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Lisa Scheer took this picture yesterday in Greensboro (click image to enlarge).

Joe Wilson discovers a key to the power and influence of Irving Park: "What they do is…VOTE."

Chris Rabb talked a little at ConvergeSouth about privilege, and the implications of recognizing that one has it.

Liz Seymour has written an essay on much the same subject, reflecting on her upbringing in the "owning class" and the choices she's made as an adult.

The happiness I grew up with (and I do recognize that even if it wasn’t bought with money, it was eased by money) sticks with a person for life. My fundamental privilege is that I expect to be happy. Not everyone comes into adulthood with that expectation.

But like everything else privilege comes with some baggage...

...I turned my house into a collective house because I didn’t want to grow old alone in the uneasy aloneness that leads to gated communities and averted eyes and “they hate us for our freedoms.”

Generalizations are dangerous (he generalized), including generalizations about the ramifications of privilege. I know rich people who are heedless and scared and unhappy, and I know rich people who are heedless and quite pleased with the way things are, and I know rich people who are happy and grateful and aware and involved in a larger world.

Or as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it in The Rich Boy: "Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want anyone to know or than we know ourselves...There are no types, no plurals. There is a rich boy, and this is his and not his brothers' story."

He then generalizes profusely in exactly the way he has warned against: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand."

Hemingway is supposed to have said, Yes, the rich are different -- they have more money.

Anyway. Go read Liz's essay.

Halloween really is the best thing in the world when you are a kid.

Things I learned as I got older: Don't set off fireworks directly in front of a police car. Girls look cute in devil costumes. And being the dad still means you get to skim the good stuff from your kids' haul.

USA Today on Davidson: "What's different here is with just 1,700 students, the school — listed by U.S. News & World Report among the USA's top liberal-arts colleges — also has a winning basketball program at the Division I level."

Binker mulls at the future of Hagan's State Senate district.

My advice for anyone running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina: 

--Understand net campaigning as integral to overall strategy; take ownership of it yourself at a high level.
--Keep your website fresh with regular updates.
--Make your videos shareable.
--Use the web to make the candidate real.
--Understand the web as an organizing tool.
--Collaborate online with local parties and other allies; run a 100-county campaign with the web as a tool for seeding operations in places where you lack party support.
--Get thee to Facebook and MySpace.
--Understand the web as a media channel that has independent value and also feeds other media.
--Don't count on just winding any of this stuff up and letting it run: invest time and talent in it.
--Don't trust traditional party/campaign operatives to really get this stuff; you need them, too, but be alert for turf wars and lip service.

Candidate sites:

Dole has a placeholder.
Hagan just started; clean but underfurnished.
Hendrix looks like he rolled his own.
Neal has the early lead.

The battle for Sayidia: "[A] new, quieter chapter of the civil war is unfolding. Shiite groups are trying to consolidate their on-the-ground gains and push into neighborhoods that have so far eluded their control. The Sunnis, pressed into a corner, are looking for new ways to fight back."

Cheap money comes at a price. The Fed wants to ease us out of the second bubble/bust cycle in seven years, but that undermines the dollar, already under pressure from the problems that lead to the Fed's action in the first place...

WSJ: "The underlying problem is that U.S. growth is slowing while the rest of the world pushes forward. That means the Fed is reducing rates at a time when other central banks are expected to hold rates steady or increase them.The interplay between interest rates is a major factor in the dollar's recent lows against the euro."

Related: Why Oil May Not Stop at $100.

Lisa Scheer took this picture recently in Eden.

GTP: "Is Irving Park to remain a neighborhood of lawns shaded by mature trees and classical homes with unusual architectural detail, or will it simply evolve into a collection of newly built McMansions attached to prestigious street addresses?"

I'm happy that people are asking the question, although I wish they'd started asking it about thirty years ago. Irving Park is still a beautiful neighborhood, but it's lost some charm in recent decades.

And about those lot-line-to-lot-line houses, the ones with mismatched architectural details spread across their hideous faces: who designs them, and why?

What drove the trend toward grotesque pastiche and away from more traditional styles?

Money doesn't equate to good taste, but sometimes it used to buy it. What happened? Where are the architects?

Notes on the Nikki Sixx diaries, including Tommy Lee's reflections "from the rare personal vantage point of the moral high ground."

Via The Poor Man, who also has thoughts on the juggernaut that is the Patriots: "A lot of people think Belichick should have pulled Brady before it was 45-0. A lot of people think you shouldn’t be throwing it on 4th down up by 38. Personally, I wouldn’t play it like that. But consider Belichick’s position: not only is Brady his quarterback, but he’s also his fantasy football quarterback!  Now, tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing."

I hope Atrios invites me to his new personal private property, Martha's Vineyard.

Seriously, this is not going to make things better in Iraq.

Previously.

UPDATE, 8:02 PM Tues 10/30: Via TPM, a statement by Justice Dept. spokesman Dean Boyd on the Blackwater investigation:

"The Justice Department and the FBI cannot discuss the facts of the Blackwater case, which is under active investigation. However, any suggestion that the Blackwater employees in question have been given immunity from federal criminal prosecution is inaccurate. The Justice Department and the FBI continue the criminal investigation of this matter knowing that this investigation involves a number of complex issues. We are unable to comment further at this time."

The Bush administration responds to consumer product-safety concerns, including recent reports of "a raft of tainted and dangerous products manufactured both domestically and abroad. In the last two months alone, more than 13 million toys have been recalled after tests indicated lead levels that sometimes reached almost 200 times the safety limit."

The response? "The nation’s top official for consumer product safety has asked Congress in recent days to reject legislation intended to strengthen the agency...Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has asked lawmakers in two letters not to approve the bulk of legislation that would increase the agency’s authority, double its budget and sharply increase its dwindling staff."

More: "Some of Ms. Nord's complaints were similar to the ones that business groups and manufacturers have raised, including that the legislation would be unnecessarily burdensome. But in other areas, like whistle-blower protection, her complaints went beyond those of industry."

At 8:53 this morning Kay Hagan signed her FEC Form 2 to become a candidate for the United States Senate.

Her official announcement will be released later this morning, with a video statement at her website.

The Greensboro Democrat stressed fiscal responsibility and "results-driven leadership" when I asked her why she's running for the seat currently warmed by Liddy Dole.

She pointed to her own record as a State Senator, and said she was alarmed by "spending without results" in DC.

"We're building hospitals and schools in Iraq," she noted, while children in the U.S. lack health-care coverage.

"It's time for a change," she says. "North Carolina needs a fresh voice in Washington."

Senate races in this state tend to draw national attention. This one could be interesting.

UPDATE: Video and announcement are up at KayHagan.com.

Coverage from Binker, AP.

Obama's gay-bashing pal.

Subject line of latest Kern campaign email: "Milton Kern Committed to Becoming Mayor Without Being Bought by Big Business."

Read the whole thing after the jump.

This really should be in black and white, set to piano music. (Thanks to Lex for the tip).

Previously.

The renovated Blue Diamond Gallery, 604 South Elm St., will have a re-opening party on Friday evening.

Studs Terkel: "During my lifetime, there has been a sea change in the way that politically active Americans view their relationship with government."

Things got better, then worse again.

Now: "Congress is moving in a haphazard fashion to provide a 'get out of jail free card' to the telephone companies that violated the rights of their subscribers. Some in Congress argue that this law-breaking is forgivable because it was done to help the government in a time of crisis. But it’s impossible for Congress to know the motivations of these companies or to know how the government will use the private information it received from them."

The Haw River Assembly will hold its 25th Annual Meeting at the Summit Lodge in the Haw River State Park, Sunday, November 4, 2007, from 12 to 5 pm.

Keynote speaker is Secretary Bill Ross of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

 $10 contribution per person (children are free) includes lunch and snacks.  RSVP to HRA, P.O. Box 187, Bynum, NC 27228. Contact HRA at info@hawriver.org or (919) 542-5790.

Info and directions here.

The State: "Long before law enforcement officers or University of South Carolina officials made public statements, the story of the tragic house fire in Ocean Isle Beach unfolded on message boards and social networking sites — post by post." (Thanks to alert reader CM for the pointer.)

We happened to be in the Costco shopping center. Lisa and I are not members of the Cult of Costco but some loved ones are, so we are open-minded. I was in the market for a small TV and found one quickly and then stood there for a while without anyone in a red shirt stopping by and then Lisa found someone who said he'd call for someone and then nobody showed up so we left without buying the TV. I understand that you don't go to Costco for service but all I wanted to ask was this: do you have one of these in stock?

Since Circuit City is just across the way we went into Circuit City. I told Lisa that my readers had informed me recently that CC's crap service was due in some part to the company laying off thousands of workers earlier this year. We had the same experience that Elijah and I did a few weeks ago, which is to say, the thin staff never got to us and we left unnoticed.

We went to Best Buy, where a helpful guy found us quickly amid the big selection. Best Buy wins.

The Paper of Record cites Steven Pinker: "There have been at least 1,200 terms for the vagina in the history of the English language."

I can only think of 912. Well, 913 counting vajayjay.

Previously. Your day is not complete without watching the video.

Previously.

You know what's good?

The ceviche at San Luis Mexican restaurant on West Lee Street is good.

San Luis has some the best Mexican food in Greensboro, which didn't used to be much of a claim to fame but is saying something these days.

ConvergeSouth 2007 filmfest audience award winners.

Opacity's end. Coming soon. Painful but necessary. And temporary, no doubt.

"We’ll definitely see a lot more write-downs," said Josh Rosner, an expert on asset-backed securities at Graham-Fisher, an independent research firm in New York. "I think that the exposures that we are seeing and the announcement out of Merrill are the leading edge, not the end."

Related. If I had guts and money, I'd be looking for the moment to buy the stocks mentioned in the article; lacking both, I'll note that Schwartz says "it still looks way too early to go bottom-fishing."

Times mag sets up a long article with a quote from Terry Fox, deposed pastor of Wichita's Immanuel Baptist Church, a job that helped make him "the public face of the conservative Christian political movement in a place where that made him a very big deal." 

Fox: "The pendulum in the Christian world has swung back to the moderate point of view. The real battle now is among evangelicals."

Having been educated at an institution created and informed by liberal Christianity, and raised in city with deep liberal and moderate Christian traditions (in addition to conservative ones) I never really understood how one group presumed to speak for all the others -- especially when the cookie-cutter never seemed to fit conservative Christians I know personally, either.

It always seemed more like politics than religion, aimed at this world and not the next one. I don't mean that the beliefs expressed are insincere, just that they aren't universal or definitive for all Christians, even all conservative or evangelical Christians. Maybe that's why the movement is falling apart.

More from the article:

The 2008 election is just the latest stress on a system of fault lines that go much deeper. The phenomenon of theologically conservative Christians plunging into political activism on the right is, historically speaking, something of an anomaly. Most evangelicals shrugged off abortion as a Catholic issue until after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. But in the wake of the ban on public-school prayer, the sexual revolution and the exodus to the suburbs that filled the new megachurches, protecting the unborn became the rallying cry of a new movement to uphold the traditional family. Now another confluence of factors is threatening to tear the movement apart. The extraordinary evangelical love affair with Bush has ended, for many, in heartbreak over the Iraq war and what they see as his meager domestic accomplishments. That disappointment, in turn, has sharpened latent divisions within the evangelical world — over the evangelical alliance with the Republican Party, among approaches to ministry and theology, and between the generations.

Just Gay Enough digs the new Proximity Hotel.

My newspaper column is about Mike Munger, the thoughtful Libertarian candidate for governor.

Munger knows he's extremely unlikely to end up in the governor's mansion, but he also knows political science, and the research tells him that he can make a difference. "Third parties that are compelling on the issues change the discussion without winning elections," he says. The proper terminology for this influence on political discourse is "cooptation." What it means, says Munger: "I can change the debate."

Read the whole thing after the jump.

Dr. Wharton corresponds with Mitch Johnson on the red-tape question raised by Joe Wilson.

Citizens for Haw River State Park: "The very generous offer for the approximate 692 acres made to Bluegreen by the N.C. Depart. of Environment and Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Recreation has not yet been accepted."

More: "It appears at this time Bluegreen still thinks that it has a chance to have both the Guilford County Commissioners and the Rockingham County Commissioners approve their rezoning request.

"Keep those phone calls, emails and letters coming!  We cannot let down our guard!"

More info, including ways to respond, here. Archive of related posts here.

Alert Tar Heel fan HH posted the conclusion of the 1975 ACC championship game, aka The Happiest Moment of My Life.

It's all there: Towe and Thompson, Davis and Ford, Four Corners and short shorts and Sloan's jacket. You want Ed Stahl? You got Ed Stahl.

Post-game: Young Billy Packer interviewing young Dean Smith.

HH also posted footage of the fabled 1961 Dook-UNC brawl. Related.

Back to the future: UNC #1 in preseason hoops poll. Meaningless, but fun.

Fox News and FEMA bring their own unique brands of "journalism" to the California fires.

A City Council candidate and a voter try to separate real issues from campaign clichés.

Ben Hwang's secret ConvergeSouth agenda revealed.

This Hal Crowther article was mentioned at last night's UNCG media panel. Not just another veteran's lament or blind blog-bash, definitely worth the time to read. From the column:

No doubt the news trade's easier to master than astrophysics or neurosurgery; but you're naïve and arrogant if you imagine that nothing is lost when volunteers take up our jobs...Never in history has so much sinister talent, or so much money, been committed to creating, shaping, manipulating, dominating or suppressing the stories we hear or don't hear. A blogging orthodontist with a genius IQ is no match at all for Karl Rove, Roger Ailes or Rupert Murdoch—believe me. It's not even David vs. Goliath, it's Goliath vs. Tinkerbell.

The panel itself was interesting, at least to this panelist. WFMY has cut newsroom staff and is pushing online, said Erica Taylor, who was bright and thoughtful in person.

(The WFMY website is still execrable. Here's this morning's lead story from the Triad's would-be news leader. Depressing.)

I left knowing a more about Hispanic media in NC, thanks to Adolfo Briceño of Qué Pasa. His readers are not yet online in meaningful numbers -- a big opportunity over time; we talked a little about using the web to push stories into larger media outlets. And I thought Dave Holian's perspective on the role of net non-neutrality as a means of controlling the press was on the money, so to speak.

I'm told by local sources I consider highly reliable that Kay Hagan has decided to run for the Senate, with the official announcement next week.

Sandy Carmany says the rain has raised the Haw to the point that GSO can tap its emergency pool.

Pete is mighty!

Or maybe Pete pissed off something mighty.

Either way, thanks for the rain, Pete.

If you happen to visit your favorite pulled pork establishment today, keep an eye out for two middle aged men lamenting a washed-out tee-time.

Posted this a while ago. Put it on YouTube, forgot about it. Somebody found it today and left a comment and that reminds me that college basketball starts soon...

Philip Gordon in Foreign Affairs on possible conclusions to the current unpleasantness; excerpts after the jump.

Len Witt interviewed Will Bunch, Jason Calacanis, Kirk Ross (great title for the video:  "They Just Started a New Newspaper and They Seem Sane") and Anton Zuiker about the future of journalism at ConvergeSouth. More TK.

Sandra Anderson-Groat has a campaign website, complete with some YouTubage.

Commenters at Blue NC ponder the news that Kay Hagan is reportedly being courted by national Dems to run against Dole. The role of Jim Neal's gayness in any such courtship figures large in the conversation.

Anglico comes right out with it: "Kay Hagan is a good woman and I have nothing against her. But if she enters this race, one thing will be clear: she's running against Jim Neal, not Liddy Dole."

To the extent that one runs against a primary opponent, sure.

To the extent that its about Neal being gay, I hope not; knowing Kay, I'm confident that she doesn't see it that way.

From the point of view of some national and local Dems? Be serious: Neal's personal life factors into their calculations whether they admit it or not.

All that said, the fact that Jim Neal is gay shouldn't keep challengers out of the race, either.

May the best candidate win.

NYT: "But in recent days, that secretive Blackwater world has begun to fray under so much scrutiny, said four current and two former Blackwater employees. They described a grating sense among many of Blackwater guards, especially those with years of experience, that the killings on Sept. 16 were unjustified."

It's a reminder that no matter how flawed our policies and mercenary the companies and tenuous the situation on the ground, a lot of the people involved are probably decent folks trying to make a living in a dangerous job, and none too happy about the way things have gone.

NYT front-pager: "Every time economists and Wall Street executives think they have acknowledged the full extent of the losses from the meltdown in real estate mortgages, more bad news turns up."

The lack of transparency, and the financial engineering that helps create it, are big damn problems.

Merrill Lynch is taking a charge for "mortgage-related securities on its books that is $3 billion more than the $5 billion it expected just two weeks ago. And a report from the National Association of Realtors showed that sales of existing homes in September fell twice as much as economists had expected, to their lowest level in nearly 10 years."

More: "In a new report to be issued today, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress predicts about two million foreclosures by the end of next year on homes purchased with subprime mortgages. That estimate is far higher than the Bush administration’s prediction in September of 500,000 foreclosures, which in itself would be a tidal wave compared with recent years."

Even the most revered experts were fooled.

From a fascinating New Yorker profile of trader Victor Niederhoffer:  "As the quiet times continued, many investors were lulled into believing that a less volatile era had begun. Alan Greenspan, who was the chairman of the Fed until February, 2006, helped to feed this illusion by talking about how financial innovations, such as the development of asset-backed securities, had spread risks more widely, making the market less vulnerable to shocks. The crisis in the subprime-mortgage market changed all this."

Niederhoffer himself was largely undone by the current crisis: "There were so many moving parts in his portfolio that he wasn’t sure where he stood."

Previously, previously.

Wall Street Journal: "Bank of America Corp., in a reversal of a decade-long effort to reach the top tier of Wall Street, is forcing out the top executive at its investment-banking unit and launching a strategic review that is likely to shrink parts of the operation." 3,000 job cuts announced.

Went to a meeting of the six local foundations that support Action Greensboro.

Can't say much yet, but expect more good stuff ahead from a group that is under-appreciated  -- not only for its tangible contributions to the city, but for helping to restore a can-do spirit that had faded in recent decades.

The naysayers and reflexive negativity haven't disappeared from this town, and as I wrote a few years ago, a relapse of Greensboro Disease is always possible. But I came away from today's meeting with a good feeling about the focus and sense of purpose among a key group of civic leaders.

In which a ConvergeSouth attendee has her prayers answered.

Jack Lessenberry: "Reporters have never been paid enough money, but now things are getting worse."

More: "Hard times for Gannett, comrades. The monster corporation's profits for the July 1-Sept. 30 period were only $234 million! Never mind that Ford Motor Co. executives would kill small puppies for a quarter like that these days. No, what matters is that a year ago, Gannett profits for those three months were $261.4 million. Cancel the Porsche detailing service, Thurston."

Related: "The Times Company has long had slimmer profit margins than most other large newspaper companies — less than 7 percent for the first nine months of this year. But the company’s finances, especially the flagship paper’s, have held up better over a difficult year...The New York Times newspaper and its Web site [...] rely more than almost all other newspapers on national advertising, which has fared better than other types, and less on classified ads, which have fallen the most sharply."

Previously: "It would make no huge difference in Landmark's overall numbers to cut profit margins for a while to merely solid rates of return, and to reinvest a few million bucks per year in product and product development, but it would make a huge difference to the News & Record, and Greensboro, and the future of local journalism. Too bad that ain't happening."

Applied Rationality looks at one of the arguments against S-CHIP: "If adult coverage is such an awful problem, why did this administration encourage it, approve it, and propose continuing it?"

I've known since August that we were going to get some rain this week.

That's when my friend Pete bought his plane tix to come down from New York for a little golf outing. I told him then: October is our driest month, and we're in the midst of a wicked drought, but your visit pretty much guarantees rain.

So if the precip keeps up on Friday and Saturday, thank Pete.

Pete asked me on the phone other day if he could get some good pulled pork down here. I started to tell him that all the massage parlors on Lee Street are gone, but then I realized that he meant barbecue.

That seems to be what they call it in New York and other provincial places these days, pulled pork, or Carolina pulled pork.

I guess it's a marketing thing as our local specialty spreads into regions where people may think of barbecue as beef, or a verb.

I wonder what they call hushpuppies?

Not over yet: this blog from the San Diego Union-Tribune is a good resource for updates and links on the California fires. More from LAT, with links and graphics.

McClatchy: "Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors."

Billy Jones: "I never walk these streets unarmed and neither would anyone else who enjoys breathing."

By "these streets" he means these streets:

View Larger Map

Dr. Wharton folllows BCR's interesting post on urban revitalization in Durham and Greensboro.

BCR: "Is [Greensboro's] local government simply more capable at executing on change, on operating functionally?"

Wharton: Yep.

"The projects that BCR mentions [...] emanated from Greensboro's Housing and Community Development department, whose talented planners -- Andy Scott, Sue Schwartz, Dan Curry, and others -- not only had the imagination to envision these projects, they had the skills to get other city departments (planning, transportation), city political leaders, and voters on board....Greensboro is very lucky to have these people working for us."

Hoggard's non-endorsements for City Council.

"[M]any people I have spoken to are in a 'throw the bums out' frame of mind.  But before we do that, let's make sure that we aren’t just going to elect a different set of 'bums'."

Names are named.

Too hot for the News & Record, but cool enough for the blogosphere...

Readers bring their own POV to the stuff they read.

I got a long, anonymous, and generally positive letter about this column.

What I found odd was that it spent considerable verbiage defending Jerry Bledsoe's work from the "mandatory shot" I took at it, which the writer suggests may have been "mandated" by my editor.

The idea that the opinion editors at the N&R would ever pressure me in that way, or that I would accede to such pressure, shows a serious misunderstanding of our working relationship, and a serious mistrust of the institution.

I did rib Jerry for an "exhaustive (and exhausting) Rhinoceros Times series, already boasting more chapters than the Nibelungenlied and more granularity than your average beach." A shot? With a water gun, maybe.

The writer is correct that without Bledsoe's work, Wray would be remembered unfairly as a racist. That doesn't mean the series is immune to criticism, and as I wrote I'm waiting for some specifics on Wray's alleged transgressions, but the whole negative frame suggested by the letter feels wrong to me.

The letter also says I express "consternation" and naive surprise at Matlocke's remark, "Only in Greensboro," when in fact I used the remark to launch the broader arguments about race and politics that anchor the column, and that I've been making in one forum or another for a decade.

Anyway, my point is really that it's interesting to see how people read things through the lenses they bring with them.

It explains a lot.

(The letter was addressed to me and copied to David Wray, Jerry Bledsoe, The Rhino editor, Greensboro City Council, Mitch Johnson, Mayor Holliday, Lorraine Ahearn, and "others," so maybe it will turn up somewhere soon.)

PS My limitations as a writer, and the constraints of the limited space I have in the paper, may also be factors in failures to communicate.

UPDATE: An as-yet-unposted letter to the editor in this morning's N&R is quite similar in format and content to the one I received, right down to the complaint about slagging Bledsoe. Hmm. Keep an eye out for a third letter...

Another North Carolina bank gets some DealBreaker snark, complete with sophisticated Wall Street typo: "Is Getting Laid Off From Wachovia Bank Really Much Worse Than Having To Admit You Work At Wachovia Bank? Several Of Wachovia Bank's (Former) Employees Will Soon To (sic) Find Out."

Screenshot of as-yet uncorrected hed at left.

WaPo: "[I]n recent weeks [Edwards] has launched a markedly more aggressive attack on what he says is Clinton's poll-tested commitment to the status quo, and the new tone to his campaign has coincided with the growing influence of the strategist behind Howard Dean's assault on the Democratic establishment four years ago -- Joe Trippi."

"...While Trippi was described as a senior adviser when he joined the Edwards campaign in mid-April, he has become much more in the intervening six months: the de facto campaign manager, lead media consultant and -- perhaps most important -- trusted confidante of Elizabeth Edwards, whose influence in the campaign far exceeds that of the conventional candidate's wife."

Related.

Lisa Scheer took this picture recently in Greensboro, using her Holga.

Bricolage Arts Festival, November 1-4, across the Triad area.

"Bricolage is a 4-day, Piedmont Triad-wide event presenting new interdisciplinary, collaborative works by a number of the region’s top artists.  Our 7 creative teams for 2007 include dancers, musicians, visual artists, poets, composers, actors and filmmakers, all of whom were required to create new works specifically for the festival by crossing disciplines or crossing county lines.              

"In this inaugural festival year, we're proud to present these dynamic creative teams in 12 individual events being held in 11 Piedmont Triad cities. Please join us in your own hometown, and maybe in a couple of other towns, too!"

Sked and tix here.

Soni Pitts liked the program and the evening activities at ConvergeSouth, didn't like the food during the day, and had some issues with the "scotch-tape-and-crossed-fingers feel of the event."

She says:

Maybe ConvergeSouth is just a looser, more casual event than I'm used to and I'm blathering like an idiot about something that's a feature, and not a bug. If that's the case then please let me know and I'll STFU...if they're going to be taken seriously by the big boys and girls in the tech world, they have to be capable of putting on a two-day conference without falling apart at the seams.

My reaction to her reaction: first, content is king, and if she liked the sessions and the people around her then I feel good about her experience.

Food, location, and cost: we keep it free because we want it to be open to all people. There has been much discussion of charging for admission, and I'm sure we'll plow that ground again, but access is a core value of the event, and it may be that boxed lunches will still be on the menu in the future.

Finally, I don't want Soni to STFU, I value what she says and think we can learn from her comments about organization. I never had the slightest feeling that things were on the verge of falling apart, but there is a without a doubt a scruffy quality to the conference that you won't find at a big industry event.

That said, I think she's onto something when she raises the feature vs bug question. This is not a tech conference, it's a user conference. We want to bring in big names from across the country, and have done so with great success, but we want to talk to them as much as we want them to talk to us. They're users, too. I'd rather eat barbecue with someone than watch them PowerPoint a quiet audience.

So: room to improve on execution, to be sure. Better food? Love it, let's figure out ways to get it without changing the vibe of the conference. Good content and interesting people? Great, that's the heart of the matter.

Thanks for participating, Soni, and for providing your feedback. I hope you'll be back next year.

Bull City Rising looks west: "Durham and Greensboro are both in the midst of urban renaissance, renewing their downtowns with a mix of public and private investment...how has Greensboro pulled off its redevelopment so well while Durham is just starting?...Whatever the explanation, there is something in the water in the Triad, and it ain't lead. If you get the chance to visit, do so. And bring back some ideas to help Durham follow in its neighbor's footsteps."

SoCal on fire.

More coverage from San Diego; LAT.

Union-Tribune: Hospital burn unit overflowing.

Syd looked at the papers this morning and asked about fires in the dry, dry southeast. I made up something reassuring and sent her off to school.

NYT: "These last-minute measures belie a history of inaction in Georgia and across the South when it comes to managing and conserving water, even in the face of rapid growth. Between 1990 and 2000, water use in Georgia increased 30 percent. But the state has not yet come up with an estimate of how much water is available during periods of normal rainfall, much less a plan to handle the worst-case event — dry faucets."

Fortunately our local officials in Guilford County would never approve a project that ignores the realities of water usage...right?

ConvergeSouth film festival, online.

Andy Coon did a great job with the inaugural edition of this event.

This could turn into something big for Greensboro. It's a fulfillment of the vision that sparked the conference three years ago.

I wonder what venues we might use next year? I could see the Weatherspoon auditorium, with dinners at restaurants on Tate Street...

And I wonder about tie-ins with other projects and organizations...

Meanwhile...Great work by Andy and the filmmakers, and thnx to Two Art Chicks.

A result of the campaign to recast the beliefs and principles of the Founders, or part of it? Huckabee gets his facts way wrong.

Lots of candidates are buying ads at blog aggregator We101, the dynamic table of contents for local sites (click image to enlarge).

How long until someone revives the idea of local ad syndication?

If anyone wants to buy a one-off local ad at this site, click here; I'll donate all proceeds to the Greensboro Urban Ministry.

A panel discussion of the media's role in a democratic society, Thursday evening at UNCG. Details and sign-up info here.

This post and this post spend a lot of time on the technical reasons that "Jump" sounded so awful at the recent Van Halen show in GSO.

Answering because it's "Jump" is accurate, but does not get you credit.

D3 candidate Joe Wilson goes to ConvergeSouth: "I realize the power of the community itself."

N&R: "Skybus Airlines confirmed today that it will locate a base at Piedmont Triad International Airport, bringing jobs and nonstop flights to seven additional cities...Skybus will also establish a maintenance facility at the airport, and will base pilots and flight attendants in the Triad."

Dumbledore the Gay.

A commenter at MeFi: "He was a stylish 150-year-old-ish bachelor. You do the math."

NYT: "Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and  Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections."

More: "[M]any in the academic and nonprofit world are intent on pursuing a vision of the Web as a global repository of knowledge that is free of business interests or restrictions."