Parade and Pullen

Posing after the parade


Wow, what a day! As a volunteer and boardmember with Mordecai Historic Park, I was offered the opportunity to march in today’s Raleigh Christmas Parade. This is the second year I was offered this opportunity but through a scheduling snafu Mordecai missed out on the parade. I had gotten the whole family excited about it then only to be disappointed. We were determined not to miss our parade chance this year and fortunately we were not disappointed.

We got to Mordecai around 8 AM, about 30 minutes before we were due to line up for the parade. Having gotten our costumes a week before, we were all decked out in 19th century clothes (though the timeframes varied considerably). We met the park staff and other volunteers who were participating and boarded the Raleigh Trolley for the parade.
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Some see nothing wrong with reporter being detained

I’m appalled at the number of knuckle-draggers weighing in on the N&O executive editor John Drescher’s column today about the detainment of a reporter covering the take-down of the protesters in the abandoned Chrysler building in Chapel Hill. It seems there are quite a few who see nothing wrong with the police detaining a reporter in contradiction to our country’s First Amendment rights. Some apparently think she got what she deserved.

Here’s what the cops should do in the future: check a reporter’s credentials. If the credentials check out, kindly ask the reporter to move out of the way and go back to your work. Do not handcuff the reporter as the reporter will not harm you. And certainly do not order them to cease taking pictures from a pulic location as this would most assuredly be a violation of First Amendment rights.

I don’t think this will go away anytime soon, and nor should it.

Time for OWS to embrace the co-op movement?

An op-ed on Al Jazeera looks at how the Occupy Wall Street movement could revive interest in cooperative businesses.

Head into Liberty Plaza in Lower Manhattan, and one is immediately struck by the self-governing nature of the “Occupy” encampment.

A community which adheres to non-hierarchical decision making, Occupy conducts General Assembly meetings which are transparent and open to the public. Meals too are prepared communally, and there’s even a public library. On the other hand, it’s not as if Occupy is putting novel ideas into practice, since the encampment harks back historically to the co-operative movement.

via Time for OWS to embrace the co-op movement? – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

University, Inc.

I’ve often considered going back to college. Then I read stuff like this from NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson, citing the reasons for a massive 29% tuition hike:

With classes in some cases growing from 200 students to 300, faculty members struggle against a growing tide of test grading and other mundane chores, Chancellor Randy Woodson told the trustees committee.

“It takes them out of the business of being scholarly, of doing research and of moving the economic engine of this state forward,” Woodson said.

Let me translate this for you: “Those pesky students who are trying to learn are keeping us ivory-tower types from trying to pad our resumes and the university’s coffers. They should fork over their money and just shut up.”

Is it any wonder I’m disillusioned with higher education? Is it also any wonder that these schools’ big-time college sports programs get away with what they do?

The other side of town: Southeast Raleigh’s problems and promise

The Independent’s Bob Geary takes a good, in-depth look at Southeast Raleigh.

It’s Sunday morning and I’m on my way to Martin Street Baptist Church in Southeast Raleigh. For two years, it’s been the high ground in the political fight for control of the Wake County school system: the church, as a gathering place for the defenders of diversity; and Southeast Raleigh, the historically black area of the city and the county with all its problems and its promise.

via The other side of town: Southeast Raleigh’s problems and promise | News Feature | Independent Weekly.

It’s the new vegetable

Alluding to the ridiculous news that Congress voted to make pizza a vegetable, a neighborhood wag replied to an email post about an upcoming event from the Raleigh City Farm with this:

“I wonder if the Raleigh City Farm folks will be planting pizza.”

Glad to know Congress is being so productive.

Looking deeper, the whole “four food groups” thing has long been manipulated by farmers more concerned about food sales than nutrition. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic in America.

N&O LTE on Raleigh’s open parks

On Tuesday, the N&O printed my letter to the editor, responding to a grumpy writer who claimed that Raleigh’s Parks department couldn’t properly maintain its parks. That rubbed me the wrong way so I wrote this response.

Kudos to the editors who deftly edited my letter, creating a better one than I submitted.

The writer of the Nov. 6 letter “Dix State Park?” says that if the state chooses to turn the Dorothea Dix Hospital property into a state park it will be “enjoyed by all of the citizens of North Carolina.” While Dix’s future is still being debated, I can say that regardless of whether Dix becomes a city park or a state park it will be welcoming and available to all the citizens of our state.

Raleigh’s parks system is one of the best in the nation and continues to enjoy strong support from Raleigh’s citizens. More than that, our parks are open and available to all, providing recreational opportunities not just for Raleigh’s citizens but for those of Wake County and beyond. I invite the public to enjoy all that Raleigh’s parks system has to offer, no matter where you live.

Mark Turner
Chair, City of Raleigh’s Parks, Recreation, and Greenway Advisory Board
Raleigh

Woman finishing up driving test crashes into Fayetteville DMV

This is a sad reminder that at a certain point some folks lose the ability to drive safely when they age.

Cars mean independence. If you take away someone’s driving ability, you take away their independence. We need to build our cities and communities so that one doesn’t need cars to retain one’s independence.

Three customers at a Fayetteville DMV office required medical attention Wednesday after a car came crashing through the building.

Gavin MacRoberts, spokesman for the Fayetteville Police, says a 2008 Acura crashed into the DMV office, located at 841 Elm Street, shortly after Noon.

It appears the driver, 77-year-old Annie Gore, was pulling into a parking space after completing a driving test when she accidentally stepped on the gas and crashed into the front of the building.

via Woman finishing up driving test crashes into Fayetteville DMV | NBC17.com.

Downtown wildlife

Early Monday morning, Kelly and I were awakened by the sound of a critter squealing outside our bedroom. This was followed by two excited hoots from a barred owl that apparently just scooped up a late night snack (a rabbit, in my guess).

That same morning my neighbor told me of being awakened by his dog barking wildly at something behind his home. My neighbor looked to find three deer (a doe and two fawns) standing in Lions Park.

It’s still amazing to me to live so close to downtown Raleigh and still be so close to wildlife.