EdCone.com

Roch Smith Jr: "No, Ms. Carmany, I don't believe that our water supply is being protected. I think there is undeniable evidence that its further degradation is being sanctioned by the State. But, it is Greensboro's water supply -- what are Greensboro's elected officials going to do about it?"

A preview of the News & Record's new web home. They're asking for feedback and suggestions.

I'm not a designer, and I'm excited about the added functionality of the site, including more online content, links that don't rot, and comments for all stories. But I found the new look a bit overwhelming, I think a more minimalist layout is more useful -- that's just the way the world looks from my left brain. I hope the red banners are for beta release only. And the blogs seemed awful hard to find.

What's the big fuss about funding for stem-cell research? Marcus Kindley, chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, says the debate is "just another attempt of the media to dumb down American morals."

But...what about the scientists who want to use stem cells to advance medical knowledge? What about the vote in Congress to allow federal funding?

Never mind, says the chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party. "I have Friends who are Doctors and researchers who tell me that embryonic cells are not necessary for this type of research They tell me that Fat Cells and other cells will do the job just as well."

Marcus? Mr. Chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party? Can you get any of your Friends who are Doctors and researchers to go on record to explain how a fat cell and a stem cell serve the same purposes?

Because it really sounds like you've vaulted past the President's position on the moral uses of science into a realm of remarkable ignorance.

"Being poor is expensive": John Edwards is guest-blogging at the new TPM Cafe.

Jay Ovittore: "I have not tried to make money blogging, it just happened. I used my blog as a marketing tool to advertise my business. This is how you can make immediate money blogging."

Terry Heaton says television must embrace personal media, and he's got some ideas on how that might happen.

The hot center of Greensboro blogging just got hotter.

"If you are going to do something so damn stupid as being a writer," said the dulcet-toned Ceasar Cone II to my 22-year-old self in 1984, "at least do something they'll always pay you for." He suggested covering business, and in large part because of his wisdom, business journalism has been my core product for the last 21 years.

But now, says David Carr in the NYT, paydays are harder to come by. "Business publications...were transformed into prom queens when the Web took off and gorged on the deal flow until they became as over-inflated as the sectors they covered. After the market bust, the herd was winnowed and publications returned to earth, but something funny happened when it came to touch bottom: there was none."

I spoke on this topic (including the quote from Ceasar) to the Greensboro Rotary a couple of years ago, in a speech called "I was a bubble asset, or, the rise and fall of biz journalism." Distressing that things aren't much better today.

Councilman Phillips blogs his tour of the Piedmont Triad International (sic) Airport, complete with maps and photos.

Earlier, Councilwoman Carmany reported on her tour (comments on water-quality a must-read).

$9,171.00. Nine thousand one hundred seventy one dollars. HoggFest got the skillz to pay tha billz. David and Jinni are pushing some of the money right back into the community.

Chewie lends some perspective: "Of all the great moments, great community vibes, great music and great food, perhaps the greatest single accomplishment of Hoggfest was one that won't be tangible for many years. It's the gift that we, a diverse, flawed, sometimes petty and selfish group of adults, gave a great group of kids."

Michael's Corner: "I have been exchanging posts with a few individuals over on the N&R pages on a thread that started out as a discussion of NPR, but has turned into a debate over whether or not there is still institutional racism in Greensboro.

I guess I'm surprised that anyone would question that premise."

Via Iraq-hawk Instapundit, a thoughtful article by Jon Henke about US prisoner abuse. 

"Torture and abuse is widespread, punishment is minimal, the government denies almost everything, right up to the point that they have to admit it, and dozens of people have been murdered.

And that's just the part that we've managed to find out...

...Widespread torture doesn't simply, oops, 'just happen'. In the isolated instances in which it does happen, it is the result of a very major breakdown in the command structure...

...Torture and abuse is not just a moral or legal failure. It is a strategic failure in the War on Terror."

Read the whole thing.

Councilwoman Carmany: Greensboro incentives policy a "fiasco."

"Does the city really need to be paying incentives to attract this type of development and its lower salaries? The response our city attorney received from the Institute of Government when she consulted them about this proposal was, "Yes, it's legal, but why would you WANT to do it?" My sentiments exactly!"

She almost scooped N&R reporter Matt Williams on the incentive story, too: "He's just lucky I was too busy to get to it THIS TIME!"

HoggFest was a big success, and on many levels. It raised a bunch of jack for a family hit hard by medical expenses. It gave something back to a family that gives endlessly of themselves. It brought together friends, neighbors, and strangers for a good cause and a good time. It was an excuse to drink during the day. It fed multitudes. It showed how the web is creating new communities in Greensboro and giving existing communities new tools to organize and communicate. It rocked, and it had the blues. It gave keyboard jockeys a chance to work and play together in the physical world. It, well, hell, Professor Wharton took a bunch of pictures and Hoggard has a round-up, so you can see and read for yourself what it was all about. I was grateful to be a small part of it.

HoggFest. Starts at noon, goes a long long time. Flatiron, downtown GSO. I'm on my way to help set up, as soon as I make some late-sleeping girls breakfast.

Also in the print edition of the N&R, but as-yet unposted: Elyse Ashburn spoke with Howard Coble about his decision to vote for stem-cell research funding: "I did not see this as an abortion issue," he said. Reports Ashburn, "Coble said his decision to break ranks on stem cell research was made all the easier by the letters and calls he received from constituents supporting a vote in favor of research. The majority, he said, supported his view."

And, a dead-on tribute to Rosemary Roberts on the occasion of her retirement from the editorial board, by Lorraine Ahearn (Rosemary will continue to infuriate conservatives with her opinion column).

A nice profile of Kay Hagan in this morning's N&R, by Eric Dyer. Our powerhouse State Senator is one of Guilford County's greatest assets.

A little late in reporting this one, but...Erskine Bowles was appointed by the UN as Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, supporting Bill Clinton.

Makes his potential next job look a little less daunting. A little.

I never do those chain-letter blog posts that ripple across the web, but Jay and Patrick asked me to, and that leaves me little choice in the matter. So:

Total volume of music files on my computer: none.

The last CD I bought was: Just Lookin' for a Hit -- Dwight Yoakam

Song Playing Right Now: Seven Chinese Brothers -- REM

Five Songs I Listen To A Lot Lately (In no particular order) :

1) Intro/Sweet Jane - Lou Reed (from Rock and Roll Animal)
2) Lost in Space - Aimee Mann
3) Clocks - Coldplay (Elijah playing the piano in the den version)
4) Pressure Drop - The Maytals
5) Red Morning Light - Kings of Leon

Ten Favorite Albums of All Time: (In no particular order)

This one is just ridiculous. What does it even mean? I'll never like another album as much I liked Led Zeppelin II in ninth grade, but it doesn't crack my charts today. Is it one of my all time faves? Crap. This is hard.

1) Layla -  Derek & the Dominos

2) Europe '72 - Grateful Dead

3) Fear of a Black Planet - Public Enemy

4) Exile on Main Street - Rolling Stones

5) Alexander Nevsky (soundtrack)  - Sergei Prokofiev

6) Dookie - Green Day

7) Kind of Blue - Miles Davis

8) Burnin' - The Wailers

9) Greatest Hits - Al Green (lame to pick a hits package, but there ya go)

10) Abbey Road -- Beatles

Jeff effin' Jarvis: "What's offensive is that we let the offended run the world."

I've reposted the audio files of a 1987 interview with Jerry Garcia at this page.

The orignal link to the MP3 files broke when I moved my blog software from one computer to another. The interview drew a steady trickle of Google hits, and is linked from the Garcia page at Wikipedia, so I hope people find this fresh page.

Listen to Jerry here.

A plea for stem cell research from Elizabeth Edwardsen, a woman who gave her unused embryos to science...and now, years later, hopes stem cell research can help cure her MS.

The N&O hosts a blog for NASCAR driver Scott Riggs, and Whig Hill reviews it: "I hope he'll get past the well-practiced sponsor-speak and the usual stilted -- if genuine -- shout outs to crew and begin telling stories about himself on the circuit in a unique voice."

Prayer warriors vs demons, gays, and urbanites: Jeff Sharlet visits Colorado Springs and goes "inside America's most powerful megachurch." (from Harpers)

"No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted, and no church more than New Life."

Read the whole thing.

Happy 80th birthday to our friend Jack McCook Sr.

Chris Nolan: "Republican Senators aren't in open revolt against the leadership. Not yet. But failing to lead -- and make no mistake, that's what Frist has done here -- is a solid step in that direction. The White House should be very worried. And Democrats should keep it up."

I came across a small vendor called 37 Signals while reporting this article on blogging within corporations. Now Scott Rosenberg says of their new product, Backpack, "I've already taken it past the 'I'm playing with this to see if it's any good' stage into the 'I'm using this quite a bit and considering whether to move some part of my life into it' stage."

And in an interview with Jimbo Wales that I just did for my day job, the wiki-master reiterated one of the core messages of that ZD article: individuals are bringing simple tools like blogs and wikis into large enterprises on their own, leaving managers to figure out how to catch up with the way people work.

Don't forget: HoggFest is this Sunday, at and around the Flatiron in downtown Greensboro.

Band sked.

Darkmoon: "Open your eyes, fair city of Greensboro. Embrace open-source...Instead of throwing money at problems and hoping that they go away, why not actually solve the problem itself with the help of the masses of nerds and geeks."

Why not? Well, earlier in the post you say, "No one in this city gives one damn about efficiency when it comes to money being used for Information Technology."

I'm guessing that's an overstatement, but I don't doubt that we spend more on IT than we have to, or at least more than we have to for what we are trying to do. Sue has some numbers that show us sending a lot of money to Redmond.

Thigpen thanks Howard Coble for voting to fund stem-cell research. Coble was the only NC Republican to vote for the bill. Go Howard.

The strategic retreat under scientific scrutiny of leading "intelligent design" theorists Behe and Dembski, described by H. Allen Orr in The New Yorker. 

But it's striking that Dembski's views on the history of life contradict Behe's...In the end, it's hard to view intelligent design as a coherent movement in any but a political sense.

It's also hard to view it as a real research program...

...Biologists aren't alarmed by intelligent design's arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they're alarmed because intelligent design is junk science... As a succession of intelligent-design proponents appeared before the Kansas State Board of Education earlier this month, it was possible to wonder whether the movement's scientific coherence was beside the point. Intelligent design has come this far by faith.

Rebecca MacKinnon on Kristof's China vs the Internet column: "In the very long run, yes. In the short run, the situation is much more complicated."

SI's Rick Reilly says NASCAR team-owner Richard Childress' vineyard is located "north of Charlotte."

It's in Lexington, dude, which is part of the Triad region, not Greater Mecklenburg. You are technically correct, all of us up here are north of Charlotte, and I guess we can forgive you, that's just how things look from your base east of San Francisco.

Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom will lead a session on vid-blogging the news at Converge.

Intro to conference.

Jay Rosen has an important post about the role of the media. Set aside a little time and read the whole thing.

It includes tough words from John Cole to some of his fellow war-supporters: "I am really beginning to think many of you guys out there don't want an independent media -- you want a damned public relations firm."

Councilwoman Carmany blogs about the City budget. She really is good at this electronic democracy stuff, isn't she?

Ron Bailey scorches the Kansas anti-scientists: "Biologists retort by asking, 'So it's OK then for high schools to teach astrology, phrenology, mesmerism, tarot card reading, crystal healing, astral projection and water witching, too?" (via Instapundit)

Biz Journal: "The push to establish a $23 million ACC Hall of Champions on High Point Road has shifted this month from conceptualizing to action planning."

As I pointed out in February, "we're still $23 million away from making it happen." But it sounds like they're working on that, too.

Baptist State Convention of North Carolina disavows pro-Koran-flushing pastor.

I told you this Creighton Lovelace guy was not the NC Baptist of the Week.

National media and bloggers, please pay attention.

It's only May, but Guilford County GOP chairman Marcus Kindley has launched a strong contender for Dumbest Blog Post of the Year.

Kindley is displeased with the Senate compromise over the filibuster. So...he's comparing the compromise made in the Senate with Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Really. And he seems to be arguing that all compromises are bad, because, y'know, the Allies appeased the Nazis.

OK, time for Gate City to say that the local party and its chairman just don't matter in these modern times. That may have some validity in organizational terms, but really, do you think this kind of stuff is helpful to the local Republicans?

Friedman: "As a nation, we have a mounting education deficit, energy deficit, budget deficit, health care deficit and ambition deficit. The administration is in denial on this, and Congress is off on Mars. And yet, when I look around for the group that has both the power and interest in seeing America remain globally focused and competitive -- America's business leaders -- they seem to be missing in action."

Don't forget: tonight, 7 PM at the Green Bean, what promises to be a good reading.

I may have obligations surrounding the lower-school graduation of my favorite daugter, but will be there if I can.

Michael Young in Slate: "Those who accuse the Bush administration of incompetence in the Middle East because of events in Iraq may soon have to temper that with an assessment of its shrewder behavior in Lebanon."

Encouraging, although he rushes by the problem of disarming Hezbollah.

A Little Urbanity says plans for the redevelopment of the Burlington Industries site make it sound like we'll get Potemkin-on-Friendly. "Starmount seems to think that building Disneylike, fake downtowns is a good thing."

Neal Pollack in Slate makes the NBA sound interesting: "In every one of their games, something miraculous happens, even when they lose. The Suns have saved the NBA...These guys were cool."

Unfortunately for Pollack, and maybe the NBA, the Spurs can play Sun-ball, too.

Patrick Eakes on the gloomy state of Greensboro's private clubs: "I have learned that the Cardinal Golf and Country Club will be sold to a few existing members...Triad private clubs have experienced a different type of trickle down economics - the one where nothing trickles down."

Update: Patrick now says the sale is likely to occur, not a done deal. I apologize for publishing the error.

 

So...is Glenn saying he was a millionaire before the recent run-up?

First the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page report on class (im)mobility in America. Then the WSJ edit page ran a rebuttal. I asked, tongue in cheek, whether we should believe the reporters and researchers or the paid ideologue who wrote the opinion piece.

Yesterday, in a letter to the WSJ, researchers David I. Levine and Bhashkar Mazumder say opinioneer Alan Reynolds "confuses two distinct issues" and is the only person to read the data in the cheerful way he chooses. Today Reynolds rebuts.

I think the researchers are winning.

Discussion at The Front Pew about the work of retired bishop John Shelby Spong, who spoke recently in GSO.

Lenslinger on the impact of personal journalism on TV news: "Now, a new revolution is about to be televised. Tiny lenses are popping in the most unlikely of devices, powerful editing is just a laptop away and personal websites are racing towards critical mass. How long before my oversized fancy-cam looks like an early 80ís bag phone?"

As the tech gets better, so will the quality of the video. From staged events like the implosion, the amateurs will be posting good-looking stuff. The real revolution will be the profusion good-enough footage from phones and other cheap portables that happen to be on-hand when news breaks -- breadth of coverage is the key, not just more movies of the same things.

That said, I think the digital stills I took and posted about an hour after the buildng came down were of sufficient quality...I'd have taken video, but I wasn't sure that my blog software supported the format.