At 20,000 feet, the level at which the national media generally view us, the political landscape of North Carolina has shifted ever so slightly in the form of Heath Shuler’s win over Charles Taylor and the turnover of one congressional seat. Never mind how close the Robin Hayes/ Larry Kissell race was in the 8th […]
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
Posted inNews
Angry politics and big money legislative races
Save the recounts, the great election of ’06 is past and the ever-growing sound you hear in the background is The Big Shoutthe presidential election of 2008. In the past two months, there have been occasions when I was trapped in a room with a television set, a crude device that decides what you want […]
Posted inElections
New Deal boards tackle environmental issues
Voters in Wake, Orange and Chatham counties are electing members to a board most of them likely have never heard of. Unless you’re a farmer or a soil scientist, you may never have come across the non-partisan post of Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor. “We’ve been called one of the best-kept secrets,” says Don […]
Posted inNews
The return of the Doghouse Democrats
Sometime soon, Gov. Mike Easley is expected to appoint Dan Blue, who was chosen by House District 33 Democrats to stand in for the late Bernard Allen, the man who took Blue’s seat when the longtime Wake representative left office to run for U.S. Senate in 2002. Blue’s name jumped out quickly as a natural […]
Posted inNews
The morning line on N.C. congressional races
There are 13, count ’em, 13 Cogressional races on North Carolina’s card this year, most of them longshots for the challengers. Here’s the rundown, by congressional district: District 1: In this heavily Democratic district that includes Rocky Mount, Kinston, New Bern, Roanoke Rapids and Henderson, incumbent G. K. Butterfield drew no challenger. District 2: A […]
Posted inArt
Down East rambler
Bland Simpson didn’t start out to write a series of books on the life and history of North Carolina’s sound country; it just sort of happened that way. Simpson, a literary professor at UNC, Red Clay Rambler, playwright, songwriter and storyteller, began wandering again the northeastern coastal lands of his childhood in the mid-1980s. The […]
Posted inNews
Tuition by the numbers
The big story out of last week’s UNC Board of Governors meeting was the approval of a new tuition strategy. The plan, announced ahead of the meeting by UNC President Erskine Bowles, sets an annual 6.5 percent ceiling on tuition hikes at all 16 institutions. For the first time, it also takes into account student […]
Posted inNews
Say what?
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t trash a book I haven’t read, but after checking out author/professor Tom Schaller’s recent explanation/synopsis of his new political analysis Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, I can tell you that its basic premise is about as off-base as it gets. A more accurate subtitle would be How […]
Posted inNews
Sea food
A couple of hundred yards off Bogue Banks, dolphins–airborne at times–were working their way down the coast. Farther out, a trawler worked the channels near the inlet. Along the beach was a well-spaced row of surf-casters in their shorts and hoodies. You could see the mullet roiling the waters–the long, slow breakers practically bubbling with […]
Posted inNews
It’s time
I don’t need a calendar; I’ve got a dogwood tree. It’s fall and the leaves are getting rusty-colored and red berries are hitting the deck. So are pokeberries reprocessed, if you will, by a variety of locals like the cardinals and brown thrashers and migrating species like the hermit thrush, a wonderful singer. This is […]