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I'll be celebrating Independence Day in our nation's capital.

Have a safe and fun Fourth wherever you are.

I'm a couple of days behind on this, but kudos to Gov. Bev Perdue for appointing Eric Levinson to the Superior Court bench in Mecklenburg County.

What's so notable?

First, Levinson is highly qualified. In fact, he has served on the N.C. Court of Appeals.

He resigned in 2007 to take a U.S. Department of Justice position in Iraq, advising that country's judicial system. Perdue gave him appropriate recognition for his service to country.

Finally, although North Carolina's judiciary is nonpartisan, Levinson happens to be a Republican. Perdue, a Democrat, reached across party lines to choose a good judge for this post. That's a positive step toward taking partisan politics out of our courts.

Chris Leggett was a "modern-day hero who daily gave his life for the people of Mauritania."
 

Many tributes were spoken at the funeral of the Tennessee man murdered in the northwest African nation June 23, AP reports.

An al-Qaida branch claimed responsibility for the killing, saying Leggett was targeted for trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

The attack, carried out in a crowded area of Mauritania's capital city, reportedly has shaken other Christians and prompted some westerners to leave the country.

Al-Qaida has announced a campaign to turn Mauritania into an Islamic republic, through violent means, of course.

Mauritanians in general have condemned Leggett's murder. Politicians leaders decried the killing as "foreign to the values and traditions of hospitality of our peace-loving people." 

Mauritania seems like it would be a fascinating place to visit, especially with recent signs that it's sorting out its political problems.

Obviously, it must overcome this al-Qaida threat.

Chris Leggett was working to provide educational opportunities for poor Mauritanians. His murder was an outrage, and the government there must bring his killers to justice.

Where was this judge when Marion Jones needed him? Or any other athlete banned for drug use?

From AP: "The court finds the harm to Mr. Mayfield significantly outweighs any harm to NASCAR," U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen said.

 Jeremy Mayfield is free to get back on the track, although the judge generously will allow NASCAR to conduct further tests to determine whether Mayfield has been "a meth-head or not."

I thought they already had done that.

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PART adds leisure travel to its main course of commuter services with a daily run to the zoo.

Sounds like an entirely new direction. Instead of taking traffic off the roads, it's going to drum up traffic for the zoo.

That's a fine thing if the purpose is indeed to bring more visitors to the zoo, which can use the revenue. So is PART, whose operations are already heavily subsidized, subsidizing the zoo?

It is likely to draw folks who otherwise would not or could not drive themselves to the outstanding animal-viewing facility outside Asheboro.

I wonder what might happen to riders who miss the 4 p.m. return bus. It's a long trek home.

Next question: Where else can PART carry Triad riders to help out the state's travel and tourism industry?

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Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, got a "$3.5 billion sweetener" to vote for the porked-up energy bill last week, the Washington Times reports. What the heck did North Carolina's reps get?

One of the most sickening alleged crimes in North Carolina recently raises one haunting question:

Who let Frank Lombard adopt children?

Lombard is the Duke University official charged with sexually molesting his 5-year-old adopted "son" and offering the child for sexual abuse by others over the Internet.

Here's CNN's report from yesterday. There hasn't been a lot of coverage in the North Carolina media considering the very distrressing aspects of this case.

Here's the "affadavit in support of arrest warrant." Warning: It's extremely disturbing to read.

It indicates this man adopted a second child as well. Both have been taken into social services custody.

How closely was Lombard checked out before innocent children were placed in his custody? The horrible thought is that this is the reason he sought adoption.

Lombard, 42, is associate director of Duke's Center for Health Policy, but was placed on unpaid administrative leave when he was arrested last week.  He's been removed from listings on the faculty/staff page. Here's a cached entry.

Maybe if he were a lacrosse player, there'd be more of an uproar over this.

Pam Spence says she’s the “bed bug lady” at the Guilford County Department of Public Health.

It’s not good that Guilford County needs a “bed bug lady,” but calls about the blood-sucking pests have been increasing. Spence, a community health educator, answers them.

My call Monday was prompted by a friend’s misfortune. What he first thought was an outbreak of poison ivy turned out to be bed bug bites. An examination of his High Point apartment found an infestation, which has been treated twice so far — I hope successfully. But with bed bugs, it’s hard to be sure.

“They’re very hard to get rid of and very costly to get rid of,” said Burns Blackwell, vice president and chief operating officer of Terminix in Greensboro.

Once nearly eradicated in the days of DDT, bed bugs are making “a very, very big comeback,” Blackwell said. One reason is international travel — bed bugs are “big hitchhikers” — and another is “lesser use of pesticides for environmental reasons.”

Some U.S. cities have huge bed bug problems, probably none worse than New York. In a January editorial, the New York Times chided Mayor Michael Bloomberg for not making bed bugs a “big deal.” In March, a city news release proclaimed a stepped-up effort: “New York City Council to Bed Bugs — Drop Dead!”

If only. They hide out in the smallest places, often in beds, creeping out at night to feed on the blood of people or pets. They multiply like crazy and travel in furniture, luggage and other household items.

While they don’t transmit diseases, they can make life really miserable.

“They can cause scabbing and scarring and mild to serious secondary infections,” said Spence. And they keep people awake. She’s heard from teachers whose students lose sleep because of them.

I asked Jung Kim, an environmental senior specialist in public health pest management with the N.C. Division of Environmental Health, whether bed bugs are a public health problem.

“It depends on who you ask,” he said. The Centers for Disease Control says no, “but if you ask somebody who has bed bugs, they’d feel it is.”

“Most of the time it’s just an extreme annoyance,” Spence said.

Sometimes people don’t report bed bugs because of the stigma or for fear a landlord will evict them. That’s the wrong attitude.

“A lot of folks think it’s a lack of sanitation and it’s really not,” Spence said.

And waiting to fight back against the nasty creatures guarantees the infestation will get worse quickly, possibly migrating from one apartment to another in a building.

“Early identification is the key,” said Blackwell of Terminix. With luck, eradication might cost only a couple of hundred dollars. An extensive infestation will run much more, take multiple treatments — itself a complex “integrated pest management” process — and could require discarding furniture.

Which means be careful what you buy at a flea market or yard sale, or pick up from the curb.

North Carolina requires sanitation — two hours of high-heat treatment — for any used mattresses sold, a precaution that probably cuts down on the spread of bed bugs, Kim said. But the pests are getting around anyway.

Bed bugs are “a growing problem, and a creepy one,” said Karin Mahoney, communications director for the International Sleep Products Association. I could practically feel her shudder over the phone. She referred me to Ryan Trainer, executive vice president, who’s become ISPA’s bed bug guy as the industry promotes safer practices for handling bedding.

Traveling? Don’t leave your suitcase on your hotel bed, Trainer advises. You might carry home unwanted visitors, or hundreds of eggs.

Not that we don’t have enough already. Kim is hearing more about bed bugs here but can’t quantify the increase because no one is required to report infestations.

In Greensboro, Spence was getting so many calls a few months ago that she contacted churches and synagogues to ask for help buying plastic covers for infested mattresses. “Encasement” products for beds and box springs can seal in the bugs and prevent further infestation. There are also efforts in the community to replace beds for people who can’t afford them. But it’s essential to destroy every bug and all eggs in the residence or the battle isn’t over.

Bed bugs are no small problem for people afflicted, like my friend. They require professional treatment and  extreme care to prevent their return and to protect against passing them on. They can beset anyone, anywhere.

Don’t let them bite.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to give me a call at 373-7039, send me an email at dgclark@news-record.com or post a comment here.

More on bed bugs:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/301/13/1398

http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef636.asp

http://www.medicinenet.com/bed_bugs/article.htm

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7454.html

Some hopeful developments:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/11/bedbug-pheromones.html

And an embarrassing defeat:

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20090630/UPDATES01/90630010/Annual+sofa+round-up+canceled+due+to+bed+bug+concerns+

Harold Martin took the chancellor's job at A&T with super high expectations.

And he's raising them.

Our edit board (Allen Johnson, Ken Irons and I) just finished an hour-long conversation with Martin. Allen is now taping a NewsMaker video interview with the new chancellor.

Martin told us he wants A&T to reach the top 25 percent, "at least," among its peer institutions across a range of measures within five years. In the UNC system, peers include East Carolina and UNC Charlotte.

Martin wants people to think of A&T as a "research-intensive doctoral institution."

But to be successful it's got to improve undergraduate time to degree by strengthening support for freshmen and sophomores. One way: Identify "the very best faculty" to teach them.

Radical. Don't upperclassmen usually get the top profs? But then, it makes sense to engage students right off the bat.

Martin added that he fully embraces efforts begun by predecessor Stanley Battle to raise admission standards.

Incoming freshmen now arrive with high expectations, Martin said, relating his meeting at an orientation session recently. Nearly all the new students said they want to attend graduate or professional schools. It's A&T's responsibility, Martin asserted, to prepare them for that.

He knows the challenges. An A&T engineering grad, then professor, then administrator, he led Winston-Salem State University during a time of progress there before moving to a position as academic chief for the UNC system in Chapel Hill.

Rising among strong peers means competing for students, faculty and grants. It requires fundraising. Martin said he's already asked the development staff to draw the framework for the next capital campaign, which should seek more than $100 million and target a much broader spectrum of potential donors than just alumni or even local, regional and state corporations.

A&T, alone and in partnership with UNCG, is a major force in regional economic development. The research park and school of nanoscience are key components.

Martin strongly endorses UNCG's bid for a school of pharmacy, which would benefit A&T as well as Greensboro and the entire region.

Martin said it wasn't a difficult decision for him to return to A&T, even though he admits it passed through his mind that he might have been in line to succeed UNC system president Erskine Bowles when Bowles retires in a year or two.

Now there's an expectation that Martin is here to stabilize A&T after some rapid turnover at the top. Battle served only two years as chancellor. Martin confirms that expectation. Hearing him talking about five years from now, I was convinced he means to be here and to accomplish ambitious goals.

Martin drew an important lesson from his tenure at WSSU: If you set high expectations, plan well, execute in partnership with everyone who has a stake in the university, "it's amazing what you can achieve."

A&T's potential is enormous, Martin said.

He's already raising expectations. 

Enough about Mark Sanford. Let's get back to John Edwards.

The New York Times reports today that Edwards' former aide Andrew Young claims in a book proposal that Edwards pressured him to claim paternity of THAT baby.

Who would have guessed?

The Times reports:

"In his proposal, Mr. Young quotes Mr. Edwards, a Democrat who was his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004 and ran for president last year, as begging him to confess to fathering Ms. Hunter’s baby.

“ ‘You know how much I love you,’ Edwards said. ‘You know I’d walk off a cliff for you, and I know you’d walk off a cliff for me,’ ” Mr. Young wrote in the book proposal. “ ‘I will never forget this. And I will always be there for you.’ ”

Sounds like what John might have said to Elizabeth.

I don't give Young much credit for ratting out Edwards for money, by the way.

If he was willing to lie for Edwards for money, he should have stuck with it.

Where's the honor among liars?

The U.S. Supreme Court rules for white and Hispanic firefighters suing New Haven, Conn., for denying their promotions because black candidates did not qualify under a written test administered to all.

The decision was only by a 5-4 margin, with the usual conservative/liberal split. The majority opinion was authored by Anthony Kennedy. It found New Haven violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race.

The issues get complicated after that.

An interesting twist here is that the decision overturns an appeals court panel that included Sonia Sotomayor.

More later, maybe.

Leonard Pitts is a relentless crusader against bigotry and intolerance ... except his own.

As he does so often, today he's attacking people whose religious practices he finds objectionable.

Of course, the attempted "exorcism" of a "homosexual demon" afflicting a 16-year-old boy at Manifested Glory Ministries in Bridgeport, Conn, presents Pitts with the easiest of targets. The videotaped exercise was strange, dramatic and disturbing. Furthermore, it was based on the premise that homosexuality is an affliction that should be cast from its victim.

It all gives Pitts the opportunity to mock these practitioners as "backward mouth breathers" and bigots, and more seriously to suggest they're guilty of abusing a child.

That's one type of reaction. And I suppose if authorities in Bridgeport, Conn., share Pitts' thinking, they'll send in the police to break up this cult and run them all in for child abuse and maybe hate crimes. 

But I hope more reasoned minds will consider the implications. After all, we are supposed to protect freedom of religion in this country -- and that covers a lot of practices many of us would find uncomfortable.

For me, exorcisms fall into that category. However, the Catholic Church practices exorcisms -- and even the late Pope John Paul II performed exorcisms at the Vatican in front of many witnesses. He wasn't accused of being a "backward mouth breather" or of abusing anyone.

Driving out demons is biblical. The same Jesus who instructed followers to love your neighbor as yourself, turn the other cheek, and to let those without sin cast the first stone also ordered evil spirits from people and told his disciples to do the same.

It seems prejudicial to me for Pitts or anyone else to conclude that the subject of an exorcism is a victim who's being abused. If the young man sought help from his church, and his parents supported the procedure, then what followed was likely a consensual religious practice about which outsiders should reserve judgment.

My church isn't into exorcisms, but our teenagers underwent a 30-hour fast this spring, an exercise that shows support for hunger ministries but also has a spiritual dimension. Maybe some people would brand it child abuse. A 30-hour fast probably is as physically draining as undergoing an exorcism.

I understand the issue in Bridgeport has to do largely with this church's attitude toward homosexuality. But the church has every right to view that subject within the context of its religious beliefs.

It's certainly plausible that a 16-year-old boy who has concerns about his sexuality would go to his church for guidance. He should. I think most Christian ministers would offer counseling. Their first advice to a 16-year-old should be to not become sexually active. Beyond that, there are many directions to take. The goal should be to help a young person struggling with any kind of "demon" to free himself from harmful influences and to put himself on the path God would have him walk. That's what religion is all about.

I admit I find exorcism an extreme reaction. I also admit I'm not in a position to judge.