Articles

On days when Mark Shirley serves lunch at his food truck, Ole Time Smokehouse, he wakes up at 3:30 a.m. By the time most people in Farmville, North Carolina, are just getting out of bed, Mark’s barbeque has already been cooking for hours.   Good Carolina barbeque takes time.     “I cook the ole-timey way,” Mark says. … ...

We all know small business owners whose livelihoods were disrupted, if not destroyed, by the pandemic. Ami Hill, owner of Muse Gallery OBX, a brick-and-mortar art gallery featuring local artists and artisans, was not spared. However, she was also not deterred. Successful entrepreneurs have a way of forging a path where none is obvious. Ami … ...

The Revolutionary War is filled with stories of heroes who risked everything to secure a future where an individual’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness was safeguarded against the threat of tyrants.   Our history books tell of the bravery of patriots like Paul Revere and Sam Adams, but there is a … ...

The pandemic was hard on all small businesses in North Carolina, but perhaps most of all on “private bars”—an antiquated classification of bars in North Carolina from the prohibition era. An establishment is considered a private bar if it makes 75% or more of its profit from alcohol sales. When Rob and Crystal Waldron reached … ...

If we’ve learned anything in the past few years, it’s that emergency power is easily abused. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governors across the country claimed unprecedented power to combat the virus. Businesses were shuttered, schools closed or moved online, vaccinations were required to eat at a restaurant, see a musical, or even do y ...

Imagine the unthinkable happens: Your spouse suffers a sudden stroke and becomes wheelchair-bound. Life changes in an instant. Ordinary things—stairs, narrow hallways—become insurmountable problems.  You adapt. You push forward with plans to build a new home with ramps and an open floor plan. The county approves your permit to build. Life is s ...

The Clean Water Act is one of the more commonly known pieces of federal legislation in America, but the history of the Act, why it was originally passed, and what it actually does is much less widely understood. What is the Clean Water Act, and what does it do?   How did the Clean Water … ...

California’s universities once required faculty to sign an anti-Communist oath. Many faculty resigned or refused to sign on principle, and no one looks back on that history with fondness. Yet California’s community colleges are on the brink of embracing a new loyalty oath. Rather than force faculty to denounce communism, a new policy wi ...

On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a 30-year-old shoemaker from New Orleans, walked up to the Press Street Depot ticket counter and bought a first-class seat on the 4:15 p.m. train.   There was nothing particularly extraordinary or even interesting about a man buying a ticket on the East Louisiana Local, as any onlooker would … ...