David N. Bass

Published September 14, 2006, on CarolinaJournal.com

RALEIGH — Raleigh firefighters had to change their mindset after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to Keith Tessinear, a captain in the Raleigh Fire Department. “Every call you run now, you had to be aware that it could be a terrorist attack,” he said.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Tessinear had just returned from his shift when he turned on the television and saw smoke billowing from one of the World Trade Center towers. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had the pleasure of reading Marvin Olasky’s book on present-day news media entitled Telling the Truth: How to Revitalize Christian Journalism (available online at no cost here). Olasky is best known as the editor-in-chief of World magazine. His insights on journalism are particularly noteworthy because he happens to have two descriptive characteristics that are rarely put together nowadays – “Christian” and “journalist.” The current climate of journalism dictates that all who write must be “objective,” which has come to mean possessing a strong enough left-wing bias to please the editors at the newspaper or magazine you happen to be working for. Olasky trumps that by showing just how a reporter can be both an unequivocal Christian and a professional journalist at the same time.

I found particularly interesting an essay in Appendix C called “The Decline of American Journalism.” Did you know that, once upon a time, the New York Times was not only conservative, but unabashedly Christian? Apparently, much of the shift to liberalism at the Times occurred during the 20th century. Prior to that, the newspaper was owned and operated by Christians. Read the rest of this entry »

Published September 9, 2006, on WorldNetDaily.com

Just over one week after signing a sweeping pro-homosexual bill into law, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger showed textbook duplicity by vetoing a bill designed to outlaw public school materials from “reflecting adversely” upon persons because of their sexual orientation. Sidestepping the core moral questions raised by the legislation, Schwarzenegger rejected SB1437 for attempting “to offer vague protection when current law already provides clear protection against discrimination in our schools based on sexual orientation.”

Perhaps mystified by Schwarzenegger’s apparent reticence to sign this bill into law, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, herself a lesbian and the primary sponsor of the bill, expressed disappointment in a press release, chiding the governor for responding “to a small, shrill group of right-wing extremists rather than a fair-minded majority of Californians who support this reasonable measure.”
The veto might have had something to do with the massive influx of calls the governor’s office has recently received in response to Schwarzenegger’s approval of SB1441 Aug. 28. That measure, also sponsored by Kuehl, discriminates against any entity receiving public funding for speaking out against the homosexual lifestyle. This includes religious organizations that firmly believe in the sanctity of marriage and traditional views of sexuality. Read the rest of this entry »

Published September 6, 2006, at CarolinaJournal.com

RALEIGH — Amid burgeoning population growth across North Carolina, more than 90 community leaders and government officials met Aug. 30 to discuss challenges surrounding school construction and finance needs.

Dubbed “County Pressures: The Realities of School Construction Demands,” the one-day conference, sponsored by the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, at the Exploris Museum was attended by officials from more than 30 counties across the state. The central question: how to meet school capital requirements and overcome hindrances that prevent counties from keeping pace with increasing demands for school space. Read the rest of this entry »

Published September/October, 2006, in Family North Carolina Magazine

Like many North Carolina parents, Jim and Beverly Burrows never dreamed that a public school classroom would be the place their son was exposed to a pro-homosexual agenda. But that’s exactly what happened when the Burrows sent their son to the taxpayer funded Governor’s School of North Carolina in June 2005 to study natural science.

Offered as a state-sponsored summer residential program for academically gifted North Carolina high school students, the Governor’s School reaches 800 teenagers each year. Teaching is split between two campuses—the Governor’s School West (GSW) in Winston-Salem and the Governor’s School East (GSE) in Raleigh. The program provides a number of seminars and courses on various academic disciplines including drama, foreign language, and mathematics. But according to Beverly Burrows, parents were not told that the six-week program would also include an optional seminar promoting the homosexual lifestyle. Read the rest of this entry »