Fatcow Icon
Opinion
Along_These_Lines_Adventures_in_smuggling0_1368647187.jpg
Along These Lines: Adventures in smuggling
The ingenuity of criminals never fails to amaze. Take smugglers, for instance. They can be incredibly resourceful at packing contraband into extraordinarily places. And while often ingenious, smugglers can also be mind-bogglingly inept. Consider the woman traveling through the Bangkok airport back in 2010, who attempted to smuggle a drugged, live baby tiger in a suitcase full of stuffed, toy tigers. Airport security tend to get suspicious w...
full story
Tar Heel View: Industry can’t set fracking rules
We’re disturbed that a new rule set for approval by the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission requiring some disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing was withdrawn at the request of industry giant Halliburton. Fracking could be economically beneficially here if done right, but the recent move does not fit that standard. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that the state commission, created by the legislature last year,...
full story
My_Spin_NC_moving_forward0_1368558629.jpg
My Spin: NC moving forward
Government is nothing more than a social contract. An essential function of government is to provide infrastructure for the common good that is too costly, too big or impractical for individuals to undertake themselves. A look at our history reveals that public infrastructure has been funded through bonds, taxes, tolls and the lottery. We boast the opening of the first public university in 1795, financed in part by a lottery. With stagnatio...
full story
Tar Heel View: Separate public, charter school boards will hurt education
Republicans in the state legislature are in the process of making a multitude of bad decisions with regard to public education. And the antipathy they feel toward public school teachers, some of whom have criticized cuts to education, is leading GOP lawmakers down a path that will do much damage, from making it harder to get good teachers in the state to dividing public school governance between charter schools and conventional schools to p...
full story
Thom Goolsby
Sex trafficking puts on a human face
A human face was put on sex trafficking in a recent Senate Judiciary 1 committee meeting. Anna, a young lady who was the victim of sex trafficking when she was a teenager, gave powerful testimony before the committee. She told the senators how as a teen she was raped hundreds of times, as well as being photographed and videotaped by a pornographer. Anna showed the committee a somewhat graphic picture of herself that she never remembers bein...
full story
D.G. Martin
Good books you won’t see on ‘Bookwatch’
Here are some important new books you will not learn about on UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Bookwatch.” Before I explain, let me tell you a little bit about the books. Popular novelist Clyde Edgerton’s “Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers: Advice to Dads of All Ages” is based on what he has learned as the older father of three young children. He will be 69 on May 20. Edgerton embraces the opportunities young children present to an older parent ...
full story
Rep. Hudson
This Week in Washington for May 11, 2013
As I travel throughout North Carolina’s communities, I hear regularly from families who are struggling to balance the ever-increasing demands of work with the desire to care for and be with their family. This got me thinking about the reasons folks start their own business, and I believe one of the biggest motivating factors is the desire to have some control over their own lives. Part of the vision that my House Republican colleagues and I a...
full story
I do not understand
Dear Editor, My sister and I gave our dog a bath and then took her for a walk on Martin Street. As we were walking, a dog that appeared to be a German Shepard came viciously barking and jumping at us and our dog. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have our cells because we were using water and left them at home. When we finally made it home I called a number and a lady forwarded me to the animal control but I did not get an answer so ...
full story
Our_View_From_seed_to_sky0_1368171059.jpg
Our View: From seed to sky
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree … A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair … Writer Joyce Kilmer recognized the tremendous value of trees when he penned those famous lines so long ago. We need the trees. To feed us. To cool us. To provide us shelter. To ground us and bind us. To hold the fragile soil strong, and be a haven for our critters and squirrels. Our relationship with th...
full story
Yet you still voted for him
Dear Editor, Now you people knew before the last vote how ignorant this man was. Yet you chose to to re-elect him. We all saw how this green energy mess failed. It was all about our money in certain people’s pockets because of politics. This man has never operated so much as a snow-ball stand. Why do you think you have been paying such a high price for everything that is moved by transportation? Why do you wonder why your money goes now...
full story
The picture is of the Philadelphia Convention with George Washington presiding.
Notes on Quotes: Almost losing our Bill of Rights
“A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.” — Thomas Jefferson, U. S. President, 1801- 1809 As the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention recessed in 1787, the delegates were reasonably confident that their work on a strong national constitutional form of government with separation of powers and checks and balances would be easily rat...
full story
Tar Heel View: On a healthier state
North Carolina can boast exceptional resources devoted to the maintenance and improvement of health, including those like East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine here in Pitt County. Yet, despite such facilities and organizations working toward that common goal, the state lags behind much of the country in overall general health, consistently ranking in the bottom third by most measures. Now state officials, led by a former assi...
full story
Each year we look forward to this time
Dear Editor, On behalf of the Richmond County Adult Corrections, we would like to take this opportunity to thank several businesses for helping make lunch a success at this year’s Special Olympics at Richmond Senior High School. Each year as our contribution, we enjoy serving hamburgers, hot dogs, and the fixings to the kids and adults of Special Olympics. This would not have been possible this year without the Food Lions of Rockingham an...
full story
A smiling member of the community
Dear Editor, The obituary column in the Weekender noted that a well-known man in Richmond County died. Jerry Hilton “Punky” Martin Jr. died at age 41. Even in his later years confined to a wheelchair, Punky was always a smiling member of the community. He is best known for traveling around the county raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Many generous people in the county rallied around him to be sure he had a house ...
full story
My_Spin_Tax_reform_requires_wisdom_and_courage0_1367959085.jpg
My Spin: Tax reform requires wisdom and courage
For weeks we’ve heard the legislature will present details of a significant tax reform package. Lawmakers agree they want to lower personal and corporate income tax rates while expanding the tax base to include a wider range of sales and service taxes, but the devil is in tax reform details. Our current tax codes, first passed in 1939, have been modified, amended and expanded so many times they are overly complicated, sometimes contradictor...
full story
Where_our_focus_belongs0_1367959082.jpg
Where our focus belongs
More than 1,700 bills have been introduced in the NC House and Senate this year. I must tell you I feel that is excessive mainly because many of them do not address the issues I feel are most important to our state. In my view, we need to be primarily focused on our economy, job creation, education, and policies to make North Carolina state government more efficient and responsible in providing services to our citizens. Although the NC Sena...
full story
How_politics_has_changed0_1367881747.jpg
How politics has changed
When two senators recently got into a spat over whether the Boston Marathon bombings were being politicized, the news was everywhere within minutes. Reams of commentary quickly followed. This is political reality today, and when people ask me how politics has changed since I first ran for Congress in 1964, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. A debate on Capitol Hill back then might or might not have made the news, but even if it did, d...
full story
Celebrating_the_end_of_the_Charlotte_curse0_1367881587.jpg
Celebrating the end of the Charlotte curse
What is one thing we can do for Charlotte now that former Mayor Pat McCrory has been elected governor of North Carolina and his successor, Anthony Foxx, has been nominated for U.S Secretary of Transportation? We can stop referring to the Charlotte mayor’s job as a dead end or curse for politicians aspiring to statewide or national office. It might take some getting used to. The previous three Charlotte mayors who tried for statewide off...
full story
Voting is a right not a privilege
Dear Editor, The Voter ID bill is simply an anti-Democracy tactic to suppress the God-given Constitutional right to vote in America. Representative Ken Goodman’s vote in favor of this bill is a monumental disappointment to those of us who subscribe to the doctrine of basic fairness. Voting is a right not a privilege. Flying on a plane or buying a beer may require an ID but that is a privilege and not a right. Our democracy makes us unique...
full story
Our_View_Blinded_by_the_light0_1367631567.jpg
Our View: Blinded by the light
Among all of the unnecessary bills bouncing about in Raleigh, and the time-wasting legislation jawed about among the General Assembly, there is a modest bit of proposed legislation we believe makes perfect sense. From one of our sister newspapers, The Robesonian, comes word of a state senator looking out for our safety on the roads in NC. The state Senate on Thursday passed a bill that makes it a crime to install and use vehicle headlight...
full story
Weather
Sponsored By:

Lottery
Sponsored By:

Stocks
Sponsored By:

Gas Prices
Sponsored By:

Featured Businesses
Recipes
Sponsored By: