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Opinion
What Have You Got to Lose?
North Carolina’s official toast boldly proclaims that ours is a state where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great. But we can never be that great state as long as so many of us are so unhealthy. According to the non-profit United Health Foundation North Carolina ranks 33rd in overall health, continually among the bottom third of states. One in three children is overweight or obese while 26.5 percent of white, 42.9 percent of black ...
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Public notices need to be where the public notices
Public notices need to be where the public notices. But state legislators and a handful of local government agents want to take legally required public notices advertisements that tell you about major road closings, competitive bids being sought, elections scheduled, important public hearings set, etc. out of the newspapers that have run them for upwards of 200 years, and hide them in plain sight. They want the public not only to hunt for...
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Keep our grandfather’s fire burning
“Everybody in North Carolina should have heard that speech.” Someone had just heard Tom Lambeth’s recent remarks to the North Caroliniana Society, which was presenting him with its annual award for service to our state. Lambeth, longtime former executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, used the occasion to talk about some of the people and some of the stories that help define North Carolina and its history for him. Lambeth...
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Racing to survive at 75
Newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter once sat in front of a TV camera in a tan cardigan sweater with a White House fireplace blazing in the background. He proceeded to tell Americans, including yours truly, that in the midst of an energy crisis we must change our wasteful, energy-gulping ways. The year was 1977, and America had been buffeted by a shortage of gasoline. The shortage came from oil supply restrictions imposed by the OPEC ...
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Sensible drug testing for work first cash and training
Government has truly become Big Daddy in many people’s minds. Nothing proves this claim more than recent arguments on the floor of the North Carolina Senate regarding SB 594. The proposed legislation is simple. It requires a drug test in order for individuals to receive Work First cash benefits and job training. However, to hear liberal politicians rail against the law, one would think that supporters of the legislation were forcing the poo...
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The Writing on the Wall
Never before have there been more options for consumers in choosing how, when and where they shop. We live in a global marketplace. If I want to buy a new pair of shoes I have a multitude of choices where to shop. I can drive to my local mall, or visit the specialty shoe store just around the corner from my house. I can go online and type into the search engine the exact type and size shoe that I am seeking and will have shoe sellers around...
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Eastern North Carolina eating, the literary way
There are hundreds of reasons to celebrate Georgann Eubanks’ third and last in her “Literary Trails of the North Carolina” series. Follow her travels in the just released “Literary Trails of Eastern North Carolina,” and you will have the most enjoyable and efficient survey of authors and literary connections in that region. But one of my favorite parts of her books are the descriptions of the places where literary-connected people eat. ...
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Big Apple Is Less Filling
Is New York City a better place to work than Charlotte? It depends on your priorities. For many people, the Big Apple with all its glamour and glitz may be the place they want to live. But if your goal is to maximize real income, the Queen City will be the better choice. In public policy analysis, benchmarking is an important tool. We want to know how other jurisdictions are faring — be they cities, states, or nations. We want to know if th...
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It’s Just Play … Or Is It?
On any given day you can walk into my preschool classroom and find kids playing in various centers. For those of you who are not familiar with how a preschool classroom operates, I’ll explain. In my classroom, you won’t find toys placed randomly throughout the room. I’ve taken special care to arrange my toys and materials so they create what is known as “centers.” So, I will have all my blocks and toys relating to blocks together, writing u...
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Letter to the editor
Saturday, May 11th marks the 21st anniversary of one of America’s great days of giving: the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. Each year on the second Saturday in May, letter carriers across the country collect from our customers non-perishable food donations. These donations go directly to local food pantries and to provide food to people in need, and there are many in Elkin and the surrounding area who ne...
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The angel from Canada
Way back in my newspapering days I found myself reporting on the 1996 Billy Graham crusade in Charlotte. One evening before the service could get started a late-summer shower passed over the big football stadium down there. The press table was down out on the field, out in the open, so I grabbed my gear and headed for shelter in the nearby northwest tunnel, the visitor’s tunnel during Panther games. With the start of the service delayed, ...
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More of Us Getting Knee Replacement
For a growing number of us, it will become necessary at some point to have a knee replacement. A recently completed 20-year study, funded in part by the National Institute on Aging, shows the number of knee surgeries has steadily risen. More of us, it seems, are now walking pain-free. But the news isn’t all good, however. The study included 3.3 million participants who had a primary knee replacement and 300,000 who had a revision process, w...
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Disability model isn’t working
I’m glad to see news reporters and policy analysts devoting increasing attention to a subject Carolina Journal readers will find familiar: the role that public policy plays in discouraging work. A key feature of the current, anemic economic “recovery” is that the share of adults who are active participants in the civilian workforce – whether employed or currently unemployed – is declining rapidly. If America had the same workforce-participa...
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