11 responses so far ↓

• 1 Toastie // Oct 19, 2007 at 4:44 pm

  Some comments from the pre-launch “test” open thread that might be of interest to readers:

  Mr. Dependable:

  ** If anybody’s interested, there’s a decent discussion going on at my place regarding the relative merits of the mayoral candidates. Feel free to join in.

  http://dependableerection.blogspot.com/2007/10/heard-around-town.html

  Michael also has a post on Council elections at his blog for which your comments would be appropriate here:
  http://bullinfull.typepad.com/bif/2007/10/the-problem-wit.html

  Kevin has a couple of posts at Bull City Rising about the mayor’s race as well.
  http://www.bullcityrising.com/ **

  Becky:

  ** I received the following email from a neighbor:

  My name is Samiron Ray, and I’m the President of Duke Democrats. We are co-hosting a mayoral forum, open to the public, in Page Auditorium, West Campus Duke University at 6:30PM on October 23. Mayor Bill Bell and Mr. Thomas Stith are both participating. The Duke Democrats would be extremely honored to have the presence of as many Durham Democrats as possible at the event, so we would really appreciate it if you could let your general body know about the event by mass emails and other forms of communication. Thanks so much for your help! **

  kmf:

  ** Obama is coming! **

• 2 anglico // Oct 21, 2007 at 3:55 pm

  Congratulations on a good-looking blog. Everything seems to work smoothly . . . and it looks like you’re off and running. If there’s anything we can do at BlueNC to help the cause, you can reach me there anytime.

  Please know that there are lots of us living outside of Durham who care deeply about your city. Count on us to help.

• 3 CarolinaBlue // Oct 22, 2007 at 11:12 am

  One-stop voting begins today in Durham and runs through Nov. 3 at the Durham Board of Elections office, 706 W. Corporation St. You can vote between 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. every day except for Sunday, Oct. 28 (closed), or Saturday, Nov. 3 (9 a.m.-1 p.m.). See the Durham BOE site for a complete schedule.

  http://www.co.durham.nc.us/departments/elec/2007_Election/2007_One_Stop_No_Excuse.html

  (Can someone tell me how to embed a URL link in a comment when I don’t have a fancy editor to do it for me?)

• 4 Toastie // Oct 22, 2007 at 11:55 am

  Typing any URL out starting with http:// will automatically create a hyperlink.

  If you want to have a hyperlink where the URL is hidden, type something like this
  <a href=”http://www.co.durham.nc.us/departments/elec/2007_Election/2007_One_Stop_No_Excuse.html”>No Excuse Voting</a>

• 5 kmf // Oct 22, 2007 at 12:00 pm

  We should start collecting helpful hints like this and compile them in a FAQ. I looked for something in on the Wordpress site, but could not find anything.

• 6 Toastie // Oct 22, 2007 at 10:49 pm

  BCB Improvement of the Day–you can now preview your comments before posting!

• 7 ncprogressive // Oct 24, 2007 at 12:47 pm

  Monday’s Herald Sun (Oct. 22) had an AP story about the first two cabinet members starting to blog (!) — Mike Leavitt of HHS, and Michael Chertoff at Homeland Security. It’s a typical AP story insofar as it prompts as many questions as it answers, but I found one statement to be quite fascinating: “Chertoff comes up with an idea for a blog entry, then someone in the department writes it, and Chertoff heavily edits it, said Jeff Ostermayer, a department spokesman who oversees the blog.”
  Can you spell “crass” or “tacky”? Anyone willing to bet Mr. Chertoff finds little difference between (1) typing “MC” at the end of a piece and (2) “heavy editing’? (Chertoff’s faux blog is at dhs.gov/journal/feeds/dhs_leadership.xml.)

  “Leadership”? Oh, Kaaaaaathy, is my opinion ready yet?

• 8 Toastie // Oct 24, 2007 at 1:11 pm

  BCR (Bull City Rising) has a good post about how Stith compares Durham crime stats to those of our Triangle neighbors, whereas Bell more accurately represents Durham’s relative success in fighting crime by comparing the Bull City to cities with similar demographics.

• 9 ncprogressive // Oct 26, 2007 at 2:00 pm

  I am not privy to any of the thinking the City of Durham is doing about the water problem, but it would seem that this ought to be a more actively and publicly discussed issue. The newspapers describe the present deteriorating situation, but I have not seen much about what will happen if the drought continues for another two months.

  Governor Easley’s plea for us all to use less water was late and weak, just like Durham’s imposition of restrictions. It took until October 16 to ban lawn watering. If we really believe the situation is serious, why, really, are car washes still operating? A friend of mine complained bitterly to me that that he feels insulted that our officials ask him to save water while cars can still be washed for profit. Surely, even if they actually don’t use that much, the issue has enormous symbolic value, and symbols determine people’s behavior as much as any fact or argument. With local water use down only 16%, about half the requested amount, the arithmetic says the public is not responding adequately to mere requests and pleas.

  To pass laws mandating rain would be foolish; so, at present, the key to lowering water consumption is in the awareness and attitude of the public. But restrictions and dry official statements about dry conditions, read to the press, are not cutting it.

  Don’t we need new, different and bold measures?

  For one example, the City of Durham website’s home page, for goodness’ sake, has a cute, tiny photo of the Little River Reservoir, and it shows mostly water! Things look fine! See the pretty river! Does this reflect the focus the issue calls for?

  There should be daily, formal, and very public updates from the city on daily water use, made as if we should really care. These updates should be presented in all our public schools – on TV screens? — , so that our often more open-minded young people can perhaps take a new awareness home with them every school day. This might bring about some change. If updates are announced with regularity, people will (1) start to notice, (2) start to think, and only then (3) adapt their behaviour. Those steps have to be followed in sequence, and any way to make it interesting would help. Who are the county’s biggest water users? Are they decreasing usage?

  Can the city/county not ascertain and publicize daily estimated water use in gallons? Was yesterday an up day or a down day? This needs to be put in the public’s face. Is it good that it isn’t? Obviously, it is not the media’s primary job to prod public interest in this or any issue, but we seem to be leaving the job to them. Where will this leave us sixty days from now? Doesn’t falling 15% short of the recommended 30% usage drop as much as shout that the public is NOT taking the message to heart?

  Would it not be a proper, serious cautionary measure to lower water pressure – by, oh, say, 15% or 30% — one day a week? Is that possible? How better to show people what might happen in the future than a safe but dramatic sample of it starting now? It would get state, even national, attention. And why shouldn’t it?

  If we, the state and the South should find ourselves in really dire straits in two or three months, such an idea might look a little different in retrospect.

• 10 CarolinaBlue // Oct 28, 2007 at 5:04 pm

  Photos of the Oct. 27, 2007, Stop Torture/Anti-War Rally in Smithfield, N.C. can be found at http://www.stalberg.net/smithfield_oct272007/. I haven’t seen any media coverage of the event yet.

  The N.C. Stop Torture Now website is at http://www.ncstoptorturenow.net/.

• 11 CarolinaBlue // Oct 28, 2007 at 10:59 pm

  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) will speak at Meredith College on Friday, Nov. 2, 2007, at noon in Jones Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (919) 760-8455.

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