Although Orange County commissioners have postponed a decision on an ordinance that would ban dog tethering, Durham officials are scheduled to move forward tonight with their proposed ban on tethering.

Read more over at the Bull's Eye blog.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Looks like, if the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board wants a fulll gym in the new Northside elementary school, they're going to have to pay for it on their own.

In a memo for tonight's Town Council meeting, town staff recommend rejecting a school school board request for the town to partner with the schools to provide a full gym in the district's 11th elementary school, opening in Northside in 2011. Town staff say they already have a full gym in the Hargravers center nearby.  

In her request, school board chairwoman Pam Hemminger had cited the town-schools partnership that expanded a multi-purpose room at Rashkis Elementary into a full gymnasium.  

The town passed a steep tax increase this year and anticipates several more years of guaranteed tax hikes as it pays down debt on the new Town Operations Center on Millhouse Road and the new Aquatic Center opening this fall off Homestead Road.

I read Anne Blythe's story on the plans for hunting in Duke Forest  to cull the deer herd. I wondered about Morris Grove Elementary School, because the new school sits across Eubanks Road from the Blackwood Division of Duke Forest.

Just spoke with Judson Edeburn, resource manager  at Duke Forest. He added a few things to the article.

All schools have been notified of the hunting, which will take place Monday through Thursday, Sept. 15 to Dec. 30. There is no general hunting, as the article said; the university is contracting with hunting clubs. There are buffers surrounding the hunting areas, and the hunters must shoot from tree stands about 9 feet up and at a minimum location from the roads. 

"It's really not a possibility," Edeburn said when I asked about stray bullets. "We also know the exact location and direction of where the folks intend to hunt. They won't be directed at any risky area."

Lisa Stuckey, Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board member, asked last week why we publish unsigned blog comments in The Chapel Hill News. She noted that we require names on our letters to the editor, but when we publish comments from the OrangeChat blog in the print paper, we let people use screen names (which are usually not the writers' first and last names). Why the double standard, she wanted to know.

I contacted N&O public editor Ted Vaden, a former publisher of The Chapel Hill News. He said he had asked about the use of screen names on blogs himself and had been told this was a standard industry practice. Many readers who comment on blogs expect they can do this without putting their names to it and perhaps would not do so otherwise.

We have been publishing some of our blog comments in the newspaper because they are newsworthy. We post news in the blog that does not always fit into the News & Observer or Chapel Hill News, and readers' comments are often interesting and enrich the conversation. We try not to publish any comments that are cheap shots or could be offensive. 

But I wonder if Stuckey has a point. I know N&O executive editor John Drescher shares this concern. Right now, I'm leaning to restricting published comments to those signed by the writer or submitted by writers whose screen names are their names (like Mark Marcoplos, one of our frequest bloggers). The blog itself would continue to allow screen names, but to read posts in the Blogbits columns in the actual newspaper, we would need actual names. Perhaps this would even be an incentive for some people to sign their comments since the newspaper readership is many times larger than the blog audience.

What do you think? 

Mark

UNC Chapel Hill researcher Brian Strahl is hoping for his own Eureka moment. A new $200,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health may help.

Strahl, an assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the medical school, is one of 38 recipients to receive a new NIH grant. The federal agency is doling out $42.2 million in all under a new program calling for Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration. That'd be EUREKA; get it?

The idea, according to an NIH press release, is to encourage scientists to test out new, novel or unconventional ideas or to tackle major challenges.

Strahl will tackle "A high-throughput approach towards deciphering the histone code." So says NIH. You may want to consult Strahl's lab website for more information on his work. 

We just posted a story on the first candidates for the new 15-member authority being formed to search for a new airport location in Orange County.

Two of the names are familiar: former Town Chapel Hill Town Councilman Joe Capowski and former council candidate and frequent council critic Will Raymond. Capowski is seeking the town's one seat. Raymond is seeking one of the county's three seats.   

The third is a fellow named Russell Day. He's an almost pilot who's worked in ground services at different airports for 10 years but is currently working as a carpenter and finishing a screenplay about "a pilot who falls in love with a whore who becomes a stockbroker." It's set in the '80s, he says, which I guess explains all that.

Day has a novel idea. He suggests putting the airport on the site of the current Orange County landfill, already a transportation hub area.

"It's been done before," Day says. "You've got UPS over there. You've got the train tracks over there. You've got the highway. To me it looks like an ideal location."

Read more about the airport authority here. 

Most Chapel Hill-area high schools have moved their varsity football games this week to Thursday in anticipation of Hurricane Hanna.
Hoping to get their games in before the heavy rains predicted for this weekend, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Cedar Ridge and East Chapel Hill each plan to play one day earlier than previously scheduled.
Chapel Hill (1-0) now is scheduled to play at Smithfield-Selma (1-1) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in a highly anticipated rematch of last year’s state 4-A playoff game. CHHS won that game 13-7.
Also, East Chapel Hill (0-2) will host Cedar Ridge (1-1) and Carrboro (0-2) will host Cardinal Gibbons (0-1). Each of those games is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Thursday
Orange (2-0) and South Granville (2-0) have yet to announce a decision about their game in Hillsborough.

When I was in junior high, I had a science teacher named Mrs. Chan. I used to  look at her and know I was racist because every time I looked I could see she was black. At 13, I thought ... well, I don't know what I thought. I just figured if I kept seeing she was black I must be racist.  

I went to see "Tropic Thunder" Saturday. I knew some groups were calling for a boycott because the movie uses the word retard and Ben Stiller plays an actor who played a simpleton in one of the movie's subplots. I was not offended, and now I wonder if I'm insensitive to the perspective of people with intellectual disabilities.

In today's Chapel Hill News, My View columnist Megan Jones writes about the Tropic Thunder controversy.

"Nobody likes to be called a retard," Megan writes. "As far as I'm concerned it's
worse than a cuss word. (I'd take b---- over that any day.) ... I'm
sure many of you already know it really does hurt to be stuck under a
label. I think most of us have gone through it in our lives. Skin
colors, financial level. Even very pretty people get hit with it. I've
known people who because they are drop dead gorgeous are considered
bubbleheads. That's frankly another stigma built by some celebrities
behaving without thinking."

So what do you think? "Tropic Thunder" was the No. 1 movie in America again last week. Part of the millions it took in was my $6.50. And I'm still wondering whether I picked the right flick.    

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools had 11,737 students Monday, 34 over the district's projection.

The state counts 20th day enrollment for funding purposes. Last year the school district had 11,427 students on the 20th day of school, spokeswoman Stephanie Knott said this morning.

If Monday's enrollment holds, the district will have grown by 310 students or 2.7 percent.

Four of 10 elementary schools are above capacity: Glenwood, McDougle, Scroggs and Seawell.  Seawell remained the most crowded school, at 593 students, or 127 over capacity.

Morris Grove Elementary, the just-opened 10th elementary school on Homestead Road in northwestern Chapel Hill, has 533 students, 52 short of its 585-student capacity.

One of the district's four middle schools and one of its three high schools are over capacity.

Culbreth Middle School has 697 students, 27 above capacity. East Chapel Hill High has 1,578 students, 63 students above capacity.

Carrboro High School, which added its senior class this school year, has 770 students, 30 under capacity. Chapel Hill High School, which Knott said benefited the most from Carrboro's construction, now has 1,373 students, 147 below capacity.

Coming to driveways from Fearrington Village to Hillsborough tonight and early tomorrow morning:

SOUR PLUM: Plum Spring Clinic, a popular health clinic that offered a range of alternative and complementary medicine in Southern Village suddenly closed last month. Its medical director blames Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Read why in our lead story.

SUMMER SONATA: Chapel Hill has overwhelming talent. We shine the spotlight Wednesday on Jennifer Curtis. Read how the 29-year-old musician has spent most of August preparing for one of her biggests tests yet -- an appearance at the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Portschach, Austria.

THE BUTLER DID IT: The town of Carrboro approved a new condominium project last week. No news there. What was a first was the town's decision to accept cash instead of affordable condo units in the new project, The Butler. Read why they did it and why some think the town's affordable housing rules are broken.

Thanks for reading.

Mark