Buckle up, Wake County voters. It’s going to be an epic election year from now to November 2016. One like we’ve never seen beforeand yes, never is a long time, but I’m saying it anyway. For starters, big ol’ Wake County, with its swing-vote tendencies and 1 million-plus population, could literally decide the presidential election. […]
Bob Geary
Posted inNews
A real American hero, charged with espionage
It’s straight out of Homeland, the Showtime thriller about Al Qaeda and clandestine intrigue. Or think Robert Redford in the mind-blowing Three Days of the Condor, about a bookish CIA analyst trapped in a web of corruption who tells all to The New York Times. We don’t know what happened to Redford’s character. But when […]
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Do black candidates matter to North Carolina Democrats?
First, let me be clear that my purpose is not to say whether Democrats should vote for or against Roy Cooper for governor or Deborah Ross for U.S. Senate in the primaries next March. I do, however, want to note that each of these worthy white candidates, both odds-on favorites to win their respective nominations, […]
Posted inHousing
Are Raleigh’s empty promises on affordable housing a thing of the past?
It’s an annual rite in Raleigh. Each year, someone from the Congregations for Social Justice, a terrific group, writes a nice letter to city officials asking what they’ve done to advance the affordable-housing policies set out in Raleigh’s 2009 comprehensive plan. And every year, a nice letter comes back from the planning department saying, “We’re […]
Posted inNews
How to do well while still doing good
Business is the most pervasive power on the globe today. Far beyond the power of individual governments, business is the transformational power.” So said Kevin Trapani, CEO of the Redwoods Group, at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in 2011. For better or worse, he was right. The naked pursuit of profit by global corporations may […]
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How Raleigh’s election was hijacked by questions of vibrancy
We’ve had some mindless City Council campaigns in Raleigh in my time, but I’ll put the 2015 edition up against any of them. It was so bad, I found myself agreeing with a conservative activist, Joey Stansbury, when he called out his fellow Republicans on Friday. “Just four short days,” Stansbury wrote, “before Wake County […]
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Why is Raleigh rushing a rezoning vote before the next City Council is seated?
The biggest issue in next week’s Raleigh city elections is the massive Unified Development Ordinance rezoning of 35,000 properties. Some candidates want to push it through despite its many flaws. Others want to slow it down, change it and get it right before slapping it on the city. The essence of democracy is that the […]
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The Rev. Jeremiah Wright and America’s racist cake
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright spoke and preached at the United Church of Chapel Hill over the weekend. “You’re just here to see if he cusses,” a friend of mine joshed when I arrived. Ha! For the record, Wright didn’t cuss. He did criticize a cake. Wright was President Obama’s pastor in Chicago, the African-American minister […]
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Watch the throne: Three young, credible challengers seek to upend the Raleigh City Council
One thing Matt Tomasulo says about the upcoming elections in Raleigh is undoubtedly true: The young challengers would bring fresh perspectives to the bristling growth issues that are close to a boil on a fractious City Council. “Right now, it’s pretty hostile,” Tomasulo offers. Hostile? Sure. Think downtown drinking and noise. Think the reviled Unified […]
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Hope you enjoyed your Capitalist Day!
Labor Day weekend came and went with little thought to labor. And I’m not just talking about North Carolina, or the South, where labor is considered by the people in charge to be either misplaced effort or simple ignorance. Even in The New York Times, Labor Day was noted mainly as an occasion for end-of-summer […]