EdCone.com

New site up and running

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 15:14:46 GMT

New site is up: Please go to http://edcone.typepad.com/wordup

www.edcone.com should send you there, too (or do so soon).

Thanks.

I've had a great run on Radio, but I wanted a hosted service, and users have complained a lot about comments and availability. So, off we go...

Troublemaker

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:51:25 GMT

Troublemaker: When a cop gets shot.

Tutu

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:42:53 GMT

Chewie went to see Desmond Tutu at Guilford. I urge you to read her report.

She opens with a quote from the Archbishop Emeritus: "It is a privilege to come to this city, the first in this country to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, embodying the theme of reconciling love. The world salutes Greensboro."

Read the whole thing.

DarkTimes: Krugman and Friedman

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:36:06 GMT

DarkTimes: Krugman ("Defending Imperial Nudity") retells The Emporer's New Clothes as a tale of WMD:

The talk-show host Bill O'Reilly yelled, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" at the little boy. Calling the boy a nut, he threatened to go to the boy's house and "surprise" him.

Fox News repeatedly played up possible finds of imperial clothing, then buried reports discrediting these stories. Months after the naked procession, a poll found that many of those getting most of their news from Fox believed that the emperor had in fact been clothed.

Imperial officials eventually admitted that they couldn't find any evidence that the suit ever existed, or that there had even been an effort to produce a suit. They insisted, however, that they had found evidence of wardrobe-manufacturing-and-distribution-related program activities.

Etc.

Kicker: "And they all lived happily ever after -- in the story. Here in reality, a large and growing number are being killed by roadside bombs."

Friedman ("From Gunpowder to the Next Big Bang") says China is moving toward a new phase in its economy: "China is focusing on how to transform its classrooms so students become more innovative." Cultural obstacles remain, but Microsoft is already finding talent there, and a flood of venture capital may follow.

N&R feels T&R

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:26:18 GMT

The N&R steps up its coverage of the Truth & Reconciliation process with this solid story by Margaret Banks. The headline, "Truth panel sees signs of healing," is an improvement, too.

A community dialogue sponsored by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission will be held on Saturday at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Alamance Church Rd. This is the thing the Mayor said he might attend.

Background links here.

Nathan, Wood, Butkovich

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 02:41:23 GMT

Marty Nathan responds to last night's apology by former neo-Nazi (and 1979 gunman) Roland Wayne Wood.

This could be interesting: "In discussion with Greensboro citizens he speaks of his relationship with undercover Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms agent Bernard Butkovich who also encouraged him to participate but then was himself absent from the gathering in Greensboro...We are gratified that he is willing to testify to the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation and hope that he does shed himself of all the secrets that have been his over the years."

Migration frustration

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 02:01:09 GMT

Anyone want to help me import 5,000 Radio posts to TypePad? The Help files send me here, but that doesn't do me much good...I'm pretty much ready to launch the new site, but I would like to bring the old one along...

The last word means "fan"

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 19:52:43 GMT

Paris: La merde frappe le ventilateur.

Lots of immigrants to France end up in the grim suburbs of Paris. Many of these people are from former French colonies in North Africa -- it's been said there are more practicing Muslims in France than practicing Catholics -- and racial and religious tensions run high. That's the backdrop for the riots that have shaken Paris for the last week.

Years ago Lisa and I had dinner with a 16th-arrondissement doyenne who chastised us for America's treatment of black people. I asked if the French didn't have similar issues with the "beurs," as French slang identifies the children of these immigrants from the Maghreb.

"That's different," she said. "They steal and they smell."

This has been a long time coming.

Thursday evening in GSO

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 19:22:33 GMT

Things to do in Greensboro tonight:

Check out the Loewenstein Legacy lectures on modern architecture and preservation, Weatherspoon Museum, 7 PM. (Free and open to public)

Catch a Speech by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Guilford College. (sold out)

Watch Meet John Doe, with Gary Cooper, The Scene on South Elm ($3)

Watch Survivor with Sydney. (invitation only)

Pros talking politics

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:21:29 GMT

Gary Pearce and Carter Wrenn are blogging about politics.

DarkTimes: Herbert and Brooks

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 13:12:16 GMT

DarkTimes: Herbert ("Secrets and Shame") ledes with a prophecy: "Ultimately the whole truth will come out and historians will have their say, and Americans will look in the mirror and be ashamed."

He's talking about this: "The latest story from the Dante-esque depths of this administration was front-page news in The Washington Post yesterday. The reporter, Dana Priest, gave us the best glimpse yet of the extent of the secret network of prisons in which the C.I.A. has been hiding and interrogating terror suspects. The network includes a facility at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe."

More: "This is the border along which democracy bleeds into tyranny."

Brooks does a MoDo impression, but the column-as-political-cartoon schtick doesn't really suit him. His conceit is that Harry Reid is a crazy conspiracy theorist, because lots of people back to the Clinton years thought Saddam had WMD, so this cooked-intelligence stuff is just wacky. "Harry Reid sits alone at his kitchen table at 4 a.m., writing important notes in crayon on the outside of envelopes," ledes Brooks, a line he repeats over and again in "The Harry da Reid Code."

Smart chicks

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 13:03:01 GMT

Lots of people are talking about Maureen Dowd's lonely-hearts piece in the Times mag, few with more attitude than Chris Nolan, who thinks Dowd misses the way we live now: "Mo doesn't do porn, wax or sex for that matter. In a world of on-line hook-ups and sex chat, hotornot.com and Friendster, she's still trying to figure out who's paying for dinner. Like all sex takes place at night after a good meal."

No doubt women still make a lot of trade-offs in this world. I'm married to one of them, a cum laude Ivy League grad and former Forbes reporter who has spent the last several years as a full-time mom. You tell her she sacrificed her principles to do that. Then, duck.

Guilford reps vote no on free speech

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 11:59:07 GMT

Coble, Miller, and Watt all voted against free speech on the Internet.

Email your congressman and tell him you want to blog without Federal regulation.

Reconciliation

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 11:42:27 GMT

26 years later, a former Klan leader apologizes to Marty Nathan for his role in the 11/3/79 Greensboro killings.

A community dialogue sponsored by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission will be held on Saturday at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Alamance Church Rd. This is the thing the Mayor said he might attend.

Previous coverage here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Downtown wireless

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 23:16:07 GMT

Wireless Internet service coming to South Elm St.

Nonblogging

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:54:44 GMT

It's not blogging if you don't blog. Bruce Davis started a site -- or had one started for him -- and even got some publicity in the newspaper. It's got to be organic and user-driven if it's going to work.

This happened with Yvonne Johnson, too.

Reading the paper

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:49:33 GMT

Thoughtcrimes reads the News & Record.

Blue NC

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:56:52 GMT

Blue NC is a progressive blog based in the Triangle. They're looking for good bloggers from elsewhere in this great state, too.

Interesting stuff about Liddy Dole and Sue Myrick.

Fried pickles

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:42:47 GMT

Luna and I walked down to Fincastle's, where a friend prevailed upon me to try the fried pickles. They are remarkably good.

Poached eggs

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:39:17 GMT

This morning, the cook served poached eggs. The children were most appreciative. Is there a finer method of egg preparation? I think not.

Forged documents

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:35:53 GMT

Josh Marshall: The Italian Connection, Part II

In which we follow the (alleged) path of the forged documents from an Italian intelligence officer to the press...

DarkTimes: Dowd and Friedman

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:21:13 GMT

DarkTimes: Dowd says Scooter's replacements are "not an improvement." One, David Addington, she describes as "an ideologue who is so fanatically secretive, so in love with the shadows, so belligerent and unyielding that he's known around town as the Keyser Soze of the usual suspects." Another, John Hannah, "was the contact for Ahmad Chalabi, who went around the C.I.A. to feed Vice's office the baloney intel and rosy scenarios that suckered the U.S. into war."

The column, headlined "Chain, Chain, Chain of Cheney Fools," argues that the Bush administration is self-destructively insular in its personnel choices. "This is not loyalty. This is myopia. Where is a meddling, power-intoxicated first lady when we need one?"

Friedman ("China's Little Green Book") bangs the environmental drum yet again. "In China, conservation is not a 'personal virtue,' as Dick Cheney would say. Today it is a necessity. It was so polluted in Beijing the other day you could not make out buildings six blocks away. That's the bad news. Here's the good news: China's leaders and business community know it. They know that as China grows more prosperous, and more Chinese buy homes and cars, it must urgently adopt green technologies; otherwise, it will destroy its environment and its people. Green technology will decide whether China continues on its current growth path or chokes itself to death. So green innovation is starting to mushroom in China."

Paris is burning

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:11:39 GMT

Quelle connerie a Paris.

Hardball

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 22:50:03 GMT

Hardball in the Senate. Mabye Libby's indictment wasn't quite the end of this thing, huh?

Nuclear industry responds

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 20:25:20 GMT

At 7:48 this morning I posted about a possible nuclear plant at Belews Creek, noting that I had some concerns about it.

At 3:03 this afternoon I got an email from Eric McErlain, who blogs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association for the nuclear industry. Eric offers to answer specific questions, so if you have some questions or concerns, email them to me or leave a comment below, and I'll send them along.

Update: Emily Litella says, Never Mind.