Durham Police Chief Teresa Chambers has won praise for reaching out to the city’s burgeoning Latino population. She has attended Latino festivals and forums, supported the department’s efforts to open up communication between police and Spanish-speaking immigrants, and has even enrolled in Spanish classes. “She’s making that extra effort,” says Hilton Cancel, president of El […]
Jon Elliston
Posted inFilm & Television
A Short Success
When veteran actor Peter Riegert decided to try his hand at directing, he didn’t rifle through his Rolodex and pluck out one of the many producers he’d already come to know and trust. Instead, the star of films like Local Hero, Crossing Delancey and National Lampoon’s Animal House opted for a novice. “I wanted an […]
Posted inNews
Spy Like Us?
Remember Walter Mitty? A character in a short story by James Thurber, he made his way through a humdrum domestic life by living in various fantasy worlds. One moment he was a Navy hydroplane pilot, the next a master surgeon. For Mitty, the banal fabric of daily life provided a rich tapestry of imaginary intrigue. […]
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Bob Sheldon’s Legacy
There was no time the world needed Bob Sheldon more than the day he was killed. It was Feb. 21, 1991, a Thursday. The United States was pounding away at Iraq, 34 days into the Persian Gulf air war. Sheldon was spearheading Triangle-area peace protests from Chapel Hill’s Internationalist Books, a hotbed of radical thought […]
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Unconventional Warrior
Master Sgt. Stan Goff stood amid a swirling crowd of thousands of Haitians as they danced, chanted and cheered the September 1994 arrival of the U.S. military. The mission was called “Operation Restore Democracy,” and Goff hit the landing zone thinking he would get the chance to do just that, by returning Haiti’s elected president, […]
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Gasoline on a fire
Many Americans fear to tread in war-torn Colombia, the most violent country in the hemisphere. The Rev. Allen Proctor, Presbyterian campus minister at N.C. State University, says that after learning about Washington’s $1.3 billion contribution to “Plan Colombia,” a counter-drug campaign that emphasizes military measures, he had to go. “Everything I had read up to […]
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Nervous Neighbors
College towns walk a fine line, catering to transient students and long-term residents–two groups with disparate needs and interests. In Chapel Hill, where a bulging university is eyeing expansion and real estate developers are sniffing out space for new students, 2001 promises to pose tough dilemmas for town planners. Chapel Hill’s latest comprehensive plan, developed […]
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Search and destroy
The “Air Force Experience” touched down at several Triangle locations this month. The Air Force’s latest recruiting show, which features an F-16 fighter plane parked next to a tractor-trailer full of combat simulators, mostly hit high schools, where the top gunners hope to replenish their post-Cold War ranks with students seeking high-tech adventure. But when […]
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Festivus Miracles
Festivus Miracles”Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized … there had to be another way. Out of that, a new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of […]
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Traders
“Contractors from the USA Explore Trade with Cuba,” read a Dec. 12 headline in Granma, the official daily newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. The article explained that, despite the tough U.S. embargo, 25 North Carolinians were in Havana for a week-long trade mission organized by the N.C. Department of Agriculture. The delegation, which included […]