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Rick Bean
Seeing Durham from the inside
We have only one chance to make a good first impression, or so the adage goes. Thank goodness first impressions are not necessarily lasting ones. We’ve all been wowed, only to be disappointed later. We’ve also been under-whelmed, only to later kick ourselves for our inability to see talent. First the good calls. It was more than 40 years ago, as a young, ...
Nancy Wykle
Chris Fitzsimon
To a better 2012 and to all a good night
‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the night, folks sought steady ground amid the state’s lurch to the right. It began down on Jones Street on a cold winter day. Tillis took the oath and promptly named his gavel Ray The Senate chose Phil after years of Basnight’s reign, Like Tillis, Berger’s first take seemed balanced and sane. But soo...
John Hood
No Dutch treat on education
If North Carolina were a country, our level of taxpayer funding for education would be near the top — but the performance of our public schools would be mediocre. These are among the findings of a new study by the John Locke Foundation’s education analyst, Terry Stoops. He looked at spending, student-assignment policies, test scores, and other data for North ...
Rob Schofield
Vouchers: No help for special education
It sometimes proves frustrating, but there are good reasons that the United States has a Food and Drug Administration. At the heart of the matter is the alternative; without the FDA, Americans would be (and once were) victimized by an endless collection of shysters promising all sorts of phony miracle cures and therapies. Though some might occasionally find ge...
Leonard Pitts
A book too embarrassing to read
A story for Black History Month. Bryan Stevenson is director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery, Ala.-based organization he founded in 1989 to provide legal representation for the indigent and incarcerated. The EJI (www.eji.org) doesn't charge its clients but, says Stevenson, he will sometimes require them to read selected books. Last year, Steven...
Eugene Robinson
The call that demands leadership
WASHINGTON -- It's late at night when the phone rings at the White House: Kim Jong Il, the ruthless oddball dictator of nuclear-armed North Korea, is dead. His apparent successor is his 20-something son, about whom practically nothing is known. South Korean officials have rushed to put the nation's military forces on high alert. Do we want Mitt Romney answeri...
Tina Dupuy
GOP preaching the prosperity gospel
One of the richest men in the country, ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans, likes to accuse the president of creating an “entitlement society.” Mitt Romney, the heir apparent, next-in-line GOP nominee, is against entitlement. When I hear “entitlement society,” I think “country club.” But When Mitt uses that phrase he doesn’t mean rich guys like him, giv...
Kathleen Parker
What's wrong with these bleeping people?
Scene: An elevator in New York Presbyterian Hospital where several others and I were temporary hostages of a filthy-mouthed woman who was profanely berating her male companion. It wasn’t possible to discern whether he was her mate or her son, but his attire (baggy drawers) and insolent disposition seemed to suggest the latter. Every other word out of the wom...
D.G. Martin
Mathematics Professor Robert Whitton works with a student in this undated photograph provided by Davidson College.
Mathematics Professor Robert Whitton works with a student in this undated photograph provided by Davidson College.
slideshow
Celebrating George Washington’s failures
George Washington was a failure. But that is not the reason we do not celebrate his birthday (Feb. 22) anymore, unless you count Monday’s President’s Day. Washington’s failures are not the reason there are no more cherry pies or axes to help us remember the legends of his honesty and character. We just don't pay that much attention to him anymore in normal...
Dana Milbank
Santorum cries Nazi
WASHINGTON -- Rick Santorum sees Nazis everywhere: in the Middle East, in doctor’s offices and medical labs, in the Democratic Party, and now in the White House. The Republican presidential candidate told a group of supporters Sunday night that this year's election was like the time between 1940 and 1941 when Americans didn't act against Adolf Hitler because ...
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