Category: Chapel Hill

BlogTogether Logo Contest

Win a iPod Shuffle by designing a logo for the ultra-cool blogger group BlogTogether. Anton has set up more info here about the contest. Entries are due by March 31st.

Here is more info about BlogTogether for inspiration.

The Brief

BlogTogether is the name of an initiative to connect bloggers and blog readers both online and in person. Blog refers to the weblog tool for publishing online content. Together relates to our mission to gather bloggers in face-to-face social settings. BlogTogether also includes a service effort to encourage self-expression, civic engagement and community building. The logo should include the words blogtogether, in any font, upper or lower case, together with a logo graphic, with any color scheme. I have no other criteria, but I do like simplicity. Once we have the new logo, we will build a new website design around it, and the relaunched site will continue to act as a blog/resource about our blogger meetups, Blogging101 teach-ins, occasional happy hour events and our annual conference.

Hansbrough hit by Henderson

Bloody Hansbrough
UNC beats Duke, clinches top ACC seed, N&O, (Good audio of the Coaches after game.)

I saw this live on TV and I still can’t believe it happened. I’ll post more links about it in the morning…

Continued
Carolina beat Duke 86 to 72 in a game that gave UNC the ACC’s top spot. But in the last few seconds Tyler Hansbrough went up for a rebound and was hit by Duke player Gerald Henderson. The TV replays were very violent. Henderson cocked his arm back and threw it forward after the ball had left Hansbrough’s hands and it came down on his nose with a lot of force. Hansbrough was on the floor a few seconds reeling in the pain and bleeding profusely. He jumped up amazingly fast after such a blow. Dewey Burke held Hansbrough back whose face was contorted with rage. After the officials reviewed the play they gave Duke a technical foul, threw Henderson out of the game, and suspended him from playing in Duke’s next game.

Bloodied, Not Beaten, The Daily Tar Heel

The video hits YouTube:

Chapel Hill Town Council Resolution on Immigration

Tonight the Chapel Hill Town Council has on its agenda a petition from the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee proposing A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A POLICY ON ARREST FOR CIVIL IMMIGRATION VIOLATION and A RESOLUTION TO REDRESS SOME OF THE HARM CAUSED BY THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF SIMA FALLAHI. See the pdf of the resolutions and full text bellow the fold. Tonights full agenda is located here. Learn more about what happened to Sima in the OP posts Free Sima and Sima Update.
(Text is subject to change)

A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A POLICY ON ARREST FOR CIVIL IMMIGRATION VIOLATION AGENDA #3a(3)

A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING A POLICY THAT THE CHAPEL HILL POLICE DEPARTMENT WILL NOT SEEK TO ARREST PERSONS WHEN THE SOLE BASIS FOR ARRESTING SUCH PERSONS IS THAT SUCH PERSONS HAVE OR MAY HAVE COMMITTED A CIVIL IMMIGRATION VIOLATION

WHEREAS, in Section 15A-401 of the North Carolina General Statutes, the General Assembly has specified the circumstances under which law enforcement officers may arrest persons, with or without an arrest warrant;

and

WHEREAS, the list of circumstances under which a person may be arrested does not include an arrest of persons whose only known violation of law is or may be a civil violation of federal immigration statutes;

NOW THEREFORE, the Chapel Hill Town Council resolves:

Section 1. It shall be the policy of the Town of Chapel Hill not to arrest or take into custody persons when the sole basis for arresting or taking such persons into custody is that they have or may have committed a civil immigration violation.

Section 2. This resolution shall become effective upon adoption.

This the 26th day of February 2007.

A RESOLUTION TO REDRESS SOME OF THE HARM CAUSED BY THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF SIMA FALLAHI

WHEREAS, the Town of Chapel Hill is committed to the human and civil rights of its residents and to actions that preserve and protect those rights, demonstrated by its stand on October 8, 2003, in voting to protect its residents against unconstitutional actions (2003-10-08/R-5.1);

and

WHEREAS, enforcement of civil immigration laws has historically been a federal obligation considered off-limits to state and local law enforcement;

and

WHEREAS, serious concerns have been raised regarding the ability of state and local police to prevent and solve crimes when non-citizens fear that state and local enforcement officers will enforce immigration laws against them;
and

WHEREAS, the Chapel Hill Town Council regrets the tragic consequences of the detention of Sima Fallahi for a civil violation of a federal immigration statute, resulting in her subsequent imprisonment, separation from her eleven-year-old daughter Leila, and the threat of deportation leading to probable imprisonment in her native Iran;

and

WHEREAS, members of the community have come forward to support Sima and Leila Fallahi, including incurring legal costs which will be at least $10,000 to $1 5,000;

and

WHEREAS, the Chapel Hill Town Council seeks to redress some of the harm that has been done in this instance;

NOW THEREFORE, the Chapel Hill Town Council resolves:

Section 1. To make a significant contribution to the legal costs incurred in providing effective legal counsel to Sima Fallahi in her effort to reopen her case and seek political asylum in the United States.

Section 2. This resolution shall be effective upon adoption.
This the 26th day of February, 2007

Cross posted from Orange Politics.

More Local Individual Blogs

Props to Ed for giving thanks where its due, LOCAL BLOGS.

Via Ed Cone:

…the power of the internets does not lie only in building a new generation of high-traffic sites. Individual voices speaking to relatively small audiences can be powerful and useful things, and that may be especially true at the local and regional levels, where a few people can make a difference.

Note also that individual voices are important in realms beyond politics. In era of newspaper cutbacks and TV fluff, local bloggers are covering stuff that might otherwise go uncovered, adding to mainstream stories, allowing pros to tell stories that would never fit in print, and doing service journalism, too.

Hat tip to Sally Greene for the pointer. [Can I just say how much I love learning from my fellow bloggers. Ed may live 50 miles west of me but he’s still local to me.]

Robert E. Lee Statue, Racism, and Caribou Coffee

Every weekday morning I get coffee at Caribou on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Its near the bus stop I get off at. I’ve been going there for several months and enjoy the coffee.

About one month ago I overhead one of the guys working there talk about writing for The Carolina Review, a conservative student publication at UNC – Chapel Hill. The night before Hardball with Chris Matthews show at Memorial Hall he mentioned writing some critical articles about Sen. Edwards. Coffee Guy said a buddy was going to give him tickets.

Sure enough when we were watching Hardball that night the same Coffee Guy was sitting on the stage with all those students behind Sen. Edwards. He was starring into the camera shaking his head at Edwards responses. I half expecting him to hold up two fingers behind Edwards head like bunny ears. It was a very John 3:13 moment. (If you look about 16 seconds into the YouTube video you can see him. Goto the above Hardball video link.)

So last week I got to talking with the Coffee Guy about stuff. He mentioned his sister lived in Richmond, VA. I told him I grew up there. I mention a bunch of things like I went to VCU. But never did I engage him in a political discussion. I just wanted coffee. I decided to live in peace with a fellow Chapel Hillian. I wasn’t going to hold this man’s political views against him. No problem right?

Well this morning the Coffee Guy said his sister has seen a NAACP protest at the Lee Monument in Richmond. He exclaimed it was a shame. I blurted out, “I completely disagree. I think they should tear down those statues.” The Coffee Guy was surprised and said he was “sorry I felt that way”.

“So should they leave the statue of Authur Ashe up?” he asked. Instead of answering that I asked him to take the race component of the statues out of the conversation for a moment. “Consider the death of all the white people’s husbands, brothers, sisters, daughters, etc. during the Civil War. Those statues are glorifying war and death. That’s wrong.”, I said.

He proceed to question me about it. I told him that I really didn’t want to go there because it might make me not want to come back to Caribou. He thought maybe we could debate it another time when he wasn’t working. I just smiled and walked out.

One of the strongest forms of protest modern Americans can do is deciding where not to spend money. I wonder if the Coffee Guy’s boss values his free speech over the money I spend there every week?

This occurrence has convinced me to join the NAACP. My efforts to appose racism are strengthened.

Snow in NC days after 70 degrees

What is going on? Last weekend here in Chapel Hill it was 70 degrees. Now we have a light, but sticky, covering of snow on the ground. Is this extreme weather related to Global Warming? Is this the effect of a El Niño on Global Warming?

One respected climate scientist who has gone out on a limb about the global warming-El Niño connection is Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He thinks that El Niño may function as a kind of pressure release valve on the tropics. In an era of global warming, Trenberth says, ocean currents and weather systems might not be able to bleed off all the heat pumped into the tropical seas. Periodically, it has to get rid of the excess that builds up, he suggests, and that safety valve is El Niño.

via pbs.org

Watch Tom Jensen

Local Sierra Club and campaign organizer Tom Jensen has been named one of Seven who will matter in 2007 by the Raleigh News and Observer. Congratulations Tom!

Tom Jensen has worked on two dozen political campaigns. He writes weekly columns for a local newspaper. He helps edit a local political blog. He’s on Chapel Hill’s planning board.

And he is 23.

I’m a recent fan of Tom’s. I’ve been impressed as hell how he can run a serious campaign, handle a direct personal attack, write a ton, and have GREAT liberal Democrat politics. My sincere hope is that he sticks around Chapel Hill and runs for office. PLEASE TOM! Please run for Chapel Hill Town Council! We need young people with your talents and values. Help usher a new vision into our local political scene.

Fact is Tom is so talented that any local, state, or national Dem campaign would be lucky to hire him. So if he goes off and helps other progressive candidates get elected I won’t be too disappointed. 🙂

[Hat Tip to Sally Greene for blogging this.]