Selected against
“… was charged on July 8 with felony possession of marijuana. According to a police report, 58 grams of marijuana was found in a rental car after he returned it. ” (Chapel Hill News)
Author: Ruby Sinreich
Local harvest
Orange County Economic Development Commission and Cooperative Extension developed this guide to local agricultural resources. It’s not very easy to use (click on a topic and suddenly you’re downloading a file), but it’s a good start toward making it easier for folks to “Shop Orange” and support local agriculture.
N.C. Tax Dollars for what now?NYTimes: Low marks for Clarity
Someone explain to me again (no really, please don’t) how end-of-grade testing is making our kids smarter.
The State Board of Education threw out the disappointing results of a statewide writing test for schoolchildren, saying the exam was not written clearly enough. The 9-to-1 vote will ensure that teachers and schools are not penalized for the bad marks. Only 47 percent of fourth graders passed the single-essay test, down from 69 percent the previous year; 63 percent of seventh graders received passing scores, a decline of 10 percentage points.
WWJD?
Perhaps Jesus would be really proud to see these Christians display their love for fellow men by suing UNC for teaching about another (patriarchal monotheistic) religion, in this case Islam. It’s hard to swallow arguments about the separation of church and state from the same people who want me to say “under God” when I bow down before the flag. (Chapel Hill News)
It’s about time
Judicial Watch has filed a complaint against Dick Cheney and Halliburton for accounting fraud. Read more about it or read the complaint. I have been pleased (for a change) to see that the media and their talking heads have rejected Bush’s reform proposals as completely toothless and inconsequential. Now they just need to take the next step and ask why this is.
UPDATE: The Beeb (love them Brits) reports that Cheney was in a promotional video called “The Players talk about Andersen” for Arthur Andersen. He says “I get good advice, if you will, from their people … over and above the just sort of normal by-the-book auditing arrangement.” Click here to watch it. (RealVideo).
Another solution in search of a problem
The Chapel Hill Herald reports that the Mayor of Chapel Hill is considering setting up a task force to discuss downtown. No doubt this is in response to some alarmist reporting lately like the Spectator’s cover story this week, “Deserted Downtown.” The entire thing hinges on a bunch of scared white people. Merchants complain that Town Council Members don’t shop downtown enough. First of all, how do they know? Second of all, so what? I’m more concerned that no-one LIVES downtown, including most of these merchants and all of the Town Council. Non-student-oriented residential development would do more for the downtown economy than all the parking and panhandling regulations the Downtown Commission can dream up.
The Teflon Prez?
NYTimes: “Mr. Bush repeatedly dismissed assertions that he had failed to properly disclose a 1990 stock sale, saying the criticism was nothing more than a political attack, although he acknowledged that he still did not know why the sale had not been disclosed as promptly as required by law.”
Read the real deal at the Daily Enron.
Jury-orderd Gang Rape in Pakistan
The New York Times reports that this woman was sentenced with immediate rape for her 11-year old brother’s consorting with a woman of the wrong class. “In Punjab a woman is raped every six hours and a woman is gang-raped every four days, yet only 321 rape cases were reported to the police last year.”
Free the press!
Check out the N.C. Independent Media Center! Hosted at the ever-fabulous Internationalist Books and Community Center, of course.