April 7, 2016 by Rhino Times

Vol. IV No. 14

Greensboro, North Carolina

www.rhinotimes.com

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Transgender Talk Gets Raucous Scott D. Yost

Prison Farm Canine Hotel plus Under The Hammer, Uncle Orson Reviews Everything AND MORE

RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

THE WEEKLY Hammer

Take Yourself-ie Downtown.

The Weekly Hammer

City’s Idea of Participation Misleading

SEE AND BE SEEN WITH

by John Hammer Editor

#DGSOSelfie

I attended four of the ﬁve City of Greensboro Participatory Budgeting workshops last week and learned a lot about the process. For those unfamiliar with participatory budgeting, the idea is that each of the five City Council districts gets $100,000 to spend however those who choose to vote in the participatory budgeting process say it should be spent. I was under the impression that participatory budgeting involved people from the district getting together in groups and coming up with projects that would benefit the area in which they live. So I was surprised when I went to the workshops and saw the same or similar projects in different districts. It seemed odd that people from different districts all wanted the same city projects. I found out that wasn’t how it worked. A citywide group met and decided on a list of projects for each council district to vote on. So the projects didn’t come from the neighborhood, and if the district has a particular project that the majority of the district residents want and it’s not on the list then they can’t vote for it and it won’t be funded. Knowing how the projects were selected – on a citywide not a district basis – the fact that each district has a bunch of the same projects makes sense. But if this is supposed to be neighborhood or district based, it falls far short of the mark. One project that caught my eye at all four workshops is for outdoor chess tables. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone in Greensboro sitting in a park playing chess, but maybe people won’t play chess unless they have a $10,000 permanent outdoor table. So if each district votes for outdoor chess tables, the city will then spend $50,000 on outdoor chess tables. I suspect that at least one member

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of the central committee that came up with the projects is a huge fan of outdoor chess. Another one is to wrap a bus with what looks like graffiti to me. One of the problems with this project, I was told, is that if the city sells an advertiser on wrapping a bunch of buses the graffiti bus could go away. I suppose what looks like graffiti to me looks like art to other people, but if the city wants what looks like graffiti all over their buses, isn’t there somewhere they could park a few at night and get the graffiti for free? The one district workshop I missed was for District 3, which is my district, and the only one I’ll be able vote in. So I went to the Participatory Budgeting website to check out the projects for District 3. I couldn’t find them, and after searching for a while and asking some councilmembers about where I could find a list of projects for my district, I called the Participatory Budgeting office and was told that the projects aren’t up on the website yet but will be before the voting starts on April 11. The city is spending $500,000 on participatory budgeting and another $153,000 to run the project. It seems like a week before the voting starts that the projects should be on the website or somewhere that they are available to the public. To me, $100,000 is a lot of money, and if I’m going to vote on how the city is going to spend the money, I’d like chance to consider the projects. For example, the council districts are pretty large. A huge chess fan might be in favor of a $10,000 chess table at the park across the street from his house but wouldn’t be in favor of the same chess table two miles away. Many of the projects for the districts seemed to me like things the city should do anyway – replacing footbridges in parks that have deteriorated and crosswalks at busy

(continued on page 6)

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

HINOSHORTS

by John Hammer Editor

If I were an economic recruiter for Greensboro this is the time of year I’d be trying to show as many people around the city as possible. I don’t know if flowers are a recruitment tool, but, dadgum it, Greensboro is beautiful in the spring. Thursday, April 7 at 7 p.m., at Scuppernong Books on South Elm Street in downtown Greensboro, Kings English is holding an editors’ panel discussion featuring the editors from five Greensboro newspapers, Carolina Peacemaker Editor Afrique Kilimanjaro, Triad City Beat Editor Brian Clarey, News & Record Editorial

Page Editor Allen Johnson, Yes! Weekly Editor Jeff Sykes and Rhino Times Editor John Hammer. Novelist Quinn Dalton will serve as moderator and the audience will have a chance to ask questions. David McLean of Kings English describes it as “a lively evening of entertainment for news geeks.” The event is open to the public and free. I ran across this fact over the weekend. Beginning in the 1830s and continuing up until electric lights came along, a solid block of lime was heated to produce a bright white light for theatrical productions, which is where we get the term limelight. I’ve heard people talk about being in the limelight all my life and never had any idea how the expression came about.

This we week on page 7 we have the first column by a new contributor, Doug Copeland. Most of the editorial content of the Rhino Times is written from a conservative point of view, and we thought it would be fun to have at least one voice from a different perspective. Copeland’s column will run the first Thursday of every month. I don’t know why I ever upgrade my computer, but for some reason I do. I upgraded to El Capitan and my MacBook Pro, which I use for everything, started crashing. I tried my usual tricks and finally resorted to reading about it, like I should have done before I upgraded. It turns out El Capitan doesn’t like Microsoft Office. This is kind of a problem for me, since 90 percent of my work is done in Microsoft Word.

But no doubt after I scream and beat my head on the wall long enough, Apple will get around to making its new operating system compatible with the word processing software that is ubiquitous. I listen to NPR in part because I’m forced to pay for it and I might as well get something for my money. But I’m constantly amazed by government radio. Saturday the host of All Things Considered interviewed the mayor of Nome, Alaska, and she said she had never heard of Nome and spelled it for the listeners who she assumed were also unfamiliar with Nome. It makes me wonder if she had ever heard of the Gold Rush or the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race or even knew that dogs pulled sleds.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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participation (continued from page 2)

intersections are two that come to mind. Once I found out the city staff was heavily involved in the project selection process this made sense. If it is in the Participatory Budgeting budget then it’s not in the city department budget. So if the city staff can get some projects that they would be spending money from their budgets in the Participatory Budgeting budget, it frees up department money to spend on something else. On the upside, I did hear from several sources that people who had

never been involved in city government had gotten involved in the Participatory Budgeting process. But spending $653,000 to get some folks involved in government seems like a high price to pay. Residents of a council district who are over 14 years old are allowed to vote for projects, the voting is from April 11 to April 22, and the list of voting sites for each district can be found on the Participatory Budget page of the city website, where in the near future you should also find the list of projects you can vote for.

table of

CONTENTS 15 UNCLE ORSON

WEEKLY HAMMER

HAIR TO THE LEFT

TRANSGENDER TALK GETS RAUCOUS

35 UNDER THE HAMMER

SHERIFF REVEALS BODY CAM POLICY

RHINO SHORTS

REAL ESTATE

NYT CROSSWORD

CHILDREN’S SCHEDULE

THE SOUND OF THE BEEP

PUZZLE ANSWERS

SUDOKU

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

EDITORIAL CARTOON

BY JOHN HAMMER

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

22 YOST COLUMN BY SCOTT D. YOST

BY DOUG COPELAND

BY JOHN HAMMER

BY SCOTT D. YOST

10 PRISON FARM CANINE HOTEL BY SCOTT D. YOST

11 CITY DISCUSSES BODY CAMS TOO BY JOHN HAMMER

12 FORCING MENTAL HEALTH MERGER BY SCOTT D. YOST

Cover: Mayor Nancy Vaughan conferring with Councilmember Yvonne Johnson on the dais at the Tuesday, April 5 City Council meeting. 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 contributing editor ORSON SCOTT CARD

advertising consultants CHRISTINE CHAPMAN DARDEN KELLY TYE SINGLETON DONNA WILLEN

cartoonist GEOF BROOKS Vern Sieg on the St. Johns River in Florida near Ponce de Leon Springs. Vern claims the Rhino had the ﬁsh biting. Send your Rhinos Around the World photos to letters@rhinotimes.com or to PO Box 9023, Greensboro 27429.

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

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

HAIR TO THE LEFT Copeland

A View from the Middle (Well, a hair to the left)

by Doug Copeland For 16 years I was publisher of a weekly newspaper with two daily electronic editions. During all that time I wrote a grand total of … drum roll … one column for the paper. Now John Hammer has given me the chance to do some catch up. Rhino Times Publisher Roy Carroll suggested they carry a column that speaks from a different perspective than most of the paper’s writers. John reached out to me to fill that role. After a little thought, I said yes to his offer. What will this column look like? I don’t know. It will be work in progress. If you are looking for a firebrand liberal to stir things up and make your blood boil, I am afraid you might be disappointed. John may fire me (he can’t cut my pay) for not being controversial enough. That said, my views are significantly different from those of John and of Rhino readers as judged by the calls and letters printed each week. I hope it will stir some debate. A little about me. And I share this to give you a sense of what has shaped my life and to give readers a few things they might want to use when they throw lobs at me or my views. I am a native of Greensboro. I actually grew up a few blocks from John. We both went to the same public schools, our families were of similar economic means. We were exposed to many of the same influences. And we came out on different places on the political spectrum. I have worked in big business and small business. For profit and not

for profit. Public and private. I’ve chaired countless not-for-profits and served on more boards than I can remember. I chaired or worked in dozens of political campaigns and held office in the Democratic Party. My first job out of college was a three-month stint employed by the Guilford County Democratic Party, followed by the staff of US Congressman Richardson Preyer in Washington, then in 1976 the staff of presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, followed my returning to Preyer’s staff after the 1980 campaign. Eventually I was Preyer’s chief of staff and did some part-time work at the Carter White House. I left government in January 1981 (read here – Ronald Reagan inaugurated). Since then I spent 18 years as vice president of Cone Health, 16 years as president and publisher of a business newspaper covering the triad, and now I am president of a clinical trials program, High Point Clinical Trials Center. At least you’ll have to agree it’s a pretty varied background. And to do the math, seven-plus years in government and politics, and 34 years in business. So, with that, let’s get started. Throw out some topics. Share a shot you’d like to take at me or one I should take at John or anyone at the Rhino or anyone in the community. I’ll see if there is an opportunity to wax poetically about it. Or maybe stir up a firestorm. Oh, and a P.S. Most people think because I was president of a newspaper for 16 years that I am a writer. I am not, and you will soon find that to be the case.

RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Transgender Talk Gets Raucous by John Hammer

The Greensboro City Council had one of the loudest most raucous meetings in years on Tuesday night, April 5. It would appear that there are special rules for people who attend a City Council meeting who agree with Mayor Nancy Vaughan’s position and also happen to represent the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Vaughan was recently hired as president of the Guilford Green Foundation, which raises money and supports LGBT organizations. Evidently if you are member of the LGBT community, you can come to a City Council meeting, holler, clap, snap you fingers, make noise any other way you can think of and stand and wave signs and it’s acceptable, or at least it was Tuesday night. The loud portion of the meeting was when the City Council held a public hearing on a resolution opposing House Bill 2. The North Carolina legislature passed HB2 in March, making it state law that people had to use the restroom facilities corresponding to

their biological sex. The state law was in response to an ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council, which would have required business to allow people to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with the gender they identify with. After the meeting, when questioned about the meeting getting out of control, Vaughan said that she told the group to “be quiet” several times, which is true, but the group paid no attention and was allowed to continue to disrupt the meeting. City Councilmember Tony Wilkins asked Vaughan to take control of the meeting because he couldn’t hear the speakers. Vaughan said it was children making most of the noise and she wasn’t going to remove them from the meeting. Later Wilkins again asked Vaughan, “To take control of the meeting.” Vaughan said, “I don’t need you to tell me how to run this meeting.” The motion to pass the resolution opposing HB2, which the legislature passed and Gov. Pat McCrory signed

into law on March 23, was approved by an 8-to-1 vote with Wilkins casting the lone no vote. Statements by Vaughan and city councilmembers demonstrated that they were unfamiliar with HB2 and the North Carolina Constitution. Vaughan said that the law would affect Greensboro’s enforcement of discrimination in housing, and it won’t. She also said, “We wanted better wages for our employees.” HB2 in no way restricts the right of Greensboro to establish wage policies for its own employees. What it does do is make it clear that cities cannot establish a minimum wage law for private businesses. Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter said HB2 “is about their overreach into our local government.” In North Carolina, cities are created by the state and only have the powers given to them by state statute. Councilmember Jamal Fox said HB2 was “more than bathrooms, it’s overreach of our state government.” Councilmember Justin Outling,

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who is an attorney, called HB2 “flat out a bad law.” He said the law was discriminatory and that people in the community should not be treated differently. The law treats all people the same. What HB2 establishes is that in North Carolina people are required to use the restroom that corresponds with their biological sex. The Charlotte ordinance – which Charlotte did not have the authority to pass – required businesses in Charlotte with public restrooms to allow people to use the restroom with the gender with which they identify. Since transgender is not defined, this would have allowed men to use the women’s restroom and women to use the men’s restroom. In effect, all restrooms and locker rooms would be gender neutral. HB2 allows any business including the High Point furniture market to have gender-neutral restrooms if they so desire. The decision is left up to the owner of the business. During the public hearing, 10

(continued on page 27)

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Sheriff’s Body Cam Policy by Scott D. Yost

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department has adopted a policy that lays out guidelines for use of the department’s new body-worn cameras and establishes when the Sheriff’s Department will allow the public to see videos recorded by those cameras. That policy, which Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes has just signed off on, gives a great deal of discretion to the sheriff regarding when the videos will and will not be made public. Section 15.11 of the policy, titled “Confidentiality and Privacy,” states, “All video and audio recordings, images and data captured, recorded, or generated by or incidental to VRDs [Video Recording Devices] are considered records of a criminal investigation and/or records of criminal intelligence information, as described by N.C. Gen. Stat. 132-1.4, and not public records. In addition, any portion of this data that may be used to subject a GCSO [Guilford County Sheriff’s Officer] or County employee to corrective or disciplinary action is a part of that employee’s personnel file as defined in N.C. Gen. Stat. 153A98, and is open to inspection only as provided by that statute.” According to the policy, the sheriff will decide whether the general public gets to see videos. It states, “Video, audio, digital images, and other data will not be released to any news media or any member of the public without the consent of the Sheriff or his designee.” The new policy states that officers or other employees of the Sheriff’s Department are not authorized to display, post to the web or distribute the videos in any way, and the same goes for still images captured from the videos and for audio clips, unless the sheriff specifically grants permission to the officer or that permission is obtained from someone whom the sheriff has granted that authority. At the time of an event, such as a stop for drunk driving, if a citizen requests to view the video, that officer isn’t allowed show the video to that person being detained or arrested. The policy states that “citizens are not allowed to view the [video] recordings unless permission has been obtained from the Sheriff or his designee. The viewing or reproduction of any recording for anything other than

approved Departmental purposes is prohibited.” The new policy does state that the department will generally make the videos available to other law enforcement agencies conducting an investigation – though there are some qualifications on those requests. For instance, state law surrounding personnel records requires that they be kept private, so in cases when a video is classified as a personnel file, an attempt to share video – even with another law enforcement agency – raises a bunch of thorny legal issues. Barnes said this week that, when the department is asked to release videos to the public, he will make those judgments on a case-by-case basis with one criteria being “the public good.” “I’m going to look at each individual situation,” he said. He said all requests would be considered, but he added that the department must protect the privacy of those caught on video. For instance, he said, in some cases the videos will be of a highly personal nature – such as ones that reveal the interior of a citizen’s home, in many cases the homes of those who have done nothing wrong. The sheriff has also said that it wouldn’t be right for someone’s enemy to, say, get a hold of an embarrassing video made during a drunk driving arrest and send it to that person’s employer or post it online. Barnes said that before adopting his department’s new policy he looked at what other law enforcement agencies were doing. “I reviewed policies from different departments and other documents to see that we are in the same ball park,” he said. It is worth noting that the Sheriff’s Department policy is very different from that of the Greensboro Police Department. Greensboro classifies all of the bodyworn camera videos as personnel records. That gives the Police Department the justification to keep the videos from the public but it also leads to its own set of problems, such as the inability to share those files with other departments and a requirement that those videos be stored for long periods of time.

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The Guilford County Sheriff’s Department plans to build a bare bones hotel on the old Prison Farm property to be used – for free, whenever needed – by 13 of the department’s most popular and distinguished investigators. The structure, which will be built near the Sheriff’s Department’s shooting range in eastern Guilford County, if the commissioners approve the move on Thursday, April 7, would be the living quarters – as well as a training facility – for 13 canine members of the department. The dogs would remain there at times when their human masters were unable to keep them. Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes is asking the Board of Commissioners to approve his request to spend $135,850 for the kennel. Those canines with the right to stay in the new upscale doghouse any time they need to are specialists in locating lost or kidnapped people, detecting bombs, sniffing out hidden narcotics and protecting their human counterparts. They also have other skills that aid the Sheriff’s Department’s operations. In order to maintain needed certifications of proficiency, the animals go through extensive and regular training – much of which will take place at the new canine facility. Normally, the dogs live with the deputies who handle them. Hhowever, at times those officers can’t keep the dogs at home or take the dogs on vacation and they need to board the animals. A Sheriff’s Department memo on the need for the new kennel states, “trained canines require qualified handlers and can not simply be boarded, should the handler require a leave of absence or request approved vacation leave. These highly trained resource animals need to be housed in a facility equipped to meet their needs and maintain their training regimen.” Early last year, the commissioners voted to shut down Guilford County’s Prison Farm – just over 800 acres of pastures and woodland in eastern Guilford County and western Alamance County that inmates farmed for 80 years. Barnes said that, when the Prison Farm was open, there was no problem keeping the dogs. He said he had a kennel at the farm and, when crops were being grown out there and

cattle being raised, there was always someone to look after the department’s canines. “Farm workers could keep an eye on them,” Barnes said. Now that the farm is closed, the sheriff said, this new facility is badly needed. Barnes said that he told county administrators last year that he needed the facility built if they were shutting down the operations at the Prison Farm, and he added that, in the initial talks, there was an understanding the county would pay for the kennel rather than the Sheriff’s Department. The project grew in scope, however, so Barnes plans to pay for it out of the federal forfeiture funds his department holds. “They said I could have anything I need as long as I pay for it,” Barnes joked. Not long ago, there was over $1 million in the department’s federal forfeiture fund, which is made up of money confiscated from drug dealers and other criminals as well as the proceeds of the sale of cars, boats, houses and other confiscated property. However, that fund been shrinking and it now sits at $791,485. In December, the US Department of Justice, out of the blue, halted the program that helped pay for special projects for law enforcement departments across the country. However, in late March, the federal government reversed that decision and now Barnes is using money from the fund to pay for the project, something he said he doesn’t mind doing since once again there will be more where that came from. “My understanding is it cost more than they expected for the buildings,” the sheriff wrote in an email this week. “I’m fine with spending the forfeiture [money] for it since they have reinstated the fund and we saved money on the equipment we need for the Special Operations Division, which I’m also using forfeiture for.” The Sheriff’s Department is putting the finishing touches on a new Special Operations Center at 508 Industrial Ave., just south of I-40 and west of Old US 421, which should be open very soon. The new canine facility, expected

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

City Discusses Body Cams Too

by John Hammer The Greensboro City Council covered a lot of territory on Tuesday night, April 5, at their meeting from 5 p.m. to a little past 10:30. The meeting ended with another discussion of the city’s policy on police body-worn camera videos. The city’s position has been that the video shot by body-worn cameras is a part of that police officer’s personnel file and therefore is not available to the public. Councilmember Justin Outling and Mayor Nancy Vaughan have crafted a new policy that would allow the people who are in a police body-cam video to view it. Under the current policy the only people outside the Police Department who are allowed to see any of the videos are people who are arrested where the video is evidence. If someone is charged with a misdemeanor, the person and their attorney are allowed to see the video but are not allowed to possess a copy. If a person is charged with a felony, the person and their attorney can have a copy of the video.

Anyone else who is videotaped by a police body cam has, according to current city policy, no right to see the video. When Outling introduced the policy at the Public Safety Committee meeting last month, he had planned for the ordinance to be placed on the agenda for a vote April 5. However, Public Safety Committee Chairman Marikay Abuzuaiter and Councilmember Sharon Hightower objected to only holding two public discussions of the proposed policy before voting and the timeline discussed was for the policy to be discussed at the City Council meeting this week, go back to the Public Safety Committee next week for more discussion and then back to the City Council for more discussion and a vote on May 3. Tuesday night, Vaughan added some more time for consideration and the current plan is to bring the item back to the City Council for a vote on May 17. But don’t hold your breath on that one. Part of Outling’s plan is to pass the

new policy and then ask the court for a declaratory judgment on the new policy before putting it into effect. Hightower questioned the wisdom of taking each video before a judge for a ruling before it would be released. Outling attempted to explain what a declaratory judgment is. Everyone agrees that the purpose of the body-worn cameras is to provide more transparency and increase public confidence in the Police Department. The Greensboro City Council passed a resolution stating that in 2013. The current policy to classify all videos shot by body-worn cameras as personnel records defeats this purpose because the public is not allowed to see the videos except in extreme circumstances. The only way under the current policy that the videos could be released is if the city manager and the City Council decided that it was essential to maintain public confidence and the City Council voted to release a video. In the three years of the program this has never been done.

The city is spending millions of dollars to shoot and store body-worn camera videos that only criminals and the Police Department are allowed to see. The general public has not been allowed to see one video. Even councilmembers are not allowed to see the videos. The cost estimate of reviewing the videos is $250,000, but Carruthers said that figure could go as high as $2.5 million depending on the policy and the number of videos released. Councilmember Mike Barber said he had brought up streaming the videos for people to see, but nothing had been done about it. In Seattle, the police body-cam videos are streamed on a website. There did seem to be some agreement on the council that the current policy was not fulfilling the goals of the program. Lewis Pitts, who spent more than 20 years with Legal Aid of North Carolina and resigned from the North Carolina Bar Association last fall, presented the

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12 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Forcing Mental Health Merger by Scott D. Yost Shotgun weddings are never fun and they are especially not fun when the bride was all set to marry someone else. But, like it or not, Guilford County mental health services is getting a shotgun wedding at the hands of the state, a move that county commissioners this week called “horrible” and “dictatorial.” Sandhills Center in West End, North Carolina, the local management entity (LME) that administers mental health and substance abuse services across Guilford County and eight other counties, is being forced to combine its services with Alliance Behavioral Healthcare. The move will add four more counties to the group Guilford County is now in and create a new collective with the seemingly haphazard mix of counties that the state has put together. Once that merger is complete, Guilford County – which is already reeling from losing local control of its mental health services several years ago – will be in an administrative collective that includes Durham, Wake,

Johnston and Cumberland counties. Guilford County officials were disturbed and taken by surprise by the news recently after the decree came down from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Secretary Rick Brajer. The state is also requiring three other mergers in North Carolina and, once the dust settles, there will be just four mental health administrative groups – down from the current eight. What makes the situation worse is that Sandhills, which knew further mergers were coming, was all set to marry what it saw as a more compatible partner: Eastpointe Human Services. Eastpointe is an organization that serves 12 counties in eastern North Carolina including Duplin, Bladen and Robeson counties. County officials say the cultures of those two groups are more compatible, the administrators get along well and the computing systems used are similar. They were preparing to merge until the state suddenly stopped that union and declared Sandhills and Alliance would be partners rather than

Sandhills and Eastpointe. At one time, mental health services across the state were administered in a highly local fashion. However, forced consolidation – which state legislators said would bring more efficiency and savings to the delivery of those services – meant that larger groups of counties were joined together to provide services and there was in many cases a loss of local control. For instance, until Jan. 1, 2013, Guilford County’s mental health services were in downtown Greensboro, a block away from the Old Guilford County Court House. But now they’re handled by Sandhills and headquartered in West End, a small unincorporated town near Pinehurst. Since Wake County is included in the new group, there’s now speculation the headquarters for Guilford County might end up in Raleigh. However, there’s been no word on that. In an email dated Thursday, March 17, from Sandhills CEO Victoria Whitt to Sandhills board members, Whitt wrote, “As you are aware, the DHHS

Secretary met with the CEOs this afternoon to discuss his plans for the [administrative] regions defined by DHHS, which continues to include a merger between Sandhills Center and Alliance. He met with the CEOs as a group and then held private meetings with each of us. He informed me that he would not approve a merger between Sandhills Center and Eastpointe.” In the email, Whitt said she would keep the board members informed of any further negotiations. Guilford County Commissioner Kay Cashion – who’s served on the Sandhills board for years, and has been Guilford County’s point person on matters related to Sandhills, mental health and substance abuse – said she was aghast when, while sitting in a meeting of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, she received the email informing her that the state was merging Sandhills and Alliance even though Sandhills had been engaged in very positive and promising talks with Eastpointe.

(continued on page 14)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

canine

(continued from page 10)

to be approved by commissioners this week, will be made of reinforced fiberglass on a concrete base and will have heating, air conditioning and plumbing. The fact that the money will be coming out of the federal forfeiture funds makes the commissioners’ decision easier: In the past, the board, which must approve expenditures from the fund, has tended to give the sheriff a good deal of discretion when it comes to spending that money. Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips said he’s generally in favor of leaving law enforcement-related matters up to the sheriff, but he still said he has some questions about whether the Sheriff’s Department’s current expenses will be

city

reduced with the use of the kennel. Phillips said it’s his understanding that only select facilities can handle law enforcement canines and those businesses sometimes have limited available space. “Up until now he’s been paying a particular kennel that has a good bit of experience handling law enforcement canines,” Phillips said. “From time to time that facility is full.” The kennel isn’t Barnes’ only request on the commissioners’ agenda for Thursday night. The Sheriff’s Department is also asking the board to pull the trigger on over $1.1 million for new law enforcement vehicles. Money for that big purchase was put in the 2015-2016 budget adopted last June and now it’s time to fill the request.

(continued from page 11)

City Council with a proposed ordinance that would recognize the public records law of North Carolina, which states that government records are assumed to be public records unless they fit into a protected classification such as personnel records or records of a criminal investigation. Pitts said that the city was approaching the issue from the wrong point of view and that in keeping with the public records law the videos should be available to the public unless they were being used in disciplinary action against a police officer, were part of a criminal investigation or violating the privacy rights of someone in the video. Police Chief Wayne Scott said he was comfortable with changing the policy after a declaratory judgment, but that each video would have to be reviewed before it could be released. In other business, the City Council allocated $300,000 for the renovation of the Cascade Saloon building on South Elm Street. The building, which

is currently owned by the city, has been a thorn in the City Council’s side for years. Marsh Prause of Preservation Greensboro said that the cost estimate to tear the building down had been low and the actual cost was right at $300,000. He said that for a city to demolish a historic structure that it owned would be unprecedented. The Christman Company, the parent company of Rentenbach Construction, plans to renovate the building and use it for its regional headquarters. City Councilmember Tony Wilkins noted that the city had already put $175,000 into the building, so the cost to the city was not $300,000 but $475,000. The motion to allocate the money passed on an 8-to-1 vote with Wilkins casting the no vote. Prause said he had some confidence that this would be the last time he appeared before council to talk about the Cascade Saloon.

14 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

mental health (continued from page 12)

“It appears dictatorial,” Cashion said of Bajer’s decision. “They don’t appear to care about local involvement. I don’t know the man; I have not met the man, but this seems to be just cutting dollars and not be respectful of an organization’s set up. You talk about gerrymandering; it doesn’t make sense.” She said that, under the new slate of mergers, Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, would end up paired with counties in northeastern North Carolina. Cashion said that, if there had to be a merger, it made sense for Guilford County to join with Eastpointe. “It has the same IT system as Sandhills, and we have a lot of similarities,” Cashion said. “The CEOs have been talking through the process and had even agreed Sandhills would have the remaining title and Eastpointe would fold into that.” Cashion added that Whitt was slated to head up that new group and the Eastpointe CEO would be the second in command. “But it’s all a moot point now,” Cashion said. She said she was shocked when she

got the email from Whitt that informed her of the state’s surprise decision. Cashion pointed out that, years ago, Guilford County tried to merge with Durham County but officials in Durham County wouldn’t agree to Guilford County having a seat on the board. “They may not want to join Sandhills,” Cashion said of Durham County. “When you know they are going to reduce, you are better off trying to pick a compatible group,” she said. Guilford County is currently paying much more for services than other smaller counties in the collective but it is also benefiting from additional services. “Sandhills has been a great partner,” Cashion said. “We haven’t had a problem down here. Sandhills is providing more services in Guilford County than we had originally.” Now, what the future of services holds, she said, is anyone’s guess. “This is going to be the subject of some serious negotiations,” Cashion said. Guilford County Commissioner Ray Trapp has been very vocal about what he sees as a great decline in mental health services across the

state in recent years, largely as an effect of consolidation. This week he said he was extremely concerned the additional consolidation that Guilford County’s group was now having more counties forced on it. “I think it is horrible,” Trapp said of the move. “From the state’s perspective, it’s to save money, but we’ve lost local control of mental health services and I don’t know what it accomplishes.” Trapp added that Guilford County has already seen control of its mental health services become highly diluted in recent years, and the latest move – which will add four more counties to the mix for a total of 13 – is going to make a bad situation even worse. He said there’s no one he can find who thinks past consolidations have been beneficial for the end users of mental health and substance abuse services. “If you ask in 100 counties whether the consolidation has been a good thing, I don’t think you could find one person who would say it has,” he said. Trapp added that it was way too early in the process for the state to force the mergers, decision that he said basically came out of nowhere. He said there had been talks about this as one possibility, but said the wisdom of further consolidation was still being hotly debated when this new directive came down from the state.

“That was shocking to me,” Trapp said. “I can’t speak for all of the commissioners, but I can say that I was blindsided.” Whitt stated in an email to the Rhino Times that she’d been informed of the new merger plan in a meeting in mid March, and at that time she was told that the concerns about service delivery would be addressed. The state may be optimistic about the outcome of consolidation, but forced mergers and other large-scale changes by the state over the last decade have by all accounts wreaked havoc on the delivery of mental health services in North Carolina, so it’s no surprise that mental health advocates are very concerned about the next wave of changes that include further consolidation. Whitt stated that she’s optimistic all attempts will be made to preserve services. “In previous mergers, a priority has been placed on continuity of services for members and on ensuring the same level of services available before the merger continue to be available following the merger,” she wrote. “Also, we have kept a focus on ensuring county representation on the governing body to provide local control of behavioral health services.

(continued on page 32)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

UNCLE ORSON Reviews

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

Final Idol Finale, Ripon, New Parties by Orson Scott Card Last week I went to speak at Ripon College in the town of Ripon, Wisconsin. Some of you may recognize this as the place where, in 1854, the Republican Party was founded. The two-party system had almost died when the Republican Party was founded. The DemocraticRepublicans, by now called simply Democrats, had become the sheltering

party for most of the pro-slavery forces in the South, as well as many who were willing to tolerate the “peculiar institution” in the North. After the Kansas-Nebraska act organized Kansas and Nebraska as free states, while opening New Mexico and Utah territories to the possibility of slavery, many anti-slavery Americans realized that the old Whig Party had no strength left to resist the domination

of the federal government by those who would expand slavery. Many people today misunderstand the point of counting each slave as three-fifths of a person. The idea was not to undervalue slaves – indeed, the slave-owners would have been delighted if, for purposes of apportionment, slaves were counted as full persons. For by counting nonvoting slaves, slave states received far more congressmen than the number of voters in those states would otherwise have received. Anti-slavery forces, on the other hand, wanted to count no slaves at all, reasoning that if they couldn’t vote, they shouldn’t be used to beef up the congressional representation of their masters. So when the Constitutional Convention approved the “threefifths compromise,” the groups took opposite sides from what most people today might assume. Using those extra congressmen, the slave states were able to dominate the House of Representatives, while they kept careful track of the Senate with each new state admitted to the

Union. Their safety net was slavestate Texas, which, if too many free states were admitted, had the power to divide itself into five states, going from two senators to 10. In other words, the deck was stacked against the anti-slavery forces, and they were sick of rolling over and playing dead, letting the abomination of slavery continue unchecked in what was supposed to have been a free country. New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley had a conversation with Alvan Bovay, a like-minded friend from Ripon, Wisconsin. Bovay suggested that it was essential to form a new party to replace the Whigs. Greeley thought there might still be some life in the old Whig Party. But Bovay returned to Ripon – a small town in a fairly new and as yet underpopulated state – and gathered together a group of friends. Bovay had already told Greeley that the new party would be called “the Republican Party.” There were many reasons for the choice; one of

(continued on page 16)

16 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson

the 24 delegates that attended the voters can’t find a political party that convention in Pittsburgh; Abraham speaks for them. Remember that the Lincoln was another. Whig Party still nominally existed when (continued from page 15) It’s worth remembering that in that the Republican Party was formed the main reasons, though, was that assembly of national politicians or era, the Republican Party existed to replace it – the new Republicans Jefferson gave that name to his own party leaders. Rather, the Republican for one reason only: to oppose were convinced that it had lost the party. Jefferson’s party eventually Party was born in a small town, the extension of slavery into new power to hold the line against the antibecame the Democratic Party, but the created by local people joining with territories. It was the anti-slavery democratic pro-slavery faction. Republican name still held some moral their neighbors to take action to party, and everyone knew it. Are we in a similar position today? force in American thinking. oppose the domination of their nation No one could have guessed that Certainly many see Donald Trump’s Bovay was not the only one pushing by a party that stood for the loathsome after John C. Fremont was defeated candidacy in that light. Unfortunately, for a new party. The revocation of the institution of slavery. as the Republican candidate for we have a long history of “new-party” Missouri Compromise represented Horace Greeley published an article president in 1856, only four years movements in America, and those that by the Kansas-Nebraska Act about the new party in his New York later, in a weirdly contested election were founded by a single candidate in galvanized opposition to slavery in City newspaper, and encouraged in which the Democrats split their order to advance his agenda did not many free states in the West. (Any anti-slavery friends in other states votes among three candidates, the last long as a national force. opposition to slavery in the South to turn their anti-slavery rallies into gangly country lawyer and one-term Maybe in some obscure place was quickly and brutally eliminated, meetings that would form their own congressman from Illinois, Abraham there are still committees of George by methods ranging from expulsion state committees under the name Lincoln, would become president of Wallace’s American Independent Party and destruction of printing presses to “Republican.” the United States. or H. Ross Perot’s Reform Party; Strom physical reprisals and the occasional By February 1856, nearly two years His election was correctly seen Thurmond’s States’ Rights “Dixiecrats” murder.) later, the Republican movement had by the pro-slavery faction as the are gone from the national political So when Bovay gathered his grown enough that the US House of beginning of the end for slavery, stage. Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose friends together in March of 1854, Representatives now had a strong which is why Southern states began Party disappeared and Eugene Debs’ their first act was to dissolve the group of anti-slavery Republicans, and seceding from the Union. Voters in Socialist Party faded, as did Robert local committees of the Whig and 11 United States senators had either the North were fed up with the slave LaFollette’s Progressive Party, even Free Soil parties, and then name five been selected as Republicans or states essentially depriving them of the though former Vice President Henry men – three former Whigs, a former changed their party affiliation. ability to get a hearing for their values Wallace tried to revive it in 1948. Democrat and a former Free Soiler At that point, nine states’ in the federal government. They were A third party built around – to be the governing committee of Republican parties issued a call for angry and frustrated ... and after someone as ignorant, narcissistic, the new party. a national convention to bind all the Civil War, the new Republican lazy, mean-spirited and morally As I stood in the little white the Republican parties into a single Party became the dominant party appalling as Donald Trump is not schoolhouse where the formative national party in order to advance in American government until the going to triumph where Teddy meeting took place, I was moved by a candidate for the presidency in election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Roosevelt failed. Disgruntlement the realization that this was not an 1856. Horace Greeley was one of 1932. parties don’t work, except as spoilers, (Yes, Grover Cleveland won two usually getting the opposite of the terms, but, during a deep depression desired results. at the end of his second term, the But the will to form a real grassDemocratic Party self-destructed over roots party like the Republican Party the silver issue and nominated the of 1854 in Ripon, and the national unelectable populist William Jennings Republican Party of 1856 at the Bryan – three times. Democrat Pittsburgh convention, obviously Woodrow Wilson also won two terms exists. That’s what the Tea Party starting in 1912, and – because the movement was, until it was co-opted Democratic Party was the party of Jim by the no-idea-is-too-crazy wing of the Crow – eliminated all the patronage Republican Party. * * jobs in the South that the Republicans The desire for a new party exists; lowest prices period on select products with approved had given to black citizens. But and many who yearn for a choice that credit. See store details. * Wilson was elected only because the for they can actually support, instead Republican Party split between its of the hideous dilemma of choosing liberal wing [Teddy Roosevelt] and between Drumpf and Hillary, need to conservative wing [William Howard remember that parties don’t need to Taft]. With these exceptions, the be formed by fat cats and big money $ Republican Party was the default party and famous people. $ $ of government from 1861 to 1933 – a A new party that changes the PLUS plUs remarkable run for a party formed nation and the world can be born plUs ** **** S H O W C A S E by a small committee in an obscure with the organization of a committee Includes installation, pad, moving furniture, take-up and disposal! See store for details. Wisconsin town.) in a small town, which then reaches Right now, many Americans are out to like-minded people in other feeling a very similar resentment states. 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18 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

The New York Times

crossword puzzle No. 0327 PITCH IMPERFECT

116

117

BY PATRICK BLINDAUER / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 20

ACROSS

1 Comment after a bull’s-eye 9 Distress 16 When Hamlet says “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio” 20 Sponsor of classic radio’s “Little Orphan Annie” 21 Lindbergh, e.g. 22 Japanese noodle 23 Warren Buffett’s rule about hugging? 26 Toymaker Rubik 27 Cone head? 28 Actor Stephen 29 Like some prose 30 You are, in español 33 Math ordinal 35 Tiger Stadium sch. 38 Skyscraping 39 Encouraging words from slug enthusiasts? 45 Word said with right or rise 46 Nothing: Fr. 47 Grp. that gets the lead out? 48 Bust supporter 51 Fifth-to-last word in the Lord’s Prayer 53 “Sharp” fashion 56 Creature on the Australian coat of arms 57 Mozart’s “____ kleine Nachtmusik” Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 4,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

58 Tiny powerhouse 59 Rap’s Dr. ____ 60 Hayek of “Frida” 62 Longtime soap actress Hall 64 Shout to one about to be knighted? 69 One side of a quad, say 71 Milo of stage and screen 72 Voice from a phone 73 Take a clothing slogan too seriously? 78 Like Loyola and Xavier universities 82 Clobbers 83 Fish eggs 84 1 + 2, in Germany 86 Prefix with -scope 87 Investment sometimes pronounced as a name 88 Risky 92 Surmise 93 Video-game playing, e.g. 96 ____ Day (Hawaiian holiday) 97 SEAL Team 6 mission 99 Chinese calendar animal 100 Tulle, to brides? 104 Carriage 105 Dundee turndown 106 Messenger of biochemistry 107 French film director Clair 108 Gray matter? 110 Have in view

112 ____-d’Oise (French department) 115 “American Greed” channel 118 “After all that hard work, I’ll order some cake”? 124 Latin word on the back of a dollar bill 125 Compact 126 People holding things up 127 Bellyache 128 Antarctic waters 129 “Perfecto!”

24 Huge spans 25 Little darling 31 “Climb ____ Mountain” 32 Sicilian six 34 Long race, in brief 36 Top-notch 37 Like most trivia, in the real world 39 Carried on 40 Kemper of “The Office” 41 Try 42 Stoned 43 Derisive cry 44 Mormons, for short DOWN 49 What a bandoleer 1 Terminal in a holds computer network 50 Party with pu-pu 2 Composer Novello platters 3 Cylindrical pasta 52 Cotton candy additive 4 The matador’s foe 54 Mummy in “The 5 Peter and Francis: Mummy” Abbr. 55 Saverin who 6 Peg solitaire puzzle co-founded brand Facebook 7 Burden 58 Musical lead-in to 8 Member of Generation -smith Z 60 Like some losers 9 Looney Tunes devil, 61 Up for short 63 Rogers, Orbison and 10 Possible reply to Yamaguchi “Where are you?” 65 Magazine edition: 11 Confirmation, e.g. Abbr. 12 Thanks, in Hawaii 66 “Hey, I want to listen 13 Juillet et août here!” 14 Ibsen’s homeland: 67 Roman gods Abbr. 68 Country whose 15 Hit the ground name is one letter running? different from a 16 Indian retreats mountain 17 Hook, line and sinker 70 Gheorghe ____, 18 Game for little former 7’7” N.B.A. sluggers player 19 Fan part 73 “Ooh, dat hurt!”

26 31

33 41

64 70

84 89

118

119

99 103

107

111

120

112

113

115 122

125

126

127

128

129

88 Peter Pan rival 89 Ring master 90 Play 91 One-named hitmaker of the 1950s-’60s 92 Word with two apostrophes 94 Leading 95 Pasta whose name is Italian for “feathers” 98 Sale tag abbr.

114

121

124

74 1-5 on a cellphone screen 75 Precision 76 iRobot vacuum 77 Cape Cod town 79 Cut ties with, in a way 80 Best 81 Law-school class 85 Whom “I saw” on a seesaw, in a tongue twister

106 110

102

105 109

101

108

100

104

88 94

63 69

43 47

27 30

101 “Speed” star 102 ____ bean 103 Make secret 104 “Where to Invade Next” filmmaker 108 Letters of invitation? 109 1914 battle site 111 Desires 113 Comparable (to) 114 Golf’s Champagne Tony

123

116 City and province of southern Italy 117 Anatomical sac 119 Composer of the Windows 95 start-up sound 120 Some offensive linemen: Abbr. 121 “____ sport!” 122 New York engineering sch. 123____ Aviv

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Southern Ideal Home Show BY SANDY GROOVER

The Southern Ideal Home Show held at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex last weekend is the place to find the newest ideas in building, landscaping, remodeling and outdoor living concepts. ❁❁❁ The Ayers Hardscapes and Landscapes exhibit focused on outdoor living and included one of the newest ideas for outdoor entertaining – an outdoor pizza oven. Made by the Chicago Brick Oven Company, it allows you to make your own woodfired pizza. A fire is built inside the oven; when it has been reduced to coals, slide a thin-crust pizza inside and in just a couple minutes you have a delicious wood-oven-baked pizza. ❁❁❁ Outdoor fireplaces and fire pits have continued to gain popularity. Chris Evans of Scott Stone displayed engineered masonry called FireRock – used for both indoor and outdoor fireplaces. A USA-made product, Evans says it is one of the strongest on the market, comes in a full range of sizes, costs 50 percent to 70 percent less than site-built masonry and has a 20-year warranty and a 100-year life expectancy. ❁❁❁ Beautifully designed landscaping truly enhances a home, but trying to visualize how finished landscaping will look from a landscaper’s blue print can be really difficult. Next to Nature has a solution. Next to Nature will create a rendering but then take it a step further. They provide a 3D design plan that allows you to “walk

through” the entire plan and see the design from a number of different angles through virtual reality. Lifelike images of plants, trees and hardscape materials allow you to see what your finished landscaping will look like. ❁❁❁ Hidden Creek had birdhouses good enough to eat – if you’re a bird. Their Edible Birdhouses are made of white pine, coated with a non-toxic glue then covered birdseed from top to bottom and are re-seedable. To keep squirrels from devouring the seeds and tearing apart the house, each house is laced with habanero peppers. Squirrels are sensitive to the heat of habaneros and birds are not, so the peppers are an effective squirrel, but not bird, deterrent. ❁❁❁ If you enjoy watching birds from your patio or deck, you might need comfortable seating. Bob Timberlake has a line of outdoor furniture by Buck Stove, and all of the furniture – rockers, gliders, double gliders, ottoman and swings – are made from non-porous “plastic lumber” made from recycled milk jugs. It’s resistant to weather and termites, which makes it perfect for the poolside, patio, lawn, even sand. ❁❁❁ Keeping bathrooms mold and mildew free can feel like a neverending chore. And some of us have lost the battle. Grout Works can help. The company can clean, repair and permanently seal your tile grout, making maintenance easier and giving your tile surfaces a fresh, brand-new look for far less than the cost of renovation.

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.

PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER 1220 Penny Road, High Point

Wet and Wild Amphibian Night Walk

On Saturday, April 9 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., join a PEC Naturalist for a walk on the trails of the South Preserve. The group will investigate three “soggy bottom” habitats to look, listen and feel for frogs, toads and salamanders. Learn about the links between habitat and organism, and the factors that affect the amphibian populations. For ages 10 and up. To register, call (336) 883-8531 by April 8.

INTERNATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS CENTER 134 S. Elm St.

Children’s Story Hour

Saturdays at 11 a.m., children 6 through 12 are invited to a story hour and then create an arts project. This event is free. For children ages 6 to 12 and their families. For information, call (336) 274-9199 or visit sitinmovement.org.

HIGH POINT MUSEUM

1859 East Lexington Ave., High Point

Piedmont Gold

Saturday, April 23 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., learn about the science and KLVWRU\ RI JROG PLQLQJ LQ 1RUWK &DUROLQD *ROG ZDV ¿UVW GLVFRYHUHG in NC in 1799, and recovering that gold still continues to this day. Learn about the chemistry of gold and the different technologies that have been used to help people get it from the ground and into their everyday lives. Also learn about the different kinds of rocks and minerals in the area and where else they found gold around the state. You can have a chance to try your hand at gold panning, too. This event is free and all ages welcome. For more information, call (336) 885-1859 or visit highpointmuseum.org.

GREENSBORO CHILDREN’S MUSEUM 220 N. Church St.

$4 Fridays and Sundays

On Fridays from 5 to 8 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. enjoy all the Children’s Museum has to offer for only $4 per person. For more information, call (336) 574-2898 or visit hwww.gcmuseum.com.

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20 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

The Sound of the

beep

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. Hello. I just want to applaud Gov. McCrory and the legislature here in North Carolina for getting rid of that terrible discriminatory ordinance that Charlotte had passed a few weeks back. The ordinance itself actually was discriminatory and illegal. Straight heterosexual persons are not allowed to use the restroom of their choice. They must use the one that matches their anatomy. The LGBT people, however, were being given the choice of either restroom. Now that’s not equal treatment. That’s special treatment. If heterosexual people can only use one restroom, the one that matches their anatomy, then it’s only fair that gay and transgender people be limited to one restroom as well, also the one that matches their anatomy.

%%% Hillary won’t show the transcripts from Goldman Sachs because she, like Obama, was involved with United Health, AARP and Blue Cross and are selling their souls for Wall Street. Wall Street, big government and big media are in the bag for the Democratic Party. How do you think she gets $225,000 for a speech, and her daughter gets a $625,000 job with NBC with no TV experience? She is laughing at your loyalty and gets rich. She is the establishment. The establishment helps its own. The money they poured into the Clinton Foundation came from major banks, Wall Street. They were and are looking to use her influence as former secretary of state, and president, if she becomes that thanks to the low-informed voters who think Democrats are not in league with Wall Street, big banks or oil companies. Soros, Buffett, that Apple guy, all in bed with Hillary and Obama.

%%% Yes, I’m making a comment. A columnist for the Greensboro’s News & Record, Susan Ladd, has written two columns in the paper in the past week about this bathroom bill, or the HB2, whatever-they-call-it bill. And John Hammer has written an article in this week’s Rhino Times that outlined exactly what was going on. He spelled it out perfectly. Susan Ladd spent two big, huge columns in the paper and never told us nothing. Basically, all she tells us is what she thinks, her point of view. She didn’t really tell us who had voted on it, and what, this and that. She, basically, just told us it was a Republican point of view and that was that. But as Mr. Hammer found out by investigating, somehow or another that there was a lot of Democrats for the bill, too …

%%% John Kerry was just interviewed and he said we was winning the war on ISIS with 31 killed, 270 wounded in just this last episode, not counting the one in Paris. I assume that Obama has taught him well. But what he reminds me of is the man that went to the doctor, and the doctor examined him and said, you’ve got locked bowels. The patient said, but I’m going to the bathrooms 10 times a day. He said, oh, that’s right. They’re locked open.

%%% Chuck Mann sent a letter to the Rhino Times and the News & Record. Anywhere else? He said or implied that Ohio’s attempt to execute a person after an unsuccessful first attempt for the same crime is double jeopardy. Someone should tell Mr. Mann, double jeopardy has nothing to do with executions. It is subjecting a person to a second trial for a crime for which he has already been tried and acquitted.

%%% (continued on page 26)

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22 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com YOST Column

Yost Column

Yost On What Not To Name Your Baby by Scott D. Yost LOS ANGELES - Are you ready 1,000-year reign of demonic dominion to pay at the cash register with your of evil forces over the Earth. voice? This week Google introduced Uh, hello, Lester? Earth to Lester, a new, potentially simpler way to get do you not think that might be just folks to ditch their credit cards at a tiny bit relevant and worth a little the register. With Handsfree, a new commentary? But he just went on like app, you can pay with the phone but it was any old number, like it was 12 without reaching for your Android or 452 or whatever. handset or iPhone. I just feel like he should have at Handsfree is a new app, being least pointed that out. tested in San Francisco at a handful of McDonald’s and Papa John’s Pizza I can’t tell you who won this years locations, that lets you approach the NCAA men’s basketball tournament cash register and simply say, “I’ll pay because I stopped watching after with Google.” the excellent Duke Blue Devils lost to Oregon on a bad call. However, – USA Today, March 5, 2016 before I stopped watching college basketball this year, I did get to see all the tributes and the look-backs I know a lot of you are they’ve been running about ACC thinking about voting for legends. Trump in the November Each year, during the start of March election and I’m not sure if Madness, the ACC honors a group of this means anything or not but “ACC legends.” The honored players I felt like it was something I appear at the halftime of a game at have an obligation to point out. the ACC Tournament, and then the I was watching NBC Nightly News league runs a lot of videos during recently, and they were reporting the the NCAA Tournament honoring delegate count for the Republican the legends. As you can see in the candidates, and I got something of a picture, this year’s 2016 ACC legends shock when I looked up at the screen were an impressive group. and saw the number of delegates that I have to say that looking over this each man had. As you can see in the picture, Kasich had 142, Cruz had 413 and Trump had … Wait for it … 666. During the story, Lester Holt simply announced that number nonchalantly with no commentary, and he pointed out that Trump had a big lead, but Holt didn’t even mention what’s perhaps the most salient point. That Trump’s number is 666. What does that number tell you? I seem to remember seeing that number somewhere else before. Hmmm, let me think, where was that? Oh yes, I remember now – that’s the number that signifies Armageddon and a

year’s list, for those of us who are old enough to remember, this group of honorees really brought back some memories of the great past ACC players who have graced our league over the years. For instance, who can forget watching the exciting ACC games in the early ’70s and seeing the amazing Adrian Dantley light up scoreboards along Tobacco Road with his circusstyle dunks. Or who can forget the stellar performances in the ACC Tournament of the great Derrick Coleman or his last-second heroics in so many ACC games in Cameron, Carmichael, Reynolds and Littlejohn. And who of those among us can ever forget watching ACC basketball on Saturday afternoons years ago and seeing Darrell Griffith – the one and only “Dr. Dunkenstein” – lead his great Louisville teams to so many victories that left such a major mark on the league. Ah, those golden ACC memories. Who could ever forget them? Does anyone else think it’s ironic that the state’s highly new

controversial law, which has to do with using the bathroom, is called “House bill number two.” For Christmas, my brother and sister and I got our father and stepmother an Amazon Echo, which – if you are living under a boulder from 2014 and you therefore don’t know – is the black cylindrical device that you put in your house and then you ask it anything you want to know and it answers you; or you tell it what you want and it orders it for you, or it does whatever else you say. The Echo is “always listening” and it knows you are talking to it whenever you say “Alexa,” because apparently that’s her name. Now, more and more, you see Amazon Echos all over the place. I mean, suddenly they’re everywhere, and I predict that, at the rate I’m seeing them pop up, in the future the Echo will be as commonplace in people’s homes as a toaster – in fact, even more so because people are getting Echos for every room in the house. And having an always-on personal assistant who can order things for you and play music for you and answer all your questions is going to make life so much easier for everyone. Well, everyone, that is, except for one group of people. And, for that group, it will make life miserable. Do you know who it will make life a living nightmare for? Right: Anyone named Alexa. Now, if you are a parent these days, hopefully you have enough sense not to name your baby Alexa, and if I were in charge of things, all the baby name books would have a big red “X” through that name and it would tell parents that the name is (continued on next page)

1 7 8 3 6 4 9 www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES 23

yost

do some work on the Johnson file anyway.”

off limits because that name will mar your child for life. Regardless, there are a lot of people in the world named Alexa. In 2006, it was the 39th most popular name in the United States, and people are still naming their babies Alexa, but in a few years when the Echo is everywhere those named Alexa are all in for a real shock. In the future, people named Alexa will be turning around all the time and going, “What? Yes, what is it?” And everyone will shake their heads and say, “No, not you! Why are you always interrupting when I am trying to ask Alexa something?” Or in high school the poor girl, Alexa, will be trying to get the attention of the dreamy football team captain at a party and he’ll say, “Alexa, let’s check out what movies are playing in town?” And she will get really excited and turn and go, “Yes, I’d love to! Let’s!” and he will look at her like she’s crazy and say, “Shhhhh, be quiet – I’m asking Alexa which movie I should take Christina to.” There was nothing like the Echo when I was growing up but I guess that, if your name is Alexa, in the

Google is now testing out a new feature in California: paying for something without using your mobile phone or app but instead just using your voice. Named “Handsfree,” instead of going to the trouble of getting out your phone and having to fumble with it like you are some primitive Neanderthal who lives in a cave in the middle of the jungle who’s still paying for things by the old-timey 2015 way of using your iPhone, this makes things easier because all you have to do instead is say, “I’ll pay with Google.” The voice recognition software detects that you are who you say you are and OKs the payment from that account. I’m excited about this new type of payment because I’ve worked in radio and I’m pretty good with impersonations, and I’ve just about gotten the one I need down to a T. I just keep practicing the only line I need to know: “My name is Donald Trump and I’ll be paying with Google.” I’m hoping the new payment system will be in our area very soon, so, if you want anything from me for Christmas this year, just send me your requests.

(continued from previous page) future it will be like back in my day when one of the hot girls would call out to you and say, “Hey, dream boat?” and you would point to yourself, amazed at your good fortune that she was even talking to you, and then you would start to respond and she would start laughing and say, “Not you, shipwreck!” Well, it will be like that all the time for Alexas all over the country. And it will be even worse after you are married and you turn out the lights if you know what I mean. Your husband will get all hot and bothered and lean back and close his eyes, and say, “Alexa, talk dirty to me,” and while you are trying to think of what you’re going to say, instead of a hot sultry voice telling him what he wants to hear, all your husband will hear is a cold dry mechanical voice saying, “That’s not a conversation that I’m capable of having.” And he will be like, “What?? That’s not very hot at all.” When you try to explain, the mood will be ruined and you’ll be like, “Wait …” and he’ll get out of bed and be like, “Look, never mind – I’ve got to

520A

Sudoku Solution

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_520A

From last week’s issue

1 2 4 8 3 7 9 6 5

7 9 3 4 5 6 1 2 8

6 8 5 1 2 9 7 4 3

4 6 2 7 9 3 8 5 1

9 1 7 5 4 8 2 3 6

3 5 8 2 6 1 4 7 9

2 4 1 6 8 5 3 9 7

5 7 9 3 1 2 6 8 4

8 3 6 9 7 4 5 1 2

520A

Crossword Solution From last week’s issue B S C H O O L

U T R I L L O

T O E P A D S

P H I S H

C R I M E A

P R A G U E

R E S E N T

N I C O T I N E P A T C H

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

E Q U A T I O N R A I T T E N O K I S

S U N T A N S S A U T E P A N E R A S

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

H O H O H I M

U N I S

I N B A D

A R I A

D E P T H E S M O S B A A D N I D E S S M I O P L P D E O D V O A N

J C O A S L H C U L U A L L C A A T R M E D E D O N R D U P M I L A M I C I T A N R G R E A N D A

E M I R T R A M

S P E E C H B U B B L E S

R U E D A C H O O U P P O L N E

A L U M N A

R E P E N T

N E W I S H

T R I P S

D O W N L O W

E L I D E R S

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24 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 16)

system – but it doesn’t have to be the same two parties, long after both have lost their usefulness to a fed-up electorate. Such were my thoughts, standing in that little white schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.

.... By the way, having never heard the name of the city spoken aloud, I thought the “o” in Ripon should be given an O-like pronunciation. Wrong. The name of the town is pronounced exactly as if it were spelled “rippin’” or “ripp’n.’”

.... America is a celebrity-obsessed nation. England has its royals and its nobility and armiger class – all those dukes, earls, baronets and knights – but America, lacking such naturalborn “stars,” bestows the same absurd levels of respect on famous athletes, pop music performers, movie and television stars and a few politicians. We Americans are all aware of – and many of us are frankly embarrassed by – the screaming, moaning worship of such figures by their “fans” – short for “fanatics,” it’s worth remembering.

So when it happens that we come to meet such figures, even ones we admire, many of us feel obliged to explain that our admiration is not the mindless worship of a “fan,” but rather the considered opinion of a judicious connoisseur. In other words, we wish the person to value our good opinion of them, and we assume that for this to be accomplished, we have to make it clear that we are very selective about what we admire. I remember the first time I met Robert Chartoff, one of the producing pair who had created films like Rocky, The Right Stuff, Raging Bull and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? They produced independent films that were outside the studio system, and did daring things like fighting for the writer of Rocky, a virtually unknown, mumbling actor named Sylvester Stallone, to star in his own movie. So when I was invited into Chartoff’s Malibu home and shook his hand, I felt obliged to start to tell him how much I admired his body of work. I say “start to tell” because he shook his head and shut that down completely. “Let’s not talk about that,” he said, and because I’m not an idiot, I respected his wishes. Why didn’t he want me to praise his work? Not because he wasn’t

The New York Times

Hyper-Sudoku sudoku_520B Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

4 2 5 6 1 9 7

8 4

8 2

3 9 1 520B

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_520B

proud of it. Not because he had no respect for me – after all, I was there because he wanted to make a movie based on a book of mine, which is not an indicator of disrespect. Most likely it was because to Chartoff, talking about his own work was something that happens in media interviews. That’s work, and at his age he was tired of it. We were there to talk about my book – and not to praise it. We had things to work out and to work on, and we got down to business. Writers don’t get famous the way athletes, screen stars, pop idols and some politicians do. The only people who know about writers are – you guessed it – readers, and people who read books on purpose are a fairly small group. You hold an autograph session for a book written by even a B or C level actor, and you’ll get hundreds of people to buy the book solely to meet the actor and gets his autograph. People pay money to athletes in order to get their signature on a ball. With writers, our signature on a book actually decreases the value of that book, at least until we’re dead and there can’t be any more signatures. However, it happens that readers are also the group of people most eager not to be taken for wideeyed fans. And so we get a social phenomenon that I suspect actors and singers and athletes don’t have to deal with: The reader who has to criticize your work before praising it. This takes many forms. The most common is the declaration, “I’ve never read anything of yours; I only want this signature for my nephew.” I’m always puzzled by this. Did they think there was going to be a test, and they needed to make sure I wasn’t going to quiz them about the names of the three main characters in my Pathfinder trilogy? Or the drug that dominates the culture of the planet Capitol in my Worthing Saga? {Answers: Rigg, Umbo, Param. Somec.} No. I not only do not quiz people at autograph sessions, I never even ask my friends and acquaintances whether they’ve read my books. I always assume that, like most people in the world, they have not. I also expect my lawyer friends not to ask me why I haven’t hired them as my attorney, or my doctor friends to inquire why I don’t come to them about my physical ailments. This is known as “courtesy” – not to put other people in the awkward position of having to disappoint me. I don’t ask. So please don’t tell. I also don’t care. I choose and value my friends according to who they are, not whether they have provided financial support to my family by buying my books. There

are friends I’ve known and loved for many years who absolutely shocked me by mentioning a book of mine in a way that let me know they had actually read it. It simply never came up. It’s usually newer acquaintances who can’t forget that you’re “famous” – a dubious term, when applied to a writer (quick: name the screenwriter of North by Northwest, Forrest Gump or Philadelphia) – and therefore feel that your books are the elephant in the room. They’re afraid that if they mention them, they’ll look like “fans” and be embarrassed. They have a question or comment they want to make about one of your books, so they begin like this: “I don’t really care for (Most Popular Book) but I really liked (Much More Obscure Book) and I wondered about ...” “I haven’t read any of your books myself, but ...” “I thought (Obscure Book by You) was much better than any of the volumes in (Your Most Famous Series).” This comment is usually followed by a glowing smile, as if they’re very proud of having shown themselves to be so discerning as to value something that those ordinary fans don’t even know about. All of these are good people who think they are complimenting you by showing that they know your work, or are protecting themselves by making sure you don’t expect them to know anything about your work. (“I’m only here because my nephew wanted a signed Ender’s Game for his birthday.”) But we writers are not actually famous. We don’t spend our days swimming in praise. Screaming fans do not greet us when we go grocery shopping. Heck, bookstore employees don’t even recognize our names on our credit cards. If you’re a novelist and no Barnes & Noble employees recognize your name, you are not famous. So you don’t have to differentiate yourself from screaming fans. You don’t have to declare your ignorance of our work. We live lives flooded with people who have no idea of anything we’ve done. So if you want to discuss or ask a question about a writer’s work, just state your point or ask your question. Inside, we’re going, “Good heavens. Somebody read that book after all.” We are not going to give you a speech that ends with “get a life.” Unlike actors, who don’t write the words they say on screen, we write all the words in our books. And we are not offended by hearing them mentioned or quoted or praised. We don’t think you’re “dumb”

(continued on page 26)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

RHINO

Restaurant Guide When you’re looking for a great Southern home-cooked meal at a reasonable price – with something for everyone served in a welcoming, casual atmosphere – the place to go is H&M Cafeteria. Variety? Choose from 14 entrees, 14 vegetables, 12 different salads, a variety of soup selections, and 12 types of pie. (Did we mention the menu items change every week.) Tasty? Everything is made from scratch. Service? Owners Steven Humble and Daniel Moore Jr. and their staff make it their mission that everyone feels welcome. And price? Check out the early bird specials. Enjoy an entrée, two vegetables and bread for $5.99 – for lunch from 11 a.m. to noon and dinner from 4 to 5 p.m. Kids eat for just $1.99 on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Friday is Seafood Night with your choice of whiting, crab cakes or shrimp for $8.95. And senior citizen specials are offered Friday and Saturday nights. And H&M Cafeteria caters everything from a small family gathering to a large ofﬁce party. For the menu of the week, visit www. hmcafeteria.com or call (336) 899-7727. But with so much to choose from, why not just stop in at 1320 Lees Chapel Road, Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4 to 8 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

26 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 24)

for being a “fan.” We’re actually stunned to meet a member of that tiny community of “people who read more than one book a year, and remember the authors’ names.” Those weird compliments that begin with the assertion that you only like some or one of our books, or that you don’t have a high opinion of our most popular book: Really. Truly. That’s not a good way to begin a conversation with an author. Or to bring up, with an old friend, the fact that you actually know that he’s an author. Imagine that books were children – which is a pretty good analogy, since during the writing of a book we are much more attentive to our characters than to our actual families – and then imagine how well your praise of one child were to begin like this: “I really never liked your older children, but this youngest one, while she’s as ugly as the others, is nowhere near as dumb.” “Most of your children have been illmannered brutes and bullies, but this one child is actually quite sweet. You did a good job with him.” “The children of these other parents are all horribly ugly and stupid, but yours, while also ugly, are noticeably humanoid and seem capable of speech.” Such conversations would not go well, would they? If you want to praise one of my

children, I’ll be delighted to hear about it. No criticisms. After all, I did my job years ago, and they’re way out of my control now. I can’t go back and revise my child-rearing Or if you have a question about one of my children, simply ask. No preamble, no disclaimer, no commentary. Just the question. “What’s she up to these days?” My answer: “She’s married to a great guy and they have two daughters.” I won’t add, “And their kids are both smarter and more amazingly creative than any child or grandchild of yours,” even though that is, of course, my opinion. Comparatives of any kind are simply not needed. That’s why I don’t really feel as flattered as you think I’ll be when you tell me that I’m your third favorite writer. And please don’t tell me who the other two are. Even if they’re Shakespeare and Jane Austen, I’ll still be miffed that you thought I needed to be told that my writings aren’t as good as theirs. And what if your two favorites are writers I really despise? I’m sure that if I replied with, “You think they’re good? My gosh, you have no taste at all,” you’d feel yourself put upon, and tell other people how rude I am. But telling me that I’m your third favorite writer is like telling the woman you’re proposing to that you only got to her when your first two picks turned

beep (continued from page 21) If you will look back over the years, you will see and realize and agree with me that the Democrats have never been any good for America. It’s the policies of the Democrats that are the root of all of the problems that we have now. The Democrats have swindled poor people out of their vote for the past 60 to 65 years. But, yet, poor people are still poor. The Democrats have conned them out of their vote, made them promises they couldn’t keep just for their vote. And the Democrats have made sure that they kept poor people poor all these years. But, yet, election after election after election, the poor people continue to fall for the false promises of the Democrats.

%%% Saul Alinsky died about 43 years ago, but his writings influence those in political control over our nation

today. Recall that Hillary did her college theses on Alinsky’s writings, and Obama writes about him in his books. He has eight rules that are currently in play and how to create a socialist state. It starts with the control of health care, poverty, debt, gun control, welfare, the education system, religion and class warfare. If any of these sound familiar, they’re all in play right now and both Hillary and Obama will continue them to the end, which will be the end of the Republic.

%%% I’m 81 years old and I can’t get over these transgender people wanting to use the bathroom and trying to get them to overturn the bill. Now, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. And they were born that way. I don’t care how they feel. And a man needs to go in the men’s room, and a woman needs to go in the woman’s

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you down. Now, it’s quite possible – indeed, highly likely – that there are, among the readers of this review column, people who have said exactly these things to me. Relax. I don’t remember who said this stuff, because so many people say it. And even if I did remember that you said it, I’m not holding a grudge. Because I know you meant well. (Don’t imagine, though, that I’m above holding grudges. Grudgeholding is one of my most treasured sins. I still hold grudges against people inside and outside my family who bullied me as a child, against the teachers and professors who used grades to punish me for “offenses” having nothing to do with the quality of my work, against the underling who criticized my work to my bosses behind my back in hopes of getting my job after I left [and it worked], and, above all, I do not forgive anyone, ever, who was unkind to my wife or any of my children. (Holding a grudge doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try to pull you out of a car wreck. But it does mean that We Are Not Friends. Ever. And yes, I’m keenly aware of all the times the scriptures say that this unforgiving attitude means I’m going to hell. Seeya there.) Saying a “wrong thing” about my books does not put you in the grudge category. It doesn’t even put you in the idiot category. Even minuscule fame makes people babble and say things that they would never say, if they were capable of rational thought. I once shared an elevator with a writer I greatly admire – Gene Wolfe – and said absolutely nothing for the entire ride. Later, he came into a writing workshop I was conducting and contributed brilliantly. We had an actual conversation. And I realized later that nothing was exactly the right thing for me to say in that elevator. Wolfe wasn’t riding that elevator as a Famous Writer. He was riding the elevator as a guy going from one floor of the hotel to another. The only appropriate conversation would have consisted of, “What floor do you want?” and pushing the appropriate button. Here’s the thing: In social situations, I don’t actually care what you think of my books. I don’t want to hear you talk about them. It’s like discussing what somebody’s wearing, while they’re still wearing it. Oh, sure, if you like any one of my books, I think it proves that you are a person of wisdom and taste. But there is nothing I can say in reply, except, “Thank you.” So I will change the subject as quickly as good manners allow – or maybe more quickly. And 10 minutes later, I won’t remember what you said. Or that you ever read

any of my books. Or didn’t read them. Because my books are not, in fact, my children. I’m not going to go back and rewrite them based on your criticisms. I’m not going to suddenly set to work on a sequel to a book that needs no sequels, because you asked for one. I’m not going to drop what I’m doing and hurry to finish a series you’ve been waiting 20 years for. If you never mention my books, I’ll be fine. And, having mentioned my books, if you never mention them again, I’ll also be fine. Oh, there are writers who can’t stop talking about their own books. I know writers who do that. They all sound like Donald Trump when he tells us what a winner he is (something that only frightened losers do). I avoid them. I think they’re complete bores. So if you vaguely – or clearly – remember having made some kind of backhanded “compliment” about my books, don’t feel bad. Forget about it. Because I assure you, I’ve already forgotten. And I won’t remember unless you make a similar slap-in-theface compliment again. We live in a society where some people live to catch other people saying something wrong, thrilled to have a chance to take offense. I am not one of those people. If you say something inadvertently rude, I will forget it as quickly as I hope you will forget the idiotic things I’m prone to saying. And there it is, Uncle Orson’s Guide to Talking to Authors about Their Books. It’s a really simple formula: Don’t do it. Unless you’re assigned to interview a writer for a publication that will print that interview, don’t mention that you know that he or she is a writer. And if you are an interviewer, then please realize that interviews are not conversations. The writer is not chatting: Every minute that she or he is talking to you, the writer is working. In most cases, the writer will not remember you or anything you said. You are not friends. You are not even acquainted, unless you also have some association outside the interview. Having an interviewer turn into a real friend has happened only twice in my professional life – and unless your name is Scott Brick or Rusty Humphries, it isn’t you. So, while being an interviewer does mean you get to ask questions of people who have some modicum of fame or notoriety, it does not mean you can then drop their name as if you were always chatting on the phone with them, or texting back and forth, or dining out with them. Here’s the thing: Some famous people are endlessly fascinated by

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transgender (continued from page 8)

speakers spoke against HB2 and seven spoke in favor. Vaughan allowed state Rep. John Blust, who is a candidate in the Republican primary for the 13th Congressional District, to speak first and gave him some additional time to explain what the state statute he voted for did. Blust said that the topic was one that he was almost embarrassed to talk about in public, but that the state had been forced to regulate the behavior of people in bathrooms. He said, “it seems common sense that everyone use the bathroom based on their anatomy.” Blust said, “Charlotte did not have the statutory authority to do what it did.” He added that according to the state Constitution, the state employment and contracting laws should be uniform throughout the state. He said, “The state is not going to sit back and let cities create a patchwork of governing.” He noted that the Charlotte ordinance didn’t just apply to the City of Charlotte but to any business in Charlotte or any company doing business with Charlotte. Blust got shouted down by opponents of HB2 when he said, “I am

the parent of a young daughter.” After the crowd quieted down, Blust said that those who didn’t agree with the law were “going to shout down all opposition, because ‘you are bad and a hater and a bigot and we are going to shout you down.’” Blust was allowed to start again and said, “As the parent of a young daughter, I’m not willing to have her, her classmates, teammates and friends, go into the girls locker room and undress in front of someone with the male anatomy.” Drew Walker, speaking against HB2, said about Blust, “people like him are ignorant.” Another speaker said that before the bill was passed by the state legislature, “Not a single trans person of color was allowed to speak.” The legislators held public hearings and heard everyone who signed up to speak on the bill before it was passed. Cameron Hodge, speaking in favor of HB2, said that if people are allowed to go in any bathroom they want, “there will be people who abuse that privilege.” She said the people who agreed with the bill had been labeled as bigots and

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racists, and she added, “Both sides have been wrong on this issue.” A speaker opposed to HB2 said that the bill limited the power the cities have in compensating workers. But the bill doesn’t do that. Cities can continue to pay their employees as much as they want, and cities didn’t have the authority to set a minimum wage for businesses in a city before the bill passed. The bill clarified that the cities didn’t have that right. Chris Hardin, a candidate in the Republican primary for the 6th Congressional District, got shouted down by opponents to HB2 several times. He said the law was not about discrimination but about common sense. He said that allowing the Charlotte ordinance to stand would have had a detrimental effect on law enforcement. Lawrence Martin said he was involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and that was a different thing. He said, “I agree men should go to men’s bathrooms and women should go to women’s bathrooms.” Matt McCall, the register of deeds for Iredell County and a candidate in the Republican primary for the 13th Congressional District, urged the council to vote against the resolution. He said, “Issues like this do not fall into

your scope of responsibility.” Ryan Butler, the in-house legal counsel for Replacements Ltd., said that Blust had been incorrect about the bill. He said, “Most of the things he told the council are completely incorrect.” However, according to an analysis of HB2 by City Attorney Tom Carruthers, the law will have little effect on Greensboro. One question raised by Carruthers was whether employment discrimination lawsuits could be filed in state court. According to a memo by state Rep. Dan Bishop, the sponsor of the bill, employment discrimination lawsuits can still be filed in state or federal court. But he noted that the statute of limitations would drop from three years under the old law to the federal limit of 180 days. Bishop also states, “there are no provisions addressing LGBT in the bill.” He states, “the overall function of the law is to restore the status quo before the City of Charlotte exceeded its legal authority and imposed a business mandate to operate genderless ‘distinctly private’ facilities, such a multioccupancy bathrooms and showers.” He notes that the Charlotte law was in conflict with “at least two state criminal statutes and the uniform, statewide

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uncle orson (continued from page 26)

themselves, and welcome anybody who wants to talk to them about their work. But those people do not appreciate your hinting in any way that there is some portion of their work that you do not like, or that you like less than other portions. Sane famous people, though, are bored with their own fame, and would much rather talk about whatever subject a conversation might naturally turn to. If you must compliment some work of theirs, then get it over with quickly and politely, without pausing to dispraise some other work of theirs. If they’ve had the wisdom to get over their own fame, then you should get over it, too.

.... American Idol is wrapping up its final season tonight – Thursday, April 7. On Tuesday night, they had a two-hour retrospective about the whole history of the show, and I have to say, I thought it was really well-done. They did not make us look at very many of the train-wreck contestants, and they also didn’t go through the whole catalogue of winners and losers. Instead, we got some really good backstage insights – for instance, how they were not prepared for the huge number of auditioners they got for the second season, because in the first season so few people were auditioning that they actually sent employees into shopping malls to pass out fliers in order to get a few more people to try out. We got a sense of how many things went wrong on the live shows

that we didn’t see. Like the time Ryan Seacrest walked out to announce the winner – but forgot the envelope. So he asked one of the judges a question, and while the judge was on camera, Seacrest ran offstage, got the envelope, ran back and then thanked the judge for his comments. We also got to hear comments from and about the show’s creators, giving us an idea of their influence on how the show went. I didn’t know, for instance, how involved Nigel Lythgoe was in setting up some of the stage gimmicks, like dividing six of the top seven into two groups onstage, and then having the seventh contestant “go stand with the top three.” That’s what they did on the show where Jennifer Hudson was one of the “three divas,” and those three divas were the bottom three. Cruel, yes, but also highly entertaining and memorable. As I write this, I don’t even know who the final two contestants are. The top four were excellent, and so are the top three, which means that the two finalists announced on Wednesday night will also be good. Even though we all expect La’Porsha Renae to win this final season, we expected David Archuleta and Adam Lambert to win during their years, too, so you never know how things will turn out. So tonight’s show will be the last finale of American Idol, ever. They’ll put on a good show. There’ll be a lot of crying and a lot of self-praise for the show, and I’m fine with that. Because for 15 years, American Idol has been

beep

%%% In the wake of continued sexual assaults and attacks on German girls and women by uncivilized refugees from Syria and the Levant and North Africa, and other countries, a regional train operator in Germany

.... We mock the Inquisition that put Galileo on trial for his life, for the crime of saying that Earth rotates and revolves around the sun. Yet the attorneys general of many states are now planning to criminalize scientific skepticism by criminalizing research that might cast doubt on anthropogenic global warming. These new Inquisitions are far less excusable than Galileo’s Inquisition, because that Inquisition at least had the excuse that all the evidence of our eyes shows that the sun moves around the Earth, and we can’t feel the movement of the Earth at all. Today’s Inquisitions will prosecute “global warming deniers” even though there is no scientific evidence that global temperatures track with carbon emissions in any way. And by “no scientific evidence” I mean zero. None. Any claim to the contrary is based on deliberate deception. The global warming proponents

seized on the dogma because it was so politically useful for the environmental movement, and it was a convenient weapon to be used against western economies. The goal is to wreck the world economy; and that’s why the proponents were declaring human-caused global warming to be “a fact” and saying “the discussion is over” long before there had been any serious research or discussion. Now, anybody trying to find out whether global temperatures are controlled by carbon emission can’t get funding from governments or universities unless they are trustworthy true believers. So the skeptics – you know, the people who are still trying to do science – have no choice but to get their funding from the sources that have an interest in revealing the nothing that underlies global warming claims. Since many of those sources are tied to the energy industry, the charge in these Inquisitions will be “collusion” and “conspiracy” to deceive the public. But the opposite is true: Time and again, we have learned that it’s the global-warming wackoes who lie and lie and lie. So ... keep your eyes open on these trials, because every one of them is a savage, soul-killing attack on science itself. When politics controls science, the results are no prettier than when religion tried to control science. Science lives only when every question can be asked, without fear of reprisals from fanatics who want to impose their faith on everybody else.

transgender (continued from page 27)

(continued from page 26) bathroom. And my question is, if it’s so upsetting, where have they been going to the bathroom? Maybe just not go at all, or leave this country. This is the way this country was made. We’ve had bathrooms like that ever since I’ve been able to go to a bathroom outside the house. And it shouldn’t be changed. We talk about falling into the depths, we’re at the bottom of the barrel now.

one of the most-watched shows on television – and for many of those years, it was the most-watched show, with half again as many viewers as the first runner-up. Maybe you’ve never watched American Idol (Steven Tyler hadn’t watched it, when he was asked to come on the show as a judge.) Or maybe you lost interest and stopped watching it. The final show is a perfect opportunity to get a sense of what you missed – or to remind you of what you used to love.

has decided to introduce femaleonly railway carriages. But here’s the question, what if one of these young Muslim males, supposed refugees, simply says, oh, I self-identify as a woman? Does that mean that he will be required to be allowed into the female-only railway carriages? And these are the kind of knots the liberals tie themselves up with in their absurdities. Just sign me off as An Independent Thinker.

%%% Just heard on the radio a while ago that this Roy Cooper, he’s a piece of work. He’s not going to defend this lesbian gay bathroom law that was

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building code.” Bishop states, “Every part of the 4.5-page bill is related to the purpose of restoring the status quo.” In the memo he goes into quite a bit of detail about why the different parts of the bill had to be included to make state law consistent. What isn’t mentioned by the opponents is that the state does have an indecent exposure law. It’s hard to imagine how men and women could share showers without violating that law. What also isn’t mentioned is that when the Democrats controlled the state legislature and the governor’s mansion four times in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, the Democrats introduced bills that would have included sexual orientation in the state’s nondiscrimination laws and none of the bills ever made it out of the committees that were controlled by the Democrats. So not adding sexual orientation to

the state anti-discrimination standards is not something invented by Republicans but is a long-standing policy of both Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature. As far as HB2 goes, in the state House 11 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and in the state Senate not a single Democrat voted against the bill. The Democrats all walked out rather than vote. One point that the mainstream media seem to have in every article is that HB2 denies transgender people the right to use the bathroom of their choice. But the bill doesn’t mention transgender people. What the bill does state is that people will use the bathroom or locker room that corresponds with the biological sex on their birth certificate. If a person has surgery to change their gender they can apply and have their birth certificate changed to their current gender.

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LETTERS To The Editor

Letters GET EDUCATED DEAR EDITOR,

Interfering with policies and decisions of local governments, ignoring facts, circumventing the state and federal constitutions, refusing to seek common ground and compromise, using hateful and demeaning rhetoric, shifting the tax burden to those who can least afford it, restricting the right to vote, undermining public schools and universities, blocking Medicaid expansion, dismantling environmental safeguards and protections, giving tax breaks to the wealthy and insensitivity to the poor and unemployed. A description of which political party? Become informed before voting and do vote, as our democracy functions best when knowledge overcomes ignorance and fear. Your future and the future of your children depend upon it. Bob Kollar

TO THE EDITOR BATTLING AN EPIDEMIC DEAR EDITOR,

As a child, I remember when used syringes could be found by the playground. Not so long ago, I was a guest of various institutions where the doors only opened from the outside. With the help and support of too many people to count, I now am fortunate enough to walk into jails, psychiatric institutions, addiction treatment centers and prisons and leave the same day. From a GED to two state-issued master’s level licenses (clinical social worker and clinical addiction specialist), I believe in the power of recovery. It is quite clear that our country, state and community are in the midst of an epidemic. One small step towards a solution is syringe exchanges. Epidemiologists have shown the steady increase of unintentional drug-related deaths. The use of prescription opioids and heroin

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is on the rise. In any neighborhood, from Latham Park to Heath Park, there has been an increase in intravenous drug use. Sharing needles perpetuates the spread of infectious disease. Many people I know live with compromised immune systems and irreparable liver damage. What is sad is that the high cost (in health, mortality and dollars) is mostly preventable. Access to clean syringes helps to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. While the cost of a syringe is under a dollar the lifelong cost of hep C and HIV treatment is well over a hundred thousand dollars. Syringe exchanges require an investment, but the prevention of viral infections makes it extremely cost effective in the long run. For years, national and international studies have shown the effectiveness of syringe exchanges in lowering crime

rates, lowering transmission rates of infectious diseases and increasing access to health services (including helping folks to get clean as they are no longer forced to hide). It is time for our fair state to embrace health and well being for all of our citizens. Clearly, locking folks up for illnesses that require a public health response has not worked. Defunding access to treatment has not worked. Nor have treatment approaches that do not use scientific, informed, evidenced-based modalities. This is about life and death. Let’s be the change we want to see. Perhaps later we can look at providing real opportunities to all of our citizens in the form of freedom, land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and technology.

Lucas Vrbsky

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30 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

sheriff

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Barnes, as the sheriff of the county, is the one who enforces the law but he doesn’t get to make the law – and the new policy raises a number of questions regarding a huge legal debate going on right now over law enforcement videos. Some maintain that the recordings are public records since North Carolina’s public records law states that videos made by the government are public records and makes no exception for body-cam videos. However, sheriffs and police chiefs want to have the final word on what videos are made public, so they typically search for legal justifications that would allow them to keep body-cam videos from the public unless they want a video to be seen. That legal battle is brewing now and is likely to be a hot topic of discussion this year. Guilford County Commissioner Ray Trapp said this week that he believes the videos should be public records. When Trapp was told that the new Sheriff’s Department policy wouldn’t allow the videos to be available to the public, Trapp responded, “He wouldn’t be sheriff if he agreed with me.” Across the country, there have been many recent incidents when members of the press or various groups have requested videos from body-worn cameras after controversial shootings, takedowns or arrests. Trapp said that law enforcement agencies often hide behind things like personnel law or other legal constructs in order to keep the videos from being seen. Trapp said, by way of illustration, that, after a county commissioner meeting, he likes to view the film if he said something particularly clever or had a good comeback to another commissioner, but if he did something that made him look bad he doesn’t watch the video. He said law enforcement agencies have the same inclination that he does personally – they only want to release the videos when it makes the department look good. He said that’s an unacceptable state of affairs. “It’s definitely going to have to be addressed in Raleigh – there’s no way around it,” Trapp said of the public’s access to body-worn camera videos. Barnes, like many others involved in the debate, agrees that state law isn’t clear on the matter. According to the new policy, Guilford County Sheriff’s Department officers must turn on the cameras just about any time they have a non-trivial encounter of any kind. The policy lays out a long list of situations in which officers must activate the cameras: all traffic stops, encounters of suspicious vehicles or persons, reasonable suspicion detentions or arrests, contacts that are part of an investigation of a scene

or event, responses to calls for domestic disturbances or any other breaches of the public peace, calls answered that involve “emotionally or mentally disturbed subjects,” or calls suspected of involving weapons or violence, as well as responses to calls of suspicious persons or activities. The policy also requires that an officer turn on cameras any time he or she sees or suspects drug activity, as well as every time the officer responds to a call using emergency lights and siren. The cameras also must be turned on every time an officer responds to an “in progress” call. According to the policy, the body-worn cameras must be activated during any “tactical activities,” including the execution of search warrants and during “warrantless searches of individuals, vehicles, buildings, and other places.” The cameras are also to be turned on when the officers inventory seized money or other confiscated property for the first time. In case the policymakers left out anything, there’s also a very general clause that states the body-cams “shall be activated to record any encounter that becomes adversarial after initial contact or in any situation that the officer believes its use would be appropriate or valuable to document the incident or encounter.” As for when the officer turns the cameras off, there’s less verbiage, but that happens at the “conclusion of their involvement in an event,” or when a supervisor instructs the officer to do so. The new policy states in bold type “Before deactivating a BWC [bodyworn camera] officer should state verbally, on camera, the reason for deactivating the camera and that the camera is being deactivated intentionally.” The policy states how long those videos will be retained by the department. This is especially important as it pertains to noncontroversial or non-eventful videos, since there will be a lot of video recorded and it’s expensive to store. According to that policy: “Where the recording is not related to a criminal case, civil litigation, personnel investigation, pending request of another agency, or citizen complaint and none of the other retention categories pertain, the retention period is 30 days. More than one retention period may apply to a recording. When that is the case, the longest retention period controls.” Reading through the list above – videos that aren’t related to a criminal

case or civil investigation, and are not personnel files, would by definition be public records that should be made available to the public. However, this new policy does not classify them as such. The video pertinent to solved misdemeanors will be kept three years, and that involving solved felonies kept for 20 years. Video involving unsolved crimes will be kept until the crime is solved and then the standard threeyear misdemeanor rule or 20-year felony timeline will apply. The new regulations instruct officers to leave the cameras on even if a citizen requests they turn them off. Officers are also not allowed to attempt to edit or delete any portion of the tapes, nor are they allowed to download any part of it for personal use. While the policy calls for extensive coverage of recording the encounters with the public in almost every type of interaction, it specifically bans using the body cams to record other Sheriff’s Department officers. It states that the body-worn cameras “will not intentionally be used to record fellow Sheriff’s Office or County employees except during an investigation of a suspected violation of law.” The policy also bans any recording in restrooms or locker rooms or other places where officers have “an expectation of privacy.” One of the few times the cameras must be turned away from detainees is when sheriff’s officers are stripsearching them. The officer is required to do a 360-degree pan of the area where the strip search is occurring and then point the camera away from the citizen while leaving the camera on in order that the audio continues to record. The cameras are also not to be used to record confidential informants, undercover police officers or for personal activities such as, say, to get a video selfie with a celebrity the officer comes across while on duty in order to post on their Facebook page. The Guilford County district attorney’s office will be able to get the videos for its investigations “unless video is tagged as personnel file material, in which case a Legal Advisor should be contacted before release.” In addition to being used for an investigation by another law enforcement agency, the videos can also be shown for training purposes, provided privacy concerns are addressed and the sheriff approves. Last year, Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne, in a Board of Commissioners meeting, stated that the debate over when body-cam footage could be released was something that, in his opinion, state legislators would need to address with new law.

Payne said this week that he’d heard that those talks were progressing and added that recently there seemed to be indications that state lawmakers may finally address these issues. He also said he’s well aware body-cam issues might end up in court. “Anything we do is an interpretation of state law and if a judge disagrees then the other opinion will carry,” Payne said. More and more, departments across North Carolina and across the country are putting body-worn cameras in the field and there seems generally to be a need for more clarity in state law regarding their use. Like others in the debate, Barnes also said more legal clarity is needed from the state and when the state speaks he will listen. “I’m not going to do anything against the law,” he said.

beep (continued from page 28) just passed. So, you people out there that want to vote for him, what kind of governor do you think he’s going to be who won’t even defend the laws that the General Assembly passes? He’s not worth much more than Hillary, just a smidgeon but not much. I wouldn’t vote for him if he were going for the dogcatcher.

%%% There’s a lot of Democrats out there that are really enjoying what the Republican Party is doing to itself, not endorsing Trump, wanting to go with Cruz and all this other stuff. Anyway, a lot of the Democrats would like to say thank you to the Guilford County Republican Party and you other people out there that are giving Ms. Clinton a very lousy candidate to run against. And I’d like to say thank you for letting Ms. Clinton be elected for splitting the party that you’re doing. Great work. Continue to keep it up. And all those Democrats in Guilford County are very happy that you’re helping us put Ms. Clinton in office.

%%% Thousands of people have voted for Donald Trump, and the Republican Party is telling them that their vote does not count. Rule number 40 dictates how the Republican nominee is chosen can be altered and changed up to the day of the convention. The day before the convention the Republican Party can change the rules to be that

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letters

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EMPTY BARRELS? DEAR EDITOR,

I am so tired of people being hard on Gov. Pat McCrory and the General Assembly. If they can do better then file to run. The governor did right by signing this bill because it protects the many and does not cater to the few. The negative press is being pushed by the liberal side of this whole issue. I think this was all played out to give Roy Cooper an edge because most on the council down in Charlotte knew that the General Assembly and governor would respond with a bill so they set up the whole mess. There is no discrimination here because you can go into a bathroom still or pick a solo unit. The Greensboro City Council should be asked would they mind their daughters/wives going into a bathroom with a guy following right behind. The answer is no but they

will lie. The governor protected my rights and of many others. The liberals are going too far and asking for too much because when you step on others rights then you are not right to start with. The governor has done plenty to turn around the state, but the media will not mention this but only bathrooms. The media will mention no news of business coming back to North Carolina, unemployment down, education getting more money, welfare down. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. We are all Americans and we should respect the law and common sense. Pat did right and followed the law. There is an old saying, empty barrels make the most noise. That’s what all the bathroom sharing loud mouths are doing, making noise. Don’t violate my rights to give someone more rights.

Sal Leone

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

beep (continued from previous page) the nominee’s last name has to be Bush. And they can only have a vice president with a last name Romney. The Republicans will either nominate someone who will continue to feather their nest or destroy the party. How great it regardless of the Republican nominee the people who would go to the polls would write in the name Donald Trump.

%%% I am glad that the FBI has finally found a way to get the information off the phone that the San Bernardino, California, couple used. What about the mother-in-law that lived in that same small house with this couple? With the delivery of guns, ammunition and explosives to require someone to sign for them, she had to know something was going on. Not a single word about interrogation of her has been mentioned. How about letting Donald Trump spend a couple of hours uninterrupted with her, and I guarantee that he’ll get more information from her than what the FBI will get off the phone.

%%% I’d like to respond to the bill they just put in effect, Gov. McCrory. Thank you very much for doing that. As a

grandfather and father of children, I thank you very much for protecting my family. There is no reason for these gays and the transgenders to be out in force marching and protesting. And a lot of the college students just doing it to be on TV. There’s no sense in this kind of mess going on in this state. As far as the NBA, keep your All Star Game wherever you had it before. Fine with us. We don’t need that. Same with these businesses. If you can’t deal with working with regular people, then you need to do business with others. We’re sick and tired of being dictated to by a minute minority. You overstepped the line this time, because it’s endangering our children’s and our grandchildren’s future and their safety just to go to the restroom.

%%% I think I speak for the majority of the people on this uproar about House Bill 2. Whatever happened to common sense? Whatever happened to rights of 95 percent of the people? Why should we be dictated to by a noisy minority aided by the liberal media? Let’s just use common sense. Nothing is

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32 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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can withhold is that, unlike most states and cities, the federal government doesn’t have to balance its budget. The federal government got the states to pass Common Core educational standards for schools simply by threatening to withhold funding from the states that didn’t. The fact that Common Core was not a curriculum, but just a bunch of ideas, didn’t seem to bother anybody except the teachers who were told to go in the classroom and teach with no curriculum. One of my favorites is that the federal government controls mass transit in the country because it pays for it. The federal government pays for 80 percent of the cost of buses. In Greensboro, the bus system runs at a large deficit every year, and that’s with buses that the federal and state

beep (continued from page 31) going to change in North Carolina except our rights will be protected, particularly the rights of women and teenage girls to some privacy in the bathroom. Anyhow, if the common sense people of North Carolina will stick together and uphold this bill, other states will follow suit and only businesses that say they will pull out, they won’t, because nothing is really going to change. Thank you.

%%% With all the problems we’re having in this state, and this country, and in this world, all the things you hear about in the paper and on the news is about a bill about going to the potty. Doesn’t that show what kind of stupid people that we are? The guy that wrote the new Obamacare thing says that they wrote it because they knew that the people in the United States were stupid. I thought at the time he was the stupid one, but now I’m beginning to think that he is correct. We are a bunch of stupid people except for the Rhino Times, which really is a great paper. Thank you for printing it.

%%% To the person who called in the Beep saying that Jesus Christ is a black man. Uh, I was just wondering, where did you meet him at? Where did you see him at? And could you bring him to my house, I’d like to meet him.

%%%

governments buy. The Galyon Depot downtown was paid for with federal dollars, as was the fairly new bus maintenance facility. In fact, federal budgets are pretty much a joke. You start off $19.2 trillion dollars in debt. So then you can make a really strong argument that bringing that up to $19.3 trillion next year is really not going to be that much different than bringing it up to $19.8 trillion. If the country can ever figure out a way to repay $19.3 trillion then it can surely repay $19.8 trillion, so what’s the difference? The difference is $500 billion, which is what the annual budget deficit is projected to be this fiscal year. But, really, when you owe so much money, if you don’t plan on cutting the budget down to start paying off some of that debt, does it really make that much difference? The other part of the equation that is downright silly is arguing that the federal government needs to raise taxes. When the government some years borrows more than one-third of the money it spends, that means to raise taxes enough to balance the budget would require raising taxes to

the point that the revenue produced would be one-third higher. The reason the Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich is not to be more fiscally responsible but because it is a good campaign issue. The Democratic base loves the idea of sticking it to the rich guy, and the rich Democrats aren’t worried because they know they’ll find a way around those taxes. Why is Gov. John Kasich still in the Republican presidential primary? It is impossible for him to win enough delegates to be nominated. Even after Wisconsin, where he once again didn’t receive a single delegate, Sen. Marco Rubio has more delegates than Kasich. He has finished last in most of the primaries and caucuses that have been held. He has won one primary – in Ohio where he is the sitting governor. But even in neighboring states he has not fared well. Kasich at this point is like so many candidates who file to run for local office, raise no money, have no campaign and no chance of winning, but they evidently like to see their name on the ballot so they run. Maybe Kasich is really bored with being governor and he enjoys walking

mental health (continued from page 14)

Another critical element of earlier discussions has been on ensuring staff who know the local community and who have worked with members and local providers continue to remain in the organization and serve the local community. I expect all of those areas and more to be central items in future discussions.” Dr. Courtney Cantrell, the senior director of the Division of Mental Health/ Developmental Disabilities/Substance Abuse Services of the NC DHHS, said the state is attempting to conduct the consolidations in a way that will address the counties’ concerns and, in the end, she said, it should result in a stronger organization with better service delivery. Cantrell said previous consolidations streamlined operations in a way that made it easier to vet service providers, and she added that the state was determined to see that mental health providers meet the state’s criteria and deliver services in the right way. She said that, even with consolidation, counties such as Guilford could

maintain some local control. “Sandhills still has a presence in Guilford County,” she said. “We want to make sure everyone has a local presence.” Cantrell also said the NC DHHS was “absolutely committed” to creating a more stable delivery service that will also benefit the end users. She said the coming changes will help keep the system viable in the long run and create more overall stability. She added that further consolidation will mean better coordination of services including, for instance, an ability to provide better oversight of foster care children who need to be temporarily housed outside of their home area. After the newly announced mergers are complete, the current eight administrative organizations will be grouped into four regional ones that will include a western region group with Smoky Mountain Center and Partners Behavioral Health, an east regional organization consisting of Trillium Health Resources and Eastpointe, a north-central regional group with

to the podium in a big hall with a dozen American flags behind him and 10 people huddled over in the corner of the room. Even when he finds out the 10 people are the custodians hired to clean the hall after the rally he still launches into his campaign speech, waving his arms around like he’s attempting to fly and talking about back in the good old days when he single-handedly balanced the federal budget. Or maybe it’s something simple, like he’s really not getting along with his wife and this gets him out of the house. The only way that Kasich could get the nomination at this point is if the Republican leadership decides it wants Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders to be president, and in this odd year that actually doesn’t seem so farfetched. In fact, it appears more and more like the Republican establishment is determined to ignore the wishes of its base and nominate someone, anyone, who they can control. That, unfortunately for the Republican establishment, eliminates the two candidates who together have won almost all of the primaries. If the Republican establishment can’t unite behind Kasich, maybe they could get Sen. Lindsey Graham to run.

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Cardinal Innovations and Center Point, and a south-central regional group composed of Alliance and Sandhills. Brajer added, “Consistency of type and availability of services vary across the state. Consolidation will improve consistency, decrease administrative burden on providers offering services to more than one LMO/MCO.” It adds, “In summary, further consolidation will improve quality of services, accessibility, accountability and long term sustainability.” Trapp said he remains unconvinced. He said the whole thing reminds him of the now infamous NC FAST software system that the state social services departments use to process food stamps and other benefit claims. The system was developed during the administration of former Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue, and Trapp, also a Democrat, said there’s widespread consensus the system simply doesn’t work, yet the state keeps pushing counties to use it, even though Republicans are in power. “It’s not a political thing,” Trapp said of NC FAST. “It’s just not working.” He said mental health consolidation, too, is something that’s not working but something the counties are clearly going to see more of in the near future.

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When he was in the race, statistically he didn’t scratch, which means the number of Graham supporters among rank-and-file Republicans could hold a meeting in an office cubicle. Graham would have even less chance of winning than Kasich. At the moment it appears that Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to work his magic to become the Republican nominee. Ryan got to be House speaker by saying that he didn’t want to be speaker, and he is evidently trying the same thing again with the Republican presidential nomination. Of course he wants to be the Republican presidential nominee, but saying that he didn’t want it worked for him in the House, so why not give it a try again? Ryan does make more sense than Kasich. Donald Trump put his foot in his mouth when asked a hypothetical question about abortion. An experienced politician would have said, “I don’t answer hypothetical questions.” Everyone with any sense

would know what she or he was really saying is, “I don’t want to answer that hypothetical question. Ask me one that I like better.” And if the candidate was a Democrat, like Hillary Clinton, that would be the end of the discussion. Except there would be some backlash in the print media for someone insulting Hillary Clinton by asking a question she didn’t want to answer. But Trump is not an experienced politician. He seems to have the mindset that when he is asked a question he should answer it. The problem he has is that, unlike Democrats or Republicans the media likes, Trump is not allowed to walk back a statement. Obama does it all the time, as does Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is going to be interrogated by the FBI about her email server. FBI Director James Comey would not be questioning Hillary Clinton if he didn’t believe, from looking at all the evidence, that there was a good

chance that she committed crimes. If the evidence had cleared Hillary Clinton there would be no need for the interview. This is going to be really tough for Hillary Clinton because she laughs off the questions from the media and they never follow up. They get one question and then they move on to ask her about how it feels to be a grandmother. Comey and the FBI agents conducting the interview are not going to allow Hillary Clinton to make jokes or dodge questions. They will keep asking the questions until they get an answer that they are convinced is complete. But the biggest problem for Hillary Clinton is going to be the fact that lying to the FBI is a crime. Her husband, Bill Clinton, was impeached for lying under oath, so she should be somewhat familiar with how it works. The problem is that Hillary Clinton is so accustomed to lying about nearly everything, it’s going to be tough for her to remember how to tell the truth. The FBI has a massive amount of evidence. They have 22 emails that contain top secret and even more secret information. Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. She can’t claim ignorance of the

entire system of classifying information – and it is the information itself that is classified, not the document. She knows that and the FBI knows that. Hillary Clinton can’t operate the way she has always operated by expecting to be treated as a privileged person who isn’t required to account for her actions. If she is indicted, then she can continue to run and she will still have support. The people who vote for her know that she is a liar and that she manipulates the system for her advantage. They aren’t going to abandon her just because some “false charges” were filed against her. But she will lose all but the hard-core disciples. A problem that is potentially more devastating is going to be holding on to her superdelegates. A good number of her superdelegates are elected officials themselves. They have to worry about what their supporters are going to think about them pledging their vote to a candidate who is under indictment by the FBI. If she loses her superdelegates, she loses her lead. If she loses her lead then she is no longer in inevitable candidate, and that is still the basis of her campaign.

34 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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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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

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!

Dr. Virgil V. Wllard II with Bandit & King George Board Certiﬁed by the American Board of Plastic Surgery

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by John Hammer

The front-runners took a beating in Wisconsin. Donald Trump had a disastrous campaign week leading up to Tuesday’s primary, and it didn’t help that Republican Gov. Scott Walker got out and campaigned for Sen. Ted Cruz. It appears that, at least in Wisconsin, Cruz found a winning campaign slogan: “I am not Donald Trump.” Even people who hate Cruz voted for him because they hate Trump more. In politics you use what works, and Cruz running as the Trump-killer worked in Wisconsin. Cruz still has to win the vast majority of the delegates from here on out to win the nomination. But even if Trump keeps putting his foot in his mouth, the numbers just don’t work for Cruz, which is too bad because he could run the same campaign in the fall: “I know you hate me, but who do you hate more – Hillary Clinton or me?” The next set of primaries are in states where Trump, despite his recent spate of gaffes, has commanding leads. If Trump would show a little campaign discipline and stick with the messages that have gotten him this far, he should win the next round. But getting to the magic number of 1,237 delegates gets ever more difficult. As much as the Republican establishment hates Trump, if he doesn’t make it to 1,237, it’s difficult to imagine the Republicans rolling over and giving him the nomination anyway.

Then again, Trump could make a deal. If he offered the vice presidential slot to Cruz, who knows what might happen. According to what I’ve read, it would depend on the rules of the convention, which won’t be set until the convention starts. It’s interesting to look at bookmakers’ odds in Ireland, because, unlike political pundits who can be wrong time after time with no consequences, the bookmakers lose money if they are wrong. They still give Trump 10-to-11 odds of winning the nomination, while they place the odds for Cruz at 9 to 5, Kasich at 13 to 2 and Ryan at 10 to 1. Of course, if you like long odds, the bet to place is on Mitt Romney, who the bookmakers put at 100-to-1 odds. On the Democratic side they put Hillary Clinton at 1 to 10 and Sanders at 5 to 1. Vice President Joe Biden is at 33 to 1. I love the way the mainstream media spin the news. This week the unemployment figures went up half a percentage point, and that’s good news because it means more people are looking for work – according to the mainstream media. Of course, when unemployment goes down that’s also good news because it means that fewer people are unemployed. So with President Barack Hussein Obama in office, whether the unemployment rate goes up or down, it’s good news. When a Republican is in office, when the unemployment rate goes up it’s bad news because more

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people are unemployed, and when it goes down it means fewer people are looking for work, which is also bad news. What is incredible is that anybody believes anything about the unemployment figures released by the government. The figures are so manipulated that they mean nothing. Some people talk about the true unemployment rate – the number of people who want to work but can’t find jobs. It is reportedly hovering around 10 percent according to some, but who knows if that is a real figure or not? The other huge factor is that government economic figures seem to always get revised a couple of months later, when nobody really cares anymore. So although the federal government is now reporting that the unemployment rate is 5 percent, it could turn out in a couple of months that it will be revised to 6 percent or 4 percent. Who knows? The numbers are so manipulated as to be essentially meaningless. If someone, for instance, had been the president of a small business who was making $250,000 and loses his job and goes on unemployment and then gets a job as a Wal-Mart greeter at $10 an hour, that is a plus according to the unemployment rate. The whole thing is simply a way for the administration and the mainstream media to make the economy appear to be whatever they want it to be. The United States is over $19 trillion dollars in debt. If you think about that amount of money and paying it back, it is mind-boggling.

The federal government while Obama has been president has spent over $1.6 trillion dollars more than it has taken in some years. Right now it is borrowing about $500 billion a year, which is considered a huge improvement by Washington standards. Only in the topsy-turvy world of Washington politics could borrowing and spending $500 billion a year be considered successful monetary policy. The truth is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans believe this enormous and growing national debt is a problem. In this particular issue, the Democrats are far more honest than the Republicans. The Democrats make no bones about increasing the national debt. The Republicans wail and gnash their teeth about it when it is the Democrats spending more money. But when the debt has increased under Republican control it was done for “good reason.” The reason neither party is really interested in solving the debt problem is that solving it will make it more difficult for those in Washington to get reelected and would result in the federal government giving up power it has usurped from the states and local governments. The federal government forces states to do all kinds of things that it doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do by threatening to withhold federal dollars. But the reason Congress has all this money it

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36 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, April 7, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com