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Poor treatment of Chambers

Julius Chambers is a North Carolina icon who probably made a mistake when he agreed to serve as treasurer for John Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign. Now he’s paying for it.

The still-existing campaign is electronically signing Chambers’ name on its federal finance reports, without showing them to Chambers.

A campaign lawyer says there’s nothing wrong with that, but of course there is. The campaign owes repayment of $2 million in public funds, yet spent more than $800,000 on other expenses last year, with the appearance of Chambers’ approval.

That is a shabby way to treat a famed civil-rights attorney and former university chancellor who is now 75 years old.

Noted native son returns

High Point native Robert Belton practiced law with Julius Chambers in Charlotte in the early 1970s and participated in groundbreaking legal actions on behalf of the NAACP. He went on to teach for 34 years at Vanderbilt Law School, becoming the first black professor to earn tenure there.

Belton died in Nashville Feb. 9 at 76. Although he left High Point after graduation from William Penn High School and never returned to live or work in his hometown, his funeral was held there Friday. He should be remembered as one of Guilford County’s most distinguished native sons.

Trouble with turkeys

The Hoke County Sheriff’s Department arrested several former and current employees last week in an animal-cruelty case at a Shannon Butterball turkey farm.

More significantly, a state Department of Agriculture veterinarian pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of obstruction of justice and resisting, delaying or obstructing officers. She was accused of calling a Butterball veterinarian in December about an undercover video of animal cruelty and impending raid.

Dr. Sarah Jean Mason was given a suspended sentence and also has been suspended, without pay, from her job for two weeks. Animal-rights activities who initiated the investigation complain the penalties amount to a slap on the wrist. Mason and Agriculture Department officials say she was trying to stop the cruel treatment of turkeys but made a mistake.

It’s expected that turkeys at poultry farms will have a short, unpleasant life. But they shouldn’t be kicked, stomped or thrown around, as videos depicted. State authorities who learn of such behavior should support action by local law enforcement agencies, not place phone calls that could tip off the offenders.

Miller time

Don’t look now, but the UNCG men’s basketball team has made a remarkable turnaround in the wake of the resignation of Coach Mike Dement 10 games into the current season.

The interim coach, Wes Miller, had his team in first place in its division by two games entering weekend play. Under Miller, the Spartans had won 10 of 11 games at this writing and found a spark that had been missing earlier in the season. The team started the season with a 2-14 record and was 2-8 when Miller took over.

Miller, a former UNC Tar Heel player who turned 29 on Jan. 28, is the youngest Division I head coach in the nation by two years and was only a second-year assistant at UNCG when he was tapped to fill Dement’s shoes.

This story may not be as compelling as the saga of Jeremy Lin in New York. But it’s pretty darned good.

Any means necessary

What N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis may lack in accessibility he apparently makes up for in resourcefulness.

Tillis invoked an obscure and rarely enforced rule to shut off protesters from lawmakers last week. The rule bans the public from the second floor of the statehouse.

Even the General Assembly police chief found the action, which he was requested to enforce, unusual. “Visitors are always on the second floor, ” Chief Jeff Weaver told the News & Observer of Raleigh.

But Tillis is right. The rule is posted, on a wall, in small type, behind a potted tree.