A modified kiosk, part of an art project in downtown Chapel Hill, on September 11, 2002. Photo Courtesy of Erik Ose Erik Ose With every year that passes, September 11, 2001 recedes further into history. But this year marks the fifth anniversary of another dark time for our country. The first time we memorialized the…
Category: Opinion
For the Record: 9/06/07
Settle in — this is going to be a long struggle. Orange County is going to spend the next ten years trying to end homelessness. While it’s an admirable goal, it’s an optimistic one, and means not just talking about the issue, but action. There is cause to be optimistic, though, not only because those…
Exile on Jones Street: 9/06/07
By Kirk Ross The General Assembly is contemplating a return engagement in Raleigh next week with the intent of taking up Gov. Mike Easley’s veto of an incentives bill for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Easley’s objection, which reportedly came as a shocking twist to legislators after a two-year negotiation over the package, was…
Professional reform: A path to better policy in education
Steve Peha & Margot Charmichael Lester For all the controversy surrounding education these days, most people agree that our schools continue to need significant improvement. This isn’t to say we haven’t been working on the problem. But after years of reform, we’re still unclear about whether our current approach is producing the results we require….
Recently: 8/30/07
By Valarie Schwartz Like the poplar leaves starting to pile as the drought yellows and drops them to the ground, people are starting to pile around town. First the university students arrived, piling their stuff into their living spaces and their young selves out onto streets. About 35 students learned that first weekend that drinking…
For the Record: 8/30/07
Yesterday was the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and with it came another reminder of how inadequate the response by those we trust to respond was and is. It is also a reminder — or should be — that even this far inland we have to take precautions ourselves and not be caught unprepared. That…
Bicycle-friendly? Ha!
Philip Duchastel I noticed a sign attached to the Carrboro “Welcome†sign on Estes Drive the other day. It read, “A Bicycle-Friendly Town.†And Carrboro even has a Bicycle Friendly designation from a national bicycle group. Which got me thinking about that and asking myself, “Are we really a bicycle-friendly town?†And what about our…
Letters to the editor: 8/30/07
Really Really Free Market clears hurdles Since the beginning of the Really Really Free Market in Carrboro in 2004, town officials have presented many hurdles to get over in order to have an event where people give things away. First we were told the event would hurt local businesses, and we had to convince town…
What would Cat Baby say?
A 26-year-old George “Cat Baby†Cannada leads the CHHS football team onto Carrboro’s Lions’ Park field in 1963. Photo by Jock Lauterer By Jock Lauterer Cat Baby would have loved the return of high school football to Carrboro. That’s right, Friday night’s inaugural football game at the new Carrboro High School off Smith Level Road…
For the Record: 8/23/07
Editor’s note: Following is the official summary of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority’s year-round water conservation rules. An in-depth look at the rules and the reason for them are available on the OWASA website at owasa.org/pages/yearroundconserv03.asp Conventional spray irrigation is limited to three days per week between 8:00 pm and 9:00 am and to…
Drought-induced insanity
By Ken Moore Observations made from around town and the region during this summer-long drought have made me believe that our society is really insane. Last week, while helping hand-water a native plant garden in Raleigh, making certain all the water went into the ground and not off onto the pavement, an awful noise from…
Lessons from the Legislature
By Damon Circosta Most North Carolina schoolchildren are heading back to the classroom as their summer break comes to an end. Seeing all of those overstuffed backpacks and yellow school buses reminds me of the fear and uncertainty that comes with starting something new. I had many of the same feelings earlier this year when…
Exile on Jones Street: 8/23/07
By Kirk Ross There’s nothing quite like cracking a freshly printed budget. Just look at all those finely crafted numbers and . . . ahh, smell those special provisions. This is the time of year when it becomes clearer what kind of last-minute “language†found its way into the budget and various other bills passed…
Business energy tax cuts are a bad idea
By John Quinterno Manufacturing and agricultural firms in North Carolina pay lower tax rates than other businesses on energy purchased for use in production. Nevertheless, several recent legislative proposals have called for eliminating the energy taxes paid by manufacturing and agricultural enterprises. While an economic argument can be made for repealing those taxes, doing so…
Politics may prevent children from seeing a doctor
By Chris Fitzsimon As many as nine million children in the United States may not be covered by a health insurance plan and more than 250,000 of them live in North Carolina. Many of the children are eligible for state and federal programs like Medicaid and Health Choice, North Carolina’s program to insure kids in…