‘Matters of life and death’ The debate at Tuesday’s school board meeting highlights the ongoing cultural wars going on across North Carolina and the nation. It led to state lawmakers adopting the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” The law’s provisions include barring...
Renee Sekel
North Carolina School Privatizers Are Subverting Democracy
North Carolina was one of the last states to expand Medicaid, delaying for nearly a decade after the federal government made expanded coverage available under the Affordable Care Act. Finally, in 2023, the General Assembly opted North Carolina into the expanded...
Parent’s Bill of Rights moves through legislature
The legislative session in Raleigh is approaching its end, but that doesn’t mean the work of lawmakers is slowing down. Over four months after the State Senate passed the Parent’s Bill of Rights piece of legislation, the House has taken it up. Renee Sekel was at the...
GOP bill to limit topics of discussion in public schools wins state House approval
A controversial bill that would restrict how the state’s public school teachers discuss race, gender and sexuality was approved by the state House by a 68-49 party line vote on Wednesday, and is now headed to the state Senate. Several Democrats from the state’s urban...
Transgender youth: ‘Forced outing’ bills make schools unsafe
When Renee Sekel’s nonbinary teenager first requested a different name on their Christmas stocking, she responded with “absolutely not” in what she now considers “the wrong reaction.” The mother of three and local activist in Cary, North Carolina, said she took about...
It’s Black History Month and NC Republicans Introduced a Bill to Limit Teaching of Black History
Renee Sekel, a Cary mom who works for the NC chapter of Red Wine & Blue, a group that seeks to mobilize suburban moms to get involved in politics, also opposes the bill. “I think most parents—and most kids—want our schools to teach accurate and complete history. ...
Recent Posts
Watch This: Why We’re Going Local in 2025
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the chaotic, 24-hour national news cycle and our emotionally charged social media feeds. Everything can feel so big; so distant; so daunting. So isn’t it comforting to know that the best way out of the chaos is to keep our focus close...
Read This: Five Reasons Why We “Go Local”
Lately, you may have seen Red Wine & Blue say, “When they go low, we go local!” What do we mean by that? Almost a decade ago, Michelle Obama made famous the phrase, “When they go low, we go high.” This was the Obama family motto for responding to cruel, hateful...
Okay, But Why is Gay Marriage at Risk?
The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, but recent events have people wondering, is gay marriage at risk? The laws of the United States are supposed to protect and lift up all of us. For hundreds of thousands of gay couples across America, the right to get married isn’t abstract – it affects their daily lives, their finances, their health, and their family. Why would we turn back the clock on the social progress we’ve made? And why is banning gay marriage a priority for some people when there are so many real issues affecting Americans?
Okay, But Why is AI a concern?
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is everywhere these days. Some people think it’s the solution to all of humanity’s problems. Others think it’s going to bring about the end of life as we know it. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. But with so many different opinions and so many ways that AI can be used, it’s hard to know exactly what to believe. So let’s look at the facts and figure out, why is AI a concern?
Okay, But Why Are Romance Novels Political?
When people think of romance novels, the first thing that comes to mind is shirtless men with windswept hair on the covers of mass-market paperbacks, or maybe the “damsel in distress” main character who is waiting for a love interest to come and save her from the clutches of evil. They’re often not thought of as ‘real’ reading, because they are stories typically written by women, for women, and starring women. But what if the truth is that even the most “raunchy” novels of the genre are deeply political?