The State of Things

Just about every bluegrass musician has been directly or indirectly influenced by Wade Mainer. Mainer, a master of the banjo, taught himself to play his instrument of choice as a child and developed an innovative two-finger picking style. That style, combined with Mainer’s strong vocals earned him popularity as a performer and recording artist in the 1930s and 1940s.

North Carolina is home to a variety of interesting dialects, but none is quite so unique as the one found along the Outer Banks. Sometimes called the Ocracoke Brogue, the dialect is often mistaken for British, and it is rapidly declining as tourism inundates the area with a more diverse array of speakers. Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University English professor and Director of the North Carolina Language and Life Project, has been studying the Outer Banks dialect for almost 20 years.

North Carolinians are no strangers to drought but there are many other factors that lead to water insecurity. Water pollution, contamination, rainfall levels and population growth all dictate the amount of water that is available to a community. Charles Fishman, author of the new book, “The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water” (Free Press/2011), says we should be prepared for the day when water will no longer be inclusively cheap, clean and plentiful.

North Carolina halted executions about five years  ago. Capital punishment is still legal in the state, but a dispute over the lethal injection process led to a de facto moratorium on the death penalty. Since then, the state’s murder rate has fallen, and investigations of the State Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab have
exposed mishandling of evidence in criminal cases. Matthew Robinson, a professor of government and justice studies at Appalachian State University, has been researching those facts and other data about the death penalty in North Carolina. His findings reveal that capital punishment is more costly than life imprisonment and that race and gender frequently factor into death penalty sentencing.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being labeled an “African-American artist”? That question is at the heart of a new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art. It features the works of 31 contemporary artists - photography, video, sculpture and more – with each piece revealing a bit about the experience of blacks in America.