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North Carolina Public Radio aired an extremely interesting segment on class and the military this week.

At issue: Why don't well-off people serve in the military anymore?

And is that a bad thing?

Among those participating in a roundtable on that questions with host Frank Stasio were Chris Gelpi, associate professor of political science at Duke University; Kathy Roth-Douquet, the wife of a career Marine officer and the author of "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How it Hurts Our Country"; G.D. Gearino, a columnist for the New & Observer of Raleigh and father of a Marine; and, Rebekah Sanderlin, a freelance journalist whose husband is a soldier based at Fort Bragg.

Time was when it was considered a badge of honor and even an obligation for the wealthy to do their duty for God and country.
Now, notes Roth-Douquet, people wonder why or even what's wrong when that happens.

Don't get me wrong. There is much to admire about an all-volunteer army. But there is something unsettling about the apparent trend in mostly one segment of the population bearing the lion's share of that burden.

Guilford Schools Superintendent Terry Grier mentioned Monday that the district continues a long to establish a consolidated administration building instead of the current three locations -- two in Greensboro and one in High Point.

One location briefly mulled in the past was part of the old Carolina Circle Mall site before the building was razed and became the site of the new Wal-Mart.

Another site that could surface is the old Oakwood Homes headquarters off I-40. Grier would neither confirm nor deny that school officials have looked at the property.

The advantages to consolidation are obvious: savings in time and money and a lack of confusion about what is where.

There is, of course, much political baggage attached, including possible bad feelings in High Point if it loses the English Road facility.

But the Oakwood Homes location is centrally located and convenient to residents in Greensboro and High Point.

A letter writer took exception to my Wendover Avenue rant last Sunday, which she says we typically do at the News & Record at least once a year.

She's right.

This certainly wasn't my first or last screed on The Mistake at I-40.

The reason Taft Wireback's news story appeared and my column followed were the impending changes to that thoroughfare, which represents some of the best and the worst of planning and vision in Greensboro.

East Wendover is poised to see a wave of development with the completion of the Urban Loop.

Are we willing to repeat the oversights of West Wendover there? I'm convinced we can and must do better than that.

As everyone in the world knows by now, MTV turned 25 this week, which means it's ancient by the standards of its target audience.

I was fascinated by the video music channel when it debuted, but disturbed at its playlist, which in the beginning almost totally excluded black artists.

MTV is credited with having revived a troubled recording industry at the time of its inception and early growth. But it also placed a premium on how artists looked versus how they sounded.

That's not a good thing.

In retrospect, some of those dazzling videos were godawful (if Pat Benatar doesn't want to nuke "Love is a Battlefield," she should.

Now we have a new 800-pound gorilla in the music industry in "American Idol."

That's not a good thing either.

N.C. A&T Interim Chancellor Lloyd Hackley is a smart, genial man with an easy smile and a quick wit.

I met him at a dinner Sunday night at the home of Henry and Shirley Frye.

But don't let that fool you. Hackley, tapped by UNC President Erskine Bowles to run A&T between chancellors, clearly is not going to be a placeholder until a permanent successor to Jim Renick is hired.

Expect a number of changes on the campus during Hackley's stay here.

Some wonder whether they might have begun with the impending departure of David Hoard, vice chancellor for development and university relations, effective Aug. 31. Hoard was Renick's point man for fund-raising and headed the school's ongoing $100 million capital campaign.

"David has decided to focus on some other creative endeavors at this time," Hackley said in an A&T press release. "We appreciate his contributions over the past seven years and wish him Godspeed."

It is not unusual for top leadership at a school to change with a presidency or chancellorship. New leaders like to pick their own lieutenants. But it's interesting that a national search for a permanent replacement for Hoard will begin soon, and not wait until the next chancellor comes aboard.

Our editorial today joins City Councilman Tom Phillips in questioning the need for the city's Commission on the Status of Women.

News & Observer columnist Rick Martinez agrees, suggesting we declare victory and move on.

If you missed it, here is our editorial, which in some ways expands on earlier post on this blog:

"Who am I? Why am I here?" Adm. Jim Stockdale famously asked in a vice presidential debate in 1992 that effectively sunk his political career, right then and there.

Greensboro's Commission on the Status of Women probably can sympathize. Aimless and adrift despite the good intentions that spawned it 33 years ago, the organization has lost its way. It may lose its city funding next.

"If we don’t show some progress, if (the commission) is not really helping the quality of life for women in Greensboro," the organization's vice chairwoman, Jeanne Hudgens, told the News & Record's Margare Banks, "then we should go."

The organization was begun by the city in 1973 to conduct surveys, investigate complaints and hold public hearings. Over the years that agenda has gradually shifted primarily to programs, including workshops, community forums, a book club and an annualawards luncheon. Yet the value of those activities is questionable, at best. In general they are lightly attended and even many commission members don’t show for them.

Nor, apparently, do they show for their own meetings. At four out of their nine monthly meetings in 2005, so few commissioners attended that they lacked a quorum to conduct official business.

Meanwhile, the Human Relations Department has done much of the heavy lifting as far as complaints about discrimination are concerned. In fact, the commission spends so little of its time these days on such nuts-and-bolts services as counseling for women that it begs a serious question about the city’s investment.

The commission has received a total of $635,000 in taxpayer money since 1998 and was, until recently, the only city commission with a full-time staff member. As concerns persist about the commission’s effectiveness and relevance, the City Council cut its budget from $90,000 to $45,000 this year.

Of course, the commission's worth as a taxpayer-funded entity has been challenged before. City Councilman Tom Phillips has attempted for years to drop the commission from the city budget. More people are listening now. "This goes back to when I was on the council in the late '80s and early '90s," Phillips said Wednesday.

"Even back then they weren’t doing anything."

Meanwhile, the commission's staunchest proponents on the City Council have struggled to explain what it does.

Some council members probably worry that opposition to the commission could be construed as insensitivity to the concerns of women. But an ineffective commission that is supposed to address those issues does no one any good.

In light of rising skepticism, a consultant is studying the commission's role and will make recommendations on its future. That's generosity almost to a fault.

How many other organizations are asked to justify their contributions after receiving taxpayer funding?

The newspaper chain, Gannett, which publishes USA Today and owns Channel 2, has come up with a novel way to reach younger readers.

One of its daily papers, the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, just bought the student newspaper at Florida State University.

Reports the Associated Press:

Terms of the sale were not disclosed but took effect immediately, said Robert Parker, former owner of the student paper.

"They bought the building, kept all the employees, so no one is really going to notice any difference," Parker said. "They're going to continue to operate it as an independent entity."
That would be akin to the News & Record or the News & Observer of Raleigh buying the Daily Tar Heel.

Only a cynic would believe that Madonna's plans to be lowered on a cross as part of a concert performance in Rome was designed as a cheap publicity stunt.

Right?

Rome's Catholic, Muslim and Jewish leaders have united to condemn the Material Older Woman's decision to stage the mock-crucifixion when she performs near Vatican City Sunday night.

As she goes not so gently into her 40s, the diva's latest irreverent performance involves her wearing a fake crown of thorns and descending on a suspended cross as part of her worldwide "Confessions Tour."

The only controversy Madonna may truly fear is doing something outrageous some day and no one paying attention.

It doesn't get any easier. Part of her challenge this time: Mel Gibson's big mouth.

"There's no racism anymore," a white male acquaintance once told me. "Hasn't been for years."

He was 100 percent certain, and it showed in his tone, which recalled Tom Hanks proclaiming, "There's no crying in baseball."

"So, how can you be so sure about that?" I asked. "And how can you know how black people feel and what they experience?"

He just did, he said. Plus he plays golf with a black guy. So there.

I obviously didn't agree. But I appreciated his honesty, and I believe at least some of his concerns were valid.

Things are better. Racism persists, but it does not lurk around every corner and under every rock.

And I thought to myself: This guy should be in Mosaic ... if there is a Mosaic.

Intended as a prelude to the city’s 200th anniversary, the Greensboro Bicentennial Mosaic Partnerships Project may not even exist when the Bicentennial arrives. The program, which in 2004 matched 90 pairs of city leaders from different races and walks of life for one year as partners, faces an uncertain future.

Just caught the superb Spike Lee documentary "Jim Brown: All-American" while channel-surfing.

The film does an admirable job of chronicling Brown's accomplishments as an imdomitable football player and a beacon of hope to prison inmates and street gang members through his nonprofit, Amer-I-Can.

It also does not flinch in recounting episodes in which Brown allegedly assaulted women in his life.

Incidentally, the film includes interviews with Brown's children, to whom he was bigger than life ... and at times frustratingly distant.

One of those children was Jim Brown Jr., who began an athletic career in football but changed to basketball to escape his famous father's shadow. Jim Jr. started his college career at Southern Cal, but he transferred to N.C. A&T in Greensboro, where he was a star on an Aggie team that made repeated trips to the NCAA Tournament.

Just heard back from Mayor Keith Holliday today.

Efforts are ongoing to save the program, he says, but probably through private sponsors, not the city.

We've gotten quite a bit of buzz on David Noer's analysis of the Guilford commissioners "Seven Deadly Leadership Sins."

Noer, an Elon University professor, offered a leadership expert's take on why the commissioners are so relentlessly dysfunctional.

Noted one reader: "David Noer's comments were brilliantly conceived."

Noted another, in an e-mail to the author:

"We moved here almost twelve years ago from Fairfax County, Virginia,
which was an all-business area. My only embarrassment at that time
was Jesse Helms and his declarations about women and rape. I
honestly wondered for a short time how I could move to a state which
elected and supported a man of such ignorance. Then I began to read
about our county commissioners and Jesse faded in importance.

"Obviously the whole board of commissioners can't be canned on the
spot, so do you have any suggestions about what the citizenry can do
to promote cooperation and a desire to enrich the community at
large? Reading that the race card is once again being played is
discouraging and I believe undermines whatever fellow feeling the
races in Greensboro have for each other. Billy Yow isn't the
smoothest of men, but from time to time he's frighteningly on the
mark as far as what the board needs to accomplish.

"I certainly hope you'll stick with us and make some suggestions which can be implemented to bring the governance of our city into a more cooperative and friendly situation."

Noer will write regularly for the Ideas section on leadership.

Interestingly, we may have company in our misery. During his recent visit to Greensboro, we asked John Hood, president of the conservative, Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation, his perception of our commissioners from the outside looking in.

His response: Although Guilford's board has a less-than-stellar statewide reputation, the Mecklenberg commissioners may be wackier these days.

So many good things are happening in downtown Greensboro that it's hard to keep count.

But the soon-to-open Elon University Law School on Greene Street is one of the most significant.

The editorial staff met with Dean Leary Davis Tuesday and toured the facility. It's first-class from the bottom floor to the top.

As Davis was showing off one of the new classrooms, a workman's boom box was playing an oldies station.

"Baby, everything is all right, uptight, outta sight," Stevie Wonder sang in the background.

Indeed.

... so far as we can tell.

A large-scale plot to explode commercial air liners headed from England to the United States apparently has been thwarted by British intelligence.

The scope and breadth of the plot, say some, could have wreaked more carnage than 9/11.

Terrorists reportedly intended to use liquid explosives in a plan that has all the earmarks of al-Qaida.

The revelation has caused delays and cancellations. It also has prompted an immediate policy at airports, including PTI, that bans most liquids, including hair gels.

It's a pain and an inconvenience. Some travelers at PTI were complaining about long lines this morning, reported Channel 12 on its early newscast.

If I were them I'd shut up, follow the security personnel's instructions. And live with it.

Interesting string at Doug Clark's place on Joe Lieberman's defeat.

I, for one, don't have any problem with Leiberman running as an independent. It's legal. It's his right.

If the people truly don't want him, he'll lose again.

As Jeri Rowe noted in his Thursday column, the Dixie Chicks have canceled a concert appearance in Greensboro altogether rather than reschedule.

That's strange, given the group's brisk advance ticket sales here and its strong CD sales in the Triad.

What is not surprising is the country music radio backlash against the group, which has gone out of its way to disparage the whole genre and its fans.

The group clearly had its right to voice whatever political views it holds and stations went overboard by sponsoring mass destruction of Chick CDs after singer Natalie Maines criticized President Bush onstage in London 2003. But Maines' remark ealrier this year that "I'd rather have a smaller following of really cool people ... than people who have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McIntire and Toby Keith" was petty, insensitive and just plain dumb.

We spent an unseasonably crisp August evening on South Elm Saturday night, munching sandwiches and dessert at one of the Metro Gourmet Market's sidewalk tables -- and watching the world go by.

You couldn't ask for better weather, a better waittress or a more relentlessly interesting backdrop.

There was lots to see:

A wedding reception in the Empire Room across the street featuring the happy couple's arrival in a chauffeur-driven Bentley.

An endless parade of couples and families taking walks.

A colorful procession of cars of every shape, size and color, including a souped-up, maroon vintage pickup, circa the mid-1940s (I'm guessing) and a bright, banana-yellow Ferrari.

An endless string of oldies but goodies providing a street-scene soundtrack over outdoor speakers at Churchill's.

And it wasn't even dark yet (the young folks would arrive fashionably late to sample the bars and nightclubs).

Such buzz and traffic would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

We ran into several people we know, including Milton Kern, who seems either to own or have a hand in half the newer properties on South Elm.

Smiling broadly and obviously pleased with all the hub-bub, Kern marveled at Roy Carroll's plans not only to renovate the old Wachovia high-rise but to remake the old manufacturing site on the northern edge of downtown at Battleground Avenue near Green Hill Cemetery for mixed use -- and his offer to buy county property downtown on Eugene Street near First Horizon Park.

Now "deep pockets" are playing a hand in downtown's rebirth, Kern said of Carroll's enthusiasm. And that's good thing.

Of course, Kern remains a key downtown player himself. He's one of the developers of a $19 million, 276-unit apartment complex near the Southside neighborhood.

I would like to add a sunroom to my house.

I would like to cover its floor with Mexican tile and to fill its windows with wooden mini-blinds.

I would like to wire the new room for cable TV and stereo speakers.
And I would like to stock it with new furniture for lounging and casual dining — something elegant but unpretentious ... comfortable but durable.

There are many obvious advantages to this project.

It would improve my quality of life. It would improve the state of my health by relieving stress and providing a quiet place to relax.
It would increase the value of my house and enhance its resale price. It also would increase the city and county tax bases.

Although I probably could borrow enough money to make this sunroom a reality, it is not in my best financial interest, even if I committed to a decade's worth of baloney sandwiches for lunch and dinner.

I think often of that sun-room when I think of the city bonds. Voters will decide the fate of 11 initiatives totaling $115 million on Nov. 7.

Sad tidings this past weekend.

Longime Dudley High School coach and athletics director Jonathan McKee died Saturday while recuperating from heart surgery.

I remember Coach as more gentle-natured than you'd expect a guy who shaped young football players and made them sweat laps in the late-summer sun.

Coach McKee had lost his son Tony, the former Smith High coach, to an auto accident in April.

He also had created in his home his own personal shrine to Dudley athletics.

Good game, Coach, fair and well-played.

We're asking for your input into our editorial board meetings but you don't have to come down to the paper.

The idea: Readers will be invited to weigh in on an editorial in progress -- in effect, to react to an editorial before it is published.

The first one is right here.

We'll provide a brief summary of the editorial thus far and you'll have a chance to share your own views. Some of you may be quoted in the published editorial. Others' comments may be included in a box that accompanies the editorial.

One warning: If you want to be quoted for publication in the printed paper we'll need your real name.

One reader has already asked how we'll verify identities. We'll contact you by email for pertinent information.

Let us know what you think.

Just got off the phone with Jim Melvin.

He was apprising me that, for once, he is writing a letter to the editor about international affairs. It's on the way.

He was as opinionated as ever. But he also was pretty funny. Jim has an underrated sense of humor and a singular wit -- although he'll blissfully stray into the Land of Political Incorrectness in a split second.

Anyway, I got to thinking, once he hung up, that for all the controversy he often attracts, Jim Melvin has been very, very good to Greensboro. I'm not sure where we'd be without him.

And I'm not sure who will step forward to replace him.

The News & Observer (registration required) reports that the UNC System may add a 17th campus.

The system is studying the feasibility of creating UNC-Rocky Mount by converting private N.C. Wesleyan College into a state university.

Civic leaders in Rocky Mount are strongly pushing the idea.

Among the questions: The demand for a new campus and the financial implications of supporting it on an ongoing basis. Already existing campuses such as N.C. A&T and UNCG have aggressive enrollment goals.

Several people, including one of our co-workers, report being freaked out by the sight of a low-flying plane in downtown Greensboro Tuesday. In a post-9/11 world, who wouldn't be?

Turns out the aircraft was a Navy submarine-hunting plane, the News & Record confirms.

Says our article: "The plane circled low over the city Tuesday afternoon, drawing brief attention from law enforcement and from callers to 911."

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman acknowledged the Navy plane was in the area but said little else.

City officials and law enforcement seemed in the dark about the episode.

You'd think authorities would communicate better about such matters.
If they can't share information on Navy maneuvers, what happens in the event of a real attack?

Congressional candidate Vernon Robinson spoke today to the Greensboro Rotary Club.

My colleague, John Robinson, introduced him. Sad to say, I missed the speech. But Ed Cone didn't.

If anybody was there and would care to weigh in on what you saw and heard, I'd be interested.

Here's an e-mail I received Thursday from Greensboro Coliseum Director Matt Brown on the proposed city swim center bonds. Brown is addressing projections that the center would run an annual deficit of $200,000.

As a follow up to your recent communications with Ted Oliver regarding the proposed Swimming Center, I offer the following:

When asked why the city manager remains reluctant to revise projections of an annual 200,000 operating deficit for the swim center, Brown wrote:

Because he has not had an opportunity hear my reasoning about working with the CVB and SC to solicit bigger economic impact events and to his credit Mitchell Johnson would rather the project be viewed on the basis of even if it may lose $200K, does the community still want such a facility?

Brown raises some interesting points but this remains a tough sell for me. At $9 million, the new swim center would costs almost as much as the entire revitalization of the 10-acre South Elm/Lee Street area ($11 million).

WFDD (88.5 FM) has dropped Ed Gordon's NPR show, "News & Notes" without explanation.

Gordon's show, which replaced "The Tavis Smiley Show" has been gasping for life elsewhere as well.

WFDD, by the way, now airs "The World" in "News & Notes'" place at 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

Ironically, on Friday, Tavis Smiley returns to WFDD with the weekly show he began after his split from NPR.

I, for one, was unimpressed with "News & Notes" when it was rushed onto the air as a replacement for Smiley, who walked away from NPR in a split that was not amicable.

Smiley infused the show with so much more life and personality than Gordon. But "News & Notes" had started to grow on me.

NPR, whose original mission was largely to serve underserved markets such as African Americans, appears to be batting oh-for-two in its latest efforts.

I did not see "Snakes on a Plane" today.

We chose instead to take in Oliver Stone's superb "World Trade Center," a harrowing but uplifting true story of heroism and survival on Sept. 11.

The film has done considerably better at the box office than another quality 9/11 film. "United Flight 93," probably in part because many moviegoers know going in that there is a happier outcome to "World Trade Center."

"World Trade Center" has no political agenda. It does, however, remind us of the extraordinary unity and selflessness that the terrorist attacks brought out in so many Americans.

We need to get that feeling back somehow.

Now that I've owned a pipsqueak of a pooch for five years, I finally get it.

I get it when co-workers tack doggie photos right next to family in their cubicle picture galleries.

I get it when they swap stories about their pups' latest escapades.

I get it when they fret over a pet's illness or weep at the loss of a cherished dog or cat.

And I get why impassioned pet lovers invest so much time, money and emotion in saving abandoned dogs' and cats' lives at the Guilford County Animal Shelter.

Pets are not stuffed toys to be blissfully tossed aside when we're bored with them. They are family. And they are lifelong responsibilities.

At least they should be.

I have visited the shelter several times in recent years and never fail to be moved by the smells, the sounds ... and the sadness.
Guilford County euthanized by lethal injection nearly 22 unwanted animals per day in 2005. That's nearly one death per hour.

The population of the shelter typically totals as many as 1,400. Yet by one estimate, only 20 percent of the stray animals in the county ever make it to the shelter.

So I don't get the ongoing war of words and wills between the shelter and local rescue groups. I don't get how they waste so much emotion and energy sniping at one another rather than joining forces.

"It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life," says Trudy Wade, a Jamestown veterinarian, former county commissioner and former chairwoman of the animal shelter board.

The fierce Internet hype about the movie "Snakes on a Plane," as it turns out, had no legs.

Despite strong showings at Thursday midnight screenings, the movie did less and less business on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

When all the fuss was over, the movie with the cool high-concept title slithered to only $15.2 million at the weekend box office.

Maybe that explains all the convenient parking at The Grande Saturday night.

So, if purebred animals are so desirable and adoptable, did the Guilford County Animal Shelter put to death a purebred Dalmatian, as it appeared in a News & Record photo?

Marcia Cleveland, who works with German Shepherd Rescue and Adoptions, has asked that question, as have several letter writers.

Frankly, I wondered about it myself.

Why not at least call a rescue group before putting that dog to sleep? Cleveland said.

Marsha Williams, the shelter's director, said Monday the dog in the front-page photo was a pit bull/Dalmatian mix. The dog was wearing a muzzle, she added, because "he had issues. He had been biting people."

Williams also spoke to some rescue groups' concerns that a photo of an Aug. 1 "euthanansia list" contained purebred German shepherds as well as other breeds.

Williams said that's not true.

One German shepherd on the list was 80 percent pit bull, she said. So was a Labrador and the aformentioned Dalmatian.

Another mixed-breed Lab had severe mange and another Shepherd had heartworm that had reached an untreatable stage, she said.

"If we have a purebred animal that cannot be placed for adoption," Williams said, we do call animal rescue groups."

Williams sounded truly tense and harried. And more than a little bit frustrated.

She said people need to understand the sheer volume of the shelter's load. Se noted how the shelter handles not only abandoned dogs and cats but horses, pigs, racoons, coyotes, bats and iguanas. (They were arranging for the adoption of four horses that day, she said.)

The animal shelter seems doomed to get grief no matter what it does.
I understand their sense of being overwhelmed and underappreciated.
I also understand the passion of the rescue groups.

And I still wish all these animal lovers could come to terms on better ways to work together.

Sheriff BJ Barnes has told the school board he will continue to equip his deputies who are stationed in public schools with Tasers.

Public sentiment will probably support him. People are so fed up with school misconduct that they don't seem to mind the potential dangers of the devices, which have been tied to at least 74 deaths nationwide.

Roy Carroll II plans to break ground on the new Center Pointe project in the old Wachovia high-rise on Sept. 7.

If he can stand still long enough.

No sooner had he sealed the deal on his purchase of the old Wachovia tower than Carroll struck again, confirming he wants to buy county land on Eugene Street. And again, going after a lot on Battleground Avenue near Green Hill cemetery for an undetermined project.

The downtown county site currently houses tax department and social services offices.

Carroll is obviously bullish on the momentum downtown and feels good about his presells on the Wachovia building, which will be remodeled into residences and offices.

Carroll is nothing if not ambitious -- and optimistic.

He has, stashed away, an artist's conception of the second phase of Center Pointe that might one day go up in the lot beside the current building.

It's a 30-story tower.

In a report on a UNC-Chapel Hill grad's participation in the upcoming season of "Survivor," the News & Observer (registration required) also notes that the show will divide competing "tribes" by race and ethnicity.

The show, which premieres on Sept. 14, will feature 20 contestants in four teams: black, white, Asian and Hispanic.

Given the show's declining ratings, the stunt may have the desired effect of increasing audience share. But it seems unhealthy in its theme and message nonetheless.

I arrived in this world, unfashionably early, at the old L. Richardson Memorial Hospital in the days when a canopy of leafy, thick-waisted trees shaded Benbow Road.

I can picture the Old Rebel and Pecos Pete introducing vintage Popeye cartoons in the afternoons. I even can remember when Country Park actually was in the country.

Which is to say, I'm getting older. But which also is to say I also love this community. I've got roots here, and they run pretty darned deep.

So I do what I can. I volunteer. I go to meetings. I try to stay involved in worthwhile causes, especially where young people are concerned.

I have mentored children through Communities in Schools. I have been a Big Brother. I have sold fried fish and sweet potato pies at Dudley High School Class of '73 fundraisers.

In fact, I'm not very different from most of my co-workers who live here and rear families here. We are not dispassionate observers. We are your neighbors.

Bearing that in mind, the News & Record recently sponsored an employee panel on community involvement as a means to be better citizens and journalists.

But it's not always easy being a part of the community we report news or write opinions about. And even the most innocent endeavors can become prickly ethical entanglements.

Take for instance, my membership in a model railroad club. Carolina Model Railroaders would seem to be about as innocent a pastime as I could possibly choose. What harm could come from my participating in a group of grown men who play with trains?

Then the city opened the new J. Douglas Galyon Depot.
The train club wanted space in the new facility, but some city officials and City Council members preferred a sexier tenant such as a restaurant because it could afford to pay higher rent.

Suddenly Carolina Model Railroaders became a Community Issue. So, whenever the topic arose in editorial board meetings, I politely excused myself. I could not suggest that we write about the subject and I could not express an opinion on it.

And if they chose to write about the topic, I'd not be a party to the editorial in any way. I would not edit it. I would not read it before publication. I would have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Journalists are expected to avoid conflicts of interest that could cloud their sense of fairness and objectivity. Relatively speaking, the Model Railroaders were an easy case. Back in my earlier days in journalism, when I was editor of an African American weekly in Winston-Salem, one of our reporters had come upon a bizarre story: A high-ranking city official had been arrested for stealing $7 and change from his secretary's purse.

He was a friend. He and I were both officers in a local Kiwanis club. He was president. I was vice president.

It gets worse. He was a former ACC football player and, ironically, a former head of security on a local private college campus. And he had asked me, as a friend, not to run the story.

I had to run it, I said, or I had no right, from that point forward, to run an unflattering story about anyone else. The arrest was a matter of public record. It also was news. As painful as this was, I told him, knowing me shouldn't earn him special favors.

The story ran. My friend resigned his job. I resigned as vice president of the Kiwanis.

For some reason, the secretary pressed charges and took the poor man to court. I'm not sure whatever became of him but I am certain I lost his friendship. Probably forever.

The old story gnaws at me from time to time, and it reminds me that community involvement is a good thing for newspaper people, but not always an easy thing.

We have to choose our affiliations very carefully, but sometimes, no matter how hard we try, even the most innocent activity can bring unexpected baggage.

That said, we should stay engaged in our communities, even though awkward situations will arise.

The best we can do when that happens is to be open, honest and fair about it.

Our campaign interview schedule is heating up, and, as usual, you never quite know what to expect.

Congressional candidate Ada Fisher brought fake syringes and real candy.

N.C. Supreme Court candidate Rachel Lea Hunter brought her husband and a bodyguard.

We interviewed 12th District congressman Mel Watt, a Democrat, Tuesday and his Republican challenger, Ada Fisher, last week.

Fisher, a Salisbury physician, was witty and engaging. She touted her support for affordable health care and "reasonable tort reform." She also favored tougher immigration policies and a national service requirement.

She left us with packets of heart-shaped candy and pens shaped like little syringes (complete with red fluid that looked -- gasp -- like blood).

Watt, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, repeated his opposition to the war in Iraq and reminded us that he opposed the war from day one. Yet he added that he did not support immediate U.S. withdrawal.

Watt also said his position as Congressional Black Caucus chairman had been challenging and illuminating.

As for Hurricane Katrina, he said he had raised some eysbrows when he pushed hard for the Caucus not to frame the disaster as a race issue.

Katrina was more about poverty than race, he said. "It was a class issue," he said, "not a race issue."

District Attorney Doug Henderson, a Democrat, showed for his interview Monday. His opponent, Republican Wendell Sawyer, said no thanks, as he usually does to editorial board interviews when he's running for office.

Henderson, who beat a former member of his staff, Julia Hejazi, in the Democratic primary, said he had no reservations about firing her when she refused to resign.

A DA staff could not run efficiently with two of it members running against each other while also attempting to work together as colleagues, he said.

If he had it to do again, Henderson said, he'd fire her again.

It gets even more interesting Wednesday when Earl Jones and Bill Wright come by.

Are Americans more united or divided now than they were before Sept. 11, 2001?

That's the topic of an editorial we plan to publish on Sept. 9. As we gather our thoughts on the topic, we'd like to hear yours. We might even quote you in the editorial.

Please post your comments here. We'd strongly prefer you provide your real name and a valid e-mail address. Thanks.

CBS News obviously wants Katie Couric to be a big hit, but apparently not that big.

The network's art department airbrushed a promotional magazine photo of the new "CBS Evening News" anchor to gently erase a few extra pounds (20, to be exact).

Hey, it's not ethical, but it's more common than JonBenet stories. Supermodels get "perfected" through photo technology all the time.

But of course, Katie is supposed to be credible, factual and, you know, real. Memo to the CBS promotions guys: You're during a heckuva job.