Chatham County, NC Blogs

At my home in North Chatham County, NC, I hosted one of the 10,000 Obama house parties held across the country in mid-December. Thanks to the powerful tools at http://my.barackobama.com, local Democratic Party email lists and a neighborhood online bulletin board, in just a few days the word was spread. I received 24 RSVPs, and 11 regrets. That’s a great response for a rural county AFTER the election. I was encouraged that more than 20 people showed up. There was a lot of energy in the room — people seem eager to bring change not only on the national level,…

Despite all the horrendous stories of newspaper layoffs, near bankruptcies, and even “bailout plans for journalists,” there’s some silver lining in the media world: blogging is blooming into a profitable financial and publishing enterprise for at least a few. The Huffington Post, which had 4.5 million unique visitors in September, just landed $25 million of new funding. It plans focused acquisitions, and currently has a valuation of $100 million. TPM Media, founded by Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall, which has about a dozen employees, is hoping to expand in 2009 through micro-targeted advertising.And despite the decline of traditional newspaper…

Fainting Goats and Flowers at Fearrington
If you ask me what to do in North Carolina, I’ll tell you that there’s always another garden to visit!
Between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro there is a village that was created in the early 1970s by RB and Jenny Fitch. Fearrington Village was built on the 1500 acre site [...]

“It’s not easy to say goodbye, but it’s time. Thirty-nine years flew by so fast that trying to figure out what is the highlight of it became next to impossible. Well, there were those 26 trips to the Final Four. And that Duke-Kentucky game in 1992, which came a year after that Duke-UNLV game. Both came after a famous shot by a famous player in 1982, which came a year before a famous coach was seen in New Mexico, running across the court looking for somebody to hug. Yes, fabulous moments. Geez, has it really been this long?” Read the…

Fearrington - Looking beyond the Inn
October 9, 2008 ·

If the Inn and Restaurant are all you think about when you visualize Fearrington Village, you may want to expand your horizons.  There is an incredible amount of programming going on out there.  Combine some of the daytime events with lunch at The Grainary or a light bite [...]

Monday, October 13, 2008 Dovecote at Fearrington Village
October 13, 2008 at 6:33 pm · Filed under Post Sunday’s Post, Uncategorized ·Tagged Dovecote at Fearrington Vilage, Dovecote at Fearrington Village

For my December column in Metro Magazine, I’m once again listing great places to see Christmas design, places to buy wreaths, greenery and bows, plus places to buy great gifts [...]

The Wall Street Journal has launched a new social network and online community for its one million paid subscribers. “If if it’s successful, it could provide lessons for other news organizations trying to build deeper connections with their readers,” observes The New York Times. I hope it works, because that would also offer hope for a paid subscription model to online publications. It’s great to read this quote from Alan Murray, deputy editor of the WSJ:”The Wall Street Journal under its new management (News Corp) is investing in both print and online, so I would say we are very optimistic…

September 14, 2008

Eva & Dan

I had the pleasure of photographing Eva and Dan this past Saturday at Fearrington Village here in Pittsboro, NC with Steve Exum. The scenery at Fearrington is lovely which complemented this couple’s disposition. I have been photographing weddings all summer, but I’ve only put a few up here. I’ll have to [...]

Fascinating evaluation of recent books and articles. Which side do you think makes the more compelling case? Related: Internet Takes Us Back to the Future A Political Reawakening: Internet Takes Us Back to the Future

In prime time, five “regular” Americans spoke at the Democratic Convention. By far the best of the five, in my humble opinion, was Pamela Cash-Roper, a retired nurse from Chatham County, Pittsboro, NC. (And I’m not just saying that because I’m a resident of Chatham County.)The N&O did a nice story. Below, courtesy of the Chatham Journal, she talks about the response in Chatham County to her high national profile: More Republicans for Obama.

Author Clyde Edgerton in The News and Observer: “The New South is everywhere, but you can also find the Old South, physically, depending on how far you get off the interstate. And the old South, whatever that is, still exists in some form or another, for better or worse, in the psyche of more than one human being.” One aspect of the Old South is innocence, naivete. I spent a delightful morning at McIntyre’s Bookstore in Fearrington Village listening to Clyde Edgerton read from his latest comic novel, The Bible Salesman, and singing songs with his bango. I particularly enjoyed…

The John Edwards “scandal” illuminates new perspectives on media: I confess that when the scandal broke in the National Enquirer, I went online and started googling the alleged participants. I learned that Bob McGovern, the man the Enquirer said drove Edwards to meet Rielle Hunter, was a psychic and “spiritual healer” in Santa Barbara, and that Rielle Hunter was seriously into New Age spirituality, and was described by novelist Jay Mcinerney when she was 20-something as “sexually voracious, cocaine-addled.” Though McGovern and Hunter had obviously tried to take information about themselves off the Internet, it was still available in Google…

When I first learned about the secret cold war bunker next to Fearrington Village off of Big Hole Road while walking my dog, I and my neighbors joked that we had discovered the “undisclosed location” that Vice President Dick Cheney was holed up in after 9/11. And/or the spot from which the U.S. Army was launching and testing flying saucers. Now we learn from the News and Observer that the bunker, built in the early 1960s to protect the nation’s leaders in the event of nuclear attack from the Soviets, has been shut down.

wedding: neha+jack
neha and jack had a wonderful wedding celebration on june 1st at the fearrington village in pittsboro, north carolina. the late afternoon ceremony took place in the beautiful gardens at the fearrington house and the reception was held on the farm in the original dairy barn. the weather held out for the outdoor ceremony [...]

John Edwards, Rielle Hunter Love Child Scandal ABC News reports that John Edwards has admitted he had an affair with Rielle Hunter, and that he lied as a presidential candidate. But he maintains he’s not the father of Hunter’s child and that he has not authorized child support or hush money, though some of his supporters “may have without my knowledge.” And he hasn’t taken a paternity test. So the National Enquirer got the story RIGHT, at least partially. The issue is not simply that Edwards cheated on his spouse. Many politicians — and human beings — do that. One…

I know the long-term future of newspapers is not good, but I was shocked to read in The New York Times that good respectable newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe lost between 20 percent and 30 percent of their circulation between 2003 and 2008 — an average of about five percent per year — and nobody wants to invest in newspaper corporations, viewing them as dwindling assets. If the trend continues, by 2013 leading newspapers will have lost half their 2003 circulation, and by 2023 or 2024, if not well before, their…

Quiz for Journalism Students: A case study in how tabloid publications and blogs can now set the agenda for mainstream media. You’re the managing editor of a mainstream newspaper. A national supermarket tabloid is reporting that your state’s former U.S. Senator, a recent presidential candidate who still has a high profile and, presumably, national ambitions, has a mistress, has fathered a child out of wedlock, and is funneling payments of $15,000 a month — child support or hush money — through wealthy friends, while his high-profile wife struggles with incurable cancer. The tabloid story, based entirely on anonymous sources, reports…

In my continuing efforts to chronicle the development of online communities that enhance real communities, I notice that in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, locally-based online communities increasingly solicit citizen suggestions and mobilize them for for local action. Madison Marquette, redevelopers of University Mall in Chapel Hill, has created a Facebook page soliciting consumer suggestions for new stores and restaurants they’d like to see in the redevelopment. So far, 31 people have contributed 36 requests, including a movie theater, a children’s clothing store, and a food court, The News and Observer reports.University Mall as of this date has 52 fans on…

I had nice birthday, but while my wife, son and I were with neighbors for a few minutes, Shiloh the dog leaped up on table and gobbled up the birthday cake (we only got one slice each), and stepped all over the laptop keyboard, apparently crashing it. I’m hoping he dies of chocolate overdose.

I wrote on Ed Cone’s blog: “The attitudes Jesse Helms expressed were very popular and commonplace in North Carolina. He was a man of his times, only more outspoken than many who secretly felt the same way. Most of us have relatives who believed as Helms did. On a personal level, Helms and the people who supported him could be salt of the earth people. He was great at constituent service, for example, and had a disarming, gracious, gentlemanly, self-effacing charm about him. “But we cannot cover up or whitewash the dark side not only of Helms but of our…