Sunday, October 19, 2003

Real bloggers read blogs. I've said before that Elizabeth Edwards is often the most interesting writer on the John Edwards weblog, and I'm happy to see her venturing out into the blogosphere, and honored to receive her comments on my blog. 6:11:06 PM    comment []

Eric Muller reports on faculty discontent at UNC over the big pay package for new basketball coach Roy Williams. He's right, I'm sure, although his statement that the athletic department is about to start losing money is a misdirection, since the basketball program itself is a profit center. Anyway, it's a moot point. This is Carolina basketball we're talking about. The only way Roy gets less money is if he loses too often to Duke. 9:14:31 AM    comment []

In a guest op-ed article (unlinked) in this morning's N&R, Bunny Cone Bulluck shows why she's always been one of my favorite cousins. She blasts Cone Mills execs for the decline of the company and for getting paid big bucks while workers and shareholders suffer. Bunny points to the principled owner/employers in her family tree, who took big pay cuts during the Depression. She could have mentioned Uncle Julius, who saw that all depositors were made whole when the mill bank failed in the early '30s. That was a different era, to be sure, and I think she may underplay some of the challenges facing established textile companies these days, but she makes some damn good points. (Bunny is not a shareholder; almost everyone in the family sold out in the 1984 LBO. I own about 400 shares, bought on a bottom-fishing trip at about $2/share.) 9:07:25 AM    comment []

"It's about time we put a writer in the White House." In this morning's newspaper column, I invoke Thomas Jefferson and Jim Moore to argue that the Web can "restore written language to its proper role in American politics." "Presidential campaigns now have the ability to route around television and other corporate media in order to communicate directly with voters....Jim Moore...has written about a "second superpower" forming on the Web...a nation of interconnected writers can be an alternative to the power of big media." The N&R includes a list of links mentioned in the column in a box that runs with the story. I have to say these folks are getting it. My editor tells me I don't write too much about weblogs. I wonder if my readers agree. 8:56:00 AM    comment []