It puts the lotion in the basket, Monk.

As I was watching the most excellent Shutter Island, the actor playing the warden looked very familiar. Oh, it's the imminently creepy Buffalo Bill from the movie The Silence of the Lambs. I recognize that voice. But wait a minute, when he smiles he looked just like Captain Leland Stottlemeyer from the TV series Monk. Back and forth I went. Which was it?

Buffalo Bill and the police captain from Monk (and the warden in Shutter Island) are all creations of actor Ted Levine. Maybe that was obvious, but I never saw it when watching Monk and it thrills me when actors "put one over on me" like that.

Fun bonus fact: Jodie Foster's character in The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling, eventually finds Buffalo Bill. Traveling to his home, she traverses a bridge that is, in reality, the bridge to Bellaire, Ohio -- Ted Levine's birthplace.

News & Record article does not plagiarize

Here is how a newsorg posts a story where most of the reporting is coming from other outlets (I'm talking to you, Rush Radio).

1. It does not steal copy from other sources.
2. It acknowledges the contributions of other sources in the byline; it does not claim others' reporting as its own.
3. It reports as facts only those things it has previously reported and it attributes claims it has not independently substantiated to their source.
4. It lists and links to the sources it uses.
5. It puts the lotion in the basket. Sorry, wrong topic.

.

More plagiarism from Rush Radio 94.5

The plagiarism continues (previously):


ITEM:
From Rush Radio, 94.5, highlighted portions copied word-for-word from WGHP Fox8 (here):

STONEVILLE, NC - A man who drives a Rockingham County church bus is accused of fondling a 14-year old girl near Stoneville.

Police say 49-year old Madison Phillip Madison fondled the teen on a Saturday in July.

They say the victim was riding in the front seat of a car driven by Madison when the incident occurred, and it did not happen on the church bus. Officials declined to name the church he drives for.

Madison is charged with one count of indecent liberties with a child and was placed in the Rockingham County Jail under $20,000 bond.

ITEM:
From Rush Radio, 94.5, highlighted portions copied word-for-word from WGHP Fox8 (here):

WINSTON-SALEM, NC - A news conference is scheduled for 1pm today at Forsyth Tech, where Governor Perdue is expected to announce that Caterpillar has chosen Winston-Salem as the location for a new plant.

The city beat out Montgomery, Alabama and Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Earlier this month, [the city of] Winston-Salem leaders approved a $14.35 million incentives package to lure the company to the Twin City. As part of that, Caterpillar will be required to create and maintain at least 400 fulltime (sic) [full time]  jobs within the first five years of operation, paying an average salary of around $36,000 a year.

ITEM:
From Rush Radio, 94.5, highlighted portions copied word-for-word from WFMY (here):

ASHEBORO, NC- An autopsy has revealed that 22-year old Shaunna Walley was strangled to death. Walley was found May 18 along a trail near Brewer Street in Asheboro. Police said her body was found partially clothed and detectives say she had been there for less than a week. 

Investigators initially ruled the death as suspicious, then later a homicide. [...] At the time Walley's body was found, she was not reported missing, but family and friends say they hadn't seen her in a few days. Anyone with information about her [Walley's] death is asked to call Asheboro Police at (336) 318-6699.

.

Rush Radio 94.5 plagiarizes news

ITEM:
From Rush Radio, 94.5, highlighted portions copied word-for-word from the News & Record (here):

RALEIGH, NC- A new statewide review by the state DOT has ranked the Greensboro Urban Loop "high priority," meaning it could be finished by 2020.

A draft timetable calls for DOT to start buying the remaining land needed for Bryan-to-Battleground next year, with construction starting in 2014. It schedules final land-buying for the eastern-loop section in 2015, with construction from 2017 to 2020. 

Winston-Salem fared poorly in the rankings. Its proposed loop finished low and was not recommended for land-buying or construction during the next decade. 

ITEM:
From Rush Radio, 94.5, highlighted portions copied word-for-word from WGHP Fox8 (here):

GREENSBORO, NC - Three cats from the Aycock neighborhood in Greensboro were apparently attacked, poisoned, and left to die last week.

The animals were found on the front steps of their respective homes last week, and only one of the [injured] cats survived.

Guilford County Animal Control think the cats were taken and given to dogs to attack. They continue to investigate.

In the meantime, neighbors in Aycock are keeping their pets indoors to avoid further attacks. 

ITEM:
From Rush Radio, 94.5, highlighted portions copied word-for-word from The Winston-Salem Journal (here):

WINSTON-SALEM, NC- Students in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system made proficiency gains in every subject area and every grade level last school year, according to preliminary test results released by the school system today. 

Overall, 82.4 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 passed state math tests, up from 79.1 percent in 2009-10. In reading, 69.1 percent passed their tests, up from 65.6 percent, and 69.1 percent of students passed science tests, up from 62.2 percent. Among high schools, students made gains in each of the eight end-of-course tests before retests were included. Retests, which were used in high school calculations for the first time this year, increased the gains even more. Overall, 39 of 56 elementary and middle schools made gains in reading, math and science. Ten more elementary and middle schools made gains in two of the three subjects. Three new schools — Caleb's Creek and Kimmel Farm elementary schools and Flat Rock Middle — took the tests for the first time. Several elementary and middle schools showed double-digit gains in the percentage of students passing tests. North Hills Elementary increased 11.4 percent in reading, 13.9 percent in math and 14.5 percent in science. Middle Fork Elementary increased 11.3 percent in reading and 18.4 percent in math. The percentage of students passing math tests increased 12.3 percent at Cook Elementary, 14.6 percent at Kimberley Park Elementary, 19.2 percent at Petree Elementary and 15 percent at Philo Middle.

.

Greensboring finds something interesting

Greensboring's Liv contributor SouthernFriedInfidel reviews the newly updated Greensboro Historical Museum:

I gotta say -- this place was amazing. 

More.

Billy's bad expereince with the local criminal justice system

Billy says he was assaulted at work last year. The case nearly falls through the cracks, he says -- a magistrate alters his complaint, witnesses do not get subpoenaed, the Guilford County District Attorney does not communicate with him until he's in court and he has to take the on the job of moving paperwork on the DA's behalf.

This is completely contrary to the way things have gone thus far for me with the case of my stolen lawnmower where a patrol officer gets a timely report, a detective investigates, lawnmower is recovered, DA takes the case to a grand jury, gets an indictment and keeps me informed by mail.

How do these cases get handled so differently?

Selective memories

News & Record's Allen Johnson in comparing public reaction to the current proposal for a new downtown hotel with reaction to the tax abatement offered to Roy Carroll to renovate the old Wachovia tower in 2006:

Why no hue and cry then?

People hued. They cried.

There's this thing called the Internet and it has these things called links...

(Greensboro, NC) What is wrong with this picture? News & Record editor Doug Clark writes a blog post about a story that ran in the News & Record. The News & Record website prohibits links to the story so he must link to it at another media outlet's web site.

I know it has only been about fifteen years since this Word Wide Web thing took hold, but if a publisher is still allowing his enterprise to run into these dead ends, isn't it about time for him to retire?

Nantahala whitewater rafting

On the fourth day of our mountain trip, Kathy and I went white water rafting on the Nantahala River. From Standing Indian Campground, we descended Highway 64 then climed Wayah Road, past the LBJ Civilian Jobs Corps Conservation Center and the intriguing Wayah Creek Cottages to Lake Nantahala and down the other side to the river.


View Larger Map
[Rafting outfitters along the Nantahala River]

There are a number of rafting outfitters on the river. We wanted an affordable unguided two-person trip from an outfit that looked like they took good care of their equipment. We found App Rivers near the put-in spot. After signing a release that said we acknowledged we were taking our lives in our hands (standard among all outfitters), paying $36 for a two-person ducky and leaving our car keys at the office, we walked down to the equipment shed where we received life vests, paddles and thorough instructions from owner, retired history teacher and Vietnam vet, John. We were taken by van to the put-in parking lot, were we grabbed our waiting raft and followed John's pointing finger to the put-in.

The Nantahala is mostly one and two class rapids, with some brief class threes (when Duke Power opens the damn above, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.-- seriously). "Twos" are plenty big enough to jostle a two-man ducky and send lots of nice cold water over the bow (where Kathy sat). Here we are going over "Nantahala Falls," the sixty yards of "threes" at the end of our two-hour journey where I snacked on my life vest for a minute.

Shutter Island: Recommended

I watched Shutter Island last night. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley along with a strong cast of supporting actors. The trailers I saw made it look like some kind of hokey ghost story. It is not.

It is, however, hard to describe in much detail without giving away too much. I'll say this: it is a thrilling exploration of how reality is defined by our intentional and involuntary perceptions, told through masterful exploitation of modern archetypes with a plot twist that plays beautifully and with brilliant effect on the expectations of American movie goers. I recommend it.

When the newsgathering is more interesting that the news

WGHP MyFox8 has a story about guys who work in an ice cream freezer: The coldest job in the Piedmont.

The exploits of the short-sleeved, no socks, short pants clad videographer who shot it is funnier: Frosty the Moron.

New public records law, the good and the bad

As part of a bill making wide-ranging changes to ethics laws in North Carolina, the state legislature updated portions of the law pertaining to public records requests. (The bill passed unanimously in the house and had one "no" vote in the senate, by Senator Phil Berger).

[Update: As the News & Record's Mark Binker notes (comments), the governor hasn't signed the bill into law yet, although he says she is expected to.]

The good and the bad:

Bad: Compulsory mediation prior to bringing a suit for public records.
Mediation is expensive and can take hours. My party's share of a half-day's mediation on a records request I engaged in was nearly $500. A generous benefactor paid it, so it wasn't too painful, but it produced little result and we ended up having to go to court anyway. While the new law allows both parties to waive the mediation, government employees who are not spending their own money could use insistence on mediation as a cudgel to make bringing records requests into the legal system costly for citizens.

Good: Expanded information about public employee histories.
The previous law had been interpreted to allow only information about an employee's current position as public record. The new law now allows public access to an employee's salary history and history of promotions, demotions and transfers and a "general description," of the reason for each.

Bad. Personnel records law still open to abuse.
When the City of Greensboro decides it does not want an employee's name to publicly appear in records, it takes the position that any commentary, "good or bad," about an employee may not be publicly released. Thus a public comment submitted to the city about the search for a police chief that says, "Bring back xxxxxxxx!" gets redacted with the excuse that it is either a positive comment about an ex-employee or a sarcastic comment about an ex-employee and the city may not release information about an employee or ex-employee "good or bad."

Of course, when the city honors employees in its newsletters and press releases. It is doing the very thing the Attorney's office says is prohibited -- publicly disseminating an opinion of the employee. The City selectively applies a twisted interpretation of the law at its convenience. The state should have specifically addressed circumstances under which an employee's name may be withheld from public information.

Good. Attorney's fees paid by public body if it loses records request lawsuit.
If a person requesting records has to go to court and wins, his attorney's fees must be paid by the governmental body he had to sue -- with some limited exceptions.

Very good. An individual public employee may be responsible for paying attorney's fees.
If the court finds that an individual public employee intentionally subverted public records law, he or she may be held personally liable for attorney's fees accrued from a successful records suit. The threat of personal liability should assure that public employees are not capricious in their refusal to release records.

Could go either way. Filers of frivolous suits may be responsible for public body's attorney's fees.
A person who files a suit for records that is determined to be in bad faith or frivolous has to pay the attorney's fees for the public body. "Frivolous" is open to some interpretation, so I suppose we will just have to wait and hope that this does not get overused by the courts.

Review: Standing Indian Campground

Although I spent many years living in and exploring southwestern North Carolina, mostly in the areas of Buncombe and Jackson counties, I hardly ventured much more westward than Highlands (and the serene Van Hook Glade Campground on the Cullasaja River).

This summer, however, Kathy and I decided to venture a little further west into Macon, Swain and Graham counties, homes of the Nantahala River, Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, Lake Nantahala, Bryson City, Lake Santeetlah and the Cherohola Skyway.

We spent our first three nights camping at Standing Indian Campground. Surrounded by peaks from 4,700 to 5,000 feet at their highest, Standing Indian Campground straddles The Nantahala River and a tributary, Kimsey Creek, near the river's headwaters. Several paths in the campground offer easy access to swimming and fishing holes. Rainbow and brown trout are supposedly in the waters, although I came away empty-handed.


View Larger Map
(There is no address to plot on Google Maps, these are the GPS coordinates of the campground.)

Standing Indian is a large campground -- five loops, eighty-one sites -- owned by the National Forest Service (that's us) and operated by an independent contractor with the help of several on-site "hosts." Although large and accommodating plenty of RVs, we found the more remote sites of loop five to be secluded and private enough to give us the serenity we were looking for.

 

We chose site #78. Curtained from neighbors by dozens of yards of thick mountain laurel and shaded by towering poplars throughout the day, the site, like the other tent sites, has a groomed tent pad, concrete picnic table, fire pit and lantern pole -- and it drains well, as two nights of heavy rain proved. #78 backs up to Kimsey Creek. You can't see the creek from the site, but you can hear it at night. Our site was about one hundred yards from the bathhouse: one sink, one toilet and one shower with nice hot water each for men and women.

The campground store is not a fully stocked convenience store by any means, but it offers eggs, milk, candy, some basic camping supplies and firewood at $25 for a load. We had purchased a couple of small bundles of wood in Sylva, NC on the way and supplemented our supply with a few more from Loafer's Glory, the closest convenience store and gas station to the campground we found, about fifteen minutes away, as I recall. Seen here:


View Larger Map 

Drive past the campground on the Forest Service road, the pavement ends and it turns to well groomed dirt, following the Nantahala upstream and leading to the "back country" area with turnoffs to fishing holes and access to primitive campsites, a horse camp and lots of trails -- many following mountain streams, some to waterfalls. There is an information board with maps and details at the beginning of the dirt road. We hiked the relatively easy Laurel Falls trail. It was about a twenty minute hike one-way with mild changes in elevation to Laurel Falls. The pool below the falls was inviting on a hot summer day, but I found the water too frigid for anything more than a quick knee-high wade -- it was, however, the only place I even got a nibble while fishing.

In addition to the numerous and varied trails in the back country area, just prior to reaching the campground there is access to the Appalachian Trail, which Kathy found especially delightful as she was reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail during our trip.

News & Record dumbs it down

GREENSBORO — Remember how it got so cold last winter that climate-change skeptics were saying, “See, we told you so”?

For the next few days, climate-change believers get their turn. The muggy heat will be so bad, it just might feel as though the world has never been this hot.

Kudos to reporter Taft Wireback for that accurate and insightful representation of climate change. Bonus points for the quote from no one in particular.  (Sadly ironic that made up quotes get quotation marks while the N&R editor defends copying multiple paragraphs word-for-word from other sources without them.)

AYP Results

Guilford County Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports here.

Other school systems in the state and previous years here.

Hyde answers my raffle inquiry

[Disclaimer: I am an unaffiliated voter in NC Senate district 27. I am not involved with D27 incumbent Senator Don Vaughan's campaign. I did design Vaughan's business website.]

Here is an email exchange I had with North Carolina Senate district 27 candidate Jeff Hyde regarding the complaints surrounding his campaign raffle and the candidate's refusal to identify the winner of the $5,000 prize.

> Hello Jeff,
>
> About the raffle:
>
> Was the winner listed on your campaign finance report as having
> purchased a raffle ticket or tickets?
>
> Was the winner related to you?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Yours,
> Roch Smith, Jr.
>
> --
> Roch Smith, Jr.
> www.greensboro101.com
> www.we101.com

Rick,
Are you the Rick Smith I meet at the Speakers Forum last Thursday at UnderCurrent?

Jeff Hyde
Candidate for NC Senate District 27
www.votejeffhyde.com

More stenography from the News & Record

(Greensboro, NC) The News & Record regurgitates more government propaganda. Here is a story from the N&R web site, the highlighted portions are plagiarized word-for-word from this press release.

Several local groups are among the businesses, public agencies and universities that will receive $5.6 million to create energy-related jobs and internships, the North Carolina Energy Office announced Tuesday.

The federal stimulus funds will be combined with other private and public dollars to create an internship program worth nearly $8.7 million.

The local recipients include, according to the energy office:

Guilford County government will use one sustainability fellow to assist with energy audits of county buildings, analyze energy audits and recommend savings, perform energy surveys of county buildings, provide training on energy usage for employees, review billing rates of each energy provider, develop training and protocols for facilities employees and write energy-related grants. Grant amount: $40,000. Total project cost: $47,662.

The city of Winston-Salem will use six interns to focus on one of three areas: sustainable architecture, environmental studies and science, or education through a public awareness program. Materials prepared by the interns will become reference materials in the city’s new sustainability resource center and used to respond to questions from the various public sectors. Grant amount: $115,085. Total project cost: $226,285.

Alamance Community College [ACC] proposes to place 40 interns both inside and outside the college. These positions offer practice of classroom knowledge and support for the Green Technology Certificate Program, a 12 credit-hour program to train a green workforce. Grant amount: $339,276. Total project cost: $438,240.

N.C. A&T [State University] will have 13 internships and seven fellowships that will provide experiences in energy-related businesses, industries and agencies in the Piedmont Triad [area]. Grant amount: $149,074. Total project cost: $ 164,913.

"A Single Man." Three thumbs up.

I watched "A Single Man" last night. It was an excellent movie with superb acting, especially the honest and subtle performance of Oscar-nominated lead Colin Firth. The film explores the brutal ultimate realities of life and death, both the heartbreaking and the beautiful. Meaning of life movies can be preachy or heavy handed,  but "A Single Man" finds the poignant truths of human existence with a masterful quiet confidence achieved through genuine and wondrous dialogue, sincere character portrayals and stunning cinematography. I recommend it.

Dam Scam calling it quits. Questions remain.

Mike Baron, former water conservation manager for the city of Greensboro, is bringing an end to his efforts to expose what he calls "the harm caused by municipalities driven to sell water-for-profit."

Mike claims that water shortages were intentionally engineered in Greensboro and water-use projections exaggerated to justify the Randleman Dam. His seemingly empirical data appears to back up his claim that water capacity increased "by 75% during a 15 year decline in water sales."

It is a shame that the traditional media who have the resources to investigate these kinds of issues have not taken this on. Nobody. Maybe there are other parts of the story that explain what Mike sees as wasteful practices at taxpayer expense. Maybe Mike is just wrong. Maybe he is right. One thing is certain, those with the time and resources to tackle a complicated story like this have ignored it. That's too bad.

Albion W. Tourgée, a forgotten Greensboro son?

I've never heard of Albion W. Tourgée until I read this morning that he lived in North Carolina for a while and  looked him up to learn more. Maybe we should have a Tourgée Boulevard.

Albion Winegar Tourgée (May 2, 1838 – May 21, 1905) was an American soldier, Radical Republican, lawyer, judge, novelist, and diplomat. A pioneer civil rights activist, he founded the National Citizens' Rights Association and litigated for the plaintiff Homer Plessy in the famous segregation case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Historian Mark Elliott credits Tourgee with introducing the metaphor of "color-blind" justice into legal discourse.

After the war, Tourgée established himself as a lawyer, farmer, and editor in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he and his wife moved so he could live in a warmer climate better suited to his war injuries. An active participant as a Reconstruction Carpetbagger  in his new home, Tourgée had a number of inspiring and harrowing experiences that gave him ample material and impetus for the writing he would later undertake. In 1868 he represented Guilford County at the state constitutional convention, which was dominated by Republicans. There he successfully advocated for equal political and civil rights for all citizens; ending property qualifications for jury duty and officeholding; popular election of all state officers, including judges; free public education; abolition of whipping posts for those convicted of crimes; judicial reform; and uniform taxation.

Update: A letter from Tourgee on the KKK:

Greensboro, N.C. May 24, 1870. Gen. Jos. C. Abbott-My Dear General: It is my mournful duty to inform you that our friend John W. Stephens, State Senator from Caswell, is dead. He was foully murdered by the Ku-Klux in the Grand Jury room of the Court House on Saturday or Saturday night last. The circumstances attending his murder have not yet fully come to light there. So far as I can learn, I judge these to have been the circumstances: He was one of the Justices of the Peace in that township, and was accustomed to hold court in that room on Saturdays. It is evident that he was set upon by some one while holding this court, or immediately after its close, and disabled by a sudden attack, otherwise there would have been a very sharp resistance, as he was a man, and always went armed to the teeth. He was stabbed five or six times, and then hanged on a hook in the Grand Jury room, where he was found on Sunday morning. [Continued]

Update II: Yes! Weekly editor Brian Clarey credits one of the ten best "Overlooked  moments in Greensboro history" to Tourgée.

Update III: D'oh!: "One of Tourgée’s most notable contributions was his role in founding Bennett College for African Americans in Greensboro."

Asking City Council for action on city attorney's stonewalling

The City of Greensboro attorney Terry Wood's explanations for why the public comments on the search for a new police chief were redacted have prompted me to ask the City Council to review the document without the redactions and determine if, as Wood maintained, "only names" were redacted. I sent the following to the mayor and city council.

The City made available on its website the responses it received to its request for public comment on the search for a new police chief. Some of the responses were redacted.

I asked City Attorney Terry Wood to provide the legal justification for these redactions. He said that the redactions were justified by personnel law because the comments "were employee opinion of other employees' performance;" that "statute prohibits the release of any comments or opinions (good or bad) related to an employee's, or past employee's, performance;" and he assured me that "only names were redacted." (Our email exchange is available on request. Document here: http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/4523E186-E7FB-4D1D-ADC0-AC59B4087BDB/0/PoliceChiefSurveyComments.pdf)

I believe this information to be incorrect in the following respects. One, it seems unlikely that "only names were redacted." Several of the redactions are of two or three letter words, indicating they are likely pronouns. Other redacted words are preceded by articles such as "a," "an," and "the," words that would not precede proper names.

Two, the City website identifies the comments as "Police chief search public comments" and, indeed, I see my comments among the responses. These are not "employee opinions of other employees' performance," as the city attorney described them.

Three, the City publicly recognizes the achievements and accomplishments of employees. The city attorney's response that "comments or opinions (good or bad)" related to an employee are prohibited from release by the City is inconsistent with the City honoring outstanding employees -- a public opinion of the employee disseminated by the City. The City does not apply this "rule" evenhandedly and it is unfair for the City to subscribe to it only when it is convenient to frustrate public inquiries.

In the interest of maintaining government transparency and to abide by laws of the North Carolina, I respectfully request that City Council undertake the following actions in this matter: Review the document in question without the redactions in closed session. Determine if anything other than "only names" were redacted as the City Attorney represented to this citizen and, if so, instruct the City Manager to make this document available without the improper redactions.

Sincerely,
Roch Smith, Jr.

Response on redactions from City of Greensboro attorney

I received this reply from the City of Greensboro attorney Terry Wood regarding my request for the legal justification for the redactions made to the public comments about the search for a new police chief.

Those were redacted from comments solicited from employees.  The portions redacted were employee opinions of other employees' performance; therefore their names were deleted to comply with NCGS 160A-168.  That statute prohibits the release of any comments or opinions (good or bad) related to an employee's, or past employee's, performance from being released by the City without that employee's permission.

Those explanations seemed to ignore the context of the redactions, so I asked him to look again, to which he replied with the following:

Only names were redacted. "Bring Back _______!" was the name of an employee such as "Bring Back "Charlie Brown."  If I say some one is doing an excellent job or a terrible job it's an opinion and once that opinion is 'gathered' by the City it cannot be released except with the permission of the employee or otherwise as allowed by the Statute.  If I say "Bring Back Charlie Brown" that could mean I thought Charlie Brown was great and did an excellent job or it could be a facetious statement meaning Charlie Brown was not a fan favorite, either way it's expresses an opinion of performance.

[Update: These responses prompted me to send an email to the mayor and city council asking them to look at the document without the redactions and determine if, as the City Attorney maintains, "only names," were redacted.]

City of Greensboro's improper redactions

The City of Greensboro has posted results from its online questionnaire about the next police chief. There are some questionable redactions, a practice I thought was coming to an end with the City's recent efforts to better communicate to its employees the requirements of North Carolina public records laws:

Here is an example.

The context convincingly indicates that these redactions are of nouns and pronouns (preceding articles "an" and "a" are good indications; very short words, another.). They may suggest the identity of a person or they may be foul language, it's hard to say for sure, but state law allows neither to be legitimately withheld from public records.

Here is another:

Greensboro has been know to venture into the absurd in using personnel privacy laws to keep employees' names out of public records, no matter the context. But the name of someone who this context convincingly indicates is a former employee deserves no secrecy. The City knows this, just look at the numerous documents online at the City's website that mention former City Manager Ed Kitchen without redaction. The City cannot choose to publish or redact an employee's name, current or former, arbitrarily.

There are numerous examples of what appear to be a misapplication of the requirements of the law in this document. I have asked City Attorney Terry Wood to provide me with the legal justifications for these redactions.

News & Record dutifully regurgitates city press release

(Greensboro, NC) Here is a story from the News & Record. The highlighted portions are plagiarized word-for-word from the City of Greensboro's press release and this online announcement.

GREENSBORO — The city today announced the final two candidates for the Greensboro police chief job.

The candidates are Kenneth C. Miller, senior deputy chief for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, and Lisa G. Womack, former police chief of the Elgin (Ill.) Police Department.

According to details provided by Greensboro, Miller's law enforcement career began [during a four-year hitch] with the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a security police sergeant until 1985. From there, he was auxiliary deputy sheriff with the Greene County Sheriff's Department while earning his bachelor's degree in criminal justice and political science at East Tennessee State University. He also has a master's in public administration from UNC Charlotte.

In 1989, Miller joined the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department as a patrol officer and worked up the ranks to sergeant, captain, major and deputy chief. He has managed administrative and support services divisions, as well as the department's internal affairs bureau. In his current post since January, Miller oversees a staff of more than 600 full-time employees and a budget of $18 million.

Womack's law enforcement career began in 1992 following a four-year term as assistant to the city manager's office in [the City of] Hurst, Texas. She began as a police officer with the Arlington Police Department and worked her way up the ranks to sergeant, lieutenant and deputy chief, a post she held from 2001-04. For the next year, she served as chief of police for the Sugar Land Police Department in [Sugar Land,] Texas.

Womack then served as chief of police of the Elgin Police Department [in Elgin, Ill.] from 2005-10. In that post, she managed a staff of more than 300 full-time employees and a budget of $32 million. She resigned [*]  from the job in April after the hiring of a new city manager.

Womack holds a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Texas Woman's University and a master's degree in public administration from the University of North Texas, Denton.

Read more about the candidates at www.greensboro-nc.gov/Candidates.

More than 200 people applied for the Greensboro job, and city officials recently narrowed the field to six, all of whom were interviewed before the final two finalists were picked.

Miller and Womack will participate in panel assessment activities later this week. Panels consist of local public safety officials, business community representatives, neighborhood representatives and residents from each council district, as well as Greensboro Police Department [(GPD)] employees, according to a news release.

Current Police Chief Tim Bellamy is retiring July 31. Assistant Police Chief Dwight Crotts has been selected interim chief effective Aug. 1.

* hyperlink not in original

[Update: Although not to the same extent as the News & Record, WFMY copies and pastes too.]

Metal in my Kingsford Charcoal

Why is there metal in the Kingsford charcoal I purchased from Home Depot?

Armed citizen journalist at Greensboro demonstration reportedly acquitted of charges

[Update: The News & Record's Ryan Seals confirms the reported disposition of the charges.]

(Greensboro, NC) In October of 2009, James Ronald Penn Jr.video taped an anti-abortion demonstration with a gun on his hip. That inspired the attention of the police and, as subsequently reported by Ryan Seals in the News & Record, a search of his home and criminal charges of failure to store a firearm to protect a minor, resisting a public officer and possession of a firearm at a parade or demonstration.

A pseudonymous commenter at the post on this blog reporting the charges says that the first two charges were dismissed and that Penn has been found not guilty of the firearm at a demonstration charge. I have emailed Seals to ask if he can confirm and if the N&R is going to follow up.

Here is the video Penn recorded:

Local media: stenographers of government propaganda

(Greensboro, NC) It takes little effort to repeat what government officials say about their actions. It takes more thought and effort to put official pronouncements into a larger context that incorporates relevant facts. The former is stenography. The later is reporting. Local media continue to propose their value is as stenographers.

In covering the new state law that would allow North Carolina law enforcement to collect and share the D.N.A. of innocent and guilty people alike, local media fell down and resorted to simply regurgitating what other people in favor of the law thought of it.

I'm talking to you News 14 Carolina, WFMY and WGHP. I reserve a special mention for the amazingly insipid WFMY story that manages to conflate the bill with a cold case, neither having anything to do with the other.

Only Mark Binker at the News & Record quoted anyone opposed to the law in his coverage of its debate in the General Assembly. (As far as I can tell, the N&R has not, at the time of this post, covered the bill being signed into law at all).

All coverage, including Binker's, failed to report the factual yet negative measures of the legislation. The law allows the state to share D.N.A. with other jurisdictions but provides no means, indeed cannot provide any means, for innocent people to have their D.N.A. removed from the databases of other jurisdictions. It provides no prohibitions or penalties for private contractors, authorized to perform D.N.A. analysis on behalf of the state, who may expropriate a person's D.N.A. sample for commercial research or profiling purposes. These facts are not reported.

Instead, what we got from local reporters was not reporting at all. It was regurgitation -- from WFMY, a summary of the Governor's Tweets -- all uncritical repetition of the official line, each failing to report any derogatory facts about this law.

Harrison stands up for civil rights; Blust, Berger, Vaughan and Jeffus for erosion of liberties

Greensboro state legislator Pricey Harrison (D) voted against the bill that would allow the state to collect DNA samples from people upon arrest, whether they are convicted or not, and share the samples with other jurisdictions, including the federal government.

Local legislators John Blust (R), Phil Berger (R), Don Vaughan (D) and Maggie Jeffus (D) voted in favor of this erosion of liberty. Governor Beverly Purdue (D) signed the bill into law today.

Should anyone doubt this is the beginning of an "erosion,"  Purdue said the bill was a "first step," that "It's better than nothing but, yes, we've still got work to do.”

Lawnmower thievery suspect indicted

A grand jury has indicted a person in the case of my stolen lawnmower. The indictments are for larceny, possession of stolen property and, because he pawned it, obtaining property by false pretense. The person may plead guilty at an upcoming court date or plead not guilty and demand a jury trial, which could put resolution months away.

Out in public sick and without pants

(Greensboro, NC) Would you go out in public sick and without pants? That's what two institutions of local importance are doing with their websites.

First, there is Urban Hotel Group, the proposed developer of the proposed downtown hotel. As Jeff Martin brings to our attention, their web site is infected with malware. As Google warns: "This site may harm your computer." (So don't go there, mmmkay?)

Then there is the airport. Boasting of their remodeled website in press releases and on billboards, most of the remake consists of "framing" content from other sources within the boarders of the airport's website. On the "Find your flight" screen, this creates a violation of  common security settings, resulting in an inescapable loop of error messages as seen here:

More suicidal tendencies

Lex Alexander:

"[T]he real test of a reporter’s work isn’t whether there’s a perception that he can’t be fair. It is whether the work he actually publishes is fair, accurate, and ethically produced. That’s all that matters."