Tag: Freedom of the press

An Opportunity for Me to Speak

Last Tuesday, I was one of the presenters for the “history day” meeting of the 2026 Class of Leadership Cabarrus. (Cabarrus is the name of our county.)

Leadership Cabarrus is described as follows on the Cabarrus County Chamber of Commerce website (https://cabarrusncchamber.org/leadership-cabarrus/):

“Through a series of monthly class days from September through May, participants are introduced to and examine how leadership in the historical, geographical, educational, economic, governmental, and cultural segments work together to perpetuate and advance the Cabarrus County region and its citizens.

“The program is also designed to nurture and develop the leadership skills of current and potential leaders, offering a stimulating atmosphere that fosters diverse viewpoints and yields innovative solutions to the critical questions facing our community. The program’s focus is creating awareness and connecting leaders to the issues; it is not an academic leadership training program, but an excellent professional development opportunity to communicate with the Cabarrus County community. Furthermore, the program is non-partisan and does not recommend or advocate for partisan positions on public matters.”

Since the 1980s, Leadership Cabarrus has hosted more than 700 participants from 200 companies.

This was the third time I’ve been invited to be a presenter for Leadership Cabarrus. I spoke to the 2024 Leadership Cabarrus Class about the history of Harrisburg. I was invited back last year but had to cancel at the last minute due to illness.

After cancelling at the last minute in 2025, I was pleasantly surprised to be invited back this year.

The venue is not always the same. I spoke at the county office building in Concord in 2024. This year, I was scheduled to speak at Southern Grace Distilleries at Whiskey Prison in Mt. Pleasant, North Carolina.

Say what?

Yes, I was scheduled to speak in the chapel of the former prison, which is now a distillery. I thought this would make an interesting blog post, so I arrived a few minutes early and took some pictures.

Guard Tower, I assume was only in operation while it was a prison.

Southern Grace Distilleries, Mt. Pleasant, NC
A sign I assume is left from the property’s former use as a prison.

Things soon went off the rails because the motorcoach (is that still the proper term for a bus?) transporting the 36-member Leadership Cabarrus Class had massive electronic issues and a replacement bus had to be requested from Winston-Salem – some 60 miles away.

Since the class members were stranded at the Eastern Cabarrus Museum, it was decided that I should leave the prison and drive back into Mt. Pleasant and meet the class members at 73 & Main Restaurant. When I arrived at 73 & Main, I could see the class members in the distance as they walked from the museum to the restaurant.

73 & Main Restaurant, Mt. Pleasant, NC

I must say that the people in charge of Leadership Cabarrus showed phenomenal leadership as they juggled the schedule on the fly and dealt with the disruption of the rest of the day’s schedule – which was planned down to the minute for the next six hours. The whole experience turned out to be an unexpected lesson in going with the flow.

The group was congenial. I only noticed one member who was visibly bored out of her mind as I spoke as fast as I could about the history of Harrisburg. Perhaps she was there under duress.

The presentation gave me an opportunity to briefly hold up my two local history books: Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2 – in case any participants were so enamored by my speech that they wanted to learn more. (By the way, they are available at Second Look Books in Harrisburg and on Amazon in paperback and ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Harrisburg-Did-You-Know-Cabarrus-ebook/dp/B0BNK84LK1/ and https://www.amazon.com/Harrisburg-Did-You-Know-Cabarrus-ebook/dp/B0BXBQ1F79.)

Unbeknownst to me, one of the class members was the daughter of a school classmate of mine whom I’ve known for 65 years. Meeting Stephanie’s daughter was a great surprise! Coming full circle, I expect to see Stephanie at our high school class reunion this weekend.

I must have done an okay job because after I spoke, I was asked to present again in 2027. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get another chance to speak in a former prison. I finished speaking as the replacement motorcoach arrived, so everything worked out great for me. I have no idea how the rest of the day’s schedule went for the group. Fortunately, I got to go home.

I’m glad we still have freedom of speech in the United States, although Trump continues to attack the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Case in point: banning news agencies who report the truth about his evil deeds get banned from the White House. It’s not his house. It’s not his constitution. The White House and the U.S. Constitution belong to the people. Only a dictator attempts to control or silence a free press.

A meme with the words of the First Amendment with the American flag in the background
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Janet

The First Amendment guarantees our right to religion, speech, the press, assembly, and our right to complain to and about the government. Don’t take one word of that Amendment for granted!

Tomorrow is World Press Freedom Day

The free press is under attack in the United States. President Trump and his followers never miss an opportunity to criticize journalists. Trump delights in telling falsehoods about specific news organizations, and one of his favorite pastimes is to publicly say nasty things to female reporters.

If you take time to watch his press conferences, speeches, and interviews, you know what I’m talking about.

We have not in my 73 years had any other U.S. President who had a personal vendetta against the free press. His contempt for the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is frightening to those of us who treasure freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

A meme with the words of the First Amendment with the American flag in the background
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

To mark World Press Freedom Day tomorrow, I will give just two examples of what we were made aware of this week thanks to the free press.

Defense Department Drone Deal

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Defense is going to purchase drones from a company owned by Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump.

You did not get that information from The White House or from the U.S. Department of Defense.

You got it from a free press.

1,000-Year-old UNESCO Site Damaged by Department of Homeland Security

The Washington Post reported that a bulldozer cut a 60-foot swath out of a 200-foot Native American archeological treasure on Friday, April 24, 2026.

Did The White House report it? Did the U.S. Department of Homeland Security report it?

No, the free press reported it.

The priceless site in in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) treasure that was partially destroyed was an etching in the desert sand known as an intaglio.

At least 1,000 years ago, ancestors of the Hia-ced O’odham Indigenous People scraped down to white soil under the desert sand to create a 200-foot long etching of a fish.

Thanks to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issuing waivers for the construction of Trump’s border wall, the Trump Administration does not have to abide by the federal laws protecting the environment or sacred Indigenous sites while building the wall.

Now, thanks to those waivers and a President’s administration devoid of respect for history, nature, or indigenous peoples, a 60-foot swath has been ripped through the etching as the construction of the Trump wall between the United States and Mexico continues at the rate of three miles per week.

The Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior. An anonymous employee of that department confirmed to The Washington Post that the damage had been done by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Tohono O’odham Nation was able to prevent the first Trump Administration from building the wall across its reservation. They were able to protect the intaglio and a sacred burial site then, but that protection has been ignored by the second Trump Administration.

Archaeologist Rick Martynec, who has studied the site over the last 20 years, reported that the Refuge had been in discussions with the Department of Homeland Security to make sure the intaglio was not damaged. When he visited the site a couple of weeks ago, he saw stakes in place that marked the boundaries of the etching.

Various people and groups were actively working to make sure the Department of Homeland Security did not destroy the site, but it was all to no avail.

And we would not know it if not for the free press.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.

Going forward as Americans

In yesterday’s blog post, A 4th of July like no other, I lamented the fact that I do not feel celebratory on this United States Independence Day.

Here are my thoughts on this 4th of July – the 249th birthday of America.

Purple letters spelling out freedom on a black background
Photo by Kristina V on Unsplash

Never take your freedom to read whatever you want to read for granted. People have died to protect that freedom, and there are people and organizations that think they have the right to take that freedom away from you.

Never take your freedom to practice the religion of your choice – or to practice no religion at all – for granted. People have died to protect that freedom, but there are some people who think they can force their warped brand of Christianity on all our citizens.

Never take your freedom of assembly for granted. People have died to protect that freedom, but there are people who want to limit our access to gathering if our ideas don’t align with theirs.

Never take your freedom to complain, grumble, criticize, question, and protest against your elected officials for granted. People have died while protesting and people have died to protect that freedom. If we lose that freedom, we have lost our democracy.

Never take your freedom to vote for granted. People have died to protect that freedom, but there are loud voices in our country today who want to put many hoops for us to jump through in order to vote. They want to make it such a cumbersome process that we will miss a step or just give up. They try to convince us that voter fraud is rampant, but investigations have proven it rarely happens.

Never take the freedom of the press for granted. People have died to protect that freedom. The freedom of the press is under attack by the President Donald J. Trump, by his press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But they are wrong. The press is not “the enemy of the people!” It is incumbent upon each and every one of us to defend and protect the press. If we lose that precious freedom in the United States, we will most assuredly lose all our other freedoms.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Keeping silent is being complicit

Resist!

Rise up!

Speak up!

Speak out!

Get into good trouble!

That’s how Independence Day 2025 needs to be celebrated… while we still can.

Janet

Save Us From Ourselves

The Midnight Cool, by Lydia Peelle was one of the novels I read last July. My impressions of the book can be found in my August 8, 2017 blog post, Late July Reading.

I wrote down the following quote from the book in my writer’s notebook. The words were written in the context of temperance in an earlier time in US history; however, in light of the events of the last year and a half, I believe it is apropos to the state we Americans find ourselves in politically in 2018.

“Says right here — he pointed to the paper — ‘I’ve learned that the inalienable truth of America is that its people sometimes must be saved from themselves.'” ~ The Midnight Cool, by Lydia Peelle

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The Midnight Cool, by Lydia Peelle

You may disagree with me, but I am very concerned about the way things are going in my country. I never intended this blog to be a political platform but if I don’t speak out, I’m part of the problem.

I see facts being ignored, lies being normalized, science denigrated to the sidelines, journalists being shut out of events, children of refugees being separated from their parents with no forethought given for their reunification, our allies being insulted while enemies are being embraced, our justice system under constant attack, and now we’ve been told by the United States president not to believe what we see with our own eyes or hear with our own ears.

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are bedrock principles upon which our country was founded. They are under attack from within our country and from outside sources. Freedom of speech allows me to write this blog and express my views.

I have faith in the goodness and the sense of fairness possessed by the majority of Americans. I believe good will ultimately overcome evil, but it won’t be easy.

Since my last blog post

I saw some relatives I hadn’t seen in a long time. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, a second cousin I’ve never met has located me and we look forward to getting acquainted.

With summer half over, I finally got around to doing some “spring cleaning.”

I wonder where May, June, and July went. The warm months are flying by!

Until my next blog post

I hope to visit a bookstore that is under new management since I first called on the owner after the publication of my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Support your local independent bookstore!

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Death of Mrs. Westaway, by Ruth Ware. After reading her novel, The Woman in Cabin 10 two years ago, I wanted to read her next book.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time.

Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog. I appreciate it! I welcome your comments.

Janet

Freedom of Speech

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for things too numerous to list. I choose to concentrate today on being thankful for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through no doing of my own, I was born in and get to live in a country where I can write anything I want to write as long as it is not slanderous. I am free to study, explore, and write about any topic I choose. If I want to criticize my government, I can do so without fear of the authorities arresting me. Millions of people in the world do not enjoy that level of freedom.

As a freelance writer, I can try any path, any subject, any outlet for my writing. My writing is not subject to censorship. I do not have to write in fear of being discovered.

This is such a simple concept and one I take for granted most days. Today I pause to thank God for placing me in a time and place where I have freedom of speech and freedom of the press.