Anybody else have "Cujo" for a dog?

Sometimes my cock-a-poo is the kindest most gentle dog in the world. Then, there are mornings like this morning. I was loading up my youngest for school and the dog jumped in the car. Normally I'm able to quickly shoo her out, but this time the dog WOULD NOT MOVE! It took my 15 minutes of cajoling, yelling, prodding with a broom, bribing with food, etc. to finally get her to move.

Other times, lately, she just growls or even snaps for no reason.

Any advice?

Panthers trades

Trades made during the NFL draft don't receive nearly enough attention. To wit, the Panthers made two terrific trades during the draft this weekend.

1) First, the Panthers moved back in the second round 9 spots (from No. 45 to No. 54) and, in return, got a fourth-rounder from the Seahawks.
2) Then, the Panthers traded two OTHER fourth-rounders to the Packers for a third-rounder (Pick No. 89)

If you put those two trade together ..
The Panthers gave up:
Pick nos. 45, 115, 126
The Panthers got:
Pick nos. 54, 89, 121

In other words, they moved back 9 spots in the second round and moved up 26 spots from the fourth to the third round and another 5 spots in the fourth round. And even more beautiful is that the Panthers were clearly targetting Eric Shelton in the second round -- a player they still got at No. 54.

Those kinds of trades can make the difference between a contender and a pretender.

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will discusses the new trend to "protect the feelings" of children by never having them lose or be subject to anything upsetting. Question: What happens when they grow up and enter the real world?

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will discusses the new trend to "protect the feelings" of children by never having them lose or be subject to anything upsetting. Question: What happens when they grow up and enter the real world?

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will discusses the new trend to "protect the feelings" of children by never having them lose or be subject to anything upsetting. Question: What happens when they grow up and enter the real world?

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will talks about our new "sensitive society" where there are no losers, only children with feelings who need those feelings protected at all costs and never harmed. Question: Then what happens when these children grow up and enter the real world?

Terrific column on the new pope

Lot's of simplistic talk about Pope Benedict XVI being "conservative" and "right-wing." But columnist Michael Novak writes in the National Review that Benedict's fight against relativism is much deeper and much more complex.

The REAL problem with newspapers?

This is former Durham Sun editor John Ham's answer to that question, in a column he penned recently.

I'm not sure I go as far as Ham does in blaming circulation declines on this mentality, but I sure do agree that the mentality exists.

Rational Risk Assessment

This is a fascinating term which I've learned about at some conferences. A loose translation of the term is this: What are the REAL chances of something bad happening?

I've heard it applied in two main areas -- terrorism and child abduction. Doing a rational risk assessment totally quantifies the ACTUAL risk of the typical person being affected by one of these things.

Here is a paper (PDF) on the the real threat of terrorism done by the Cato Institute.

One sentence that sticks out:
"Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer or severe allergic reactions to peanuts."

Now, think about HOW MUCH MONEY we've spent "fighting" terrorism just since 9/11.

I'm going to try and find a rational risk assessment on child abductions.

Crystal ball column writing?

Many of you might have heard of Mitch Albom of the Detroit newspaper. He's an award-winning columnists who wrote "Tuesday's with Morrie" and other books. He appears on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters and other TV shows.

He's in hot water.

Albom wrote a column on a Friday to be published in the Sunday paper. Nothing wrong with that -- I often write my Sunday "this and that" column ahead of time since the section in which it appears prints Friday night.

But Albom made a big boo boo when he assumed things were going to happen and included them in his column.

Here is the column. Here is his apology. And here are a bunch of journalists taking him to task for both.

My view: Albom's explanation falls short. Note in the column how he described how the players traveled to the game. Not good.

Firing offense? Probably not. But he should be disciplined somehow.

Guns at Thomas Jefferson

I've had a few inquiries over the past weeks about our coverage of the gun incident at Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy.

Police say a boy brandished a weapon in a classroom. It was a major deal.

It happened late in the week and we didn't have anything until the following Tuesday.

Why?

Quite simply, we didn't know about it. While we make daily -- sometimes multiple times a day -- checks of police reports in Cleveland County, we do not make those checks in neighboring counties, for obvious reason (the cops reporter would spend her entire shift driving and wouldn't get any work done).

So, unless we are tipped off about something in a neighboring county, there is no way for us to know. What makes this situation unusual is that we are dealing with an out-of-county school that is attended by a number of "in-county" students.

Anyway, the first I heard of it was late Saturday night at the Heart Ball.

We got on the story Monday, but by then it was old news and it didn't seem right to have a screaming headline on 1A four days after the fact.

Some have juxtaposed our play on the TJCA story with the story about the parent complaining about her sons' suspension. I don't see the connection. They were totally different issues, one in a school in the middle of our coverage area, one in a school outside the fringe of our coverage area.

If we had known about the TJCA situation when it happened, it would undoubtedly have been a top-of-the-fold 1A story. But it wouldn't make sense to downplay a compelling story about the boys' suspensions just because we were out of the loop on the other matter.

By the way, I'm not sure I follow those who accuse us of being sympathetic to the family affected by the suspensions. We just reported what they said and gave the schools a chance to respond.

Today's paper critique

1A: Nice job on "Blue Heaven -- the score and all looks good. In hindsight, the baby blue box doesn't work so well. I think some nice, clean, unobstructed white space would have had even more impact. Also, that would have bought us a precious pica or two to help get Williams' face more above the fold. The intersection of the two photos, two refers and a cutline was confusing for me. I think we needed to simplify there, probably by losing the second picture. Nice job, Joy, on the gas prices package.
3A: Good solid page of interesting and varied wire news.
5A: The pope story seems like an odd fit on this page of obits and local news. Maybe some state news instead. Also, had a story further back in the paper on Bush going to Pope's funeral
6A: Good job covering the Grover meeting -- that's a story the whole county will be interested in. In fact, this is just a really nie page. Good local news at the bottom, the reader snapshot is nice as is the Relay for Life rail. Nice job.
7A: Good package on autism, Jackie. CUTLINE: Excellent information in this cutline. Perfect.
1B: I wonder if readers will see "Blue Monday" and think we were suggesting it was something other than a good thing that UNC won? Nice use of big art, but I would have played this even bigger -- six columns with the local stuff at the bottom. It's historic and we only treated it as a somewhat-bigger-than-normal centerpiece. Good to have Star view. Also, nice hustle to get the Jolly story in while shorthanded.
10B: Had a chance to use some dramatic pope picture on this page, instead of what we did on 5A.

Was the judge "kicked out" of church?

While that probably overstated things, I think people need to understand what it's like to be attacked by your church for positions you take.

Here is one of the columns from the Florida Baptist Witness.

I think when a church member is told he "needs to be afflicted" and that his rulings are, in effect, "barbarism" and that the very authenticity of his faith is challenged with statements like: "And it’s incredible that Terri’s cruel death was ordered at the hands of a judge who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ" -- I think it's safe to say that if I were in his shoes I would feel like I was being kicked out of the church.

More on Schiavo

Here is my column from today on the Schiavo situation.

I've taken a call this morning from a reader who says the judge wasn't "run off." I believe that people can be run off or kicked out without being expressly asked to leave a church. Feeling like a church is no longer a friendly place is a painful thing. But, I leave that point open for debate.

Today's paper critique

The editor's brief critique of today's paper

1A: Very strong front page today. We're off to a good start in a week
where we have so many folks on vacation. Today, I doubt readers even
noticed our dwindling numbers. Excellent writing, Megan, on the Bridges
obit story. Good drop hed with that story. I like the extended cutline
with the Bridges picture, although "sits" needed to be "sat." Excellent
centerpiece on the housing. I like the "Star special report" tagline. Nice
use of white space to let the package breathe. Terrific graphic, Lindsay.
Only complaint --- as I brought up in the budget meeting, I can't tell
where the three police zones begin and end. I also really like Megan's
lead on the Angel unaware story. Also, nice clean refer boxes at the
bottom. Good to add the school to the Teacher of the Week.

2A: Good use of art on the housing jump. Chad -- instead of that long
address that nobody's going to type in, shouldn't we just send them to the
web site and have a section for "links from stories" or something???

3A: Those Schiavo signs are something else. Normally I don't like
protester art, but that works.

9A: Interesting page here -- I like the Space Station package.

1B: WINNING HEADLINE: "Funks spunk leads to ..."

9B: Good full report on the earthquake.

today's paper

1A: Very strong front page today. We're off to a good start in a week
where we have so many folks on vacation. Today, I doubt readers even
noticed our dwindling numbers. Excellent writing, Megan, on the Bridges
obit story. Good drop hed with that story. I like the extended cutline
with the Bridges picture, although "sits" needed to be "sat." Excellent
centerpiece on the housing. I like the "Star special report" tagline. Nice
use of white space to let the package breathe. Terrific graphic, Lindsay.
Only complaint --- as I brought up in the budget meeting, I can't tell
where the three police zones begin and end. I also really like Megan's
lead on the Angel unaware story. Also, nice clean refer boxes at the
bottom. Good to add the school to the Teacher of the Week.

2A: Good use of art on the housing jump. Chad -- instead of that long
address that nobody's going to type in, shouldn't we just send them to the
web site and have a section for "links from stories" or something???

3A: Those Schiavo signs are something else. Normally I don't like
protester art, but that works.

9A: Interesting page here -- I like the Space Station package.

1B: WINNING HEADLINE: "Funks spunk leads to ..."

9B: Good full report on the earthquake.

Editor's daily (or almost daily) critique

Thought you might be interested in seeing the daily critique I do of the
paper. I don't "proof" the paper, per se, so I'm sure there are errors
that are missed, but the point is to give the staff overall feedback on
that day's edition. What do you think?

1A: That CommUnity logo really looks nice, doesn't it? Good to update,
Joy, with list of donors. Nice Home and Garden promo -- sometimes type
works best. Four jumps today --- yuck! How could we have avoided that?
Head Start jump was short. Bet we could have trimmed it. On the Glover
story, I don't see any support in the story for the phrase "All cases
solved ..." I know what we were trying to say, but especially in a town
with the three women case hanging over us, I don't think that hit the
mark. Very, very nice writing on the care story lead -- I can really
picture the guy twirling his finger. Well done. CUTLINES: Pretty mediocre
today. "Firefighters ... get crane training" falls short of the mark.

3A: Not our strongest page here. Mainly, it suffers from a too-small
headline on 3A. The page never really recovers from that and ends up
looking gray and static, despite the breakout and graphic.

5A: This page, on the other hand, is better. The Schiavo hed in four
columns is bigger than the 3A hed in 6 columns. With a nice strong
vertical picture, the page is more compelling.

6A: That was neat the way we ran the Flashback picture really big. I
studied it and I bet readers did too.

1B: WINNING HEADLINE: Meet me in St. Louis. Randy -- we need to track down
Carolina fans going to St. Louie -- can you give Margarita some
names/ideas?

SUNDAY PAPER
1A: Nice lead on the McHenry piece. Nice little story on the Farmer's
Market. Don't forget to look for breakout ideas (one might have been, a
short list of what was for sale and how much it cost, etc.).

3A: I'm really glad we got these dueling columns by local folks, but the
execution fell a little short. First of all, any time you have copy
stretching over four columns, that should send up a red flag. It's VERY
hard to read. Also, we should have had mugs of the columnists and used the
column logo format (note to reporters putting together these kinds of
packages -- please request a mug). Still, I appreciate Alan's
resourcefulness on coming up with this idea and carrying it out.

5A: I like the idea of the news digest -- Lindsay will get us a cool
design for September on that.

6A: A couple of problems on this page. First, I don't understand the drop
hed: "Stalwart stance prompts church action." I thought stalwart meant
"good" or "supportive" -- makes it sound like we agree with his stance.
Second, the lead headline is too small. See how the drops compete with the
main hed for your eye. "Schiavo judge in spotlight" could have run nice
and big, with the drops below. Still, good story choice here and good to
refer from the 3A package as well.

1B: Love the fantasy primer, Randy (big shock, huh). Hey -- how 'bout that
Tourney Notes logo!

2, 5B: Impressive array of local results, information, given that you are
flying solo. Nice job.

1D: Great job on "Get Real," Jackie and Allison. I hope it's a big hit.
Layout looks terrific.

SATURDAY PAPER
1A: Very impressive front page today. Margarita, the Holy Week primers
have been terrific. Had two comments about them at church Sunday. People
learned something and were reminded of some things. Nice job. The Gas
centerpiece is EXCELLENT! Terrific idea, well executed. Only thing I'd
change -- instead of having that tiny jump line under the School item, I'd
have made a more prominent refer box. Good job to get the Hamfest story in
the paper.

2A-3A: Look how appealing these two pages are -- not much traditional
copy, but lots of good information (columns, graphics, breakouts, capital
correspondence, etc.). Very nice job.

6A: Very nice photo package Saturday, Jeff. Good job.

7A: Another strong inside page. Good use of headline sizes. At a glance
box is good.

8A: Yet another strong page. Good use of powerful color image. Graphic
helps as does breakout. Briefs rail helps the page stay active.

Schiavo cont.

While I'm torn on the Schiavo matter on a number of levels, I'm NOT torn
on this -- forcing the judge on the case out of his home church in Florida
over this matter is indefensible. How ironic that the same people arguing
for keeping a feeding tube in place for Schiavo want to remove a spiritual
feeding tube from this man. Very, very, very sad.

Schiavo

Am I the only one that changes his mind every day on this story.

One day I can't bear to think of, in essence, starving somebody to death.
The next, I can't bear to think about denying death, if that was the
woman's wish. I felt a little better when consecutive columns in our paper
by writers I respect took the exact opposite views of each other.

What does bother me is people rushing into to claim they have a monopoly
on the moral high ground on this story. Why can't people just admit that
it's a close, tough call and that reasonable people can disagree. Heck, I
disagree with myself!

ACC tournament

OK, here are my ACC tournament predictions:

Play-in games:
Maryland over Clemson
FSU over N.C. State
Miami over Virginia

Quarters
UNC over Maryland (BUT CLOSE!)
GT over Va. Tech
Wake over FSU
Miami upsets Duke

Semis
UNC over GT
Wake over Miami

Finals
Wake over UNC