Remembering Jesse Helms
This is awesome, re: Jesse Helms, the racist North Carolina conservative who died last week:
L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he’d ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley. When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours’ delay, one of Eason’s employees hung the flags at half-staff. He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his “doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice” and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Neat. Also give a read to my colleague Lisa Duggan’s fantastic Helms obit, which appropriately stomps on, sets fire to, then covers in piles of excrement the Senator’s grave.
About The Author - Ben Wyskida is a writer, activist, conscientious hedonist and political communications strategist living in Brooklyn. - Visit Ben's site.
From San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano’s answering machine:
“Jesse Helms is dead. You should only speak good of the dead. He’s dead. Good.”
thats amazing.
Guys,
This isn’t funny. a man is dead!
Oh, it was Jesse Helms? Nevermind. Carry on!
oh i wanna touch on that hot dead jiggly face!