March 31, 2016

Vol. IV No. 13

Greensboro, North Carolina

www.rhinotimes.com

NC RESTROOMS: SAME AS THEY EVER WERE Scott D. Yost

Lost Bag of Votes plus Under The Hammer, Uncle Orson Reviews Everything AND MORE

Thursday, March 31, 2016

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

THE WEEKLY Hammer

The Weekly Hammer

State Set Me Up

by John Hammer Editor I got it wrong last week.

I was shocked when I picked up the newspaper Saturday morning and read that 22 candidates had filed to run in the 13th Congressional District and that filing had closed Friday, March 25.

I was shocked, not by the number – it was about what I expected – but because it said that filing had closed.

I had reported that filing had been extended to Monday because Friday, March 25 was a holiday.

I checked the State Board of Elections website and it said filing closed on Friday, March 25 at noon.

It wasn’t until Monday that I was sure filing had closed on Friday. On Monday I called Guilford County Elections Director Charlie Collicutt and he helped me get to the bottom of it.

His office had told me that filing had been extended to Monday because Friday was a holiday, and that was correct – it had been extended to Monday for filing documents that were mailed in, but then it was un-extended.

The fault lies with the North Carolina State Board of Elections office in Raleigh and its poor calendar

reading and communication skills.

Collicutt sent me screen captures of the State Board of Elections website documenting the changes.

The state law passed to create the districts and the new primary schedule had listed the filing deadline as Friday, March 25 at noon. So that was what was posted originally on the State Board of Elections website.

Then someone in the office realized that Friday, March 25 was Good Friday and a state holiday. The assumption was that mail would not be delivered on Good Friday, so the website was amended to read, “If mailed, the notice and appropriate filing fee must be received no later than noon on Monday, March 25, 2016. March 25th is a postal holiday, thus there will be no mail delivery for the State Board of Elections on this date. Any notice received by mail after March 25th will not be timely.”

Another printout of the State Board of Elections website corrects this obvious mistake, since there is no Monday, March 25, 2016, and the corrected state website reads, “If mailed the notice and appropriate filing fee must be received no later than noon Monday, March 28, 2016.

March 25th is a postal holiday. …”

Then someone at the State Board of Elections did some research or, perhaps, received a phone call telling them that while Friday, March 25 was a state holiday, it was not a federal holiday and mail would be delivered.

So the State Board of Elections website was amended one more time, back to the original, stating that filing closed on Friday, March 25 at noon, and whether the notice was mailed or hand delivered it had to be in the State Board of Elections office by noon on Friday, March 25.

The problem was that the State Board of Elections didn’t bother to send out notices of the changes.

Evidently everyone considering running, plus those in country boards of elections offices across the state and the media, were expected to constantly check the State Board of Elections website to see if they had changed their minds. In the Guilford County Board of Elections office, the person in charge of filing had printed out the website when it read that filing would be accepted until noon on Monday, March 28. Having not received any notice from the state that the date had been changed back to the original, there seemed to be no reason to check the website every few minutes to see if the State Board of Elections office had changed the deadline again.

Even the corrected version of filing brought up problems because, although the State Board of Elections office in Raleigh was open on Friday to accept filings up until noon, candidates were directed by the state website to go to their county board of elections office first and have the county officials verify that they were

eligible to run for office, and then bring or mail that verification and the filing fee to Raleigh by noon on March 25.

So let’s say someone wakes up Friday, March 25 and decides to run for Congress. They go to the state website that says they have to go to the county board of elections office to be verified and then go to Raleigh.

If they then went to the Guilford County Board of Elections office in Greensboro, they found it closed.

What they could have done was then drive to Raleigh without the verification that the state website said they had to have and they would have been allowed to file. The State Board of Elections would have then contacted the county elections office when it was open on Monday and verified that the candidate was eligible to run, but there was nothing on the State Board of Elections website to indicate that this was a possibility.

As far as I know, no potential candidate actually did this, but it seems reasonable that it could have happened. And in that case the potential candidate, following the explicit directions from the State Board of Elections, would have been denied their right to file for office.

For the last few years the State Board of Elections has frequently messed up the returns on election night. The way the process is supposed to work is that the county elections offices send the information – precinct by precinct, as those votes are received in the office and counted – to the State Board of Elections office in Raleigh, and then the state posts those results on the website.

On March 15, the date of the North

(continued on page 6)

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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Sunday, April 3 @ 6 pm • UNC-TV

Lessons on leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship.

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in a compelling conversation with HPU President Nido Qubein on technology and innovation.

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

HINOSHORTS

by John Hammer Editor

Thursday, April 7 at 7 p.m., at Scuppernong Books at 304 S. Elm St. in downtown Greensboro, Kings English is sponsoring 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.

Hopefully, the panel discussion will be more interesting than the Democratic presidential debates and not as caustic as the Republican presidential debates.

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. (continued on page 35)

Photo by John Hammer

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

NC Restrooms: Same As They Ever Were

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by John Hammer The liberal mainstream media are relentlessly attacking NC House Bill 2, better known as the “Bathroom Bill,” passed by the state legislature last week, which states that the use of restrooms and locker rooms will be determined by biological sex.

First of all, despite the impression given in the mainstream media, this law was passed with bipartisan support.

In the state House, 11 Democratic representatives voted in favor of the bill and 26 voted against it. The bill passed 82 to 26, with all Republicans present voting in favor.

In the state Senate, the bill passed unanimously with all 32 Republican senators present voting in favor and not a single Democrat voting against

it. The Democrats walked out rather than vote on the bill. If it is such a bad bill, why didn’t the Democrats want their “no” votes recorded?

It’s hard to believe that the fact that men should use the men’s restroom and women should use the women’s restroom is controversial. But evidently it is denying people their right to use whatever restroom or locker room they feel like using regardless of their gender and, according to the liberal rhetoric, taking away a fundamental right. Who knew that men had a fundamental right to go in the bathrooms and locker rooms designated for women?

The ordinance passed by the Charlotte City Council would have required private businesses to allow men to use the women’s restroom and vice versa. The new state law allows

private businesses to decide their own bathroom and locker room policy.

All of the private companies that are now expressing opposition to the law are free to make all their bathrooms, showers and locker rooms open to anyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation or sexual identity. They can take all the signs off the doors and replace them with “Restroom” or “Locker Room” if they so desire.

The Charlotte law took away the rights of private businesses to make that decision and the state law, which is being called discriminatory, gave it back. How is that discrimination?

One aspect of the ordinance that the Charlotte City Council seemed to ignore is the fact that men are frequently arrested for drilling holes (continued on page 10)

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

state

table of

(continued from page 2) Carolina primary, Guilford County was sending the results to Raleigh as they were supposed to do, but they were not getting posted on the website.

Collicutt told me that he checked several times to make certain that the information was sent and received in Raleigh in the correct format, but once the results are sent, the Guilford County Board of Elections has no way to post them on the website. That has to be done by the state.

And once again this year the state was having big problems getting the results posted correctly and in a timely manner. Some of the time the number of precincts reporting was wrong. Some of the time the state website, instead of posting new returns, went back to zero.

There is a problem in the State Board of Elections office in Raleigh.

The problem with the election returns could be that the computer equipment being used in Raleigh doesn’t have the computing power to handle returns coming in from all over the state at once. If that is the case there is a simple fix – bigger, better computers and more bandwidth.

However, the mix-up over the filing deadline to run for Congress points to sudoku_519B a personnel problem.

Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz Someone should have checked to see if Friday, 9 March 25 was a state and federal holiday. When it was discovered, 8 by4looking at readily available calendars, that it was a state 6 a 2decision 5 but not a federal holiday, should have been made about how to 5 handle that and then notices should have been7sent out to the 100 1 board of elections offices in the state and 7 3 6 the media.

Since this wasn’t done and there 4 apparently confusion at the State was

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Board of Elections office, notices should have been sent out every time the state elections officials, with a new bit of information, changed their minds about how to handle the filing.

What is completely unacceptable is the way this was handled, where clearly false information was posted on the state website, not once but twice. And when it was finally corrected, notices should have been sent out more than once to correct the false information posted on the state website and to inform people how to file on Friday.

Elections are far too important to be run by the state in such a haphazard manner. People who have trouble reading and understanding calendars or who are too busy to look at calendars and prefer to just guess about dates have no business running such an office, nor do people whose work is so careless that they would post on an official state website something as incorrect as “Monday, March 25, 2016.”

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has a lot on his plate right now, but before the November elections, he needs to spend enough time to fix the problems at the state elections office in Raleigh.

I think I speak for most voters in the state when I say that we want to know who won on the night of Tuesday, Nov. 8 and not have to wait until Wednesday, Nov. 9 to see the correct returns.

If the state can’t handle a primary election with a relatively low voter turnout in a timely manner, how in the world is the same group with the same equipment going to handle the returns from a general election in a presidential election year?

Crossword Solution

Sudoku Solution

Solution sudoku_519B

2 5 3 9 6 8 4 7 1

From last week’s issue

4 6 7 3 5 1 9 8 2

9 8 1 2 7 4 6 5 3

1 4 9 5 8 7 2 3 6

7 2 8 6 3 9 5 1 4

5 3 6 1 4 2 7 9 8

3 7 2 4 1 5 8 6 9

6 9 5 8 2 3 1 4 7

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WEEKLY HAMMER

25 YOST COLUMN

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NC REST ROOMS: SAME AS THEY EVER WERE

27 ASK CAROLYN ...

BY JOHN HAMMER

BY CAROLYN WOODRUFF

BY JOHN HAMMER

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39 UNDER THE HAMMER

ELECTIONS OFFICE FINDS LOST BAG O’ VOTES

BY SCOTT D. YOST

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BY SCOTT D. YOST

13TH DISTRICT REPUB PRIMARY BURSTING AT SEAMS

BY JOHN HAMMER

11 AIRPORT OFFICIALS TRYING TO LAND MAJOR PROJECT

BY SCOTT D. YOST

BY JOHN HAMMER

4 6 12 19 20 21 23 32 34 38

RHINO SHORTS PUZZLE ANSWERS SUDOKU REAL ESTATE NYT CROSSWORD CHILDREN’S SCHEDULE THE SOUND OF THE BEEP LETTERS TO THE EDITOR GET FUZZY EDITORIAL CARTOON

12 TURBO TAX GLITCHES COST COUNTY TAXPAYERS EXTRA

BY SCOTT D. YOST

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17 UNCLE ORSON

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

PUBLISHER Roy Carroll EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Hammer

GENERAL MANAGER Joann Zollo

managing editor ELAINE HAMMER

creative director ANTHONY COUNCIL

519B

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

(c) PZZL.com

CONTENTS

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D R P H I L

S N O O T Y

T A P P E R

V A S E

E S T E E

L O O K W H A T I F O U N D

G U T G O O

T O B E F A I R

From last week’s issue

D A S I E S M I C O C R F T L E X S I J B O S E

E P C O T

L O C K E

N E E D S

O T H E R

P O E E L I O T

P T S A R T L E R S S I E U P P E T A E U S R S T R N R U H E H R O X R O N E N K S S F T O R B O R E R P R E R S P I N I D E N O O

O R E O P E T A T I C K T R W A R O H Y E M I N E A P N C H E Y O M A C H P O L O E K E R I S B O I R A T S I D E M R I G P O N A I T B T O

A S N H E E R S P D E E R L O I N S E D A N

T E E

T E G R I S N E

S C A R P

K O R E A

E S C O O O T E C E A R R G D S P A S P T A I R

S U N D R I E D T O M A T O

T R I S T A T E

O S A

E A S E L

N E R F

A L I B I S

S T E L L A

M O D E L T

Y M A

county editor SCOTT D. YOST contributing editor ORSON SCOTT CARD

advertising consultants CHRISTINE CHAPMAN DARDEN KELLY TYE SINGLETON DONNA WILLEN

cartoonist GEOF BROOKS

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

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Elections Office Finds Lost Bag o’ Votes

by Scott D. Yost

Guilford County elections staff came across a lost bag of votes in a supply room storage unit that were cast in the Tuesday, March 15 primary.

And, after the bag was discovered on Tuesday, March 22, the Guilford County Board of Elections held an emergency meeting to assess the nature of the problem and to authorize that those votes be included in the election results that the board had previously approved.

The bag, found by an alarmed election staffer who was boxing up supplies a week after the March 15 election, contained 24 curbside ballots cast at Mendenhall Middle School in Greensboro; ballots that weren’t turned in by the precinct manager as votes, but were instead mistakenly thrown in with surplus election supplies, such as instructional signs and unused forms.

The employee discovered that, along with the unused supplies in the storage unit, one bag contained votes that hadn’t been counted in the results, and she informed Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt of the situation.

Collicutt said the employee didn’t revel in the task of informing him that the votes had been found but she knew she had to.

“She was scared to give them to me,” Collicutt said.

All precincts in North Carolina offer curbside voting, a process that allows voters who have trouble walking or getting in and out of vehicles to cast their votes from their car using paper ballots. On election night after the polls close, those ballots, along with the electronically recorded votes from voting machines, are driven by precinct officials to the parking lot under the Old Guilford County Court House and dropped off with county elections officials. Precinct workers do go through some training, but they generally aren’t election professionals like those who count the votes on election night.

Fortunately, none of the races in the March 22 primary were close enough that the 24 votes could change the outcome. However, the incident has election officials trying to understand exactly how the mix-up happened so they can implement new election

procedures that will prevent this from occurring again.

Collicutt said his office is changing some of those procedures.

“We are coming up with a better plan to address this and see that it does not happen in the future,” Collicutt said.

Another mistake at the same precinct kept the problem from being discovered on election night. Precinct workers mistakenly put the 24 voters’ “authorization to vote” forms inside the envelope. If those forms hadn’t been put inside the envelopes, the county’s elections office would have been tipped off on election night that something was amiss because the number of voters in the precinct and the number of votes cast wouldn’t have matched up. However, since the forms were inside the lost envelopes, county elections workers didn’t see any discrepancy.

The emergency meeting of the three-member Guilford County Board of Elections was held at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 24 in a small conference room at the county’s elections offices in the Old Guilford County Court House.

Chairman Kathryn Lindley and new member Jim Kimel were in the room with Collicutt and other staff, while board member Don Wendelken, the board’s secretary, participated by phone.

Collicutt explained the series of events to the Elections Board.

“As we were going through some of the final paperwork that we have – not even paperwork, just the bags of paperwork that was unused – we found the 24 curbside ballots,” Collicutt told the board members at the March 24 emergency meeting.

“Within each of the curbside ballot envelopes – because they are sealed individually – were the authorization to vote forms,” he said. “So these are supposed to be turned in in a bag, based on instructions and training, when they come back and we get them on election night. They were in supplies that we really didn’t check until later on.”

Collicutt also said the precinct official wasn’t the only one to blame.

He said he, Collicutt, and his elections staff “should have done a better job catching this before this happened.”

He added that the important thing

Photo by Scott D. Yost Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt, Elections Board Chairman Kathryn Lindley, Board Member Jim Kimel and elections staff member Sherrie Brewer (from left) counting the lost votes. now was to learn from the error and see that the 24 votes were included as they should have been initially. Collicutt said he had spent the prior day, Wednesday, March 23, attempting to find the best way to handle the situation.

He said it was determined that the best move would be to “reconvene canvas and amend the final results” to reflect the tabulation of these 24 votes. The canvasing process, which had already been completed, involves the Board of Elections accounting for, verifying and approving the vote totals from the election. Since the original results had to be changed, the board officially reconvened canvas operations.

During the meeting, Wendelken asked, “Just to be clear, they were always there; they were just in a location where they should not have been?”

“That’s correct; they were in the office,” Collicutt said.

“OK, I’m good with that,” Wendelken said.

Lindley also said she could vote to add the 24 ballots to the results.

“It’s understandable that not every bag was looked into – but every bag that was supposed to have ballots was looked into,” she said. “But we’ve found them now, so we can address these.”

Lindley added later, “They were here in the office; they were secure, and they should be counted.”

The board voted unanimously to allow the votes to be included and to amend the results.

Wendelken said he was glad the situation did not affect outcomes.

“Nothing detrimental occurred,” Wendelken said, “which is great and I think this would be a real good

learning curve in the future that, as the bags come back in, a checklist is used – and I’m sure that is done.”

Wendelken added that the elections office needed to see that “a little more scrutiny occurs so this doesn’t happen again.”

This isn’t the first time the Guilford County elections office has found a misplaced batch of votes after an election. In 2004, a container with 93 uncounted votes was found in a secure room where other ballots had been stored. In that election, the votes were in a metal ballot box that was locked up inside a vault-like room with other votes, but in that case the box had gotten pushed back out of site and those votes weren’t found until after the election results had been tallied.

In that 2004 election, former Guilford County Commissioner Trudy Wade, a Republican who’s now a state senator, was engaged in an intense legal fight over the narrow elections result for the seat that Wade held on the Board of Commissioners. Wade was initially found to have the most votes. However, the provisional votes, including the 93 lost votes that were found, reversed the outcome.

The courts ultimately decided in favor of Democratic contender John Parks, but the long legal proceedings kept him from taking the seat for over a year after the election.

In that closely contested battle, the discovery of the “lost” 93 votes found after the election added a great deal of fuel to the fire that was already raging in that contest.

Collicutt said he remembers that well: “That was my first year full time and it was just an incredible experience.”

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

13th District Republican Primary Bursting at Seams

by John Hammer Two years ago, nine Republican candidates running for the 6th Congressional District seat seemed like a crowded field, but the number of Republicans filing for the new 13th District seat is almost double that.

Seventeen Republican candidates filed to represent the district that stretches from downtown Greensboro west past Statesville to the Iredell County line and includes almost all of High Point, all of Davidson and Davie counties, part of Rowan and most of Iredell counties.

A whole crowd of Republicans from Greensboro and High Point had been mentioned as possible candidates, but only two filed: state Rep. John Blust and Guilford County Commissioner Hank Henning.

Blust is serving his eighth term in the state House after serving one term in the state Senate.

Henning is in his first term as a county commissioner but has served a year as chairman and has the advantage of being from High Point.

As the ninth largest city in North Carolina, you would expect there to have been a few congressmen from High Point, but no High Point resident has ever been elected to Congress, and Republicans in High Point may see this as a great opportunity to change that.

It does appear that the race might develop into somewhat of a regional struggle and it’s going to be an expensive district to run in. The eastern portion of the district is in the Greensboro-High PointWinston-Salem television market while the western

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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portion is in the Charlotte television market. To cover the entire district would take television buys in both markets.

State Sen. Andrew Brock from Mocksville is in his seventh term in the Senate and represents Davie County, most of Iredell and part of Rowan.

Early handicappers gave Brock and advantage, but that advantage was dissipated when state Rep. Julia Howard filed. Howard is in her 14th term in the House and is a powerful and respected member of the House Republican Caucus. She is also from Mocksville and her district includes all of Davie County and part of Forsyth.

Howard also has the advantage in this race of being one of three women. Women voters tend to vote for women, which in this race could make enough of a difference to put her near the top of the list on election night.

State Rep. Harry Warren of Salisbury, who is in his third term in the House and represents most of Rowan County has also filed.

One factor that is going to play huge in this 17-candidate primary race is the fact that there is no runoff election. Whoever has the most votes on June 7 wins, regardless of the percentage. In North Carolina in most primaries a candidate has to have over 40 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.

In this race a candidate could win with less than 10 percent as long as it’s one vote more than the second-place finisher.

Davie County Commissioner Dan Barrett, an attorney who ran for governor in 2004 and lives in Advance, has filed. (continued on page 14)

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!

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10 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

restrooms (continued from page 5) in the walls of public bathrooms and peeping at women. However, a Google search didn’t turn up any instances of women drilling holes in the walls of men’s bathrooms and peeping at them. These peepers are usually twisted heterosexual men who get their thrills from observing women in the bathroom.

If these men are willing to risk arrest by drilling peepholes and peering through them, do people actually believe they would hesitate to claim they are transgender in order to have access to a woman’s bathroom?

If a man says that he identifies as a woman, who is to say that he doesn’t?

Before Bruce Jenner had surgery and became Caitlyn Jenner, he certainly looked nothing like a woman, but he says he identified as a woman.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said the Charlotte ordinance was unenforceable.

In cities that have passed laws similar to those in Charlotte, men have been apprehended for hanging out in women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.

Their defense was that they identified as women.

HB 2 does allow a transgender person who has surgery to have their birth certificate changed, and the new state law states that you must use the restroom based on the gender on your birth certificate.

A memo from City Attorney Tom Carruthers to the members of the Greensboro City Council states that this new law will have little effect on Greensboro. In Greensboro, before the law was passed, people were expected to use the restroom facilities of their biological gender and they still are.

Another portion of the new state law prohibits cities from setting a minimum wage for private businesses.

Greensboro has not set a minimum wage for businesses in Greensboro, but has raised the minimum wage for city employees, which it still has the power to do.

Carruthers did note, “This means that the recent amendments in City policy and ordinance to protect gender identity

and gender preference are probably eliminated.” Also, that because the statute takes precedence over city ordinances, the ability of the Human Relations Commission to “investigate and regulate citizen complaints of employment discrimination and public accommodation discrimination are now eliminated.”

State Rep. Jon Hardister of Greensboro brought up an aspect of HB 2 that has received little press.

Hardister said, “Charlotte overstepped its authority.”

Hardister said that all the power that cities have is granted to them by state government, since cities operate under charters granted by the state legislature.

Charlotte didn’t have the authority to establish a policy on who uses what restrooms for private businesses.

Hardister said that on issues like this it is necessary to have a statewide policy and not a hodgepodge of different laws.

This is the reasoning behind another portion of the bill that established the “protection of rights in employment and public accommodations.” The law establishes that people cannot be discriminated against because of “race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.”

Because lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender people are not included on this list, the law is said to be discriminatory.

The High Point Market, better known as the furniture market, is ignoring an old adage, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” The furniture market receives $1.2 million for marketing and $1.2 million for transportation from the state each year.

In the state budget passed last year, state Sen. Trudy Wade, who represents

High Point, fought hard for the furniture market and got the allocation raised by $544,000 per year to the present level.

By joining the onslaught of opposition to HB 2, the furniture market may have put that funding in jeopardy. In fact, the Republican leadership is already talking about the fact that it needs additional funds to give teachers in the state a raise and it may decide that paying teachers more is a better use of state money than handing it over to a group that is publicly opposed to its actions.

The furniture market is free under the new law, as is any private business, to take the gender specific signs off the doors of all the restrooms in the Market buildings and just have restrooms instead of having men’s restrooms and women’s restrooms.

This is the political season and Attorney General and Democratic candidate for governor Roy Cooper has decided to jump on the bandwagon in oppositions to HB 2. The state is being sued over HB 2 and it is the attorney general’s job to defend the state in lawsuits.

The North Carolina General Statutes states, “It shall be the duty of the Attorney General (1) To defend all actions in the appellate division in which the State shall be interested, or a party, and to appear for the State in any other court or tribunal in any cause or matter, civil or criminal, in which the State may be a party or interested.”

Cooper is declining to do the job the people of North Carolina elected him to do. The statute does not say the attorney general will defend only the laws that he agrees with or defend the state in court when it is politically convenient.

Cooper wants the people of North Carolina to elect him to a higher office when he is refusing to do the job he has.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

GCEDA and Airport Officials Trying To Land Major Project

11

by Scott D. Yost Guilford County and Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTIA) lost out about two years ago when Boeing briefly considered locating new operations at PTIA. But now the airport is a finalist for another “very, very big endeavor” that a major unnamed company is considering putting at or near PTIA. At the first ever meeting between the Guilford County Economic Development Alliance (GCEDA) and the GCEDA Business Advisory Council on Thursday, March 24, Jim White, who serves on the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority board of directors in addition to his role on the new advisory council, said PTIA is one of three finalists for a massive project he refused to name.

White said at the meeting that he couldn’t elaborate further given the sensitive nature of the negotiations over projects of this type.

“We sometimes are compelled to hold onto them tightly until such time as the companies are willing to allow us to disclose, but we are a finalist of one of three – I can tell you that,” White told the group that had assembled in a large first-floor conference room at the Cameron Campus of Guilford Technical Community College in Colfax. “It has really been narrowed down for a very, very big endeavor, and we’re truly, truly working to obtain that.”

White gave the news to the group of elected officials and economic development staff representing Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County.

White said he needed to be cautious and speak “without giving away too much from the perspective of PTI and what’s happening at PTI.” “I have to be careful because I don’t know how much we truly get Greensboro, High Point and WinstonSalem involved in what’s happening at PTI,” he said.

White added that that big endeavor wasn’t the only sign of bright future for PTIA. “I can tell you that we have some very, very exciting things going on out there and in the next two years we will do some things,” he said. “And, when I say ‘things,’ I mean in terms of new employment opportunities and new employers, and I’m sure some of you are totally aware of those things.”

Greensboro Partnership President and CEO Brent Christensen didn’t

speak on the large airport project that White spoke of, but Christensen did say that the airport had certainly been a major area of concentration for him and High Point Economic Development Corp. President Loren Hill.

“I can tell you, Jim, that if Loren and I spend any more time down there, we’re going to petition for our own parking space,” Christensen said, “because I feed that meter a lot.”

After the meeting, the Rhino Times asked White if he would reveal the name of the company behind the project. He laughed and said, “Yeah, sure, that’s going to happen. I will say it’s exciting, but that’s all I’m going to say right now.”

He added that he was very optimistic about what was going on at PTIA and what he expected for the airport in the (continued on page 13)

12 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Turbo Tax Glitches Cost Guilford County Taxpayers Extra

by Scott D. Yost Tax time is an aggravation for most people, who have to work to get their returns in by April 15. However, last year’s tax season proved to be an especially painful time of the year for Guilford County’s social services – thanks to a the department being swamped with applications resulting from, of all things, the popular tax tabulating software Turbo Tax. Last year in March and April, when most people were filling out their tax returns, Guilford County social services, a division of the county’s Health and Human Services Department, was swamped by ineligible applications sent to the department by Turbo Tax software.

Processing, recording and checking the eligibility for those unqualified applicants cost the county a great deal of time, and it was one of several

reasons why social services staff was so overwhelmed last year. Earlier this year, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners voted to give the department 12 new positions to deal with an increasing demand for benefits, and the board is also considering adding more staff this summer. So Guilford County social services has plenty on its hands without Intuit Inc., the company that owns Turbo Tax, adding to the load with a slew of applications from those who don’t qualify.

Guilford County DHHS Economic Services Division Director Elizabeth White said that, once people have filled out their taxes using the software, the program informs the users what government benefits they could be eligible for and instructs them how to apply. Last year, with just a few keystrokes, the program would send a food stamp application to the social services division of DHHS.

The New York Times

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It’s one thing to find yourself in need of food stamps or other benefits and actively seek out services and go through the application process, but it’s another thing entirely when anyone filling out their taxes hits a few keystrokes on a computer to see if the government will sent them free things like food stamps, a free cell phone or money for their heating bill – all of which Turbo Tax encourages users to apply for.

After that debacle this year, local and state officials have tried to address the problem, and staff is keeping their fingers crossed as the crunch time for getting taxes in approaches once again.

“Last year we saw a huge influx when Turbo Tax started,” White said.

“It told people they were eligible when they weren’t. It was like 200 to 300 applications a week that we were denying.”

To put that in perspective, the department processes about 500 to 600 food stamp applications in an average week.

She added that, even though the applications don’t meet eligibility requirements, they take up about the same amount of staff time as qualifying applications because social services workers are required to go through the process in each case. In some cases, Turbo Tax submissions just had a name, a blank form and a signature – which has to be investigated for eligibility.

“You still have to go through the process of identifying those eligible so it still takes the same amount of work,” White said.

Apparently, the software would often instruct users that they were eligible for the maximum amount when they weren’t eligible at all.

The feature of Turbo Tax that began causing the problem last year is called “Benefit Assist.”

The company’s promotional materials state that “TurboTax automatically shows you a full list of government benefits you may qualify for, like Food Stamps or reduced phone & utilities. Plus, we help you apply, saving you time and making it easier than ever to get more money!”

It also states that, “Benefit Assist users who received one or more federal or state benefits received on average $576 (based on survey

March-June 2015). Actual amounts and qualifications [are] based on your individual situation.”

Guilford County Social Services Director Heather Skeens said that one big help is that Turbo Tax applications now go to the electronic filing system known as ePASS. But that also, she said, makes it harder to know the exact number of unqualified applications that come from Turbo Tax users.

“Last year they came in by fax, so we were clearly able to tell someone how many we got from Turbo Tax,” Skeens said.

“This year, they’re directing them through ePASS. So we still have the same amount of work, we just can’t distinguish which ones are Turbo Tax and which one is just a customer applying.”

The software has been tweaked to give clearer instructions and also better estimates of possible benefits.

White and Skeens both said the situation seems to be improving.

“It’s better in that we are not getting them through fax,” Skeens said.

White said that, with faxed applications, social services workers have to take all the information and enter it into ePASS, which makes the problem even more cumbersome and takes even more staff time.

Turbo Tax could also fax in a partially complete application or just an application with a signature and a name and that required social services to do more work. At least, when it comes to using the ePASS system, users must fill in in all the fields.

Talks between state officials and Turbo Tax seem to have helped resolve the problem to a large extent this time around.

Alexandra Lefebvre, the press assistant in the Office of Communications for the NC Department of Health and Human Services, said her department contacted Intuit to address the problem and have people use the electronic filing system rather than faxes.

“The Department asked that Turbo Tax point individuals to our online application process, ePASS, instead of the faxed applications, and they honored that request,” Lefebvre wrote in an email.

She said that, based on current

(continued on next page)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

airport

WHAT HAVEN’T WHAT HAVEN’T YOU HEARD? YOU HEARD?

(continued from page 11) future.

“There’s going to be really great things happening out there,” White said.

White said the brush with Boeing and the aftermath of that had helped prepare the airport to take on a giant project such as the one for which the airport is now a finalist.

“One thing that made us do was look at the airport and make sure that we are ready for someone like Boeing,” White said. “We’re really ready here for the next big thing.”

GCEDA has listed seven areas of focus for promoting economic growth in the county, and “Aviation and Aerospace” tops the list. And Guilford County has had some successes and close calls lately in that industry.

Aerospace company HAECO Americas moved aircraft interiors manufacturing and engineering functions to High Point.

HAECO bought a 250,000-square-foot building on Piedmont Triad Parkway as part of an $11.3 million project that’s expected to bring nearly 150 new jobs to the area.

HondaJet, part of the Honda Aircraft Company, continues to advance its Guilford County operations. At the March 24 meeting, Samantha Magill, the head of Academic Affairs and Diversity & Inclusion at Honda Aircraft Company Inc., who also serves on the GCEDA Business Advisory Council, talked about progress made on the various certifications.

turbo (continued from previous page) feedback, it appears the situation has been addressed by Turbo Tax to the state’s satisfaction.

She confirmed that Guilford County social service workers were not alone in their Turbo Tax headaches.

“Last year, counties received a large volume of faxes with applicants, who may or may not have been eligible, using TurboTax to apply for benefits,” she wrote.

She stated that, although tax season isn’t yet over, state social service officials don’t anticipate an issue with the software this year.

Guilford County officials said they assume the problem has been a national one. It seems, however, to have hit the state particularly hard.

13

“We’re also working on what’s called production certificates,” McGill said.

“Each aircraft has to be checked out individually. We have to fly them down to Atlanta and that backs up the line.”

She added that would be changing and the company would soon be able to do more of that work at the PTIA site.

There are other signs as well that this region is a place of major interest for other aviation industry players. Last year, Burlington and Alamance County were in talks with Guilford County to buy land from Guilford County to use for a German-based aircraft parts company that was drawn by the easy access to PTIA and Raleigh Durham Airport. That company selected another site and now that land deal between Burlington and Guilford County appears dead, but the company’s interest in this area is another indication of the viability of the region as a major player in the aircraft industry.

And the talk surrounding the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite being established just south of Guilford County has been shifting more and more from talk of auto making to aviation.

White said the airport and the connection between the Megasite and PTIA is firming up.

“It’s loosely bound, but tightening,” White said.

The major aviation fish on the line – whatever company it is – wasn’t the only cause for optimism at the economic development meeting. While White’s news was the most positive, there was plenty of other good news and significant signs of economic growth in the county.

Hill spoke on some recent successes in the High Point area and another potential large project in the works.

“We had a major client in town recently – in fact, we had them in this building,” Hill said of the Cameron Campus.

Since the March 24 meeting was the first of the two groups, everyone spent some time getting to know each other. The Leadership Group consists of Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, High Point Mayor Bill Bencini, Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips, Greensboro City Manager Jim Westmoreland, High Point City Manager Greg Demko, Guilford County Manager Marty Lawing, Chairman of the Greensboro Partnership board of directors Lee Lloyd and Chairman of the HPEDC board Ken Smith. (continued on page 14)

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14 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

airport

(continued from page 13) Christensen and Hill also attend those meetings as non-voting members.

The Business Advisory Council – in addition to White and Magill – consists of BB&T Market President and Senior Vice President Leah Price, North State Communications CEO and President Royster Tucker, Senior Vice President of Wealth Management with Merrill Lynch/The Tilley Group Scott Tilley, Managing Partner of Smith-Leonard accounting firm Darlene Leonard, Procter & Gamble Finance Manager John Brandberg, Bank of America Triad Market President Derek Ellington, AT&T Regional Director of External Affairs Kathleen Evans, Guilford Technical Community College President Randy Parker, Guilford County Workforce Board Director Lillian Plummer and Brooks Pierce attorney Bob Singer.

Ellington, Parker and Tucker weren’t present at the inaugural meeting of the advisory council.

Christensen said at the March 24 early morning meeting that it was important that the two groups work together to help draw projects to the

area. He said he was recently talking to another client who had been looking at two “side by side” communities that were “bad mouthing each other,” and, Christensen said, that had been a real turnoff for the client. Christensen also said the Leadership Group had been structured so that Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County would be working side by side.

At the meeting, Christensen also spoke on what was expected of the advisory council.

“We’ll ask, ‘How’s it going with your own business? What does your business need?’” Christensen said.

He said that often times a complaint or problem felt by one business was felt by many and therefore a problem could be fixed for others as well if it were brought to the forefront and addressed.

“Also, what’s going on in your industry?” Christensen said. “We’re looking for a little bit of intelligence.”

He added that the council group should be able to generate some good leads for economic development

officials to follow up on.

“One of the best leads I ever had in my life was a friend of someone who bumped into someone else at a wedding,” he told the collection of brand new Business Advisory Council members. “We want to essentially deputize you all as a big help in economic development.”

Phillips told the members of the advisory group that he wanted to offer them an “open invitation for any input you feel we should be talking about or what we focus on.”

“I just want to make sure that message is delivered,” Phillips added.

Smith, the chairman of the

Leadership Group this year, said he was very encouraged by what he’d heard at the first meeting of the two groups.

“If you listen to the national debates you can hear how things are so awful and become convinced that things really are awful, but then you come here and listen to this. We’re talking about Charlotte growing and Raleigh growing and all that kind of stuff, but that’s some pretty good information right here just from this small group. I could tell already today when I couldn’t get control of the start of the meeting that y’all were already getting to know each other.”

bursting (continued from page 9) Iredell County Register of Deeds Matthew McCall of Mooresville has also filed to run. McCall is the immediate past chairman of the Iredell County Republican Party and a lifelong resident of Iredell County.

Also running from Mooresville is George Rouco, an attorney and former Central Intelligence Agency officer. Rouco had filed to run for Congress in the 9th Congressional District, but the redistricting put him in the 13th. Rouco said that although a congressional representative isn’t required to live in the district they represent, he thought to adequately represent their constituents they needed live in the district and refiled for the 13th after the redistricting.

Kay Daly has filed to run. She describes herself as a “conservative activist” and lives in Pinehurst, in Moore County in the 8th Congressional District. She was going to run in the 2nd District before the redistricting.

Former Winston-Salem City Councilmember Vernon Robinson, who also lives outside the district in Forsyth County and has run for Congress in the 5th and old 13th congressional districts, has filed to run in the new 13th District. Robinson has also run for state superintendent of public instruction and the state House. Earlier this year Robinson was working for the presidential campaign of Dr. Ben Carson.

Jim Snyder, an attorney from Lexington who was a member of the state House in the 1970s and has run for the Senate, Congress and twice for lieutenant governor, has filed.

Also running in the Republican primary in the 13th Congressional

District are Ted Budd, Kathy Feather, Chad Gant, Farren Shoaf and David Thompson.

Five Democrats have filed, including Mazie Ferguson from Greensboro who just lost the Democratic primary for North Carolina labor commissioner.

Bob Isner, also from Greensboro, is a developer who is making his first run for public office. Isner was the developer of Southside, which transformed the neighborhood in the southern portion of downtown Greensboro from old warehouses and dilapidated buildings into a desirable downtown neighborhood. Bob Isner is the father of professional tennis player John Isner.

Former Guilford County Commissioner Bruce Davis from High Point has also filed to run. Davis has also run for the state Senate twice and was defeated in the Democratic primary in the 6th Congressional District race two years ago.

Adam Coker and Kevin Griffin have also filed to run in the Democratic primary.

The fly in the ointment for this and all the North Carolina congressional primaries set for Tuesday, June 7 is that nobody knows whether they will take place or not. The panel of three federal judges that ruled the old congressional districts unconstitutional haven’t ruled on the newly drawn districts. With the old districts the judges ruled after votes in the primaries had already been cast, so there is no reason to think they won’t do that again. But sometime between now and June 7 the panel should make a ruling on whether the elections can be held or not.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

RHINO

15

Restaurant Guide There’s a new addition to the dining scene, and Seybatois Sanda, the owner of Marie’s African Cuisine, is on a mission: To bring the French-infused cuisine and culture of West Africa to Greensboro.

Originally from Niger, Seybatois saw a need for an African restaurant in town – one that could bring a taste of home to the African community, as well as introduce a new world of cuisine to the uninitiated.

Marie’s African Restaurant offers traditional West African dishes – especially those influenced by French colonial flavors and style – with fresh ingredients and all the many spices and seasonings they require. The restaurant draws many triad-area Africans seeking a meal that reminds them of home, as well as diners looking for something new and delicious.

The restaurant’s casual atmosphere and friendly staff cater to couples, families and groups of friends for lunch and dinner. Seybatois and her staff – along with her chefs from Niger, Senegal and Togo – are happy to explain the dishes and tailor them to their clients’ palettes.

Traditional specialties include “thiebu djen” – a fish stew with rice originally from Senegal, but now found throughout Africa – as well as “sauce de queue de boeuf” – oxtail stew. But there are dishes you’ll recognize – chicken stew, beef kabobs, couscous and gumbo are just a few. And make sure to try the homemade beverages of “bissap,” made of sorrel juice, mint, vanilla and sugar, as well as Seybatois’ lemonade with ginger, pineapple, mint and vanilla.

Take a vacation to Africa, at 4631 W. Market St., south of Spring Garden Street and Muirs Chapel Road. Maria’s African Cuisine is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. To learn more and for the full menu, visit www. mariesafricancuisine.com or call (336) 541-8658.

16 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

17

UNCLE ORSON Reviews

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

London Has Fallen, Multi-Ballot Conventions

by Orson Scott Card So last Friday night, my wife and I had actually (a) had enough sleep the night before that we could imagine staying awake through a feature film and (b) had no obligations before 9 a.m. on Saturday, so we could possibly get enough sleep after a movie.

This is how old people decide whether they can go see a feature film.

Of course, this was the weekend of Batman vs. Superman, a film that is so stupidly misconceived that I cringe even saying the title. I realized that I’ve pretty much had it up to here with costumed “heroes.” I hate the costumes. I hate the heroes.

I’m tired of pretending to believe in their magical abilities – like Batman’s superpower of not getting blown away by a shotgun blast when he shows up in full costume to do his vigilante thing.

And when a comics superhero movie is good, like the only good Superman movie, Man of Steel, I can be sure that trufans of comix will be

outraged by something, and Serious Movie Critics (whose superpower is being able to completely forget why anybody who isn’t paid for reviewing ever goes to the movies) will hate it.

But I also knew that at some point, I probably needed to see the movie just because I’m a sci-fi writer and the people I run into at various events will expect me to have an opinion that is actually based on something besides a generalized loathing for silliness that is taken way, way too seriously (you know, like the Trump campaign).

I dropped my wife off at the curb to go buy tickets while I parked the car.

When I got to the lobby, she handed me my ticket to: London Has Fallen.

Neither of us knew much about it – we hadn’t seen Olympus Has Fallen so we didn’t even know that London Has Fallen was a kind of sequel. But when she found out the B-vs.-S non3D showing was half sold out, which would mean sitting up in the top or down at the bottom of the theater, she opted for our fallback choice.

There’s a lot of shooting, exploding and stabbing, and people use the

F-word a lot. There’s also a breakneck pace and a story that’s more or less clear from beginning to end. The actors are all likeable, the dialogue is adequate (which, for action movies, is remarkable), and I found myself caring about the people and wanting them to win.

My wife and I both agree: This is a good movie.

And there was something I really appreciated about it: It doesn’t apologize for America. In fact, it is actually kind of – dare I say it? – proAmerican.

In an era when our current administration apologizes for being American and regards Cuba as a model of enlightened government, it was refreshing to hear a character, early in the movie, speak of Britain as our oldest and best ally.

Considering that President Zero’s first act in office was to insult Britain by returning a bust of Churchill – a man who accomplished more to benefit civilization even when he was wrong than Obama has

accomplished in his entire tenure in office – that had been given to the White House as a gift many years before.

Yeah, that’s right, slap our best ally in the face by, in effect, spitting on their prime minister who led Britain in those crucial, lonely years when the fate of the world rested on their shoulders virtually alone.

But Obama speaks for the extreme left wing of American politics, which consists of the “mainstream” news media, the academic-literary elite, Hollywood liberals and Seattle, plus all the people they have hoodwinked into thinking that their fantasy version of history is true.

That means that most Hollywood films apologize for or attack America’s past.

Not London Has Fallen. It isn’t political, it isn’t right-wing, it simply admits that it’s OK for Americans to love America and take action to defend our values and our leaders and our allies throughout the world. (continued on page 18)

18 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 17)

Even as I listened to Morgan Freeman, as the vice-president in the movie, deliver a stirring, pro-American speech at the end, I thought: Wow, movie critics are going to hate this.

But I also knew they’d find some kind of bogus “movie” reasons to hate it instead of admitting that they don’t dare approve of a movie that isn’t doctrinaire Left-wing.

So yes, there are savage reviews of the movie, mostly citing things like overuse of stock footage (that’s how you keep the costs down; and I, as a non-professional-reviewer, never noticed or cared) and using too much violence (especially with knives) and too many action-thriller cliches.

Oddly enough, they never object to such things in doctrinaire Left-wing movies that trash traditional values.

Trust me, these hate reviews are the Pavlovian salivations of people who have forgotten how to watch a movie like a regular person.

Of course there are action-thriller cliches. Every action-thriller movie has those cliches, because they are the genre markers and if they weren’t there, it wouldn’t be an action-thriller movie.

Gerard Butler, whom I have never seen before, does a very good job of playing a very angry, intense, determined protector of presidents.

Where some critics have blasted the film for being a “stab-a-thon,” we simply have to recognize that even though guns are far deadlier than knives, knifework is way more disturbing. It makes violent action much more personal and abhorrent.

Basically, when Butler’s character, Mike Banning, needs to make sure an enemy is dead, and needs to accomplish this quietly (or his gun is out of bullets), he stabs the enemy multiple times. That’s why this movie

almost entirely avoids the “we thought he was dead but look, he’s going to shoot the hero after all” cliche – the hero-soldier does his job.

My wife detests violent movies, and dislikes overuse of the F-word (which this movie achieves in minutes), and yet she, like me, came out of this movie energized. Maybe it’s partly because of the pent-up fury of our government taking no action after the Brussels attacks except platitudes and lies (no, President Obama, saying the defeat of ISIS is our numberone priority does not cover up your complete lack of any effective action whatsoever).

Remember how, under Clinton, our response to the savage barbarian attacks in East Africa was to send cruise missiles against empty targets? Osama bin Laden correctly interpreted this as a sign of complete spinelessness on our part. The consequence was the attacks of 9/11.

Obama makes Clinton look like a hawk. The world is a more dangerous place today because we twice elected a sleepy president.

So yes, my wife and I brought geopolitics into the movie theater with us, though the movie definitely is not political. And so we felt perhaps a tad more enjoyment than the movie deserves because London Has Fallen showed government leaders acting boldly in defense of civilization.

The most brilliant moment in the film is when the US president, captive and under duress, is given a chance to speak. Where Obama, not captive and not under duress, apologizes to everybody for American history, I think a lot of viewers in Greensboro are going to love what this movie president (played by Aaron Eckhart) says.

The critics hate it, except me. But

the audience votes with their ticket purchases, and as of March 25, London Has Fallen grossed more than $100 million worldwide, against a budget of $60 million.

The audience for this movie is, apparently, critic-proof.

....

We got to see a picture of Obama in Cuba, in front of a huge picture of Che Guevara, the ’60s Left’s favorite political murderer. But please, people, remember that when a head of state visits another country, he does not get to control their political iconography.

Che and Castro were pals during their revolutionary years.

And however loathsome Castro’s government turned out to be, Castro was a brave, smart, resourceful revolutionary, and he toppled a massively corrupt regime on a budget of little more than 50 cents and a pile of rocks.

The Cuban government knew where to place the US president to get maximum propaganda mileage.

Get over it. Once you decide to go to Cuba, that’s going to happen; live with it. When Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” he was on the West Berlin side of it, not in Moscow, so Reagan could set the stage. Obama couldn’t.

As for Obama’s continuing with the baseball game instead of responding in a dramatic way to the terror attacks in Brussels, let’s keep in mind how the Left delighted in showing George W. Bush on 9/11, continuing his visit with grade-school kids.

He didn’t want to frighten the kids by showing “emergency,” and since he wasn’t Superman and couldn’t fly to New York in a trice and bring the other planes down to safe, non-explosive landings, there was nothing for him to do until his advisers gathered more information. But oh, how the Left delighted in mocking him for acting responsibly.

Obama could have and should have shown bold leadership. Instead, he basically said, Wow, Europe sure has some problems, doesn’t it. But so what? Why, after seven years, would anyone even imagine that Barack Obama would show honest outrage about anything that wasn’t done by Republicans or policemen in the US?

....

So Trump has further revealed his utter lack of character in the past week, by attacking Ted Cruz’s wife for not being as pretty as Trump’s trophy wife. But the contrasting pictures used the standard smear technique of catching Mrs. Cruz in bad lighting, with a facial expression

caught in the middle of speaking, which always shapes the mouth in unattractive ways.

To be fair, Trump is invariably shown by his opponents in angry mid-diatribe photographs. To be fairer, it’s hard to catch Trump not in angry diatribes.

But Cruz’s wife, an accomplished businesswoman in her own right, and a very attractive human being, does not deserve such visual savagery.

Meanwhile, Trump’s continued effort to play from Hitler’s playbook by encouraging Brown-Shirt violence from his supporters reached a new low when he predicted that if he were denied the Republican nominations, there would be riots.

Um, Mr. Trump, Republicans don’t riot. And they only beat up protestors when you encourage them to violence.

Are you threatening violence, sir?

Besides, if Trump doesn’t win the nomination on the first ballot, that means that a majority of Republican primary and caucus voters preferred other candidates to him.

Pluralities don’t matter in nominating conventions. Only majorities count.

And even that is relatively recent in our history. Used to be that nominations required a two-thirds majority, which meant that every convention had multiple ballots before consensus built around one candidate.

People talk loosely about a “brokered convention,” but that’s just silly. The term dates from the era when political bosses absolutely controlled the delegates from their city or state, so that they could deliver their votes unanimously to whatever candidate they chose.

In that era, these powerbrokers would gather and count up the votes and decide which candidate to support in order to break a logjam in the voting. Those were brokered conventions. They brought us a fair share of decent candidates. They also brought us Warren G. Harding.

However, there are no power brokers today. The delegates are free agents, after having cast the one or two ballots their state rules or laws require them to cast for the candidate who won the primary. After that, they are free to be swept along by whatever enthusiasm pleases them.

So if the Republican Party has a multi-ballot convention, this is the essence of representative democracy.

Here’s what’s likely to happen.

The front-runner in the first ballot – presumably Trump – will gain a few votes on the second ballot, from delegates who want to present a united party to the electorate at large.

If Trump is very close to a majority, this second ballot will probably put him over the top. (continued on page 24)

RHINO

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March 31, 2016

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20 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

The New York Times

crossword puzzle No. 0320 DOUBLE-CROSSED

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BY JOEL FAGLIANO / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 18

Note: When this puzzle is completed, take the answer to each starred clue and cross out all the letters used twice. The leftover letters will spell an appropriate word, reading top to bottom.

45 Engine part, briefly 46 “____ Tag!” 47 Drink served in a flute 9 One of the Five Pillars of Islam 50 Razz 53 Popular tech review 13 French film award site 18 Phlegmatic 55 Money of Peru 20 Prefix with distant 56 *Lawyer 21 Black-and-white, in 58 *Event with rainbow sneaker lingo flags 22 More than enough 62 Went on to say 23 Folded food 24 111-Across’s partner 63 Caribbean area, once: Abbr.

25 They “don’t lie,” in a 64 ____ jacet (phrase on No. 1 Shakira hit tombstones) 26 Not be able to sleep 65 Often-torchlit events 27 *Doctor’s orders?

66 Requirement for one 30 ____ fraîche going into labor?

31 Regenerist brand 67 Impudence 32 Capital of 68 “Speaking personally Kazakhstan …,” in texts 33 Streaming-video 69 Supporting the idea giant 70 *Pressured 35 “Fareed Zakaria 73 *Makes wedding GPS” airer plans 36 Up in years 75 Geometry- textbook 37 ____ pull (sports symbols injury) 76 Big fund-raising 38 *1999 rom-com effort based on Shaw’s 77 One-stanza poem “Pygmalion” 78 Green day?

42 *Manhattan Project 80 Expression in a site toothpaste ad 44 Cook in charge of 83 Shade of blue or 110-Across green Online subscriptions: 85 “Feliz ____ Nuevo!”

Today’s puzzle and more than 4,000 past puzzles, 86 *County that includes much of Everglades nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).

National Park ACROSS

1 Joke’s target 5 Own (up)

90 *Tidy sum 94 Relative of ibid.

95 Newspaper unit: Abbr.

96 What they say about you, informally 97 Ectomorphic 98 Car collector?

100 “That’s just ____ roll” 101 “Same here” 103 *Hides out 107 Arrive 108 South side?

109 Portend 110 See 44-Across 111 See 24-Across 112 Face with numbers 113 Skin So Soft maker 114 Sadness 115 Cultural values 116 Kind of prof.

117 Agent Scully on “The X-Files” 118 “____ to me” DOWN

1 Wharton, e.g., informally 2 Maurice who painted Parisian street scenes 3 Grippers for geckos 4 At risk of capsizing 5 Scary 6 Math term that uses all five vowels exactly once 7 Things taken home from the beach?

8 Protest type 9 Deep laugh 10 Lavish Vegas casino opened in 2009 11 Lowest part 12 Book before Judges 13 Deliberate 14 Robe-wearing ruler 15 Certain balloons 16 Smith graduate, e.g.

17 Start on a righteous path 19 CNBC interviewee, maybe 28 Ring figure?

29 Old Spanish kingdom 34 Cousin of inc.

37 Muscle strengthened by a StairMaster, informally 39 “That guy?”

40 My Chemical Romance and others 41 Mine transport 43 Up in years 47 Chat-room policers, informally 48 ____ Hawkins dance 49 Spirit 51 Fairly recent 52 Some game-show prizes 53 Peninsula in 2014 headlines 54 Quitting aid, of sorts 55 Relative of a skillet 57 Fix 58 Band with a Ben & Jerry’s flavor named for it

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59 Trudge 60 Glows 61 “Something to Talk About” singer, 1991 66 Sports teams wear them, informally 69 Dangerous rifts 70 “I could go with whatever” 71 Like Mount Rushmore at night

72 Kicked oneself over 74 “S.N.L.” bit 79 Country singer Lee ____ Womack 80 Nursed 81 1990s craze 82 Chatting online with, for short 84 Bedroom shutter?

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88 Secrecy, with “the” 89 Those saying “somethin’,” say 90 Capital that’s home to the world’s largest castle, per Guinness 91 Take umbrage at 92 Multistory temple 93 Small-capped mushrooms

99 Out of favor 100 Motorcyclist’s invitation 102 Hero of kid-lit’s “The Phantom Tollbooth” 104 Ballpark figs.

105 Part of the “everything” in an everything bagel 106 “Super cool!”

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Container Gardens

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

BY SANDY GROOVER People who love flowering plants and cooking with fresh herbs but live in an apartment or condo may think a garden is out of the question. But is it?

People who have a deck or a patio can have a garden. Think containers.

Even a small space can usually accommodate at least one large pot.

A 16-inch planter can yield a wealth of veggies and herbs. When choosing a pot, keep in mind the mature size of the plants your wish to grow.

Planters come in a wide variety of materials. Ceramic containers have thick walls that hold in moisture, are rot resistant and don’t absorb water.

Traditional terra cotta pots, as well as wood planters, are porous, so water can be leeched away from plants.

And if you leave these types of pots outside all winter they can freeze and crack.

Metal containers don’t work well in hot climates, as they absorb heat and become too warm for proper plant growth. Iron pots rust, so they need to be painted. If you really like the look of metal pots, fill them with shadeloving plants and keep them in a cool, shaded location.

Many of today’s plastic containers mimic the look of terra cotta, clay, wood, metal or stone and can be difficult to tell apart from the real thing.

Their weight and lower cost are what set them apart. However, many plastics gradually decompose, becoming brittle and eventually shattering, in the presence of the ultraviolet light that is a part of sunshine. Resins, which are plastic-like materials, may hold up better in sunlight, and like regular plastic, can be made to look like more expensive materials such as terra cotta or stone.

Of course, there isn’t anything quite like real a real stone container. The biggest drawbacks to stone pots, however, are their weight and cost.

So, if you need to move the containers frequently, you are better off not using stone.

Two other types of materials are often used for garden containers, fiberglass and hypertufa. Fiberglass is much like plastic in that it can be molded to look like other materials. It holds up well to the elements and falls in the middle of

the pack price-wise.

Hypertufa looks like stone or concrete and is porous like clay, but the really interesting thing about it is the fact that, if you are handy, you can make it yourself. It’s an artificial stone material that can be used to create pots, planters, stepping stones and more. It’s much lighter than cement, but can still withstand harsh weather conditions. To make it, you use a mixture of Perlite, peat moss, Portland cement. Along with the materials you will need a mold, but you can use almost anything – plastic bowls, buckets, old cooking pots – let your imagination take flight. Making hypertufa could be a fun project for your and your children. (For more information, visit www.hypertufa.net.)

No matter what the size of the container, it should have good drainage.

Holes of approximately half an inch should be adequate. Any larger and you lose too much soil; any smaller and you don’t get the right drainage. And pots need to be elevated so that they drain properly. If not raised at least a quarter of an inch, you run the risk of water rotting the plant’s roots.

Sunlight is a critical factor in growing vegetables. Some of the most popular types – tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, and all fruits – need a minimum of six hours per day. Lettuces and things that grow underground, such as radishes and scallions, can get by with three to four hours. Some plants, like arugula and kale, can even get too much sun.

Fortunately, container gardens aren’t normally bothered by weeds, so that’s one chore you don’t have to worry about. You will, however, have to keep an eye out for pests such as aphids and fungal diseases, though diseases are less likely in container gardens than in traditional gardens.

Herbs are some of the easiest plants to grow in your patio container garden, so they are good plants to for firsttime container gardeners. Just think how nice it would be to walk out your backdoor and snip basil or oregano for your salad or spaghetti sauce.

All they require is regular snipping to keep them compact.

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22 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 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.

Oh, indeed, Scott. I am laughing my head off about Hillary’s clothing line. It is unreal. I am so glad that someone else besides me was wondering what it was. But now in your article I totally understand. You explained it very well. Thank you.

%%% All right. This is to John Hammer. It seems like Mike Barber is tired of what’s going on. Too bad others aren’t. Maybe something could get done. Seems like everyone knows who he’s talking about. So, that means you know. So, come on, John, who is it? Nothing’s going to happen anyways. And thanks, Scott, for the piece on the consultant.

Very informative. Bye.

%%% I think that people of all income levels should be able to live anywhere they want to live. I don’t think someone should be denied a nice, safe neighborhood to live in because they do not possess the ability to make a certain amount of money. Section 8 vouchers should be issued for every part of town, not just the ghetto. These rich snobs – well, let me back up a minute. The people that want you to think they’re rich, these people might realize that poor people make good neighbors, too.

So, people need to get off their high horse and stop looking down on people.

%%% We don’t need to wait to bring jobs back to America. Just answer your phone. If you have a business, office or whatever, however you are trying to make a living, just answer your phone. Or hire someone for $10 or $15 an hour to answer. Trust me, we are tired of punch 1, punch 2.

Many businesses have gone out of business because of this. Trust me, you will be rewarded with satisfied customers if you will hire someone to pick up the phone instead of punch 1, punch 2. Thank you. And all businesses, take heed.

%%% The only way our government is going to get serious for these terrorists is when the terrorists start hitting close to their home, and their families.

And, then, and only then, they will finally open their eyes and quit playing politics and political correctness games and begin to do something about it. Start calling it what it is. Quit worrying about offending Muslims and terrorists. Wake up, America.

%%% Good morning. I’d like to add free health care for illegal aliens to the laundry list of reasons why, as my late grandmother would say, quote, it will be a cold day in August, end of quote, before I would vote for that habitual lying liberal Hillary Clinton.

%%% Hello, Rhino. I hear it in conversations from time to time, especially from the elderly, that this world can’t take much more, and that things can’t get much worse. I understand where they’re coming from. But it’s my belief things can get a lot worse. Clean drinking water has become an issue in other countries. Now it’s become an issue in a portion of the

(continued on page 24)

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24 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

beep (continued from page 23) United States. If clean water were to become scarce, combined with the lack of clean air to breathe, and the ground became too poisoned to grow trees, then we would be faced with a major problem, a catastrophe so to speak. Southern Guilford County and Otis here saying, yes, things can get much worse. Thank you.

%%% It’s just like the Republican Party to have someone leading in the primaries that they don’t like. So they’re going to manipulate the system to get it to where they can get the person in that they want.

Just like the Republicans do with every other thing. If it’s something they don’t like, it doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not. They manipulate the system to make sure that you can’t do it, because they don’t like it. It’s all about them, the selfish Republican Party. Way to go.

%%% It’s Saturday, 1 o’clock, and I see out there in Arizona, a fool has got the road blocked and got people lined up for miles trying to stop people from going to a Donald Trump rally. Now this thing has got out of hand. If I was in charge, they’d have 10 minutes to get that road unblocked, or I’d start spraying them with tear gas. I mean spraying them big time. I mean to the point they’d be leaving their cars so we could push them out of the way, rubbing their eyes. This has got to stop.

This Black Lives Matter, same thing. The first time they started blocking a road, you need to spray them. Get them out of the road. You can’t let people take over and start running the country just because they don’t like the way things are going.

%%% How you doing, Rhino? Hello, Reid. Call this my personal poll with results that will never truly be known to me. But in the last eight years or so, does this country feel safer from foreign or internal terrorist threats? Do you feel like the government cares more about your welfare, or would it just like to be more involved in your personal life? Do you think this country has become more corrupt under the present administration? And,

(continued on page 28)

uncle orson (continued from page 18)

But if he still hasn’t won on the second ballot, then he will bleed supporters with each succeeding ballot. This doesn’t mean the secondplace guy will win. Remember – there are no brokers to broker the convention. So speeches made by various people, at the convention or reported on the news, will have influence; so will private conversations among regular delegates all over the convention.

In a multi-ballot convention, anybody could end up as the nominee. No, not Mitt Romney – he had his chance – and probably not Paul Ryan, since he has never shown a strong desire to be president.

But all those candidates who merely “suspended” their campaigns are still available, especially if delegates pledged to them arrived at the convention and put their names in the race. Any of them could rise in the voting on later ballots.

I doubt we’ll have as long a contest as the 1924 Democratic convention, when it took 16 days and 103 ballots to nominate John W. Davis to be the Democrat who had the privilege of losing the presidential election to Republican Calvin Coolidge.

It won’t even go on as long as the 36 ballots it took to nominate James A. Garfield in 1880 – which, I must point out, was one of the best nominations in history, so multi-ballot conventions don’t always lead to bad results.

Some Republicans shudder at the memory of 1976, when Ford and Reagan arrived at the Republican convention without either being clearly ahead in delegate counts.

However, Ford was able to win over enough undecided votes to secure the nomination on the first ballot. Some Reaganites cried, “We wuz robbed,” but nobody was robbed.

Besides, in 1976, it’s likely that no Republican could have won in that first post-Watergate presidential election. And if Reagan had been the nominee and lost, then he probably would have been blamed the way that people blame Mitt Romney for losing to the incumbent Obama. So Ford’s victory at the 1976 convention may be said to have saved Reagan from disastrous defeat, leading to his win in 1980 after the ayatollahs had wrecked Carter’s reelection chances.

Politics is complicated. But it is perfectly legitimate for people who are horrified by Trump as a human being and Trump’s “ideas” as a lasting influence on the Republican Party to rally around other candidates in order to defeat him and choose a nominee who, for instance, might have a

chance of defeating Hillary Clinton.

As for the Democratic convention, remember that Hillary’s commanding lead includes a count of superdelegates who have indicated that they plan to support her. But superdelegates are not bound.

They have a vote at the convention because they are elected officials or party leaders, and if they see Hillary take a nosedive in the polls, and Bernie Sanders has at least 40 percent of the delegates, then half the superdelegates would be enough to put Sanders over the top.

So even though we keep hearing about how the Republican Party is dominated by “the establishment,” the fact is that it’s the Democratic Party convention that puts 20 percent of its votes in the hands of “the establishment.” And they will vote according to who they think will win.

Democrats famously vote for indicted and convicted criminals and people who are obviously guilty of crimes, so a mere indictment won’t spell doom for Hillary – unless the American people, as polled, show that they would prefer not to elect a lying snake to the presidency. Again.

(I mean, Bill was president and committed perjury while in office.)

I must admit that I would be thrilled if either or both conventions went to multiple ballots, especially if it helps us avoid the worst-case scenario – a choice between Trump the bigoted buffoon and Hillary the bribe-taking crook.

I would really like to have somebody I could vote for this year, instead of people I’m desperate to vote against. And it may be that only a multi-ballot convention will lead us to that place.

....

There were some good films in 2015 that didn’t get a lot of attention. Yes, Brooklyn, was nominated for an Oscar, but this gentle story of a young Irishwoman who immigrates to America, falls in love, and then returns to Ireland to find that she’s torn between the two lands didn’t have the pizzazz, the pyrotechnics, the hype that brought most of the other contenders more clearly to our attention.

Just before the Oscars, my wife and I were told by friends that this story was so moving that it became their choice to win. I’m afraid that I didn’t like it quite that well, but I liked it a lot and maybe, when I rewatch it, I’ll come to agree with my friends.

Certainly Saoirse Ronan, whom I first saw in Hanna back in 2011 (I

skipped The Lovely Bones completely, and have never regretted it), is a luminous actress who disappears so completely into her parts that she’s almost unrecognizable from film to film.

Right now, several underrated films from early in 2015 are appearing on cable and satellite, and it’s worth pointing out that they’re better than I expected.

Run All Night, starring Liam Neeson, Ed Harris and Joel Kinnaman, sounds a lot like the Keanu Reeves revenge movie John Wick.

But where Wick keeps its hero in splendid isolation, driven only by rage, Run All Night is almost the opposite movie.

The hero, played by Liam Neeson, is a retired hit man, and he doesn’t live in wealth and splendor like Wick.

He’s lonely and sad, mostly because, having left his wife and son years before, he now has to deal with his son’s angry refusal to allow him to be part of the family.

The result is a movie with plenty of action. Liam Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon isn’t as magical a killing machine as Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, but, as with Wick, it comes down to a confrontation between Jimmy Conlon and Ed Harris’ Shawn Maguire, his old friend and mafia boss.

Yet we also see Jimmy trying to overcome his son’s resistance to any help from his father. He has to save his son’s life more than once, but far more powerful are the moments when he stops his son from killing any of the gunmen who are trying to kill them. “If you pull that trigger, you’re no better than me,” says Jimmy to his son, and thus he agrees with his son’s assessment of him as a very bad man.

Vincent D’Onofrio plays a detective who has been pursuing Conlon for years, but now mostly wants him to name all his victims so that the detective can close those cases and give the victim’s families a solution, a face to put on the murderer of their loved ones.

In the midst of all the evil, there are some good people doing good – mostly Joel Kinnaman’s Mike Conlon.

Kinnaman is so fierce-looking that we can believe him as the son of a hit man and a dangerous guy; but we can also believe him as a man who’ll work in low-level jobs rather than take part in a life of crime like his father.

There’s no shortage of sons in the real world who can’t really feel themselves to be complete until their father dies, but in the case of Mike and Jimmy Conlon, there’s good reason for both of them to feel as they do; and their eventual reconciliation is earned, bit by bit, word by word, bullet (continued on page 28)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

25

YOST Column

Yost Column

Yost Looks Back At Ye Olde Greensboro

by Scott D. Yost On Thursday, April 7, the editors of every newspaper in Greensboro will get together at Scuppernong Books for a panel discussion that, I’m sure, will touch on all sorts of interesting topics related to our city and the news coverage of today.

That impending forum got me thinking about how much the newspaper business had likely changed over the years and I wondered what the news scene used to be like a long time ago – specifically, 100 years ago. So I went back and looked at some newspapers and news stories from 1916.

One of the city’s newspapers at that time was The Greensboro Patriot,

founded in 1824. In 1916, the Patriot was being published at 118 N. Elm St. and you could get a six-month subscription for 75 cents, which is a much, much better deal than you will ever find from the News & Record these days, but a deal that, even after factoring in a hundred years of inflation, the Rhino Times still beats with its excellent price tag of “free.”

One thing that hit me immediately as I read through old papers of a century ago – you may or may not be surprised to learn this – is that, back then, much of what was in the paper wasn’t that different from what’s in it these days. For instance, in 1916, just like now, race played a big role in the news; there were ads for Schiffman’s Jewelry, and the big controversial topic of the day was whether or not Greensboro should have transgender bathrooms.

Actually I made that last one up – apparently, back then, the way they worked out the problem was that they had men use the men’s room and women use the ladies room.

As I read more and more, it became an almost hypnotic escape into such a simpler time. Back then, there were no Facebook or news sites – nor was there TV for that matter; so the paper had to be basically everything rolled up into one: It was where you got all your national, state and local news as well

as your gossip, and it was also how you kept track of what your friends were doing.

In the national news a century ago, Greensboro’s Patriot reported that Germany had agreed to pay damages for an attack on a luxury liner called the Lusitania after a German U-boat torpedoed the ship, sinking it and killing 128 Americans who were on board. I didn’t see any other stories about that ship in the papers that I read, so hopefully they got all that worked out and no further problems came out of that mishap.

In Greensboro in 1916, there was a lot of consternation about the fact that the postal service was going to start charging one penny per letter for mail delivered locally, as well as concern that the price of aspirin had doubled and that high price was starting to infringe on your right to have a “morning after.”

There was also a lot being written about whether women should be allowed to vote in local and national elections. Four years later, in 1920, women finally did get the vote, and

that was followed by the Teapot Dome scandal, Prohibition, the stock market crash, the Great Depression and a 10-year drought that created the Dustbowl.

There’s also plenty of news in there about every tiny little infinitesimally small thing that went on in town.

Here’s one typical item: “Mr. J. E. Greeson has purchased a new Ford.”

Or how about this fascinating bit of news with huge ramifications: “Mrs. Ora Lowe, of Brick Church, spent last Sunday evening with Pairy Greeson.”

There was other exciting must-know news like, “Mr. Richard Shoffner, of Whitsett, visited his parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Shoffner recently.” It was kind of like modern Facebook postings minus the pictures and the 14 exclamation points.

In Guilford County news one century ago, the paper reported that three inmates escaped from the county jail by sawing through the bars on a window.

“The escape of the prisoners was made possible by the industrious use

(continued on page 26)

26 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

yost

(continued from page 25)

of a saw or saw slipped to them in some manner from the outside,” the article stated.

I’ll bet you anything it was a file baked into a cake that someone brought to the prisoners. These days that‘s kind of a joke, but back then it was probably the first time it had happened and, when the Guilford County jailers figured it out, they were probably all floored and were like, “Wow, hiding a file in a cake! That’s really brilliant! Who would have ever thought to look out for that?”

The other thing you notice about Greensboro a hundred years ago is that there was an astonishing amount of news, ads and other items devoted to mules. I mean, the whole paper is full of mules: people selling mules, people buying them, stories of mule thefts and problems caused by mules, you name it. Greensboro must have been like the mule capital of the world.

One short blurb I read said, “Mr. R. L. Davis had the misfortune to be kicked by a mule Saturday. The blow was received about the knee and he is unable to walk at the present time, although it is not serious.”

That item illustrates that people in the old-timey days were so sturdy and were so not prone to complain. These days if you were kicked by a mule and you couldn’t walk, you’d sue everyone in sight and talk about nothing but that for years, but in 1916, everyone was like, “Oh it’s nothing, a mule just kicked the $%&# out of him, and now he can’t walk, but don’t worry; it was nothing.”

The other thing you see in the 1916 papers is that there is sooooo much stuff about husbands killing their wives and wives killing their husbands – and then claiming it was suicide in an attempt to collect the insurance money.

There were also those who took the more civilized approach and simply divorced their spouses rather than killing them. One interesting article, headlined “Witches cause for divorce,” was about a man whose wife was worried about witches attacking her during her sleep so she poured salt on their bed every night and slept with a knife that she would use at night to fend off the witches.

The story has a dateline of Reading, Pennsylvania: “A man is charging his wife with cruel treatment in that she sprinkled salt in their bed as a charm against [witches] and also kept a knife under her pillow, which she is said to have used freely in stabbing after supposed witches. Joseph Gabel, of this city, brought suit for divorce.

“Her stabbing, Gable claims, was

not conducive to a peaceful night’s sleep because the knife would cut through the pillow several inches from his head, which upset his nerves and caused his health to be impaired.

He also alleges that she neglected her home. The judge granted a subpoena.”

You know, I am all for married couples staying together whenever possible, but I must say that I can see how it might be disturbing if, every night, you were suddenly jolted out of a deep sleep by your wife in bed next to you screaming to high heaven with a crazed look in her eyes and wildly stabbing a knife into your pillow two inches from your head while feathers flew everywhere.

I can see how that might possibly “upset his nerves.” I know that, for me at least, after every time that happened I would have a hard time falling back to sleep. I think I would ask for a divorce too – especially if, as he claimed, she was neglecting the housework on top of that.

In the old papers, the ads were much better than today. These days you can watch a 60-second ad on the Super Bowl that cost a company $4 million, but when it’s over you have no idea what it was for. But, in 1916, the ads were really great and simple.

Like, there might be a picture of a mule and the text would read: “My name’s John Parker. I have some really good mules. If you come by 412 N. Elm St., I’ll give you a good price on one.”

That’s what I’m talking about. Tell me what your selling and where I can find it.

In 1916, there was a lot of news about this new-fangled device known as the telephone that people had but didn’t understand how to use.

There was an add for a new thing called a second business line so your customers would have less trouble reaching you, and there was a big public campaign discouraging people from making “curiosity calls” during major fires or other disasters. One public service ad tried to discourage the “mass of curiosity telephone calls that threaten to swamp our exchanges every time there’s a large fire” and said that calls for physicians, the ambulance or the police, held up at such times might result in the loss of human life.” So, it said, “For your protection, as well as for the protection of your neighbors, we ask you not to call the telephone operator out of curiosity. After all she has no more information than you have.”

Regulations seemed to just be coming into existence in 1916. It had

just become illegal to sell or possess any type of matches other than the new modern safety matches that only lit when struck on the side of the containers. Apparently, the boxes of the former “strike anywhere” chemical matches tended to spontaneously combust and they were the leading cause of homes burning to the ground.

There was a big debate about whether there should be any type of inspections on meat sold in Greensboro and, in 1916, they had just begun local restaurant inspections. But here’s the really cool thing: Just like today, restaurants were graded on a scale of 1 to 100.

However, back then, a 45 was a passing grade.

I’m not exactly sure how that worked, but I guess that back then health inspectors would tell restaurant owners things like, “Bob, it’s lucky for you that all those rats in your kitchen didn’t test positive for the mange or I‘d have had to shut you down.”

In general, there didn’t seem to be any controls or safeguards on anything – including even the proceedings for jury verdicts. In one murder trial in Denver, the accused was waiting on a verdict regarding his insanity plea. If it came back “insane” then he would live, but, if it came back “sane,” then he would hang.

“As the jury filed in, the clerk was handed an envelope. He read: ‘We the jury find that James Bulger at the present time is insane.’ Bulger smiled and his attorneys turned to congratulate him. Foreman Gardner arose and declared a mistake had

been made. ‘The wrong slip was put in the envelope,’ he said.”

Sane, insane – what’s the difference? Oh yeah, that’s right: life and death is the difference.

I mean, wouldn’t you think that would be something you doublechecked carefully if anything was?

But that’s my point – back then, nothing was checked.

Also, there was plenty of sexism.

One Patriot article asked “Are Girls Becoming Ugly?” and dealt with an Englishman’s claim that women were losing their attractiveness due to having to do men’s work because of the war.

In addition to sexism, there was clearly a lot of racism a hundred years ago, but there were also some hints that even back then plenty of people in Greensboro knew the absurdity of that. I’ll leave you with a bit of humor from the paper 100 years ago that shows you what I mean ...

It tells a story of a black man “who had moved from the South to New York began to attend a fashionable Episcopal church and, encouraged by the kindness which he met at the hands of the minister, he applied for membership in the church. For social reasons, the minister did not care to receive him and put him off from time to time. At last, the man went to the minister and he said: ‘I have carried the Lord this matter of joining your church and told him what a hard time I was having in gitting in, but he said to me not to trouble, that he had been trying for a long time to git in this church himself and had never succeeded.’”

ask

C

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

arolyn...

27

Straight Talk

from the Dancing Divorce Attorney

by Carolyn Woodruff

Ask Carolyn…

Dear Readers, Please share your stories and questions on video visitation.

Dear Carolyn, My child’s mother lives in Raleigh.

She visits every other weekend with the child, but we are going to court

soon, and the mother wants to use FaceTime with the child. I think this will be a pain, but what do you think the court might say about using FaceTime for visitation? I don’t have an iPad and neither does the child.

I do have one FaceTime with the mother’s new boyfriend scantly clad in the background.

Carolyn Answers ...

Welcome to the world of custody in 2016. For my readers, FaceTime is a videotelephony application that basically allows two or more people to

talk remotely and see each other at the same time. This has become such the “deal” in remote parent-child visitation that the legislature in Raleigh has added provisions to NCGS 50-13.2(e) concerning “electronic visitation” with a child.

Here are the issues the court will review with you: 1) Is the video visitation in the child’s best interest?

2) Is the video equipment accessible, affordable and available in both parents’ homes? In your case, you don’t have an iPad, an iPhone or

Apple computer, which is needed for FaceTime. However, you may have an Android device or a computer that will play programs similar to FaceTime.

This might be Skype, Viber or Google Hangouts. You might research these alternative programs to see if anything works on a device you have.

The court can consider any other factor the court deems appropriate.

This might be where you talk about the absence of clothing on the boyfriend during FaceTime with a child.

The court can set guidelines for the (continued on page 38)

28 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

beep (continued from page 24) finally, are you satisfied with the course that has been plotted thus far? Southern Guilford County and Otis here saying we believe it’s time to change direction. PS: To coin a phrase, if you’re scared, go home to mommy.

%%% Euphemisms, are they worse than sarcasm? You know, by the way, shout out to Steely Dan Fan.

%%% Yes, I got a question. Why are they so scared to show the real image of Jesus Christ when they know in reality Christ was a black man? But for some reason they still keep on showing him being white on TV and in the movies.

And I think that’s solely illogical.

And, plus, it gives me a whole lot of rant about when they should know that Jesus Christ was, is a black man. Even the Bible tells you what color he is. You look at Daniel 10 and the Revelation part explains what color he is. I mean, Christ was a black man. But for some reason they keep on making him being white. I think that’s illogical and foolish. And they need to check themselves on that.

And these religious moves and other bunch of rip-off funk anyway.

But other than that, Christ is a black man, whether you like it or not. Check it out. Peace.

%%% Yes, I got a problem with Tyler Perry dressing like a woman again. I see he dresses up as a clown in drag again. To me I think it’s illogical and totally foolish.

A black man should never be wearing a wig and lipstick and a bra in the first place. And, to me, Tyler Perry is nothing but a sellout.

It seems like white folk love blacks that act like people like him, and people like Stacey Dash or Mr. T. They love that guy. But they hit on Beyoncé because she shows her true black color in the first place.

%%% Your comment on Trump’s bankruptcy being corporate is correct. You need to call Karl Rove. He refers to Trump bankruptcy on Fox News. Plus, he has referred to Trump bankruptcies in two of his columns. So, you might want to set him straight.

And at the same time you might

(continued on next page)

uncle orson (continued from page 24)

by bullet.

It’s a moving film, in my opinion, which deserves your attention now, even if you missed it in the theaters.

As for the movie Max, let’s face it.

It’s a dog movie. It’s a boy-lovesdog movie. But it’s not a Lassie movie and it’s not Old Yeller, even though it has echoes of both.

Max is a war dog, whose handler is killed in combat in the Middle East in 2014. The dog is confused and traumatized by the death of his handler, Kyle Wincott. Max ends up with Kyle’s angry younger brother, Justin (the superb Josh Wiggins), who comes to trust and then love the dog.

The movie turns much darker than I expected, though, when one of Kyle’s friends, local boy Tyler Harne, gets a job at the storage facility owned

by Kyle’s and Justin’s father, Ray (Thomas Haden Church). Tyler tells Ray that Kyle died because Max went crazy and turned on him in combat; this enrages Ray so much that he wants to kill Max. But all is not as it appears, because Tyler is involved in some serious criminal activity with a local sheriff’s deputy and some acrossthe-border gun merchants. Max and Justin, along with Justin’s friends, find themselves in grave danger as they try to keep anybody they love – including Max – from getting killed.

I expected a boy-loves-dog movie.

What I saw was a boy-grows-up movie that bears more than a slight resemblance to Run All Night – though it’s the son trying to rescue the father, rather than the other way around.

I recently saw 1974’s Earthquake for the first time, and wow, is it seriously bad. And by bad, I mean bad starring Charlton Heston, which elevates it to the level of spectacular badness. This is because, unlike other big stars who appeared in bad disaster movies from that era, Heston doesn’t underplay his part as if he’s vaguely ashamed to be in the film.

No, Heston always plays his parts at full throttle, and in Earthquake the result is both poignant and laughable.

There are many plot resemblances between Earthquake and 2015’s San Andreas. In both cases, there are scientists trying to predict earthquakes. The star of the movie is the husband in a marriage on the rocks, a marriage that is saved in part by the heroics involved in spending a whole movie rescuing people.

There are architects. There are dams that spring leaks and then break. One of the spouses has found someone new to love. You know, all the plot points you’d expect.

Especially people getting knocked down, falling from high places, falling into new cracks in the earth and getting swept away in flood waters.

But forget the resemblances, because, like the classic Twister, San Andreas is better than it needed to be.

Even though Mario Puzo was one of the writers, Earthquake has one of the most horrible scripts ever written; San Andreas had a screenplay by Carlton Cuse – who has also written Bates Motel, the brilliant new sci-fi series Colony, and Lost.

And here’s something important: We no longer expect our heroes to be vocal about it, to act like heroes, as in the days of Charlton Heston’s great roles. Instead, in our postClint-Eastwood world, we expect the taciturn hero, out-Garying Cooper.

For this purpose, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson turns in a far-betterthan-expected performance as the rescue-helicopter pilot whose daughter is trapped at the San Francisco end of a worst-earthquakeever while The Rock is busy saving his almost-ex-wife in Los Angeles.

It’s during their frantic and dangerous trip north to rescue their daughter that The Rock and his wife, played by Carla Gugino, work out some of the problems that tore their marriage apart after the death by drowning of their other daughter years before.

The scientist-hero is played by Paul Giamatti, who does a great job of making us both understand and care about the fake science, so that we almost believe that yes, they did find a way to give at least a few minutes’ warning before a big quake. And a few minutes can make a difference in the survival rate.

His foil is a reporter played by Archie Panjabi, and their subplot mostly involves trying to get a warning out in time to do any good – without benefit of the TV station’s upload link.

There is one villain, an architect played by Ioan Gruffudd, who is a long way from Horatio Hornblower and the Fantastic Four in this role.

The best plot, though, is a completely credible love story between the daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), and a young English architect, Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt), who happens to be in the same building with Blake, applying for a job, when the earthquake hits.

Ben and his pre-teen brother, Ollie, save Blake from being trapped in a car in an underground parking garage; she then leads them through the city with disaster tips she learned from her dad.

I mean, once one of you has plucked a thick shard of broken glass from the thigh of the other, and the other has used a jack, plus tiredeflation, to extract you from a car moments before it was crushed under a falling concrete ceiling, how can you not fall in love?

But it works, largely because the actors are all so innocent and charming. Did I mention that the boy Ollie is played by the innocent and charming Art Parkinson, who also plays Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones?

I haven’t seen anything else that Johnstone-Burt has done, or Daddario either (oh, wait, she was in several episodes of White Collar, so I must have seen her). But I want to see more from both of them.

Even though the most interesting storyline is that of the young lovers making their way through the ruins of a collapsing San Francisco, the fact is that The Rock is, appropriately, the anchor of this movie. He’s the guy who saves people, not with a lot of gratuitous grunting and straining as he shows us how hard he’s working at his rescues, but rather with a sense of urgent inevitability. This must be done, so he will do it.

Till now, I’ve deliberately sidestepped another reason why San Andreas is vastly better than Earthquake. Even though Earthquake had the then-new Sensurround so that audiences could feel some fake shaking, the special effects were laughable. Actors had obviously been told to jerk themselves around as if they were being shaken by a quake, but ... wow it was awful.

With computer graphics and much better stunt work, the disastrous events are much more believable and terrifying. There’s a moment when Gugino watches her lunch companion go through a door on the top floor of a high rise during the quake and tries to follow after her, to get her to climb up on the roof where The Rock is going to save them.

But when she opens the door, there’s nothing there. That whole side of the building has sheered away, and she watches as a man loses his hold and plummets many stories down, which must have happened to her lunch companion only moments before.

Meanwhile, I, as a confirmed sympathetic acrophobe, almost wet myself.

The Rock’s and Gugino’s journey northward changes methods of transportation almost as often as Around the World in 80 Days, as their damaged helicopter crashes, they (continued on page 31)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

beep (continued from previous page) want to call Mr. Flynt, who lost a lot of money in a failed Mexican deal that Trump had. And you might want to call the folks in Tampa. I believe there were 200 of them that lost money in the Trump Towers that never came about. And, then, the last call you might want to make is to the group of people that were foolish enough to get involved in Trump University, which is his upcoming lawsuit. So, you need to set these people straight. And, then, last but not least, I guess Roy Carroll bailed you out so that you didn’t wind up as a Wal-Mart greeter …

%%% If Hillary does become president, once she sits behind the desk in the Oval Office, I wonder if she will think of that woman.

%%% Concerning the use of restroom privileges by the LGBT community.

Should a female in the men’s room be required to use a urinal?

%%% Well, I see Belgium got hit by terrorists. That’s what you get when you let all these different cultures move in. Here in the United States we had 22 Muslim training camps thanks to our government. You don’t believe me, put it in your search engine.

Muslim training camps in the US. You will be shocked. We need Trump to eliminate these.

%%% The only way to stop or slow down these terrorist attacks is to go doorto-door to every Muslim and religious sites, and if we find any material pertaining to ISIS or hatred against America, or bomb making materials, then they need to be removed from this country and never to return. We need to start profiling these people.

%%% Well, I guess since king Obama is in Cuba, I’ll guess we’ll be sending our jobs over there now. Wonderful.

%%%

29

Yes, this concerns last week’s tragic death of Darryl Hunt over there in Winston-Salem. From the very get-go of what happened in the murder over there, I just always felt that he was guilty right off the bat. Of course, DNA exonerated him from it. But there was a lot of people over there in Winston-Salem thought even after he got out of the prison and whatnot still thought he was guilty. I know Winston-Salem paid over a million dollars and the state about $600,000.

But I think that crowd over there in Winston-Salem, the court system, the prosecutor and the assistant prosecutor and some of those detectives that worked on that case, they should have been fired, I think, after Darryl got out. They hemmed and hawed. It was sad. You wonder what they thought when they saw him walking downtown after he got out of prison. They’d see him. There was a report he could see the prosecutor down there.

cover topics that the mainstream media doesn’t find fit to cover such as poverty and social justice. We publish every other month, and our current issue is available now at the IRC, 407 West Washington St. We’d love to bring some at no charge to your location if you’d like to get down to the real dirt on how person’s experiencing homelessness are living a variety of realities for a range of causations. Email GreensboroVoice@gmail.com.

%%%

%%%

Hello, Beep. This is Amanda from the Greensboro Voice talking. We’re a five-year-old all-volunteer free street paper that’s written by and for persons experiencing homelessness. We

take care of yourself in all the ways that matter.

%%% Hi, John. In case you haven’t heard, though, Greensboro and High Point rank number one for food insecurity in the whole United States. In Guilford County Schools 73,000 students receive free or reduced-price breakfasts. I find it really hard to believe that you would object to using city recreation centers to help feed hungry children. John, forget your politics and have a little heart.

Commenting on John Hammer’s column. He seems to be concerned that some of the

(continued on page 31)

Wellness of mind, body and wallet.

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BAnkinG || lendinG || ACCess a l l e g a c y. o r g Federally insured by NCUA. ©2016 Allegacy Federal Credit Union

30 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Rhino Schmoozefest at Bravo! Cucina Italiana

Photos by Elaine Hammer

uncle orson (continued from page 28)

steal a pickup, abandon it when a deep uncrossable fissure bars their way, then commandeer a skydiving airplane and fly it to San Francisco, then parachute out of the plane into what used to be Candlestick Park because there’s nowhere to land, and finally steal a boat, which they use to ride out the tsunami and then tootle around the half-drowned city until they happen to go right past the building where Blake and Ben and Ollie are struggling to survive and ...

Yeah, that’s a huge, unbelievable coincidence, but come on. If that coincidence didn’t happen there wouldn’t be a movie, so let’s cut ’em some slack, OK? Throughout the whole film, the special effects are very good.

Cracking and bursting dams, crushed and broken bridges and overpasses, pancaking and toppling edifices, and the ground rippling as the huge tremors pass through the earth – these all work.

Of course it’s ludicrous to think that a helicopter could stay in the air after flying its rotor through a bunch of falling concrete debris – but if

we can let sci-fi spaceships dodge through asteroid storms, we can let a helicopter stay aloft after damage that should have bent those rotors like pretzels.

And when we get aerial shots of the tsunami water bursting through the streets of San Francisco, it can be a little annoying to see how they ignored the fact that the city is as hilly as a bunch of upside-down cows’ udders, and very little of the water would remain in the streets except around the flattest edges of the city.

But hey, even if the water couldn’t actually be where it is, they make the water believable. The tsunami is very well-done, and our heroes’ ride up the front face of the wave is as good a nailbiter as you’re likely to find in a disaster movie.

The movie ends with a pullaway sequence where we rise higher and higher into the air, looking down on San Francisco, which is now an island.

I had to pause that sequence to see if our old house in Santa Clara was underwater. It was. I mean, not specifically, but the area where it’s located was clearly not on dry land.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES So when we look back on 2015’s movies, I think it’s OK to value and enjoy movies that nobody would ever propose for Oscars or even Golden Globes, because they aren’t arty enough or don’t have the right kind of stars or subject matter. Run All Night, Max and San Andreas are at least as likely to keep finding appreciative audiences as any of the nominated and award-winning films.

In fact, even though I admire The Big Short more than any of those three films, I’m far more likely to be captivated by any of these three “lesser” films and watch it through to the end just because it happens to be on.

The Rock wasn’t going to be nominated for an acting award for San Andreas, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good actor who had exactly the right chops (and the right physique) for an earthquake rescue movie.

It’s OK to like movies that are entertaining, moving, exciting or funny; it’s even OK to like them better than movies that get a lot of critical praise.

I don’t care what happens when a CGI bear doesn’t like you; but I found myself caring very much when a mafia boss or a battle-dog or the ground under their feet didn’t like the characters I cared about.

31

beep (continued from page 29) orphanages may be slipping Oliver Twist a second spoonful of gruel. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? I just hope the Grinch can grow a heart. Got to feed those kids.

%%% Yes, I’m a veteran, and I’m really appalled, also sort of ashamed, that we have a candidate who’s running for president who’s under FBI investigation. That being said, giving health care to illegals when you can’t – when the veteran situation has never been solved under Bush or Obama, what the heck is anybody thinking out there? This person gets elected president, I feel extremely sorry. And I think the republic will come to an end.

%%% I don’t know if it’s a commercial or some kind of speech or something that Ted Cruz was

(continued on page 32)

32 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Letters KNOWING WHAT ISN’T SO DEAR EDITOR,

I have always known that liberals of both parties have a twisted view of reality, but I have had an epiphany recently that is akin to “He is risen.”

Very appropriate given that last Sunday was Easter. Liberals view the world through funhouse lenses.

Take Chris Cuomo, for instance.

This CNN anchor/reporter covered Obama’s visit to Havana wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

To American progressives like CNN reporter Chris Cuomo, Obama’s visit is a cross between a honeymoon and a homecoming. Cuomo covered the story from Cuba wearing his father’s guayabera shirt, which was “given to him by Fidel Castro as a gift.” Cuomo, who was covering President Obama’s visit to Cuba, underlined that “it didn’t mean something to him [his father] because it came from Fidel Castro necessarily, but because it marked conversations going on decades ago that were the same as those today.”

The anchor summarized that for his father, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, “the concern was the freedom of the people. What is the point of

LETTERS To The Editor

TO THE EDITOR this communist regime if it is not to truly make everyone equal – not at the lowest level; not by demoralizing everyone; but lifting everyone up? My father, generations of politicians, have been fighting this. So, I wear this shirt as a reminder of that, and of my pop.”

Does that fool not realize that Che Guevara and the Castros ran some of the most murderous regimes of the last century? A communist regime lifting everyone up? What freedom of the people? To truly make everyone equal?

Does he know nothing about Cuba’s history? Does he know nothing about the poverty and living conditions of the majority of the Cuban people? Sadly, that’s the attitude of most liberals, Sen. Bernie Sanders being the perfect example. As Ronald Reagan said: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

2. Go on an apology tour with your enemies – this week in Cuba.

3. Apologize for America’s evil colonialism of the past 200 years.

4. Negotiate an agreement where we open our doors and our treasury to the communist government of Cuba.

We send our money to support the Castro brothers and their dictatorship.

5. We offer to begin the process of giving our strategic military base, Guantanamo, to Cuba. It has been an important American military base for over 100 years.

6. Do not ask the Cuban government to open their society or allow personal freedoms.

7. Even though the Castro brothers have imprisoned more militants in the last month, we do not ask for their release.

8. Call this a most important event in America’s history.

OBAMA’S ART OF DEAL DEAR EDITOR,

WHO KNOWS BEST? DEAR EDITOR,

Robert Fullerton

The art of the deal, Barack Hussein Obama style: 1. Offend your long-term friends – ongoing.

beep (continued from page 31) doing in front of what looked to be all females, including I’d say six or so that were in the picture that appeared to be preteen. Isn’t that what they call indoctrination when you bring kids in and you try to sway them to have the same opinions and thoughts and beliefs that you do? I think that’s what they call it. So, yeah, that’s Cruz trying to indoctrinate children to his way.

%%% You ever try to do the speed limit in North Carolina? You’ll get eat up.

Because you know what? You can’t drive 55.

%%% Yes, I’m calling in about Guilford County Schools bullying. I work in maintenance, and you would not

believe the bullying there. You get cussed out by your supervisor. You should not have to put up with that.

%%% There’s nothing wrong with being a Democrat. But as a Democrat, don’t you understand that the man that you put in office has got no intentions of keeping you safe? He don’t care nothing about you. Down in Cuba watching a ballgame. There was Americans in this bombing over in Belgium. There was Americans there that was wounded. And he don’t care nothing about that. He don’t care anything about running the country. All he’s wanting to do is get the retirement money for presidents raised. He hasn’t cared anything about running it to start with unless

Allen Andrew

Basic concepts that set America apart from the rest of the world are under open attack by forces within and without our borders.

Let’s start with First Amendment

he gives something to get more votes for the Democratic Party. If you want the same stuff that you got going on now going on again, vote for Hillary Clinton. She’s no better than he is. The difference between her and George Washington, they said George couldn’t tell a lie.

Hillary Clinton can’t tell the truth.

%%% Yes, governor. Thank you for passing the bill about the bathrooms. I think it’s a bunch of baloney to begin with. Men go to the men’s bathroom. Women go to the women’s bathroom. And some dude out here who thinks he might be a woman and wants to use the woman’s bathroom, if you come in there when I’m in there, you’re going to get kicked where it hurts.

%%% Hi. I’m sorry that I’m late in responding to this. But I’d like

(continued on next page)

rights. You must be careful what you say, wear, read, watch or display, lest the PC police come down on you. If you are not a member of what they consider a protected class, you are an oppressive brute whose opinions are meant only to hurt others. Pride in America means you are a racist, sexist homophobe who needs to be shouted down. Your rights don’t matter. And don’t get me started about wanting to exercise your religious freedom.

How about the Second Amendment?

If you support and exercise this right you’re a redneck wacko who only wants a weapon to shoot anybody you disagree with. How dare you defend yourself, your family and your property?

Now one of our most cherished privileges, that being the vote, is being assaulted by outside forces. The Mexican government is pushing to get as many non-citizen residents made into citizens as they can so they can throw the vote in the direction they want.

Additionally, foreign governments are buying up America as fast as they can.

Did you know that Saudi Arabia now owns the largest refinery in the United States?

How is this happening? First off, because of a majority of government officials whose only concern is consolidating power and control over its citizens. They are helped along by the indifference of a majority of those citizens that are more knowledgeable of celebrities’ lives then they are of what’s going on in their own government and country. When you have people that think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court, you have to ask yourself, how long do we have.

The late great President Ronald Reagan said it best: Government is not the solution; government is the problem. The federal government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people, and the 10th Amendment is supposed to be the law to make that so by limiting the power of the federal government. But, like any good lawyer (which most politicians are), they make the law into whatever they want, but only as long as the unwashed masses remember their place and don’t question their betters.

After all, they know what’s best us.

Go Galt and go vote.

Alan Marshall

(continued on next page)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

letters

beep

(continued from previous page)

CONNECTING WITH BOND DEAR EDITOR,

I fully stand with Gov. Pat McCrory and his backing of the NC Connect bond that passed overwhelmingly recently. Fifteen years have passed by since the last bond was authorized in order to improve the quality of living for the residents of North Carolina, and since then there has been an increase in population by 2 million people.

Currently, interest rates are at an all-time low and North Carolina is one of 10 states with an AAA bond rating. This means that we can borrow money at a historically low rate and that we can do so without increasing taxes thanks to our increased debt capacity. Much needed investments in education, parks, recreation, water and sewer infrastructure can be made at a time when it is practical and fiscally conservative. McCrory knew this when he supported the bond, and it is obvious that he has North Carolina’s best interests at heart.

Jonathan Suh

33

BOO ON DICTATORS DEAR EDITOR,

I am glad that President Obama has promised to declassify more information about “our” government’s past support for the right-wing dictatorship that used to rule Argentina.

Unfortunately, he isn’t going far enough. I think that the president should order the declassification of all information about the federal government’s support for dictatorships in the past, and the present.

Imagine if our government had a history of overthrowing dictatorships, instead of supporting them.

The government of the US should support the overthrow of all dictatorships.

Chuck Mann

Editor’s Note: Do you mean like we did in Iraq and Libya?

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

(continued from previous page) to thank Officer Gardener of the Greensboro Police Department for helping me change my tire one night when I had no help and was riding on a flat tire. He helped me off of Church Street, and he was a gentleman. And I want him to know that his mother raised him well.

And I just want to say thank you.

Greensboro police aren’t all bad.

%%% Hey, Scott D. Yost. I hope you get this message before they get sold out. I was at the Harris Teeter the other day on Eastchester in High Point, and Us magazine has a thick magazine this month. It’s the collection edition. Taylor Swift. All about Taylor. Three posters and more, more pics. $12.99. Enjoy.

%%% I’d like to see BJ Barnes one day just have a check on all the officers in Greensboro and High Point and the county. You know, just one day say that we’re going to have a gathering and invite all the officers

before they go on duty. Maybe have them all come to the gymnasium at one of the high schools in each county. And, then, just, you know, just jump up and give them a drug test. Make them all go in a cup right there. Make them line up, have a place like a draped area where they can walk into and just give them all a urine test. But the only problem is, I don’t think our county would ever do something like that because I have a bad feeling that a lot of those officers would test the wrong way, and we’d end up having to hire a lot of cops.

%%% Yes, I would like someone from the city to, please, comment on why there are no handicapped parking in the metered parking areas beside the courthouse. I think it’s a shame.

First of all, if you’re handicapped, you do have to pay for parking.

And, then, by the time you get to the courtroom, the time is over the (continued on page 34)

34 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

beep (continued from page 33) limit, and you end up with a parking ticket.

I think that parking meter lot should be for handicapped only.

%%% I try to pride myself on having good common sense. Hillary Clinton is talking about cutting the amount of money it costs to go to college and doing all this different things. But she never mentions what it’s going to do about this $19 trillion that this country owes. This government needs to come on television and tell people what’s going to happen. It looks like to me that they’re going to have to start cutting what people are drawing. I’m talking about Social Security and all. Everybody is drawing more Social Security and never paid in. Everybody I know has. Donald Trump, he never mentions them either. This country is going to hell in a handbasket, and nobody seems to be doing one thing about it.

%%% I am a law-abiding citizen who paid my property taxes and my vehicle taxes every year. I’m a Vietnam veteran. I served with an honorable discharge. I survived the Tet Offensive in 1968. And all I see around Greensboro is things deteriorating because of our local, state and county government, especially when it comes to people driving with expired license tags. I don’t know what the problem is. I don’t know whether people are afraid to stop people of color, or what the situation is, but if I buy my tags every year and put them on my car to abide by the law, then everybody else should be forced to abide the law. I don’t know what the problem is that people feel like they don’t have to abide by the law anymore. I see people all the time with expired tags.

%%% Hi. I’m calling in about the delegates that are being distributed between the Democrats and the Republicans. I was shocked to see that the Democrats are going to get 122 delegates and the Republicans are going to get 76 or 72. That’s amazing to me. I don’t get how they drew this up. I think it’s wrong.

I think this whole entire system is wrong. I think we need to redo this. I think it’s really sad to see that North Carolina doesn’t play a bigger part in voting and getting delegates than what we do. And we’re giving such a high amount of delegates to the Democrats.

It should be even, not distributed unequal.

Not only that, I’m sick of the race card being played all the time. It’s not fair.

%%% Editor’s Note: Each political party makes decisions on its own convention.

%%% It looks like the only place that’s allowed to have gambling places are Guilford County (continued on next page)

Get Fuzzy

by Darby Conley

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

beep

RHINOSHORTS (continued from page 4)

Next week we are adding a new monthly columnist to our pages, Doug Copeland, a lifelong resident of Greensboro who has 16 years of newspaper experience under his belt, just not as a columnist.

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.

Since Copeland in his younger days worked for the Democratic Party, Democratic 6th District Congressman Richardson Preyer and for the Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, we’re pretty sure he’s at least a little to our left.

Copeland’s column will run the first Thursday of every month. Look for it next week and let us know what you think.

35

(continued from previous page)

but some do. I use three different charging cords for my two laptops pretty much every day. Two of the cords behave like cords. I plug them in, they charge the laptop. I unplug them and they sit patiently and wait until they are needed again.

Then I have one cord that has a devilish personality. I plug it in and look over a minute later and it has become unplugged and wrapped itself around the chair leg. Somehow or other it manages to get under foot every time I get up. The other day I was tying my shoe and the cord managed to get tied up in my shoelace. It is never where I left it and if I leave it in a nice coil, when I come back it has tied itself into a knot and the connecter that I need is hiding under the chair, a pillow, the desk, somewhere that it can’t be seen.

If I didn’t have two other otherwise identical well-behaved cords I would think it was me.

and Kernersville. What’s up with this? Are other enforcement agencies operating at a better pace than ours? Or are we just lazy?

$30,000 they gave the outgoing one to help buy some school supplies that teachers seem to be needing and are buying for themselves.

%%%

%%%

Just reading Scott’s column about the consultants, and I got to thinking, why does the city or the county have to hire consultants to find a new superintendent of schools? We’ve got six assistants.

Why spend $200,000 or $300,000 when we can promote from within?

Remember a few years ago when they selected one, and we had a lady that they were talking about, a black lady, wonderful and all. But they passed right over her. Two or three months later she was superintendent of the schools somewhere else. I’m sure that we have somebody local that’s been in there that knows what’s going on and don’t have to come in and start changing everything around.

And, two, they could have used that

I know that inanimate objects are not supposed to have personalities,

If anyone is wondering how come ISIS can convince people to blow their selves up and cause destruction around the world, look no further. They have a good teacher. Look at Donald Trump and see what he’s preaching and teaching people to do. Look no further than Donald Trump.

%%% I’d like to thank Gov. McCrory for having the courage to sign this bill into effect to stop these people from going into different bathrooms.

We don’t need that kind of stuff in the state. And if goes down to losing the All-Star Game, so be it. We don’t have to pander to a minute percentage of people just to satisfy them. It’s sickening to

(continued on page 36)

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36 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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facing off against the rank-andfile Republicans. Both of the other Republican candidates in the race are in the professional politician class.

Sen. Ted Cruz has been involved in politics ever since he graduated from law school and Gov. John Kasich had a long career in Congress before he was elected governor of Ohio. Out of office he worked for Lehman Brothers, before it went bankrupt, and Fox News.

Kasich supports Common Core, voted for the Clinton gun ban and, as governor, has supported Obamacare by extending Medicaid coverage over the objection of the Ohio state legislature. Kasich is no conservative, but one of the big complaints against Trump is that he is not a conservative.

When was the last time the Republican Party nominated a conservative for president? You have to go back to President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

President George H.W. Bush was a moderate who got in office by promising not to raise taxes and then lost his presidency because he couldn’t resist raising taxes. Sen. Bob Dole was not a conservative. It was just his turn to run. President George W. Bush was not a conservative and didn’t govern as one. Sen. John McCain isn’t even close to being a conservative.

Mitt Romney brought his version of Obamacare to Massachusetts before President Barack Hussein Obama brought Obamacare to the rest of the nation. Romney tried to sound like a conservative when he was

running, but he hadn’t governed as one and didn’t fool too many voters.

Conservatives stayed home in droves when Romney was on the ticket.

So the Republican establishment has no history of endorsing conservatives for the presidency. In fact, the Republican establishment claims that to win the presidential race, a Republican has to be a moderate. This claim is made despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Finally the Republican Party has a candidate that excites people.

Trump attracts crowds that haven’t bothered to vote in years because the Republicans have pushed such unremarkable candidates to the front. And rather than embrace a candidate who connects with the American people in a way that no Republican presidential candidate has since Reagan, the Republican establishment is doing everything in its power to defeat him and get a Democrat elected president.

The final straw will be if Trump does get the nomination and the Republican establishment runs a thirdparty candidate. Kasich has proved to be delusional enough to make that run and think he could win.

If Kasich were in any other profession he would be hauled off to the loony bin for the statements he is making about being the Republican nominee. Usually in the primary season the candidates who can’t get out of single digits run out of money and suspend their campaigns.

The Republicans race is down

beep (continued from page 35) watch every time that something comes up about the gay community there is such an outrage and a disgrace that affects everybody else. But this particular thing will affect our children. I do not want my grandchildren in a bathroom with some man walking in there who thinks he’s a woman. And nobody else does either.

cars had people pulled over. Are you flipping kidding me? One mile an hour over? That’s how they’re paying for that civil rights museum.

This is a joke. I am just about ready to move out of this county and just about ready to move out of this United States. I’m sick of this crud with Obama and all of his junk. I am sick of it, man.

%%%

%%%

Well, I see how the Greensboro City Council is going to pay for the civil rights museum. They’re going to give them money. They are issuing tickets for one mile an hour over the speed limit. I was just down Wendover and saw five police

I’d like to say thank you to the party, the GOP candidates and to the people in charge of the GOP for splitting the party so bad that Hillary Clinton is going to walk right into office.

%%%

to three. Trump has won 22 states, Cruz has won eight states and Kasich has won exactly one – his home state of Ohio. Sen. Marco Rubio, who dropped out after Florida, still has more delegates than Kasich.

Yet Kasich in interviews is still claiming that he should be the Republican nominee. This is despite the fact that in state after state Kasich finished last, with some notable exceptions like Iowa where he finished 8th, which was next to last, and New Hampshire where he finished second, but nearly 20 points behind Trump.

The only reason Kasich has moved up from eighth to third in primaries is because the other candidates have dropped out. He has finished in single digits more than he has finished in double digits.

Voters don’t like and won’t vote for Kasich, not just in one part of the country, but across the country. Not just early in the primary season, when the field was crowded, but even late in the primary season, when he only faced two other candidates.

Kasich’s only path to the Republican nomination is if there is a brokered convention and the Republican establishment that hates Cruz only slightly less than Trump decides to give the nomination to a candidate who will lose in a landslide in November.

The vast majority of Republican voters doesn’t like Kasich and have proven, time and time again in the state primaries, that they will vote for anyone else on the ballot.

I’ve watched the videos of Corey Lewandowski allegedly attacking a reporter, and it’s hard to believe that charges were brought.

I have never been to a Trump campaign event, but I have been to a number of campaign events of presidential candidates, and there is always a lot of pushing, jostling and maneuvering for position. Getting whacked in the head with a camera lens is not uncommon.

I’ve never known a reporter to press charges against another reporter for running into them or against a member of the campaign staff for making room for the candidate to move. It’s tight and you’ve got everyone trying to get close enough to the candidate to hear him or her speak.

The Hillary Clinton campaign tied a rope around the press covering Hillary Clinton during a parade. So it’s OK for Democratic presidential candidates’ campaigns to tie reporters up with a rope, but not for a Republican campaign worker to move a reporter out of the way. It’s incredible the lengths that the mainstream media and the establishment are willing to go

to sully the Trump campaign.

What other candidate gets the blame for protestors at their campaign events? I’ve seen lots of photos of protestors at Hillary Clinton’s campaign events but no one is blaming her for the protestors showing up. It is a huge double standard, which you expect from the liberal mainstream media. The problem for Republicans is that the Republican establishment is joining the liberal mainstream media in attacking Trump.

It’s time for the Republican Party to start putting itself back together.

Trump is the presumptive candidate.

It makes sense for Cruz to attack Trump because he’s the only one left with even a slim statistical possibility of defeating him, but the Republican establishment should be backing off, waiting to see who wins and then working to heal the wounds of the primary campaign and backing the Republican nominee.

The fact that the Republican establishment hates Trump and hates Cruz only slightly less should be sending a message to the establishment that it has completely lost touch with its base. Instead of fighting Trump they should be studying his campaign to see why Republican voters overwhelmingly prefer him to the candidates they backed first, Jeb Bush and then Rubio.

In fact, Rubio’s campaign was doing much better before he became the darling of the Republican establishment. You would think this would send a message to the powerbrokers, but it is a message they refuse to hear.

Trump says the US should look at the NATO alliance and see if it still makes sense for the American people to be providing military protection for Europe.

It sounds like a really good question. NATO was formed to put up a united front against the Soviet Union, which no longer exists. It was also formed at a time when Europe was a bunch of countries recently at war with each other. Now the European Union exists as a powerful economic entity.

Why shouldn’t Europe be forced to spend more of its own money defending itself? Why should the American people be paying to defend Europe when Europe isn’t supporting the US or following our lead in other matters?

Maybe if elected Trump will decide that NATO as it currently exists makes sense for the US, but that maybe it would make more sense for the US to cut back on US military forces used to protect Europe and let the Europeans (continued on next page)

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protect themselves. If they don’t want to raise their own armies, make them pay the full cost of the US keeping troops in Europe.

Hillary Clinton keeps getting bad news about her emails. In her first press conference about the emails, which was held in the United Nations building in front of the international press – but not in front of the national press – she told lie after lie. At that point Hillary Clinton was the only one in the room that knew what was on her personal email server, so she lied about it.

Now, because conservative and media organizations have spent a fortune on lawsuits, the American people know that what Hillary Clinton said wasn’t even close to being true.

But Hillary Clinton supporters don’t expect her to tell the truth. She is usually a little better at lying, but she evidently didn’t foresee federal judges forcing the State Department to release her emails, just like she was a common ordinary secretary of state

and not Hillary Clinton.

The Obama administration has the worst record of any recent presidential administration for releasing public records. There was no reason for her to think that the Obama administration was going to release all of the emails that she turned over. And even with court ordered timetable the Obama administration drug its feet for as long as possible, right up to the point where someone was going to spend some time in jail for contempt.

In an unusual move, a federal judge is now allowing discovery in one case, which means Judicial Watch, which is suing for access to the emails, gets to subpoena witnesses and question them under oath.

But that’s not the worst news for Hillary Clinton. The worst news is that the FBI, which has had about 150 agents working on this case, is now starting to question her staff.

The FBI doesn’t devote 150 agents to investigate anything unless it has strong evidence that a serious crime was committed. If the FBI recommends prosecution of Hillary

Clinton or her aides, it puts Obama and the Justice Department in a quandary. If they don’t prosecute then there is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is receiving special treatment, if they do then the Democrats will have to run Sen. Bernie Sanders in the November.

Or they could run Hillary Clinton under indictment. In this country you are innocent until proven guilty, and it’s doubtful that Hillary Clinton supporters would be bothered in the least by her arrest. If you support Hillary Clinton it takes a large amount of suspension of disbelief. If a voter is willing to ignore her past record, what’s one little arrest?

Obama has left no doubt where his interests lie in his final months in office, it’s in baseball with communist dictators and dancing with beautiful women.

Bush was criticized in the press because he was reading to schoolchildren when the World Trade Center was attacked and he didn’t run out the door like the place was on fire.

Obama attended a baseball game in Cuba when they were still treating the wounded and carrying off the 32 people who were killed by the Islamic

37

terrorist attack in Brussels, Belgium.

He spoke about the attack for less than a minute during an interview about baseball and didn’t seem very interested in what he was saying.

The trip to Cuba evidently proved that if the US makes no demands about human rights violations and the president promises not to say anything that isn’t nice about Cuba that the Castros will allow the US president to come visit.

Cuba has a lot to gain from normalized relations with the US. What the US gains is a new place for Americans to go on vacation. It seems like some concessions might be in order.

The very least Obama could have asked for is that the Castros not arrest any political prisoners while he was there, and Obama didn’t even get that concession.

Then Obama had to leave Cuba to go dancing in Argentina. But you can’t let a little thing like a terrorist attack on one of our allies ruin a good vacation.

You have to consider that Obama has less than a year to fly around the world in Air Force One at taxpayers’ expense and, despite world events, he clearly plans to take advantage of it while he can.

38 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

ask carolyn (continued from page 27)

video visitation, such as the hours and length of time. I suggest you have a plan of what you would like to present to the court when you go. For example, you might tell the judge that you would like the video visitation on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. The length of the video chat depends on the age of the child. I do not know how old your child is.

The court can implement a costsharing for the equipment for video visitation. This is not a part of child support and is a separate custody item.

Video visitation can supplement physical visitation, but cannot replace it entirely.

The electronic visitation can be supervised if ordered by the court.

Electronic visitation is not a factor in child support.

Oh, and you might send the boyfriend a shirt and pants to wear.

Sounds like he needs clothes. LOL. Dear Carolyn, I have heard the term “collaborative law.” I am thinking of getting a divorce and I am looking at options. What is

collaborative law? What are the pros and the cons?

Carolyn Answers ...

There are several different approaches to finding a resolution to divorce cases, such as mediation, arbitration, court and collaborative law.

Collaborative law is defined in North Carolina General Statutes 5071. A married couple is contemplating divorce, and their respective attorneys agree to use best efforts to settle the matrimonial issues outside the courtroom. Procedurally, the married couple agrees to attempt to settle out of court. If litigation subsequently goes forward in the court, then the attorneys in the collaborative process cannot serve as litigation counsel. A collaborative law agreement must be in writing and signed by both parties before a notary. The agreement must have the withdrawal provisions for both attorneys if the collaborative process fails.

A collaborative agreement can provide that the lawyers for the collaborative process can continue with the use of arbitration or other alternate dispute resolution.

The

collaborative agreement cannot provide that the lawyers will continue if contested litigation is involved.

Collaborative law agreements frequently have the parties using the same expert to get to an answer on difficult issues in the marital dissolution, such as business valuation and child custody. A couple participating in collaborative law might jointly hire a business appraiser to place a value on the marital business with the idea that the joint appraiser’s value will be used to resolve that issue in the case. The couple might jointly employ a licensed psychologist with credentials as a child custody evaluator to help them decide custodial issues with the children.

Who should use collaborative law?

My opinion is that persons should use collaborative law only if they have relatively equal knowledge of the facts and relative equal bargaining power and strengths. The divorce also needs to be very friendly. Frequently, the party with control of the information wants to use collaborative law and then will not give timely, complete and adequate information for the process to go forward.

Some of the negatives requiring careful consideration are as follows: The loss of counsel is a big issue because both parties have to start all

over with new lawyers if litigation is needed. It can be expensive to start over.

You lose the work done by the third party experts. All statements and communications in the collaborative process are inadmissible in any court proceeding; this work is privileged and inadmissible. A business valuation costs several thousand dollars, and this will be lost unless the parties agree that a third party expert’s work is admissible.

I frequently scratch my head and say, isn’t collaborative law good oldfashioned lawyering and negotiating?

Lawyers have negotiated since lawyers were created.

Why pay for an agreement to reach another agreement?

Send questions on family law and divorce to askcarolyn@rhinotimes. com, or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27427 or at Ask Carolyn’s comment section at rhinotimes.com.

Note that answers are intended to provide general legal information and are not specific legal advice for your situation. The column also uses hypothetical questions. A subtle fact in your unique case may determine the legal advice you need. Also, please note that you are not creating an attorney-client relationship with Carolyn J. Woodruff by writing or having your question answered by Ask Carolyn.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

under theHAMMER

39

by John Hammer

Donald Trump retweeting an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz alongside a flattering photo of his wife, Melania, created a news storm. Sen. Ted Cruz acted like he was indignant and called Trump a “sniveling coward” because his wife was off limits.

Cruz has been around long enough to know that’s simply not how it works in politics. If Cruz wants his wife to be off limits then he has to pull her off the campaign trail. Heidi Cruz sends me emails on a frequent basis asking me for money for “Ted.” Melania Trump has not sent me a single email, requesting money or otherwise.

The rules of the game are that anyone who campaigns for a candidate is fair game.

But the news media does have different standards for Republican children and Democratic children.

When Bill Clinton was president, Chelsea Clinton was completely off limits, but when George W. Bush was president his twin daughters were not. The mainstream media claimed it had nothing to do with the fact that Clinton was a Democratic president they loved and that Bush was a Republican president they hated, but I wonder if that’s true.

Presidential candidates’ wives have not been off limits at least since our second president, John Adams, whose wife was routinely criticized in the press. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are just a few whose wives were attacked in the press. The list of presidents’ wives who haven’t been attacked is shorter than those who have.

If Cruz wanted to be honest, something that he has a problem doing, he would admit that his supporters started it by running a discreetly posed but nude photo of Melania Trump. Cruz should have been campaigning against Trump long enough to know that Trump would not allow such an attack to go without a response.

But true to form, the mainstream media reports have largely neglected to mention that Cruz fired the first round by making Melania Trump’s looks and modeling career an issue, but focused on the fact that Trump fired back.

The New York Times has made it abundantly clear that it doesn’t believe in a civilian’s right to own guns. As the top dog in the media world, The New York Times sets the agenda for the rest of the sheep in the mainstream media, which routinely fall into place behind The New York Times. The New York Times favors ever more restrictions on civilian gun ownership, but even The New York Times doesn’t get to make up its own facts, which is exactly what it did in an editorial this month about the tragic Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

An editorial by The New York Times editorial board states the school children and adults were killed with a “military-style assault rifle.” It states the weapon was a Bushmaster AR-15 that fires “rapid bursts.”

The AR-15 is not an assault rifle and does not fire “rapid bursts.” It is, as the editorial correctly states, a “semiautomatic rifle.” An assault rifle is capable of firing rapid bursts or being placed in a fully automatic mode so that one trigger pull will fire the entire magazine. A semi-automatic rifle fires once each time the trigger is pulled.

That is a huge difference in firepower.

It is like saying the stock cars they race in NASCAR events are the same as the cars you can buy off the showroom floor. NASCAR vehicles are made to look like stock cars, but other than the sheet metal and the fact that they have four wheels there is little that is the same. The AR-15 is designed to look like an assault rifle but it is not.

It is not surprising that no one on The New York Times editorial board knows anything about guns, but it is irresponsible for the members of such an august body not to look up a few definitions on a topic on which they have no knowledge.

Automatic weapons such as assault rifles cannot be purchased by the general public. It is extremely difficult to get a license to legally purchase a fully automatic weapon such as an assault rifle and no one in this country has been murdered with a legally purchased fully automatic weapon since the ban was put in place decades ago.

The editorial quotes a lawsuit that states about the AR-15 that there is “no conceivable use for it other than the mass killing of other human beings.” This is also simply not true.

The AR-15 is used for hunting, for

target practice, shooting competitions and for home protection. It is an extremely popular weapon owned by millions of Americans, but in operation it functions no differently than most hunting rifles, which are also semiautomatic. One trigger pull, one round fired.

It is designed to look like a military assault rifle and fits into the category created for guns like this by the Clinton administration of “assault weapons,” but that is based on how the gun looks, not how it operates.

And even by that definition it is an assault weapon not an assault rifle.

Even the Democrats who hate guns realized that banning a gun because of the way it looked was useless and allowed the ban to expire.

Such irresponsible behavior by The New York Times is reprehensible because many its readers know no more about guns than the editorial board and believe what they read in The New York Times to be true.

I subscribed to The New York Times for decades but stopped my subscription because of articles and editorials like this, that report erroneous information as facts because the erroneous information supports liberal causes.

If we are going to have a responsible discussion about the rights of civilians to own guns in this country, it has to be based on facts, not fantasy.

The Republican Party is in complete disarray because the Republican establishment will stop at nothing to prevent the leading Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump,

from getting the nomination.

If the Republican establishment is successful and by hook or by crook manages to deny Trump the nomination after millions of Republicans have gone to the polls to support him, it will guarantee a victory for Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders.

And that seems to be what the Republican establishment wants because if a Democrat wins then they keep their jobs and their power. If Trump wins they lose control of the Republican Party. They lose their power and their jobs.

If you wonder about why they are so desperate to keep their jobs, the median net worth of the members of Congress is over $1 million.

You have to wonder how men and women of modest means can get elected to a job where they are paid $176,000 a year and are required to maintain two homes on that salary, and a couple of years later are worth over $1 million.

Those men and women are willing to go to great lengths to stay on the gravy train, including making certain that Hillary Clinton is the next president.

She may be a Democrat but she is also a professional politician, or at least the wife of a professional politician, and has enjoyed for most of her adult life all the perks of being in that elite club.

The 2016 presidential race is a case of the professional politicians (continued on page 36)

40 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, March 31, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com