Tipsheet

Duke Case: In Case You're Interested

CNN and Court TV are airing a hearing for one of the suspects, Reade Seligmann. Right now, they're discussing evidence and access to evidence.

The judge, to his credit, seems to be no-nonsense without grandstanding. I hope he can keep things under control.

I think it's odd that both the D.A. and the judge in this case have such thick, Southern accents. It makes it much easier to frame this case as a "Southern" issue, which I don't think it is.

Durham is a very un-Southern town. Very few people in the city sound Southern at all, and I think the city's race relations problems come much more from the fact that it's a race-obsessed, white-guilt-ridden, progressive, college town than from the fact that it's a Southern town.

After all, Duke is nicknamed the University of New Jersey at Durham.

Framing this as a "Southern" problem is the easy way out for media outlets, and doesn't take the real nature of Durham into account.

Previously, La Shawn blogged on the latest DNA evidence (the only positive match was with the victim's boyfriend), and the third indictment in the case.

UPDATE:
She also live-blogged the hearing.