Keynes vs Hayek Round II with a cameo appearance by Mike Munger

Do you recognize former North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and Duke University economics professor Mike Munger in this economics rap video?

Priorities

GREENSBORO, NC -- North Carolina A&T last week announced plans to eliminate the university's French and Spanish majors, the administration suggesting the Rosetta Stone language-learning software might suffice (news, opinion.). Today, an announcement that the A&T band will travel to New York to appear in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and some students are thinking of delaying their graduation so that they can participate.

Any questions?

Greensboro City Council and email and text messages as public records

GREENSBORO, NC -- A lawyer friend and I were recently having a conversation about Greensboro City Council members' almost certain noncompliance with North Carolina public records law, prompted by a request he made that he is convinced will not be properly fulfilled. The problem, we agree, is twofold:

1. Public records in personal accounts kept secret.
   City Council members do not seem to take seriously that the law requires that any record "made or received in connection with the transaction of public business," even if its location is in a personal account or on a private computer, must be considered a public record and made available on request. It has been my experience to not receive emails from the personal accounts of city council members in response to a records request, even though I knew them to have existed.
2. Text messages are ignored.
   With the exception of a single instance involving the cooperation of Councilmember Zack Matheny, I have never received copies of text messages in response to a records request, even though I knew them to have existed. Yet, text messages are just as much a public record, subject to retention and disclosure, as are emails.

This from Tom Vincent of the agency charged with administering records retention in North Carolina, the Department of Cultural Resources:

"We schedule records by content, not by format. So text messages (like email) would be a public record if they have to do with the transaction of public business."

Tom also pointed me to an informative blog post by Frayda Bluestein of the UNC School of Government, "Email as Public Record: Five Things You Should Know." Here's an excerpt:

2. The location of an email does not determine whether or not it is a public record. If an email is made or received in connection with the transaction of public business, it is a public record regardless of whether it is created or stored on a public or a private computer or email system. So an email that relates to public business is a public record even if it is sent from a home computer, or made on a personal email account from any computer. This is true whether the email is sent or received by any public employee, or any elected or appointed public official.

Greensboro good times: Southern Lights and Grasshoppers

GREENSBORO, NC -- We had the great joy of a few days with my mom and dad, both my brothers and their families together in Greensboro for a few days. It would have been great even if we just stayed around the house visiting and celebrating the three April birthdays, but we didn't and the time together was made more enjoyable by outings to Southern Lights Bistro and the Greensboro Grasshoppers.

Southern Lights Bistro
A single skilled waiter at Southern Lights accommodated our party of twelve with aplomb. Everybody enjoyed their food. I had a delicious almond encrusted chicken and will return soon to try the twice tuna entree. Prices were appropriate for the quality; portions were generous and the Pinot Grigio superb. I also appreciate that a predetermined tip wasn't affixed to our bills, as is often the case for large parties. I resent being denied the option of determining for myself the value of the service and, in this case, not being extorted left us happy to tip more than likely would have been tacked on otherwise. 

Greensboro Grasshoppers
Last night we went to the Grasshoppers baseball game. Dad bought the tickets -- behind home plate a little down the third base line. Great seats. Great game too -- and on Thirsty Thursday when small beers are $1 and larger are $2.

It looked like the home team might be in trouble early when pitcher Jheyson Manzueta balked with the bases loaded and the top of the second ended with the Grasshoppers down 4 to 0. The home team hung tough though, and in the fourth inning outfielder Marcell Ozuna put the Grasshoppers on the board with a solo home run straight to the farthest reaches of center field. That started what would be a come-from-behind 7 to 5 rally. Great game. Great hometown fun.

Now here's an inspiring economic vision for ya

From an article in USA Today, via Keith Brown. David Hauser of the Piedmont Triad Partnership:

"We're going to build an aerotropolis whether we like it or not."

What the __?

Trends in local blogs and news

I was surprised today to see that the "trending" tab on Greensboro 101 did not show much relating to the redistricting hulabaloo. It turns out an update I made to the back-end code broke the feature. My apologies. It has been repaired and is now working properly.

Cone on Rakestraw, right on target

GREENSBORO, NC --

Ed Cone:

Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw — who submitted the map the council members approved Tuesday night — announced she didn’t create the map at all: It mysteriously showed up on her doorstep.

What does that even mean?

Seriously, what is she talking about?

Was an envelope literally left at her door, with no return address? And she opened it, and thought, "Huh, a redistricting map, I'll mark it up with Trudy and Bill and put it up for a vote?"

Rakestraw's "explanation" is contemptuous beyond description. The public deserves better.

What are you doing, Mary Rakestraw?

From the News & Record:

On Monday, [Greensboro City Councilmember Mary] Rakestraw told the News & Record she would explain the reasoning behind her [redistricting] plan Tuesday.

But she said nothing during the discussion of the issue and would not address the accusation that [Bill] Burckley drew the map, saying only that she did not present the plan for political reasons.

“I’m not a racist and I didn’t do it to be mean-spirited,” Rakestraw said. 

Explain yourself, then.

WFMY plagiarizes too.

GREENSBORO, NC -- I cannot criticize the News & Record for serving as a propaganda machine without noting that WFMY News2 has done the same. Here is a story from WFMY's website with the byline "Written by Nick Needham." Hardly. The portions copied word-for-word from the City's press release are highlighted.

Greensboro City Councilmember Mary Rakestraw has recommended a plan that would redistrict the current City Council district boundaries.

The recommendation requires the approval of City Council and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Guilford County, and its municipalities, is one of several counties in North Carolina required to get goverment approval anytime a redistricting proposal is presented.

Click here to see a complete list of states and counties covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

U.S. Supreme Court decisions suggest that if the variance between district populations - when comparing the lowest populated district with the highest - is 10 percent or less, redistricting may not be necessary according to guidelines in the 14th Amendment.

Greensboro's total variance rate is 9.2 percent, with the greatest variance existing between Districts 4 and 5.

Councilmember Rakestraw's proposal creates a population balance of 7.0 percent. The plan impacts 11 precincts, converting 10 full and one partial district into new boundaries.

While the City does not appear to be in violation of the 14th Amendment, which requires districts to be equally populated, City Council can still elect to redistrict to further reduce the existing variance and create more balance between districts.

Without redistricting, Greensboro still meets other US Department of Justice district boundary requirements, including maintaining two majority-minority districts.

Councilmember Rakestraw's proposal will be discussed during the April 19 City Council meeting.

Meanwhile, at the vomitorium

GREENSBORO, NC -- While Yes!Weekly's Jordan Green was digging into the proposed City Council redistricting plan, the News & Record regurgitated as "news" the City's press release. Here is the News & Record article, attributed to "staff reports." The highlighted portions are copied from the press release.

Greensboro City Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw has recommended a plan to redistrict the current City Council district boundaries.

The plan would affect [impacts] 11 precincts, converting 10 full and one partial district into new boundaries.

U.S. Supreme Court decisions suggest that if the variance between district populations – when comparing the lowest populated district with the highest – is 10 percent or less, redistricting may not be necessary according to guidelines in the 14th Amendment.

Greensboro’s total variance rate is 9.2 percent, with the greatest variance existing between Districts 4 and 5. [Councilmember] Rakestraw’s proposal creates a population balance of 7.0 percent.

The recommendation must be approved by [requires the approval of] City Council and the U.S. Department of Justice.

When the News & Record posts to its website material under the byline "staff reports," it suggest that some original reporting--some verification and fact checking--has occurred. When it obviously hasn't, they are just serving as a pipeline for propaganda and it is a lie to represent that material as original reporting. It is not reporting, it is vomit from a propaganda machine.

If the News & Record is going to continue this practice, and it has become common on their website, they should stop labeling these materials as news and stop crediting them to News & Record staff. They should just come clean and identify the material as a press release with the source fully identified: the name and contact details as are in the press release. Anything less is an intentional and gross misrepresentation. It is professional malpractice and it must end.

Be verwy verwy quiet, we're redistricting

GREENSBORO, NC -- Yes!Weekly's Jordan Green asks the question I was asking myself when the press release hit my mail box after dinner last night: why is a proposed redistricting of City Council districts being announced on a Friday night?

Jordan:

Here's hoping we can have a forthright and transparent discussion about the relative merits of any proposed changes instead of five council members secretly conferring and then rush-approving a new map before the public even has a chance to weigh in.

More search engine success

Greensboro 101 is now appearing in the #10 position on Yahoo in a search for "Greensboro" and has moved to the #4 position on Bing.

Most hated online ad techniques, part II

GREENSBORO, NC -- When I remarked yesterday on the crapification of the News & Record's website and their use of ads that conform to some of the most hated online advertising techniques, I gave a nod to DigTriad for ending their use of such ads. I was wrong. WFMY's DigTriad is employing ads that meet several of the most hated techniques.

Design Element	Users Answering "Very Negatively" or "Negatively"
Pops-up in front of your window	95%
Loads slowly	94%
Tries to trick you into clicking on it	94%
Does not have a "Close" button	93%
Covers what you are trying to see	93%
Doesn't say what it is for	92%
Moves content around	92%
Occupies most of the page	90%
Blinks on and off	87%
Floats across the screen	79%
Automatically plays sound	79%

Greensboro's new online accountability tracking

GREENSBORO, NC -- According to WGHP MyFox8, the City of Greensboro will launch a web page for citizens "to track where their tax dollars are going online." Fox8 says the site will launch at midnight tomorrow, but it's accessible now. Click on any of the "goal" links to get to individual reports.

Search engine progress

I messed up. In remaking Greensboro 101 a couple of years ago, I took away some things that search engines like to see. As a result, Greensboro 101 fell off search engine radar of searches for "Greensboro." Bad.

I paid more attention to search engine optimization in the latest remake of Greensboro 101 and it looks like my efforts may be bearing fruit. A search for "Greensboro" on Bing now has Greensboro 101 on the first page of search results. I'm still waiting for Google to follow the new sitemap.

Most hated online ad techniques

Greensboro, NC -- The News & Record's website is a careless and confused mess and it's getting worse as they try to cram more and more advertising into it. Their latest technique is the expanding ad, an intrusive beast that expands to cover a portion of what the user came to see.

Ad covering a large portion of the content

DigTriad was deploying these ads for a while, but seems wisely to have stopped. Seeing the ad for Sears burp itself into my way at the News & Record, I was reminded of a great new (to me) site I stumbled upon all about web and mobile usability. It's Jakob Nelson's site Useit.com.

He has an article titled "The Eleven Most Hated Advertising Techniques." Although from 2004, I suspect they are probably still pretty hated. From Useit.com.

Design Element	Users Answering "Very Negatively" or "Negatively"
Pops-up in front of your window	95%
Loads slowly	94%
Tries to trick you into clicking on it	94%
Does not have a "Close" button	93%
Covers what you are trying to see	93%
Doesn't say what it is for	92%
Moves content around	92%
Occupies most of the page	90%
Blinks on and off	87%
Floats across the screen	79%
Automatically plays sound	79%

What's trending in local news & blogs?

I've added a new feature to Greensboro 101 called "Trending." It shows the most prominent 101 words from local news and blogs in the past 24 hours. You may access it by clicking on the "Trending" tab on the main page of Greensboro 101. Click on any of the individual words and you will see the posts from the past 24 hours that contain that word.

I built the same thing for Twitter, but I swear I can see little value in it. Whatever imperfections there may remain in the blog and news trending feature, one can get a meaningful sense of what topics are currently of local interest. Twitter, on the other hand, is so chock full of junk that, from minute to minute, it appears as if popular interests move from such compelling words as "girl" to "boo." It is 99.9% inane. Still, I suppose that in itself is of minor sociological interest and may be worthy of some curiosity so, while I doubt if I will add it to Greensboro 101, if you want to see it as a stand-alone, it is here. http://greensboro101.com/twitterwords_gso.php (may disappear at any time. Updates throttled to ten minutes.)

Greensboro 101 search repaired

The recent redesign of Greensboro 101 broke the search feature. It would return results, but they were not linked to their source. I have fixed that now and you can once again search local blogs and news by clicking on the "Search" tab on the main page.

It gets complicated: My love/hate relationship with Greensboro 101

The way in which the complexity of a data-driven website can quickly explode both fascinates and frustrates me. I am amazed by the abilities of the popular web application programming combination of JavaScript, PHP and MySQL, which are what drive Greensboro 101, but there is not much room for error. The code never responds with "I think this is what you mean to do;" the instructions are either executable or not. Get it right and it's a thrill often provoking an involuntary "woo yeah"; forget an ' or include an extra ; and everything can come to a grinding halt. Figuring out what is wrong can be maddening but for a walk around the block or a glass of Scotch, depending.

When I added the "Just blogs" section to the main page of the new Greensboro 101, I did so by recycling the code that generates the "Latest" items, making the changes necessary to only retrieve items from blogs. It appeared to work and, for the most part, did. Alas, I forgot to change what must be a unique code for each "Recommend this item" button. So, if you tried to recommend an item in the new "Just blogs" tab, nothing appeared to happen. (Recommendations were recorded, there was just no feedback to the user.) A detail overlooked. Fortunately, not a critical one. Important, but it didn't send the site into a coma.

It's fixed now. Thanks to user BK for bringing the glitch to my attention.

Greensboro 101 Event Calendar

GREENSBORO, NC -- The new Greensboro 101 includes a public event calendar. This video gives a brief introduction and demonstrates how to add an event to the calendar.



Features of the Greensboro 101 event calendar include:

• Events posted to interactive Google map on Greensboro 101 main page on the day of the event.
• Events posted to event list on Greensboro 101 main page.
• Events posted in the events section of Greensboro 101.
• Events posted to other channels, including Eventbrite, Eventful and the Greensboro 101 Events Twitter feed.
• Press release generator that emails details of your event to local media.
• Social sharing tools that allow people to share information about your event on their favorite social media.
• Driving directions.
• Insert images into event listing. 
• View events by dates, category or venue.

Just blogs

By popular demand, I have added a view to the new Greensboro 101 for just blog posts--without feeds from local newsorgs. Just click on the "Just Blogs" tab.