Isorhythm

It snowed here the last week in January. Five inches, and we were out for two days. It's been years since I've had real, school-canceling winter weather, and it was refreshing. It gave me plenty of time to test out my new camera: Our front porch was covered in paw prints. I hope they found someplace warm to sleep! It doesn't look like much, but the unplowed roads really were treacherous. Each time we ventured out, we saw at least one car swerved off the road. Whole sections of street were solid ice. Not even the mail came that day. Cat prints! Cat prints everywhere!

Under the proposal approved by the Revenue Laws Study Committee, a group of House and Senate lawmakers, the maximum weekly benefit for someone out of work would drop from $535 to $350. Also, the state would replace its 26 weeks of benefits with a cap of 12 to 20 weeks, based on the health of North Carolina's economy.  -- " Proposed cuts to jobless benefits heading to general assembly ," Laura Leslie for WRAL.com 01/08/2013   Gov. Pat McCrory said Tuesday he's determined to get North Carolina's public university system to focus on teaching what's useful in terms of getting a job and criticized an "educational elite" for offering courses in subjects such as gender studies that don't lead students onto clear career paths. "That's a subsidized course. And frankly if you want to take gender studies that's fine, go to a private school and take it," said McCrory, who graduated from private Catawba College. "But I ...

I am amazingly excited that the NC gubernatorial debates are being broadcast live. Voting affects everyone. Educate yourself .

Mark Binker interviewed each of the three NC governor candidates for WRAL. Among the typical questions regarding funding, private school caps, and teacher pay, Binker posed this question: If you could choose any course to go back and study, what would you want to learn more about? The three candidates -- a Republican, a Democrat, and a Libertarian -- responded as follows. Can you guess their political leanings? "Modern civilization, because you learn a lot from history. . . . We're into a new technical age (like) we have never faced before. But that's true of all history. Every generation, every decade, every century has faced new challenges. How was that handled? ... I continue to learn from that today." "I think we need to teach economics and accounting to more of our kids. . . . I've had to go through more of a self-taught process. I wish I would have had more of that in high school and college."  "I might have taken something along the l...

When I moved from Florida nearly a year ago I didn't have a clear plan, and things were in limbo for a good six or so months before I decided to move in with Christopher. As such, many of my boxes are only now getting unpacked in the slow process of settling in. While I'd kept my camera in my purse and continued to snap photos, I'd thought my connector cords hopelessly lost until this past weekend when I opened a box and a bunch of electronics spilled out. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the past two years or so: Downtown Dothan, Alabama, where my mom was born. Christopher and I up and decided to make the drive from Tallahassee for no other reason than that we hadn't been there before.

UNC Chancellor named among top 100 most influencial business leaders I am glad the university is being noticed and that those involved in its management are being recognized for their work, but identifying them as "business leaders" rubs me the wrong way. The danger of associating education with business is that it allows efficiency and profit to overshadow growth and intellectual stimulation. Students become numbers, classrooms become conveyor belts, and educators become cogs in an endlessly churning machine managed increasingly by administators. The CEOs of UNC Health Care and REX Hospital, the chancellor of NC Central University, and the CEO of the NC Museum of Art appear on this list as well. My fears apply to them also.

I love the nowhere places, the long limbs of state highways stretched through wild pine, the whitewashed skins of farm houses peeling away, and tall grass that would feel so good against my bare knees. I love the deer that breakfast in my backyard and the wrenlings that thud into my bedroom window as they learn to fly. I am becoming unenchanted by the suburban sprawl, cookie-cutter communities in the woods, six-lane main roads unfriendly to bikes and foot traffic. I feel too young and too old for this place. Change would be welcome.