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I ran again Saturday morning on the new Atlantic & Yadkin greenway, and am pleased to report that the second time around was even better than the first.

There were even some kind folks handing out bottled water at the Battleground Park lot (my personal finish line).

There also was fresh graffiti in the Cone Boulevard underpass, but I have to admit it didn't bother me.

It pictured a bunny rabbit in a flowering field, and I thought it actually added something to the surroundings.

Of course, it's still illegal.

And I guess it still counts as vandalism.

City crews will probably wash it away.

But it wasn't angry, profane and pointless, like the first batch.

And it makes me wonder if there is place for public art — created by the public — in public places.

The state did. It has devised new rules for restaurants that allow dogs and cats to sit with their owners in outside dining areas.

There are some people, of course (including my spouse), who consider animals near the dinner table unacceptable under any circumstances.

But the best news is the restaurants will have a choice.

And customers will have a choice of  which establishments to patronize based on their policies.

If President Obama is not a Muslim," writes Richard Prince, "why do some newspapers publish letters to the editor claiming that he is?"

The e-mail list of the National Conference of Editorial Writers debated that issue this week.

Our stance: We do not publish letters that state as a "fact" that the president is a Muslim.

He says he is a Christian and he has worshipped in a Christian church.

No one has shown or proved otherwise.

Publishing an opinion as fact only feeds misinformation. And there already is enough of that swirling around and contaminating public discourse.

If someone wants to say as an opinion that he or she doesn't believe the president, fine.

Even then we'll use some discretion; there'll need to be other substance in the letter.

Ideally, it shouldn't matter what the president's faith is.

Ideally.

It seems more than a little ironic that Ann Coulter, who once used a homophobic slur to refer to John Edwards, has been castigated by other conservatives for accepting a speaking invitation from a GOP gay group.

Coutler and WorldNetDaily are having an escalating war of words over her participation in a GOP gathering conspicuously called Homocon.

WND: Coulter is implicitly endorsing gay marriage by attending.

Coulter: WND can take a flying leap (I'm paraphrasing).

"These are fake Christians trying to get publicity," Coulter said on Fox News/

There is some poetic justice in all this somewhere.

Dr. Laura is complaining that she ls leaving radio to reclaim her First Amendment rights.

She never lost them.

She just seems miffed that others would exercise their First Amendment rights to (rightly) disagree with her.

I got the chance to run the new greenway today.

I merely walked it the other night (in dress shoes).

But it feels a lot better in running shoes. And looks just as inviting in the light of day.

I picked it up at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park and took it to Lawndale Crossing Shopping Center.

Oddly, most people seemed content today to walk or run the circular driveway in the park rather than take the greenway. I personally hate running in circles.

There is plenty of shade along most of the route and very few hills. The scenery is interesting. Today, some kids were holding a car wash along Battleground Avenue, accompanied by a band. (I couldn't tell which school.) A pair of cats warily eyed me along the same spot I saw them Thursday night.

Alas, however, the grafitti vandals are back.

There are faint scrawlings in the Cone underpass ... it's hard to tell whether that's because it was cleaned or because it didn't take well because of the protective coating the city planned to apply.

Anyway, I'd wish these people would get some exercise rather  than waste time defacing public property.

Idiots.

As Amanda Lehmert posts, City Councilman Danny Thompson ha not given up in his search for porn.

So even after the council nixed his motion to add porn filters to library computers, Thompson was in the library, seeing for himself how widespread and how available porn is.

That, of course, could mean Thompson himself may be cited by library staff or security for viewing dirty pictures.

Thompson would have done well to do this homework before making questionable charges at a council meeting about a porn problem.

With all the challenges facing the city, this hardly seems to be a front-burner issue.

Rarely have I met anyone as genuinely, honestly good as James Parker.

James, a former award-winning photographer for the News & Record and a long-, long-time friend, lost his daughter Arielle, 18, a college freshman, last weekend to an awful traffic accident.

James is such a good guy that I have never, in my life heard anyone say a bad word about him. And I have known him since he was a freshman and I was a junior at Carolina.

I was in his wedding. He was in mine.

I did not know Arielle. I wish I had. After attending her memorial service in High Point today, I truly regret barely meeting her. She was an extraordinary young person with an uncommonly strong and giving spirit and an unwavering faith. I learned that much through the words and tears of her friends and family, the long list of her accomplishments and her own marvelous singing and speaking voice through the magic of a pair of touching videos played at the service.

A rising freshman at Wingate University and a Grimsley High School graduate, she lost her life when a truck hit the car she was riding in last week, killing the driver as well and injuring others.

It is always hard to see a parent outlive his or her child. It is doubly hard to see it happen to such graceful and giving people as James and his wife Dijuana.

James and I left Carolina to spend most of our professional lives in the same workplaces, at the Winston-Salem Chronicle, where he rumbled into town in a jacked-up old muscle car with the tag “JP’s Z.”

And where we had more fun than ought be legal in the journalism business.

And the News & Record, where James won a variety of awards, including AP Photographer of the Year.

Now James works at N.C. A&T in the School of Agriculture and Environmental Science ... for one of our “old” colleagues at both the Chronicle and the News & Record, Robin Adams Cheeley.

I’ve always felt one of the keys to his effectiveness as a photographer was his ability to connect with people — to put them at ease with a kind word and a smile. He uses those same gifts in a variety of other, even more important ways as a youth pastor with Dijuana in the Church of God of Prophecy in High Point, and as an obviously loving and nurturing father.

That’s why it’s so easy to like James Parker.

Why it’s so hard to see him hurting.

And why so many of us want so badly to bear the pain for him and his family.

I still can be downright tone-deaf when it comes to gender sensitivity, but I try to live and learn.

It helps to know what you don't know.

But in the year 2010 I still am amazed that a (now fired) state Board of Elections official would be so crass, mean and dimwitted to call women in his office such names as "Babe," "Hon," "Sweetie" and "Fat A--."

Ralph Gable's explanation for last one: The employee had "a glandular condition."

Gable also wants his job back, reports the News & Observer, and says his critics are "sad, little bullies."

At least he has removed all doubt about his fitness for the post. He needs to stay fired.

I have liked what I've seen of Ken Miller so far and our Sunday editorial takes a deeper look at what he faces in Greensboro.

That piece, naturally, concentrates on the internal  turmoil in the police department and how he'll need to address it  foremost.

But he'll also need to adjust to some other realities in Greensboro versus Charlotte. including the smaller size and lesser resources here.

Sheriff BJ Barnes said he believes that will be a significant adjustment.

That will include ongoing challenges in recruitment, scheduling and stretching a patrol force that is understaffed.