Making the Hard SellDenise Dickens was still smiling as she left City Council chambers in Raleigh last week. But it was a smile more weary than winning. Once again, the executive director of the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) had watched her organization being snubbed by city officials. Museum leaders were on the agenda to present […]
Barbara Solow
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On the Horns of a Dilemma in Durham
Paul Luebke is feeling both peeved and proud. For the past two months, the five-term state House member from Durham has been at the center of a debate over taxes in the Bull City. City and county leaders are looking for ways to pay for new schools, libraries, a downtown theater and other big-ticket projects […]
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Front-line accounts
Almost 10 years ago, Wayne Perkins got a phone call at work that forever divided his life into “before” and “after.” The call informed him that he’d tested positive for HIV, and nothing’s been the same since. But instead of giving up, the 28-year-old resident of Candor, west of Southern Pines, has been helping others […]
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Upping the ante
At mid-afternoon on a Friday before a holiday weekend, the waiting room at the Carrboro Community Health Center on Lloyd Street is more than half full. Blue signs posted on the clinic walls give instructions in English and Spanish. A line gathers outside the pharmacy window and trails down a hallway. From behind one of […]
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Giving Back
Giving Back Holiday giving is a way for formerly homeless residents in Durham to show they’re part of the communityThis is the first Christmas in 10 years that Juliette Bunn will be spending time with her family. For most of the past decade, the holiday held little joy for the 31-year-old Durham native. Her cocaine […]
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Ruffin Ready?
Durham’s new county manager supports teaching creationism in public schools, disputes that the separation of church and state is a principle found in the Constitution, and believes that homosexuality is a sin, albeit a forgivable one. Mike Ruffin, a Rocky Mount native who has been on the job in Durham for less than three weeks, […]
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Pickles vs. principles
When Nick Wood walked into WUNC Radio headquarters in Chapel Hill during the station’s pledge drive last month, he got an unpleasant surprise. There, on the receptionist’s desk at the Friday Center, was an eye-catching display of Mt. Olive Pickles and a sign inviting station volunteers and visitors to help themselves to a free jar. […]
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With apologies to Theodor Geisel
Every Who down in Chapel Hill liked Christmas a lot And last Tuesday the Bull’s Head grew stuffy and hot As the bookshop on campus filled with Whos young and old Who’d come to hear a cherished Christmas story unfold They leaned forward eagerly in rows of folding chairs They munched ginger cookies and tossed […]
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A Short-lived Reprieve
In a letter he wrote last month to staff members at the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, Russell William Tucker–whose execution had been scheduled for 2 a.m Dec. 7–included a prayer from an unnamed source: “Oh my Lord, plead my cause with them that strive with me and fight against them that fight against […]
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Message in a Ballot
POLITICS Before posing for a picture with Republican state senate hopeful Bill Boyd at a political forum in Chapel Hill last week, Mike Hawkins jokingly took a half-step backwards. “I don’t think I’ve ever had my picture taken with a Republican before,” quipped Hawkins, a longtime UNC-Chapel Hill employee and active member of the State […]
