http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/ A discussion with editorial page editor Allen Johnson. en Copyright 2008 Wed, 14 May 2008 03:00:00 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss www.ctg.org ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/as_greensboros.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/as_greensboros.shtml Wed, 14 May 2008 03:00:00 -0500 ... But I have ... graffiti plastered on a tree. In blue paint, at Cone Boulevard and Summit Avenue. I keep telling myself to stop ranting about local vandalism (for all the good it does). But it's hard not to be angry ... and exasperated. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/i_thought_that.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/i_thought_that.shtml Mon, 12 May 2008 10:43:51 -0500 This week's column. The yellow construction elevator that climbs the face of the new Center Pointe tower creaks and groans as it rises high above the trees and fountains of Center City Park. It jerks defiantly when it gets to the top, as if it wants to keep going. Then it quivers before finally settling down. So does your stomach. You stand there, still shaking and looking for something to grab as Roy Carroll II grins from underneath his hard hat, cool and sure-footed. You wouldn’t know that the gleaming, black 17-story reclamation project is Carroll’s first high-rise development ever unless he told you. He seems perfectly at home at Center Pointe, which soon will be his home, at least the top two floors. This was not supposed to be doable. Conventional wisdom was that it was too risky and expensive. Better to blow it up than try to save what once had been the old Wachovia tower. But Carroll, 45, had help from Jefferson Pilot, now Lincoln Financial, which sold him the building cheap, and from the city and county governments, which offered incentives that made the tower’s makeover into shops, offices and high-end condos financially feasible. Now more than 50 percent of the units are sold, and “we’re still selling,” Carroll said Thursday. On a clear day, the 14th floor of the building offers a faint view of the Winston-Salem skyline and a bird’s-eye vista of NewBridge Bank Park (only from this height, the team that plays there really does look like Grasshoppers). Slightly to the north, you also can see 4.5 acres of bare land that once was part of the old North State Chevrolet dealership. Now it belongs to Roy Carroll, too. Carroll has the land under contract and plans to develop it for “high-end” residences that either will be sold or rented. The details are still sketchy, Carroll said, but he does know for sure what he won’t do there. “We are not envisioning student housing,” he said. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/lowkey_carroll.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/lowkey_carroll.shtml Sun, 11 May 2008 03:00:00 -0500 Bill Cosby settled comfortably into an easy chair at the Koury Center Friday night and spun a thread of very funny tales about the foibles of family life. Wearing a blue and gold Aggies sweatshirt, the legendary comedian and actor was appearing --for free -- to benefit the Cosby Kids initiative at N.C. A&T that will prepare children as early as fourth grade for college careers. Cosby has caused a stir now and again for a being a grumpy elder statesmen who isn't hesitant to tell it like it is about the state of black folk in the country. Even when the truth hurts. But the only pain he dispensed Friday to a packed ballroom containing people of all races, ages and walks of life, was from them possibly laughing too hard. The humor was gentle but hilarious, told in such a natural, effortless way, that even a malfunctionuing mike didn't knock Cosby off his stride. He'd just pause and jiggle the switch, and continue with stories about playing Spin the Bottle as a kid and getting beatings (in the North) and "whuppins" (in the South) and going to the dentist. Once in while, he'd move out of the chair onto all fours on the floor, to dramatize a particular narrative. He displayed the same kind of rare comic genius that Richard Pryor and only a few others could achieve, and he didn't cuss even once. Some who may have been hoping for one of his patented, headline-making social diatribes may have been disappointed. He may have been saving that for today's commencement address for A&T. But if they were, I couldn't tell. Everyone seemed to leave smiling and entertained. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/cosby_for_a_cau.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/cosby_for_a_cau.shtml Sat, 10 May 2008 11:11:15 -0500 Hillary Clinton has a run a good, hard race and now she needs to pack it in. But she remains not only uninterested in the facts, which show her with absolutely no chance to win the Democratic presidential nomination, she is downright defiant, in her words and her deeds -- and apparently determined to take the rest of her party down with her as the Good Ship Clinton slips into the abyss. Even a former Reagan speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, can see that. "The Democratic Party can't celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown," Noonan writes today in The Wall Street Journal. "You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender." Noonan cited Hillary's desperation ploy to use race as a wedge issue to salvage her candidacy, most recently her USA Today interview. Clinton said in part, reports USA Today: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." She then cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me." "There's a pattern emerging here," she added. Noonan's response: "White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? 'Even Richard Nixon didn't say white,' an Obama supporter said, 'even with the Southern strategy.' "If John McCain said, 'I got the white vote, baby!' his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party. "To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical 'the black guy can't win but the white girl can' is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by." Indeed. Clinton has had her chance. She has moved the goal post in her bid for the nomination several times. Her Hail Mary pass, it appears, is her whiteness. As for how the most loyal bloc of Democratic voters, African Americans, must be feeling right now, I agree with The Washington Psot's Eugene Robinson. Robinson writes: "As a rationale for why Democratic Party superdelegates should pick her over Obama, it's a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African Americans -- and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry. "How silly of me. I thought the Democratic Party believed in a colorblind America." Clinton defends her comments by saying they merely state the obvious. "These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election," she said. "Everybody knows that." And she knows that her choice of words seems calculated to divide and conquer. Only there is no conquest to be had. Not for her at this point. "This nomination fight is over," says ABC's George Stephanopoulos, a former member of the Bill Clinton administration. Obama has overtaken her in superdelegates. Obama has won the most pledged delegates. He leads in the popular vote. But Clinton soldiers on. Now, apparently, Obama isn't white enough in her book. The Clintons traditionally have occupied a special place among African Americans. That's in jeopardy now, if not totally eroded already. She is hardly endearing herself to to the Democratic Party at large right now, either. What can she be hoping for? That the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will say something else? That Obama will be revealed to be as space alien? That a lost cache of uncommitted superdelegates will be uncovered in Al Capone's vault? Hillary is like a basketball team that's 20 points down with 15 seconds left but still keeps calling timeouts. Give it up, Hillary Let the clock run out. Obama has won by the rules. Let him win or lose in November on the merits of his message and his campaign. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/memo_to_hillary.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/memo_to_hillary.shtml Fri, 09 May 2008 12:47:19 -0500 I am (pleasantly) shocked and flabbergasted. The school construction bonds passed. The GTCC bonds passed. The jail bonds passed. The Eastern Guilford bonds passed. This, despite opposition from a number of quarters in the county, including the Simkins PAC, three African American school board members, and a number of other candidates and elected officials. In fact, according to unofficial results, the general school bonds even slightly outperformed bonds for the reconstruction of fire-ravaged Eastern High School. The school bonds won 54.8 percent to 45.2 percent. The Eastern bonds won 53.94 percent to 46.06 percent. Eastern was expected to pass fairly easily and the other school bonds not at all. Go figure ... later. I'm going to bed. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/voters_defy_pre.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/voters_defy_pre.shtml Wed, 07 May 2008 00:59:14 -0500 opposing Tuesday's school bonds. Or their strategy of coming forward on the eve of the election to say so. That certainly doesn't allow much opportunity for dialogue. They cite concerns over the classroom performance of black students and the lack of business for minority contractors. While I understand their concerns, I question their timing. And while I hold the school district accountable for the performance of all students, I also hold the larger communitiy even more accountable. Maybe these school board members have got a point ... maybe they haven't. It's hard to tell at the 11th hour. Right now this feels wrong, like a political sucker punch. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/bonds_take_a_hi.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/bonds_take_a_hi.shtml Mon, 05 May 2008 15:22:56 -0500 This week's column. If you haven’t used one of Greensboro’s myriad walking and jogging trails, you really ought to. One trail threads its way from North Elm Street at Moses Cone Hospital to Wesley Long Hospital … and beyond. Along the way is a shady apple tree, grassy fields where children play soccer and a meandering creek with fish in it. Past Latham Park the paved trail stretches past tennis courts and the chain-link outfield walls of two ball fields where youthful sluggers in bright uniforms swing away and parents cheer from the bleachers. You could get lucky and catch a homer. Then you pass the edge of Green Hill Cemetery, which can be a little spooky after nightfall. Further on the trail crosses Battleground Avenue and winds along the edges of the Westerwood neighborhood. On a not-too-hot Saturday afternoon you’ll see pickup basketball games on a concrete court to your right, volleyball games on open fields to your left. And more tennis courts. Even the ominous power lines strung between massive towers seem to blend into trees and bird song. Finally, the trail ends at a bench and a water fountain off Friendly Avenue. It’s long enough for a good, brisk jog and but not too long for middle-aged knees. The biggest allure of the urban setting is that it provides so much interesting stuff to see. That’s why the idea of an ambitious new downtown greenway plan sounds so captivating even as it also sounds extravagant. Twenty-six million dollars? ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/this_weeks_colu_87.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/this_weeks_colu_87.shtml Sun, 04 May 2008 03:00:00 -0500 A schoolmate of mine from UNC, Dr. Naurice Frank Woods, director, is stepping down after 13 years as director of the Afircan American Studies program at UNCG. Frank has done much to build the program he heads, as an engaging, imaginative teacher, as a scholar and as an administrator. He can speak with equal fluency about the Harlem Renaissance and the cultural significance of P-Funk, and he has consistently challenged and excited his students. It surprised me a little bit that Frank wound up being so popular and comfortable in the classroom. He was more than a little bit shy when we were in Chapel Hill. I remember him then as an art major who created extraterrestrial dioramas and Plexiglas sculptures. He'd amaze the rest of us with matter-of-fact tales of having to paint live nude models in class (we were young and silly back then). He could draw and paint with such grace and ease. He also had a black belt in Taekwondo . Most importantly, he gave us rides home to Greensboro in his little brown and yellow Toyota Celica so we could have home-cooked meals and get our laundry done. In return, I helped him make long drives to Alligator, N.C., to see his girlfriend, Sadie, who became his wife. (OK, it was not purely a selfless act; she had a sister.) At UNCG, Frank clearly loves what he does. Fortunately for the students and the university, Frank will continue to teach. I wish him only the very best. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/a_good_friend_r.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/a_good_friend_r.shtml Sat, 03 May 2008 03:00:00 -0500 compares Wright to controversial white men of faith. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/moyers_on_wrigh.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/moyers_on_wrigh.shtml Fri, 02 May 2008 19:07:49 -0500 In addition to next-day editorials, we're planning a midnight (or thereabouts) podcast Election Night on the primary results that will be posted at news-record.com. On hand tp pontificate about the headlines, national, state and local, will be Doug Clark, Mark Binker, Jeri Rowe (tentatively) and myself. We hope to be concise and cogent and -- most of all -- awake and coherent. We'll see you on the cyber-radio. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/podcast_will_po.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/podcast_will_po.shtml Fri, 02 May 2008 16:36:42 -0500 We did not endorse Skip Alston for re-election but he is due some props for an initiative he founded, Men of Dudley, which recruits males to mentor and volunteer at Dudley High School. I met with the group's leadership three weeks ago and plan to join. The MOD Squad, as they call themselves, stage activities for partcipating students and sometimes parents, provide tutoring and sponsor field trips. Some of the group's leaders say Skip took a teen who was essentially homeless into his own home and helped renite him with a brother. Good for Skip http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/skips_mod_squad.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/skips_mod_squad.shtml Fri, 02 May 2008 13:16:30 -0500 We met with a group of downtown greenway boosters, primarily from Action Greensboro, on Tuesday. They made an impassioned and reasoned case for the ambitious (and expensive) "bi-ped" path, which has been adopted as the signature project of the city's Bicentennial Commission. Among the advantages they cited: 1. The availability of "pots" of state money to help finance the $26 million initiative. 2. The health benefits in a community in which obesity is a problem. 3. The relative safety of such paths. They say there has been very little crime on Greensboro's existing paths and that greenways are in general safer than anywhere else. 4. Their belief that the paths will boost real estate values. 5. The paths can help boost development. 6. The greenway provides a safe haven for cyclists and walkers. 7. The paths' potential to connect communities. 8. Greenways' appeal to young people. They made some good points and eased some of my skepticism. I'm especially hopeful that such a path dedicated to walking, jogging and biking might help erase the invisible downtown dividing line between the traditional black and white communities. And cyclists could use a safer place than our streets, which, even with the new painted bike lanes, are not very hospitable to bicycles. There are still hazards from backing cars in driveways and at intersections. I don't know about property values. I'll have to see more data on that. And there are plenty of opportunities to walk for exercise around here already. As for the concept in general, I love it. Greensboro's greenways are some of its best assets and I use them regularly. But $26 million is a lot of money, even if much of it is raised privately. I'll study this some more and report back. http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/greenway_booste.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/05/greenway_booste.shtml Thu, 01 May 2008 08:45:59 -0500 The George C. Simkins Memorial PAC endorsements are out, and include a few notable choices. The PAC endorses none of the school bonds except Eastern Guilford. It cites in a brief comment that it opposes the bonds because of dissatisfaction with the number of school construction contracts going to minority companies. "We have never attained equity in the contracting for construction or other services by our school system," it says. The PAC also says no to every other bond on the ballot, including GTCC and the jail. I might have guessed they'd at least say yes to GTCC, given the school's critical role in job training. The rest of the endorsements: President: Barack Obama U.S. Senate (Dem): Kay Hagan Congress, Sixth District, (Dem): Teresa Sue Bratton Congress, 13th District (Dem): Brad Miller Governor: Bev Perdue Lt. Governor (Dem): Walter Dalton Auditor (Dem): Fred Aiken Insurance Commissioner (Dem): David Smith Labor commissioner (Dem): Robin Anderson Superintendent of Public Instruction (Dem) : June Atkinson Treasurer (Dem): David Young State Senate, District 28 (Dem): Katie Dorsett County commissioner, District 8 (Dem): Skip Alston State House (Rep): Laura Wiley County commissioner at-large (Rep.): Rudy Binder Court of Appeals: James Wynn, Kristin Ruth District Court judge: Angela Foster, Robbie Hassell, Betty Brown,Polly Sizemore School board, at large: Michael McKinney Local sales tax increase: No School bonds: No Jail bonds: No Parks and Recreation bonds: No GTCC bonds: No http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/04/simkins_pac_say.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/04/simkins_pac_say.shtml Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:01:31 -0500 This week's column. As homesick freshmen in Chapel Hill, my college roommate and I waged a quiet war whose ammunition was pastel envelopes lightly laced with perfume. The object was to get the most letters from home penned in delicate cursive writing by our respective female sweethearts. Once each letter arrived in the afternoon mail we’d rip open the envelopes and hang breathlessly onto every sugar-coated syllable. If the prose wasn’t romantic enough, we’d read between the lines and theorize on what she’d obviously meant to say even if she didn’t exactly say it. Then we’d carefully place each letter on the other roomies’ bed, so he could read it and weep when he returned from class. Top that, loser. Even when the fragrant pink and blue stationery faded, the memories didn’t. There is something special about a handwritten letter. Keep your harried e-mails and your hieroglyphic text messages. Give me sweet nothings in flowing blue ink. The power of handwritten prose came to mind recently with the release of a new book, “Dear First Lady,” which compiles letters over the years to first ladies, from Mary Lincoln to Lou Henry Hoover to Eleanor Roosevelt to Hillary Clinton. Consider this modest request, penned with care and precision on lined notebook paper to Mrs. Roosevelt in the winter of 1934: “I feel worthy of asking you about this. I am greatly in need of a coat. If you have one which you have laid aside from last season [I] would appreciate it so much if you would send it to me. I will pay postage if you see fit to send it. ...” It was from a widow, Clara Leonard, during the depths of the Great Depression and in the midst of an unusually cold December in Miami. The meticulous handwriting said something that mere words couldn’t — how this woman held fast to her dignity despite her desperation. Even in the digital age, some readers still choose the same route in their letters to the editor: They write them by hand. Max Roseman of High Point prints most of his missives on yellow legal sheets. Fred Cundiff of Greensboro also chose yellow legal paper for his most recent letter, onto which he wrote, in some of the prettiest penmanship I’ve seen in years, a scathing assessment of some City Council members. Bob Blakeney of High Point, on the other hand, often scribbles in tiny words on envelopes, index cards, or scraps ripped from the corners of larger sheets of paper. It’s a dying art (far fewer than 10 percent, I’d guess) but each week’s batch of reader wisdom and outrage includes at least a handful. Until recently, Eppie and Remus Turner, both 86, each wrote their letters in flowing characters that expressed appreciation or outrage with equal elegance. Now they use e-mail. Eppie Turner, a retired guidance counselor, said she finally gave in and took a six-week computer class. “I still don’t love it,” she says of e-mail and the Internet, “but I can do it.” Rarely had I seen anyone diss the FedEx hub with such class and dignity. There is something extra, something special, when a writer expresses himself or herself in hand — a small piece of who they are put to paper and sealed in an envelope. This isn’t to say every handwritten letter is so pretty or so legible. Some challenge our abilities to see and understand the words (with my handwriting, I’m one to talk). Nor is it to say that an e-mailed letter can’t convey the same power as one composed by hand. For instance, Diane Kroeger’s e-mailed letter on April 17. ... “Thank you for publishing the inspiring story ‘Austin the Amazing,’ ” she writes. “As the parent of my own amazing 7-year-old boy with Down syndrome, I appreciate the positive press. “The new recommendation that all pregnant women, not just those over 35, have a screen test for Down syndrome has also been in the news recently. Having had a prenatal diagnosis during the pregnancy with our son makes this recommendation especially significant to me. We approached prenatal testing as a way to be better prepared for any issues our baby could have . We did not see it as a ‘search and destroy mission’ if a problem was detected. We have never regretted our decision to accept our baby boy into our lives. “Yes, we were scared at first of the unknown, but we quickly realized he was just a baby who needed to be taken home and loved.” By the same token, every handwritten letter isn’t poetry, either. Probably the most memorable (in that way, at least) I ever received was scrawled in anger on crumpled notebook paper and smeared with excrement. Enclosed was a column I had written. But for every one of those we get, there are hundreds of others, penned by hand, that say interesting things in heartfelt ways. I wish I could remember the name of the man who began his letter with an apology for his letter’s appearance. Try as I might, I can’t find it in our files, but it made a lasting impression. The words quivered because his fingers had quivered while he wrote them. Please forgive him, he explained, but his hand wasn’t as steady as it used to be. But he had labored until he finished, with nearly two full pages of his thoughts. It couldn’t have been easy. Then he’d folded it, stuffed it into an envelope, stuck a stamp on it and slipped it into a mailbox. No e-mail could have told us with such honesty and clarity what those trembling sentences had to say. ]]> http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/04/the_dying_art_o.shtml http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2008/04/the_dying_art_o.shtml Sun, 27 Apr 2008 03:00:00 -0500