Category Archives: Winston-Salem

Foxx in the Glass House

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Ed Cone has a nice little post about my US Rep., Virginia Foxx, and points out that those who live in glass houses should be very careful of the rocks they throw.  Below is the video of Rep. Foxx deriding some of the bills she sees as a waste of Congress’ time and here’s the link to some of the resolutions that Rep. Foxx has sponsored, including a resolution to recognize the Christmas tree industry and my favorite, H.CON.RES.205: Recognizing the spirit of Jacob Mock Doub and his contribution to
encouraging youth to be physically active and fit and expressing the
sense of Congress that "National Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day" should
be established in Jacob Mock Doub’s honor.

In all fairness I should point out that I’m not a fan of Rep. Foxx and have made that clear.  I also think that she’s sponsored some good bills (Example: H.R.1499 :
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow members of the
Armed
Forces serving in a combat zone to make contributions to their
individual retirement plans even if the compensation on which such
contribution is based is excluded from gross income.)  That said, I also think Ed’s right that she’s being a little hypocritical in this case.

BTW, Rep. Foxx and another junior NC Rep., Patrick McHenry, are part of a Republican effort to get the Democrats to air the earmarks on the pending Homeland Security bill now, before it goes to conference with the Senate, and not after it goes to conference.  Basically they’re calling the Democrats out on campaign promises to make the legislative process more transparent.  Of course when their party was in power they were calling for no such thing, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.

Into the Belly of the Beast

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I had a cup of coffee this morning with Kim Underwood at Chelsee’s.  Kim is the Winston-Salem Journal’s online guy and we had a great conversation.  After coffee we walked over the the Journal’s building he gave me a tour of the newsroom and introduced me to a few folks.  Someone asked me if I was going to write about the layoffs last week at the News & Record and when I said I wasn’t sure she said something to the effect of "you should, especially since you haven’t been shy about writing about us." 

Good point, but my reply to her was that I didn’t feel as comfortable writing about internal goings-on as "public facing" events.  For instance I have no problem critiquing the newspaper’s web re-design because I’m the audience and my opinion matters as much as anyone elses.  On the other hand, I don’t work at the newspaper, don’t know the financial situation, don’t know the personnel situation and so I don’t feel qualified in evaluating the specifics of the layoffs. (For what its worth, I took a similar tack last November when the Journal had their own layoffs.)  On the other-other hand, if some of the stories coming out of the layoff action are true then I can say that in those specific instances the individuals who were laid off got a pretty rough deal.  Here are two specific cases that I know of:

  1. One N&R library staffer was laid off and he is getting ready to enter cancer treatments and is apparently going to need a bone-marrow transplant in the future.  I’d originally heard this as a rumor, but now Ed Cone has posted an appeal to help Marcus Green pay for the COBRA expenses for the procedure so I guess it’s true.
  2. One reporter was hired, started last Monday and was laid off at the end of last week. Four days on the job!  How the management at the N&R let that happen is beyond me. At best it’s poor management and at worst it’s callousness of the grossest kind.

As for the rest of the layoffs I don’t really have much to say.  It’s obviously a business call that the folks at Landmark felt they had to make, but it doesn’t make the situation any easier for the folks now looking for employment. 

In general terms one thing I’d like to see, just once, is a case where a senior exec takes a personal hit in order to save the folks working for him or her.  I’m not talking about the N&R here, I’m talking about all the companies out there who are downsizing in an effort to improve their financials.  Is there one CEO out there willing to say, "You know what, the buck stops here.  Before I lay off 30 people making $50,000 each I’m going to give up my $1.5 million bonus, and together we’re going to fix this business"?  Somehow I think we’re more likely to hear, "It’s unfortunate that we have to let go 30 fine people but rest assured that as your all-star CEO I’ve created a contingency plan to have those same functions fulfilled by 60 people in Bangalore for 1/6 the cost, which is why my $1.5 million incentive is returning a tremendous ROI."

Oh, and by-the-by, the folks at the Journal were really nice to me, especially when you consider that I’ve not always been so nice to them.  Either they take a more charitable view of we bloggers than many of their brethren, or they know exactly what I am: an opinionated person with enough ego to think that people might want to read his opinions, or seen another way, a guy who’s a few slices short of a full loaf and knows how to type.  Either way, they treated me well and I had a good time checking out their digs.

Constituent Relations by State Rep. Larry Brown

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North Carolina State Rep. Larry Brown from Kernersville sent a cute little email to Anglico of Blue NC.  Blue NC is a site for NC Democrats and Rep. Brown is decidedly Republican so you it isn’t surprising that they don’t see eye to eye, but the Representative’s tone is a tad harsh.  For those of you who don’t like to follow links here’s what Anglico wrote, followed by the Rep.’s reply:

Anglico: Dear Hard-Working Representative,

Following the recent convention of the North Carolina GOP in Charlotte, a number of Republican Representatives wrote to me, complaining that the Democrats in North Carolina really aren’t the majority party in the House because their candidates actually received more votes in 2006 than Democrats received. One of my colleagues recently completed an analysis of that talking point, which I am sure you’ll find interesting. Her report is posted here for your easy review.

Rep. Brown:  I cannot tell you in a kind way what you liberals can do with all your waste that would make the hog lagoon issue look like a diaper. Enjoy while you can. Post that on your web page and come visit me anytime. Larry Brown

Ed Cone linked to this piece and in the comments of that post Anglico wrote this:

Two comments:

1. Nothing I sent to Larry Brown was disrespectful or rude in any way. I challenged the Republican talking point that they "really won" in 2006 and should be in the majority in the NC House. Mr. Brown apparently has trouble reading, or else he simply objects to anyone taking issue with his point of view.

2. Most offensive of all is Mr. Brown’s blatant and gleeful disregard for anyone in his district who has liberal political leanings. He wrote the following to me:

I cannot tell you in a kind way what you liberals can do with all your waste that would make the hog lagoon issue look like a diaper. Enjoy while you can. Post that on your web page and come visit me anytime. Larry Brown

And this to one of his own constituents:

When you liberals try to send me a bunch of trash I respond. I did not initiate the exchange, but I will not yield one inch. I did not bully anyone or use foul language. You people can wallow in all your " votes for sale " attitude all you want, but I am not a part of your conspiracy to rob the citizens of North Carolina honest service.

All your buddies have not been sentenced yet. If Republicans take money for votes I want them to go to jail too. Get a real life. I am not coddling to a bunch liberal ideas either like lifestyles or sexual orientation. If you do not like it that is too bad. I am sure I will lose a lot of sleep over it.

BlueNC sent me an email and I answered just like I did with yours. If I never hear from you again, you will never hear from me. Have a nice life.

For Mr. Brown, a serious analysis of the facts on the 2006 election apparently qualifies as a "bunch of trash."

Gives new meaning to the term public servant, don’t you think?

In a way it’s kind of refreshing to see a politician not engaging in double talk and fence sitting, but on the other hand I’d kind of hope that a person who can vote on billions of dollars in state spending would be more thoughtful.

Who’s Reading About Lewisville Elementary?

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Last Friday I posted a piece about the suspension of Lewisville Elementary science teacher Allan Snow.  That post has garnered more comments (by a lot) than any other post I’ve written so I thought it would be interesting to see where the folks who are reading the piece are coming from.  Thanks to Google analytics I can tell you the following:

  • 37% from Yahoo!
  • 18% from Google
  • 11% from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system
  • 7% from the Winston-Salem Journal
  • The rest from various sources

The one that interests me the most is the school system number.  Obviously there’s a lot of interest in this story within the schools, especially Lewisville Elementary, but unfortunately all I can offer is rumor, conjecture, emotions, etc. and most of that is contained in the comments and not anything that I’ve been able to "report."  I would LOVE to be able to offer facts, findings and the like but that won’t happen unless or until the sheriff’s office and the school superintendent’s office release their findings.

I Learn Something New Every Day, Winston-Salem Edition

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I’ve been inspire by Esbee to further educate myself about Winston-Salem.  I don’t get out as much as she does so I don’t have any pictures to share, but here’s some info I found on Answers.com:

  • Pam Grier was born here. She was the star of 70’s blaxploitation flick Foxy Brown and one of my favorite lesser known movies, Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.
  • Mark Grace was born here.  He was a first baseman for my Chicago Cubs back in the 80s and 90s and my kind of scrappy player.  The dude could hit too.
  • Answers.com also lists John Tesh as a famous resident of Winston-Salem, which is another one I’m gonna have to check.
  • They have a bunch of other famous residents listed, like Chris Paul, Josh Howard and Richard Childress but none that surprised me as much as those above.

Feel free to share any other interesting Winston factoids.

So Who Prays for Forsyth County?

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After I vented my spleen yesterday I got to thinking that maybe I’d spouted off about the Forsyth County commissioners a little to rashly.  Specifically I said:

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters
consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of
different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is
fair.  I’m left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists,
Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different
religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give
the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about
those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

I started thinking that maybe I should have checked before I wrote that, and I should probably look into it to be fair.  So I did.  I checked out the minutes for all the regular meetings held by the commissioners from 2000 to 2006 and the meeting summaries from meetings held in 2007.  That’s 175 meetings held from January 10, 2000 to April 9, 2007, each of which began with a call to order and then the attendees standing to hear the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.  Here’s who gave those 175 invocations:

  • 152 were delivered by representatives of Christian institutions (Churches, Salvation Army)
  • 16 were delivered by board members
  • 2 were delivered by a representative of a Unitarian Universalist congregation
  • 2 were delivered by a representative of Forsyth Jail Prison Ministry (both in 06)
  • 1 by a Rabbi (November of 06)
  • 1 by a representative of Carolina Dianetics (Scientologists) (1/22/07)
  • 1 (3/12/07) the notes only say "invocation" and do not indicate who delivered it

I guess I was safe in my spouting off.  Although I did see the occassional Seventh Day Adventist included I didn’t see any Mormons, Muslims or Buddhists.  I find it interesting that the Dianetics person was invited last month since that occured after the commissioners received the letter from the ACLU.  Another interesting point is that the board member who most often gave the invocation was Dave Plyler who lost his seat in a close election last year to Ted Kaplan.  Kaplan is one of the three commissioners to oppose proceeding with the court battle that the commissioners voted yesterday to pursue.

I wonder if we’ll see more diversification of invocators as we move forward thanks to the attention from the lawsuit?

Venting Ye Old Spleen

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Maybe I’m cranky because this is the most stressful time of the year for me at work.  Whatever it is I’ve had it with some of the crap that passes for news and public dialogue these days and I figured what better way to blow off a little steam than to spell it out for the three people who read this thing.  So here we go.

Item #1: Forsyth County Commissioners and the ACLU re. Sectarian Prayers to Open Public Meetings

A while back the ACLU sent a letter to a bunch of municipalities in western North Carolina threatening to sue them if they didn’t end the practice of opening public meetings with sectarian prayers said by preachers invited from various churches.  All of the municipalities were told by their lawyers that they didn’t have a leg to stand on and some came to the decision to either open their meetings with non-sectarian prayers or with moments of silence.  Of course my county commissioners aren’t listening to their lawyer and are considering going to court to fight the ACLU even though there is a ton of case-law, i.e. precedents, that have held against prayer at government meetings.  The commissioners are also getting a lot of vocal support for fighting the ACLU from local citizens with only a smattering of dissent. (For a taste check out the letters to the editor of at the Winston-Salem Journal).  What really gets my goat, though, is that the arguments put forward in support of sectarian prayer are downright obtuse.

One rationale that the sectarian prayer supporters use to argue their point is that the establishment clause should not be interpreted to allow a small minority to deny the majority their right to sectarian prayer.  This is as dumb an argument as you can make for this reason: Not allowing a government meeting to open with a sectarian prayer is not denying anyone the right to pray. If you feel like it you can go and sit in the meeting and pray to anyone or anything you like, but the government can’t invite you to come and pray as their representative.  What’s being denied is the government’s "right" to sanction any one religious group or sect.

Another argument being floated is that denying Christians the right to invoke Jesus is also barring Jews, Muslims, etc. from praying to their God.  No one, including the ACLU, has said that the prayer before a meeting can’t invoke "God", they’ve only said you can’t invoke a specific deity like Jesus or Buddha.  I’ve mentioned that to a couple of people and they think I’m lying.  Whatever.

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is fair.  I’m left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

Finally, I’m willing to bet that the commissioners know this is a losing cause.  They’ve been hemming and hawing while they try to come up with a resolution that protects them from the vocal choir of voters who want to fight the ACLU. It looks like they might have found a way out of their jam by deciding to fight if, as todays Winston-Salem Journal reports, some Christian-folk get together funding to privately finance the legal fight.  That would mean that the commissioners wouldn’t have to worry about any political fallout for spending public dollars on what everyone knows is a losing battle.  In other words they can pander to the vocal Christian majority of their constituents without risking anything.  Cowards. 

The county commissioners have been elected to represent all of their constituents, not just the majority who are Christians.  Every single one of them has an atheist, agnostic, and other non-Christian in their district but instead of looking out for this small minority’s interest they’re pandering to the majority.  They seem to think that their job is to do what the majority wants them to do, but if that’s how representative government worked then we could run our government like American Idol.  Their job, first and foremost, is to uphold the law for all of their constituents and if they fight a battle that their own legal advisors say is wrong then they all deserve to be canned in the next election.  And for anyone who doesn’t know me, I say this as a life-long Christian.

Issue #2: This Whole Imus Thing

What’s to say that hasn’t already been said?  Well, I’ll just add a couple of thoughts. 

Number one: How did Al Sharpton become the black community’s "representative"?  That’s like the white community being "represented" by some strange hybrid of Pat Robertson and Donald Trump. Sharpton’s an opportunistic gas-bag who’s cause is his own wallet, period.  If there wasn’t any money in it he wouldn’t be "representing" anyone.

Number two:  Sharpton’s antics took Imus from being a has-been listened to by a couple of million people who lost half their brain cells while dropping acid in the 60s and 70s to being the most prominent person in media. And it happened in less than a week.  Sharpton would argue that Imus is hurting because he lost a bunch of sponsors and has lost his simulcast on MSNBC (viewed by the tens of thousands!).  Of course now even my kids know who he is so when he starts streaming his schtick online, putting out podcasts, writing his autobiography, etc. he’ll make a gazillion dollars.  But Sharpton doesn’t care because he’s reaping the benefit during his own show’s sweeps weeks.

Number three: Imus and Sharpton both know that they’re going to get even richer off this thing and they literally have a symbiotic relationship now.  I imagine that in a month they’ll be toasting their success with a glass of Cristal at a restaurant in Harlem.  They’re playing us for suckers and it’s working.

Number four: Who thinks that by Monday we’ll still be engaging in the productive "discussion of race" that this episode supposedly opened up? If you raised your hand I know of a bridge in Brooklyn that Sharpton would love to sell you.

That’s it for now.  I do kind of feel better.

A Tale of Two (Allegedly) Drunk Local TV Guys

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Several weeks ago a local TV morning anchor, Tolly Carr, was arrested and charged with drunk driving and allegedly hitting and killing a pedestrian in Winston-Salem.  Carr is employed by Winston-Salem based WXII 12 and the day after the accident the station released a video statement from GM Hank Price and covered it as a straight news item.  This past weekend an entertainment reporter for WKRN in Nashville, TN was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving and WKRN’s GM, Mike Sechrist, announced it on his blog.

To me these two cases offer an interesting juxtaposition of two local news outlets that are using online media in fairly different ways.  The video statement from WXII is old school, one way information flow.  WKRN’s blog allows for comments which means that you have the new school "dialogue" happening.  If you read the comments on the WKRN post, and there are lots of them, you see a pretty strong debate break out about drunk driving in general, and even accusations that the station is giving their man special treatment by not putting his mugshot on the air.  Because that debate is happening on his site Sechrist can address those comments directly.  Even though WXII did put Carr’s mugshot on the air they (and the rest of the local media) were accused of favoritism in their handling of Carr’s story, but since it was on local blogs and not on their site and WXII was absent from the debate.

In a strange twist to the Carr story a rumor started floating around that he had commited suicide.  The managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal wrote about it on his blog from the perspective of a newsroom that was inundated with calls asking if the rumors were true.  Again, nary a word from WXII to be found.  I have the feeling that if similar rumors were to crop up in Nashville you’d hear about it directly from the GM on his blog.

WXII is putting its toe in the water by hosting three or four blogs, but some of them don’t allow comments and with the exception of the sports blog they aren’t updated very often.  More importantly the blogs are merely an extension of their on-air personalities (anchor, weather, sports) and don’t give the audience a look behind the camera at the station.  I personally think that the power of blogs and of most new media lies in the ability to draw an audience in and make its members feel like part of the "family."  While GMs, managing editors, and publishers traditionally view themselves as behind the scenes bosses they are in fact the true representative of the organization.  They represent the entire organization and are in the best position to articulate the goals, concerns and direction of the station, paper, magazine, etc.  By communicating consistently with their audience they draw them into their world, make them feel like they have a stake in the station/newspaper/magazine’s future and ultimately keep them as a viewer/reader.  And when bad things happen they have a line of communication directly with the audience, which means they can deal with the fallout without having to go through intermediaries and they can nip rumors in the bud.

The bottom line is that all media organizations are businesses, and the GM is kind of like a CEO.  That’s why a recent article in Wired titled "The See Through CEO" is applicable to them.  In the article the author cites cases where companies have benefited from their leaders communicating directly with their customers, writing openly about all things related to the company including the good, the bad and the ugly.  In each of those cases the companies have grown and prospered and the CEOs attribute that growth to their openness. 

Because media companies are already so visible, and because local TV news folks are uniquely intimate to their audience (more than a few people think of local news anchors as a part of their extended family), then it stands to reason that more openness could be particularly effective for them.  They put food on the table by selling advertising.  Advertisers are interested in audience size and demographics, and if by embracing online tools that encourage dialogue they also increase loyalty, then GMs are doing what they’re paid to do: increasing their bottom line.

In defense of Mr. Price at WXII there aren’t many media types who are doing this yet. If he needs a first hand account of a blog’s utility he need only walk down the street to talk to Ken Otterbourg at the Winston-Salem Journal or pick of the phone and call John Robinson over at the Greensboro News & Record.  While I doubt they would be able to give him quantifiable numbers showing that their blogs have contributed directly to the bottom line, I’m fairly certain they would tell him that their guts tell them they’re doing the right thing and that their efforts will pay off in the near future.  And of course that’s the other thing GMs are paid for: their gut instincts. 

Mr. Flow, I’m Throwing My Hat in the Ring

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As part of its Davis Cup coverage the Winston-Salem Journal revealed that Don Flow, the local businessman who spearheaded the effort to bring the Cup to Winston-Salem, is also pursuing the US Men’s Clay Court Championships.  From the article:

Flow is trying to
acquire the rights to the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships, which
will be held in Houston for the final time next week and is now up for
bid. If successful, Flow would bring professional tennis back to
Winston-Salem on an annual basis, with a week-long tournament that he
hopes would become a springtime celebration involving various factions
of the community.

The U.S. Men’s Clay
Court Championships is a sanctioned ATP International Series tournament
and has been operated by a private group in Houston for the past seven
years. But it is actually owned by the United States Tennis Association.

So Flow has been making his pitch to USTA executives this week while they are here for the Davis Cup.

It’s an innovative
pitch, too, not just a promise to write a check for the USTA’s $250,000
rights fee. It involves the creation of a non-profit organization to
run and oversee the tournament, with the profits going to local
charities. It involves a commitment to build a tennis complex on the
Dixie Classic Fairgrounds next to Joel Coliseum, with a stadium that
could be used year-round for other community activities ranging from
outdoor concerts in the summer to other non-sporting gatherings.

As a lifelong tennis fan/player and someone who’s spent a large part of his career in the non-profit sector I can tell you that this would be a dream gig.  Mr. Flow, if you’re looking for help I’m here to tell you that I’m throwing my hat in the ring for consideration.  You can find my contact info here.

Winston-Salem Did the Davis Cup Right

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Img_0815I spent much of this weekend over at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum watching the Davis Cup quarterfinals between the US and Spain.  While there are a lot of things I could write about (and will) the one thing I really took away from the weekend is that the local folks who organized the Davis Cup experience did a great job.  The Joel holds about 14,500 people and the place was sold out for the entire weekend.  The picture above/to the left shows the crowd for the Saturday doubles match and I can attest that there were very few empty seats on Friday or Saturday.  Even more impressive is that the crowd on Easter Sunday for two matches that didn’t count (the US clinched the win on Saturday) was probably about 80% capacity.  The atmosphere was just amazing.

Throughout the tournament the winning players were interviewed after their matches and all of the US players went out of their way to thank the crowd and talk about how great it was to play in front of such a large, vocal and enthusiastic home crowd.  We were told on several occassions by the announcer that this crowd was the largest US Davis Cup crowd since 1990, and US team captain Patrick McEnroe told the crowd that he and the players were especially pleased because the last time they played Spain in the 04 Davis Cup in Seville the Spaniards had 25,000 fans and they really wanted to see what it was like to play on their home turf with their own large crowd.  In an interview after his singles match on Sunday Bob Bryan said that the players loved it here in Winston-Salem and if they make the finals and end up playing the finals at home then they would be pushing to come back here. 

I was a little critical of the USTA with how they handled the ticket
sales, but in retrospect it looks like they were thoroughly and
pleasantly surprised by the interest in tickets for the event.
Hopefully they’ll take some lessons from this experience and apply it
in the future, number one being that they should limit the number of
tickets per person so that more people get a shot at prime seats.  Given the short turnaround time they have for these things they did a
pretty good job.  And like I said the local folks, led by Don Flow, did a bang up job in drawing the Davis Cup here and then putting on a bang-up show.  Hopefully the Cup will be back in December and then you’ll see a really rowdy crowd.