While we were putting out the most recent issue of The Citizen, the true extent of the destruction in Haiti was just becoming evident. Photos from far above were showing widespread damage – mile after mile of collapsed structures in a heavily populated area.
Category: Opinion
The more things in Raleigh change the more they stay the same
Chris Fitzsimon Nobody talked directly about North Carolina’s sputtering economy and budget problems at meetings of two high-level panels Jan. 14, but the anxiety wasn’t far from the surface. And neither were signals that make it hard to imagine any serious reform proposals emerging from either group for quite a while.
Shame on you, Mother Blue
Bill Sommers Recently, unsuspecting N.C. residents have found their mailboxes awash with Blue Cross Blue Shield mailings that shed manufactured crocodile tears on the “horror†of a relatively small public program included in the Obama Health Plan proposal, calling it a “vast expansion in the government’s role,†while praising its own righteous stance for “health…
Saving money and improving health care quality
Adam Searing With the health reform debate in full force, it’s time to take a close look at what these bills will do – not only to expand coverage and contain costs, but also to improve the quality of our health care. To begin with, reforms in both the House and Senate bills now under
MLK by the numbers
Chris Fitzsimon 81 – years since Dr. Martin Luther King was born on Jan. 15, 1929 47 – years since King wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail†on April 16, 1963 47 – years since King led the March on Washington on Aug. 8, 1963 42 – years since King was assassinated in Memphis on…
Making the commitment to college-readiness for all
Steve Peha When it comes to “college-readiness,†few people agree on what it is, but everyone seems to agree our high schoolers don’t have it. New work by the Common Core State Standards Initiative is supposed to bring us together on this. But standards have to be implemented by states, which have to develop benchmarks,…
Out of the deep freeze
The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they knit everything nicely together. Facts, fallacies and fantasy are all rolled together and any challenge from the reality-based world is rebuffed with a simple reminder of the sinister nature of those making the challenge and the evil overlords that control them.
It’s time to fix the state health plan
Adam Linker North Carolina now has an unprecedented opportunity to fix its broken State Health Plan. The State Health Plan Blue Ribbon Task Force that recently convened in Raleigh brings together lawmakers, state officials and other stakeholders to discuss ways to improve the insurance plan that covers more than 660,000 current and retired state employees….
2009: Wall Street bounced back, Main Street got shafted
Robert Reich In September 2008, as the worst of the financial crisis engulfed Wall Street, George W. Bush issued a warning: “This sucker could go down.†Around the same time, as Congress hashed out a bailout bill, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, the leading Republican negotiator of the bill, warned that “if we do not…
The new outsiders
The change in this state’s attitude toward tobacco has been an interesting transition to witness. Twenty-five years ago, you were some kind of puritan if you didn’t light up after a swell meal. I smoked my last cigarette sometime in the first week of January 2003, when we shifted to an outside-only rule at the…
Lemonade
Kudos to the Town of Carrboro and the owners of the property at the corners of Roberson and Greensboro streets for taking one of the fruits of a sour economy (the stalled condo/office complex approved for the site) and squeezing something beneficial from it in the form of scores of new downtown parking spots. Is…
Errata
An ill-placed break in the timeline for 2009 that we ran in last week’s paper could have led some to believe that very little happened last May. Plenty did. You can read the much-more-accurate version online at carrborocitizen.com/main/2010/01/01/timeline-2009/ Also in last week’s edition, we noted that state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird is likely to retire. If…
Letter: Thanks for photo
Thanks so much to Jock Lauterer and Tim Peck for providing the Almanac photo of the 1972 Chapel Hill High School Mens’ Soccer Team. Growing up in town and playing Rainbow Soccer these guys were my mentors, coaches and heroes. This group of athletes were true pioneers in bringing “the beautiful game†to the area….
Letter: Celebrate the New Year smoke-free
Orange County’s TRU (Tobacco. Reality. Unfiltered.) students welcome the new state smoke-free law, which goes into effect at midnight on Jan. 2. Every year, secondhand smoke causes 35,000 deaths in America. The U.S. Surgeon General has stated that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Many restaurant owners in Orange County have…
Durham must stop poisoning Jordan Lake
Julian Sereno Something is rotten in Durham, and much of the rot seems to be ending up in Jordan Lake. It’s time to put a stop to it. It began way back in the early ’90s when Walmart wanted to build a store near the intersection of I-40 and U.S. 15-501, a few miles from…