Like crooners?
Silky. Smooth. Michael Buble. (Scroll down a bit to sample music tracks.)
Ombudsman at-large.
"Reportedly." That lazy "journalists'" way to avoid being a journalist. It is a substitute for conveying the facts. It is a deception and should be stricken from the vocabulary of journalists everywhere. It is a favorite crutch of the Rhinoceros Times and now the News & Record's editor John Robinson uses it to hilarious (unintended) effect.
"Can one of the bloggers who reportedly advised the candidate or the candidate himself tell us about it?"Where was it reported that bloggers advised the candidate and if such a thing has been reported, why is Robinson so in the dark? Funny.
I have had and still have reasons for being critical of district 2 City Council Candidate Ryan Shell, but damn if he isn't the one who is finally showing sleepy ol' Greensboro how representation, advocacy and internet communications can work in the hands of an unafraid and committed candidate.
I sure would like to see district 2 Greensboro City Council candidate Jim Kee get his act together online. Opponent Ryan Shell is crushing him. Kee has a perfunctory and uninteresting presence on Twitter. Shell, meanwhile, is communicating real thoughts, enthusiastically, in depth and in multimedia. May not matter, who knows? But Greensboro could really use some elected officials who understand and are not afraid of modern communication tools.
Does anybody want to raise their hand to inform us of an ongoing matter in which developer Roy Carroll and the City of Greensboro share a financial interest before the story breaks and has people back on their heels again?
Went to see "The Proposal" yesterday. Two lead actors I like and a premise for some hilarity. It was the worst movie I've seen in a decade. I could explain why, but I've already typed more words than it deserves.
Keith of Triadwatch says the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's online article about lawyers telling elected officials not to accept a free trip on a developer's plane was scrubbed of a quote from the mayor without comment or note. The quote, says Keith*, was there, then it wasn't. A commenter in the comments to the story says the same thing.
Keith at Triadwatch calls WFMY's Justin Quesinberry piece on the scrapped plans to fly elected officials to Washington on a developer's plane a "puff piece." I disagree.
Shortly after writing about my support for a state bill proposed by John Blust that would put some teeth into state public records law, I emailed my state representative Maggie Jeffus to ask her to support Blust's bill. She wrote me back less than ninety minutes later to say that she was in session where debate was underway on an alternate public records law bill.
This is why I am an unaffiliated voter; why I find it impossible though word or action to give my permanent allegiance to one political party or another. Because, while I may find myself agreeing with Democrats more often than with Republicans, good ideas can and do come from any direction. Such is the case with a bill introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly by Guilford County Representative John Blust (R).
I wrote this to a friend today.
You will recall that an unsigned press release from the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro offered this reason for postponing the plan to have developer Roy Carroll fly local elected official to Washington to lobby for stimulus money:
Local photographer Jon Johnson knocked on our door this evening, doing a little door-to-door in the neighborhood offering note cards of his photographs for sale and inviting people to check out his web site. Some really beautiful North Carolina naturescapes, available for sale in a variety of medium.


Yes! Weekly reported that Anthony Triplin has formed a campaign committee for an at-large city council race. According to Triplin, a self-reported Grimsley High School graduate,, he actually formed the committee in 2006, but never filed to run. He says he does not intend to file to run this year either as he is running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Cyndy Hayworth wrote a letter to the editor of the (Greensboro) News & Record today. I've copied it here and tethered it to reality with notes in bold:
Speaking of, among other things, Greensboro's inability to operate with genuine sincerity, from Ed Cone:
What's odd is that we're talking about it happening with a well-publicized effort by a well-funded, well-intentioned group to promote GSO's creative culture -- a group that ignores significant creative aspects already underway in the city.
I'm not even sure there's a mechanism for dealing with creative endeavors that arise organically from the local scene. Sean got a meeting, but it sounds like that was all on his own initiative.
People are going to do their thing. That's part of being creative. But there is sometimes a role for a group like AG, and -- the reason we're having this conversation in the first place -- they proclaimed their interest in this topic.
I've given the example of the ConvergeSouth conference. Instigated and run by volunteers, it brought people from DC and Atlanta and across the Carolinas to A&T each year to talk about (as the founding motto had it) creativity on the web for all people.
We ran it successfully until it felt played out and we were burnt out on it, and then we shut it down. We were happy with what we'd done.
But -- what if institutional support had been there at some point, not just for funding but for planning, marketing, etc?
What if the ideas and energy of the grassroots creative folks had been combined with the muscle of AG?
Then GSO today might have an ongoing creative arts/new media festival, something like a regional version of SXSW -- an actual creative effort that drives economic development, just as the creative culture rap has it.
But we don't. Rather than having the downtown leadership adding to the mix, we had a mayor who laughed that he couldn't use a computer and declined all invitations to attend the event.
So we did our thing, and it worked, and after a while it was done.
A few years ago, somebody posted a copy of the "RMA Report" to the website Greensboro 101. I owned and operated the site, but I had set it up from the start to be guided by the advice of a seven person advisory board (myself included).
It has got to be a real drag when the ignorance of us regular folks gets in the way of others' ambitions. Remember how our lack of "education" got in the way of poor Time Warner Cable's perfectly reasonable plan to make Greensboro one of only four places on earth where its internet access customers would pay by the amount of data consumed? As TWC explained, the problem wasn't that it was a bad idea, it just seemed like a bad idea to its customers because of our lack of understanding.
"Questions have been raised as the result of the misperceptions of some regarding the use of this donated plane. While we are disappointed by the misperceptions this travel plan has caused, more importantly we value the public’s trust and do not want to do anything to damage that trust. Therefore, we are postponing the trip."You see? We ignorant morons and our misconceptions. How thoughtless can we be? Silly, stupid us. I thought, on its face, it might be inappropriate for elected officials to fly gratis on a plane owned by a real estate developer; flown for free by a man with interests in issues coming before city council; flown by a man who has a political action committee that attempts to influence local elections; by a man who has made substantial financial campaign contributions to local candidates, including to at least one of those he proposed to fly (Here, scroll down past the annoying, irrelevant video).
(hat tip: Ed Cone)
"Editor's Note: Because of incorrect information provided to the News & Record, this article misreported who pays the bill for a personal trainer for the wife of Greensboro College President Craven Williams. Williams personally reimburses Greensboro College for that expense."If you read through the story looking for the "misreporting," you won't find it. Without explaining that they've done so, with no notation of an edit or change in the pub date, the N&R quietly removed the "mistake," leaving one unable to read just what Ahearn had originally


"With charges ranging from $1,258 to $1,386 monthly, the club bill is for membership along with extra charges including twice-a-week personal trainer sessions for Williams’ wife."You can still find the original here.
Kathy and I spent the first night of our mountain trip at the Pisgah Inn, one of the few lodging facilities directly on the Blue Ridge Parkway, about 3 1/2 hours from Greensboro, NC; 50 minutes south of Asheville.
Each room has a balcony opening onto the southeast side of Mount Pisgah, overlooking the Pisgah National Forest with Hendersonville far in the distance -- too far to even notice during the day, but a twinkle in the valley at night. There is very little ambient light when the moon is new, making the night sky sparkle with stars from horizon to horizon.
This is Bust Your Butt falls as it looked this past Thursday, our first day camping on the Cullasaja River. (See the people in the lower left for a sense of scale. Look very carefully to the immediate right of the falls and you can see a person standing on the rocks).

Mold "expert" Linda May who said a Greensboro school should be shut down because of mold failed to substantiate her claimed credentials to the Rhinoceros Times, "despite being asked repeatedly."
Kathy and I went to the new Buffalo's Bar & Grill last night. We did not like it. We had been to the old location many times over the past several years. Their signature wings were really good, and when we wanted something a little different, the quality and variety of other menu selections were good. The old place was often crowded, a combination of limited seating and popularity. We didn't mind.
Ben Holder informally launched his campaign with a fish fry last night (I understand that the "official" kickoff is next weekend).

I think my bona fides as a skeptic are well established, so I don't mind the temporary flack I'm getting for being suddenly sentimental. To hell with it, I'll find reason soon enough to criticize again, but today, this man is my hero:
An anonymous commenter on my post about the Greensboro city council's statement of regret over the violent events of November 3, 1979 wrote this:
The only action due here is for the people who are still here that on that day 30 years ago that participated and represented the CWP and the KLAN to apologize to the people of Guilford Co. The CWP planned the "Death to mthe Klan" march/rally knowing quite well the Klan would most probably respond, and apparently the Klan was game to do just that. Also, who fired the first shot, certainly not Mr Johnson as it's documented that he was hidding under his car, all of the stories I heard was the CWP people fired the first shot. So why should we apologize to them when it should be the other way around. What a joke..........Pseudonymous commenter Cheripicker, applauds this comment as "common sense and independent thought..."
Zack Matheny is my Greensboro city council district (3) representative. He's a good guy. He makes some good decisions and he's pretty good about responding to constituent concerns.
Tony Wilkins is reporting that Greensboro political consultant Bill Burckley was arrested at last night's city council meeting. According to Wilkins, Burckley "laughed out loud during the meeting and was asked to leave." Burckley was apparently reacting to a vote by council expressing regret for the violent events of November 3, 1979.
Three years or so ago a group of citizens came before Greensboro city council asking the council to endorse the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation process. Council did not simply decline to do so but, in what I thought to be one of the most spiteful and cruel official actions I had ever seen the council take, council voted to oppose the Truth and Reconciliation process. They did not just decline to support it, they affirmatively expressed their official opposition. The motion to oppose the process was made by councilor Robbie Perkins.
I made the following records request of the City of Greensboro on June 4, 2009:
Let me get this straight: FedEx, a company that is reaping the benefits locally of hundreds of millions of public dollars spent to construct a runway and cargo sorting building and to restructure property tax laws to its financial benefit, is attempting to demean rival UPS by insinuating (wrongly and unethically) that UPS is the recipient of a government bailout?
Pushback. It is so contrary to our Southern sensibilities. So rude. And so necessary.
"It demonstrated again the dangers when editors run with exclusive leaked material in politically charged circumstances and fail to push back skeptically."(emphasis added)Locally? True dat.