It was a simple change in tax law: eliminating the sales-tax exemption for free newspapers in North Carolina. The N.C. Department of Revenue says the change was made in the interest of fairness. Legislators who passed it say they were unaware of its presence within a much larger tax bill presented to them at the … Read more
A cracker in the pines True wisdom is often born of unlikely marriages: love and death, crime and poetry, chocolate and peanut butter. Add to that list a delicate environmentalism and an upbringing in a Southern-redneck junkyard, and you have the experience of celebrated author Janisse Ray, whose book Ecology of a Cracker Childhood caused … Read more
Legalization is the only solution to drug epidemic We are told that there is an epidemic of drug use in this country. Certainly this is true: From aspirin to Prozac, Valium to Viagra, alcohol to nicotine, everyone uses drugs. We use drugs to modify our state of mind and improve our health. We use them … Read more
It was during one particularly bright and sunny day that my perpetual wanderings brought me to the boulder-beaded, tree-shaded edge of a certain river. There, amid colossal chunks of stone and the voices of rushing water and foam, I found the monster. She slipped up behind and beneath me, without my noticing, until her fetid … Read more
Last summer, I decided to take 15 minutes out of a busy day to water some flowers. It was too hot and there were too many plants to use my watering can (made in Spain), so I opted for the hose (made in Malaysia). Like an especially unclean black snake, its five sections — each … Read more
