since ticks aren’t all that common in that part of the country, he did not have the materials on hand to do a blood test
for it. He still prescribed the antibiotics for erlichia, and ever since, Miles has gotten much better — just about back to his old self.
This made it really strange for us when we learned Thursday Miles’ erlichia test came back negative. Now we’re stumped … we’re a bit worried … and we’re scared for Miles (not that we’d every let him
know that).
It will possibly mean more tests, which will mean more vet bills — but we’re willing to do just about anything to get this dog healthy.
I have actually told Miles — yes, I talk to my dog — that he needs to just kick whatever’s ailing him, because I don’t know of a better life a dog can have than one with a family who loves him.
It’s crazy. We’ve had this dog nearly four months, and he’s a huge part of our family. Then again, he was from Day 1.
That my wife and I are willing to do all we can for an animal makes the soccer ball incident even more upsetting to me. Back when the whole Michael Vick thing was going on, I wrote that there are two kinds of people in the world — those with the capacity to abuse an animal and those who couldn’t possibly even think about it. I have yet to meet a person in that first category I like … and I like a lot of people.
I’m not writing this for sympathy (I have complete faith that Miles will be OK), and I’m not writing this to rile up PETA or any other organization.
I do, however, want people to have a better awareness of tick diseases here. They can be deadly, and if you ask a local vet, they’ll tell you it’s more common than you’d think. If you feel the same way about your animals as the way I do, you wouldn’t want a tiny little tick to cause so much harm.
I also want to plug Jennifer’s blog — Life with Miles, located at jennrstclair.wordpress.com. If you’d like to hear about
Miles’ progress, that’s the place to go.
You’ll also learn about what a terror he is.
A wonderful, wonderful terror.