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We interrupt this political blog to bring you a whiny, self-serving diatribe.

Over the course of the week, I receive my fair share of criticism from readers. In fact, here's a fairly recent example. More, more and plenty of other examples in our Letters archives.

Ninety-nine times out of 100, I shrug it off. It comes with the territory.

However, I lost my cool today. A caller - a well-known woman in town - called to inform me that my writing "smacks of sexism." My sin? I had suggested in this story that Yvonne Johnson weakness as mayor would be her lack of experience, and the difficulty balancing work and home lives. I would have never written that about a male mayor, she said.

Oh, no? From a story I wrote about outgoing Mayor Keith Holliday on July 1: "Holliday will leave office this December after eight years. When he announced his decision in April, he cited the demands of his banking job and family obligations."

Struggling to find that balance is something every mayor of Greensboro has had to do, male and female. The fact that anyone would consider my comment a dig at her gender floored me.

So I got incredibly defensive and let her know I was highly offended - a big no-no for a reporter trained to calmly accept the complainer's criticism. This woman, who has accomplished many things for women in Greensboro, has never even met me, much less gathered enough evidence to determine I'm sexist. If she knew me, she would know how wrong she is.

Oh, well. The next 99 people who lay into me get free passes. But not this one.

"User friendly" was a catch phrase among candidates during the recent Greensboro City Council elections. Various hopefuls promised to make City Hall more "user friendly."

Today, the city unveiled a way customers can request services online. There are links to report problems or concerns about trash collection; streets, signs and signals; streetlights; and stormwater drains and floods.

It's been less than a week since the new Greensboro City Council took office and the oft-discussed idea of greater transparency is coming to fruition. There's an emergency meeting scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the alarming number of murders over the past two weeks. More here.

Chief Tim Bellamy will be there to update the council on how his department is responding to the crime wave.

The fact that this meeting - this PUBLIC meeting - is being held is a good sign for taxpayers who want more openness in government.

UPDATE: Government boards are supposed to give 48 hours notice to the media before holding an open meeting. Our notice was more like 30 hours.

However, this is not a fight we'll pick here at the N&R. Council members notified us about this meeting as soon as they knew about it. There's a clear sense among those members with whom I have spoken that this meeting needed to happen sooner rather than later.

The 48-hour notification law is supposed to prevent secret meetings, or meetings that are called so quickly the media (your representatives) can't mobilize. As I said earlier, this appears to be an attempt by the new City Council to be more transparent. My determination: The board is following the spirit of the law here.

I'm sure you'll tell me if you disagree.

Unless you're running for office, you're probably not up on IRS forms for campaign funds.

State Rep. Cary Allred, R-Alamance, knows the laws and has a bug up his you-know-what over a federal section that favors congressmen and senators, but does not give the same deal to state and local politicians. See the IRS form here and scroll to page 6 to see the math.
Allred said he's been trying to speak to Republican U.S. Rep. Howard Coble on the problem for five years.

On Dec. 3, Allred finally got a callback. Maybe it was the last message he left for Coble.
"Would you tell that a**hole to call me?" he told state Rep. John Blust during Liberty's town parade that previous weekend.
Allred drove his Packard car in the parade and saw Blust in the crowd. Blust had ridden there with Coble, who was also in the parade.
Allred has not been bashful about his frustration with Coble.
"All he does is go around and pat people on the back and tell jokes and eat barbeque," Allred said Tuesday.

That afternoon, Coble had his say.
He said that he sent Allred's complaint to the Committee on Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The chairman said any bill altering that rule for Congress members likely wouldn't pass, Coble said.
"He's annoyed with me that I have not taken steps to correct what he said is an error," Coble said of Allred. "I don't sit on the ways and means committee, and I'm not going to introduce a bill that goes nowhere."

And as for the beef between them? Coble said he's OK with Allred.
"He's been badmouthing me a lot, and that comes with the job," Coble said. "I'm not overly concerned with it, and I don't dislike him. If he dislikes me that's his problem."

Guilford County commissioners took a step Thursday toward resolving some lingering confusion about exactly where the Guilford-Alamance county line is.

The disagreement involves a fairly small slice of land that includes 27 parcels of property, but it has meant big headaches for some property owners.

Commissioner Carolyn Coleman said some property owners in the area have told her they have received tax bills from both counties. The line has also caused uncertainty about voting and school attendance.

Commissioners passed a resolution Thursday asking the state to survey the area. The results would then be used by the counties to come to a final agreement.

"I'm glad that we finally decided to deal with it," Coleman said.

A reader called in after seeing the results of a state audit on food assistance in Thursday's paper.

The results showed that the incidence of people using Social Security numbers that are invalid, fake or from a dead person are pretty low: less than 200 were found in about 86,000 people receiving benefits from Guilford County's food assistance program. Read the report from the N.C. Office of the State Auditor here.

The caller had a basic question: If North Carolina can audit its food assistance by cross-checking a Social Security number, then why don't they do that to find immigrants working under a phony SSN in the United States?

Complex answer.

Turns out that the Social Security Administration does audit for that. Here's the SSA annual report from Nov. 7 that explains how. The part on immigrants is 10 pages down.

Most politicians try to avoid being connected with hot air. But, if you've been paying attention to the 2008 presidential campaign, you'll know that Ron Paul isn't exactly most politicians. From our friends at the Associated Press:

RALEIGH (AP) -- A 200-foot long blimp bearing the name of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is flying over North Carolina.

Campaign spokesman Bryce Henderson said the blimp took off from Elizabeth City just before 9 a.m. It's expected to fly over Raleigh and Greensboro in the afternoon, and over Charlotte just before nightfall.

The aerial billboard is emblazoned on one side with "Who is Ron Paul? Google Ron Paul." The other side reads "Ron Paul Revolution."

The blimp is scheduled to float up the East Coast past major cities.

Paul is a Texas congressman and former Libertarian who stands apart from the other GOP presidential contenders by opposing the Iraq war. He has low poll numbers but soaring support among anti-government voters on the Internet.

For those not in a Googling mode, Scoop has done it for you.

I was just reading the agenda for Tuesday night's City Council meeting, when an Item 35 caught my eye: $352,750,000 to replace a leaky skylight at the Mitchell Pumping Station.

Whaaa? Now, understand that I am but a simple country girl from Wilkes County. But something ain't right.

Ohhhhh. A quick look at the attachment (page 142 of this document) assured me it's a typo. It's just $352,750 - which still seems like a lot for a skylight.

Click here to learn more about the draft plan to revitalize the Glenwood neighborhood.

Cool stuff.

We're here at the first official (nonemergency) meeting of the new Greensboro City Council. And City Councilman Robbie Perkins has already had to abstain from a vote. The reason: conflict of interest.

Perkins is president of NAI Piedmont Triad. One of NAI's brokers is representing the property on Corwallis and Lawndale, where developers want to build a Walgreens. The council voted to give developers another month to work with residents of Irving Park and Kirkwood, who are opposed to the plan.

UPDATE: Perkins just had to abstain from a vote again ... yet another conflict of interest with his company. That's two in, what, 20 minutes?

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Perkins just delivered his third "I have to abstain" speech of the night! A new record!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Perkins just delivered his third "I have to abstain" speech of the night! A new record!

The City Council will hold a special meeting at 4 p.m. Thursday to decide whether to release more information about the three officers suspended in the alleged assault situation. More here.

Another police officer has been suspended, apparently in situation unrelated to the one referenced above. More here.

Story here. I'll also be at the City Council meeting at 4 p.m. today, and hopefully will live-blog.

UPDATE: N&R Editor John Robinson blogs about the issue.