Category Archives: North Carolina

I Loves Me a Good Debate on Illegal Immigration

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I thought I got a lot of comments here for my post Random Stop? until I saw the debate that it provoked on the Chatham County BBS (thanks to Esbee for the tip).  The site’s administrator Gene Galin posted my piece on the BB and it provoked a whole bunch of comments, and I think it’s a good debate that provides a look into the various viewpoints on illegal immigration and how we as a society are dealing with it. 

Some of the comments pointed out that I was probably in Alamance County and not Chatham County and I think they’re right.  I’m not real familiar with that area but I do know where I was in relation to I-40 and upon further inspection it does seem I was in Alamance.  The importance of that detail in the overall debate was highlighted in a post by "belle" that references an article in the Raleigh News & Observer pointing out that Alamance County’s sheriff has been involved longer than any other sheriff in North Carolina in the federal program that provides funding for identifying illegal immigrants that have been arrested for other crimes.  Alamance has had 434 illegal immigrants deported, 64 of whom had been arrested for felonies and 302 for traffic stops.

One of the main questions in my original post was whether or not the feds meant for these funds to be used in this way.  Typically the federal government has not looked kindly on state and local agencies infringing on their territory and I was wondering if the folks at ICE would be happy with this kind of operation.

A second issue that I didn’t articulate well, but came out in the comments, is whether or not it’s a good idea to have traffic stops to identify illegal aliens.  The problem is that there are plenty of Hispanic folks in this country who are here legally and it’s not fair to them to be pulled over and have their residency status checked.  The point is that if you’re going to pull over Hispanics to check status, then you should pull over everyone since there are plenty of illegal immigrants from non-Hispanic countries. 

The police routinely set up roadblocks for a variety of reasons.  Drunk driving checkpoints on New Years Eve, checks of inspection stickers, checks of registration, etc.  No one likes them but I think we all understand them and live with them because we’re all subjected to them.  In my original post I wrote that you could very well say that the checkpoint I drove through was set up for that purpose, and maybe it was.  What seemed off to me was that there were lots of cars pulled to the side when we passed and they were all driven by Hispanics.  It also seemed strange that the sheriff barely glanced at my ID, in fact he never even got close enough to take it out of my hand, and that he didn’t appear to look at my stickers or plates.  I suspect that if I hadn’t been a middle aged white guy with a family, but rather had been a middle aged Hispanic guy with a family I would have been scrutinized much more carefully. 

Lots of issues here that are important: illegal immigration, due process, civil rights and state rights among them.  No easy answers, but then there never are for the truly important things in life.

Riding Mowers in the Piedmont

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Since moving to the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina I’ve noticed that something like 98% of homeowners use a riding lawn mower rather than a push mower.  I suspect that over 50% of apartment dwellers also own riding lawn mowers in anticipation of someday having a yard where they can use it, but in the meantime they tool around looking for things to cut.

I’ve also noticed that I get lots of strange looks when I mow the lawn. We have about a 1/2 acre yard (lots of landscaping so it’s not as bad as it sounds) and the fact that I would push a mower rather than ride one makes the folks around here nervous.  It’s bad enough that I’ve practiced every religion under the sun, but pushing when I could ride makes me look downright un-American here in "bologna and American cheese on white bread with Miracle Whip is an exotic meal"-ville.  I like pushing my mower though, because I feel I get a nice little workout in the process of doing my yard work.  I also have the luxury of having a 15 year old son who can push the mower if I’m ever not in the mood, and soon his 12 year old brother will be able to pinch hit as well.  They’ve been lobbying for a riding mower, but I tell them that I’m saving the money for their college funds.  Little do they know that the amount spent on one riding mower would probably by one text book for them.

Anyhow, I’ve become convinced that there’s something strange in the air here.  Over in Greensboro they’ve got a couple of fools riding their mowers on Wendover, which for those of you unfamiliar with Greensboro is a major thoroughfare in the city.  One moron lives two miles from his office and decided to ride his mower to save on gas.  Asked why he rides it to work he said it’s fun and he’s saving on gas, but apparently it never occurred to him that he might come into contact with a decidedly bigger vehicle and he could probably get to work faster if he simply walked.  As for the whole safety issue, ‘lo and behold today I read over at Fec’s that another dufus on a mower was hit by a car while trying to make a left hand turn off of Wendover.  If you’re looking for the exception that proves Darwin’s theory of evolution you need only look at this last case since the driver of the car is the one that had to go to the hospital; mower boy escaped without a scratch. 

Only in the Piedmont.   

Pigs Flying, Snowballs in Hell

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I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to read an article that has me vociferously agreeing with my very own Congress Critter Virginia Foxx.  Go get ’em Ms. Foxx.

I wonder if Congresswoman Foxx has read this little ‘ol blog of mine. If so and if she’s also read BlueNC and is still willing to co-sponsor the Blogger Protection Act then I have to give her a lot of credit for putting principles before what I’d expect is a little bit of disdain for the likes of me and others who snipe at her while sitting at home in our sweats, hammering out inane musings on our PCs.

Fec Indexes Wachovia’s Woes

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Fec lists LOTS of issues with Wachovia.  Wachovia was a Winston-Salem institution until it was absorbed by First Union and most of its operations were moved to Charlotte.  My mom worked there many moons ago, but in this age of mega-mergers it’s anything but a cozy hometown bank and it does not tug any hometown heart strings.

FYI, you know things are tough when an alphabet soup of fed agencies is in town checking under your robe: the SEC, FBI, DOJ and IRS are all checking into the bank.  Hopefully the bean counters will prevail and right the Wachovia ship.  I’d hate to see the building in Charlotte look like Enron’s in Houston a few years back.

Is NC Youth Soccer Lily White?

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I occasionally look in on a blog called On the Pitch which is hosted by a guy who’s a youth soccer coach and administrator here in North Carolina.  In his most recent post he linked to a discussion at NC Soccer Forum about racism in youth soccer.  The original post that sparked the conversation dealt with racial taunts being directed towards players in several challenge and classic matches throughout the state, but I thought that one of the comments concerning the "upper class, white bread" nature of youth soccer to be particularly interesting.

First, let me provide a primer for those who aren’t familiar with the youth soccer structure here in NC.  For the most part there are three levels of youth competition, recreational (rec) , challenge and classic.  You could look at rec soccer as entry level, where all players are welcomed regardless of ability and coaches are generally all volunteers.  Challenge is more competitive than rec, with tryouts and regional travel to games, but still with mostly volunteer coaches.  Classic is much more competitive, with many teams having paid coaches.  Each level of play is also generally more expensive as you move up.  These are rough generalizations and they differ from club to club and league to league, but it gives you an idea of how things work.

When we first moved to the Winston-Salem area our daughter played rec soccer with the Optimist organization for a couple of years.  Last year she decided she wanted to step up a level so she tried out and made one of the Twin City club’s U-14 girls Challenge teams. BTW, if your child wants to play soccer I highly recommend both of these organizations. I can tell you from first hand experience that the expense for Challenge was greater, although not too much, but the competition was decidedly better.  The expectations in terms of time commitment are also roughly double what they  were at the rec level. 

But here’s the thing I noticed most in the switch from rec to Challenge.  I can probably count on one hand the number of non-white kids we’ve played against at the Challenge level.  And I’m not talking a white-black difference, I’m talking white-any other race difference.  Now it’s not like there were a ton of non-white kids playing at the rec level either, but it’s definitely less diverse at the Challenge level at least here in the Piedmont area of the state.  If you asked me to guess why I’d say there are a couple of reasons:

  • Cultural – Unlike the rest of the world where soccer is a kind of every-man’s game and is actually the sport of the masses, soccer in this area and in much of the US is seen as a white, suburban sport.  Think about it, if someone were to play word association with you and said "soccer" your associations would probably be "mini-van", "oranges", "suburbs" and "mom".
  • Lack of integration of the recently immigrated residents – When we lived in the DC area we saw a lot more diversity in the leagues because quite simply there are literally generations of immigrant communities in the area and I think they’ve had more time to break down the barrier between the various communities.  Combine that with the passionate love of soccer that came with many of the immigrants and you have greater opportunity for kids from different cultures to compete against each other if not play on the same teams.  Here in NC immigration is very new and integration is almost non-existent.  Give it a few years and I think we will begin to see a change.

I don’t think that overt racism is a contributing factor to the lack of diversity on the soccer fields.  I think most clubs would gladly expand their talent pools in order to compete.  I’m also not so sure if pricing is as big a deterrent as you might think, at least at the higher competition levels.  There are lots of families that stretch dollars in order for their kids to play AAU basketball so I don’t see why they wouldn’t also do it if they and their kids felt the same way about soccer as they do about hoops.  And even if pricing is an issue you do have clubs that provide financial assistance, as Twin City does for its players.  The point is I really think it’s more of a cultural issue than a money or overt racism issue.

The question for youth soccer leaders is this: do you want to continue to be seen as the "white bread, upper class" sport?  If not, how do you change the image of the game?  How do you make everyone feel welcome? 

My feeling is this: youth sports provide a wonderful teaching and learning opportunity.  I’ve played sports all my life and I’ve always enjoyed the fact that when we the players get in between the lines we usually forget who’s what race, who comes from where, and who has how much money.  All we care about is competing and winning and so we’re held accountable to only what we do in between those lines.  We also see each other more honestly.  We see who really has character and who doesn’t, who has courage and who wilts under pressure, who is supportive in the crunch and who points the finger when things go bad.  In other words sports are a great venue for discovering what’s beneath each person’s exterior. 

I’ve made friends with people I never would have talked to without the common ground of a basketball court or soccer field and for that I’m eternally thankful.  That’s also why I think it’s better for youth soccer and those of us who participate in it if the pitch becomes a little more "rainbow-y".

Why RJ Reynolds Should Be the Biggest Arts Sponsor in the US

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Winston-Salem is the home to both RJ Reynolds and the North Carolina School of the Arts.  Until now this seemed just a coincidence to me, but now I think the folks at RJR may have seen the future decades ago and worked behind the scenes to make sure the NCSA came to Winston.  Here’s why: to get around smoking bans in liberal states like California and Minnesota bars are starting to have theater nights. It seems that in these states actors are allowed to light up during live performances, and so bars are staging plays and calling all the patrons actors.  Nifty!

Here’s a piece about the smoking ban work-around on Boing Boing, and the article they link to in The Star Tribune, the newspaper of record in those other Twin Cities in Minnesota.

I’m thinking that RJR’s marketing folks need to get hyper aggressive in promoting bar-plays AND their lobbyists need to get busy making sure this loophole doesn’t close any time soon.  To push bar-plays they should print and distribute free of charge every play that features multiple characters sucking on cancer sticks.  Better yet they should commission students at NCSA to write plays in which every character smokes and have multiple crowd scenes.

And while they’re at it why stop with bars?  They should see if this work-around applies to schools.  Those kids are always doing plays and I keep hearing how those commie-educators are constantly cutting back on arts programs so school plays offer a perfect opportunity for business/education synergy.

This’ll show those rubes at truth who’s in charge.

Times Change and So Do Places

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An item that blew my mind came across one of my news feeds.  It’s an interview with Rick Weddle, the president and CEO of Research Triangle Park, that he gave after a presentation to Detroit’s TechTown
leaders.  Here’s the part that grabbed my attention:

mm:  RTP is famous for bringing together
government, university and business leaders from across the state. How
did North Carolina’s leaders get so many competing factions on the same
page?

Weddle:   First, they were really in the tank and
they realized they had to do something differently. They realized the
existing industrial base was failing, was not sustainable and wouldn’t
be creating the kind of jobs they needed going forward…

…In North Carolina they were able to get the captains of
industry to support and call for support for these research
universities and the collaborative aspects of the park. We were
capitalized in 1959 by private fund drives. More money was raised from Forsyth County  near Winston-Salem
than in the Triangle. That is fascinating when you think about it.
Money was raised all across the state and more money was raised outside
of our region to capitalize the RTP. And that was the richest region at
the time. Now it’s the poorest region because they hung onto their
industrialism. Interestingly enough those captains of industry found it
easier to do RTP in another region while they still milked their cash
cow in their home area. (Emphasis mine)

This reminded me of a conversation I had with my Mom when we first moved here from DC.  Mom had grown up in Winston-Salem and she said that when she was growing up in the 50s and when she left town after graduating Wake Forest, Winston-Salem and Charlotte were essentially the same size and if you had asked anyone to bet on which city would go on to become the larger city most people would have bet on Winston-Salem.  Goes to show what happens when leaders don’t read the tea leaves right.

By the way, Winston-Salem’s current leaders are doing the kinds of things that Weddle recommends.  They’re working with Wake Forest to develop a world class bio-tech center and they are trying to cooperate regionally with Greensboro and High Point to build a new industry base to replace the decimated textile and furniture industries.  So while this region might have suffered over the last 20-30 years there are good signs that the future will be brighter.

Are Novant and WFU Baptist Medical Center Non-Profits in Name Only?

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I had an interesting email exchange with a reporter from the Winston-Salem Journal about the hospitals that Novant and WFU Baptist Medical Center are proposing to build in Clemmons (Novant’s) or Advance (WFUBMC).  When I wrote that I’d really like to see Baptist build a new hospital on the site in Mocksville where it currently has an old hospital that by all accounts is old and in need of mothballs, she replied that Baptist can’t afford to build there because it is hemorrhaging money and market share.  I’m sure she’s right about that and I understand the business implications in both companies’ building proposals, but I think one issue that needs to be discussed is the fact that both companies are non-profits.  As non-profits shouldn’t the companies’ goals and agendas involve more than market share and profit?

In thinking about this I came to the realization that although I’ve worked in the non-profit industry for a long time I really don’t know what non-profits are supposed to be.  I decided to do a little research and when I Googled "history of nonprofits in america" the first listing was a 1998 USIS article titled Nonprofit Organizations: America’s Invisible Sector written by Dr. Lester M. Salamon, director of the Center for Civil
Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins University.  He provides a basic definition of non-profits:

As a first step in this process, it is necessary to clarify
exactly what the nonprofit sector is. In the United States, 26
different types of organizations are identified as worthy of tax
exemption, ranging from business associations through charitable
organizations and social clubs. Behind these 26 categories,
however, lie five critical features that all these entities
share. To be considered part of the nonprofit sector, therefore,
an entity must be:

    organizational, i.e., an
    institution with some
    meaningful structure and permanence;

    nongovernmental, i.e. not part
    of the apparatus of
    government;

    non-profit-distributing, i.e.,
    not permitted to
    distribute profits to its owners or directors, but rather
    required to plow them back into the objectives of the
    organization;

    self-governing, i.e., not
    controlled by some entity
    outside the organization; and

    supportive of some public
    purpose    .

While all organizations that meet these five criteria are
formally part of the nonprofit sector in the United States, an
important distinction exists between two broad categories of
these organizations. The first are primarily
member-serving organizations. While serving some public
purpose, these organizations meet the interests, needs and
desires of the members of the organization. Included here are
social clubs, business associations, labor unions, mutual benefit
organizations of various sorts and political parties.

The second group of nonprofit organizations are primarily
public-serving organizations.  These organizations exist
exclusively to serve the needs of a broader public. Included here
are a variety of funding intermediaries such as charitable,
grant-making foundations; religious congregations; and a wide
range of educational, scientific, charitable and related service
organizations providing everything from nursing home care to
environmental advocacy.

This distinction between member-serving and public-serving
organizations is far from perfect. Nevertheless, it is
sufficiently important to find formal reflection in American law.
Thus, public-serving organizations fall into a special legal
category — Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code — that makes
them eligible not only for exemption from federal income taxation
and most state and local taxation, but also for tax-deductible
gifts from individuals and corporations, that is, gifts that
the individuals and corporations can deduct from their own income
in computing their tax liabilities. It is these organizations
that most Americans have in mind when they think about the
"nonprofit sector" and it is these that we will focus on here.

If we accept this definition, and I think it’s pretty good, then we accept that both Baptist and Novant are public serving organizations.  And since a requirement of non-profits is to plow their profits back into meeting their objectives then a natural question would be "Are Novant and WFU plowing their profits back into their mission?"

Originally I was going to detail a bunch of numbers from both organizations’ 990 filings.  These are the forms that non-profits file with the IRS (kind of like an individual’s 1090) and they highlight the non-profit’s financial performance for the year.  But instead of getting into the details I’m going to provide you with links to the filings (see the bottom of this post) and simply say that without question both organizations are highly profitable and both could probably stand to spend more money on the community no matter what they say about how much they write off in serving the indigent and poor.  Believe me, they show a healthy profit even after accounting for those expenses.

So given that Novant and WFUBMC are already profitable should they look only at market share and profitability when building these facilities?  Baptist wants to build in Advance because they say they will be serving Davie county and the majority of Davie lives in that area.  Maybe, but it’s also true that the majority of high income Davie residents live in Advance and it’s no secret that they’d like to poach some of the high income Clemmons residents from Novant as well.  Novant claims that they already serve something like 60% of the residents in the area proposed to be served by either hospital so it makes more sense to give them their shot in Clemmons, but if Baptist gets to build their hospital those numbers could change.

The reality is that Novant and WFUBMC are businesses that happen to be designated non-profits, or in other words they are non-profits in name only.  If they were non-profits in the sense that I think an average person with common sense would think of a non-profit then they wouldn’t dicker about the Downtown Health Plaza and they would spend more money on operations that serve poorer and more rural communities.  They would also acknowledge that they already make plenty of money off of their existing operations in Winston-Salem and actually look at how they can serve communities in need and not just at market share. 

I’d like to see the state offer Baptist and Novant the following deal:  you can build your hospitals if you agree to set them up as for-profit subsidiaries that will allow the counties to collect property tax OR you can build your hospitals if you expand/improve your facilities and services in at least two rural operations.  With the first proposal the state would be saying to the organizations that we’re going to call a spade a spade, and with the second they’d be pushing the organizations closer to fulfilling their intended roles as non-profits.  Of course I’ll be ice skating in hell before either happens.

Links:

North Carolina Baptist Hospital 2004 990
WFU Health Sciences 2004 990
WFU BMC 2004 990
Novant’s 2004 990

Blurkey Day 2007

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As we do almost every year Celeste, the kids and I spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws just outside Charleston, SC in Isle of Palms.  Various in-laws own condos down there so they stay in theirs and those of us who don’t own our own condos rent some others.  Every year we end up with 40-50 people there.

On Turkey Day we reserve the conference room on the first floor of one of the condo buildings.  It has a kitchen attached to it and at about 8:30 in the morning Celeste’s Uncle Johnny fires up the stove and starts fixing pancakes and bacon.  That’s also the time that two exterminated turkeys are shoved in the oven to begin cooking so that we can kick off the big meal at mid-afternoon.  After the pancakes are wolfed down all of us retire to our respective condos to fix the side dish we’ve been assigned.  The past couple of years Celeste and I have been assigned the sweet potatoes while her brother and sister-in-law have been tasked with the macaroni and cheese using their Grandmother’s heart-clogging recipe that includes prodigious amounts of both American and Velveeta cheeses.  Of course others bring the stuffing, some others bring a corn casserole and there’s the ever-present can-shaped cranberry sauce.

I mention all of this only because I want to fit in with my fellow Piedmont Triad bloggers who shared their Turkey Day culinary escapades. Esbee, recovering from a bout of pneumonia, convinced her husband to grill out on Thanksgiving.  Ed Cone writes about his contribution of wine to the fried turkey dinner his family enjoyed.  He’s questioned about his choice of wines in the comments and rightly ponders if there’s really a proper wine to pair with fried turkey.  Personally, I wonder how so many people actually know what a Meursault-Genevrières and a Margaux actually are.  Of course despite taking a couple of wine tasting classes at Salem College I still base my wine purchase decisions on whether I think the labels are cool and by utilizing my fine grasp of economic theory which states that any wine under $5 a bottle is probably gross and any over $10 is likely overpriced.  And then there’s swine-o-phile Fec who’s ideal woman would have a head made of ham.  As a group I think we had a splendid Blurkey Day.

Our kids were so busy traipsing around the beach and playing the Wii in one of Celeste’s cousin’s condo that I don’t think they gained a pound, but we adults certainly packed a few unneeded pounds on our waistlines.  Time for the guilt-trip to the Y.

Got $250? Have I Got the Beach Bag for You!

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Solarbeachbag
A company called Reware is selling a beach bag called the "Juice Tote – Solar Beach Bag" (see picture to the left).  The idea is that you can re-charge your phone, camera, PDA, etc. while baking on the beach, or at the pool.  While I was reading about the bag on their site I came across this little bit of verbiage:

Reware is a firm believer that globalization can have very positive
effects for people around the world by connecting people through
international trade, creating jobs and lifting economies. It can also
have crushing effects on local economies and the environment. So the
goal around here is to try and figure out how to use the benefits of
globalization positively, while remembering that local production
matters.

Oh yeah, and we want to make high quality products that bring attention
to environmentalism while reducing environmental impact.

It’s all a complex and fascinating challenge. The reality is that most
Virgin fabrics are coming out of China, which is good news when doing
business in Japan, Korea, or into the Chinese market. When that
happens, our Carbon Footprint is astoundingly reduced.

At the same time, we love the recycled fabrics we use because many of
them are produced in the US. We then manufacture those bags in Texas or
North Carolina, we reduce our carbon footprint further and help local
economies.

When it comes to the environment, we all need to think about the most
efficient way to make and distribute our goods. That’s why we like the
concept of localization, the idea that when you can, you buy materials
and use factories as close to your customers as possible, when
possible.

We don’t have it all figured out yet (no one really does), but these
issues matter, and we’re having a good time doing our part to do things
outside the box.

Have you seen a localized production process that works, or have
thoughts on this concept? Get in touch: info (AT) rewarestore (DOT) com

Who says the textile industry is dead in North Carolina? And who knew we’d be in bed with a bunch of tree huggers?  Seriously though, if we can get more efforts like this going there might be a future for one of the Tarheel states venerable industries.