Tag Archives: jim

Jesus Swept. The Devil Dusted?

Prolific BlueNC ‘blogger Anglico better known locally as former Council member Jim Protzman is now a newly minted novelist.

Debut novelist Protzman offers a refreshingly different tale about a man who calls himself Jesus and leads a group of men who have taken the apostles’ names as they sweep parking lots and anything else they can throughout the South… Fresh prose and an offbeat style make this an appealing tale…Jesus Swept includes some rough language that may offend more conservative readers, but it might appeal to more adventurous patrons who enjoyed last year’s Saving Erasmus by Steven Cleaver.

Tamara Butler — Library Journal, 11/1/2008

According to Jim, Jesus Swept took ten years to write. Publishing it, he says, is “sort of like running for public office, which I’ve done a few times, except there’s no election day. It just goes on and on and on.”

Jim’s tale doesn’t seem too far-fetched.

When I lived in Greenville there was an old man (who was probably my current age) who would carefully sweep 10th Street’s gutters – Downtown to Jarvis. Rain or shine, rarely acknowledging traffic, pedestrians or nearby gawkers he diligently worked down one-side and then back up the other. At times his concentration seemed almost Zen-like. Maybe he was following a better angel?

More information on Jim’s novel from Kitsune Books.

Congratulations Jim!

The Chickens Have Roosted: Council’s Environmental Credibility Gap

We lost that argument when we passed parking lot#5 as designed.

One of the chief criticisms of the new Downtown Development Initiative (DDI) is that the Lot 5 building is setting a poor precedent for what is yet to come…


[MOVIE]

Councilmember Jim Ward tried to put the brakes on Council’s pellmell acceptance of “the new deal”. Failing that, he went ahead and proffered a friendly amendment to not only require LEED Silver certification but to meet NC State’s governmental building standards with the ASHRAE 90.1 %20 energy efficiency requirement.

Councilmembers Strom and Kleinschmidt, working against character and on behalf of “the deal”, watered down Jim’s request leaving RAM Development’s VP Cummings to deliver the final smack-down.

In spite of those environmental, financial and social concerns, Council went ahead and approved the next, and probably final, stage of the project.

Not more than an hour later, during a discussion of UNC’s requested modifications to their development plan #3, Chapel Hill Councilmember Jim Ward aptly describe the fallout from setting that precedent.

Now is not the time, it was about three agenda items ago was the time. You just..and others…just said fine with parking lot #5, which is going to have no energy savings. I think we lose our credibility when we pass that and say, “you guys have to do better than us” but our project is fine – it’s so SOP [standard operating procedure].

I don’t think we have any credibility…put your money where your mouth is…

We lost that argument when we passed parking lot#5 as designed.

Thanks Jim, I know it was tough getting crushed by the Lot 5 Jagannath.