Piedmont Publius: News & Record launders another story

SamH at Piedmont Publius about the News & Record's story "Police officer gets his job back after appeal.":

"I could swear I saw a quote from Blake in yesterday’s N&R online version saying he wouldn’t be rejoining the gang unit because he probably would face more harassment from fellow officers than the gangs themselves. An interesting perspective from a police officer who’s lucky to have a job, I thought to myself.

"But the N&R —city government’s media partner —– appears to have deleted that quote from both today’s print edition and updated online versions. Evidently they have some sort of interest in helping Blake ease back into his duties as a public servant."

Did the News & Record remove that commentary by Blake from its online story without comment? (It would not be the first time, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth, or the sixth.)

[UPDATE: Jerry Bledsoe provides the deleted quoation.]

Endorsement of Hartzman

A letter in today's News & Record:
--------------

I have known George Hartzman for six years and believe him to be careful in spending taxpayers’ money.

He is young and has the ability and strength to add to his family and investment lives that of being a political leader on the City Council in District 3..

Also, I have read one of his books, “Thinking,” which is challenging.

John Hancock
Greensboro
 ------

No doubt.

The book, BTW, is titled "Think." From the book's description:

"Think is an evolving philosophy questioning what did, is, could, should and shouldn't. The who to find, is you and what to do now."

WSJS newsman does not understand divorce rate

For the second day now, I've caught WSJS's newsman Smith Patterson reporting on Rockingham County's high divorce rate. A rate of over 15%, highest in North Carolina -- he says.

Wrong.

Patterson is reporting that 15% of the people living in Rockingham County are divorced and calling it the divorce rate. That is not the divorce rate.That is a measure of marital status--not the same thing. The divorce rate measures the rate at which marriages end in divorce not the percentage of people in any given population who are divorced.

Think of it this way. If you wanted to know a county's school system's graduation rate, would you measure the number of high school seniors who graduate from among the high school seniors in that system or would you measure the percentage of the entire county population who have a diploma? One thing would measure the schools' graduation rate, the other would measure the populace's educational attainment, two different things. Smith Patterson is erroneously reporting the populace's marital status as the county's divorce rate.

There are two big mistakes in saying that the divorced percentage of the population reflects the divorce rate.

1. A divorce rate must measure against marriages, not against the population at large (Children and other people never married cannot meaningfully be included in the population from among which the rate of divorce is measured). A county that has 1,000 marriages with 400 of them ending in divorce has a higher divorce rate than the county that has 10,000 marriages ending in 400 divorces -- same number of divorces, different divorce rates.
   
2. It fails to account for people moving in our out of the county. If I get divorced in Florida then move to Rockingham County, I contribute to the percentage of divorced people in Rockingham County, but I do not contribute to the percentage of marriages ending in divorce (the divorce rate) in Rockingham County because my marriage did not end in divorce in Rockingham County.

The Winston-Salem journal gets it right, reporting accuratley on the percentage of people living in Rockingham County who are divorced. WSJS's Smith Patterson, in reporting that this is the divorce rate, is just wrong.

Speakers from the floor. It could be worse.

Hat tip Lex.

Public Access Gold - He's scaring the boy scouts in the audience - watch more funny videos

"It is time for those who supported Mitch Johnson's witch hunt to give up and admit they were wrong."

Talk to enough people about the "black book" and you'll hear the kind of whispers I have. In fact, as John Hammer points out in this week's Rhinceros Times, the accusations against cops Wray, Brady and Sanders have, all along, been nothing more than unsubstantiated whispers.

They still persist in updated versions: "Oh, it's not THAT black book, it's the others that remain secret," or "Wait til the secret tapes come out." Yeah? Those sounds awfully similar to the "If you only knew what we know" that Hammer rightly recalls was the empty message that justified this colossal failure in public policy. In the end, the people saying "If you only knew what we know" did not know shit. And the people who tell me that there is another shoe, or two, to drop do not know shit either, except that they have a problem with reality. Hammer puts their BS straight up against the undeniable facts:

"It has been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Bureau of Investigation, the United States Department of Justice and the Greensboro Police Department, and the allegations made against Wray and his staff are unfounded. Certainly if what Mitch Johnson said were true, one of these investigations would have turned up sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to take action, but they have not"

Read the whole thing.

Handicapping the at-large race -- UPDATED

It occurred to me that in my previous handicapping of the at-large Greensboro city council race, I ignored an obvious tool at my disposal--one that ads to the knowledge of "buzz." By using the search function of the main page of Greensboro101, I can see the number of times a candidate's name appears in a blog or news story in the past week. Armed with that additional data, here are my current predictions for the order of finish for the October 6th primary.

1. Nancy Vaughan
2. MariKay AbuZuaiter
3. Robbie Perkins
4. DJ Hardy +1
5. Ryan Shell +1
6. Julie Lapham -2
-------
7. Sandra Anderson-Groat
8. Danny Thompson
9. Jorge Cornell +1
10 Gary Nixon -1
11. Max Benbasst

Handicapping the at-large race

Judging by media coverage, finance reports, buzz and my perception of the Greensboro electorate, here is this week's predicted order of finish for the October 6th, Greensboro city council at-large primary, from which six will advance. (They do not reflect my order of preference, I remaining largely undecided, for what that's worth.)

1. Nancy Vaughan
2. MariKay AbuZuaiter
3. Robbie Perkins
4. Julie Lapham
5. DJ Hardy
6. Ryan Shell
-------
7. Sandra Anderson-Groat
8. Danny Thompson
9. Gary Nixon
10 Jorge Cornell
11. Max Benbassat

Jorge Cornell's Statement at 9/22 Candidate Forum

Grace.

Inbox: Greensboro homeless to have council candidates forum

In my inbox:
-------------------

The Interactive Resource Center would like to invite you to visit the participate in a candidates lunch and discussion with members of Greensboro's homeless community.  Please RSVP to communicationforchange@gmail.com or 430-3125.

WHAT:  Meet the Candidates lunch discussion for Greensboro City Council candidates
WHERE: Interactive Resource Center, 3015 E. Bessemer Avenue
WHEN: Thursday, October 1, 12:00 to 1:00

Hope to see you there!

Liz Seymour, Director

Helping the News & Record do laundry

Yesterday, I wrote about the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's difficulty aligning their heretofore fact-deprived narrative of the "black book" with common knowledge, resulting in this:

"The lawsuit accuses the city, former Police Chief David Wray, former Deputy Police Chief Randall Brady and Detective Scott Sanders of a pattern of harassment and discrimination that included an alleged photo lineup or “black book” of black officers used in criminal investigations."

 Today, without comment or explanation, the article looks like this:

"The lawsuit accuses the city, former police Chief David Wray, former Deputy Police Chief Randall Brady and Detective Scott Sanders of a pattern of harassment and discrimination that included a photo lineup or “black book” of black officers used in a criminal investigation."

I guess I should be grateful for small favors (I am); that somebody was big enough to bring that article inline with the facts (they were). I remain puzzled though by the N&R's willingness to launder articles without comment. It seems to me as if the paper of record should maintain some sort of, I dunno, record.

Can someone translate this News & Record article to English for me?

From an article today by Ryan Seals in the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record reporting that the Department of Justice has declined to prosecute the City of Greensboro for discrimination on behalf of black police officers, Seals writes:

"The lawsuit accuses the city, former Police Chief David Wray, former Deputy Police Chief Randall Brady and Detective Scott Sanders of a pattern of harassment and discrimination that included an alleged photo lineup or “black book” of black officers used in criminal investigations."

That is a meaningless jumble.  Try to answer this question: What is that paragraph describing as alleged?

This is the News & Record reaping the consequences of refusing to come to terms with the facts surrounding the "black book." The News & Record has now gone so far down the rabbit hole in avoiding admitting its previous reporting errors, that only gobbledygook can link its previous reporting with the common knowledge of its readers as informed by other sources.

[Update: The article has been edited.]

Greensboro Partnership city council candidate questionnaires

The Greensboro Partnership sent an economic development survey to city council candidates. As the title implies, it asks questions related to economic development or, at least, economic development the way it has come to be seen in Greensboro, including questions about support of the Greenway, incentives, creation of a water authority and the "critical importance" of completing the Urban Loop.

Because of its premise, my favorite question was this one:

#9. Public funding needs exceed the city's available resources. Which of the following options would you support as a way to finance public budge items?

The question about how the city can continue to support Action Greensboro was a good one too.

The completed surveys are available here. Click on a district (at-large, district 1, etc) and the individual survey results are available beneath each candidate.

Local media failures a pox on Greensboro

If you have given up on reading Jerry Bledsoe's "Cops in Black and White" in the Rhinoceros Times because you think you "get it;" or, if as someone rather surprisingly told me yesterday, you have formed an opinion that it is not worth your attention without having read any of it; or if you are a local journalist who worries that you might ruin your weekend with the discomfort of facing the failures of your enterprise and colleagues, do yourself a favor and read anyway this week's chapter 85.

It is about the incredible lie perpetrated on the people of Greensboro and how the lie gained a foothold that had people and institutions become invested in perpetuating the lie, even when their professional responsibilities were to refute it.

The storytelling by our local media regarding the "black book" is the most monumental failure of Greensboro's institutions in my lifetime. Their refusal to acknowledge or correct their mistakes is the most heartbreaking disappointment this Greensboro son has seen in anything "Greensboro" since moving here in 1970.

The News & Record gave its imprimatur to fabrications, then declined to dispel the myths when new information was revealed. This failure sits on the shoulders of editor John Robinson and publisher Robin Saul. Yeah, it's rude to call people out, and I don't like how it makes me feel personally. But these decisions were not made by a building or a masthead or a company, they were made by real people who bear their responsibility.

The News & Record opinion pages called for a full and complete revelation of the truth surrounding the black book. When that truth conflicted with tales already spun, The News & Record pulled up short, its windy protestations suddenly no longer serious. The News & Record rejected substantive critiques of how it covered this issue from its opinion pages by explaining that such examinations had already been thoroughly undertaken in local blogs. These decisions were not made by a newspaper, or an editorial page, or a corporation, these decisions were made by a real person; this failure sits on the shoulders of opinion editor Allen Johnson.

Local television follows the lead of local newspapers. As long as the News & Record is complicit in letting the myth stand, WFMY gets a free pass on their continued perpetuation of the black book myth, but they should know better.

There are two serious consequences to these failures. First, Greensboro can now look forward to another generation of unnecessary racial suspicion, between the "yes it was" implications of believing the black book myths and the "no it wasn't" understanding of the truth. Let's spend another thirty years with our fingers crossed that we'll just "move on" and forget. Without a mass forgetting, subsequent legitimate charges of racism will have a harder time being taken seriously, first having to prove they are not a product of the local media "crying wolf" again.

Second, Greensboro is consigned to going forward knowing we are operating at the disadvantage of having small media that will choose concealing their own ineptitudes at the expense of pursuing the truth; that any genuine understanding of who we are as a community is in jeopardy; that any perception we think we have of ourselves, if gleaned from the media, may simply be a chimera.

We face a future almost certain to include stepping on some otherwise avoidable landmine because the institutions reponsible for shining the light on our path will extinguish the light if they find themselves poorly reflected in it. They would prefer to let us stumble through the dark rather than utter the simple but too-big-for-Greensboro words of "We made a mistake."

Talking to dad about the elections

I'd like to think it is because he repects my opinion, but even if it's just to give us something to talk about, that's okay too. Either way, my dad always asks for my thoughts about municipal elections. He asked about the upcoming primaries today. I'll keep the conversation private, but one thing that occured to me is that we have the best slate of candidates I've seen in over a decade.

That's not to disparage anybody who has run in the past, but this year we have an exciting breadth of attributes and qualifications among the candidates that we simply have not had in a while -- if ever. It is going to be damn difficult to narrow down the at-large candidates to only three. We are fortunate to have that kind of dilema. If you want to see what I am talking about, check out the News & Record's Amanda Lehmert's most excellent collection of elction and candidate information.

Thumbs down: Lowe's Home Improvement supplier Web-Don Countertops

I ordered a 3' x 6' laminated counter top from Lowe's in mid August. I was told it would arrive on August 31. On September 2nd, having not heard anything, I called Lowes and was told it had been backordered and would be delivered to the store on September 16. Today I got a call. It has been back ordered again and may arrive next week.

The Lowe's vendor making this coutnertop is Web-Don out of Winston-Salem.

Be advised: Thumbs down.

Baucus's Trojan horse. Will Hagan bite?

Senator Max Baucus released a health care bill from the Senate Finance Committee yesterday for which North Carolina's Democratic senator Kay Hagan offered her partial support.

The Baucus bill is a gift to insurance companies disguised as health care reform. Let us hope Hagan recognizes this.

Matt Taibbi explains the principles reflected in the Baucus bill:

Those principles seem to have been: no single-payer system, no meaningful public option, no meaningful employer mandates and a very meaningful mandate for individual consumers. In other words, the only major reform with teeth would be the one forcing everyone to buy some form of private insurance, no matter how crappy, or suffer a tax penalty. If the public option is the sine qua non for progressives, then the "individual mandate" is the counterpart must-have requirement for the insurance industry.

Children at play. News & Record editor's juvenile antics

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record added a note to a letter to the editor today saying "The News & Record opposes the state Education Lottery."

The News & Record's web site lists several people as on the editorial staff who are, in fact, no longer with the N&R including Becky Layton, Elma Sabo and Dennis Shelton. Clearly the editorial staff listing online is not up to date. So I emailed the editorial page editor Allen Johnson. Here is the exchange, each message copied in its entirety*.

Hi Allen,

Can you tell me who are the individuals that formed that opinion on behalf of the News & Record?

Yours,
Roch 

Allen replied:

Yes, they are listed every day on the top of the editorial page.

I responded.:

I did not ask you where they are listed. Will you tell me, please, who they are.

He wrote back:

They are on the page. I don't have time to do your reporting for you, Roch.

Seriously? What's next? "I know you are but what am I?" "Your mama?"

Geez.

[* My first message had the subject line "The News & Record opposes the state Education Lottery."]

Bloggin' Bencini

A new blog appeared on Greensboro101 today that I hadn't seen before. It is written by Rob Bencini. Bencini, former economic developer for Guilford County, promises a "different eye-opening way of looking at business, the economy and economic development."

This should be good.

Congratulations Lex

Former (Greensboro, NC) News & Record reporter and citizen journalism sacrificial lamb Lex Alexandar has a new job. He was kind of coy about it, only hinting at it at his blog, mumbling something about not mixing blogging and work. Yes! Weekly announces it plainly however, so congratulations Lex on your new job as Director of External Communications at Greensboro College. Lex is one smart dude, he should be a great asset to GC.

You know what grinds my gears? Unsigned newspaper editorials.

Can someone explain this to me? Why does the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record still insist on publishing unsigned editorials? There are two editors at the N&R, Allen Johnson and Doug Clark. Any editorial is going to be written by one or the other and it is pretty easy to tell whose ideas you are reading. What is the advantage of publishing an unsigned "staff" editorial? Seriously. Other than trying to fool people with some kind of man-behind-the-curtain pretense of weightiness, is there a good reason I am failing to see? Seriously, I must be missing something.

More local hypocricy on health care

Local blogger Brenda is against "government run health care." She doesn't even like the bipartisan Baucus proposal on health care. She is afraid "Our great grand children are going to be paying our doctors bill for us."

Brenda is on Medicare.

More and more I am seeing people opposed to health care reform are either stupendously selfish--"I've got mine, you can go jump in a lake" kind of people--or they are confused.

Will somebody tell T Dianne Bellamy Small to contact me? I have her email address

According to the News & Record, city council person T. Dianne Bellamy Small's campaign email address is tdbsforcouncil@gmail.com. I tried to send to it. It was not a valid account. It is now, belonging to yours truly.

It's the twenty-first-friggin' century people. Let's try to keep up. If I weren't such a nice guy, I could sit here for the rest of the election season and impersonate a city council representative with this whizzbang new technology. As it is, I'll help her get that address back if she wants it.

[UPDATE: I have been informed that the email listed at the N&R was a typo, I am told the correct address is tdbsforcouncil@mail.com and the N&R web site now lists that as the email address.]

I love me some irony

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record would not allow online comments on freelance columnist Charles Davenport, Jr's most recent column. N&R editor Allen Johnson provided various reasons for why not, each at odd wtih the facts, then finally wrote a post attempting to explain why again and people use his post as a forum to have the discussion not allowed beneath Davenport's column.

Greensboro101.com: The crowd knows

Another thing I like about the new Greensboro101.com is that it is really easy to see what local items people think are worth recommending.

Item previews include a "Recommend this item" button.

Items that have received at least one recommendation are shown in the "Hot" tabs on the main, news and blog pages. The wisdom of the crowd brings the notable items to our attention.

Greensboro101.com: Local, smarter

One of the things I like about the new Greensboro101.com is that it gathers all of the latest items from Greensboro sources on one page. At a glance, you can see the latest items from a variety of sources on one screen.

If you want to see the latest from only newsorgs or only from blogs, that's easy. Just use the navigator in the upper left corner to select the blog or news home page.

Animated building projection

555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

Greensboro time lapse

From Mark Wagoner Productions:

Got Headphones? Klangstrahler Projekt

Psy trance funk. Good nice and loud.

 Hope - Klangstrahler Projekt

[UPDATE: Sorry, the link to this song has broken]

Big Brother watching -- update on greenway bench camera

According to Greensboro College, the camera trained on the Greenway benches was installed on the "Greenway right of way." The online plat and data viewer do not show any such right of way or easement. I have asked Lex Alexandar in his capacity as the new Greensboro College director for external communications to point me to documentation that delineates this right of way. [Update: Greensboro College granted an easement to the City of Greensboro in June of 2008. Documented here.]

According to Jeri Rowe, the camera is owned by the City of Greensboro and was moved from another location to meet this need. Jeri says Action Greensboro has purchased another camera to replace the one that was moved at a cost of $6,000. It is unclear if Action Greensboro will own that camera and lend it to the city, give it to the city or sell it to the city.

Pictures taken by the camera are available online for a limited time each day.* They are deleted automatically at midnight. Today's were posted at 8:52 AM. It is unclear when the pictures were taken as there is no date or time stamp.

Of the sixteen pictures available online today, only one shows a human subject.

The rest look like this:

[* Update: Apparently, the pictures were made available online only by request, only for fifteen hours before being removed and subsequent pictures are not posted to the City's web site as a regular matter of course.]

Much better blogs

One of the features I really like about the new Greensboro 101 is the ability to read the latest local blog posts sorted by blogger (or author).

From the Greensboro 101 home page, use the navigator in the upper left corner to go to the Blogs page.

 

On the Blogs page, you may then select the "Blogs" tab, which will display the list of local bloggers.

Click on the name of a blogger in the list and the titles of their latest posts will be displayed. Click on a particular post and it will appear in the viewport window.

.

Jeri Rowe, man's man.

The News & Record's Jeri Rowe called me yesterday to discuss my post about his report on the surveillance of benches on the Greenway.

What a refreshing conversation. My post was highly critical of Jeri's reporting, but Jeri did not call to argue or to roll over for the sake of avoiding confrontation. Instead we had a man-to-man conversation about the issues at hand -- honest, forthright and productive. Jeri explained to me where my knowledge was lacking and acknowledged my legitimate concerns. We joked about whether the proper spelling is "gawd-awful" or "gawdawful" and I feigned shock at his salty language. But in the end, we had a better understanding of each other, the issues and, most importantly, how to proceed in pursuit of a positive outcome. Jeri said he would follow up with an attempt to clarify some of the questions I raised (some of which have subsequently been answered).

Jeri did not call me to cover his ass, brush me off or jerk my chain. He called to learn, understand, educate and open a door to solutions -- honest, productive, unfortunately rare and much appreciated.

Do I have this right? Taxpayer money spent on private property?

Fox 8 is reporting this morning that Greensboro Parks and Recreation has installed cameras a camera to monitor the infamous Greenway benches.

According to the Guilford County Geographic Information Data Viewer, the benches are on property owned by Greensboro College. If that is correct, I have to ask: Is it appropriate for the taxpayers to fund equipment installations on private property?

I have made a public records request of the Greensboro Public Affairs office to view the pictures taken by this camera.

[Update: Greensboro College granted an easement to the City of Greensboro in June of 2008. Documented here.]
.

Am I as dumb as I look?

I emailed (Greensboro, NC) News & Record editor Allen Johnson to ask why comments were not allowed on Charles Davenport's column on Sunday. Allen replied that it was the N&R's policy not to enable comments on racially sensitive columns. When I pointed out to him that of the four columns in the past month about race, three of them allowed comments and only Davenport's did not, Allen replied:

"Sorry I wasn't clear. We allow comments on editorials and signed staff columns because they are written by staff people who are able to monitor and participate in those dialogues.
Not so with free-lancers."

That is at odds with the facts too. Columns by freelancer Ed Cone allow comments, as do all of the other freelancers. Even Davenport's column from August allowed comments.

Contrary to Allen's initial explanation, comments are allowed on columns about race. Contrary to Allen's second explanation, comments are allowed on columns by freelancers.

So why were comments not allowed on Davenport's most recent column? Who knows? One thing is sure, it was not for any of the reasons offered by the News & Record's editorial page editor.

This kind of thing is so Greensboro, and so tiresome: Someone in a position of authority is asked a direct question and proceeds by jerking the questioner around. It is so small. Greensboro deserves better.

Update: On his third try, Allen says, contrary to the evidence, it really is that they do not allow comments on columns about race... or sex.

Why Charles Davenport, Jr. is insulated from comments at the News & Record

I emailed (Greensboro, NC) News & Record editor Allen Johnson to ask why comments were allowed on every column, editorial and letter on Sunday except for Charles Davenport Jr.'s. Here is the entirety of his reply:

"We as a general policy don't enable comments on racially sensitive content because the comments tend to get ugly and out of hand."

Update: The facts collide with Johnson's explanation. In the past month, there have been three editorials about race, each had comments enabled.

• "Take a direct approach to racial justice" -- by Doug Clark
• "Being safe rather than sorry" -- (An unsigned editorial about reporting on Nazis)
• "Greensboro is a poor location for Neo-Nazi gathering" -- (An unsigned editorial)

I could find no other columns about race in the past month in which comments were NOT enabled. Davenport's appears to be the only one.

Update II: Allen offers as a subsequent explanation that the N&R does not allow comments on columns by freelancers, also contrary to the facts, as documented here.

Update II: On his third try, Allen says, contrary to the examples above, it really is that they do not allow comments on columns about race... or sex. 

I love you, Greensboro

May this serve us well.

Big Brother's anonymous little brothers

In an unsigned gawd-awful piece of reporting, in which the author makes a number of unattributed assertions*, the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record reports that unnamed "bench advocates put in a camera bought with private money" to photograph people on the Greenway benches.

What? Who are these people with a camera trained on public benches? Who is collecting the photographs it takes and what are they doing with them? Are city representatives among the "bench advocates" and have they lent some sort of quasi official sanction to this vigilante surveillance?

I have emailed N&R reporter Amanda Lehmert and editor John Robinson and asked them to clarify.

(*In addition to the unnamed "bench advocates," the story also asserts, without attribution or explanation, that the words inscribed on the benches are "words that mean much to Warnersville residents," and that the unnamed "folks involved want to keep those benches beside Warnersville.")

Update: Amanda informs me it was Jeri Rowe who wrote the piece. I have emailed him asking for comment too.

What the? Charles Davenport insulated from criticism?

Earlier, I commented on Charles Davenport's silly and superficial column in today's (Greensboro, NC) News & Record.

This evening, I went back to Davenport's column at the News & Record to see what, if anything, readers had to say about it in the comments. But comments are not enabled on Davenport's column. They are on Allen Johnson's column; George Will's column; the guest editorial and the paper's unsigned editorial, In fact, every one of today's News & Record columns has comments enabled -- except for Davenport's.

Strange.

.

The left are like Nazis. Meaningless drivel from Charles Davenport

Ed Cone brings to our attention a column by Charles Davenport in this week's (Greensboro, NC) News & Record in which Devenport says that a lot of what modern American Nazis want sounds a lot like what American liberals want.

Yawn.

A lot of what the American National Socialists want also sounds a lot like what modern conservatives want, including:

- Prohibiting abortion
- The right to bear arms
- Withdrawal from the United Nations
- An end to welfare
- Reestablishment of the nuclear family

To paraphrase Davenport, if not for the their unsavory perspective on some other things, many -- perhaps most -- conservatives would subscribe to the agenda.

And there you have it. A superficial comparison no more a commentary on the American right than Davenport's comparison to the American left.

Davenport's shtick as the perpetual divider of all observation to antipodal left or right is tired and increasingly useless.

As I said, "yawn."

More local "Medicare good/government health insurance bad" nonsense

One of Ayn Rand's central themes in "Atlas Shrugged" is that adherence to reason is the highest measure of human life. As several of her characters explain and illustrate, if your "thinking" has you maintaining contradictory propositions, then one of your premises is wrong. "A is A," as she writes; A cannot be A at one moment then B at another.

Medicare is government health insurance. So, if you insist that you are against government health insurance and then use Medicare as an example of a good alternative to government health care, you are engaged in the very broken thinking that Ayn Rand described as despicable and dangerous. You are abandoning your mind.

I haven't finished "Atlas Shrugged" yet, so I do not know if reason wins or if the world falls to the mindless mystics. In our current health care debate, it is abundantly clear where reason is being abandoned.

Something groovy this way comes

Tuesday.

Greensboro Public Library's David Theall is smart

Having recently criticized the City of Greensboro for their user-unfriendly distribution of press releases, I think it is only appropriate to note an admirable exception. Press releases from the city library's David Theall arrive with a meaningful subject line and the press release in the body of the email (I know, sounds normal, but it is not the way most City press releases are sent). Somebody ought to call David for some pointers -- or give him a promotion.

Council candidate Vaughan offers public economic interest disclosure

[full disclosure: The candidate's husband is a client of my web site design services]

In March, 2009, the Greensboro City Council passed a resolution supporting legislation that would require municipal officials to comply with the same ethics guidelines as state officials. Although not yet required by law, at-large city council candidate Nancy Vaughan has completed and made public the North Carolina State Ethics Commission 2009 Statement of Economic Interest. She has issued a challenge to "current city council members and candidates to complete the same form."

Problem: High vacancy rates. Solution: Encourage building

Sometimes dumb is just plain dumb. Guilford County Commissioners are contemplating a gift to the construction industry in the form of tax rebates for building or adding on to property. As District 3 City Council candidate George Hartzman points out, the Triad has a glut of space:

Retail Vacancies: 10.5%
Office Vacancies: 18%
Warehouse Vacancies: 22.6%

According to Forbes, Greensboro is the nation's fourth most vacant city.

Look, Commissioner Arnold, nice try. You get an A for good intentions but please, put the idea down and step away from the table. Incentivising the production of something already in oversupply earns you an F in economics. If the interest is honestly in trying to stimulate economic activity, give a tax credit to everyone and anybody who creates a job. The current plan is not economic stimulus, it is a stinky stew of narrow thinking and political patronage.

Broken PTI promotion

The Bargain Blog says that Piedmont Triad International Airport has started a new "digital advertising campaign" to promote low fares and convince us that flights from PTI are often cheaper than from Charlotte or Raleigh.

This was the fare advertised today.

The ad takes one to the Delta web site where there is no $218 flight, but simply the form to search for fares. After several configurations of dates for GSO to CUN, the actual lowest fare offered was, one-stop (Atlanta) $468.83.

Hmm.

Orbitz offers sixty-three flights on those days, from GSO to CUN, each cheaper than PTI/Delta's "Low fare," the cheapest, $298.00 on Continental.

And, as for PTI's intention for this promotion to convince us that flights from PTI are often cheaper than neighboring airports, Orbitz offers the same travel dates from Raleigh Durham, one-stop, for $218 total and from Charlotte, non-stop, for $446 total.

If one is going to launch a digital advertising campaign, one should have some idea of how people shop digitally.

On Medicare and against "government run health care"

Mike Baron seems like a nice guy. He has certainly had some very hard knocks and one can only sympathise with the devestation wrought by his job loss and subsequent cancer. Still, symapthy is not an innoculation against critisism for hypocricy.

Mike says:

"We must never allow government to run health care."

He also says:

"I now live on Medicare and disability."

How is that possible?

Steve Gordon of Kernersville disinformed, News & Record gives him extra space without correction

It is one thing when the editors of the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record allow misinformation to go unchecked on their opinion pages, it is even more troubling when they give authors extra space to assert make believe without comment or correction.

Today, the N&R gives the additional words of a "counterpoint" column to Steve Gordon of Kernersville. In it, Gordon writes:

"First, the United States has had to borrow money from practically every major nation on the planet, mainly to cover the trillions of dollars of deficits run up by incompetence in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs..."

Gordon repeats an unfortunate but increasingly common theme among the popular right as of late, asserting myth as reality by unteathering an argument from the facts. Gordon mimicks a sound argument, he strings together comprehensible words and seemingly founds his point on things that, by the strong conviction of their assertion, sound a lot like facts, but they are not. His opinion is a house of cards, built on fantasy; built on crap he either made up or does not know to be untrue.

The FACT is that Medicare and Social Security face future unfunded liabilities, but they currently pay for themselves by taxes and trust fund assets. The government does not borrow "mainly" to cover incompetence in Medicare and Social Security. In inescapable reality, the government does not borrow for these programs at all. Gordon is just flat wrong and the News & Record says "Here is something worth additional space." Geez. How embarrassing.

It is one thing if people opposed to helath care reform want to oppose it on an emotional level. Pretending that they can explain their opposition rationally by making things up is absurd. Ayn Rand would find the complete dismisal of objective reality despicable.

How to cut a hole in a tile floor for a dryer vent

I needed to cut a four inch round hole in a tile floor for a dryer vent. This is one of those things I expected to find instructions for on the Internet. My searches came up short though so, for those who come Googling behind me, I offer my instructions, with help from an outstanding young sales associate from Lowe's, for "how to cut a hole in a tile floor."

Cutting a hole in a piece of tile is one thing, it is a different proposition to cut a hole in tile that has already been laid. You have to be careful not to cause the tile to crack. It can be done. Here is what you will need:

1. A RotoZip tool.
2. A RotoZip diamond grit Floor Tile XBIT
3. An electric drill
4. A hole saw attachment for your drill.
5. A magic marker or carpenter's crayon.
6. A vacuum cleaner
7. Aluminum Snap-Lock pipe
8. Bathroom and kitchen caulking
9. A caulking gun
10. Tin snips
11. SAFETY GOGGLES (No joke, you are going to put your face very close to high speed equipment and flying particles. DO NOT follow these instructions without proper eye protection or you will hurt yourself.)
    
12. Dust mask. You are going to be hovering close to a dusty work area for an extended period of time.
    

Mark the hole.
Begin by marking the outline of your hole on the tile. You do not want your hole obstructed by floor joists, plumbing or wiring. Look under the floor before you begin and make sure you know what is underneath your hole. (Find a "landmark" such as a pipe, electrical outlet or heating vent from which you can measure distance below and above the floor to make sure you will not encounter obstacles.)

Depending on the color and surface of the tile, you will find a magic marker or a carpenter's crayon most effective. Simply trace the outline of the hole saw drill attachment in the desired location. After you cut through the tile, you will use the hole saw to cut through the sub floor, so it is okay if your circle is a little wider than the hole saw itself, in fact, you want that or else the hole saw will get stuck if it does not have a little play. An outline of the hole saw will be just the right diameter.

Cut the hole.
Put on your dust mask and safety goggles. With the diamond grit floor tile bit on the RotoZip tool, begin to cut your hole. START VERY GENTLY. The trick here is that you are going to slowly make many passes around the circumference of your hole, cutting an ever-deepening groove. Be very patient, it will take some time. Until you have an established groove, you risk having the tool "jump" on you and scratching the tile. To avoid this, start the tool above the tile and slowly lower it to the tile at about a 45 degree angle to make contact -- not straight down. You are not "drilling" -- think more like "engraving" or "routing." Slowly move the bit around the marked circle in a clockwise direction. Keep the bit at an angle to the floor. As you make several passes, you will begin to cut a circular groove. As the groove deepens, you will be able to speed up your progress by GENTLY "rocking" the bit from an angle to vertical and back again as you go around the circle.

Vacuum and cool
Dust in the groove you are cutting will slow your progress. A heated bit will slow your progress. Vacuum the dust from the groove often. Let the bit cool while you are vacuuming and maybe an additional couple of minutes of cooling every so often.

Finish cutting the tile and backerboard
Depending on how your floor was laid, you may find a layer of backerboard beneath your tile (you should hope so, actually, as that is part of a professional installation). Continue to cut with the RotoZip if you encounter backerboard. Cut completely through the tile, cement and backerboard. You should end up with a circular piece of tile and backerboard you can lift or gently pry out of your hole. (If the tile remains attached, just move to the next step. You can use the hole saw in the groove you have cut, just make sure you have cut a groove all the way to the wood.)

Finish cutting the hole
Once you have reached the wood sub floor, use your drill with the hole saw attached to complete the hole. Hold the drill vertically and "drill" straight down until you have sawed completely through the floor. Congratulations! You've made a hole!

Making a dryer vent. 
If the purpose of your hole is to vent a dryer, use the tin snips to cut the aluminum snap-lock pipe to length. "Roll" it to lock it into shape. Friction may hold the pipe in your hole, or you can use some duct tape on the other side to hold it in place. Apply caulking. Let dry. You can now attach your dryer vent to this pipe and vent it from underneath your house as desired.

This is what you have when you finish:

News & Record editor, duplicitous or seclusive?

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record editor coughs up the name of the hotel that hosted the Nazis (La Quinta). He does so with "Now that the 'threat' is over, I fully expected someone to ask the motel be identified. No one did."

Well yes, we did ask. Here, here and here, well before the update appeared on JR's blog. I am left wondering, is the editor of our local daily really oblivious to the local blogs discussing his paper and his decision or was he aware of these blog posts and just pretending he did not see them?

"Why is it important to you that you know the name of the place?"

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record editor John Robinson defends his paper's decision not to disclose the location of the local hotel hosting a meeting of about forty Nazis. After commenters condemn and commend, Robinson asks, "Why is it important to you that you know the name of the place?"

I'd like to know what local hotel would host this group so that I can boycott them forevermore. Now that the original reason for keeping this information secret, the safety issue, has passed, the N&R has no reason not to reveal the name of the hotel-- add it to their online story and JR's blog post so that it becomes a part of the record, unless they are also interested in protecting an advertiser.

Requesting Records in Greensboro

Based on a true story.

Who "passed" those polygraph tests?

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's editor John Robinson mentions on his blog today that all of the Greensboro City Council members who took a polygraph test over who leaked the RMA report "passed" the lie detector test. To his credit, and for good reason, Robinson puts "passed" in quotation marks.

Let us remember, the results of these tests were verbally self-reported by each test subject to then-Mayor Keith Holliday who then relayed them to the public.

A subsequent records request by yours truly for the records of the actual tests came up short when City attorney Jemiah Watterman first claimed that the polygrapher said he did not have any records then, when confronted with the polygrapher's statement that he did have records, the City failed to request those records from him on this citizen's behalf.

Instead, the City invited the council subjects to consent to have the polygrapher prepare a report summarizing in writing the results of that individual's "test."

Three council persons consented and there is a written summary from the polygrapher that says they "passed" (i.e. did not "show deception" when asked if they leaked the RMA report). Those who consented and who the polygrapher reported as having passed were:

Yvonne Johnson
Mike Barber
Sandra Anderson-Groat

Five other council people did not give their consent to have the polygrapher prepare a report of their test, so there is no record that they passed other than Keith Holliday's account of what he says they said their results were. Those who did not consent to a written report were:

Keith Holliday
Tom Phillips
Florence Gatten
Sandy Carmany
Goldie Wells

T. Dianne Bellamy Small says she did not leak the RMA report, but would not take a polygraph exam. Five of her colleagues say that they passed a polygraph test but would not consent to a report of their results. I don't see the difference.

.

"Open your minds and your eyes wide enough to see more than black and white."

"That’s so 1950s."

The Late Show with Fecund Stench

Jeff Martin, aka Fecund Stench, is becoming Greensboro's John Stewart. More of his mechanized mockery here.

Greater Greensboro

There are some things about the city of Greensboro that are just great. Whenever the need arises for someone from the city to perform some psychical task, in my experience, the work force has always been commendable. When we first moved into our house, we discovered that heavy rains would send gully washers down the street and into our gravel driveway, washing pounds of rocks into the street. With then-city council person Sandy Carmany's help, it was arranged for a crew to come out and pour a cement apron that fixed the problem, the first time and for good. When a storm uprooted a huge oak tree and sent it sprawling across Normandy Ave., a crew was on the scene as soon as it was safe to be outside again, getting the street cleared.

Today it was a little thing, but one more to remember. The ravages of time had done a number on our garbage can. A little horizontal crack around the middle of it had been growing progressively larger. Yesterday, it finally gave way, nearly splitting in two and spilling garbage onto the street beneath the helpless mechanical arm. As he shoveled up the spill, the truck driver told me to call 333-CITY for a new can, Which I did. I didn't have to get transferred around or wait on hold very long at all. The first person to answer the call was able to take my information and instruct me to leave the dead can at the curb and it would be replaced.

When two o'clock rolled around today and we still did not have a new can, I called again, just to see if I should leave the old one out over the weekend. "Leave it out until 5:30 and I'll send a reminder," said the man who answered the phone. Sure enough, within an hour the old can was removed and a shiny new garbage can was rolled up our driveway.

There are a lot of people working for the city who work hard and treat "customers" right. It doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated.

News & Record fooled again

They say as you age, your sense of smell starts to go. That certainly seems to be the case with the opinion pages of the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record as another letter to the editor full of misinformation passes the editors' smell test to make it into print.

Today there is a letter from Robert L. Simpson of Burlington. In it, Simpson refers to an "article" published in Pravda titled "American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper." Simpson reminds us that, if anyone should know what the death of capitalism looks like, Pravda is "an expert on Marxism."

LOL. The "article" in question is an opinion piece first published on a Russian man's blog in which he makes the convoluted assertion that Wall Street is behind the advancement of Marxism. As for Pravda's Marxist bona fides, the Pravda that was once the official Communist newspaper of the Soviet Union was shut down in 1991. The Pravda web site on which the blog post was republished, begun in 1999, is decidedly capitalistic, running ads for pictures of Miley Cyrus in her underwear and for "Dog gives birth to mutant creature that resembles human being," pictured here.

Why does the city of Greensboro send cryptic press releases in DOCX format?

I am on the city of Greensboro's media list. They send press releases by email with the release as an attachment with cryptic or meaningless subjects, some recent examples:

- HumRel092509.docx
- 08.24.09 0300 Press Release Nothing to Report
- School supplies2009.doc

There are a few smart exceptions, but most of these emails are void of any body text describing what the release is about, much less the release itself. There is no reason why the email body could not contain the message. Instead, one must open a compatible image or document program to view the attachment and solve the puzzle of what it is about.

Now, to make it even more cumbersome, documents are being attached in the DOCX format. So if you don't have Microsoft Office 2007 or later, you have the pleasure of trying to figure out how to open that file type on your computer.

It seems to me that the city might give some thought to how it distributes its press releases, with some consideration of efficiency and accessibility to a broad range of recipients.

"Nearly any business in the county?" N&R's Witt inaccurate in his characterization of incentives plan

The Guilford County Commissioners are contemplating an incentives plan that will provide for tax abatement for businesses that add value to real estate by building, adding or remodeling. The News & Record's Gerald Witt characterizes this patronage of the construction industry as an incentive for "nearly any business in the county."

It is not. If you rent your place of business, a program that offers tax abatements for improvements to property you do not own is not an incentive for you. "Nearly any business?" Hardly. My guess would be, in fact, a minority of businesses.

Nataly Dawn

The closing credits of HBO's Hung had me going to the Google to see who performed the song "Play the Game." It was Queen. I found a cover though that is delicious. It is by Nataly Dawn. She has a small following on MySpace, a channel on YouTube and no record label... yet.

She will.

This was one of my favorites.

And here is the sweet cover of Play the Game.

Emotions as a cause, Ayn Rand on the popular right

A thread at Ed Cone's turned to a discussion of epistemology, ie. how do we know what we think we know? I am reading "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and Rand has a lot to say about epistemology and politics and how one influences the other. Rand asserts that there is such a thing as objective reality, that the success or failure of a populace in assessing objective reality has social/political consequences.

I find it ironic that Rand, a philosophical wellspring of modern conservatism, admonishes the socialists/communists villains of "Atlas Shrugged" for failings of reason in a way that can be properly directed at the modern popular right.* I've observed it as people trying to assert a point of view by untethering themselves from reality, Rand describes it thus:

"[They] have reversed causality in their consciousness, then strive to reverse it in existence. They take their emotions as a cause, and their mind as a passive effect. They make their emotions their tool for perceiving reality. They hold their desires as an irreducible primary, as a fact superseding all facts."

"They want to cheat the axiom of existence and consciousness, they want their consciousness to be an instrument not of perceiving but of creating existence, and existence to be not the object but the subject of their consciousness..."

And, elesewhere, this:

A rational process is a moral process. You may make an error at any step of it, with nothing to protect you but your own severity, or you may try to cheat, to fake the evidence and evade the effort of the quest--but if devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion that the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

* I recognize that I am making a generalization, one that I think is credible but, as a generalization, implicitly acknowledges that there are individual exceptions.

Wyndham washout

Went to the Wyndham golf tournament today. The course looked great, good crowd, friendly workers, easy access to great viewing with the abilities of professional golfers made all the more impressive in close-up person -- then the rain came.

Although it was heartening to see Greensboro City Councilor Mike Barber soaked to the bone, working the shuttle bus line, shuffling people with young children off to dry confines, the rest of us bums had to stand outside in a line easily one thousand people long for an hour as the rains came down and a trickle of shuttle buses ferried people back to their cars at the coliseum.

A little better planning for inclement weather next year, and I'm sure the Wyndham will be an unqualified success. This year though, bring a poncho and plenty of patience.

"Right wing garbage?" Me?

A commenter whose anonymity should in no way call into question the certain courage of his convictions says I'm writing "right wing garbage" -- apparently because I equate gangs with organized crime. Maybe the Latin Kings are not that organized, I really don't know, but I am certain a lot of people will get a chuckle out of this chowderhead's characterization of my opinions as right wing.

At the Wyndham, parking or not? Which is it?

Greensboro Sports reports that heavy rains have closed parking at the Wyndham for the remainder of the tournament. The tournament website says spectators can still park at the venue (with no information about the shuttle from the Coliseum). So, who to believe? The official site of the tournament or the "amatuer" sports reporters?

More "death panel" idocy, this time local

Greensboro blogger and curmudgeon Bubba posts a super scary video about a woman on a public health care plan in Oregon that declined to pay for a cancer fighting drug for her. The health plan will pay for "physician aid in dying" though, that being legal in Oregon. See? SEE?!? DEATH PANELS!!!

So, the drug in question is Tarceva. A course of treatment can cost up to $100,000. My $300 a month Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC policy has a $2,000 annual maximum payout on this type of specialty drug. Should I need this drug, my cost, after my insurance "pays for it" would be $98,000.

So tell me, all you Bubbas, am I -- or anybody with BCBSNC insurance -- are we really in any different situation than that lady in Oregon with our "free market" solution?

Let's face it, because it is abundantly obvious, there are some people so damn insistent that Obama not achieve any success, that they are willing to keep Americans, their neighbors, on the brink of disaster and no tactic, no matter how despicable, is off limits. It is really disgusting.

Inside Triad Stage

A new blog showed up on We101 today, Inside Triad Stage. I think I'm going to really like this one.

Making the public option simple: Allow me the option of buying into Medicare

I am in my mid forties. With the exception of three months of prescription quit-smoking drugs, my utilization of professional health care services over the past ten years has been limited to six physicals. Including the drugs, about $1,500 worth of health care over a decade.

During the past ten years, my insurance premiums have totaled just over $20,000. My monthly premiums have risen every year from their original $90. Most recently, they jumped from $200 to $300 three months after I quit smoking.

My "non-profit" insurer pays its CEO $4M a year, spends 18% of its premiums on administrative costs, rewards its top couple hundred sales people with Caribbean vacations and is currently spending my premiums on advertising trying to block health care reform. It also employs a cadre of nurses not as care providers, but as gatekeeping bureaucrats whose jobs are to ration care by approving or denying payment.

Here is the simple "public option" I want: Let me buy into Medicare if I want to. Price it so it is self-sustaining, heck add a couple bucks a month if it helps ameliorate the coming financial challenges. Then let me decide if the care and costs work for me.

Unless you are a mean self-centered fart who just cannot stand to see people have better options or a rigid slave to a broken ideology, how can you possibly have a problem with that?

Council candidate's 'Troubling association with organized crime?' More yellow journalism from Yes! Weekly

Going downhill fast. That's my perception of the deteriorating "journalistic" standards at Yes! Weekly that have them willing to smear people for sensationalism's sake.

Recently, Yes! decided the best way to promote a story of prosecutorial incompetence was to plaster the mug shots of innocent people on its cover and web site (no pictures of the prosecutors who actually fumbled the cases though).

This time around, reporter Jordan Green asks Greensboro city council candidate Max Benbassat "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Okay, not really, but he might as well have. In a profile of Benbassat, Green writes:

"Benbassat’s purist attitude towards politics contrasts with what some may see as a troubling association with organized crime."

What!?!? Are your friggin' kidding me? "Some may see?" Some who? "You the reader after I insinuate it right here?" And what association with organized crime? An association as asserted by whom and where? I asked Green to clarify. His response speaks for itself (or, in case it does not, the allegation is anonymous, uncoroborated and unreported):

"Roch, I received an anonymous tip from someone raising the possibility that Benbassat had been involved in organized crime in New York. I am duty-bound to maintain confidentiality, so I don't have a lot more to say about it.

There is an old saying in the newspaper business: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." If some anonymous person insinuates something derogatory about a political candidate, you might want to check that out too... unless you are striving to be the local version of The National Enquirer.

Postscript: What is sadly ironic is that, of Jorge Cornell, the one candidate in the council race who actually has acknowledged ties to organized crime, Green inserts editorial praise into in the same article, writing that Cornell has "Upstaged the rest of the slate with an uncanny ability to connect to the man and woman on the street..." Anonymous, unsubstantiated rumors of gang associations? Troubling. Actual gang leader? Man of the people.

Forget the unprincipled construction industry patronage, the fair and smart way for Guilford County to spend $1.3 million

Thinking more about the Arnold/Austin proposed economic development incentives construction industry patronage, would not the proposed first year $1.3 million cost of the plan be better used if it provided a $1,000 grant for every new job created paying above $11.00/hour?

Would not that truly be an incentive for all businesses? Would not that be far fairer and more equitable than the current proposal? Would not that be the more direct, purposeful and justifiable reason for incentives, the creation of jobs?

Which is the better incentive?

- Giving a business a $1,000 grant each year for three years for adding $130,000* in value to a property through construction of or renovation to a building.

- Giving a business a $1,000 grant each year for three years for creating a new good paying job.

* Correction, 8/21/09: At Guilford County's current tax rate, $1,000 of property taxes would be on a property value of $130,000, not $13,000 as originally stated. That has been corrected.

Alston's and Arnold's notion of economic development unimaginative

Construction is not economic development. Making construction the centerpiece of an economic development plan is an upside down approach to economic development. It is the kind of "build it and they will come" thinking that is delightful for real estate and construction businesses, but which will fail Guilford county in two ways: One, by lessening the risk of building useless crap more prone to vacancy than productive use it will encourage it; and, two, in opportunity costs, directing our economic development energies away from the true economic engines of the future which, trust me, are not more strip malls and burger joints.

The proposal by Guilford County Commissioners Steve Arnold and Skip Alston to provide monetary "grants" equal to three years of property taxes to property owners who build, renovate or remodel property is a nice little gift to a narrow group of industries, but it is laughable to call it an economic incentive. It is a development incentive.

Arnold and Austin are relics who have turned to the only thing they know -- an antiquated notion of economic development. A real plan would have as its measure the creation of good paying jobs. This plan isn't it. It will pass because it will line the pockets of enough people to make it popular. It will also mark the continuation of Guilford County leadership as unimaginative.

[added] If you are opposed to incentives in general, this plan is a bad idea because its largess could otherwise be spread to all businesses in the form of an across the board tax reduction. If you find incentives acceptable, the plan is unimaginative because it encourages only construction. It does not extend grants for the purchase of a new x-ray machine, computer or other business expanding equipment or even for what should be the real bottom line, the addition of a new employee.

Higher ethical standards for local elected officials?

Keith Brown at Triadwatch has a post (scroll down past irrelevant video) about a new law in Greensburgh, New York that would "make it illegal for public officials to accept campaign contributions from developers, contractors or their lawyers or agents for a year before and a year after an application is reviewed by a town board."

When asked about contributions from developers and attorneys who bring matters before city council, often to win a rezoning or multi-million dollar tax abatement, council people will often say, "My vote cannot be bought." Fine. If that's the way it is, then they should have no problem with an ordinance similar to Greenburgh's. I wonder if any council candidates will propose this.

"Greensboro Savings & Specials" email? Proceed with caution

You probably already have your email program configured not to load images by default and up-to-date anti-virus software that scans your email messages... right?

Even so, I got an email today that looks like trouble. I haven't tried to confirm my suspicions, but if you get an email with the subject "Greensboro Savings & Specials," be advised that it attempts to load an application octet stream from a domain name registered just nine days ago. Seriously suspicious. You probably should delete this email without opening it if you are the least bit uncertain of the strength of your anti-virus protection.

Greensboro Rooms to Go tried to rip us off, made us JC Penny customers

Unbelievable. We tried to buy a sofa at Rooms to Go on Friday. They were willing to sell it to us at the prior week's sale price under one condition, that we buy it that day. We agreed. At checkout, we declined the $100 additional fabric protection. Mike, the salesperson, told us he did not think we could buy the sofa at the sale price if we did not also buy the fabric protection, a condition not mentioned to us verbally or represented in any of the written displays.

We told him we would leave if he insisted. He did. We did.

We ended up back at JC Penny, where an honest salesman told us the sofa we were looking at (our first choice, but just a little too expensive originally) would be 10% cheaper the next day as part of Penny's Friends and Family sale. The next day, we purchased the better (made in America, not China) sofa from JC Penny, in our price range and thanks to Rooms to Go's shortsighted stupidity.

I recommend John at the Four Seasons Town Center JC Penny's furniture department if you are in the market for some furniture.

News & Record scrubs another article. Who misrepresented 'neighborhood's wishes' on night out cancellation? Reports contradict city officials' claims.

The (Greensboro, NC) News & Record's new practice of updating articles on its website by scrubbing information from previous versions is really discouraging. It makes it difficult to pin down the facts and it diminishes the value of the N&R for one of a newspaper's primary missions: as an official record for the purpose of holding those in power accountable.

Who said that residents of Hickory Trails did not want a "national night out" at their apartments?

Various un-archived versions of the News & Record report attributed that secondhand account of residents' sentiment to Interim City Manager Bob Morgan, Mayor Yvonne Johnson, Police Chief Tim Bellamy, unnamed Housing Authority officials or unnamed city officials. Who was it?

Who can we hold accountable for attributing that unverified sentiment to unnamed residents when the documented actual sentiment expressed by actual residents contradicts that account both in the most recent version of the N&R article and in this interview by council candidate Ryan Shell with the mother of Tuesday's shooting victim? City Council district one candidate, Ben Holder, who had the idea for the event, also reports a series of events that contradict city officials and points the finger at Interim City Manager Bob Morgan.

Strange bedfellows

Jeff, on the "compromise" watershed protection rules:

"The developers ran around the rest of us and made a deal with the tree huggers, all the while waving eco banners as they take our money. The stormwater didn’t get cleaned, the fish still died, but the do-gooders got paid."

Thank you City Council

This evening, I went before the Greensboro City Council to ask that they postpone consideration of a new records retention and disposition policy. Records may have been improperly deleted under the old policy and passing a new policy before the extent of the improper deletions is known would obscure the issue.

Most importantly however, Assistant City Manager Denise Turner, who is currently on maternity leave (congratulations Denise and Mr. Turner), has been working on an update to the city's public records policy and procedures. Her initial efforts, as I've seen them so far, are encouraging and her intention to solicit public comment will be far more productive than tonight's hasty attempt to slide something through on a consent agenda without any public announcement until the quiet inclusion on the agenda four days ago; with no public input; with no copy of the policy made publicly available.

Thank you Mayor Johnson and City Council people for getting this one right. It will pay off in the long run.

Recalling email?

I am on the City of Greensboro media email list. Occasionally they send out something with some wrong information and that is followed by another email "recalling" the first email. I only ever get email recalls from the City of Greensboro and I am never sure how to respond. Should I send the original back to the sender, as I would return a recalled can of tuna? Isn't attempting to recall an email like trying to recall a fart?

City council candidate arrested

Last night, gang leader and Greensboro city council candidate Jorge Cornell was arrested in what Cornell describes as "a clear case of racial profiling and dehumanization." At the beginning of the video, one can see Cornell step in front of a police officer and the officer can be heard telling Cornell to "Get out of my face" and "Get away from me" or be arrested.