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Today is the last day for our summer intern, Rebecca Kabatchnick, a high school student at the American Hebrew Academy who is talented beyond her years. I met Rebecca several years ago at her bat mitzvah and was amazed by her poise and her lovely singing voice.

Little did I suspect that she would eventually enroll in the News & Record's Multi-Cultural Journalism Workshop and, following that, join us in Editorial as a part-time intern.

We typically haven't used high school interns but Rebecca was clearly smart enough and motivated enough to do the work. When she applied, it was impossible to say no.

She has been quick, careful, enthusiastic and reliable. If you've written a letter to the editor, you may have received a verification call from her. Or you may have read her recent "First Person" column lamenting not yet owning her first car -- and the expenses that await when she does.

Rebecca also has written an op-ed piece based on her travels in the Middle East. She attended Alexander Muss High School in Israel for 10 weeks in 2007.

I expect big things from her once she chooses a college and then a career.

Maybe she'll give me a job one day.

Here’s an interesting footnote to the story about Sidney Lowe II, and the shameless lengths his family went to convince a judge that the Devil made him commit armed robbery: The person who said the most hurtful things about N.C. A&T turning the young man bad ought to know better and he probably did.

If you missed it, here's one Grace said, in a plea for lenience for Lowe, the son of the N.C. State basketball coach:

Lowe’s uncle, Michael A. Grace, is a well-regarded attorney based in Winston-Salem.
He has taken on his share of high-profile during a long career there.

According to Web site of the firm of Grace Tisdale & Clifton, Grace's resume includes a degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1977 and a post as an adjunct professor for the Wake Forest law school Clinic Program.

He also is a member of the Board of Directors of Mechanics and Farmers Bank, a black-owned firm which Grace presumably didn't need to "thug up" to become affiliated.

Among his clients: Michael Charles Hayes, who fatally shot four people and wounded five more in a 30-minute shooting spree in Winston-Salem in 1988.

“If you find that Michael Hayes was not insane, you are saying there is no such thing as insanity in North Carolina,” Grace said in arguments during Hayes’ sentencing in 1989.

Hayes was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He said he thought he was shooting at demons.

Grace practices law now with Donald K. Tisdale, the former Forsyth County district attorney who prosecuted the Darryl Hunt trial. Tisdale is not a beloved figure in the Winston-Salem black community, which questioned his tactics during the Hunt.

Hunt was exonerated by DNA evidence after being imprisoned for nearly 20 years for a murder he did not commit. But I digress.

The firm’s Web site touts Grace as “ as one of the preeminent criminal defense lawyers in North Carolina.”

A&T alumni are not so impressed.

They say they’ve been e-mailing Grace and calling his law office to give him a piece of their mind.

But while even Lowe II's crimes pale in comparison to Hayes', Grace used a similar strategy in his appeal for compassion in the case of his nephew: He was not responsible for his actions.

I wrote above that Grace should have known better in blaming A&T for the younger Lowe's descent into drugs and crime.

Maybe Grace knew precisely what he was doing.

This week's column .

Teetering on irrelevance, but still hungry for the spotlight, Jesse Jackson has seen better days.
Even as a national conference of minority journalists descended two weeks ago on Jackson’s home base in Chicago, he was out of sight, if not out of mind, after an especially bad run of headlines.

It’s not often that Jackson shuns attention.

I remember him coming by the News & Record a couple of years ago to meet with the newspaper’s editorial board.

He had sought the session and gave us two-plus hours of his time.

With an attentive aide in tow, Jackson was in rare form. In particular, he had a lot to say about the country’s prison industry, as he called it. He reveled in the discussion, and he was a thoughtful and engaging interview.

But we could sense even then that he seemed a man who needed an audience. And who believed he had earned one. Who could blame him?

Since his days as an undergraduate at N.C. A&T, oh the places he’s seen and the things he’s done.

Long before Barack Obama came along, there was Jesse, doing the unthinkable, winning Democratic primaries and saying Yes He Could decades ago, way back in 1984.
Remember (and not many people seem to), Jackson won five primaries and caucuses, including Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi and the District of Columbia. All told, he garnered 21 percent of the popular vote.

Then there he was again, in 1988, winning seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia) and five caucuses (Alaska, Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont).

There he was in 1997, serving as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to the land of Obama’s father, Kenya, and meeting with Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi.

There he was, during the Kosovo War in 1999, negotiating the release of three U.S. POWs who had been captured while on patrol with a U.N. peacekeeping unit.

Then again, there he was in 1984, making his infamous reference to Hymietown, one of several disparaging remarks about Jews.

There he was, as well, in 2001, admitting to an affair with a staffer and to fathering a child with her.

There he was, accepting an apology over the phone from Michael (“Kramer”) Richards for Richards’ use of the N-word in a “comedic” rant. “A simple apology does not deal with the depth of the trauma,” Jackson said.

There he was, declaring with great bombast, that the N-word ought to be retired. Forever. “We want to give our ancestors a present,” Jackson said at a November 2006 news conference. “Dignity over degradation.”

Then there Jackson was earlier this year, using the N-word himself, while whispering not-so-sweet nothings about Obama and what ought to happen to a certain part of Obama’s anatomy. The man who had berated Richards’ use of the word as “sick” and “mean” found himself sheepishly apologizing for the very same sin.

By almost any measure, Jackson, 66, has led a remarkable life, with his stock rising and nosediving with each victory and each gaffe.

But now he seems more a bit player than a star, parachuting into Headline News hot spots, from Jena to Durham, and grabbing sound bites.

And now, for today's sports report:

The fickle flinger of touchdown passes, Brett Favre, is back with the Packers and I don't know how to feel about it.

Favre gives the Packers their best chance at the Super Bowl, but he has hurt the team with his on-and-off dalliances with retirement. It's hard for the team to plan with Favre's indecisiveness, which has surfaced in previous years as well.

I respect his love for the game and his competitiveness.

But he has to know how much of a negative distraction this has all been for the team.

Sadly, the team has taken a back seat to What Brett Wants.

He is talented and he plays with boyish glee and he looks to be in excellent shape.

He also looks more than a little bit selfish.

My take on the movies my significant other and I have seen this summer (and we've seen a bunch of them):

"The Strangers": A truly scary concept about masked intruders who pop up from nowhere and terrorize a couple in a secluded house for no reason. When asked why they are being so cruel and sadistic, one of the intruders says, "You were home." Meanwhile, I'd like to ask the scriptwriter why he let such a promising, creepy premise fizzle in the third act.

"Iron Man": The producers of super hero movies are getting the right idea: Be respectful of the source material. Don't camp it up a la those awful Joel Schumacher Batman movies in the 1990s. And cast good actors who don't necessarily fit the comic book hero archetype. Tim Burton did that in choosing, of all people, Michael Keaton, in his Batman movies. Robert Downey Jr. is another inspired choice as Iron Man, in a movie that combines just the right mix of action, humor and serious business.

"Mongol": This sweeping, beautfully filmed epic about the rise of Genghis Khan is exhilarating and insightful. I left the theater wanting more. They'll probably dub it for DVD, but I prefer the subtitles.

"Hancock: A pretty good adventure comedy about a boozing super guy who means well but uses his powers like a proverbial bull in a china shop. The ending is less than satisfying but the movie has its moments, including the scene in which a woman chastises the hero, "You have liquor on your breath." To which he responds: "That's 'cause I've been drinkin'."

"X-Files: I Want to Believe": Why they bothered to drag this one out of mothballs, I dunno. In its heyday, this was one of my favorite TV series, but the second movie is even worse than the first, tired and morose and listless. I left the theater thinking, "Is that all?"

"Sex in the City": I got brownie points for accompanying my significant other to this one.I've never watched the HBO TV series but found the movie not half-bad and was relieved that it gave its male characters a fair break.

"The Dark Knight": The best movie I've seen so far this summer that I think gets a bad rap for being bleak. I won't give too much away, but one of the best scenes in the movie involves a touching endorsement of regular people's ability to be heroic, without Batmobiles and cool gadgetry. We tried to see this one for a second time in IMAX while in Chicago, but it was sold out for several days. "Dark Knight" will challenge but probably won't break "Titanic's" box office record. But, for my money, it's a better movie.

I have never been a Braves fan, but I mourn the loss of the team's famous broadcaster, Skip Caray, at age 68 maybe as much as any of the Atlanta faithful.

Caray was smart and funny and never took himself -- or the game -- too seriously.

Even during a rout he could be entertaining, and although, as a Braves broadcaster for most of his career, he called the games from an Atlanta point of view, he was respectful and informed about the opposition. He knew his stuff.

I never could understand why TBS cut back his appearances in recent years. He was one of the very best.

Is an Abercrombie and Fitch poster in a Raleigh mall more than borderline suggestive?

Probably.

But is it offensive? I don't know. It is strategically airbrushed to avoid revealing what it ought not reveal. I could think of worthier causes than campaigning for its removal.

True story: Anticipating a PR challenge of presidential proportions, the Green Bay Packers have hired former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer for a month.

Fleischer, who was President Bush's spokesman for most of his first term, is now president of Ari Fleischer Sports Communications, the Associated Press reports.

Fleischer's assignment: To handle the media frenzy over the return of Brett Favre: The Indecider.

A trust fund has been established for the children of former White House spokesman and Fox News commentator Tony Snow, who died in July about a long bout with cancer.

Snow cut his teeth as an editorial writer at the old Greensboro Record and was a class act throughout his career.

“He was lanky, funny, a bushy-haired kid who looked more like a college sophomore than an editorial writer,” wrote our colleague, Rosemary Roberts, about Snow, who was working at the paper full time when Snow arrived here, fresh out of Davidson College.

“But Tony was smart and had a fine feel for words.”

According to the PR Newswire, the fund has been created at the Wachovia Bank in Bowie, Md., to help pay for the college educations of Snow’s three children, Kendall, Robbie and Kristi .Tony’s wife, Jill Snow, will serve as the trustee.

Said J. Randy Evans, the grantor of the trust: "Serving our country at times means sacrifice. Tony did just that. At a time when he was at the pinnacle of his career at Fox News, he was asked to serve his country and he gave up the financial rewards his future held. Having served his country well, Tony left the White House to earn money to help secure his children's future. Unfortunately, fighting cancer did not give him much time to do that, and so, the purpose of this trust is to help achieve Tony's goal of securing his children's future, including their college educations."

Contributions can be made online at www.healthtransformation.net or checks payable to the “Tony Snow Family Trust” may be mailed to:

Center for Health Transformation
Attn: Tony Snow Family Trust
1425 K Street, NW
Suite 450
Washington, DC 20005

Just took my afternoon stroll to clear the cobwebs.

The Lincoln Financial Building sign says 104 degrees. That means it's probably really about 97.

But it's surprisingly bearable. The slightly overcast skies help, I guess. So does the breeze.

I've felt much worse in much lower temperatures. Must be a dry heat.

There's a lots of chatter over at Your Voice at the Table about the nasty rumors swirlng around John Edwards.

The commenters make good points on both sides of the issue. This is an ethical conundrum. And I repeat: Edwards has not been helpful by being so evasive.

I also am surprised at the number of defenders of the Enquirer, which is gossipy at best and downright wrong on many stories at worst. Even when it knows better.

Yes, the tabloid has broken legitimate stories. But those tend to be exceptions rather than the rule.

As for whether Edwards could put this all to rest with a paternity test, would you? That would create a spectacle worthy of one of those soridid Maury Povich "baby daddy" shows. And then some.

There is another option: Rather than disprove Edwards' paternity the man who came forward to claim that the child is his could prove his paternity.

But would it would be worth the circus? And should private citizens have to do submit to such an indignity?

Finally, say what you will about The New York Times. The Enquirer does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath.

Update: Reports a story in today's Charlotte Observer: "With two weeks before their national convention, several prominent Democrats are saying Edwards must publicly address anonymously sourced National Enquirer stories that claim he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby."

It doesn't make much sense to me that Greensboro police recently arrested the general manager of a downtown club/restaurant for seating sidewalk patrons after 10 p.m.

It' not the police's fault. The law is the law. But this law is too restrictive.

People sitting and eating or drinking outside at a downtown establishment on weekday and weekend nights ought to be a good thing. It's hard for me to swallow the practice of patio seating as a nuisance or a traffic obstruction. If noise is the issue, baning patio seating after certain hours seems unlikely to make it any quieter.

If anything, the City Council ought to extend the hours.

It's as if somebody wants downtown to be less vibrant and inviting.

This week's column.

The city of Chicago’s sprawling lake front, with its shimmering, glass-and-steel skyline, looks surreal on a sunny day, like a sci-fi futurescape.

Almost as impressive are the miles and miles of paved biking, jogging and walking paths along the shores of Lake Michigan that connect neighborhoods and parks — and bring people of all walks of life together on bikes and on foot.

There are tree-lined paths near the city’s stately Museum Campus, divided into lanes by blue dotted stripes, like a superhighway for human beings. There are bridges across railroad tracks and well-lit tunnels under Lake Shore Drive.

As I strolled past Soldier Field during a recent visit, I imagined walking to a Bears game on a fall Sunday. It’s odd and more than a little refreshing to see a stadium not built as an island in an asphalt sea of parking spaces.

Greensboro may not be able to replicate the sailboats on the lake or the phalanx of glass towers or Da Bears, but it can have the greenways, says one Durham-based expert. “Chicago’s greenway system has been layered for 40 to 50 years and has been integrated into how people live,” says Chuck Flink, who has been involved in the development of trails and greenways for more than 25 years. Greensboro, he says, has the same opportunity.

Flink, founder and president of Greenways Inc., has consulted planners and community leaders on greenway projects in 125 communities and 35 states. One of those communities is Greensboro, where funding for the first phase of the 4.8-mile Downtown Greenway awaits voter approval on the Nov. 4 ballot as part of a $134 million city transportation bond package.

Flink says Greensboro already is off to a strong start with its current, 80-mile network of trails and biking paths. Problem is, Greensboro paths, by and large, don’t take you anywhere. They are centered in parks and along flood plains and they typically don’t link to one another. They are destinations in and of themselves, not particularly useful in getting from here to there. Many of us have to drive our cars to get to them.

I attended the news conference Monday following the shooting Sunday of Latin Kings leader Jorge Cornell,

On June 30, Cornell was calling for peace among the city's street gangs.

On Aug. 10, he was being shot multiple times by as-yet-unknown assailants in front of a Boulevard Street apartment.

What this means for his appeal for peace is unclear. But friends and fellow gang members say they intend to carry through on his calls not to retaliate for the attack.

Less hopeful is the friction between the gang members and Greensboro police.One officer complained publicly at Monday's news conference that Cornell was not cooperating with them on the investigation of his shooting.

Some gang members and clergy say the police are overzealous in investigating suspected gang members to the point of harrassment. They say that breeds mistrust and makes a bad situation worse.

It's certainly understandable that police would want to make life uncomfortable for street gangs. But it also stands to reason that they might want to build ties and sources within that community as well, especially among gang members who appear to be trying to reform.

After all, prevention and intervention are supposed to be key weapons in combating gangs.

Update: Ryan Seals from our News Department tells me that Cornell is cooperating with police in the investigation.

Sorry. I meant to post this one earlier and got busy.

John Edwards' full interview Friday night on "Nightine" raised more questions than it answered and was about as unconvincing as Pauly Shore playing Hamlet.

Edwards particularly raised suspicions in his explanation of why he was visiting Rielle Hunter in a Beverly Hills hotel.

It's also hard to believe he had no knowledge of payments to Hunter and campaign aide Andrew Young that were made by Fred Baron, chairman of Edwards' 2004 and 2008 finance committees, to Hunter and another former Edwards staffer, Andrew Young. Baron's says it was his personal money, not campaign money, that he used to make the payments.

It also seems very suspicious that Edwards has said he would submit to a paternity test even as Hunter insists she won't participate in one for "privacy" reasons. What privavy? She already agreed with Young's claims that he is the father. Why not confirm it and put the issue to rest?.

It is, of course, arguable that the baby's father is a moot issue -- that the more salient point is that Edwards put himself in a position to be a candidate for paternity, and lied about it.

No doubt a number of Democrats are thanking their lucky stars that Edwards didn't win the nomination and that he wasn't an early choice for VP.

This is bad. But it could have been disastrous.

.

Finally, some good economic news.

Replacements Ltd. is often overlooked as a local economic engine, but it is a major success story in niche marketing, with a national profile.

And it's ours.

As Amanda Lehmert reports, a local blogger has performed the cyber-equivalent of washing his mouth with soap.

Jeff Martin, aka Fecund Stench online, altered a post about City Councilman Robbie Perkins and his family after Greensboro police investigated it as a threat.

Martin originally had posted that he wanted to "ruin Robbie Perkins' life and "strike fear in his heart for himself, his family, property and livelihood." The post included a map to Perkins' home.

Ha. Ha. What a hoot.

Martin has since recast the post, writing that he represents "no threat" to the personal safety of "Perkins and the unfortunate people who are related to him."

What a funny guy, even in the face of a call from the law.

This recalls another blogger, who threatened to blow up the downtown civil rights museum in a comment posted to the News & Record's letters blog two years ago.

He was contrite after a visit from the SBI, and apologized in a blog comment.

Neither man meant any real harm. And bloggers are, by nature,irreverent and, in many cases, over the top. Or least they try to be. But attempts at wit or humor by communicating threats are inappropriate and immature -- and can get you into big trouble.

We met Friday with Downtown Greensboro Inc. President and CEO Ed Wolverton to discuss the brewing debate over sidewalk dining in downtown Greensboro.

I also took a reader’s advice and checked out the thoughtful post about this issue by Cara Michele over at her blog.

Finally, colleague Elma Sabo and I had a chance to view a police videotape of a Wednesday night crowd downtown and the challenges it presents.

The good news is that, even in the middle of the week, huge crowds of young people are coming to the center city for a good time.

The bad news is that the crowds have grown to the point where they threaten to overwhelm the ability of police and nightclub security to handle it all.

Cara Michele recalls what she has seen at night downtown, outside the club Heaven, the restaurant Carmine's and the Cafe Much:

There are a lot of people coming and going on this block after midnight (there are a number of other businesses in this same block), and when the bars close, there are at least 1000+ people on the sidewalk in one small area at the same time.

There’s about 3-5 feet of clearance between Much’s ropes and the trees planted by the street. When people can’t get through that small space because of the crowds on the sidewalk, they walk out into the street, which is also crowded with vehicles. I’ve had to stop and wait for people to pass by at this spot many times, and had to walk single file behind people, with a lot of “Excuse me,” and stepping to the side and trying to get out of people’s way — and this is a lot earlier in the evening, not late night. As it gets closer to closing time, police sometimes have to block the street off with police cars to keep pedestrians from being hit by vehicles. This happens on a regular basis on weekend nights. And keep in mind that not everyone walking around down there is sober, so it gets… interesting

The police video depicts some of the problems those crowds can pose: traffic, litter, loitering, obstacles to emergency personnel getting to where they need to be in the case of a crime or injury.

But the trick is for city leaders to address those issues without squeezing the fun out of the place.

Remember, this is a problem we wanted: young people coming downtown to have a good time ... on a weeknight. Before most college students had returned to town.

One longer-range solution is a lesson city leaders learned on a tour of Greenville, S.C.’s, very successful center city: the value of wider sidewalks.

When the time comes to redesign the streetscape ... and it will ... Elm Street could use more room for walking and dining. Ironically, one failed approach in the late 1970s and early 1980s were downtown “malls.” Both Greensboro and Winston-Salem tried the approach, before declaring it a failure.

Some other possible solutions that surfaced during our conversation with Wolverton:
Adding police to help manage the crowd. Charlotte. helps stretch resources by pairing new police academy graduates with veteran officers. Charlotte merchants help pay for it through money raised by special downtown tax districts.

Closing downtown --- or parts of it, at least, at a certain hour. Some cities set curfews entertainment districts, but that some counterproductive in Greensboro. After working so hard to build traffic downtown, do we really want to shut it down?

Allowing night clubs to stay open later, all night if they want. so that they aren’t compelled to release large crowds onto the streets all at once.

Restricting traffic on some streets to only pedestrians. This has been done successfully in many cities ... including Greensboro.

Ironically, Wolverton was seeing the fruits of his labors here during an earlier stint with Downtown Greensboro Inc. It was on his watch that DGI endorsed the allowance of sidewalk dining in the city in the first place.

People are coming dowtown in droves. Young people. Greensboro's image as a dead, dull place where good times come to shrivel up and die is history.

The question is how we choose to handle so much of a good thing. With wit and creativity or with heavy hands and overkill?

We are nearing the end of our election interviews.

The last two weeks were especially busy, with Supreme Court candidate Bob Edmunds rounding a busy week Friday afternoon.

Among the more vexing choices we face for endorsement are Democrat incumbent state Rep. Maggie Jeffus and her Republican challenger, Jim Rumley.

These two candidates faced each other in the last election in District 59, which Jeffus won handily.

This is a toughie. Jeffus is a pleasant enough person and her resume is impressive. I have heard that she works hard, especially behind the scenes.

But she is underwhelming in the initiative and political courage departments.

She still expressed no regrets for not calling for the resignation of the former scandal-ridden Democratic house speaker, Jim Black, whose ethical failings were clear long before he was convicted in a court of law. She cited his entitlement to "due process," a veil many fellow Democrats chose to seek refuge behind during the Black fiasco.

For his part, Rumley, whom we endorsed in 2006, seemed less focused than then and more intent on attacking Jeffus than citing his own selling points.

The endorsement interview is not the end-all and be-all of this process. But this one obviously won't be easy.

This week's column.

The nightlife scene in downtown Greensboro isn’t so much about who as when.The early crowd is a mixed crew of middle-aged couples and younger singles.

They typically pack the south end of Elm Street to eat and drink at sidewalk cafes where summer breezes keep them cool and a colorful parade of passersby keeps them occupied.
As the sun begins to set and the shadows deepen, a new, younger crew clocks in, just as the older group finishes dessert and begins to head home.

The scent of fresh perfume fills the air and visions of Spandex and stiletto heels fill the sidewalks. Long lines begin to form at club entrances.

Hours later, the crowds grow bigger and louder and a little bit drunker, even as some of us are already home in bed, fast asleep and content that we’ve had a big night out.

Therein lies the promise and the problem in downtown Greensboro. We have gotten what we hoped for: lots of people.

And we don’t quite know what to do with them.

If you're a regular customer of this blog, you know anal I tend to get about graffiti.

So, I predictably think a High Point graffiti ordinance similar to Greensboro's makes very good sense.

In short, the offenders will be responsible for any buildings they deface, if they're caught. If not, the property owners are responsible.

This has worked reasonably well in Greensboro, with graffiti on bridges and underpasses in particular getting fresh coats of paint almost faster than it can go up.

But there's one exception. The underpass on Church Street on the northern edge of town has been laced with graffiti for months but few efforts have been made to clean that blemish up.

Is the city breaking its own ordinance?

In a decision that was equal parts prudence and common sense, the City Council voted to extend sidewalk dining hours in the city from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m.

The council correctly chose not to clamp down on one of the amenities that have made downtown such a pleasant place to be on a warm night.

The council also rightly recognized that downtown has some issues with crime and crowds, but the cause most definitely isn't people having dinner or cocktails at outdoor cafes.

To address those other issues, the council will hold a special briefing session in September.

Good move. The last thing we need city leaders to do is to punish downtown merchants for being successful.

I couldn't agree more with Leonard Pitts' column today.

While clarity and conciseness have their virtues, a to-the-point answer does not always equal the best or most thoughtful answer.

We learned that the hard way, from the current occupant of the White House, whose black-and-white views of the world have left America's image abroad -- and its foreign policy -- black and blue.

That said, McCain was better at Saddleback. Obama needs to hone his skills at communicating the shades of gray more effectively.

The former N.C. State student who struck and killed a 60-year-old woman while driving drunk will get zero prison time.

Brian Anthony Reid of Graham hit Nancy Leidy as she was riding her bicycle on April 23. He has been drinking in celebration of turning the legal drinking age of 21.

His Breathalyzer test read 0.12, well above the legal limit of 0.08.

Leidy's widower has asked the judge to be lenient, but this has to be disturbing to bicyclists, who have complained that the legal system doesn't take seriously enough cases in which motorists injure or kill cyclists.

And it seems wildly inconsistent with, say, the sentence given former WXII morning anchor Tolly Carr, following his conviction for killing a pedestrian with his pickup truck while driving drunk.

Carr's sentence: 25 to 39 months in prison, a $10,000 fine, 100 hours of community service and five years probation.

Reid's sentence: three years probation, 400 hours of community service, $10,000 in restitution for medical and funeral expenses and five weekends in either the Wake County Jail or the Alamance County Jail.

He also will not be able to drink or drive for three years.

The issue isn't that Carr's sentence is too harsh. It's that Reid's is too lenient.

What to do about War Memorial Stadium?

The historic, 82-year-old ballpark is in much worse shape that originally thought. The city's plans to keep it intact and in use won't be enough, engineers say.

Even if the city invests an estimated $3 million to $4 million in the structure, it would be only enough to buy another 10 to 15 years of life for the stadium.

Some options to consider:

The city could tear down the insides of the building and keep the facade intact. But that would jeopardize the stadium's spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

They could pump more money into the stadium with two-thirds bonds, which do not require approval from voters. But with so many pressing needs in the city, would it rank as a priority?

The city could partner with N.C. A&T to restore the facility and also seek private funds that support historic preservations.

The city could go to the voters again, and ask in a future bond referendum if they've changed their minds about investing in stadium upgrades. The voters have said no to previous stadium bonds.

Or the city could tear it down and build a new facility.

The stadium isn't just a monument, by the way. It also hosts 200 baseball games a year as a valuable Parks & Recreation Department venue, and it is N.C. A&T's home baseball field.

And it is viewed by residents of the Aycock Historic District a centerpiece of their community.

I certainly have fond memories of the place.

When I attended Lincoln Junior High School, we played our home football games there. Ditto for Dudley High, when I was a student there.

And you don't have to be too old to remember A&T homecoming games there. The stadium also served for many years as the Aggies' home football field.

This isn't an easy problem to solve. The City Council will hear more details on the stadium's condition this week.

When asked by WXII whether the stadium measures up with other priorities, David Hoggard, a longtime stadium proponent and Aycock resident, said, if you follow that kind of thinking, "Tear down the Washington Monument."

Hoggard also is chairman of the city's Parks & Recreation Commission. He's got other stadium thoughts on his blog.

This week's column.

Many are finding it hard to believe a local gang leader would want to walk away from violence, as Jorge Cornell says he does.

But it has happened before, on the streets of one of the meanest and bloodiest gang breeding grounds on the planet — Los Angeles.

Darren “Bo” Taylor not only said no mas to the infamous LA gang, the Crips, but became a voice for peace and reason throughout that city, and beyond.

It was Taylor who brokered a truce between rival inner-city gangs after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

It was Taylor who, in 2003, worked with gang leaders to help end a string of violent jail brawls between Latino and African American inmates.

And it was Taylor who founded UNITY One, an organization whose mission was to prevent gang violence and to teach life-management skills to jail inmates.

Taylor died two weeks ago of cancer in San Diego. He was 42.

Cornell, 31, says he had not heard of Taylor but he does understand why Taylor fought so passionately for peace — and why he often succeeded. “The only way is for a person from the streets to fix it,” Cornell says of the gang problem.

Cornell became a Latin King at age 18. Taylor became a Crip at age 14. Unlike so many others who chose similar paths, he also lived to tell.

He went to so many funerals — more than 200 — Taylor once said, “I couldn’t cry no more.”

All the senseless death around him, and his own good fortune to somehow stay alive, made Taylor rethink his life. He went on to become a husband, a father and a grandfather. But he continued to reach back to help others change their lives as he had.

His death seemed to touch a whole community. And so, apparently, did his life. Among his most ardent fans was Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Bacca. “Bo knew how to change lives for the better,” Bacca told The Associated Press.

Cornell, meanwhile, is recovering from a pair of gunshot wounds he received two weeks ago. One bullet ripped into his back and out of his chest, but Cornell is recuperating. No arrests have been made.

As was the case with Taylor, the thrust of Cornell’s peace talks meant an agreement by Latinos and African Americans to come together. Cornell made his plea for peace here at a news conference on June 30, at the Beloved Community Center.

Whatever the reason he was shot a month later, Cornell called from his hospital bed for his gang, the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, to stand down. There would be no reprisals. “I don’t think it’s gang-related,” he says of the shooting, “but if it is, I’m still willing to sit at the table and talk to them. And I don’t want to bring any charges against them.”

Bo Taylor was even more dogged in his attempts to declare peace. On some occasions, he physically placed himself between warring gangs, grabbing the barrels of their guns and pointing them to the ground. Talk about street cred.

Hoggard not only has strong views about War Memorial Stadium.

He also thinks any notion of moving the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market from its current site at Lindsay and Yanceyville streets is, well, cockeyed. He used another, um, stronger adjective that I won't repeat here. A consultant's study suggests the move as "low-hanging fruit."

Hoggard tells the consultants where they can put their fruit.

As an Aycock resident, he sees his neighborhood as a loser if the market relocates. Just make downtown bigger, he suggests, and draw the current site into an expanded Central Business District.

I don't share Hoggard's views but I understand his concern. Why screw up a good thing? The market has an undeniable charm, not only for the fresh, locally grown produce you can find there, among other products, but because of the nice people you meet there.

And the famous people. Barack Obama popped up there last week.

What better especially to start any Saturday morning than a visit there?

Still, the market's current quarters are cramped. The idea of moving the market a few blocks west, as another downtown attraction, has its appeal.

It's worth at least exploring.

Some are questioning an AP newsman's objectivity in covering the presidential campaign, Richard Prince reports.

No, not that he's pro-Obama. That he's pro-McCain.

One of ironies of a police video on heavy crowds downtown late at night was one officer's editorial complaint that a parking deck was congested.

Isn't that what we want?

Remember, Greensboro traditionally has had problems getting people to use the decks any time of day, but especially at night. So, now we're concerned that people are actually parking there?

In rhe meantime, the city is considering adding one or two more decks to meet rising demand. Good.

I wish they'd also consider what other cities have done and surround the outside facades of the decks with retail space.

They do this very well in places like Norfolk Va., where some decks are surrounded even by condo units. (Coincidentally, one downtown Greensboro consultant is based in Norfolk.)

That way you can have your cake and eat it, too. You can provide extra parking and you can carve room for more retail, which downtown still sorely needs.

Gerald Witt reports over at Decision 2008 that N.C. A&T professor and USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham is blogging from the Democratic National Convention.

DeWayne is a colleague of mine at A&T and I've always respected him as an author and journalist.

But I'm gonna rat him out anyway.

I remember discussing blogging with him a few years ago. Not him, he said, dismissively. Nor did he think it was something newspapers should be wasting time with. I guess something changed his mind.

Former Greensboro Daily News reporter Charles Babington, who covered the Klan/Nazi shootings in 1979, has been himself caught in political crossfire for his analysis of Barack Obama's historic acceptance speech as the Democratic nominee for president.

MSNC Keith Olbermann took Babington to task for his critical take on Obama's speech, which was widely praised by conservatives and liberals alike.

Olbermann fumed: "It is analysis that strikes me as having borne no resemblance to the speech you and I just watched. None whatsoever. And for it to be distributed by the lone national news organization in terms of wire copy to newspapers around the country and Web sites is a remarkable failure of that news organization.

"Charles Babington, find a new line of work."

Babington wrote in part in his analysis, that, "instead of dwelling on specifics, (Obama) laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. The country saw a candidate confident in his existing campaign formula: tie McCain tightly to President Bush, and remind voters why they are unhappy with the incumbent."

Here is an Editor & Publisher report on the debate.

This week's column.

Effective Monday, the News & Record’s opinion pages will change to fit the new realities of the newspaper business.

Faced with less room in the printed newspaper on those days, we will eliminate the Second Opinion page on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. On the remaining four days of the week, the Second Opinion page will continue to publish.

To accommodate these changes, the Doonesbury comic strip, which traditionally has run Mondays through Saturdays on the Second Opinion page, will move to the News & Record’s comics page seven days a week.

This was not an easy call, but a necessary one in a more and more challenging economic climate for newspapers and for the companies we depend on for advertising revenue. Less advertising means less space for printed content.

Even so, we will work to maintain the quality of our pages and to preserve our sections’ most popular features.

Content that regularly runs on the opinion pages will not disappear although it may move. In some cases it will shift to the main editorial page. In others, it will find a new home on another day of the week.

More on that later.

In addition, the Sunday Ideas section will drop from six pages to four. A mainstay of that section, the weekly Books page, will be eliminated.