Eastern District of North Carolina Environmental Crimes Initiative

A press release from an organization being formed to bring law enforcement groups together around environment crimes. Interesting.

RALEIGH – The Honorable Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney
General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division,
Department of Justice; the Honorable George E.B. Holding, United
States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina; Stacey
H. Mitchell, Chief of the Environmental [...]

Cupcakes, a Sign of the Times

I love cupcakes. Brownies are my favorite, but cupcakes are a close second. For a long time, to get a cupcake in Wilmington you had to head to one of the chain grocery stores or know someone with a killer recipe, and even then you were limited to the ordinary flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and the occasional variation on the theme.

Star News’ mugshots are gross

The new Mugshots app on Star News online site is gross. You can’t go all high-minded and Fourth Estate in one day’s letter from the editor — as editor Robyn Tomlin did in her don’t-cry-for-us-journalists piece a week or so ago, in which she patted the paper on the back for the good job they [...]

Embrace the Chains

There is a lot of talk in Wilmington about shopping locally. This is great, and when given the chance I always try to support local businesses. I do this because I understand that spending money locally will keep that money circulating locally longer, not to mention the fact that locally-owned service providers are usually well above par compared to larger chain stores. However, I am shocked at the extreme stances some Wilmingtonians are taking regarding the support of national and regional chain stores calling downtown Wilmington home.

Exploring Creative Writing: Local community-based creative writing class

Exploring Creative Writing is a four-week class designed to equip writers with the tools and community they need to grow as artists.
Exploring Creative Writing.

We are excited to announce that we’ve found a space in the Brooklyn Arts District of Wilmington, NC to hold what we hope will be the first of many Creative Writing Workshops.

Looks [...]

Where’s My Midwife still pushing for open access to midwives

If you’ve been following the Star News and Wilmington Business journal reporting on the local midwife/birth activist group Where’s My Midwife, then you know that yet another small group of thoughtful people have proved Margaret Meade’s touted theory. In only four months “Where’s My Midwife?” has succeeded in convincing the initially resistant, even adamant administrators at New Hanover County Regional Medical Center to change their policy requiring a supervisory obstetrician to be in the hospital during midwife-attended births. New Hanover County Regional Medical Center was the only hospital in the state operating under such an outdated, restrictive policy.

Green Drinks

From a Grove Project reader

Wilmington, please come out to ‘Green Drinks” at Kefi on Thursday
night where people who are interested in environmental issues meet
casually for a few drinks and to discuss and learn about eco-concious
topics. This weeks speaker is the Sierra Club president of the
Chesapeake Bay Chapter. Casual setting, drinks with fr…iends and a
way to [...]

Cape Fear Surfing: A Local’s Nostalgic View

As the surfing fever grew in New Hanover County during the late fifties and early sixties, three surfing groups emerged. One was from the peninsular cities of southeastern New Hanover County (Carolina Beach, Wilmington Beach, Kure Beach, and Fort Fisher). A second group was from Wrightsville Beach. The third group was from greater New Hanover County.

Downtown Wilmington might soon smell like mothballs | StarNewsOnline.com | Star News | Wilmington, NC

A Grove Project reader wrote in about this interesting development downtown. Been thinking a lot about downtown recently (ex: Front Street improvements).
Dram Tree Park, just south of downtown on the water and underneath the bridge, is being fixed up: The launch facilities themselves are in need, but there’s some decontamination going on, and the result [...]

Downtown Wilmington Advocate

Wilmington Downtowner #1 John Hinnant has a new blog about “living, working, and playing in downtown Wilmington”:
Downtown Wilmington Advocate.
Among other things, he’s posted some updates about the Front Street Improvement Project, which broke ground yesterday.