Issues
Light Our Fires
Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, said this week that the Times eventually will stop printing the paper and go totally on-line. Some say that could come as early as 2015. Just shoot me now. Not just because I’ll be one of the final holdouts who will still have a morning…
Read MoreRoy’s Ploys
In PR it’s called “getting ahead of the story.” Roy Cooper has tried it twice on the SBI story. Not happening. The N&O owns this story. Another Pulitzer is in sight. And today the N&O showed Cooper again that it, not he, is driving this train. Yesterday Cooper tried to get ahead by announcing…
Read MoreHard to Believe
Here’re two peculiar examples of modern economic theory as practiced by the Obama Administration. Both have to do with the President spending ‘Stimulus Funds.’ Alcoa Corporation has a net worth of $12 billion. The Obama Administration gave it $13 million in stimulus funds to pay for renovations at its Cheoah dam on the Little…
Read MoreA Sea Change
The other night at dinner a Democrat (who’s also a lawyer) started talking about growing up in a small town then stopped in mid-sentence and said, You know, that world no longer exists; then, a few mornings later in the News and Observer columnist Froma Harrop wrote about the TV program Mad Men’s aura of…
Read MoreCarter’s Religious Test
In a recent blog, Carter posed some lofty questions to me about religion, like: Are all religions equal? Is Islam a violent religion? And so forth. I’ve pondered posting some lofty thoughts that might help our readers in their own struggles with these vital issues of theology and faith. In the end, I’ve…
Read MoreHope Springs Eternal
This headline on a Wilmington Star-News editorial represents the apex of either naïveté or optimism about politics: âMisleading ads won’t work if voters are savvy.â
Read MoreGovernment Jobs
A reader called today with an interesting thought spurred by Richard Burr’s ad. She took issue with his suggestion that all jobs come from the private sector. She pointed out that government contracts with Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR and a raft of defense contractors sure created a bunch of jobs. She has a point.…
Read MoreA Win for Perdue
Remember the furor last year when Governor Perdue announced that dozens of long-term, convicted criminals might get out of prison early because of an issue over “good time”? Remember how everybody said what a disaster this would be for her? Remember how critics said she overreacted by threatening to stand in the jailhouse…
Read MoreFlight of Fancy
My friend Damon Circosta, executive director on the N.C. Center for Voter Education, gets an A for effort but an F for persuasiveness. Circosta, according to Under the Dome, says the flap over Governor Perdue’s campaign not reporting some flights is an argument for “voter-owned” (publicly financed) campaigns. http://projects.newsobserver.com/dome#ixzz0yBS20BU0 The logic goes over…
Read MoreResolved
I’m amused by people who argue that the “mosque” shouldn’t be built near Ground Zero because a poll showed a majority of Americans oppose it. Well, not along ago I saw a poll that found, for the first time, that most Americans think gay couples should be allowed to wed. That settles it,…
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