As an angry high school student, I argued frequently with my parents about politics, and I was transfixed on money. Sometimes my critiques were broad political arguments about the inherent inequalities of our capitalist economic system and other times they were stingingly personal.

With age my priorities had changed. I still occasionally joke about starting a band, and if anyone took me seriously I might find a way to make it work. While I would gladly play basketball more often, I’m hardly even ready to play a regulation-length game against my friends.

When David Wray resigned as chief of the Greensboro Police Department, YES! Weekly had been publishing for scarcely more than a year. We’ve just celebrated our seventh anniversary. In the meantime, another police chief, a city manager and two mayors have come and gone.

Beverly Perdue’s veto of SB 9, also known as the No Discriminatory Purpose in Death Penalty Act. Supporters of the bill call it a rewriting of the Racial Justice Act.

The dirty secret of US Rep. Howard Coble’s staying power — 26 years in office, and counting — is his expert management of press relations.

Last week, I stumbled across a DVD of my grandfather’s funeral service. It’s been nearly four and a half years since my beloved mentor, protector and father figure passed away. I had almost forgotten the video chronicle of that day even existed.

The NC NAACP, one of the plaintiffs in a consolidated lawsuit against the state, argues that the new maps “are a scheme to increase the political power of the ultra-conservative leadership in the General Assembly at the expense of the power of the African-American vote.

The FBI raided the home of Jorge Cornell and other members of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation in Greensboro on Dec. 6 as part of an indictment of 13 people on RICO racketeering charges. It’s far from the first time they’ve been taken away in handcuffs, but it is the most serious case that’s been built against them yet.

The Cone Health Family Medicine Center on North Church Street in Greensboro might seem an unlikely place for a revolt to stir, but that’s exactly what was happening as Health Care for All NC gathered for its annual meeting on a recent Saturday afternoon.

As anyone who follows the news regularly knows, the world is inundated with violence, so much so that my mother avoids the news; it’s too depressing. But the violence runs deeper than the continuing upheavals in Syria, Yemen and Egypt, or at UC Davis. where students were pepper-sprayed by police.

I was young. Too young to realize how ridiculous my partially dreadlocked hair looked. Young enough that I didn’t have my driver’s license. But I still remember the dusty room and how surreal it felt, listening to her recount what had happened and wondering how many times she had told the story.

At 10 past 6 the students are still trickling in. The tutor tells me the class started with about 20 people, but at this stage they feel lucky to pull in five. A couple minutes later the Citizenship and Cultural Orientation class begins with an attendance of four.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to spend some time with local artists Charlotte and Erik Strm at their home studio near downtown Greensboro. We talked at length about their latest exhibit, From the Ground Up, on display at the Studio & Gallery on Cedar Street this month.

The Occupy movement has been all over the news lately, especially in the New York Times, which recently deployed reporters to examine friction between protesters and homeless people, and fretted over how long protesters in London would remain encamped at St.

For a moment we thought we’d miss the film screening altogether as we attempted to decipher the New York subway system, and when we finally arrived at the Paley Center for Media I had a split second panic when they couldn’t find our names on the guest list.

Around noon on Sunday, the intersection of South Stratford Road and Knollwood Street in Winston-Salem bustled with significantly more activity than usual. As motorists passed the100 to150 members of Occupy Winston-Salem — the independent, nonviolent, leaderless movement — engaged in a peaceful protest outside a Bank of America branch,.

I dont know exactly when it happened, but sometime in the past few years I stopped feeling young. Last year, I officially passed the midway mark in my thirties and got married. And Im not that young: Im pretty sure Greensboros city manager is younger than I am, and I know the youngest city council member now seeking his third term has only a couple years on me.

Nearly 50 people huddled in a dimly lit circle between Green Street and the government plaza, some underdressed for one of the first cool nights of the season. Not to worry someone brought extra blankets to share with the unusual assembly of strangers gathering on a Friday night.

I arrived at the Camel City Thrashers Fall Brawl at the Greensboro Sportsplex on Saturday afternoon with no real understanding of what womens flat-track roller derby was all about. I figured I was in for a 90-minute baptism of fire, but what I gained was a true appreciation for the athletic and, at times, balletic nature of this fascinating sport.

When I was young, I felt everything together, understood and boxed into neat compartments. I thought that life could be a straight line if I acted as logically as I felt I was. Now that Im older and past my roaring twenties, I realize that life always throws you curveballs, often when you least expect them.