newsobserver.com blogs -- editor

The moment

danbarkin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:44:08 -0500

N&O staff photojournalist Robert Willett shot this picture at the Duke-UNC game last night. Austin Rivers' shot is headed to the basket. Time has expired, the backboard has been illuminated. John Henson of UNC and Ryan Kelly of Duke are watching the trajectory of the ball. In a moment, the ball will fall through the hoop and Duke will win a stunning victory. In this frame, the outcome is still uncertain. All that these players and both nations know is that there is no time on the clock but the game is not over quite yet

Check out this video

danbarkin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:08:42 -0500

Check out this story and video from the Green Hope-Cary basketball game. The team manager hit a three-pointer. But that's not the whole story.

Air Economy

danbarkin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:44:44 -0500

Living in this economy is like flying in a jet where the pilot has set the flaps wrong and there's ice all over the wings. You just cross your fingers and hope the sucker gets airborne.

Today, at 8:30, we learned that the economy created 243,000 jobs in January, which blew by forecasts. Good. Maybe the plane is gonna make it.

Our economy is nothing if not resilient. It can take a punch. It seems like only yesterday - well it was Aug. 4 of last summer - when the Dow dropped 512 points. The big, black headline on our front page read: Economy 'one shock away from recession,' a quote from one economist in the story.

The next day, Standard & Poor's - those wonderful people who said all those toxic subprime mortgage securities were just fine during the housing boom -- lowered America's credit rating. Why anyone in their right mind would listen to S&P is beyond my understanding, but sure enough, the next Monday, the Dow dropped another 634 points. "Dow plunges 600 points as worldwide markets stagger." So read the headline on our front page, with a nasty looking five-column, red fever chart showing exactly how the worldwide markets were staggering.

Well, the recession didn't happen. We're not seeing raging growth yet, but today's jobs numbers suggest that after getting the bejeezus scared out of them by the plummeting stock market, the debt ceiling crisis in Washington, the Greek crisis, the Spain crisis, the Italy crisis, and the collapse of the Red Sox, American employers have started hiring.

The exponential spread of the Internet and the growth of 24-hour business cable TV has been a wonderful thing. We know what's going on in every corner of the global economy. But that also means that we know what's going on in every corner of the global economy. Ever time some deputy finance minister in some distant country the size of Nebraska has something negative to say, it has the potential to roil markets here and make executives shaving to CNBC in the background get the willies.

That is where we are, for better or worse, a nation of extremely nervous people, economically speaking. Every piece of bad news seems to have a big capacity to frighten us while every piece of good news -- well, is it really good news? Immediately after the jobs number came out today, experts -- meaning people with Twitter accounts -- started discounting it. One theory had the warm weather to blame, because more people were able to work outside in, say, construction who would normally not be able to work. And Rick Santelli, CNBC's perpetually bearish reporter at the Chicago Board of Trade and patron saint of the Tea Party, focused on how many people were leaving the labor market. Well, that may also have to do with the leading edge of the 75 million Baby Boomers, having crossed the 65 mark, retiring. (Which is an interesting economic phenomenon. In a couple of years, employers may be complaining that they can't fill jobs because of the huge wave of retirements. Hang on, Gen X and Millenials. Your time is coming fast.)

We won't know about the jobs situation until we see how the numbers look for the next few months, but today was better than a poke in the eye. Let's take the weekend to enjoy today's news, and then start worrying about Greece again on Monday. And don't get me started about Iran.

Erskine really likes Facebook

danbarkin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:59:41 -0500

I read through Facebook's S-1, the voluminous document that it filed yesterday in preparation for its initial public offering. Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff and former UNC system president, is on Facebook's board. According to the S-1, Bowles is chairman of Facebook's audit committee, which is the group responsible for making sure all the company's numbers are on the up and up. This is a particularly important role for new companies that are trying to convince the investing community that its revenues and profits are real, as opposed to Enron-like.

For his service on the board, Bowles has received 20,000 "restricted stock units," or RSUs. Facebook estimates the value of those at around $600,000. But he has to stay on the board for several years before they completely vest. Frankly, that's chump change to Bowles. Being on the board of the world's hottest company is probably something he'd do for nothing.

And frankly, a couple of guys on the board who you might recognize have much sweeter deals, such as Mark Andreessen, who has 5.2 million RSUs, and Don Graham, who has a million RSUs. Andreessen, who also has a bunch of Class B stock, according to the S-1, is the fellow who helped make Netscape the dominant internet browser in the early '90s. And Graham is the chairman of the board of the Washington Post.

Of course RSUs only pay off if Facebook continues to prosper. Andreessen knows from watching Microsoft's Explorer overtake Netscape 15 years ago how an Internet business can get demolished by a competitor with deep pockets.

The question I have is whether Erskine would rather spend the second half of his 60s hanging out with Mark Zuckerberg or being governor of North Carolina.

UPDATE: A reader also reminded me that Bowles is on the board of Morgan Stanley, the investment bank that is the lead underwriter on the IPO. The S-1 notes that Bowles began his career in corporate finance at Morgan Stanley. It is such a small world.

UPDATE #2: Question answered. Bowles just announced he's not running.

N&O accepts Chapel Hill's apology

jdrescher — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:12:32 -0500

The Chapel Hill Town Council has apologized "for the actions taken against the press on Nov. 13." That was the day police made arrests at the former Yates Motor Co. building at 419 W. Franklin St., which had been occupied by protestors.

Two journalists were detained. One of them was Katelyn Ferral, a reporter for The N&O and Chapel Hill News. Before police arrived, Ferral was on the scene for about 15 minutes, interviewing people inside the building and walking around the site. When police approached the building they ordered everyone to get to the ground but allowed Ferral to shoot photographs. After a few more minutes, they told her to get on the ground. She told them she was a reporter and provided identification. She remained face-down on the ground for 15 minutes, was cuffed and then detained for about 30 minutes before being released.

It's clear Chapel Hill police didn't know what to do about the journalists. They knew Ferral wasn't doing anything illegal; otherwise they would have charged her. She in no way hindered their work. If police thought Ferral was in their way (and no one representing Chapel Hill police has ever said this, including Chief Chris Blue when I later met with him), they could have directed Ferral to a spot away from the action. Other police agencies in the Triangle routinely direct reporters to a spot deem appropriate by police. But Chapel Hill police had no written policy on how to work with journalists at a crime scene. Since then, I have shared Raleigh's written policy with town officials and met with Blue and Roger Stancil, town manager, to talk about how journalists and police can work together. It's in everybody's best interest -- police and those being arrested -- for independent observers to record the proceedings. Blue agrees with this. The presence of journalists can help protect police from unfounded claims of inappropriate force.

There was no reason to detain Ferral, other than police didn't know what to do with her. In this country, that's not a good enough reason to force a citizen to lie face down and be cuffed.

A majority of the council recognized that. We accept their apology and will work with Chapel Hill to help police and journalists do their jobs. --John Drescher

The UNC walk-off photo

danbarkin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:17:28 -0500

The photo isn't that remarkable, in and of itself. It shows the UNC men's basketball team filing by the victorious Florida State team, shaking hands as they depart for the locker room.

Except that the game clock still had 14.1 seconds, and this photo shows the UNC team at its lowest point in Coach Roy Williams' tenure. Because the game isn't over, but the Tar Heels are outa here.

Williams said he decided to take his team off the floor - except for the five benchwarmers assigned to play out the remaining seconds - so most of his players and staff wouldn't be on the court during the certain FSU fan celebration after the buzzer. He was concerned about their safety.

I said the photo, by staff photographer Robert Willett, wasn't that remarkable as far as pictures go. His dozens of game action photos are more compelling. But it may be the sports photo of the year here, because it will either show UNC before a remarkable resurgence over the next couple of months, or it will show the moment that UNC was revealed to be a deeply flawed team going nowhere. In the case of this picture, context is everything, context Saturday in Tallahassee and context in the weeks and months ahead.

So we will see if this becomes the iconic picture of the 2011-2012 season for the Tar Heels.

A request for Tracey Cline

steveriley — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:59:14 -0500

At The N&O, we're accustomed to having folks saying unpleasant things about us. Most of the time, we just smile, let it pass. Occasionally, we have to admit that the caller or letter writer is correct.

We try to draw the line when someone falsely accuses us of illegal behavior.

That's what Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline has done, repeatedly, in her legal battle against Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson. In her most recent court filing, Cline again says, in a sworn affidavit, that reporter Andrew Curliss was held in contempt of court in Durham in 1998.

In her affidavit, trying to disqualify Hudson from hearing a criminal case, Cline assembles her version of what happened to Curliss after his jailhouse interview with Derrick Allen in 1998:

"By this time, I knew that this reporter and the Raleigh News and Observer had a vested interest in the Allen case; in that in 1998 Curliss was held in Contempt of Court for refusing to follow a Court Order to provide the notes of an interview with Allen."

Let me say this as simply as I can: That is false. Not true. Didn't happen.

Here's what did happen: Curliss interviewed Allen, who was in jail after being accused of sexual assault and murder of a 2-year-old girl. He wrote a story about it. Durham prosecutors were interested in anything else Allen said, and they subpoenaed Curliss' notes.

The N&O did resist this subpoena. But we ended up submitting the notes for Hudson to review. Hudson ordered the notes turned over, but stayed his order while we appealed. Curliss was never called to testify, and he was not cited for contempt. Not in this case, not in any other case.

We have tried to point this out in news stories, but Cline doesn't seem to be getting the message. So today, I mailed (and e-mailed) a letter to her. It simply asks her to correct the court record and stop saying what isn't true.

Cline is angry that Hudson has dismissed charges against several high-profile defendants in Durham, some of them because of prosecutorial misconduct. Cline believes, incorrectly, that we have somehow conspired against her with Hudson and defense lawyers to compile our stories that have shown that she has withheld exculpatory evidence from defendants and made repeated misstatements in court. Now, while complaining about our work and Hudson's, she has made another one.

Since this misstatement involves us, we'd like to set the record straight. We trust that Cline will, too.

--Steve Riley, Senior Editor/Investigations

This new year, get an exercise plan

jdrescher — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:42:03 -0500

There’s a pill that reduces your risk of diabetes, high-blood pressure and some cancers. It lowers your risk of being anxious or depressed. It is inexpensive (virtually free in some cases) and widely available. It is the wonder drug of all wonder drugs.
OK – it’s not a pill. It’s exercise.
Starting Sunday, our series, “Exercise: The Real Wonder Drug,” will show how exercise helps you and how you can get moving. The series starts on the front page, moves to the Connect section Monday and continues Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Life, etc.
We will show you how gadgets can help tailor your exercise routines. We will offer tips for getting out there and getting it done (find a buddy, start slowly). We will tell you what and when the average exerciser should eat. We will show how you might look with a new wardrobe, once you lose weight.
Getting started can be the hardest part. There is an exercise routine for everyone; you just have to find yours. Any movement is good.

--John Drescher

Covering presidential politics in the '70s

danbarkin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:41:56 -0500

The Iowa caucuses tonight brought back memories of when I was a small-town reporter covering presidential politics in the '70s.

Jimmy Carter really put the Iowa caucuses on the map. He practically lived in the state in 1974 and 1975, and was catapulted from an obscure southern governor to a top tier candidate when he "won" the Democatic Iowa caucuses in 1976. I say "won" because the most votes that night went for "uncommitted." He got the most votes of the rest of the field.

What was happening is that many Democratic warhorses were not crazy about throwing in with Carter, and so they wanted to keep their options open. A lot of them wanted former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Or Sen. Henry Jackson. Anyone but Carter.

In the Southwest Virginia county where I was a young reporter, we had a presidential "mass meeting," which was essentially the same as a caucus. The old, conservative guard that controlled Democratic politics in the county wanted to stay uncommitted. A group of younger Democrats were pushing to commit the county for Carter. I forget how the mass meeting turned out, but essentially the process - nominally about selecting delegates to the congressional district convention - was all about the local power struggle between the old guard and the young Turks.

Which is one of the things that gets lost in the coverage of presidential politics, the local power struggles that are of little interest to the national journalists, but are important at the grass roots.

(It is also worth remembering that funny bounces in the presidential nominating process can be a big deal, something to ponder tonight as the results come in. The turning point in the 1976 Democratic story may have been the Wisconsin primary, when Carter beat Mo Udall by 1 percentage point, 37 to 36 percent. But for that narrow win, Carter's momentum may well have been stopped and he might have been relegated to a footnote in history.)

That year, 1976, we had a local guy in the county who was going to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention. This is often forgotten history, but Ronald Reagan was challenging President Gerald Ford for the nomination. My local guy was uncommitted, and the Ford and Reagan camps were busily chasing down every single uncommitted delegate. My job at the paper was to call the guy daily and see if he made up his mind yet. The nomination battle was so close and intense, that every time an uncommitted delegate came off the fence, it was big news. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think my guy committed to Ford after Reagan threw a Hail Mary pass and announced before the convention that he was going to pick a liberal Republican senator from Pennsylvania as his running mate. This was back in the day when there were liberal Republicans, and Reagan's strategy was to see if he could shake loose some Northeastern delegates. It did not work.

As the political reporter at the paper (and city hall reporter, and occasional police, school board and county government reporter), I would get sent to state political conventions and the like. One Republican convention in the late '70s that I attended featured Reagan as the keynote speaker. This was after his failed challenge of Ford and before his successful challenge of Carter in 1980. I recall being in a large room at the Roanoke, Va., civic center filled with delegates off the main hall when Reagan entered. The place went nuts. The delegates converged on Reagan, and it almost became impossible for him to navigate the room. He was a rock star.

I got as close as I could, right next to him. I have two memories. First, that he looked pretty old. (He was probably 66 or 67. In other words, about eight years older than I am now.) The other thing I remember is that he was thoroughly enjoying himself, trapped in an excited crowd all trying to shake his hand at once. He was having the time of his life.

Tar Heel of the Year named Sunday

jdrescher — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:37:10 -0500

We will name our Tar Heel of the Year on the front page of Sunday's paper. The profile was written by education reporter Jane Stancill, who has worked at The News & Observer since 1988. She has reported and written almost every kind of story that appears in a newspaper, from police news to developments from the UNC Board of Governors. But this is her first Tar Heel of the Year profile.

It’s a good assignment, Stancill said. “Anyone chosen (as Tar Heel of the Year) is an overachiever, someone doing something remarkable,” she said. “You have to figure out what drives that individual, what makes that person want to have a strong impact.”
The N&O has selected a Tar Heel of the Week since 1950 and a Tar Heel of the Year since 1997. One year we named two people (Ann and Jim Goodnight), so we've named 15, including banker Hugh McColl (our first Tar Heel of the Year); historian John Hope Franklin; and scientist Joe DeSimone.

I hope you will look for Stancill's fine profile about one of our state's most accomplished leaders.

--John Drescher

Go after those unpaid tickets

danbarkin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:56:47 -0500

Anyone who has had a son or daughter attending college in Raleigh has probably paid a few parking tickets to the City of Oaks. I know I have. So I am fine with the city of Raleigh's move to buddy up with the state to collect unpaid parking tickets from state tax refunds. Matt Garfield had a story about this the other day.

Raleigh has $1.6 million in unpaid parking fines since 2006. Matt says that comes out to around 16,000 tickets.

I am a big fan of local and state governments using the threat of withheld tax refunds or lottery winnings to get deadbeats to pay parking tickets, delinquent taxes and child support.

Nothing makes me crazier than stories like the one Jim Morrill of the Charlotte Observer wrote last April, reporting that state tax delinquencies exceeded $1 billion. I am one of those people who believes there is a special Barkin audit committee at the IRS and a corresponding one at the N.C. Department of Revenue that pore over my taxes every year, checking my math and making sure I've paid every last dime that I owe.

Meanwhile, deadbeats all over North Carolina are going la-di-da about their taxes, paying them when they feel like it. We are told that some of these folks included businesses that have been hit by the recession, and the like. I'm not having it. Most of us working stiffs don't have any choice but to pay taxes. It comes out of our paychecks.

I think the folks who aren't paying their taxes are the same folks who douse their parking tickets with lighter fluid to start the charcoal in their pig cookers.

So I say: Go get 'em, Raleigh.

Iowa, four years ago

danbarkin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:22:47 -0500

I have been thinking about what we are going to need to do for the Jan. 4th paper, when we will run the results of the Iowa caucuses. So I went back to look at the paper from Jan. 4, 2008, to look at what we did then. (This is a lot of how we get started in our thinking; looking at what we did last time. The trap, of couse, is that this isn't the best way to innovate. But anyway.)

I was reminded that four years ago, if Barack Obama wasn't in the race, John Edwards would have probably won the Democratic Iowa caucuses, and with that momentum, he might have gone on to win the nomination over Hilary Clinton. Obama got 38 percent in Iowa, Edwards 30 percent and Clinton 29 percent.

In the Rob Christensen/Jim Morrill story about Edwards' 2nd place finish, we quoted an ECU political science prof as saying "Edwards is in big trouble."

Little did we know.

On the Republican side four years ago, Mike Huckabee won Iowa with 34 percent, followed by Mitt Romney, with 25 percent. The eventual GOP nominee, John McCain, got 13 percent.

On our Jan. 4, 2008 front page, we ran mugs of the top vote-getters across the top of 1A. McCain's showing was so feeble that he didn't get a picture. He was listed as an also-ran with Fred Thompson, who also got 13 percent. You know, Fred Thompson of Law and Order fame.

This year, the focus will just be on the Republicans, and it is worth remembering that the Iowa caucuses can be predictive except when they're not. Jimmy Carter put them on the map and Ron Paul may take them off.

And at the end of next month, four years to the day after Edwards quit the presidential race, jury selection is scheduled to start in his trial in federal court in Greensboro.

Kim Jong Il dead, Team America trending

danbarkin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:42:59 -0500

At 9:37 p.m. last night, Bloomberg News sent out a one-paragraph story to its customers, like us, saying that North Korea's Central News Agency was reporting that an "important broadcast" was coming on state television. That was the first inkling we had that something was up.

A half hour later, at 10:07, Bloomberg reported that state television was reporting that Kim Jong Il had died.

We were going to lead the paper with the story about the House GOP rejecting the Senate tax plan, but that went out the window and the paper was redesigned to strip the Kim death story across the top.

And in other developments, Team America is one of the top trending Twitter topics.

The clipboard

danbarkin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:46:21 -0500

Mandy Locke's great series on the battle between WakeMed and UNC Health Care/Rex finished today. You can read lots of stories about the health care system coming out of Washington, but the impact of the changes could be seen in Mandy's series. The government is trying to rein in costs, and that translates to big changes at the local level, because that is where health care is delivered. And when I say local level, I mean the doctor's office and at the hospital.

Everyone says health care costs are out of control. So if the government and the insurance companies are to squeeze costs out of the system, they will be squeezing the docs and the hospitals. That's it.

When I think about costs, I think about the clipboard that I sign when I get to my doctor's office. This is how they know that I'm in the waiting room, and who I am supposed to see, and when I came in. I get the same question every time, about whether I still have the same insurance. The woman at the front desk goes back to the enormous paper filing system and pulls the thick manila folder that has all my records.

When you hear talk about the enormous waste embedded in our health care system, this is a big part of it. (Don't get me wrong. I like the staff at the doctor's office.) Imagine if when you checked in, you had a card with all your medical and insurance information that you swiped at the front desk, and that immediately triggered all kinds of software that let everyone know in the practice that you were there, popped up your records on your doctor's iPad, including your most recent lab results. Imagine after seeing you, your doctor could write an electronic prescription and it would go to the pharmacy and your prescription was ready when you got there. Or it went to the mail-order pharmacy, relieving you of all the faxing and forms. Imagine that the doctor or nurse could on the spot schedule your next appointment, because they had access on their iPads to their schedule one, two and three months out. Imagine if you had to see a specialist, your primary care doctor or PA could see into the specialist's calendar and schedule an appointment. And on and on.

All of this technology is available, but it is expensive to install. And the doctors who run practices are not too keen about borrowing a huge amount of money to finance this technology when they are facing uncertainty about reimbursements from, say, Medicare. But they have to, because there are increasing pressures on them from government and insurance companies to become more efficient. No one wants to be paying for a gazillion clerks and acres of paper files. (Everyone seemed to get this point years ago in the rest of the economy. Wal-Mart is so wired that every time an item is swiped by a bar code reader at the checkout counter, Wal-Mart's computers managing inventories know this all the way back to Bentonville, Ark. I like to think that if Wal-Mart managed the health care system, costs would drop like a rock and the outcomes would probably be better. Docs are great when it comes to diagnostics, not so good at logistics and management.)

So the docs are having to scramble around, and form partnerships with hospital systems that are able to help them make this leap into the new technological era. Because hospitals have deep pockets and are good at IT.

And all this scrambling is creating competition between hospitals, which we are seeing play out at the local level. So when you read about the struggle to rein in the federal deficit, it is largely a struggle about how to reduce the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and that is going to play out in a frantic scramble at the local level as doctors, in particular, get squeezed and need to figure out how to survive.

You can see exactly how this survival scramble will unfold across the country by reading the case study that is Mandy's series.

Chelsea Clinton, intern

danbarkin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:42:29 -0500

I am not one of those print journalists who makes fun of TV journalists. For one thing, I have known a lot of very good TV journalists. For another, what they do is very hard. They have to be good journalists plus they have to not seize up when the anchor goes to them on a live shot at 11:05 from in front of the yellow crime scene tape.

I don't think NBC should have hired Chelsea Clinton, and my feelings were reinforced watching her last night. She did a job that would have been fairly mediocre even for a summer intern for a TV station in a small market. (At the end of the summer, the station manager advises her to go to law school.) Her story on Rock Center dealt with a woman who has, to her great credit, created an after-school program for poor children in Arkansas. But what you saw from Chelsea is the difference between a celebrity news correspondent and a real journalist. I didn't get the sense that Chelsea knew how to take the story beyond a puff piece. She didn't have a lot of authority in her presentation.There was .little in the way of larger context. It seemed more like Chelsea was covering Chelsea visiting an after-school program. She was in the story a lot.

If Chelsea Clinton wants to be a TV journalist, fine. But she should do what TV journalists do: Get a job in a local market, where you have to run from assignment to assignment, sometimes lugging your own camera and editing your own video. Stand out in a blizzard or a hurricane doing a live shot while the elements are conspiring to blow you down the street. Cover the city council meetings, the parades, go to a fire, etc. etc. It's not about paying dues. It's about learning how to report, how to tell compelling stories, how to overcome obstacles, without a team of highly paid network producers and photographers propping you up.

I have nothing but respect for the way Chelsea Clinton has lived her life. Unlike the children of many celebrities and politicians, she has never done anything to embarrass her parents, and she has, by all accounts, studied and worked hard.

My problem is with NBC putting an intern on a network news program, and trying to pretend like she's the real deal. Here's a story from The Washington Post that puts it better than I have.

The prospects for real estate

danbarkin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:54:46 -0500

I came across this article today on CNBC's web site that talks about the prospects for the real estate market in the next year. The article is optimistic, and makes reference to the Raleigh market.

Our market didn't experience the same kind of bubble as, say, Las Vegas or South Florida, so we didn't crash. Here's a story from David Bracken about recent market trends here.

Here's what we don't know. I looked at a great chart on the Zillow.com web site tracking Raleigh area housing prices. From a peak around 2008, the prices started jogging down. After each jog down, they would stabilize for a while. Then there would be another jog down. Right about now, they seem to have been stabilizing. Or bouncing on what seems to be a bottom. But we don't know yet if it's really a bottom, or if prices have another downward jog.

A big part of this is related to employment. Things seem to have gotten better the last couple of months. But a couple of months don't make a trend. The next look at the local jobless picture will come early next month, when the state will release November jobless numbers for local areas like the Triangle. If more people continued to be hired than laid off, then that will be a somewhat stabilizing influence on home prices, because demand will pick up.

What we also don't know is if there will be a Big Bang, when all the people who have been on the sidelines waiting to see how low prices home prices could go, all of a sudden conclude that they have hit a real bottom and figure it's time to pull the trigger. That could be really something, because new home inventory on the market is half what it was three years ago. When I saw that in a David Bracken story in October, I thought, boy, when this thing turns, it could be something. Builders are reluctant to put up new homes without having real buyers in mind, as opposed to the old days of spec building. So the supply of new stuff can't expand in a flash.

So with three years of pent-up demand ("The kids don't have anywhere to play"), incredibly low interest rates (Thanks, Bernanke) and a somewhat improving job market, it's possible that the local home market could provide surprises.

The passing of North Carolina native Tom Wicker

danbarkin — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:26:12 -0500

The New York Times reports that Tom Wicker has passed away at 85. A native of Hamlet, N.C. and a graduate of UNC, here is an excerpt from the Times obit.

"Thomas Grey Wicker was born on June 18, 1926, in Hamlet, N.C., the son of Delancey David, a railroad freight conductor, and Esta Cameron Wicker. He worked on his high school newspaper and decided to make journalism his career.

After Navy service in World War II, he studied journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1948. Over the next decade, he was an editor and reporter at several newspapers in North Carolina, including The Winston-Salem Journal, eventually becoming its Washington correspondent."

Pepper Spray

danbarkin — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:12:35 -0500

Pepper spray is the hot new meme. For a while, you will be seeing stories about people getting pepper sprayed. It started with the cop at UC Davis, who had the misfortune to forget that everyone has a camera phone as he casually sauntered down a row of demonstrators and sprayed them. That got everyone thinking about pepper spray like a bad '70s tune you can't get out of your head.

Today, on Black Friday, there are pepper spray stories popping up on the wires. This is the kind of phenomonon that makes communications scholars at our finer colleges and universities perk up, because they have all kinds of theories about how certain type of things percolate through the news ecosystem.

Costa Rican missionary to speak here Sunday

jdrescher — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:10:10 -0500

Wil Bailey, who grew up in Rocky Mount and now lives in Costa Rica as a missionary, will preach Sunday at 8:30 and 11 am at St. Francis United Methodist Church at 2965 Kildaire Farm Road in Cary. Bailey went to UNC-Wilmington and Duke Divinity School. Bailey is passionate about his work and the Costa Rican people. He was the subject of a column I wrote earlier this year.

--John Drescher

And how did you find out about this job opening?

danbarkin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:40:34 -0500

They had to post the football coach job at UNC, because thems the rules at large institutions, no matter how goofy it looks. So they used the generic posting form and application, which has this question: "How did you find out about the position opening?'

The options that the applicant can select do not include: "My agent at IMG" or "I was watching Sports Center and saw Butchie got canned."

The job description is:

"Manage and administer the UNC Football Program within University, ACC and NCAA rules and regulations. Promote academic progress of student-athletes. On and off-field coaching responsibilities to include but not limited to: recruiting, coaching, mentoring, and administrative responsibilities for the Football Program. A strong commitment and ability to motivate, teach, counsel, and recruit academically qualified student-athletes focused on both academics and athletics. All functions of the position will be performed in compliance with the rules, regulations, policies and guidelines of the NCAA, ACC, The University and the Athletic Department, and will be conducted with integrity and high ethical and moral standards. "

Oh, yeah, and as the late Oakeland Raiders boss Al Davis said, memorably, "Just win, baby."