New Direction

Police kill serial killer

The serial killer that killed five people in Gaffney, S.C. was killed Monday, according to police.
As a native of Shelby, N.C., which borders Cherokee County, this was really scary.
There is a lot of information in this report from The (Shelby, N.C.) Star. 

Gannett Blog ends on Friday

Gannett Blog, which was created by former USA Today journalist Jim Hopkins, will end on Friday.
I never worked for a Gannett publication, but this was a must-read blog.

Question of the Day answer

If you could bring back a canceled tv series, which would you choose?
Submitted by The Good Girl Gone Blog.

 I would bring back The Wire. It was an awesome show that seemed to get at the core of most urban problems. I really enjoyed the fifth season's focus on the newsroom at The Baltimore Sun.

The (Columbia, S.C.) State makes staff cuts

Just after South Carolina's largest paper published a story that Republican Governor Mark Sanford left the state to be with a mistress in Argentina, it has cut staff.
Check out the emails. Maybe I missed something here in the bit I skimmed but I saw nothing wrong. Yes, he was having an affair, and that's something he has to work through with his wife. Sanford's mistake was leaving the state without anyone knowing his whereabouts.
The State did a fine job reporting the story that the governor left the state without putting anyone else in charge. That is a big deal. The affair is secondary.

 

Office Depot offers free copies of resumes for the rest of the year

From Ashvegas: Office Depot is offering free copies of resumes for the rest of 2009. The offer includes 25 single-sided pages and faxing to five domestic numbers.

Wilmington has its second bank failure

Wilmington's Cooperative Bank is the second Port City bank to fail this year.
It will be taken over by Troy-based First Bank.
The closed Cooperative branches will open Monday as First Bank.
Cape Fear Bank failed in April and reopened as First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Charleston, S.C.
Here's part of the story regarding possible job losses:

Branches, however, will overlap in Wilmington and other communities.

“We have not made any assessment yet” about whether current Cooperative Bank employees could lose jobs or if branches will close, (First Bank President and CEO Jerry) Ocheltree said, adding that First Bank is in the process of evaluating that now.

I hope First Bank can keep most, if not all, of the former Cooperative employees. While I understand Wilmington has grown since I last lived there, it is still a fairly isolated area. Wilmington is the only city down in southeastern North Carolina. There is no Triangle or Triad. There are no cities that are close together like Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. 

On another note, the Cooperative Bank building in The (Wilmington) Star-News photo did jog a lot of memories. I could visualize how far my church and high school were from there. Going down Market Street toward the waterfront was part of our route during cross country and once you passed the Cooperative building the first turn toward the police station, Cape Fear Community College and The Cotton Exchange was coming up.

Hat tip: Ed Cone

D.C. voting rights efforts are currently stymied

Maybe when you have been through the Washington, D.C., area you've noticed the bottom part of the license plate in front of you from a District driver that said, "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION".
That's because residents of The District do not have a voting representative in either part of Congress.
This editorial from today's Washington Post puts the blame on the parties involved in the current efforts to give D.C. residents representation.
OK, so maybe it's time The District has voting rights and all the trappings of what a state gets.
The city started to govern itself in 1973 and Adrian M. Fenty is only the fifth mayor.
The District has come a long way since the problems during Marion Barry's administration and while far from perfect it deserves to have voting representation in Congress.

How do you stack up financially against the rest of the world?

So how much money are you really making? On Global Rich List you can plug in your income and it will tell you how your income compares with the rest of the world.
You might bring home $30,000 while you're in school or in an entry level job. Look at how your income compares with others in the world. You could be surprised.
I heard about this site during a sermon at the church I went to in Herndon, Va. 

Old Dominion loses its first newspaper to recession

The Clarke Courier in Berryville, Va. published its final edition this week. It becomes the first paid circulation newspaper in Virginia to close because of the current recession.
The Washington Post's Marc Fisher writes that the Courier was the only paper that really cared about Clarke County.
Papers like The Clarke Courier are often the only publications that really care about towns like Berryville.
I know when I worked at a weekly in Kings Mountain, N.C., I would often write multiple stories from city council meetings. I had to bring back stories from places like the local high school's senior picnic. Going to a school could mean getting some photos from an assembly or science fair. There was also a story from last Friday's football game and most days one about the next opponent.
That range of coverage is only found in community newspapers.

New York Times loses one of its more reliable voices

The voice I'm referring to is not a famous columnist, foreign correspondent or reporter that formed the story that could make a career.
I'm referring to Cy Shain, who had many letters to the editor published in the New York Times. According to this article in The Nation, he had six letters published each year in 2001, 2002, and 2003.
Shain was 88 when he died.
It's good to see The Nation publish this interesting story about one of the Times's lesser-known contributors.