Brian seemed to think it was silly, but I was really looking forward to Halloween in our new home this year.

When I was a kid and lived in the country, there were no neighbors for miles so I had to visit other people’s neighborhoods to go trick-or-treating. When I bought my house in Northside (a working-class, Black neighborhood) 5 years ago, I was excited to be in an old-fashioned walkable neighborhood and geared up for some kids in costumes. I was disappointed to find African-American kids who didn’t bother to dress up being driven door-to-door in minivans. I considered putting up a sign that read “No costume, no candy.” But I’m not that big of a grinch.

So I thought those kids were lame and kind of ripping me off – getting candy for free without even having to dress up – but at least none of them robbed me. That’s right: during trick-or-treating, some time between 7pm and 10pm, someone took my bike right off my porch! Although I did receive a wide variety of trick-or-treaters of many ages and races, with costumes ranging from slack (“player”) to rad (“Aragorn”). In fact, I was having a grand old time until Brian asked me if I had moved my bike.

So this really sucks. And I also need to point out that in the FIVE YEARS that I lived in the supposedly “unsafe” Northside (where drug deals happen on the street regularly) I never had one thing stolen from my home or my car and was never physically threatened. In nearly every other place I’ve lived since 1993 (all relatively middle-class, white neighborhoods like where we live now) I’ve had my car or home broken into.

I can’t decide whether to feel violated or pissed off. Plus I just bought that bike a few months ago and I can’t afford another brand new one! I guess I’ll just have to walk it off for a while.

This just in from the Well Duh Department…

Majorities of Iraqi youth in Arab regions of the country believe security would improve and violence decrease if the U.S.-led forces left immediately, according to a State Department poll that provides a window into the grim warnings provided to policymakers.
– Poll: Iraq Arab youth want U.S. to leave – Yahoo! News

What part of “get out” don’t we understand?

I confess: I live in iTunes (although I refuse to buy anything from their store). I can remember a few years ago when I couldn’t see the point of ripping my CDs. I still don’t even have an iPod but these days, if I listen to it, it’s digital. Even though iTunes works incredibly well (now that I’ve figured out how to bend it to my will), there are a few things I don’t like about it, most of all how it doesn’t want to let me use anything else.

There are a few alternatives, like Cog, but I haven’t found anything that can meet my musical needs all day long like iTunes does. Today Brian sent me a link to Get Songbird. I actually haven’t used it yet (it’s still in preview), but it looks like a serious contender.

It’s an open-source media player built on the same framework as Firefox. It looks like it could become as ubiquitous among discriminating web users as Firefox has. Watch their screencast and see for yourself.

And it has this adorable little songbird icon everywhere, with a cute little fart coming out of its little bird butt. I don’t understand it, but I like it.

For an upcoming Q feature on blogging and ethics in the Raleigh News & Observer, I was asked to write a short piece about how blogging improves the accountability of journalists. This is a topic that has already generated several critical books and web sites, but it seemed like a new idea to the Q editor so I tried to keep it simple.

I wrote more than the 250 words requested, so here it is in its full, unedited glory:

Although there is some natural antagonism between journalists who get paid to report and bloggers who thrive on criticizing them, there is actually incredible synergy between these two groups, and they do more to support and improve each other than they may realize.

Political and issue-oriented blogging is made possible largely by the work of professional journalists and researchers. While bloggers tend to be quite discriminating in our choice of media, we often do rely on local and national newspapers as well as specialized outlets for our sources of information.

But of course we don’t always agree with what we read in the mainstream media, and as bloggers we have a platform as well as an obligation to say so. This where I believe that journalists can benefit from blogs – if they are willing to move past the binary “us vs. them” mentality. While you might not always agree with bloggers’ media critiques, I think we can all agree that greater accountability for journalists is an important goal and increasingly important in these duplicitous times.

I write from personal experience or from what I have read in trusted sources (including select news media and blogs). I don’t purport to be a journalist, and I don’t claim to do that kind of research. The great thing about blogs is that if we get something wrong, commenters can say so right on the same page as the original story, and authors can discuss why they wrote what they did.

For example, on OrangePolitics we may read a story and be able to fill in more perspectives than were shared in the story as we did with a recent article about building heights in downtown Chapel Hill. Sometimes we let reporters know about pressing community issues that might not have otherwise merited mainstream coverage such as the community outrage at the ban on dancing at Carr Mill Mall. And very often we find that reporters are using the dialogue on our site as a source for direct quotations in their stories.

In most cases we’re happy to help journalists do their jobs better, but bloggers also demand respect for what we do, which is add authentic personal perspectives to the public debate on the issues of our time.

I’ll add a link if/when this is actually published, probably Sunday.

I just want to give some bloggy good wishes to my friends Suzie and Giles who got married over the weekend. They got engaged after having been together for 10 years. I admire the patience and tenacity it took for them to wait until the time was right. Now is definitely their time.

I love this picture – look at those smiles!

Click here to see all the pictures on flickr tagged gilesandsuzie.

According to a local TV station, it’s Deep-Fried Coca-Cola.

The fair’s on! Don’t delay, it closes this Sunday!