The request was for me to talk to an audience about how to conduct civil, meaningful and honest discussions among people with different faiths, politics and philosophies. The inviter, an Episcopalian Deacon, explained she watched our weekly TV show and was impressed how we were able to accomplish this each week.
Sometimes a teacher, often a student
Tom Campbell
Last week, the world watched as President Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union Address. In his speech, the President highlight…
RALEIGH — Friar Laurence has the best of intentions. But in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the friar’s well-intended interventions do…
RALEIGH — If the most important factor determining the welfare of workers is the growth rate of the economy, that has policy implications that…
The proposed DMV move brings to mind one of the old Three Stooges comedies, the one where one of the zany trio says, “I’ve cut this board thre…
Do you remember the TV game show Family Feud? It was good fun as one family competes with another for cash prizes, but we all know that real l…
8 things we learned in the 9th District hearings
With a clear-eyed perspective on my place in politics (I don’t have one) this column is intended to give advice to the Democrat Party as it at…
We all share the same goal to end gun violence in this country. But in the course of this debate, House Democrats say they want to “do somethi…
Here’s a good news-bad news story that needs a happy ending. The good news is that as of January our state’s unemployment rate was 3.6 percent…
From the opening moments of Apollo 11, as a missile crawler-transporter is delivering a Saturn rocket to its launch pad, viewers know that som…
RALEIGH — In the twilight of his political career, Ronald Reagan made the media rounds to discuss his administration, legacy, and unfinished b…
This weekend marks the end of a sports era. Since I was around at the beginning, I want to join others in mourning the loss of over-the-air br…
As president of the North Carolina Community College System and State Superintendent of our K-12 public schools, we are happy to highlight Feb…
North Carolina’s most important emergency is not the next federal government shutdown. Nor is it a fake national emergency on the nation’s sou…
A reader recently posed a question that is at once a legitimate conversation starter and a commentary on the current state of affairs in this …
There is a secret about North Carolina’s early colonial days, something even more disturbing and horrifying than traditional slavery.
RALEIGH — The single most important issue during every legislative session is the approval or revision of North Carolina’s state budget. For t…
The recent brouhaha surrounding the Catholic schoolboys from Kentucky demonstrated the partnering of social media and journalism for the absol…
Lawmakers return to Raleigh next week for the 2019 session of the North Carolina General Assembly. Pledges of harmony and bipartisan cooperati…
Editor's note: A developer's plan for a mixed use development on this property was denied by Concord City Council because of traffic, schools …
Chapel Hill is still stunned.
Last Friday marked the 46th annual March for Life, an event to celebrate life and honor it as a sacred and precious gift from God. This incred…
An FBI investigation of President Donald Trump should surprise no one who has followed current events in recent years. As we learned from the …
Imagine travelling from Raleigh to Charlotte in about 22 minutes; not by train, plane or car, but instead in a pod, transported through an alm…
If you are the mother or father of a high school athlete here in North Carolina, this message is primarily for you.
A couple of weeks ago I shared with readers a list of famous North Carolinians published in the 2019 “The World Almanac and Book of Facts.”
RALEIGH — Milton Friedman once observed that “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” To be sure, spending bills or regula…
RALEIGH — Over the past eight years, conservative lawmakers have done much to constrain the excesses, expenses, and abuses of governmental pow…
Why is Washington still at a standstill over border security and government funding? After trying to negotiate a bipartisan deal for weeks, Pr…
Three news stories recently addressed topics related to public education, although each one seemingly stood alone in its relevance to educatin…
2019 was only four days old when we got the announcement the U.S. Supreme Court was going to hear arguments on North Carolina’s redistricting …
RALEIGH — The average public-school district in the United States enrolls about 3,700 students, according to a recent Governing magazine analy…
While I have been traveling up and down North Carolina’s roads in search of local eateries, UNC Law School professor Gene Nichol has been trav…
If you Google the word “irony,” one of the first definitions is, “happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry…
With the Democrat Party assuming control of the U.S. House, an inventory of accomplishments by President Donald Trump is in order, as is a loo…
No self-respecting columnist passes up the obligatory prediction column the first week of the year. So here goes mine.
RALEIGH — As dysfunctional as Congress has become, it does manage to enact some useful bills. One of them, the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act…
