When politics is the topic, there is always more to talk about. So it is with the book on North Carolina politics that was the subject of a recent column. I keep going back to East Carolina University Professor Tom Eamon’s The Making of a Southern Democracy: North Carolina Politics from Kerr Scott to Pat […]

Just in time for the new year, a new book puts modern North Carolina politics in perspective. The Making of a Southern Democracy: North Carolina Politics from Kerr Scott to Pat McCrory, by East Carolina University Professor Tom Eamon, covers North Carolina and its politics from 1948 through last year’s election. These 65-plus years have […]

Are you missing the right gifts for some important people on your shopping list? There is help from some of the best and most popular North Carolina-connected storytellers, whose new books might be lifesavers for you. And your gift recipient can watch the author talk about the book in the next few weeks on UNC-TV’s […]

Should we look to Germany for a better way to organize our government? Our parents and grandparents from the “Greatest Generation” would be shocked at the idea that the country they fought so hard to defeat would have the kind of representative and effective government that any American would want to copy. But let’s look […]

Do people in North Carolina remember Thomas Wolfe, their once famous son, author of Look Homeward, Angel, whose books helped many of us get through the transformation from childhood to adulthood and opened the door to an appreciation of fine writing? Do his words still inspire new writers to open their mental guts and spill […]

Where were you when you heard that President Kennedy had been shot? Most Americans who were alive on Friday afternoon, November 22, 1963, can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they got the awful news. For others, the question is as puzzling as a question about President William McKinley’s […]

“Life is like a mountain range,” Ping Fu told a group of UNC-Chapel Hill students last week. Fu is the founder of Geomagic, Inc., which developed the computer code that made 3-D printing possible. Earlier this year, she sold Geomagic to Spartanburg, S. C., based 3D Systems Corp., a manufacturer of 3-D printing machines, for […]

What does Disney World have to do with Obamacare? There is an answer, but you will have to read on a little bit to get there. First, there is this grandfather’s testimonial about a wonderful experience at Disney World last week. Watching grandchildren experience the magic of the Disney kingdom was a treat of a […]

William Friday has been dead a year now, and we still don’t know how we are going to get along without him.  He was a living monument to all that is, or was, right with our state. Optimism, confidence in the basic goodness of others, respect for those who disagreed, and a relentless commitment to […]

What is the first rule of politics? “Follow the money,” says Mickey, a character in Robert Inman’s new book, “The Governor’s Lady.” It is a rule that we might overlook in a time when our politics seems to be defined by hard-line ideological differences. In fact, some of us would argue that following the money […]