There is nothing quite like doubling down on a mistake, but we did. Two weeks ago when Scott Yost wrote about the soil and water district supervisors race, he left out one of the nine candidates, Josh Myers. It’s a long list and we didn’t catch that – there were only eight names instead of nine.
So Josh Myers, candidate for Guilford County soil and water district supervisor, contacted us and I promised Josh Myers that I would write a Rhino Short for last week’s paper noting that we had left Josh Myer’s name off the list and apologizing. I forgot. So last week there was no correction and Josh Myer’s name didn’t appear in the paper.
So now I have to apologize to Josh Myers, candidate for soil and water district supervisor, twice – once for the original mistake and once for not promptly running the correction.
With nine candidates in the race it’s easy for one to get overlooked, but just to make sure, Josh Myers is a candidate for soil and water district supervisor and the name Josh Myers will appear on your ballot in November.
*****
The Wyndham Championship PGA tournament will be here in less than two weeks. It’s too early to make predictions about the weather, but it would be nice if we got all of this rain out of the way before tournament week, which starts Tuesday, August 14 and ends with the final round on Sunday, August 19.
Since the tournament returned to Sedgefield Country Club, it has gotten bigger and better every year, and it looks like a great field for the 2018 tournament. Webb Simpson, Brandt Snedeker, Jim Furyk, Ernie Els, Bill Haas, Davis Love and Harold Varner are just some of the golfers who have already committed to be here.
*****
Poor Mark Zuckerberg. The last time I checked, he’d lost $18 billion in couple of days, and it could get worse. Reports are that he is considering selling off most of his extensive T-shirt collection to raise cash for living expenses. The poor guy is only worth an estimated $50 billion and could drop out of the top 10 richest people in the world if Facebook stock continues its nosedive.
So we thought we’d try to help old Mark out of his financial hole and raise some money for him. No donation is too small, but we recommend you write “For Mark” on a $100 bill and mail it to the Rhino Times. We’ll take care of the rest.
*****
Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about Latham Park, and most of it has not been good. Monday, driving to work in a torrential downpour, I was impressed. In years past the park would have been flooded by a deluge like that, and the storm water infiltrating into the sanitary sewer system would have turned the manholes in the park into huge sprouting fountains that could be considered beautiful, until you realized it was raw sewage. The solution by the city was to come back after the rain stopped and spread lime around.
But that has been fixed. This week, no manhole fountains, and although the water was lapping at the underside of the bridge on Cridland Road, Buffalo Creek was mostly in its banks.
I hate to say the city has fixed it, because that means the next big rain will flood everything, but it is certainly a huge improvement.
*****
The Greensboro library is asking for suggestions for One City, One Book and my suggestion is Ender’s Game by Rhino Times Contributing Editor Orson Scott Card. The award-winning novel seems to meet the criteria. It’s appropriate for all ages. It must be adaptable since it has been made into a movie. It fits in with all this emphasis on supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs. Nothing is more entrepreneurial than sitting down and writing a book.
Also, Greensboro makes a cameo appearance in the book. What other book under consideration was written by a Greensboro resident and has scenes set in Greensboro?
*****
The monthly do-nothing-but-listen meeting of the Greensboro City Council in August will be held on Monday, August 6 instead of Tuesday, August 7 because National Night Out is on Tuesday, August 7.
The first meeting of every month according to the current City Council schedule is a town hall format where the City Council passes some resolutions and listens to people speak for up to five minutes each. Panhandling has been the major topic for the past six months at these meetings, and with the passage of two new panhandling ordinances last week, it is likely to be the topic next Monday. Some regular attendees of City Council meetings are hoping that the news of the change in schedule isn’t well publicized, reducing the number of speakers.
*****
It turns out the leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly called it correctly when it went back into session last week to take the power away from the Constitutional Amendment Publication Committee, because the committee met this week for no apparent reason except to denigrate the proposed constitutional amendments.
The legislature decided that the captions written by the committee wouldn’t be put on the ballot. Gov. Roy “Veto Boy” Cooper, as expected, vetoed the bills. The legislature is scheduled to meet Saturday, August 4 to override the vetoes, which depending on how long the Democrats want to posture shouldn’t take long. The Republicans have the votes to override the vetoes and most likely the Democrats won’t want to spend their entire Saturday fighting for a lost cause.
But as things stand now, the committee doesn’t know what it is going to be doing. Will it be writing captions for the voter guides that go out from the Board of Elections or will it be writing what goes on the ballot?
Until the veto is overridden that is all up in the air, so there was no point in meeting, except that it is a slow news week and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Attorney General Josh Stein knew they could get some face time by making fun of Republicans.
*****
I thought Fitbits were kind of silly and had no inclination to buy one. However, the employees of the Carroll Companies who wanted a Fitbit were given one, and I rarely turn down free stuff. So now I’ve been a Fitbit wearer for over a week and I think I’m addicted. I can’t stop checking to see how many steps I’ve taken and what my heart rate is. So far I’ve been able to get my pulse below 50, but then someone told me that the point of exercising is to get your pulse rate up, so maybe I’m not doing things right.
