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I couldn't help but be tickled by the tale of Brewster the Rooster.

Reminded me of my childhood (which wasn't that long ago) when you could find chicken coops and outhouses in the city limits.

I can imagine a crowing rooster not being all that popular in Starmount Forest.

But I'll take a neighborhood rooster any day over a dog that won't stop barking.

There's no small irony in the well-deserved outrage Michael Richards is still enduring for using the n-word over and over during an onstage meltdown.

Now some black comics and black leaders are declaring war on the use of the word by anyone.

Why did we need Michael Richards for inspiration? Hadn't the word been profane enough before then?

Even (frankly, especially) when spoken by black people.

The caller was concerned about Greensboro College's plans to build a sports complex on the grounds of the old J.C. Price School in south Greensboro.

The News & Record should oppose Greensboro College's plans, period, he said. Any self-respecting black man would know that.

That verbal smackdown notwithstanding, the man had a point. Price holds a cherished tradition for teaching generations of African Americans from the year 1922 until it closed in 1971. And the larger neighborhood boasts a proud history as Warnersville, the city's first subdivision, built by a white Quaker for freed slaves in the 1860s.
Greensboro College and members of a residents group, the Warnersville Community Coalition, have squared off several times over the issue, most recently before the city's zoning commission on Nov. 13. After a tense debate peppered with allegations of racism, the commission voted 6-2 to deny the coalition's attempt to rezone the Greensboro College property to residential, which effectively would have blocked the college's plans for a football stadium and other athletic fields.
Barring an 11th-hour compromise, the issue goes before the City Council Tuesday night. It's a shame it's had to come this far. The college and the community should have forged a workable compromise.
Where there should be a win-win proposition, there might be losers all around.

Heated by simmering distrust and laced with racial overtones, this is a familiar story in Greensboro. For instance, in 2001, many in the black community defied the school board's plans to rebuild Dudley High School's historic main building rather than preserve it.

And in 2002, black leaders successfully opposed the City Council's planned use of federal Community Development funds to help prepare land for a privately built baseball stadium in the South Elm-Lee Street area. In each case past slights planted fears of future slights.

In the one of them, those fears were justified.

One of you wondered last week why we don't let readers write their own headlines to letters. I replied that we don't mind doing that, but it's hard to get reader-submitted heads to fit.

But here's a trick you might try: The number of characters in one deck (or line) of letters headline is approximately 21, counting each character, each punctuation mark and each space as one.

Write your headline based on that estimate and chances are it will fit ... or come pretty darned close.

Truth is, we appreciate your suggested headlines and are pleased to run them as long as they meet taste, style, grammar and content guidelines. They make you happier and our jobs a little easier.

Too bad the Jones brothers have had to regroup on their ambitious Bellemeade project near the ballpark.

Their vision for a mixed-use cluster of shops, residences and possibly a hotel in the northwest corner of downtown was exciting and would have been a huge boon to downtown's ongoing rebirth.

It very well still may be.

But the presales for the first phase of the project weren't as brisk as they had hoped for and Bellemeade did not get financial help from Downtown Greensboro Inc., as did Governor's Court, to help pay construction loan interest as units were being sold.

Another developer, Jon Kavanagh, who plans a smaller mixed-use development to the east of downtown, wondered several months ago whether the center city was actually being overbuilt with residences. UNCG professor Don Jud disputes that notion, saying the demand for downtown housing has not peaked. But maybe the market would be kinder to more affordable downtown housing.

The first phase of Bellemeade Village condos would have cost between $239,000 and $364,000 apiece.

Other recent setbacks downtown include some struggling retail shops and the uncertain future of the center city's biggest live-music venue, the Flying Anvil.

But on balance there have been more steps forward than back. The Center City Park opened last week and renovation continues across the street on the Center Pointe tower.

As in any real estate market downtown will have its share of successes and failures. After all, it took 16 years for something good finally to happen to the old Wachovia tower.

We can only hope that in the case of Bellemeade, the Jones brothers are pressing the "pause" button on their grand vision for places to live, work and shop. Not "erase."

Is it just me, or does the proposed community dialogue in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report sound remarkably similar to the Mosaic Partnerships?

The Human Relations Commission did not vote on the proposal for lack of a quorum, but the proposal may make its way to the City Council soon.

Mosaic also involved community leaders and discussion groups, although it stressed more interpersonal relationshio building as a way to create trust.

Maybe they're different enough to both work. I just hope it's not the same people having the same conversations.

The saga of Eastern Guilford High School took another sharp turn Thursday. Authorities say the fire that destroyed the school last month was intentionally set.

Read a little bit more here and a lot more in tomorrow's News & Record.

The information is not exactly shocking but it is disheartening. Whoever did it deserves to be caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Lives could have been lost.

The county commissioners plan to take a more critical look at the United Animal Coalition’s management of the embattled Guilford County Animal Shelter and may consider bids from other organizations to run the shelter.

That would make sense. If the United Animal Coalition deserves to keep the contract, which it has held since 1998, so be it.

But it shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion.

Meanwhile,it's unfortunate that local animal lovers don't seem to love one another very much. There's often more scratching and clawing among these feuding human beings than the four-legged objects of their affection.

It's a hard job running an animal shelter, especially in Guilford County. The United Animal Coalition isn't perfect, but we've dealt them a bad hand around with chronic animal overpopulaton and our irresponsible treatment of our pets.

If for no other reason that sheer curiosity, I must see Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto."

According to early reviews, the film is graphically and gratuitously violent.

But the cinematography is breathtaking, they say, and the attention to historical detail painstaking.

I will have to see it for myslf.

If you've already seen it, please let me know.

They say opposites attract. So maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that comedian Dave Chappelle and poet Maya Angelou sat down together recently in Angelou's Winston-Salem home to express their mutual admiration.

Chappelle, who walked away from a highly successful Comedy Central series — and a paycheck so fat it wasn't funny — chose Angelou as the person he'd most like to break bread with in an installment of a clever cable TV show that pairs odd couples.

Chappelle could headline a miniseries all by himself. A tortured talent, he bailed out at the height of his popularity because he feared people were laughing at his jokes about race but not getting the point.

"I was doing sketches that were funny but socially irresponsible," he said.

As for Angelou, she's as deft with the spoken word as in writing. Her deep, soothing voice oozes so much charisma she could touch my heart while ordering takeout.

What a pair. Over a home-cooked meal of biscuits, fried chicken and fried apples, they spoke like old friends as the cameras rolled for the Sundance Channel series, "Iconoclasts."

The coupling couldn't have been any more perfect: Soul mates and soul food. Then they broached the n-word.

Chappelle saw it as a matter of context and intent. It's not the word itself, he said. It's the intent. Angelou countered, politely, that the word is hurtful and demeaning. Period.

Dave had better listen to Maya on this one. Retire the word. Put it out of our misery. Banish it to a linguistic graveyard never to dig it up again. But it just won't go away.

Apparently concerned that Michael Richards was still grabbing all the headlines, another has-been comic got N-to the act. Andy Dick (who actually may be a never-was) leapt onto the stage at a comedy club during somebody else's routine last week and said the n-word. And of course, he, too, apologized, and now awaits the inevitable talk show gigs to follow.

Meanwhile, some black comics and black leaders are declaring war on the use of the word by anyone. What took them so long? Frankly, I have as much a problem with black people using the word as whites.

Some obviously disagree. And not just rappers and teenagers. I've had to ask black people old enough to be my daddy not to say that word around me.

Other folks argue that one way to strip the word of its negative connotations is to demystify it by embracing it. Linguists cite the power of "inversion" — or turning a word intended as hurtful into a badge of pride, so that, suddenly, it loses its sting. For instance, a number of gay people now refer to themselves as "queer."

So maybe I should tack a Confederate license tag onto my car to defuse its hateful message?
Screenwriter John Ridley, who is African American, has taken another direction entirely. In an essay for Esquire magazine, Ridley ascribed the n-word to a particular class of black people, "always down. Always out. Always complaining that they can't catch a break. Notoriously poor about doing for themselves."
While I fully agree with Ridley's concern about personal responsibility, I don't see that as an excuse to call other African Americans "niggers" in a national publication.
As for Dave Chappelle and his Lunch with Maya, he of all people should recognize the danger of the mixed signals black folks' use of the word sends to everyone. After all, Chappelle says, he walked away from a $50 million contract because he worried about misinterpretations of his message.
What kind of misinterpretation does crass, gratuitous use of the n-word create?
As rap music grows in appeal across the world, inevitably other races and cultures are hearing the word and feeling inspired to use it. It won't be long before Iraqis, Europeans and, yes, Africans, will be feeling moved to call black people by that name, in every accent and in every time zone on the planet.
Kill the word. Now. This is one universal language none of us needs to speak.

You'e probably aware that the news department has begun to enable comments on selected stories.

Editorial will follow suit very soon.

We're still working on the nuts-and-bolts procedures and protocols, but we're close.

This way, some of you won't have to comment on a particular day's editorial in an unrelated comment stream on my blog or Doug's.

Please stay tuned. Updates will follow.

Doug beat me to seeing "Apocalypto," and gives it two bloody thumbs up. But I am definitely going to see it, probably over the weekend.

And probably without a date.

Doesn't sound like much of a date movie.

I've followed with interest Winston-Salem's plans for a downtown baseball stadium -- and more.

Impressed by the success of FirstHorizon Park in Greensboro and hopeful of revitalizing a craggy corner of downtown, the owners of the Winston-Salem Warthogs plan a 5,500-seat ballpark that they hope will see its first pitch in 2008.

The $189 million project would be located on the north side of Business 40 between Peters Creek Parkway and Green and First streets and calls not only for baseball, but for a second phase consisting of a multiplex theater, offices, stores and residences.

The sweeping effort seems in part an attempt to resuscitate a development that would have been anchored by a new Krispy Creme corporate headquarters before the doughnut maker's fortunes suddenly turned sour.

The Winston-Salem City Council's finance committee voted this week to recommend as much as $29 million in incentives for the project.

Winston-Salem city leaders visited Greensboro some time ago to check out First Horizon Park and obviously liked what they saw.

As a former Winston resident, I wished they'd do more in another part of town, the North Liberty Street area, which is the grimiest, least attractive part of Winston's downtown. I've always liked Winston's downtown and admired its bustle as long ago as the early 1980s. even as tumbleweeds seemed to blowing down South Elm in Greensboro.

I also always thought it had a cool skyline that gave it a city feel you could see from Business 40.

I know, the new Wachovia tower there looks like a big roll-on deodorant stick -- or worse -- but I like what Winston is doing with its downtown and wish them well with it.

It only enhances the Triad for all of its cities to have lively downtowns. Vibrant center cities should not detract from regional initiatives. I only hope our area cities find enough common ground to keep working together.

You may now comment on each day's lead editorial starting right now and right here. You'll have to take a few moments to register, then you're good to go.

We hope the new dimension to reader interactivity will give you a new outlet for your views.

As we move along, we'll likely open other aspects of the opinion pages to reader comments.

The Asheville Citizen-Times editorially supports a proposal to turn two public housing developments into gated communities. The impetus is not snooty residents; it's the threat of criminal intruders.

"If it reduces crime and doesn’t infringe on the rights of the residents," the newspaper editorializes in support of a trial run with gates, "it is an initiative that would be worth continuing."

Certainly sounds more compelling a case than that Georgia town that built a gated community within a gated community.

While working on an assignment for a computer class, reports the News & Observer of Raleigh, some high school students managed to tap into the Durham Public Schools data base.

Not to worry, though. They promptly reported what they found, and, in this teacher's humble opinion, deserved two A's: One for their computer expertise and another for their scruples.

There'll be some extra Christmas lights next week on the Greensboro skyline.

Roy Carroll II says construction crews will strike up temporary lights in the long-dark old Wachovia tower, which is being stripped of its outer skin in its extreme makeover as Center Pointe.

There'll also be sparks from welding crews working overtime to dress down the building in preparation for its new facade and exterior.

Carroll gave me a tour Thursday of the tower's top floors. Fortunately it was unseasonably warm so the wind was more breezy than blustery.

Carroll said he'd had a talk with brothers Steve and Jim Jones, who have closed their sales office and are rethinking their approach to Bellemeade Village.

Carroll also said he hopes they'll be able to make Bellemeade work because it's in every downtown developer's best interest that they do.

Unlike other parts of the city, he said. developers need to pull for one another because they depend on one another's success.

He also said he fully expects Bellemeade Village to becme reality because the land is too valuable for it not to.

As for the view from the top of the tower, I'll come clean. It made me queasy, especially with the outside walls gone, and with only a cable and a warning sign between me and the pavement below.

The vista is tremendous, though. Carroll said early buyers preferred the First Horizon Park side of the building. Now that Center City Park has opened, the requests are roughly half and half.

On a clear day, I could see why for myself.

We lost two good friends of the newspaper last week.

Stanley Shavitz and Dr. John Bumgarner both succumbed to illnesses within one day of one another. Dr. Bumgarner died Wednesday at the age of 94. Stanley died Thursday at the age of 79.

(Hereafter I'll refer to Stanley as "Stanley" and Dr. Bumgarner as "Dr. Bumgarner" because that's what we called them.)

Both men loved reading the newspaper. And both were convicted and passionate in their beliefs. It was not uncommon for Stanley to leave a voice mail over the weekend if a column or editorial had particularly struck him in the Sunday paper. "Allen, it's 5:30 a.m.," the message usually began.

Stanley was a throwback, a guy who couldn't wait for each day's paper, fresh on his doorstep.

Dr. Bumgarner was a retired physician who until recently had faithfully filed one letter to the editor per month, every month, 12 months a year, like clockwork.

His remarkable story included his service as an Army doctor in World War II during which he survived three years in a Japanese POW camp.
While Stanley couldn't wait for the paper to arrive, Dr. Bumgarner couldn’t wait for the 30-day limit to expire so he could submit a new letter — and he often didn't. We'd gently have to ask him to wait a few more days.

So far as I could tell, Stanley leaned a bit more to the left, Dr. Bumgarner the other way. Of course, I’m only guessing.

But I do know Dr. Bumgarner was no fan of Bill Clinton, and even less fond of Hillary, to whom he devoted a long series of scathing letters. "To me it is incredible that Hillary Clinton is even thought of as a possible candidate for the presidency in 2008," he wrote in 2003.

In an interesting NPR commentary, sportswriter Frank Deford asks whether all the attention to a recent brawl between the New York Knicks and the Denver Nuggets seems to have sparked more outrage than fairly routine fights in hockey and brushback pitches and rhubarbs in baseball.

The Godfather of Soul will be laid to rest this week.

But James Brown's indelible mark will live on.

In fact, Eddie Murphy's acclaimed portrayal of fictional R&B star James "Thunder" Early in the new movie "Dreamgirls" is based in part on Brown.

I remember a suitemate during our college days at Carolina who'd start his day (and ours) by blasting Brown's "Papa Don't Take No Mess" on his quadrophonic stereo (remember those?) every morning.

You couldn't help being annoyed. You also couldn't help tapping your feet.

Embattled Durham DA Mike Nifong faces ethics charges from the state bar association.

Small wonder.

No matter where you stand on this case it's impossible not to be disappointed and angered with how Nifong has conducted this case and misled the public.

The ethics charges, filed Thursday, accuse Nifong of violating four rules of professional conduct by making misleading and inflammatory comments about the players accused of raping an exotic dnacer.

Nifong could be disbarred.

In one last opportunity to act honorably Nifong should recuse himself from this case. Or the judge in the case should force him to.

Read my lips: Zip it. Stifle. Shut up. And I mean that in the nicest way.

From Va. Sen. George Allen's fatal utterance of the once-obscure term "macaca" to Michael Richards' n-famous n-vocation of the n-word — n public — to Mel Gibson's drunken tirade to Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell's nasty sandbox dustup, this has not been a banner year for profound pronouncements.

So for what's left of 2006 maybe it would be most prudent just not to say anything.

To let the old year pass peacefully. In its sleep. Unmolested by harsh language and brittle manners.

As for 2007, let's all resolve to do good and be better. And, pretty please, to think before we speak.

In an effort to help get things started, here's a list of stuff I'd love to hear my state and community leaders say in '07:

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong: "I have mangled this case horrifically from day one and I apologize. I apologize to the Duke lacrosse players, whom I have tried in the media. I apologize to the community, which has been polarized based on misinformation and misconception. And I apologize to rape and sexual assault victims everywhere, for making it tougher for them to come forward in the future through my stubborn, reckless handling of this explosive case. Fact is, you've been hoodwinked, bamboozled and had. And I'm sorry."

Warnersville Community Coalition leader Otis Hairston Jr. and Greensboro College President Craven Williams (in a joint statement): "Warnersville residents and the college have agreed to work together to ensure that our planned new sports complex won't be disruptive to the adjacent neighborhood and that the historic J.C. Price School will be preserved as part of the project."

Triad animal lovers on a new, combined initiative to join forces to combat Guilford County's epidemic of abandoned pets: "We decided it was time to work together on this problem than to claw and scratch at each other like, well, cats and dogs."

Weaver Foundation President Skip Moore on a long-overdue fund-raising boost for a long-overdue institution: "We are overwhelmed that this community has stepped forward with such faith, vision and generosity to support the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. Now we'll open months sooner than projected."