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Sunday, July 21, 2002 |
Heritage, Not Hate?
A battle for the soul of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Some context: the News & Record reported some time ago that a course at a nearby community college taught that slaves were happy and that many fought willingly for the Confederacy. A media whirlwind developed around the course, which was associated with a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and its teacher, Jack Perdue, who died shortly after the controversy erupted. A book by local writer Jerry Bledsoe, a former N&R columnist and author of bestselling true-crime books, argues that the offending comments were never made and that the newspaper writer had done a great injustice to the teacher, maybe even causing his death.
Bledsoe later wrote a series of bitter articles in a local alternative paper, The Rhinoceros Times. He was pretty convincing that the reporter, Ethan Feinsilver, had overplayed what was said in a lecture that Feinsilver had not even attended. But in his anger Bledsoe also wrote things that made him sound a little scary himself. He accused the N&R of "surreptitiously working hand-in-hand with special interest groups with whom [it] agree[s] to promote their goals in [its] news stories," but didn't name names.
Today's article by Tom Steadman raises some questions about the political tenor of some SCV chapters. It would be interesting to learn more about the group in Randolph County to which Jack Perdue belonged. The Greensboro chapter seems to be less virulent than some others in the area--which is fitting, since Guilford County didn't want to secede in the first place back in 1861.
9:53:19 PM 
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No More Creative Accounting on Options
The Bush administration is providing no leadership on the issue of expensing options. I wrote about some reasons why that may be.
"Vice President Dick Cheney and Army Secretary Thomas White got rich off stock options as executives at companies that are now under investigation for suspect accounting...Companies say it is difficult to assign an accurate price to stock options. You have to love their boardroom logic: The options we granted could be worth tens of millions, but we can't price them exactly, so let's just say ... zero."
An accounting change on options will hit tech companies especially hard, meaning that their ad budgets may go down even further and tech publishing may suffer even more. That could hurt at my house. But in the long run it will make for healthier companies and a healthier economy.
5:16:46 PM
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The Feast Day of Elijah
July 20 is the feast day of the Prophet Elijah in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. On July 20, 1991, without knowing that the day was thus consecrated, Lisa gave birth to a boy and we named him Elijah. A coincidence, although if he ascends to heaven in a chariot of fire it will be kind of uncanny.
Being Elijah's father is really fun these days. It's like having a friend sleep over, but even better because he has to clear the table and take out the garbage. We talk about baseball at the breakfast table--he has designated himself a Red Sox fan for reasons of his own, although I warned him about the curse-- and deconstruct the works of Tolkien and George Lucas. He is cheerful and smart and competitive, and he is almost always nice to his sister. So far, so good.
5:03:10 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Ed Cone.
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