CCCC names new president

Central Carolina Community College has named ‘Bud’ Marchant its fifth president.
Go to our Web site, sanfordherald.com, for the story.

The Rant podcast

Thanks again to our guest Lisa Garza.

The highlights include:
• Fourth of July pie-eating contest
• Death of Jesse Helms
• Really bad impression of Bono
• Joe’s sign talk
• Four-time Super Bowl champion Buffalo Bills?
• First celebrity guest
• A-Rod divorce talk

Bad news for teens …

North Carolina will soon join a good number of states that issue vertical drivers licenses and IDs to those under 21.
The reason for the change? Pure and simple, it’s much more difficult to slip one of these babies past a grocery store clerk who doesn’t feel like adding up your age or the bouncer who’s squinting to see your birthday at the club.
I like the move, although if I was 20, I’d probably hate it.
As a matter of fact, I successfully did purchase tequila once using a non-fake ID. It was an incredibly stupid move on my part and something I would never do again (for one, I don’t drink hard liquor ever and the tequila wasn’t even for me) … but at the time, we wanted some tequila for a party and I thought I’d give it a try.
We combed over the cashiers at the Winn-Dixie and picked the old lady who looked like she was more interested in clocking out than working. When she asked for my ID, she gave it a split second glance, handed it back to me and told me to have a nice day.
My brother even got into a casino when he was 20 because the ID checker didn’t add up the age correctly. And when they tried to scan it, the back of it had been rubbed off from the last time he left his wallet in his jeans before washing them. He got in.
Now had my or my brother’s Texas IDs been verticle, I don’t imagine these events would have happened that way, and I doubt I would have even tried (my brother would have probably still tried, he just wouldn’t have been as successful).
I suppose when you grow up, you realize 19- and 20-year-olds don’t know anything. For that reason, I’m glad the state’s making it harder for them to do things they’re not supposed to do.

We’ll have more on this story in Thursday’s Herald. Watch for it.