Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point June 21 – 27, 2017 triad-city-beat.com
FREE
Bowling bonanza PAGE 20
Sweet like horse meat PAGE 23
Tongueless Monk PAGE 18
Fast Times at
Capitol High Snapshots from the 2017 legislative yearbook
PAGE 10
2
June 21 – 27, 2017
DWSP_Music17_TriadCityBeat_6-23-17_6-24-17.pdf
1
6/13/17
10:36 AM
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
How do you activate a neighborhood? In the case of LoFi on the north end of downtown Greensboro, it happened one by Brian Clarey storefront at a time, starting with Deep Roots and growing across the street to Crafted and Preyer Brewing. New traffic patterns and that stretch of the Downtown Greenway are finally starting to take shape. Downtown Winston-Salem’s Restaurant Row along Fourth Street benefited from a road diet and support from a strong downtown association, the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, and a legacy of political will on city council. The neighborhood I’m choosing to call Morehead — under downtown Greensboro’s painted overpass, where Lee Comer’s massive Morehead Foundry has arisen — is a different matter entirely. Yet this is where Comer has called me to ask this very question. The small district — once a homeless camp — is anchored by the piece of greenway that runs south through an iconic, gaslit tunnel, though it remains uncon-
nected to the rest of the pedestrian loop. The rest of Morehead, cornered by Spring Garden Street and Freeman Mill Road, is easily traversable by car but a little hostile to foot traffic and will be until the greenway connects. A bike path that runs west on Spring Garden all the way to Holden Road forms its most viable artery. Its lack of connectivity aside, other factors mitigate Morehead as a standalone district: compelling imagery in the overpass mural, created by Miami arts collective Primary Flight, and the concrete sofa along the greenway. And then there is the matter of capital investment, which was able to catalyze the Arts & Innovation Quarter in downtown Winston-Salem and Elm Street’s South End. Morehead Foundry carries a price tag of at least $4.5 million spread between its farm-to-fork restaurant, a burger joint, a coffeeshop, a speakeasy and a massive event space. It’s got everything. Except, Comer admits, enough customers to sustain it. “So,” she asks me again, “how do we activate a neighborhood?” On the relative island of Morehead, there are no easy answers.
triad-city-beat.com
Confounding Morehead
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
DOWNTOWN JAZZ
SUMMER ON LIBERTY
F RIDAYS F ROM 6 -9 PM AT CORPENING PLAZA
SATURDAYS FROM 7-10 PM AT 6 TH & LIBERTY
JUNE 23 JOE ROBINSON (Opening Act - Titus Grant)
JUNE 24 WESTEND MAMBO (Latin Dance)
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
The only way I can think of it is like, you have five minutes to live. Only a few minutes to perform and tell them something, so you’re forced to get to the heart of it all, to marrow of the music. You say, I’m going to let these people into my world and show them something. – Bjorn Jacobsen, in Music, page 18
BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com
PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com
EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com
SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green
AR s KAVA BYerba Mate, CBD , o a c tom, Ca Kava, Kra
1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com
SALES SALES/DIGITAL MARKETING SPECIALIST Regina Curry regina@triad-city-beat.com
SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com
jordan@triad-city-beat.com
EDITORIAL INTERNS Lauren Barber & Eric Hairston
CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Kat Bodrie Spencer KM Brown
Cover illustration of some of our representatives in the North Carolina General Assembly by Jorge Maturino. He’s a pretty good artist, eh?
intern@triad-city-beat.com
TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2017 Beat Media Inc.
Jelisa Castrodale Matt Jones Joel Sronce
, Noon 65 Days
Open 3
Ages 18
and up
.
to 2 a.m
ro reensbo
lace, G hange P
202 Exc
9596
919-408
kravekava.com •
Krave Greensboro
3
June 21 – 27, 2017
CITY LIFE June 21 – 27 by Eric Hairston
WEDNESDAY
FRIDAY
Quintessential Southern Cocktail Competition and Good Eats Auction @ GreenHill (GSO), 5:30 p.m. Greenhill hosts its annual meeting to introduce new board members. The cocktail competition begins afterwards, when guests will judge up to six cocktails and have the opportunity to participate in a food-themed auction. For more information, visit greenhillnc.org.
Friday Night Music Club @ Test Pattern (W-S), 8 p.m. The event includes debut performances by singer/songwriter Adam Bennett and country/rock artist Marshal. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
THURSDAY Triad City Beat investigative journalism training @ Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship (GSO), 7 p.m. Triad City Beat hosts our popular two-hour investigative journalism class that includes techniques and resources that will be beneficial to the aspiring journalist or community activist. For more information, visit our Facebook page. Ghost: The Musical @ Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance (W-S), 8 p.m. A musical adaption of the hit film by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin, the musical includes a pop-rock score by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. For more information, visit wstheatrealliance.org.
4
The Sky Game @ Delta Arts Center (W-S), 2 p.m. Peppercorn Theatre presents a play for young audiences about a magical tree that grows on the edge of a changing neighborhood and contains entire worlds inside its bark. There will also be pre-show and post-show activities available. For more information, visit peppercorntheatre.org.
SATURDAY Blacksmithing demonstration @ High Point Museum (HP), 10 a.m. Visitors observe an authentic blacksmith craft various iron pieces. For more information, visit highpointmuseum.org.
triad-city-beat.com
Facebook is over by Brian Clarey
Thursday
89.5 WFDD Meetup 5-7 Friday
Moonpie Flight Pairing
preyerbrewing.com
12-6 June 24
12-5 June 25
3800 Kimwell Drive, Winston-Salem
100+ Vendors
SUPPORT LOCAL EVERYTHING!
Triaditude Adjustment
Handmade, Antique, Upcycled & More Free Entry & Parking Live Music & Kids Activities DUNK TANK & SLIP N’ SLIDE 6 Food Trucks Dog Friendly facebook.com/hopsandshop
Shot in the Triad
Foothills Brewing Company’s Tasting Room
Crossword
WEEKEND SUMMER BASH
Sportsball
outcomes for communities that suffer most. They understand that access isn’t only about tools, though; access to knowledge is vital. Their website offers a vast collection of online resources tailored to the urban, Triad context. Over the last year, the organization increased the availability of Spanish-language resources and circulated a bilingual newsletter. This spring, the organization piloted an internship for high school students in northeast Winston-Salem that goes as far as equipping them with marketing skills and workshops in cooking and nutrition, leadership, life skills and social justice, according to their site. Forsyth Community Gardening certainly isn’t the only effort to alleviate food insecurity in the Triad. But considering the depth of the crisis here, we would do well to heed its example.
Wednesday
Gourmet Camp Cooking with REI 7-8:30
Culture
The Triad region is notoriously food insecure. A 2016 Food Research and Action Center report based on Gallup data ranked the Greensboro-High Point metropolitan area No.1 in food insecurity nationwide, and Winston-Salem followed at No. 22. Roughly one in five respondents reported inability to put food on the table at least once during the past year; the proportion of Winston-Salem residents living in poverty nearly doubled since 2000. Disruptive infrastructure like Highway 52, redlining practices and the 2001 and 2008 recessions contributed to a groundswell of food deserts in low-income areas. Many living on the east side of Winston-Salem endure limited diets due to significant distance from farmer’s markets and grocery stores that are wary of building in poverty-stricken areas. Forsyth Community Gardening ventured to fill that void in response to community outcry for alternative food sources. In 2010, the organization began to support residents interested in creating community gardens and has a track-record for helping them sustain their projects. Anyone can attend free workshops and gain hands-on experience in sustainable horticulture. Though they focus on practical skills, Forsyth Community Gardening recognizes social cohesion and local organizing as part of the equation for community wellbeing. Those involved can talk through successes and challenges during community potlucks. Forsyth Community Gardening offers a tool lending program and seed bank as well as access to micro-grants for gardeners in limited-resource communities in efforts to support more equitable
Trivia 8-10
Cover Story
by Lauren Barber
Every Tuesday
Opinion
Forsyth Community Gardening
News
Another big tweak to the algorithm came just this week, imposing some of those same standards to personal pages and tightening restrictions to business pages. For businesses, Facebook engagement is down by design. To me, it makes my personal page less valuable. Once the old farts like me bail out, there might be nothing left but bots and PR — already my children and their friends don’t use it — or, at least, not in the way it’s intended. The problem is that Facebook has entwined itself irrevocable into its users’ lives. I’ve got message threads that go back years, and it’s a handy backup for contacts that have disappeared from my phone. Since it went public in 2012, the company has been building server farms all over the world (there’s one in Rutherford County, NC as well as Lulea, Sweden), creating a capacity able to be bested only by Google and YouTube, which are sort of the same thing now. No one can catch them, and no one has the widespread buy-in to replace them. And because Facebook is completely unaware of its own demise, it will lurch along perhaps forever, like a party that everyone’s invited to, but the food isn’t very good.
Up Front
I’m calling it: Facebook is over. Done. Kaput. And not because your mother is on it. But that’s a part of it. Over the years, since they let old people start using it, Facebook has provided not only a means to keep tabs on people from high school, but a reliable boost to the internet’s communicative power in ways that have changed the world. The more people bought into its presence, the more valuable the space became until Facebook grew into a massive portal to the rest of the internet. Thus, the more valuable it became. Facebook is over because of that critical mass. There’s just too much information flowing through the tubes from its 1.94 billion — billion! — monthly active users, and not enough opportunity to create revenue. Everyone who minds the data on their Facebook business page noticed a hard hit back in June 2015 that effectively halved the penetration of a business page’s individual posts, right around the same time they started offering the pay-toboost model. It worked like a dream, at least as far as Facebook was concerned. Companies — mostly small businesses — started pushing a little money into their Facebook promotions, five bucks here, 10 there. Its profits doubled that year.
5
June 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment
6
NEWS
With clock ticking, supporters rally to Minerva Garcia’s side by Jordan Green and Lauren Barber
Supporters rally behind Minerva Garcia, an undocumented woman who’s been ordered to leave the country by the end of the month. Minerva Garcia led her son, Eduardo, to a stool in the sanctuary of Green Street United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem, and then retrieved a classical guitar from a case lying on the floor nearby and placed it in his hands. Left blind from an encounter with cancer when he was six months old, Eduardo offered up a song, “Faith,” as a kind of prayer for strength during a vigil for immigrants centered on his mother at the church on June 15. With sure hands, he gently strummed a chord progression, and sang with a quavering yet sturdy tenor: “Faith can turn a teardrop into a shining star/ Faith is what I have in you no matter where you are.” Garcia, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who’s been ordered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to leave the country by the end of the month, will need a lot of faith. Garcia said she came to the United States because there were no schools in her home state of Guerrero that could accommodate her son as a blind person. She also brought a second son, who died of leukemia at the age of 10, to the United States. Two younger sons, now 6 and 3, were born here. Their father is an American citizen. Garcia said she and the younger boys’ father are still married, but she is separated from him. “I have tried my whole adult life to be strong for my sons,” Garcia said during the vigil. “I want them to grow up kind, loyal, dedicated and free. I know the chance to be all those things is to grow up here. If I am deported, Eduardo will lose his mother, and I do not know what will happen to my sons. I fear that they will not be safe, and I fear that we will not be safe.” For several weeks, a coalition of supporters with Winston-Salem Sanctuary City Coalition, Parkway United Church of Christ and Wake Forest Baptist Church have quietly rallied around Garcia, who until recently had been reluctant to publicize her plight. On Monday, her supporters initiated a call-in campaign to ICE, and planned to
many things that are wrong with the legal system as far as immigration is concerned,” her lawyer Helen Parsonage said, “and the limitations on a broken immigration system that really has no avenues for people like Minerva and tens of thousands of individuals like her who will be told by folks outside of this community: ‘Well, JORDAN GREEN Minerva Garcia helps her son Eduardo, who why don’t they just is blind, set up his guitar at Green Street Church. get their papers? call US Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Why don’t they just Tillis on Tuesday and Wednesday. On do things right? And I’m here to tell you Thursday, they plan to picket Burr’s and to confirm to you that that’s not Winston-Salem office to plead her case. possible.” Tony Ndege, a member of the WinGarcia has lived in the US for 17 ston-Salem Sanctuary City Coalition, years now, she said, including 11 years said a petition drive requesting that ICE working in a warehouse as a machine stay Garcia’s deportation has garnered operator and forklift driver, eventually 12,000 signatures. Local elected officials advancing to team leader. Even though Forsyth County Commissioner Fleming her legal options appear to be exhaustEl-Amin and Winston-Salem Counciled, Garcia said she’s currently not conman Dan Besse, state Sen. Paul Lowe sidering the option of taking sanctuary and state Rep. Ed Hanes have spoken in a church to avoid deportation. Last out in Garcia’s support. month, Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, who The Rev. Kelly Carpenter, the pastor is from Guatemala, took sanctuary in of Green Street Church, welcomed a church in Greensboro, becoming the about 40 people seated in the pews for first person to do so in North Carolina what he called “prayers of intercession, since President Trump’s inauguration. prayers of inspiration and prayers of “Naturally, I hope by [the end of agitation” at the beginning of the June the month] I’ll have an answer, and we 14 vigil. won’t have to go there,” Garcia said. Garcia said in an interview after the Notwithstanding Garcia’s determivigil that it’s not safe for her to take nation, the Trump administration has her family back to Guerrero because signaled a willingness to deport imof violence from drug cartels. She said migrants who’ve committed no other when she decided to come to the United crime than being here illegally. Like States, Eduardo was already 5 years many of Trump’s supporters, ICE Actold — close to school age — and she ing Director Thomas Homan has stated couldn’t afford to wait two to three years that he doesn’t recognize the distinction. to get approval to emigrate legally, and “If you’re in this country illegally and the process was prohibitively expenyou committed a crime by entering this sive. Although she is still married to country, you should be uncomfortable,” an American citizen, by virtue of their Homan told US Rep. David Price (Dseparation she can’t ask her husband to NC) during a House Appropriations sponsor an application for citizenship. Committee hearing on June 13. “You “Minerva really is a symbol of so should look over your shoulder, and you
need to be worried.” The Rev. Lia Scholl, pastor at Wake Forest Baptist Church, argued that the current policy presents a false characterization of undocumented immigrants. “Minerva is the face of deportation today,” Scholl said. “The purpose of this deportation is to create a culture of fear. And they are doing just that — creating a myth that our new neighbors are somehow other than us by telling a lie that our new neighbors are criminals by drawing a picture for us all that is not based in reality. The truth is that Minerva is just like me…. She is a hard-working woman trying to make a better life for her children.” Homan acknowledged during the June 13 hearing that the new policy has led to a marked increase in the deportation of non-criminal immigrants. “There has been a significant increase in non-criminal arrests because we weren’t allowed to arrest them in the past administration,” he said. “We were arresting criminals so you see an uptick in criminals — moderate — but you see more of an uptick in non-criminals because we’re going from zero to a hundred under the new administration.” Helen Parsonage called Garcia “a living example of the change that we have seen in our country in the last six months.” Time after time, Parsonage said, Garcia would visit the local ICE office, and agents would tell her that she hadn’t broken any laws, that she wasn’t a priority, and to just check back in another year. That all changed when Trump became president. “It’s a really clear-cut example of what has changed in [the new] administration’s priorities,” Parsonage said. “And I’m seeing it time and time and time again — people who’ve been here 17 years, people who’ve been here 20 years, people who’ve been here 30 years, who are being told all of a sudden: ‘You’re not wanted.’ All of a sudden, you need to be worried. All of a sudden you need to be looking over your shoulder. And it makes me sick to my heart to see this happening.”
triad-city-beat.com Up Front News
Tuesday, June 27 8 pm Eastern Chamber Players
Opinion
Wednesday, June 28 8 pm The Glory of Brass – Baroque and Beyond
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg Playing June 29
Crossword Shot in the Triad
Thanks to our sponsors:
Sportsball
All shows at Guilford College Tickets available at easternmusicfestival.org
Culture
Friday, June 30 4 pm Master Class – Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (Violin) 7 pm Musically Speaking 8 pm EMF Orchestras – Opening night Orchestra Gala
Cover Story
Thursday, June 29 4 pm Master Class – Horacio Gutiérrez (Piano) 7 pm Musically Speaking 8 pm In recital: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg with the EMF Chamber Orchestra
Triaditude Adjustment
EASTERNMUSICFESTIVAL.ORG
7
June 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment
8
Private health firm increases staffing in jail after inmate’s death by Jordan Green
The private company contracted to provide medical services for jails in Guilford County agrees to improve practices for ensuring that inmates receive proper medications in the wake of a former inmate’s death. Correct Care Solutions, the private firm contracted to provide medical care at the Greensboro and High Point jails, has hired additional employees at each facility to confirm prescription medications for inmates who are booked over the weekend. The hires were made at the request of Sheriff BJ Barnes, whose office announced the change in a June 9 press release. Jim Secor, the sheriff’s attorney, confirmed that the agency initiated the changes as a result of the death of Ellin Schott, a 57-year-old woman whose health rapidly deteriorated after her booking in the Greensboro jail in August 2015. Schott was booked in the jail on a Friday afternoon. A medical examiner’s report notes that Schott told jail staff she experienced seizures at the time of her booking. The report also indicates that staff was aware that she took Keppra and Gabapentin, two anti-seizure medications. The following Monday at 3 a.m., the medical examiner’s report indicates that Schott was having multiple seizures, and told a jail nurse that she took seizure medication and had not received it since coming into detention. Schott died two days later at Cone Hospital as a result of “complications of prolonged seizure activity,” according to the medical examiner. Triad City Beat published an exclusive report that examined Schott’s death in June 2016. The sheriff’s office has consistently maintained that it was not at fault for Schott’s death, but Secor said the sheriff’s office agreed to issue a press release to publicize changes implemented after death at the request of her estate. Fred Berry, a Greensboro lawyer who represents the Schott estate, acknowledged the changes in an interview with Triad City Beat. “As the attorney for the family in the tragic events surrounding Ellin Schott’s death, we are most happy and pleased about the improvements that the Guil-
ford County Sheriff’s Office has made,” Berry said. The new employees hired by Correct Care Solutions to ensure that inmates receive continued access to prescribed medications are now issuing medications orders based on information they receive from outside pharmacists and healthcare providers, even during weekends, the sheriff’s press release indicates. The sheriff’s office also said that Correct Care Solutions has improved its internal procedures by requiring nursing staff to follow up fax requests to outside pharmacies with phone calls. “Correct Care’s direct phone contact with the outside pharmacy or provider, coupled with the facsimile request that proceeds it, are designed to further reduce any potential delay in the inmate care,” the sheriff said. “These procedures are followed on weekdays and weekends.” The new practices also call for nursing staff to leave a note for the next shift to ensure that efforts continue to reach the outside pharmacy. In the event that “the inmate-patient has a more emergent need for medications,” the sheriff said, “the Correct Care nurse can access Correct Care’s on-call jail physician, who can immediately order lab work to determine the inmate’s specific medication needs and initiate a prescription.” Yet Secor said Correct Care Solutions is not bound to the changes through any amendment in its contract. Jim Cheney, a spokesperson for Correct Care Solutions, said the company has similar provisions for facilitating inmates’ access to medications at the Forsyth County jail, although he skirted a question about whether any changes were made following Schott’s death. “CCS staffs its operations based on the needs of the individual facility,” he said in an email. “We believe that the team and services provided within the Forsyth facility are where they need to be at this time.” Two inmates, Deshawn Lamont Coley and Stephan Antwan Patterson, have recently died in the Forsyth County jail within the span of one month. Coley complained to staff at the jail about his asthma, according to Tony Ndege, a local activist who said he
spoke to Coley’s wife. Effrainguan Muhammad, the Winston-Salem representative of the Nation of Islam, has said that family members of both Coley and Patterson “reached out about the condition” of both men before their deaths. Ellin Schott died in 2015 after a weekend stay at the Greensboro jail.
JORDAN GREEN
EDITORIAL
Making the sausage
Democracy on trial
Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment
districts 10 and 11 and “the Democratic stronghold of Greensboro” between districts 6 and 13, while almost every Democratic precinct in Mecklenburg County was “crammed” into District 12,” and practically every Democratic precinct in Wake County was packed into District 4. “This was a virtuoso demonstration of the gerrymanderer’s classic tools of cracking and packing,” the trial by Jordan Green brief contends. the next decade. While the Wisconsin case awaits the US Supreme Partisan gerrymandering, a practice whereby the Court, Common Cause and the League of Women party with a majority rigs the process to maintain its Voters of North Carolina will try to make the case to US advantage indefinitely, has been in use since the early District Judge William L. Osteen Jr. that the partisan days of the republic. But like texting while driving, the gerrymander scheme in NC’s congressional map viopractice has become increasingly stigmatized. lates the First and Fourteenth amendments. The first fissures appeared last year, just after the The plaintiffs will put Simon Jackman, a political November election, when a panel of federal judges scientist based in Sydney, Australia, on the stand as an ruled that Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature expert witness to testify that the 2016 North Carolina violated the constitutional rights of Democratic voters congressional map drawn up by Hofeller on behalf of by drawing state legislative district lines in the GOP “had the largest efficiency such a way to minimize their political voice. gap in the 2016 election of any map in The US Supreme Court announced on the country.” The case could Monday that it will take up the Wisconsin Republicans had a good year in case, potentially delivering a ruling on the determine wheth- 2016, with 53.3 percent of 4.6 million constitutionality of partisan gerrymancast for congressional candier the Republican votes dering sometime next year. The plaintiffs dates going to GOP contenders, in the Wisconsin case sought to give the but they got an extraordinary bang juggernaut will Supreme Court a tool to measure parfor their buck, carrying 10 out of 13 continue to rule tisan gerrymandering, thereby setting a contests. threshold for determining when partisan It was that way by design. When this state into the advantage goes so far as to violate the the Joint Select Committee on Renext decade. equal protection clause of the Constitudistricting met in Raleigh in February tion. Justice Anthony Kennedy, widely 2016, co-chair Rep. David Lewis considered the swing vote on the high explained, “To the extent possible, court, wrote in a concurring opinion for a 2004 case the map drawers [would be instructed to] create a map that he “would not foreclose all possibility of judicial which is perhaps likely to elect 10 Republicans and three relief if some limited and precise rationale were found Democrats.” to correct an established violation of the Constitution in The plaintiffs contend in their trial brief: “This some redistricting cases.” extraordinary asymmetry is virtually certain to endure The tool presented by the Wisconsin plaintiffs is for the rest of the decade. Only if the statewide vote called the “efficiency gap.” It measures the “wasted swings by at least nine points in a Democratic direction vote” — that is, all votes cast for a losing candidate — producing the best Democratic showing in more than and all votes in excess of 50 percent cast for a win30 years — will the plan’s Republican bias dissipate.” ning candidate. In North Carolina, for example, many The congressional map is a blight on democracy. Democratic voters are “packed” into three districts in Ironically, the 2016 plan was drawn because the percentages far beyond what is needed to win elections federal courts struck down the former plan as an so that a large number of votes are wasted. The rest unconstitutional racial gerrymander. One of the judges of the Democratic voters in the state are “cracked” responsible for that ruling, Max Cogburn, also took aim between 10 Republican-leaning districts, so that all their at partisan gerrymandering in a concurring opinion. losing votes are wasted. In comparison, Republican “Elections should be decided through a contest of votes are efficiently distributed throughout the districts ideas, not skillful mapmaking,” Cogburn wrote. Disfor maximal impact. The efficiency gap, then, is the trict maps drawn to achieve a predetermined political distance between the two parties’ abilities to translate outcome rather than to give voice voters, he wrote, “are votes into electoral wins. in disharmony with fundamental values upon which this As the plaintiff’s in the trial brief for the case chalcountry was founded” and an “affront to democracy.” lenging North Carolina’s 2016 Congressional Plan wrote, mapmaker Thomas Hofeller split counties “surgically for the sake of partisan advantage,” including a split of “staunchly Democratic” Asheville between
News
On June 27, the political mapmakers who gave the GOP a 10-3 advantage in North Carolina’s congressional delegation will stand trial in federal court in Greensboro in a case that could determine whether the Republican juggernaut will continue to rule this state into
Up Front
We spent the bulk of our resources — time, mostly — this week on our cover story, “Fast Times at Capitol High,” a session highlight reel from every state legislator in Forsyth and Guilford counties. It’s interesting to interpolate from the data, identify the channels of power by seeing who gets the most stuff passed, find instances of cross-party cooperation and see members of each group cut off from their factions. Rep. Jon Hardister (R-Guilford), now a part of House leadership as whip, had a highly effective session, often pairing with his fellow Guilford County delegate Rep. Cecil Brockman (D-Guilford) for bills that represented shared interests. Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) as usual filed an enormous amount of legislation — her name was on 322 bills — a small percentage of which actually got some traction. Rep. John Faircloth (R-Guilford) was able to move a lot forward without the help of his colleagues. And Rep. Debra Conrad (R-Forsyth) sponsored just 59 bills, but almost half of them made it through to the Senate. In the Senate, Sen. Gladys Robinson (D-Guilford) has had trouble pushing anything through, clashing ideologically with her Republican counterparts in the delegation, Sen. Trudy Wade and Senate President Phil Berger. Sen. Joyce Krawiec (R-Forsyth, Yadkin) and Rep. Donny Lambeth (R-Forsyth) similarly find themselves outside the bubble. This is how the sausage gets made in the NC General Assembly: by proximity to power. Simply having an “R” next to one’s name doesn’t guarantee traction in either chamber, and serving on influential committees holds little sway — Rep. John Blust (R-Guilford) is the chair of a Judiciary Committee, yet he seems to be perpetually out of favor with party leadership as most of his bills went nowhere. His name was on 35 bills, and just 10 of them made it through to the Senate. The overriding observation is that Democrats can’t get much done, and when they do, as Brockman’s word attests, it comes only with the blessing of the Republican leadership. But this small cabal that controls our state government benefits from illegal gerrymandering. It’s official: Our state government is illegitimate — at least in 19 of our state House districts and 9 in the state Senate, which the US Supreme Court affirmed earlier this month. Our government, from president on down to city council, exists only because we all agree to recognize its authority. We set it all down on paper a long time ago, instilling an election system designed to accurately reflect the will of the majority as a basic right. Our free election system is sacrosanct, and is at the heart of everything we do as a country. Now, in North Carolina, that trust has been violated. Yet laws continue to get passed through this technically corrupted body, and we must all live by them until they are overturned by the courts, a process which takes years.
CITIZEN GREEN
triad-city-beat.com
OPINION
9
June 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News
BAD NEWS We need each other. Support FREE, INDEPENDENT PRESS by reading Triad City Beat. OR, support your business and the free press by advertising with us.
Not ramen That’s no ramen [“Chances are, you haven’t had ramen like this before” by Eric Ginsburg, June 6, 2017]. The closest thing that could be is yakisoba but even that’s a stretch. Sayaka Matsuoko, Chapel Hill Spoon man Great article [“The Lie & Kill Club” by Brian Clarey, June 7, 2017]. So can we expect something about Greensboro’s Spoons Gang in the near future? People always act like this area has always been the most civil place in the world but us old-timers know better. Billy Jones, Greensboro Um, no We are in no danger of sharia law [“Far-right groups converge behind anti-sharia message in Raleigh” by Jordan Green, June 11, 2017]. That’s pure idiocy,
The wave If Guatemala is safe enough for her daughter and parents, it is safe enough for Tobar [“Supporters strategize end game for Guatemalan woman in sanctuary” by Jordan Green, June 14, 2017]. She is here because she wants the comparatively easy life America offers. If she is granted asylum, she will begin the process of bringing in her entire extended family as soon as possible. Those she brings in will, in turn, bring in others. It’s the the wave that never ends. Oh yeah, that “buying a fraudulent visa” thing ought to help her out a lot with the judge! There aren’t nearly enough people in America who would be willing to pull off a fraud like that. / sarc Freedom1958, Garland, Texas
Investigative Journalism 101 class Thursday, June 22 • 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. Suggested donation $25 per person • $5 for students at door Email eric@triad-city-beat.com for more info or to reserve your spot.
Take charge of your mind, body and spirit Test pH balance, allergies, hormones Balance diet, lifestyle and emotions Create a personalized health and nutrition plan
Triaditude Adjustment
Shot in the Triad
Crossword
Sportsball
Culture
Cover Story
Opinion
NO NEWS IS
to be sure. Some people are stupid. I feel threatened by Christians more than I do Muslims. Timothy Beeman II, Winston-Salem
10
1451 S Elm-Eugene St, Greensboro, NC 27406
(336) 456-4743
3723 West Market Street, Unit–B, Greensboro, NC 27403 jillclarey3@gmail.com www.thenaturalpathwithjillclarey.com
Capitol High
triad-city-beat.com
Fast Times at
Snapshots from the 2017 legislative yearbook by Brian Clarey and Jordan Green
The Guilford and Forsyth County delegations in the North Carolina legislature comprise just 16 individuals — five senators out of 50, 11 representatives out of 43 — a small percentage to represent the third-largest population center in the state. Some were incredibly active — Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) put her name on 322 bills this session. Some were incredibly effective, such as Rep. John Faircloth (R-Guilford), who saw about half of his 107 bills make it through to the Senate and eight of them already passed into law. The power trickled down from Senate President Phil Berger (R-Guilford, Rockingham) and those close to him: Rep. Jon Hardister (R-Guilford), the latter of whose 75 bills fared well in the process, and Sen. Trudy Wade (R-Guilford), who only signed on to the 19 bills she sponsored and rarely worked with her Guilford and Forsyth counterparts. Others seemed left out in the cold. Sen. Joyce Kraweic (R-Forsyth) seemed to have trouble connecting with her party’s leadership — of her 96 bills, most were referred to the Rules Committee, where such things often go to quietly die. Sen. Paul Lowe (D-Forsyth) and his counterpart in Guilford, Sen. Gladys Robinson (D), filed few bills — 46 and 40, respectively — almost all relegated to committee. Rep. John Blust (R-Guilford) and Rep. Julia Howard (R-Forsyth) have been around the House the longest, with nine terms and 15 terms respectively, yet were among the least active, with fewer than 40 bills apiece. Relative newcomers Rep. Cecil Brockman (D-Guilford) and Rep. Ed Hanes (D-Forsyth) had more success by reaching across party lines to file legislation with their Republican counterparts. The process is still moving forward. Of all the legislation proposed and debated this term, just 21 have been signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper, with eight more awaiting either his signature or veto, which has been use four times so far this term. It’s a confusing process — sometimes, it seems, deliberately so. But the overwhelming impression from the data is that it’s hard to get a law passed. And that’s probably a good thing.
SENATE GUILFORD COUNTY SEN. PHIL BERGER (R-GUILFORD, ROCKINGHAM) DISTRICT 26 About the District: Phil Berger’s piece of the state covers the entirety of Rockingham County, with a few fingers dipping into northern Guilford. A handful of precincts carve out territory in the suburban northwest quadrant of Greensboro. Committee assignments: Senate president pro tem; chair, Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations; chair, Legislative Services Commission Terms: 9 Bills: 2 Highlights: Senate Resolution 680 — Honor Mark Binker, Former Capitol Reporter Berger was the sole sponsor of this bill — just one of two he worked on this year — that honored former News & Record and WRAL reporter Mark Binker, who died suddenly in April at the age of 43. Don’t let the small number of bills filed by Berger fool you: As president pro tem of the Senate, he’s the most powerful lawmaker in the state, and no legislation comes up for a vote on the Senate floor without his approval. Status: Passed Senate by unanimous vote and adopted. SEN. TRUDY WADE (R-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 27 About the district: Wade’s district begins in the northeast corner of Guilford County and wraps around Greensboro, circumventing central High Point and picking up a few Greensboro precincts in the northwest. Committee assignments: Cochair, Appropriations on Agriculture, Natural and Economic Resources; co-chair, Commerce and Insurance; Agriculture/Environment/Natural Resources; Finance; Rules; Select Committee on Elections; Select
Committee on Nominations Terms: 3 Bills: 19 Highlights: SB 136 — Restore Partisan Elections, Superior & District Court (with Krawiec) It does exactly what it says — makes judicial races in superior and district courts partisan, meaning a primary election will decide which Democrat goes against which Republican. Superior court elections were switched to nonpartisan contests in 1996; district court made the change in 2001. Status: Passed the House and Senate. Vetoed by Gov. Roy Cooper. Veto overridden by both chambers, and ratified as law. SB 343 — Legal Notices/Newsprint Employees Wade, who has had a troubled relationship with the legitimate media, takes dead aim on city dailies and community weeklies with this bill, which waives a requirement for county governments to post their legal notices in paid-circulation newspapers, redefining the types of papers that can accept the ads. Four counties — Buncombe, Durham, Forsyth and Guilford — would be allowed to post their legal notices on the county website in lieu of paid print publication. Status: Passed Senate by vote of 30 to 19. Received a favorable recommendation from House Rules Committee and referred to House Finance Committee. SB 480 — Protection From Government Overreach Act The bill caps all single-project spending by city councils, county commissions, school boards or any other government agency at $100 million, after which the projects would need legislative approval. It includes a neat little clause in Section 3: “An agency authorized to implement and enforce state and federal environmental laws may not adopt a permanent rule for the protection of the environment or natural resources that imposes a more restrictive standard, limitation, or requirement than those imposed by federal law.” Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SEN. GLADYS ROBINSON (D-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 28 About the district: Robinson’s minority-majority district covers about two-thirds of Greensboro and extends into central High Point. Committee assignments: Healthcare; Education/Higher
11
June 21 – 27, 2017 Cover Story
Education; Finance; Health and Human Services; Appropriations on Health and Human Services; Appropriations/ Base Budget; Select Committee on Nominations Terms: 4 Bills: 40 (including 13 as primary sponsor) Highlights: SB 83 — Raise Awareness of Lupus It’s tough to be a Democrat in the NC Senate these days. For example, Sen. Robinson could not get a bill passed to recognize May as Lupus Month. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 173 — Housing Juveniles Under 18 in County Facility (with Lowe) With a few exceptions, this one keeps children away from adults in county jails, requiring a separate facility for minors. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 198 — Study Efficacy of Film Credit Versus Grant (with Lowe) A generous tax credit for the film industry was replaced with a grant system in 2014, resulting in far fewer productions in the state. The study would compare return on investment for the two approaches. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 259 — Restore Master’s Degree Pay for All Teachers Brings back the “M” salary schedule for graduate degrees, with a bonus for PhD, stricken from state law in 2013. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 554 — Fair Redistricting/Postmark & Absentee Ballots Ensures that absentee ballots received the day after an election that have been properly postmarked will get counted, and establishes a committee on fair redistricting. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SENATE FORSYTH COUNTY
12
SEN. JOYCE KRAWIEC (R-FORSYTH, YADKIN), DISTRICT 31 About the district: D-31 covers the suburban/rural doughnut of Forsyth County, including parts of Lewisville, Clemmons and Kernersville, along with affluent, Republican-leaning neighborhoods like Buena Vista on the west side and portions of Ardmore and areas around Baptist Hospital in the southwest. The district also covers the entirety of Yadkin County. Terms: 2.5 Committee assignments: Co-chair, Appropriations on Health and Human Services; co-chair, Health Care; Education/Higher Education; Finance; Transportation Bills: 96 (including 48 as primary sponsor) Highlights: SB 530 — Protect Government Whistleblowers Carves out an exemption from North Carolina public records law for emails and other communications by
government workers about improper activities of any government agency to a regulatory body, and ensures immunity from civil liability for whistleblower report made in good faith by a government employee to a regulatory body. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 425 — Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Act Would ban the “Dilation and Evacuation” method of abortions, which is typically used in the second trimester of pregnancy. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 190 — Haley Hayes Newborn Screening Bill (with Lambeth) Adds a screening for Pompe disease — “a rare, heritable disorder that causes progressive muscle weakness” — to the state’s newborn screening program, while appropriating $2.7 million to purchase lab equipment and increasing the fee for the newborn screening program from $44 to $55 to offset the cost of the new test. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 313 — Increase Small Brewery Limits Increases the number of barrels a small brewer can self-distribute from less than 25,000 to 103,091 barrels. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SEN. PAUL LOWE JR. (D-FORSYTH), DISTRICT 32 About the district: D-32 covers almost all of Winston-Salem, with the exception of a carve-out of affluent, Republican-leaning neighborhoods like Buena Vista along the Country Club Road corridor, as well as with more liberal-leaning areas of Ardmore in the city’s southwest quadrant. The district trails Business 40 to the east and picks up the heart of Kernersville. Terms: 1.5 Committee assignments: Appropriations on Health and Human Services; Appropriations/Base Budget; Health Care; Judiciary; Rules and Operations of the Senate Bills: 46 (including 22 as primary sponsor) Highlights: SB 146 — Juvenile Reinvestment Act Would raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction so that 16- and 17-year-olds are no longer tried as adults, with limited exceptions. New York recently raised the age of jurisdiction, making North Carolina the only state in the union that currently tries 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. (A similar bill passed the House by a vote of 104-8, and is also being considered by the Senate Rules Committee.) SB 646 — Universal Voter Registration Provides for automatic voter registration at driver’s license offices, public agencies, and community colleges and universities. Status: Referred to Senate Rules Committee. SB 358 — Film & Entertainment Grant Fund Appropri-
ation Appropriates $55 million for film and television production incentives. Status: Referred to Senate Appropriations/Base Budget Committee. SB 197 — Adopt Bobcat as State Cat An act “to bring about awareness of this magnificent and beneficial animal,” which preys on rabbits and mice, and is most active at dawn and dusk. Status: The House version of the bill passed by a vote of 107 to 5, and has been referred to Senate Rules Committee. HOUSE GUILFORD COUNTY REP. PRICEY HARRISON (D-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 57 About the district: Covers the northeast sector of Greensboro, extending to the northeast along Highway 29 and along the Interstate 85/40 corridor to Sedalia. There’s significant racial diversity in the D-57, with a majority black population. Committee assignments: Vice-chair, Environment Commission; Alcoholic Beverage Control; Appropriations; Appropriations, Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources; Elections and Ethics Law; Energy and Public Utilities; Judiciary II; Regulatory Reform Terms: 7 Bills: 322 (including 43 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 185 — Legalize Medical Marijuana “This Article is intended to make only those changes to existing North Carolina laws that are necessary to protect patients and their doctors from criminal and civil penalties and is not intended to change current civil and criminal laws governing the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes.” Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 238 — Economic Security Act of 2017 Raises the minimum wage across the state over five years to $15, mandates equal pay and sick leave, restores the childcare and earned-income tax credits while repealing limitations to collective bargaining, and contains a “ban the box” clause, meaning prospective employees cannot ask about a candidate’s criminal history on an initial application. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 366 — Retail Workers Bill of Rights Asks for fair scheduling for retail workers: two weeks of notice for work schedules, extra pay for on-call shifts and schedule changes, equal treatment for part-time employees, access to time off and a protection from retaliation for workers trying to enforce these rights. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 500 — ABC Omnibus Legislation (with Hardister) This is the so-called Brunch Bill, allowing restaurants to serve alcohol before noon on weekends. It also makes it easier to serve alcoholic beverages both on and off premises, amends some homebrewing laws, allows brew-
REP. AMOS QUICK III (D-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 58 About the district: This minority-majority district covers sweeping portions of southeast Greensboro and a swath around Friendly Center and Starmount. Committee assignments: Appropriations; Appropriations, Capital; Commerce and Job Development; Education K-12; Judiciary III; and Homelessness, Foster Care and Dependency Terms: 1 Bills: 117 (including 15 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 99 — The Antidiscrimination Act of 2017 (with Brockman) “An act to (1) prohibit the use of discriminatory profiling
by law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties; (2) amend the types of information required to be reported by certain law enforcement agencies concerning traffic law enforcement; (3) require certain law enforcement agencies to report certain information concerning homicides; and (4) require law enforcement officers to receive annual education and training concerning discriminatory profiling.” Status: Referred to House Judiciary III Committee. HB 165 — Citizens Review Boards Established (with Brockman and Harrison) Authorizes citizens’ review boards for municipal and county law enforcement, with subpoena power. Status: Referred to House State and Local Government I Committee. HB 453 — ‘We The People’ Act/Referendum “An act to submit to the voters of North Carolina a referendum urging Congress to pass an amendment to the Constitution of the United States declaring that Constitutional rights belong only to individuals and not to corporations or other artificial entities and that constitutionally protected free speech excludes the unlimited spending of money on political campaign contributions.” Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 874 — Year-Round School Pilot (with Brockman and Lambeth) Allows up to five elementary schools per district to be year-round for high-need students. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee. REP. JON HARDISTER (R-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 59 About the district: Hardister’s eastern Guilford district circles around Greensboro, hooking in for just a few precincts on the northwestern corner of the city. Committee assignments: Majority whip; chair, Appropriations, Capital; vice-chair, Appropriations; vice-chair, Alcoholic Beverage Control; vice-chair, Banking; Appropriations, Information Technology; Education K-12; Elections and Ethics Law; Rules Terms: 3 Bills: 75 (including 47 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 2 — Provide Certain Property Tax Relief (with Brockman and Harrison) This HB 2 cuts property taxes for veteran and emergency-services personnel and allows for the state to cover the difference for the counties’ lost revenue. Status: Passed House by unanimous vote, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB182 — Leadership Term Limits (with Blust) “An act to amend the North Carolina Constitution to limit the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tempore of the Senate to serve for four consecutive two‑year terms in those offices.” Status: Received favorable vote from House Judiciary I Committee,
and referred to House Rules Committee. HB 200 — Non-Partisan Redistricting Commission (with Brockman, Faircloth, Hanes, Harrison, Quick and Terry) This bill attempts to remove political operatives from the redistricting process with an independent panel. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 279 — Fantasy Sports Regulation (with Hanes) Would require fantasy sports contests, online and otherwise, to register with the state so that people from North Carolina could play. Tucked into the end is a provision that allows ALE officers to make arrest for any criminal offense, not just alcohol infractions. Status: Referred to House Judiciary IV Committee. HB 285 — Suicide Prevention/Awareness School Personnel (with Brockman, Faircloth, Hanes, Harrison, and Lambeth) Helps school set a protocol for suicide prevention. Status: Passed the House by a vote of 109 to 7, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB 540 — Teachers & State Employees Pay Raise (with Brockman, Harrison and Quick) Gives a $2,400 pay increase to teachers and state employees earning less than $100,000. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee. HB 571 — Automatic Expunction/Wrongful Conviction (with Hanes, Quick, Brockman, Harrison and Terry) “An act to provide for the automatic expunction of a person’s record if the person is wrongly convicted, incarcerated, and exonerated.” Status: Passed House by a unanimous vote, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB 644 — Charter School Transportation Grant Program (with Brockman and Conrad) Uses funds from the Department of Public Instruction to pay for transportation to charter schools for low-income students. Status: Received a favorable vote in House Transportation Committee and referred to Appropriations. HB 827 — Use of Passing Lane/Increased Penalty Imposes a $200 fine for driving too slow in the passing lane. Status: Received favorable votes in House Transportation Committee and House Judiciary I Committee. It’s on the calendar for a final vote this week. HB 887 — Health Insurance State Mandates Study/ Funds (with Lambeth) This creates a joint legislative committee “to study all health insurance mandated coverage requirements imposed by the state upon health insurance sold in North Carolina.” Status: Referred to House Health Care Reform Committee. REP. CECIL BROCKMAN (D-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 60 About the district: The majority-minority D-60 takes great pains to encapsulate African-American voters, starting in Greensboro straddling Wendover Avenue, moving southeast
triad-city-beat.com
ers and distillers to offer tastes on their premises during tours and increases the amount they are able to sell on premises. Among its myriad other provisions is a piece allowing farmers who grow hops or barley to serve beer, even in dry counties. Status: Passed in House by a vote of 95 to 25, and referred to Senate Commerce and Insurance Committee. HB 525 — Amending Body-Worn Camera Procedures (with Quick and Brockman) Allows the release of police body-camera footage to people in the recording or their representatives, or by “a governing body with the consent of the city manager, upon a finding that disclosure is necessary to maintain public confidence in law enforcement agencies.” Status: Referred to Judiciary I Committee. HB 687 — Amend Various Coal-Ash Provisions (with Quick) In direct response to Duke Energy’s penchant for tacking the costs of coal-ash cleanup on its consumers, this bill prohibits “an electric public utility from recovering costs related to the management of coal combustion ash and unlawful discharges from coal ash ponds.” Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 723 — Gun Safety Act Repeals “stand your ground” laws, institutes background checks for gun ownership, requires liability coverage for all gun owners, limits magazine sizes, divests state funds from gun-related investments and requires law enforcement to have written policies regarding officer-involved deaths, among other provisions. Status: Referred to House Judiciary I Committee. House Bill 724 — Citizens United Disclosures (with Brockman) Requires state corporations to subject campaign donations to shareholder vote. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 734 — In-State Tuition Equity Ensures that all graduates of state high schools are eligible for in-state tuition, regardless of immigration status. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee.
13
June 21 – 27, 2017 Cover Story
14
and then crossing through Jamestown and Sedgefield in a slim little peninsula before ballooning again in central High Point. Committee assignments: Vice-chair, Education K-12; Agriculture; Appropriations; Appropriations, Capital; Appropriations, Education; Environment; Homeland Security, Military and Veterans Affairs Terms: 2 Bills: 202 (including 21 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 233 — Ban the Box (with Harrison, Quick and Terry) The bill helps those convicted of crimes to obtain employment in the public sector. It states that state, city, county and other public employers cannot ask about an applicant’s criminal record until a conditional offer has been made, or have a box to check on an application. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 573 — Vacant Building Receivership (with Blust and Faircloth) “An act authorizing municipalities to petition the superior court to appoint a receiver to rehabilitate, demolish, or sell a vacant building, structure, or dwelling where the owner has failed to comply with an order to do so and to charge the owner an administrative fee.” Status: Passed the House by a vote of 113 to 2, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB 643 — Civics and Economics Education Study Committee (with Hardister and Terry) The bill creates group to study the benefits of teaching civics and financial literacy in schools. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 782 — Paid Holiday/Primary and General Elections (with Harrison) Establishes a day off on Election Day so people can vote. Status: Referred to House Elections and Ethics Law Committee. HB 891 — Free Breakfast and Lunch in K-12 Public Schools (with Quick and Harrison) Establishes a fund for free breakfast and lunch, and moves the program from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Public Instruction. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee. REP. JOHN FAIRCLOTH (R-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 61 About the district: D-61 wraps around Brockman’s High Point precincts, capturing the outskirts of the city and wending east through rural areas in Jamestown, Summerfield and Pleasant Garden. Committee assignments: Chair, Appropriations; chair, Ethics; vice-chair, Judiciary II, chairs, Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee; chair, Legislative Ethics Committee; member, Elections and Ethics Law; State Personnel; Transportation Terms: 4 Bills: 107 (including 31 as primary sponsor)
Highlights: HB 117 — Protect Students in Schools This requires criminal background checks for school staff and waives a requirement for written notice for an administrator to suspend a teacher without pay in cases of arrest. Status: Received favorable vote in House Education K-12 Committee and referred to Finance. HB 138 — Revise Gang Laws This one standardizes statewide definitions of gang members and behavior, enhances sentences for gang-related convictions and removes the word “street” as a qualifier for “gang” from many passages of statutes. Status: Passed House by a vote of 109 to 4. Received a favorable vote in in Senate Judiciary Committee and referred to Rules. HB 315 — Kelsey Smith Act Police can obtain cell-phone records from wireless providers without a warrant “only in an emergency situation that involves an imminent risk of death or serious physical harm,” and the carrier will not be held civilly liable. Status: Passed House by a vote of 113 to 5, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB 413 — Limit Legislative Service to 16 years It’s an amendment to the state constitution. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 711 — Increase Hate Crime Punishment This establishes the qualified groups for hate crimes as race, color, religion, age, nationality or country of origin, disability, military or veteran status, employment status, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, or association with any of these groups. Gender identity does not make the list. Status: Referred to House Judiciary I Committee. HB 823 — Adult Adoptee/Access Original Birth Certificate (with Harrison) After 40 years of age, adult adoptees can get their original birth certificates from the state registrar. Status: Passed the House by a unanimous vote, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. REP. JOHN BLUST (R-GUILFORD), DISTRICT 62 About the district: D-62 covers the northwest corner of Guilford County, with precincts in Oak Ridge, Stokesdale, Colfax, Summerfield, High Point and Greensboro. Committee assignments: Chair, Judiciary II; vice-chair, Finance; Banking; Elections and Ethics Law; Homeland Security, Military and Veterans Affairs; Pensions and Retirement, Rules Terms: 9, one in the Senate Bills: 35 (including 20 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 249 — Economic Terrorism (with Faircloth) This bill creates the crime of “economic terrorism,” which includes acts — violent or otherwise — intended to influence civilian and government action. This includes traffic obstruction and other public protests, and compels
mayors by law to have all participants arrested. Status: Referred to House Judiciary II Committee. HB 412 — UNC Public Records/Athletic Conferences “An act to provide that communications and other documentary material possessed by the University of North Carolina or any of its constituent institutions regarding membership in the NCAA in the ACC or other conferences, or in any other collegiate sports association or organization are public records.” It’s a response to the HB 2 stuff. Status: The Senate version of the bill passed by a vote of 37 to 12, and has been referred to the House Rules Committee. HB 735 — Redistricting by computer (with Harrison) Forms an independent redistricting commission, with new districts created using software with “politically neutral criteria.” Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 758 — Voter Integrity Clarifies requirements to vote and gives citizen “election observers” more leeway at polling places. “The observer shall be authorized to be present and move about the voting place prior to, during, and following the closing of the polls until the chief judge and judges have completed all of their duties. The observer shall be permitted to observe precinct officials checking voter registration from a position that allows an observer to clearly hear and understand voter responses.” Status: Referred to House Elections and Ethics Law Committee. HOUSE FORSYTH COUNTY REP. EVELYN TERRY (D-FORSYTH), DISTRICT 71 About the district: D-71 covers the southeast quadrant of Winston-Salem, but also includes a narrow, westward corridor hugging Business 40 and reaching to Hanes Mall Boulevard. Terms: 3 Committee assignments: Vice-chair, Homelessness, Foster Care and Dependency; Appropriations; Appropriations, Transportation; Commerce and Job Development; Environment; Ethics Bills: 108 (including 11 as primary sponsor) Highlights HB 892 — Free Lunch for Some Students/Stop Lunch Shame (with Brockman) Appropriates $5 million to make school lunches free for students who currently qualify for reduced-price lunch while prohibiting public schools from publicly identifying students who can’t pay or owe a meal debt by wearing a bracelet or hand stamp. Also prohibits public schools from requiring students to do chores to pay off a meal debt. Status: Referred to House Appropriation Committee. HB 368 — Block MV Reg./Unpaid Parking Fines in W-S (with Hanes) Requires the state Division of Motor Vehicles to refuse to register a vehicle if the city of Winston-Salem notifies the agency that the owner has failed to pay their parking
REP. ED HANES (D-FORSYTH), DISTRICT 72 About the district: Covering the northern urban portion of Winston-Salem, D-72 is bisected by University Parkway, a racial and economic dividing line in the city. The district includes Smith Reynolds Airport and Wake Forest University. Terms: 3 Committee assignments: Vice-chair, Energy and Public Utilities; Alcoholic Beverage Control; Education, Universities; Ethics; Finance; Health Care Reform; Insurance; Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House Bills: 94 (including 28 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 170 — Pilot/Sports for Students With Disabilities (with Lambeth) Allows the state Department of Public Instruction to use up to $300,000 to develop and implement a pilot program to enhance extracurricular athletics for students with disabilities with the goal of overcoming barriers and empowering students. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee. HB 247 — Limit Soldiers’ Community College Tuition Would ensure that the cost of out-of-state tuition for community college does not exceed available federal tuition assistance for active-duty service members who were unable to continue their studies because of deployment. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Commission. HB 136 — Lower Compulsory Attendance Age from 7 to 6 (with Lambeth) Would lower the age at which a child is required to attend school from 7 to 6. Status: Referred to House Education-K-12 Committee. REP. DEBRA CONRAD (R-FORSYTH), DISTRICT 74 About the district: D-74 covers the northern portion of the suburban-rural doughnut of Forsyth County, including Tobaccoville, Rural Hall and Belews Creek. The district also reaches a finger into affluent, Republican-leaning areas of Winston-Salem south of Robinhood
Road. Terms: 3 Committee assignments: Chair, Commerce and Job Development; chair, Education, K-12; Appropriations; Appropriations, Education; Banking; Elections and Ethics Law; Judiciary III; State and Local Government I Bills: 59 (including 27 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 113 — Pvt. Action Local Compliance/Immigration Laws Allows anyone residing within the jurisdiction of a city, county or law enforcement agency that they believe is not in compliance with state immigration laws to file for injunctive relief in superior court. Would allow a judge to fine cities, counties and law enforcement agencies found to be not in compliance with immigration law up to $10,000 per day. Status: Passed the House by a vote of 65 to 48, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB 35 — Protect North Carolina Workers Act The bill amends North Carolina’s E-verify program, which uses information from federal agencies ensure that employers are not hiring people who are not authorized to work in the United States due to their immigration status. Specifically, the bill ends an exemption for temporary employees, while adding an exemption for farmworkers. Status: Passed the House by a vote of 81 to 39, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. HB 37 — Protect Law Enforcement Officers Protects state and local law enforcement officers from retaliation if they report lawbreaking, fraud, misappropriation of funds, danger to public health and safety, and gross mismanagement. Status: Passed the House by a vote of 65 to 47, and referred to Senate Rules Committee. REP. DONNY LAMBETH (R-FORSYTH), DISTRICT 75 About the district: D-75 covers much of the southern portion of the suburban-rural doughnut of Forsyth County, including Clemmons and a wide swatch of the county’s southeastern corner that also covers outlying areas of Kernersville. The district also extends a digit into Winston-Salem from the southwest covering Hanes Mall and the Ardmore neighborhood. Terms: 3 Committee assignments: Chair, Health; chair, Health Care Reform; chair, Aging; Appropriations; Education, Universities; Insurance; Pensions and Retirement; State Personnel Bills: 93 (including 36 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 883 — Increase Inmate Health Care Requires North Carolina jails and prisons to establish a health information exchange to share inmates’ medical history, including their condition and treatment, medical tests, prescribed medications, and other special medical needs. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee.
HB 435 — Raise Minimum Age to Access Tobacco Products Would gradually raise the minimum age for the purchase of tobacco products, vapor products and cigarette wrapping papers from 18 to 21, with an exception for active-duty military. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 387 — Corner Store Initiative (with Quick) Also called the Healthy Food Small Retailer Act, it’s designed to combat food deserts by establishing a fund that helps bring fresh food to existing businesses. Status: Referred to House Agriculture Committee. HB 46 — Allison’s Law/GPS Tracking Pilot Program (with Conrad, Terry and Hanes) Establishes a pilot program in Forsyth County conducted through a partnership between the state Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement agencies to place GPS tracking devices on domestic violence offenders, with the offenders paying for the cost of the program. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee and House Judiciary IV Committee. REP. JULIA HOWARD (R-FORSYTH, DAVIE), DISTRICT 79 About the district: D-79 includes the western tip of Forsyth County, including Lewisville, along with the entirety of Davie County. Terms: 15 Committee assignments: Chair, Banking; chair, Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Unemployment Insurance; Aging; Commerce and Job Development; Finance, Health, Insurance; Judiciary I Bills: 38 (including 30 as primary sponsor) Highlights: HB 48 — Legislator-Lobbyist Reform Act (with Faircloth) Increases the “cooling off” period during which a former lawmaker may not register as a lawmaker from six months to one year. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee. HB 54 — Protect the Hardworking Taxpayers Act Removes the limitation on the income tax deduction for the mortgage expense and property tax. The Fiscal Research Division estimates the change would cost the state $63 million to $70 million in 2017-2018 and up to $104 million by 2021-2022. Status: Referred to House Finance Committee. HB 196 — Zip Lines/Challenge Courses/Sanders’ Law Requires zip-line operators to be certified through the state Labor Department and to submit to periodic state inspections. Status: Received a favorable vote in House Judiciary I Committee and referred to House Finance Committee. HB 374 — Business Freedom Act Streamlines regulations for employing teenagers and other changes to reduce burdens on businesses. Status: Passed House by a unanimous vote, and referred to Senate Finance Committee.
triad-city-beat.com
fines. Status: Referred to House State and Local Government I Committee. HB 246 — Forsyth Tech Multicampus Funds (with Conrad, Lambeth and Hanes) Appropriates $526,119 in recurring annual funds to operate the Transportation Technology Center at Forsyth Tech. Status: Referred to House Appropriations Committee. HB 102 — NC Adopt Equal Rights Amendment Would ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women and men regardless of sex. Status: Referred to House Rules Committee.
15
June 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment
16
CULTURE Hey baby, we’re going to Nawab this weekend
by Eric Ginsburg
T
ake out your calendar and find a night that you’re free in the next week. If you don’t see a slot for dinner out, cancel on somebody. Point to your busy schedule and explain that you need this, that you don’t take enough time for yourself. Then invite someone to come along with you, if you’re into that sort of thing. If necessary, tell your partner that you need them to watch the kids for a couple hours. Or strap the tykes into the car and get moving. Really I don’t care how you get there, and I’ll leave the details up to you. You’re an adult — or at least a teenager, I’m assuming — or maybe an emotional teenager trapped in a 30-year-old’s body. None of that matters to me. What I care about is that you go to Nawab Indian Cuisine and order the chana papri chaat and the chicken biryani. And that you do it promptly, and with enough time to sit there and genuinely savor each bite, not just scarfing it down, not using it as an excuse to delay answering your Tinder date’s
awful getting-to-know-you questions and not ordering takeout to save time and then eating it at home once the food’s started to cool. Have you heard of decision fatigue? It’s a real thing. If you’ve spent the whole day making decisions at work, decisions about your personal or family life and then you’re faced with more choices, it’s easy to feel exhausted and overwhelmed. What’s more, you’re increasingly likely to make bad decisions. Like heating up a frozen burrito and eating it over the sink in your dirty kitchen. Or saying, “Screw it,” and hitting the drive-thru. Again. That’s why I’m trying to make this really easy for you. And don’t worry — I’m going to make it absurdly easy to follow along. When you get to Nawab — a mid-sized Indian restaurant with dim lighting at the back of a drab shopping center off of Stratford Road in west Winston-Salem — order the chana papri chaat. It’s a relatively light appetizer, consisting primarily of spiced chickpeas and tiny ERIC GINSBURG The chicken biryani is better than you could even stuffed potato patties that are smaller than Chex cereal. imagine. Chana chaat has quickly become my go-to Indian app — whether here or anywhere else that serves it, most tried too many different varieties of the dish, which can be notably Indu Convenient Store in Greensboro — because it’s ordered vegetarian or otherwise at Nawab. I’ll save you the a light and refreshing vegetarian starter. The sweet and sour trouble of experimenting with mediocre versions (yes, I’ve had sauce at Nawab makes this version slightly tangier and spicier a couple at other restaurants) and encourage — no, exhort — than Indu’s bright, lime-zested offering, but I would expect you to order the chicken biryani at Nawab. Nawab’s take to have a little more universal appeal. The chicken is marinated with saffron and various spices Do not eat all of your chana papri (the menu doesn’t specify) and steam chaat — or aloo tikki chaat, if you’d precooked with basmati rice, which I’ve fer larger potato patties for a slightly read is an increasingly common rice Visit Nawab Indian Cuisine at different snack — before your entrée choice but more rare historically. The 129 S. Stratford Road (W-S) or arrives. You’re going to want it, and biryani is topped with raisins and caat nawabindiancuisine.com. maybe a yogurt-based lassi drink too, in shews, adding a welcome complexity to order to help balance out the spice of the dish without straying too far from your biryani. the core ingredients. Like many Americans, I’ve never been to India but have takI went to Nawab with a friend, and I’m not exaggerating en my turns at numerous Indian buffets. During my eight years when I say that neither of us could believe how delicious the as a vegetarian, Indian food quickly became my favorite cuichicken biryani was. It’s not that the dish was foreign to us – it sine for dining out, and I’ve since explored deeper into menus wasn’t — and it’s not dissimilar from Indian food you’re likely at both in the Triad and outside, including a recent stop at one more used to eating. It’s just that the entrée there is honestly of Manhattan’s most highly reviewed Indian restaurants that that good. stands in the middle of a small, south-Asian neighborhood. In a region that often suffers from what Triad City Beat likes These insights, albeit somewhat limited, lead me to two to call “good-enough disease,” both culinarily and otherwise, conclusions: First, most Americans — even the ones who Nawab deserves particular distinction and credit for how flamight be able to tell you what a dosa is — are sleeping on biryvorful and well prepared its biryani arrives. It will warm your ani. And second, the food I ate at Nawab is as good as any I’ve very being, and I’d put it up against the best in the business, had elsewhere, topping my meal in New York and rivaling local locally or otherwise. favorites including Taaza, Agni, Saffron and Golden India. Nawab is one of those places where ordering a dish medium Yes, I’m totally serious. spicy is equivalent to hot or very hot elsewhere. That’s where Biryani is a south Asian rice dish with pretty extensive varithe lassi and chaat come in. Order it mild if you’d prefer, but eties and traditions. If you’re unfamiliar and looking for more I don’t regret my “medium” decision, preferring the chance detail, I recommend the episode of The Sporkful food podcast for interplay between my plates. Regardless, the two tastes with “The Daily Show” comedian Hasan Minhaj, but here’s a elevate each other. slice: “I really think every south Asian mom has a distinct spin It may be true that Winston-Salem is virtually devoid of Inon biryani,” Minhaj tells hose Dan Pashman. “It’s our gumbo dian cuisine. Nawab and Golden India are the lone restaurants — it’s a food that allows you to remix and put a lot of unique I’ve found, despite an assortment of choices in Greensboro, elements in it.” many of them first-rate. But how many choices do you really If you didn’t grow up eating biryani or marry into a southneed if the ones in front of you are such high caliber? Aren’t Asian family, chances are good that — like me — you haven’t you tired of making decisions anyway?
Up Front News Monday Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz 7:30 Tuesday Live music with Piedmont Old Time Society Old Time music and Bluegrass 7:30 Wednesday Live music with J Timber and Joel Henry with special guests 8:30
Thursday Joymongers Band aka Levon Zevon aka Average Height Band 8:30pm
joymongers.com | 336-763-5255 576 N. Eugene St. | Greensboro
Recipes fRom the old city of
JERUSALEM
Culture Sportsball
Pale Ale from Kernersville Brewing or sampling the award-winning wares at Brown Truck or Liberty in High Point, I will say to the gods of beer, May Triad brewers be ever faithful to the craft, ever experimental and continue making hella tasty suds.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday BEER
Cover Story
The author drinking the newly released Triad KAT BODRIE Brewers Alliance Belgian Tripel at Preyer Brewing in Greensboro.
Crossword
Kat loves red wine, Milan Kundera, and the Shins. She wears scarves at katbodrie. com.
Shot in the Triad
Pick of the Week
DINE IN TO GO
CaTErING markET plaCE “You Will Be Pleased”
(336) 723-7239
breakfastofcourse.com
310 South Elm Street • Greensboro, NC 27401 336.279.7025 | Mon-Sat 11am-9pm | www.jerusalemarket.com
Triaditude Adjustment
Greensboro craft brewery tour @ World of Beer Greensboro (GSO), Saturday, noon Forget the designated driver — Tap Hopper Tours is a chance to be chauffeured around town on a tour that showcases Greensboro craft breweries and culture. Guests tour of three local breweries, receive tasting samples of the participating breweries’ beers. Guests will also have access to water and snacks as well storage space for growlers and pints on the bus. For tickets and pricing, visit taphoppertours.com.
Opinion
wo weeks ago, I lounged at the U-shaped bar of Hair of the Dog Brewery in Portland, Ore., finishing one of the best beers I’d had on my five-day trip. In all, I tried 36 beers and visited seven breweries, but what stood out to me was how mediocre most of them were. Portland has an esteemed reputation in by Kat Bodrie the craft-beer scene. I’d read about many of the 100-plus breweries in the metro area and envisioned one on every street corner, and every beer the highest caliber of its kind. So I visited the trendy (and, in my mind, overrated) Deschutes, rubbed literal elbows with bros at Old Town Brewing and followed the brewery trail through the city’s Inner Southeast neighborhood. If you did the same, we probably wouldn’t agree on favorites. I tend toward darker beers, Belgians and hoppy or juicy IPAs, all of which were high on my list of Portland faves. But farmhouse ales and goses are pretty popular, and lagers are becoming a trend I could really do without. That’s the beauty of beer: the subjective and transitory nature of it, how you and I can disagree on the quality of fruit beers that are probably just one-offs anyway, how brewers change recipes and experiment with styles no one has heard of before and not everyone will have the time to try. In Portland, every time I sampled the burnt-berry ale I hated, I thought about the happy experiments I love: Shaina Gold’s strawberry-banana hefeweizen at Gibb’s Hundred in downtown Greensboro, or the Triad Brewers Alliance Belgian tripel that I tried before my trip. For each ho-hum Portland stout, I conjured the flavors of Hoots’ Morning Coffee, Preyer’s Vladibeer Russian imperial, Four Saints’ bourbon-barrel-aged Impending Grace and the Satisfy My Soul nitro at Wise Man. (Please bring it back!) Sure, the West Coast has some gnarly IPAs, like Hop in the Pool from Base Camp, which tastes just like juice. And I don’t think I’ll ever have anything quite like the Bourbon Little Brother Belgian dark strong ale at the Commons. But the Bière de Garde from Joymongers is out of this world, and the hefeweizen at Small Batch in Winston-Salem beats anything on a hot day. Denver, I’ve heard, is another Western brew mecca, and I’ll probably go someday. But will I be thinking of drinking People’s Porter from a plastic cup at a Winston-Salem Dash game, or sipping a bottle of Natty Greene’s Red Nose Winter ale by the fire? Absolutely. The Triad might not yet be a major tourist destination in the craft world, but the brewers here are holding their own. Next time I’m drinking an ESB at Pig Pounder, a Peppers
SPREADING JOY ONE PINT AT A TIME
triad-city-beat.com
T
Portland’s got nothin’ on us
17
June 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News Opinion
I
t wasn’t a show. No, not by the normal means of going to see live music. The usual processes were present of course: bands loading in and setting up instruments, a crowd awaiting to hear the music with drinks in hand. But there was a different air to the evening. As if for the few hours from when it began until the bar cleared out, the bands and audience alike were carried into another realm, a moment in time that only long afterwards does one realize that something important has happened. The bill for the night consisted of a powerhouse of Winston-Salem bands and musicians, all of whom were gathered for the show celebrating Toby Hilliard’s birthday, a staple and important figure in the local music scene. But as the celebration was only the means of bringing a community together, the night lifted into a realm of something entirely more. Sing-songwriter Tim Poovey, former Autopassion guitarist, began the night’s celebration with a selection of
Sportsball
Culture
Cover Story
CULTURE Dark Prophet, Tongueless Monk leaves crowd in awe
by Spencer KM Brown
All Showtimes @ 9:00pm
Shot in the Triad
Crossword
6/21 Comedy & Burlesque 6/22 Friday Night Music Club Block
Party & Nite Moves Dance After Party
a new way, each of the acts seemed to carry the night forward, building upon each other until it nearly became too much. “The only way I can think of it is like, you have five minutes to live,” said Bjorn Jacobsen, guitarist of Bjorn & Francois, after the show. “Only a few minutes to perform and tell them something, so you’re forced to get to the heart of it all, to marrow of the music. You say, I’m going to let these people into my world and show them something.” The evening of such diverse, yet neatly crafted music was brought together by Toby Hilliard, owner of local vintage-goods business Elevated Weirdo. Having become an essential personality among the bars and venues of Winston-Salem’s Trade Street, Hilliard’s vision brought not only a solid lineup of bands to the stage, but by the night’s end, brought perhaps a new community of music fans together. Bands whose music somehow forced the crowd to come together in the moment, forgetting about life’s messes for a while. During the show, the usual glow of cellphone screens extinguished. Friends spoke and danced and gave homage to the art that was performed for their ears only.
• Gigabit speed internet
6/24 Hollow Leg, Bask
• Private and semi-private meeting spaces
Thief
Paperback
Triaditude Adjustment
Jared Draughon of Must Be the Holy Ghost SPENCER KM BROWN joins Dark Prophet, Tongueless Monk at Test Pattern.
6/23 Breadfoot, Arcus Hyatt, Magpie
6/25 Long Short Story, Come Clean,
18
songs that carried with it an intimate commencement. The dance floor filled as people sat along the front of the stage. His cigarette-smoothed vocals rang out in beautiful melodies, gathering the people closer to witness what was to come. Slowly, the evening built in momentum, gathering more and more force with each act like a storm about to break on the sea. Picking up where Poovey left off, Bjorn & Francois brought their brilliantly composed songs to the stage, carrying a hypnotic tone in their set. And while at many shows a crowd tends to ebb back and forth between watching the bands and wandering off, the crowd remained in place nearly the entire night. Building like Dante’s seven-story mountain, the Girlfriends raised the crowd even higher towards a paradise that was coming into sight. Blending a raw and gritty style of punk with bluesy guitar and captivating stage presence, the band didn’t let the crowd miss out on their reputation for wild performances. Mid-song, bass player Alex Bond handed his guitar to a friend in the crowd who took his place on stage while Bond smoked a cigarette and danced among fans. The crowd rallied close in the punk-fueled dance that swelled before the performers. And as the evening carried on and the stage was reset for the final act of the night, the room filled, and all eyes watched as frontman Jacob Leonard slid into his guitar strap. Like a shaman before his congregation, Dark Prophet, Tongueless Monk brought the night’s celebration into full bloom. The three-piece, experimental-psych band grew to four with Jared Draughon of Must Be the Holy Ghost on bass. Dark Prophet commanded the stage in a way that seems reserved for larger venues. Leonard’s hypnotic presence and dark, dreamlike vocals saturated the room. With its heavy-hitting and highly technical songwriting style, Dark Prophet calls to mind the sounds of Godspeed You Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky, although a comparison seems an injustice for the sounds the four of them created. Like a people longing for some great moment of wonder, an energy moved among the crowd; some danced in dreamy motion as if experiencing something beyond reality, some kept eyes closed and let the music wash over them, and yet all were bonded together in an almost occult manner, standing before the stage, captivated by the artists performing. As if allowing those in attendance to enter into the music in
Mentoring | Networking | Collaboration Downtown Greensboro’s entrepreneurial community.
• Floor-to-ceiling dry erase board walls
701 N Trade Street Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Memberships start at $50/month.
• Comfy community spaces
(336)955-1888
collab.cobot.me/
• Valuable programming and connections
• FREE Biscuitville coffee
Pick of the Week Hops & Shop Weekend Summer Bash @ Foothills Brewing Tasting Room (W-S), Saturday, noon Foothills Brewing hosts a free community event with live music, food trucks and more than 100 arts and craft vendors. This event is family friendly and dog friendly. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
A
More than just a meet-and-greet, the Artist Talks series also serves as professional development for interns and residents. “I’ve done talks in the context of academia… but this is my first time doing it [in] public,” said intern Adam Matonic, 25, of Rock Hill, SC. “It was nerve-wracking, but at the same time it was a good experience.”
Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment
Amid a seemingly disorganized medley of books, fabrics, props and furniture, a vintage table lamp’s glow illuminated the faces of Elsewhere’s spring interns as more than two dozen people gathered to hear the six of them discuss the evolution of their creative work late Saturday afternoon. On the second Saturday of each month, the interactive museum’s Artist Talks series invites the public to meet the resident and intern artists who live communally on the Greensboro property and amend the museum’s ever-evolving artwork. Intern Ava Zuckawitz, 20, isn’t primarily an artist, though; she is a social scientist conducting an ethnography of collective art spaces for her senior anthropology thesis at the New College of Florida. Prior to her internship, the Sarasota-based activist and organizer contributed to collaborative art projects like one confronting assumptions about spaces with Elsewhere Elsewhere interns present their varied work as part LAUREN BARBER intern and recent New College alum Sophia Schultz. of a monthly series at the Greensboro art space. “When you come into a space you have understandings of how things should work, where things go and “They could write their own knowledge or use it as a diary — who you should be,” Zuckawitz said. “We wanted to create whatever they needed at the time.” a space where… you would [be more] present [with] your Intern Koy Smith, 47, of San Francisco, is the cohort’s only thoughts and instincts when looking at the objects.” interdisciplinary performance artist. As if auditioning for the internship Jordan Delzell, 23, of As Smith began to self-identify as transgender and non-biBrooklyn, explored the interplay between social practice and nary, their love of metal and punk subcultures informed their design production when a course at the New School in New interest in body-based performance, especially during the York City challenged her to come up with salt and pepper height of hormonal transitioning. shakers that would disrupt modern eat“Around that time, I developed a drag ing practices. persona called Shreddie Van Nailin based “I wanted to bring attention to [the on Eddie Van Halen,” Smith said. “Fright Learn more about the interns shakers] and then back towards the drag isn’t concerned with ‘passing’ or at goelsewhere.org and view people at the table,” she said. impersonating a certain gender but with final exhibits 6-10 p.m. on Delzell created a spherical blue salt messing with those tropes.” First Friday, July 7 at Elseshaker and curved, triangular pepper Attendees watched Smith’s drag shaker that interlock. The orange hue makeup tutorial set to an indulgent where, 606 S Elm St. (GSO). of the pepper shaker both opposes and 6-minute Van Halen guitar solo, culmicomplements the blue sphere, a clever nating in the donning of a curly blond metaphor addressing the relationship wig and military-esque jacket; an image between two companions. of triumph. “[The shakers] can only stand if they’re leaning on one In a distressing yet engrossing piece Smith described, they another [and] when they’re pulled away from each other they pierced their belly button with a hormonal injection needle spill,” Delzell said. “In theory, the people at the table have to and popped hormone-triggered acne. Smith’s performance acknowledge each other and be aware of each other’s needs; compelled audiences to reflect on narratives about body modotherwise a mess will ensue.” ification, whose bodies society views with disgust and why. Lately, Delzell bases projects in processes rather than Following the presentations, audience members engaged interactions; her final exhibition will feature experimental interns in a brief question-and-answer session before enjoying paper-making. basil-citrus cocktails amid the museum’s curiosities. “Often knowledge is in paper form,” she said. “So the power behind being able to destroy or reform that is interesting to Pick of the Week me.” As her senior project, Delzell invited classmates to contribThe Night of The Iguana @ SECCA (W-S), Saturday 7:30 ute materials representative of their four years at school: bep.m. loved and loathed readings, ashes from a popular smoke spot SECCA screens a film based on a play by Tennessee Wilon campus and a perpetually ill classmate’s Hall’s wrappers, to liams and starring Ava Gardner, a North Carolina native. A name a few. Delzell boiled them all into a mush in pots on the discussion and reception with Lynell Seabold and Matthew stove, then photographed the process and crafted booklets McCarthy of the Ava Gardner Museum follows. For more for contributors. information, visit secca.org.
triad-city-beat.com
CULTURE Elsewhere artist talks stretch boundaries of creativity
by Lauren Barber
2921-D Battleground Ave. • Greensboro
thehubltd.com • 336-545-6535
19
June 21 – 27, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword
A
way from all the whirl By 12:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, the teams event and thunder at the Triad was already into its fourth hour. Between the day’s Lanes bowling alley in many errands, Marino paused to talk with Yvette Greensboro, a picture Davis, the state association manager, who travels to of Hank Marino, who was born Greensboro from her home in Charlotte every tournain 1889, hangs on an office wall. ment weekend. The image captures Marino, The two seasoned bowling experts and organizers dressed in a tie and unrolled illuminated the many reasons that bowling has drawn by Joel Sronce shirt sleeves, as he crouches such great numbers. down to bowl. A short description includes: “All-Amer“It’s a lifetime sport,” Marino said, mentioning that ican, 1939-40.” bowlers from ages 4 to 90 have been spotted at Triad Though this vestige of Marino remains, the sport of Lanes. Davis added that the sport can be played at any bowling has evolved in ways that would shock the onetime of the year, in any weather. time champion. The old wooden lanes have been torn For Marino, the joy that those around him experiup — revealing tobacco wads, beer bottles and sardine ence is its own reward. cans of overall-adorned journeymen from decades past “It might be hard to believe, but it’s God’s honest — and replaced with synthetic ones. truth,” Marino laughed. “People The automatic pin-setting machines come in here and get a strike, and for The NC State USBC have quickened the pace of the them it’s the greatest thing on earth.” tournaments take game, and now women consistently At that moment Davis pointed to bowl beside — and beat — their male a young girl — about five years old place at Triad Lanes opponents. — who was bowling with her family But one tradition persists without a and AMF All Star Lanes away from the tournament compedoubt: Generations later, the bowling tition. The girl squealed with exciteevery weekend until in Marino’s blood endures. ment after sending her yellow ball July 9. Bob Marino, a partner and general slowly down the lane, turning to her manager at Triad Lanes, has been parents in triumph well before her in the bowling business for 40 years — 14 of them ball reached the pins. in Greensboro. The younger Marino’s blue and black On Davis’ right hand gleamed three rings: Two large collared shirt boasts the stitching of a well-earned silver ones studded with green gems — awards from moniker: Bowling Bob. the USBC Hall of Fame — and a third that sported a And this summer, he has to live up to it. great blue stone: Her USBC prize for a perfect game. For the first time in 10 years, the North Carolina Davis’s achievements on the lane — including her claim State USBC Association — a chartered member of the to bowling’s highest possible score — validate the United States Bowling Congress — has brought a tourmuch-needed end that ultimately came to the sport’s nament to the Gate City that stretches on far longer gender segregation. than the famous week of ACC basketball. In the six According to Davis, the merger of separate men’s weekends from early June to mid-July, more than 500 and women’s tournaments into a co-ed Open Tournateams from around North Carolina — as well as a few ment derived from a lawsuit that two women brought from South Carolina and Virginia — visit Triad Lanes for against the league. They argued that the Open, as it their chance to be crowned the best team in the Open was then called, did not specify “men’s.” Their case (co-ed) or Women’s Tournaments. (At the AMF All Star led to the inclusion of women in the highest levels of Lanes on nearby Holden Road, the singles and doubles competitive bowling, and rightly so: Davis recalled tournaments take place over the same six-week span.) that in the years since the merger, several women have
PIZZERIA
L’ITALIANO
Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment
20
Co-ed bowling championships descend on the Triad
SPORTSBALL
Large 1-topping pizza
11
$
99 Good through 6/27/17
Monday – Thursday
Order online at pizzerialitaliano.net
219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • 336
WE ! DELIVER 274 4810
won the NC State USBC Singles Open Championship, including in Matthews, NC in 2009. As they competed in the Triad Lanes tournament on Sunday afternoon, one women’s team — the North Carolina and Virginia Girls — reveled in bowling together, as well as in the discussion of a perfect game. “If I had a perfect game, I wouldn’t be out here!” exclaimed Maxine Burns, laughing with those around her. Burns, who sported her full name in cursive gold lettering on the back of a purple shirt, swore she’d want to go out with a bang. But Chenise Blackwell — from Danville, Va. — disagreed. “I have two grandbabies, I don’t play another sport,” Blackwell explained. For her, bowling is a chance to enjoy the competition, and to travel and socialize with her teammates. But most importantly, bowling is a stress reliever, which became the primary motive for Blackwell and her coworkers at the Danville Regional Medical Center as they began forming a team years ago. Listening to Davis and Marino discuss the collaborative success of this year’s tournaments, it seems like another long stretch of time before the NC State USBC returns to Greensboro is unlikely. “We might break history and bring it back here next year,” Davis said. “After all, it is tournament town,” Marino added with a smile.
Pick of the Week NBA Draft Night @ CP3 Basketball Academy (WS), Thursday 6:30 p.m. The CP3 Basketball Academy hosts a viewing of the 2017 NBA Draft. The event includes prizes, contests and fun for all ages. For more information, visit cp3basketballacademy.com.
rattle + hum
We’ll change your oil, not your radio station.
Automotive
894 N. Liberty Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101
336.293.7312 • #wsnc rattleandhumautomotive.com
‘That’s Not a Word!’ not entering the dictionary anytime soon. by Matt Jones
Opinion
Playing June 23 – 27 GEEKSBORO PRESENTS A TRIBUTE TO A HERO
ADAM WEST (1928-2017) 10 p.m. Friday, June 23. $5 Tickets!
Playing June 22 – 24 Friday Night Standup Presents Jay Stadler
Cover Story
Change.org’s Favorite Comedian! 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 23. Tickets $10
Culture
--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--
Board Game Night
Sportsball
7 p.m. Friday, June 23. More than 100 BOARD GAMES -- FREE TO PLAY!
Saturday Morning Cartoons
Great Cartoons! Free Admission! 10 a.m. & 12 p.m. Every Saturday! Triple KO Tournament “Tekken 7,” “Street Fighter V,” &
“Super Smash Bros (WiiU)”
$7 Venue - $7 Entry Per Game. 12 p.m. Sunday, June 25 TV CLUB: Twin Peaks 9 p.m. Sunday June 25. Free admission with drink purchase!
Totally Rad Trivia
8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 27th. $3 buy in! Cash prizes!
336-355-7180
2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro idiotboxers.com • 336-274-2699
gatecityvineyard.com
336.323.1288
204 S. Westgate Dr., Greensboro
Triaditude Adjustment
Sunday Service @ 10:30am
Shot in the Triad
Beer! Wine! Amazing Coffee! 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro geeksboro.com •
OTHER SHOWS Open Mic 8:30 p.m. Thurs., June 22nd. $5 tickets! Family Improv 4 p.m. Sat., June 24th. $6 Tickets! Saturday Night Improv 8:30 p.m. & 10 pm. Sat., June 24th. $10 tickets! Discount tickets available @ Ibcomedy.yapsody.com
Crossword
32 Creme-filled cookies 35 Arthur ___, inventor of the crossword in 1913 36 Old photo shade 39 Oil-producing gp. 40 Outdoor gala 41 “SNL” alum Armisen 43 Munchable morning mix 44 Collected wisdom 45 Intertwines 46 Winter coats 47 Decelerate 48 Ancient scroll materials 52 City known for mustard 54 Walk hard 57 Kia hybrid SUV since 2016 (what, you expected “Robert De ___”?) 59 Finished 61 “Moulin Rouge!” director Luhrmann 63 TGIF part 64 Id ___ (that is) 65 Moriarty, to Holmes 66 Low-ranking USN officer
News
Down 1 Racecar driver Foyt and Backstreet Boy McLean, for two 2 “That’s, like, preschool level” 3 Musical genre from Jamaica 4 Candy with collectible dispensers 5 Xavier Cugat’s ex-wife Lane 6 Beer from Golden, Colorado 7 Minima and maxima, in math 8 Brother or sister 9 Musical adaptation abbr. 10 “Hop ___!” 11 Lacking guidance 12 Allergen with its own index 13 The Who’s “Baba ___” 14 Turn on its head 20 ___ Ishii (“Kill Bill” character) 22 “Mangy Love” folk-rocker McCombs 23 Genre for the Ramones 24 “Whiles, like ___, I go to find my fawn”: Shakespeare 25 Fitted for a ring, e.g.
Up Front
Across 1 Newspaper revenue source 8 Used, as a saddle 15 Player seen in bars 16 Raw material used to make steel 17 *Mork’s epithet on “Mork & Mindy” 18 *Second word of “Jabberwocky” 19 Flynn of “Captain Blood” 21 “___ friend!” 22 Tax prep pros 26 Typeface embellishment 28 Chemical that makes a flea flee 29 Sound 31 “The Wizard of ___ Park” 33 “Science Guy” Bill 34 *Creatures questioned by Mr. Salt in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” 37 Disreputable, slangily 38 Accompany to the airport, maybe ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 42 *Scuttle’s guess at naming a human artifact (really a fork) in “The Little Mermaid” 46 Sony handheld console since 2005, briefly 49 Big bankruptcy of 2001 50 Seven on “Sesame Street,” sometimes 51 “Only ___” (Oingo Boingo song) 53 Ranks above viscounts 55 Got all the questions right on 56 “___ the Wind” (Garth Brooks album) 58 “Super!” 60 *Scrabble play by Bart (which Homer challenged) in the second-ever episode of “The Simpsons” 62 *May 2017 mis-tweet that won’t go away 67 Dawn-related 68 Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Answers from previous publication. 69 17th-century Dutch philosopher who wrote “Ethics” 27 “It’s just a ___ wound!” 70 7UP alternatives 30 Harriet’s TV spouse
triad-city-beat.com
CROSSWORD
21
June 21 – 27, 2017
South Dudley Street, Greensboro
Triaditude Adjustment
Shot in the Triad
Crossword
Sportsball
Culture
Cover Story
Opinion
News
Up Front
SHOT IN THE TRIAD
22
Harold Muhammed, former mailman and proud Muslim, spreads the word every weekend in Greensboro.
PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY
The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship... connect your business to success. 336-379-5001
www.nussbaumcfe.com
I
Hungry enough to eat a…
Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword
Jelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer who lives in Winston-Salem. She enjoys pizza, obscure power-pop records and will probably die alone. Follow her on Twitter @gordonshumway.
Opinion
eaten a dozen bowls of that ragu. I came back from both of those trips raving about those meals, and was met with either tentative curiosity or flat-out rage. (At least one person stopped speaking to me shortly after Iceland, and I haven’t ruled that tenderloin out as the reason why.) Eating horse is technically legal in the US, but you’ll have to prepare and provide your own horse: The last horse slaughterhouses were closed — and banned — 10-plus years ago, and the USDA does not and will not inspect any facilities related to horse meat. Despite attempts to slide it onto US plates — mostly when other meats were rationed during both World Wars — Americans never seemed to develop a taste for it, whether because of our feelings for horses as companions or work animals or because of sociological perceptions about eating their meat. (In a well-researched recent piece, The Atlantic said that in the 19th Century, newspapers wrote of horse as the food of “poverty, war, social breakdown, and revolution” none of which seemed to make anyone’s stomach growl.) Last month, a James Beard-nominated Pittsburgh chef collaborated with two Quebecois chefs and served a one-night-only tasting menu that featured horse tartar. The reaction was predictably understated, involving increasingly angry complaints, frantic Yelp reviews asking whether he’d start serving humans next and at least one death threat from a commenter on the website News of the Horse. And, several years ago, a Philly chef who’d considered adding horse to his menu got near-daily bomb threats until he promised to only serve the other farm animals. So no, it’s not popular, but it is unbelievably tasty. I fully intend to eat it again when I see it on a menu in Canada, Scandinavia or the handful of European countries where it’s still served with any regularity… but I still don’t know what to cook tonight.
News
ticed shrug. “I mean, like, what kind of horse is it?” I asked. “It’s Icelandic horse, which is raised as a food source here,” he said, quickly adding, “It’s not like her name was Bluebell and we had to put her down this morning.” He also told me to imagine the best steak I’d ever had in my life, and then to immediately forget about it, because these 10 ounces of medium-rare tenderloin were going to be the best I’d ever had. I ordered the horse — and he was right. The memory of the best cut of meat I’d eaten, at a Miami steakhouse a decade earlier, was immediately shoved into the bin of Things I Don’t Need to Think About, along with algebra and the size of my pores. I didn’t have horse again until last month, in Padua, Italy, when I wandered into some kind of culinary festival that stretched throughout the Prato della Valle public square. It was barely noon, but there were dozens and dozens of food stalls, each flying a different European flag. I went full Carmen San Diego, racing from country to country before stopping at a row of stands that seemed to represent northern Italy. The wooden sign on the center stall had the silhouette of a horse mid-canter, underneath the words Carne Equina — horse meat. My Italian is pure garbage (I’m not even sure how to say that in Italian) but could understand that it was a father and son who ran the business, and they’d traveled to Padua for the day. They stood side by side behind a small counter, alternately gesturing to the two-item chalkboard menu or the small baskets filled with horse and donkey sausages. Through a series of hand gestures and grammatically mangled questions, I learned they served either a horse burger or horse ragu over gnocchi, and both cost a fiver. I ordered the gnocchi and am not exaggerating when I say it was the best meal of that weeklong trip. “I ordered horse meat from a street festival,” I typed in my inevitable Instagram post. “Please mention this in my obituary.” If the day had been several hundred degrees cooler, I would’ve ordered a second bowl. As I stand in Publix, picking up and putting down another package of colorless chicken thighs, I wish I’d
Up Front
’m at Publix, shoving my cart past rows of canned vegetables at a speed that will register as several minutes of exercise on my Fitbit. I’m starving and irritable, which are the worst possible emotions when it comes to deciding what by Jelisa Castrodale to eat for dinner, because that combo supposedly makes you more likely to make poor food choices. For someone like me, whose diet is already made entirely of foods advertised on the sides of Sprint Cup cars, it doesn’t matter. I’ve walked the entire unsatisfying length of the meat display case, picking up and putting down two different Styrofoam trays while prodding several others with my fingertips. I made accidental eye contact with the butcher, so I’m debating whether to haggle over price tags and expiration dates, telling him that these pork chops have already expired in Australia. I just can’t decide what I want, mostly because what I really want isn’t for sale on Miller Street, and it hasn’t been for sale in the United States for several decades. I had the best steak of my life two winters ago in a modern Icelandic restaurant in central Reykjavik. (I can’t remember the name and, even if I could, my keyboard doesn’t have the right special characters to type it out.) The special that night was an adorably named combination called the Sea Horse that — based on the other animals I’ve seen listed on Icelandic menus — made me wonder how many sea horses you could eat in one sitting. But, in neatly italicized English, it explained that the combo was an Arctic char starter, followed by a horse tenderloin. A land horse. I’m terrified of horses, and never had that fanciful attachment to them that most girls seem to unwrap on their 10th birthdays. I didn’t daydream about starring in a National Velvet reboot, and the My Little Ponies I inevitably accumulated were just reluctant stand-ins for Battle Cat, when He-Man had to hitch a ride back to Castle Grayskull. I didn’t immediately rule out the steak, is what I’m saying. When the waiter drifted to my table, I asked him about the horse. “What about it,” he said, with a prac-
triad-city-beat.com
TRIADITUDE ADJUSTMENT
Shot in the Triad onpopstudios.com • 336.383.9332 • 1333 Grove St, Greensboro
Triaditude Adjustment
Friday, June 23: Jaguardini, Cactus Black, Ibidem Saturday, June 24: North Elementary, Hectorina, Lookwell Monday, June 26: Bob Fleming & the DCP, Magpie Thief, Mikey Stough, David Z. Cox Wednesday, July 5: Pinche Gringo, Plastic Pinks, the Old One Two Friday, July 7: Sarah Shook & the Disarmers
23
Summer Sale! EVERYTHING
MUST GO! $600 full-page ads June–July* * Ads must be used by the end of July. Minimum two-ad buy. Not applicable for political advertising. No back-page ads.
Fire up your business this summer with a brandnew, shiny, full-page ad!
Call Regina Curry at 336.613.7387 or
Brian Clarey at 336.681.0704
to place your ad today!