Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
A book about the 1950’s sounds like a bland and vanilla story but it turns out David Halberstam had two stories to tell – and one wasn’t about the 50’s. Back when Milton Berle and ‘I Love Lucy’ ruled the airwaves unemployment was nil, inflation was nil, incomes were rising and families were moving…
Forget for now what Democrats will do in the Age of Trump. What will Republicans do? They won their biggest election victories in many a year, thanks to a man who ran against their party establishment, ridiculed and routed their favored candidates, and has at best a tenuous commitment to their conservative orthodoxy. He promises…
At an ‘Open House’ years ago at our school I listened as Eric talked with a parent I barely knew – then as the parent walked away I said, He sounds like a reasonable man. He mistreats his wife, Eric said. Physically? Eric nodded. I looked back at the parent and saw a different man.…
Masochist that I am, I’ve read a lot of second-guessing and score-settling about why the extraordinarily well-qualified Hillary Clinton lost to one of the most loathsome and unprincipled men ever in politics (and that covers a lot of scoundrels). A fair, thoughtful and balanced analysis – one that is brutally honest, but also constructive rather…
Rob Christensen recently noted “a number of parallels” between Donald Trump and Jesse Helms. (“Trump, like Helms, rode populist streak as outsider”). But another parallel deserves attention. Read on. Rob wrote: “Both Helms and Trump were plain-spoken populists who gained much of their support from blue-collar workers and from people living in rural areas. “Both…
We Americans thrive on disagreeing and fighting among ourselves – it’s part of the fabric of our democracy. But, since the election, our natural crankiness seems to have deepened into paranoia. Young people in colleges are demonstrating, afraid, after Donald Trump’s election, their freedom of speech is in peril. More than a few Internet websites…
Two Page One stories. Two men. Two very different Americans. John Glenn was my hero when I was 12. He still is 55 years later. Everything shut down at Martin Junior High School in Raleigh so we could watch Glenn’s flight, from launch to splashdown, including the anxiety about reentry. All of us boys wanted…
On Election Day Republicans lost their majority on the State Supreme Court, but this morning the newspaper reported – when the General Assembly returns to town next week – Republicans may try to ‘pack’ the State Supreme Court by adding two new Republican Justices. Since the election there’s been a story – more of a…
Today’s paper reports that, if Republicans repeal Obamacare, some 30 million Americans will lose health insurance. Another 10 million will lose subsidies and have to pay more for insurance. Give Donald Trump credit. He may do something President Obama never could do: get Americans to understand and appreciate Obamacare. How’s that Make America Great Again…
North Carolina voters don’t like either the Democratic or Republican parties. But Independent voters – who…
How do you get your news? Our statewide poll asked North Carolina voters what their primary…
Thom Tillis and Phil Berger fed the MAGA alligator. Then it ate them. Thomas Mills wrote…