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This week's column.

Sartorially speaking, Michael Vick looked just mah-velous when he strutted into a Richmond, Va., courtroom and pleaded guilty to charges he'd previously denied that he was connected to a dogfighting ring and that he had personally abused some of the animals. From the tailored suit to the earring to the spit-shined shoes, rarely has someone dressed so well for a dressing-down.

"GQ, I'm ready for my close-up."

Everywhere else, of course, the disgraced Atlanta Falcons quarterback isn't so fashionable. A Gallup poll finds little sympathy among pro football fans for Vick, whose sense of judgment does not match his considerable talent on the field.

Many favor a lifetime ban of Vick for his role in dogfighting for cash and kicks. Fifty-eight percent of those polled said Vick shouldn't be allowed to play in the NFL again. Only 22 percent said they would want their favorite team to attempt to acquire him if and when he returns, and 35 percent said he should serve a "long" prison sentence.

Their outrage is understandable. Vick not only abused dogs directly and indirectly, but he has admitted to executing dogs who failed to perform well enough in the ring by hanging and electrocution.

That said, there seems to be no small inconsistency in the outrage directed at Vick versus other sports and entertainment figures who have skirted the law in potentially even more thoughtless and tragic ways.

The professionally lettered sign is back.

After a couple years' hiatus, it sits attached to a wooden stake on a lush corner lot where the grass really is greener on the other side. Thicker, too.

"Well water," it says, so presumably the city's water police and huffy neighbors won't get bent out of shape. It's not city of Greensboro water, so it's OK even under the mandatory water restrictions that limit sprinklers to one day a week.

Problem is, even if watering lawns with well water is legal, it's still not wise as a drought grips the whole state and seems hell-bent not to let go.

Wells may not deplete the city's reservoirs, but they do deplete precious ground water all the same.

The News & Observer of Raleigh recently reported that Triangle wells are starting to run dry. But an N&O story last week focused on people who rely on wells because that's all they have.

In other words, those wells aren't for lawns or flower beds, they're for more basic, mundane stuff, like drinking, cooking and showers.

Approximately 2 million North Carolinians rely on private wells for all of their water.

As for the rest, whose wells merely make their lawns the envy of the neighborhood, well, even the "well water" sign shouldn't be a license to over-indulge.

Good for Earl Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, for pulling the plug on tasteless (and apparently unfunny) comic Eddie Griffin.

Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute reports.

We met this morning with several representatives of county government.

They wanted to update us on Guilford's first-ever strategic planning process. And they wanted to ask what we thought about county government's strengths and weaknesses.

Among those attending was commissioners Chairman Paul Gibson, Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen, County Manager David McNeill, HR Director Sharisse Fuller, Health Department Director Merle Green and Transportation Director Mark Kirstner.

The whole idea, they said, is to improve the way county government operates by creating a unified vision, setting clear priorities and working toward more focused objectives.

You don't hear this kind of stuff from county government very often, where two-fisted, knockdown, dragout disagreements typically rule the headlines. To paraphrase Tina Turner in "Proud Mary," Guilford never ever had a strategic plan.

But the folks who visited us seem genuinely committed and enthused about what the process can accomplish. Gibson quipped, "We're going to have to change our evil ways."

The county has been holding forums to seek public input on the process, as well as meeting with other groups in the community.

This is a good idea that ought to reap all kinds of dividends, especially long term. It also could build better relationships with other governments in the county.

But the current commissioners will have to endorse the process. And so will future commissioners.

"The majority of the board has bought into this," Gibson said of the current commissioners.

But when asked what could derail the process, he didn't hesitate. "Channel 13."

Cable Channel 13 televises the commissioners' meetings.

We're done with the first round of City Council candidate interviews, 26 in all.

It's been a long, interesting trip.

Some races have come into clearer focus. Others remain dilemmas as begin early discussions of our primary endorsement choices.

Unlike typical elections, most of these candidates came to play. They were generally well-prepared and, on the whole, provided thoughtful and informed answers on their questionnaires.

We'll take a break for a week, then schedule the remaining interviews for those races not involved in the primary: mayor, District 2 and District 4.

Also on tap: town meetings for voters in two of the hottest districts, 1 and 3. Here are the details:

What: News & Record District 1 Town Meeting
Where: Glenwood Branch Public Library
When: Sept. 18, 6 p.m.
Why: To hear your thoughts on the city issues you care most about.

What: News & Record District 3 Town Meeting
Where: Benjamin Parkway Branch Library
When: Sept. 20, 6:30 p.m.
Why: Same as above.

Y'all come. We''ll provide the refreshments. We hope you'll provide the food for thought.

A footnote to our first round of election interviews:

Luther Falls is the second opponent of incumbent T. Dianne Bellamy-Small in District 1 to acknowledge that he voted against her recall.

Falls said he disagreed with the recall in principle, and that he believes the city should revise its standards for recall elections.

Falls barely lost to Bellamy-Small in the 2005 election.

Another serious contender for Bellamy-Small's seat, Tonya Clinkscale, also said no to the recall.

This week's column.

Merchants of Hope, the new local initiative that aims to rescue young African American males from paths of aimlessness and bad choices, makes me think of Little Tony.

Tony was a neighborhood teenager whom my daddy had taken under his wing. My father gave Tony a variety of odd jobs around the house -- washing cars, cutting grass, polishing my mother's best silverware -- in exchange for a few bucks and a lasting friendship.

Tony and my dad, whom he called "Mr. Allen," grew very close over the years and Tony became, in very short order, like an adopted brother to me and my siblings. And a third son to my father.

It seemed only fitting his last name happened to be Johnson, just like ours.

Tony had friendly eyes and a broad, toothy smile. He wore his hair alternately in braids or a big, bodacious Afro that would blow like waves of wheat in a breeze.

He liked to draw and was especially taken with his drafting class at Dudley High School. He'd show me meticulous sketches of houses and churches. He wanted to be an architect one day.
You could say my daddy tried to impart some useful lessons with the spare change he dispensed to Tony -- fair pay for an afternoon's work, being where you said you'd be at the appointed time, and doing what you said you were going to do.

When Tony needed work, my dad got him a job at a local Winn-Dixie. When he needed shoes, my dad bought them.

I'd like to say there was a happy ending.

Tony wound up in prison for his part in an armed robbery of a Greensboro motel. That hurt my dad deeply, but he still didn't give up on Tony and Tony never gave up on him.

Mom says Tony denied involvement in the robbery to my father but he never did to me, or as far as I know, anyone else. The only thing he ever said to me about the crime is how dumb a decision he'd made. Mom wonders if Tony didn't want my dad to know the truth because it would be so disappointing to him.

While Tony served his time in a western North Carolina prison, he regularly wrote my father, in neat cursive letters on notebook paper. My dad had warned him to choose his friends more carefully, Tony said in an essay for a prison class about my dad. "He would say, 'You need to change the friends you hang around. You can get in more trouble in five minutes than it would take you 10 years to get out of.' "

My dad had predicted Tony's prison sentence to the month: seven to 10 years.
In return, Dad sent him money and words of encouragement. And never gave up on Tony.
Then Dad died on April 7, 1998. We were all numbed and shaken by the suddenness with which we lost him. None of us any more than Tony, who'd gotten the word while still behind bars.

He'd dreamt about Dad, Tony said in a letter to my mom, and he'd use the loss as a source of strength and inspiration to turn his life around. "I know he's watching,'' Tony wrote in that letter to Mom. "And when I make something of myself he's going to smile.''

Nobody seems willing or able to explain whatever happened to those nifty news conferences the City Council planned in a quest for more glasnost at City Hall.

Odds are you'll find Jimmy Hoffa first.

Truth be told, the weekly news conferences probably weren't all that practical or necessary anyway. There would have likely not been a lot to talk about on some weeks.

But to say you're going to do them, then renege, then not say why, does not exactly elevate the council's credibility or trust quotient.

One council member privately suggested that enough people probably decided they didn't want to do the conferences, so they didn't.

Democracy at work.

I interview Greensboro Water Resources Director Allan Williams Wednesday morning for a video "Newsmaker" installment that will be posted soon on the Web.

Allan had joked when we scheduled this interview last week that he'd hoped to be carrying an umbrella when he arrived at the News & Record.

Alas, no rain. The boat ramp on Lake Higgins was closed today because the lake levels are falling.

While the temperatures are cooling, there's still no rain.

It even got ominously dark today but still not one single, solitary drop.

Let me know any questions you'd like me to pose to Allan.

I'd like to join Doug Clark and John Robinson in encouraging you to participate in the second One Guilford Conference Oct. 17 at Guilford College.

This session will follow up the first One Guilford symposium last May at High Point University, which drew more than 225 participants and seemed to stoke the fires for greater unity and a shared vision in the county.

JR suggests calling it 2.One Guilford (wish I'd thought of that).

This fall's conference, sponsored by the News & Record and hosted by Guilford, promises to be more hands-on for the audience. We'll sandwich small-group breakout sessions between gatherings of the larger group.

We were very pleased by the energy of the first One Guilford. We hope we can sustain it in the sequel.

We're also aiming to attract a broader cross section of the population. Make no mistake, we were delighted to see the number of business, government and nonprofit leaders on hand at the first One Guilford and hope they'll return for the second.

But we need more grass-roots voices and young voices and more voices from people of color represented as well.

One Guilford starts at 9 a.m. and ends at noon on Oct. 17, a Wednesday. The price is right: It's free and open to everyone.

Parking shouldn't be a problem, either, since Guilford will be on fall break at that time.

Doug provides a detailed overview of the program and the speakers here.

Doug also deserves a huge hand in advance for leading the planning on our end for both One Guilfords, which requires a boatload of planning and coordination (in addition to his regular job).

Meanwhile, Guilford College has been more than generous and gracious as a partner.

As for why we're doing this, it's simple. The News & Record wants not merely to report on community problems but to help find solutions.

That's why we're also holding town meetings on elections next week in Districts 1 and 2. And why we're digging deeper in our city elections coverage.

As we see it, the more we can bring people and ideas together, the better we'll be as a newspaper. And the better off we'll all be as a community.

.

It's gettin' hot in here.
-- Nellie

It was good to see rain today, even though it won't dent the drought that grips all of North Carolina and is squeezing us dry.

But beggars can't be choosers.

Every precious drop is appreciated. Send more!

Meanwhile, the mandatory restrictions still apply in Greensboro and Gov. Easley is calling for at least voluntary restrictions throughout the state.

It could be worse. We could live in Japan.

In the quest to conserve energy and reduce pollution, the Japanese have embraced a movement to turn up their air conditioning in their workplaces, reports The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

Some are turning their themostats as high as 86 degrees and forgoing dressier business attire for cooler (literally) casual dress.

Yet, their good intentions may not overcome the discomfort and irritability that come with the higher temperatures.

Not to mention lower productivity.

Turns out taking the heat in the workplace may not be so hot an idea after all.

My demographic profile probably already suggests that I'm not supposed to like some of the music that dominates radio playlists these days.

But does Rhianna's "Umbrella" take the cake for inane refrain about rain or what?

You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

I know I never could carry a tune, but, hey, even I could have come up with better lyrics than that. My 9-year-old niece could have.

Eddie Wooten and I enjoyed our "appearance" Friday morning on WNAA (90.1 FM).

Our main mission was to encourage voter participation in the city elections and to talk up the News & Record's enhanced election coverage.

But we also received some interesting calls, one a comment about the lack of representation from Districts 1 and 2, which are predominantly black, among the at-large candidates for City Council.

The majority come from northwest Greensboro.

What is that and what does it mean?

It just so happens we have a story in today's paper.

This week's column.

Whatever happened to the regular news conferences the City Council planned several months ago in a quest for more glasnost at City Hall?

The weekly confabs, suggested and generally embraced at the council's retreat, way back in January, seemed to go away before they ever came. More than half a year later, not one single such meeting with the press has been held.

What's up with that?

When asked about the mysterious disappearance two weeks ago, the city's communication director, Pat Boswell, said she didn't know. There were training sessions and a designated first date, Boswell said.

"That was the last I heard. I was never told to schedule one."

One council member privately suggested that enough people probably decided they didn't want to do the news conferences, so they didn't.

But City Manager Mitchell Johnson says that's not how it happened. Not only were council members trained on the finer points of dealing with the media, he said, but they were paired in an eight-person rotation. (Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small refused to participate.)

Johnson says the first news conference was to feature Mayor Keith Holliday and another council member, but scheduling conflicts arose. Then it was to feature Mike Barber and Yvonne Johnson. More conflicts.

The process ultimately dragged into election season, Mitchell Johnson said. The council then chose to temporarily shelve the press conferences, he said, so as not to give the incumbent members who are running for re-election unfair exposure over their challengers.
How honorable — and convenient.

"I think they want to do it," Johnson insisted. "There's nothing draconian about it. It was more a matter of the best-laid plans of mice and men."

The News & Record editorially opposed a compromise bill that granted state incentives to Goodyear and Bridgestone Firestone plants that could pay thosee companies taxpayer-funded grants even if they cut jobs.

State Rep, Maggie Jeffus of Greensboro offered this explanation in an e-mail why she supported the bill:

Allen, I respect your feelings and mine are somewhat mixed as I've said before. We started giving incentives in order to be competitive with other states, and the fact that NC is in need of jobs; retaining jobs and recruiting new jobs.

It's difficult to stop something once its started. With all of that said, we were in a difficult situation. I honestly went to Raleigh with the thought of upholding the Governor's veto unless something could be worked out.

I had heard prior to Monday that they were trying to work on a compromise. I also felt and heard that the votes were there for an override which would have left us with the original bill. Speaker Hackney and a few other key people worked hard to construct this compromise , and I think the Speaker deserves a lot of credit for his perseverance. There were many concerns and that is the reason a study was inserted into the legislation to look at the policy side of the incentive issue and other things as well.

The legislators from the two Tier 1 areas also gave compelling reasons why this was needed for their area. A few reminded me that Guilford had received their votes for things such as the Nano School, the Civil Rights Museum, the High Point Furniture Market, the Natural Science Center, Fed Ex, etc. and that Guilford may want or need something in the future. These things bring people to Greensoro/Guilford to spend money, boost our economy, and encourage businesses to locate here.

This is a very long answer for your short question. I did vote "yes" for the compromise. There are some differences in the two bills but I understand the "principle" is the same. Hopefully the study will give more answers and maybe congress will do something in the future as well.

Maggie

Got the chance to video interview an Academy Award-winner today.

Louis Gossett Jr. -- Fidder in "Roots, " for which he won an Emmy, and Sgt. Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman," for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar -- was gracious and down-to-earth.

He also reminded me that, for all his accolades for "Roots" and "Officer," another of his favorite roles was as an alien in the science fiction movie, "Enemy Mine."

Took him six hours in makeup a day, he said. And it was a physically painful role. But the discomfort helped him get into his character.

Gossett was in town as part of Guilford College's Bryan Lecture Series, speaking tonight on the ability -- and indeed the need --- for performers to use their celebrity to advocate for social change.

Among the more interesting points Gossett made was his concern about youth gangs, a growing problem here, and an intitative he has begun to take selected members of rival gangs to Africa.

"Roots," the newest generation.

These young people can get a better handle on where they are headed by understanding where they're from.

More on Gossett, a true gentleman, later.

I don't want to get overly giddy about a teeming throng of 30-plus people.

But, like Doug, I was geuninely impressed -- and pleasantly surprised -- by both the turnout, diversity and richness of the News & Record's District 1 town hall discussion of election issues Tuesday night at the Glenwood Library.

Man wasn't it fun to keep having to pull out chairs as more and more people trickled in.

First a confession: I immediately assumed we'd attract a predominantly African American crowd. And I was wrong. District 1 is much more racially mixed than you might think, and all of its white residents don't live in Glenwood.

I know the district currently represented by T. Dianne Bellamy-Small is 30 percent white. Yet even when a crowd that appeared evenly mixed between black and white showed up, I still took for granted that many of the white members of the audience must be from outside the district.Wrong again.

Most were from District 1, and nearly everyone -- black, white and other -- had interesting things to say.

It was if all these views and passions had been pent up for months and all of a sudden, someone was willing to listen.

They were informed and engaged. They were civil and respectrful, even though they clearly didn't agree with one another on some points.

And they were not happy with the way things are.

They wanted more leadership from the City Council. They perceived the council as lacking gumption and a clear vision.

They wanted more police officers and more action to curb gangs. (One wondered if downtown really needed all those police officers at the expense of neighborhoods elsewhere.)

But one of them made it clear he didn't believe that should mean targeting and demonizing young black men.

They wanted more positive, proactive solutions to homelessenss and aggressive panhandlers.

They see wasteful spending and a need for tougher priorities in city spending.

They lamented the lack of economic development in Districts 1 and 2.

Among other comments made Tuesday night:

If the letters to the editor the working their way through our pipeline here are any indication, people are especially worked up right now about tickets -- the ones the ones the city gives for parking violations and the ones the coliseum sold for a Hannah Montana concert.

According to the early returns, there is little sympathy among our readers for Kevin Morse, the attorney is fighting the city's attempts to recover the more than $2,300 he owes for unpaid parking tickets.

Read their lips, the letter writers are saying: Either feed the meter, as everyone else does, or pay up.

As for Hannah Montana, her November concert sold out in what seemed like five seconds, angering parents who believe they've been squeezed out by scalpers.

I don't know much about Hannah Montana, the preteen flavor of the month. But she appears to have provoked longer lines than the iphone.

Reminds me of the hue and cry that followed a negative review by local critic Parke Puterbaugh (what does he know, having merely worked for Rolling Stone?) of N-Sync.

You'd have thought Sinead O'Connor had done her pope thing again.

I'm glad I got the chance to attend the funeral of Claudette Burroughs-White today at Mount Zion Baptist Church.

The former city councilwoman was a low-key but formidable force who made things happen through her considerable charm, persistence and persuasiveness.

She was proof positive that you could build a stronger community using the bricks and mortar of principle and goodwill, not a wrecking ball.

Nancy McLaughlin does an excellent job of capturing the mood in her Saturday column. (I got a chance to see the piece before it was published and will provide a link early Saturday.)

Incidentally, the memorial service occurred amid even more turmoil surrounding the Greensboro Police Department.

For a brief, shining moment, at least, a sharply divided community joined hands in tribute to Claudette.

Even in death Claudette could bring people together.

Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock creates a stir with this take on the Jena 6 case.

Writes Whitlock, who is African American: "There was no 'schoolyard fight as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.

"Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

"A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the 'Jena Six' case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker's assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the 'Jena Six' in reaction to Walters' extreme charges of attempted murder."

I commend Whitlock for not blindly jumping in the Jena bandwagon without critically considering all of the facts. He raises some pertinent issues, which some people already have used to ignore the basic fact that black kids had to ask permission, in 2007, to gather under a whites-only tree on a public school campus. I don't think that was Whitlock's intent.

The culture surrounding the tradition of the schoolyard tree is still wrong and should have been dealt with more forcefully and sensitively by school officials and the Jena school board. The resulting national controversy would never have occurred.

As for the assault of Justin Barker, it, too, was despicable.

People are searching for absolute right and wrong narratives in this case. That rarely happens in real life. There are definitely blacks and whites in the Jena turmoil, literally and figuratively. There are also grays.

My take:

The tree tradition was wrong and should never have been sanctioned, tacitly, or otherwise. That black students even had to ask for permission to gather under the tree is disturbing in and of itself.

The noose incident was ignorant and mean-spirited and hurtful and should have been more severely punished.

The Jena school board dealt with the incident callously and clumsily.

The punishment should fit the crime in the assault of the white student. No more. No less.

And somebody down there ought to deal with the root causes of this story, an undercurrent of racial friction and backward attitudes that have no place in the 21st century.

.

This week's column.

Some guy was watering his driveway — not his lawn — with a sprinkler Friday morning in direct violation of mandatory city water conservation rules.

Or was he?

The restrictions currently in force expressly prohibit use of sprinklers to irrigate lawns except on garbage collection days.

It wasn't a garbage collection day in this part of town. But, then again, this guy wasn't watering his grass.

As far as I could tell, he was using the sprinkler to wash a yellow baby stroller. Is that legal?

No way, says Christine Williams, who directs the city's water conservation program.

"It doesn't matter what they're watering. If it's a sprinkler we're going to enforce it as irrigation."

I took note of the guy's address. Now I'm mulling whether to snitch.

As tomorrow's editorial will note, the fracas at Saturday's A&T game is hardly unique in college athletics.

Name your rivalry: East Carolina-N.C. State. Clemson-South Carolina. North Carolina-N.C. State. And you can name at least one, probably more, incidents of fighting among players and hooliganism among fans, including injured police and state troopers.

That doesn't excuse what happened after what, by all accounts, was a really good game between A&T and arch rival N.C. Central.

What is most disturbing is the possible provocation of the incident by NCCU coaches. A&T Athletics Director Dee Todd says she personally saw coaches leading the Central players in stomping the Aggie logo at midfield and in taunting of the A&T players and giving them middle-finger salutes.

If NCCU is serious about resolving the matter, those coaches need to be held accountable. They, of all people, should know better.

We have not kept pace with the newest wave of fall movies and, in fact, missed some of the summer releases.

For instance, "No End in Sight" has been on our must-see list for weeks but we might have to settle for a Netflix viewing.

We did find time to see "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster two weeks ago and I still have no idea what to make of it.

The movie still appears to me to be a glossier remake of Charles Bronson's old vigilante flick "Death Wish," which begat increasingly cartoonist sequels.

Foster plays the host of an NPR-like New York radio program who is attacked while walking with her fiance in a shadowy Big Apple park. Her fiance is beaten to death by the assailants, who digitally record the incident. Foster's character also is beaten to the point of falling into a coma.

Once she recovers, she gets a gun (illegally) and proceeds to kill bad people randomly, before tracking down her own attackers. She also kills a man whom she is told is a bad guy by a police friend. She seeks him out and wastes him in a crowd-pleasing scene.

Foster seems to be channeling her inner Eastwood. With an icy look on her face, she seems to be just itching for somebody to go ahead, make her day.

What is the message of this movie?

That it's OK to become judge, jury and executioner of not only someone who wronged you, but other people who just happen to mess with you in your daily travels and even other people you don't know but have been told are despicable?

The crowd cheered at the end.

I just felt uneasy and confused.

As if the N.C. Highway Patrol didn't have enough image problems, now this (You'll need to read toward the middle of the News & Observer's Under the Dome column)..

You read it here first.

Based on little more than a gut feeling, I predict a big turnout in the Oct. 9 primary.

The signs are encouraging:

Big audiences at most forums.

Surprisingly large and engaged crowds at the News & Record's two town hall meetings.

Nearly three dozen candidates, most of whom are well-qualified and campaigning seriously.

More and more candidates with blogs and Web sites.

(One of our blogging brethren, Joe Guarino, even has come up with his own candidate questionnaires.)

Greensboro will come out in bigger numbers than it has in a long, long time on Oct. 9 and Nov. 6.

Or not.

This week's column.

On one basic premise, Media Matters and I agree: Leonard Pitts Jr. is a very popular columnist with a broad and faithful audience.

Pitts draws full houses when he comes to Greensboro and his following crosses racial and ideological lines.

His column following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 evoked one of the most positive and sustained responses from readers I've ever seen.

What's more, he's a genuinely nice guy who's conversant on everything from comic books and P-Funk to religion and global politics. He doesn't huff and puff with self-importance, despite that Pulitzer Prize on his mantle.

If I wanted to cause a reader insurrection in Greensboro, all I'd need to do is yank either Pitts or Thomas Friedman from the paper. I'd have to leave town. Fast.

So, I buy it when Media Matters cites Pitts as the second-most popular syndicated columnist in North Carolina (George Will ranked first).

But the liberal media watchdog's broader pronouncement about the conservative leanings of daily op-ed pages is a harder sell — not so much because it's wrong but because it's wrongheaded.

Following a sweeping analysis of who runs what, how often, Media Matters confidently pronounces that "conservatives have a clear and unmistakable advantage" in frequency and sheer numbers.

"In short, just as in so many other areas of the media," the report adds, "the right has the upper hand."

Whoa, hoss.

I won't speak for anyone else, but since the News & Record's op-ed, or Second Opinion, pages are included in the analysis of 1,377 newspapers across the country, I will speak for my own section.

Media Matters ranks the News & Record's op-ed pages as the 10th-most conservative in North Carolina among the 44 daily newspapers surveyed in the state. The News & Record rated higher in percentage of conservative op-ed columnists (50 percent) among all the larger papers in the state, including Charlotte (46 percent), Raleigh (44 percent) and Winston-Salem (42 percent).

According to Media Matters, the News & Record runs only 38 percent "progressive" (another word for liberal) syndicated columnists.
I'm not sure how much this means, except to confirm that the News & Record strives for balance. Our op-ed pages contain lots of conservatives by design, to counter the more moderate (some say liberal) positions in our house editorials.
But the study contains several flaws, including whom it classifies as what. For example, I've always considered John Hood of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh as conservative (for what that's worth). Media Matters says he's centrist.
For the record, Hood agrees with me. "By their definition," he says, "they should have classified me as conservative."
Then again, Hood wonders why he's in the survey at all since he's not nationally syndicated. "I shouldn't have even been included," he says.
Further, Media Matters totally ignores editorial cartoons. It dismisses the presence of "Doonesbury," with its clear liberal bent, on ours, and others', daily op-ed pages.
It also removes local columnists from the equation, although I doubt any of our readers would mistake Rosemary Roberts as a conservative or Charles Davenport Jr. as a liberal.
Most important, Media Matters fails to view opinion pages as whole entities. How can it evaluate op-ed pages without taking into consideration as well the position of the main editorial pages?
Op-ed pages are supposed to complement the main editorial pages. That's where the "op" comes in ... it not only denotes the physical location of the op-ed pages but their role as a place for other views, especially dissenting opinions.
Beyond all that, simple labels can be shallow and deceiving.
As I see it, most of our readers simply like being challenged by other views. The biggest compliment you can pay an opinion writer is not that she necessarily changed your mind.
But that she made you think.