In North Carolina, a career government official has been forced to take early retirement for refusing to honor the late Senator Jesse Helms. The official, L.F. Eason, spent twenty-nine years at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. On Monday, Eason instructed staffers at his laboratory to ignore a statewide directive to fly the US and state flags at half-staff in honor of Helms’ death last week. Eason was told he could obey the directive or retire early. Eason chose the latter, writing, “I simply do not feel it is appropriate to honor a person whose epitaph of government service was to have voted against or blocked every civil rights issue that came before the US Congress. His doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice cost North Carolina and our Nation much that we may never regain.”