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You've probably seen it by now.

A braided 5-year-old who defied her teachers is handcuffed and arrested by three St. Petersburg, Fla., police officers. On videotape.

It's hard to decide what is scariest about the incident, which has been replayed over and over on national TV:

The need for police to play disciplinarian in any kindergarten.
The chaotic, destructive behavior of the little girl and her absolute disregard for the authority of her teachers.

The mother's reaction, in which she expressed understandable outrage at her daughter's handcuffing but zero acknowledgment that, for whatever reason, her child was out of control, hitting teachers and ripping posters off bulletin boards.

Or, most disturbingly, the lack of general shock in the nation that such a thing could happen in the first place.

While the incident made for juicy footage gleefully rewound by itchy fingers on TV news shows, the sad fact is, stuff like this happens. More and more.

And not just in Pinellas County, Fla.

Welcome to the Piedmont Triad, where a middle school student so thoroughly disrupted a school bus that the bus returned to the school grounds, where a campus police officer subdued her with pepper spray. The mother hired a Greensboro lawyer.

Maybe time will soften my heart, but I'm having trouble mustering much sympathy for the runaway bride from Duluth, Ga.

In a story that was grossly over-covered ("Deadly insurgent bombings continue in Iraq, but first, more on the bride-to-be whose ice-cold feet took her all the way from Georgia to New Mexico") Jennifer Wilbanks, 32, apparently had second thoughts about marrying John Mason in a wedding big enough to fill a Wal-Mart.

The latest plot twist: The jilted groom still wants to marry her. This, even after she went jogging last week and just kept on running. Wilbanks cut her hair, hopped on a bus to Vegas and then Albuquerque, led police and the FBI on a frantic, multi-state bride-hunt, concocted a story that she'd been abducted by a "Hispanic man and Causcasian woman," admitted that she'd made the tall tale up, then returned to Georgia with a towel over her head.

Her town's mayor now says she make seek to Wilbanks for the estimated $60,000 to $100,000 cost of searching for her. Wilbanks also may be proscecuted for falsely claiming she'd been kidnapped.

Now, I don't wish this couple any ill will, but I wouldn't bet on the longevity of this marriage... in Vegas or anywhere else.

As the News & Record reported Monday, two dogs attacked a 79-year-old woman outside her home Sunday, sending her to the hospital with serious injuries.

A neighbor distracted the Rottweiler and pit bull until police arrived and shot both dogs, killing one.

The woman, who had come out to pick up her newspaper, could very well have been killed.

A jogger recently lost his life when he ran into traffic to avoid an attacking dog.

The bottom line remains more irresponsible dog owners more than the animals themselves. These owners frequently ignore city leash laws, and somehow expect passersby to venture along public streets or even on the their own property, at the risk of life and limb.

Another problem: People who have encountered dangerous, unleashed dogs and have not turned in the miscreant owners.

I have been threatened at least four times by unfettered dogs while jogging. One of them was a pit bull. For what it was worth, I swung at the dog with my Walkman and cussed under my breath, but I reported no one.

In another case, I confronted the owner, reminding him of the city's leash laws after his dog had attacked me for the second time. He smiled.

The investigation of Guilford County Tax Director Jenks Crayton by the N.C Department of Revenue is nearing an end.

Crayton has been suspended with pay pending an inquiry into his management of the office that seems rooted more in personalities and partisan gamesmanship than any legitimate allegations.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong and the Democrats who seem to want Crayton gone will save face. I doubt it. This investigation is likely to find minor violations at the most.

Crayton has been treated poorly throughout this debacle, which has diverted time, resources and energy from more worthwhile pursuits into an undertaking that seems anything but beneficial to the taxpayers.

State House members in Texas say they're hip to all the shaking at athletic contests and it's got to end.

So in a 65-56 vote on Tuesday, they gave preliminary approval to a bill that would curb "sexually suggestive" routines by cheerleaders, drill teams or other public school performance groups.

The bill doesn't spell out how much behind-shaking is too much nor does it say what the punishment would be.

The issue recalls past debates in Guilford County on the styles of some high school bands and dance teams.

But we wouldn't take the discussion all the way to Raleigh? Or would we?

Incidentally, the Houston Chronicle's headline on its story: "House to cheerleaders: hooray, but no hip-hips."

A North Carolina minister allegedly has shown members who do not support President Bush the church door.

Pastor Chan Chandler of East Waynesville Baptist Church asked nine members to leave, prompting 40 more to leave in protest. The former members say Chandler challenged those who didn't support Bush to resign or repent, reports the local ABC affiliate (ironically, a station owned by the Sinclair Broadcasting chain, which has been attacked for being pro-administration).

Update: Ed Cone raises a valid question about the church's tax-exemption status and offers more links. Lex broaches the tax exemption issue, too, among more comments at The Front Pew.

The minister contends "the actions were not politically motivated" and simply involved violations of church by-laws.

If the charges are true, and this man believes being pro-God means you must be pro-Bush, we've all got a lot of praying to do.

My northwest Greensboro subdivision is a generally pristine place with well-kept lawns and considerate neighbors.

But there is a growing problem with cigarette butts that speckle the pavement every 10 feet or so.

Interestingly, I don't recall seeing one adult taking a puff in my six years there.

Only kids, sometimes in their parents' presence.

Was fortunate to have dinner last night at 223 South Elm with radio and TV talk show host Tavis Smiley.

Smiley, whose show airs on PBS and who won acclaim for a series of sit-down interviews on BET with President Bill Clinton, delivers the commencement address at Bennett College today. He had only glowing things to say about Bennett President Johnnetta Cole, whom he met while she was president of Spelman College in Atlanta.

Smiley, ever personable and engaging, said he had followed Cole's near-resignation last week. He said he doubted she was grandstanding, as some wonder. Cole merely has too much to do in too little time at Bennett to be held back by obstructionists.

As for Smiley's well-publicized break with National Public Radio, he complained that the brass at NPR tried to suck the life out of his show by making it more homogenized and less colorful. How ironic, that NPR would bring on its first and only black host concentrating largely (though hardly exclusively) on black issues and expect him to sound like all the other NPR hosts. What would be the point?

Smiley also referred us to the current issue of The Nation magazine. He's on the cover in a story on his divorce with NPR. I'm going out to get it today.

He's also back on the radio in a show syndicated by Public Radio International. Maya Angelou was a guest on his first broadcast of the new show, which could return to the airwaves around here, too.

Sure hope so. No offense to Ed Gordon, whose show replaced Smiley's on the Triad's NPR station, WFDD, but Gordon's version is bland and terminally vanilla. I just can't get into it.

I miss the verve and personality of Smiley's program.

A cartoon in the current New Yorker magazine recalls the April 19 Greensboro City Council meeting.

"No one is making you do anything you don’t want," a compassionate cowboy tells a glaring cow. "I'm just saying we're all headed for Dodge City and we think you should come along."

Mayor Keith Holliday played the role of that sensitive, New Age cowpoke on April 19, and try as he might, he could not round up a 9-0 vote. The rest, as they say, is history.

Instead of a largely empty, symbolic resolution that said the killings of five people in Greensboro on Nov. 3, 1979, were a really bad thing, the council stumbled and fumbled its way to a 6-3 vote that approved a motion opposing the Truth and Reconciliation effort altogether.

The point here is not to rehash the Truth and Reconciliation discussion, but that the mayor, a good man who generally tries to do the right thing, was so incredibly fixated on generating a unanimous vote for a resolution that didn’t say much of anything.

Fast forward to April 21, where the Guilford County commissioners, still hopelessly stuck in Bizarro World, could not agree to approve their consent agenda.

Consent agendas are supposed to be a formality, but so much bad blood continually boils among the commissioners that nothing seems to come easily these days.

Some people have gotten so used to this governance by spite that they just throw up their hands until the next wacky episode. Then they throw up their hands again.

Others wish the commissioners could be more like the City Council. But when it comes to managing conflict, neither is the ideal.

The City Council tries so hard at times to be agreeable that it can sink into the soothing but dangerous fog of group-think. The quest for a united appearance, as they tried to muster with the Truth and Reconciliation vote, can cloud principle and judgment.

This council can be so unwilling to tangle or ask hard questions that it will flee from a fight faster than that woman in Georgia from her wedding.

The long, winding thread that opened and closed with Chuck Forrester's fierce rebuttal to Truth and Reconciliation took some interesting turns along the way.

Clearly the most vexing and challenging topic was the issue of anonymous commenters. But it wasn't the only one.

So, now, it seems, might be a good time to establish some house rules. (This is my place. I'm entitled.)

1. Y'all come. All are welcome to weigh in, whatever your point of view. Just keep it civil.

2. Listen.Don't just come to have your say but pay attention to others' views. Feel free to discuss as long as you have the interest and the energy.

3. Don't get personal. Spirited debate is welcome here. Personal attacks and petty sniping are not.

4. Stay on point. Stick to the general topic of conversation. Yes, comment threads can begin at point A and wind up at point Z, but there ought to be some logic and continuity to the flow.

5. Tell us who you are. From here on, you must enter a name and e-mail address to post a comment on News & Record blogs. That obviously won't prevent you from shielding your identity but it may help foster credibility among the voices represented here. Being a traditionalist in this area, I prefer real names but I will accept handles and pen names, especially from repeat customers. Smart alecks who parachute in under fantastical names be warned. We won't play with you. Go to some middle schooler's blog where you'll be more at home.

6. Leave references. Hook us up to other interesting places to go, whether they are Web sites or other blogs.

7. No cussin. No spittin'. And no hackin'.

8. Get your facts right. No urban legends or hearsay, please.

9. Keep fake notes with fake handles to yourself. It's one thing to post an anonynmous comment under a pen name. It's quite another to post a fake anonymous comment under a fake or pilfered pen name.

10. No name-calling and mud-slinging. This is a civil place. It's OK to get riled. It's OK to get spirited. It is not OK to get mean or nasty. We are by definition a community here and in other blogs. You can shout if you want. We won't listen.

Had the pleasure tonight to attend the 2005 Police and Citizens Appreciation Dinner sponsored by the Greensboro Merchants Association. Seeing so many rewarded for their good deeds, commitment and heroism was affirming and inspiring.

Among the compelling stories we heard Thursday evening:
-- an officer who calmly radioed a detailed description of a fugitive even as a bullet had lodged itself in his neck and was working its into his back.
-- an SRO officer whose stellar performance as a mentor and campus peacekeeper is surpassed only by his list of community involvement.
-- a citizen who pursued a fleeing suspect at personal risk to himself.

And many others that made me proud to live here.

I had hoped in my column last week that the county commissioners would at least resolve the Jenks Crayton debacle more constructively than they began it. Oh well ....

To some people, editorial writers are journalistic equivalents of The Mighty Oz, pontificating in huffy tones from a backroom compartment behind a comfy cloak of anonymity.

We preach the gospel of accountability. We challenge people's political manhood and womanhood. We call for courage and leadership.

Then we don't sign our names.

What's up with that?

"It's about time for editorial writers to identify themselves," City Councilman Tom Phillips posted in a comment Monday.

"You all can't possibly agree on everything printed and I would like to know who's behind some of the editorials printed. If we have to identify ourselves your people should too."

Tom's got a point. If he's willing to put his name behind his views in his votes, public comments, e-mail conversations with the public and even his own blog, why shouldn't we?

He's also right that the four (one day a week, five) people who write the newspaper's editorials don't always agree. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's how we determine which topics we tackle day to day and which stances we'll take on those issues:

My home computer has turned against me.

For reasons I can't figure out, it has decided to shut down when it wants to, not when I want it to.

Right now it wants to shut down after a minute or so, forcing me to type and save furiously in hopes of beating the clock.

Making matters worse, it sometimes refuses to sign back on.

So I've loaded my IBM Netvista into the trunk of my car and am taking it to the comouter hospital after work.

Who knows if and when it will be coming home.

In the meantime, I am helpless, unable to shop, pay bills, send emails, rent movies on Netflix, check the latest news on my beloved Green Bay Packers or tend my blog from the comfort of my home office.

I have become so dependent on my PC that not having it feels like suffering with a broken-down car or losing cable reception during hoops season.

Only a couple of weeks removed from her on-and-off resignation, President Johnnetta Cole will address "The State of Bennett College for Women" at a news conference Wednesday morning.

Later she will meet with the News & Record's editorial board for an hour and a half. Excerpts from the discussion will run in the May 29 Ideas section.

If there are questions you'd like us to ask, please let me know and we'll try to work them in.

It's not too late for the Democrats who subjected county tax director Jenks Crayton to a state Department of Revenue investigation that revealed nothing to save face.

All they have to do is admit that the allegations are unfounded and that a highly credible, impartial third party has confirmed that.

But don't bet on it. Some of them, principally Skip Alston and Bruce Davis, seem intent on finding something, anything, to hang around Crayton's neck.

Maybe he kicks his dog. Maybe he doesn't floss after every meal.

This is becoming more and more clearly a personal vendetta that has plumbed new depths for a crew that we thought couldn't sink much lower.

This is where courage, leadership and independence on the part of other Democratic commissioners could make a difference. Carolyn Coleman and Paul Gibson, in particular, could do the right thing and vote against any continuing attempts to keep this destructive distraction alive.

Both seem capable of bucking the bluster of Alston. But will they?

This e-mail from a reader in response to Sunday's editorial on mass transit:

Everyone who objectively looks at mass transit understands that they are hugely expensive and require subsidies indefinitely. There is no way that one can justify mass transit on a cost-benefit analysis (just look at the Greensboro busing system, which requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies annually).

The reasons for this phenomena are several fold. First, Americans are independent and hesitant to give up their personal vehicles in favor of mass transit even if it means that they have to spend more time in traffic. Secondly, outside of mega cities like New York there simply is not the population density to support a mass transit system. Even in the crowded Northeast corridor between Washington, D.C. and New York and Boston, Amtrak cannot break even and requires huge annual subsidies from the federal government to function.

Mass transit is like a cool new toy for local officials. They seem to believe that it is the next logical step in foolishly spending taxpayer dollars on boondogle projects.

The attitude seems to be "Goodness, if our neighbor Charlotte has this neat new thing, shouldn't we also?" to show that we are progressing along the normal path of ominipotent government.

Nate DeGraff's poll of county commissioners reveals sentiment to reinstate Tax Director Jenks Crayton, who is still suspended with pay.

And well they should. A state Department of Revenue investigation cleared Crayton of any wrongdoing.

Fueled by their obvious personal dislike for Crayton, Skip Alston and Bruce Davis may continue to press the issue. But the other commissioners, Democrats and Republicans alike, ought to press back. Hard.

I had expressed hope yesterday that Carolyn Coleman and other Democrats would defy Alston and Davis and vote to end Crayton's suspension.

That may happen at tonight's meeting.

"I will vote to put him back to work," Coleman said of Crayton Wednesday.

"I'm planning on voting to reinstate him, based on what I know right now," Kirk Perkins told Nate as well.

Paul Gibson and Kay Cashion voiced similar sentiment. Good for all of them. And good for Guilford County. (But I'll curb my enthusiasm until the vote actually is taken; these commissioners are an unpredictable lot.)

One other note on this issue: Some letter writers have raised the question of race: If the roles had been reversed -- had Crayton been a black man and had a pair of white commissioners led efforts to suspend him, how would that have been viewed?

Alston would have called them racists, they contend. And, frankly, I find it hard not to agree.

Some recent questions from our readers:

I know the N&R's goal is to move toward local news and issues. But don't you think coverage of this Jenks Crayton thing is a bit of overkill? I mean, almost all the letters published are saying the same thing about the same issue. Please, enough already. It's as old as the election blurbs after hearing them fifty times.

That's a fair question. We ran the letters as a reflection not only the sentiment of the respective writers but as a gauge of the intensity of the public reaction to the issue. One letter might have summed up all those feelings just fine, but not the ground swell of discontent with some commissioners regarding their behavior during this episode. We do, however, cut off letters on a single issue when we believe the discussion has run its course.

Why is there censorship of the letters forum? While I think listing those words was in bad taste, I am an adult and if something is offensive to me, I can certainly scroll past it. I found Michael's arrogant, patronizing and condescending attitude far more offensive than Bigmouth's words. At least Bigmouth did not direct his vulgarity at an individual.

If you're confused by this one, let me provide some context: This question regards a comment thread on the letters to the editor blog in which we deleted a comment that contained objectionable language. That prompted another commenter to post a long list of objectionable words, a la George Carlin. We deleted that one, too, simply because we will not run profanity in the newspaper or on our Web site.

Those words (which included the s-word, the f-word and the n-word) may not offend some adults but they would others. And while adults comprise our largest readership segment, younger people do read the paper, especially online.

We would expect commenters who often criticize the civility of our elected officials to please be civil themselves. You can express yourselves fully and freely without resorting to gutter language or meanness.

How come you decided to publish what seemed to be "pro-Jenks" letters in today's newspaper (after the commish meeting) and not before? Seriously -- this is curiosity about the editorial process. It's not an indictment or complaint and I'm not asking for anyone but myself. No one's "asked me to ask you."

We try to publish letters in as timely a fashion as possible but most of the Crayton letters arrived this week. Add to that the time it takes to contact people to verify their letters, and we got them in as soon as we could.

Ideally, they would have run sooner. We even mark letters for "fast-track" consideration when they are time-sensitive. But in this case we got them in as soon as we humanly could. We do still believe they served a purpose by reflecting public sentiment.

Thanks for the good questions and please keep them coming.

Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute offers a roundup of commentary that questions whether the skewering of Newsweek over its Koran story retraction misses other important issues.

Among those he quotes is Brian Montopoli of the Columbia Journalism Review online. "It needs to be said: The media's performance in the wake of Newsweek's blunder has been, from a journalistic standpoint, more disheartening than the original sin," Montopoli wrote.

"Newsweek made a serious error in relying on a single source for its story, and its subsequent report may (or may not) have spurred fatal riots. The magazine subsequently apologized, then retracted the part of the story in question and vowed not to make the error again. In contrast, most of the rest of the media, in reporting the story, has continued to stumble all over itself, making the same mistakes over and over again. And unlike Newsweek, none of them are showing any signs of remorse."

Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, in The New York Times: "This is hardly the first time that the administration has sought to portray the American media as inadequately patriotic.

"They are addressing the mistake, and not the essence of the story. The essence of the story is that the United States has been rather indelicate, to put it mildly, in the way that they have treated prisoners of war."

Ok. I'll come clean.

I cared enough about the new "Star Wars" movie that I went on the first day, taking a long lunch with a colleague (whose identitiy I am withholding for her own protection)on Thursday to slip into the 11:15 a.m. matinee.

I have been entranced by George Lucas's space operas since seeing the first "Star Wars" in Chapel Hill in 1977. I own the original trilogy on laser disc and DVD. I've even read books about Lucas and the "Star Wars" universe.

My favorite film is "The Empire Strikes Back." My least favorite is "Episode I," a slow, vapid concoction that marks time for the next two installments. And which unleashes the infamous He Who Shall Not Be Named upon the galaxy (Jar Jar Binks).

I am doubly happy, then, to report that the new and final film: "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," is a vast improvement over the previous two prequels.

There's still leaden dialogue (for some reason Lucas has almost totally lost his gift to write gab over the years). Lucas seems especially ill at ease when his men have to talk to his women. Consider this groaner between lovers Padme and Anakin:

He: "You're so beautiful."
She: "That's only because I'm so in love."
He: "No, it's because I'm so in love with you."

The action sequences are more technically polished but not nearly as exhilarating as those in the original films. They just seem long now.

That said, the third act is a killer. The movie takes a sudden, darker turn and you actually begin to care about the characters. The birth of Darth Vader is compelling stuff, even for casual fans. I'll see the film again for that part alone.

The May 23 issue of The Nation wonders whether National Public Radio is really interested in a more racially diverse listenership.

The host of NPR's first show aimed at African Americans, Tavis Smiley, on his less-than-cordial departure from the radio network: "It is ironic that a Republican president has an administration that is more inclusive and more diverse than a so-called liberal-media-elite network."

Smiley added, in a quote from Salon: "I think that the notion that is so often promulgated by our friends on the right, that NPR is the liberal media elite establishment, is wrong. It's wrong for a few reasons. Number one, I believe that NPR makes an effort in its programming to truly be fair and balanced. Number two, it's wrong because it took them 33 years to find me. That is to say, in 33 years this network had never had a program hosted by a person of color that was specifically designed to help expand the audience and the reach of the network. But it's wrong, thirdly, because if the network were as committed to the notion of inclusion as I would like for them to be, then I would have re-upped with NPR. I decided not to re-sign because I just could not secure the kind of commitment that I felt we needed to continue to grow the program."

The average NPR listener is 50 years old. And white.

I listen, but most of my favorite shows on WFDD and WUNC -- "This American Life" and "Marketplace" -- aren't provided by NPR.

They are syndicated through Public Radio International, which also now syndicates a new "Tavis Smiley Show."

Why did I notice? Why should I care?

While I was attending Mother’s Day services at a local, historically black Baptist church, something unusual seemed to be happening one pew ahead.

As toes tapped, hands clapped and the church said Amen, a pair of young women occasionally would embrace and even hold hands.

At first, I surmised that this must be a mother and daughter. But in time it became clear that both women were nearly the same age.

At one point one woman gently laid her head on the shoulder of the other. I clutched my hymnal a little tighter. What was going on here?
I mentioned it to my sweetheart as we were later headed home. She had noticed it, too. But she didn’t appear nearly as discombobulated by it as me.

"Maybe somebody should take them aside," she said, "and explain that you don’t do that in church."

"Yeah," I said. "There's a time and a place."

Then again, I wondered later, would my attitude have been the same had that been a man and a woman in that pew? Would their simple gestures of affection have seemed so jarring and off-putting? And would I have been distracted to the point that I missed some preaching that I probably really needed?

What better place than here?

Ed Cone provides an early peek at the Converge Conference -- a Web/diversity/convergence shindig coming this fall to Greensboro.

It should till some new ground and attract some new and familiar faces.

Y'all come.

Time flies when you're having fun.

Rosemary Roberts officially will retire from the News & Record as of May 31 to work on a book and continue her world travels (next up: a couple weeks with family in China). Rosemary has made her imprint on the newspaper and the community over the years as a reporter, editorial writer and a columnist since 1974.

She has enjoyed an avid following as an op-ed columnist, including those who love her and those who love to disagree with her. In recent years she has been a valuable help as a part-time editorial writer in addition to her contributions as a columnist. She is unabashed and unapologetic about her views. What you read is what you get.

Yet she has never let ego get in the way of having a good time with her craft. She takes her work more seriously than she takes herself.

We will miss her ideas, her sense of humor, her warm spirit and her energy around the office. But we'll still be able to read her columns. She'll remain a weekly fixture on the Friday op-ed pages.

As co-worker and a friend she truly cares about those around her. She is one of the most genuinely decent and good-hearted people I've known in this business. The newspaper to her is family. And she is family to us.

We wish her only the very best.

A few of you have applauded the News & Record's decision to cancel its subscription to The New York Times News Service, effective in June. Very few.

Judging from letters to the editor and e-mails, the prevailing sentiment thus far has reflected what longtime subscriber Stanley Shavitz fired off in a Saturday letter:

"As a loyal reader of the News & Record for 46 years, I was shocked to read in John Robinson's column that the News & Record is dropping The New York Times News Service. That means we'll no longer get Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert and Thomas Friedman.

"One would think that in a multimillion-dollar-a-year operation such as the News & Record, management could have found $34,000 in savings elsewhere. Please reconsider."

Added Kenneth Caneva and Jane Sugarman: "The News & Record should be ashamed of such an ill-conceived and scarcely justifiable decision. The paper will be notably worse for it."

Wrote yet another reader in a frantic e-mail: "Ouch! I can't stand it. Drop Thomas Friedman????? Might was well drop the op-ed page!!"

I won't attempt to paint any lipstick on this proverbial pig. This development is not good news for the commentary pages.

A pair of anonymous Bennett College faculty members respond to today's Q&A in the Ideas section with President Johnnetta Cole:

One commenter writes in part: "As a faculty member at Bennett College for Women, it is an atmosphere of intimidation. The faculty were referred to as 'demons' in the chapel, a list of the 'splinter faculty' were given to students (by whom??) and read aloud at a student meeting.

Writes another: "Has anyone considered that perhaps these faculty had legitimate concerns???"

Well, yes. But when we attempted to interview faculty about those concerns, no one would come forward.

And when we tried to solicit questions for the Cole interview from readers ahead of time, no one responded.

A bill that would restrict the use of hand-held cell phones by motorists has fallen prey to static in the state House.

A house House judiciary committee failed to give the measure a favorable report Tuesday, meaning it could be placed on hold until who knows when.

The measure would allow earpieces or other hands-free phones and devices. It wouldn't apply to emergency calls.

No one disputes that other behaviors can distract drivers. But cell phone use has gotten more ubiquitous and hazardous as phones become more and more laden with features, many of them visual.

People have died because of reckless phone use. That seems not to faze some legislators.