BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for November 12, 2009

Kudos to the Independent Weekly for their investigative story on Durham's Civilian Police Review Board; Samiha Khanna notes that only a couple of dozen cases have been referred to the citizen-run appeals board for review -- and that even in that limited set, documents related to alleged bad acts by police "have been misplaced, forgotten or only partially investigated" in several cases. It's also not clear, Khanna writes, what impact the board has had on actually changing DPD policies.

It's worth a read. And great to see the alt-weekly continue its history of digging deeper into stories.

In other local news:

That Drought You Liked? It's Out of Style for a While: Remember how we were in a severe drought, and then rains got us out? Then, the driest year on record since handlebar mustaches rocked the fashion world snuck up on the RDU, and we were in a moderate drought again? Well, it's been raining. A lot. Drought? Likely over. Driest year on record? Won't make the record books. And it looks like the reservoirs are going to fill right up. (Herald-Sun) Check out the USGS graph below from Flat River, which leads to our water reservoirs -- and if you think it looks dramatic from first impressions, check out the scale at left.

Avaya Swallows Nortel Division; 60-75% Job Retention Possible: Anti-trust regulators have given the nod for Avaya (the telecom company that inexplicably employed Wayne Brady in their commercials for a while) to take over the enterprise solution of Nortel (the telecom company that inexplicably threw away their only copy of "How to Run a Major Corporation Free of Financial Scandal" a few years back.) Though BCR's heard some skepticism on this, the TBJ reports that Avaya "could" keep somewhere between six-tenths and three-quarters of the RTP employees in this division, which of late has been the bulk of the workforce at the Park for the former telco giant. (Triangle Business Journal)

Almost 2,400 Get H1N1 Prick: Durham's public health engine saw one of its highest turnouts yet for its H1N1 vaccination mass immunization clinics, with almost 2,400 vaccinations given to children and other high-risk populations yesterday. Look for future clinics roughly weekly; no word on when the federal government will open the vaccination to a mass audience, though with manufacturers delivering about 10m doses a week, there's a big group of at-risk Americans to work through first. (Herald-Sun)

Warhol "Pops" Into Nasher: Duke's Nasher Museum sees the opening of its exhibition of Andy Warhol Polaroid pictures, showcasing images of actors, athletes, musicians and the like taken by Warhol in the last twenty years of the pop-artist's life. The show runs at the Nasher until June, then on to university museums at UNC-CH and UNC-Greensboro. (Herald-Sun #1, #2)

Pauli Murray Project Web Launch: The Duke Human Rights Center started its Pauli Murray Project in March to study and honor the Durham native who was a champion of civil rights and gender equality, among other things. The project has launched a new web site (http://paulimurrayproject.org/) and will incorporate oral histories and written descriptions of how Durham's heritage and historic buildings were interleaved in Murray's life. (Herald-Sun)

Comments

[Jeremy T]

Kevin, thanks for the little fishwrap summary in the RSS feed. Very cool :)

[Bull City Rising]

@Jeremy: Thanks! Ive had a bit of extra time for the blog this week since Im off work on vacation, so theres time for some of those niceties. Ill try to start adding those in wherever possible.

One of the frequent comments I get about BCR is the desire for the RSS feed to be full-content. The challenge I have is that as I look to add paid writers to BCR to cover neighborhood, education, local events and other coverage areas, I have to pay for them somehow -- and local advertising is the way Im doing that. Unfortunately, RSS feed ad solutions are focused on mass-eyeball, nationally-targeted ad solutions from Google and others -- things that feedback to BCR also suggests people dont want.

RSS ads work great for (say) Gizmodo/Engadget, Gawker, etc. They dont work for hyperlocal just yet. Its a problem that needs some help to solve.

[Todd P]

Lake Michie is 2 feet above full, with the overflow heading down to Falls Lake. Little River reservoir rose almost 10 feet yesterday, to just 2.7 feet below full, and is surely overflowing by now as well. The water supply is now well over 300 days.

http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/wm/water_update.cfm

Duke has a handy map for locating the H1N1 vaccine at Duke-related facilities in the Triangle area here:

http://www.dukehealth.org/locations/h1n1_vaccine_availability
The map is updated pretty regularly.

[Larry Douglas Bullock]

I hardly think Samiha Khanna should be calling the Durham Police Department into question. She is partly responsible for flaming the fires of the Duke Lacrosse case in 2006 by accepting at face value allegations that were false.

Civilian oversight in Chapel Hill? Yawn. Durham's Police Review Board? Meh... Get your act together then we'll talk.