Guest Author's blog
Guest Post by Gerry Cohen
THE NORTH CAROLINA DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS
A PRIMER ON THE APRIL 17 EVENT
Due to snags in approval of North Carolina's legislative redistricting plan and a Democratic National Committee requirement that delegate selection be finished by early June, the North Carolina Democratic Party has established caucuses to determine candidate preferences from North Carolina in time for the Democratic National Convention in July. North Carolina's 20 at-large delegates will be allocated proportionately to any candidate getting at least 15% of the caucus vote statewide, and the same 15% rule will apply in each congressional district, where from four to six delegates will be elected. (The Fourth District - including all of Durham and Orange, north Chatham, and western Wake - is the only district getting six delegates.)
Guest Post by Matt Robinson
Two weeks ago, a student at Chapel Hill High School reported that she had been raped by two fellow students in the woods across the street from her school. Later that same week, an employee at Britthaven nursing home was sexually attacked by a coworker while she was at work. In the background of these attacks looms an unsolved series of rapes and sexual assaults in Carrboro last month, assaults likely the work of one man.
All of this occurred in less than one month, within 4 miles of Chapel Hill’s downtown post office. Five reported attacks on five women in one small part of one small county of one state, in what most would describe as a pretty peaceful town.
But peaceful for whom? Not for the police, who are now investigating five attacks. Not for stunned students, nursing home employees, and women who live alone, fearful for their safety. And the area is certainly not peaceful for the victims and those who love them. For these people, the myth of a peaceful hometown has been shattered, replaced by tears, fears, and horrible memories.
Guest Post by Nick Eberlein
Now that UNC and Chapel Hill are prepping for new discussions over zoning and campus expansion, it seems like the editorial pages in the local papers have been handed their collective wet dream: "contentious negotiations," always ripe fodder for the opinion pages.
Woe is me, however, when I read rants like yesterday's editorial in The Daily Tar Heel entitled "Hostile Intention." I'm now convinced that what hampers both UNC and the town the most during these times of critical decision-making and long-term planning is the tendency of some in our community to blindly hop to one side of the fence or the other in reaction to either side's "hostility."
As both a UNC student and town native, I take strong issue with the DTH editorial board's assertion that "town residents would ideally like to live in a college town without the students." Nothing is further from the truth.
Guest Post by Alan McSurely
Originally published as "School board right to end ‘segregation,'" a letter to the editor of the Chapel Hill News.
Several letters and at least one News & Observer column by Rick Martinez have explicitly attacked the NAACP and, by implication, Valerie Foushee and Elizabeth Carter of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board, for our efforts to provide equal educational opportunities for each differentiated (and gifted) learner in our schools. These attacks suggest an organized effort to racialize this initiative.
Guest posts from two readers
Two readers suggested this topic and framed it well, so I am including both of their suggestions. -Ed.
How about gay marriage in Carrboro and/or Chapel Hill? Surely we can't let San Francisco and New Paltz get ahead of us in ensuring basic rights for minorities. It's not only the decent thing to do--it would also give some positive publicity to our area (how many people had heard of New Paltz until this weekend?). The more communities that are doing this, the harder it will be to impose a reactionary, disgraceful constitutional amendment to ban it.
- Steve Sherman
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