Bear in Durham!

Spotted tonight behind Edison Johnson!

Crime and punishment, Triangle-style

Items from recent crime news:
In Durham some kids in high school for a senior prank decapitate a local landmark and put the head on the giraffe (itself stolen from a putt-putt course a few years back) on their school's campus. Culprits are nabbed by the police. Names are not released. Debate ensues as to whether to even charge them criminally. Most likely they are 18 since they're seniors in high school.

In Raleigh a 22-year-old student takes some DOT barricades and fashions a scary monster out of them, creating public art and causing destruction to the barrels at the same time. Student is arrested by the Raleigh police, booked, named released to the public and charged with "misdemeanor charges of damage to property and larceny."

Um ... anything wrong with this picture? Or is it just me?

For goodness Snakes

The story on WRAL seems harmess enough: snake bites are on the rise in North Carolina. According to the Carolina Poison Control Center, "in April and May of last year ... 102 snake bites were reported. This year, 179 bites have been reported." Okay, check, I get that. But then comes the kicker -- why the increase? Here's the answer:

Experts say one reason snake sightings could be on the rise is construction, which can steer them away from their natural habitat.

Um, hello, "experts"? WE'RE IN A FRIGGIN' RECESSION. Where oh where are you going to find enough new construction from 2008 to 2009 to justify this? And where was the brain of reporter Beau Minnick when he typed this in? I'd love to know who these experts were and where their magic whiteboards showing this amazing increase in construction are.

[Photo above from the Eno River last month. Saw three over the course of two days ... but of course, I was in their backyard, not vice versa.]

What does John McCann have on the Herald-Sun?

It's not enough that the Herald-Sun gives John McCann to spew his nonsensical half-baked ideas. Believe me, I'm all for bile-spewing columnists, I just want ones that actually know how to write. I am appalled by his anti-gay comments -- which keep me from actually subscribing to the paper -- but as Michael Bacon pointed out a few years ago, one of his columns was "not just bad because it is so casually yet stridently anti-gay, but because it adds absolutely nothing to any form of conversation on the issue." (Crap, that was three years ago?)

But with all the budget cuts someone got the bright idea to make McCann a courtroom reporter and the results have just been laughable. In this economy, with media jobs evaporating all around us, does McCann have some naughty photos of Paxton execs somewhere? Otherwise, how do you expain this lede?

The sister of the man who could spend the rest of his life in prison for allegedly slicing the life out of the man whose child she was carrying returned to the witness stand on Wednesday and told jurors the victim drank too much, did drugs and, in fact, was a cocaine dealer.

Nice work, John! Durham is so proud. And note to Paxton: seriously? With all the unemployed newspaper folk in the Triangle and this is one you kept?

Duke Tech!

I was browsing Google News today and a story in the Durham NC section caught my eye. "Duke Tech graduation tonight," read the headline from MyNC.com. I e-mailed them a correction and before I could get home to get a screen shot they had changed the headline and the page title, but not the URL, as you can see in the address bar below:
The tags for the page still list Duke even now. Heh.

The irony is that this was apparently just a cut-and-paste from a Durham Tech press release, so did someone at MyNC just decided to shorten Durham to Duke? Weird. But with reporters dropping like flies at the N&O and the Herald-Sun, maybe this is just a sign of the times.

Eno River State Park

Sorry for the long delay, gentle readers. I am back to report some very refreshing jaunts this week (Spring Break, you know) at the Eno River State Park, a park that for some reason I have neglected for a long time. I visited the eastern and western divisions of the ERSP and hiked five different trails, and I can report that a) it was immensely satisfying and b) the snakes are out! Here are some assorted images from the park over the past three days:

The gravestone for Catharine Dunnagan (r) led to a fascinating post about racial history in Durham -- be sure to check it out.

Um, apparently you're gonna call ... them?

So this afternoon I took the girls and their scooters over to the massive parking lot around my school to scoot around the asphalt and sidewalks. And when I say massive I mean it -- the building we're in used to house hundreds of employees and now we're the only tenants in the whole place. (Crammed into part of one floor, I might add, but I digress.)

Anyhow, about 45 minutes after we had been there, this long white car pulls up with tinted windows pulls up and stops in front of me. I'm thinking, this is weird, but maybe he's lost and needs directions. So the guy -- a small middle-aged guy with an older woman in the passenger seat next to him -- looks at me and says,

"What are you doing here? Don't you know this is private property?"

And I say "Is it your property?"

And he says, "As a matter of fact, it is my property."

"Oh," I said, "I'm a teacher at the school here and I just brought my girls and their scooters to play."

"Oh," he replied. "That's okay." And he starts to drive off.

"Wait!" I said. "Can I take a picture of your car?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Sure."

And I did. And this (below) is what he was driving:

Before he drove away I said, "So what is this?" (pointing to the car)

"It is what it is," he said, shrugging again.

And then he drove the car away to a small garage where he parked it and swapped it for a gray SUV.

And no, I still have no idea what happened.

See more pix below. If you can explain it, will you let me know?