Happy Thanksgiving all!

This may go down as one of the least effective protest tactics ever. The Chapel Hill Herald reports that a group of parents in the county school system (ie: northern Orange County) are calling for a boycott of businesses in Chapel Hill (ie: southern Orange County) to protest the disparity in school funding.

Now I sympathize with their cause, but

1. local businesses have nothing to do with the special district tax on homeowners that raises more money for the southern schools,
2. they pay the same amount to the county - who funds both systems - as any other business in the county, and
3. is anyone going to notice that these 20 people and maybe a few of their friends aren't schlepping down 86 to come shopping here? How often do they shop in Chapel Hill and Carrboro anyway?

Am I missing something? Is there a reason why anyone should care about this? Why are they leaving Carrboro out? (Someone must love Weaver Street Market.) Couldn't they think of a better name than "Rural Orange Boycotts Chapel Hill?"

Looks like the IFC is going to be homeless again. All the Chapel Hill News says is that they're having trouble finding a new place. Shock. Fortunately, the Chapel Hill Herald actually bothered to tell us what's going on.

Apparently the Town (who owns the building) is "temporarily" kicking out the IFC to do some renovations on the building. Considering that the Downtown Commission et al have been moaning about those unsightly beggars scaring the shoppers for years now, it seems quite possible to me that somehow the IFC won't get to move back in.

IFC has already had to relocate some of their services since the Town denied their request a few years ago to expand the facility at the corner of Rosemary and Columbia Streets. For example, they moved their women's shelter to Homestead Road - miles away from the walkability, the jobs, and the community downtown.

For those of you who may have missed it, orangepolitics made page B1 in today's News & Observer

Intrepid reporter Anne Blythe draws generalizations from comments made here without any specific attribution and characterizes her anonymous source as "the town's political insiders."

Does Blythe know that A Voter, Winston Smith, or Coyote, to name a few, are political insiders? If so, how?

Surely there is a long tradition of anonymous attribution in the news business but I think it used to go like this: a reporter tries to find someone to go on the record on a story. She can't but she finds a potent statement from someone who wishes to remain anonymous and is called something like "an informed source" in the article. The readers then place as much confidence in that quote as they have in the writer's and editor's ability to find and vet a credible source.