EdCone.com

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.

Father's Day. I wrote a Father's Day column. Which you can read after the jump if you wish.

Through the magic of the interwebs: Yesterday's newspaper column, today! You can read the whole thing -- about my long marriage to a publicity-shy person -- after the jump.

"Politics should be a means to an end, not a sporting event in which you root for one team and against the other." I am confident that my newspaper column will completely change the dynamics of American political discourse.

Above, Jordan Whiteley outside the old Proximity Print Works plant, photographed  by Lisa Scheer. The picture appears in an exhibition now hanging at the Greensboro Historical Museum, and also runs with my newspaper column this morning, which you can read after the jump.

My newspaper column is round-up of recent stories, including the tax-day Tea Parties and Time-Warner's tiered-pricing plan.

My newspaper column is about Time Warner Cable's tiered pricing plan -- what it means for Greensboro, and what we might do about it.

My newspaper column offers reasons to be cheerful. Read the whole thing after the jump, and feel free to add your own.

"It's not that the principles of limited government and a market economy have lost their value; both remain foundational to American life. But the time for blind worship of the machinery of the market has passed, along with blanket condemnation of the public sphere."

My newspaper column is about bank nationalization and the end of a political era. You can read it after the jump.

Two ways of addressing the recession, neither of them good: panic and denial.

Things did not have to happen the way they happened. Events that seem in retrospect to have been inevitable were contingent as they unfolded. Choices were made. We remember the Greensboro Sit-ins for what transpired here, but how things happened is important, too.

My newspaper column is about the four young men who started the Greensboro Sit-ins 49 years ago today, and the way they did what they did.

You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Photo by Lisa Scheer; click to enlarge.

"My hope, modest as it sounds, is that Barack Obama will bring us a reality-based administration."

My newspaper column is about an important way the next few years might differ from the Bush era. Read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column updates the previous article on Ms. Pinnix and Trooper Alexander from the Union Cemetery, courtesy of the crowdsourced reporting done by readers.

"The history of a place is chiseled into the plinths and weathered monuments of its boneyards, and this place that we live in is no exception."

My newspaper column picks up on a couple of recent blog posts about graves in Greensboro's old Union Cemetery, and the questions they leave unanswered. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

UPDATE: Additional info on both Harrett Pinnix and Thomas Reese Alexander added at bottom of the column, courtesy of alert readers.

What do I expect from the Obama administration? I expect to be frustrated and disappointed by the failings of human beings and human systems, and to see slow progress at best against the very large problems we face as a country. That's life in the real world, even a real world that seems a little brighter now than it did before Tuesday night.

I end my columnular look back at the election with a look ahead. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Funny how "change," once derided as an empty slogan of the Obama campaign, has become a mantra for both candidates. "The last eight years haven't worked very well, have they?" says John McCain in a video at his Web site, promising "a new direction." No matter who wins, I think most Americans are ready for that.

My column this week is a collection of semi-random thoughts on the long campaign. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is a one-act play about assigning blame for the financial meltdown. It's billed as A Tragedy Played as Farce. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Thrift, that once-great American value, passed away at roughly the same moment as my father, one of its most fervent practitioners, who died in 1987. Just a coincidence, of course, but one that struck me as the world copes with a financial crisis that stems in some large part from our thriftless culture.

My newspaper column is about the death of thrift. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about socialism in these United States. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

This is good news: "North Carolina A&T State University has been awarded an Engineering Research Center (ERC) from the National Science Foundation...The ERC is considered the 'crown jewel' among NSF awards.  In the past 25 years, only about 30 ERCs have been funded by NSF."

Commercial possibilities: "More than eight companies in the nanobio market will be associated with the ERC to provide input for the direction of research as well as a conduit to transfer the technology to the real world."

More: "NC A&T will also start a new department of bioengineering in conjunction with this ERC. The department will offer BS, Masters and PhD degrees in bioengineering."

Jagannathan Sankar will lead the ERC, which will focus on next-generation implantable medical devices and sensors.

The nano aspect reminds me of a column I wrote eight years ago. It has  little to do with the good news from A&T, but you can read it anyway after the jump.

We are sinners, each of us, but very few of us run for president while actively engaged in the cover-up of a still-smoldering adulterous affair, during which we might well have fathered an out-of-wedlock child and used campaign funds as hush money. Extra points for cheating on a widely popular, cancer-stricken wife, who got dragged into the mire when it turned out she knew about the affair during the campaign.

My newspaper column is harder on John Edwards than it is on the press. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column rounds up a few stories, including the unfair exclusion of Mike Munger from the gubernatorial debates and the Hagan campaign's online lag. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Five years ago, a call for more liberty on Independence Day: "Liberty is going to have to mean letting other people do things you don't approve of. If you want to smoke dope and your neighbor wants to smoke cigarettes and the guy across the street wants to give a gun to his boyfriend as an engagement present before their lavish church wedding,  nobody can be telling the others what they can and can't do. Respect everyone's privacy and maybe you'll end up treating everyone with respect."

Read the whole thing after the jump.

I watch television with my laptop open, check e-mail and surf the Web during phone calls. I like to think of this behavior as "multitasking" or Continuous Partial Attention, because that makes it sound like I'm doing it on purpose, but I know that's not really the case.

My newspaper column starts with Nick Carr's essay, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?," and kind of meanders from there.

You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Many religions reserve a special enmity for nonbelievers. In recent years, nonbelievers have returned the favor with a series of belief-skewering books. Now comes Justin Catanoso, ambling onto the scene with an open heart and a reporter's notebook, to offer a different take on faith and skepticism.

My newspaper column is about Justin's book, My Cousin the Saint.

In 2004, blogger Oliver Willis launched a viral marketing campaign called "Brand Democrat." The idea was to frame the values of the Democratic Party with a series of online banners -- simple messages in black text on a white background above a red, white and blue silhouette of a donkey...It turns out that Willis was ahead of the game. Flash forward to 2008, and the brand value of political parties is a hot topic.

My newspaper column is about the market value of the GOP and Democratic brands. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

There are reasons to view Greensboro's bicentennial as an underwhelming occasion, starting with the fact that it commemorates an underwhelming occasion...we're marking the 200th birthday of a bureaucratic event: the incorporation of a town. Hurray, the papers have been filed! Our bicentennial mascot should be a notary.

My newspaper column is about the GSO bicentennial. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

I hear a lot of people discussing the Democratic contenders in terms of policy and possibility and excitement. It's as if North Carolinians are registering to vote in record numbers because they see this as a choice between two strong candidates at a critical moment in history. But that kind of attitude is only going to make us look like rubes to the folks who do the network news...

My newspaper column urges North Carolinians to focus on the important things in the upcoming primary -- you know, lapel pins.

Read the whole column after the jump.

Update: Elizabeth Edwards has some related thoughts in this morning's Times, but she misses the point completely by not devoting several paragraphs to her husband's tonsorial regime.

Ralph Davison wants people to start talking about prostate cancer. He understands that packaging the words "prostate" and "cancer" in one soundbite creates a phrase of uncommonly low conversational appeal, a compact cluster of social taboos, but his own recent battle with the disease convinced him to go public.

"Men don’t talk about prostate cancer," he says. "But being macho is not worth dying for."

That's the lede of this week's column. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about the need to update and upgrade regulation of financial markets. I filed it before Paulson's proposals were released, but the details of his plan -- and the reactions to the plan -- seem to underscore the points I'm trying to make.

The pushback against sensible regulation will be intense because the dollars involved are so large and because a lot of people have been trained over the years to cry "socialism!" at any public action that doesn't directly line their own pockets. Pay no attention to these men behind the curtain. The financial system is broken.

Read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about protest petitions for Greensboro.

One interesting quote, from City Councilman and developer Robbie Perkins, who leans in favor of restoring the petition right:

Greensboro developers need to reverse the perception that they get everything they want. Otherwise, the pendulum will swing and development in the city will be severely curtailed.

People are being heard.

Read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about the fight for shareholder rights in an age of super-compensated managers, compliant boards, and institutional ownership. You can read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about building community support for the Civil Rights museum.

Nonviolent social change, as preached by Martin Luther King Jr. and practiced here in Greensboro, is one of humanity's highest achievements. What those guys (along with the late David Richmond) did, and the way they did it, deserves to be celebrated in the place where it all happened. And doing it with a first-class museum would be a good thing for this city in all kinds of ways...

...The Greensboro Four overcame a lot worse than a man with the political equivalent of Tourette Syndrome; surely modern Greensboro can rise above it. The guy's got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The scorpion's nature is to sting the frog. We get it, it's not going to change, and I'm not interested in letting Alston's bad habits kill his good idea.

You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Two related memes I hear too often: "If only we get us some internets our campaign will be victorious," and "That campaign had internets and lost and so obviously internets don't work."

It's not that simple.

I got a lot of responses to my last column about using the web in local politics. The downtown Rotary asked if I'd come speak about what I somewhat grandly called "the voice of the people," and I think I heard from every neighborhood group opposing rezoning around here. This stuff may be of fairly narrow interest, but it's very interesting to those people who do follow it.

Anyway, it seemed like a useful idea to publish a few observations on the subject of web campaigning, so I wrote a newspaper column about it, which you can read below the jump.

Rosa Parks stood up by sitting down in 1955. Civil Rights legislation passed Congress in 1964.

Greensboro's effort to build a civil rights museum has taken longer than that epic journey, and the project remains open-ended.

Ryan Shell looks at some of the numbers.

Nancy McLaughlin writes in the N&R: "When construction begins again, [Skip] Alston said, the museum could take 10 months to complete."

I said in a column written more than seven years ago that "the lack of progress the museum has made [makes it] hard to justify the allocation of public money for the effort." (You can read the whole column after the jump.)

My newspaper column is about the broad-based, tech-adept coalition that won a big conservation battle to allow the expansion of the Haw River State Park, and the possible emergence of a new force in local politics. "The idea that excites me is not opposition to growth, but smart growth, green growth, a sense that Greensboro and Guilford can and should be the most livable metropolitan areas in the state."

A key quote: "The Internet has changed the way the neighborhoods can organize themselves and present their case," says City Councilman Robbie Perkins, himself a prominent developer. "Politicians are listening to these groups. They are listening to the blogs."

Read the whole thing after the jump.

"Change is a truism, a cliché of campaign-speak -- and with no incumbent in the race, a given -- but for a moment at least it felt like something more profound was at work. Obama seemed to tap into a hunger for change that goes beyond the need to fix the many messes that will be left to his successor by George W. Bush."

My newspaper column is about what happened in New Hampshire and what I wish would happen in American politics. Read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about the possible alliance of evangelicals and political liberals.

Millions of evangelicals are looking beyond issues that have fueled the so-called Religious Right for decades, such as abortion and homosexuality, and focusing on matters more often associated with liberal interests. Well-known pastors, including Rick "The Purpose-Driven Life" Warren and Bill Hybels of the influential Willow Creek megachurch in suburban Chicago, are stressing social justice and the environment. In March, the author and minister Jim Wallis challenged conservative kingpin James Dobson to debate evangelical priorities.

The Beatitudes are in style. "Younger evangelicals are more tuned in to the communal aspects of their faith," says Ken Massey, pastor of Greensboro's venerable First Baptist Church. "They are saying that being my brother's keeper is not ancillary to my faith, it's at the heart of it."

Read the whole thing after the jump.

Interesting to see that the phrase "Greensboro Disease" has entered the lexicon to the extent that people feel no need to cite its origin.

This column seems to have pushed it into the mainstream, with usages quickly following by Keith Holliday and John Robinson; this one argued for its intended meaning; and the one after the jump seems to be the one in which I coined it, soon after which (9/1/2002), according to Nexis, it was used by Jim Melvin in an N&R article by Tom Steadman.

My newspaper column is about Giuliani's visit to A&T: "Not everyone will like what they find in a Republican big tent, but on Monday at A&T both the candidate and the ambassador seemed sincere about building it."

Read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is a listing of things for which I'm thankful. I could have finished with something about the excellent new zoo at the Science Center -- as close as I need to come to a tiger -- but it just didn't make the cut.

Read the whole thing after the jump.

My newspaper column is about the 2008 Senate race in North Carolina.

Both Democrats are starting late on fund-raising in a race that may take $15 million to win. But Senate campaigns in North Carolina tend to draw national attention, and a candidate who looks like a contender might be able to use the Internet to tap a vast network of small donors -- something else new and historic about this campaign. The Net may also allow candidates to craft a legitimate 100-county strategy, letting them reach into corners of the state where their parties lack substantial organizations. The late start hurts online, too, with a lot of talent already tied up on other campaigns and a certain amount of time required to build a high-function network; the Democrats do have a Web-smart state chairman in Jerry Meek, who proved in 2006 his willingness to take the fight to traditional GOP strongholds.

Previously. Previously. Related.

Hagan campain site. Neal campaign site. Dole campaign site.

Current totals on Facebook:
Dole    60
Hagan 389
Neal   234

Read the whole column after the jump.

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.

David Wray, whatever else he did or did not do, deserves to reclaim a vital piece of his good name.

My newspaper column is about race and the Wray case and the larger context of local politics.

Whatever else may be alleged, uncovered and disputed in this endless saga, Wray deserves to have that part of the record made clear. Not even the man who locked him out of his office thinks he's a racist.

That doesn't mean Wray did nothing wrong...

...That's the Greensboro way: Trot out the accusations of prejudice at the drop of a hat, without waiting to find out if the underlying narrative supports them...

You can read the whole thing after the jump.

Previously, quite previously.

Relevant:  "Project Homestead did a tremendous amount of good for the city." Read this whole piece.

My newspaper column looks at the housing bubble and the environment that enabled it.

The similarities between the current meltdown and the Internet bubble that preceded it -- by a very short time in historical terms -- make yet another round of market mayhem in the not-too-distant future seem almost inevitable...

...the hucksters are still on TV. The Fed has already lowered the price of money, again, to help wash away their mistakes. The bankers and fund-managers [...] will be back soon enough with another hot product, feeling no more need for transparency than they did this time. Hard as it may be to picture just now, many of the elements seem to be in place for the next bubble.

Read the whole thing after the jump.

Related: Lorraine Ahearn in this morning's N&R on renters evicted when the company behind their subdivision went belly up. "There's nobody to call to get my security deposit back," said Salinda Lash..."I've got to find a new place, and I'm left with nothing."

If you think of yourself as the last person who might attend a conference about using the web, then ConvergeSouth is the conference for you.

My newspaper column is about ConvergeSouth, for which you can register here.

My newspaper column reviews my predictions from January, including one about GSO's mayoral race, and says "the campaign to date has been depressingly familiar."

Fresh thinking, including innovative use of the Internet, is the exception rather than the rule. And the Web matters, both as a low-cost multimedia platform and an indication that candidates are at least dimly aware that the world is changing and Greensboro needs to change with it.

So where's the Web site with video of Kern, walking through the downtown he did so much to revive and explaining why we should vote for him? Missing in action. His unimpressive online presence at MySpace.com includes an empty page for video, waiting for someone to post something. The Web efforts by big-name Council candidates Robbie Perkins and Sandra Anderson Groat, both of whom presumably have mayoral ambitions of their own for the future, are lackluster at best. Perkins is nowhere to be found on the net. Groat promises to have a site of some sort up by tomorrow.

Plus: Liddy Dole's challenger, Bledsoe and Wray, football, and my dog. Read the whole thing after the jump.

Planning for the impact of our local FedEx hub -- due to open in 2009 -- is suddenly in vogue.

Some of us tried to have this conversation before the hub was under construction. We got rolled.

Here's what I said, back in the day (several of my old columns are posted after the jump): "My goal...was to help make the debate over FedEx a question of cost versus benefit. In that effort I failed miserably. My frustration at this failure is not that FedEx wasn't stopped, but that the questions that might have determined whether it was worth building or not never got taken seriously. The media continued to treat the FAA's environmental impact statement as holy writ. Public discussion never moved much beyond name-calling and exaggeration. The political status quo remained quo." (5-5-2002)

I used to ask simple questions: "What is it going to sound like when there are dozens and dozens of planes taking off and landing in the pre-dawn hours of every day?...I don't want to know what the average daily decibel count is going to be at my house, which is how the Feds tend to report noise information. I want to know what it's going to sound like during the specific times that planes will be using the hub." (2-24-2000)

I tried trotting out facts: "In Louisville, for example, the Federal Aviation Administration grossly underestimated the number of houses that would have to be purchased when noise from a UPS facility made them uninhabitable. The FAA hasn't shown itself to be very good at predicting the geographical extent and concentration of noise problems." (5-5-2002)

I appealed to the public interest:  "A discussion of the project's pros and cons, stripped of the public-relations gloss and speculative economic projections, is what the people of Guilford County deserve. What we've gotten to date is a pat on the head and a lecture on what's best for us." (6-29-2000)

My efforts were not universally appreciated: "I found myself being ushered into paneled offices and treated to meals at nice downtown restaurants by various local power-brokers, some of them quite far up the food chain. Each of them had the same message for me, expressed of course in the politest of tones: Stop asking questions about FedEx."(5-5-2002)

All along,  I hoped for the best in terms of cost-benefit ratio and quality of life for Guilford County. A little late-in-the-game maneuvering aside, that's about all that's left to do.

I put a fair amount of work into my newpaper column. I interview people. I read books. I follow issues over time.

But I'm at peace with the fact that the one about my puking dog is going to be one of the small handful anyone remembers at the end of the year.

[T]he arrival of the Web and the tools by which we can so fluently create new ways of categorizing what we know make what philosophy has been struggling towards quite concrete and highly democratic...

I read David Weinberger's new book, Everything is Miscellaneous, and you should, too. I spoke with the good doctor recently, and one of the results is today's newspaper column, which you can read after the jump.