Issues
Drill We Must?
Dick Morris can be slimy and smarmy, but he’s smart. This week he put his finger on an issue that Democrats need to think hard about: offshore – or, as the Republicans call it – “deep-sea” drilling for oil. Clearly the Republicans have drilled down on this issue with some heavy-duty polling. Almost simultaneously, John…
Read MoreSatanists and Mammon
The Democratic Satanists in Durham are going on trial: According to the first hearing they’ve been “channeling demons” and, naturally, met through the Internet. For those who deny the occult, the defense attorney has a different explanation. He says there are no evil spirits on the loose in Durham – just a few people practicing…
Read MoreOdds and Ends
Well, I hope Gary’s dead-on right (see below) when he says John Edwards running for Vice President with Barack Obama is a fantasy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. But this morning didn’t help. My wife turned on Good Morning America and there Edwards was grinning like a Cheshire cat, gushing over Obama, sounding like a…
Read MoreThe Real Skinny
Picking up The News & Observer now is like running into an old friend who has been ravaged by cancer. It’s thin and sickly feeling. The editors promise us a lean and focused newspaper. I don’t want a lean newspaper; I want a fat one. And I don’t want focus; I want to stumble onto…
Read MoreExchanging White Hats for Black Hats
It’s hard to find a problem in America Barack Obama can’t blame on a corporation. Public opinion has whip-lashed against big business so viciously it’s like some genie popped out of a bottle and turned back the hands of the clock to the Era of the Trustbusters. The corporations – the politicians say – are…
Read MoreSkip’s Gamble
House Republican Leader ‘Skip’ Stam is turning thumbs down on North Carolina casting its electoral votes for the candidate for President who wins the popular vote – but it may turn out to be a political gamble that backfires. Last year – when Democrats put electing the President by popular vote on the table –…
Read More$4 Gas and Obama
A Republican consultant figures there is a direct relationship between the price of gas and Barack Obama’s vote in North Carolina. He told me he spent four days running numbers on turnout and election models. His conclusion: If gas stays under $4 a gallon, Obama’s maximum vote in the state is 46.5 percent. But if…
Read MoreThe School Board in a $36 Million Huff
The School Board’s shocked, just shocked. And mad. “Who on the Wake County Board of Commissioners,” growls one board member, “Wants the dubious honor of putting Wake County on a downward spiral?” What’s up? The Board asked the County Commissioners to almost double its budget over the next five years – and the Commissioners said…
Read MoreGood News, Bad News
The topic at breakfast downtown this morning was the cutbacks at the N&O – and consolidation with The Charlotte Observer. “Society and democracy took a hit this week,” one friend said. He believes the cuts mean less competition among the papers, less news coverage and less scrutiny of government. “But the papers have to face…
Read MoreThe Female Brain
Yesterday was a red-letter day for enlightened modernists and a black day for the old-fashioned. Duke University hired its first Muslim chaplain, keeping pace with Princeton and Yale in the Ivy League. Gay couples were flocking to chapels and marrying in droves in California and a scientist in Sweden has discovered gay men’s brains resemble…
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