Last Friday, Seth and I joked on air briefly about the whole North Colorado thing, when it came up on the 880therevolution.com website.

Over the weekend, the thoughts of it kept dancing in my head.  So, Monday, I dedicated the first hour to talking about the dream of WNC forming a new state and leaving NC behind.  It was half-joking when I started, but the half that was serious began to take root.

I got emails. I got listeners calling in. I got posts on Facebook.  It seems that people are actually finding this whole thing to be appealing.  And they are taking it seriously.

And now, so am I. 

I mean, why not?  Isn't the way that states were formed initially in this nation, still a viable option?  Just because West Virginia last did it in the 1860s, doesn't mean that it can't be done now.  Right?

We need some people who are scholars on this subject to weigh in.

If North Colorad at least gets it on the ballots in November and gets some of the work done toward this, I think we here in WNC can learn a lot from it, and perhaps use it as a template.

I know there are lots of logistical questions to be ironed out, but, as I replied to a skeptical poster on facebook who asked me about how we coud afford to do such a thing and pay for it, I replied that I didn't think the Founding Fathers stopped to debate the cost first, but rather did the right thing and worried about the finanical aspects as they went along.  If it was good enough for them, why not us.

So, go to twitter and start hash tagging like me:  #WestCarolina #State52WestCarolina

Who knows, we may be onto something wonderful here.

I realize that folks would like easy access to info about some of the show's guests, so I thought I would provide that right here for you all.

Yesterday, we had some amazing folks on the show and on the phone, talking about what they do.  I feel it is well worth checking them out, so... here you go:

http://truebluenc.com/ - all the great work in NC!

http://globalhouse.org/ - amazing work in Nepal!

http://terpsicorps.org/ - incredible talent right here in Asheville for 10 years!

Snowden, Edward Snowden.

You see this guy's interview?  How much more pretentiously self-important could he be? His awareness of the "glamour" and "intrigue" of the moment makes it hard to think that he isn't doing this just to become a celeb?

The knots we're all working ourselves into are actually slip knots, and not all that hard to untie.  No one should be the least bit shocked by any revelation from Snowden.  Well, other than, perhaps the fact that he claims that a low-level private contractor like himself could take down the entire global intelligence network from his cubicle. 

People are trying to act serious about the outrage over losing privacy at the hands of evil government hands.  Don't believe me?  Check all the twitter and facebook posts about it!

So, the NSA is collecting phone records, email records, web searches, etc.  Personally, I've pretty much assumed this was going on.  I also assume that they are so poorly staffed that they don't have enough people to actually sit down and go line by line through any of it.  Granted, if they get a blip about or from someone, I have no doubt that they are a few key strokes away from pulling up absolutely everything about that person or persons.

Now, think back to when we all had landline phones.  Remember every month when you got the detailed phone bill with all the numbers you called, call times and rates? No doubt, such things are still in some database somewhere.  Why too, would there not be a database of modern proportions?

We never thought far enough ahead when the Internet age got rolling to realize that this could be an eventual possibility, though we should have, right?  After all, Al Gore created the Internet, and he was working for the Government.

Should we be angered? Relieved? Suspicious? All of the above?  Maybe.  But we should not be at all surprised.