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MEAC: high costs, low turnout

The male model wearing the canary yellow suit and thousand-yard stare peered into the empty rows of the Fletcher Opera Theater in Raleigh. The fashion show had been touted as one of many must-see events related to the weeklong MEAC basketball tournament in March. Men flashed their chiseled abs from beneath unzipped parkas, and women […]

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Get reel

Stinky. Loud. Noxious. Gas-powered mowers emit enough pollution that the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing they be equipped with catalytic converters. If passed, the rule would take effect in 2011 for riding mowers and 2012 for push models, according to the Associated Press. A better, quieter choice is an electric mower, which is good for […]

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Insider “605” meetings shape laws

North Carolina is a major culprit in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, ranking fourth in the nation in increases of global warming pollution from 1990-2004. That somber report, released last week by Environment North Carolina, underscores the importance of clean energy legislation winding through the state houseincluding a trip through a little-known working group whose meetings […]

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Legislative Follies

folly (noun): lack of good sense or normal prudence and foresight; criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct; a foolish act or idea; an excessively costly or unprofitable undertaking Bringing home the bacon Pork barrel politics, as integral to lawmaking as blood is to sausage, took on new meaning last Thursday as House members vigorously […]

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Sustainability fair at Shakori Hills

For five years, the Shakori Hills Spring Festival has been among the season’s highlights for its music, arts and community. Now festival organizers have added a sustainability fair to its extravaganza, April 19-22, on the 75-acre Shakori homestead near Silk Hope in Chatham County. “We’re putting an emphasis on community,” fair coordinator Pierre Lauffer says. […]

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Strange fruit

See also: Ten years after | Friend or Coe? | Of time and Charleen | Strange fruit | Capsule reviews In Banished, the Brown family exhumes their great-grandfather’s remains from a cemetery in the all-white town of Pierce City, Mo. Excavators pile dirt beside the hole, emblematic of a community that is digging up, albeit […]

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Water: Use it wisely

Western North Carolina is in a moderate drought, and the rest of the state, including the Triangle, is abnormally dry. Conserve water now before area lakes and rivers turn to dust. Most households use the greatest amount of water irrigating their lawns. If you must be a slave to grass, keep it at least an […]

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Movie (hard) time averted

Durham County Superior Court is a solemn and gloomy place, where people alleged to be society’s most serious offenders are tried for egregious crimes. Besides the accused killers, child molesters and rapists on trial last week, Larry Partée, a 58-year-old resident of Preiss-Steele Place, an affordable housing complex for the elderly or disabled, was on […]

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Disabilities council seeks independence

For many years, the Governor’s Advocacy Council on Persons With Disabilities has lacked the independence necessary to protect North Carolina’s most vulnerable citizens. It falls under the Department of Administration, yet, says council board Chairman Mark Urban, “is often in the position of suing the state or a state-licensed facility.” In other words, the council […]

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More water, more waste, what next?

Past the rusted remains of a gas station, past the granite headstones in the Stancil Cemetery, past the freshly tilled cotton fields near Saratoga in Wilson County, former hog farmer Don Webb drives his battered Ford pickup truck to a ditch and stops. “I’ve seen that ditch turn purple from shit,” says Webb. “More E. […]

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