A Brief Note on the Indy’s Recent Personnel Changes
The day Grayson Haver Currin gave notice, I was emailing with an industry colleague, a higher-up at the country’s biggest alt-weekly chain. I mentioned that I’d have to figure out what to do without my managing editora guy who took on so many tasks and did them so well and so enthusiasticallyand that I wasn’t…
A Quick Note on Our New Print Redesign
If you’re reading this in print, you’ve probably noticed that today’s INDY is a little different. The pictures are bigger. The type is cleaner. There’s more of what the designers call “white space.” And, yes, eagle eye, we are using the serial comma. (Actually, we’ve chucked many of the old-school AP guidelines in favor of…
The INDY has a new editor but the same mission
There’s a red laminated card that was handed to new employees of The Independent Weeklyback when we were still called that, before City of Roses bought us in 2012when they walked through the doors. On it, in black text, was the mission statement: “To work at The Independent Weekly is to pursue these ideals: to…
Why we’re suing Pat McCrory
We tried being nice. We tried nagging and pleading, cajoling and shaming. We left voice messages and emails. In return, we were stonewalled, misled and ignored for 16 monthsuntil our attorney paid a cordial visit to the State Capitol buildingto get just six months’ worth of Gov. Pat McCrory’s travel records. Even then, parts of…
Searching for answers about Craig Stephen Hicks
Editor’s note: A version of this column appeared online Friday, Feb. 13. This has been updated with new information. By most accounts, Craig Stephen Hicks is a bitter, hostile man obsessed with parking and guns. Why he harbors these feelings, we do not know, but he had an arsenal of 12 firearms to back them…
Poverty: our problem
During the State of the City address Monday night, a video highlighting the accomplishments of 2013 showed Durham Mayor Bill Bell resuscitating a mannequin during a CPR class. If the mannequin represents downtown Durham and parts of the South Side, then for sure, Bell, city leaders, private companies and nonprofits have revived those areas. But,…
Remembering Becky Heron
The last time I hung out with Becky Heron we were riding on a refurbished school bus through the rolling countryside of northern Durham County. A longtime county commissioner, she was among several dozen people on a Farmland Tour in 2009, an opportunity to meet Durham residents often overlooked by their city counterparts just a…
More Editorial Coverage
The INDY moves downtown near a tech hub
There were no mouse droppings. No broken sink. No windowless rooms where, if you worked too long, your eyesight regressed to that of a mole. Seven years ago, when the INDY ‘s Durham office moved from what looked and smelled like a frat house on West Hillsborough Street to the Venable Center, I marveled at…
To act or react
When I recently passed this man on Roxboro Street, I felt unsure of what to do. First, I tried to wake him to see if he was OK. Although he didn’t respond, he was breathing and sleeping deeply. And then I took his picture. After I posted this photo on the INDY’s For What It’s…
Strike down the discriminatory driver’s licenses
I’ve been stopped at a few police checkpoints in my day: Northern Ireland, the state of Chiapas in Mexico, Mississippiand Durham. Although in each case I was innocent of any vehicular wrongdoing, I still felt uneasy about handing my driver’s license to a police officer just because he wanted to see it. Now I’m trying…
When nipples are outlawed, only outlaws will have nipples
On Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. in Room 415 of the Legislative Office Building, state lawmakers will tackle a pressing, if not urgent, issue: No, not the rollback of unemployment insurance benefits and Medicaid, not the dismantling of public education and oversight commissions. And not guns. They want to clarify the indecent exposure law to…
A very expensive race in Senate District 18
Documents Where Barefoot has lived when Source: Accurint Chad Barefoot’s résumé as submitted to Wake County for commission appointments Source: Wake County Citizens Energy Advisory Commission Barefoot’s legislative personnel record showing his dates of employment and interning Record of Paige Barefoots’ employment with Dale Folwell Document showing various Raleigh addresses for Pioneer Strategies Pioneer Strategies…
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