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Here's a news release from the Public Library about next week's panel:

Cartoons, Religious Tolerance & Free Speech -- A Community Dialogue

Freelance cartoonist Karen Favreau will discuss the challenges facing cartoonists as they try to make sense of the world around them. Favreau is a librarian, author, and former exchange student to Denmark. She will be joined by a member of the Islamic Center of Greensboro, who will give the Islamic perspective on why the recent cartoons were so offensive.

In addition, News and Record editorial page editor Allen Johnson, Rhinoceros Times publisher William Hammer, and Carolina Peacemaker editor Afrique Kilimanjaro will discuss how and why editorial cartoons are chosen for publication.

This event will be held at Central Library on Tuesday, March 7, at 7:00 pm. For more information contact Beth Sheffield at 373-3617 or visit www.greensborolibrary.org

Got my tickets to the ACC Women's Tournament final Sunday at the Greensboro Coliseum.

I'm hoping, of course, that the two conference heavyweights, Carolina and Duke, make it, as expected, to the championship game.

It would be the third game between the two, and, counting the men's faceoff on Saturday night, the second Carolina-Duke game in less than 24 hours.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, would be a very good thing.

The Charlotte Observer reports that NASCAR has selected the Queen City as the home of its new racin’ museum. But hold it; NASCAR officials won’t confirm the story, and they say the choice hasn’t been made yet.

Meanwhile, rival Atlanta ups the ante, increasing the public contribution to its package from $30 million to $102 million. And the third remaining rival, Daytona Beach, Fla., keeps hearing encouraging words from NASCAR Chairman Brian France. Not that anyone should be surprised by any of this.

Racin’ is, after all, about going in circles.

Fewer Southerners appear to be buying what the president is selling these days, suggests a new Elon University poll.

According to the survey of 1,277 residents in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, support for President Bush stands at 43 percent in those states.

Further, 52 percent of the respondents "disapproved" or "strongly disapproved" of the president's job performance.

The poll's director, Hunter Bacot, said the results may indicate eroding support for the president in traditionally Republican states.

"Clearly, we see that when it comes to Bush, traditionally 'red' states do not hold the strong support they did in the last presidential election," Bacot said.

If I'm a Republican running for re-election, I'm getting pretty nervous right now.

It's no surprise, actually, that so few challengers have stepped forward to run for Guilford County Board of Education.

Of all the elected jobs around here, it has to be the most grueling and thankless.

Whichever way you turn, you can't win. Do the wrong thing and you are villified. Do the right thing and you are villified.

I don't always agree with this board but my respect for the work it does -- and the abuse it takes -- is unqualified.

Ans for all those parents who claim the board is the spawn of the Devil, it's a lot easier to criticize than be part of the solution, huh?

Some people have dismissed the Mayor's Mosaic Partnerships as a shallow exercise in feel-goodism, and I don't doubt that they're right in some cases.

At least a few people who enrolled in the program, modeled after an initiative in Rochester, N.Y., probably did so because it looked impressive on their resumes. Others began the program and never finished it. And still others invested minimal time and effort in Mosaic, which matches people from different cultures, races and backgrounds in an attempt to build better community understanding.
But my Mosaic experience has been rich and rewarding. And I suspect that's the case with many.

In fact, my "cluster," which consisted of periodic meetings of small groups of Mosaic partners, just kept right on meeting after the program officially ended for our class in November.

The dialogues had become so meaningful and the comfort level so high, we simply didn't want to stop. The plan, as it stands now, is to meet for brunch or early dinner once a month, until, well, whenever.
We are a diverse group from different races, religions and walks of life: a Montagnard minister who immigrated here from the jungles of Vietnam, a Jewish lawyer, a small-business owner, a female corporate executive, a former postmaster, a member of the state legislature.
In our most recent brunch meeting, on Feb. 18, we tackled cartoon depictions of Muhammad and the ongoing controversy surrounding the Greensboro Police Department, among other things.

As a light snow dusted the grass outside, we ate brunch and chewed on one difficult topic after another.

We didn't agree on many points. And that was perfectly OK. We listened. And we learned from one another.

Several months ago, this wasn't so easy. But it makes sense. We know each other better as people. We trust one another. We're not threatened anymore by disagreement, even vigorous disagreement.

We've even tiptoed into territory many of us had long avoided and raised issues that we'd long wondered about but were afraid to ask. Incredibly, there was no fighting or cussing. No sudden rips in the fabric of the universe. We just kept on talking. And listening.
Individual relationships also have grown.

My partner for the past year, a private investigator, former police officer and Vietnam veteran named Ed Cobbler, is a gregarious guy who has never been shy about expressing his views. This became abundantly clear when Ed, a former Greensboro police officer, and I debated over a lunch the need for the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Here's an instance when the right to free speech needs reasonable limits.

The Minnesota legislature is considering limiting protests within 300 feet of funerals and burial grounds.

The reason: a Topeka, Kan.-backed group you may have heard of, that demonstrates at military funerals on the brokeback premise that U.S. soldiers are dying as a punishment from God for this nation's tolerance of gays.

Wisconsin and South Dakota have already passed legislation limiting such protests. Ten other states are considering them.

But some First Amendment scholars say some of the laws are too broad and may violate the Constitution.

However, buffer zones seem to strike a reasonable blanace between preserving the protesters' right to free speech (as tasteless as their views may be) and allowing families the room to grieve in relative peace.

We've selected most members of the News & Record's Community Columnist Board.

The object of the panel is to bring a host of fresh voices and a greater variety of perspectives to the Second Opinion page. We especially wanted a broader range of ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds and political philosophy to the section.

We'll reveal their names and share their views with you in mid-April.

If a hectic meeting schedule permits today, I'll be attending a lunchtime preview screening of the new series, "Black and White," in which a pair of families, one black and one white, trade races via makeup and wigs.

This could be hokey and heavy-headed ... or extremely insightful ... in a day and age when people disagree over how much race still matters -- if it does at all.

I'll report back later today, between meetings.

Actually, I got it wrong in my earlier post. The title of the new FX reality show is "Black. White." No "and" or ampersand, just the dot.

I saw a preview tape yesterday afternoon and was impressed with the premise: through mega-makeup and hairpieces, a white family poses as black and a black family poses as white. Then they compare notes.
(In another twist, the families also are required to share a house.)

Filmmaker R.J. Cutler ("30 Days," "The War Room") and actor/hip-hop star Ice Cube collaborate as the show's producers.

Among the highlights of the first episode of the six-part series:

The white dad seems to have a special fascination with the N-word and seems intent on saying it as much as he can, now that he's passing for black.

The white and black husbands launch a sometimes-heated, ongoing debate on whether black people see racism where none exists because they expect to see it.

The black son insists that race is not an issue among young people. They don't care, he says, looking a lot like Michael Jackson in this makeup. Somehow I suspect he'll change his tune later.

From first impressions, the women seem most open to learning something from the experience, and most honest about their feelings.

Frankly, though, I'm not sure the makeup is all that convincing. The black people still look black to me -- like black people with light complexions, which aren't all that uncommon.

I must admit, however, that the white teenage daughter, Rose, could fool anyone with her makeup. She genuinely looks like the real deal. Until she recites an original piece at an all-black "poetry slam."

It's hard to tell what to make of this show from one episode, but it holds promise, not only in the masquerade that forms its premise, but the dynamic betweeen the two families.

The News & Observer's (registration required)Dennis Rogers notes that some have reacted with more sympathy than anger at the UNC-Chapel Hill graduate who plowed an SUV into a group of students last week with an intent to kill.

Rogers isn't one of them.

C'mon, Allen. Where are you? Comment thread getting too hot to handle?

I get this a lot.

It usually occurs when someone challenges me in a thread ... and I'm nowhere to be found.

It's not for lack of interest. Honest.

I don't mean to leave you hanging.

But (how to put this delicately?) I have a life. And a job. And part of both involves blogging, something I value and enjoy and learn from nearly every day.

But, frankly, I have other obligations. Part of the beauty of blogs is that they're open for business 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Still, none of us can be there all the time. At least I can't. At home I need to shave and walk the dog and pull weeds. At work I still interact with readers in other, more old-fashioned ways such as phone calls, e-mails, letters and even in-person meetings.

Pssst. I also have to do research and interview sources and write stuff for the newspaper.

Which is to say that it sometimes may take a while for me to get back to you on some of your points and counterpoints. But please bear with me. As Gov. Schwarzenegger might say, I'll be back.

And now for a brief side trip into one of my guilty pleasures as a sci-fi geek:

The series "Battlestar Galactica" (the new one, not the silly original) is one the best, most involving shows on TV.

Among the themes and subplots in the just-completed latest season:
abortion, terrorism, election fraud, religion and genocide, sometimes in the same episode.

The show is gritty and intense, with enough twists and turns to make you dizzy. The acting and writing are first-rate.

Plus there's not one syllable of the tedious technobabble that could make "Star Trek" so insufferable at times.

While the show's tone is almost relentlessly dark, it doesn't take itself too seriously. For instance, when one of the bad guys, a humanoid machine called a Cylon, turns up in Friday's season finale, he says with an impish smirk, "Take me to your leader."

A caller questioned recently why the News & Record keeps fomenting racial discord by rehashing old news and reopening old wounds.
Her latest case in point: the story that Grimsley High School plans to apologize to, and honor, the school's first black student, who enrolled in what was then Greensboro Senior High School in 1957.

Added a letter writer: "You seem to delight in race-baiting and stirring up trouble between the races. Why? Why are you bringing up things that happened 40 years ago?"

Yet we only reported this news; we didn't make it. The city and the high school chose to honor the woman now known as Josephine Boyd Bradley, an African American studies professor at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia.

The idea to recognize her came from a student and her mother and promptly was embraced by the school's administration and city leaders.
Further, the caller noted that those people who turned a cold shoulder toward Bradley — or who offered warm words of encouragement —aren't here anymore.

Uh, actually, that's not true.

At least some of them are, including Judith Abraham, a member of the Class of 1958 who plans to be there when Bradley is honored on March 30 and 31. "I've had a vision of all the people — all of us who were good to her and treated her as a contemporary, a human being, and all of us who were nasty and now feel badly — would stand up and applaud when she speaks," Abraham said. "The thought of that brings a tear to my eye."

As Abraham saw it, it was hard enough being a teenager without the added burden of being so different. And so alone. "What guts, what nerve, what spirit."

Abraham also said she could identify with some of the hurt and isolation Bradley may have felt at the time.

Abraham's father owned a small store on East Market Street that primarily served African American customers. She recalled being taunted by white boys as a "nigger-loving Jew."

Peggy Sink Fitzpatrick is another member of the Class of ‘58 who was touched by Bradley's presence.

Despite the relatively tame fare that's playing in the movies now (for the half-dozen of us who still bother to go) there's no lack of provocative films coming soon to a theater near you.

For instance, the comic book adaptation "V for Vendetta" features a masked terrorist as its protagonist.

The film, set in a Britain overtaken by an oppressive government, is produced by the Wachowski Brothers of "The Matrix" fame.

Then there's "The Da Vinci Code," starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard, which already has upset the Catholic Church with its Jesus-married-Mary-Magdalene backstory (as if that's not enough, author Dan Brown has been taken to court for allegedly stealing his ideas from another book).

But the faux documentary "Confederate States of America" may be more provocative than both.

The critically acclaimed film speculates what would might have happened if the South had won the Civil War.

Presented much in the manner of a Ken Burns production, here's the film's premise:

British and French forces help the Confederacy defeat the North at Gettysburg and turn the tide of the war.

President Lincoln attempts to flee across the border to Canada but is captured in blackface.

President Jefferson Davis spreads slavery to the North by offering a tax rebate to slaveholders as an incentive.

During World War II, the CSA chooses not to go to war with the Third Reich but takes out Japan on Dec. 7, 1941, with a pre-emptive attack.

Not long after his election, John F. Kennedy is assassinated soon after being elected, because he appears intent on emancipating the slaves and giving women the the vote.

And, well, you get the idea.

Wonder what kind of reception "CSA" will get when it arrives in Greensboro. If it gets here at all.

Here's a hopeful development for constructive debate about homosexuality:

The Christian Educators Association International and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network have developed a set of guidelines to help schools deal with issues surrounding homosexuality Those guidelines suggest the formation of task forces that represent multiple views and urges ways to discuss the issue in a civil manner.

According to a report by News & Record alum Ben Feller, those guidelines include:

Create a "common ground" task force, with representatives with a wide range of community views, to advise school officials on issues such as safety in school, student expression and curricula.

1.Agree on protecting everyone's First Amendment rights and reach a shared understanding of current law.

2.Avoid "us vs. them" political arguments, and permit all sides in the debate to be heard.

3. Provide educational opportunities for administrators, teachers, parents and students about basic First Amendment principles of rights, responsibilities and respect.

For reasons unknown and likely unrelated, an unusual number of North Carolina drivers recently have been going the wrong way on one-way streets.

In the Charlotte area, for instance, three fatalities occurred late last year involving drivers headed against the grain of traffic on busy freeways in the span of only half a month.

Authorities blame alcohol in a number of the cases, which have resulted in accidents and even fatalities. Some have occurred in the absolute worst possible place to drive upstream in the downstream lane: a highway.

From my office window overlooking East Market Street, I have seen a number of confused motorists, probably out-of-towners, headed from the left on a stretch of East Market that only flows to the right.

Fortunately, no one has been hurt. Typically, other motorists frantically honk their horns and the flustered driver pulls over. In one case, the driver, a college-age young woman, panicked and crashed into the curb, damaging her car.

But at least she was OK.

This is not to say I haven't regularly seen bad accidents on East Market. But they've usually involved the intersection of East Market and Church Street. Ironically, they've also all involved people heading in the right direction.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I am not without sin here myself.

A couple of years ago, I overshot a lane turning off Banking Street onto Lawndale and wound up on a one-way street.

I didn't realize it until I faced a gantlet of headlights all pointed toward me.

Thankfully, everyone was calm and good-natured and allowed me the time and space to right myself.

Another time, several years ago, I did the same thing on Cherry-Marshall Street in Winston-Salem.

That time a police officer stopped me but, thankfully, did not issue me a citation. He was an off-duty detective, and upon seeing that I was sober and contrite, let me off with a warning.

Let's all be careful out there, folks.

We're jammin'
-- Bob Marley

At long last, the technology now exists to jam cell phones in certain environments such as movie theaters and restaurants.

In fact, it already is used in Europe as an effective counter attack against mannerless wireless users.

Yet, some people apparently are upset that anyone would dare trample their rights to receive important emergency calls.

Tough.

No one would even be considering such measures if cell phone addicts would follow such simple etiquette as switching on the vibrate function.

Small wonder the new bestseller from horror meister Stephen King involves killer cell phones.

As movie attendance dwindles, reports The Washington Post, theatre owners in the United States are considering some sort of jamming technology to address one of moviegoers' major pet peeves: moviegoers with phones.

Only one minor complication: It's against the law.

Even as more details about a consultant's report have been published, the question remains: If former Greensboro police Chief David Wray committed even only a fraction of the alleged improprieties noted in the report, how could this make sense?

How could this be the same man who spent most of his career on the Greensboro police force -- the same one who some black people, white people and Muslims have rushed to defend?

One explanation is that he is completely innocent. But that seems unlikely, given the volume of evidence and allegations from so many different sources.

Another possibility is that he isn't racist -- that his motivations have more to do with not liking the policies or priorities of the previous chief, Robert White, and doing all he could to erase White's legacy -- including the design of police cars, the status of some of White's most trusted and favored lieutenants and work schedules used during White's tenure.

White and Wray were not all that close.

Still another is more philosophical. How well do we know anyone?
I still consider my impressions of people with whom I have contact on a regular basis -- people who seem personable and sharp-witted.

People I like talking to.

But I don't work for them. I don't see them several hours a day. From the outside lookig inm they would seem to be terrific bosses. But how would I really know? I don't know their management styles. I don't know how effective they are as leaders. I don't know how they react under pressure.

At the very least it appears Wray was a lousy manager who did a poor job of inspiring trust among his officers and his bosses.

At the very least.

Saw "V for Vendetta" at the Carousel today.

Well-acted, well-written and good-looking, this film bursts at the seams with sensitive issues and provocative ideas.

For one thing, its terrorist hero delights in blowing up buildings.

For another, its fascist British government has cast out and/or imprisoned gays and immigrants, including Muslims.

For still another, the government has used fear of terrorism to justify more surveillance and fewer civil liberties.

Finally, the climactic terrorist attack features a London subway train laden with explosives.

And still somehow it's engaging and entertaining. But you leave the theater with a distinct sense of unease at what you just saw -- and lots to think about.

Dudley High School's boys basketball team won another state championship last week in Chapel Hill.

The victory over Concord came only scant days after Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning included Dudley on a list of high schools across the state that are under-performing on end-of-course tests.

Manning has said those schools, which also include Dudley's crosstown rival, Smith, need to improve those scores ASAP — or be shut down. The news was especially stunning at Dudley, whose history, tradition and ties to the community are beyond special.

There are people who took not one single class at Dudley who feel a strong allegiance to the school and a visceral connection to it.
Manning has not clarified exactly what he means by his decree. But local school officials don't expect that the judge's threatened nuclear option actually means closing doors and padlocking buildings. It probably means drastic overhauls instead.

This is, of course, especially disconcerting to old-school Dudley graduates like me. Dudley's pride over the years has been rooted much more in academics than football, basketball and a very good marching band. It always had those things, but sports in the old days were just fringe benefits at a school whose academics were first-class, even when its facilities weren't.

Some of you have said I haven't called for diversity at Dudley High School.

I said I had.

Some of you said, "Prove it."

So, as promised, here is the first in a series of blog reprints of previous columns on the resegregation of Dudley, and other Guilford County schools:

From a column I wrote on Sunday, May 23, 1999:

A child of desegregation reflects on diversity vs. neighborhood schools

It's funny how the years can soften our memories and dull the sharp edges of our experiences.

Things were always better back in the day. We worked harder, studied longer and got out of school for snow only when there were blizzards. We ran faster and jumped higher.

We also wore ugly shirts with wide collars, really big hair, plaid, bell-bottomed, polyester trousers -- and platform heels. But our memories tend to push that kind of stuff into closets and to resurrect idyllic visions of a neat, alternate reality.

Consider the good old days of segregation in public schools. In 1971, I was a rising junior at all-black Dudley High School. A "freedom of choice" plan had not sufficiently integrated the public schools. So the courts forced the then-Greensboro City Schools to create attendance zones.

I viewed the impending changes mostly with trepidation. My friends attended Dudley and our teachers were first-rate. A beloved English teacher named Angeline Smith called us her "pearls" and treated each of us as if we were her own. Another, Nell Coley, breathed fire and dared you to split an infinitive. Our ROTC instructor, Lt. Col. Andrew Johnson, made us shine our shoes and shave our peach fuzz and molded us into reluctant gentlemen.

In many cases our teachers had taught our older brothers and sisters and even our parents.

Much of that was about to change. Many of my friends were reassigned to Page, Smith and Grimsley. Many of our best veteran teachers -- including Mrs. Smith -- were reassigned as well.

When school reopened, we awkwardly filed into the gym for our first assembly, black students and white students in two distinctly separate, wary clusters. The white girls flaunted their flowing tresses. The black girls flaunted their Afros right back.

I resented the white students being there.

And I resented many of my friends and best teachers being somewhere else.

Here's another blast from the past lamenting resegregation. This column originally was published on February 25, 2001:

A modest reunion of black, white -- and gray - Dudley Panthers

It has been nearly 28 years since Greensboro desegregated its public schools, shoving white and black students into a maelstrom of discomfort and discovery.

It was a weird, awkward, fascinating time, especially at previously all-black Dudley High School. Suddenly white students walked Dudley's halls. Suddenly they were our friends and our classmates.

With our 30th reunion fast approaching, I wondered aloud recently whether the white members of Dudley's first integrated graduating class of 1973 held the same fondness for the school that we black students felt. Was Dudley a proud part of who they are or a sour memory tucked away in dusty old yearbooks?

So several of Dudley's white Panthers stepped forward to answer. One of them, Allen Wall, I have not seen since our senior year. I remember him as one of Dudley's few well-off kids, kind of a lovable smart aleck to whom black and white classmates took immediately. In '73 Allen was the school's entire tennis team. Today he has an even harder job, as an attorney for the Chicago Board of Education. When someone mailed him my first Dudley column, he felt compelled to call.

"I wouldn't be doing what I am today if it wasn't for that experience," he said. In fact, Wall credits the late Nell Coley, one of Dudley's toughest, best-loved teachers, for encouraging him to attend Williams College in Massachusetts. From there he went on to get a master's degree from Duke and a law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill.

"There is no topic I've thought about more than those two years," he said.

So what did Allen learn at Dudley? "We found ways to talk to and to be more comfortable with each other," he said. "One of the things that I think I learned was the way people from different backgrounds found ways to connect."

At 6-foot-6, Jim Fields was one of the easiest new Panthers to spot back in 1972. With a scraggly beard, tufts of brown hair and an easy smile, Jim also was one of the first white football and basketball players at Dudley. And he never took himself too seriously.

He and I met recently for lunch at Anton's restaurant, where everybody knows his name.

It had been so long (more than 20 years) since we'd seen each other, he actually struck up a conversation with another black guy, thinking he was me. "I was looking for a tall black guy with gray hair," Jim said. (Hey, I'm taller than that.)

Jim spoke proudly of his wife and two teenage daughters. He had gone on to UNCG, where he majored in psychology. Today, he helps to run his family's heating and air conditioning business. He also is involved in the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers.

In fact, Jim started a student chapter of ASHRAE at N.C. A&T. "It made sense," he said. "They're a local school with an engineering program. It should have been done a long time ago."

Why wasn't it? "Probably because A&T's a black school," he said. So he took the project on himself and is proud of how it has grown. He credits his time at Dudley with opening his eyes to the possibilities at A&T. "I'm pretty comfortable there," he said. "Dudley helped me cope with my racism."

Having stirred many souls -- and much controversy -- with "The Passion of the Christ," Mel Gibson is taking on a movie project that may be even further removed from the days of "Lethal Weapon 4."

"Apocalypto" will be set among the ancient Mayans and its actors will speak entirely in the ancient tongue of the Mayans.

The film, which Gibson co-wrote, is an allegory whose themes include "the collapse of civilizations -- with warnings about environmental abuse and political fear-mongering, not the sort of thing to comfort conservatives," reports Time magazine.

There also will be human sacrifices.

Not that Gibson is particularly worried about the reactions to those graphic scenes.

"After what I experienced with 'The Passion,' " he says in Time, "I frankly don’t give a flying (expletive) about much of what they think."

Pssst, Mel: You may be eroding your church base.

A cover story on the two best players in college hoops in last week's Sports Illustrated elicited this letter from Mike Lynch of Bloomington, Minn., in this week's issue:

Two white guys -- Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick -- as the best college basketball players in America ("Jewel of a Duel," March 6)? What's this wacky world coming to? Next thing you know, a black guy will be the best golfer.

I had the privilege to emcee a luncheon honoring Olympic speedskater --- and fellow Dudley alumnus -- Joey Cheek Thursday.

I also had the honor to share a table with Joey, Joey's parents, a teacher and guidance counselor who helped inspire him at Dudley, and other friends and family members.

All the while, Joey, the gold medalist and Wheaties cover boy, was gracious, softspoken and good-humored. (He had to be exhausted after being shuttled from one local love fest to another.)

Joey's sense of humility and desire to share his good fortune with others is beyond impressive. Sadly, it's also rare and precious in an era of preening, profiling, me-first athletes.

At last count, more than $100,000 had been raised here in Joey's name for local and international charities.

Next on Joey's agenda: volunteer work in Africa.

This may sound hokey, but rarely have I been part of a more uplifting experience.

An update: The community raised more than $292,000 for youth-focused charities on Cheek's behalf, Walker Sanders of the Community Foundation confirmed today.

Probably to the delight of his critics, Guilford County Schools Superintendent Terry Grier now offically is one of three finalists for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg job.

Grier and two other finalists were announced at a 3 p.m. press conference, the News & Record reports today.

The other candidates are Peter Gorman, who heads the Tustin Unified School District in Orange County, Calif., and Charlotte's interim Superintendent Frances Haithcock.

A second round of interviews is schedulded for April and a new Charlotte superintendent will be announced in April or May.

Meanwhile, some of Grier's detractors may make hay about all this, but on the whole he has been a solid, creative schools chief who hasn't been afraid to make tough decisions.

And as much grief as he has taken in north High Point, a gentle reminder: the High Point choice plan wasn't Grier's idea.

.

I agree fully with columnist Dennis Rogers of the News & Observer (registration required).

Those who have chosen to express opposition to the war in Iraq by spray-painting the walls and breaking windows of military recruiting offices are "chicken-hearts whose idea of courageous free speech is to toss a rock through a window and run away like naughty children afraid of being spanked."

Rogers adds: "People like you make a mockery of free speech."

Vandals last week spray-painted the words "No War" on the facades and windows of recruiting offices in Durham and smashed the window of a recruiting office in Raleigh.

Good night and good riddance to the notion of any school bearing the name of broadcast icon Edward R. Murrow anytime in the foreseeable future.

The Guilford County school board voted Thursday night to name the new middle school in northern Guilford County ... Northern Middle School.
Now we can have a matched set: Northern High School and Northern Middle, much in the tradition of Southwest Middle and Southwest High School, Northwest Middle and Northwest High. And so on.

As the supply of directions and compass points runs desperately dry, can Over Yonder and Round the Bend be next on our school-name list?
Meanwhile, Murrow, the Polecat Creek native who went on to become a legendary newsman, still can't get no respect in his home county.

Proponents of directional school names make the case that they merely are respecting history. When there were separate city and county school systems, the county schools bore directional names.

Fair enough. I only hope that's all that's operating here, not some desire to keep old divisions and distinctions alive. In the good, old days, the county schools also provided a convenient refuge from court-ordered desegregation.

But surely these are honorable people with honorable intentions and I should take them at their words.

My paranoia may be rooted in a sense of abject loneliness: Is it just me or am I the only guy left in Guilford County who favors diversity in our public schools?

Am I the only person around here who still believes racial and socioeconomic diversity creates a more robust learning environment?

A number of you have questioned whether I discovered the issue of school resegregation only recently. This is another in an occasional series of posts representing past oclumns on the topic.

From March 3, 2002:

I went home to Bluford Elementary last week, where Dick, Jane and Spot first entered my life and long division tortured my soul.

I had been invited by Georgina Kyle's accelerated learners' class, a bright, eager group that turned the tables on a journalist with a barrage of thoughtful questions.

It was amazing and a little bit scary to discover what I could recall and what I had forgotten about my time there from first grade to sixth, during the years 1960 to 1966. This was a "cyber-interview," and I was sort of an oral history project, like one of those 101-year-olds they quiz about how things were way back when.

Each student was well-prepared, with a list of questions, and each politely grilled me, in a predetermined order, as a video camera rolled.

What did you wear?

Pants and shirts (with collars). The girls wore dresses. There were no T-shirts or sweatshirts.

Did you wear baggy clothes?

Not intentionally. If you did, they'd laugh at you. If you wore sneakers other than Converse Chucks, they'd laugh at you, too. They'd call your shoes "Jolaps."

How did boys and girls get along?

Well, the boys liked girls, but we didn't know what to do with them. The two prettiest girls in one of my classes were Rhonda Stokes and Sallie Hayes. Sallie was also one of the nicest girls in the class, and she would, for example, offer you her extra pen if yours ran dry. But we boys didn't know how to handle that. So we'd behave like idiots.

How did you let girls know you liked them?

Oh, we'd hit 'em. Not hard. A little lick like this (old journalist gently taps young interviewer on the shoulder). Oh and we also had the Apples and the Peaches (quizzical looks). The Peaches were pushovers. The Apples didn't let women push 'em around.

You know that hill down there by the entrance to the Dudley High School football stadium? We called it Slaughter Hill, and the Apples and the Peaches would have these big battles after school. ... Well, actually it was kind of like play fighting.

Who won?
Usually the Peaches. Some of those Peaches were big guys.

What were you?

An Apple, of course. My college roommate was a Peach.

What did you have for lunch?

Usually, soup or meats and vegetables, plus milk. On some days we had hot dogs. That was my favorite. And we got to eat on real plates and out of real bowls, not off those Styrofoam things you guys use. We had real forks and spoons, not plastic ones. We thought the soup tasted like dishwater.

Do you remember your teachers?

Let's see. There was Mrs. Wiseman, Mrs. Fields, Mrs. Sadler, Mrs. Coward, Mrs. Kennedy. You don't forget your teachers and they don't forget you. I had a crush on Mrs. Fields. She was young and nice and pretty. Her husband later taught me science at Lincoln. I didn't tell him about the crush.

How did your teachers punish you?

Sometimes we had to sit in a corner. Sometimes we had to hold out our hands and get spanked by a ruler.

(Gasps and wide eyes). Really?

Yup. Sometimes we even were spanked on our bottoms. If our moms and dads found out, we'd get another spanking when we got home.

A number of you have questioned whether I discovered the issue of school resegregation only recently. This is another in an occasional series of posts representing past oclumns on the topic.

The children of desegregation, 30 years later: What did we learn?
From Aug. 10, 2003:

Robin Simmons Blount and Regina Gariglio didn't choose to be friends. They hadn't even chosen to be classmates.

But here they were, thrust together at Dudley High School by the specter of a court order and the stroke of some faceless bureaucrat's pencil on a city map.

It was 1971, and Greensboro City Schools administrators knew they must integrate the public schools or face a federal judge's wrath. So they created districts and loaded students onto buses and made us learn together whether we wanted to or not.

Richard Nixon occupied the White House. Yes, Curtis Mayfield and Funkadelic dominated the FM airwaves. And we wore fashions you would not believe, platform heels, cuffed bellbottoms and silk shirts with mile-wide collars. If the fashion police had arrested us -- and they certainly had more than reasonable cause -- we'd still be serving time.

The Dudley High School Class of 1973 -- my class -- was the first desegregated class in the school's history and, contrary to our worst misgivings, hell did not freeze over. Pigs did not fly. The world did not end.

And Robin, a black kid from east Greensboro, and Regina, a white kid from south Greensboro, became fast buddies. They both joined the cheerleading squad and the dance group. Both played musical instruments in the Percussion Ensemble.

They grew to like each other so much that they became college roommates at UNCG. "She's black," one of the upperclassmen gravely warned about her roomie when Regina arrived on campus. "I know," Regina replied cheerily.

Our staff is meeting this morning with UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser.

Moeser will stop by between visits to public schools in Greensboro. Any questions or issues you'd like for him to address?

Let me know and I'll pass them on.

Jonathan Kozol, author of "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America," in a 2005 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on resegregated public schools:

"Segregated education is the oldest failed experiment in U.S. social history."

Kozol, who has visited scores of public schools across the nation, goes on to say:

"Most of the years since 1990, as the nation has resegregated, virtually every inner-city system is very busy doing Plessy v. Ferguson [the 1896 Supreme Court ruling that created the 'separate but equal' doctrine], essentially saying, 'If you do the following things, including lots of upbeat chants and incantations, you can make apartheid work.'

Dozens of experts travel around the country coming up with new plans every year to prove that segregated education is perfectible. Some of them are earnest people; some are bombastic charlatans who earn a living by traveling from school system to school system telling the embattled principals, 'I have a seven-point plan to turn it all around.' They always say 'turn it all around.' I simply refuse to play this game. 'The Shame of the Nation' is not a recipe book --- you know, seven ways to polish the apple of apartheid."

Kozol on teaching styles and the testing craze:

"I'm not opposed to testing. I had to pass a couple of tests to get into Harvard. And a few more to get out. But tests and standards without prior equity, without real equality for every child, simply are not instruments of change. They're clubs with which to bludgeon children we have cheated from the hour of their birth. I think it's an unspeakable hypocrisy to hold a 7- or 8-year-old accountable for her performance on high-stakes tests. The scripts that they give these teachers are pure Skinnerian --- people who have studied psychology probably remember B.F. Skinner. This is rat-control psychology applied to black and Latino students."

Read the whole AJC interview. (Registration required)

N.C. Rep. Earl Jones and John Hammer seem to be reading from the same playbook.

In the latest edition of Jones' publication, The Greensboro Times, the headline blazes, "Project Homestead cleared of News & Record's reckless and questionable journalism."

The article, which includes no by-line, reads in part:

"On March 9, 2006, Guilford County District Attorney Doug Henderson cleared Project Homestead of ctiminal wrongdoing because there was no evidence to justify criminal charges."

And ...

"The N&R has conducted a racially motivated campaign against [The Rev.] Michael King and Homestead over the past four years, designed to tear down and destroy. The motive was to discredit King as a local African American leader and to undermine his outstanding success as head of the over achieving and highly successful non-profit Project Homestead."

And so on.