Vote Locally, Think Globally

With the state redistricting in limbo, the NC Dem Party has posted a contingency plan just in case the primaries can't be held on time www.ncdp.org. Everyone needs to check out this plan and comment before the public review process is over. If the primaries don't happen (likely at this point) then caucuses would be held by county. Since the caucuses are county caucuses and the final delegate selection is by senate district (I think), then Orange and Durham votes will be added to create a grand total for the 4th district. This makes it important that Dems (registered independents won't be able to vote) show up for the caucuses if they are held. Whichever candidate -Dean- turns out the people -Dean- will win the nomi-Dean-nation.

Any thoughts on the contingency plan and its effects on our local input into the process?

Funny Math

An effort to tally the number of homeless people in Orange County came up with the magic number of 236. While it's certainly a good idea to measure this, the methodology sounds pretty weak to me. Law enforcement literally went around and counted people. How can they possibly have seen and talked to every one? According to the Chapel Hill News:

The Chapel Hill police found six people without any shelter and 20 in doubled-up housing. Carrboro police found 24 with no shelter, Hillsborough police 10, and UNC police 10. The count also found one homeless person sheltered at Club Nova, a psychiatric rehabilitation center, 143 at the IFC's Community House, and 42 at the IFC's HomeStart facility.

Dude, Who Crashed My ATV?

While I'm fiddling with the where-are-they-now machine on this, the last day of 2003, a day when the grownups seem to have disappeared leaving us nothing substantive to chew on, I thought I should call your attention to the situation of former UNC-Chapel Hill Executive Vice Chancellor Elson Floyd, now the president of the University of Missouri system.

http://www.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stories/121103aah.html

It's too complicated to summarize, but it involves a basketball player/girlfriend beater named Ricky Clemons, NCAA violations, secretly taped conversations, a crashed ATV, and that scion of the Evil Empire, Quin Snyder. In my experience, Floyd was an honorable, honest, and candid vice chancellor when he was at UNC, and I'm surprised he's landed in this mess.

Teresa Chambers and Her Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This is a national story, but I thought some folks around here might be interested in what was happening to former Durham Police Chief Teresa Chambers. It seems that Chambers is about to be fired from her job as the chief of the National Park Police because she went on the record with a Washington Post reporter describing very specifically how her agency was underfunded, and what that meant on the ground.

http://www.slate.com/id/2093330/

I commend her on her courage and forthrightness, but I hope I'm not the only one who's struck by the irony. In Durham, Chambers was not known as someone who was forthright with the press. Indeed, she did everything she could to manage the department's image, which in her mind meant choking off the local press's access to police officers and police documents. Her feud with the Herald-Sun was particularly nasty and personal.

Then she goes to Washington and suddenly she's a whistleblower and a friend of the press? Better late than never, I suppose.

Year-End Awards

I'm going out of town for the next week so I offer this topic for discussion, which was submitted by Paul Jones:

In today's Chapel Hill Herald, Dan Coleman hands out "Awards" to various people and organizations. This is a time honored journalistic tradition of which one of the high point is the Texas Monthly's "Bumsteer Awards" and Esquire's "Dubious Awards."

What awards would the readers/posters of orangepolitics.org give and to whom? No reason that Dan, Texas Monthly or Esquire should be the only ones giving out awards. How about a thread on year end awards that we wish we could give?

Meanwhile, I am working on introductions for each of the archive topics (see them over to the right, from "About..." to "UNC"). If you'd like to write all or part of one, submit it via the "Contact Us" link. Please keep it brief. Your submissions might not be acknowledged, but if we use it you'll get credit.

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