On the Bicentennial Mall outside the legislative building last week, a dozen immigration activists and conservative lawmakers delivered a series of red-meat tirades against undocumented immigrants, blaming them for drunken driving, gang warfare, crowded emergency roomsand even, some insinuated, the fall of civilization. Their rhetoric was designed not only to inflame, but also served as […]
Matt Saldaña
Posted inUncategorized
DPAC: Nearing completion, questions remain about naming rights and ADF
The Durham Performing Arts Center is on schedule to be completed by Sept. 21, in time for a mid-winter opening, and it has just announced its first full-scale theater production: Ira David Wood’s performance of A Christmas Carol, scheduled for Dec. 5-7. But despite nearing the finish line of construction and nabbing Wood’s popular showbefore […]
Posted inArt
Durham arts groups face steep cuts in city funding
In a potentially devastating blow to Durham’s arts community, temporary City Manager Patrick Baker has proposed eliminating more than $118,000 in arts and culture funding. The proposal, presented to City Council on May 19 and in public on May 27, would have the city scrap all support for the African American Dance Ensemble and the […]
Posted inNews
Eve Marie Carson: 1985-2008
Eve Marie Carson has left behind millions of momentsthe kind she captured, translated and quoted like poetry. The radiant and beautiful UNC student body president, who was shot to death at the age of 22 last week in Chapel Hill, profoundly influenced the thousands who knew and loved her. Already, memories of her are pouring […]
Posted inNews
Author Julia Alvarez on censorship
In December, the Johnston County School Board voted to ban How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, an account of sisters who immigrate to America from the Dominican Republic, from school libraries and classrooms, citing several scenes that acknowledged the imperfect, and sometimes explicit, existence of sex. According to The News & Observer, school administrators […]
Posted inElections
The final hours in New Hampshire
Twenty-eight hours into a blistering, 36-hour campaign tour of New Hampshire, John Edwards told a group of several hundred onlookers packed into a high school lobby in the southern coastal town of Hampton, that “we’re going to surprise people tomorrow.” By the time you read this, tomorrow will have arrived, and the New Hampshire primaries […]
Posted inElections
N.H. primary: A firecracker in Manchester
As Elizabeth Edwards took the stage in a converted mill in Manchester, the unlikely campaign song of “Firecracker,” by Ryan Adams, blared through speakers, across a stretch of flag-waving supporters, and into Wolf Blitzer’s CNN Situation Room. “Well, everybody wants to go on forever. But I just want to burn up hard and bright,” the […]
Posted inElections
N.H. Day 2: Candidates have change in their pockets
One more, John Edwards said, as he drained another shot from the free-throw line at a high school gym in Lebanon, N.H. The court was bare, except for a ring of supporters and photographers who dutifully remained outside the paint. The Edwards campaign had over-booked the adjacent band practice room for a Saturday pre-debate speecha […]
Posted inElections
Day 1 in N.H.: Heat and light
One day after Barack Obamas resounding victory in the Iowa caucuses, the Illinois senator received a near messianic reception at a high school gym in Concord, while John Edwards told a more subdued convention room audience in Portsmouth that his nominal second-place victory proved he could stand up to monied candidates. We went into Iowa […]
Posted inElections
N.H. Day 3: The undecided
Nearly every candidate here has used the term famously independent to describe New Hampshires voters. Indeed, a majority of the states voters are unaffiliated and can cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican primary. For the undecidedand there are still many in New Hampshirethese last few days of campaigning provide a final opportunity to […]
