Two years after Hurricane Katrina, people living on the Gulf Coast have little hope that the federal government will help them rebuild. Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, based in Durham, discusses the failed recovery, which is detailed in an August/September 2007 institute report, “Blueprint for Gulf Renewal: The Katrina Crisis […]
Fiona Morgan
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After years of domestic violence, a woman and her child fled to Raleigh to start a new life—one without fear
Editor’s Note: To protect the safety of the subjects, we have changed their names and descriptive details that could be used by their abuser to identify them. Vanessa stops and stares down the impatient driver of a Range Rover. As she crosses a hot, crowded parking garage at Crabtree Valley shopping mall to apply for […]
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Kevin Martin, from N.C. to the FCC
Kevin Martin told a Raleigh audience earlier this month that, besides his extensive credentials, two life experiences prepared him to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Struggles over parking spaces at UNC-Chapel Hill while he was student government president were good practice for negotiations in Washington. And as the fourth of five children, he […]
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Michael Weinstein
U.S. Air Force veteran Michael Weinstein says the American military is being undermined from within by fundamentalist Christians who are coercing soldiers into their brand of faith. A Republican who worked for President Ronald Reagan before becoming general counsel to Texas billionaire and presidential candidate Ross Perot, Weinstein is foremost a military man. His recent […]
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Ernest Dollar
Local history is more than some important family’s big, old house. That’s the message Ernest Dollar has been spreading since he became executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill in March. Through events at the historic Horace Williams Houseart exhibits, parties and re-enactmentsand other projects, such as the preservation of town murals, Dollar […]
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Bill to limit broadband fails
Chapel Hill’s hopes of offering public Wi-Fi Internet access are safealong with other municipalities’after the N.C. House Finance Committee scrapped a proposal that would have severely limited local governments in offering Internet or other communications services (see “Anti muni-broadband bill moves forward“). On July 24, the committee recommended that a legislative committee study the issue […]
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Edgar Miller
Open spaces are disappearing at a rapid pace across our state, according to a report released last week by the Conservation Trust for North Carolina. “From Rural to Suburban in Less Than a Century: Changes in Housing Density in North Carolina” uses maps produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison to show housing density statewide each […]
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Land transfer tax stalls
N.C. House and Senate leaders are facing off over what appears to be a deal killer as they work against the clock to approve the state budget. County leaders and citizens’ groupsespecially in Wake and Chathamstrongly favor giving local governments the opportunity to impose a land transfer tax as a way to pay for schools, […]
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Touch that dial
Beware of legislation promising “competition.” A bill passed by the General Assembly last year that was intended to jump-start competition in the cable TV industry has had the unforeseen consequence of costing the state and local governments across North Carolina millions of dollars in lost revenue. And six months after the law went into effect, […]
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Jim Early
Jim Early, founder of the North Carolina Barbecue Society and author of The Best Tar Heel Barbecue Manteo to Murphy, recently finished his latest project, compiling the NCBS Historic Barbecue Trail. At each of the 25 pit stops on the 500-mile trail is an old-fashioned barbecue establishment where pork is cooked in a traditional way […]
