Posted on 04/27/2008 12:56:08 AM PDT by abb
ping
http://www.johnincarolina.com/
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Duke’s Chronicle Outs JinC
As Regulars here know I publish pseudonymously as have many others including Mark Twain and some of our founders.
Honesty and reasonableness are what I strive to bring you; and if I do that, what harm is there in allowing me some privacy?
And who can’t understand my wanting to stay as much as possible out of the line of fire of people who trashed the students on Duke’s Men’s and Women’s lacrosse teams, their coaches, their families and others who spoke up for them?
From time to time I’ve disclosed to someone my identity when I thought doing so could serve a useful purpose.
One of those times was in the fall of 2006 when I disclosed it to Ryan McCartney, then editor of Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle (TC), and currently its editorial page editor.
I’d called McCartney to complain about: 1) TC’s failure to editorially condemn those who’d threatened Reade Seligmann, circulated “Vigilante” posters on campus, etc.; and 2) to ask TC to explain why it hadn’t asked the Brodhead administration and the trustees to explain why they’d remained silent in those circumstances.
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http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-946164.cfm
Stabbing victim in serious condition
From staff reports : The Herald-Sun
news@heraldsun.com
Apr 27, 2008
DURHAM — A man who was stabbed repeatedly and beaten was in serious but stable condition at Duke Hospital on Saturday, police said.
Police said a 34-year-old man was attacked at No. 6 Atka Court in eastern Durham at about 6 a.m. Saturday. Police have not released his name.
Anyone with information is asked to call Durham Crimestoppers at 683-1200 or detective A.M. Cristaldi at 560-4450, extension 255.
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-946184.cfm
Stopping drugs: Do the ends justify the means?
By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun
jstevenson@heraldsun.com
Apr 27, 2008
DURHAM — When two men were sentenced last week to double-digit prison terms for transporting eye-popping amounts of heroin and cocaine into the Bull City, it brought satisfaction to police and prosecutors but raised questions among defense lawyers about the constitutionality of a local narcotics-interdiction program.
The interdiction effort is aimed at catching drug smugglers as they drive along interstate highways 85 and 40, and as they disembark at the local Amtrak station and intercity bus depot.
One of those sentenced last week was Edward Lee Banks, who had 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of cocaine in his possession when stopped for speeding in a rental car registered to someone else. He received a sentence of 14 to 19 years in prison.
The other suspect was Alberto Cerano, targeted by police as he entered Durham with 2.2 kilograms of heroin (nearly five pounds) that had been shipped from Chicago. He was locked up for 18 to 23 years.
Reports indicated that, based on an investigation, local officers knew what kind of vehicle Cerano was driving and what time he would arrive here. A drug-sniffing dog was on standby for the occasion.
According to defense lawyer Woody Vann, Cerano merely was a “mule” — or driver — for the heroin shipment and possibly didn’t even know what type of drug he was carrying, much less the quantity.
His purported ignorance wasn’t enough to get him off the legal hook.
The difference in punishment for Banks and Cerano demonstrates how the law treats heroin as an even more dangerous narcotic than cocaine.
Another sign of differentiation is that it takes only 4 grams of heroin to support a trafficking charge, compared to 28 grams for cocaine.
Authorities say much of the local heroin supply originates in Afghanistan and makes its way to the South American nation of Colombia, then enters the U.S. through Mexico and funnels into Durham from Chicago — the city where the 2.2-kilogram Cerano haul came from.
By everyone’s reckoning, the Cerano heroin bust was huge by Durham standards.
Assistant Police Chief Steve Mihaich said he believed it was the biggest in Bull City history.
“That’s an incredibly large amount,” agreed prosecutor Jim Dornfried.
“If I get a few ounces of heroin, I consider it to be a lot,” he added. “One kilo is amazing. Two kilos is outrageous.”
Veteran defense lawyer James D. “Butch” Williams had the same impression last week.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s a hell of a lot. You’re up in the million-dollar range. You’re talking about a whole lot of bucks, brother.”
But Williams and some other lawyers contend that police unfairly, and perhaps unconstitutionally, target Hispanic and black suspects.
“I don’t have a lot of faith in the highway interdiction program,” said Williams. “Number one, I don’t think it’s constitutional. It’s unjust to Hispanics and blacks. If you’re a Hispanic or black male with a rental car and an out-of-state [license] plate, you’re going to be stopped. Simple as that. If the police do that often enough, they’re going to hit a home run. They’ve been hitting home runs left and right.”
Mihaich, the assistant police chief, and Dornfried, the drug prosecutor, denied that ethnic profiling occurs, although neither provided statistics.
The percentage of Hispanic and black drivers pulled over by the interdiction team “is certainly commensurate with the racial makeup of the city,” according to Mihaich. “I do not see any anomalies at all.”
Interdiction officers cannot stop drivers at random, Mihaich added. He said they must have “reasonable suspicion,” such as a traffic violation or a reliable tip that someone is transporting illegal drugs.
Dornfried concurred that racial profiling is not used.
“I feel very confident about that,” he said last week.
Statistics provided by Mihaich show that interdiction officers stopped 4,241 vehicles in 2007, searching 1,187 of them and making 71 arrests.
According to the statistics, officers seized $1.4 million in cash, along with 2.15 ounces of crack cocaine, 694 ounces of powdered cocaine, 1.46 ounces of heroin and 1,107.6 ounces of marijuana.
“It’s been very successful for us,” Mihaich said of the interdiction initiative.
Interstate highways receive most, but not all, of the attention.
The Durham Amtrak station and long-distance bus depot also are targeted by interdiction officers, usually operating on what they believe to be solid tips from informants.
“I can’t just grab somebody off a train and order him to come with me,” said Mihaich.
The N.C. Court of Appeals ruled eight years ago in an Onslow County drug-smuggling case that, “As a general proposition, information provided to police by anonymous persons cannot constitute the basis for reasonable suspicion. An anonymous tip can, however, provide reasonable suspicion if ‘significant aspects’ of the tipster’s prediction about the future behavior of a person are corroborated by police.”
Tips from informants with proven reliability generally carry more weight.
http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-946115.cfm
Report: Some public information officers deleted e-mails
Apr 26, 2008
RALEIGH, N.C. — The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Saturday that at least three public information officers with state agencies deleted e-mails as instructed by Gov. Mike Easley’s press secretary.
The newspaper said the three acted on directions given last May 29 by press secretary Renee Hoffman.
Head public information officers with the departments of Tranporation, Correction and Crime Control and Public Safety collectively saved more e-mail messages to or from the governor’s press office in March than they did in the previous nine months combined.
The newspaper also reported that e-mail retained by other spokesmen show that Hoffman also deleted many of the e-mail messages she sent or received.
Easley’s counsel, Andrew Vanore, said in an interview that he instructed those involved not to discuss their e-mail pending resolution of a public records lawsuit filed by the newspaper and nine other news organizations, including The Associated Press.
The lawsuit asserts that the administration’s policy and practice involving retention of e-mail violates the state’s Public Records law. Vanore said he assumed that every e-mail message that was deleted in accordance with the record retention policy of that agency.
Vanore declined to answer questions about why most of the e-mail messages sent or received by DOT spokesman Ernie Seneca, Correction spokesman Keith Acree and Crime Control spokeswoman Julia Jarema were dated March 2008 and so few were written or received by them in the nine previous months, from June 2007 through February.
The allegation that public information officers had been instructed to delete e-mail — which the governor’s office and his chief legal counsel, Reuben F. Young, initially denied — surfaced March 4 after the governor approved the dismissal of Debbie Crane, who had been head of the public information office at the Department of Health and Human Services.
At the newspaper’s request, Vanore turned over notes of meetings of public information officers, including a May 29 meeting attended by Jarema and Diane Kees, public information officer at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Their notes of that meeting say they were instructed to delete all e-mail to or from the governor’s press office. Vanore also gave the newspaper a box full of e-mail messages that he said were written by or sent to Hoffman, Jarema or Kees.
In a March 29 letter to News & Observer attorney Hugh Stevens, Vanore said those records were evidence that e-mail messages that needed to be preserved as public records were retained.
http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsletters/
A safer community
I live in Bragtown in northern Durham. The one thing that I notice in my community is the young ones who roam the streets everyday. I am only 22, and I have seen many of the people that I associated with either dead or incarcerated.
There is a strong need for young black men to step up their games and realize that there are people who are there for them and can address their needs. I feel if we had these role models, then the community that I have come to know and love in the past 22 years would be safer for the older generation who inhabits it.
Sherrod Lamont Laws
Durham
April 27, 2008
A friend lost to violence
On April 12, First Presbyterian Church members lost a valuable friend to a random act of violence. William Davis, who greeted us daily as we came off N.C. 147 at Exit 12 and turned uphill on Roxboro Road, died as a result of a stabbing, and we are heartsick. William was a daily fixture on “his corner,” standing with one leg and a crutch to smile, wave, and greet each person who passed his way. Many of our children learned urban ministry by putting a name and a face to a homeless person, and by returning his greeting with gifts of food, clothing and offers of assistance.
We were so encouraged when William finally received Social Security disability, found a place to live, and even began selling newspapers on his corner. His success in overcoming homelessness makes his untimely, tragic death even harder to bear.
Now all that marks his corner is a spray of flowers and one empty shoe. We are grieved to have lost William, and hope that the City of Durham will get a handle on this wave of violence that is robbing us all of precious people.
Marilyn Hedgpeth
Durham
April 27, 2008
The writer is an associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church.
http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Some people just love misery
As the Blog Hooligans are aware, someone hacked into our LieStoppers Forum and took control of our board causing it to crash. What was their purpose?
Misery loves company and those on the losing side of the Hoax/Frame just can’t get enough of it.
We know the details of March-April 2006 pretty well by now. It’s public record. The three complaints are specific. We also have the Summary of Conclusions by the NC Attorney General, the work of the North Carolina State Bar, and Nifong’s contempt of court hearing. The evidence is clear; there never was an assault, only an attempt to frame innocent people. That was the real crime. Those on the inside knew the truth. Duke and Durham PD knew it on the first night. It was the worst kept secret in Durham.
Dave’s speech was the turning point for many following this case from afar. Certainly with the revelations from the first discovery documents it was clear Nifong had no case. Over the months that followed, we witnessed repeated revelations until that day when Meehan admitted Nifong had withheld exculpatory evidence. Then we heard those words, Innocent!
Everyone in the county knows the truth; the only task left is rounding up the villains who perpetrated this fraud. That is in the hands of three very competent law firms. Durham and Duke know their days are numbered.
So why would anyone want to close down our board? Surely those in Durham and Duke are likely suspects. Also there is a small group of spiteful people who just love misery, who spread vicious lies on line and still harbor deep seated hatred. I can’t explain them, they must be miserable. We will find out who they are and report them to proper authorities.
We will come back; it may take us some time. We will have a better more secure board. We will follow this case until the last cell door slams shut.
In the meantime the Blog Hooligans will be busy.
They won’t be silenced.
Posted by LieStoppers at 2:13 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Duke Hoax, Nifong/Mangum Hoax
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1051694.html
Published: Apr 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Apr 27, 2008 03:53 AM
Easley
Three state officials deleted e-mail, records show
By Pat Stith, Staff Writer
Records released by the Easley administration show that until recently, several public information officers deleted most of their e-mail messages to and from top officials in the governor’s press office.
Gov. Mike Easley, in a meeting with editors of The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer earlier this month, conceded that the heads of the public information offices in various agencies thought they had been told to delete everything to or from his press office, but he said they didn’t do it.
“The good news is, in spite of all that, they all kept their stuff like they were supposed to,” Easley said. “They all followed the [correct] policy and said, ‘I know this was the direction, but I’m not doing it.’ “
But at least three public information officers did delete e-mail as they had been instructed to do last May 29 by Renee Hoffman, the governor’s press secretary. Ernie Seneca, Keith Acree and Julia Jarema, the head public information officers at the Departments of Transportation, Correction, and Crime Control and Public Safety, collectively saved more e-mail messages to or from the governor’s press office in March than they did in the previous nine months combined. E-mail retained by other spokesmen show that Hoffman also deleted many of the e-mail messages she sent or received.
snip
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1051712.html
Published: Apr 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Apr 27, 2008 03:37 AM
Grace Wang smiles as she is interviewed in front of Duke Chapel by the Tokyo Broadcasting System.
Staff Photos by Chuck Liddy
Fury vented on Duke student
Views on Tibet evoke death threat, ‘Traitor to China’ insults
By Peggy Lim, Staff Writer
DURHAM - When Grace Wang stepped into the middle of a recent rally at Duke University between pro-Tibet and pro-China factions, she was trying to play devil’s advocate. But she ended up being branded something of a devil herself — a sellout to her native China.
The next day, photos of her at the rally popped up on mitbbs.com, the largest bulletin board service for Chinese students in North America. The Chinese characters for “Traitor to China” were emblazoned across her forehead. Personal information from Wang’s national identity card and directions to her parents’ apartment were posted online. A torrent of threatening e-mail messages and phone calls ensued. Big red letters reading “Kill the whole family” were painted in the hallway of their apartment building. Wang’s parents have temporarily moved away.
Soon after Duke’s student newspaper reported Wang’s story, The New York Times and Washington Post followed suit with front-page articles. Then National Public Radio, Japanese television stations and Taiwanese and Hong Kong news media came knocking. The BBC asked Wang to mediate a radio debate.
Before all this, Wang, 20, was a college freshman with typical freshman objectives — keeping up with her ambitious course load, dating and coping with dining hall food. But life has grown more complicated since she became the center of an international maelstrom.
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http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1051640.html
Published: Apr 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Apr 27, 2008 02:04 AM
Police seek clues in stabbing, beating
From Staff Reports
DURHAM - A 34-year-old man was stabbed repeatedly and beaten early Saturday, and police are looking for the assailant.
The man, whose name was not released, was taken to Duke Hospital, where he was listed in serious but stable condition.
He was attacked at 6-A Atka Court in East Durham just before 6 a.m. Saturday, according to Durham police.
Police said they don’t know who was responsible for the attack or what type of object was used to stab the man. They ask anyone with information to call Durham CrimeStoppers at 683-1200 or Detective A.M. Cristaldi at 560-4450, ext. 255.
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/letters/story/1051628.html
Selling snake oil
Regarding the April 16 Point of View piece “Acting against gun violence” by the esteemed leaders of Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill:
It is sad that they, too, have resorted to recycling the worn-out idea of gun control as a means to reduce violent crime. Generally, it is self-serving politicians such as mayors, governors and congressmen who promote gun control snake oil — now apparently renamed as “sensible gun laws.”
Yet another gun control law would be as effective in reducing violent crime as canceling the Duke lacrosse season was for rape prevention.
John Posthill
Chapel Hill
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/sports/stories/4997521.html
Lacrosse takes off nationally, locally
BY GARY HAWKINS Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 04/27/2008
As many of his friends did, Kolby Peckham grew up playing baseball, but by the time he reached seventh grade he became a little bored with America’s pastime.
“There was a lot of standing around,” said Peckham, who grew up in West Gardiner.
Along came lacrosse and Peckham found a sport that fit his needs and personality.
“It’s a fast-paced game,” said Peckham, now a sophomore at Thomas College and a 37-goal scorer this season. “It’s got everything. It’s physical and there’s a lot of skill and strategy involved.”
Thousands agree with Peckham’s assessment of the sport which has grown exponentially in the past few years. Nationally, the sport grew by 12.8 percent last year, according to US Lacrosse, the sport’s governing body. Since 2001, the number of lacrosse players has increased from 253,931 to 480,627 last year, with the biggest jumps coming at the youth and high school levels.
Those statistics are mirrored here in Maine where the number of teams has more than doubled since the Maine Principals’ Association first sanctioned high school championships 10 years ago. There are currently 39 boys teams in two classes and 37 girls teams, also in two classes.
Dick Durost, MPA executive director, points out lacrosse is the one spring sport that is fast-paced.
“There seems to be some ice hockey carryover on the boys side and also field hockey players on the girls side,” Durost said.
Schools in southern Maine still dominate the sport at state championship levels based on the number of participants and coaching experience. But central Maine schools are gaining.
“I think we’re already there,” Thomas College men’s coach and Messalonskee High boys coach Tom Sheridan said. “The skill level of the kids in the area has improved tremendously.”
The popularity of the sport is not only reflected in the number of teams but also in the number of participants on those teams.
“Here in Lewiston our numbers have exploded,” said Lewiston High School athletic director Jason Fuller, who is also a member of the MPA lacrosse committee. “I’d say it’s probably our No. 3 sport behind football and hockey.”
This year, the Blue Devils had 68 boys try out for lacrosse and 58 girls.
America’s oldest sport
The origin of the sport is credited to Native American tribes who played the game hundreds of years ago to resolve conflicts and develop virile men. Their game had religious overtones and sometimes served as a prelude to war with “games” lasting several days and including hundreds of competitors.
If was refined by the French, who began playing it in the early part of the 19th century. The basic rules, field dimensions and number of players were put into place by Canadian W. George Beers in 1867. New York University fielded the first collegiate team in 1877 while Phillips Academy of Andover, Mass., and Phillips Exeter Academy of Exeter, N.H., were among the first high school teams. The first women’s lacrosse team was at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore in 1926.
The sport remained largely in East Coast prep schools for a number of years save for a few hot pockets in New York and New Jersey. When the Duke University lacrosse scandal broke last year, many saw a sport played by an elite group of athletes, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
“All the stereotypes came out in the Duke case,” said Sheridan, who grew up playing the sport in Long Island, N.Y. “A lot of lacrosse people saw how their sport was being perceived.”
Although lacrosse remains a popular prep school sport, Sheridan said 75 percent of those age group participants are public high school kids.
Men and women played under similar rules until the 1930s when the men’s game evolved into a much more physical sport while the women’s game stayed true to the original rules. Today, men wear helmets, shoulder pads, arm pads, gloves and protective cups.
“The equipment is pretty expensive,” said St. Joseph’s College coach Mike Edgar, a past chapter president of Maine US Lacrosse. “It’s very similar to hockey in its expense.”
Helmets run around $150 and sticks $100, Edgar said. The protective equipment is necessary because the men’s game allows checking and deeper cradled sticks made for much harder shots. The women’s game allows just checks on the stick and even those are limited. Gloves are optional. Besides sticks, the only other equipment required for women are protective goggles.
The object of the game remains the same for both men and women — put the ball in the goal — but men do it with 10 players, including the goalie, while the women use 12.
Easy to learn
Lacrosse is a relatively easy sport to pick up. Edgar said a third of his first-year St. Joseph’s College team had never played lacrosse before.
“The trick is to master the catching and throwing,” he said. “You have to do that pretty smoothly.”
Lacrosse sticks, or crosses, vary in length, from defensemen whose sticks are as long as 72 inches, to attackmen and midfielders whose sticks are just over half that length. The head of the stick is 6 1/2 to 10 inches wide and forms a cradle from which the ball is carried, passed, scooped off the ground or shot. Competitors advance the ball down field through passes and dodges in an attempt to score.
“It’s very basketball oriented in plays and picks,” Cony girls coach Gretchen Livingston said. “Keeping (the ball) in the pocket is the biggest challenge for my girls. Stick skills are huge.”
After two years as a club sport, the Cony girls fielded a varsity team this year.
“It just sounded like a cool thing to start,” said Cony sophomore Cassie Diplock who played for the first time last year. “I kind of wanted to learn a new sport.”
Thirty-four girls tried out for lacrosse at Cony and serve on two teams. Livingston said she plays about 18 girls in a typical game.
“It’s a high-scoring game,” Livingston said. “It’s attracting soccer, field hockey and basketball players. It fills the void of a field sport in the spring.”
While Diplock didn’t pick up the sport until she reached high school, her eighth grade sister has learned the game through the Augusta Rec program. Together, they often perfect their throwing and catching skills.
“A lot of kids spend time away from the field getting better,” Sheridan said.,
When Sheridan began coaching at Messalonskee 14 years ago, there were no youth programs. Now they start in the fifth grade — many communities began even earlier — and there about 25 players on the middle school team.
“I think it’s going to keep growing,” said Sheridan. “It’s eventually going to go north past us.”
Mt. Blue of Farmington is currently the northernmost team in the state, but it’s gaining a following all over, especially at the youth level.
“The hockey guys eat it up because it’s exactly the same flow as hockey,” Sheridan said. “The soccer guys eat it up, basketball, too. There’s something that appeals to every athlete.”
Gary Hawkins — 621-5638
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1051691.html
Published: Apr 27, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Apr 27, 2008 03:45 AM
George Wilson, 60, puts his energy and enthusiasm into teaching a class at NCCU.
Staff Photo by Harry Lynch
His passion is getting involved
Wilson: Reacting isn’t solving issues
Eric Ferreri, Staff Writer
DURHAM - At Durham’s West End Community Center, George Wilson is the fixer.
Need a grant proposal written? George will do it. Is the heater broken? Call George. Need an accountant to do the nonprofit group’s taxes on the cheap? George probably knows someone.
“He’s the first line of defense,” says Ethel Simonetti, a friend and fellow board member for the community center, which provides after-school programs for poor neighborhood youngsters. “He’s our board leader, and he replicates that role all over town.”
By day, Wilson is a criminal justice professor at N.C. Central University. But by night — as with the midnight-to-8 a.m. shifts he once pulled at a local halfway house — he can often be found working with underprivileged children or with groups that help rehabilitate felons.
Wilson grew up in Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960s, a place and time of great racial turmoil. His current view of the world — and of recent violence attributed to young black men from Durham — is influenced by his upbringing and his academic training. He sees imbalance in the attention given to the killing of UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson — a pretty, blonde, white woman — and thinks killings of blacks are often glossed over. He preaches prevention and sees little point in ratcheting up punishment — such as tougher anti-gang laws, for example — if resources aren’t also poured into intervention.
“Poverty does not create crime; being black does not create crime,” Wilson says in an interview in his cluttered NCCU office. “You get doctors from the same neighborhoods from where you get thugs.”
But don’t complain, he says, if you don’t get involved.
snip
http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsedits/56-945554.cfm
Judge’s common sense proposals
The Herald-Sun
Apr 27, 2008
In an op-ed article in The Herald-Sun April 19, Durham District Court Judge Marcia Morey made an argument so full of common sense that it’s worth repeating.
Her proposal was twofold: First, raise the age at which young people are treated as adults in court from 16 to 18; and second, open up some juvenile records.
The knee-jerk reaction to the first idea is that it coddles criminals. In fact, the opposite is true. In the case of the accused killers of UNC student Eve Carson, for example, we saw the ineffectiveness of the adult probation system. As Morey pointed out, while the adult system is stretched thin, the juvenile system offers a broader range of punishment and treatment.
For 16- and 17-year-olds whose brains are still developing, such interventions have a huge upside. Diverting a 16-year-old from a life of crime is an immense benefit to society — and the person himself.
Still, for the worst cases, the option would remain for them to be tried as adults.
The second proposal goes hand-in-hand with the first.
Currently, because juvenile records are confidential, a judge may view a 17-year-old armed robbery defendant as a first-time offender, even if the person has a long string of prior offenses as a juvenile.
This wrong-headed approach tries to protect a juvenile’s privacy at the expense of public safety. We can understand keeping a juvenile’s non-violent record closed, but any violent crimes must come to a judge’s attention.
There is no bright line between age 15 and 16, or 18 and 19, when a young person should start with a clean slate, their past totally erased. If we expect judges to make good decisions about important matters such as bond, prison and probation, they need to see the whole picture.
Try as we might, it’s obvious that our efforts to reduce crime are not working. Judge Morey’s recommendations will not solve society’s problems, but they are a piece of a solution.
They should receive serious consideration by lawmakers.
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-946165.cfm
High-school students push voting
Bernard Thomas/ The Herald-Sun
Durham Academy’s Eva Stein (left) and teacher Liz Coleman hold a handmade sign encouraging early voting on Saturday near the Milton Road Branch of the Durham Public Library.
By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun
gronberg@heraldsun.com
Apr 27, 2008
DURHAM — Students from Durham Academy and other area high schools staged a vote-early march Saturday to encourage fellow teens to cast ballots in May’s primary and November’s general election if they’re eligible.
High-schoolers can vote this year if they’re due to turn 18 before Nov. 4.
The high-profile Democratic Party primary contest between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has clearly heightened interest in this year’s elections.
It appeared that all the teens who participated in Saturday’s march from Northern High School to an early-voting site at a nearby county library were Obama supporters.
“You take the students at Durham Academy, and there are Clinton supporters, Obama supporters and [presumptive Republican nominee John] McCain supporters,” said Eric Teagarden, a Durham Academy English and ethics teacher. “But all across the country, Obama seems to have engaged the youth in a special way.”
Teagarden stressed that despite the obvious preference of Saturday’s marchers, the urging for students to vote this year is nonpartisan. He said this year’s race has created “a teachable moment” that will promote civic responsibility for years to come.
At Durham Academy, all or nearly all of the students who will be eligible to vote this year have registered to vote, thanks in part to a registration drive at the school, Teagarden said.
Students who participated in Saturday’s march started the morning outside Northern by standing at the side of Roxboro Road with placards encouraging early voting and support for Obama.
A couple of the placards urged passing motorists to honk their horns if they favored Obama. A good number did so.
But several motorists signaled that they likely have another preference.
“She shook her head at us,” one student observed as a car passed.
“She’s for Mike Gravel,” one of his compatriots quipped, referring to the former U.S. senator from Alaska who ran for the Democratic nomination against Obama and Clinton this spring. He attracted little support and is now running as a Libertarian.
The event attracted a number of candidates for local office who were eager to pick up extra votes. County Commissioner candidates Josh Parker and Ellen Reckhow, district attorney candidate Tracey Cline and school board candidate Nancy Cox all stopped by at Northern before the students marched to the library.
Reckhow, an incumbent, put in the most effort, marching with the students and talking one-on-one with several of them. She explained to them what county government does, noting that among other things it helps fund schools and libraries.
Cox also marched with the students. Cline stopped by briefly but after a bit headed down the road to the early-voting site at the library.
Parker left before the march began, stopping just long enough on the way to a couple of other get-out-the-vote events to hand out campaign stickers.
He said a recent registration drive at Jordan High School similar to the one at Durham Academy registered 85 students in one day.
Given that most young voters registering this year are likely focused on the presidential race, local candidates have to find a way to get them interested in the other races on the ballot, Parker said.
Three other county commissioner candidates, Fred Foster, Becky Heron and Victoria Peterson, also got in a little campaigning after the march began.
Heron was waiting on the students’ march route along Milton Road and handed out leaflets as they passed. Foster and Peterson were campaigning outside the library, as was district attorney candidate Keith Bishop.
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20080427/SPORTS/240967289/1005/sports
Article published Apr 27, 2008
Brotherly bond bolsters Virginia
April 27, 2008
By Patrick Stevens - CHARLOTTESVILLE — Midfielder Shamel Bratton’s arrival at Virginia — along with his twin brother Rhamel — this season was perhaps the most hyped in college lacrosse history.
So with nearly a full season to his credit, Bratton’s had more than enough time to take stock of what possessed the potential to be a most unusual season.
“It’s nothing different,” Bratton insisted.
It isn’t shabby, either.
Bratton scored two second-half goals in Friday’s ACC semifinals against Maryland, helping the No. 3 Cavaliers (12-2) earn a rematch with top-ranked Duke (14-1) in today’s conference title game at Klockner Stadium.
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Mornin’ abb and all
Off to Mama’s for Sunday Morning breakfast. Back in a few hours.
Hey, abb! If this thread is about crime in Durham, it could be the longest in FR history.
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