The Commentators

This is Brian Thornburg. I don’t know about you, but I love cheering for UNC.  The way our men’s and women’s basketball teams played this season was enough to make you very proud to be a Tar Heel. In fact, most UNC teams are...

I encourage everybody curious about the ongoing athletics and academic scandal at UNC to read Cheated, a new book by Jay Smith and Mary Willingham. The book combines the detailed document analysis of Professor Smith, a...

Imagine you hand-crafted something. It was so special, people actually would visit you to watch you make it. But when they wanted to buy it, you weren’t allowed to sell them your hand crafted product, because the state...

This is Raleigh Mann. What are the qualifications for someone whose job it is to control a university? How about a whole bunch of universities – say, 17 of them? Some experience in higher ed administration is essential,...

This is Art Menius. I have been following with great interest the efforts by Carrboro, Orange County, and Chapel Hill to agree on a new fee structure for recycling. We have witnessed some high-level discussion on what equity...

The construction fences are going up on Elliott Road and you’ll now have to look a little harder for a parking space at Whole Foods. Work is beginning on Village Plaza Apartments on the site where the movie theater stood over a...

For anybody who wants to participate in the ongoing controversy about the UNC academic and athletics scandal, run to see Playmakers stunning performance of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. If you can’t see it, at least read it and discuss it with friends. To summarize briefly, the town doctor discovers that the recently constructed springs, the basis of an institute intended to bring health and prosperity, are contaminated, promising sickness instead of cure. Instead of welcoming this undeniable truth in a community meeting, the town leaders and the mob denounce the doctor and threaten his family as the curtain falls.

The Affordable Care Act, often referred to as ObamaCare, is facing its toughest challenge. And it comes from none other than North Carolina’s own Senator Richard Burr.

This is Raleigh Mann. Try to imagine how you would feel if an angry neighbor appeared at your front door with a gun tucked in his belt, or carrying a rifle. Pretty scary. What exactly is the point of that? I think it is this....

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE a mystery. A compelling story that slowly resolves, clue by clue, can keep you on the edge of your seat until the thrilling conclusion.

But there’s a mystery in North Carolina that isn’t compelling. It’s actually frustrating and concerning, but it IS keeping us on the edge of our seats.