News-Record.com

Outgoing N.C. A&T Chancellor James C. Renick nervously tapped one hand and blinked back tears Saturday night at a $100-a-plate tribute in his honor Saturday night at the A&T Foundation building.

Probably the most moving speech in Renick's honor came from student body President Justin Raimey, who praised Renick's value as an administrator and as a role model and friend.

The funniest may have come from School of Business Dean Quiester Craig, who quipped that the Washington-bound Renick ought to stay put. After all, he surely couldn't expect to safely park his Jaguar on the streets of D.C.

So many good things happened on Renick's watch -- from a campus building boom to a significant spike in fund-raising -- that right now he seems irreplaceable.

But another way to look at it: Renick built on a solid foundation created by his predecessors. He successor, in turn, will have lots to build on.

Each member of the Guilford County Board of Education makes $12,000 a year, a little bit more if he or she is chairman or vice chairman.
You couldn't offer me four times as much to do this job. Uh-uh. No way. Not ever.

One unsolved mystery of the universe is why anyone would.
Why anyone would go through the trouble of actually campaigning for the opportunity to be abused, ridiculed, second-guessed and personally attacked nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

Consider the lovely representations, in effigy, of school board members Susan Mendenhall and Walter Childs near Southwest High School in north High Point.

Or similar effigies, just in time for last Halloween, of Mendenhall and Dot Kearns as demons attached to utility poles.

Even the county commissioners — where the attacks generally come from one another — have it easy by school board standards.

As for City Council seats? They're positively cushy by comparison.
The challenge faced by school board members is that we dump all of our problems in their laps and demand merely that they find a solution that will make everybody happy — all the time.
We screw things up and expect our schools to fix them.

Poverty. Drugs. Gangs. Illegal immigration. Segregated neighborhoods. Broken families. Homelessness. Suburban sprawl.

All of these issues find their ways into the classrooms and hallways of our public schools.

Add layers of federal and state bureaucracy, testing out of the wazoo (arguably too much), and an increasingly Balkanized community where What's In It for Me runs rampant over any lasting notion of the greater good, and you've got Guilford County.

I attended the first of this week's series of charrettes for the Heart of the Triad Monday night.

As the wind and rain whipped up a storm outside, a team of consultants did likewise on the inside, presenting their rough-draft vision for clusters of work and living areas near Piedmont Triad International Airport.

Inspired by such previous efforts as Research Triangle Park, this won't be an easy undertaking, since it will involve such daunting tasks as:

1. Acquiring hundreds of acres of land.
2. Building a mixed-use community on a scale that has never before happened in the Triad.
3. Sustaining momentum for that development over a period of decades.
4. Creating an identity for a place where, currently, "there is no sense of place," in the words of consultant David Taylor.
5. Getting two counties, four cities and six jurisdictions to get along for more than a split second.
6. Remaking our traditional priorities and designing a place where people are more important than automobiles.
7. Achieving public buy-in for it all.

But after a slow start in which some of the audience seemed temporarily lulled into a Power Point trance, the notion seemed to take hold.

Making matters worse is the fact that some of the targeted land is being gobbled up even as I type.

Yup, nobody said this would be easy. But it's exciting, essential and well worth a shot.

It'll be interesting to see what they come up with by week's end.

I was just telling a colleague at lunch the other day that I'd felt the need to give something back to my alma mater, Dudley High School.

Waiting on my voice mail when I returned to the office was a message from a Dudley student.

I'd been invited to be the guest speaker at this year's National Honor Society inductions at Dudley.

I was flattered to be asked. I'll do my best.

Beyond confirming that Katie Couric is leaving for CBS, NBC's "Today Show" this morning reporting something really important:

For all the grief southpaws take from a right-handed world, left-handed men make more money than right-handed men, according to a study (probably by a lefty).

Over a lifetime, a researcher says, lefty men make an additional $100,000 over their lifetimes.

Which, by the way, are shorter than the average lifetime for righties.

I guess there ought to be some consoluton for having to check out early.

Because you requested it ...

Here's a link to John Young's Sunday, April 2, Ideas column on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Young, who helped choose the commissioners, says his perspective on the issue has changed over time.

Young expresses hopes in the column, titled "Second thoughts about Nov. 3, 1979," that the commission will look critically at all aspects of the bloody Nov. 3, 1979, faceoff between Klansmen and neo-Nazis and Communist protesters and not gloss over unflattering information about the Communist Workers Party's motives and tactics.

The commission will issue its final report in May.

Meredith Viera will be the new co-host of "Today."
Sigh, a game show host will succeed Katie Couric.
The gods must be crazy.

The Maynard Institute's Richard Prince compiles observations from near and far on the coverage of the Duke lacrosse team controversy.

One of the criticisms is that the accuser has not been portrayed as a person -- merely a "stripper."

But one account in the News & Observer of Raleigh featured a detailed interview with the woman, noting that she is the mother of two and is working her way through college at N.C. Central University. The story also recounted events on the night the alleged rape occurred.

Part of the problem, of course, is that most media (including the News & Record) don't identify alleged rape victims by name.

As N&O Public Editor Ted Vaden cites, this raises other questions such as how fair and ethical it is for a paper to allow the woman to give a detailed account of the alleged rape under the cover of anonymity.

Vaden writes: "... The N&O did not offer to let the accused speak anonymously, as it did for the accuser. It's one thing to protect the identity of a sexual assault victim; it's another to let her make detailed allegations without being identified.

"In my view, the interview is at odds with The N&O's own policy on anonymous sources, which discourages their use except when the information can be obtained no other way. In this case, as Williams pointed out, the story used only information from the interview that corroborated the public record, so it didn't add new facts. The added matter was the emotional content -- the crying mother of two -- that gave a human dimension to the police reports."

Meanwhile, the tale (for me) is disturbing even if the rape allegations turn out to be false.

The players' boorish attitudes and abusive behavior, as well as their racial attitudes, are unsettling. So is Duke's institutional response (until most recently) to their pattern of misconduct.

You expect more on a college campus.

Then again, two of the times I've been called a nigger in my life were while walking along public streets when I was an undergrad at Chapel Hill.

A third time I overheard two white male students use the word in reference to a salesman in Milton's, a clothing store on Franklin Street.

They were laughing until they noticed I'd heard them.

I'll go ahead and post an op-ed here that responds to John Young's column on the Truth and Reconcilation Commission.

It appears in today's News & Record and should provide some fodder for additional discussion.

BY CAROLYN ALLEN, THE REV. GREGORY HEADEN
and THE REV. Z.N. HOLLER

We were a bit shocked to read the comments by John Young in Sunday's edition of the News & Record concerning the Truth and Reconciliation process. He certainly has a right to his view and his opinions. We simply want to reaffirm the mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that involved listening to all the stories, taking an objective view in interpreting them, and releasing to the community a report with recommendations.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was chosen by a democratic process that surpasses anything most of us had seen. Its members come from different walks of life, and they have one mandate. We have been impressed by their labor, time and patience. No one has been barred from coming and telling his or her story. We think it unfortunate that our brother has at least implied a prejudgment of them just a few weeks before they release their report to the community. Why would he or anyone else assume that they would slant their report toward the survivors?

So Terry Grier isn't outta here after all. Good for Guilford County.

Grier has been a strong superintendent here and if he had gone off to Charlotte — as a few had hoped, many others had feared — it would have been a loss for this community.

Grier is driven and inventive and has consistently championed the cause of the most challenged students in our schools, sometimes at great political cost.

Yet it's hard to believe he felt a sudden twinge of homesickness for the Triad, and decided he'd left his heart on Eugene Street.

"While meeting with the various interview groups in Charlotte," Grier wrote last week in a News & Record op-ed, "I reflected on the work that has been accomplished in Guilford County. As the day progressed, it became increasingly difficult for me to passionately answer the repeated question, ‘Why do you want to leave Guilford County for Charlotte?' "

Why would Grier want to leave Guilford for Charlotte?

That's easy. It's the biggest school system in the state, pays nearly $60,000 a year more than Guilford and has some of the same challenges and opportunities Grier has been concentrating on here.

Who among us wouldn't be flattered — and probably interested — if a bigger company that pays a whole lot more money came knocking on our door? Why not check it out?

It's also easy to see at least one unstated reason Grier withdrew last week from consideration for the Charlotte job. Odds are, he wasn't going to get it.

Work continues apace on the roundabout at North Elm Street and Bass Chapel Road, although I'll be doggonned how they're going to squeeze the darned thing into the space they have.

I guess the city engineers know what they're doing. Look at the great job they did on West Wendover.

Which reminds me, am I the only motorist who still occasionally gets thrown off by the turn lane signs above traffic at the West Wendover-I-40 bridge, which can lull you into the wrong lane because they're misaligned?

A good friend popped by Monday afternoon after warning me that he had an unusual idea to float past me.

He wasn't kidding.

Remember the old City Club's perch atop the Lincoln Financial Building?

Put the museum there, he said, save on construction costs and make a statement about the museum's importance to the city in one fell swoop.

Only problem: The sit-ins weren't in the old JP Building; they were in Woolworth's.

Today, the trial of terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui featured harrowing, never-before-heard cockpit tapes from United Airlines Flight 93, whose passengers and crew prevented terrorist hijackers from reaching their intended target in Washington.

Meanwhile, this week's Time magazine previews the first big-screen movie that deals with 9/11.

Trailers for "United 93," which arrives in theaters on April 28, have been so disturbing to some moviegoers that they have been pulled in some theaters.

"Many people will certainly feel they're not ready to see the film," writes Time critic Richard Corliss. "And that's fine. But it's honorable and artful as a re-creation of history, and as a film experience it's both unbearable and unmissable."

"If this is a horror movie," Corliss adds, "it is an edifying one."

The story also notes how the movie's writer-director, Paul Greengrass ("The Bourne Supremacy," "Bloody Sunday"), chose to cast actors whose backgrounds often reflected those of the real-life characters they portray.

For instance, Greensboro's Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, is played by Trish Gates, who has herself worked as a United flight attendant.

Gates tells Time: "United made a poster of the crew, and I didn't know anybody, but I had always stared at Sandy Bradshaw's picture. Don't ask me why."

This is not the first Flight 93 film. Cable's A&E network aired a solid, restrained production in August that attracted record ratings for the channel.

But I get the impression that this production will be more powerful. And more disturbing.

The News & Observer of Raleigh (registration required) raises some valid questions about the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research's latest rankings of state legislators' effectiveness.

"Making waves can raise a legislator's effectiveness ranking, at least if that House member is a Democrat," notes an item in the N&O's Under the Dome column.

As an example, the paper cites Rep. Linda Coleman, a Knightdale Democrat who stalled the state budget in a failed push for state employee raises.

Coleman ranked 38th of 120 House members, the highest in history for a first-term female member of the House and the fifth-highest for a freshman overall.

Why then, was the same standard not applied to Republicans, including John Blust of Greensboro, whose crusade for ethical reforms and criticism of the House leadership are gaining traction now?

Yet Blust ranked 119th. Where's the fairness in that?

Richard Prince reports that Susan L. Taylor, editorial director of the popular black women's magazine Essence, has balked at a speaking engagement at historically black Hampton University over the school's ban of certain hairstyles in its MBA program.

Essence has confirmed, Prince writes, that Taylor withdrew upon discovering that "braids, dreadlocks and other unusual hairstyles are not acceptable" for majors in the school's five-year MBA program.

Taylor told AOL Black Voices: "I began receiving e-mails from numerous sources advising me of disturbing regulations disallowing locks and braided hairstyles for Hampton students. One such e-mail included an Associated Press story headlined: 'University Bans Certain Hairstyles for Students.' As a businesswoman and public figure who has proudly worn my hair braided for more than 25 years, I was incredulous and felt insulted."

This is not a new issue. I recently debated with a friend, an African American woman, over Hampton's policy.

I argued that tastefully styled braids and dreadlocks ought to be acceptable. She countered that the business world does not see either as standard-issue hairstyles.

When in the business world, she added, you do as the business people do. That's how you get a job and it's how you get ahead.

Hampton is teaching its students well, she said.

While we're revitalizing downtown Greensboro, can we please do something about the wind-tunnel effect on Elm Street?

I imagine there are meteorological and architectural factors involved here.

But it'd be nice to be able to take an afternoon stroll without being whisked to where the wind wants me to go, rather than where I want to go.

The gusts were so blustery last week that they overturned some newspaper racks.

(No, the News & Record was spared this time around.)

To hear former City Council member Robbie Perkins tell it, the ambitious old Wachovia tower rehab project is going to happen. Period. You can take it to the bank (no pun intended.)

Ditto for the planned Bellemeade Village mixed-use development nearby, which is preselling condos as I type.

Perkins said so months ago.

Now the perpetually upbeat Perkins says the Heart of the Triad vision will become reality and that private investment will provide the Big Idea that will become the initiative's centerpiece.

The private sector will "set the table" for government participation, Perkins said at one of the Heart of the Triad charrettes two weeks ago.

Because the Heart relies on so many crucial factors to line up just right, it's hard to share Perkins' unbridled optimism. Still hope he's right and can boast about it in a few years.

Beginning Wednesday, we're planning some renovations.

We'll give the place a fresh look, plant some new ideas and add a new story or two.

We're hoping the new look of the opinion pages will be brighter, cleaner and easier to follow. But you'll be the best judge of that. We're also making some significant alterations to content. (Forgive the pale Bob Villa imitation, but we do call those commentaries on the left-hand side of the page house editorials.)

Among the most notable of those changes will be a restoration. Beginning this week, The New York Times News Service returns to the News & Record. That means Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, David Brooks, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Maureen Dowd, among others, will reappear on these pages.

You made it very clear that you missed their expertise and insights. So they're back.

You've especially missed Friedman, whose analysis of foreign affairs is at once so informed and so accessible, so we're especially glad to have him back. Friedman returns Thursday and his columns will run each week on Thursdays and Mondays.

By the way, we'd planned the move long before Friedman's appearance April 4 at N.C. A&T, but we like the timing anyway.
Another new face in our lineup of syndicated columnists will be Mona Charen, a Washington-based political analyst who began her career at National Review magazine, and worked as a staff member in the Reagan White House.

In Wednesday's newspaper you'll also meet the members of our first Community Contributors panel, 13 columnists from among our readers who will bring fresh voices and points of view to the Second Opinion pages.

The panel was chosen from a pool of more than 70 applications and will change annually. Each panelist will contribute up to six columns over the next 12 months on a variety of local topics and from a wide range of perspectives.

They are young and not-as-young, liberal, conservative, black, white, Christian, Muslim, immigrant and native-born. They include a college student, a medical doctor, the owner of a local nanotechnology firm, a retired engineer, a young mother and a recent newcomer from Peru. But they can tell their stories better than I can; they'll introduce themselves to you individually in Wednesday's editions.

Among other new columnists will be David Hoggard, a prolific local blogger and political gadfly, and Sarah Jones, a Greensboro native, former personal chef and freelance writer who blogs about food in her spare time on a site called Thought for Food. David and Sarah will alternate columns each Wednesday on the op-ed page.

Wednesday's pages also will feature a weekly emphasis on local commentary, with the entire section devoted to local people, issues and commentary. In a new twist on an old idea, there'll be occasional rebuttals to News & Record editorials — on the same day the editorials run.

There's more. Sunday's Ideas section also will feature a redesign as well as a livelier mix of local, national and international commentary.

Meanwhile, a new, local editorial cartoonist, Anthony Piraino, will debut on the editorial page. Anthony, who also is a local blogger, moved to the Triad from Delaware in 2003 to take a job at The Iconfactory, a Greensboro design firm that specializes in icon design for Web sites and computer software.

As for old favorites, they're still here. Leonard Pitts, Ed Cone, Charles Davenport, Rosemary Roberts, Doug Clark, Tracie Fellers, Thomas Sowell and many others.

In addition, we'll continue a successful new Sunday venture, "My Life," which features an ongoing series of short, personal commentaries from local people.

Also look for a more interactive commentary section. In addition to our continuing lineup of Web logs, we will feature more extensions of the printed page with podcasts, and online audio and photos. We'll keep spotlighting the work of local bloggers as well.

As for our own writing, we plan deeper editorials that add more insight and understanding to important issues. We'll also try our hand at humor and less stodgy and traditional approaches.

There are other changes in the wings, more than there is room to share in this space.

In fact, the changes won't stop with this most recent face-lift. This section will continue to evolve with our readers' interests and needs.
So check us out this week. Let us know what you think. And enjoy your new News & Record.

Contact Editorial Page Editor Allen H. Johnson at ajohnson@news-record.com

You'll have to forgive News & Record alumna and columnist Rosemary Roberts for a being a proud mom. Her son, Jim Yardley, has just won journalism's highest honor, a Pulitzer Prize, for international reporting. Jim, of The New York Times, is sharing the prize with another Times reporter, Joseph Kahn, "for their ambitious stories on ragged justice in China as the booming nation's legal system evolves," the Pulitzer Web site says.

Jim is a Greensboro native and a Page High School graduate who went on to college at Carolina. (That explains why Rosemary has e-mailed basketball scores to him in China.)

She is especially pleased that Jim, whose father is another Greensboro Daily News alum, Jonathan Yardley of Washington Post fame, worked his way up "the way you're supposed to," ... from a suburban weekly ultimately to The Times.

Coincidentally, Jim who still lives in China, will be in Greensboro tomorrow night. He's come Stateside for a wedding in Chapel Hill.

By the way, Rosemary admits she advised her son not to go into journalism -- to be a "well-paid lawyer" instead.

Fortunately he didn't listen to Mom, and did as she did, not as she said.

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post for his powerful accounts of the deadly violence faced by ordinary American soldiers in Iraq as an insurgency intensified, and Sebastian Rotella of the Los Angeles Times for his well crafted reports on restive Muslims in Europe that foretold riots in France.
a series on China’s legal system.

Following is a posting some of you requested of Elizabth Wheaton's April 16 column on the Truth and Reconciliation process.

Wheaton, you may recall, is the author of "Codename GREENKIL," which probably is the definitive book on Nov. 3.

A lot of people have voiced concern about the amount of influence, some would say manipulation, of the Communist Workers Party survivors over the groundwork that established the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, now preparing its final report on the Nov. 3, 1979 killings. I share those concerns.

I spent three years investigating the issues and people surrounding the tragedy and its aftermath for my 1986 book, "Codename GREENKIL," and I've watched the development of the Truth and Reconciliation process with great interest and no small amount of hope. There's not a whole lot that surprises me about this saga, but when I read John Young's April 2 column, "Second thoughts about Nov. 3," my antennae began to tingle.

Young was involved from the beginning, in 2002, as a member of the local task force formed to investigate whether a truth commission was needed. One would presume that among their most important work would be to assemble a solid core of resource materials from a variety of perspectives to guide their research. Yet Young wrote it was not until late 2004 that he independently "discovered" "GREENKIL."

Two years? Was it really two years before one task force member began to understand that there was more to this story than the self-serving writings of the CWP survivors? I thought about writing a letter to the editor to point this out, but I didn't want to get into what I knew from experience could be a nasty reaction to anyone who dares to challenge the CWP's version of the facts.

Some early reaction to our impending redesign and content changes:

"It was interesting to read about the upcoming changes beginning Wednesday, but in your litany of columnists, there is a glaring gap --you didn't mention Gene Owens, nor was his column in yesterday's paper (an egregious omission). Please tell me he will appear on Saturdays as usual."
-- Ed Kay

"So, what about Gene Owens? I hope I have the right name but I always enjoy his columns and often will cut out and send to my Uncle in Va, who can relate to much of what he writes about. I noticed he wasn't in Sat's paper. Please don't let him disappear, unless he's retired for good."
-- Vikki Parris, Asheboro NC

Mr. Kay: The Owens column remains in the Saturday lineup.

"Let me say how thrilled I am that the NYT columnists are returning. They have been sorely missed in our household. I actually resorted to an online subscription to the Times just to keep current.

"I ran into a friend at church this morning who had cancelled her subscription in protest, and I was glad to be able to tell her about your decision. She plans to call next week to subscribe again.

"Best of luck with the redesign and with the revamping of content."
-- Linda Edgerton

"Being proven wrong is not often an occasion for celebration, but your column today (Sunday) was just such an occasion. Happily, you proved I was wrong when I concluded that the N&R had taken several giant steps backwards into provincialism, dropped any pretense of offering its readers a broader view of the world around us & was not likely to reverse direction. Obviously many people expressed their objections & -- glory be -- you seemed to have heeded their concerns. I wish I had joined them rather than just accepting it as a done deal. I could then feel a little pride in this moment. Maybe I'll start bitching more. At any rate, thank you - it's wonderful news."
-- Jim Wilkinson Greensboro


"Your vaunted realignment of contents of your op-ed pages shows a total lack of willingness to show divergent (read: conservative) points of view. Your reprise of NY Times, esp Maureen ("no one loves me") Dowd and Paul Krugman with no counterbalance on the Right shows again your editorial bias.

"Will be most interested to see views of the 9 or so locals added to your line-up...I notice a Muslim voice has been included. ... let's see now, that voice represents what percentage of the GSO population? You guys are SO predictable."
-- Mike Crouch

Interim Greensboro Police Chief Tim Bellamy has notified several community leaders, attorneys, doctors, clergy and groups, almost all of them black, that they were secretly taped by a nonsworn employee and another woman during the tenure of former Chief David Wray.

His attorney says Wray was unaware of any such tactics. But somebody had to authorize the taping.

Bellamy says he doesn't know why the tapes were made.

No, it probably wasn’t illegal, but the taping was innappropriate, unsettling and unseemly.

Roy Carroll II announced today he will move ahead with the marketing of his planned Wachovia tower makeover. A sales office opens Monday.

He also has revealed impressive computer illustrations on what the result will be.

And he has hired a PR person.

Yet he has not yet closed on the purchase of the building or totally accounted for how he will pay for the project.

He will need help from somewhere. But it will bolster his case if, say, he goes to the City Council with a clearly realized vision, a serious, burn-the-ships plan to forge ahead and public sentiment behind him.

All three are possible here.

If this thing happens, downtown Greensboro will move to an entirely different level. Higher than 16 stories.

Leonard Pitts take issue with my colleague, Doug Clark, in today's News & Record.

Doug responds on his blog.

You can call him Roy.

Or you can call him Mr. Wachovia Building.

Lots of people do.

Although Roy Carroll II says a more accurate appellation might be "Mr. Old Wachovia Building," he's not particularly fond of the "old" part.

Carroll, 43, a Greensboro developer, has worked for nearly two years trying to remove the biggest vacancy sign on the Greensboro skyline. His passion for the project has become so pronounced that he and it have become almost one.

If, ultimately, he should fail, Carroll recently joked, "I tell my wife we'll have to leave town in disgrace."

Don't pack your bags just yet, Roy.

Carroll unveiled renderings of his planned mixed-use makeover, to be called Center Pointe, at a Friday news conference and also announced that he'll open a sales office Monday. Carroll still needs funding help with the project, presumably from local governments (hardly a gimme in any community). But you've got to admire his imagination and his moxie.

Youthfully trim with graying brown hair and gleaming eyes, he's the mirror image of his daddy, who was the first boss I ever had at an old Bi-Rite supermarket in northeast Greensboro. Especially when he smiles. And Roy Carroll II smiles a lot when discussing the Wachovia project.

Never mind that the empty high-rise with the Pepto-Bismol complexion has for years driven developers queasy with its staggering price tags and endless complications.

It has been bought and sold and gutted and painted and named and renamed and imagined and reimagined several times over since it first opened in the heart of downtown in 1966. One local developer even suggested we should just blow the darned thing up and start from scratch.

Carroll understands why. "From a private development point of view this is not a feasible project," he says.

He should know. Thus far, Carroll has sunk $600,000 into the building. "And the meter's running." He has seen its price tag balloon from $20 million to $37 million.

Still he's smiling.

A clever gambit to help underwrite the building's restoration with federal historic tax credits went nowhere with the National Parks Service.

And still he's smiling.

"This is not a Roy Carroll project," he says. "This is an entire Greensboro project as I see it," he says. "I think everybody realizes the importance of this building's renovation to our community. To have a healthy city we can't let the heart of our community die or suffer."

So, with each setback, Carroll has kept coming back.

"We've been able to resuscitate (the project) each time because of the support of the community," he says. "I was trying to count on hands and fingers and a calculator the other night the number of people in our community who have been extremely supportive of our efforts on this project and who have come along, when we're having a tough day, and loaned their expertise and helped us figure out a way around a particular hurdle."

So, even when the quest for crucial historic tax credits flopped, Carroll wouldn't give up. He simply started over. Again.
And instead of paring down his grand vision, he expanded it: He'd strip the building down to its iron-girder skivvies and redesign the facade. Instead of its familiar boxy, plain-Jane profile, he'd add some style and personality. Instead of 16 stories, now there'd be 17.
The result: an elegant new elevation with concrete balconies with aluminum rails, aluminum awnings, ornamental strips of granite and decorative spires at the top. Carroll's vision: a restaurant at ground level, offices on the second story and 156 condominiums the upper floors, including his own on the top.

Give Carroll credit. His hometown roots and passion for Greensboro haven't let this project slip into the overstuffed local file of Good Ideas that Never Happened.

Not that his wife Vanessa has ever doubted the grand plan, he says.

"You know we're gonna need new furniture," she told him.

Former Greensboro Record editorial writer and Fox News commentator Tony Snow will join the Bush administration as White House spokesman.

The president could have made White House media briefings really fun by hiring "Fox News Sunday" resident pit bull Brit Hume, but Snow should do well in his new job.

His predecessor, Scott McClellan, was most accomplished at whispering little nothings into frustrated reporters' ears, over and over.

In announcing McClellan's resignaton, the president said McClellan had had "a challenging assignment."

News & Record columnist Rosemary Roberts, who worked here with Snow in the 1970s, describes him as "fun to work with and very much a moderate conservative."

He's also very much a tall guy.

If memory serves, Snow popped by the office during a visit to Greensboro a few years ago to introduce himself.

I'm nearly 6-3 and had to look up to him.

Rosemary expects Snow to do well in his new job.

"He'll pep things up," she predicts.

Snow has sharply criticized the president in some of his syndicated columns.

It'll be interesting to see how he weathers life in a White House that has not traditionally embraced criticism.

For more on Snow and samples of his work at the old Record, click here.

Here's how our sister newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, weighed in on Hampton University's grooming policy for its business administration students.

The issue resurfaced recently when Essence Magazine Editorial Direcotor Susan Taylor, who wears braids, rejected a speaking invitation from the school when she got wind of the policy. I initially blogged on the topic last week.

This editorial was published on Jan. 25 in Norfolk.

It's a fact of the working world: Ability matters more than hairstyle.

But show up for a serious job interview with carrot-orange dreadlocks and chances are you won't even make the cut.

That's why Hampton University is trying to prepare its business tudents to stand head and shoulders above their peers, by instructing them on the do's and don'ts of corporate dress.

Amid some predictable grumbling, students in the school's five-year business administration program must now wear conservative hairstyles and dress to weekly receptions with business leaders.

That means cornrows are out. So are long dreads, male earrings, droopy drawers and hair colors not found in nature. Suits and ties are encouraged for men, suit-type skirts are recommended for women.

The inevitable complaints have already begun. Some students and their supporters believe they should be allowed to wear what they like while in college.

And so they can. But if they choose to participate in H.U.'s business administration program, they’re obliged to follow its rules. And as a private university, Hampton can set whatever guidelines it sees fit. It's the same in business as it is in business school.

Students need to realize that, just as they have freedom to dress as they please, companies have freedom to hire as they please. While the more creative occupations, such as advertising, entertainment and fashion, allow more leeway in dress and hair, they're the exceptions, not the rule.

By instituting dress and grooming codes once a week, H.U. is giving its business students the best kind of practical instruction. Better trim your hair now than be trimmed from the work force later.

Is it just me or does Chapel Hill seem to be getting less idyllic by the minute?

First, the town cancels its annual Apple Chill street fair after three people are shot Sunday.

Two days later an armed 17-year-old at East Chapel Hill High takes two hostages and holds them at gunpoint for an hour.

The student reportedly fires his weapon once, though no one is injured.

More weeks like this and James Taylor may consider going somewhere else in his mind.

Did O.J. really do it?

Did Barry Bonds add all those muscles and slam all those home runs by merely drinking his Ovaltine?
Who's leveling and who's lying in the Duke lacrosse scandal?

And who actually did shoot JR?

For inquiring minds who want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right here and right now, have we got a hookup for you.

To a polygraph machine.

If it's going to work for the Greensboro City Council, surely it can work in all those other cases.

Per Councilman Tom Phillips' suggestion, he and all but one of his colleagues will submit to lie detector tests over the next two weeks. At issue: Who did or didn't leak a confidential consultant's report on its investigation of the Greensboro Police Department?

Only Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small has refused to take the test or sign an affidavit affirming that she is not the source of the leak. This may mean she's the guilty party. Or not.

It may mean she acted alone. Or not.

It also may mean the matter could be resolved in a couple of weeks. Or not.

That's because lie detectors don't always tell the truth.

Based on 80 studies over the last 26 years, polygraph tests have yielded an accuracy rate ranging from 80 percent to 98 percent, the American Polygraph Association says on its Web site.