EdCone.com

What I'm hearing about the N&R deal:

• Robin Saul out, sooner rather than later.
• Terrible CMS will be replaced. New computers, soon, replacing museum pieces now in use. This may sound like inside baseball, but it matters in terms of productivity, quality, and morale.
• Terrible website will be upgraded.
• Gauger confident for the first time since his discovery of grits that he'll get the support and resources he needs to do the job.
• An insider: "There are definitely going to be some shakeups, but I'm optimistic.

Ben Holder: "It's one thing to have cops watching your blog or social media.  It's another thing when they get off their computers and come watch you in real life."

Shah-Khan said the city sought the restraining order to prevent the dissemination of information that was not public record but was criminal intelligence, even though it was released through public records requests filed with the city's public information office.

Oversharing. It's not just for Facebook.

Back to Ginsburg's YES Weekly article...

Marikay Abuzuaiter may not see herself as an informant, but the cops call her one ("'She was a frequent CI [confidential informant] during the Palestinian Protests,' [Sgt. Mike] Richey wrote.. keep her involvement among us'"] and she seems to have done more than just alert the police to bad things happening at events she attended. I'd guess a lot of people are unhappy with her now, and will view her attendance at meetings differently in the future.

Also, GPD has been watching local and area groups forever. That's one of the reasons people are still talking about the 1979 Klan-Nazi-CWP killings -- law enforcement was deeply wired yet did not stop the massacre from going down.

UPDATE: Thoughts (mostly positive) from JR. 

The website disaster bespeaks a culture of decline that goes beyond the newsroom cuts, and will take a real effort to reverse. I hope the cavalry is coming. /update

Buffett buying N&R.

A change in ownership is long overdue. 

Roch follows up the Ginsburg expose with a reminder of issues he's raised before:

There is another question, however, that remains unanswered: To what extent are rest of us—the public at large—being monitored while we go about our business under the impression that we are doing so in obscurity.

"The unarmed fear the armed, but the armed are disposed to fear the better armed."

Walter Kirn on guns and gun owners.

As [gun advocates] have repeatedly pointed out themselves, and as even Wayne LaPierre might agree, assault rifles are functionally similar to ordinary semi-automatic rifles, differing chiefly in their sinister cosmetics, not in their underlying ballistics. This being the case, what will be lost by giving them up? Nothing but their destabilizing allure for the grandiose, image-obsessed mass killers who favor them—and whose crimes represent a far greater risk to gun rights than does the perceived hostility of certain politicians.

So that's who reads this blog:

Liz Seymour, the director of the Interactive Resource Center, made [GPD criminal intelligence officer] Finch’s list but was mentioned in one other intelligence e-mail in September 2007 when Richey found a post on Ed Cone’s blog with a link to her website and said, “We should probably keep an eye on it.”

Here's the post that piqued the GPD's interest. Really?

Lots of interesting stuff about local law enforcement, its targets, and its informants in Eric Ginsburg's YES Weekly article.

Just pulled a tick off Luna.

I'm like, what, ticks in January?

Luna's like, hey, give me back my tick.

Beas sold parts for 12 .50-caliber weapons, the most powerful available for public sale, in a hotel parking lot off Interstate 85 in Charlotte.

Thus fulfilling the Founding Fathers' dream of liberty.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/30/3821005/accused-gun-trafficker-to-plead.html#storylink=cpy

Oh noz, An educational elite has taken over North Carolina's universities.

Ah, for the good old days when just anyone could teach a college course or plan a curriculum. Why should lack of knowledge and training keep me from my dream of a tenure-track position? And I look so good in tweed.  

For serious, there's plenty of room for discussion of what kidz r learning, and I encourage my own liberal-arts-oriented offspring to think in practical terms along the way, but surely McCrory can do better on this subject than chortling out buzzwords on talk radio.

After state legislators collected more than $1 million in campaign donations from Time Warner Cable and AT&T, the General Assembly passed a law in 2011 that effectively barred communities from building their own networks...

If the goal were to increase investment in the state, it failed. In fact, it accomplished the opposite effect: The big companies are investing less in North Carolina because they face less competition.

I really don't mind saying I told you so, except for the part where it really hurts this state.

Things you find on the way to finding something you need: I had forgotten about most of these interviews, but the one about the challenge to economists of measuring the changing value of like products (e.g., a modern new car that is longer-lasting and safer than a 1970 new car) has stayed with me. 

"I'll be frank with you. I've never seen such a broken information systems operation until I came here," the governor said. He added: "That's not a reflection on the people in this (agency), but you have a broken system right now."

On whom is it reflection, then?

And how did a huge agency -- "vast computer networks and systems" and a major new IT project just months from delivery -- make it to this late date without a CIO?

UPDATE II: Tony notes in the comments below and at FB that the correct stat is GSO having higher property tax rates than NC's other largest cities. Good on him for having the conversation, including corrections, in public.

So, back to Clarey's point: What do we get for that money, and is it worth the cost?/update

UPDATE: This information from the NCDOR (courtesy of alert reader Stephen) indicates that GSO does not have the highest property tax rate in NC. It is among the highest, and higher than other larger cities, and we also pay Guilford County's relatively high rates, but based on this document the statement that GSO has the highest property tax rate in NC seems to be incorrect. We also pay lower sales tax than CLT or Durham. /update

Tony Wilkins, via FB: "Today at the City Council Budget Retreat: I asked that we set a goal to reduce the .6325 property tax rate low enough to take us off the list as THE highest property tax rate in NC. Help me get 5 votes to do that."

Comment from Brian Clary: "I don't doubt we have the highest rate, though I'd like to see those numbers. And a lower tax rate sounds great, but before I sign off on it I want to know what you plan to cut to make up for the lost revenue."

More good discussion within the walled garden. 

When we lived in Paris we had a little B&W TV that spoke only French, and the interwebs were just a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee's eye, so we would take the metro to the American Library and load up on books and, y'know, read them. One thing I did was try to fill in some canonical gaps by catching up on authors I'd never quite gotten around to reading. Graham Greene and Mario Vargas Llosa were two of those I enjoyed. Another was Jane Austen, who really could tell a story. The social attitudes seem outdated, except when they don't, but a lot of the tales feel surprisingly modern (I thought the same thing when rereading the first chapter of Anna Karenina at lunch last week). Also, the way her heroines measure the economic value of prospective mates by annual income instead of net worth is pretty astute.

A well-argued version of a common refrain: More P.J. Hairston, please.

In other players-from-GSO news, I clicked through from this Deadspin post because GDS alum Jalen Ross plays for the winning team and I wanted to see how he has been doing (pretty well) and that allowed me to discover the existence of a player named Daveon Balls, which is pretty much the best name ever.

Plate 333 from Eadweard Muybridge's series "Animal Locomotion" is one of four works by the groundbreaking photographer in the collection of the Weatherspoon Museum (the others include a couple of his famous horse frames and a landscape of Yosemite). I often stop to look at his stuff when browsing the Spoon's photography online, but today's post was prompted by this review of a new biography of his freaky old self.

Letters from Duke Energy to the City, a lobbyist report card, and more in this week's report from the City Manager.

Protecting GSO's trees from overzealous Duke Energy crews may be harder than it looks.

I was so excited to read about GSO's economic recovery in 2011 that I set the DeLorean for early 2012 and bought some investment properties, and am writing this from the private island I purchased with my gains.

Previously in slow economics.

Wolf howls, funny voices, Huh! Best sing-along-in-the-car-song ever?

An analysis of voter turnout in NC for the recent election.

My take was that a weak effort in the gubernatorial race would hurt Democrats, and these numbers do not dissuade me of that hypothesis.

An update on yesterday's post about the G4 proposal on post-RUCO housing code compliance policy, courtesy of City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan, who writes:

One note on the proposal that's out there. It's actually a G3 plus an interested citizen (Paul Ksieniewicz). The City's Human Relations Commission has not voted to support this, and if you touch base with the Beth McKee-Huger, I'm sure she can confirm that. 

Shah-Khan must be new to blogging, because he didn't call me any rude names when fixing my error.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey will remove the ban on women in combat.

[Marriage joke here]

A ban on everyone in combat would be even better.

Art Pope says he opposes the abolition of NC's personal and corporate income taxes, said idea having been floated by the influential policy group he funds.

UPDATE: Some detail here. "'A gross transaction tax, without any regard to whether you're actually making any money, not a tax on net income, I think that's going to hurt the economy,' Pope said. 'It is regressive in nature, no doubt about it.'" 

A proposal on housing code compliance policy, sent to the City by the Group of Four, or G4, which is comprised of the Greensboro Housing Coalition, the Human Relations Commission, Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, and the Tenants Association of Greensboro. 

A summary, some commentary, and graphics.

Notes and releases after the jump.

UPDATE: Nancy Vaughan has asked the City Manager to look into this. City Attorney to check on legality under bad new state law. And I'm told university leaders in GSO now in the loop. /update

I hear wheels are turning on the belated effort to get GSO and its public universities involved in the NC high-speed internet initiative.

Hope we can get on board. If not, we need to figure out a way to do it ourselves.

It's been suggested that maybe only top-tier research universities are invited. If so, A&T and UNCG need to work the UNC system to get theirs, or else the gap between state schools will only widen. Also, municipalities are listed as participants, including a couple that don't have major research universities.

Utopian communities have a long and varied history in this country, so in that context the planned prepper paradise is nothing unusual. 

Not exactly how I'd plan my commune, but good luck.

Can't say the proto-glam look is really working here for Mick -- losing the hat helps -- but the band sounds good.

The Virginia Senate, concerned that NC's plan to tax granny's groceries would make the Old Dominion look good by comparision, shows the rubes in Raleigh how the game is played: 

The revised plan cleared the Senate on a party-line vote of 20-19. Missing Monday afternoon was Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, who was in Washington for President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony. The new black-majority seat would be partly carved out of Marsh’s district.

Shareholder capitalism, Alpine edition:

Of the top 100 Swiss companies, 49 give shareholders a consulting vote on the pay of executives. A few other countries, including the United States and Germany, have introduced advisory "say on pay" votes in response to the anger over inequality and corporate excess that drove the Occupy Wall Street movement. Britain is also planning to implement rules in late 2013 that will give shareholders a binding vote on pay and "exit payments" at least every three years. Minder's initiative goes further...

The managerial class, enabled by institutional owners, has turned public companies into their own personal piggybanks. Not good business. 

Also, a possible endgame for the carried interest scam. 

Seriously, though, what are we doing about this?

It's a legit economic development issue. Where is GSO?

That will be a GIF on Deadspin, I said to my friend of the moment yesterday when I stopped pulling for the 49ers. 

I'm sure a lot of people made the same prediction. It was as safe a bet as announcers putting "future hall-of-famer" in front of Tony Gonzalez' name or saying that what just happened on second down sets up a big third-down play.

We are too old for drinking games (we did drink a bottle of wine, just not as a game) but taking a shot for every time you hear that stuff would pickle your liver.

I already hate the OMG the Harbaugh Brothers are brothers! story line, and I've long been very tired of everything about Ray Lewis that doesn't happen during the actual playing of football.

Wake me up for the game.

Wake Forest, along with Duke University, N.C. State University and UNC Chapel Hill, are establishing the N.C. Next Generation Network (NC NGN) as part of the GiG.U initiative involving 37 universities nationwide. The initiative has drawn more than $200 million in private investment funding.

The goal is enticing an Internet service provider (ISP) to offer ultra high-speed wireless service up to 100 times faster than typically available, with a potential cost of $70 to $100 a month. Providers would design, build, operate and own the network.

The initiative is patterned after the Google ultra high-speed project in Kansas City, Mo.

Thanks to Jon Lowder for the link.

Neither the City of GSO or the two large state universities here seem to be associated with the effort. How do we find out if we want to be included, and if so, get included?

Previously.

I wonder if yelling "socialism!" all the time (especially when referring to stuff a lot of Americans hold in the same regard as mom and apple pie) has made America safer for discussions of actual socialism.  

Not sure it's really written for the masses, but, still, like the actual liberal media that sprang up online to mock the idea that the establishmentarian media is liberal, it's happening.

As I said a couple of times in this thread, the idea of jacking up sales taxes on groceries and other essentials in NC so that corporations and Art Pope and I can get out of paying state income taxes seems like political suicide.

More evidence here; old people vote. 

That's why I'm guessing the plan is not really a plan, but a bargaining chip.

One major increase would be the sales tax on groceries. It currently sits at 2 percent but would increase to 8 percent.

Shifting the tax burden away from corporations and North Carolinians with high incomes in the most regressive way imaginable would be awesome in and of itself, but just think of the other benefits:

• Quadrupling the sales tax on groceries could sharply lower North Carolina's obesity rate. 
• NC would have what appears to be the highest grocery tax in the nation. We're Number One!
• Working people will take pride in knowing they pay as much to state coffers as big wheels like Art Pope. You want job creation? Try telling people that in North Carolina, we all live like millionaires.

More here.

Your weekly report from the City Manager is right here.

Only one place got the Google fiber project, and it wasn't us. 

But maybe GSO and NC at large should have made bandwidth investmetns more of an economic development priority.

We used to at least pretend that we were interested.

If you refuse to shop at Whole Foods but want to support the good work of our local Church World Service outpost, you can give here.

Sometimes it's easy to shop your conscience. I wouldn't want Papa John's pizza no matter what the boss's stance on healthcare.

Sometimes things are a little more complicated. I was in a hurry earlier this week and ended up grabbing a bite at the Friendly Center Chick-fil-A. Saw my friend, was happy to support him and the place that has done right by him. I have problems with Target, and also find myself in the Lawndale store on a semi-regular basis. And so on.

Whole Foods does some good things, even if Mackey is a tool. I find the stores a little precious. The one in GSO is less convenient to my home than Fresh Market -- a local company -- or Earth Fare, also based in NC. So I don't shop much at Whole Foods, unless I do.

Word is that the proceeds from yesterday's promotion brought in enough dough for CWS to provide some household essentials for 50 families. FWIW, I purchased some gift cards and donated those to CWS for the use of their clients. I also got a small container of fruit salad for myself. It was quite good.

5 cents of every dollar spent at the GSO Whole Foods on Wednesday will go to the local operations of Church World Service. That applies to gift cards, too.

CWS does a lot of good work in this town.

So go spend some money at Whole Foods tomorrow.

N&R site still working!

A look at the studio making Ender's Game.

I guessed when I read the paper version this AM that NYT would have corrected Ender Wiggin's name by the time I got online (they wrote "Wiggin Ender," snortnerdlaugh), but I guessed wrong.

I got something that'll sure nuff set your stuff on fire.

Sorry, it just came up on the shuffle.

Wikipedia tells me Stevie Wonder wrote that song. How did I not know that?

Elijah and I have been having a Stevie thing this winter break. 

Old people dancing in kitchen. Younger people horrified.

Jeff Gauger on the great N&R blackout of '13:

Our difficulties stemmed from errors in the database that girds the contentmanagement (sic) system with which we send stories, photos and videos to news-record.com.

Representatives of the vendor that sold us the content system have spoken of “infrastructure problems” and “corruption.” They also said they were so stumped that they called in assistance from one of their vendors...

...You deserve better from us.

Matty Sheets: "[B]uskers should not be required to have a permit. We should be encouraging street art. No permit, no fee."

Emphasis his, but I endorse it.

How does it know to start raining hard as soon as we walk out to grab a slice for lunch?

Gauger on Hartzman.

Thanks to Michele for pointing to the N&R's relief page.

Never thought I'd be glad to see the GPV again.