Create a real Chapelboroham?

Recently, French President Nicholas SARKOZY announced the consolidation of many local government structures. The result may be a more streamlined bureaucracy at the local level.

Imagine for a moment that Pittsboro, Hillsborough, Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Durham were all working together as one entity to serve the entire population. Imagine that we established uniformly superb schools throughout the area and that everything from food to transportation was better served in order to cover all needs and interests.

My impression is that competition over sales tax revenues, ego and a number of other factors really mess up the potential that we might otherwise realize and enjoy.

Fore example, imagine a Chapelboroham plan to offer buses and other coordinated transportation options for those wanting to make a shopping trip to COSTCO in Durham....instead of fighting over who gets the next "warehouse". It seems to me that it makes most sense to put it along 15-510 south of Chapel Hill, well-positioned so as to offer people here a chance to use it.

"California Set To Ban Plastic Grocery Bags" - NPR

And in Chapelboroham?

"A Bike Boom Backlash" - NYTimes.com

KrispyKreme again

For anyone interested, and I hope that's lots of people, here is the nutritional informatoin for what I am told is the full menu at KrispyKreme. Look at it carefully and you will see that a woman can eat almost any one of the items and with that alone, reach the maximum sugar intake recommended by the American Heart Association. A man can indulge about 1.5 or 2 of most things before reaching the parallel limit. I don't expect the cashier at KrispyKreme to be pointing this out to many customers.

"House Tour - Garrison, N.Y." - NYTimes.com

Note the taxes on this house compared to what we pay in Chapel Hill!

KrispyKreme

Governmental Chapel Hill and others seem to have turned out for the opening of the new store in Chapel Hill. If you go to the KrispyKreme website, you will find no nutritional information there on any of their products. I called their corporate office and was told that it would be there "soon". Right. As bad as it is to have the temptation for many of a KrispyKreme in Chapel Hill, I think it's extraordinary bad judgment on the part of our elected people not to be demanding that this be changed on their site and asking them to post it in the store. When I called the store, I was told that they keep it behind the register. If we care about obesity and all of the overweight people among us, we should be urging KrispyKreme to put this information in FRONT of each purchase.

Tolerance in Chapelboroham

Isn't time for a review of how everyone feels in Chapelboroham about tolerating and embracing people whose beliefs are different than our own? Where is the reporter or news organization engaged in reporting that story? It will be too late if we have to wait until someone does something that causes most of us to recoil in horror. Let's understand better, now, what if any problems we have, make sure we know the history, and recommit ourselves to accepting and embracing everyone and everyone's feelings and beliefs about anything religious....or racial.