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Ellica Church does a fine job of reporting the sad story of bomb threat suspect Tony Wayne Moore's life.

If Moore is found guilty as charged on all the counts filed against him so far, he could be sentenced to years in prison. What he really needed somewhere along the way was a lot of help.

Of all the threatening calls, one strikes me as particularly disturbing. It wasn't a bomb hoax but a message left on High Point Mayor Becky Smothers' home answering machine. The caller said he was going to kill her on April 1, and that she should "watch your a--, b----."

The language doesn't instill much sympathy for the caller, even one who may be an emotionally mixed-up kid.

Why the departure from the pattern of calls? Why Smothers?

Why any of this?

High Point police charged Moore with communicating threats, saying the call to Smothers came from the same phone as all the others.

Moore said in court Thursday that he's "very sorry for making the threats."

Everybody should be sorry for this sad episode and for what this troubled young man faces.

It's really time to give up April Foolishness. The following message to area news media offers one reason why:

Everyone who thinks the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point is important to the Triad and North Carolina economies - and how does a $1.3 billion economic impact grab you? - had better take notice of this:

The three most important leaders of the second half of the 20th century:

Pope John Paul II
Martin Luther King Jr.
Ronald Reagan

All were great champions of freedom.

All three also were targets of assassins. The pope and Reagan survived. King did not.

Reagan's assailant was a madman.

The John Paul and King shootings were carried out by men who might have been pawns of larger forces. (Actually, there's little doubt about it in the pope's case; the Bulgarian secret police was suspected of hiring Mehmet Ali Agca for the job, possibly on the orders of the KGB.)

It's sad: Champions of freedom always make deadly enemies.

But thank God for men of courage and conviction like John Paul, King and Reagan.

Among the two dozen or so high school kids who worked for me as Teen View columnists at the High Point Enterprise, Phillip Schrum stood out for his reliability.

With all the young writers, I stressed the importance of meeting deadlines. I told them I didn't care what assignments were due for school, what outside commitments they had, if it was a holiday, if they were going out of town, if they were sick. No matter what, the column had to be submitted on time.

Phillip, then a freshman at Andrews, never let me down. Only after finding his column in my email as expected when I arrived at work one Monday morning did I get a call from his mother, Jane, telling me that Phillip had been taken to the hospital Sunday night with an attack of appendicitis. Although he had been in severe pain, Jane told me, Phillip had insisted on finishing his column before going to the hospital.

From then on, I used Phillip as an example when telling other Teen View writers about the level of dedication I demanded from them. I was only exaggerating a little.

That was five or six years ago. I recalled the episode of Phillip's appendicitis when I ran in to his father, Pic, at the High Point library Saturday morning. He told me Phillip was doing well at Taylor University in Indiana and happened to be home for a break. I asked him to say hello for me.

So I was shocked to read in this morning's paper that Phillip was killed Saturday afternoon. He'd been jogging, was startled by an approaching dog, stepped in to the street and was struck by a van. He died at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. He was 20 years old.

I remember Phillip as a bright, amiable young man. He played baseball at Andrews, then transferred to Wesleyan Christian Academy where he ran on the cross country team and graduated in 2003.

I'm sure he would have been successful in life, someone who would achieve his goals even under difficult circumstances. He proved that to me.

This is a dreadful loss for his family, and my prayers are with them.

Here's evidence that the term "medical ethics" is an oxymoron when applied to some doctors:

My column today:

The lottery commission in a neighboring state meets with its marketing consultant ...

MoveOn.org is orchestrating a letter-writing campaign against Senate Republicans' plans to blow up filibusters aimed at stopping judicial nominees.

We printed one today - but won't print more now that we've figured out the source. We don't publish form letters, when we detect them. Let writers come up with original letters.

I'm amused by the liberals' hysteria over this so-called nuclear option anyway. Sure, Republicans should be careful about squashing the right to filibuster, but if the Founding Fathers had meant to require a three-fifths vote of the Senate to confirm judges, they would have written such a provision into the Constitution ...

"We can't sit up here and legislate morals" - state Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham.

Really?

Letting North Carolinians make their own "moral" decisions may sound like a fine ideal to Michaux and other legislators who voted for the lottery bill Wednesday, but it contradicts longstanding public policy.

Or why else does the state ban other forms of gambling? What about drugs and prostitution? How about ethics regulations for public officials and members of various professions?

You could answer there are good practical reasons for such laws and morality has little to do with them. I'd argue that societal values - which some might define as morality - form the basis for many of our laws. We once took some pride in our "North Carolina values." But never mind. Throw morality out of the lottery debate. Instead, ask whether gambling is a fair way to raise revenue for public purposes, consistent with North Carolina's overall philosophy of taxation. Will the lottery prove, on balance, to be more of a benefit to our population than a detriment?

I applaud Guilford County representatives John Blust, Pricey Harrison and Laura Wiley for examining that fundamental question and voting no.

I don't know what it felt like to attend last night's county commissioners meeting in person, but their rumble over Tax Director Jenks Crayton had my TV rattling at home.

There was a lot of raw anger on display ...

Update, 5:30 p.m.:

High Point police will NOT file charges against the owner of the dog that caused jogger Phillip Schrum to veer into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Phillip, 20, was struck and killed last Saturday.

Police determined that the dog escaped from its home when a young child opened the door.

Jane Schrum, Phillip's mother, called me earlier this afternoon to express concerns about possible charges. That's the last thing her family would have wanted, she said.

Despite her enormous grief, she was worried about the pain experienced by the family that owned this dog. God bless her.

My original post follows ...

Inside Scoop reports today that Rep. Pricey Harrison is still being questioned about her lottery vote last week. I heard the same skepticism from another legislator. Don't give her too much credit for standing up to pressure from the governor and speaker and voting her conscience, I was advised.

Well, I'm sticking with her on this. The idea that she voted for the lottery in deference to Mike Easley and Jim Black, but switched when she learned her vote wasn't needed for the bill to pass, doesn't make sense to me.

Her final vote - against the lottery - is what's on record. That's what she'll carry with her when she runs for re-election.

It's a safe bet that most voters in Greensboro support the lottery and therefore are unhappy with Harrison's vote against it. So it was courageous of her to do what she felt in her "heart of hearts" was the right thing.

For some reason, the issue of smoking in the Coliseum made me think of track meets in the old Tin Can at Carolina.

The Tin Can was a World War II-era Quonset hut next to Woollen Gym. It contained a banked, wooden track where the Tar Heels hosted winter meets.

In my day, the mid-70s, smoking was definitely allowed in the Tin Can. Even our coach smoked.

We ran through a tobacco haze. Talk about your lungs burning. After a two-mile race, I would cough as if I'd smoked a pack of cigarettes.

Funny thing, I don't remember anybody complaining much. It was just something you had to deal with.

I'm glad times have changed. No smoking in the Coliseum!

Columnist Leonard Pitts (N&R print edition, April 11) seems all worked up over what he calls "Christian fundamentalism."

I think he's aiming at the wrong target. ...

My column today:

Here's why High Point is a better furniture market city than Las Vegas ...

There's a big dust-up at Davidson, where two prominent trustees have resigned to protest a new policy that pulls the small liberal arts college a bit farther from its Presbyterian roots.

No longer is it required that all trustees be active members of a Christian church. Now, 20 percent of trustees may be exempted from the former requirement.

John Belk - former Charlotte mayor, member of the department store family and largest individual contributor to Davidson, stepped down. So did Stephen Smith of Dallas, Texas, a former football star for whom the school's Stephen B. Smith Field is named.

The Davidson news is hardly startling ...

Dog thefts continue elsewhere ...

See my earlier post.

Here's an attitude I hate:

"Most teenagers are going to drink and experiment, with or without parental permission. Allowing them to do it at home, rather than on the streets, is being a responsible parent."

Thomas Friedman makes an interesting observation in his column published in our print edition today:

"If your name is Muhammad and you are a 21-year-old single Arab man and you have not visited Disney World yet, well, you may want to consider Euro Disney because your chances of getting a tourist visa are very low. Frankly, I wish this were not the case because we are preventing a lot of good, talented Arab men and women from getting educated in America, which is the best way of building friends. This is one of the sad byproducts of 9/11 -- but it has undoubtedly made it more difficult for the few bad apples to get in as well."

My question: Do we always make friends of college students from overseas, especially the Middle East?

State legislatures should define state-sanctioned marriage.

Certainly, county commissioners don't have that right. The Oregon Supreme Court clearly and unanimously ruled Thursday that Multnomah County (Portland) was out of line last year in granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Commissioners there had decided that not doing so would violate the Oregon constitution.

The justices reminded the county folks that deciding constitutional issues is the work of the courts, and don't forget it.

The California Supreme Court ruled exactly the same way in nullifying same-sex marriages that had been permitted in San Francisco after Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to substitute his own judgment for that of the courts and legislature.

Even the courts should defer to state legislatures. That's part of what the three dissenting justices (out of seven) in the landmark Massachusetts ruling in 2003 said.

The contention that there's a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry is dubious, in my opinion. But the threat of such rulings has prompted states across the country to amend their constitutions prohibiting such interpretations. North Carolina hasn't done that - yet - but let a case work its way up our judicial system and it will.

But this is a matter better left to legislatures. Proponents of same-sex marriage should try to enact laws to redefine marriage as they want it rather than appeal to the courts or, worse, look for elected officials to circumvent the legal process entirely.

My friend Dave, the scotch whisky fancier, recently presented me with a grand gift: a bottle of The Macallan 18.

This is the right stuff, laddie, sure enough.

It'll cost you a pretty penny, too: List price on the distillery's Web site is 68 pounds.

Don't ask me if it's worth it (I didn't buy it, and neither did Dave). All I know is this is a very fine drink. Every sip should be preceded by a discerning sniff. Only a small amount should be allowed to flow over the lip at a time. Then it should be held in the mouth long enough to bathe the tongue before swallowing. Pause at least five minutes thereafter and repeat.

Two things amaze me about scotch: how much they vary from one brand to another; and the intensity and complexity of flavor that can be poured into a single bottle.

Here's to Scotland!

We're offering an occasional experiment in alternative editorial writing in an effort to liven things up a bit. In case you missed it in the print edition, here was today's effort:

Cats attract fearless hunters to green hills of Wisconsin

Wisconsin game officials consider open season on feral cats, which kill millions of birds every year. How would Hemingway write about this?

The feral cats of Wisconsin are first-rate quarry, clever, elusive, above all brave. If you know their territory, find the right cover, stay downwind and make no noise, you might get a shot.

It was agreed beforehand that my wife should have the first shot but since it was the first cat any of us had ever shot at, and it was very late in the day, really too late to take the cat on, once he was hit we were to make a dogfight of it and any one was free to get him. This was a good plan as it was nearly sundown and if the cat got into cover, wounded, it would be too dark to do anything about it without a mess.

We spotted the cat stalking a family of quail in the brush. The predator's appetite for birds made it fair game.

As Pauline knelt to shoot I wanted to tell her to sit down and make sure of him. Then there was the short-barreled explosion of the Mannlicher and the cat was going to the left on a run. I hit him with the Springfield and he went down and spun over and I shot again, too quickly, and threw a cloud of dirt over him. But there he was, stretched out, on his belly, and, with the sun just over the top of the trees, and the grass very green, we walked up on him like a posse, guns ready and cocked, not knowing whether he was stunned or dead. I threw a stone and from the way it hit you could tell he was dead.

We would shoot quail the next day.

Adapted from "Green Hills of Africa" by Ernest Hemingway.

An e-mail came in over the weekend asking, "Could you recommend a nonfiction book that would catch me up on a thousand, or so, years of Irish history?"

Talk about your luck of the Irish. I'm just now finishing "Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland."
Malachy, brother of Frank ("Angela's Ashes"), renders an account as only an Irish actor-bartender could.

His history isn't a scholarly work, although it borrows from some. But it's lively reading and offers a good overview of events from ancient times to the present day.

But I'm open to other recommendations.

By the way, when it comes to Irish historical fiction, is there any better than Thomas Flanagan's trilogy? They are "The Year of the French," "The Tenants of Time" and "The End of the Hunt." The second of the three is one of my favorite novels ever. It's typically Irish - beautiful, haunting and heartbreaking.

American Alan Culpepper finished fourth in today's Boston Marathon. Believe it or not, that's the best showing by an American there since 1987.

Where have you gone, Boston Billy? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Sorry about that, but it's been discouraging to me that the United States has produced few world-class distance runners in a generation.

Remember Frank Shorter? It was all the way back in 1972 that he won the Olympic marathon. He took silver in 1976. Joan Benoit was the gold medalist in the first women's Olympic marathon in 1984. Since then, however, the sport has been dominated by Africans, Europeans, Asians - everyone but Americans.

We might be making a little progress. Our Meb Keflezighi ran to the silver medal in last year's men's marathon in Athens, and Deena Kastor grabbed bronze in the women's race. Neither competed at Boston today.

But I don't see the numbers of outstanding runners coming up through the high school and college ranks that we need to become a consistent force in distance events on the world stage. Performances today are not as strong as they were 30 years ago.

I remember the 1970s as the golden era of middle-distance running in North Carolina. UNC and Duke both had a couple of sub-4:00 milers in those days (Tony Waldrop and Reggie McAfee at Carolina; Bob Wheeler and Steve Wheeler at Duke). There hasn't been anyone that fast in the ACC since then. Astounding!

Today, area high schools occasionally turn out some good runners, but I frequently see winning times for the mile and two-mile events that would have embarrassed runners back in ancient times (when I was in high school). Is it the hard work/no glory aspect of distance running that turns kids off nowadays? Or maybe they're just doing other things. I've seen plenty of soccer and basketball players who probably would make outstanding milers, but I guess they're just not interested.

Meanwhile, there are kids growing up in Kenya and Ethiopia who run everywhere they go and dream of competing in the Boston Marathon and Olympic Games.

If the health department gives clean needles to intravenous drug users so they won't share dirty needles and transmit HIV infection, should the police department give them money to buy drugs so they won't steal it and spread crime? Or trade sex for drugs, which also spreads disease?

There's an assumption here that intravenous drug users are likely to be HIV-infected. Will the health department require HIV testing for those who request clean needles and, if they test positive, attempt to modify behavior that poses a risk of transmission?

If these things aren't done, then isn't needle exchange alone only making a limited impact at best in dealing with a very large problem? Or, as critics say, only enabling the continuation of destructive behavior?

Today marks the 230th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the beginning of the American Revolution.

Raise a glass (of Sam Adams, if you like) to the Patriots of 1775.

Up the Rebels!

Maybe the College of Cardinals should have named a vice pope, too.

Is anyone sorry Timothy McVeigh's not around to comment on the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing? Well, what if he were still alive, expressed remorse and asked for forgiveness?

It's considered censorship if you try to have a book removed from the library at your child's school. What would it be called if the librarian had decided not to place that book on the shelf in the first place?

Will Greensboro have arrived as a poetry mecca when we start to see graffiti in verse?

Opponents of the new ballpark concede it's a nice facility. They just wish enthusiasts would quit talking it up so much. Didn't anyone ever have fun at the old stadium? ... Excuse me. Is there a sour grapes concession?

A reader called to say she's canceling her subscription because we're against a state lottery. Maybe she can use the money she saves to buy more tickets. Her privilege. But, frankly, I think the newspaper is a lot better deal.

One thing about Sam Mills: He always seemed to give more effort, and get more out of his talent, than anyone else on the field.

Charlotte is really, really serious about landing a NASCAR Hall of Fame. How badly do we want an ACC museum in Greensboro? Wouldn't want to let Boston or Miami build it first.

My column today:

I witnessed a crime the other morning. ...

I spent nearly three hours yesterday with the High Point Communities in Schools scholarship committee reviewing applications from 36 seniors at Andrews and High Point Central High School.

I can honestly say that every student was deserving of an award.

But we had only $10,000 at our disposal to divide among those chosen as winners.

That's why, although I still oppose a state lottery, I approve of one portion of the bill passed April 6 in the N.C. House of Representatives and now under consideration in the Senate ...

Greensboro's reconciliation process has had quite an impact so far. The city seems more divided and angry than before it started.

Attendance down, orders up.

That seems to be the general assessment of the spring furniture market, which officially ended Wednesday but for all practical purposes was over a day or two earlier.

The trouble with the general assessment is that there are no measures to back it up...

Suppose a customer enters a convenience store:

"I'd like a pack of cigarettes, please."

"Sorry, we don't sell cigarettes."

"What do you mean? All convenience stores sell cigarettes."

"We don't."

"Well, why not?"

"We're against smoking. It's unhealthy. Our policy is we won't sell you the means to kill yourself."

"What? Are you crazy? It's none of your business if I want to smoke. It's my life."

"Yes, but it's our store. You may buy your cigarettes somewhere else."

"It's 2 a.m. This is the only store around here still open. I really need a cigarette."

"I'm sorry, but we are not responsible for that."

"Well, can I get a six-pack of beer?"

"By now, you should know better than to ask."

Later, in the state capital ...

"Governor, we're getting reports of convenience stores that won't sell cigarettes, beer and wine. They're morally opposed."

"Outrageous. Those are legal products, and our citizens have a right to purchase them. I'll issue an edict."

"But governor, doesn't the owner of a business have the right to decide for himself what products he wants to sell?"

"Not in this state, he shouldn't. If he's operating a business that's open to the public, he should not discriminate in the products he offers. It's a matter of fair accommodation. And he has no right to impose his moral beliefs on others.

"Besides, think of the tax revenue we're losing. Next thing you know, these people will refuse to sell lottery tickets."

Ten people picketed a gas station in Archdale Saturday, protesting high gas prices.

They blamed President Bush and the oil companies, the High Point Enterprise reported.

"This is not the America I know," organizer Ron Campbell complained.

I suppose that would be the America of big cars and cheap gas.

Maybe when President Bush meets with Saudi Prince Abdullah today, he can make a pitch along those lines.

"Listen, Abby, you've got to help us get back to the America we used to know. I'm talking about the days when it didn't matter that we were driving around in trucks or eight-cylinder sedans that got 10 miles to the gallon because we were paying less than a buck a gallon. So, I don't care about increasing demand from China, India and the rest of the developing world. I want you to pump us more oil and do it cheaper. Got it?"

Yeah, that's the approach.

Or maybe there's just a bit more to the subject than that. I thought UNCG economist Andrew Brod presented an excellent overview in his article on our Ideas front Sunday.

High Point lost one of its leading citizens over the weekend, 87-year-old retired banker Dick Meisky ...

It's prom season, a very exciting time for high school students -- and for their parents.

A time for worrying, too.

Allow me to offer one idea for easing parental anxiety ...

My column today:

The late John Eshelman wasn't one to give up on an idea, good or bad.

Eshelman's idea could be printed on a bumper sticker. It said, "High Point: North Carolina's Independent City."

I have one of those bumper stickers in a box somewhere. ...

I wonder who really tipped off ALE about the Junior League of High Point's casino night fund-raiser.

The event was billed as "Las Vegas Comes to High Point."

Furniture market authorities, maybe? Las Vegas is a sore subject.

The Junior League blundered. Those civic-minded young women should have chosen a less-threatening title, like "Monte Carlo Comes to High Point." Or, "Atlantic City Comes to High Point." Even, "Cherokee Comes to High Point."

Now, the Junior Leaguers are busted by an agency that can't abide a game of roulette, even for charity.

(Note to organizers of Gradfest: Cancel the blackjack!)

We can't have anything in High Point that hints of Las Vegas.

This is an interesting case.

UNC says it doesn't condone downloading copyrighted material by students using its computer system. It's a matter of protecting their privacy.

But, what if the students were transmitting child pornography or engaging in identity theft? Surely, the serious nature of those criminal activities would override privacy concerns.

So, so unless some other disciplinary action was taken against the student or students involved, maybe UNC does condone the downloading of copyrighted material.

I thought the Democrats were crazy when they made Nancy Pelosi their leader in the House of Representatives.

She's a San Francisco liberal whose voting record is far to the left of center. How could she carry her party back to the mainstream of American politics?

Little did I know that Pelosi simply would not be an issue during the 2005 congressional session. Instead, all eyes would focus on ...

It's been a year since news of the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad broke.

Since then, charges have been leveled against other American soldiers for abusing, even killing, prisoners in Iraq.

These incidents make me think of George Washington, who was involved in a prisoner atrocity early in his military career ...

President Bush offered a dramatic proposal regarding Social Security at his press conference last night:

Let's see. A strong leader who stepped into a tough job and produced great results is picked at by a small group of unhappy employees.

Johnnetta Cole at Bennett College or Jenks Crayton at Guilford County's office of child support enforcement?

Cole, fed up, resigned Wednesday but is reconsidering as her supporters vow to root out the troublemakers.

Crayton, meanwhile, had the child support office wrenched from him and now has been suspended as tax department director by county commissioners who seem to believe his handful (at most) of detractors. An investigation is pending.

Let's hope both situations reach a happy conclusion, and soon.

President Bush handled himself very well during last night's press conference.

Except ...

He got pretty befuddled when answering a question about Russia selling nuclear materials to Iran.

I knew he was headed for trouble when he started putting the words "Iran" and "uranium" in the same sentence.

It was inevitable. His tongue betrayed him.

Those folks in Tehran are now called Uranians.