News-Record.com

In case you missed it, here's Guilford Tax Director Francis Kinlaw's take, in a News & Record op-ed, on the issue of taxing free drug samples:

In recent weeks, several articles and letters have been published regarding the taxation of medical samples by North Carolina’s counties. Given the considerable publicity and concern that this issue has evoked, I wish to provide significant information relating to Guilford County’s current policy and to existing state law.

Many readers undoubtedly will be pleased to learn that a bill currently being considered by the N.C. General Assembly (Senate Bill 1878) would exempt from taxation “free samples of drugs that are required by federal law to be dispensed only on prescription and are given to physicians and other medical practitioners to dispense free of charge in the course of their practice.” If you favor the addition of these words to N.C. General Statute 105-275, you may wish to inform your state legislators of your opinion. (Because property tax laws may be established and revised only at the state level of government, county commissioners and elected officials other than state senators and state representatives are unable to change the law.)

The following facts will explain and clarify the basis for recent decisions and actions by the Guilford County Tax Department.

A directive from the North Carolina Department of Revenue (issued on May 26, 2006) states clearly that “supplies and samples used by and in the possession of medical establishments … are required to be listed for taxation in the various counties of North Carolina where the business personal property is located.”

A routine audit conducted by our office revealed that one large medical practice had failed to list drug samples for taxation in one or more prior tax years. (We attempt to audit the tax listings of every business in the county, regardless of the nature of the business, every five or six years.)

Although drug samples account for a very small percentage of the taxable property in a medical practice and, consequently, for a small percentage of the tax bill, representatives of the medical profession have deemed this issue to be worthy of public discussion.

It is important to note that, because Jan. 1 of each year is the only date of significance insofar as the taxation of business personal property is concerned, a medical practice can maintain and dispense drug samples throughout the calendar year without affecting its tax obligation. Physicians may choose to reduce their supplies of drug samples prior to Jan. 1 and then increase their supplies of samples after Jan. 1. In other words, the volume of drug samples on hand for the other 364 days of a calendar year — other than Jan. 1 — has no effect whatsoever on the tax bill of a medical practice.

Tax administrators in Mecklenburg and Forsyth counties have stated in recent weeks that their counties follow exactly the same procedures that were applied by our department. All other counties in North Carolina are also subject to the same laws that govern taxation in our county.
I understand the opposition by many people to the relevant state law and realize that they would welcome legislative action revising that statute. In my role as tax director, I can assure the public that our Tax Department consistently follows procedures established by state law and that our actions regarding property taxation of drug samples will change if and when the applicable state law is revised.

Francis H. Kinlaw is Guilford County tax director.

We're exploring the possibility of reader video commentaries, either shot by us, shot and submitted to us by the reader or linked to us from YouTube.

If you'd be interested in participating, let me know. If we move forward with this new feature, it's likely to happen sometime in the fall.

Gov. Mike. Easley is scheduled to receive the "America's Greatest Education Governor's Award" Thursday from the National Education Association "for his achievements in transforming North Carolina's public school system," according to an NEA news release.

NEA President Reg Weaver will bestow the honor in front of nearly NEA 10,000 delegates in Washington.

Given all the recent fallout over his fancy sojourns abroad, I presume he's flying coach.

Meanwhile, on the heels of first lady Mary Easley's own Travelgate brouhaha over exorbitant expenses comes word that she has received an 88 percent raise from N.C. State University.

Effective Tuesday, her salary jumped from $90,000 to $170,000.

Meanwhile, Gov. Easley has been preaching fiscal restraint to legislative budget writers.
Among the advice he imparted to lawmakers was for them to spend less on state employee raises.

Following a call for peace Monday by the North Carolina leader of the Latin Kings, one TV reporter was so moved by what she’d heard that she hugged Jorge Cornell.

I did not hug Cornell. I am still hopeful that he is serious and sincere in his call for area gangs to put down their arms and put aside their violence toward one another.

But I still worry about the rest of us.

Cornell said: “My goal is to bring peace to the streets. (For) black and brown to come together as one.”

Who could argue with that sentiment? But, again, Cornell stopped short of renouncing all criminal activity by gangs. And even though he is a man of few words, some of those words seemed contradictory.

I asked at his news conference about his earlier statements that gang violence here is exaggerated (“The newspaper hypes it up. The police hype it up.”). If that was so, I said, why was there a need to call a truce in the first place?

A woman sitting behind me suggested that the police were behind the alleged gang violence. (If I had a dime for every conspiracy theory in this town, I could buy out Bill Gates.)

But I still want to believe Cornell. The safety this could bring and the racial bridges it could build could be significant. I don’t fault the Revs. Nelson Johnson and Greg Headen for reaching out to Cornell. Isn't that what men of faith are supposed to do?

Still, this doesn’t feel totally right. Am I being merely a cynic, as a friend said the other day?

So, I sought further insight from an interview with Cornell in the current edition of the Spanish-language paper, Que Pasa.

Some of what he said, thanks to translation help from a few of my colleagues:

“The peace treaty would be necessary to eliminate carrying the fights (quarrels) away from the table. We would have to avoid retaliation and killings in honor of a better future for all.”

Under the “peace treaty” he proposes, problems would be resolved by gang leaders disciplining their members, to prevent them from taking justice into their own hands, which is what generates the violence among them.

He envisions a “Supreme Council” to organize street marches, mobilize civil resistance against the application of Section 287(g) of federal immigration law, ask that young people are permitted to study in community colleges, even if they don’t have a Social Security numbers, and that they oppose the passing of the aggressive laws against the collective Hispanic community.

“They want to eliminate us completely,” he said. “We have to detain racism.”

Also on hios agenda is to prevent the passage of an anti-gang law in the General Assembly.

‘It’s a negative law, because when three people gather of the same color, potentially it could be considered a gang-related act. Furthermore, if you meet with me, that law would give you problems.”

The more I think about it, the Supreme Council sounds a lot like Prop Joe’s confab of gang lords in the TV series “The Wire,” in which those crime leaders negotiated over territory and resolved disputes around conference tables in a hotel meeting room. They even had an agenda and refreshments.

That said, Lord knows relations between African Americans and the growing Latino community, in particular, are not what they ought to be. It’s a sad, ironic state of affairs. Why should people of color be so distrustful of one another?

So, in the end, something is better than nothing. Talking is better than not talking. And at least trying is a lot better than not trying.

I am heading over to the news conference involving the Latin Kings gang and local faith leaders.

Judging from the chatter over at Ed Cone's place, the event, which calls for a gang war truce, has generated a little bit of hope and a boatload of skepticism.

But faith leaders need to be -- and have to be -- a part of the gang-crime solution.

Coincidentally, today's edition of "Guilford County's Most Wanted" in the News & Record features Marcelo Ysrael Perez, wanted for attempted first-degree murder with a shotgun.

Police say Perez is "a validated member" of the Latin Kings..

This week's column.

Beating and hanging a dog as preparation for police work is fundamentally wrong.

I say that as someone eminently unqualified to judge how and how not to train dogs for dangerous duty.

I also say it as someone who is eminently unqualified on any level of dog training — who feels fortunate to have cajoled my pooch to sit, stay and roll over and to not do her business where she shouldn’t.

At least most of the time.

But I also know cruelty when I see it. And the grainy, cell-phone video of State Highway Patrol Trooper Charles Jones “training” his dog by kicking it five times while it hangs from a loading dock is cruelty, plain and simple.

The kicks are so forceful that the thuds from their impact are clearly audible. As it turns out, at least some state troopers routinely had used beatings, stun guns and other punishments to discipline and train their dogs.

Jones was suspended, then fired, after pressure from the office of Gov. Mike Easley. The Highway Patrol also shut down its canine program, pending an investigation.

Since then, however, an administrative law judge has recommended that Jones be reinstated. With back pay.

To be fair, Judge Fred Morrison Jr.’s ruling centered more on what he perceived as outside pressure from the governor to fire Jones than Jones’ behavior toward the dog. Even so, some of the trooper’s bosses and colleagues have defended him.

But if abusive behavior toward animals is predictive of abusive behavior toward humans, this is not only outrageous, it’s scary. And sad.

The bond dogs form with their partners seems based more on loyalty than fear.

Images of a burly Malinois named Bear come to mind. During a ride-along with a Greensboro police officer in 2001, I saw Bear track and catch a fleeing robber, pinning the man in the shadows of someone’s backyard in south Greensboro, then dutifully waiting for officers to arrive
.
But, again, what do I know?

So, I spent some time last week with members of the Greensboro Police Department’s K-9 Unit during training exercises at Jaycee Park.

Continue reading "Dog daze: Patrol’s training regimen cruel and unnecessary" »

I pulled this item out of a comment thread this morning, from an anonymous commenter. I thought others might find it useful:

Hi Mr. Johnson,

This has nothing to do with your thread, but I have a question and subsequent request please.

Today the letter to the editor "World can’t sustain its huge appetite for beef" was published. We in the LTE blog have spotted out form letters numerous times, the majority from "authors" who promote vegetarianism. This is yet another example.

All I had to do was a simple Google search for "Beef production accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than automobiles" and up came the following hits:

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-2520-earlier-this-week-more-than-a-hundred-thousand-so.html

http://www.topix.com/forum/world/asia/TM56S3RFN3UGDUV6R#comments

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/opinions/letters/1008744,2_4_AU17_LETTERS_S1.article

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=8850

Scroll down on the one above.

Question: Why can't the N&R perform a simple search of key words on most if not all letters as I did and other bloggers have done previously?

Request: As 1) historically the vast majority of form letters published in the N&R have espoused vegetarianism and 2) we have pointed this out several times before, then 3) why can the N&R at a minimum search letters regarding this topic?

These letters are so easy to spot. As soon as I read the first three sentences my mind told me; form letter. A simple search confirmed this.

Please try to keep your valuable LTE section free of letters from individuals who espouse a cause without using their own creativity.

My response:
Thanks for your note. As I’ve posted before, we routinely check suspicious letters and, believe it or not, the majority of them don’t make it into the newspaper.

But some slip through. We will receive more than 5,000 letters this year. We don’t have the resources to Google each one. But we will continue to vet any letter that looks fishy. On some occasions we have even called the writers, and explained to them that we consider this a form a deception and plagiarism.

We also receive alerts from the National Conference of Editorial Writers about form-letter campaigns.

We appreciate your help in spotting suspicious letters and we’ll continue to do our best to weed them out on our end as well.

A footnote: Letters about vegetarianism are hardly the “vast majority” of the form letters (or astroturf) we receive. Not by a long shot. Letters from political campaigns (and their surrogates) are.

Riddle me this, writes Chris Faraone in the Columbia Journalism Review. How should newspapers refer to rappers -- by their real names or their stage names?

And if they choose to use birth names, per The New York Times, is that inconsistent with the Times' references to rock stars by their stage names (as in Elton John, who's really Reginald Dwight)?

In light of my First Person piece Tuesday about my near fatal attraction to poison ivy (or is it the other way around?) I've received many helpful suggestions for remedies from readers, among them:

1. Prescription pills called hydroxyzine.
2. Bathing immediately after suspected contact with Octagon soap. (Don't stay in the shower too long, the caller added. This soap contains lye.)
3. Shuttle Lotion, from a company called American Hygienic Laboratories. (You can't get it around here. I'd have to order it by phone or on the Internet.)
4. Tecnu Extreme Poison Ivy Scrub, which one of my co-workers, Andy Leeco swears by. (Of course, I take any advice from Andy with some degree of caution; he's a New England Patriots fan.)

Men's Health Magazine, which seems to make a list for everything these days, ranks Charlotte as one of the worst cities in the country for environmentally friendly driving habits.

The magazine included Charlotte among cities across the nation "that are driving us to extinction." The Queen City finished 90th among the 100 Greenest Cities.

The ranking are based on miles driven, gas consumption, air quality, mass-transit use, and vehicle' size, age and maintenance.

"It's almost as if the citizens of Charlotte think they're driving on the nearby Lowe's Motor Speedway -- the city was in the top 10 percent for most gallons of gas consumed," Men's Health Deputy Editor Matt Marion told The Charlotte Observer in an e-mail. "Charlotte was also pulled down in the rankings by being in the top 20 percent of cities with high ozone days."

How did Greensboro fare? Not great. Not terribly. We got a C+, and ranked 38th. Durham got a B- and ranked 31st.

1. Seattle, WA A+
2. Burlington, VT A+
3. Portland, OR A+
4. Madison, WI A
5. Fargo, ND A
6. Rochester, NY A
7. Minneapolis, MN A-
8. Spokane, WA A-
9. San Francisco, CA A-
10. Norfolk, VA A-
11. Boston, MA A-
12. Oakland, CA A-
13. Buffalo, NY A-
14. Miami, FL B+
15. Tucson, AZ B+
16. Orlando, FL B
17. Bangor, ME B
18. Anchorage, AK B
19. Newark, NJ B
20. Lexington, KY B
21. Jersey City, NJ B
22. Hartford, CT B
23. Fremont, CA B
24. Denver, CO B
25. Pittsburgh, PA B
26. Cleveland, OH B
27. Honolulu, HI B
28. Lincoln, NE B-
29. Richmond, VA B-
30. Aurora, CO B-
31. Durham, NC B-
32. Lubbock, TX B-
33. Des Moines, IA B-
34. Corpus Christi, TX B-
35. Salt Lake City, UT B-
36. Boise, ID B-
37. Sioux Falls, SD C+
38. Greensboro C+
39. Providence, RI C+
40. Washington, DC C+
41. Tampa, FL C+
42. Baltimore, MD C+
43. Austin, TX C+
44. Wichita, KS C+
45. New York, NY C +
46. St. Louis, MO C+
47. Kansas City, MO C+
48. Philadelphia, PA C+
49. Milwaukee, WI C
50. Jacksonville, FL C
51. Chicago, IL C
52. Baton Rouge, LA C
53. St. Paul, MN C
54. Columbia, SC C
55. Las Vegas, NV C
56. Raleigh, NC C
57. San Jose, CA C
58. Jackson, MS C-
59. St. Petersburg, FL C-
60. Phoenix, AZ C-
61. San Diego, CA C-
62. Atlanta, GA C-
63. Colorado Springs, CO C-
64. Cincinnati, OH C-
65. Sacramento, CA C-
66. Little Rock, AR C-
67. Dallas, TX C-
68. Albuquerque, NM C-
69. Fort Wayne, IN C-
70. Oklahoma City, OK C-
71. Omaha, NE C-
72. Billings, MT C-
73. Cheyenne, WY C-
74. Grand Rapids, MI C-
75. Bakersfield, CA D+
76. Modesto, CA D+
77. Wilmington, DE D+
78. Nashville, TN D+
79. Montgomery, AL D+
80. Memphis, MN D+
81. Columbus, OH D+
82. Detroit, MI D+
83. Anaheim, CA D+
84. Los Angeles, CA D+
85. Louisville, KY D+
86. Houston, TX D+
87. Manchester, NH D+
88. Toledo, OH D+
89. Charleston, WV D
90. Charlotte, SC D
91. Fresno, CA D
92. Tulsa, OK D
93. Indianapolis, IN D-
94. San Antonio, TX F
95. Fort Worth, TX F
96. Birmingham, AL F
97. Riverside, CA F
98. El Paso, TX F
99. Yonkers, NY F
100. Arlington, TX F