EdCone.com

At the 9/13 Council meeting, Trudy Wade wondered why the City pays so much to maintain Center City Park (starts around 1:07:40 here).

This week's Manager's report shows that it's expensive to maintain a large park or public garden, and that we pay much less to maintain Center City Park than we spend on, say, the Bicentennial Garden.

Wade also brought up the fact that the City doesn't own the park, as if that's a bad thing, but in reality Greensboro got a really nice park built for it at no cost to taxpayers (a discussion of the ownership meanders through the comments beneath this post).

People sure love to hate that park.

Report also says City employee count has lagged population growth over the past five years.

Totally awesome not happening.

Too bad, a free Radiohead concert almost certainly would have mended the global financial system.

Lawyer for big developer threatens blogger, blogger seems unimpressed.

Via Blue NC.

Be careful out there, people.

Sorry it fades out at the end, best video I could find, here's the whole thing.

Eight paragraphs into this Rhino article, John Hammer finally unearths his lede: "[Danny] Thompson, according to his own statements, appears to be in violation of the campaign finance reporting laws."

Other nuggets buried in the interminable* story: "Thompson is trying to game the system...Two years ago Thompson violated the spirit of the law, and this year, according to his own statements and actions, he violated both the letter and the spirit of the law."

Meanwhile, the N&R front-pages an article that calls into question some of the claims Thompson makes in campaign ads. UPDATE: Article freed from GPV, better link here.

*The Rhino's chronic logorrhea, I guess, is a business-driven strategy -- a way of stretching copy to fill the space between ads, without having to actually pay for more stories. I prefer a chocolate chip in every bite.

I was talking recently with a street preacher who (along with many others) proclaims the primacy of the King James Version of the Bible. His own case for textual supremacy began with what he said was a better understanding by the translators of the original Hebrew as spoken by Jesus. I asked if Jesus wouldn't have been speaking Aramaic, at least most of the time. Neither of us was satisfied with the exchange.

Anyway, I'm going to DC soon, and I hope to see this exhibition, in which, it is promised, "you will also sense the gradual birth of the modern English language and the subtle framing of a culture’s patterns of thought."

Field hockey team breakfast at our house.

Managed not to set off the smoke alarm during the pre-dawn prep this year.

Win.

Mayoral and City Council candidate forum, 6PM today, Civil Rights museum on Elm St.

More N&R news, which I apologize for missing when Clarey broke it long ago: Cutbacks at Go Triad.

John Hammer (as yet unposted) writes about his brother, Willy, stepping down as publisher of the Rhino Times; John had confirmed the move three months ago, but I guess now even the "involved on the web side" idea is done, too.

The Rhino has had a clearer focus on the business side of its business than many weeklies I've seen, and John gives Willy the credit for its sustained success in a very tough industry. Best of luck to him in whatever it is he does next.

Got a call saying people are stealing Perkins campaign signs and vandalizing Johnson campaign signs.

No doubt true. Also, someone vandalized GCGOP HQ, and people are stealing and vandalizing all kinds of campaign signs.

Not trying to say it's OK or worth only a shoulder shrug, just that it happens across the spectrum and is petty and stupid across the spectrum.

Bernanke: "This unemployment situation we have, the jobs situation, is really a national crisis."

Huh. Hadn't noticed, thanks for the heads up.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs worries about a "Great Stagnation," apologizes for its role in causing it.

And Stephen Ross goes bottom fishing in banking, comes up empty: "[T]he deeper they went, the worse things looked."

Bev Perdue said something stupid. Worth noting, but not really big news.

Stupid quote gets picked up by the noise machine, amplified through the news cycle...and that's front-page above-the-fold "news" in the local daily.

Binker's article is actually well done, but the editorializing-by-placement is not.

Geoff Baym, the UNCG prof quoted in the story, was on the panel for last night's discussion of the media and political polarization. I thought our session went well, but it would have been even better if we'd had a copy of this morning's N&R to hold up as an example.

UPDATE: I'm hearing the daily paper is shutting down its regional/community publications, each known as the [name of area] Record, along with its last remaining bureau, in Rockingham County, which resulted in the layoff of a reporter. end update

Got an email from someone outside the building saying there have been some changes announced at the N&R.

Anyone wishing to comment or email will of course have their confidentiality respected.

Turns out Philip Larkin's second-best opening line should be about the rediscovery of sex, not its origin, although that might mess up the meter.

Wilhelm Reich did some of his strange work at Rangeley, Maine, where by coincidence, and in a non-institutional setting, my father spent many summers in his youth. For years he (my father) had an Orgone Institute sign that had somehow come loose from the gate; I wonder where it is now.

Kindle fires at iPad.

In other news, I just got three book books from Amazon, and I am excited about that.

Flowchart guide to NPR's sci-fi and fantasy book list.

OSC scores high with Ender's Game.

I threw a Hari Seldon reference into one of my newsletters the other day, which gave me hours of nerd joy.

One big problem with the tax code is the tax code:

But check-the-box lives on. It is not among loopholes targeted by Obama’s new plan. Its untouchable status—the government has twice tried to kill it and balked—provides a case study in how a billion-dollar tax break was born by mistake, then protected by the power of the business community.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

...protesters say they so distrust their country’s political class and its pandering to established interest groups that they feel only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.

Coming soon to a polity near you?

“At this point, the issue is not whether there is going to be a recession or a double-dip but whether it’s going to be relatively mild or whether it’s going to be a severe recession and a global financial crisis,” Roubini said. “The answer to that question depends on what’s going to happen in the euro zone and whether they can get their act together.”

German bankers control your fate.

The Brooklyn Nets may not be typical of an NBA franchise business model, but I'd guess versions of this story are not unknown elsewhere in the league, and the ownership psychology exemplified by Gilbert seems real enough in any case.

N&R front page teaser says Greensboro Day School is "turning to the community" for fundraising, and the A2 article (unposted) says the school "hopes local residents" will chip in for a new middle school and other projects.

I'm sure GDS would be happy to have contributions from the general public, but the campaign (I'm on the cabinet) is targeted at the school community -- alums, parents, and friends -- not the broader community, and no general solicitation has been considered.

There is a significant difference between what the N&R reported and what's actually happening out at Lawndale and Lake Brandt. Correction, please.

Toiling on the Facebook plantation turns out to be a fulltime job.

All your clicks are belong to them.

In booming North Dakota, where fracking has helped increase US oil production beyond the dreams of the Drill Baby Drillers, natural gas is burned as a low-value byproduct (as it is, at least for the moment, at the GSO landfill).

Which suggests a couple of things: fracking is likely to remain a part of the energy business toolkit, and there's no reason for North Carolina to rush into allowing it.

We do not have a debt crisis. We have a long-run debt problem and austerity today is perverse from the point of view of unemployment, and insofar as the economy is vulnerable that will make it more vulnerable, and of course a double-dip [recession] will lose us a lot of tax revenue.

Opinions unfit for a Fed governor.

The once-booming South, which entered the recession with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, is now struggling with some of the highest rates.

Yes, we've noticed. And things in areas of the South that weren't booming when times were better, like the counties north of here and in Southside VA, are getting pretty scary.

Chapter the next: Social media and political campaigns.

Marketing is great, but the real goal, as it has been from the beginning, will be tying online efforts into real-world strategy and action. The Obama campaign made real progress on that front last time around, much of it involving stuff you can't see, like integration projects that make big voter databases accessible to field operations.

Get ready for a lot of stories about the First Facebook (or Twitter) Campaign.

I share the skepticism implicit in PP's post -- maybe ACC expansion will be good for GSO, but I haven't seen any real argument for that being the case, much less any data to support it.

Obviously I'm rooting for the giganticizing league to be an economic savior on par with the aerotroplis or the greenway, but wishing does not make it so.

Cam Newton had a mixed day in terms of numbers, but the bigger story was that he led a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter, and showed some Red Zone chops in the process.

A panel discussion on Polarization, Gridlock, and the Mass Media, Weds at 7:30 PM, Weatherspoon Art Museum Auditorium. Free and open to the public.

Department of No Big Surprises: Big-money interests help shape redistricting processes.

N&R runs an opinion column (GPV) proposing that Reidsville's Confederate soldier monument be rebuilt in a "Heritage Park."

Could work, but it would be even better to include in any such park a memorial to those who spent their lives as slaves in this region.

Greensboro's big fall arts festival, 17 Days, runs for 16 more days, including tonight; here's the sked.

Manager's weekly report. Looks like a lot of $$ coming our way for transportation, mostly for roads. Anyone who reads it carefully and explains it in the comments will be handsomely rewarded thanked.

Nice to see some good news about downtown business, more better because it's on my side of the tracks.

Speaking of which, Elsewhere is having a fundraiser/shindig on Oct 15. Topping the Warhol party with its Velvet Underground cover band won't be easy, but I wouldn't put it past them.

In an earlier comment thread, the point was made that North Carolinians who sign leases with gas companies are responsible for their own actions.

True. All the more reason to make every effort to educate our neighbors and ourselves about the realities of fracking leases and the experiences of people who sign them.

People have been bringing consumer technology into the workplace since the early days of PCs and email, but the consumerization of IT has become a big deal for businesses in the era of smartphones and tablets.

We pay a lot of attention to that kind of stuff in our nerdy little corner of the world, but now it's been reported in the Times I guess it's real.

TriadWatch points to some Rhino-identified hinkyness in Danny Thompson's campaign reporting.

Written on the men's room wall at Ham's many years ago was the perennial favorite: "186,000 miles per second -- it's not just a good idea, it's the law."

Maybe not.

(Written nearby: "To do is to be -- Socrates. To be is to do -- Sartre. Do be do be do -- Sinatra." I have seen this attributed to Vonnegut, and I wonder if the second quote shouldn't be from Descartes.)

Greensboro's big fall arts festival, 17 Days, starts, like, now.

If you can't find more than a few things to do, you might be dead.

"It was fairly demonstrably clear that there was a very significant problem of alignment of interests by private banks and their customers."

A problem that extends beyond private banks, although most people don't have the wherewithal to set up family offices.

Thnx to TC for the pointer.

John Hammer: "The City Council needs to take a stand for open meetings."

John Robinson: "I don't understand the mayor's thinking on public access and accountability, particularly during a re-election campaign."

Allen Johnson: "This mayor has seemed lower-key and less accessible in office that when he first ran as a council candidate."

Three years ago today, rescuing banskters as the global economy teetered.

Glad that's over!

Oh, well, it's not like we could have done anything differently.

Meanwhile, N&R front pager says (GPV):

Across the board — in Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County — the numbers tell a continuing story of economic distress and hardship.   

In Guilford, for example, median household income plunged more than $6,000, or nearly 13 percent, from 2007 through 2010. Last year, the figure totaled just over $42,000.

In High Point, per capita income fell 26 percent in the past four years, going from $26,124 in 2007 to $19,319 last year.   

In Greensboro, 20.1 percent of all people lived in poverty, up nearly 4 percentage points in the past three years.   

Also in Greensboro, 18.6 percent of the population had no health insurance, up nearly 4 percentage points since 2008.

Original intent?

Stingrays are one of several new technologies used by law enforcement to track people's locations, often without a search warrant. These techniques are driving a constitutional debate about whether the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but which was written before the digital age, is keeping pace with the times.

Vagina!

Now, apparently, you laugh, or at least snicker.

I was disappointed that the Times, explainer of all things simple, would run the headline "This Year's Hot TV Trend is Anatomically Correct" without pointing out that at least some of the references seem to be to the vulva.

It's healthy for a culture to overcome its squeamishness about clinical names for female anatomy, but once the shock value of hearing them on network teevee wears off people might have to go back to writing actual jokes.

Nobel prize-winner Roald Hoffmann will keynote this year's Chemical Sciences Symposium at A&T on October 21.

Thanks, REM, for meaning something to me back when popular music meant something to me.

I was the right age to get Chronic Town and Murmur in real time, bought scalped tix I couldn't afford to take my girlfriend to the Document tour at Radio City, thought Automatic for the People got it just about right, and so on.

(I know they didn't write Superman, but I love that video, and I couldn't find a good one for Pilgrimage.)

So, after all that drama, GSO still needs a cost-effective garbage plan.

The next round of discussion should aim higher than the botched process that died with a whimper yesterday afternoon -- bigger vision, longer-term thinking, more transparency, greater respect for people across the city.

Winners and Losers:

This issue was Bill Knight's major test as Mayor. It showed his strength as a number-cruncher, but also his limitations as an idea man, a communicator, and a leader who crosses lines and brings people together. Loser.

Danny Thompson made an effort to reach out beyond the mini-majority, and his thoughts on investing any savings from a temporary re-opening of White Street could be a template for further action. It would have been swell if he'd said more about all that stuff during Council meetings, though. Winner.

Jim Kee listened to the people of his district, and also pushed to consider technology solutions. Winner.

Zack Matheny found the courage to stand up to the mini-majority's attempt to keep a fellow elected official from voting. Good for him, good for GSO. Winner.

Nancy Vaughan and Robbie Perkins now own this issue. Best of luck. Winners...so far.

D.H. Griffin's soft words came after a failed attempt to strong-arm a deal, and his company still wants to do business at White Street. Loser.

Crappy housing market still crappy, banksters and regulators even worse than we knew.

Some day we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny like a depression.