EdCone.com

"Didn't cross the sex line." That's how Mark Sanford describes his physical relationships with women other than his wife and his mistress. Reminds me of sorority girls who were said to be doing "everything but."

"Walker Sanders, president of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, confirmed Tuesday his group is organizing a trip to Washington to meet with every local delegate’s office about the foundation’s plans to redevelop the South Elm Street area of downtown."

Hmm. The N&R says the report was "confirmed," but it doesn't say where it came from in the first place. Seems like a statement from the mayor to another media outlet is worth acknowledging.

The Al Franken Decade may be upon us at last.

UPDATE: Coleman concedes.

Greensboro Mayor Yvonne Johnson called to express her concern for Geoff Marshall, who had his gear stolen during a stopover in our town. She asked if she and others could make a small financial contribution to his cause, and I told her about this effort to help him out.

Mayor Yvonne Johnson, along with Guilford County Commission chair Skip Alston, Community Foundation president Walker Sanders, and a representative from the school board, will fly to Washington this week to lobby elected officials for federal money for an education-based redevelopment project at the corner of South Elm and Lee.

The request for $15 million will be made to Senators Burr and Hagan, and to Reps. Coble and Watt.

The group will be flown to DC at no tax-payer expense by developer Roy Carroll, says Johnson.

One of the things that 9/11 Changed Forever^TM was the news media, which once favored stories about shark attacks and missing interns over news of deeper importance.

Marikay Abuzuaiter will kick off her campaign for an at-large seat on the Greensboro City Council with an event at Studio B, 520 South Elm Street, from 2-4 PM on Sunday July 12.

From the announcement: "Come get to know Marikay, listen to music and enjoy a variety of wonderful desserts!"

If you want to help Geoff Marshall, the guy who had his equipment stolen while visiting Greensboro, you can go here to make a donation.

Public option options. "94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as 'highly concentrated,' according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007."

More here.

My first newspaper column on the subject of blogging ran in 2002, back when we still had to stop to explain what a blog was. Found it while thinking about my upcoming column. We've come a long way, baby.

At the last minute, after considerable coaxing, [Hagan] walked across the street and met with over 200 North Carolinians for a few minutes. She made an informal speech, which was mostly "happy talk" and studiously avoided endorsing a public option, even when asked about it directly. Many of us are worried Sen. Hagan is more concerned about the corporate health care giants than she is about the health care of average North Carolinians.

Selma and Mike Taylor of Greensboro went Washington to meet with our elected officials. Full story after the jump.

I hadn't heard about the rally in DC, but, hey, did you know Michael Jackson died?

Geoff Marshall stopped in Greensboro last night on his Underground USA tour. He awoke to a smashed window in his car.

"They took my main kick-arse video editing PC. My prosumer Sony DV video camera. My Nikon D200 stills camera. About $6000 of technology, taken, stolen, gone. And without it, I don’t know if I can carry on."

He asks, "What do I do?"

Bonus points to John Hammer for working Bill Clinton into his conspiracy theory (third item) about the Air France crash. I look forward to future episodes starring Vince Foster and Ron Brown.

UPDATE: Thanks to alert reader TL for forwarding the hoax email debunked at this link.

A fairly definitive investigation of Jughead's hat, including its origins and social significance. Goober Pyle and the still breathing Jeff Goldblum are invoked.

You've got to hand it to the folks behind the "liberal media" meme. They've said it so long and so often that people just accept it as the truth, no matter how much evidence there is that corporate media work for the establishment.

Kay Hagan's picture graces the front page of Talking Points Memo, unfortunately: "Hagan Continues To Be Key Obstacle To Public Option In The Senate."

Previously: Who does Kay work for?

If anyone's got an account at the Chronicle of Higher Education, I'd love to read the article cited in this piece by Lorraine Ahearn about the financial woes at Greensboro College.

UPDATE: Thnx to alert reader mc for the login info. What struck me about the CHE article, aside from the criticism of GC's emergency measures, was the apparent surprise with which faculty met the news of the college's financial troubles. Rumors of GC's financial stress have been all over town for years, but somehow the campus seems to have remained in a bubble.

Ian McDowell says the fight scenes in Dogs of Chinatown are "really impressive, with long takes, no cheating edits, and lots of real contact." The locally-produced film plays for the next several days at 7:30 PM at the Carousel on Battleground.

Sue blames NC legislators for the Amazon fiasco. Betsy says Amazon is teh suck. Amazon says, You're next, Hawaii.

D1 City Council candidate Ben Holder is hosting a fundraiser/fish-fry tonight from 7-10, 1306 Oak Street.

I am sorry to inform you that Michael Jackson is still dead. Expect major media outlets to cover this story, although obviously the ongoing deadness of a pop star, no matter how famous, will be kept in proportion by serious news organizations.

MoveOn targets Hagan.

Welcome to our world, MoveOn.

In 1978 Playboy magazine called Ms. Fawcett "the first mass visual symbol of post-neurotic fresh-air sexuality." She herself put it more plainly: "When the show got to be No. 3, I figured it was our acting. When it got to be No. 1, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra." Obit.

"We can't count on insurance companies. They are just maximizing their profits. They are sticking it to consumers.

"I am all for letting insurance companies compete. But I want them to compete in a system that offers real health-care insurance. I call it a public plan," Rockefeller said.

More:

Rockefeller admitted he expects little bipartisan support.

"There is a very small chance any Republicans will vote for this health-care plan. They were against Medicare and Medicaid [created in the 1960s]. They voted against children's health insurance...

...But do you want to be non-partisan and get nothing? Or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health- care plan? That is the choice."

Grading the NBA draft. Danny Green and Ty Lawson seem to be in good situations. Not sure about Hansbrough, and who knows what Ellington will find in Minnesota once the trade-dust has settled. Hard to be excited about GS for Curry. Henderson may be part of something fun to watch in Charlotte.

The stimulus package seems to be stimulating the economy.

We know how the banking plan is supposed to work: Uncle Sam stops the arterial bleeding with big wads of money, and we all clap until Tinkerbell starts to believe the doctored numbers mean she's real, and the known huge problems to come are not compounded by fresh and surprising shocks to the system, and eventually we grow our way back to actual health.

Now we see a consumer spending boost, and that's another positive step, albeit one that cannot be sustained indefinitely by tax money, and one that has not yet begun to reverse the terrible employment situation. And of course in the longer term we need bigger fixes than just allowing people to return to their borrow-and-spend ways.

But it's a start.

Pete Tannenbaum and I saw "Ben" at the old Center Theater on S. Elm Street. Yes, I am old enough to remember a working movie theater in downtown Greensboro. This has to be one of the top five love songs to a rodent ever recorded:

George Hartzman says he's running against Zack Matheny in the District 3 City Council race.

You see, kids, Dad's sad because, long ago, before things got so weird, oh, never mind. Watch this:

Dogs of Chinatown will play nightly at 7:30, June 26-July 2, at the Carousel Theaters on Battleground.

Film Threat calls it "a highly stylized and rather promising debut feature from Micah Moore."

UPDATE: More on the film's local roots here.

UPDATE: Shell posts some answers at his site. Pretty thin gruel -- he admits he didn't really research the topic, or talk to library staff about it. He defines "porn" as "nudity," which I guess means the link below to Botticelli's Birth of Venus (and any site that includes the image) might be blocked. But give him credit for saying the idea can "evolve," with the goal of dealing with the problem of porn-surfing at the library...

...although that raises another question for Shell: How much of a problem is this? You've cited some anecdotal evidence -- what research have you done on this topic?

City Council candidate Ryan Shell says the Greensboro Public Library should filter porn on its computers.

Here are my questions for Ryan Shell:

1. What research have you done on this issue? (Please be specific)
2. How well do porn filters work, both at filtering porn and at not filtering other stuff?
3. What is your definition of porn? That is to say, what exactly should be filtered? (See question 2). Any nudity? Extreme violence? Who decides?
4. What did the library staff say when you discussed this with them before publishing your suggestion?

Roll Call on the potential Senate run of Cal Cunningham, "who is becoming a darling of progressives in the Tar Heel State."

Time for USA Today to update its list, "10 Things You Didn't Know About Mark Sanford" (they can correct the misuse of "alumni" while they're at it.) I didn't know Sanford had worked at Goldman Sachs; maybe that explains why he thought he could just bail out.

Found the USAT list at a site called DraftSanford2012. No mention there of the recent unpleasantness, even under the "News" or "What Others Are Saying" tabs.

A fellow SC Republican says this is a moment for the GOP to "lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness." But that would undercut the attitude of perpetual entitlement and victimhood.

Speaking of self-righteousness, the larger issue is not that another schmuck snuck off for a little strange, it's that he abandoned the people of South Carolina for several days and lied about it. I kind of admired Mark Sanford, even though I disagreed with him on a lot of stuff, but now I'd say he's unfit to serve as Governor.

Satanic Jews get no respect -- first dissed by Billy Graham, then edited from history.

Kudos to reader Roger Greene, who made this prescient comment on the Sanford story well before this afternoon's confessional: "When his staffers said he was hiking the Appalachian trail, he actually said he was looking for some Argentinian tail. Pretty easy to confuse the two."

I got an email from a researcher for the teevee program Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, asking for recommendations in the Triad.

"We are looking for restaurants that serve fresh, made from scratch, homemade interesting food. It is always helpful if the restaurant is family owned and has been around for a while and has some character."

I responded with Carniceria El Mercadito, Stameys, Beef Burger, United House of Prayer, and Smith Street Diner.

Your suggestions are welcome.

Carniceria El Mercadito wins another fan. I had the tacos con pollo today, as I often do, and it was a near-religious experience.

AP cocks an eyebrow at a detail of Gov. Sanford's BA itinerary:

Sanford told The State he was alone on the trip to Argentina. He declined to give any additional details about what he did other than to say he drove along the coastline.

Trying to make such a drive could frustrate a weekend visitor to Argentina. In Buenos Aires, the Avenida Costanera is the only coastal road, and it's less than two miles long. Reaching coastal resorts to the south requires a drive of nearly four hours on an inland highway with views of endless cattle ranches. To the north is a river delta of islands reached only by boat.

Here in North Carolina, we know how our Governors roll. All too well.

Opacity worked so well in financial services, why not try it in government?

There is currently some wacky legislative maneuvering going on with H.R. 2454, the cap and trade energy bill, that puts a serious spotlight on the failure of Congress to make bills properly available.

Not the way it's supposed to work:

[UPDATE: Maybe not exactly how it worked, either.]

Pitney asked his arranged question. Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, "The Obama Show."

Heard today about a house in NW GSO that sold recently for something north of $800K, which was about 50% of the original asking price. Other horror stories from the high-end market abound; layoffs at UGC won't help.

My Father's Day column is still bringing in email responses. Lots of people seem to recognize something of their own dads in the sketch of my father.

A mess o' numbers about healthcare in North Carolina. The stats on BCBSNC are eye-openers.

I was so busy with pagan rituals around the solstice that I forgot to wish Luna a happy 7th birthday. She is healthy and strong, but dogs don't last forever; I promised her a long time ago that I will love her to the end.

Hilton, who is openly gay, said in interview with The Associated Press that he called will.i.am a '"faggot," a gay slur...

Wait, "faggot" is a bad word for the gay?

Thanks for the explanation, AP.

I'm sure many readers were thinking that Hilton had called will.i.am a bundle of sticks until you cleared that up for them.

Seriously, it would be nice to live in a world where the pejorative use of "faggot" requires explanation. I'd say we have ways to go before we get there.

Simple truths: "Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House."

Some documentary evidence on Iran: "The election was stolen. It is there in black and white."

Why the NYT asked the media to keep quiet about the kidnapping of its reporter, who escaped last week -- and why coverage is still muted.

Nate Silver breaks down polling data on a public option for health insurance: "Overall, polling points toward the public option being at least mildly popular and indeed perhaps quite popular. But more polling is required on this question, particularly by the news organizations and other unaffiliated groups."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend $100 million to oppose Obama's agenda, including healthcare reform. The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce is listed in the U.S Chamber directory; I don't know what that means in terms of funding the political operations of the national group, so let's find that out. [UPDATE: Almost all of the dues paid by the Greensboro Chamber to the U.S. Chamber go to the national group's professional development program; the Greensboro Chamber does not financially support or necessarily agree with the political operations of the U.S. Chamber. One area where the two organizations do agree is on opposition to Card Check legislation.] (Thnx to Cecil Bothwell, a candidate for Asheville City Council, for raising the local-membership meme over at Scrutiny Hooligans).

Protzman wants a national strike for healthcare refom on July 6.

Kay Hagan doesn't make Krugman's column on Democratic Senators opposed to meaningful reform, but her constituents are still wondering for whom she works.

Michael Steinhardt gives $5 million to the American Hebrew Academy. The late Chico Sabbah's strategy of bringing in national figures to support the school seems to be paying off; his family also contributed $1 million. Previously: Sabbah's story.