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Lorraine Ahearn, one of the best reporters and writers we've had in the 25 years I've been here, has collected some of her best columns into a book, "The Man Who Became Santa Claus and Other Winter Tales." From her Web site:

In the footsteps of veteran newspaper columnist Lorraine Ahearn, we shadow stranger-than-fiction characters in the wee hours of their lives. An Oxford-trained professor of physics wanders the sidewalks holding a mysterious box. A retiring homicide cop works his final shift on New Year’s Eve, leaving a last, cold case. Foundlings shiver under stairwells. Soldiers, homesick on Christmas, take shelter in a manger. An unrepentant street hustler, “Johnny Blaze,” lands in the hospital with a bullet to the spine. A recovered alcoholic, “Big George,” hauls the city’s 38-foot Christmas tree down a frozen mountain. An Irish nun, Sister Gabriel, dies on the shortest day of the year, but she does not go alone.

Finally, in the last place anyone shops for the unexpected — a suburban mall — an unemployed nuclear power plant foreman answers an ad for a “Santa Wanted.” And by some strange alchemy, he puts on the red suit and becomes the genuine article.

She had a book signing at the Broach Theatre last night that pulled in a crowd. (I was there for you, Lorraine, not for the hor d'overes and liquor, I swear.) 

It's a great Christmas present. Here's how to buy a copy. Bring it down to the paper and she'll sign it.

Yesterday morning our online folks published a four-paragraph item about a former N.C. A&T State University administrator who is a finalist for the presidency of Morgan State University. We didn't report the story -- the Virginian-Pilot did. We simply posted the wire version onto the Web site.

No controversy to it whatsoever.

At least that's what I thought.

The first commenter wondered why we had published the item, suggesting it was because we give preferential treatment to A&T over the other colleges and universities in town.

I responded that we published it because "she used to work in Greensboro, held a high-position at a public institution and there are people here who know her."

And we were off. We're at 40 comments and counting and more than 1,600 page views.

The comments and traffic are nice, but the best part about it is that two other commenters attempted to test the hypothesis that our coverage of A&T is out of balance.

A comment from one: I found 99 pages of results for UNCG and 93 pages of results for NC A&T. This of course is highly unscientific and not an accurate representation of N&R's reporting, as the mention of either in these comments (like I just did) would qualify this page as a result. This being said, the number of results of articles (including sports), editorials, comments, etc. for UNCG are greater than the number of results for A&T, yet not different enough to suggest a real difference in reporting.

With all the concerns about comments -- and yes, I have voiced mine before -- getting smart, engaged readers involved is the best solution.

In honor of the Yankees' World Series championship, it is worth noting again that the nucleus of the team -- Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte -- spent time in the minor leagues in Greensboro.

Out of curiosity, I went back to see how we covered them at the time, which was the early 1990s. We gave Jeter the most attention, and, given his Hall of Fame career, it makes us look like we knew what we were doing.

Jeter's first mention in our pages came Aug. 26, 1992: Derek Jeter , the Yankees' No. 1 draft choice and the sixth player selected overall in the June amateur draft, made his Hornets' debut at shortstop, hitting a home run in his second at-bat. He also committed an error.

``I thought it was a very positive first night for him,'' (Manager Trey) Hillman said. ``He hit his first South Atlantic League home run in his second at-bat. People just have to realize he hasn't taken a ground ball under the lights all year.''

I'll get to a longer story about him in a moment.

Pettitte's debut in our pages as a minor leaguer -- he played here as a visitor in a Pony League game -- came on April 18, 1992, and was equally brief. Lefthander Andy Pettitte (1-0) was the winner for Greensboro, pitching seven innings while allowing two earned runs.

``I think this win will get us going because we kept fighting and fighting and never gave up,'' Pettitte said. ``We've been losing a lot of games like this and it's nice to finally get a win.''
 

Rivera came in 1991 and we had a few stories about him. The first one mentioned him as a starter! But we wrote more about him in a story about players who couldn't speak English.

Habla usted ingles?

No, Greensboro Hornets pitcher Mariano Rivera doesn't speak English. His manager, Trey Hillman, speaks only English. And that makes it difficult for the two to chat on the mound.

For Latin baseball players in the minor leagues, including six on the Greensboro Hornets, this is not an uncommon problem. ...

The problem exists on the field as well. Some players feel uncomfortable speaking to their managers and coaches because their English isn't good.

Rivera is one of those players. His limited English has hindered communication between he and Hillman, the team's manager.

``He can't speak to the pitching coach and manager,'' said Rivera through Perez's translation. ``It's hard for him because sometimes the pitching coach got something to tell him, and he got something to tell (the coach), but he can't. The idea goes away because he can't speak to him directly.''

Rivera relies on other players on the team to help him as translators. And Hillman is learning to speak Spanish.

Posada is mentioned in the paper several times -- he had a very good season -- but the references were primarily statistics.

Now, back to the Jeter story. On May 10, 1993, Charlie Atkinson, who is still in our Sports Department, wrote a long feature story on Jeter.

The only thing keeping Greensboro Hornets shortstop Derek Jeter from the big leagues is maturity and experience.

Baseball insiders and anybody within ear shot of the New York Yankees organization will tell you that it's not a matter of if but when for Derek Jeter .

As in, when Jeter gets to the big leagues ...

If simply doesn't apply in his case.

Unquestionably, Jeter is the most heralded prospect ever to play in a Greensboro Hornets' uniform. There have been others - guys like Don Mattingly and Mike Pagliarulo and Greg Gagne who played here and went on to illustrious big league careers - but none came to Greensboro with such acclaim.

Jeter is what baseball people call a "can't-miss" prospect.

He was last year's Gatorade national high school baseball player of the year. The Yankees, enamored by his all-around ability, made him the first high school player selected in last year's amateur draft, signing the 18-year-old shortstop from Kalamazoo, Mich., for a whopping $700,000.

They considered it money well spent.

"There's no timetable as to when he gets to the big leagues because we know he's going to get to the big leagues," Greensboro Hornets manager Bill Evers said.

If all the attention and all the money has turned Jeter's head, he doesn't show it. After signing with the Yankees he enrolled at the University of Michigan. He plans to attend a semester there a year until he graduates.

"Education is a big thing in our family," Jeter said. "Signing with the Yankees was no easy decision because I really wanted to go to school and play baseball at Michigan. But I couldn't say no when they were paying for college, too."

Jeter grew up in an academic environment. His father, Charles, holds a master's degree in social work, a Ph.D. in sociology, teaches classes in sociology and is a psychotherapist. His mother also holds a master's degree.

"Education in our family is very important," Charles Jeter said. "Derek's grown up in an environment where education was a priority. You never know what's going to happen on the baseball end. We just want him to be well rounded so he'll have something to fall back on."

The younger Jeter is handling the baseball end quite nicely.

He was assigned to Tampa of the Gulf Coast Rookie League in June where he batted a meager .202. In August he was promoted to Greensboro where he played in 11 games. He hit reasonably well for a 17-year-old two months out of high school (.243), but he struggled defensively.

"I was homesick," Jeter said. "When they told me at Tampa that I was coming here, I should have been happy to get moved up. But I just wanted to go home."

Jeter spent the fall semester in Ann Arbor taking freshman classes. In spring training, the Yankees gave him a taste of big league life before assigning him to the minor league complex in Tampa. He arrived in Tampa bubbling with confidence.

"I was with guys you see on TV every day like Boggs and Mattingly," Jeter said. "I'd be taking ground balls and look up and they're standing right next to me. It was good for me because it made me see what it takes to get there. It really helped my confidence, too."

The Yankees assigned him to Greensboro, figuring the new playing surface might help him hone his defensive skills. And although he leads the team in errors (20), he has flourished in every other department. He leads the team in hitting (.344) and is second in RBIs (20). Only league-leading Nick Delvecchio has more (28).

"It's nice to get off to a good start but we've got a lot of games to go," said Jeter. "If you're talking to me in August like this, then it'll be good season. The way I figure, you've got to excel at every level. You just can't play here and then move up. I want to do good at every level."

"He's got all the tools you look for in a shortstop," Evers said. "He's 6-foot-3 and he's going to get stronger. He can run and throw. He can hit and hit with power. He's an exciting kid to watch. Compared to other shortstops, he can make plays others can't get to. That's why he's probably going to have a few more errors than others because he can get to so many more balls."

"He's got a bright future. At the age he is, he's far more accomplished than an 18-year-old. Consistency and maturity in the field are really the only things holding him back."

Both will come with age. And so will that call to the big leagues.

Thirty years ago today some KKK and neo-Nazis killed marchers from the Communist Workers Party. We've written about the sad events of that tragic day many, many times. Some people think that we are keeping it alive, but that simply reflects a misunderstanding of what the news media does.

We had a story about the events commemorating the shootings in the paper this morning. Even though this was the 30th anniversary -- and newspapers love anniversary stories -- we aren't planning to cover it in any significant way. We don't see any news in it. Without news, there isn't much reason to relive it one more time. 

That said there are a variety of events planned.

It's been a tough full-moon few days in Greensboro and North Carolina. These are the kinds of days I think about when people tell us they don't want to read about all the death and destruction.

We published this photo by Jerry Wolford on the front page Friday accompanying a story about swine flu vaccinations at UNCG.

As you can imagine, some people didn't like it.

A nurse wrote: This is not the picture I would choose if I was encouraging folks to get this vaccine. The needle is tiny and shot is over in no time. How about a picture of a calm, cheery person next time to help allay some of the fear and hesitation over getting the vaccine?

A mother wrote: My 6-year-old son saw that picture of the "big baby" and wants no part of that kind of pain. He's going to get his shot next week and instead of the little pinch we told him it would feel like, he thinks it will be more like a bullet shot. In the future could you please refrain from putting pictures of adult men getting shots. Obviously, he never learned to take it like a man------or maybe we should say take it like a woman or even child.

Ouch!

Our other photo choice was to show the long line of people waiting, which was our secondary photo on the page. I doubt that was encouraging either. But it's a shot; it's supposed to sting, isn't it? Oh well, we liked the emotion of the photo.

Me, I just appreciate a 6-year-old who reads the paper! 

Update: I just heard back from the mother, who wrote me: Actually, I think that picture helped my son. He went today for shots and said he wasn't gonna' act like the big man in the newspaper. He didn't even flinch.

My newspaper column:

Many years ago, thieves broke into my home and stole a television, jewelry and cash. I still remember my anger at feeling victimized and unprotected in my own home.

I thought of that incident when I read Dioni Wise’s story last month, in which Greensboro Assistant Police Chief Dwight Crotts said that five to 10 homes in Greensboro are broken into every day.

Five to 10 homes? Do a little math and that comes to as many as 3,600 reported home burglaries a year.

To put that into a rough perspective, that equates to about 3 percent of Greensboro households. To loosely paraphrase the late Sen. Everett Dirksen, a couple thousand here and a couple thousand there and pretty soon you’re talking real crime.

Since Dioni’s story, we have followed up with several stories that explored crime trends, why and where the break-ins are occurring, and what you can do to protect your home.

Last Tuesday, we published a map that plotted the location of the city’s residential burglaries for the week of Oct. 16-23. That week, there were 63 break-ins or an average of nine a day.

We’re going to make that map a regular feature on Sundays. This week it is on page B3. It will show you not only where each break-in occurred, but, over time, it should help you watch any patterns that may emerge.

I suspect the map will become as popular as the Guilford County’s Most Wanted feature, which we publish on Mondays.

If you have crime-related questions or story ideas for us, send them to us.

That indirectly leads me to a second topic: Is the performance of the police department the biggest problem facing the city?

Some candidates for Greensboro City Council think so, a fact I learned from this newspaper.

Of all the things a newspaper does, helping readers learn about political candidates is among the most important. Because our belief in the importance of democratic principles is so strong, we devote a great deal of time and effort to covering candidates and issues.

For the past month, we have published numerous articles about each of the Greensboro City Council races, PAC endorsements, bonds and bond debt. Don’t worry, though, if you missed an issue or haven’t been paying close attention. You have plenty of time to catch up so that you can vote on Tuesday.

To begin, we have published a guide to the municipal elections in Guilford County on page A7. Then, you can find everything we have written about the candidates and the issues at news-record.com/election.

I hope you’ll take the time to vote. In last month’s primary, 94 percent of the electorate stayed home. Allowing just 6 percent of registered voters to determine how the city is governed is shameful.

Gerald Witt is moving to our Sports department, a prospect that I suspect will delight the county commissioners.

Gerald has covered the county for nearly two years and battled with the bureaucrats and politicians for public records and access. We expect him to bring his aggressiveness and tenacity into the sporting world. If you have story ideas, send them along. We always like good ideas.

Carla at The Pet Shop writes about our Halloween costume competition for pets. I know that some people consider their pets as their children and so force them to wear outfits the pets really don't want to wear, but some of these are just seriously wrong.

Fun to look at, though, in the same way it's fun to watch TV news personalities dress up on Halloween.

Capital reporter Mark Binker has covered the State Board of Elections hearing into the affairs of former Gov. Mike Easley all week. (Easley is testifying today.)

Mark has been writing analyses off the hearings, rather than straight news stories because we think it is easier to sort through the testimony, put it into context and help the reader understand what's what. We are interested in what you think and whether you'd prefer the more traditional AP method.

Meanwhile, you can follow the hearings live here as Mark and others report via Twitter. Because there are different people reporting, you can read all the different perspectives.