January 2005

If you read this morning's papers, you already know that the Durham Herald-Sun's new owners took over with a bang, firing nearly 25% of the workforce. Haven't heard to what extent those cuts affect news in general or Orange County in particular [Ray?]. On the face of it, it's hard to imagine that it bodes well for the paper's commitment to provide quality coverage for Granville, Person, Chatham, and Orange counties as well as Durham.

Also troubling is the new owner's clear concern about cost rather than quality of product. Check out the stories in both the N&O and the Herald itself for a sense of that. Paxton Media has sent 80 unhappy former employees on the streets. Not great for PR. They have done little to introduce the new owners to the community and readers nor have they explained their vision for the paper or strategy for achieving it.

Only a few days left to nominate Orange Politics for a Bloggie award! The deadline is Monday. But which category suits us best? Best Weblog About Politics, Best Topical Weblog, Best Group Weblog, Best Community Weblog, or maybe Best-Kept-Secret Weblog...?

Seriously, I would really like to spread the idea of local political blogging to other communities and this is a great way to get the word out. We have already inspired one imitator, Evergreen Politics which is a group blog about issues in Washington State.

You have to get a lot of nominations just to be judged, so please take a moment to nominate OrangePolitics.org as well as other deserving web sites. Thanks!

Please add yourself to OrangePolitics' local blogroll if you:

• live, work, or spend leisure time in Orange County;
• blog about Orange County; or
• participate in Orange County politics.

Just enter your blog's URL, your name, and a location that best represents where you live, and we'll figure out the rest. The blogroll checks every blog for updates on an hourly basis and re-sorts the list based on the most recently updated blog. Note: In order for this to work, your blog must have an RSS or Atom feed.

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This is the old list which we'll be removing entries from as we/you fill them in above.

Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, January 08, 2005

The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies a right to such basics as food, clothing and housing. But the word "water" does not appear in the document. Perhaps this is because the authors of the 1948 document could not imagine a time in which fresh drinking water would become an increasingly rare commodity, no longer freely available to all. That time is upon us.

In southern Orange County we are fortunate to have abundant fresh water provided from OWASA's reservoirs. But global trends are not encouraging and may threaten both our control over our water supply and our ability to keep it off the competitive market.

Less than one-half of 1 percent of the world's water is fresh. The rest is seawater or frozen in permanent ice masses. The UN has determined that a billion people lack access to fresh drinking water. Global water consumption is growing at twice the rate of the population.