Culture and Society

Skip this entry if you’re looking for commentary about Donald Trump, Roy Cooper, or some other aspect of public policy. What follows deals primarily with the less important topic of college football playoffs. To justify its inclusion in the “Locker Room,” I’ll note two policy-related items. First, excitement about the…

Lawrence Keane documents for the Federalist recent gun-sale trends. There’s no denying it: Americans still value gun ownership. The total number of firearm background checks conducted on Nov. 29, 2019, was 202,465. That is the second-highest single day for the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)…

Lindsay Marchello and Rick Henderson report for Carolina Journal Online about the potential impact of the Silent Sam agreement on other Confederate monument disputes. Kristen Blair’s Daily Journal focuses on kids’ near-constant exposure to media.

Tirzah Duren writes for the Federalist about Millennials‘ migration patterns. For twenty-somethings leaving a small town for the big city, the feeling of liberation and possibility can be exhilarating. Mom and dad, and their rules, are finally in the rearview mirror. But what’s up ahead is often worse—the…

That’s what the Indiana Supreme Court said about three lower court judges who were involved in a brawl at an Indianapolis White Castle last spring. The South Bend Tribune has the story: Three Indiana judges … have been suspended without pay after the Indiana Supreme Court determined…

I have been struggling to understand why Gov. Roy Cooper blamed business tax cuts as his reason to veto a bill for teacher pay raises after vetoing the bill that would have cut business taxes. His claim could have made sense in his veto of the original budget bill back…

As I hinted this morning, a few of us at the John Locke Foundation and Carolina Journal did participatory research and journalism this afternoon. We intended to compare Impossible Whoppers and regular Whoppers from Burger King. Instead we learned that orders on Uber Eats are sometimes canceled without notice after…

More than a quarter century has passed since I worked with Steve Politi at the Daily Tar Heel. But he has just offered me a reminder of his biting wit and enviable writing skill. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest example that the world is going nuts.