House of commons

Joe KillianNews & Record4/30/06
GREENSBORO — At a seemingly ordinary house on North Mendenhall Street a strange sort of family gathers each week for Sunday dinner.
They’re an odd collection: punk-rock musicians, single mothers, part-time chefs and political activists ranging in age from 6 to 56.
What draws them together over a simple meal largely scavenged [...]

Spending a day with The Last Ninja

NODA, Japan – The teachings of Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi echo through my head as he entreats me to attack a blackbelted disciple with a practice sword. “Always be able to kill your students,” he says.
Chilling words from a shockingly fit 76-year-old man who bills himself as the world’s last ninja and stocks his training [...]

New editors at The Carolinian

Oh – in case anyone cares – the Carolinian’s editorial board met on Tuesday and elected the editorial board for next year. I missed it as I was on an N&R assignment, but there were a lot of applicants and they were all interviewed (one from Scotland, where she’s spent her last semester abroad).
Here’s how [...]

I’m afraid I’m not kidding…

SAN FRANCISCO – A suburban San Diego teenager who was barred from wearing a T-shirt with anti-gay rhetoric to class lost a bid to have his high school’s dress code suspended Thursday after a federal appeals court ruled the school could restrict what students wear to prevent disruptions.
The ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. [...]

Do not bury me.

I’m not going to commit suicide.
Not right now anyway.
Thought I should say that right up front so no one reading this will take what I’m about to say the wrong way or read any deeper meaning into it. I just like to say the following at least once a year so that everyone in my [...]

UNCG uses residential programs to attract students

Joe KillianStaff WriterThe News & Record6/27/06
When high school juniors and seniors open their mailboxes the barrage of flashy college brochures can be overwhelming. With so many schools scrambling for prospective students, larger universities are looking for new ways to market themselves.
One strategy at UNCG: using special programs to emphasize the small liberal arts college experience. [...]

OUT OF MY HEAD: If Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter had kids…

Joe KillianThe Carolinian4/26/06
This month, as UNCG welcomed former Clinton chief-of-staff Erskine Bowles to campus for his inauguration as president of the UNC system, the UNCG College Republicans welcomed him in their own way – with handmade picket signs.
“The Spoils System is Live and Well in NC” read one of the signs.
“UNC Loves Patronage,” screamed another.
The [...]

Day of Silence

My little sister, Meagan, is helping to organize today’s National Day of Silence at her high school in a tiny coastal NC town that’s pretty hostile to the idea. They’ve encountered some resistance to trying to set up a Gay-Straight Alliance there and the administration is openly hostile to the very idea and has intimidated [...]

Studying

NYT Deputy Managing Editor Jonathan Landman answers questions on web journalism from Times readers here.
When fielding a question from a mother whose son is in journalism school Landman emphasizes the importance of learning analytical thinking, skepticism, intellectual humility, clairty of expression, etc from other disciplines and not, as a student, getting journalistic tunnel vision.
While [...]

Free Wi-Fi is a go on Elm Street. Or at Natty Greene’s anyway…

Blogging from Natty Greene’s right now, where at the end of lunch I’m finding the free Wi-Fi on Elm Street downtown as fast and smooth as my home connection. Some bloggers are reporting spotty or dropped connections. If that’s true this must be a sweet spot – and it’s inside a good bar.
I [...]

Lorraine

On my best day I’m maybe half the columnist Lorraine Ahearn is.
She often writes penetrating, insightful things that make me want to just put my head in my hands and give it up. But this is how good she is when she’s just having fun with her column.

The war on vibrators

From the AP wire:
COLUMBIA — Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys.
But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.
The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to [...]

More rambling about blogging/journalism

Some more musings on blogging/journalism. Bear with me. Am working it all out in my head and thought it might help to post here, get your thoughts.
John Robinson, the editor of the News & Record, made a blog post welcoming me to the staff a few days ago. He also linked to my blog – [...]

Drinks all around!

Congrats to my friend Chris Lowrance, the newest staffer at Yes! Weekly.

Chris was an intern at Yes! last year and has been freelancing for them ever since. Most recently he did the illustrations for last week’s cover story on the history of the Black Panthers in Greensboro.
His comic-as-feature story, Framed, appears monthly and is some [...]

Life 101: Choosing a good wine

Joe KillianStaff WriterNews & Record
In the James Bond movie “From Russia With Love,” Sean Connery spots an enemy agent because he orders the wrong wine with dinner. This simple mistake costs the villain his life in a climactic battle aboard a speeding late-night train.
Is it any wonder we’re so intimidated by wine?
Choosing a wine can [...]

Cabbie says Duke players said: "She just a stripper."

From the AP story on the alleged rape by Duke lacrosse layers, word from the cabbie who picked up players and who the defense claims will help prove they’re innocent:
Mostafa declined to speak to The Associated Press on Wednesday but confirmed to other media outlets that he picked up Seligmann and another passenger at 12:19 [...]

Blogs a trend in campus political discussion

Joe KillianStaff WriterNews & Record
When Melissa Westmoreland was a freshman at UNCG she would write what she calls “long political rants” and post them on her dorm room walls.
These days, Westmoreland, a senior and president of UNCG’s College Republicans, has a new outlet — the blogosphere. She now has a much larger audience — and [...]

New job, new thoughts

So today I accepted a full time reporting position at the News & Record.
It feels really good. This is all I’ve really wanted to do since I was 15-years-old.
But at the same time – while working on one of the four stories I’m writing simultaneously this week – I realized how hard it’s become to [...]

Jim Yardley wins the Pulitzer

The NYT’s Jim Yardley won a Pulitzer prize for International reporting today.
Yardley is the son of Rosemary Roberts, a former NYT writer herself and columnist for the News & Record. Roberts teaches journalism at UNCG and taught the only journalism class I’ve ever taken. I took the class after two years of reporting for [...]

Pop quiz

Everyone.
Quick.
Your favorite:
1) Rock album
2) Punk rock album (Seems an important enough distinction, and I know someone’s going to bring it up)
3) Metal album (See above)
4)Pop album
5) Rap album
6) Country album
7) OTHER album (jazz, blues, classical, folk – you decide)
If you don’t listen to rap or country enough to answer your favorite [...]