April 14, 2016 by Rhino Times

Vol. IV No. 15

Greensboro, North Carolina

www.rhinotimes.com

THEREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MORE TO BATHROOM LAW Scott D. Yost

DA Getting Ducks in Row for Marsha Williams Trial plus Under The Hammer, Uncle Orson Reviews Everything AND MORE

Thursday, April 14, 2016

RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

THE WEEKLY Hammer

The Weekly Hammer

Liberals Not Above Conspiracy Theories by John Hammer Editor I learned a lot and had quite a bit of fun at the Newsmakers Forum sponsored by King’s English and held at Scuppernong Books Thursday, April 7. One thing that surprised me is that liberals, or at least the four liberal newspaper editors on the panel with me, are all conspiracy theorists. Conservatives used to have a big branch of conspiracy theorists, the most well known was the John Birch Society, but that group has been marginalized by mainstream conservatives and you don’t hear much from Birchers these days. I don’t remember ever interviewing a Republican candidate for office who claimed to be a Bircher. It doesn’t mean they weren’t, but if they were they didn’t want to advertise it. Occasionally someone will send me one of their publications and I find the conservative conspiracy theorists just as unbelievable as I find the liberal conspiracy theorists. I don’t think some people realize that because a group that agrees on political issues gathers, it doesn’t

liberal friend that ALEC was running the state and I didn’t know who ALEC was. I found out ALEC was not a person but a conservative organization. I wonder if most people understand how bills actually get written? As far as I know, nobody sits down with a blank sheet of paper and writes a bill. What is normally done is that if someone wants to introduce a bill, say to allow concealed carry in a state, the bill writers gather up as many concealed carry bills as they can find, take out the parts that aren’t germane, and often cut and paste until they come up with what they want. ALEC is a conservative organization, and one of the services it provides is model legislation. If ALEC has a model bill on a topic, it certainly gets thrown into the mix. But it doesn’t mean that ALEC is

controlling the legislation anymore than a bill passed in South Carolina or South Dakota that has language lawmakers want to use in North Carolina means another state is controlling the legislation in North Carolina. The fact that bills are often cut and pasted rather than written from a blank page also explains how weird stuff that doesn’t apply ends up in legislation. Senate Bill 36, which became House Bill 263 to reconfigure the Greensboro City Council, had a portion of a bill written for Charlotte that got left in by mistake. It would have meant that the mayor of Greensboro could not have voted on matters before the City Council on passage of the bill. It was a mistake and that happens (continued on page 11)

mean it’s a conspiracy. The other editors on the panel, News & Record Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson, Carolina Peacemaker Editor Afrique Kilimanjaro, Yes! Weekly Editor Jeff Sykes and City Beat Editor Brian Cleary, expressed agreement that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is running the (continued on page 6) state. It’s interesting to me because I am in touch with some of the people who are running the state on a daily basis. I know a lot more than I did when the Democrats were in control about how the laws of the state get written, make it through committees, are amended and get Photo by Elaine Hammer passed. City Beat Editor Brian Cleary, Rhino Times Editor John Hammer, Yes! Weekly Editor I have never heard Jeff Sykes, Carolina Peacemaker Editor Afrique Kilimanjaro, News & Record a Republican mention Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson (from left) enjoying the opening remarks made ALEC, except when I asked about it because by Mayor Nancy Vaughan at the Newsmakers forum sponsored by King’s English at Scuppernong Books on Thursday evening. I had been told by a

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

HINOSHORTS

by John Hammer Editor

The April Showers Rhino Times Schmoozefest will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday April 28 at Bender’s Tavern 4517 W. Market St. Business professionals who sign in and wear a nametag receive free beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres. It should be noted that the highly touted committee structure now used by the City Council isn’t working like the proponents said it would. First, not everything on the agenda is first heard by a committee. Items that Mayor Nancy Vaughan wants placed on the

agenda, even highly controversial ones like the resolution opposing House Bill 2 – which established that public restrooms can be segregated by gender, even in Charlotte – was placed on the agenda without ever being heard by a committee. Granting Preservation Greensboro Inc. an additional $300,000 to renovate the historic Cascade Saloon building on South Elm Street was also placed on the agenda without being heard by a committee. At the other extreme, the General Government Committee meeting for April was cancelled because the only item on the agenda was approval of the minutes of the last meeting. With 22 candidates running for the 13th Congressional District seat in a tight timeframe, not many candidates’

forums have been announced. So if you’re interested in at least seeing what the candidates look like in person, here’s your chance. C4GC is holding a 13th Congressional District candidates’ forum and inviting all 22 candidates to participate on Tuesday, April 26 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Oak Branch Conference Center at 23 Oak Branch Dr. in Greensboro. The forum is free and open to public. We are receiving so many beeps these days that we are not able to get them all in the paper. We will run those that we can, and all the remaining beeps will be available on our website at rhinotimes.com. The News & Record evidently doesn’t believe its readers are interested in

the newspaper itself. The Tuesday resignation effectively immediately of News & Record Publisher and Editor Jeff Gauger was announced on page A11 of Wednesday’s edition. Proof that the News & Record has already moved past Gauger is the fact that in the announcement of his resignation the paper got his title wrong. Gauger was in all previous editions listed as the “publisher and editor.” It’s an odd title and we have written about it more than once. But in the announcement of his resignation the headline states he was the “editorpublisher,” and the article itself states he was the “Editor and Publisher.” Of course, this is the same paper that misspelled the name of its owner Warren Buffett on the front page, so getting Gauger’s title wrong should be (continued on page 6)

There’s More To Charlotte Bathroom Law by John Hammer The ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council in February was far more radical than has been reported by the mainstream media. The ordinance did not state that transgender people could choose the restroom of the gender with which they identify, as has been widely reported. What the Charlotte ordinance did was make all public restrooms, showers and locker rooms in government buildings and in private businesses gender neutral, with the exception of those in schools. The ordinance did not make it legal for men to go into the women’s restroom or women into the men’s restrooms. The ordinance outlawed designating restrooms and locker rooms by gender. So men couldn’t go into a women’s restroom because under the Charlotte ordinance there would have been no women’s restrooms. The law specifically deals with signage – making signs that designate a particular gender illegal. So rather than having a women’s restroom and a men’s restroom, government and private facilities open to the public would have to be designated as “restroom” with no indication of a gender preference. The same would be true of showers and locker rooms. A person born as a man but who identified as a woman could not, as reported, go into a women’s locker room because there would be no women’s locker room. It would not be a case of a person regardless of gender identity going into a women’s locker room, but men, boys, women and girls all sharing the same gender-neutral facilities. What the Charlotte ordinance did was eliminate the portion of the ordinance that exempted restrooms and locker rooms from the ordinance that outlawed discrimination based on gender. The Charlotte ordinance had several conflicts with existing state law. There is a law against indecent exposure in North Carolina. If a man

went into a gender-neutral locker room and undressed, a woman legally in the same locker room could have the man charged with indecent exposure. Of course, if the woman also undressed he could file the same charges against her. If you believe that restrooms and locker rooms should be gender neutral, first the indecent exposure law has to eliminated, or the gender-neutral law doesn’t make sense. The North Carolina building code requires both men’s and women’s restrooms in public buildings. The number of facilities provided is set by the code, as is the requirement that signage be posted designating it as a men’s facility or a women’s facility. The Charlotte ordinance would have made providing men’s and women’s facilities with signage illegal in Charlotte, in direct conflict with the state building code. The courts in North Carolina have repeatedly ruled that when a city ordinance is in conflict with state law, the state law takes precedence. The bathroom ordinance passed by Charlotte was in direct conflict with at least these two and possibly more state laws. What House Bill 2 did was clarify state law – in accordance with the other state laws such as the indecent exposure law and the building code that are already on the books – that restrooms and locker rooms will be segregated based on a person’s biological gender based on their birth certificate. A person who has had a sex change operation can have their birth certificate amended to reflect their current gender. The Charlotte ordinance applied not only to government buildings but to private companies in Charlotte, as well as companies that did business with Charlotte, making it far more aggressive than if it had simply set new standards for city-owned facilities. The executive order by Gov. Pat McCrory issued on Tuesday, April 12 (continued on page 11)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

RHINOSHORTS (continued from page 4)

no surprise. I wish Gauger the best of luck in his future endeavors. I first met Gauger when the old Rhinoceros Times announced it was going out of business and he stopped in. It was a kind and thoughtful gesture and I appreciated it. I’m not sure he ever really got into the swing of things in Greensboro. The distance between Ohio and North Carolina may be further than most of us assume. My condolences to those who bought Bruce Springsteen tickets and then had the Boss cancel on them. I had the great good fortune to see Springsteen when he played at the old Rhinoceros Club in 1985. Not only did I get to see him play, I had the questionable honor of reprimanding him for violating one of the cardinal rules of the club – sitting on top a booth. He seemed pretty amused at

being asked to get down off the booth, but he did without complaining or saying, “Do you know who I am.” I may not agree with his politics but I enjoy his music. Close to 200 people gathered in Phill G. McDonald Plaza on Greene Street in downtown Greensboro on Tuesday in support of the North Carolina General Assembly and House Bill 2 in prayer. The bill, passed at a special meeting last month, established that the state would have men’s and women’s restrooms and locker rooms. The law allows private businesses to determine their own restroom policy but mandates that government restrooms will be gender specific based on a persons biological sex. Many of those in support of the new law say it is common sense that men and women have separate restroom and locker room facilities.

table of

CONTENTS

WEEKLY HAMMER

THERE’S MORE TO CHARLOTTE BATHROOM LAW

BY JOHN HAMMER

15 UNCLE ORSON

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

23 YOST COLUMN BY SCOTT D. YOST

25 ASK CAROLYN ... BY CAROLYN WOODRUFF

DAVIDSON DA GETS DUCKS IN ROW FOR MARSHA WILLIAMS TRIAL

35 UNDER THE HAMMER BY JOHN HAMMER

BY SCOTT D. YOST

COUNCIL LOOKS TO MAKE LIVING IN CITY EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE BY JOHN HAMMER

10 BODY-CAM LAW LONG DEBATE IN SHORT SESSION BY SCOTT D. YOST

12 SKY ISN’T FALLING, COURT HOUSE IS

RHINO SHORTS

PUZZLE ANSWERS

SUDOKU

REAL ESTATE

CHILDREN’S SCHEDULE

THE SOUND OF THE BEEP

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

NYT CROSSWORD

EDITORIAL CARTOON

BY SCOTT D. YOST

Cover: Prayer vigil held in support of North Carolina leaders and for the safety and privacy of women and children on Tuesday, April 12 at Phill G. McDonald Plaza, organized by the North Carolina Values Coalition. Photo by John Hammer

PUBLISHER Roy Carroll EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Hammer

GENERAL MANAGER Joann Zollo

managing editor ELAINE HAMMER

creative director ANTHONY COUNCIL

county editor SCOTT D. YOST

advertising consultants CHRISTINE CHAPMAN TYE SINGLETON

contributing editor ORSON SCOTT CARD

cartoonist GEOF BROOKS

216 West Market Street, Greensboro NC 27401 P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro NC 27429 | (336) 763-4170 (continued on page 11) (336) 763-2585 fax | sales@rhinotimes.com | www.rhinotimes.com

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Davidson DA Getting Ducks in Row for Marsha Williams Trial by Scott D. Yost Davidson County’s felony prosecution of Marsha Williams – the former director of the animal shelters in both Guilford County and Davidson County – is currently on ice due to some delays in the investigation. However, Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank said this week that the prosecution will move forward once his office gets back some lab results as well as the results of an investigation of computers involved. Frank’s office brought felony indictments of animal cruelty against Williams, Marissa Studivent and Dana Williams-King, who is Marsha Williams’ daughter. All three women worked at both shelters. The United Animal Coalition (UAC) – the nonprofit organization that

employed the women and ran both shelters – had its license revoked by the state last year and was hit with a $300,000 fine for violations of animal care at the two shelters. The women were charged after state animal welfare investigators found over 100 cases of animal cruelty at the two shelters combined. Guilford County District Attorney Doug Henderson chose not to prosecute in this county. However, in Davidson County, Frank is pushing forward with felony charges. All three are charged with felony cruelty to animals, while Williams is also charged with felony possession of a Schedule IV drug, two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of “maintaining a dwelling” with a controlled substance.

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In September, the Davidson County district attorney’s office presented a grand jury with evidence supporting the animal cruelty charges as well as the drug charges. That grand jury hearing resulted in the felony indictments against Williams, Williams-King and Studivent. The animal cruelty charges involve a dog with a broken back that was, according to the findings, allowed to suffer without proper medical care or pain relief for days. The scandal at the two shelters created a media storm throughout the last half of 2015, and Frank’s office is pursuing the prosecutions. However, there’s been no word on the charges in the case for months, and many animal lovers are anxious for the trial to take place. Frank said there has been a

“pause” in the case as his office gets its i’s dotted and t’s crossed before going to trial. “We still don’t have all the discovery,” Frank said. He added that some information on a computer was initially going to be handled by one agency but it was later determined that another agency would be better suited for the job. Frank said he didn’t want to predict when the trial would take place because some of the preliminary procedures involve action by the DEA and another agency, and those efforts are still in progress. He also said he’d like to see the case moved forward “as soon as possible,” but did not indicate when that might be. Frank didn’t go into details regarding (continued on page 9)

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Council Looks To Make Living In City Even More Expensive by John Hammer

Taxes and fees in Greensboro are definitely going to be raised in the 2016-2017 budget that the City Council plans to approve on Tuesday, June 7. That is according to the first meeting on the budget held by the City Council on Monday, April 11 in the Plaza Level Conference Room. The date of that approval will likely change, since neither the City Council nor the city staff realized it was the date of the primary election for congressional races in North Carolina, but raising taxes and fees won’t. Greensboro currently has the highest property tax rate of any similar city in the state, so it is unlikely that the property tax rate of 63.25 cents will increase; instead, the City Council plans to move money around and increase other taxes and fees.

Councilmember Tony Wilkins tried and failed to extract a promise from City Manager Jim Westmoreland that the budget he presents to the City Council won’t include a property tax hike. The best Wilkins could get from Westmoreland was when Westmoreland said, “We’re working to meet that goal and I’m cautiously optimistic.” Westmoreland is caught in what may seem to be an untenable position. The City Council wants more money to spend but doesn’t like the reputation of having the highest property tax rate in the state. Fortunately for Westmoreland, the city’s only source of revenue is not property taxes. Mayor Nancy Vaughan said again she wants to see a plan to charge a fee for garbage and recycling pickup rather than paying that out of tax

revenue. The problem with that plan is if the city lowers the property tax rate the city would forfeit sales tax revenue. At present the two are tied together and Guilford County, not Greensboro, gets to decide how sales tax is distributed in the county. Then again, with the current City Council that loves to spend money, it is possible a fee could be added for garbage and recycling pickup and the property tax rate not lowered. The City Council would have no problem spending the additional money and wouldn’t lose any sales tax revenue. It’s hard to guess what this City Council might do because math is not its strong suit. Take a look at the allocations for the Cascade Saloon renovation. Last fall the City Council was told by Preservation Greensboro Inc. that it would cost $175,000 to

demolish the Cascade Saloon, so the City Council was given the choice of allocating $175,000 to demolish the building or allocating $175,000 toward renovating the building, and it chose the renovation route. Last week the City Council was told that the estimate for demolition was low and it would actually cost $300,000 to tear down the historic building, so it was given the choice of allocating $300,000 to renovate the building or $300,000 to demolish the building. The City Council allocated $300,000 to renovate the building. Simple math says that if the council had already allocated $175,000 and the actual cost was going to be $300,000, an allocation of $125,000 should have covered the difference. Wilkins was the only city (continued on page 32)

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trial

Peripheral Neuropathy

(continued from page 7)

the DEA’s role. However, that likely revolves around the Tramadol found at the shelter, allegedly without proper authorization. The painkiller Tramadol is sometimes given to animals to address moderate to severe pain in cases where animals suffer from chronic conditions such as arthritis or cancer. The drug is also used to relieve pain in humans. Major Robby Rummage, assistant chief of the Lexington Police Department, said his department is doing everything it can to assist the DA’s office heading into trial. “We work hand in hand with the district attorney and we are working with the court system in this case,” Rummage said. When asked about the nature of the Lexington Police Department’s role, he said he didn’t want to go into the details of an ongoing investigation, but he did say there are a number of parts and that other agencies were also involved. “It’s a significant case,” Rummage said, adding that, aside from the complexity, other variables come into play as well when determining how long it takes for a case to get to court. “It’s in the court system working its way through,” Rummage said. There’s a popular saying that the wheels of justice move slowly, and that has been the case in this matter – at least in the minds of the many watchful animal lovers in the two counties who want Williams and the two other former shelter workers to have their day in court. In the meantime, unlike Guilford County, Davidson County has worked out all of its issues with the UAC. Davidson County Attorney Charles Frye said his office didn’t have to deal with a lot of the same issues Guilford County had to address in the wake of the dissolution of the UAC. The nonprofit group was holding two funds for Guilford County that, combined, amounted to nearly $265,000 and was donated to help animals at the Guilford County shelter and to help build a new shelter. Guilford County is attempting to get that money, which is now in the hands of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of the Triad. “I don’t think our arrangement with them may have been as sophisticated as Guilford County’s,” Frye said this week of Davidson County’s dealings with the UAC. Davidson County Assistant Manager Casey Smith, who’s now overseeing the Davidson County

Animal Shelter operations, said that Davidson County had paid the UAC in advance for last August, so that county didn’t, like Guilford County, have the UAC sending it bills for the first half of the month. Smith said Davidson had managed to get a refund from the UAC for the last two weeks of August after the UAC was forced to shut down in the middle of that month. Smith said Davidson County did pay the group for its work until mid August – though he added that obviously the UAC “service” wasn’t satisfactory. Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said he had no knowledge of the current status of Davidson County’s case and he took the opportunity to reiterate that he felt Guilford County had enough evidence to bring charges just as Davidson County did. In November, Barnes and Henderson engaged in highly public heated exchanges over Henderson’s unwillingness to prosecute Williams after the wife of NC Gov. Pat McCrory came to Guilford County for a press conference Barnes held to make his points. In both Davidson and Guilford counties, the two shelters appear to be doing much better now that some time has passed since the emergency takeovers of the shelters. At a Thursday, April 7 work session, Guilford County commissioners discussed changes in shelter policies as well as potential locations for a new animal shelter the county plans to build over the next two years. In Davidson County, Smith said, the commissioners had approved money for more staff and several key shelter improvements since the county’s takeover of operations. Smith said that the kennel area had been expanded and there had been improvements to the ventilation system as well as other improvements. “It smells as clean as a whistle,” Smith said. Perhaps most importantly, he added, the euthanasia rate is coming down in that county. Smith said that, when Davidson County took over the shelter last summer, about 80 percent of the animals were being euthanized while 20 percent were adopted out or rescued, but now that ratio is closer to 55/45 and, he said, and he hopes that in the near future the shelter will have more rescues and adoptions than euthanasias. “We’re proud of flipping those percentages,” Smith said.

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Figure 1: Notice the very small blood vessels surrounding each nerve. Peripheral neuropathy is a result of damage to the nerves often causing weakness, pain, numbness, tingling, and the most debilitating balance problems. This damage is commonly caused by a lack of blood flow to the nerves in the hands and feet which causes the nerves to begin to degenerate due to lack of nutrient flow. As you can see in Figure 2, as the blood vessels that surround the nerves become diseased they shrivel up which causes the nerves to not get the nutrients to continue to survive. When these nerves begin to “die” they cause you to have balance problems, pain, numbness, tingling, burning, and many additional symptoms.

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10 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Body-Cam Law May See Long Debate In Short Session by Scott D. Yost

The wheels are finally in motion for state legislators to consider legislation that covers the use of body-worn cameras, and the storage and public availability of the videos recorded. That issue is expected to be a topic of discussion at the North Carolina General Assembly’s short legislative session that begins later this month. With more law enforcement departments in North Carolina adopting the body cams in 2016, and each department creating their own separate – if legally suspect – policies regarding the use of the cameras and the videos, there is mounting pressure for state legislators to create a statewide policy. Republican state Rep. John Faircloth from High Point is a sponsor

of a bill that would establish state law covering the body-worn cameras and the videos they produce. He said he and other legislators have been working out the details of the bill in committee this week and that he expects the bill to be introduced during the legislature’s short session. He said he believes new body-cam legislation will get passed during that session. Faircloth said there’s been a lot of discussion recently on the details of the bill to be introduced and added that, this week, legislators are attempting to “pull that together into a pretty solid draft.” Not surprisingly, most of the remaining issues to be worked out center around the release of the videos to the public. “That’s the final part we’re trying to pull together,” he said.

Faircloth said it’s a balancing act, given the rights of the public and the needs and concerns of the police chiefs, sheriffs and other law enforcement officials. “We realize we’ve got to recognize the public’s rights,” he said. Republican state Rep. Jon Hardister from Greensboro also said he expects the matter to be a topic of discussion. “I think we’re going to take a look at it in the short session,” Hardister said. “It’s something that’s been lingering out there for a while. We tried to address it in the last session but couldn’t reach an agreement.” More and more, sheriff’s and police departments across North Carolina are adopting body-worn cameras after several high profile national incidents in which actions of law enforcement officers were called into question. Currently, each local agency in North

Carolina using the cameras writes up its own policies, and those are often based on shaky legal premises. The state’s police chiefs and sheriffs understandably want the right to release the videos only when they please, and departments have been coming up with all sorts of contortions of the law to argue that those videos can be kept out of the hands of the public. If new law doesn’t address the matter, there’s virtually no doubt that some of those policies will end up with court challenges. Greensboro classifies the videos from the body-worn cameras as personnel records – and therefore not public ones – while Guilford County, in a policy adopted two weeks ago, classifies every video as a criminal investigation, which is another exception to the public records law. (continued on page 13)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

conspiracy (continued from page 2)

with all too much frequency, largely because bills are a lot like term papers and newspaper articles, they always seem to be written at the last minute. It may not be the best way to do it, but when you consider that you have 170 legislators in Raleigh wanting to introduce legislation, it’s easy to see how harried bill writers make mistakes. When things are done on deadline, despite the best efforts of those involved, errors find their way in there. It is why every daily newspaper I’ve ever seen has a corrections column, and why we have to run corrections

bathroom

in this newspaper with far more frequency than I would like. There is a liberal version of ALEC – the Progressive States Network (PSN). It does what ALEC does only from a liberal rather than a conservative perspective. It receives a bunch of money from George Soros – the center of a lot of conservative conspiracy theories. I have never heard a Republican say that the Democrats were all getting their marching orders from PSN, perhaps because so many state legislatures are now controlled by Republicans. Overall, I thought the Newsmakers

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seems to mainly clarify what was in the bill. It does add a prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for state employees. It also asks the legislature to reinstate the right to sue in state court for discrimination. NC state Rep. Dan Bishop, an sudoku_520B attorney in Charlotte who sponsored Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz HB2, says that HB2 does not take away the ability to sue in state court for discrimination but does reduce the 3 of 5limitations from the4 state limit statute of three years to the federal limit of six 6 2 5 familiar months. Other attorneys with the bill said they agreed, but it is not 1 unusual for lawyers to disagree about 9 of a law. the interpretation One aspect of the current law that 7 emphasize is that McCrory does private have 8 businesses 4 2 the right 3 9to set their own policies with regard to restrooms – although 6 8 that policy 1 is somewhat restricted by the current

Sudoku Solution

state building code and the indecent exposure law. If the state does want to give private businesses the right to set their own policy regarding restroom usage, it would appear both the building code and the indecent exposure law would need to be modified. If the state truly wants to allow private businesses to handle restroom and locker room policy any way they want, the state should make certain that other laws don’t conflict with this new policy. Most of the opposition to HB2 seems to be about forcing transgender people to use the facilities that correspond to their biological gender rather than the gender with which they identify. But the opponents, which includes the mainstream media, don’t dwell on what the Charlotte ordinance actually did. Perhaps a discussion on the wisdom of making all restrooms and locker rooms gender neutral is in order.

520B

Crossword Solution

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_520B

2 3 7 9 8 4 1 6 5

From last week’s issue

6 9 4 7 5 1 8 3 2

8 5 1 6 3 2 4 9 7

4 8 3 2 9 7 6 5 1

9 6 2 4 1 5 7 8 3

1 7 5 3 6 8 2 4 9

3 4 6 1 2 9 5 7 8

5 2 9 8 7 6 3 1 4

7 1 8 5 4 3 9 2 6

520B

N O D E

I V O R

W A G E D

E L L I E

O W I E

B Y O B

C A N N E L L O N I

E L T O R O

R E D D B E Y A X E R A S C A T H M I E O T A O U D R D O E E F

From last week’s issue S H O T T I N E S Q U E S N E S V E T O R I E N Y S P A T O R E T O R M Y O U R S R O J E O P I S M E F A B N N A N Y E S E R E N T R O S

T O R M A V I A E Z E T H O R E A N T H L S E E Y O N R A I K E H E M D H I S D U O S H E A T S H I R E D P A R D O L E I R I C O F E R N A E Y E V V E A B A E N T E S S E A

E N T T O R E R I C P U S U T U S L I P E D E E L S R E S B S F O S I R T J E R E I U S I R A I D O U R V R E A L K E R T I M P E N A I L

A S H R A M S

C O M P L E T E A L R Y I S U E N N F R E I N E C N O D D E E D

T B A L L

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Forum was a lot of fun. It’s probably a good idea to put journalists who spend most of their time asking other people questions up on a stage answering questions from the public for a change. One topic that was briefly mentioned by Kilimanjaro is the growing dissatisfaction in some parts of the community with having school resource officers. It’s a topic that has been and will be discussed by our school board candidates and one that I think could use some public airing. I didn’t say it well at the forum, but I thought it was worth noting that of the five editors participating, three were natives of Greensboro and products of the Greensboro public schools. It should also be noted that Page had two graduates, Dudley one and Grimsley none. However, that might prove that Grimsley graduates are too smart to go into journalism. The forum attracted a standingroom-only crowd and more questions than we had time to answer. I thank King’s English for putting it together and Quinn Dalton, who had the thankless job of trying to control a bunch of editors as well as an audience with lots of questions.

US CONGRESS

1932 Fleming Road, Greensboro Bring the entire family to the

Blust for Congress Headquarters and help us celebrate its

NIN E P O ND

and the kickoff of the GRA Blust for Congress campaign!

Sunday, April 17

4 PM - 6 PM face painting • games • great music A grilled hot dog dinner with all the fixings, picnic style on the lawn.

So, come and get to know John and his family while enjoying the beautiful spring weather! Paid for by Blust for Congress.

12 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Sky Isn’t Falling, Court House Is by Scott D. Yost There’s a well-known saying that “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But for decades that message has apparently been lost on many Guilford County administrators and commissioners – because some county-owned buildings and other structures are falling apart. The crowning example of that current state of affairs came at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Thursday, April 7 afternoon work session when the commissioners learned the results of a study by Greensboro-based TFF Architects & Planners. That study found that the Old Guilford County Court House – the centerpiece of Guilford County government – needed “traffic control barriers” to keep people from walking within 10 feet of the building, protective scaffolding to keep chunks of the structure from falling on citizens, and a whopping estimated $8 million in repairs. Large pieces of falling debris at the

entrances are a distinct possibility. So, for the next three years, while the extensive repairs are being made to the iconic building, the structure will be surrounded by barriers, scaffolding, netting and cranes in an effort to make repairs and keep the building from harming the citizens it was built to serve. The TFF report also provided the commissioners with a history lesson. The current commissioners were astonished to learn that, sometime around 2006, a large chunk of the building fell onto the front steps of the courthouse and there were subsequent instances of falling debris in the years that followed. Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips said at the April 7 work session in the Blue Room of the very building under discussion, “It’s amazing to me to hear this – that, apparently since 2006 or 2007, to 2010, there’s been some knowledge of this. I’m not pointing fingers and I’ve asked commissioners who were on the board at that time

and they had not heard of this, so it’s shocking to me.” At that afternoon work session, the board approved $125,000 in emergency funds to meet the most immediate needs, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that anyone entering the Old Court House before the scaffolding and netting is in place would be wise to look up from a good distance before entering and then run into the building as fast as possible and then run out of it when they leave. The astonishing news comes on the tail of a long line of similar news that suggests Guilford County government has, for decades, not done adequate upkeep on its facilities, and has instead done as little as possible to patch buildings in a makeshift fashion. The $8 million estimated cost for the three-year project comes on the heels of findings of $3 million in needed repairs for the large parking deck on the county’s governmental plaza in High Point, and another $600,000 to stabilize a shaky county parking deck in downtown Greensboro, both of which have sections that county officials worry could collapse. About six years ago, the commissioners were served summons by a judge due to a failure of the county to make repairs at the Guilford County courthouse adjacent to the Old Court House. In the courthouse used by the judges, for a long time, a large jury-rigged pipe ran from the roof into a large trash can in the law library to collect sludge coming down from the roof. At times, the county’s workspace fixes have resembled something that might be found in a third world country rather than what one would expect from a county government in the United States in the 21st century. Before the commissioners adopt a new county budget in June, they’ll decide where to find much of the $8 million necessary to fix the problem. The architects who presented the findings spoke on the concerns related to the exterior of the Old Court House, but some employees are worried about their well-being while inside. Recently, a heavy chunk of the ceiling of the main men’s restroom on the second floor crashed down and took out a stall, one that’s used regularly by some of Guilford County’s highest ranking officials. At the April 7 work session, however, the talk was all about the outside of the building and the falling debris. Guilford County Facilities, Parks and Property Management Director Robert McNiece said that no pieces had fallen in recent

years. He also said the findings from the study weren’t encouraging. “We were a little surprised by what we had found,” McNiece said. “The degradation was far greater than we anticipated.” Walt Teague, the principal architect for TFF, and Steve Freyaldenhoven, an architect with the firm who did most of the talking at the presentation, said TFF had brought in masonry experts to help evaluate the building. Teague said that, based on current conditions and the size of the chunks that have already fallen, it was an urgent matter. County staff have apparently saved those pieces over the years and, at the work session, they handed them out to the commissioners as a visual aid. “Those were just the ones that they could bring to pass around,” Teague told the wide-eyed board. “There have been others that have fallen that have been much larger.” Freyaldenhoven said the architectural plans for the Old Court House date back to 1915 and the building opened in 1921. He said the north side of the building was in the worst condition. The north side, by the way, is the front entrance on West Market Street, so that makes the building’s main entrance the most dangerous part. Freyaldenhoven said it’s typical for a north side to be in the worst state since that side on many buildings gets less sun and tends to take longer to dry out after a rain. He said that some of those falling pieces have ended up in the bushes and have been replaced over the years. He said that even some of the makeshift repairs made in the last decade were starting to fail. He also said that some of the fixes, such as caulking that was done to joints 15 or 20 years ago, made the problem worse. He said more permanent masonry work should have been done instead to alleviate the problem. “That just promotes the trapping of the water even more,” Freyaldenhoven said of the caulk. “There’s no way for the water to leach out in its natural way.” He also said that trapped water saturated the back, non-glazed part, of the terra cotta in the building, weakening it significantly. “Over time, it becomes very brittle and almost sand like,” Freyaldenhoven said. The balustrade that lines the top of the building – the railing and rows of (continued on page 26)

body-cam (continued from page 10)

Hardister said that all those considerations and interpretations make it a dicey issue that will take a good deal of effort to resolve. “It’s fairly complex,” Hardister said. “It deals with public safety and with privacy. It’s a complicated topic and you have to have consideration for the public and also for the officers.” Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes, who is co-chairman of the legislative committee of the NC Sheriffs’ Association, said the group met recently and discussed a need for the state legislators to clarify the law. Barnes said the organization is petitioning lawmakers to provide clarity for the videos from body-worn cameras. George Erwin Jr., the executive director of the NC Association of Chiefs of Police, said he had been engaged recently in legislative efforts to get clarity from state lawmakers on everything from the status of the videos taken to the question of whether the state will make the cameras mandatory – something Erwin said he and his association of police chiefs believes would be a very bad idea. “We’ve discussed it quite extensively,” Erwin said of bodycam laws and the coming legislative debate over the status of videos shot by officers in the field. According to the current stated policy adopted by the Association of Police Chiefs, the group “supports clarification of the application of the public records law to all law enforcement video data, with reasonable protections for investigatory and personnel information, and personal privacy of citizens.” Not surprisingly, when law enforcement officials say they want “clarification” of the law, many in the group want that clarity to come in the form of police chiefs and sheriffs being able to make the calls. “It ought to be up to the discretion of the law enforcement head,” Erwin said. The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department’s new policy basically says that the sheriff gets to decide in all cases whether or not the video is released. Which is no doubt what Barnes wants but that may not be what’s wanted by, say, the family of someone who was shot by a deputy. Barnes said this week that the policy his department adopted ultimately allows for him to decide when videos will or won’t be released. Though that policy does offer a general willingness, with the sheriff’s approval,

to, for instance, share videos with other departments conducting an investigation. Erwin, who is a retired Henderson County sheriff now running an association of police chiefs, said that sheriffs and police chiefs shouldn’t be forced to offer the videos to just anyone who asks because of the problems that could result. “Someone may come in and say, ‘I believe my wife was with another man and you went to such and such house on a call,’” Erwin said. He said that man might wish to see the video to confirm that his wife was at another man’s residence that night. Erwin said people could end up being “shot dead” over what a video such as that revealed and he added that there were a wide range of other privacy concerns when it came to the videos recorded by law enforcement body cams. When asked about the fact that some sheriffs or chiefs might be inclined to release video only when it made their department look good, and might keep the recordings from the public when the video made the department look bad, Erwin said, “That’s a legitimate argument.” But he added there was also a need for law enforcement departments to preserve citizens’ privacy and to refrain from doing anything that would prejudice juries before or during trails. Erwin said that the head of a police department or sheriff’s department, in conjunction with the district attorney in a county, has a better idea of what kind of things might prejudice a jury or invade the privacy of a citizen caught on a police body-worn camera. Erwin said the cameras were beneficial in cases where an officer “murdered” a citizen, but he added that a wide-open policy that treated body-worn-camera videos as a public record might be a detriment to the officer. He said that police officers may be so conscious of every move they make, knowing everything is being recorded on a video that everyone will be able to see, officers might be inclined to delay an action that costs them their lives. According to Erwin, there’s a great deal of concern that state legislators could make body-worn cameras mandatory. He said that the amount of money being talked about as potentially available from the federal government wouldn’t even begin to cover cost of cameras and the storage of the videos. You have 500 law enforcement (continued on page 14)

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14 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

body-cam (continued from page 10)

agencies in North Carolina – 100 sheriff’s departments and 400 police departments,” Erwin said. “How long do you keep the videos, and who pays for storage? You have to talk about all of these things together.” In recent weeks, body-worn cameras have been a hot topic in Asheville and Greensboro, where ongoing debates over the public availability of the videos is heating up. It’s also a big topic in Raleigh, where a controversial Feb. 29 deadly shooting by an officer has moved the issue to the forefront. Also, Nash County is now putting the cameras into use and the Burlington Police Department expects to have cameras on its officers by June 1. But legal issues remain, and law enforcement departments could find themselves in some interesting court battles over what is and isn’t a public record if the State of North Carolina doesn’t clarify the law soon. The very first line of the state’s public records law reads: “‘Public record’ or ‘public records’ shall mean all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data-processing records, artifacts, or other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received

pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions.” The law does make an exception for personnel records, which is why law enforcement departments sometimes classify the videos that way. Another exception made by public records law is “Records of criminal investigations.” Those are defined as “all records or any information that pertains to a person or group of persons that is compiled by public law enforcement agencies for the purpose of attempting to prevent or solve violations of the law, including information derived from witnesses, laboratory tests, surveillance, investigators, confidential informants, photographs, and measurements. A subsequent section also adds to the definition: “‘Records of criminal intelligence information’ means records or information that pertain to a person or group of persons that is compiled by a public law enforcement agency in an effort to anticipate, prevent, or monitor possible violations of the law.” Jeff Welty, the associate professor of public law and government with the UNC School of Government in Chapel Hill, said he believes that state law

The New York Times

Hyper-Sudoku sudoku_521A Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

3 8 2 6

5 1 7 8 3

9 3

6 9

3 5 4 3 6 2 7

1 521A

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_521A

needs to provide more clarity on the use of the cameras and the availability of the videos they produce. He also said that, under current state law, the body-camera videos should be considered a public record unless one of the legitimate exceptions applies. “It meets the baseline definition of a public record,” Welty said of the body-worn camera videos. “That’s the starting point.” He said the two most common exceptions cited by law enforcement agencies not wanting the videos made public are that the videos are always part of a criminal investigation or that they are personnel records and therefore exempt from the state’s public records law. As for the video being a criminal investigation matter – the exception that the new Guilford County sheriff’s policy claims is applicable – Welty said it’s difficult to see how that could apply to all video shot by every officer. “In some cases it probably is [part of an investigation],” Welty said, “but if an officer is stopping to help a motorist who is changing a flat tire – is that a criminal investigation? To me, I don’t think that’s a criminal investigation.” “The other possibility is that it’s a personnel record,” he said. “I think that’s a really fuzzy question. If you say that is a personnel record it kind of opens up the door to almost anything being a personnel record. Does that mean that every report an officer writes is a personnel record?” According to Welty, personnel records are anything pertaining to an employee’s application, selection and performance. However, he said, it seems difficult to make the argument that every video taken by a body camera could be classified as a personnel record. He said that one reason state lawmakers created the personnel records exception to the public records law is so people wouldn’t be discouraged from applying for

government jobs. If there were no exception then, whenever someone applied for a government job, his or her application would be available to anyone making a records request. Likewise, without the exception, any mistake an employee made at a job would be fodder for public review and discussion. Welty said that treating the videos as criminal investigation records or as personnel records is questionable. “The law is just not clear,” Welty said. He also said that, in cases where something is part of a criminal investigation, the agency has a choice whether or not to release it. Welty said that, for instance, if an officer draws a sketch of a suspect, that drawing could be released. “That’s an agency decision,” he said. In the case of personnel records, police departments are legally restricted from making those records public except under a few conditions. Welty said that, in other parts of the country, police departments sometimes have a very open policy regarding any body-cam videos. “I’ve read reports of agencies that take the position that it’s a public record,” he said. Washington State, for instance, has a public records law that makes the videos widely available. Welty said that most of the highprofile cases where there is, say, a controversial shooting or some other major issue concerning an officer’s actions, those are most likely to be the cases where the video could have a bearing on an officer’s performance, and therefore the personnel record exception to the open records law might legitimately apply. He said it’s “ironic” that something meant to bring transparency to law enforcement would therefore be unavailable to the public in precisely those cases that are most controversial.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

UNCLE ORSON Reviews

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

Scrambled Eggs, Philosophy of Hate by Orson Scott Card So I’m in the Atlanta airport at breakfast time, and I have half an hour before my flight to Greensboro is scheduled to board. The nearest food place that looks promising is Atlanta Bread Company. We really liked Atlanta Bread Company when they had a restaurant on Westover Terrace, and because they take bread seriously, what could

go wrong? Answer: Nothing. I got their eggand-cheese bagel with bacon and from the first bite it was delicious. Here’s my question: Why was it that Atlanta Bread Company could put a square slab of scrambled egg on that sandwich, and it actually had a realistic egg-like taste? I mean, when I tried McDonald’s Sausage Biscuit with Egg, the dry-as-

dust, chalk-flavored biscuit left plenty of opportunity for the egg to stand out. Instead, the egg was as flavorless as ... well, I was going to compare it to something that I don’t want to explain how I know what it tastes like. But trust me: Nothing that tasted like Actual Egg. But I finally figured it out. Atlanta Bread Company used real hen-laid eggs in their slab-o-scrambled-egg preparation. Not that McDonald’s is fibbing when it calls the eggs on its biscuits “eggs.” I’m sure that everything began with female chickens squeezing out eggs. It’s just that somewhere along the way, the preparations imposed on the McDonald’s eggs remove from them anything that would signal my nose or taste buds that anything chickenish had ever been involved in the creation of that sandwich. But it can be done – Atlanta Bread Company does it. Maybe it has to do with making

an eggish mixture and shipping it in frozen blocks or food-quality tank trucks or plastic gallon jugs – I have no idea how they ship it – and therefore processing it so that when you fry it up it has an eggy texture and color. But maybe they train some of those $15-an-hour employees right there in each McDonald’s to break open fresh eggs every day, and then find a way to remove all the flavor before putting them on a biscuit. Atlanta Bread Company hasn’t discovered this process yet, which is why they will never be a huge worldwide corporation like McDonald’s. Best thing about the Egg McMuffin: You know it was made with an egg.

.... I’m listening to the Great Courses lectures on Nietzsche (and it’s one test of your education whether you know how to spell his name without looking it up; I worked hard in eighth

(continued on page 16)

16 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 15)

grade to learn it, and as long as I put the z in the right place, I’m set); (another test is whether you say “NEEchee” or “NEE-chuh”; which is not like the test on pronouncing Bach – either with a final k sound or the German gliding voiceless ch or the emphatic guttural Hebrew ch – which is actually a test of how much of a jerk you are, with the simple k sound being the only non-jerk pronunciation for an American); (the Don Quixote test is much more benign: If you say “keeHO-tay” you’re trying to be authentic, while if you say “QUICKS-oat” you’re an old-fashioned Brit, because when the sun never set on the British Empire, they pronounced anybody’s language exactly as it looked to an Englishman). So yeah, as I was saying, I was listening to the course on Nietzsche, and in order to put Nietzsche’s philosophy in context, they’re talking about Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the pre-Socratics, Schopenhauer, Hegel and, like, anybody else who ever philoed a soph. And one thing that comes up is, Nietzsche had a problem with

Socrates (as depicted by Plato) because he hated real life. Nietzsche came down on Dionysian side: that life itself is joyful, on balance, even counting all the pains, woes and tragedies that afflict us. In other words, Life Is Good. Whereas Plato was on the side of: This life isn’t real. Happiness only comes in the Real World, and this isn’t it. Which Nietzsche identified as being the root of the Christian displacement of joy into heaven. And because we live in a nation with an established church, which relentlessly uses the machinery of government and mob rule to persecute any heretics who don’t show absolute submission to the ever-shifting dictates of the religion of Tolerance and Love, my thoughts turned to the question of how to categorize the philosophy of the politically correct. This is not a moot point. We can live for decades in a country where bathrooms are sorted by sex, so that women and girl children can feel safe from predatory males. Then, suddenly, anybody who wants to put

on a dress – or merely claim that they identify as a woman regardless of apparel – is now allowed into those restrooms. Set aside the obvious fact that group bathrooms have always been a horrible idea, and public restrooms should be one-person-at-a-time private stalls with toilet and sink, which are then completely scoured after each use. That this absurd and pointless intrusion on the privacy of women was voted into law in one absurd and pointless North Carolina “city,” until the state legislature passed a law that returned us to the status quo ante, along with language designed to keep other cities from passing laws to enforce conformity with the dogmas of the Established Church. But now a return to the simple, safe rules that protected women for generations have become Heresy, and the state that dares to defy the new dogma is worthy of a boycott by all of the Total Conformists. Suddenly the practices that were universal a year ago are a hideous crime, a rebirth of fascism, a virtual pogrom against the transgendered. And I wondered: Is there a philosophy here? Unlike medieval Christianity, there’s no effort at logic

or consistency or even evidence. We have to take anthropogenic global warming on faith – and then prosecute any scientist who insists on rejecting theories that are contradicted by all the evidence. We have to believe in “feminism” even though feminists completely flip-flopped on Bill Clinton diddling a young woman who was obviously on the small end of the power differential, and feminists now are silent about protecting women who were or might be victims of male sexual predators; it seems the only dogma of feminism that the Established Church cares about is that you have to be in favor of killing babies. But then it dawned on me. The Established Church isn’t about ideas, and therefore the tools of analysis don’t apply. The Established Church is all about feelings, and the ruling emotion in every action of the Established Church is: Hate. Oh, they claim to be about Tolerance and Love, but they have a highly limited list of whom to tolerate and whom to love. Transgender: On the list. Victim of sexual predators: Off the list. Gays who demand the name of “marriage” for their liaison: (continued on page 22)

RHINO

www.rhinotimes.com

April 14, 2016

REALESTATE Everything you need to find, finance and buy the house of your dreams

GET FLOORED BY

Carpets By Direct

BY SANDY GROOVER

For 56 years, Carpets by Direct has been providing quality carpeting and floor coverings to the triad. “Everything you can put in on the floor, you’ll find it at Carpets by Direct,” says General Manager, Greg Hardy. But once inside the two-story showroom, it doesn’t take long for a new customer to realize that Carpets by Direct sells far more than just carpets. In fact, says owner Stacey Gilles, over 50 percent of their business is not carpet. It’s hardwood, laminates, tiles, and vinyl floor coverings – along with recliners, power lift chairs and mattresses. But when it comes to carpeting, you’ll have plenty to choose from. Rack after rack of samples are on hand to see and touch. Carpets by Direct keeps many of the most popular colors and brands in stock for immediate delivery and installation in the large warehouse that is adjacent to the showroom. Brand names include Mohawk, Shaw Carpet, Philadelphia Carpet, Dixie Home, Beaulieu, Kraus and Tuflex. Carpets by Direct is one a select few of Stainmaster Showcase retailers as well. Carpets by Direct also has a broad selection area

Lender Directory

rugs in a wide variety of sizes, styles and designs that can quickly change the look of almost any room. If you’re looking for other flooring options, Carpets by Direct has one of the most complete hardwood selections in North Carolina. Solid hardwood flooring not only comes in a variety of tones and color finishes, it also comes in different in textures. Choices include the distressed look, handscraped, smooth or wirebrushed finishes. There are boards with lots of character, graining and color variation and those that are evenly colored and have a consistent look. Many of those same looks can be achieved with engineered hardwoods, whose boards are made up of three to 12 layers of wood materials that are crosslayered, glued and pressed together. The thick top wear layer is a hardwood veneer. Like natural hardwoods, engineered hardwoods come in a wide array of widths, thicknesses and both domestic and exotic hardwood species. The thickness of the top layer determines how many times an engineered floor can be sanded and refinished, as well as its lifespan.

Realtor Directory

Carpets by Direct’s website has 87 styles of hardwood flooring and finishes, and 19 styles of engineered hardwoods, including maple, birch, hickory, pine, walnut, red oak, white oak, even exotic South American kupay wood, from companies such as Shaw’s Epic, Bruce and Mohawk. Laminates are also very popular. Today’s technology and manufacturing techniques result in flooring that looks like the real thing. With various shades, finishes and textures, you can have your favorite hardwood, slate or stone look for a floor that’s long-wearing and often difficult to tell from real hardwood or ceramic tile. Laminates are also considered a “green” product because they use fewer resources and far less wood in their manufacturing process. Best of all, they are quite durable and affordable. You’ll find laminate flooring by Shaw, Armstrong, Congoleum, Mohawk, Bruce, Mannington, Robina, Tarkett, and Wineo at the showroom. Like laminates, resilient flooring has come a long way from the linoleum of years ago. Resilient-vinyl (continued on page 18)

Open House Listings

New Home Listings

18 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

floored

REAL ESTATE

(continued from page 17)

AAF TANK MUSEUM 3401 US 29 • Danville

Vehicle Day

Saturday, April 16 is Vehicle Day at the Tank Museum. Not only can you see a variety wheeled and tracked vehicles from the museum collection being driven, you can even win a chance to ride in one. The event is included in the admission of $12 for adults and $10 for children under 12 and adults over 60. Children under 4 in free. For more information, visit aaftankmuseum.com, facebook.com/AAFTankmuseum or call (434) 836-5323.

COMMUNITY THEATRE OF GREENSBORO Starr Theatre • 520 S. Elm St.

Mary Poppins Jr.

Young Jane and Michael have sent many a nanny packing before Mary Poppins arrives on their doorstep. Using a combination of magic and common sense, Mary Poppins takes the children on many magical and memorable adventures. Even grown-ups learn a lesson or two from the nanny who advises, “Anything can happen if you let it.” Showtimes are 7 p.m., Friday, April 15, Saturday, April 16, and Friday, April 22 and 2 p.m. Saturday, April 16, Sunday, April 17 and Saturday April 23m. Tickets are $10 to $15 and are available at (336) 333-7469. For more information, visit ctgso.org.

ARTQUEST AT GREENHILL 200 North Davie St.

Free Family Night

Every Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m., ArtQuest at Greenhill hosts a free Family Night. Stop in to play and explore ArtQuest’s studios, where families can create art and share ideas, create one-of-a-kind paintings and work with clay or new and unexpected materials at the hands-on exploration table. For more information, call (336) 333-7460 or visit GreenhillNC.org.

HIGH POINT MUSEUM

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20 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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The Sound of the

beep

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What follows has been transcribed from the answering machine on our comment line. We edit out what is required by the laws of the state, of good taste and of good sense. The limit on phone calls is one minute and each caller may make up to two calls per week. If you have something to say, call our comment line at 763-0479 and start talking at The Sound of the Beep. Seems to me that the Republican Party is trying to take us backwards, like to the 1950s, you know, where you could beat your wife, and beat your kids, and talk trash about any minority, maybe even hang a few people and not get in any trouble at all just as long as in the 1950s you were a white man, you could do anything you wanted. I just wish the party of Lincoln had evolved with the rest of the country and not stayed behind.

%%% Hey, it’s not HB2 Springsteen objects to. It’s only the 15,000 tickets sold. Not enough moolah for him. Let him go elsewhere. Who cares?

%%% In response to the March 31 Rhino Times, someone wanted all the deputies and Guilford County Sheriff office to take a drug test. He’s probably the one that needs the drug tests. Also, in reference to Black Lives Matter, how about the black police officers who have given their lives? Don’t their lives matter? Thank you very much. Have a good day. Oh, and additionally, someone else is complaining about people getting a ticket for one mile over the speed limit. I have no knowledge where anyone can show anyone where someone went one mile over the speed limit and received a ticket for that. Let’s wake up, people. Law enforcement is out here to help us, not to hurt us. It’s about time you did something to help them. Have a good day. Goodbye.

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%%% This is Moses, and believe if Pat backs out now, he’ll lose the governorship, or he’ll be close. But I believe if he holds firm that he will win by a landslide. Now, let me say this, because Elon University, they’re always putting in their whatever you call it. I believe we just call four or five Democrats and put it in there. They always go the other way. I remember when the North Carolina voted on the same-sex marriage it was like 67 percent voted against it. And Cooper, he just, oh, no, I can’t do nothing about that. But, anyway, if you see Pat, tell him to hold firm to what he’s got. These companies that are going against them, they don’t know what’s going on. They’re pretty ignorant themselves.

%%% It’s disappointing to call in week after week and not get what you say printed in your paper. But what’s really bad about that, and you say it’s because you don’t have the space, and you can’t get everybody’s in

(continued on page 22)

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%%% Bruce who is not coming to North Carolina? I wonder how the paying fans, or ex-fans, think about that. People who have been planning on this. I wouldn’t buy his record if he was selling them on a corner for a penny.

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%%% Yes, I saw Hillary Clinton said that an unborn child had no constitutional rights. That really ticked off the left as well as the right. Because they only believe that that’s just a tangled mass of cells and matter and blood, I guess. But everybody that knows anything about medical science knows that that’s not true. And, again, she just scores really good points for those people that believe in abortion. Myself, I’m a grandfather of 10. And I’ve seen those ultrasounds of those babies all the way through the pregnancy. And, believe me, they are children. They are babies.

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22 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 16)

On the list. Christians for whom marriage, strictly defined, is a holy sacrament: Off the list. Mel Gibson, for saying anti-Semitic remarks while drunk: Off the list. AntiIsrael college professors for whom no Islamist terror group can possibly kill too many Jews: On the list. If you’re off the list – no matter how recently and without public discussion the list has been amended – then you are to be hated, publicly scorned, deprived of the means of livelihood, hauled into court, silenced in all public forums, treated as a nonperson, and this must go on forever because this is a religion without forgiveness. Notice how short a timelag there was between Bruce Jenner’s big publicity push and the demand that all “transgendered” people must be called by their new name and with pronouns appropriate for their new “gender.” Notice that instantly anyone who expressed disapproval was the object of outspoken hatred. Why, the opposition to this change hardly had time to realize it was happening before the Established

Church got its Total Conformists in various cities to legislate complete access to the Women’s Room for any man who claims gender “confusion.” Notice, finally, that adherence to the old rules – which protected women – became a heresy, a crime, a reason for the Hollywood Hate Squad to Hate Hate Hate. Hate is the chief value of the Established Church. It’s the reason they exist. It’s the feeling that binds them all together. (That and smug self-congratulation because they All Hate the Right People.) They are relentless in their hatred. If you want to understand the Salem Witch Trials, or the persecution of the Jews in medieval Europe or modern Germany and Russia or contemporary Muslim countries, you only have to look at the way these Total Conformists march in goosestep lock-step as they form mobs that shout down, punish, isolate and expel anyone who says a word or takes an action in support of another belief system. The most pernicious symptom of this movement toward Total

beep (continued from page 21) there. Well, Steely Dan Fan Man and Independent Thinker seem to get theirs in there every week. I’m just wondering where the fairness and balanced approach to y’all’s paper is, because I’m not seeing it.

%%% Yeah, Bruce Springsteen, I think I’ll go cry some fake tears ‘cause you’re a washed-up has-been not coming to the Coliseum. Boo-hoo.

%%% Let’s see now. Springsteen cancelled cancelled because of HB2, the bathroom law that Pat McCrory signed into law. So that’s his reason? Now what does that translate into? That translates into he really couldn’t sell any tickets, because he’s a talentless has-been hack who doesn’t even need to be identified with the great performers in history. Good job, Pat. Keep up the good work. I appreciate you signing that bill. Let’s keep these people out of our state. If HB2 will do it, good deal.

%%%

Conformity is the way intellectuals from areas completely ruled by the Established Church – Seattle, San Francisco, Manhattan, Los Angeles, most universities, most national media outlets – cannot even imagine how anyone might balk at their iron-fisted rule. They make all the cooing noises of peace-loving tolerant kind loving people – “Can’t you open your mind to the possibility that ...” – while remaining completely oblivious to the fact that the minds that are utterly closed, and the hearts filled with rage and hate, are their own. And someday, when the Church of Hate loses power, they won’t understand why people didn’t like living under their rule. “All we wanted was a more open, tolerant society.” Yeah, but it sure looked like all you wanted was to Get Your Way and Shut Everybody Else Up. But because you make rules without first trying to build consensus, and without tolerating any discussion, and without making any allowances for the conscience of others, it sure feels like oppression to those of us who believe in evidence, diversity of thought, democracy and the value of free speech, a free press and open inquiry. Oh, yeah – and freedom of

religion. So when I was in Los Angeles last week, I proudly told people that I’m from North Carolina, which usually brought comment about our “awful” new law – and said that, while no law is ever perfect, I’m proud of our state legislature for standing up against the tsunami of insane, intolerant social change. Of course, they had to cease speaking to me immediately – those who were Total Conformists within the Established Church. No heretic can be allowed to pollute the purity of their ignorance. But most of the time, the response I got was, in a nutshell, “Yes! That’s how I feel about it!” even though, in almost every case, their tone had been scornful of our law until I spoke up in its favor. Because few regular people actually believe in the dogmas of the Established Church. They just know that if they don’t talk as if they believed, the consequences are likely to be unbearable. You know, like the citizens of Communist countries before liberation. Like Afghanis under the Taliban. Like Palestinians under the rule of terrorist governments. Like citizens of Seattle.

see you now. And any time I see that you’re on somebody’s album that I like, I won’t even buy that album. It’s just a bunch of crud.

himself as a black woman to help him secure a job? Well, using the same logic, the answer would be yes. And by the way, I just burned and throwed away all my BS albums and tapes.

%%% Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders presidency can be summed up in six words: A trip through the twilight zone. Do everything in your power by voting a straight Republican ticket in November to keep either of these godless ultra-liberals out of the White House. I have never been so concerned about our nation in my 61 years as I am now. You should be, too.

%%% I tell you what. This country is going to hell in a handbasket. We’ve got ISIS blowing each other up, killing innocent people, women, children, anybody. They don’t care. They’re cowards. They’ll blow anybody up. And we’re worried about this stupid HB2 bill about where somebody can pee or can’t pee. Are you kidding me right now? It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. And Bruce Springsteen cancels a concert here because of this mess. Good, Bruce. Now, I know I can’t stand you. I never liked you before. Never bought anything you’ve ever had. Never listened to you. Never went to see you, and I sure as heck won’t come

A word for today and tomorrow from scripture. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Though an army may camp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war may arise against me, in this I will be confident. One thing I have desired of the Lord that I will seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Psalm 27: 1-4. Isn’t that wonderful?

%%% Do liberals want the human race to evolve downward to that of an earthworm where gender does not matter? I’m open to allow folks that had a complete sex change to use whatever bathroom of their new gender. However, when a man or a woman could just say, I identify as the other, and it be accepted, then watch out. Remember, you cannot discriminate based on gender, age or race. Well, does that mean that an 18-year-old can say that he identifies himself as a 21-year-old and demand to be served alcohol? Or can a white male applying for a job identify

%%% You know, I bet ya if I put on a dress, and I went down to the City Council meeting and just hung out until the meeting was over, and the first time Ms. Johnson and all them, Marikay and everybody else on the board, all those other females went into the bathroom after the board meeting, I’d guarantee if I walked in that bathroom and just stood in there and watched them, I guarantee you they’d turn over real fast and also vote against it.

%%% Editor’s Note: The City Council used your tax dollars to build themselves private restrooms a couple of years ago so they wouldn’t have to use the same restrooms as the people they represent.

%%% I think that Tony Wilkins should run for mayor of Greensboro in the next election. He was the only member of the City Council with enough (continued on page 24)

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by Scott D. Yost looking at me just holding the door. Awk•ward. (ôk w rd) adj. 1. Not The situation clearly made him graceful; ungainly. uncomfortable too, and he sped 2. Not dexterous; clumsy. up. He clearly didn’t enjoy the 3. a. Difficult to handle or manage: responsibility of being my master any an awkward bundle to carry. b. more than I enjoyed being his humble Difficult to effect; uncomfortable: an indentured servant. awkward pose. Finally, after an agonizingly long 4. Marked by or causing period of time, he scurried through embarrassment or discomfort. the door and we had this uneasy eye – The Free Dictionary contact and he said, “Thank you.” I just looked at him but, given the context, I may as well have said I was walking out of a eagerly, “Oh, no need to thank building the other day with a me, Your Majesty! Your wish is my group of people right behind command!” me, and, considerate person It was what you call awkward. that I am, I stopped and held You know the times I’m talking the door. When I did, I realized about, like when you buy a ticket at the group was no longer the movie theater and the guy taking behind me – they had stopped your ticket says, “Enjoy the movie!” to converse; however, one guy and you go “Thanks, you too!” – only was still walking toward the he isn’t going to see the movie so you door. Now, at that point, I’d already been just said something really stupid. An interesting thing about awkward standing there holding the door open moments is that they can happen with for a few seconds; however this guy your friends just as easily as with total was still a good distance from it. strangers – for instance, when you He was far enough away that I was tempted to – maybe?? – just let go of and your friend meet at a restaurant the door; however, I couldn’t very well downtown. As you are leaving, you have this long goodbye at the door do that because he was still close and you shake hands or hug and tell enough that that could be very much each other you should get together like rudely slamming the door in his more often. You both start to walk face. away – and then you realize you are So, basically, I had no choice but both headed in the same direction. to stand there, and I was – suddenly, You’ve already hugged them and for no reason other than the fact that said everything you have to say, so I’m a nice guy – trapped in this really it’s really awkward. And it gets even awkward position of just holding the more awkward when you have to say door for this stranger walking across goodbye all over again even though the room. At that point, he was looking at me you just said it. You say, “OK, like I told you three minutes ago, it’s really from a distance as I stood there like great to see you and we should keep I was his humble man-servant who in touch more …” had dedicated my life to nothing but Man is that uncomfortable. seeing that his every need be met The worst is when it’s something and to no doubt lovingly washing his that happens with a pretty woman. feet each morning. By then, other people were (continued on page 23)

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Like when a cute woman you don’t recognize is smiling at you and waiving at you, and you’re smiling back at her and waiving, wondering where you have the good fortune to know her from, only to realize that she’s not waiving to you but instead to someone else behind you. It becomes evident that you’re just some random loser who happens to be standing in the general vicinity of someone she cares about. The absolute worse is when it’s a whole group of pretty woman. Chris Daughtry was making a music video in downtown Greensboro about eight years ago and, for the shoot, a very large group of models was lined up along the railroad tracks near Natty Greene’s. I was supposed to take pictures for the paper before the video and that night I felt good and confident. I was ready to make my suave entrance to the long line of hot models standing at the bottom of the hill that lines the tracks. They looked up on the hill and saw me with my camera around my neck and I took my first step – and tumbled hard over and over again down the steep

beep (continued from page 22) integrity to vote for HB2. Mayor Nancy Vaughan is a hardcore leftist who needs to be defeated by the decent folks of Greensboro. Even Justin Outling who claims to be a conservative capitulated to the gay lobby. He also needs to be defeated. Thank you.

%%% Considering the News & Record’s breathless two-inch headlines last week on the transgender bathroom issue, one has to wonder if anything else is going on in the world. Sunday and Monday editions have photos of protestors. But Monday’s photos are the most telling with all their yapping about diversity and interfaith, the question is, where are all the black people? I haven’t seen that many white people to protest since the Tea Party gathered on the McDonald Plaza. Are these white interfaith people the new bitter clingers?

%%% (continued on page 27)

embankment like a ragdoll. I tried to recover and act like it was nothing but I could hardly stand up and I was bleeding and in pain and covered in dirt. Not exactly the entrance I was going for. (I will say that turned out OK because the concerned models all surrounded me and helped me to my feet and started brushing me off and asking whether they should call an ambulance.) Speaking of woman, I was reading online through examples of awkward situations and BuzzFeed had a good one that I do a lot: “Facebook stalking someone and accidentally liking their profile picture from six years ago.” Oh I hate that one. You’re at home at 3:15 a.m. privately crying over your ex-girlfriend from years ago and you’re way deep down in her online photo albums looking at her Facebook photos from 2010, and somehow you accidently hit the “like” button and you panic because there’s really no other explanation other than that you are a creepy psycho with a shrine to her in your house and her only real choice is to take out a restraining order against you. All you did was accidentally hit a button, but you might as well have shown up on her front porch in your bathrobe in the middle of the night drunk and unshaven calling out through the tears, “Rebecca, come baaaaack! I still love you!” One woman online, Elizabeth Flood, posted, “A friend’s aunt decided one Christmas to just send people money instead of presents. She sent out Christmas cards and wrote, ‘Buy your own presents!’ But she forgot to put the money in.” Another posted this about her first date with some guy who was visually impaired. “We were walking somewhere but I kept getting confused as to which direction we should take. I blurted out, ‘God, it’s like the blind leading the –’ I never finished the sentence because my awkwardness and shame swallowed me whole.” All this got me thinking about the most awkward moments in history. There were lots of contenders, such as Kanye jumping on stage and raining all over the Grammy acceptance speech of the sweetest and most beloved entertainer in the world, or Kathie Lee Gifford interviewing Martin Short on the morning show, going on and on about how great his marriage was and asking one question after another

about it – but what she didn’t know is that Short’s wife had died two years earlier. And there’s Ashlee Simpson getting caught lip-synching “Pieces of Me” on Saturday Night Live and all she could do was dance that strange uncomfortable dance as the tape of her voice played on, before she just walked off in shame with her head down. Then there’s, of course, Joe Biden rubbing all those women’s shoulders and whispering intimately into the ears of teenage girls. So trust me, there were plenty to choose from. But here, with no further to do, are the Top Five Most Cringe-worthy Awkward Moments in the History of Mankind … (5) Ben Carson waiting in the wings to go into the Republican debate. Oh my, this is so amazingly uncomfortable. Man is this awkward. It makes me sooooo uneasy to watch it even now. Making it worse is the fact that the stakes are so high and everyone in the world is watching. Everything about it is supremely awkward, from the stagehand frantically waving in the background for Carson to go to the podium, to Bush and the others walking by Carson as he stood there clueless. It’s not even Carson’s fault: Because of the applause, you could hardly hear his name being called. (4) The kiss between Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell on Who Wants to Marry a MultiMillionaire? I say that the kiss is awkward because that’s the thing everyone remembers, but really the whole story is wildly awkward from start to finish. In February 2000, the entire 21st century got off on the wrong foot with the Fox network reality show Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? In the live two-hour special, 50 women competed to be the bride of an unknown millionaire they‘d never seen (other than seeing his silhouette) until the moment they married him that night on live TV at the end of the show. They had a swimsuit competition and a questionand-answer portion, but the worst thing was the now infamous kiss he forced on her on stage while the world watched in horror. I can’t even imagine how awkward the honeymoon was. It turned out he wasn’t even that rich, and, within days, Conger (as recounted in Wikipedia) “made numerous public comments about how she was offended by Rockwell’s forcibly kissing her on stage, that they never consummated their marriage, and how the entire episode went against her morals.” Conger then posed nude for Playboy magazine in August 2000. (Many people may not

realize this but at one time Playboy showed naked women.) Conger got mad about people accusing her of “being a golddigger.” Imagine, accusing her, of all people – a woman who married a millionaire she’d never met – of being a gold digger!? I just don’t get how you could say that about her. (3) Entertainment reporter Sam Rubin Interviews Samuel Jackson, who Rubin thinks is Laurence Fishburne. In early 2014, KTLATV Channel 5 Los Angeles reporter interviewed Samuel Jackson, and it’s very hard to watch because Rubin mistakes Jackson for Fishburne. Because, you know, Samuel Jackson, Laurence Fishburne – what’s the difference? Rubin apologized profusely and belittled himself but it was to no avail. Jackson was intent on making him squirm. During the interview, Fishburne – uh, I mean Jackson – really turned the screws on Rubin. “I’m the ‘What’s in your wallet?’ black guy,” Jackson said, referring to a well-known Capital One credit card commercial running at the time. “Lawrence Fishburne is the car black guy. Morgan Freeman is the other black guy.” (2) Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone’s vault on live TV. On April 21, 1986, after an amazing publicity build up, Geraldo took awkward to a new level. For weeks, the network promoted the tar out of the live special: “Who knows what we will find in Al Capone’s vault!? Some say a giant stash of cash, some say gold. Others say it’s booby trapped!” When they went in there they found like a small paper bag that a wino had left and a broken bottle of bourbon or something and that left about an hour of very awkward airtime to fill. (1) Steve Harvey announces the wrong winner in the Miss Universe Pageant. The Bible has one unpardonable sin – blasphemy – but after this recent debacle we know there should really be two. As long as I live, I’ll never see a more uncomfortable moment than Harvey walking back out on stage with the music playing and with Miss Columbia’s tears of joy streaming down her face because her life long dream after years of toil, primping and food deprivation had finally come true – – Wait, what’s that? Miss Columbia’s dream actually didn’t come true? Because Harvey couldn’t make it to a rehearsal? Not even for a live TV show watched by millions around the world? Awkward.

ask

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

arolyn...

Straight Talk

from the Dancing Divorce Attorney

by Carolyn Woodruff

Ask Carolyn…

haven’t filled them out. I was told to do it in front of a notary. Do I have to fill it out in front of one, or can I take it to one once it’s already filled out? And after that what can they do? Just sign it or do they file it? That’s where I’m confused.

Dear Carolyn, My husband wants a divorce and I agree. We don’t need a lawyer because we don’t have kids or property, or even shared money. The only thing we have together, property wise, we’ve both agreed he should keep. I have all my divorce papers, I just

Carolyn Answers ... A divorce can be a little more complex with regard to paperwork than perhaps it should be. I’ll give you some DIY guidance after answering your question about a notary. Concerning the notary, that person only needs to see you sign. You

should have identification with you, as the notary will need to confirm who you are. You should already have the forms completed, except for your signature, when you approach the notary. The notary will watch you sign and attach the notary affidavit and seal. You can find a notary at your bank. You will then need to go the clerk of court in the county where you live and file the divorce complaint. The next step is service of your husband with the complaint and summons (the clerk gives you the summons). You can pay and have the sheriff serve him, or send him a certified mail copy

of the complaint and summons. Or, since this seems friendly, he could file a paper with the clerk stating that he has received the complaint and that he wants the divorce also. The clerk can then help you get a date for the divorce and fill out the vital records paperwork. Keep in mind that an absolute divorce cuts off all rights to property and spousal support. You might want to pull a joint credit report and make sure you know whether your husband signed you up for any debts you did not know about. Enjoy your new life, and write again if you have further questions. (continued on page 27)

26 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

falling

(continued from page 12) supporting posts – is composed of deteriorating terra cotta and is highly suspect, he said. Freyaldenhoven said that balustrade was “very susceptible to water infiltration” and that the posts came off with hardly any effort at all. He added that there has been “a lot of movement in the building” over the years. “We have a lot of places where it’s become unsafe,” he said, adding that much of the steel in the structure was also corroded. The architectural firm’s final report won’t be complete until the end of the month, but given the severity of the situation, they said it was important to warn the county immediately. “We all agreed it was in much worse condition than we expected,” Freyaldenhoven said, “and we would classify, according to standards, this building as indeed in an unsafe condition. Every place we looked at it, some of it would be classified as unsafe.” He added that, though the north side of the building was in the worst shape, the south side wasn’t likely to be much better. He said it was hard to completely study the south exterior since it was difficult to get lifts onto the

sic u M e h T of the

plaza, but, using binoculars, they could tell the south side was probably in the same dire condition as the north side. The two architects told the board that the good news was that the Old Court House could be fixed but the bad news was that it wouldn’t be cheap. Teague pointed out that Alamance County had done some similar work on its courthouse recently. He also said that, once inside the Old Guilford County Court House, workers weren’t in danger. “We’re not here telling you that this building is about to fall down and that it’s not safe for people to be in the building,” Teague said. Those county staff who use the second-floor restroom might disagree. Phillips said the board should see the citizens’ safety as a paramount concern. “We can probably live without a commissioner or two,” Phillips joked. (Commissioners actually don’t have to worry about falling debris because they all have parking places under the building and enter and exit through the basement.) Philips asked if the commissioners should shut down some entrances until the issues are worked out.

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Teague said fire code wouldn’t permit the exits to be closed as long as the building is occupied. At the work session, Commissioner Alan Perdue said he thought the issue of falling debris had come before the Board of Commissioners in 2010. Commissioner Carolyn Coleman, who was on the board at that time, said, “It didn’t come before the board.” Perdue adjusted his statement and said, “I know it came before the manager.” The county manager in 2010 was Brenda Jones Fox. “I know some on the board were aware of it,” Perdue added. McNiece said nothing has fallen since he’d been here. He arrived about two-and-a-half years ago. Guilford County Clerk to the Board Robin Keller said that the last time she remembered it happening was in 2006 or 2007, when a giant chunk fell at the front entrance. McNiece said Guilford County had been fortunate in recent years, given that a lot of pieces in the recent evaluation “just came off in our hands like a loose tooth.” Phillips said, “That’s reassuring.” The chairman added, “Clearly we don’t have an option. I worry about you finding more than you found today.” The Old Court House, which has five floors and 44,000 square feet of space, is the center of Guilford County government. It houses the county commissioners’ offices and main meeting rooms, the county manager’s office, the Guilford County Board of Elections Department, the Budget Department, the county attorney’s office and other county departments. After being told that the terra cotta material used for the building was the third best option available 100 years ago, Perdue said it should be a lesson to the board that, “Cheapest isn’t always the best.” A report last year on the status of the interior of the building stated that the electrical fixtures, wiring and other items were in need of repair and also found a need for an estimated $6,000 to repair stairways, $60,000 for soundproofing, $18,000 for painting and $180,000 for ductwork. A new chiller was estimated to cost about $180,000, a boiler $42,000, and new air handlers are projected to cost $180,000. The commissioners can now tack another $8 million or so onto all that. The dilapidated condition of buildings is more of a rule than an exception for Guilford County these days. The Sheriff’s Department headquarters in the Otto Zenke building has sinking floors and balconies that are off limits due to structural concerns. The county is building a new animal shelter because the old one is falling apart. Several abandoned county buildings

have succumbed to vandalism and not long ago the county demolished structures at the old Monticello Elementary School on NC 150 near Brown Summit and it did the same for a county-owned former retirement home in High Point. The old jail sits in downtown Greensboro being kept in use with temporary fixes and, in other county buildings in recent years there have been problems with broken pipes, ants, rodents – and it’s not uncommon to see buckets collecting water under leaky roofs in some county buildings. When pieces of the ceiling were falling on county workers at 325 E. Russell Ave. in High Point, the county strung tarps over employee cubicles until Guilford County’s former risk manager told them that would not do. Now the inside and the outside of the Old Court House is suspect and, perhaps most alarming, about two years ago some lights and light fixtures that hung from the ceiling fell near press row in the commissioners second-floor meeting room. In that large room, there are also visible cracks around the heavy light fixtures and staff has come into the meeting room before and found parts of the room covered with a plaster dust that looked like newly fallen snow. County staff who work in the Old Court House said that the building took a noticeable blow in the earthquake that shook Greensboro in August 2011. Before the commissioners’ regular meeting on April 7, immediately following the work session, Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes pointed out an old faucet knob in the meeting room bathroom that was about to fall off and nearly unusable. “It’s embarrassing.” Barnes said of the general condition of the building. The Old Court House, which is of neoclassical style, has a proud history. It was designed by Harry Barton, a very well known architect who also designed many other prominent North Carolina buildings. Barton, a native of Philadelphia who moved to Guilford County in 1912, became one of North Carolina’s leading architects, as well as one of its most prolific. Whatever one’s political leanings, it’s easy these days to feel for Phillips, who was elected chairman in December with a big wish to deliver a tax cut. So far, in his five months as chairman, county facilities staff have told the board that the county needs over $11 million in unexpected funding just to keep structures from falling on people. That comes to almost 3 cents on the property tax rate. Lately the joke among commissioners is that no one wants to ever hear from McNiece because every time he opens his mouth the county ends up needing to shell out millions more dollars for maintenance and repair.

beep (continued from page 24) You want to know what the solution is for the HB2? It’s real simple. Instead of making all the bathrooms universal, just – it’s real simple. Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you just change and write the bill where the female’s bathroom stays the female bathroom, the male stays the male bathroom, but every business must install a third bathroom for the mixed genders. You know, for the ones that are transgender or whatever. That way you ain’t going to have males going in the females, and the females going into the males and vice a versa. Because you’ll have a third bathroom that the trans go into. And that way if one like a straight male like me goes into a woman’s bathroom, you could still arrest and prosecute us even if we …

%%% I’ve yet to hear Hillary Clinton address this $20 trillion that this (continued on page 30)

ask carolyn

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

(continued from page 25)

Dear Carolyn, I am a 55-year-old woman and I am thinking about getting married again. I was married to my first husband 20 years. I re-entered the workforce about 10 years ago. I have two adult children and a grandchild. What do I need to consider? Carolyn Answers ... Here are Carolyn’s top seven concerns for “gray marriages” – marriages for people over 50. You should go through each of these issues, many of which can be handled in a premarital agreement. 1) The doctrine of necessaries: Spouses are financially responsible for each other’s medical necessaries. The concern here is, as we age, health care can become very expensive. Is this a commitment you are willing to make? Of course, I’ve seen divorces happen over this issue of medical necessaries alone in persons in their 80s to preserve assets for estate planning. 2) Will the marriage disrupt your estate plan? Your new spouse will have rights to a portion of your estate

unless those rights are waived in a premarital agreement. Adult children many times become quite anxious if they feel mom’s new love will steal their inheritance. 3) Will you create a new home together or will you be moving into one or the other’s existing home. I recommend starting over “fresh” with a new home for both of you. Why? The partner moving in the existing home frequently feels that the home doesn’t really belong to him or her. And existing homes can have bad memories of a prior relationship in the home, or even too many sad memories if the partner lost a spouse by death while living in the existing home. If your name is not on the home, your furnishings that you bring into the home will likely not be covered by the homeowner’s insurance if something happens like a fire or flood. If you move into an existing home titled to the other spouse only, will you suddenly have to move out if your spouse dies? 4) Will you file joint income tax returns? Will this cost you more? If your name is not on the mortgage of an existing home, you cannot deduct

the interest, even if you are paying half the payment. The marriage penalty is stiff and expensive. If you and your groom to be are both in the 28 percent tax bracket, your combined income could trigger extra taxes, frequently called the marriage penalty. 5) If you are high net worth, making use of the unlimited marital deduction in estate planning can be beneficial. 6) You will lose social security benefits related to your first spouse. You were married to your first spouse for the required 10 years, so you are entitled to have your Social Security evaluated based upon your first husband’s earnings record unless you remarry. 7) If you are receiving alimony from your first husband, you will most likely lose that alimony. Send questions on family law and divorce to askcarolyn@rhinotimes. com, or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27427 or at Ask Carolyn’s comment section at rhinotimes.com. Note that answers are intended to provide general legal information and are not specific legal advice for your situation. The column also uses hypothetical questions. A subtle fact in your unique case may determine the legal advice you need. Also, please note that you are not creating an attorney-client relationship with Carolyn J. Woodruff by writing or having your question answered by Ask Carolyn.

28 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Letters PRINCETON GOT IT RIGHT DEAR EDITOR,

Concerning the removal of the name of Charles Aycock from the auditorium by the trustees of the university, I would ask them to reconsider their decision. In the April 5, 2016 edition of The Wall Street Journal, it reports that the trustees of Princeton University will not drop the name of Woodrow Wilson from its school of public and international affairs despite calls that he had racist policies, opposed the admission of black students when he was president of the university and formalized segregation in the federal government. The trustees stated that even though the Black Justice League called for the removal of Wilson’s name, “an expanded and more vigorous commitment to diversity and inclusion” will be maintained. I would hope the trustees would

LETTERS To The Editor

TO THE EDITOR learn a lesson from one of the most esteemed universities in America and come to their senses and reverse the name change decision, all in the spirit of “inclusion and diversity,” a phrase commonly used by the progressive left-wing to justify their policies.

H.D. Cole

BOYCOTT BOYCOTTERS DEAR EDITOR,

We generally support the rights and respect all people, but I do not want a person with male genitalia in a bathroom or locker room with my wife, daughters, granddaughters, etc. All of those who disagree with the law need to voluntarily pay more taxes to build new bathrooms for the gender neutral across North Carolina. The few transgenders demanding this won’t be forcing their actions on females in my family. I consider their actions rude,

distasteful and dangerous. Who’ll step up to pay for the new bathrooms? PayPal, IBM, Wells Fargo, the Greensboro City Council and mayor, Bank of America, Lowe’s, NC Attorney General Roy Cooper, the ACLU? How about the Democrats across the state? Maybe citizens who support privacy and decency should boycott companies that oppose the House Bill 2 law.

Senate. Clinton is a chronic liar who has left a trail of shady deals behind her. Sanders a geriatric remnant of the ’60s whose promises come from the extreme left-wing heaven. It seems that the top of the political class won’t run for the highest office in the world. Their failure to run signifies that they are quite content to milk the positions they have in the House and Senate. The result is “send in the clowns.” God save America.

SIMPLY THE BEST? DEAR EDITOR,

NO POLICE IN SCHOOLS DEAR EDITOR,

Ed Byrum

It is a sign of the decay in America that the “best” candidates for the presidency are so pathetic. Trump is an egotistical billionaire who has little grasp of policy on America’s problems. Cruz is an extreme rightwing zealot disliked by his peers in the

Ed Philpott

A cell-phone video has captured yet another school police officer body-slamming a teenage girl. This time it happened in San Antonio. The video shows 12-year-old Janissa Valdez landing on her face after being (continued on page 30)

30 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

The New York Times

crossword puzzle No. 0403

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

BY NATAN LAST / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 18

RELEASE DATE: 4/10/2016

49 Contract part 1 ____-Town (sobriquet 53 P.M. after and before in many a Kanye Churchill West song) 54 Carson who won the 4 “To Kill a 2001 T. S. Eliot Prize Mockingbird” theme for Poetry 10 Get heavily (into) 55 “Come on … be 14 Distinctive Harry daring” Potter feature 57 Increases, with “to” 18 Overactors 59 “No worries” 20 Hebrew for “my 62 Look from Scrooge Lord” 63 Sally 21 Period for reflection 66 Tell and recharging 68 Bubbling 23 With 113-Across, heard but 70 24-note tune disregarded … or a 71 Quattros and TTs hint to interpreting 73 “I had nothing to do the Across answers with it” with circled letters 75 Olympic sprinting 25 Gallant type champion Devers 26 “____ Dei” (prayer) 77 “Oh, boo-hoo!” 27 Baldwin’s 79 Overly ingratiating “30 Rock” co-star 81 Senior project 28 Clean-air org. 85 Some Ivy Leaguers 29 Mayan food staple 86 “Would you consider 30 Browser navigation this suggestion?” aids 31 Common query from 88 Nutritional figs. one about to leave 90 Roman statesman the house known as “the Censor” 35 The left, informally 91 Given the signal 36 Meditate (on) 37 Modern surgical aid 92 Label for a suit? 38 Come-____ 93 Some Johnny Hart panels 39 ____-surfing 96 Not true? 40 Show wear 41 Arcade-game sound 98 Outlaws 99 Out of control 43 Nicknames 46 Indignant reply when 100 Comment to the notsomeone withholds yet-convinced information 105 Mountain goat 106 Politico with the Online subscriptions: autobiography “An Today’s puzzle and more American Son” than 4,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords 107 The Engineers of the ($39.95 a year). N.C.A.A. ACROSS

108 Disneyland’s Main Street, ____ 109 ____ rima (meter of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”) 111 Former name for Syracuse athletes 113 See 23-Across 117 Rustic backyard plaything 118 Subject of 1972 negotiations with China 119 Part of a bloodline 120 Coins with fleurs-de-lis 121 Remnants 122 Famed Six Flags Great Adventure roller coaster 123 Talking-____

16 Company that passed Walmart in 2015 as the world’s largest retailer 17 Extends, in a way 19 Disinvites, e.g. 22 Mr. Noodle’s friend on “Sesame Street” 24 Tricky curve 31 Kapow! 32 2003 No. 1 hit for OutKast 33 Parts of Polynésie 34 Rig, e.g. 35 General of the Resistance in “The Force Awakens” 36 Doctrines 40 Awesome 41 Unlikely to be talked out of 42 Sight seers DOWN 44 Makes dim, as the 1 ____ Pets (1980s fad) 42-Down 2 “Just hold on” 45 Fifth-century pope who was the first 3 2009 Grammy nominee to be called “the with the lyric “But Great” this ain’t SeaWorld, this is real as it 47 One waiting in gets” “Waiting for Godot” 4 Singer Carly ____ 48 Sweaters, e.g. Jepsen 50 Layer of the 42-Down 5 Nabokov heroine 51 Slip (through) 6 Heart: Lat. 52 Slips up 7 “Moments from now” 55 Duke Ellington’s “All 8 More grounded ____ Soon” 9 June and July 56 Sacha Baron Cohen persona 10 Feminist issue in the workplace 58 Aphorisms 11 Israeli leaders? 60 El ____ Real 12 Helped the cause, say 61 Symbols on old manuscripts 13 Foe of Saruman, in 63 Not for prudes Tolkien 64 Energy field, of sorts 14 Hearty entree 65 Tennyson work 15 Director Michael

beep (continued from page 27) country owes – $10 trillion run up during Barack Hussein Obama. Now, looks like when she’s getting all these people gathered around her to make a photo, somebody ought to ask her what we’re going to do about the national debt. Look like one of these news people would ask her, what are we going to do about the national debt? She’s not answered none of it. She’s not even brought it up. But them people that’s drawing any kind

of a check whatsoever that’s got US Treasury Department on it, is going to find out their check is going to be cut some.

%%% John, I want to say congratulations to the general assembly for the bill, and I’d like to know if there’s any possible way of impeaching our City Council up there, all except for Tony. He’s the only one that seems to have

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67 Jabber 69 Post-menorahlighting treats 72 Branded 74 Impeccably 76 “Rumor has it …” 78 Oscar ____, star of “Inside Llewyn Davis” 80 Facilities often referred to by their first letter

82 2010’s “California Gurls” or 1996’s “Macarena” 83 Goal of having no unread emails 84 Lake Oahe locale: Abbr. 86 Actress Blanchett 87 ____ Viv, caretaker of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air 89 Enter angrily

any common sense. The rest of them are fools. We need to replace all of the, especially our mayor. She’s about like Hillary Clinton. She ain’t never done nothing that’s good for the people. She just got her special interest that she’s worried about getting back elected. I’d like to get rid of all of them except Tony. Get somebody in there that’s got some sense.

%%% I always loved the Rhino no matter what. I enjoy reading it, working the puzzles and all these facts that you

(continued on next page)

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102 Calc figures

93 From memory

103 “And I ____ …”

94 Former “CBS Evening News” anchor

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95 Outback maker

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97 Loom

112 Farm female

98 “Scram!”

114 Brace

99 Looks out for?

115 Laugh half

105 “Were ____ hazard a guess …”

116 “Lux” composer

letters

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(continued from page 29)

body-slammed. The police officer wasn’t identified, but he will be put on administrative leave, which is the same as a paid vacation. I am against having police officers in schools because of situations like this. Any school police officer that bodyslams a teenage girl should be fired. If this is what he would do to a unarmed girl, imagine what he would have done to a man.

Chuck Mann

Send to letters@rhinotimes.com or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

beep

%%%

(continued from previous page) put in there. But why put a picture of our mayor on the front page? But I hope you don’t do that again. Put somebody else’s picture on there.

%%% In reference to the HB2 bill that McCrory and the Senate passed, I’d like to thank them. I thank him and Mr. Berger, both of them, and all the senators and the people down there that had the courage to stand up and pass this bill. It’s a commonsense bill. The LBGT community might not think it’s common sense, but it’s common sense for anybody that’s got any grandchildren, children or a wife. We’re sick and tired of watching one-half of one percent dictate our moral values to us in this country, and it goes to show you just what Roy Cooper is. So, if you have no moral values whatsoever, then you can vote for him as a Democrat there in the election. We don’t need to be putting our children at stake playing games with this LGBT

community. There’s no sense in that. I don’t care what these businesses do. They can sign all the letters they want to. PayPal can stay out of North Carolina. I won’t be doing any business with them nor any of these others that I can find that I see that’s signing this letter.

%%% This message is for all the people who gets out there and stomps on our precious flag. If it was up to me, I’d send your behind to Iran. Then you’d have a different point of view of America then. Bunch of antiAmericans. I’d send king Obama over there, too. He’s anti-American.

%%% Yes, just watching channel 8 news. They have a thing about HB2 on there. It said 51 percent of the people in North Carolina supported the bill. I just wonder how many college campuses they had to go to get 51 percent. Did anybody call any of y’all’s houses to ask you your opinion on it? They didn’t call me.

Mommy Makeover by Virgil V. Willard II, MD

THE “MOMMY MAKEOVER” is a term that has been coined to describe the surgeries woman have requested after they have delivered the last baby. Our children, God help us we love them, but the changes pregnancy causes are not always kind. Let’s go over these procedures.

breast may become and stay larger. The resultant neck, back, and shoulder pain, often makes breast reductions an insurance reimbursable procedure when the others here are not. Breast reductions give you a lift too. This is another wonderful operation.

FIRST THE BREASTS. Different moms have different changes. Usually, after the breast milk stops being produced, some of the ﬁrm breast tissue will wilt away. This leaves the breast smaller and now has some droop that was not there before. Sometimes the breast will stay larger than before the pregnancy. If stretch marks have come, I’m sorry to say we don’t have anything to reverse them. Some lasers can make them smaller if you treat them while they are red. Do not suntan them while they are red or they will stay dark instead of fading to white. If you have lost some volume, a breast augmentation will help restore that volume. If droopiness has become the problem, then a mastopexy (breast lift) is the right operation. I have been in practice for 25 years now, and of all the procedures we will talk about today, the number of mastopexies has increased the most! Like the rest of the procedures here, the ﬁnal result makes for very happy patients. The last change is the

SECONDLY, FAT POCKETS SEEM TO OCCUR AND STAY AFTER PREGNANCIES. These are typically amenable to liposuction. These areas can be under the chin, the arms, the abdomen, the hips, the thighs, and the knees. Liposuction is a great operation. As long as the skin has enough elasticity to contract and hold a smaller volume, it works great. THIRDLY, LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT ABDOMEN. If the skin and muscles have not stretched too far, then liposuction will be sufﬁcient. If your muscles are stretched apart, and/or the skin is just too excessive, then an abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) is what you need.

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What is the mayor of the Gate City, our great city of Greensboro, doing? Is she our mayor or is she waving rainbow flags and unicorns? Step up, recuse yourself from the duties of being mayor, Nancy Vaughan, and go the LGBT to gain your votes to lobby in Raleigh to get your name in the newspaper. You will ride any coattails you possibly can. And the connection, how you got the job with the LGBT, the person that’s running the LGBT has been close friends with the mayor’s family for years. I guess we’re just the city of rainbows and unicorns. What about us that believe in the Bible that are Christians?

%%% Yes, I was hoping your guys could print a list of the yeahs and nays on HB2 for us folks that don’t have a computer. I mean, I have no access to a computer. But I’d like to see who voted yeah, and who voted nay on this bill. Because it looks really destructive for our state.

%%% For the LGBT community here in Greensboro, I just want to point out that it was almost nepotism that

This surgery pulls your muscles back together. It also removes lower abdominal skin and the fat beneath it. The incision winds up low in the bikini line. This is an awesome operation. It is also the biggest one we are talking about today. But, if you need it, you need it. If you try a shortcut like just doing liposuction when there is too much skin, you will wind up with ugly, wrinkly skin. Most patients are uncomfortable driving the ﬁrst two weeks, and most patients return to computer-type work in three weeks. Some can sooner, some it takes longer. A lot of patients worry about the pain too. We use numbing medicine that lasts for three days! Incredible. The worst of the pain is over in several days, so this gets you past the worst of it. Do not let pain keep you from having this operation. We have it covered! LASTLY, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE FACE. I don’t know if it’s part of the ageing process, or maybe it’s those sleepless nights with a new baby, but changes in the face after a pregnancy are not uncommon at all. It’s unlikely this age group is going to need a face-lift, but the skin of the face can lose elasticity. To

Nancy Vaughan was appointed the leader of the group. Chris Sgro worked for then Sen. Don Vaughan on his first campaign as his political advisor. Very closely. Before he went to work for Kay Hagan. I almost feel like it’s nepotism how Nancy Vaughan fell into that position with Chris Sgro and Don Vaughan.

%%% Yes, President Obama admitted that Iran has violated the spirit, not the deal actually, but the spirit of the deal, which is kind of interesting. Because today the US Navy intercepted a boat with tons of AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades headed for Yemen. OK. Sent by guess who? Iran. Yes, the ayatollah who got $150 million billion from John Kerry and Obama and, believe it or not, and I know her supporters don’t want to believe it, Hillary supports that deal. So, what the heck? Not only did she support that deal, but she was the one that initiated to overthrow Qaddafi in Libya. That was a disaster. This lady has no track

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help with this, a skin tightening laser procedure like the YAG, or ultrasound treatments with Ultherapy®, create nice changes. The “mask of pregnancy,” the dark discoloration of the cheek, happens sometimes. This will very successfully be treated with either a laser or one of the chemical peels. Once in a while, excess skin becomes a cosmetic problem of the upper or lower eyelids. For this, a blepharoplasty (eyelid lifts) is a wonderful operation to get rid of that skin. Most patients having a “mommy makeover” have more than one procedure. We very commonly do a breast and an abdominal procedure at the same time. It saves the patient money and requires just one recovery instead of two. We are skilled and trained to safely accomplish multiple procedures. And let’s face it, there may be young children at home. Let’s try and keep Mom “out of commission” as little as possible. Dads appreciate that. Call for a consult and we’ll see what procedures might correct what the Little Darlings did!

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32 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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councilmember who seemed to grasp this mathematical equation. The City Council allocated another $300,000 because Preservation Greensboro asked for it. So the City Council has now allocated $475,000 to renovate the building because it was told it would cost $300,000 to demolish it. The City Council doesn’t want to demolish the building and there are good arguments against it. It is a historic structure and, because of the railroad right-of-way, nothing could be built on the site if the building were torn down. But the City Council should at least be honest and admit that they have now allocated $475,000 when the cost of demolition is currently estimated to be $300,000. Taxpayers can expect more reasoning like this from the City Council when it comes to raising taxes and fees. No one on the City Council raised any objection to raising water and sewer rates by 4.5 percent. The reason for the fee increase according to Water Resources Director Steve Drew is not that the cost of providing

water and sewer has increased – he said expenses had gone down – but that the water and sewer department sees a need to spend more money. According to Drew the water and sewer department has about $25 million in the bank, which seems like a pretty healthy bank account. But it will be even healthier if the rates are raised 4.5 percent, which seems a given since there were no objections. When rates were raised in past years the overriding concern was the number of sewage overflows. Drew told the City Council that problem has largely been fixed, but he recommends the city step up its replacement of old water and sewer lines. There was good news from water and sewer department. For years people have complained about their street being repaved one year and then the next year having the water department come along and cut big holes in it. So in no time it was again a patchwork of uneven pavement. Drew said that the Water Resources Department had been working for months with the Field Operations Department, which is in charge of

repaving, to work out a schedule. This may seem like common sense to most people, but it is revolutionary in city hall. The Water Resources Department is also going to allocate funds to the Field Operations Department to fix the mess in the streets it leaves behind. So some of that money you are paying for water and sewer is going to be used to pave streets. It may sound like an improvement but it’s also a way to keep the property tax from increasing. A cynic would say that it is a purely political decision because councilmembers don’t receive as many complaints about water rate increases as property tax increases. What the City Council seemed delighted to learn was that the city currently charges a vehicle licensing fee of $10 per year and the limit on that fee set by the state is $30 per year. When the City Council was given this information, City Councilmember Jamal Fox said, “Why are we not doing $30?” There was no objection from the rest of the City Council on tripling the vehicle licensing fee, even though this is a regressive tax that will hit low income residents harder than the wealthy. The fee is per vehicle, regardless of the value of the vehicle. So someone who has a junker that on a good day might

be worth $1,500 currently pays $10 per year for the privilege of owning a vehicle in Greensboro, and someone who owns a new Ferrari worth $250,000 also pays $10. The Ferrari owner isn’t likely to miss the extra $20 per year, but the owner of the junker likely will. The City Council even discussed how to sell this to their constituents as a user fee by promising to spend the increased revenue on repaving streets. Councilmember Mike Barber said, “We should guarantee the public that it will be used to enhance our roads and nothing else. That would be more palatable.” It may be palatable but it’s pure spin. The increased revenue will go into the general fund and can be spent for any city expense. All the money goes into the same pot. Spending this money for repaving streets would free up money to give away, spend on employees who aren’t doing anything useful or even build newer bigger offices for the city councilmembers if that is the wish of the City Council. The lure of this fee increase is that it would increase the city’s revenue by $4.2 million without increasing the property tax. But it is worth noting that property tax is based on value, (continued on next page)

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expensive (continued from previous page)

so people with more expensive homes and cars would pay more if property taxes were increased while this tax is per vehicle regardless of value. Raising fees for parks and recreation and fire inspections was also mentioned but no specifics were given. The City Council was also told that it needed to spend $1.2 million to put a new roof on city hall. City hall may be one of the ugliest buildings in town, but no expense is too great to maintain it to the highest standards. It would be interesting to see a comparison of the square foot maintenance cost of city hall versus all the other buildings the city owns. The restrooms in city hall, for example, have continuous hot water. Turn on the tap and the water immediately comes out the correct temperature for washing your hands. How many city buildings have this feature? In fact, how many buildings in Greensboro have this feature? A little over two years ago the city councilmembers all got new offices. Previously they had cubicles in one office, and before that they shared a couple of desks. They also got their

own kitchen and men’s and women’s restrooms, so they don’t have to share restrooms with the people they represent. The city does plan to issue the rest of the bonds that were approved by the public in 2006, 2008 and 2009, which will raise bond payments. But the good news is that according to Finance Director Rick Lusk the city is now borrowing money at an interest rate of less than half a percent. The City Council is also determined to put a bond referendum on the ballot in November, although they have not yet determined how they will spend the money. According to Budget and Evaluation Director Larry Davis, the city had an increase in property tax revenue of 1.6 percent and an increase in sales tax revenue of about 4 percent. The new electric utility sales tax is expected to grow from $16 million this year to $18.5 million next year. But the telecommunications tax revenue, which is a tax on telephone landlines, continues to decrease as more people drop their landlines and depend solely on cell phones.

There is no corresponding tax on cell phones. The city saw about a $700,000 reduction in fuel costs, but healthcare costs are projected to increase by about 13 percent. Also hanging out there is the estimated $22 million to $25 million

to provide water and sewer service to the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite. Vaughan was quick to say, “We have not committed to that.” If and when the megasite needs water and sewer, the city plans to ask for funding from the Golden Leaf Foundation, but it has not committed to that either.

beep (continued from page 31) record of making a good decision on foreign affairs whatsoever. None.

%%% Oh, when trillion-dollar Trump gets the wall built between Mexico and the US, how long before he can get the wall built between Canada and the US? And make sure Canada pays for that wall also. And, then, when he gets the wall built between Mexico and the US and Canada and the US, when can we start building a wall on the Atlantic Coast oceans, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific

take care of yourself in all the ways that matter.

Oceans. And after you get those walls built, who will be charged for those walls? And after you get those four walls built, when do we start putting the dome over top of the walls? We’ll be sealed in. How soon?

%%% Editor’s Note: We are receiving so many beeps these days that we are not able to get them all in the paper. All the beeps are available on our website at rhinotimes.com.

%%%

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34 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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to beat in the Republican primaries. Then again, a year ago it looked like Jeb Bush would be hard to beat in the Republican primaries and it turned out it took one phrase from Trump to knock the Jeb Bush train off the tracks. “Low energy candidate” was such an apt description and Jeb Bush never found a rejoinder. It’s not over if Trump doesn’t get to 1,237. And those who are counting Trump out are underestimating him, as they have done for the past year. It appears that Donald Trump has made a classic mistake in running for president: He thought if he won the most delegates he would get to be the nominee and the playing field would be level. It’s a beginner’s mistake, and it’s surprising that Trump would be such a Pollyanna to think that the rules applied to everyone equally. Trump is like the poor fool who goes to court without an attorney and thinks that by telling the truth everything is going to be OK. It’s only when he wakes up in jail that he understands that maybe he should have gotten some advice from an

expert who would have told him he didn’t have to say anything other than “not guilty” when he was in court. Or the young man who thinks that because he works harder, is 10 times better at his job and never once has come to work so hung over he can barely function that he’s going to get promoted over the owner’s nephew. You run into these people all the time who go through life with this starry-eyed idea that life is fair. But you wouldn’t expect that of Trump. Trump is now complaining because they changed the rules on him; but the Republican establishment gets to do that. If Trump doesn’t wake up and start paying attention, he might get to the Republican convention and find out that instead of having the 1,000 delegates he thought he had won he has three. It is unfortunate for Trump, who has won the most delegates, that the Republican establishment that hates him gets to make the rules. In 1972, the Democratic establishment tried to change the rules to take the nomination away from Sen. George McGovern. The Democrat establishment was correct in its belief that the average

housecat would do better in the November election than McGovern, but McGovern was smart enough to have a good organization in place that stopped the establishment from taking control of the convention. He won the nomination and in November he lost to Richard Nixon. In the Electoral College, which is all that counts, McGovern lost 17 to 520. At the time it was the second worst defeat in US history. The other side of the coin was President Gerald Ford against Ronald Reagan in 1976. In that one, the establishment backing Ford won the nomination and Ford lost to a little known peanut farmer from Georgia named Jimmy Carter. Perhaps the lesson is that divisive conventions aren’t good for general elections, but there is no way at this point the Republicans can get out of having a divisive convention. It is interesting that the Cruz strategy is to prevent Trump from winning on the first ballot and then having Cruz win on the second, third or 10th ballot. The problem with that strategy is that once the first ballot is over and the vast majority of delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice, the Republican establishment does take over the convention, and they hate Cruz only slightly less than Trump.

If it becomes an open convention there is going to be enormous pressure put on delegates to vote for someone other than Trump or Cruz. The Republican presidential debates had historic viewership and it appears the Republican convention will, like the debates, mainly benefit the television networks that will be charging a fortune to run commercials. It may not be good for the Republican Party or for the country, but it is going to be good for television. It doesn’t matter how many times House Speaker Paul Ryan says that he is not interested in being president and won’t accept the nomination. The truth is that if the Republican leadership offers him the nomination and Ryan thinks he can win, he will run. Ryan is a professional politician. It’s like an athlete being offered a chance to compete in the Olympics even though they didn’t qualify. Now if that athlete hasn’t trained in six months and has put on 20 pounds they might say no, but if they think there is any chance they might win, they say yes. Ryan in the end will say yes, if he thinks he can win, which is still a big if. But it isn’t the same if that the political pundits are talking about.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

under theHAMMER

by John Hammer

President Barack Hussein Obama’s approval ratings are hovering around 53 percent, which is good for this point in his presidency. You would expect the Democratic front-runner to want to align with the president, in particular since she was a member of his Cabinet for four years. Admittedly she was a member of his Cabinet who wasn’t told when Cabinet meetings were being held, but a member of his Cabinet nonetheless. Instead, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is going after the Obama administration. Bill Clinton has been attacking Obama’s policies and saying that the world is in terrible shape because of Obama’s foreign policy. It could be pointed out that this is the same foreign policy that is wife was in charge of for four years, and it really hasn’t changed. Certainly Secretary of State John Kerry didn’t bring any new ideas with him to the State Department. So if Obama’s foreign policy is a disaster, as Bill Clinton says, then Hillary Clinton has to take some of the blame. It is sad that the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton for the use of a private email server and her connection to the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state doesn’t get more press. The fact that Donald Trump took his companies into bankruptcy, which is perfectly legal, is reported in the mainstream media at every possible opportunity. But Hillary Clinton being under criminal investigation by the FBI is not. When Hillary Clinton is asked about the investigation, she is allowed to laugh it off. What’s funny about having 147 FBI agents investigating a presidential candidate? She laughs and that is the end of it. She is never asked why she finds being investigated by the FBI so funny, or if she thinks it’s funny because President Obama has promised her she will never be indicted. She is not asked why she lied when she said she did not have

any classified information on the server when the reporters all know that was a lie. Not only were there thousands of classified documents, there were 22 top-secret documents that the State Department refuses to release even in a heavily redacted form. In this case the fact that she didn’t intend to break the law is not a defense. If the information was placed on an unsecure server out of negligence, that is enough. Hillary Clinton continues to say that none of the information on her server was marked classified, as if that mattered. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, in an interview on Fox News said, “They are marked classified because they are classified. They are not classified because they are marked.” If Obama were going to protect Hillary Clinton, the time to do it was before the FBI launched a full-scale investigation. In fact, the evidence that Hillary Clinton committed a serious crime has already been released. She has admitted to having a private email server set up. She turned over the emails that contain classified information, even top-secret information, to the State Department. Her email server was not on the secure classified network, operated by the State Department for the express purpose of protecting that information. Other people who did not have top-secret security clearance had access to the email server. The FBI doesn’t need to interrogate Hillary Clinton to find out any of this information. But the FBI also reportedly recovered a bunch of her emails that she didn’t turn over to the State Department. We also know that some of those involved State Department business because they have been released. What the public doesn’t know is what else the FBI found on those emails that Hillary Clinton attempted to have destroyed, or if they now have evidence that foreign governments did get access to her server. And we don’t know if the FBI has found evidence of quid pro quo for some of the deals involving the Clinton Foundation. What if there is an email to a foreign government implying that if

they pay Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech it would make things easier for them in negotiations with the State Department. The evidence that that was the case has already been revealed. Countries and companies that paid large sums to the Clinton Foundation appear to have received special treatment. It wouldn’t take much to prove that it wasn’t just a wild coincidence that those who paid got special treatment and those who did not pay didn’t. The Clintons have over the years proven that they aren’t very good at covering their tracks. If they were, former President Bill Clinton wouldn’t have the dubious distinction of being the only elected president to ever be impeached. The Clintons think they are above the law; the only remaining question is whether or not Obama agrees. It seems to be accepted as a given that if Donald Trump doesn’t go to the Republican National Convention with 1,237 delegates, the Republican nomination will go to someone else. The Republican establishment’s choice du jour is House Speaker Paul Ryan, who, as expected, says that he isn’t interested in the nomination, just as he said he wasn’t interested in being House speaker. It turns out he was extremely interested in being speaker, but the way to get the job was to say he didn’t want it. What everyone seems to be conveniently forgetting is that Trump has made his billions by making deals. If the convention comes down to wheeling and dealing, you have a bunch of amateurs up against a professional dealmaker who by that time will understand the rules. Trump certainly has behaved like someone who wants to be president. So far he has ignored all of the accepted wisdom on how to run a presidential campaign and run his campaign exactly how he wanted. It was said early, middle and late in the campaign that because he didn’t have a good ground game he would lose. He has lost some states but won far more than anyone else. The candidates who ran their campaigns according to the conventional wisdom, like Jeb Bush, bowed out early because the old-fashioned

method of running a campaign couldn’t hold a candle to the Trump method. Now the political pundits are once again saying that Trump is going to lose the big states coming up because his campaign organization doesn’t fit the mold that they say it should. So far the political pundits that have predicted the demise of the Trump campaign countless times since it began in June have been wrong far more than they have been right. Trump has outsmarted them at every turn. When it comes to the convention, if Trump has 1,000 or 1,100 delegates – far more than anyone else – is there any reason to think that suddenly the political pundits are going to be right and Trump will retreat to Trump Tower to lick his wounds? It doesn’t seem likely. Trump is a dealmaker and he knows that when you make a deal you rarely get everything you want. One key is to know what you need and forget what you want. As long as Trump keeps his eye on the prize and is willing to negotiate, it seems he is going to be awfully hard to beat at the convention. Even with less than a majority, Trump can threaten to run a thirdparty campaign, which would guarantee victory for whomever the Democrats nominate. Trump has no loyalty to the Republican Party. Certainly the party has done nothing to help his campaign and has thrown up every roadblock that it could to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee. Even if he doesn’t go to the convention with a majority of delegates, it is a given that he will go to the convention with more delegates than anyone else – and with a loyal base that will either vote for him as the Republican nominee, vote for him as a third-party candidate or not vote at all. It’s a strong hand. What if Trump makes a deal with Sen. Ted Cruz for Cruz to be his running mate and not to run for a second term, but to endorse Cruz in 2020? Cruz is a relatively young man. With Trump behind him in 2020, at this point it looks like Cruz would be hard

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36 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 14, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com