People celebrate with music and dance all over the world. And that takes many forms. We got a taste of that variety this past Sunday afternoon at the Near & Far festival on the plaza at 140 West. Dancers from Colombia sashayed and stomped to a drum-heavy arrangement. Women from Korea swirled in colorful silks […]
All posts in category Community life
Real Diversity
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 9, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/04/09/real-diversity/
Noisy Neighbors
Chapel Hill’s noise ordinance aims to ensure reasonable peace and quiet for residents in their homes. Typically, people use the law to rein in loud parties or construction projects that go on into the wee hours of the morning. Does that mean people who work from home or cover night shifts and sleep during the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 12, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/03/12/noisy-neighbors/
Consensus? Maybe Not
Every time I hear someone on Town Council urging us to come to a consensus, I can’t help but think of the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s definition: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes but to which no one objects.” We […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 4, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/03/04/consensus-maybe-not/
Move in
At last Wednesday’s Town Council meeting, the town’s Housing & Community staff presented an innovative plan to encourage municipal employees to live in Chapel Hill. Stronger communities result when people live in the town where they work, and work in the town where they live. Not to mention the improved functioning of the town in […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 26, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/02/26/move-in/
Our chance at the gold — gone
Chapel Hill should bid on hosting a Winter Olympics. Sure, we’d need to build a couple of ski slopes, one with fancy rails and jumps. We would have to retrofit the Dean Dome into an ice-skating rink. And we’d need to build a housing complex for the athletes, though we could repurpose it into affordable […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 19, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/02/19/our-chance-at-the-gold-gone/
Frederick Douglass’ life and us
When a Daily Tar Heel reporter asked me what I considered the most important contribution of Frederick Douglass, I hesitated. I didn’t know enough about the life of the abolitionist and former slave, born in Hillsborough, to rank-order his accomplishments. Fortunately, Orange County, the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro and the NAACP have joined […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 12, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/02/12/frederick-douglass-life-and-us/
Second chances
“Saving lives” likely did not appear in the job description when Beatrice Thompson signed on to work at the Red Roof Inn just off the I-40/U.S.-15-501 interchange. Yet for the man she found unresponsive in a hotel room last month, her prior knowledge of CPR made the difference between life and death. She performed chest […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 5, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/02/05/second-chances/
At what price?
When has Chapel Hill ever forced an entire neighborhood to pack up and move away? When has the town ever told more than 100 of its residents they must leave their homes en masse and find other housing? It sure looks like that’s about to happen to the Lakeview mobile home community in north Chapel […]
Posted by Don Evans on January 29, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/01/29/at-what-price/
Honor MLK Jr. — Speak Out
Never have I felt so alone and afraid as when the border patrol in El Salvador pulled me off the bus as I headed to American-friendly Guatemala because I had not stayed the three consecutive nights the Salvadoran regime required of tourists to that country torn by civil war in the early 1980s. I watched […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 15, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/01/15/honor-mlk-jr-speak-out/
Requiem to a Newspaper
“I have some good news to share,” began a letter to Chapel Hill News readers from publisher Sara Glines. But it wasn’t good news. What followed was a 6-inch column of malarkey. The Chapel Hill News ceased publication at the end of December. It had stopped publishing news a year before that, when McClatchy, owner […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 8, 2018
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2018/01/08/requiem-to-a-newspaper/