We’re all in big trouble, you know. No doubt about it. I did it, you did it, the whole eastern half of the state did it. We all broke it–it’s the dead of winter and we all broke dormancy. The people doing the Neilsons over the past few weeks must have already put a footnote […]
Kirk Ross
Bio: Kirk Ross is a freelance columnist for INDY Week and founded the online news and feature publication The Carolina Mercury. He lives in Chapel Hill.Link: http://www.exileonjonesstreet.comEmail: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/ExJS
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The year in cartoons
Going through our stacks of cartoons and trying to sort them by season, an odd fact jumped out: The barbs and sharp elbows tossed about in January and February were still present even as we opened the last envelopes of the year from the syndicates. The bristling Rummy has been a soft target for cartoonists […]
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Christmas ghosts
It tumbled out of a bag of old photos and memorabilia–a little white card with a name on it, the kind you hand out when you graduate from high school. When I picked it up and read the name I got chills. He was the son of close friends of my parents–a real Midwestern, Eagle […]
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Dark days ahead
I have an odd habit–picked up from my Kentucky grandfather–where for some reason I always look up in the sky, squint and say “Winter’s coming” on the first day of summer. The inverse happens as well on the winter solstice, which this year falls on Tuesday, Dec. 21, at 7:42 a.m. Along with this peculiarity […]
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The importance of trees, part one
The lights started coming back slowly at first–a twinkle from the school here, the flicker of a neighbor’s television or backyard spot there. But with the winds of the last couple of weeks, they’ve rushed back into view. Now they’re unmistakable. The trees, the deciduous ones at least, are dormant now–even the poplars, this year’s […]
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Silva bullet
The Raleigh City Council seems a little lost in the woods over its tree protection ordinance, having bought in–temporarily at least–to developers’ concern that the ordinance is “too complicated.” If you’ve been following the trail of bread crumbs over the past three years, it’s pretty clear what’s going on: a systematic stalling and watering down […]
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That was quick
The board of directors of the new Chapel Hill Downtown Economic Development Corporation–a nonprofit set up by the Town Council to lead the effort to “revitalize” downtown–has shown itself to be among the more efficient public bodies in the Triangle. In one quick meeting last week, the group managed to alienate a number of the […]
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Beyond bling
Hip hop, which officially turns 30 this month, has always had something to say–about the essence of music, about the beat, about streets mean and easy, about The Man, about the outside looking in. Except that it’s not so much on the outside anymore. It’s a dominant form of art and music that influences mainstream […]
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Don’t stop now
It will take a little while longer for the dust to settle. And while that’s going on there will be bitterness and gloating, true attempts at unity and hollow gestures of the same. The election brought change but not sweeping change–not in the long run. One day George Bush will not be president. That day […]
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Life without cable
It still seems a bit dreamlike–falling asleep with my gal on the couch on election night 2000 with the whole mess in Florida unfolding. Gore had conceded then not conceded, and when I fell asleep I was hopeful. That ended Wednesday morning, and the dread of what Mr. Don’t Mess with Texas would do to […]