Triad Today

On an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, rock-throwing hillbilly Ernest T. Bass descends on Mayberry in order to obtain a diploma. Using a map, Sheriff Andy helps Ernest study for his geography test. Andy: The United States is bordered on the north by Canada, on the south by Mexico, and on the east by the Atlantic […]

Late last month the American Film Institute honored Nicole Kidman for her lifetime of achievement. But Nicole is only 56 years old, which raises the question, “What constitutes a lifetime?” Inquiring minds want to know because every year hundreds of organizations give out lifetime achievement awards. In addition to AFI, there’s the Grammy Lifetime Achievement […]

I’m old enough to have watched the very first televised presidential debate back in 1960 between Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John Kennedy. I was not, however, old enough then to understand how optics translates to votes. According to surveys, people who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won because of his […]

Over the past 20 years, North Carolina has had its share of municipal scandal and controversy. Town and city managers have made news for everything from sleeping with co-workers to domestic disturbances. And even on a good day, it’s not unusual to see local governing boards get into heated arguments about one thing or another, […]

Growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, I was addicted to television even before I could walk, and my Dad took me to see my first movie as soon as I had graduated from diapers. Of course, I wanted to emulate on-screen heroes like Superman and John Wayne, but one of my most lasting […]

Having played organized baseball in my youth, I developed what turned out to be an unrealistic sense of fair play, which I thought applied to every facet of life. In baseball, both teams begin the game with a score of 0 to 0, and thus have an equal chance of winning. The distances to the fence and between […]

One of my pet peeves is when a media critic or a performing arts group names the 100 best films of all time, or the 50 best TV shows of all time. Frequently these kinds of lists are based on such things as awards, ratings, or box office receipts. In doing so, they disregard likeability. Sure, Citizen Kane is a great film, but it is not a […]

Most cities are represented by a distinctive fixture. For example, Winston-Salem has its teapot, Thomasville has its giant chair, and High Point has Dave Briggs who, for the past 13 years, has served as director of High Point Theatre and one of the city’s biggest cheerleaders. Dave is a native of Ohio and holds degrees from Muskingum […]

According to a 2022 EdWeek Research Center survey, 10% of K-12 public school teachers have been physically assaulted or attacked by a student. Meanwhile, the American Psychological Association reports that one in every five teachers who were assaulted did not report the attack to school administrators, indicating that the problem is much worse than we know.  It should come […]