Ian Palmquist is as out as he can be. At 25, he’s assistant director of Equality N.C., a Raleigh-based organization that lobbies for the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender folks. “The first thing people ask you after your name is, ‘What do you do?’” he laughs. But in 1996 when Palmquist was a […]
Fiona Morgan
Posted inGuides
A different kind of education
By the time Mary Helen Phelps made the call, she was in a crisis. Her 15-year-old daughter, Angel Collie, was so unhappy that her mother was certain she would drop out of school. Angel was boyish-looking, with short hair and piercings in her face that made her stand out from the crowd at Bunn High, […]
Posted inArt
Death becomes her
What do people want out of television? Not just diversion, not just to be entertained. They want to see stories and characters that will live with them from week to week and year to year, growing as they do, changing with time. The worst of television doesn’t merit description. But the best exploits a medium […]
Posted inNews
It’s not over yet
It’s down to the wire: Will the Federal Communications Commission vote to relax media ownership rules, or will a growing coalition of activists and lawmakers be able to stop them? The FCC is scheduled to take its vote on Monday, unless last-ditch efforts to the delay the vote are successful. On the table are rules […]
Posted inNews
Why can’t you hear Tift Merritt on the radio?
Tift Merritt’s got a great life. The 28-year-old singer/songwriter lives in rural Orange County with her boyfriend, fellow band member Zeke Hutchins. Their home is hardly palatial, just a one-bedroom cinderblock house next to rolling green mustard fields. Dogwoods, pines and oak trees rustle in the breeze, and occasionally a red-tailed hawk flies overhead. She […]
Posted inNews
Why can’t you hear Tift Merritt on the radio?
Tift Merritt’s got a great life. The 28-year-old singer/songwriter lives in rural Orange County with her boyfriend, fellow band member Zeke Hutchins. Their home is hardly palatial, just a one-bedroom cinderblock house next to rolling green mustard fields. Dogwoods, pines and oak trees rustle in the breeze, and occasionally a red-tailed hawk flies overhead. She […]
Posted inGuides
Creative spaces
In a renovated farmhouse on the Durham-Chatham county line live visual artist Katy Clove and her husband, musician Brent Ballantyne. From the outside you can see a wide, deep, shaded porch in the front and a neat garden in back. But inside, they’ve created a master work of art. Piece by piece, through sweat, accumulation […]
Posted inNews
Utopia South
Imagine that your town’s most central downtown intersection could be demolished and built anew. What would you want to put there? About 50 people spent a recent Saturday in Carrboro’s Century Center contemplating this question and throwing out ideas for the future of the town’s main intersection, Greensboro and Weaver streets, across from Weaver Street […]
Posted inNews
Techies
When Bruce Friedman graduated from college with a business degree in 1981, he knew exactly what the future held. “You joined IBM for one major reason: It was the big father figure. One of its selling points to college graduates was full employment. It had a history of never laying off regardless of the economic […]
Posted inNews
Stay Tuned
When activists came to the Federal Communications Commission hearing at Duke Law School last Monday, they didn’t meet much opposition. Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, the two FCC commissioners who called the hearing, were already convinced of the importance of their message, as were most of the panelists. More than 150 people showed up, and […]