Otterblog

It’s not much of a stretch to say that Sheriff Bill Schatzman owes his election to the Journal. The newspaper spent a lot of time in the 1990s investigating the misdeeds of his predecessor, Ron Barker, and it’s these reports that gave Schatzman plenty of ammunition when he ran again Barker in 1998 and then successfully in 2002.

That said, the newsroom doesn’t care who is sheriff. We just want people do their job. Our story today about how Sheriff Schatzman chose to punish himself for a departmental offense offers an interesting window into the look of one of our top elected officials.

Sheriffs are unique law-enforcement officials. They are county employees, but are outside the chain of command of county government. And they are in the state’s constitution, with a power that is derived in part from common law—remember Robin Hood and Nottingham Forest? But they’re not above the law or above scrutiny. It’s what we told Ron Barker way back when, and what we told Preston Oldham before that.

Two things come to mind. First, Schatzman gave up a lot of money for having a beer at a Marines get-together. Second, is a punishment that nobody knows about really a punishment? Sort of, but not exactly.

Is it news? You bet. Would it have made a difference in the outcome of this fall’s election against Bobby Blakely Jr.? Nope. Is it something voters ought to have known about before they voted? Yep.

We ran a brief obit the other day of a gentleman named Bulend Ecevit. No, he wasn’t an extra in Borat. He was the former prime minister of Turkey, a moderate and secularist who helped govern that country for much of the 70s as well as a briefer period in the 90s. He pushed for open markets and integration into the European community. He also invaded Cyprus ... a conflict that continues to smolder to this day

And, he was a journalist. In fact, for about six months in 1954 and early 1955, he worked as a reporter at the Journal and its sister paper, the Sentinel. This was all courtesy of a state department program. By all accounts, Ecevit was a classy guy. Highly literate, a good observer, gracious and charming. Also a good writer. His last article for the papers ran on Jan. 9, 1955. It’s really very interesting to see how a stranger takes apart the flaws of a society, meticulously, carefully and utterly. Ecevit wrote: I cannot take seriously all that well-meant “gradual integration” and “give us time” stuff either ... One does not need “time” to grant that a human being is a human being.”

At the bottom is what the LA Times editorialized about his death.

Movie watch: Got around to seeing Thank You for Smoking this past weekend. Katie Holmes is not a very convincing journalist, but it’s a satirical look at the tobacco industry that is so near and dear to many of us and the culture of hypocrisy in the U.S. Winston-Salem has a cameo role as well. When I covered the legislature way back when, I got to know a lot of the tobacco lobbyists. They were incredibly good at what they did, not just because of campaign contributions, but because they understood the dynamics of representative government. And they were zealous advocates for their clients and causes. Not necessarily huggable, but there when it counted.

Bulent Ecevit, one of the most important leaders in modern Turkish history, died Sunday in Ankara. His dream may be dying a slow death in Brussels, Belgium.
“There can be no Europe without Turkey, and no Turkey without Europe,” Ecevit said in 1999. A four-term prime minister, Ecevit was by the end of his career a supporter of open markets and greater integration with the West.
On Wednesday, the European Commission released a progress report on Ankara’s bid to join the European Union. It was highly critical of the pace of Turkey’s reforms on issues such as freedom of speech and its failure to recognize Cyprus.
Cyprus is indeed the stumbling block of the day, but there is a more fundamental resistance across much of Western Europe to the idea that Turkey could join the EU. The EU is still digesting 10 new Central and Eastern European members with a lower standard of living, and there are some understandable concerns about absorbing 73 million Turks on the continent’s periphery.
But the genius of Europe’s enlargement process has been its ability to raise living standards in new member states while being flexible in phasing in full integration so as to not drag down living standards among richer members. Because of the terms of Poland’s accession to the EU, for instance, its farmers have not impoverished French farmers. What’s more, given demographic trends, Europe would increasingly benefit from Turkey’s large labor pool and its vibrant consumer market.
Opposition to Turkey’s candidacy in nations such as France is increasingly about cultural identity. This is unfortunate, as it undermines the idea of a largely secular Muslim Turkey serving as a bridge between West and East. Its successful integration with Christian Europe would demonstrate that the religions need not be at odds and that Western-style democracy is not unattainable in the Middle East.
But confronted with European rejection, many sectors of Turkish society seem intent on derailing integration, making the Turkey-isn’t-suited claim a self-fulfilling one. Turkey’s Article 301, a vague law that makes it a crime to publicly insult the nation, is a nationalist measure aimed at provoking Brussels.
And then there is Cyprus, which joined the EU in 2004 and thus has the ability to block any new members. Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974, under Ecevit, and part of the island remains under Turkish control while Ankara refuses to recognize the Cypriot government. Talks to resolve the impasse recently collapsed.
At an EU summit in mid-December, commissioners may decide to suspend accession talks with Turkey for a year or more. That would be unfortunate—for both sides of this courtship.

Newspapers—including this one—often have very complicated relationships with other major institutions in the community. You can see/read that complexity in how we cover such folks as the sheriff’s office, or Wake Forest University or the School of the Arts. Quite often, we will have a “positive” story one day and a “negative” story the next and on and on. From our standpoint, it’s perfectly logical. It’s just the news. But it can cause an outsider to scratch his or her head.
Our most tangled relationship, I think, is with Reynolds Tobacco. At one point, members of the Gray family, which were intimately connected with RJR, owned the Journal, although that was quite a while ago. The Journal’s coverage of tobacco and tobacco-related issues has certainly changed through the years, particularly as the knowledge of the health risks associated with smoking have become clearer. We’re no longer a cheerleader, but I don’t think we are the village nag either. We just cover the news. Our coverage is complicated by the fact that RJR is a neighbor. Many of us know people who work there. It’s much easier for journalists who don’t live here to come to W-S and write about the faults of the cigarette business etc. It’s tougher when you run into the people you criticize at the supermarket or coaching Little League.
I got to thinking about this because of our story this weekend on the new cigarette lounge that Reynolds plans to open in downtown Winston-Salem. It’s going to be a stone’s throw from the Journal. For all I know, it could be our new hangout. But it’s a bizarre concept, a place designed to sell a particular brand of cigarettes. And it comes on the heel of the latest Surgeon General’s report, a tough document about the risks of second-hand smoke. In many places, such a development would be greeted with skepticism, and the health activists would be up in arms. The public-health community in W-S is certainly more vocal than in the past, but for now, the idea of a lounge that essentially promotes smoking is simply a downtown development story. That could change, but it hasn’t yet.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: The great BBQ hunt took me far afield this past weekend, to the Dillsboro Smokehouse in Western North Carolina. Mapquest puts it 190 miles plus to Lexington, but it’s closer in spirit, if not vinegar, so to speak. Worth a road trip? Maybe not. Worth a detour? Sure.

Amid all the horror of the terrorist attacks in India was a question that is both important and picayune: What do we call the city where the attacks took place: The city is Mumbai. It used to be called Bombay. Some people still call it that. The Associated Press, for example, whose style book we typically defer to on questions of international style, uses Bombay. The New York Times, the BBC, the Washington Post, by contrast, use Mumbai, although frequently their stories contain a line that says the city used to be called Bombay. The city officially changed its name in the late 1990s.

We had a discussion about this, and decided to go with Mumbai. There’s an argument to be made that worrying about what to call a city that has just endured a massive terrorist attack is silly and trivial in times of crisis. But it isn’t. Names matter. And what we call things matter. And there’s often a story behind naming and name changes that speaks to power and control. Those with longer memories may remember the battle over the name of Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. (We refer to it as Joel Coliseum in the Journal.)

From a newspaper style standpoint, there’s a balance between convention, clarity and convenience. The convention is that generally speaking, we err on the side of people or institutions being able to determine what they’ll be called. Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali,  Integon became GMAC, Forsyth Memorial Hospital became Forsyth Medical Center, etc. Where we might adjust is if we think a new name is confusing or inconsistent. Some public schools are still called schools. Others are called academies. We try to call them all schools. Same with the Forsyth County Law Enforcement Detention Center. We call it the Forsyth County Jail.

Couple of technical/logistical issues delayed posting today ...

1) We appreciate everybody’s calls about the changes to the stocks pages. Even the complaints. Change is tough. But it’s happening. One thoughtful writer said essentially that the more we tell people to go online to find things that used to be in the newspaper, the worse off we are. Some truth to that, but it’s a much more complex problem than that. Newspapers believe—correctly, I think—that what we can do best is provide news and content that can’t be found elsewhere. Stocks didn’t fit that goal at a cost-benefit we were willing to maintain.

2) The surgeon general is always news in Winston-Salem, as it was on our front page today. It’s who we are, part of our historical DNA and our present DNA as well. If you ever have time, it’s worthwhile to go back and read the initial report on smoking and health from 1964. Here’s the link. Without taking sides in the debate, as I have good friends who work in tobacco and relatives who have died of smoking, it’s a remarkable document, and it’s amazing how this issue has changed and broadened during the past 42 years. The intersection of health and politics and personal responsibilty is an incredibly lively area.

3) Our front-page piece on why North Carolina’s gas tax is so high is what I would call a clip and save. You may not like the answer, but the explanation is a good primer on why our state is the way it is. Not necessarily better or worse, but different.

Repeat after me:

Homer. Marge. Bart. Lisa. Maggie.
Religion. Speech. Press. Assembly. Petition.

We carried a funny little story today that said Americans are more likely to be able to name members of the Simpson cartoon family than the freedoms spelled out in the

.

Is that really surprising? Quick. Name the four Beatles. Now name the four presidents on

(answers at the end.)

It’s easy to view this as yet another sign of American boorishness, but I think the lesson is a bit more subtle. Knowledge is power, but it’s also currency, and we know what we think is worth knowing and has value to others. For better or for worse, apparently most people think a working knowledge of an animated sitcom is more valuable than a working knowledge of the Bill of Rights.

But the truth is that it doesn’t have to be either/or. We have big brains, and ideally we should know about the Constitution and the Simpsons, the Beatles and Mount Rushmore, Hip Hop and Hiroshima. The counter argument is that one group represents enduring American values and history and the other is just music and culture, fads and fashion. Yes and no. At some point, culture that matters changes history.

Answers: From left to right, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln

A friend brought by some interesting ads that ran in the Journal in 1932.  The first, on Feb. 4, was for Lucky Strike, and features Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  and his tough-guy persona extolling the “toasted” taste of Luckies.  The second, on Feb. 6, is for Camels. The pitchman? Douglas Fairbanks pere, complete with jungle togs etc.

As the Virginia Slims folks might say, “You’ve come a long way, Baby.”

Just how far became clearer yesterday when the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to allow Reynolds and Lorillard to keep alive their lawsuit that California’s anti-smoking ads—essentially paid for by the tobacco companies—was too harsh and punitive.

Maybe the next round of these ads will feature Carl and Rob Reiner?

Wilderness is often a state of mind. It can exist in a small tract of land or a vast expanse of woods and mountains. But we don’t usually think of it being right in the middle of the city. So what to make of the gorgeous photo of the Bath Branch

we ran today as part of a photo essay? It’s online and in print.

For all the world, this looks like a pristine mountain stream, rather than a once neglected water way. I’m sure there are no trout in it, but that’s not the point. It’s refreshing to see something so pretty so close to where we all live.

The waterway’s history is our own. It was one of the original water supplies for

have talked about trying to restore the lower half to make it gurgle brightly once again.

We had an interesting item in Today in History on Thursday. It was the 136th anniversary of the Cardiff Giant

being exposed as a hoax.

For those who don’t know the tale, the giant was this huge stone man unearthed in Cardiff, N.Y. in 1869. People thought he was a petrified man or a stone statue or a giant right out of the Bible. Folks paid money to see him. A year later, it was revealed to be a hoax, the chisel marks shown for what they were. People still paid money to see it. These days, the Giant is on display at the

near Cooperstown, N.Y.

I saw the giant many years ago, and it’s pretty cool. There’s a lesson there as well, about the way we believe in things and how truths get accepted as truths. There’s the idea that the truth is anything that enough people say is the truth. I disagree. There are objective measurements of many truths, but the acceptance of truth can be a group activity.

In many ways the acceptance of a new truth is a back story of the

this morning. It’s a fascinating case, intertwined with our city, our social fabric and this newspaper. For nearly 20 years, the accepted truth among many people was that Darryl Hunt killed Deborah Sykes. Even after Hunt’s pardon, the DNA evidence, the confession of Willard Brown, the apologies etc., there are still people who believe he was involved. We hear from them occasionally. They cling to a past truth, uncertain about new truths and unwilling to accept the chisel marks for what they are.

Life’s too short to argue over where the best BBQ in the state is. Personally, I prefer BBQ from 336 and the northern part of 704, but that’s just me.

But a friend had told me about a little place in the country called Allen and Sons in Orange County, and I went yesterday on the way back from Raleigh. Outstanding. As befits the geography, the food is a bit in the middle as well. Smoky taste, good sauce. Excellent meat. Great sweet potato pie.

Worth a visit. It’s about a mile or so on NC 86 north of Interstate 40 in the New Hope community. 86 itself is a pretty diversion, caught between North Carolina’s past, present and future. In the stretch between I-40 and I-85, you drive past farms selling goats, a volunteer fire department, a Zen retreat and the Wal-Mart.