Politics

Politics

There are 1,058 posts filed in Politics (this is page 43 of 106).

Outstanding Parks board meeting

I don’t know how I did it. I’m into my second week of an intense new job, getting up to speed with an extraordinarily sophisticated product, waking up before dawn to put in a full day before picking up the kids in the afternoon, and feeling flat-out exhausted most evenings. Still, somehow, somewhere, I found the energy to lead what might have been my best Parks board meeting yet.

I was dreading tonight’s meeting, knowing how behind-the-eight-ball I’ve felt over the past two weeks. The agenda was a heady one, with multiple votes to be taken on multiple projects. I thought we might be stuck there all night. The best I was hoping for was to get through it without nodding off in the middle of it. Honestly.

In spite of all this, though, everyone was in a jovial mood. The wisecracks were constantly flying, with everyone fair game for a little ribbing. With our packed agenda, we ran later than we usually do but no one seemed to mind. If that weren’t enough, every single vote tonight was unanimous. We have come together almost like one big family.

Where did all of this energy come from? Why do I feel so energized after meetings like tonight’s? I wish I knew these answers. A friend asked me tonight how I do this and my answer is I don’t know. It just seems to happen.

I was musing afterward that successfully leading a board (or any team, whether it be work colleagues, a sports team, or whatever) takes a light touch. It’s kind of like good sailing, where you just know what adjustment is needed in the sails to get the best performance. I imagine it’s also like leading a team of horses (like I would know, but humor me here), where you know the horses’ personalities and what it takes to get the best from each one. Good sports coaches do this constantly with their players. They know what it takes to get the best from each athlete, and – most importantly – how to put them in a position to succeed.

I’m not a coach (unless you count assistant coaching for little league baseball), I’ve never driven a team of horses, and I get to sail about once a year. Even so, every now and then I’ve seen magic happen in a meeting I’ve happened to lead. Few things to me are more fun than that.

Bored mom surfs porn on school computers

The paper covered a story (can’t link, sorry) about a North Raleigh mom who’s upset that she was able to figure out a way around the school’s Internet content filters. Mom Carolyn Homan has launched a crusade against this vile material being accessible from school computers:

“Kindergarten computers have access to porn,” Homan said at Tuesday’s board meeting, as she held up photos of graphic images she said came from Brassfield’s computers. “Filters filter out only a few sites such as Playboy, leaving billions of explicit videos and sites.”

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Highlights of 2012: Parks board fun

The year 2012 was the start of my second year as chair of Raleigh’s Parks, Recreation, and Greenway Advisory Board (PRGAB). It’s been a busy year, too, I might add.

I continued to speak on behalf of the board at a number of park dedications and groundbreakings, among them the House Creek Greenway Dedication, Carolina Pines Community Center, Jaycees Community Center Dedication, Five Points Center for Active Adults Dedication, Buffalo Road Aquatic Center Dedication, Anne Gordon Center for Active Adults Dedication, Historic Chavis Carousel Groundbreaking, Method Road Playground Dedication, the “Function at the Junction” where Wake Forest’s greenway meets Raleigh’s, and probably a few other events I’m forgetting. It seems that these have become so routine that I don’t even blog about every one!
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Call Time For Congress Shows How Fundraising Dominates Bleak Work Life

I first got an inkling of just how big of a problem fundraising is for Congressional members when I went to the Veterans Campaign seminar a few years ago. A large portion of the training emphasized the need to raise funds. The underlying message was that one would never be a good politician unless one were also a good fundraiser. It was an eye-opening introduction to the real world of a Congressional representative.

The question is what to do about it? Implement four-year terms for House members? Public financing? How does America wrestle its representation back from those who have bought and paid for it?

The amount of time that members of Congress in both parties spend fundraising is widely known to take up an obscene portion of a typical day — whether it’s "call time" spent on the phone with potential donors, or in person at fundraisers in Washington or back home. Seeing it spelled out in black and white, however, can be a jarring experience for a new member, as related by some who attended the November orientation.

via Call Time For Congress Shows How Fundraising Dominates Bleak Work Life.

Governor, Mayor sign Dix Park lease

Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, Governor Perdue, and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall sign the lease creating Dix Park

I got to watch today as Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, Governor Perdue, and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall signed the least that created Dix Park this afternoon. It was a fantastic occasion. I look forward to helping shape this wonderful new park.

Here’s Laura Leslie of WRAL’s story on the signing:

In one of her final acts in office, outgoing Gov. Beverly Perdue formally signed an agreement Friday to lease the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus to the City of Raleigh, which plans to turn it into a “destination park.”

The Raleigh City Council and the Council of State, a panel of 10 statewide elected officials, approved the agreement earlier this month, and Friday afternoon’s signing finalized the deal on the 325-acre site that is just south of downtown.

Avoid entanglements

I don’t know if Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a Buddhist or not but I swear Facebook teaches me more about Buddhism every day.

You see, being politically-minded I enjoyed debating some of my Facebook friends on election issues. It was good fun and I did so with zeal at the time. Now that elections are behind us, I have moved on.

Facebook, on the other hand, apparently has not moved on. I have Facebook friends with whom I’ve traded political comments. for instance, that now appear in my Facebook feed all the time, even though the only thing we’ve seemed to discuss has been our opposing political views. Granted, they’re still my friends and I don’t begrudge anyone for thinking differently from me, but I find it amusing that somewhere in Facebook’s algorithms we’ve become entangled.
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ReadWrite – Have You Or Someone You Know Ever Fake-Liked Something On Facebook?

ReadWrite says its fake Facebook Likes story really struck a nerve. The magazine is asking others for their stories:

Meanwhile we’re looking for more examples of fake likes. Our writer, Bernard Meisler, put his story together by asking people he knew on Facebook to look out for fake likes and send him examples. Now we’d like to find even more.

Apparently this is happening a lot, and nobody seems to know why.

Facebook told us it must be people accidentally pressing a “like” button on their mobile app. But can there really be that many people pressing the wrong button, all the time?

If you have a theory, we’re all ears.

via ReadWrite – Have You Or Someone You Know Ever Fake-Liked Something On Facebook?.

ReadWrite – Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?


I had thought that there would be no more news on the Mitt Romney Facebook hacking phenomena. Turns out I was wrong. ReadWrite’s Bernard Meisler shows ths fake likes are still happening on Facebook:

Last month, while wasting a few moments on Facebook, my pal Brendan O’Malley was surprised to see that his old friend Alex Gomez had “liked” Discover. This was surprising not only because Alex hated mega-corporations but even more so because Alex had passed away six months earlier.

The Facebook “like” is dated Nov. 1, which is strange since Alex “passed [away] around March 26 or March 27,” O’Malley told me. Worse, O’Malley says the like was “quite offensive” since his friend “hated corporate bullshit.”

via ReadWrite – Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?.

Raleigh to begin planning Dix park

I was quoted in Saturday’s Midtown Raleigh News about the planning process beginning for Dix Park.

“We’re going to see design talent from all across the country competing for this opportunity,” said Mark Turner, chairman of the city’s parks and greenways board. “You’ve got this land next to a large city. It’s going to attract attention.”

Turner said he would not rule out any possibilities, including an extension of Pullen Park or a spur that would allow the Pullen Park miniature train ride to cross Western Boulevard and enter the Dix campus.

“It’s the public’s park, and the public should get to decide,” Turner said.

While I think the idea of connecting Pullen and Dix is intriguing, logistically it would be difficult to do. I guess at the time I was interviewed I had gotten caught up in the euphoria!

via Raleigh to begin planning Dix park – Raleigh – MidtownRaleighNews.com.