Fannie Flono

Concern about income inequality and the huge and growing wealth gap in this country has found new energy in our political discourse of late.

Over the last three years, a lot of the wind has been knocked out of Bev Perdue's brash boast on the night she broke through the glass ceiling and became North Carolina's first female governor.

Three local stories converged for me this week that may lighten your spirit and inspire you as the New Year starts. They did for me.

Maybe we should start calling groups that engage in hazing gangs. It fits. Gangs use violence and threats to keep members in line. Gangs beat up people until they're seriously injured or die.

Now that Newt Gingrich has brought it up, maybe it's time for a refresher course on the value of child labor laws. The Republican presidential candidate's claim that child labor laws are "truly stupid" rightly offends many people.

I don't know whether Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is a serial sexual harasser of women or not.

Exactly a year ago today, I lamented in a column the dissolution of Harding University High as a math-science magnet school.

A heightened realization that high school graduation rates are unacceptable is taking root across the nation - not just here in Charlotte or in North Carolina.

Demonizing the poor isn't new or even unpopular. Still, it was a bit disconcerting to watch N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis (it's on YouTube) egging on a group of Republican listeners at Mars Hill College to essentially shun the poor.

One Saturday afternoon five years ago, my good friend Mal who lives in Atlanta called to tell me she had breast cancer. I was stunned for a moment, not sure I had heard her correctly.