Nostalgic Artist of the Day: A-ha

My music tastes in college ran the gamut from critic-worthy bands like REM and U2 to pop/rock bands like Toto, Journey, Kansas and Foreigner to more eclectic, esoteric groups like Tangerine Dream. My buddy Darrell used to kid me (and still does) about Tangerine Dream, an electronic band which recorded soundtracks for a number of movies. I had all their albums.

Darrell, an attorney back in our small home town in Kansas, was more of a hard-rock kind of guy who liked his music and lyrics intelligent. So if the ribbing I took about Tangerine Dream (no lyrics, just music) was bad, you can imagine what he thought about the Norweigan pop band “A-ha.”

A-ha’s debut release, “Hunting High and Low,” featured a song called “Take On Me,” which, if truth be told, was one of the worst on the album. The video for it, which you can see here, was something of a sensation and gave the album, and consequently the band, a huge push. It’s a catchy song, but really pales in comparison to the rest of the songs on “Hunting.” I liked the band and the album and much of their follow-up work, and still listen to their work, particularly songs from this first album, today.

Smith: Roy Williams and Jayhawk Fans

Fellow Turner’s Chapel Church member, and University of Kansas grad, Skip Smith shared with me this column written by his son, Benton, who works for a newspaper in Tonganoxie, Kansas. It was published back in mid-April during the NCAA Men’s Basketball championship and deals with former KU coach Roy Williams’ departure from the school…and Bill Self’s decision (for now) to stay…

Thanks to Skip and Benton for sharing it.

Jayhawk fans, forget these dates
by Benton Smith

July 6, 2000. April 7, 2003. April 14, 2003.

If one, two or all of those dates mean anything to you, then April 5, 2008, was probably a day you won’t soon forget.

For countless Kansas basketball fans all four of those dates serve as watermark moments for their beloved Jayhawks and their relationship with once beloved coach Roy Williams.

It was in July almost eight years ago that Williams famously announced that he would remain at KU and not head to his alma mater, North Carolina, as some media outlets erroneously reported.

Less than three years later Williams had the Jayhawks in the Final Four for the second straight year and came within a few KU free throws of an NCAA title. Meanwhile, UNC was again without a coach and Williams, again, was the Heels’ prime target. Minutes after an 81-78 loss in the final to Syracuse, Williams infamously told Bonnie Bernstein and a national television audience that he didn’t give a (bleep) about Carolina.

Many KU faithful were baffled, others furious, when they found out just a week later Williams in fact did give an expletive about UNC as he left Kansas for a job he had turned down three years before.

While it didn’t take Jayhawk fans long to warm up to Bill Self, the coach KU hired to replace Williams, many still bitterly stewed as their former coach went on to lead his new school to a 2005 NCAA championship.

A Kansas versus UNC matchup was longed for, but the day of reckoning didn’t come until this year, on April 5, at the Final Four in San Antonio.

KU fans got exactly what they wanted in the contest — a showdown with their former coach and a little payback. Kansas beat the Tar out of the Heels, 84-66.

By defeating his predecessor, Self established himself as the coach KU fans of this generation will forever remember and idolize.

The win also should serve as a mind-erasing elixir for Jayhawk fans who still clung to those aforementioned dates from half a decade ago and longer.

The jaded and unforgiving can officially move on — especially because Self coached the Jayhawks to their first NCAA title since 1988 two days after besting UNC. The 75-68 overtime win against Memphis made all those old petty grudges disappear.

When junior guard Mario Chalmers drained the clutch three-pointer that sent the game into overtime, a new moment, memory and date emerged to supersede all those old ones.

Now April 7, 2008, stands as the date to end all dates in the minds of KU fans. Those other dates and the memories associated with them are obliterated, thanks to the fifth-year KU coach who neither dillied nor dallied when his alma mater, Oklahoma State, came calling about its head coaching vacancy. On Thursday, Self announced he was staying at KU.

Just like some other guy did some other time. For some reason I can’t remember who he was or when it happened.

In Today’s Herald: Largest Drug Bust - Busted?

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIDEO’S POSTING MAY THREATEN CASE | Departments at odds?

The already-chilly relationship between the Lee County Sheriff’s Department and the Sanford Police Department may have taken a hit today. The lead story in today’s Herald tells of the largest drug bust in the county’s history - 2,400 pounds of marijuana with a street value of $5 million  - made back in January. The Sheriff’s Department and federal drug enforcement officials made three arrests on January 25 after finding the pot stashed inside a trailer in a storage facility of White Hill Road, according to Gordon Anderson’s story in today’s edition.

We’ll have a follow-up story in Thursday’s edition.

The bust may be in jeopardy because, according to Gordon’s Wednesday story, it seems two members of the Sanford Police Department showed up at the scene, with one of them alleged to have filmed part of the operation. The video was subsequently posted on YouTube. An attorney for one of the men arrested wants the case dismissed because the video, which is considered evidence in the case, wasn’t disclosed.

Here’s the he said/she said part of the story: Sheriff Tracy Carter says the Sanford PD wasn’t invited to the party. Sanford Police Chief Ronnie Yarborough says his department was. There’s more to the story, obviously; for Anderson’s take on it, see his blog entry here.

The video was taken off the YouTube video-sharing website by the time we learned about it, and first saw it (a pirated copy, as I understand), back in March. Those involved in the case have been hesitant to discuss it because of the sensitive personnel nature of it. The officer who allegedly made the video has, we’re told, been separated from the police department, and officials don’t want the work involved in making the bust go for naught.

WRAL-TV obtained a copy of the video and ran with the story last night, which helped motivate local officials to discuss the case.

An interesting, and well-known, part of the backstory is that Yarborough supported Carter’s opponent in the sheriff’s race in 2006, former Chief Deputy Kevin Bryant, and eventually hired Bryant as a detective for his department. Bryant supporters, some of whom have “Dump Carter 2010″ bumper stickers on their cars, say he’ll run for the office again in two years. (Incidentally, Bryant’s wife, Carmen, told me last week in a telephone call she plans to run for the mayor’s seat.)

The history of animosity between Carter and Yarborough, and their respective supporters, goes back years - at least since Carter first sought the office in 2002. It’s been heightened since with the sheriff’s department’s drug enforcement work - the department has significantly increased the number (and dollar value) of drug seizures and arrests since Carter took office. Carter publicly downplays any rift, as does Yarborough, and of course the important thing is for both departments to continue to work to curb crime. They work together in many operations, particularly drug cases, so hopefully they’ll find a way to get past any negativities based on misunderstandings about this case.

Maybe it’ll be a stepping stone to better communication between the law enforcement agencies…

Time will tell. More visibe cooperative ventures between the two departments would do everyone a lot of good.

On Screen: X-Files Update

 

 

 

 

 

 

I WANT TO BELIEVE | Mulder, Scully together again

The new X-Files movie, “I Want to Believe,” hits theaters in July. Jennifer Liggett shared this trailer with me…it looks great. Can’t wait! See the trailer here.

From the film’s producers: “In grand X-Files manner, the…film’s storyline is being kept under wraps. This much can be revealed: It is a stand-alone story in the tradition of some of the show’s most acclaimed and beloved episodes, and takes the complicated relationship between Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) in unexpected directions. Mulder continues his unshakable quest for the truth, and Scully, the passionate, ferociously intelligent physician, remains inextricably tied to Mulder’s pursuits.”

What Are Voters Saying? What About You?

No, it’s not another political post…

Rather, I’ve been asked by a local organization to come speak about the political climate in Lee County and what Lee County voters are saying… What message do you think the voters are trying to tell our elected officials? What do voters think about our leaders?

Better yet…how do YOU make your decisions about local candidates? What process do you use to decide whom to vote for?

Weigh in by commenting or e-mail me at bhorner3@sanfordherald.com. I’ll be speaking to the group in July and researching the question between now and then, and will use your thoughts about what’s going on.

Thanks…

On Screen: The Shawshank Redemption

SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION | Hope is a good thing

Probably my favorite movie of all-time. I used to love Stephen King books, and I didn’t see this movie - based on a novella by King - in the theaters because the film versions of his books had been so bad up to that point. But I saw a clip of the film during the Academy Awards and thought I’d catch it. It was on pay-per-view in the fall of 1994, if I recall, when I was Atlanta for a big newspaper equipment exposition. I watched it in my hotel room and sat dumbfounded for an hour after it was over, the film was so moving.

It stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman as prisoners at Shawshank Prison on Maine, both having been convicted or murder. Only thing is, we find out during the movie that Robbins’ character is indeed innocent.

I’ve probably seen “Shawshank” 40 or 50 times, easily. The film didn’t do well at the box office, despite great reviews and seven Academy Award nominations. In the years since, it has frequently placed among the top 10 of various best flims of all-time lists.

Here’s two different clips in one take…one note: a brief bit of cursing at the beginning… The first is Robbins in the cafeteria just after getting out of solitary confinement after ignoring orders to stop playing a recording of an opera for fellow prisoners; the second is Freeman after he’s released from prison.

Nostalgic Song of the Day: ‘Blinded by the Light’

I was in junior high school in 1977 when Manfred Mann’s Earth Band scored a #1 hit with “Blinded by the Light.” There were two versions of the song, a short version of just under five minutes and the classic long version, which came in at just over seven. If you’re familiar with the song, you know the point where the two versions diverge and the long version moves into an instrumental section featuring Mann’s jazzy synthesizer. I loved the song back then and would always be disappointed if the version I heard on the radio was the short one. With so few commercial FM stations within range back in my small town in Kansas, it was rare to hear the long version. (The video above is the long version.)

I heard the song on XM Radio’s Channel 7 the other day - the long version on XM, of course - and it’s still hard to follow the lyrics. I was surprised to find out that the song was actually written by Bruce Springsteen for his debut album in 1973. Springsteen’s version, almost unrecognizable when compared to Mann’s, never charted; ironically, the song is the only one written by Springsteen to reach #1 status.

I was also surprised, and very disappointed, to find out about all the drug references in the lyrics. I was only 13 when the song was popular and in my naivete had no clue. I mean, seriously, at that age, what is “Some brimstone baritone anti-cyclone rolling stone preacher from the east; he says ‘Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in its funnybone, that’s where they expect it least,’” and all the other strange lyrics, supposed to mean?

Manfred Mann, in various incarnations, also charted with “Do Wah Ditty” (remember the marching scene from “Stripes”?) and “The Might Quinn,” as well as with two other songs I liked back then, “Runner,” and “Sprits in the Night,” which I listened to for the first time in 20 years this week and realized (like “Blinded”) is full of drug references…ahh, the 80s were so much better.

Song: “Blinded by the Light”
Artist: Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Year: 1977
Where I heard it: XM Channel 7

The Day After

A few thoughts the day after the May primary…if you feel so inclined, weigh in with your own thoughts by making a comment at the bottom…

Voter turnout in Lee County was 44.4 percent, with 13,450 ballots cast. The lack of contested primaries on the Republican side for Lee County Commissioner and the lack of a real race on the Republican presidential ballot likely kept the number of GOP voters much lower, comparitively, than Democrats, although final breakdowns won’t be available for a few days. The Lee County Board of Elections says Tuesday’s vote was the highest turnout since the 2004 General Election, which means that with decent weather this coming November, and with what promises to be a tight Lee County Commissioner race and, of course, a presidential ballot, turnout will likely top 50 percent.

Unofficial exit polls were done by some observers and poll workers, as always. I got a call late Tuesday afternoon from an ardent sales-tax opponent who predicted that the sales tax measure would be approved and that the Board of Education winners would be Dr. Lynn Smith, Shawn Williams, Cameron Sharpe and Mark Akinosho. I was taken aback by the concession and I held out hope this anti-tax person’s prediction would stand. But as you know by now, the sales tax was defeated by a 55-45 margin and current BOE Chairman Bill Tatum, not Akinosho, won back his seat on the board.

Sales tax vote: Most people with whom I spoke in the last couple of weeks understood the .25-cent sales tax question, and the vast majority of them said they’d support it. Its defeat was a little surprising; the margin of the defeat was very surprising. Another informal exit poller (he worked the polls for a BOE candidate) said today that the people he spoke with who voted against the tax said they did so because “our taxes are too high already,” and that he got the sense these voters didn’t understand the possible fallout from a defeat - that indeed property taxes might go up to help pay for repairs and renovations at Lee County High School and CCCC. Maybe my “sample” was a bad one, statistically, but it was clear from people I spoke with and people who talked up the tax that the more you knew about it, the more likely you’d vote for it. The big question now is: what next? What will the county and the school board do in response, and how will organizations like the Sanford Area Chamber of Commerce, which helped lead the fight for the tax (along with nearly a dozen endorsing organizations, including The Herald), respond? And might we see the issue back on the ballot in November? The gloating by the Americans for Prosperity and John Locke Foundation has been surprisingly tame today; parties in both groups are already making the call for a consensus-reaching group to form and then work within the county to address government spending.

BOE vote: Cameron Sharpe joined incumbents Bill Tatum, Dr. Lynn Smith and Shawn Williams in victory lane last night. I thought Mark Akinosho had broader support from both the “inside the bloc” crowd (supporters leaning toward the incumbents, including late write-in candidate John Bonardi) and the “outside the bloc” crowd (supporters leaning toward Sharpe, Kim Lilley and write-in candidate and former board chairman Ruth Gurtis), but not so. Akinosho finished 6th in an eight-horse race, ahead of only the two write-in candidates. One local political observer told me last week that Sharpe would win one of the four seats because he either knows or is related to almost all of Lee County…I don’t know about that, but now that he’s won the seat, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Will Sharpe reach out to Tatum & Co. and begin to dialogue about how he can become an asset on the board? Will Tatum and the others reach out to Sharpe and find a way to integrate him into the board? Or will we have a silent stand-off that results in 6-1 votes from here until at least the next election? (And will the provisional ballots put Lilley in the seat instead of Tatum? And provided Tatum does stay in, will he remain as chairman? And how much input will Gurtis, Sharpe’s mentor, now have?) Interesting to note as well that with with a little more than 39,000 votes cast for BOE candidates, the average voter voted for only 2.91 candidates - just less than three per person, when you could vote for four. Perhaps some bloc-only (sans write-ins) voting?

Commissioners: Board Chairman Bob Brown was ousted; former BOE member Richard Hayes will join fellow Democrats Ed Paschal and Jerry Lemmond, both of whom are seeking re-election, and Republicans Larry “Doc” Oldham, Dr. Andre Knecht and former commission board Chairman Herb Hincks on the November ballot. Voters will select three of the six. Lots to speculate on about these races. Brown didn’t provide great leadership as chairman and, like some of his fellow Democrats, he often looked toward de facto chairman Robert Reives before casting his vote to make sure he voted the way Reives wanted him to. Lemmond has widespread support because he’s very engaging and goes to everything - every event, every gathering - and he’s established great rapport with his constituency. Looking ahead, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of support Hincks gets. He helped establish Lee County as a two-party county a decade ago, and he’s enjoyed broad support from both parties in the past. But Hincks has wondered how much Republican support he’ll get come November; he’s become a little unpopular with some of the Republican elite. Paschal got in despite campaigning very little. The swing vote for a new chairman could be Hayes, if both he and Hincks win in November…but that’s getting way ahead of the game. Way ahead.

For now, I think most of us look forward to a brief break from politics…

Newspaper Endorsements…Do They Work?

 

 

 

CAN AN ENDORSEMENT TURN AN ELECTION? | A caller’s theory

How much do endorsements – specifically newspaper editorial board endorsements – mean to candidates for elected office?

It’s fun to speculate about that, and I have a theory about how impactful The Herald’s endorsements have been over the years.

More about that in a minute.

I started thinking about this today when I got a call from a nice lady who read my “Just Mad About Mark” blog posting, and said she knew the answer to my question.

What question would that be?

“Why Mrs. Gurtis won when you did not endorse her and lost when you did,” she said.

I took the bait.

“A lot of people,” she said, “wait until your endorsements come out and then they vote for whoever it is you don’t endorse.”

Really? A lot of people? Like…how many?

“A lot,” she said.

I told the nice lady that the numbers didn’t support her premise. Over the years it’s been fairly consistent that at least 80 percent of the candidates we endorse in local races win, I said. I told her that I remembered a letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer a few years ago thanking them for summarizing their political endorsements in a single editorial just before each Election Day because it made voting easy - the writer said he simply clipped out the editorial and voted against whomever the N&O endorsed. (The N&O at that time endorsed about one Republican a year, and always in a judge race.) As far as The Herald goes, I remembered one candidate telling us specifically he didn’t want our endorsement, but I never had anyone tell me before that they always voted against whomever we endorsed.

If that what she said were true, I told her, our “picks” would only win about 20 percent of the time instead of 80. In fact, if you factored Ruth Gurtis out of the equation, our percentage would probably jump to 85 or so. (The former school board member won all but one of her races when we endorsed other candidates over her, then lost the one time we did endorse her. This year’s endorsements, which included a “for” vote on the sales tax issue, were slightly off our trend: we hit on three out of five “picks,” a 60 percent mark…of course, I didn’t know that at the time she called.)

I asked her if she wanted to “see the statistics” on our endorsements.

“No,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it.”

I asked, “And what’s your name, ma’am?”

She hung up without telling me.

Full disclosure here: it’s a good thing she didn’t take me up on the “see the statistics” offer. I don’t have any. Nothing formal, anyway. We don’t keep a running count of how our endorsements fair, but I do know that in almost every election since we starting doing endorsements in 1999 our usual “batting average” is about .800. Some years slightly better, some years, like 2008’s primary, slightly worse. If she wanted proof, I would have provided it for her, and it would have supported my 80 percent claim…

But I also would have told her my theory about political endorsements: that they probably don’t influence many political races at all.

Here’s my thinking: most people who take time to read our endorsements each political season are probably fairly politically savvy…meaning they’ve probably also taken the time to find out about the candidates and the issues (hopefully from reading our stories and profiles on our news pages). I think there’s a strong likelihood, therefore, that most editorial readers already know by the time our editorials are published (usually in the 10 days leading up to the election) how they’ll vote.

The reason most people are curious about the editorials is because they want to see if we “got it right” this year or if we blew it. (See Billy Liggett’s blog posting here to read his take on a similar subject.)

The actual number of “undecided” voters who read a newspaper’s endorsement and decide based on the newspaper’s pick is probably, in most cases, pretty small. Think about it: how often have you gone to the polls undecided about a local race? At any time, did you base your decision singularly on someone’s endorsement, newspaper or otherwise?

OK. So if that’s true, then why is there such a strong correlation between The Herald’s “picks” over the years and winners in the polls? Does our 80+ percent “success” rate make us geniuses?

Hardly.

Lucky?

No.

Smart?

Uh, not necessarily.

Could it be that most of us - editorial boards and voters alike - have something in common? Perhaps that we make the right choices most of the time?

I think that’s it.

Our editorial board is usually unanimous in its decisions during election season. Four of us vote, and we had our very first 2-2 “tie” vote was last November - and it happened to be in the Linwood Mann/Earl Barker city council race that turned out to be decided by just a few votes among hundreds of voters. When it comes to making our endorsement, we’re almost always all on the same page - and it happens, about 80 percent of the time, to coincide with voters’ picks.

So why make endorsements? They’re a lot of work for us (we devote dozens of collective hours to the process each election year) and sometimes it’s not a lot of fun. But there’s a good reason to do it: to make readers think.

Our goal is simply to help readers become firm in their convictions for a candidate (or an issue) and to make sure votes are based on a candidate’s credentials and ability to be effective, not just on personality or something superficial.

Occasionally, I think, an endorsement can play a factor in a close race. I think of the 2006 Lee County Sheriff’s race, for instance, which was extremely close. I get a lot of feedback on our political endorsements, but that year I got more ”that helped me make up my mind” comments than in all other years combined.

But that’s why we vote. Hopefully that’s why you vote: because you believe.

Sometimes we’ll agree. Sometimes we won’t.

And just about every year - as with Ruth Gurtis and this year’s sales tax vote - we get to be baffled.

In those cases, we sweep up the confetti afterward and move on to the next thing.

Coming Wednesday: Election Recap

 

Election-Day Exchange…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(With apologies to Gary Larsen, creator of the “Far Side” and the artist from whom the cartoon above was hijacked, probably without permission, and to West Palm Beach Dems…I submit the cartoon for your election-day amusement.)

I VOTED | Election-eve exchange

I voted this morning around 10:15 at Tramway Elementary with my wife, and the crowd was small. My precinct has changed. This was my first time voting at Tramway, and I really miss the days of voting at the American Legion, where you could always county on many candidates and supporters being there stumping during Election Day. Alas, there were just three stumpers at Tramway, one for Bill Tatum and two for Shawn Williams. Driving into work this morning I saw 15 or 20 at the American Legion. Maybe we’ll move. Nah, probably not…everyone at Tramway was very nice and the process was smooth.

I voted for Hillary Clinton today, which is something I never thought I’d do…but as a registered Democrat, I couldn’t vote for Ronald Reagan, so…

What follows is an actual exchange (tongue-in-cheek, of course, but real) I witnessed on Friday between people who voted early…it happened after one person reported the high number of early-voting Democrats and the very low number of early-voting Republicans to another person, who was talking about having to stand in line so long for last-minute early voting Friday at the Board of Elections…

Bystander (me): Can those numbers really be right - so few Republicans?

Early Voter #1: Yes. There have been reports of people having to stand in line for long periods. That would deter productive people from waiting in line during working hours with undesirables.

Early Voter #2: All the Republicans are voting Democrat to make them think they’re ahead.

OK, it was funny when I heard it…but not as funny as Larsen’s original cartoon, which had the sign saying “Midvale School for the Gifted.”

Elections Coverage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ELECTION DAY | Follow results on Herald’s blog

Polls are open until 7:30 p.m. You can follow local elections results from The Herald’s blog by clicking here.

Editor Billy Liggett (and some of our reporters) will be blogging about the elections tonight and tomorrow, and I’ll have a post that finally answers the question: Does an endorsement by The Herald really help a candidate? Or does it hurt?

Stay tuned. And as they told us at the Chamber of Commerce policy luncheon the other day…vote early and often!

 

Just Mad About Mark

AKINOSHO ENDORSEMENT PEEVES | Did it really happen at O’Neal?

The Herald, like all newspapers, occasionally gets “hate” mail and calls from folks unhappy with our coverage, especially around Election Day. It goes with the territory.

Sometimes you can engage those who are unhappy in a good conversation. Case in point: I’ve spent part of my day today sparring with some of our more conservative readers (mostly via e-mail) about a number of issues, including illegal and poorly-placed political signs, First Amendment rights of Iraqi war vets, undone repairs at Lee County High School, blog postings, the fiscal wanderings of certain elected governmental boards, and whether the movie remakes of the old TV shows “Starsky & Hutch” and “Miami Vice” were worth watching.

Sometime you can’t talk to those who are unhappy. That’s when it gets frustrating. Case in point: the  following letter to the editor which came through our website (www.sanfordherald.com) and provided a fake e-mail address as the “sender”… There was a name and phone number attached, but they don’t correspond to what’s in the phone book and multiple calls to the number weren’t answered. Anyway, here’s the letter as it was received:

Subject: Akinosho Endorsement?
Letter Text:
I Can’t help but wonder did you really decide to endorse Akinosho at your meeting at the Herald or did it happen during a PTO meeting at the PRIVATE O’NEAL SCHOOL in Southern Pines where BOTH of you have children attending? Thanks for your opinion on what’s best for MY children in public schools, but I really don’t need an opinion or representation from people who choose PRIVATE school for their child, all the while saying they have our best interest at heart. Hope all is well At O’neal.

Obviously someone smells a conspiracy. Mark Akinosho is on tomorrow’s ballot for one of four Board of Education seats. Six candidates filed for the seats, including an incumbent (Bill Tatum) and two sitting BOE members (Dr. Lynn Smith and Shawn Williams) who were recently appointed to their respective seats; there are two other first-time candidates (Kim Lilley and Cameron Sharpe), like Mark, and two who have proclaimed themselves as “write-in” candidates (current board member John Bonardi and past board chairman Ruth Gurtis).

The Herald endorsed Akinosho, Tatum, Smith and Williams for seats. We didn’t consider Bonardi because our editorial board (Editor Billy Liggett, News Editor Kevin Degon and Special Projects Editor R. V. Hight and myself) didn’t meet with him. We also didn’t meet with Gurtis, who announced her candidacy after our endorsement, although we did endorse Gurtis for the seat the last time she ran. (A side note…it was our first time endorsing Ruth and she lost…every other time we didn’t endorse her, she won. Go figure.)

Two members of our editorial board don’t have children; another not only has two children who graduated from Lee County High School, but his wife had a long career as a teacher in the system. The Herald has worked closely with the system over the years and considers it one of our strategic “Community Partners,” and one of the highlights for me during my last year on the Chamber board was working very closely with Andy Bryan of LCS on a strategic response to the business community to dropping test scores and rising drop-out rates in our schools. We are supporters of a number of LCS programs (including Kids Voting), so we have plenty of connection to the system.

But the fact that one of Akinosho’s children, and all three of mine, attend O’Neal provides a recipe for controversy, at least to this letter-writer.

Seeking a board of education seat and having a child attend a private school outside the county is curious, and for some people, notable. The fact that one of Akinosho’s four children attends The O’Neal School, an independent college preparatory school in Southern Pines, has indeed come up during the election. Kitan Akinosho is a junior there and is actually also up for election - as president of next year’s senior class. She is the recipient of one of the most coveted scholarships at O’Neal. Two of Mark’s other children graduated from Lee County High School, however, and a fourth is a student at West Lee Middle School.

I asked Mark about it during a conversation I had with him when first meeting him about two months ago. As the parent of O’Neal students and as a member of the school’s board of trustees, I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I wasn’t even aware that Kitan attended O’Neal. (There are more than 40 Lee Country families represented down there, and I don’t know them all.) Our oldest child, a sophomore, knows Kitan, but I didn’t even know Mark until he announced his candidacy for the BOE.

For reasons Mark would be better to explain, O’Neal was a better environment for Kitan, who’s obviously a bright and talented student. (She had to be to win the scholarship she did.) But should he have to explain his educational choices for his children? For my wife and me, giving our kids every educational advantage was paramount in our decision to commit to O’Neal. Lee Ann, my wife, taught school in the Lee County system for four years, and our plan was always to home school…but for us, in the end, we felt the best place for our kids was at O’Neal. It doesn’t mean we’re not confident in Lee County’s ability to educate our kids…it’s just that O’Neal’s a better fit in terms of preparing them for college. And they’re excelling at O’Neal, where 100 percent of the graduates go on to college.

Did it impact our endorsement? I can’t imagine how. Mark Akinosho was on all four of our editorial board endorsement ballots, and I can only speculate that the O’Neal connection didn’t factor into the other votes.

It’s hard to say whether the letter-writer is more displeased with Mark or with The Herald or with me, but I think it’s possible to care about two school systems at once. Things are well at O’Neal, thanks…we all want them to be good in our schools here as well.

 

Fair to Compare “FairTax” vs. “Fair Tax”?

The Sunday Editorial in The Herald…
The issue: “FairTax” vs. “Fair Tax for Lee County”
Our view: Don’t be fooled. They’re BOTH doing good work.

With Election Day coming Tuesday, and with campaigns gearing up for the final push, we’re reminded that politics is a sophisticated business. Everywhere, strategists and consultants and professional marketing firms are working overtime to figure out how to sway voters. Issues are important, but in our busy electronic age, who has time for them? Sound bites and imaging work just as well.

So does deception.

Most successful strategies require plenty of thought, but sometimes the brainstorm is more sudden; occasionally, a campaign strategy appears as if it were manna sent from heaven. That’s how organizations opposed to the .25-cent sales tax measure on Tuesday’s ballot must have felt when it occurred to them that the national “FairTax” movement and the local “Fair Tax for Lee County”
push and were similar enough stir already-muddy waters.

“FairTax” (two words pushed together as one) is, according to www.fairtax.org, a comprehensive proposal that would replace all federal income and payroll-based taxes with an integrated, revenue-neutral approach that includes a progressive national retail sales tax and a repeal of the 16th amendment. Their stance is: “Let’s abolish the IRS and make April 15 just another spring day.”

“Fair Tax (two words) for Lee County” is the name of a local ad hoc group operating and based out of the Sanford Area Chamber of Commerce which, with the blessing and endorsement of a long list of business, education and civic-minded individuals and organizations, favors the .25-cent increase in the local sales tax (back to the level it was last summer) to help fund repairs and renovations at Lee County High School and at Central Carolina Community College. Their stance is: “Because everyone pays it (including those shopping here from other counties), and because it has far less impact than a property tax increase, let’ s approve the .25-cent sales tax.”

Confused? Probably not. But the anti-tax groups are telling you that you should be, insisting that the Chamber, in taking on the assignment of putting together the local group, has intentionally hijacked the “FairTax” name – perhaps infringing upon a trademark along the way – to dupe voters. Dallas Woodhouse, the state director of Americans for Prosperity, told The Herald this week that it’s “a shame” that supporters of the .25-cent tax are “so desperate to raise taxes they will try to fool the public.”

If the shoe fits…

In reality, AFP has, by all appearances, resorted to desperation to defeat the tax. They used minor scare tactics this week in a “mayday” event to issue a “distress call” about the tax. Then, seeing an opportunity to take advantage of the similarity between “Fair Tax for Lee County” and “FairTax,” they pounced.

In this space one week ago, The Herald endorsed the .25-cent sales tax. We said then that regardless of whatever poor planning and execution had put Lee County High School in its state of disrepair, the sales tax issue on Tuesday’s ballot was the best way to immediately take steps to fix the problems. There’ll be plenty of time to address legitimate concerns raised by anti-tax groups such as AFP and the John Locke Foundation as we move forward, but we need to act today.

We need to approve the .25-cent sales tax because it is, ultimately, a fair tax.

Nostalgic Song of the Day: ‘Shock the Monkey’

 

(Do a search on You Tube if the above video doesn’t play…embedding has been disabled.)

MONKEY…MON-KAYEE | Shocking MTV viewers

When Peter Gabriel’s “Shock the Monkey” video hit heavy MTV rotation upon its release in 1982, I remember everyone being mesmerized by it. I know I was. Every artist back then was interested in breaking new ground on the fledgling channel devoted to music videos, but Gabriel, the former lead singer for Genesis, was in a league of his own with this piece of work.

It’s hard to think of this song without imagining the video. The other day I heard someone ask whether they even showed videos on MTV these days. I honestly have no idea, but if they do, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything as original as this was in 1982. If your music tastes are stuck in the 80s, like mine, compare this video to something like Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.” Palmer had success similar to Gabriel in the 80s, but there was a marked difference in their approach. There are artists, like Palmer, then there are artistes.

According to Wikipedia this song is “frequently assumed to be either an animal rights song or a reference to the famous experiments by Stanley Milgram described in his book Obedience to Authority. It is neither, although another Gabriel song, ‘We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37),’ from his 1986 album ‘So,’ does deal directly with Milgram. Gabriel himself has described ‘Shock the Monkey’ as ‘a love song’ that examines how jealousy can release one’s baser instincts; the monkey is not a literal monkey, but a metaphor for one’s feelings of jealousy.”

You could have fooled me. I had no idea…it’s just a cool video that turned a so-so song into a major hit. Videos for his other songs, including “Sledghammer” and “Big Time,” were also pretty good.

In the lyrics:
Fox the fox
Rat the rat
You can ape the ape
I know about that
There is one thing you must be sure of
I can’t take any more
Darling, don’t you monkey with the monkey
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don’t you know you’re going to shock the monkey

Song: “Shock the Monkey“
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Year: 1982
Where I heard it: XM Channel 08

AFP’s ‘Distress Call’

The local chapter of Americans for Prosperity hosted a “mayday” event Thursday evening at the McSwain Ag Center in Sanford, calling it a “distress call” to defeat the .25-cent sales tax issue on next week’s ballot. About 35 or 40 people attended and saw presentations from two staffers from the John Locke Foundation.

You can read reporter Gordon Anderson’s account of the meeting in today’s Herald.

I have a great deal of respect for Lloyd Jennings, who heads up the local AFP chapter, as well as state AFP Director Dallas Woodhouse and many of the fine people at the John Locke Foundation, who do some wonderful work. But last night’s presentations featured the kind of fear-mongering and misleading claims that confounds the JLF’s detractors. In many ways it was a disappointing night that didn’t live up to its billing.

I wasn’t there infiltrating the event, even though The Herald has endorsed the sales tax measure on the ballot. I have attended a number of AFP events and salute Jennings for his heads-up work and appreciate AFP’s mission, which is to educate citizens about economic policies and mobilize them as advocates in the public policy process. But aside from opening remarks by Jennings, it was mostly the JLF show, with staffers Becki Gray and Terry Stoops making presentations - Gray’s essentially summarizing JLF’s recent “Regional Brief” about the sales tax and Stoops’ consisting of a broad overview of Lee County Schools spending over the years. The presentations were designed to convince you that Lee County was overtaxed (true) and that because the school system’s spending has increased so much, and because the county had plenty of cash reserves, the sales tax increase should be soundly defeated.

That’s where the problems started. These were the kinds of “superficial” arguments we touched on in our editorial, which you can read elsewhere in this blog (I posted it Sunday).

Among my observations from last night’s meeting:

- Gray talked about the $1.6 million Lee County had spent on “corporate welfare” over the last few years, calling those payments “bribes” that put other businesses at a competitive disadvantage. What Gray was really talking about, of course, was incentives. JLF opposes incentives paid to businesses and industries. I won’t outline all the pros and cons of incentives here, except to say in North Carolina, they’ve become a necessary evil; we hate ‘em, but because everyone else is doing them, we’re at a competitive disadvantage if we don’t. At any rate, counting the $1.6 million in incentives awarded by the county as part of the $10 million the JLF counts as revenues that could be diverted to avoid having the sales tax implemented…it’s nice in theory, but not close to realistic. My friend Chad Adams, who works for the Locke Foundation, and I have spent hours talking about incentives. My take on it is like this: imagine if baseball legalized performance-enhancing steroids. It’d be horrible and would take a lot of fun out of the game…but if you played, and found your skills far behind those of players you were fighting for playing time against, wouldn’t you take them, even though you didn’t believe in them? What if it meant getting a roster spot and feeding your family? Incentives are the legalized steroids of economic development.

- the comment was made that sales tax supporters are claiming that the tax (and I’m paraphrasing the comment here) ” ‘will only cost you about a cup of coffee a day,’ but it’s actually a lot more than that.’ ” This was a problematic statement. Based on average retail spending in the county, the .25-cent sales tax increase (from 6.75 percent to 7 percent) will only cost the average family about $25 per year, according to the “Fair Tax” group headed up by the Chamber to promote the tax. Now I know the AFP and the JLF think this Chamber group is aligned with the devil himself, and they don’t trust their numbers…but $25 is the equivalent of $10,000 in annual spending on items on which the tax would be calculated (not including most non-prepared foods, prescription drugs and cars). It’s a good chunk of spending. A property tax increase of 3.5 cents to raise the same revenue will cost the average homeowner about $47, according to this same group, by the way. Assuming the sales tax passes, that $25 a year is equivalent to only about 7 cents a day. Assuming you only drink coffee on weekdays, that’s still only 10 cents a day. I’m not sure where you can get coffee for a dime these days…so to say “it’s going to cost you a lot MORE than a cup of coffee a day” is very misleading.

- Stoops talked about the increase in local education expenditures and showed some slides supporting his premise that Lee County Schools were overspending compared to student growth. There may be truth to that, but the problem with his data is that he didn’t discuss how unfunded mandates or additonal operating expenses related to new school construction contributed to the increase in spending. I don’t doubt Stoops has done his research, but you can present numbers in a lot of different ways to support a lot of different theories, based on what’s convenient for you. If you’re going to show off your new coin, show me both sides.

- speakers criticized the county for supporting the tax partly because the commissioners couldn’t be bound to any promises that the tax revenues would be used for repairs and renovations…in other words, since the commissioners’ apparent commitment to use the funds to help make repairs at Lee Senior isn’t binding, it’s a bad idea. But later in the presentation the county was criticized again because, “We don’t know what the plan is for the money!” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…

- there was talk about the county’s reserve fund, but no discussion of the county’s debt capacity. They go hand in hand.

- finally, the comment was made that Lee County needs to put more money into maintenance for its schools to prevent the kind of disrepair Lee County High School is seeing now. Although that might be true, and maybe Lee County High School is complicit in its own structural demise, the comment struck me as contradictory: on one hand the schools are spending too much money, but on the other, they need to spend more…

I went to the meeting open-minded but left with a stronger belief in the need to pass the sales tax. We’ll know in a few days how Lee County voters feel…