Column Archive

2004 Archive (through August)

Defending the newspaper’s work
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
On Monday, local builder Mark Marcoplos delivered a blast on these pages which deserves an answer. Marcoplos' criticism centered on a principle of community newspapering that goes too often unappreciated -- that of the paper's editorial position.
Marcoplos repeatedly refers to recent editorials by the paper and does so in a most dismissive manner, citing them as being published by "an anonymous writer." He refers to the anonymity in various ways throughout his guest column, referring repeatedly to "the anonymous writer."
It's been quite the topic on Orangepolitics.org, a Web site where many of us go to shoot the cyber-bull. In the old days of journalism, reporters and their subjects met at the local tavern after hours to get background on the stories of the day. This is nothing especially radical, except for one little factor that's getting to be a dicey issue -- anonymity. At least in the early going at the local establishment, you knew who you were talking to.
Thanks to the technology of the day, you can post whatever you'd like to the Web site and remain anonymous if you choose. You can also post your name, your e-mail address or whatever you want for personal information. And of course, I can post your information attached to my comments if I want -- of course, there's the rub. While there is distinct value in leaving the "who says so" out of a discussion on issues, there's the matter of accountability to be considered.
And that's where local newspapers hold to an old standard for the benefit of public accountability. While the editors of this and other papers will withhold your name from print if you want of need them to, they'll usually require that you disclose your identity to them before they'll publish your letter. The reader, therefore, knows that a trusted editor has verified that submissions are traceable, especially if they are accusatory.
So why does the paper issue its own opinions without attribution every day? First, it's not really so mysterious. The editorial staff is ultimately responsible. Their names are on the masthead.
Likewise, it's not so mysterious when you think of the issues that a newspaper's staff must cover. By definition, the stories that appear are among the most controversial in the community, so it's important that reporters and editors involved in reporting stay (as individuals) at arm's length from the issues.
But the community rightly expects that those who have covered the issues extensively offer some analysis of the bigger picture. In most stories, there's more to it than who said what for the record. And it's often an important protection for the editorial board to be able to express a consensus view of the organization without attributing that position to a single person.
The civil rights movement and debates that went on through this community's editorial pages during those years is a classic example. Journalism professor Jim Shumaker said years ago that he was at war with his bosses constantly about editorial positions that his paper (then The Chapel Hill Weekly) was taking in favor of desegregating schools and public accommodations.
"Shu" was sorely tempted to quit on a regular basis, he said, but he didn't because he felt he was a voice in the wilderness, hoping to be heard. Though he looked back with some regret that he hadn't done more, Shumaker did plenty, especially in the area of teaching aspiring reporters their craft at the UNC School of Journalism.
When covering and editorializing on the terror perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan, the cloak of anonymity was equally necessary to get readers to focus on the position being taken and not who was taking it or why. This represents an important and valuable tradition in daily journalism, often referred to as "history on the fly."
That said, I've squabbled with management at The Herald-Sun once or twice myself as has every columnist or reporter with the paper. The Chapel Hill Herald's reporting staff and management certainly doesn't need me as its defender, but I offer these insights regardless:
The people who put this paper out every day (missing only one issue since the paper's creation over 15 years ago... and that due to the 2000 blizzard) do the best they can with the resources available. Their work is long on hours and short on pay. (Shumaker once told a class of journalism students that our profession was one of the few that could make teaching appear lucrative.)
And they do all this knowing that every single day there's going to be something in the edition they're working on that is not quite right. If they waited until it was, they wouldn't produce a daily newspaper. It would be a pamphlet, with a legal disclosure longer than any story.
Speaking for myself and strictly as a reader, I'm glad they keep trying to produce an accurate daily record of what the heck is going on around town.

Say yes to International Baccalaureate
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
The Orange County Schools are at present going through the process of establishing an International Baccalaureate program at Cedar Ridge High School. In a word -- hooray!
The two-year program is academically very rigorous and, like honors curriculum, is self-selecting. As my son would probably put it, "You gotta want it." Students explore the core curriculum of a classical education and do so in greater depth than public school standards would require.
They are expected, for example, to devote about 40 hours to their IB essay project. This is an extended essay of 4,000 words that should investigate a topic of special interest to the student and should display independent research, analysis and writing skill.
There is music and art in the IB program. The creative areas are intended to foster a sophisticated understanding of the cooperative nature of collaborating with other people in a creative endeavor.
There is the study of societies other than our own. There are, of course, mathematics and the traditional sciences. Students are expected to learn a foreign language.
But the most important thing that the IB program offers is an international standard of excellence against which student work is evaluated.
Among the biggest shortcomings of North Carolina's education system is the state's aversion to nationally (and internationally) standardized testing. When North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction decided many years ago that our state's students would be compared only to each other, our children's educational foundation was seriously injured. Introducing the IB program at Cedar Ridge will go a long way to re-establishing credibility in the area of what excellence means to Orange County Schools.
Grades are not given on a bell curve in the IB program, for example. Students are given top grades because they've demonstrated a mastery of knowledge, not because of a relative position in the class.
Of all the sparks that have flown in the past year over the possibility of merging Orange County Schools with those of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, virtually no argument has ever been offered against the institution of an IB program in the county district.
That's right, there's no controversy over it. It's something that both districts recognize as an excellent program with a proven record of excellent results. That alone is exciting enough to pause for a moment of silent appreciation.
In fact, there's been some real excitement among merger proponents I've talked to that a merger might even offer enough numbers of students interested to establish an IB high school serving both districts.
And frankly, that seems like a really terrific idea that could put all the promise of cooperation between the districts to a practical application test. Since it's an opt-in program, there'd be no complaints about redistricting or busing. Indeed, many of the students could probably drive themselves, as they would all be juniors and seniors.
Regardless of all that potential, the fact remains that adding an IB program at Cedar Ridge is going to benefit that school's academic reputation significantly. The school will be looking, no doubt, for an estimate of how many kids are interested in enrolling for next year and what questions their parents might have about the program. Next fall may seem far away, but it will be along before you know it.
So if your child is a sophomore at Cedar Ridge and, like mine, is very interested in the IB program, now's the time to let the school know. Cedar Ridge held an information meeting Monday evening, but these things almost always hit a time when at least some interested parties cannot attend. Don't be deterred if you missed it.
Coming up next month, we'll see if the IB committee wants us. They'll come, they'll visit, they'll quiz. They're going to directly verify that Cedar Ridge's program plans meet a standard -- the IB standard. If we fail, we'll have to try again.
But as Lady Macbeth would say, "Screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail." OK, she was planning a murder, but the point is, if Orange County parents want an excellent high school education for their kids, this is a golden opportunity to secure it.
All you have to do is say "yes."

A life well-lived and Michael Jackson
Wednesday, January 21, 2004

The news is often filled with bizarre contradictions, and sometimes just the bizarre.
Last week, accused felon Michael Jackson demonstrated in vivid detail the contempt he holds for the rule of law, the safety and welfare of others and the unmistakable absence of unselfishness or humility in his character.
To wit, he arrived at his arraignment 20 minutes late, an inexcusable stunt that one suspects would have landed similarly accused child molesters in a cell for contempt.
Jackson's attorney said he was late because of the crush of fans surrounding the California courthouse, but his behavior after the hearing made clear this was not the case.
He was late because he's arrogant and nearly drowning in his own ego gratification with no one close to him able to tell him "no" -- about anything.
They couldn't say "no" to all the plastic surgery or making obviously false claims of abuse by the police during his arrest. He claimed his shoulder was dislocated when he was handcuffed, yet he freely waved to fans upon leaving the courthouse that day.
They couldn't say "no" to any of those things, so they could never stop him from hopping up onto his car to dance after his hearing last week. Let the fans rock the car and surge past any fences constructed for public safety, "Jackson is an entertainer," the lawyer explained.
Right. And that's why when a child has made this accusation, it's important to avoid being humble and serious. Image is everything.
I think the next time someone cuts me off in traffic I'll roll down the window, flip him the internationally recognized salute and call him "an entertainer."
Contrast that utterly garish circus with the quiet end here in Chapel Hill to a life lived with more class and dignity than Michael Jackson has any hope to ever acquire.
I recently read with awe the inspirational obituary of Mrs. Frances Schoenbach, who passed away on Dec. 17, as the media reported on the Wright Flyer skidding into a mud puddle.
Mrs. Schoenbach's passing didn't make the news that day, but it should have. What a remarkable life she conducted, according to her obituary, which was one of the most eloquent I've ever read.
The summation said that Mrs. Schoenbach graduated first in her class from Boston University Law School in 1937, among the first women ever to do so. She was associate editor-in-chief of the Law Review and landed a job with a prominent New York City lawyer.
She put aside her career, however, to support her husband's military service in World War II. Widowed at 37, she raised her three children, remaining at home.
According to her obituary, Mrs. Schoenbach was a stay-at-home mom until her youngest child was in high school. She did this mainly by carefully managing her husband's life insurance death benefit.
This must have been one of the areas in which her undergraduate math degree (with honors) from Barnard College really came in handy.
Once her children were grown, Mrs. Schoenbach worked teaching mathematics in public schools, as a high school guidance counselor and as a mental health legal consultant. At 59, the obituary says, she began working as an attorney for the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court and continued there until her retirement 11 years later.
Then she moved to Chapel Hill to be near her family here.
And that brings me to the contrast between this lovely lady, who I'm willing to bet did not consider herself to be a heroic person and, well, the other guy. I just can't stand the idea of putting them into the same sentence.
There's a place for entertainers in this world.
Mrs. Schoenbach would undoubtedly have agreed that the arts are sometimes what stands between us and the breakdown of civilization. But when I think of kids looking up to someone, finding a trustworthy soul whose life has been one to admire, remember and emulate, I could not possibly attribute those descriptors to a man whose talented youth and young adulthood showed such immense promise. His adult life is a circus carnival of sick self-indulgence and, allegedly, a trail of damaged children.
Instead, I would direct boys and girls alike to Mrs. Schoenbach's life as one that exemplified the value of sustained high achievement without the excuse of "victimhood" and the unselfishness of genuinely putting children first, something Jack-o couldn't figure out with all the lawyers in the world.
Our community is so much the poorer for her loss.
Mrs. Schoenbach's family requests that memorial donations be sent to The Medical Foundation of North Carolina and WCPE radio.

The pot, the kettle and pass the nachos
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
The other day I was watching a reality TV program (we used to call it the "news") and there came a story that seemed harmless enough, but was not.
The report opened with pictures of a caring school nurse walking down the hallway with an elementary age boy, heading for the school's health office. He hopped onto the scale to have his height and weight measured, then he left to return to class.
The nurse at that school (not a local school) is going to measure every kid in her school in this same way this school year. She will send home a note to the parents of kids whose Body Mass Index, or BMI, indicates that they are in a so-called higher risk category as indicated by the calculation. I say "so-called" because according to the BMI, Tom Cruise and the governor of California are overweight.
The nurse filled in the child's name and BMI score on a form, then folded the form in half, wrote the child's name on the outside and dropped it into a stack of similar notes. These will go home with the children in their book bags, or as I like to call it, the abyss.
The note was reported to contain some health referral information regarding the need for better diet and exercise.
Now, if there were health insurance involved here, this rather innocent-looking screening would break the law in several ways. That little form being sent home, for example, is a health record, not a notice of a PTA meeting. The nurse, I'm willing to bet, is perhaps conducting this study (thought to be noninvasive) without parental consent, also illegal.
When my children have been invited by the public school system to participate in a screening, they come home with permission forms, in advance. That's completely appropriate.
On a practical level, there's no stigma involved for doing things that way either. Every kid who participates in the screening gets a report (in a sealed envelope) of its results, regardless of what they are, just like I get a letter from my doctor with my blood test results.
But in this case, only children with a BMI that places them in the overweight category will get a letter. As a practical matter, in elementary and middle schools, that means that the teacher is in the unenviable position of handing out the "fatty" letters. Every kid will know who got one and the teasing will begin in earnest.
The privacy issues here are obvious, but I thought I'd offer my opinion about what that letter really should say about the root problem. Here's my form letter:
Dear Parent:
Your child, ________, was weighed and measured today and we have found that (s)he is overweight. As you are probably aware, obesity has reached crisis proportions in the good old USA. There are many indicators that intervention is needed.
Over the years, we in the public schools have been asked to solve, address or otherwise intervene with an impressive array of our society's ills. So here's what we've decided to do about the bursting waistlines of the children in our care.
There's no nutritional value in soda pop, only monetary value in the business of selling it, so we're going to get rid of the soda machines at our school. If teachers or students want to bring their own soda here, that's no problem. We're just not selling it on the premises any longer.
Your kids can say goodbye, too, to those fat-dripping nachos that many of them have for lunch instead of what might pass for a balanced meal. Gone, too, will be the individually packaged bags of chips and junk food snacks that we've passed off as "a la carte" items in the cafeteria. Again, if you want to send these items to school with your child, that's your right. But when kids get a hot lunch at school, parents should expect that they're getting something more than trans fats and carbs. Since the introduction of ketchup as a school lunch vegetable, this has not been the case. Hence, we've been unnamed conspirators in this problem, all for the sake of saving some short-term dollars.
We're done with that. We're hiring new physical education teachers for each school because we're no longer willing to tolerate the near-total disappearance of physical activity as an integral part of a healthy, vibrant educational process. We refuse to teach children that learning Spanish or algebra comes at the expense of their health. We plan to march on this platform to every budget meeting at every level of government to drive home this point. We hope to see you there.

Let’s go Tar Heels! Beat Dook
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Thursday, the Dean E. Smith Center will rock once again with the hope that our beloved Heels can defeat "Dook" in the ramp-up to March Madness. We love our round ball in Chapel Hill, there can be no doubt.
If you've received an e-mail from me in the past couple of weeks, you've seen a "Beat Dook on February 5" tagline at the bottom, just a reminder that business is business, but being a Carolina alumna goes beyond the bottom line.
Of course, I have many friends who are Dookies and they tolerate me as I do them. Around this time of year, we find great enjoyment in the rivalry, which is often heralded as among the greatest in the country.
Carolina fever has struck the campus again. This is not the virus that had everyone running for the bathroom last week (and that one was a dandy) and not that oh-so-vicious computer worm that struck my business last week (I was getting 500 e-mails per hour at one point).
No, this is the welcome glow of our rampant, half-crazed fans, cheering on the return to greatness of our basketball program.
There are some in our area who believe that this area of university life gets too much attention and far too much money.
I am not among them.
To be frank, many of the folks I'm thinking of here are very hard-working, well-meaning, dedicated people who want to help those in need. They'd like to see more money for after-school programs and those things that benefit youth in need. So would I.
For example, there's the popular argument of how the university should spend more money on professors of (pick your favorites) history, the arts, English, math and so on, rather than paying millions to athletic coaches.
That's something of a false choice, though, isn't it? Don't you have to look at enrollment, at alumni dollars and at the national profile of the university to make that larger decision?
When I attended the university, the journalism school was housed in Howell Hall. It is a charming building and the J-School's being based there fostered a feeling of intimacy among its students. We were one little building on a great big campus; we felt special and yes, I'll say it, exclusive.
The journalism school had (and continues to enjoy) a distinctive national reputation for excellence. It did not (and does not) crank out boilerplate graduates.
But when the alumni start making noise about wanting more and better facilities for the school, the university responds. The move to Carroll Hall was not one that I was especially crazy about, to be quite honest. I felt very nostalgic about Howell Hall. I enjoyed some awfully good and life-changing years there.
My nostalgia came to a screeching I-am-so-over-it halt when I attended my first workshop in Carroll Hall a couple of years ago. It was the first time that I'd taken a continuing education workshop at the journalism school since my graduation.
I'd been in Carroll Hall before, but it was for an economics course back then. Now it is mass communications central, and when I walked through the doors, I was astonished at how much at home I felt. The classroom where I enjoyed my one-day workshop was something we could only have dreamed about back in Howell Hall. The replica of Charles Kuralt's New York office nearly brought tears to my eyes.
When alumni return to campus for purposes such as this, they are inclined to spend money, both on the occasion of the visit and subsequently when solicited for donations. This, of course, benefits the student population.
And this brings me back to the game that we're all looking so forward to Thursday evening. We love to come back home to go to games (if you have tickets for Carolina-Dook you can't use, I'm in the book). We love the reminder of consistency that sports can give us. Although society changes, these games are held harmless ... unless you loved the four corners.
The games are a time capsule that remind us of our own joyful days in college and the need to sustain the quality of that experience for those who follow us. Can our university improve itself? Of course it can -- that's in the nature of education itself.
We should always seek to improve, but first, let's put the blue dress on those devils and send them back to Durham with a new "L" in their bright shiny record atop the nation's rankings. Go Heels. Beat Dook.

School response to book issue right on
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Too seldom comes the opportunity to applaud a school or district for hitting a home run right out of the park, but last week, C.W. Stanford and the Orange County Schools did just that.
A Stanford student, Garvey Jackson (who is black), took it upon himself to protest the reading in class of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," based on its use of the infamous n- word. That word is also used frequently in Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" and Alex Haley's "Roots." Both are also widely viewed as classics in American literature.
That word, without question, remains among the most powerful and incendiary in our language. That's why it struck me that although Jackson's class read the book earlier this school year, his offense didn't really find its voice until February, Black History Month. The Jackson family would honor black history by censoring it -- by reading nicer, sweeter material.
Throughout the civil rights movement, newspapers had to tell the story of lynchings, church burnings and racial epithets being burned into the bodies of innocent blacks. You can't explain murder without talking about killing someone.
And if you were Harper Lee, growing up in the South and seeing the raw, rampant injustice of racism from a white perspective, you wouldn't be able to tell a story about redemption and hope without displaying the damage and murder of innocence first.
As indicated by school officials in Sunday's Chapel Hill Herald story, the district will investigate any formal protest to a book being taught, but first it must have the protest in hand.
And there's the rub.
The Jacksons have not taken the trouble to follow this procedure. They have irresponsibly implied that the district is somehow "still teaching" offensive material.
Rita Gonzalez-Jackson, Garvey's mother, told The Chapel Hill Herald that she was offended that, "It's 2004 and this is still being read in the schools?"
The Jacksons seem to feel that it's their task to "educate the community," hold a mock funeral for the book and perhaps, eventually, file a formal protest with the school district.
So, perhaps as a last resort, they might consider following the district's simple, well-explained, fair procedure that's been in place for years.
While the Jacksons are educating the community on racist language, why aren't they educating themselves about due process?
That, after all, is what those sit-ins in the civil rights movement were about.
Martin Luther King Jr. did not go to jail to protest being offended.
He put his life on the line and eventually lost it to protest violations of basic human rights, such as the denial of due process and equal protection under the law.
But equal protection and fairness are not what is in question for the Jacksons.
It is the question of being offended, not unlike so many were during the other infamous Jackson publicity stunt within the Super Bowl's half time show.
In all that fuss, one thing offended me the most -- that no one seemed bothered by Kid Rock wearing an American flag as a poncho, that there was no shock or offense by the many mock back-door sex acts on stage.
No, it was the millisecond display of one woman's breast -- something beautiful -- that somehow made the event "disgusting" and launched a federal investigation.
Right up to that point, it was only a matter of taste, the self-appointed experts said, and about family entertainment.
And in the days that followed, Dan Rather teased the story multiple times throughout his evening news broadcast before running an "update" of the so-called embarrassing episode.
And throughout both stories, we need to be sure we spell Jackson correctly in all the coverage. Because, after all, isn't that the only goal?

Sex and the city (and the county)
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
In case you've been under a rock for the past week or two, you're probably aware that the HBO series "Sex and the City" has just drawn to a close after a successful six-year run.
The series' conclusion, reuniting lead character Carrie Bradshaw with her on-again, off-again beau "Mr. Big," shouldn't be a shock to those who read the book. The very last sentence read, "Carrie and Mr. Big are still together today."
No disrespect to Candi Bushnell, my high school classmate and author of the vapid novel, but the book was merely a conceptual basis for the show. Bushnell never wrote a script or appeared on the show as far as I know. The show's quality and that of its characters was many levels above the book.
Darren Star, the series creator and the real genius behind the success story here, could have wrapped it up with all the women moving to San Francisco and getting hitched if he'd wanted to. It's HBO, after all.
Back to the book for a moment. I must confess that despite my acquaintance with the author years ago, I'd not heard of it until the show was a smash hit and I was among its legions of devoted fans. As a mature married woman, I appreciated its frank, funny look at sex and women's friendships. The simple truth is, yes, we do think about sex plenty and yes, again, we do talk about it with our friends.
And when we are very, very lucky and blessed in this life, we have friends like Carrie Bradshaw does, with whom we can talk about absolutely anything and get a real opinion, a lot of laughs and the loving support that only your best friends can give you.
For many women, talking about intimate things forms a bond that can carry them through devastating loss, hardship, fear and self-doubt. We like to talk through our stuff. Sometimes, we like to laugh about things that make us blush ... get silly and be embarrassed, but it's usually because we're trying to understand something or someone better. This is how we build relationships.
This is why "Sex and the City" was a wonderful breakthrough on American television and one that the schools should take a lesson from.
North Carolina's standard course of study describes three categories of sex education.
They are "(i) a program that pertains to or is intended to impart information or promote discussion or understanding in regard to the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases, including Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), or to the avoidance of out-of-wedlock pregnancy,
(ii) an abstinence until marriage program,
or (iii) a comprehensive sex education program, whether developed by the State or by the local board of education."
Unlike some nearby communities, our districts employ the more comprehensive approach, which conveys to students that abstinence is the surest way to be safe and healthy, but also how to acquire, choose among or properly use birth control devices. Abstinence-only programs typically prohibit teachers from directly and specifically answering questions from students who pointedly ask for such information.
And what an absurd approach such a gag order represents. Obviously cooked up in a political back room and not a real-world classroom, this hypocritical position was best outed by comedy writer Al Franken, who started a campaign to support abstinence-only sex-ed.
That's right -- support it. Well, he tried to anyway. Franken is a proud Democrat, but he's also a father and wants his kids to be safe and healthy as we all do.
He thought the very best and most direct way to influence kids to abstain from having sex until marriage was through exposing them to great role models, so he wrote letters to several prominent individuals asking them to make motivational speeches at high schools all over the United States explaining how remaining a virgin until marriage had really helped their lives, both physically and spiritually.
But Attorney General Ashcroft, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and the many others he solicited refused the invitation.
Disappointing.
So our schools are better than most because they at least pass the stink test in avoiding that particular hypocrisy. We'll just have to hope that our kids aren't spending too much time alone with kids from Wake County who are being told that all they need to know about sex is not to engage in it until they are married -- to a member of the opposite sex, of course.
Still, I wonder how much frank, funny, informational talk about social pressure and expectations can go on in the public school classroom. Is there a better way?


Blue flu weekend a grand tradition
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
I guess it's our first fight. I have a disagreement with Roy Williams about the ACC Tournament.
In my first few years in North Carolina, I learned quickly that one either follows college basketball or one has no one to talk to at work for several months of the year. Wishing to fit in, I gave the game a chance and I've never looked back. Long before I was ever a student there, I became a Carolina fan. It was my affection for public education that drew me to UNC and has kept me there, even last year when the going was tough.
This past week and weekend was not only the weekend of face paint and a nonproductive Friday afternoon for the Triangle, it was the swan song for the nine-team ACC.
Duke's coach (whatever his name is) tagged it "Bloody Friday" and also said quite wistfully that if you love the ACC then you'd better really drink it all in on Friday. The conference is so tough, so tight this year, he said, that these will be four of the greatest college basketball games you'll see all year. And next year, it all changes with the expansion of the conference.
Coach K isn't wrong about everything and I found myself nodding with agreement. Just as we look back now to the days before Florida State joined the conference, these will be the good ol' days soon.
But Roy Williams made a comment that seemed to me to be unduly cynical. He said that the conference championship tournament doesn't have the meaning it once did -- that the ACC invented this event and now everyone's got one. Somehow, said Roy, this makes ours less special.
Maybe it's all about the money, said Williams, but it's not all that helpful in preparing for the NCAA championship. He seemed to suggest, in fact, that it almost gets in the way.
I know that Williams has had a pretty good year, but, is he ... uh ... nuts? I can't imagine how he could look at the ride Maryland had in that championship game on Sunday and see anything but the added bonus of tournament toughness, playing a great rival under terrific pressure and, yes, all those warm bodies in all those seats.
And let's just talk about the money for a minute. When last I checked, you could buy two tickets to the NCAA championship game for almost the exact price of one ticket to the ACC championship game. I think that speaks volumes for the conference's prestige and fan support. Those warm bodies in all those seats are paying Roy's salary, right?
And tomorrow, the big dance commences. Any of the ACC teams that have played so strong, so hard and with such passion this year could see their season come to a screeching halt in round one -- any of them.
Admittedly, the addition of Virginia Tech and Miami will tend to round out the football side of the conference more than the basketball programs, but they won't be weak for long when they have these powerhouses to play with during the years to come.
As I left University Mall on Friday, I saw a Chapel Hill Transit bus turning down Estes Drive. The "ticker" above the windshield listed the upcoming stops and at the end of the cycle said, "Go Heels, beat Georgia Tech."
I chuckled when I saw it. Too often we take for granted this common love we all have for our college sports and friendly rivalry with the little school in the next town. You can strike up a conversation with virtually anyone, anywhere in this area at this time of year on this topic.
Even among my misguided friends who graduated from the mayonnaise university in Durham, I happily acknowledge how great their fans are and how much they need air conditioning in their basketball arena. Maybe they should pass the collection plate at their next reunion.
All of these things give our larger community a source of pride and a national stage that none of us should take for granted -- not even Roy.
Coach Williams will have to make it up to us (for those comments) somehow. I recommend a big trophy, to be delivered later in the month.

Marriage should be a civil right for all
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here on this day to ponder the question of marriage and its value in our society. Our president has requested a civil debate, one point on which we agree. But we also need a lot of it, at every level of governance -- local, state and federal.
The truth will be revealed here: I'm an old-fashioned girl with some remarkably traditional values in some areas. Lately, when I see what's passing for commitment and "marriage" I just groan.
By way of disclosure, my own story:
I called my father one day in the summer of 1977 and told him I was getting married. His response was simple. He was against it.
"What do you want to do that for?" he demanded. He wasn't alone. My mother and my fiancé's parents asked the same thing. They were flatly against our tying the knot and it was mostly for one reason: I was 19 and they were sure it would end badly. My parents had just divorced, so they had a good idea of what a bad experience the end of a marriage was. Understandably, they wanted to spare me that.
We spared them the wedding, tying the knot with a local justice of the peace on a Wednesday night after work. A few weeks ago, we celebrated our 26th anniversary. I missed out on the dream wedding but got a good deal on a terrific marriage. No complaints here.
Over the years, we've made choices as a couple for the benefit of our family. I forfeited some earning power to have my children while I was young and stay home with them when they were very young. These were good choices.
Now comes the easy part of our marriage. We know each other very well. We have many years of shared experience to draw on. We've seen far more "better" than "worse."
So when the country is thrown into a culture war debate that swirls around the value of traditional marriage, I find myself right smack in the middle of all those so-called traditional values. I'm the one who is supposed to feel "protected" by the proposed amendment to the Constitution that would ban gay marriage.
Yet I don't want that particular protection. Here's what I'd prefer.
I'd rather my national leaders actually have enough familiarity with the Constitution to appreciate that it is a document never used to remove the rights of Americans. Rather, it was always intended to secure those rights.
I'd rather politicians of any party who want to shake their fists at the collective contempt our modern society has for marriage first make a call to Britney Spears, who gets a marriage and annulment in just a day or two for the benefit of publicity. When they're done with her, perhaps a sit-down with Larry King or Jennifer Lopez would be a good idea.
When I heard Howard Dean interviewed about this many months ago, he took out his 10-foot pole and said he wasn't about to get into trying to define what marriage was. "That's up to the church," he said.
He's wrong for about 10 reasons, but the simplest is that though you might get married in church, you must have a marriage license issued by the state. That means this is a state government issue. Period.
Our own senator-cum-presidential candidate, John Edwards, is doing a torturous two-step trying to avoid making a pro-gay marriage statement. At the same time, he's a pretty shrewd lawyer and has probably figured out this tectonic shift is going to happen and it's going to be this summer, after the state of Massachusetts begins issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.
When a test case races to the Supreme Court and is turned away for lack of jurisdiction, the floodgates will open -- in the fall of an election year. This will be a tricky business here in the South where Edwards is trying to stake out his winning ways.
It is up to the state of North Carolina to decide what it will sanction as marriage, which can easily be defined as an institution of lifetime partnership between two adults for the legal and social benefit of establishing a family, even if that family turns out to be just those two people and their parakeet.
To insist the two people in a marriage must be capable of producing their own children by natural means is to ignore the pain of infertility many couples face, to ignore the desire for companionship and legal security seniors are seeking when they marry later in life and to ignore the simple choice some couples make to get married and not have children -- just like Pat Buchanan and his wife.
And at the risk of sounding like a real conservative, none of that is the state's beeswax anyway. The state's interest is in establishing and supporting stable families and that's going to add up to Hallmark coming up with congratulatory cards for Mr. & Mr. John Q. Public's wedding very soon.
It's about time.

The invisible Orange job economy
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
According to the Economic Development Commission, Orange County needs a hip replacement.
That's one of the more catchy lines from Tuesday's State of the Local Economy breakfast, well-attended by Orange County business owners and elected leaders.
Within its strategic plan update, the "Quality of Place" subcommittee reported on strategies for maintaining and improving Orange county as a workplace. One of those was to "promote hipness by marketing our eclectic people and places."
The strategy fits right into a meeting that found the introduction of Carrboro's elected leadership as "the Board of Alderbeings." You just can't make this stuff up.
Though I've been a business owner for several years, I've not attended this event previously. My loss. Thanks to the generosity of the EDC's staff, I was able to swindle two seats at the commission's table...right next to a member of its board of directors, Laura Baldwin.
We gabbed and networked and did all those women-owned business things (Baldwin is the owner of Hillsborough's Reba & Roses, where the garden is art). We talked about juggling and being creative in running our own shops.
Unlike Baldwin's business, mine is somewhat invisible in the scheme of measuring the county's economic development, yet it fits into an odd and largely unexplored category of Orange county businesses. Like many companies in our community, my business has no employees.
I do have people who work for me, but they are independent contractors, a business model that has worked very well for me over the years. I can hire specialized workers for individual projects only as needed. There's almost no down side to this, except for their availability and reliability, which has yet to be a problem.
This is a growing and somewhat hidden part of our economy, I believe. My business activity cannot be traced, for example, through the traditional means of who has a business license in the county or a corporation. I have neither.
Because I work in Web development, the first amendment prohibits the government from requiring me to have a license. I operate as a sole proprietorship, so there's no separate corporation whose activities the commission can track through public records.
And the tricky part is that small businesses like mine are generating some major growth in the local economy and that of the state and nation. The EDC's numbers indicate that businesses with four or less employees grew by 4.5 percent from 1998-2002. In businesses with five to nine employees, the rate was 5.8 percent. The rate was more than double that for companies with 10-19 staffers.
Ten to 19 people...to me that's a huge company, but to economists it's the little engine that could. And collectively, companies that employ fewer than 20 people comprise the guts of our country's economic engine.
The EDC, for its part, is working hard to figure out how to reach out to us and understand what we're doing, what we need and how to make sure we don't run out of gas and oil. It's hard to train a workforce when what the workers will be doing is a mystery.
No one died and left me as spokesperson for this category of businesses, but I can offer some small insight into the problems we covered at the table over scrambled eggs and bacon.
We need resources available during off hours. It would be awfully cool if the county could cajole the state to give us one Saturday a month where we could make appointments to get our driver's license renewed without missing a half-day of work. That's very expensive when you're running the store. This concept could and should be applied to any county or city service as well.
How about a trade show designed to showcase businesses based in Orange county with fewer than 20 employees? Hold it during the spring so it could serve, too, as a job fair for emerging high school and college graduates or those students looking for summer internships.
Set up a small business Web blog to facilitate conversations among small business owners during their off-hours. Tell you what...that's such a good idea, I've done it already. Visit orangesmallbiz.blogspot.com for details. There's no money involved -- just conversation.
This brings me to the common ground that tends to separate little engines that could and great big locomotives that might or might not. We do. We have to hurry up and get on it with it because there's precious little time to plan, to ponder and to wring our hands at the prospect of failure.
Information is power, small business owners, so let's escape the shadow of anonymity and make ourselves heard.

Hats in the ring, the season begins
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
As evidenced by the number of letters to the editor on her behalf, Valerie Foushee will be offering a full-court press in her effort to land a seat on the Board of County Commissioners. Foushee, it would seem, is running on a no-merger platform, openly challenging long-time Commissioner Moses Carey for his seat on that divisive issue.
While Foushee's supporters are filling the editorial pages with support letters, they offer dreamy perspectives about Foushee's being "well-versed in education" and her thoughtful, even-handed manner of listening. "It's time for commissioners with open minds," wrote one supporter.
But does Foushee have an open mind about merging the school districts? Or is her candidacy built on opposing that outcome?
As the old joke goes, denial may have its origin in Egypt, but it flows right down the middle of Franklin Street when it comes to the issue of school merger -- regarding both its necessity and its mythological implications.
Anti-merger advocates threaten everything from excessively long bus rides and the loss of neighborhood schools to a simple lack of educational quality for having blended the city mice with those from the county. Largely baseless and fear-driven, it works well on nervous parents who want their kids to go to prestigious colleges.
But the real campaign issue will be whether Foushee makes substantive promises about how (without merger) she will solve the problems of overcrowding that Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools are facing.
Well, "facing" may be the wrong word considering that river problem I mentioned earlier. Last week, the city school board had to confront the central problem that drives the need for merger: They're out of land.
Adding more and more trailers, an undesirable short-term solution that no one likes, will allow Scroggs and other schools to limp along for a short while. But even those closely involved admit they just can't think right now about what should happened in five years; they're up to their necks in dealing with today and tomorrow and where to put all these kids.
So with Chapel Hill-Carrboro built out and a growing population, Foushee needs to outline where she will plan to educate these children and those in the Orange County district if she is running on a "Read my lips -- no school merger" platform. As a commissioner, she may get elected on the emotion and fear of opposing merger, but as a commissioner she must equally serve all the children of the county, meeting all those facility needs.
But before she crafts this miracle plan that no one else has thought of, Foushee has some housekeeping to take care of on the ethical front. She has a tardiness problem of her own for which she owes taxpayers an explanation.
That's right, Foushee's property taxes and those on her automobiles have been persistently late, though I'm relieved to report that at least they're paid.
On her home Foushee paid her 2002 taxes on March 7, 2003 -- over two months after they were legally due.
Her 2003 taxes trickled in on Feb. 20 of this year, over a month and a half late.
Taxes on her cars, according to county records, have been paid late, with one nearly three months late this year.
I asked County Finance Director Ken Chavious what would happen if, hypothetically, every citizen behaved this way.
If we all took so lax an approach to our legal obligation to pay our taxes on time, the government would have cash flow problems, emergency services could be affected and, of course, the government would be forced to borrow money to cover those needs.
Of course, if county employees are late in paying their taxes, Chavious pointed out, their wages are promptly garnisheed. If every single taxpayer just decided to pay a month late, "the county would enjoy a windfall of penalties and interest," Chavious said with a chuckle. Not a fund-raising plan to look for in tomorrow's headlines.
Before the letters start flowing, let me be clear about something ... if Foushee were a few days late once or twice, I wouldn't mention any of this because that isn't a persistent pattern.
But according to the county's records, she has only once been on time in paying her taxes. Perhaps she has a great explanation for that. Perhaps her bank failed to send in her escrow payments, for example. If so, we all need to hear it before the July primary.

King’s rights don’t trump neighbors’
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
When Judge Joe Buckner told junk man Hoyle King last November that the county could and would take some of his junk cars and trucks to pay for the construction of a fence around his property, King was offended.
"I worked hard for them," he reportedly said. "I don't think that would be right."
This was when the good Judge Buckner admonished King to clear the right of way along Slaughter Road and get a fence constructed all the way around his property by Nov. 21.
If he didn't comply, Buckner promised, the county would do it for him and send him the bill.
I drove past the property on Monday. Although there is a stockade fence along the property's frontage on U.S. 70, it is by no means constructed all the way around the property and does absolutely nothing to secure the site in any way.
That moist sensation in Judge Buckner's eye is not caused by tears of joyful satisfaction. That's a country boy's honker, hurled right into the face of the county government in general and the court's order, specifically.
Hoyle King's property is much, much more than a nuisance and embarrassment to his neighbors. It is not merely evidence of an old man who collects too many things. It is a public safety hazard on a most serious scale -- a ticking bomb waiting to go off.
Last week, I watched the public hearings related to the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks.
Over and over I heard the frustration of both the questioners and the witnesses that so many details simply weren't given the focus and priority that were needed to prevent the tragedy that the country suffered on that terrible day.
Our government, as the cliché goes, simply could not "connect the dots" to foresee that the network of zealots who had come after us repeatedly would not only do so again, but would be successful beyond their wildest dreams.
Of the witnesses, Richard Clarke, the now-famously former Bush administration security adviser, has criticized the administration for wrongly shifting its focus away from terrorism and toward Iraq in the period leading up to and following the attacks.
History will show whether or not that's the case. The Bush White House did, in fact, let our country down. We were attacked. Thousands died. These aren't theories, they are casualties.
Clarke said in his testimony that our country "needs bodybags" before making a major policy shift in the area of national security. This may be a dramatic way of putting it, but it's hardly a new idea. When you want a new traffic light, the Department of Transportation wants to know if anyone's been killed yet at the intersection.
And this brings me back to King and his toxic waste dump. I wrote on these pages last year that if this site is not cleaned up or secured, there is bound to be someone injured or worse. These are not complicated "dots" that require the CIA to "connect." You can view King's mess via the county's GIS system on the Internet. Yes, it's so massive that it's viewable from space.
Will it take the death or serious injury of a child on that site to shake loose the powers that be to at least secure that site?
Do King's rights to abuse his land really extend into the soil? If he can keep all those cars (there surely are hundreds of them) likely with gas and oil in some of them and leaking batteries to boot on his residential land, then surely it will be OK if I want to start a chemical plant in my garage, right?
If the county cannot or will not take control of this land in the interest of public safety, I would dearly love to know if and when they ever would do so.
Are we as thick-headed as the feds?
Must we have some body bags lined up along U.S. 70 before we are empowered to clean up a toxic dumpsite?
And let's be clear -- that's what this is. It is not a business, run in a businesslike manner. It is a dumpsite and one whose danger is obvious to anyone standing near it.
Something tells me that if Judge Buckner, the sheriff, the Environmental Protection Agency and the County Commissioners were meeting with all those angry neighbors on that site and with the cameras rolling, the wheels of all levels of government would turn very quickly indeed.

Students deserve voice in reform
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
On the front page of this newspaper last Sunday was a bold headline about students complaining they'd not had their say in the process of reforming the Chapel Hill-Carrboro high schools.
According to the story, students said they asked to be included on committees discussing scheduling, but were denied. Other committees met during the school day. I'm guessing the district didn't give participating students excused release time in order to participate.
Recently, I had a rather long and animated chat with a local (and fairly recent) high school valedictorian about why it is so difficult to get young people (those 25 and younger) to vote. What she told me was shocking to me at first, but after reading about this reform plan, I'm a believer.
We are taught in high school not to vote, she said. We are taught not to care, not to engage and to recognize that the established powers in a large system are all about the business of locking out change and reformation. More than anything, those in authority resist giving up any of the power they have for the benefit of hearing out a minority view.
Her evidence was compelling. Student governments, she said, have no real power within school life. They cannot pick a date for the prom without an adult's signature, cannot impose any punishment for students who violate the honor code and certainly play no substantive role in the hiring of a new principal or superintendent.
So it's no surprise that students have virtually no chance to be a forceful voice in any blockbuster (or block scheduling) question of an academic nature, a tender issue (with safety and liability involved) like off-campus privileges or how many AP courses should be permitted.
Of course, I'm skeptical of reform plans that claim to come through any existing system. Those "reforms" that originate with the fox typically offer little new security to the henhouse.
Superintendent Neil Pedersen's response to the students' dismay was to claim that the district had been open to students' input and continues to be so. That's terrific. Surely that means that when the student body president of Chapel Hill High School (among the best high schools in the nation) says "students were by no means represented in this process" the good Dr. Pedersen slammed on the brakes and threw out his existing planning schedule for this project.
If he and the city school board really are listening, then they must realize there's been a major failure in their effort to involve their customers -- who are directly and very personally affected by the results -- in this process.
I don't suggest that it will be possible to please everyone. That would be absurd. But if you're paying more than lip service to the process of collecting input and brainstorming for solutions, even those whose ideas are not used will feel they've had their say. If you're good at it, they'll feel a sense of ownership of the chosen course, regardless of its origin.
My friend the valedictorian told me that she had virtually no authority to say what she wanted to in her commencement speech, for example. What in the world would possess a school to subject such an accomplished student (now a summa cum laude college graduate) to the review of adults? Because it's their show, she said ... essentially, they hold onto that control just because they can.
So if an average schmo student feels he wasn't sufficiently consulted about reforming the structure of two high schools, I can dismiss that. Maybe he slept through the announcements. Maybe he didn't see the flier.
But when the student body president feels locked out, the spotlight turns to the people with all the power to demand that they demonstrate they have provided a means for every student to have his or her views heard.
"We continue to listen," Pedersen said. That's good. When all those students (and some teachers, too) demand a delay in this decision so that they can be heard, I hope Pedersen and his bosses are able to hear it.
How much reform is needed? Plenty. So urgent is the desire to produce a better high school graduate that five area businesses are each pledging a half million dollars to "re-think" how high schools work in Wake, Durham, Orange and Johnston counties -- the so-called "High Five: Regional Partnership for High School Excellence."
With no plan yet for how spend it, five companies have offered that cash over five years' time to shake things up. It is area businesses, after all, that are most likely to hire local students with no more than a high school education.
"It's beyond ambition, it's audacious," said Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Bob Gretczyn of the effort. More next week on what the private sector will get for its $2.5 million.

Handling the business of education
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
It's like an episode of "Back to the Future," without the popcorn or the stainless steel DeLorean. The business community is doing, in all humility, exactly what I said it would.
About 10 years ago, I wrote an op-ed piece in the Durham Herald-Sun that described in some detail how the business community would soon be fed up with waiting for public schools to get their act together.
Facing an increasing need for high-tech workers, these companies would in the coming years find themselves spending more and more resources on the unwanted task of training them. There would come a tipping point, I said, where the need to take over becomes obvious.
How would this hostile takeover manifest itself? My prediction was that the heavy hitters in business would put their heads together and conclude that they're the largest consumers of the "product" of public education. They hire high school and college graduates. They are, therefore, the test of whether or not education has prepared young people for the world of work and self-reliance.
So the local companies with the heft to do it would first put down a large sum of money and offer to help the schools. They would not do this via straight donation, but rather by establishing an external resource they could control.
With that established, they will have effectively bought themselves a seat at the policy table and little by little, their influence will drive the changes in the public school system.
A couple weeks ago, we all heard about the so-called "High Five" project, which translates to $2.5 million over five years' time, sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield's foundation, the News & Observer, SAS, Progress Energy and Capitol Broadcasting.
These companies have each plunked down a half-million smackers toward the "audacious" goals they've outlined. They are:
*All ninth graders will graduate high school in four years.
*Ninety percent of students complete some sort of college preparatory course of study on either a university or tech-prep track.
*Eighty percent of students meet requirements for admission to the UNC system.
That's it. According to Blue Cross and Blue Shield's CEO Bob Greczyn, that's a plan that's "not just ambitious, it's audacious."
Sorry, Mr. Greczyn, it's not audacious. In fact, it's not even particularly ambitious. If students meet their high-school graduation requirements now and do so on time, they've largely met these goals. The schools should be doing that right now. Of course, I'll wager that Greczyn is keenly aware of that, just like he knows that Blue Cross' record profits last year were not quite a quirky "missed guess."
The real curiosity is that area districts are purportedly very excited about this new reform effort, even as Chapel Hill-Carrboro school officials are busily ramming through their own version of "reform"-- no doubt so they could claim to be ahead of the curve by the time High Five hits the ground crawling.
But they're so far behind it, they probably can't catch up. School officials are busy stonewalling parents of gifted kids as they phase out any set-aside curriculum for academically gifted students. While they'll still accept every nickel of extra taxpayer dollars for meeting the needs of the academically gifted, they're just going to clog up mainstream classes with gifted kids whose need for challenge and fast-moving material will turn into behavior issues quicker than you can say "IEP."
You can teach children of varying levels in one classroom. I've seen it. It's awesome. I recommend it. You just can't do it in today's public school classroom, not when you're teaching to high-stakes end-of-grade tests never designed to evaluate individual performance, No-Child-Left-Behind accountability standards, and your classroom in the trailer is overcrowded.
This is where the self-described "best district in the state of North Carolina" should be holding the line and demanding that it offer:
*As many Advanced Placement courses as possible.
*Magnet AG programs to allow children from all over the county to segregate themselves for the purpose of working to much higher standards.
*Well-managed resources for children with special needs, based on the gains it makes in grouping AG students together to meet their needs.
*Various creative scheduling options to allow students to finish high school in 21/2 or three years, helping (even in a small way) to alleviate overcrowding.
For $2.5 million, these area businesses will be looking to jam their feet in the door to bring some real-world efficiency to the participating school districts. Let's hope the local captains of industry have better luck than parents in getting a straight answer from the schools. Even more critical, let's hope that with two major media companies involved, the process will be refreshingly transparent.

Davidson’s departure is disturbing
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
I read with great sadness about the departure of Betty Tom Davidson from the Orange County school board. It's not just that she's leaving, of course, it's the circumstances of her quitting that are so disturbing.
In resigning at the mid-point of her term, Davidson leaves the board in a very awkward position. Board members will have to put aside their differences, think about what's best for the larger community and conduct a fair and thoughtful process to fill Davidson's seat.
I'll confess, I'm not optimistic.
After all, no matter what you think of a fellow board member, you want to serve with people who were elected to the board, not appointed. They have the benefit of knowing, at least, who put them there and what cause(s) they are on board to champion.
But when the board must appoint a member, it would be easy to feel torn about your goal in making that appointment -- are you trying to get someone who is like Davidson, or someone closer to one or another leader on the board? There are merits to both.
But the chilling, disturbing piece in all this is how it is that Davidson felt she had no choice but to resign, citing her responsibilities as a parent. In her tearful remarks, she referred to the district's essentially not responding to a child crying out for help. This, she said, defines the district's (or anyone's) humanity.
The details of Davidson's individual situation are hers to make public (or not) but there is more than enough here to grab the collars of each remaining school board member and shake until buttons start falling to the floor.
Here we have a sitting board member who is specifically stating that she feels her child cannot be kept safe in school. Wow. Imagine what it would be like if you were just ... an ordinary parent.
About 10 years ago, my older son got ... well ... the snot beat out of him at C.W. Stanford Middle School. He was in sixth grade, about 75 pounds soaking wet and glasses that were bigger than his face. His algebra teacher came upon a kid standing over my son, kicking him in the stomach.
Both boys were hauled to the principal's office ... almost as though they were pulled apart during what law enforcement calls a "mutual affray." A mutual affray is a fight where you're giving it as good as you're getting it. In this case, my son was strictly "getting it."
Because he was slight of build and a poster kid for nerdy brain power, I worried plenty about this kid of mine. When I met with the principal, I asked what the disciplinary action was that the other boy was dealt. He reluctantly told me that the bully was made to apologize. That was about it.
I wasn't impressed when the principal described that apology, either. It was something of an "OK, he's cool," thing that, according to this principal, was as much as I'd ever see from a kid in that age group.
This was baloney, of course. I had a kid in that age group. When an apology was called for, he gave one. It nearly always began with code words like "I'm sorry" or "I'm really sorry." In my family and in the public schools I attended, that's how apologies sound.
I talked to my son at the time about this incident and asked if this apology was enough. He was still anxious about getting beaten up again, but he was vastly more concerned that the whole thing go away -- that he not stand out in particular. If I had pressed the matter, he'd glow in the dark.
So if I had, for example, asked to move my child to another academic team, I would have drawn more attention to him. Frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised if I were stonewalled by the school's administration, which consistently told me they knew best. They often didn't.
But if I insisted on that solution or another one like it, I would expect the principal and the school board to back me to the hilt, just like I back up every teacher on issues like homework and testing readiness and civil behavior in the classroom. When traffic flows only one way on a two-way street, accidents are never far away. When it's my child and the question is one of physical safety, a reasonable request must be honored in the best interest of the child. That's my husband's and my legal responsibility -- no one else's.
I haven't talked to Davidson about her child or their situation, but I know that if a parent with her access and influence cannot get a safety issue resolved in a satisfactory manner, there is something terribly wrong with the system -- something worthy of urgent attention at the highest level.

Weapons of mass obstruction
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
On Monday's editorial page, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools Superintendent Neil Pedersen made a statement some parents may find surprising. "We cannot turn a deaf ear to criticisms that a student is bored or unchallenged in class," he wrote.
Read that sentence very, very carefully and you'll find some compelling and disturbing information. First, it's the opposite of the facts, according to many, many parents of gifted children. Pedersen and his staff have done precisely what he says they "cannot" do.
A deaf ear? Pedersen and his staff have not only lost their hearing, they have unplugged the phones (they don't return calls), turned their e-mail into rubber stamps that say little more than "return to sender" and have flipped the back of their hands to parents whose frustration is becoming manifest.
Several parents have e-mailed me with attachments of their queries to the district staff or school board members in Chapel Hill. These are long, detailed, thoughtful correspondences with detailed, intelligent questions. They get responses like Nick Didow's "Thank you for your e-mail. I will give it thoughtful consideration."
So widely reputed is this response among these parents, Didow would have an easier time trademarking that phrase than Donald Trump would of "You're fired."
Pedersen declares that he believes in the differentiation plan -- and that's good enough for him. Never let evidence get in the way of what you believe.
And as parents are screaming bloody murder about being systematically ignored by the district, he writes about not turning a deaf ear to them. What he says is wholly contrary to the direct experience of these parents as substantiated by voluminous amounts of e-mail. But Pedersen still contends that he's "listening."
The independent research being done by these parents to help develop and operate under the best practices in gifted education is enough to sink a battleship. To see how the district receives this help, you'd think it was enough to sink the district.
Like these frustrated parents, the county commissioners have earned a degree in dentistry for the number of painful extractions (of information) they've experienced with Chapel Hill-Carrboro. One such exchange had exasperated county officials pounding their fists and chewing the furniture for such top-secret information as how many employees the district has.
The clash in these matters is about two things near and dear to everyone involved. Money and power are forceful drivers, after all, and they are integral pieces to the vexing puzzle.
The money involved is the revenue the district gets from the state for students they identify as exceptional. This includes students at both extremes of the spectrum. A student with a high IQ, for example, would presumably be intellectually gifted, though he or she may not test well or be particularly high achieving in the classroom.
Academically gifted kids are typically high achieving, though they can be students who simply work harder and longer to master material earlier or at a deeper level. According to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district, some 30 percent of students meet one of these descriptions.
But the district gets funds that are capped at a fixed percentage ... it is presumed that the bell curve will work it all out. Chapel Hill-Carrboro may have a disproportionate number of gifted students. Another district may have an unusual concentration of students with learning disabilities or students living in poverty with lesser reading skills, for example.
So the districts find themselves with something of a disincentive to meet the needs of students as individuals. Offering more AP courses doesn't improve the district's overall performance, the argument would go, it just drives costs up in keeping teachers trained in the advanced course work.
In his guest column, Pedersen is careful to talk about what is offered instead of what is being reduced. His district offers 26 AP courses, he says, but never offers a sound explanation for why it's important to individual students that they be discouraged from taking as many AP courses as they want.
In Advanced Placement coursework, the student is at last getting the best approach to teaching gifted kids -- an advanced curriculum the student has self-selected. It is unconscionable to me a district would pursue a policy that will tend to reduce the number of such courses that one student takes. To claim this is on behalf of limiting the "academic pressure" students feel is to insult everyone involved.
"Our schools need to develop more effective accountability measures to determine the academic progress gifted students are making," writes Pedersen.
Sounds to me like a new assessment tool for AG students. Another task force, another multi-year wheel re-invention. Where does it end?

Clean your room and say thanks
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
It's that time again. This Sunday, the pitter patter of little feet will scurry outside the bedrooms of mothers all over the world as eggs are clumsily scrambled, toast is burned to order and juice is splashed into a glass.
I'll confess, I miss that part of having young kids. The homemade cards (most of which I still have, of course) and the coupons for a clean room are the classic favorites, but this year I was thinking about changing my wish list.
First, I'm simply glad that on this Mother's Day I still have my own mom to shop for. She's had some health problems in the last year, and last summer it was looking pretty dicey. We're never promised tomorrow, so I am all the more grateful to have made it to one more celebration of my mother's love.
Back to my list: what I want for Mother's Day is difficult ... probably unattainable, but it's worth holding the good thought. I want my kids to clean their rooms (even the one who's grown up and living in his own apartment). I want my husband to throw rose petals at my feet for giving him two beautiful children. I pulled for Phil Mickelson to win the Masters. Now I want the Red Sox to win the World Series.
And I want the most unrealistic thing off all (of the first two items). I want them to do these things of their own volition. I want them to see the world as I do. That's what mothers really want.
We want everyone to walk into a bedroom, see clothes on the floor and an unmade bed and feel hormonally compelled to clean it up. We want our husbands to hear a song on the radio like the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows (What I'd Be Without You)" and get weepy at the personal connection it makes.
Somehow, this doesn't seem to happen for most people. Moms get this once-annually tribute day and then we return to chauffeur duty, short-order cook and laundress -- all unpaid, commonly unappreciated.
And it isn't the pay that matters ... not at all, in fact. My son was on a field trip a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned to his teacher while traveling that his parents had been married for more than 25 years and still love each other very much. He was grateful for this, he said, because so many of his friends have divorced parents or those who don't get along well.
That spontaneous expression of gratitude (to a third party) is worth a hundred store-bought greeting cards and as many potted plants.
It really is a little thing that goes a long, long way with moms. That sense that a kid can say thanks just because he or she wants to, not merely through a sense of obligation.
When we go out to dinner, we have a family ritual on the way out of the restaurant. I thank my husband for dinner (or vice-versa) then the kids follow suit. When the kids were young, I was less subtle about it, saying "Thank you for dinner, Daddy. That was good." We teach gratitude by practicing it. It's worked pretty well. Sometimes I'm the one chiming in last, a source of pride.
I've thanked my mother before for all the things that she did when I was young -- diapers, laundry, teenage disagreements and so forth. I've thanked her for caring for my elderly grandparents until each of them died.
I've done that job myself, just as she did ... caring for my in-laws until each of them died. There's no card for that. There's no way to explain how it is that you simply must do it. That "attraction to familial duty" is a pull that my mother and I share. It's a value that she taught me by doing it, just like saying "Thank you, Daddy" after going out to dinner. I'm grateful for the instruction.
Now in the autumn of her life, my mother teaches about carrying on, about being grateful that she can live in her own home after months in hospitals. She appreciates the chats we have on the telephone, mostly because she appreciates the company, but also because she's glad to have her speech back after a pretty big stroke. She doesn't take her ability to express herself for granted like the rest of us so often do.
So I'll take that lesson, too. Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you. It's in the newspaper, so you know it must be true.

Saying a lot through their silence
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Teacher appreciation week has never meant more to my brother and his wife than it did last Friday when Mrs. Lopez appeared in the driveway of their Cheshire, Conn., home.
Stacey Lopez is my niece's first grade teacher. Last Thursday, our dear Taylor developed a heck of a tummy ache after school. By midnight she was in the hospital. By midday on Friday, she was on an operating table saying goodbye to her young appendix.
As a matter of course, my brother and sister-in-law notified Taylor's school on Friday morning that she was ill and wouldn't be in school. When Chris returned home in the afternoon, he greeted Lopez in the driveway, her arms filled with balloons and "get well soon" cards from Taylor's classmates.
On days like these, it's crystal clear that many people with golden hearts are chosen to be teachers. In this case, Chris and Lisa's tearful thanks are all the acknowledgement Mrs. Lopez would ever require.
There are certain aspects of commitment to excellence that you can't put in a job description.
Taylor's own description summed it up as she explained to a nurse at the hospital, "They really care about me." What a great feeling to have to replace such a bummy tummy.
Indeed, sometimes teachers speak volumes not by what they say, but rather in what they do. Lopez wasn't going to leave it to the mail or leaving a message on Chris and Lisa's answering machine. Not even an e-mail -- quick and free -- was going to suffice. She knew that there's a penetrating effect in the body of a person showing up in person to express concern.
And sometimes volumes are spoken by what educators don't say and don't do.
For example, I've watched closely for the editorial pages to fill up with supportive letters from teachers who think highly of the reforms proposed for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro plan for gifted education. The silence is deafening, if not to say alarming.
According to Sandra Page, the coordinator of Chapel Hill-Carrboro's gifted programs, the city school board will consider revisions to the Academically/Intellectually Gifted (AIG) plan at its May 20 meeting. During that meeting, there will be opportunity for public comment. After integrating changes from that meeting, the board is expected to vote approval of a final revision on June 3.
We'll operate under the assumption that the state's deadline of June 1 for receiving this plan is merely a target date and that a June 3 adoption will be acceptable. Of course, my son can't turn in his English homework two days late and get any credit at all, but that's another story altogether.
If the seismic rumbling I've been picking up is any indication, the board will be well advised to wear hard hats to the May 20 meeting. This will be parents' one and only chance to make their feelings known directly to the board about the process and the expected level of service their children will be getting. My guess is it won't be pretty.
Those parents who are bruised and bleeding from banging their heads against the Merritt Mill Road brick wall can watch the district's Web site for the release of the final report (they say they've repeatedly requested drafts and have been ignored). Perhaps during the board's review of the plan the superintendent will explain why, apparently, drafts of revisions were not made available when requested. These are public documents -- even in draft form -- and we're all entitled to see them, warts and all.
In the cold light of day we may see disagreement within the district, but at least we would see, track and understand a process. Right now parents' video cameras capture only smoke and mirrors.

Day deserves serious observance
Originally published in:Chapel Hill Herald
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Times have changed, haven't they?
When I was a kid, Memorial Day was not only a holiday, it was one that came on the same day every year -- May 30(CORRECTION NOTE: Memorial Day (formerly Decoration Day) was actually May 30) -- just like it happens to fall this year.
It was, however, unlike other holidays. We might picnic at Elizabeth Park in Hartford, but otherwise, my family didn't observe Memorial Day as one would Independence Day. It was a quiet thing, a day to think and remember.
And let's be fair -- it was the 1960s and early 1970s. We were worrying about sending our young men to a distant and vague war. We feared the government was lying to us about why we were involved and what was going on there. We heard stories of our soldiers committing atrocities. The truth was very hard to see. It was more than the fog of war. It was a fog of national purpose.
This year, my high school-age son will be in school on Memorial Day, a decision I wish the Orange County Schools would reconsider for the future schedule. It's a make-up day for all but the high school seniors. They will have graduated this Friday and I expect that wild horses couldn't get them to class on Monday.
But because of snow that fell months ago, students must now fill the space of a classroom chair for four hours on Monday and Tuesday. Exams are all over. The seniors have, like Elvis, left the building. The school year, countywide, is completed, but instead of finishing on June 2 and observing Memorial Day during a year of war, my son will be keeping his perfect attendance record intact by getting up early, hopping on the bus and showing up to take up space.
Reminders of the war in Iraq (the one whose mission is by no means accomplished) are everywhere it seems. There's no way that you don't know someone with a family member in harm's way.
I ran into my neighbor in the hardware store the other day. He's a retired Marine colonel and a gifted artist, a sculptor. His younger son was with him. They are John and Johnny respectively and Johnny is also a fine artist. He lives in California, so it was catch-up time. I stopped over to visit that evening.
I teased the younger John that when I visit Connecticut the first question I usually get is "When are you coming back?" so I asked him for his return plans. There was some talk of a party when his nephew returns from Iraq, he said, but plans are uncertain.
Indeed, until he's calling from a U.S. airport, don't count on his getting out when he's supposed to get out, I said. I've heard stories of soldiers having their buses turned around en route to the airport. Sorry, three more months.
When a war is about the return of my nephew (now back) or my neighbors' grandchild, it takes on a different urgency. When our soldiers are transformed into sitting duck targets by the reckless mismanagement of a prison, it is the sort of thing that will send people to the streets to protest for change.
The real war, some say, is going on within the beltway, between and among the departments of Defense, the CIA and the National Security Agency, the battle for who runs the international intelligence business. That may be, but it's my neighbor's grandson who sleeps with one eye open, if he sleeps at all.
Suddenly Memorial Day feels familiar again. All we need to complete the picture is an expose about presidential neglect of duty by Bob Woodward.
War is always about someone's grandchildren, of course. En route to the beach now and then, I drive past the gate of Camp Lejeune, decorated with so many "I miss you" banners for expected soldiers and those departing. The mood in local restaurants and small businesses is one of somber anticipation.
And that's how Memorial Day feels to me this year -- somber, quiet. Maybe next year, I can plan a picnic. Let's hope the mission is closer to accomplishment by then.

Don’t forget to add the footnotes
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
It's embarrassing to make mistakes. Last week, for example, I waxed on about how great it was when Memorial Day was celebrated on a date certain, as opposed to the last-Monday-of-May as we do it now. I liked it better when it was Memorial Day every May 31, I'd said.
Right idea, maybe, but the wrong day. Memorial Day (formerly Decoration Day) was actually May 30. I afford myself this one mitigating factor ... this was what we call "an honest mistake."
It's the time of year when everyone's finishing up classes, exams and term papers. We all know how rushed that can feel. That time pressure doesn't explain my lapse, but perhaps it has something to do with a gaffe that appears to have befallen Keith Cook, the chairman of the Orange County school board.
It's tough to be chairman. You've got to give the commencement address at two high schools and come up with something fresh and insightful for each of them. You want to be charming, witty and mercifully brief.
When Cook took to the microphone at Cedar Ridge High School's commencement last Friday he cited some of the more memorable comments from Robert Fulghum's "All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten." The more famous one-liners are very popular in commencement speeches -- like "Hold hands when you're crossing the street."
When making the reference, my sources tell me, Cook credited the author. Then he went on to the Orange High graduation at the Smith Center. Apparently, the valedictorian shared Cook's affection for Fulghum's book and used many of the same references. Some of the board members, I was told, exchanged nervous looks, wondering if Cook would be left stammering. He was not.
He went on and gave a different speech, one in which he cited some of the lessons learned from the 1998 movie "Titanic." First, he observed that the graduation reminded him of his own high school commencement. "The relief. The hugging. The tears of joy. And that was just the teachers," said Cook, according to The Chapel Hill Herald's May 29 account of the speech.
He then went on with his lessons from the movie. "If you're headed toward icebergs, be prepared to change course and if you're headed toward college, be prepared to change roommates at least three times," he said. He cited the need to dress for success and recalled Jack's admonition to Rose in the movie -- make every day count.
It's a good speech, but a friend of mine (among the parents in the audience) thought that something about it didn't sound like Cook's voice as a writer or speaker. He stumbled through some of it, my friend reported. It also seemed odd that Cook would choose to reference an R-rated movie that came out when these graduating seniors were in sixth grade.
Since I didn't attend the event, I asked a few people if Cook had attributed these insights to another author. No, they said. After all, how could another author recall how Cook felt at his own high school commencement?
Hard to imagine, but in the age of Google, imagination need not apply.
And it's a small world, isn't it? Apparently, Cook felt not just much the same but exactly-word-for-word-the-same as then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala felt when she gave a high school commencement address at Madison West High School in Madison, Wis., her home state.
Some of the opening comments for example:
"I know exactly how you must feel today, because I can still recall my own high school graduation. The relief. The hugging. The tears of joy. And that was just the teachers. As for the students, we all shared the fond memories, the great expectations -- and the absolutely chilling fear that our commencement speaker would never stop talking."
Shalala went on to offer her top ten tips from the movie "Titanic." Three of those were obviously very local references (related to parking at the school, for example.) Cook gave Orange High graduates only seven lessons from the movie.
During that year, Shalala made several commencement speeches and referenced her "lessons from Titanic" in several of them. It's a wonderful device for a speaker to use, it's topical and an effective way to use humor.
I do know two things for sure about this.
Thing one: The graduating seniors of both Orange County high schools deserve a more thoughtful sendoff than this would indicate and
Thing two: If any of them had pulled a stunt like this and offered it as their own work, they'd be looking at a long, hot summer, repeating a course.

One pol dies; another survives
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
It's been a long seven days, hasn't it? For political observers, there has been an unusual and oddly balanced perspective in the flood of news this last week -- ranging from the foolish mistake of our own Keith Cook reaching the national media stage to the death of a former president.
They say all politics are local, and Ronald Reagan's passing is no different. He was almost certainly the most influential Republican in American history. He was certainly the most popular. (If the South were voting in 1864, Lincoln would never have been re-elected.)
Reagan and Lincoln, his only real competitor for the most influential title, were unlike each other politically. Lincoln was a progressive candidate, using the power of the federal government to expand the rights of individuals. Certainly Reagan's success in the South was instructive to Bill Clinton. Reagan probably liked that.
That's a legacy of a real leader -- something much bigger than you, bigger than your party and much, much bigger than just getting re-elected. In contrast to Reagan, it is stunning how very small our presidential candidates (on both sides) appear today.
The whole tone and character of Reagan as a man appears to have vanished from politics at every level. Reagan had so many memorable veto threats offered to Congress over one bill or another, including his famous "Dirty Harry" offer to "make his day" by sending a bill he could veto.
Then he punched out at the end of his shift. Maybe it was his history in acting, but Reagan knew that a certain amount of politics was show business and not the real him. He could lay down his sword and enjoy a meal with his loyal opponent. Perhaps at that stage it was the blessing of being able to forget.
It has been a stunning week for our own swirl of political wind -- much of it the hot air of former Orange County school board chairman Cook, desperately trying to explain his made-up term, "generic speech" and tap dancing as fast as he can to show that there was some form of an innocent explanation for his actions.
The part of all this that we must take heed of, however, is what has actually happened. In less than a week, Cook admitted what he actually did, resigned his leadership post and the school board has replaced him as chairman. They did so at their first opportunity Monday and before conducting any other business.
Then they carried on the business of running the Orange County schools, and they did so effectively with one voice.
Anybody paying attention here? That's pretty rare. Moreover, it's only fair to look at what their actual options were. The board cannot, for example, vote to remove Cook as chairman, but it's beyond naive to believe that he did so without their collective footprints on his rear end.
To remove a fellow board member is possible when a member has engaged in "disreputable conduct," but that process is an appropriately deliberate one. It involves an investigation, a review by the state Board of Education and a hearing. The voters would long since have decided Cook's fate by the time such a process was completed.
Hillsborough resident Julie Hunt responded to the school board meeting by complaining that she'd hoped the board would have "done something." She said that the board sends a message that an apology wipes the slate clean.
Wrong. Cook has resigned his leadership position at the behest of the community and his colleagues. He has humiliated himself and humbled himself in an effort to be accountable. His colleagues are not conducting a sporting event. They don't owe the public a victory dance at the feet of a vanquished member.
What the school board actually did was to follow its own ethics policy to the letter, initiating the public censure procedure. This is the limit of what the board can do to spank one of its own in public, and despite the emotion of the situation and the visceral need to act decisively, they stuck to the book. That meant they couldn't complete that procedure Monday night.
They were responsible. They were measured and fair. They got down to business to serve the students and the community. When we talk about wanting political civility and better cooperation among our elected officials, we should remember their actions. Bloodthirsty calls for greater shame and humiliation serve no one, diminish public life and do nothing to cleanse our leaders of their flaws.
We'll hear from the voters soon enough. Cook's judgment may have been lacking in his speechwriting, but his timing was exquisite.

Orange school board right on target
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Oops, they did it again.
For the second consecutive week, the Orange County school board has made a decision that was measured, cool-headed and struck a balance of common sense and simple fairness. What is this, the twilight zone?
Last week, following the resignation from his chairmanship of the board for plagiarizing a commencement speech, Keith Cook thought that his ordeal had ended. It had not.
Following the board's own newly adopted ethics procedure, member Libbie Hough brought her complaint to the board -- at the end of last week's meeting. She wasn't playing it for the cameras -- and there were plenty of them -- or the crowd. They had all long since departed for bedtime and deadline. Hough waited and followed procedure.
In the days following, she and Cook and Chairwoman Brenda Stephens stepped through the process and brought it to the board's meeting Monday night. Hough wasn't looking for blood -- she was providing herself and her colleagues with a framework to review what Cook had done.
That's her job and that's the job of every board member -- to review what may be a violation of policy. If there isn't one, then it's simply a political matter, a problem of embarrassment, forgiveness or scorn.
And that's where it ended up -- the political arena. The policy specifically addresses what might happen when a board member takes a "private action that will compromise the board or administration." Cook's cut-and-paste was many things, but not private. He was acting on behalf of the school board.
And that's why his colleagues, who have been calm and clear-eyed throughout this hurricane, acted with wisdom when they worked behind the scenes to convey to Cook the need for his resignation as board chairman. That was the punishment that fit the crime.
Considering the censure (and ultimately rejecting it) was just as legitimate. The board should use these tools, think about the options and discuss their implications. That public deliberation is built into the process for a reason. A fair discussion should produce an outcome that looks forward and considers precedent and long-term implications, not short-term politics.
And let me be among the first to congratulate the board on its unanimous vote in this case. Their comments were, with one exception, constructive and thoughtful. They looked toward future boards and the caliber of people who will serve.
A fair, considered process, properly executed is something to celebrate. We'll all hope the example helps to bring the board members together in a way that has eluded them so often. Perhaps the baptism of fire will produce some greater wisdom for everyone.
But for outgoing member Dana Thompson, it was merely one more opportunity to take a shot at Cook. She seemed to find the censure discussion an irresistible opportunity to speculate on what punishment would be best ... maybe he should miss 10 meetings, she said, to mimic a 10-day suspension that a student would receive for a similar offense.
Was that some indirect form of confession? While her presence is not mandatory at the commissioners' budget presentation and public hearings, she's attended these sessions in previous years and skipped them this go-round.
Thompson may have her own ax to grind here. She obstructed Cook's efforts to secure so-called "master training" for the board itself. That training was to help the board work together more constructively, looking at issues instead of each other.
When Thompson finally agreed to a date for the training, it was scheduled and she was a no-show.
Such training really shows its worth during a crisis, and we've seen in the last weeks that most of the board members are looking toward the future and outward from their own feelings.
They've also taken some obvious lessons in working together quietly (not illegally as Thompson has frequently implied, just quietly) behind the scenes to build alliances to get things done. That's the way politics should work. It should be a process, not a dirty word.
The improvement is obvious and the fresh air is appreciated. This school board has some difficult choices ahead this summer, from the decisions it will make about Spanish teachers to whether or not Cedar Ridge's International Baccalaureate program can go forward.
Thompson's rock-throwing will fade and tough decisions will remain. It's nice to see some grown-ups at the table, even if it's only for a while.

Named -- while you were sneezing
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Bless you.
While you were sneezing, blowing your nose, tying your shoes or microwaving your popcorn, the town of Carrboro made a quick decision. They did so in a manner that seems to jab the town of Chapel Hill just a bit, making a little decision just a little bigger.
During a recent discussion about the town's Hillsborough Road park, Mayor Mike Nelson reportedly had a spontaneous thought that the town should go ahead with naming the park. He suggested, with relatively little fanfare, that the Board of Aldermen proceed with naming the site Martin Luther King Park.
All in favor said "aye" and the matter was quickly concluded. Nelson said later that he didn't see any need to "talk it to death," as naming the park in this way was not a controversial matter.
If he giggled about Chapel Hill's Airport Road renaming struggle, he did so in private by all accounts, but one could understand the urge.
Now let's be fair ... naming a park and renaming a street with a lot of commercial property is far from the same thing. You name the park, it gets developed and all the signage and stationery is made up with that name.
But the renaming of a street like Airport Road could have implications for businesses that might be a genuine burden to them. Remaking business cards, stationery, all of your promotional materials and so forth does add up. It's hard to start a business and harder to keep one alive, so I appreciate the fairness issue there, but frankly, there's the reality of the thing.
Many years ago (about 15, I think) my little residential street went through a similar situation. We had to change our house number due to the county's transferring to the 911 grid system and we also were moved into a new zip code when Chapel Hill added 27516.
(When I sent notice of these two changes to the phone company, they called me to confirm where my new service would be as they had scheduled me for disconnection. I was obviously moving, they said, and so would probably need to transfer my phone service.)
Many of us resisted the change of our house numbers. We went to the commissioners' public hearings on the matter and pleaded to keep our system. We have a curvaceous street, we said, and the numbering is confusing. The commissioners listened politely and went forward with the change.
Although I'm certainly grateful for the 911 service, we sometimes get two or three ambulances due to some kind of coverage overlap in the system. Whenever that's happened, I've had a sick feeling that somebody, somewhere is having chest pains and waiting for the extra crew in my driveway to climb back in and be available again. If it's my next-door neighbor, well, I guess that's a "happy accident," but I wouldn't bet on that.
The bottom line is that it has easily been over a decade since that change was made. I still get mail sent to my old address. I still get bills mailed to that address. Look us up on any online directory and you'll find us under the old address (with the old zip code) despite the fact that this was changed well before the Internet was anything we were particularly aware of as consumers.
If the town of Chapel Hill shakes the molasses out of its renaming process and gets on with naming a major access artery after Dr. King, there is almost no risk that tax bills sent to Town of Chapel Hill, Airport Road, Chapel Hill, NC are not going to be delivered.
That's not the town's proper mailing address now -- the town hall is actually on North Columbia Street -- but I'll wager a pint of chocolate chip from the Inside Scoop that they get mail every day that is erroneously sent to Airport Road.
So the long and the short of it is that when businesses run out of business cards, stationery, menus, etc, they'll order more -- just as they would have anyway. A new postal address will be among the changes they'll need to correct. That's part of the cost of doing business.
And when we locals are giving directions to students and their parents every fall, we'll likely still call it Airport Road just as we call 15-501 in Chapel Hill by that name, largely ignoring the "Fordham Blvd." designation awarded many years ago. It's a practical decision, not a political one.
And for that benefit, the town might think about leaving the Airport Road street signs up for a decade or so until we can get used to the idea. Completion will come when someone calls the town to ask why Martin Luther King Blvd. is apparently being renamed "Airport Road."

Politics up close and personal
June 30, 2004
ColumnistIn the tradition of good old southern politics, Susan and Steve Halkiotis threw a party last weekend to rally the troops and help turn out the vote for their favorite candidates.
The party began in the early evening and more than 60 or so people attended. A yellow jacket had time to take a bite out of my younger son. Our hosts attended to him, apologizing for the rude insect.
The event was a picnic sponsored by the Halkiotises and Sharlene and Orrin Pilkey to give friends of both couples an opportunity to meet some candidates in person and to rally the group to help turn out the vote. Because there were three of the five Orange County Commissioners present, the press was invited to attend.
The menu included "Halkiotis Humanitarian Hot Dogs, Butterfly Ballot Baked Beans and Hanging Chad Chips." And don't forget the Pilkey Progressive (Apple) Pie.
The candidates worked the crowd, talking some, laughing a lot and exchanging stories and fellowship. The highlight, however, was the stump speeches. This was, after all, a rally.
With an absolutely tree-shakin', earthquakin' introduction from host Steve Halkiotis, each of the candidates (Moses Carey, Margaret Brown and Barry Jacobs) spoke to the group, expressing gratitude for the gathering, for the opportunity to continue serving Orange County and the need for a strong voter turnout. "Go to the polls and bring your friends" was the clear rallying cry.
As Halkiotis pulled everyone together for the speeches, he threw out some good old fashioned populist rhetoric, taking some jabs at the opposition, criticizing the treatment that Orange County gets from the state government at times and imploring the group to get fired up about winning elections.
And yes, there was some "those-guys-are-knuckleheads" talk about those of the conservative persuasion, but no one by name and no language as colorful as the vice-president recently offered on the floor of the U.S. Senate. This was a family event.
In this day of negative TV ads and a political environment that leads candidates to believe that saying "no" to something is actually a platform in itself, this was like a trip back through time -- back to the old days when you'd meet a candidate in person, look him in the eye and ask what the heck he plans to do about such and such.
It's not that you extract the promise of this action or that. Instead, it's knowing that if he gets elected, you can call him and remind him that you've met before. Your ability to take action on behalf of your neighborhood may well depend on knowing whom your representatives are and how to talk to them.
And that means accepting it when they compromise on your behalf. It's our job to tell our elected officials what we need -- really need -- so that when they're struggling through tough budget decisions they know that cutting that next $100,000 out of the schools might mean no International Baccalaureate program and that lots of people support it (or that no one does, if that's the case).
I didn't go to the party to talk policy with the candidates or to grill them on any upcoming votes. I went to watch them work. I went to eat some butterfly ballot baked beans. I went because I worry that not enough people seem to care about local politics and the tone it's taking lately.
As we were driving home, my older son (a 1999 Orange High graduate) commented that he'd seen Steve Halkiotis in a brand new light. He didn't know he was so animated and funny. I'm sure every high school principal wishes to keep his or her more jovial side somewhat restrained around students.
That may be so, but I brought Brian to the party not because he went to Orange High, but because he's registered to vote. This was an opportunity for an up-close and personal encounter with people who want to represent him.
I'm sure that the loyal opposition in Orange County politics is carrying on the same tradition and putting out the barbecue sauce and freedom fries for their friends as well. God bless 'em for doing so and a safe and happy Independence Day to all. Let's hope it's a peaceful transition into a summer of hot politickin' of the highest order, not the lowest common denominator.

‘K’ to stay, so Edwards must run
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry had to choose our own John Edwards as his running mate for the presidency for all the obvious reasons, but we who know "inside basketball" understand the rarely admitted truth of the deal. It's really because of Mike Krzyzewski's decision to stay at Duke. This, after all, is that axis upon which we all spin.
The name Krzyzewski (pronounced CRY-zoo-skee) explains a great deal. From the original Latin it translates to "Cry before the zoo, then go water skiing." Although this is rarely understood, scholars write that this motto described the need of the coach to bathe in an ego-gratifying media frenzy just long enough to strike fear in his followers, then enjoy a long summer weekend -- perhaps including some water sports.
Just look at the execution of the event itself. Late in the week, the word leaks out that "K" might skip out of Durham to go Hollywood. "K" could stop this in an instant, but he allows it to feed on itself during a blissfully slow news cycle.
As the shock, mourning and demonstrations of K-love continue on the Duke campus, plans for celebration begin in Chapel Hill, where we also anticipate the announcement that Sen. Edwards, a UNC Law graduate, will likely be selected to run for the White House with John Kerry.
But when I called my brother exuberantly announcing that "K" might be headed to L.A., leaving the Cameron Crazies for a metropolitan statistical area of their peers, I said that the only reason for "K" to stay was a classic case of "Kold" feet due to ego gratification.
Sure enough, the all-guessing-all-the-time ESPN-oh-my-God-what-now weekend coverage of the devastation that would befall college basketball with the K-to-L.A. scenario must have been a nonstop TiVo moment for Krzyzewski.
Roy Williams even contributed, commenting on Krzyzewski's deep roots in the Durham community. Hmmm.
My husband and I were at a dinner at the Durham Marriot a couple of years ago. This was a benefit at which awards were given and Krzyzewski was a recipient, along with several brilliant scientists involved in the mapping of the human genome. Even objectively, Krzyzewski seemed out of place.
When he got up to accept his award, Krzyzewski talked about living in Durham for the last 20-plus years. He said he was very proud of his university and then he said something that I found beyond insulting.
"As I travel around the country for my job or otherwise, I don't even mind telling people I live in Durham," he said.
Wow. Deep roots. He doesn't even mind telling people he lives in Durham. He's willing to admit it and everything. Some endorsement.
It reminds me of Mack Brown of UNC's football past. Recall that Dean Smith ended his storied career at Carolina with timing specifically designed to grab the spotlight away from Mack Brown, or so you'd have thought to listen to all the crying Brown did about losing the headlines that fall.
But back to Krzyzewski ... the axis of all Blue Devil achievement ... just as the frenzy was gaining strength and getting ready to enter the how-could-you-do-this-to-us part of the cycle, K said "stay."
He said in his Monday press conference that there was no price for the allure of college basketball. Indeed, it would only be money that could draw Krzyzewski to Los Angeles, according to many.
What's the major difference between college and the pros? Crime and punishment.
I don't see how the usual "K" techniques of motivation and reprimand would work with professional players. It's not like you can scare them by threatening to take their scholarship away or call their parents to give them a good scold about obeying team rules.
Indeed, Krzyzewski has a reputation for turning the air blue in the locker room, but this would seem to have little impression on pro players who have an entire dictionary of obscenity hurled at them by courtside fans who paid a fortune for their tickets.
And the pros are not exactly princes off the court, either -- some of their "crimes" away from the game are, well, crimes. Planning for a guard to foul out of a game is one thing. Setting contingencies for his being sent to prison for life is quite another.
The up side for Carolina fans (like veep candidate John Edwards) is that Krzyzewski makes the perfect foil for UNC's rise to greatness. Had K gone Hollywood, our dominance over Dook over the next decade would have carried the asterisk of his absence. Now Roy can climb to the top of his profession as the conquering hero for the Heels and one who never "minded" saying he was from Chapel Hill.

Sidewalk dining not just for fun
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
When my dearest and I dine out the evening can quickly turn to a sendup of that wonderful Abbott & Costello classic routine, "Who's on First?" This is because along with our many shared interests and values, we have the common experience of slowly losing our hearing as we pass through middle age.
There are days it's frustrating, but much of the time we just look at each other and laugh, wondering how we get things done at all.
"I'm thinking about having that Cajun fish, but it might be too spicy and I'm chicken," I'll say.
"No, I don't feel like chicken," he'll respond. "Besides, I thought you wanted fish."
And all this before we ever heard of the now-famous Jessica Simpson "misunderstanding" of how Chicken-of-the-Sea could be a can of tuna.
The hearing problem we have is common among the middle aged and many in our baby boomer cohort are now seeking help for their nerve damage resulting from falling asleep to Jimi Hendrix at the maximum our speakers would allow. Our children are both wiser for and amused by our experience.
This type of problem, often characterized by tinnitus (ringing in the ear) is at it's worst in situations with the sort of low level buzz of sound that you encounter in a restaurant. It's sorting out the human voice from all that background sound that's the most difficult.
No one wants to constantly be asking a dinner companion to repeat the brilliant insight just offered, so we often find ourselves employing other strategies like lip reading and playing off of other people ... "Did you hear what he just said? I can't believe it ... say that again."
Of course, this backfires if the response is something innocuous like "I said it's been hot lately."
Restaurants like to encourage a sort of "happening" feeling, so they add to our suffering with music, and I don't mean Mozart.
There is relief available, however, and it is found in the simple act of stepping outside. When our children were young and getting fussy in a busy restaurant, we'd pick them up and step outside for a few minutes. It worked almost invariably to calm them. I'm convinced that change in sound is the reason why.
And all this brings me to the question of sidewalk dining in Chapel Hill. Although I appreciate the concerns about alcohol outside the control of the restaurant and the need to keep sidewalks passable for their intended purpose (safe pedestrian traffic), I think the town should consider another angle -- accommodating the disabled.
If I go into a restaurant and ask them to kill that background music or provide me with a booth that is quiet, they will likely not accommodate. Surely it can't be much longer before someone in my state of frustration over this makes some reference to buying a new bathing suit while dining with his lawyer and the misunderstanding leads to a lawsuit.
It could get worse in trying to clear it up ... referring to a Speed-o and getting a speedy trial instead.
If I needed a menu in Braille, I'd get it. If I needed a ramp to get in the door, I'd get it. But many restaurants cannot offer me a table on the sidewalk, even though they'd like to do so. That's just not fair.
It's no exaggeration to say that I avoid certain restaurants because of this sound issue. It really can ruin my restaurant experience and if I'm eating out with someone for business purposes ... it's nearly a lost cause. I sometimes think that this problem is how the follow-up confirmation memo was born.
Dear Joe, Thanks for lunch yesterday. I was happy to hear about your interest in hiring us. Please be assured that we want to meet your needs and will always pay great attention to your priorities.
By the way, when did you say you wanted to meet next? Who was the guy in your purchasing department you wanted me to call? What did you say your budget was? When do you want the project to be completed?
Yours sincerely ....
All I have to do is think about our middle-aged political leadership being in this situation and I get chills. All I want is to be able to understand the waiter when he asks if I want fries or a baked potato and not worry that I've accidentally ordered a baked tomato. Is that so wrong?

Dialing back the public dialogue
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
As we sit drinking our Wednesday morning coffee, the July 20 primary has passed. Many of us feel an urge right now ... an urge to take a shower.
No matter your party affiliation, you're probably shaking your head, wondering where the civility in politics has gone.
The simple issue-orientation of political dialogue has apparently circled the drain.
Just recently, the day after John Kerry chose our senator for his running mate, President Bush came to North Carolina and attacked John Edwards by name at a fund-raiser.
What's the main difference between Edwards and Vice President Cheney, Bush was asked. "Dick Cheney can be president," Bush snapped, then turned crisply to another reporter, pointed and commanded, "Next question?"
As my mom would say, it's not what he said that was so dismissive, it's how he said it. He knew it would make a good sound byte and so it did.
But are we helped as voters by that? Are we better informed or assured that Dick Cheney is more experienced, better prepared or more knowledgeable on key issues? Not really. We get the answer from our president that I used to get from my dad when he was feeling short-tempered or I was being a nuisance -- "Because I said so."
National politics are rough and tumble and so are the local goings-on. To read many of the letters to the editor in the past few weeks, you would think that there was only a merger referendum on the ballot. It may not be that, but it sure is a prism through which many races are being viewed.
The whole dynamic is just fascinating to me. All these people show up at public hearings -- several public hearings -- and make the same fear-mongering speeches about the horrible busing that merger will mean, the threat to neighborhood schools and the need to preserve quality.
Those running for school board seats make these speeches at multiple venues, get covered by this newspaper and others, get on television, radio and one of them then still claims at a recent forum to be horrified by a "secret process" to merge the districts.
And of course, opponents from both districts sit side by side with each other to ensure that their children will not have to do the same thing. It's bizarre.
Watching the candidates' forums for several races, I was struck by a couple of things. One was the poor quality of the productions themselves. Bad sound, worse lighting and setups that often made it look like the people I was watching were looking into the next room of my house ... all these things make it hard to stay with the program and really get involved in what the people are saying.
I'm not asking for million-dollar productions, just something better than flashlights, Dixie cups and string.
As we move away from the primary process and toward the fall, I'd really love it if our community could set itself apart by demanding excellence in the public square the same way we demand other things that are important in our civic life, things like integrity among public officials, college athletics and, oh yes, good schools.
It's not the sort of thing you can regulate because doing so might restrict speech, but surely by the sheer force of our will we can put down the off-topic-not-helping-anyone discussions of things like what kind of car a county commissioner drives.
I have a special admiration for all the folks who offered themselves for office this election cycle. It's been a confusing year of new dates and filing deadlines and a struggle to get the attention of voters who are at least confused about what the changes mean.
It's hard enough to run for office and keep yourself focused on issues and returning all the phone calls and trying to win the right way for the right reasons. When you can hardly figure out when to file and when and how everyone's going to vote ... well that's really over the top.
I recently interviewed Susan and Steve Halkiotis (school board member and county commissioner, respectively) on WCHL's signature program, "The Special Hour." We discussed the political tone these days (mostly local, some national) and how it's affecting public life. The show is supposed to air today and will be rerun over the weekend.
There's a lot to talk about in Orange County and some complex problems to deal with. Tough problems need complete sentences and paragraphs of thought, not snappy one-liners.
I hope that's what the voters have sent us this time around, but we'll have to stay tuned to know.

Primaries reveal simple complexity
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Last Tuesday night I was invited to join the on-air team at WCHL as a political pundit of sorts, watching and talking about the election returns for our oddly timed primary and perfectly timed county school board race.
Since North Carolina's role in nominating a Democratic presidential candidate is, well, nothing, our primary got moved to July 20. This is an unfortunate decision for those of us who care something about voter turnout and simple awareness of the process.
Holding primaries and nonpartisan elections in May is a good idea for many reasons, but the simplest is that we're all still in "work/school" mode at that point. On July 20, we're all either at the beach or thinking about being there.
In the studio last week, the atmosphere was as I imagined it would be -- exciting, fast-changing and fun. D.G. Martin and I were the talking heads who were on the air to provide thoughtful perspective on the returns as they came in. We often found ourselves looking at each other and shrugging as we struggled to read some of the most confusing tea leaves in the history of Orange County politics. Unflappable Ron Stutts just kept rolling along.
Starting off with the Orange County school board race where we had the not-very-suspenseful determination of Keith Cook's fate. During an interview with WCHL from the Board of Elections, Cook was contrite and subdued.
He said he'll continue to look for ways to contribute to the community and I'm hopeful that he finds the right avenue for just that.
I said that night and will repeat here that I appreciate that Cook stayed in the race and offered himself to the voters for rejection if that was their decision. He didn't want to deprive them of the opportunity to spank him for cribbing a graduation speech this spring and so his punishment is now history. No one can accuse him of not taking his lumps.
Onto the real focus of the evening -- the County Commissioners' race, the voters and our reporting systems kept us guessing well past the 9 o'clock hour when we expected to sign off. I was starting to think that going door to door in those last precincts might be more efficient than waiting for the returns to come in.
Eventually, it became clear that the most divisive issue in recent memory -- that of school merger -- had brought us a somewhat rabidly active political season and an arguably mixed result. The re-election of Moses Carey may be thought of by some as being muted or canceled out by the rise of Valerie Foushee from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board to a seat on the Board of Commissioners. I would argue this result is a vote of acceptance for merger.
If you look at the composition of the new Board of Commissioners (Carey, Foushee, Steve Halkiotis, Barry Jacobs and Alice Gordon) you find perhaps the best-suited group possible to actually conduct the merger.
To be sure, Gordon is as opposed to merger as Carey is in favor of it. Score one in each direction. That adds up to due diligence.
Among the remaining three, you find the fairly neutral Jacobs (who was hoping to move on to Raleigh) and two clear experts in each of the school districts operations. Halkiotis has been a longtime employee (teacher, principal and now administrator) with Orange County Schools, and Foushee, a product of and board member serving the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools.
Although Foushee was endorsed by the now-infamous NoMerger.org political action group, she has persistently stated that her position on merger related heavily on a fair process, not on one outcome versus another. That's a carefully crafted political position that screams, "I may have to change my mind once I'm on the hot seat."
Pam Hemminger, who was flatly against merger, was rejected by the voters.
Margaret Brown, who was non-committal on the issue, will surrender her seat on the board to Foushee.
But Moses Carey was unequivocal. He is a firm advocate for merger and believed that whether or not he was re-elected it must happen. After strapping that target on his back, the voters have effectively sent him back onto the battlefield to finish the job. The July 20 primary essentially decides the election as no Republican or Libertarian candidates have run successfully for the board in recent times.
With so clear a position on so white hot an issue, Carey can rightfully declare he has a mandate to get the ball rolling. That should make the upcoming months a study in reconciling policy and politics. There will certainly be noise, but a joyful noise it is.

An unexpected vote of confidence
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
In a season of jaw-dropping political outcomes, one need only look down the street and around the corner to find an astonishing expression of confidence in the two Orange County school districts.
Vice Presidential hopeful John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth have bought more than 100 acres of land in Carrboro, a decision they said was heavily driven by the area's excellent school system.
Now you don't suppose it's really possible that the Edwardses are not up to speed on the county's consideration of merger, do you?
It's worthy of note that when they bought this property, they likely thought they'd be developing it and moving in within a couple of years -- something that area Democrats hope will not be the case.
Well, not exactly anyway.
Should Edwards become vice president, he'll still need a residence and may, in fact, need more of a "compound" to help deal with the rush of media trucks and added security that will be traveling with him everywhere he goes.
Although people associate most of the attention being collected around the president, there is a whole media contingent that travels with the No. 2 guy as well.
And all that is good news for Carr-boro.
Reporters have to eat somewhere when they're on the road, they still need to get their dry cleaning done, occasionally go out to a concert and will often look for some local flavor to add to their coverage of a public official who's spending a few days at home.
Picture all those national reporters sipping coffee and working on their laptops at Weaver Street Market, filing their reports online thanks to the fiber optic backbone installed years ago by the little town that could.
Think of the enormous benefit to the many local businesses along Main Street in Carrboro and in Chapel Hill thanks to the need for reporters to file stories whether there's news or not.
My hope is that on the morning following a Democratic victory, the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro will appoint representatives to a community-based task force whose mission will be to envision the problems and opportunities that such a presence would present. They will likely be plentiful on both sides.
There may be no better example of why the Chinese word for crisis and opportunity are one and the same. Such a siege of national attention and added security concerns will make a Final Four weekend look sleepy by comparison.
As I type this sentence a small plane flies over my house. Would it really make sense to close Horace Williams Airport if the country's vice president lives nearby? I realize that Air Force Two isn't going to land there, but a helicopter sure could. Do we really want to see Interstate 40 shut down every time Edwards travels by car to and from Raleigh-Durham International?
Are you getting a headache yet?
What if he brings the boss over for the weekend once in a while? If Kerry and Edwards are elected and come anywhere near carrying this state, he may well want to base his North Carolina "war room" in the Edwardses' Carrboro encampment for the benefit of retaining that support. The very idea should give goose bumps to the Chamber of Commerce.
It doesn't necessarily get oh-so-quiet if the Kerry-Edwards ticket is rejected ... at least, not from the local perspective.
After all, Elizabeth Edwards has something of a reputation for being the queen of school volunteers. Seeing her appear at a school board meeting would really be extraordinary for parents and would probably strike fear in the hearts of officials of every stripe. She'd get a rock star's welcome.
And maybe we can get the Edwardses to invite Illinois senatorial hopeful Barak Obama to give a commencement address at UNC or one of the local high schools. Obama's speech at last week's Democratic Convention was breathtaking in both its effectiveness and sheer power from the pulpit. The guy is a star on the fast track to a strong career in politics and national leadership. He is going to be one exciting comet to watch.
But first, we'll follow the remarkable rise of the boy next door, John Edwards, the millworker's son whose new home will be in an old mill town -- Carrboro, the little town that could.

It’s homework time for all of us
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
This week, life returns to what passes for normal. In the interest of lessening our trauma, even the weatherman has cooperated by giving us almost fall-like temperatures. Some of the kids are back in school.
Apparently for the last time, the dog days of summer will mark the beginning of a new school year for our kids. Next year, during the summer that will truly seem endless, some students will have a full three months away from the books.
They'll need new picture IDs when they return in the fall of 2005 -- the teenagers especially (my 15-year-old son could change two shoe sizes in that amount of time). At least next summer he'll be old enough to get a job, so I can get something done during the day.
This particular summer has been especially high-speed, it seems to me. Just a minute ago we were all spinning around about Keith Cook's graduation speech. Now he's back to private citizenship and school life goes on without him.
And so for the waning weeks of summer we have the Olympics, the Republican Convention and then the major focus on the presidential campaign going into the fall.
No matter what your political stripe, I hope that everyone gets involved in the election somehow. I agree with those who say that Election Day should be a holiday. As a self-employed person, I can declare it one and likely will -- perhaps volunteering to drive folks to the polls or otherwise help to turn out the vote.
For now, though, my thinking is that as the kids return to school, it's time for all of us to do our homework on the upcoming fall exams. We need to learn more about all our candidates - local, state and federal. We need many opportunities to listen to all sides of issues during what I hope will be a rigorous debate season.
And as much as we all appreciate the difficulties that the elderly have in getting to the polls (and they are considerable for some) I am more concerned with potential first-time voters and what a tough nut they've been to crack when it comes to exercising their franchise.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean may have put on a clinic in embarrassing, derailing behavior that will render a person "unelectable," but he became a formidable candidate when he allowed Gen-X bloggers to run his campaign and raise a ton of money through the Internet.
And Dean's campaign impact wasn't just on the money side -- he seemed to reignite the belief that so many of us had nearly lost in good old-fashioned grass-roots campaigning. I was at Weaver Street Market in Carrboro one day last winter and there was a guy sitting outside at one of the picnic tables. He wasn't doing anything but holding a "Dean for America" sign.
Apparently, that was his job as a campaign worker: to sit in a visible place holding that sign. I looked at it and thought, "a believer."
That's what is missing so often in modern-day elections and politics, those rare candidates who inspire people to believe in them. The last politician who inspired that feeling for me was Bobby Kennedy and I never got a chance to vote for him, due to my youth and his untimely death.
And after Watergate and the blistering Clinton years, it's hard to feel that way again, that you can believe in someone and dare to hope that major change is possible.
But this year, these are the things we must dare to do - dreaming and hoping. These are necessary elements for progress. The process is the part that I do believe in, despite the Florida 2000 debacle; I focus on what has happened since.
America has awakened (no matter your political perspective) to the fact that every vote matters. There's a predisposition to argue that if only Al Gore had done this or that, he would have been elected, but instead I focus on the reality that there is something big at stake in every presidential election ... we just don't know what it will be.
And this is true in every election on some scale. If it weren't, they wouldn't put us in that little booth and say "you decide."
So it's off to the library (or your Web browser) for you adults of age to choose. Finals are scheduled for Nov. 2. No late entries and no excuses. Get your homework done.

Keeping watch on hurricane alphabet
August 18, 2004
All weekend long, when I walked over to the wall and flipped a switch, a light came on. And I was grateful.
Last Friday (the 13th) was my birthday and I spent some significant part of it dreading the arrival of Hurricane Charley. It is a hurricane watch that just reminded me too much of Fran and Floyd -- those storms of the letter "F" that did so much damage.
The early storms in a hurricane season soften us up with soaking rains and as we heave sighs of relief that a drought is ended, we forget the other end of that problem -- soil saturation.
Fran would have done plenty of damage to the Triangle no matter what, but the soaking we took from previous storms in the weeks leading up to Fran were the ones that set us up for the sucker punch -- the devastation of the many fallen trees, some of which were irreplaceable.
And what a devastating storm Charley turned out to be. The first tempting and wary word I remember about Charley came from one of the area's more experienced meteorologists, who observed that forecasters use many computer models to predict a storm's path and they all seemed to eerily agree. This is nearly unheard of, he said.
When I heard that observation, I thought how likely it seemed that this storm would be hitting on or about Friday the 13th and how predictions of track will mean nothing to those many thousands of residents that would have to run for higher ground. Their power will go out. They'll have little to go on if the storm changes direction.
As you look at fatalities from storms like this over the course of the 20th century, it's impressive to see how the numbers have been driven steadily downward -- a textbook lesson of earlier and earlier warnings and dramatic improvements in communications.
You can visit any number of major media Web sites now, for example, and sign up for a severe storm e-mail alert that will send you an e-mail if there's severe weather headed toward you or a region elsewhere that you care about.
Obviously meteorology has seen significant advances over the past many years, benefiting from satellites, computer technologies and database sharing.
That said, when the emergency hits, there's no substitute for the people on your street, in your community who are up to speed on each local area's immediate concerns.
I remember listening to local radio after Hurricane Fran and feeling so relieved just by the sound of local voices talking about what stores were open, what streets were impassable and where we could get ice or batteries.
Indeed, sometimes the simplicity of a fairly low-tech system is what makes it endure. Oddly enough, if our power had gone out, I'd still be able to get onto the Internet via dialup, because I remember how to use a modem. It's cool to have a wireless network, but it's better to understand how all that stuff works so you can fall back on the "old fashioned way" of doing it.
I always loved the story frequently told by a pilot friend of mine of how the Russians laughed at American scientists for crowing about inventing a pen that could write in the weightless environment of outer space. Ridiculous, they said -- why not use a pencil?
Why indeed. I got an e-mail from my pilot friend on Tuesday morning. He's in central Florida -- near Orlando. He writes:
"Everything is a mess. Police are stationed at the few gas stations pumping gas, and the super market in Haines City [up the road a piece] has police at the door to let only a few shoppers in at a time.
"The supermarkets in our town have no perishables at all. No produce, meat, cheese, eggs, etc. Ice is in short supply and very high demand.
"The house survived. We only lost a lime tree, which is small potatoes in comparison to many of our extended neighbors. Lots of trees are down, plenty of them on roofs which they have perforated."
With all that is wrong, Jamie got his power back, can send e-mail and is focused on the right stuff -- he's down one lime tree, his family is OK and the roof is intact.
I don't know what the rest of the alphabet has in store for us, but it seems to me that A-B-C has been quite enough.

Terminal C rebuilding unnecessary
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Flying into and out of RDU is a lot better than it has been over the past few years. Many of the construction issues either caused by or exacerbated by the Sept. 11 attacks are worked out now; parking in particular is back to the more manageable side of the equation now that the garage is functioning normally.
Last year on Sept. 11, I sat in my car at the entrance to Terminal C awaiting my husband's return (from New York City, actually). You're not supposed to be allowed to do that, but at 9 or 10 in the evening of Sept. 11, 2003, I sat for about 20 to 25 minutes with no one asking me to move along or what flight I was waiting for. No one asked me anything.
The same would not be true on the other side of the airport. When Rick flies on other airlines, I must circle until he arrives ... there's no waiting in a stopped car at the entrance. They're polite about it, but move along, please.
At Terminal C, the parking security effort had gone to bed for that night, a chilling inconsistency at the front door of the American Airlines terminal.
According to Carrboro activist Jeff Vanke, that same Terminal C is the site of a pending boondoggle of serious proportion. A proposed expansion project will level the terminal, replacing it with one of better design, planners say.
Vanke says he smells a rat in the plan, noting that the new terminal is expected to provide an easier means for baggage-free passengers to proceed to their gates and not much else on the innovative features side of things.
For this you need to level the building and spend upwards of $350 million to rebuild?
According to Airport Authority Chairman Tim Clancy, the answer is yes. Anticipated increases in security might mean tripling the number of lines with passengers moving through, creating a bottleneck in the hallway that leads from ticketing to the gates.
Admittedly, it's a narrow passageway at present, and Vanke has become engaged in controversy before that would have seen little ink but for a slow news cycle. This time last year he got his knickers in such a twist about a piece of art hanging in Mayor Mike Nelson's empty office (the mayor was out of the country), Vanke decided to run for mayor himself, launching a write-in campaign after the filing deadline.
This time, however, Vanke just finds himself hopping mad that Airport Authority Chairman Clancy is also the owner of Clancy & Theys Construction Co. Obviously, he expects Clancy to land himself a contract in the whole deal and make himself rich.
If Clancy does and we're all asleep at the wheel, then shame on us. But even if his own business is excluded from bidding (as it obviously should be), the need for a wider hallway is far from sufficient reason to put travelers through untold numbers of years of aggravation while such a construction project is undertaken. It's a reason to spend a few bucks to widen the hallway, nothing more.
I appreciate that a new design might be preferable. Terminal C was originally built as an American Airlines hub, where a high percentage of passengers would change planes while going elsewhere.
That means there was less concern for passengers whose flights originated or terminated here. Because of a variety of economic factors, things have changed in the use of that terminal.
Lots of other things have changed, too. Thousands of people have relocated to this state. As our area has grown, so, too, has the need for new infrastructure outside the airport. You can build a fair number of schools and sidewalks and parks for $350 million.
We live in an overweight society. A little more walking by the business traveling grown-ups to pay for a few more gymnasiums, playgrounds and better science classrooms for kids seems like a pretty good idea to me.
More flights originate and terminate here because RDU is no longer just a stopover on the way to somewhere else.
We're a place to go, a place to visit and a place to stay.
I'd rather invest in people than people-movers and solve the issues of congestion and delay at the airport the old fashioned way: with good signage, effective use of communications and information and an eye toward keeping the cost of redesign (and all its inconvenience to travelers) to a minimum.
Flying Southwest Airlines out of RDU is a logistical mess, but the people who work for that airline make it so easy and so fun, I forget about walking what seems like miles from the gate to my baggage. Hey, I've been sitting for hours anyway.

Parade about publicity, not pride
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
When your motives are self-serving ratings (not service or greater community purpose) even your devoted fans will yawn.
After wearing thin his publicity drum on one of the most powerful radio stations in the state, WDCG's Bob Dumas was able to "drag" out only enough fans to perhaps make for a crowded bus stop as the shock jock's absurd "heterosexual pride parade" was conducted last Saturday.
For anyone who's been a fan of the "Showgram" on G105 in the morning, there's no news to be found in Dumas' naughty boy act.
He deliberately provokes his guests, his co-host and his audience on a regular basis. That's what the show is -- a long running series of pranks, talking blather and call-us-if-you-ever-went-skydiving-naked discussions. If you really miss seventh grade, you should tune in.
When he's criticized, Dumas likes to point out that he has (single-handedly if you hear him tell it) raised oh-so-very much money for charity. It's a peculiarity that the sick children who have benefited from G105's fund raising would be ill-advised to listen to the program during non-fund-raising time. It's like pornographers raising money for abused women.
There's a fair amount of chatter online and around the water cooler about whether or not it is intolerant to hold a pride parade for heterosexuals.
Those of us, gay and straight, who have marched in parades or participated in other demonstrations to advance civil rights understand that this stunt was, in fact, a rather sophomoric spoof on gay pride parades. The question I hear bandied about is this issue of harm; that is, does this event actually do injury to gay people or their supporters?
Frankly, I think that the sheer insignificance of the whole thing is a terrific example of the marketplace of ideas.
Dumas and his posse had an idea and he promoted it heavily on his radio show. And the number of people who showed up was so few, they likely would not have filled a Chapel Hill Transit bus.
So, his idea was a loser. He certainly can't blame the weather or lack of public awareness.
Contrast that with an idea for a pancake breakfast fund-raiser that local residents Steve & E.J. Manton brought to a reality recently at Mama Dip's kitchen.
Inspired to get involved politically after seeing Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," the Mantons were talking in their car the next morning. "We can't just talk about this," E.J. told her husband. "We have to do something." They talked about holding a fund-raising event and doing it at a local restaurant.
The car soon steered itself over to Mama Dip's.
The Mantons had no experience at political action or fund raising so they talked to people who do. They got advice from the Kerry campaign about how to properly handle and document the money they raised. They solicited the support of their circle of friends and asked them to reach out to their circle of friends.
The Mantons don't have a morning radio show that reaches tens of thousands of listeners. They sent out some e-mails. Their friends did likewise.
In a three-week timespan, they pulled together an event that featured great food, donated musical talent and the dedication of dozens of volunteers.
Five hundred people came out for pancakes and politics. The event raised $47,500.
So Bob Dumas with daily access to thousands of people couldn't get more than 75 or so to show up and laugh at a pathetic stunt. The Mantons pulled together more than five times that number and got them to part with money for a cause greater than themselves.
It would be grand if Dumas could learn something from this and perhaps get his station involved in a voter registration drive across the Triangle. With the young audience the station enjoys, one would suppose that such an effort would be welcomed by members of both political parties.
Of course, it won't make anyone angry or stir up controversy, so I'm betting that Dumas and company will take a pass on that idea. Time to go make some water balloons and wait for a passer-by.

posted by Jean Bolduc @ 8:47 AM 1 comments