Categories
Miscellany

Ford in Orange County

Gerald Ford may have had one of the best laugh lines in a State of the Union with “I’m a Ford and not a Lincoln.”
He also spent a good deal of time in Orange County, first taking law classes at UNC and then in pre-flight training for the Navy. He must have spent a lot of time out at Horace Williams.

Fom his official Navy bio:

Instead of waiting for the draft, Ford wanted to join the Navy. His background as a coach and trainer made him a good candidate for instructor in the Navy’s V-5 (aviation cadet) program. Ford received a commision as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on 13 April 1942. On 20 April, he reported for active duty to the V-5 instructor school at Annapolis, Maryland. After one month of training, he went to Navy Preflight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he was one of 83 instructors and taught elementary seamanship, ordnance, gunnery, first aid, and military drill. In addition, he coached in all nine sports that were offered, but mostly in swimming, boxing and football. During the one year he was at the Preflight School, he was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade on 2 June 1942, and to Lieutenant on March 1943.

av82-18-0034.jpg

Ford at a Navy ceremony at UNC.

Categories
Miscellany

Happy Christmas

Categories
Miscellany

Que viva la Virgen! More Holiday Music with a Difference

Recorded in a Durham church in the wee hours of a cold morning in late December last year. This is probably one of the most powerful expressions of a community of faith I have ever seen—thousands of people bundling up the children for a trip to the church at 3 a.m. where, along with the Mariachis, they serenaded the Virgin of Guadalupe and asked for her blessing.

Audio:
Las Mananitas
Song for the Virgin of Guadelupe

Read Sylvia Pfeiffenbeger’s story in the Indy from last year:

By 4 a.m., some 2,000 people have arrived. A young man standing near the shrine decides: It’s time to sing Las Mananitas again, now that more people are here. Everybody sings along now with Fernando’s full lead voice, the warm, wide vibrato of trumpets, the fat plucked bass of the guitarron and the strummed ukelele-like vihuela. As silence after the last verse falls, a bracing cry spontaneously rises: “Que viva la Virgen!”

Photo by Derek Anderson

Photo by Derek Anderson

Categories
Miscellany

Site update and Noon Report

Howdy OCSC folks. Thanks for the shoutout.

Got the official launch coming on Jan. 1 — not too early in the day. News and features as they happen with daily updates around noon. Still messing with the design and feeds from other sites. Have some fun with it. There’s already quite a few things to see. You might want to start by visiting a recent post with a couple of Doo-wop gospel tracks. It’s, you know, seasonal.
In non-in-house news,

• FYI: Holiday Trash Collection sked

• Eddy Landreth on the Heels’ D

• A look at Elizabeth Edwards’ online visits (including the welcome-to-the-neighborhood thread on OP).

• WRAL jumped on the CHPD’s report of immigration scammers:

Authorities said people are going door-to-door in neighborhoods with Hispanic residents. The victim is told that he or she has won a free English course. At a later date, additional materials, including workbooks and recorded media are taken to him and he is told that he is required to pay.

Police said when the victim said he does not want the course, he is told he will be arrested if he does not pay.

If you’re looking for more holiday distractions, over at The Cape Fear Mercury I’ve been posting a stream of photos and various field notes from this year’s travels around the state.

Categories
Miscellany

Solstice

7:22 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
solsticeweb.jpg

Spring is just around the corner.

From the Naval Observatory:

The Sun reaches his southernmost excursion among the stars on the 21st at 7:22 pm EST. At this moment the center of Old Sol’s disc stands directly above the Tropic of Capricorn about 650 miles (1000 kilometers) south of Pago-Pago in the South Pacific Ocean. The Sun will seem to hover at this latitude for a time, then gradually begin its inexorable northward trek toward the summer solstice half a year from now. Even though we experienced the year’s earliest sunset on the night of the 7th, the latest sunrise won’t occur until the first week of January. If we measure the length of time between sunrise and sunset on the 21st, we would indeed find it to be the year’s shortest day, with the Sun above the horizon for a mere 9 hours 26 minutes here in Washington. Alert skywatchers may have already noticed that sunset is starting to occur later than it did back on the 7th. On the solstice itself the Sun will set four minutes later than it did two weeks ago.

More at the Royal Observatory, Greennwich

Categories
Miscellany

Holiday Music with a Difference

Some of the most fun I had working for the Indy was making the rounds with an audio recorder as Derek Anderson photographed performers to be featured in a holiday music issue. The photos turned out great and I’ve got some memorable audio.

First up: The Durham Carolers

Photo by Derek Anderson

From Mosi Secret’s essay:

Since 1935, the Durham Carolers have shared their distinct sound–part a cappella harmony, part gospel–with families in Durham. In the beginning, the group went caroling on Christmas Eve in different neighborhoods across town. Over the years, the performances have moved inside the homes and the members have changed, but the sound–the spirit, really–has not.

The audio was recorded in early December, 2005 during a rehearsal at a church in Durham.
Audio Tracks:

• Rise Up Shepherd

• Go Tell it on the Mountain

Categories
Miscellany

Noonsville Report

Good noonish, here’s a rundown:
• Sorry to say that the lovely warm front is heading out in the next 24 hours.
• If you haven’t seen the Carrboro Commons print edition, there’s a huge stack at VisArt, where they are also having a sale on all VHS tapes for $2;
• Same subject in a way—Ruby gives the CC and the Citizen props in OP;
• The Herald looks at the transfer requests for Carrboro High School—152 and counting don’t want to leave their present school;
• N&O on the economics of Carolina North
Meanwhile, Carrboro.com is keeping tabs on the latest in Sima Fallahi’s case. I’ll post a full update on the Citizen later this evening.

State stories via Exile:

Think there’s gonna be another wonderful state largess to distribute in the upcoming session? Um, probably not. At NC Policy Watch, Chris Fitzsimon points to a new study that shows we’ll need an extra $2.3 billion over the next couple of years to fix the holes in the mental health care system.

Meanwhile, this morning the State Auditor’s office released the first full financial audit of the state lottery. I make no claim to understand what the bottom line really means, but there will no doubt be some spin headed our way shortly. Here’s the link to the page with the pdf.

I’ve gotten a few emails and a comment on the strangest political stories of the year. I’ll be posting mine this week and they’ll be in print in the Indy and Yes! soon. So, please drop by and leave your idears. I mean, it was a strange blue moon kind of year, eh?

Not so strange: Marc Basnight will lead the Senate in the next session.

Senate Democrats also nominated Sen. Charlie Dannelly of Mecklenburg County to a third term as deputy president pro tempore, Sen. Tony Rand of Cumberland County as majority leader, and Sen. Katie Dorsett of Guilford County as majority whip.

Sen. R.C. Soles, D-Columbus, was re-elected as caucus chairman and Sen. Charlie Albertson, D-Duplin, was re-elected as caucus secretary.

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Stam has been elected the new leader of the House Republicans, taking over in a chamber where his party’s influence has declined in the past four years.

At least there’s some things you can count on in this crazy world.

Categories
Miscellany

Site news

Hello Orange Politics visitors. Couple of things to note:

This site is both blog and aggregator. Along the left and right columns are an array of local blogs and links including a number of local RSS feeds. If you’ve got a blog you want to add or suggest please contact me or hit the add a blog link in the local blogroll.

I’m planning for regular news-gathering and reporting operations to start at the first of the year. Suggestions for what to cover, how, and any other ideas would be very helpful.

Thanks,

Kirk Ross
Editor

Categories
Miscellany

Edwards to announce

Via TPM Cafe and the AP (and cross-posted from Exile on Jones Street):

Edwards will announce his run for the presidency in a Christmas to New Years tour starting at New Orleans Ninth Ward.

There’s probably no better place in the country to highlight the two Americas. The current administration and the former congress made a few speeches and then turned their backs on the Gulf Coast. One long camera pan through the lower Nin’t Ward shows you Rome burning.

The tour will also move through the early primary states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina.
One America Committee

John Edwards’ MySpace Page

Categories
Sports Weather

The Mill is Closed on Saturdays

Especially on days like today.

You might want to take a day off early next week as well.

Heels at 2 p.m. against UNC-Asheville. Links via Tar Heel Daily.

Categories
Miscellany

The 12:30 report

Lovely afternoon for some politics

As many of you already know, Joe Hackney is running for Speaker of the House. It’s a pretty wide open field now that Jim Black has stepped down.
Here’s a post from my Exile on Jones Street site with a mug shot and a few links for each Speaker candidate. Hackney said recently he thinks he can win because of his record as a consensus builder. There’s also interesting talk of a dual Democratic speakership.
Other stuff in the air:

And you thought you didn’t like Liddy Dole. Tip of the hat to Ed Cone for pointing out a John Grooms article on Liddy. Yeeeow. Meanwhile, BlueNC takes aim at the D.C. insiders who are a little behind the story (or are they?).

Also, here’s the Hardball at UNC with the Edwards megapost on Kos