By this Author

Ed Cone: Ignoring blogs shuts out dialogue

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:00:00 -0500

Standing in Tiananmen Square, under the gaze of a giant image of Chairman Mao, I found myself thinking about Greensboro's new city manager, Rashad Young.

Young recently told this newspaper that he won't be paying attention to local blogs. "I don't have time for the noise," he said.

Ed Cone: Public safety starts with a committed electorate

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:00:00 -0400

During the run-up to local elections, Joe Guarino of Greensboro runs a questionnaire for City Council candidates at his blog. The first question: "What, in your opinion, is the single most important activity in which municipal government engages?" Despite the boldface type, answers to that query sometimes get a little esoteric.

Ed Cone: Obama needs to hurl more lightning bolts

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:00:00 -0400

During the 2008 presidential campaign, it was alleged in certain quarters that Barack Obama was some sort of closet radical. The charge was implausible at the time, and now, after 11 months of plodding pragmatism, it seems downright laughable.

Edward Cone: It's time to stand up to big business

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:00:00 -0400

Wendell Potter looked at the health care bill proposed by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus and saw within it "more than the insurance industry could have hoped for."

Edward Cone: Promises, promises

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:00:00 -0400

Remember how 9/11 was going to change everything?

That was awesome, the way it all turned out.

Not the deadly terrorist attacks, of course, but the way we learned from those terrible events, re-evaluated some fundamentals, and grew into a better country.

Edward Cone: Pondering summer's end

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:00:00 -0400

It’s been a long time since I got summers off, but I still mourn the start of school, especially when it happens before Labor Day. Not that getting up in the dark with two teenagers is anything less than a pleasure, or that cooler weather and college football will be unwelcome, but this just is not the most wonderful time of the year.

* * *

Edward Cone: A blogger's lament

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 03:00:00 -0400

Blogging is having a midlife crisis.

I'm speaking here of Blogging with a capital "B," the self-conscious and often self-important new-media phenomenon. The first famous (by blog standards) polemic declaring blogs irrelevant was published in 1999, shortly after the earliest bloggers crawled from the primordial Web onto their own personal publishing platforms, and the navel-gazing has never stopped.

Edward Cone: A Father's Day gift to cherish

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:00:00 -0400

My father told me he loved me every day until the day he died. He just did not say it in so many words.

I doubt my father's father ever told him, "I love you," either; I know he never spoke the words to me, although he, too, made his affection abundantly clear. They both sprang from a tribe of politely repressed German Jews, which may have had something to do with their reticence on matters emotional, but it was rooted in the broader culture, too. Talking about feelings just wasn't the way men did things back then.

Ed Cone: Let's attack issues, not each other

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:00:00 -0400

The Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting transparency in government, tracks the frequency with which members of Congress utter particular words in speeches and remarks from the floor. Many of North Carolina's elected representatives, including our own Howard Coble, regularly mention "North Carolina." Sen. Richard Burr, a heavyweight on veterans' issues, says "veterans" a lot.

Ed Cone: Mill village history being recaptured

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 10 May 2009 03:00:00 -0400

The history of Greensboro, at least the considerable chunk of it that involves the textile industry, seems to be the history of Big Things: enormous brick buildings that took in cotton by the railcar and churned out acres of fabric; great fortunes made by men with large mustaches; and huge crowds of mill workers, generation upon generation, from the dawn of the New South to the final decades of the 20thcentury.

Edward Cone: Tea parties, broadband and torture

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 03:00:00 -0400

I went to the Tea Party protest in downtown Greensboro on Tax Day, and it made me think.

Edward Cone: Time Warner plan could throttle economic development

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:00:00 -0400

During Monday night's NCAA basketball championship game, the CBS announcers took a break from Carolina's epic beat-down of Michigan State to promote a neat online video service. Fans can click to a Web site and watch any tournament game on their computers, free of charge.

But fans in Greensboro and a handful of other cities may end up paying if they use such free services.

Ed Cone: Reasons to be cheerful

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:03 -0400

A friend sent out a broadcast e-mail the other day, asking for some good news to counter the steady drumbeat of gloom she hears at every turn. Another friend quickly replied with a rant about the economy, which pretty much concluded that there is no good news. Mission unaccomplished.

Edward Cone: Temporary nationalization might be lesser evil for big banks

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:00:00 -0500

Well, they told us we'd see radical government intervention in the economy if Barack Obama was elected, and it turns out they were right. It seems increasingly likely that the United States government could nationalize a good chunk of the banking industry.

Edward Cone: Both sides miss truth of recession

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 03:00:00 -0500

People react to crises in predictable ways, and no responses are more predictable than denial and panic. Each of these polar opposites is on display amid the ongoing economic unpleasantness. These are boom times for "doomers," who see the recession triggering a breakdown in society as we know it, and for pollyannas, who want to pretend that we're just a few tax cuts away from prosperity.

Edward Cone: Friendship steeled young men for their historic act of resolve

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:00:00 -0500

There were four young men, students at A&T. They are famous now for sitting down at a segregated lunch counter at the Woolworth's store on South Elm Street, 49 years ago today, for helping to propel the civil rights movement to new heights. Do not confuse these men with the big bronze statues in their likeness on the campus of their alma mater.

Edward Cone: It's time for the reality-based community to assert itself

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 03:00:00 -0500

You can ignore reality, but reality will not ignore you. That's kind of a definitional proposition, an essential reality about reality, but it was overlooked willfully and often and with harsh consequences during the last eight years. My hope, modest as it sounds, is that Barack Obama will bring us a reality-based administration.

Edward Cone: More light shed on two names from past

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 03:00:00 -0500

My previous column ended with a request to readers for more information on two people buried in Greensboro's oldest African American graveyard, Union Cemetery: a woman named Harrett Pinnix, who died at "about 100 years" in 1918, and Thomas Reese Alexander, a cavalryman with the famed Buffalo Soldiers who died on the Mexican border in 1914.

Edward Cone: Tantalizing lessons in history, written in stone

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:00:00 -0500

Dead men tell no tales, but their tombstones can be pretty eloquent. The history of a place is chiseled into the plinths and weathered monuments of its boneyards, and this place that we live in is no exception.

Edward Cone: Looking back at a historic election

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:00:22 -0500

Kay Hagan will be North Carolina's first-ever U.S. senator from Greensboro. She joins Winston-Salem's Richard Burr in the Senate, giving the Triad an unprecedented one-two punch in national affairs. The Piedmont fared less well in the gubernatorial race, as eastern North Carolina's Bev Perdue extended Charlotte's losing streak by beating Pat McCrory.

Edward Cone: Final thoughts on long campaign

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:00:47 -0500

Some scattered thoughts about the upcoming election:

• It will be nice to watch a ball game without being bombarded by all the political ads, although I guess the people who sell the ads may feel differently.

• When someone tells me that Obama's a socialist, I widen my eyes and ask urgently if they think he'll nationalize the banks.

Edward Cone: We didn’t start the fire (it was you)

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:00:22 -0400

Feeling the Elephant, or The Blame Game: A Tragedy Played as Farce

The curtain rises on an opulent building, which is afire. Many rooms in the building have been destroyed, and the structure is in evident danger of collapse, an eventuality that seems likely to ignite the entire neighborhood. On the street, people are arguing over the best way to put it out, while others debate the cause of the conflagration.

Fire Chief Paulson: Let's spray it with money. Townspeople, empty your pockets!

The Congress of Firefighters: OK!

Paulson's cronies: Huzzah!

The death of thrift and the rise of casino culture

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 03:00:57 -0400

Thrift, that once-great American value, passed away at roughly the same moment as my father, one of its most fervent practitioners, who died in 1987. Just a coincidence, of course, but one that struck me as the world copes with a financial crisis that stems in some large part from our thriftless culture.

What do we mean when we say socialism?

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 03:00:45 -0400

A gentleman of my acquaintance took a moment at a recent social event to say some nice things to me about my newspaper column. He paused, then added, "Except for the socialism, of course."

Of course.

Cone on the Edwards affair: Johnny, we hardly knew ye

"Edward Cone" — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

If scandal were an Olympic event, the John Edwards version would be a decathlon. Rarely does a story have so many moving parts, and we may be learning more about parts of this one for some time to come.