April 21, 2006

Carolina in the News

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:

International Coverage

General discontent and Iraq war in US (Opinion)
Khaleej Times Online (United Arab Emirates)
This time Washington's Iraq policy has come under attack from US military men. Retired generals are demanding the 73-year old Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld's removal. They are questioning the manner in which the "arrogant and wrong-headed" general has conducted the war. More specifically his dismissive attitude towards feedback has been heavily criticised. Retired generals have demanded Rumsfeld's removal. ... Another historian Richard H. Kohn, at the University of North Carolina reads into the Generals' criticism "a dam of anger and frustration bursting on the part of these senior retired people."

Reshaping the IMF:
Not even a cat to rescue
The Economist (London)
What is a firefighter to do when there aren't any fires? The IMF spent 1994-2002 dashing from one financial conflagration to the next. But the sirens have been silent for some time. As a result, the fund's budget is shrinking and the morale of its staff is sinking. Some of its best customers are now doing without it, leaving some of its biggest shareholders wondering what to do with it. In the run-up to the fund's spring meetings in Washington, DC, this weekend, its managing director, Rodrigo de Rato, has unveiled his proposals for a revamp. ... Thomas Oatley and Jason Yackee, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, have shown that the fund's biggest rescue packages go to countries where the exposure of American banks is the greatest.

Sex OK in late pregnancy
Health24.com (South Africa)
While there are plenty of activities pregnant women are supposed to avoid, sex apparently isn't one of them.
In fact, say the North Carolina researchers, there's even a slight chance that sex might help a women carry her baby to full-term. ... "If a woman hasn't been advised to abstain or isn't having other problems with her pregnancy, our study suggests that intercourse or orgasm during late pregnancy will not increase her risk of pre-term delivery," says Amy Sayle, a research consultant at the University of North Carolina.

National Coverage

Pick Me Up (Opinion)
The New Republic
What this fractured and politically uneasy country needs right now is a unified theory of pickup trucks. This thought came to me the other afternoon as I was waiting at a car-rental agency at the Denver airport. I had reserved one of those small cars--what the agencies cheerfully call "economy" class--when I saw, there at the back of the lot, a lustrous Dodge Ram extended cab. I am not often moved by automobiles, but the truck aroused in me an acute, forlorn kind of nostalgia that I had previously observed only in country music singers. ... As University of North Carolina historian William Ferris notes, today the pickup is really neither countrified nor citified enough.
Note: Subscription is required.

Regional Coverage

Report: South's strengths in nanotech assets
OakRidger.com (Oak Ridge, Tenn.)
Southern Growth Policies Board recently released "Connecting the Dots: Creating a Southern Nanotechnology Network," a regional report that maps the South's assets in Nanotechnology and provides recommendations for establishing the South as a leader in the emerging industry. A consortium of Southern research institutions were involved in the report's development and creation. ... The Southern region is also home to four of the top 25 nanotechnology research institutions - Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of North Carolina, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and North Carolina State University - and nearly 20 percent of all highly cited nanotechnology researchers in the U.S.

State & Local Coverage

Templeton elected chair of UNC faculty council
The Chapel Hill Herald (Durham)
Joseph Templeton, a UNC chemistry professor, will succeed Judith Wegner as chair of the university's faculty council, administrators announced on Thursday.
Related link:http://www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2006/04/21/
University/Templeton.To.Lead.Faculty-1864880.shtml
?norewrite200604211514&sourcedomain=www.dailytarheel.com

UNC creating satellite campus
News Carolina 14 (Time Warner)
A plan to expand UNC-Chapel Hill has raised plenty of questions for people who live in the area. WCHL-Radio held a forum on the issue on Thursday. UNC-Chapel Hill will expand on 200 acres to make a satellite campus called Carolina North.

Tales of courage changed his life
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
As an undergraduate at Cornell University, Mark Klempner applied for a research fellowship in Europe because, well, he wanted to go to Europe. But the research project he did there turned into much more than a junior year semester abroad. t changed his life, renewed his faith and inspired him to strive for a more compassionate society. Klempner, who went on to earn a master's degree in folklore from UNC-Chapel Hill, interviewed 40 Dutch men and women who had rescued Jews during the Holocaust. These ordinary middle-class Dutch citizens taught Klempner, who is Jewish, the value of resisting evil and taking action.

College rejections climbing
Charlotte Observer
High school seniors seeking admission into some of the Carolinas' best-known colleges are facing their toughest test yet.
Deluged by a record number of applications from high school seniors, UNC Chapel Hill, N.C. State University, Duke and others say they are rejecting more potential freshmen than any other year in memory.


The North Carolina Freedom Monument Project
The Independent Weekly (Durham)
In the midst of the state government complex in downtown Raleigh, a park is taking shape that is nothing short of remarkable. Reginald Hildebrand, who teaches African and African-American history at UNC-Chapel Hill, calls the site "Freedom Grove," where historically, plantation slaves would come together to talk and learn. Since 2001, Hildebrand has co-chaired the North Carolina Freedom Monument Project, which will recognize and honor the African-American experience in North Carolina.

A community chat
The Daily Tar Heel
"It's a marriage that isn't going to be dissolved," UNC law professor and departing Chairwoman of the Faculty Judith Wegner said of a rather complicated union Thursday. Wegner was talking to representatives of the University and Chapel Hill about the unbreakable tie between UNC and the community during News Talk WCHL 1360's annual Chapel Hill-Carrboro-Orange County forum .

So long to the man who never tired of saying hello
Charlotte Observer
The greetings came every night from up and down the East Coast, from perfect strangers and regulars like Sister Pearl, Lady Di and Calvin the former cop. "Hell-o-o-o, Henry!" And Henry Boggan was there to listen. He was the friendly neighbor who opened his door on the 50,000-watt WBT radio weeknights from 8 to midnight. Boggan, 71, died early Thursday after suffering a heart attack at his Charlotte home. ... Funeral arrangements for Boggan were incomplete Thursday. A scholarship fund has been set up in his name at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at UNC Chapel Hill.

Issues & Trends

In visit, Edwards talks about poverty, primary
Concord Monitor (Concord, N.H.)
Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards made a whirlwind tour of Concord yesterday afternoon, visiting Page Belting, the Dress for Success shop downtown and a Democratic fundraiser at a union hall. ... As for a presidential run, he said that at the moment he's focused on his wife's recovery from breast cancer and on his work leading the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina.

Produced by News Services, Carolina in the News is an e-mail sampling of current news media coverage about Carolina people and programs, as well as issues and trends that affect the university. Stories usually will be online and available free for a limited time - often one to two weeks. Expiration dates before stories move to archives vary by media outlet. Some outlets require free user registration or a subscription.

Carolina in the News is also posted daily to the News Services Web page, http://www.unc.edu/news/clips/index.shtml.

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