“The insanity is incessant.” There was no hiding the frustration in Senator Dan Blue’s voice, the weariness that comes from being utterly powerless to stop what you view as a parade of awfulness. It was Friday morning, and Blue, the Raleigh Democrat and Senate Minority Leader, was seated across from me in his law office’s […]
Jeffrey C. Billman
Posted inNews
A New Bill Would Allow the City Council to See Police Body-Camera Recordings—But Only in Asheville
A local bill filed in the state House of Representatives yesterday would allow the Asheville City Council to review police body-camera recordings—a right that would not be extended to other city councils or citizens throughout the state. House Bill 1087, sponsored by three Buncombe County Democrats, changes the state’s controversial law governing the release of […]
Posted inSoapboxer
Democracy (and Light Rail) Dies in Darkness
It’s impossible to defend state Representative Mickey Michaux’s comparison of the legislature’s budget process to rape for the same reason that it’s impossible to defend comparing anything to rape. Nothing is rape except rape. Civil rights icon though the Durham Democrat may be, Michaux screwed up, and then compounded that screw-up by refusing to apologize. […]
Posted inBest of the Triangle
Best of the Triangle 2018: Like That? Try This.
Every year, we try to perfect the formula for our editorial companions to our readers’ picks in our annual Best of the Triangle issue. In 2016, we made up our own categories to bring attention to things we wanted to talk about, but that seemed to confuse folks more than anything else. Last year, we […]
Posted inNews
Is the General Assembly About to Kill Light Rail?
The budget adjustment Republicans in the General Assembly crafted behind closed doors, unveiled last night, and are expected to pass by a veto-proof supermajority later this week—for the first time in modern history, without an opportunity for lawmakers to offer amendments, because democracy is for suckers—does a lot of things. It keeps the tax cuts […]
Posted inNews
Breaking: Nancy Errichetti, Head of the Montessori School of Raleigh, Arrested for Allegedly Aiding and Abetting Sexual Abuse
This morning, Nancy Errichetti, the head of school at the Montessori School of Raleigh, was arrested at the school by Raleigh police at about ten a.m. and charged with contributing to the delinquency and neglect of a minor and aiding and abetting the taking of indecent liberties with a child under the age of sixteen. […]
Posted inUncategorized
Now That the Dust Has Settled, Here’s What to Make of Last Week’s Surprising Wake County Commissioner Primaries
Perhaps no one was more surprised by the results of last week’s Wake County Democratic primaries than Vickie Adamson. “I had a concession speech prepared but not a victory speech,” she says. “Everybody kept telling me you can’t win. But I did.” Indeed she did, though not by muchabout two thousand votes out of sixty-one […]
Posted inUncategorized
N.C. Teachers Are Mad as Hell and They’re Not Going to Take This Anymore
Last week, I asked my neighbor, a first-year elementary school teacher in Durham, whether she planned to go to the protests in Raleigh on Wednesday. Durham Public Schoolslike more than thirty school districts across the state, including the Wake County Public School System, Orange County Schools, and Carrboro Chapel Hill City Schoolswere closing on May […]
Posted inUncategorized
Joe Van Gogh Owner Robbie Roberts Apologizes for Handling of Duke Officials’ Demand to Fire Baristas
In a statement posted on the company’s website this morning, Joe Van Gogh owner Robbie Roberts apologized for how his company handled a demand from Duke administrators to fire two baristas over a song that university vice president of student affairs Larry Moneta found offensive. His statement: Joe Van Gogh apologizes to our employees, customers […]
Posted inUncategorized
Lawsuit: The Montessori School of Raleigh Turned a Blind Eye to a Teacher’s Sexual Abuse of His Students
The allegations in Jane Doe I et al. v. The Montessori School of Raleigh Inc. et al., filed in January in Wake County Superior Court, are at once gut-wrenching, infuriating, and difficult to read. They painstakingly detail years of alleged predatory sexual abuse on the part of a teacher, Nicholas Conlon Smith, against two sisters, […]
