Wednesday, April 22, 2009

"A Label of Pride That Pays" - NYTimes.com

What are the best examples of this in NC?

Thursday, April 16, 2009

"OrangeChat - Group wants Chapel Hill to adopt $13/hr. living wage" - newsobserver.com blogs

High speed trains

I hope they stop at a good stations somewhere in Chapelboroham!

"Mall Operator General Growth Files for Bankruptcy Protection" - washingtonpost.com

This is the owner of Streets of Southpoint.

I hope someone will look into the financial health of other shopping malls and centers of all sizes in Chapelboroham.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Sounds of Globalism - UNC

"U.S. Stymied as Guns Flow to Mexican Cartels" - NYTimes.com

Does anyone know if any guns purchased in Chapelboroham have been smuggled south to Mexico?

Monday, April 13, 2009

North Carolina State Energy Office

"Gun Sales: Will The "Loophole" Close?" - CBS News

What are the facts relating to this story in NC? Virginia shares a common border with NC. What is the impact? How do rules in NC compare? What are the trends? Who keeps track?

Saturday, April 11, 2009

"Downtown Tulsa Unlimited"

This is the site of the organization of the man picked to head the Chapel Hill downtown partnership. Let's hope he does not think that 2-1/2 month old - the most recent here - news is news. See this story about the selection.

"Wells Tower, Voice of the Luckless in ‘Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned’" - NYTimes.com

Another Chapelboroham-bred writer.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

"Student burned in Franklin Street bonfire" - WRAL.com

Here's how I see this one. The people who started the fires should be arrested and forced to pay for any damages and injuries that resulted. Those who acted negligently in getting too close to fires ought to be required to pay the full cost of their medical treatment; no insurance policy should cover such stupid conduct. If anyone was hurt as a result of behaving prudently, they, of course, deserve our support and insurance coverage. But I sense the people who were injured were behaving in a dumb manner, they should be required to pay the entire bill for their treatments - 100% - and if they want to sue the fire starters, that's their legal right to try.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

inSide919 - A LOCAL Business & Social Network

First time that I have run across this....

Monday, April 6, 2009

"Journalism Bust, J-School Boom" - Forbes.com

At least one thing is "up" in Chapelboroham ... applications to the Journalism school at UNC, our only such school. Go figure......

Saturday, April 4, 2009

"‘Drive Carrboro’ group gets rolling"

With Carrboro open to all points of view, I am torn as to whether to assume this to be real or, my hope, to put it in the April Fool's file? Interestingly, there are no comments on the website about this article as I type this.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Newspapers

At a time when newspapers are facing such tough times, I was encouraged by my trip to Market Street in Southern Village today in order to replace a soggy copy of the Herald-Sun on my driveway. By the time I left the vending machines, I had picked up the News & Observer for 50 cents and the Herald-Sun replacement for 50 cents PLUS the Daily Tar Heel for free, the Independent for free, and the Carrboro Citizen for free.

When I got back home, I read them all 0r at least what we generally call "reading" when it comes to skimming around newspaper pages and stories. Do I feel like I got a dollar's worth out of all that? You bet!!! In fact, it probably was worth 2.50 for the lot to me, but if they had been priced that high, I probably would not have bought them all, and so I would not know what I missed.

There is something so valuable about the way in which newspaper pages are laid out and so far we have not come close to replicating that serendipiditious experience on a computer or other screen.

In any case, we are lucky to have all these "voices" and so many chances each and week to be informed about so many things, both in terms of news and in terms of commerce.

A large part of newspapers' challenge today is that they do a really poor job of telling the story of the personal value derived from each issue by readers.

Just think for a moment.... When was the last time you heard or read a newspaper telling you about the different yesterday's paper made in someone's life - from the simple choics of food on sale to some understanding of a global issue and all points inbetween?

Thursday, April 2, 2009

"Discover Things To Do" - MyNC.com

This appears to be a very good calendar. Type in your ZIP code to see events within whatever distance you specify.....

Carolina North for Dummies

As I read - or more accurately, skim - stories about Carolina North, I am imagining that there may be a few people who are giving this a fair amount of attention. That's not most people for sure!

What a great opportunity this presents to do two things.

One is to create a site called simply Carolina North for Dummies. It would have all of the basic stuff in it in a very simple and clear presentation.

Second would be to do with this a wiki application that would allow for it to be a work in progress. As new events or developments occur, they could simply be added either by anyone or, preferred, someone or some group of people charged with keeping it up to date.

Want to learn very simply what's hot and important with respect to Carolina North, here is the site to visit.......

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

"N&O's public editor to join DOT" - News & Observer

"Le chômage à 8,5% en février monte encore dans la zone euro" - Le Point

In case anyone is paying attention, the Triangle and all of France are now at the same level of unemployments - about 8.5%.

"Triangle unemployment rises to 8.3 percent" - News & Observer

We need to work a lot harder than we are to focus on what 8.3% means to this community and develop more efforts to keep this number as low as possible while helping all of our friends and neighbors who are especially hard hit by this downturn. Does anyone think we are doing enough? I surely do not.