Rosy color variation of blue spiderwort. Note how the slender female pistil is remaing aloof from her six stamen brothers. That encourages healthy cross pollination! Photo by Ken Moore.

In spite of the early heat wave, cool shades of spiderwort flowers continue to cheer up the early morning hours. The one moving around my yard is most likely Tradescantia ohiensis, Smooth Spiderwort, with leaves having a somewhat whitish cast (glaucous) to them. The pair of leaves immediately below the flower clusters are as wide as the stem leaves.
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Mark Crowder delivers a shipment of cold drinks to Weaver Street Market in triple-digit temperatures on Tuesday. Crowder, who also works as a baseball umpire, said the recent high temperatures have taken a toll on those on the field. Photo by Jordan Timpy.

Mark Crowder has seen his share of the heat this week. Crowder, who delivers Odwalla products, is also an umpire for youth baseball. Dropping off a shipment at Weaver Street Market Tuesday as temperatures hovered near 100 degrees, he said the diamond was a hot place to be this weekend.

“My partner quit after the second game because of the heat,” Crowder said about a game he umpired on Sunday. “This was the first real weekend of heat. After the first weekend, you just have to adjust.”
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Tony, a dog rescued just a week earlier by the Orange County Animal Services Department, noses around at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Orange County Animal Services Center. Photo by Jordan Timpy.

The animals of Orange County will soon move into bigger and better facilities, with a new Animal Services Center under construction on Eubanks Road.

County officials broke ground on the project last week. Despite sweltering heat, community members, county commissioners and adoptable pets showed up for the groundbreaking.
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Stephen Dear (left) and Amanda Lattanzio, executive director and community organizer (respectively), form the backbone of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, interfaith organization that seeks to inform and inspire all citizens to actively oppose the death penalty in the United States. Photo by Jordan Timpy.

Stephen Dear, executive director of the Carrboro-based People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, is keeping a close eye on Raleigh.

Last year, the North Carolina House of Representatives passed the Racial Justice Act, which, if approved by the Senate, will allow a person accused of a capital crime to request a court review of whether race played a role in the prosecutor’s decision to request the death penalty or in a defendant subsequently being sentenced to death.
Dear and other proponents of the bill argue there’s substantial reason for concern that race is a contributing factor in who gets sentenced to death in this country.
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Tamara Wade celebrated graduating from Rashkis Elementary School with a friend by painting a mug and keepsake box at Paint the Earth. Photo by Valarie Schwartz.

Only a few people were quietly working on projects as I stepped inside to the coolness of Paint the Earth last week and selected a square bowl to paint. It had been years since allowing myself the time to enjoy this pleasurable activity of painting a piece of pottery that a few days later would provide more pleasure when seen after being glazed and fired. In fact, I’d never painted anything before — my previous visits were as the mom of a painter.
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Ammons ready for a dual release

by Catherine Rierson
Staff Writer

The words on the page may take the guise of poetry in their neat line-by-line arrangement, but there’s no mistaking the music that springs from the written words’ rhythm and rhyme. Shirlette Ammons is both poet and musician, and this Friday’s release of her second book of poetry and an EP prove it.

Matching Skin, the award-winning artist’s second published poetry collection, and John Anonymous, a five-song EP that will accompany the book, exemplify Ammons’ fluidity between mediums and the value she gives to their relationship.
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Johnathan Rice will be at Cat’s Cradle this Monday.

ArtsCenter: Three, Two, One, Bang! 7pm
Blue Bayou Club: Brad Newell and 8 Eyes. 8:30pm
The Cave: Early: Wedlock with Hendecatope. Late: HWYL.
General Store Café: Club Boheme. 8:30pm
Local 506: Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers, Kennebec. 9:30pm
Nightlight: Private Sea / Me and the Trees. 9:30pm
Open Eye Café: Zach & Craig. 8pm
Weaver Street Market: After
Hours. 6pm
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Carrboro

The ArtsCenter
Center Gallery: Mexico Lindo—painting and collage by Sarah Dougherty
East End Gallery: Bone Dry—photography by Geneva Sophia

The Beehive Salon
Figurative and abstract works—watercolors and acrylics by C. David Cabrera
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by Rich Fowler
Staff Writer

The Chapel Hill Town Council passed a new law that will change the way elections for mayoral and town council seats will be funded for the next two municipal elections. The new Voter-Owned Elections program, approved Monday at a meeting at Town Hall, provides town money to candidates for mayor and town council to help run their 2009 and 2011 campaigns. The council set aside $25,000 in its 2008-2009 budget to start funding the four-year pilot program.
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by Rich Fowler
Staff Writer

With little debate, the Chapel Hill Town Council passed a $86.2 million budget for 2008-2009 at its meeting Monday at Town Hall.

The budget includes an 11.3 percent property tax increase, from 52.2 cents per $100 valuation to 58.1 cents. It is the first time the town has raised taxes in two years.
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County Attorney Geof Gledhill has announced he will retire in December. Gledhill has served as the primary legal counsel to the Orange County Board of Commissioners for more than 30 years. He works with the Law Office of Coleman, Gledhill, Hargrave & Peek. Gledhill said he chose to retire from full-time law practice in order to spend more time with family and to become a better farmer, raising cattle, goats and various crops.

The commissioners have approved a staff attorney position and are in discussion on possible transitions for the county’s future legal services.

Members of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen remain skeptical about a potential partnership with Chatham County and Durham to construct the western intake on Jordan Lake.

OWASA is studying the idea, which gained new momentum during the recent drought.
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The Orange County Animal Services Department has organized four low-cost rabies vaccination clinics. They are:
June 18 from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at Fairview Community Park, Hillsborough; June 18 from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Orange County Government Services Annex in Hillsborough; and June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Orange County Animal Shelter. The fee is $5. For information, call 245-2075.

Orange County Animal Services received their 10th report this year of a rabies case on Tuesday. A rabid raccoon attacked a pet dog in the area of Efland Cedar Grove and McDade Store roads in Cedar Grove and was killed by local residents.
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The Orange County Department of Social Services is offering fans and air conditioners, as well as crisis intervention and energy funds to help residents cope with the heat.

County residents with limited resources and no cooling source in their homes can apply to receive a fan or air conditioner at the Chapel Hill office at 2501 Homestead Rd. or the Hillsborough office at 300 West Tryon St. For more information about the heat relief efforts or donations, contact the Department of Social Services at (919) 245-2858.