News-Record.com

A veteran television anchor who has worked in Charlotte, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and Kansas City was fired Tuesday by a Huntsville, Ala., station after allegedly calling an African American producer the "N" word.

What makes this story even more interesting: The anchor is African American as well.

He got what he deserved. "Nigger" as a word needs to be retired, period. It certainly has no place in a work setting. And there should be no special exemption for black folks to use it.

If we don't want whites to say it, we shouldn't, either.

Richard Prince has more on the incident here.

In the midst of planning our election coverage for November, I took a moment to compare our endorsements to the actual outcome in Guilford County.

By my count, we went 12-4.

Here is a list of our endorsements (we did not endorse for every office on the ballot in the primary although we will in November):

Our pick: Richard Moore, Democrat, governor.
Outcome: Bev Perdue

Our pick: Pat McCrory. governor, Republican
Outcome: Pat McCrory

Our pick: Kay Hagan, Democrat U.S. Senate
Outcome: Kay Hagan

Our pick: Elizabeth Dole, Republican, U.S, Senate
Outcome: Elizabeth Dole

Our pick: Brad Miller, Congress,13th District Democrat
Outcome: Brad Miller

Our pick: Teresa Bratton, Congress, 6th District
Outcome: Teresa Bratton

Our pick: Laura Wiley, Republican, N.C. House, District 61
Outcome: Laura Wiley

Our pick: Katie Dorsett, Democrat, N.C. Senate, District 28
Outcome: Katie Dorsett

Our pick: Rick Wallace, Republican, County Commissioner, District 5
Outcome: Billy Yow

Our pick: Greg Woodard. Democrat, County Commissioner, District 8
Outcome: Skip Alston

Our pick: Quarter-cent sales tax increase: Yes
Outcome: No

Our pick: School bonds: Yes
Outcome: Yes

Our pick: Eastern Guilford bonds: Yes
Outcome: Yes

Our pick: GTCC bonds: Yes
Outcome: Yes

Our pick: County Jail bonds: Yes
Outcome: Yes

Our pick: Parks & Recreation Bonds: No
Outcome: No

What does that mean? Not a whole lot.

Endorsing candidates is not like picking NCAA brackets.

We're not in it necessarily to choose winners. We're simply sharing our collective opinion as an editorial board on who the best candidate is.

In some cases, we're pretty sure we were going with very, very long shots. We knew, for instance. that Billy Yow very likely would win over Rick Wallace for commissioner, as would Skip Alston over Greg Woodard, who had been bed-ridden with pneumonia during the campaign but probably would have lost even if he had been fully healthy.

But we wanted to send a message to Alston and Yow that they both really needed to clean up their acts.

I don't know if they're going to listen.

Again, all this doesn't mean much, except it follows a pattern, for what its worth, that we generally fall in line wth how the populace voted, this election and most others.

That would at least suggest that we're not "out of touch," as some of you have alleged.

But, hey, I could be wrong.

I may yet be wrong, but I'm guessing this seals the deal for at least one of those three Tar Heels not returning next season.

I agree with George Will. Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s vice president does not make a lot of sense.

For starters, it’s hard to believe the bad blood between the two is suddenly gone.
Hillary ceded the stage to Obama only after being pushed by other Democrats to move on.

Second, her very presence on the ticket undermines Obama’s change mantra. She is the Washington establishment.

Third, if she is using, of all people, BET founder Bob Johnson (as he alleges), to lobby for the vice presidency, she obviously still hasn’t realized that Johnson is nothing less than Kryptonite to many black folks.

Finally, Obama may not need her as much as some people think.

The two are almost identical on the issues and once those Hillaryites who vow they’ll defect to McCain take even a cursory look at where he stands on the issues — such as abortion, health care and Iraq — they’ll find it hard to follow through on that threat.

This week's column.

Should there be helmets and shoulder pads in UNCG’s future?

It’s a tempting thought.

As someone who has taught there off and on, I’ve heard students grumble that the school lacks a football team — and that a homecoming soccer game just doesn’t cut it.

I’ve heard them call UNCG a “suitcase school” and suggest that college football could be the remedy.

I don’t know about that.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy college football on sunny fall afternoons as much as the next guy — especially at UNCG’s crosstown sister campus, N.C. A&T, where the battle of the bands at halftime can be as compelling as the games themselves.

UNCG is almost close enough to A&T that you can hear the drumbeat of the Aggie marching band. And I can understand the sibling envy that probably stirs.

But I see his point when UNCG’s longtime athletics director, Nelson Bobb, a former football player and coach, says, “No thanks,” when the question of football periodically surfaces. “I don’t think it fits at UNCG,” Bobb says.

UNCG has an attractive campus and a growing athletics tradition without football. Student social life is not as, uh, Spartan, as it used to be when I first taught there 20 years ago.

As evidence, visit the plush and expanded Elliott University Center, for which the words “student union” seem hardly adequate.

Besides, college football, especially on the highest level, is a very risky and expensive proposition.

Even so, another state university, UNC-Charlotte, desperately wants a team and is seriously exploring how to make it happen.

The school envisions fielding a team by the year 2012. Charlotte first would compete in the NCAA’s “Football Championship Subdivision,” which once was known simply as Division 1-AA. A&T, Appalachian State and Elon play on that level.

In 2016, they would move up to the big leagues, the “Football Bowl Subdivision,” formerly known as Division 1-A. Miami and Notre Dame compete on that level.

Two former presidents of the UNC system, C.D. “Dick” Spangler and William Friday, have said they oppose Charlotte’s plans. Football would threaten the “integrity” and academics at the school, they argue.

I don’t know about that, either.

Mike Huckabee added another feather to his cap as a potential running mate for John McCain. He saved a fellow Republican's life. In Greensboro, no less.

Huckabee performed the Heimlich maneuver on Robert Pittenger, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, at a luncheon Saturday at the Koury Center.

As you've probably read, Pittenger found himself choking on a piece of food at the state GOP convention here Saturday.

The episode recalled an incident more than a decade ago at a News & Record luncheon, in which a high school athletics director, Sandy Gann of Northwest Guilford, suddenly began choking on a piece of chicken -- while laughing at someone's joke.

He nearly died.

I was sitting at his table and was mortified as he gasped for air and turned red.

Even worse, I had no knowledge of the Heimlich technique and frantically searched for someone who did.

Fortunately, we found that person and the coach survived. It was a scary moment.

The only thing I found more horrifc was nearly choking to death myself. Twice.

Once was in a restaurant near Richmond, Va., six years ago, when I attempted to swallow a piece of steak that was too large.

As I nearly went under for lack of air, none of my dinner mates could understand what was happening until I managed to (ugh) cough up the meat. (You're supposed to grab your throat with both hands to indicate the choking sign, my buddies said later.)

The other time was while eating a slice of tomato at home with only my dog there to witness it. Unfortunately, she could only look on helplessly as I stumbled and gagged. She does not know the Heimlich. But I had remembered how to perform the maneuver on one's self (by using the force of a chair back against my midsection to dislodge the food).

Two strikes and I'm still here, just barely. I still need formal Heimlich training.

And I really need to learn to chew my food better.

My co-workers and I have decided to change one of our policies involving election commentary: From here forward we’ll post those letters on the blog.

But we started to wonder whether a rich discussion was being missed by our excluding these letters. And, to be honest, we also found ourselves spending too much time trying to decide what constitutes an “election letter” (which by definition endorses or opposes a candidate or a ballot initiative) and what doesn’t.

We also had been reluctant to post these letters in the past because we wondered whether you would behave and keep the comments clean, factual and civil.

By and large, we believe you will.

At least we hope so.

Among the film directors I admire is Clint Eastwood, who has smoothly evolved fron Dirty Harry into an elder craftsman behind the camera. Another is Spike Lee, who pricked our consciences with such efforts as "Do the Right Thing."

Now, as Richard Prince reports, the two are going at each other over the authenticity of Clint's Iwo Jima epic, "Flags of Our Fathers. Lee takes Eastwood to task for not featuring a single black soldier's face in the film.

Richard Prince provides the play-by-play.

The tough but affable TV newsman, Tim Russert, died suddenly on Friday while taping voice-overs for the leading Sunday morning talk show, NBC's "Meet the Press."

Russert, who was only 58, suffered a fatal heart attack, and for now, at least, seems impossible to replace.

He was a regular guest in my house on Sunday morning and his show was clearly, and consistently, better than the others.

He brought a delicate mix of fairness and authority to the show. And while some talk show blowhards see themselves as stars, and their guests as bit players, not Russert.

He was a gracious but demanding host, asking pointed questions, politely pushing some of the most powerful people in the world to talk straight and come clean.

He was always impeccably prepared, and he couldn't hide his love of covering Washington, and his glee at election time.

Ironically, Russert will be outlived by his son Luke -- and by his father, Tim Russert Sr., whom he called "Big Russ," and to whom he paid tribute in a warm-hearted bestseller, "Big Russ and Me" (2004). Another book. "Wisdom of Our Fathers, " followed in 2006.

Sadly, he died two days before Father's Day.

He'll also miss the outcome of one of the most compelling presidential races in recent memory.

"Meet the Press" will go on, probably, I'm guessing, with David Gregory in that seat.

But it will be difficult to replicate the rare mix of grit and geniality Russert brought to the table.

Billy Yow plans to remain the unlikely champion of a 1-cent sales tax increase.

Having failed to convince the local legislative delegation to pursue an increase specifically for Guilford County in Raleigh, Yow will lobby leaders in other counties to join his cause -- as a statewide matter.

Yow also favored a failed quarter-cent sales tax increase in Guilford that voters soundly defeated on the May 6 ballot.

He still thinks such a tax would be more of a benefit than a burden to county residents. I tend to agree. But he and I obviously are in the minority.

"This isn't over by a long shot," he told me Thursday.

Maybe so. But fierce opponents of the sales tax increase (including Rep. Pricey Harrison) see eye-to-eye with Yow on only two of those words: "long shot."

This week's column.

If Barack Obama were elected president this November, he wouldn’t be the first African American to occupy the Oval Office. Dennis Haysbert, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones and Tommy “Tiny Lister” all would have been there before him.

At least they would have played people who have.

One of these make-believe black presidents was clearly a Democrat.

Another was thrust into the office by a freak series of circumstances.

All had commanding voices.

And all comported themselves well in the face of spies, terrorists, aliens, conspiracies and even an impending cosmic Armageddon.

How much of a difference did women make in the May 6 primary n Guilford County?

Huge.

At least that's the verdict from the county's foremost cruncher of electoral statistics, former City Councilman Bill Burckley.

According to Burckley's analysis. 21,729 more women cast ballots than did men in Guilford County, a 16.82 percent spread.

Among black voters, 12,690 more women voted than men.

Was the huge women's turnout spurred by Obama and Clinton?

Burckley believes the school bonds on the ballot had as much, if not more, of a role. He says the bond proponents chose to target women voters with mailers because they tend to view school bonds more favorably.

Of course, Burckley is tooting his own horn when he says that, too. He worked as a consutant for the school bonds.

And he predicts that women voters won't turn out in similar numbers for the general election because there'll be no school bonds..

Good news for the South Elm/Lee Street area, which has become desolate and uninviting over the years.

The lots are being cleared for environmental clean-up, then revitalization. Lord knows they've need it for years.

As for the rest of Lee Street and High Point Road, a corridor study is in the works.Meanwhile, the new Doubletree Hotel and the slow-to-develop new Koury shopping center next to Four Seasons Town Centre are hopeful signs.

But the Lee Street portion could benefit most from UNCG, which has little room to expand, except along Lee Street. If I were school leaders, I'd be pushing to buy much of that land ASAP, starting with the site that holds the Industries for the Blind and is currently for sale.

This week's column.

Who would’ve thunk it?

County Commissioner Billy Yow, a conservative Republican who loves huntin’, hates big government and has never met a corporate incentive he liked, is pushing for a tax increase.
Having failed to convince the local legislative delegation to pursue an 1-cent sales tax increase specifically for Guilford County, Yow will lobby leaders in other counties to join his cause — as a statewide issue. He believes those other counties will want the same thing he envisions for Guilford: the chance to place the 1-cent increase on the ballot.

He plans a letter-writing campaign in the late summer or early fall. “I think that, out of 100 counties, we’ll pick up support on this,” he said last week.

Yow also favored a quarter-cent sales tax increase that Guilford voters soundly defeated in the May 6 primary. But he believes that increase failed so miserably because voters didn’t understand it and because no one stepped forward to promote and explain it. So he’s stepping forward now.

Yow says the county desperately needs sales tax to revenue to pay for the bonds voters approved in May for school construction, a new jail and expansions to GTCC. “We’re going to have to do something for alternative funding,” he said.

He still thinks such a tax would be more of a benefit than a burden to county residents. He has said so from Day One, and he’s not budging. “This isn’t over by a long shot,” he said.

Maybe so. But fierce opponents of the sales tax increase, including Rep. Pricey Harrison of Greensboro, see eye-to-eye with Yow on only two of those words: “long shot.”

Harrison and other local lawmakers closed the book on the tax increase almost before Yow could open it. “I do not approve, so I’ll save you the time,” Harrison said during a May meeting of the Guilford legislative delegation. “I’m just fundamentally opposed to these regressive taxes.”

She’s right. Sales taxes are regressive, meaning they charge the poor at the same rate they charge the rich, and therefore consume a larger share of poor people’s incomes.

But in the face of a tight economy, shrinking revenues and pressing needs for education, among others, the sales tax option still makes sense. As wrong as Yow may be on some issues, this isn’t one of them.

ESPN.com. columnist Jemele Hill was suspended last week for likening the Boston Celtics to Hitler in a piece about her disaffection for the Beantown's NBA champion basketball team.

Hill is a talented young writer whose career included a stint at the News & Observer of Raleigh. She still should have a bright future. But you should never, ever, use Hitler as a punch line in journalism.

What is and is not offensive in today's society is moving target. In the entertainment world, Jerry Seinfield as gotten away with it. The animated Fox show "Family Guy" seemingly exists to lampoon everyone from Hitler to Jesus (and, so far, gets away with it on dozens of channels daily, counting reruns). The hit Broadway play, "The Producers," gets away with it, being based as it is on a zany play within a play called "Springtime for Hitler."

But in serious journalism it's a one-way street to trouble.

Hill, a Detroit native, was trying to convey how a Detroiter could never pull for the Celtics. (For folks in my neck of the words, Duke and Carolina fans express similar sentiments about one another's teams.) Hill originally wrote in her ESPN.com column: "Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It's like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan."

The reference susbsequently was edited out of the column. But the damage had been done.

Hill wrote in an online apology:

"I deeply regret the comment I made in a column Saturday. In expressing my passion for the NBA and my hometown of Detroit I showed very poor judgment in the words that I used. I pride myself on an understanding of, and appreciation for, diversity — and there is no excuse for the appalling lack of sensitivity in my comments. It in no way reflects the person I am. I apologize to all of my readers and I thank them for holding me accountable. This has been an important lesson for me and illustrates that, like many people, I still have a lot of growing and learning to do."

Some in the profession have called for Hill's firing, and compare her reckless words to Don Imus's well-chronicled comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Hill, incidentally, called for Imus to be fired after his "nappy-headed ho's" remarks.

Frankly, I don't think this is a firing offense. It's hard to construe Hill, an African American, meaning to equate an African American team, coached by an African American, with Hitler. Or to compare her comments with Imus's, which were calculated as a personal attack on individuals members of a team.

Still, it was a clumsy, ill-considered analogy meant to be funny. It wasn't.

If I were Hill's editor, I'd sit her down and tell her never to use Hitler in an attempt to be humorous.

I'd suspend her, as ESPN has done (for an unspecified amount of time). Then I'd fully expect her never to forget this episode as long as she lives.

Update: Richard Prince cites a BET video that raises, again, the specter ofa double standard on what's offensive.

On the heels of the Jemele HIll episode, Don Imus is in the news again for allegedly racially offensive remarks.

Critics say he was attributing the six arrests of the Dallas Cowboy Formerly Known as Pacman Jones to his being black.

Imus says yes, but only in the sense that black people are unfairly arrested -- that he was defending Jones, not attacking him.

You be the judge.

On the heels of the fuss over Gov. Easley's travels comes this item from the News & Observer of Raleigh about a (former) Wake County waste management employee. His 50 trips and other expenses, all charged to county taxpayers, totaled $161,233 and included:

-- a whale-watching cruise off the Maine coast;
-- four visits to Disney World;
-- a trip to Yellowstone National Park;
-- nights at a Las Vegas casino hotel;
-- backpacking gear;
-- an instructional DVD on how to catch lobsters;
-- and a book about elves.

He was fired, the N&O reports, but the boss who approved the expenses was merely demoted and still makes $94,000 a year.

Talk about waste management.

In an editorial today, the News & Observer warns, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, and you never, ever, should attack Andy Griffith in a political campaign.

Gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory did, and went on to speculate how Sheriff Andy Taylor would deal with the state's gang problem.

Men's Health Magazine, which seems to make a list for everything these days, ranks Charlotte as one of the worst cities in the country for environmentally friendly driving habits.

The magazine included Charlotte among cities across the nation "that are driving us to extinction." The Queen City finished 90th among the 100 Greenest Cities.

The ranking are based on miles driven, gas consumption, air quality, mass-transit use, and vehicle' size, age and maintenance.

"It's almost as if the citizens of Charlotte think they're driving on the nearby Lowe's Motor Speedway -- the city was in the top 10 percent for most gallons of gas consumed," Men's Health Deputy Editor Matt Marion told The Charlotte Observer in an e-mail. "Charlotte was also pulled down in the rankings by being in the top 20 percent of cities with high ozone days."

How did Greensboro fare? Not great. Not terribly. We got a C+, and ranked 38th. Durham got a B- and ranked 31st.

1. Seattle, WA A+
2. Burlington, VT A+
3. Portland, OR A+
4. Madison, WI A
5. Fargo, ND A
6. Rochester, NY A
7. Minneapolis, MN A-
8. Spokane, WA A-
9. San Francisco, CA A-
10. Norfolk, VA A-
11. Boston, MA A-
12. Oakland, CA A-
13. Buffalo, NY A-
14. Miami, FL B+
15. Tucson, AZ B+
16. Orlando, FL B
17. Bangor, ME B
18. Anchorage, AK B
19. Newark, NJ B
20. Lexington, KY B
21. Jersey City, NJ B
22. Hartford, CT B
23. Fremont, CA B
24. Denver, CO B
25. Pittsburgh, PA B
26. Cleveland, OH B
27. Honolulu, HI B
28. Lincoln, NE B-
29. Richmond, VA B-
30. Aurora, CO B-
31. Durham, NC B-
32. Lubbock, TX B-
33. Des Moines, IA B-
34. Corpus Christi, TX B-
35. Salt Lake City, UT B-
36. Boise, ID B-
37. Sioux Falls, SD C+
38. Greensboro C+
39. Providence, RI C+
40. Washington, DC C+
41. Tampa, FL C+
42. Baltimore, MD C+
43. Austin, TX C+
44. Wichita, KS C+
45. New York, NY C +
46. St. Louis, MO C+
47. Kansas City, MO C+
48. Philadelphia, PA C+
49. Milwaukee, WI C
50. Jacksonville, FL C
51. Chicago, IL C
52. Baton Rouge, LA C
53. St. Paul, MN C
54. Columbia, SC C
55. Las Vegas, NV C
56. Raleigh, NC C
57. San Jose, CA C
58. Jackson, MS C-
59. St. Petersburg, FL C-
60. Phoenix, AZ C-
61. San Diego, CA C-
62. Atlanta, GA C-
63. Colorado Springs, CO C-
64. Cincinnati, OH C-
65. Sacramento, CA C-
66. Little Rock, AR C-
67. Dallas, TX C-
68. Albuquerque, NM C-
69. Fort Wayne, IN C-
70. Oklahoma City, OK C-
71. Omaha, NE C-
72. Billings, MT C-
73. Cheyenne, WY C-
74. Grand Rapids, MI C-
75. Bakersfield, CA D+
76. Modesto, CA D+
77. Wilmington, DE D+
78. Nashville, TN D+
79. Montgomery, AL D+
80. Memphis, MN D+
81. Columbus, OH D+
82. Detroit, MI D+
83. Anaheim, CA D+
84. Los Angeles, CA D+
85. Louisville, KY D+
86. Houston, TX D+
87. Manchester, NH D+
88. Toledo, OH D+
89. Charleston, WV D
90. Charlotte, SC D
91. Fresno, CA D
92. Tulsa, OK D
93. Indianapolis, IN D-
94. San Antonio, TX F
95. Fort Worth, TX F
96. Birmingham, AL F
97. Riverside, CA F
98. El Paso, TX F
99. Yonkers, NY F
100. Arlington, TX F

In light of my First Person piece Tuesday about my near fatal attraction to poison ivy (or is it the other way around?) I've received many helpful suggestions for remedies from readers, among them:

1. Prescription pills called hydroxyzine.
2. Bathing immediately after suspected contact with Octagon soap. (Don't stay in the shower too long, the caller added. This soap contains lye.)
3. Shuttle Lotion, from a company called American Hygienic Laboratories. (You can't get it around here. I'd have to order it by phone or on the Internet.)
4. Tecnu Extreme Poison Ivy Scrub, which one of my co-workers, Andy Leeco swears by. (Of course, I take any advice from Andy with some degree of caution; he's a New England Patriots fan.)

Riddle me this, writes Chris Faraone in the Columbia Journalism Review. How should newspapers refer to rappers -- by their real names or their stage names?

And if they choose to use birth names, per The New York Times, is that inconsistent with the Times' references to rock stars by their stage names (as in Elton John, who's really Reginald Dwight)?

I pulled this item out of a comment thread this morning, from an anonymous commenter. I thought others might find it useful:

Hi Mr. Johnson,

This has nothing to do with your thread, but I have a question and subsequent request please.

Today the letter to the editor "World can’t sustain its huge appetite for beef" was published. We in the LTE blog have spotted out form letters numerous times, the majority from "authors" who promote vegetarianism. This is yet another example.

All I had to do was a simple Google search for "Beef production accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than automobiles" and up came the following hits:

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-2520-earlier-this-week-more-than-a-hundred-thousand-so.html

http://www.topix.com/forum/world/asia/TM56S3RFN3UGDUV6R#comments

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/opinions/letters/1008744,2_4_AU17_LETTERS_S1.article

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=8850

Scroll down on the one above.

Question: Why can't the N&R perform a simple search of key words on most if not all letters as I did and other bloggers have done previously?

Request: As 1) historically the vast majority of form letters published in the N&R have espoused vegetarianism and 2) we have pointed this out several times before, then 3) why can the N&R at a minimum search letters regarding this topic?

These letters are so easy to spot. As soon as I read the first three sentences my mind told me; form letter. A simple search confirmed this.

Please try to keep your valuable LTE section free of letters from individuals who espouse a cause without using their own creativity.

My response:
Thanks for your note. As I’ve posted before, we routinely check suspicious letters and, believe it or not, the majority of them don’t make it into the newspaper.

But some slip through. We will receive more than 5,000 letters this year. We don’t have the resources to Google each one. But we will continue to vet any letter that looks fishy. On some occasions we have even called the writers, and explained to them that we consider this a form a deception and plagiarism.

We also receive alerts from the National Conference of Editorial Writers about form-letter campaigns.

We appreciate your help in spotting suspicious letters and we’ll continue to do our best to weed them out on our end as well.

A footnote: Letters about vegetarianism are hardly the “vast majority” of the form letters (or astroturf) we receive. Not by a long shot. Letters from political campaigns (and their surrogates) are.

This week's column.

Beating and hanging a dog as preparation for police work is fundamentally wrong.

I say that as someone eminently unqualified to judge how and how not to train dogs for dangerous duty.

I also say it as someone who is eminently unqualified on any level of dog training — who feels fortunate to have cajoled my pooch to sit, stay and roll over and to not do her business where she shouldn’t.

At least most of the time.

But I also know cruelty when I see it. And the grainy, cell-phone video of State Highway Patrol Trooper Charles Jones “training” his dog by kicking it five times while it hangs from a loading dock is cruelty, plain and simple.

The kicks are so forceful that the thuds from their impact are clearly audible. As it turns out, at least some state troopers routinely had used beatings, stun guns and other punishments to discipline and train their dogs.

Jones was suspended, then fired, after pressure from the office of Gov. Mike Easley. The Highway Patrol also shut down its canine program, pending an investigation.

Since then, however, an administrative law judge has recommended that Jones be reinstated. With back pay.

To be fair, Judge Fred Morrison Jr.’s ruling centered more on what he perceived as outside pressure from the governor to fire Jones than Jones’ behavior toward the dog. Even so, some of the trooper’s bosses and colleagues have defended him.

But if abusive behavior toward animals is predictive of abusive behavior toward humans, this is not only outrageous, it’s scary. And sad.

The bond dogs form with their partners seems based more on loyalty than fear.

Images of a burly Malinois named Bear come to mind. During a ride-along with a Greensboro police officer in 2001, I saw Bear track and catch a fleeing robber, pinning the man in the shadows of someone’s backyard in south Greensboro, then dutifully waiting for officers to arrive
.
But, again, what do I know?

So, I spent some time last week with members of the Greensboro Police Department’s K-9 Unit during training exercises at Jaycee Park.

I am heading over to the news conference involving the Latin Kings gang and local faith leaders.

Judging from the chatter over at Ed Cone's place, the event, which calls for a gang war truce, has generated a little bit of hope and a boatload of skepticism.

But faith leaders need to be -- and have to be -- a part of the gang-crime solution.

Coincidentally, today's edition of "Guilford County's Most Wanted" in the News & Record features Marcelo Ysrael Perez, wanted for attempted first-degree murder with a shotgun.

Police say Perez is "a validated member" of the Latin Kings..