Great Weekend, New Economic Devlopment Initiative

I was part of a group of local elected officials who entertained a group of lesbian and gay travel professionals from around country. These travel writers, agents and tour group leaders were visiting Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough at the invitation of our Visitor's Center. Laurie Paolicelli, the Visitor's Center Executive Director, is spear-heading an effort to market Orange County to the LGBT community.

The weekend was wildly successful. The visitors, who came from Tennessee, New York, California, Florida, Virginia and many other states, loved what they found here. They visited the Carrboro Farmer's Market, Chapel Hill Creamery, Crook's Corner and attended a cooking class at A Southern Season. They heard from Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy, Carrboro Alderperson Lydia Lavelle, and incoming Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber leader Joanne Fiore.

Hopefully, this is the begining of a lucative expansion of our tourism sector.

Read more here.

Interesting Piece of Our History

There is so much we never knew about our own history. Or, perhaps, it's history that forgotten, swept under the carpet. Or, perhaps, it was simply ignored because it was too uncomfortable.

The life of Alan Turing, father of computer science and a pivotal figure in the defeat of Nazi Germany, is one of those interesting bits of our past that went missing for 50 years. Chemically castrated by the British government for being gay (yup, you read that right), Turing killed himself at age 41. Read more here; it's worth the read.