April 2005
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, April 02, 2005
The Carolina Women's Center's annual Women's Week, which concluded Saturday, covered a lot of topics: violence against women, gender-bending, women and war and mentoring, to pick but a few. The topic that stands out for its exclusion is abortion. This omission represents a significant decision by the Women's Center given the importance of reproductive freedom for college-age women.
Abortion has not always been kept off the program. In 2003, for example, there was a Women's Week forum on "The Abortion Pill: The Clash of Science and Politics."
This year, however, the desire to avoid controversy has left the issue entirely off the agenda.
The problem with this policy of avoidance was well-expressed by geography professor Altha Cravey: "Questions of choice should be front and center; women's control over their own bodies should be front and center.
The center should not alienate women, but the center should stand for something, and those two things are very different." Cravey also serves on the Women's Center's advisory board.
Let's all give a big pat on the back to the Police Chief and Manager of the Town of Chapel Hill for an excellent public celebration on Monday night. I was among the approximately 45,000 people who came to Franklin Street to celebrate the men's basketball championship, and I saw a few of you readers there too.
I saw some things that I wouldn't brag about (like women climbing light poles in flip flops and men shouting "show us your t*ts"), but we certainly behaved ourselves better than the party in East Lansing which ended with tear gas and 43 arrests after Michigan State lost to UNC on Saturday. Wonder what they do if they win?
For the second year in a row, we have have won "Best Blog" from the Independent Weekly!
Last year, there was no reader pick for Best Blog so the Indy staff bestowed this honor upon Orange Politics. This year, the people have spoken and we are once again named the Best Local Blog!
Being chosen by the readers is an even bigger honor, and I'm very flattered and grateful. I especially appreciate Dan Coleman and the other OP contributors who create this site every day by sharing their knowledge and opinions. I also appreciate all the folks who read the site and comment regularly. There are many more who visit and don't comment, and that's just fine. If you are getting useful information and ideas, then we are doing our job. Please keep reading this and other local blogs!
Quite a number of locals blogged about the Tarheels victory last Monday night. Permeating our unity in support of this team is quite a lot of diversity in our reactions. Here is a collection of blog posts on everything from the players to the politics:
On the partying:
Town Council Member Sally Greene: "Fire chief Dan Jones came up with this: why not have an official bonfire somewhere on campus? But UNC hasn't warmed to the idea, and the police chief isn't so sure about it either, thinking shades of Texas A&M."
Sally was also guest blogging at Is That Legal? where she posted the police report and my picture of two women climbing a pole at the corner of Franklin and Columbia. Sally's husband Paul Jones posted pictures of the victory celebration at the Dean Dome when the team returned.
You may have seen the news reports on the so-called "academic bill of rights" proposed in the legislature a couple of weeks ago. This legislation, similar to bills now in vogue in conservative circles across the country, aims to end so-called liberal bias in academia.
The bill's sponsor, Republican Senator Andrew Brock said that as written, the bill would protect the "conservative train of thought."
The chairman of UNC Chapel Hill's College Republicans acknowledged that "Not everyone's out to get conservatives. That's just part of the partisan rhetoric But there are some out there, and that's what the Academic Bill of Rights is for -- to create guidelines."
In particular, the right is concerned about studies that show professors are more likely to be registered as Democrats than as Republicans. They suggest that this reflects a bias in academia.
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday April 09, 2005
It is odd to find a Democratic state legislator who, among his first prominent acts in office, would seek the means to elect a Republican to the Orange County Commission. Freshman Rep. Bill Faison has done just that by proposing a district representation scheme that would create a district in which Republican Jamie Daniel was the top vote-getter in 2004.
Odder still is the fact that Faison promotes this legislation without even an attempt at collaboration with the commissioners or with the other legislators representing Orange County, all fellow Democrats.
Faison has been called many things over the past few weeks but "team player" is not among them.
What Faison is up to is pure politics. Faison is well aware that Barry Jacobs won the Orange County vote in last summer's Democratic primary. Faison's margin in Caswell County was enough to give him a scant 647 votes victory overall. To win, he spent three times as much as Jacobs, over $100,000 more, an astounding $39 per vote (the state average is $12.94).
The Daily Tarheel ran a pretty good article on Wednesday about student involvement (or lack thereof) in town issues. In 1991, I got appointed to the Chapel Hill Transportation Board and I helped get a fellow undergrad, Mark Chilton, get elected to the Town Council. Ever since, I have been advocating for a greater student voice in local politics. There can be no doubt that students are impacted by town policies (transit, sidewalks, housing, downtown businesses, University development, just to start.).
But many people forget how very much students have to offer the rest of the town. Students created what would later become the municipal bus system in in the 1970's. Students have brought many important social causes to the community's attention, from apartheid and sweatshops far way, to housekeepers and cafeteria workers and the civil rights movement here at home.
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday April 16, 2005
The Town Council adopted the prudent course in its response to the keg registration bill. The feeling was that, with or without Chapel Hill's encouragement, this bill was gaining traction elsewhere in the state. Thus, the town and its legislative delegation can best safeguard the privacy of consumers by adding strong language to that effect to Joe Hackney's and Verla Insko's House Bill 855.
A unanimous council was concerned about the need for keg purchasers to obtain a permit from the ABC board, the provision for criminal background checks, potential unintended consequences of requiring identification of where the keg would be consumed and the unnecessary intrusion into individual privacy from maintaining keg permits as public records.
Still, it was an odd process for Chapel Hill. Support for keg registration was proposed for a council legislative request by Jim Ward back in February. For most proposals, the town gets a report back from staff and receives citizen comment before taking action. Ward's timing pre-empted such input.
Chapel Hill's Community Art Project this year invited us to to share our dreams. The result is a very broad range of objects, from children's drawings to mature poems, on display all over town. You can view the community's dreams in this online gallery (hosted by Andrew Ross), or on Thursday April 29 when the "dream tour" will be held in all venues hosting parts of the exhibit. DREAM runs until May 27.
WCHL will hold its third annual Forum tomorrow, putting folks from around the community on the radio for a marathon of local issue discussion. Last year's forum was pretty interesting, especially the hand-to-hand combat between UNC administrators and local elected officials.
While I have to repeat my now-annual complaint about not publishing the forum schedule on the website in advance, I will give WCHL kudos for putting the entire 2004 forum audio archive online after the broadcast.
Here is this year's schedule as it was relayed to me in the mail:
8:00 Town-Gown Relations10:00 Suburban Growth11:00 Civil Rights & Equality noon Carrboro 1:00 Downtown Chapel Hill 2:00 Violence & Crime 3:00 Affordable Housing 4:00 Education 5:00 Young Adults
Guest Post by Mary Rabinowitz
Here's an information-packed, Earth Day festivities announcement originating from Karen McCollough, parent at the Children's Cooperative Playschool. Thanks, Karen!
Everyone, check out the "Earth Action Fest" this Sunday in Chapel Hill: http://www.earthactionfest.org
Activities will include:
Tree planting
Arts and crafts
Coloring and jewelry-making for kids
Face painting
Bicycle safety inspections by REI
Caricatures by Richard Cloudt
Clown character, Mickey Le Pew, with his environmental magic program (and his family of stuffed skunks!)
And here are some other sites with kid-friendly Earth Day activity ideas -- I just did a quick web search:
Here in southern Orange County we have a lot to be proud about when it comes to community resources. For example we have a fantastic bus system, public meeting places, community art, and municipal wireless Internet access a.k.a. wifi. The great thing about wifi is the massive diversity of its uses. Not only can you send email or surf the World Wide Web you can also learn from the experiences of millions of people. Our increased connectedness to one another electronically augments our individual power. When we "speak" with each other with software tools - like Orange Politics - we share energy with each other. This energy empowers us to be become better at many things. So in thanks and respect for all that I've learned from you all I'd like to give some back.
The Daily Tarheel had articles today looking ahead to this fall's local elections in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. There wasn't any big news, but it's good to start getting people on the record. Here's what it looks like so far:
In Carrboro: In addition to the Mayor, Alderpeople Diana McDuffee, Jacquie Gist and John Herrera are up for re-election. I don't think any of them have decided, but Jacquie and Diana are leaning against running after having put in many years of service. I'm pretty sure Mayor Mike Nelson is serious this time when he says he's not going to run anymore. Alex Zaffron and Mark Chilton, the other two Alderpeople (whose seats are safe this year), are considering it. And 2003 mayoral challenger Jeff Vanke has moved from definitely running to maybe.
Keep your fingers crossed. I am about to attempt to upgrade this site to the latest version of Wordpress. A a few things will inevitably break in the process. Please be patient. Thanks.
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday April 23, 2005
It's not often that the mayor of Chapel Hill, the chancellor of UNC, a key UNC trustee, an outspoken councilman and several prominent residents address town-gown relations at a public event. That's just what happened last Thursday during the first panel of WCHL's "Building Bridges" community forum.
You might have expected the following to have been discussed: the pending rezoning of part of the Horace Williams property, the also pending modifications to the OI-4 zone of the main campus, the town's stellar job hosting the celebration of UNC's men's basketball championship and the mysterious delay in the agreed-upon improvements to South Columbia Street, a delay that panelist Bill Strom recently laid squarely at the feet of the university.
But if you expected the forum to have much to do with what's actually going on, you were surely disappointed.
There will be protests all around the country today to oppose The Nuclear Option- the Republicans' attempt to change the rules of the senate to suit their heavy-handed domination. Chapel Hillians will meet in front of the Franklin Street Post Office at 5pm.
Hope to see you there!
Peacefully Unite to Oppose Congress Going Nuclear at the Chapel Hill post office next Wednesday the 27th at 5PM! We will meet outside the Franklin Street Post office to peacefully protest the Congressional majority from Going Nuclear. Please bring signs, friends, and family as we join together in solidarity to demand that our minority's right to filibuster the right-wing-judicial takeover is preserved!
Guest Post by Billie Guthrie
Below is some information about the upcoming Roundtable Discussion on Homelessness in Orange County.
A broad coalition of community groups and government officials will sponsor a second Roundtable Discussion on Homelessness on April 30th at New Hope Elementary School located at 1900 New Hope Church Road in Chapel Hill from 9am to 12pm. Registration and a continental breakfast will begin at 8:30am. All interested members of the community are invited to attend.
The goals of the event are:
1. To educate the community by dispelling myths and putting a face on the homeless,
2. To develop a long-term plan to end homelessness in Orange County
3. To encourage personal responsibility by inviting the community to address this issue individually.
After establishing Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCDs) in the town Land Use Management Ordinance, the town of Chapel Hill started the process to create an NCD for Northside, the historically black neighborhood north of Rosemary Street and west of North Columbia Street. I was disappointed that the Northside NCD didn't do more to define and promote community design principles that could actually improve our quality of life. But it was a step in the right direction.
Last night, UNC's department of environment, health and safety held a public meeting on the latest plans for the hazardous waste clean-up at the Horace Williams property. I was unable to attend and am hopeful that a report will be made publicly available.
Some of Director Peter Reinhardt's comments, as reported in the Herald, were disturbing.
Reinhardt said he doesn't expect the work to create much disruption to the surrounding neighborhoods.
"It's so far away from any house that I can't imagine anyone will be able to hear it," Reinhardt said.
The buried waste will be excavated and removed from the site by hazardous material trucks.
Fencing will be erected around the site for safety reasons and to mark the area's perimeter, Reinhardt said.
My concern, having listened to the din when Horace Wms was the staging site for the power plant upgrade, is not the noise. Rather, it is what might enter the air and affect lungs, skin, or eyes.
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