After our week of worry, it feels like we dodged a bullet when Hurricane Florence shifted south. In Chapel Hill, the power outages were short-lived, the flooding no worse than expected, and no one has died. Those of us who lived here through Hurricane Fran feel a guilty relief — and empathy after seeing the […]
The Florence side of trees
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 24, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/09/24/the-florence-side-of-trees/
Shelter from the storm
The Red Cross thinks of everything. After UNC opened the Friday Center on Saturday to Hurricane Florence victims seeking shelter, the Red Cross swooped in, and with the practiced precision of a military operation, set up camp to welcome people who may have left home in a panic with nothing more than the clothes they […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 17, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/09/17/shelter-from-the-storm/
Taking a stand on Silent Sam
Chapel Hill has its own version of Colin Kaepernick in UNC Chancellor Carol Folt. Though instead of taking a knee, Folt took a stand — on whether Silent Sam should be allowed back on the pedestal in the university’s front yard. Up to this point, I’d been disappointed that Folt had been so tentative in […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 10, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/09/10/taking-a-stand-on-silent-sam/
Where we go from here
Silent Sam made sure that town manager Roger Stancil did not go gentle into that good night. Stancil wrapped up his more than 12 years in Chapel Hill town staff’s top post on Saturday and was working nigh until midnight on his to-do list. The many hours of meetings to coordinate with UNC Police and […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 3, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/09/03/where-we-go-from-here/
What Does Democracy Look Like?
Talk about a baptism by fire: His first day on the job, town manager Maurice Jones had to deal with a “spontaneous” rally by activists that ended with the toppling of Silent Sam, making national news. The statue’s demise happened close to the one-year anniversary of the deadly protest in Charlottesville, where Jones had been […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 27, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/08/27/what-does-democracy-look-like/
ID’ing the Enemy
Faithful readers may have noticed that Chapel Hill Watch did not appear among the list of 350 news outlets that ran an editorial rejecting Donald Trump’s dissing of the media. No political agenda here. I totally agree with the editorial published by The Boston Globe. I simply went on vacation last week, a real vacation […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 20, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/08/20/iding-the-enemy/
One State Away
I took four flights last month, and from my vantage point of Zone 4 in the gate area, I watched all the high-mileage passengers board first. They were the dealmakers flown by their companies to move business forward and generate revenue. On all four flights, those in the privileged first-to-board line were almost exclusively white […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 13, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/08/13/one-state-away/
The Bail Trap
Some 40% of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency expense, according to a federal survey conducted earlier this year. If they don’t have access to credit, they’d have to borrow from family or friends. If they have tapped out those resources, then bills go unpaid, utilities get shut off. Sometimes that $400 bill starts a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 6, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/08/06/the-bail-trap/
Affordable Leaves the Station
American philosopher Eric Hoffer would have celebrated his 120th birthday last week, had he not died just shy of 85. Among his memorable insights, he noted: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” His intuition came to mind as I read one sentence tucked neatly into […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 30, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/07/30/affordable-leaves-the-station/
Quintessential Chapel Hill Fan
When friends and I would go to baseball games at Yankee Stadium, we always scanned the crowd for nominees to our Quintessential Yankee Fan Hall of Fame. Yankee fans were quite different from Mets fans, I noticed on my very rare trips to Shea Stadium. Perusing crowds became a habit, and when I’m out and […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 23, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/07/23/quintessential-chapel-hill-fan/