carrboro scandal

tho i rarely frequent the lovely lawn of weaver street market up in carrboro, the whole rest of the town certainly does - and i enjoyed many a lazy sunday morning there during law school. i recently heard news that the owner of the property on which the market sits has banned one particular carrboro local from dancing on the lawn. today i got this fabulous email from my friend and old law-school roommate, molly:

It's a Carrboro scandal... and Carrboro residents are dancing back... Wednesday, August 23, 5:30 pm... Weaver Street lawn…

In late July, Carr Mill Mall manager Nathan Milian told Bruce Thomas, dancer extraordinaire, that he could no longer dance on the "private property" of Weaver Street Market's lawn. Today, August 22, Weaver Street Market and Carr Mill Mall put out a press release with their "solution" to this PR fiasco: a new program called "Live on the Lawn." These scheduled events will feature performers who apply at Weaver Street Market. These performances must meet "approval" by Carr Mill Mall. The press release says there "will be a limit of one performance per week per artist or group."

Personally, we don't dance once a week. We dance when we want to. We want Bruce to dance when and where he wants to. Please help us make this point: come TOMORROW, Wednesday, August 23, 5:30 pm. to the Weaver Street lawn to raise dust with Bruce Thomas, the community of Carrboro, the Rainbow ReSisters, and the Carrboro Greenspace collective!

just thought i'd put that out there. i'm afraid despite all appearances to the contrary weaver street's lawn is private property. and so this nathan guy has a lot of leeway to tell people what they can and can't do there. but c'mon. people use his property like a town square, and he knows it. and as far as i know bruce isn't harming anything - he's just a wild dancer. the lawn and the community that gathers there are the greatest beauties of carrboro. so yay for molly and her crazy dancing/cheerleading squad. hope today's crowd makes some change.

comissioners strike again

the (in)famous three are back at it again. articles here and here. unfortunately we missed the meeting last night but after the last few, i didn't need to go in order to predict that the commissioners would vote 3-2 (as always) on the first step toward new voting districts in chatham county. despite a house full of angry voters who sat directly in front of them and demanded they not. i often become exasperated with the national political scene, but i've still never seen politicians as defiant as this. (if you click on the video, you'll get to see how well our favorite bunkey comes off in person.)

turns out there were several people there in support of districts, too, and i guess it's good they turned out. i was trained in civil rights law and usually would say "yay" to districts too - but in chatham, things just don't work that way. not only are they using completely outdated numbers to draw these districts (admist continuing exponential population growth) but in chatham, where neighborhoods and towns are actually pretty well integrated, districts would dilute rather than empower the minority vote.

there's more to it than that (of course), but i have to get back to work (unfortunately tho i get paid to think about lots of complex problems, this is not one of them). anyway, the meeting continues tonight...

wedding bells are ringing...

the nytimes has a funny article today about weddings. gives me a new perspective on ours! $28,000 for a wedding, holy cow. don't be spectin' such glitz 'n glam in september!