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Madison Taylor


From the editor's desk

God love them — and I do too

July 2nd, 2009, 9:48 am by madisontaylor
Our crop of 2009 interns. Left to right from top: Emily Silva, Tristan Long, Michael Billy, Lindsey Fendt, Erik Kendall, Daniel Sarah Morayati, Daniel Temple, Ashley Melton.

Our crop of 2009 interns. Left to right from top: Emily Silva, Tristan Long, Michael Billy, Lindsey Fendt, Erik Kendall, Daniel Sarah Morayati, Daniel Temple, Ashley Melton.

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When I look at the list of people I know on Facebook one of the first things I notice is how many of them I met on their first real jobs after college.

The second thing, is how many others I first met when they were newspaper interns, which a code word for cheap or otherwise free labor provided by college campuses during those times when we need it most — in the summer when our full-time staffers are on vacation or simply spent from months of wrangling with budgets, half-baked studies, raw politics and growers of exotic-looking vegetables. Do not confuse the latter with politicians in their raw state. Or, well, go ahead. What can it hurt?

The names of former interns  bring back memories: Jennifer Brett, C. Mark Brinkley, Curt Simpson, Diana D’Abruzzo, Kinea White-Epps, Dan Schwind … even our own lifestyles editor Charity Apple got her start here at the Times-News after working as an intern one summer while she was enrolled at Elon University. I believe Alex Kreitman began here the same way.

Know this right off. I’ve never met an editor yet who hired a fouled up intern later for a full-time job. Believe me when I tell you that editors have long memories when it comes to sorry interns.

Personally, I’ve been very lucky. I have great memories of nearly all of them. And many have gone on to great things: Jennifer Brett, for example, is a features writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. C. Mark Brinkley is editor of the Marine Corps Times. Diana D’Abruzzo? She’s a copy editor for the Virginia Pilot. And that’s just the short list.

Sure, every single one started out a little rough. Almost none strut in the building ready to be full-time reporters right out of the box. There are fits and starts, a misspelled name or incorrectly identified street here and there and every so often they get a little ahead of themselves and mix up a fact or two.

But I’ve seldom found it to be from lack of effort. And, hard as it is sometimes, learning is what they’re here for. Our jobs are to guide, teach, be patient and encouraging.

At the Times-News we try to give our interns as much real reporting experience as possible. We don’t send them off to retype press releases. We place them in the field where they either succeed or fail. They interview people, track down figures, organize and write stories then deal with the fallout like anyone else.

And most willingly come back for more. That says a lot, mainly because these days they’re working for free. But all want to get the experience, find out if this is what they want to do and develop resumes and a backlog of writing samples for that time when they need to look for a paying job.

From our perspective, interns are more necessary than ever which is why this year we have the highest number at one time in Times-News history. I’m not just making that up. Three years ago I couldn’t imagine a time when any newspaper our size would have eight unpaid interns at one time. Believe me when I say there is more than enough for them to do. With our print and online responsibilities, the need for extra hands has never been greater. In fact, we’re encouraging students to work as interns during the school year these days.

So those of you who are regular readers have no doubt seen the bylines of our newest short-time staff members. Some will be here a month others two or three. Hopefully a handful will be ongoing contributors into the fall.

Our interns this year come from several points and with a variety of experiences. Emily Silva, one of our reporting interns, is a sttudent at Elon University who lives in Chapel Hill. Emily contributed a story and video to our Perspectives edition earlier this year as part of Jana Anderson’s reporting class. Another reporting intern is Michael Billy, a student at California University of Pennsylvania who was placed here via a program operated by the Institute for Humane Studies — the program that gave us Emily Hohenwater last year and Nathan Cohen the year before. IHS has a great track record for providing interns.

Emily and Michael are producing a wide variety of stories. Emily had one this week about a new indoor soccer facility. Michael produced a story last week about two new railroad projects. Michael will also write the occasional editorial for our opinion page.

Tristan Long is a student at the University of North Carolina who lives in Burlington. Tristan’s interest is in sports but at the moment he’s producing news and sports stories. Tristan had a Real People feature this week on the longtime tennis pro at Olde Forest Raquet Club and also produced a story about the job market for high school kids.

Ashley Melton and Sarah Morayati are writing entertainment and lifestyles features for Scene and Accent sections. Ashley and Sarah started here on our Teens and 20s staff working for Charity Apple. Sarah is still a student at the University of North Carolina while Ashley is recent grad of East Carolina University who developing her resume as she looks for a job.

Lindsey Fendt is an Elon University student who wants to be a photojournalist. Lindsey’s work so far has included an excellent photo of a blind academic tutor at Alamance Community College that was published this past Sunday. She also supplied the photo that accompanied Tristan’s story about the tennis pro.

And online content editor Alex Kreitman has two interns Daniel Temple and Eric Kendall. So far they specialize in producing videos online — including good work on our high school graduations and the Hospice Flea Market. They have also helped Alex put together information for speciality Web pages on the Burlington Royals and online photo galleries.

So far I would characterize the contributions of our interns this year as formidable and then some.

We’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Cartoons by Jay

July 1st, 2009, 5:10 pm by madisontaylor
Somedays in the newspaper game you just feel like roakill.

Somedays in the newspaper game you just feel like roakill.

Managing Editor Jay Ashley is a talented fellow. Most already know it. He’s a regular columnist here who also specializes in long features about Alamance County people, places and history.

But Jay is also something of an artist. Lately he’s taken to rendering cartoons where I am the featured subject. He dashes them off while doodling during our afternoon news budget meetings. I like them a lot and began pinning them on my office bulletin board.

Then I figured, I would go ahead and put a few here from time to time. This one seemed appropriate for the times the newspaper industry is in right now. We’re all struggling, as most who read this blog regularly know.

But the message “I’m OK,” resonates. Absolutely.

Jay told me that becoming an editorial cartoonist was what he first wanted to do in the newspaper business but he didn’t have the wit or knack for it. I think he’s selling himself a little short.

Keep on the lookout here for more of Jay’s work.

When stuff happens

June 28th, 2009, 9:36 pm by madisontaylor

 

So we almost didn’t get out a newspaper Friday night. Well, that’s probably an exaggeration. We were going to get out a Saturday copy of the Times-News by hook, crook or trucking the staff to our sister paper in Gastonia in order to use their equipment to do it.

Luckily, it didn’t come to that.

How we got into this mess is how most might suspect — equipment failure on an epic scale. Lack of electrical power is the most frequent culprit. If it goes, obviously nothing works. Hurricane-induced power failures were the usual cause of such events when I lived on the coast. In 1996 the Daily News of Jacksonville published at the New Bern office.

So it happens.

Otherwise it comes down to one of three tings: A malfunction in our press, plate-making equipment or the computer system. Friday, it was Door No. 3.

We had off-and-on problems with our computer system much of the day Friday. The system, provided by APT and called “Falcon”  slowed to a crawl between 3 and 4 p.m. Fearing that something major was wrong I talked to our IT guy Jay Murray who offered to restart the system because in these situations it usually helps.

This time it was a disaster.

Inside of 30 minutes I could tell Jay was nervous. About five minutes later he told  me why. “Falcon can’t connect to the data base,” he said with a touch of alarm. In fact, he couldn’t find the data base at all.

I’m not a computer guy but I know that a misplaced data base ain’t good. It’s like losing all your stuff in a fire. There are lots of highly technical reasons for why this happened but the easiest way to explain it is this. Something contained in the system Falcon replaced was never eliminated so it simply sat there waiting for a chance to create havoc.

Friday was the day.

By 6 p.m., and with no sign of our data base yet, I began to look for alternatives. I talked to news editor Joe Jurney and we determined that we could produce pages without using the Falcon system. It would mean eliminating a few things or delaying publication on a story or two. But it could be done, mainly because our inDesign page-building system can operate on its own.

We got lucky because some of our reporters had started to type their stories in programs installed on their laptop computers outside of the downed Falcon system. They could then e-mail the stories to our copydesk. Frances Woody retyped in our obituaries for the day in her e-mail account then sent them to our desk. We retrieved Associated Press photos and stories from the AP’s online service (something we’ll be doing next year anyway).

I’ll say right here I was proud of all our newsroom staff for digging in to make our plan work without hesitation. Joe Jurney and R.J. Beatty on the news copydesk and Stephen Schramm on our sports desk played major roles. City editor Brent Lancaster got the stories we could retype in and to the desk while reporter Roselee Papandrea redid a story that was already turned in but lost to us for those hours. Frances Woody got the obits completed and her husband Tom brought in some pizzas. Lifestyles editor Charity Apple came back on Saturday to complete tasks she could not finish for Sunday’s paper while the computers weren’t operating on Friday. Linda Bowden came in and helped us find some items we thought lost.

The biggest obstacle was in our sports agate, which can only be set for publication in the Falcon system. Jay Murray, with technical help from friends in Gastonia, got the system back up after 9 p.m. but it was barely functioning. Sports was able to assemble some of its features — but not all in time for our 12:15 deadline.

The good news is we got out on time — or very close — and our readers couldn’t really tell there was an epic problem at all. Our computer system was operating normally on Saturday. The better news is, we learned some things about our computers we didn’t already know — things that will help us from here on in.

And most of all we learned what we can do under duress. Our team performed well. I offer them my applause and gratitude.

The most stunning music world deaths? It’s a sad list

June 26th, 2009, 7:57 am by madisontaylor

The great tragedy of the music business - particularly rock, pop, hip hop and country - is that so many of its greatest stars are taken away while still young, vibrant and with so much still (theoretically) to create. Many are gone before reaching the height of what they might have achieved. They pass by varying means: Accident, malfeasance, illness and excess.

It’s an astounding number, really.

The death of Michael Jackson Thursday in Los Angeles  by still undetermined causes, got me to thinking about the most stunning deaths in the music world.

Here’s a short list of the people I could think of right away. Feel free do add some more.

 

Elvis Presley
Buddy Holly
Michael Jackson
Jimi Hendrix
Hank Williams
Jim Morrison
Brian Jones
Janis Joplin
Patsy Cline
Tupac Shakur
John Lennon
Duane Allman
Marvin Gaye
Kurt Cobain
Biggie Smalls
Ronnie Van Zant
Jim Croce
Cass Elliott

ADDENDUM: Some names previously overlooked but thankfully provided by friends and readers include three certified legends who exited far, far too early. They are:

Sam Cooke
Otis Redding
Stevie Ray Vaughn

Hard to believe I didn’t have them in the first wave.

ADDENDUM, REDUX

More hard-to-believe ommissions from our desk guy R.J. Beatty. The list becomes ever longer and the memories sadder. Here go R.J.’s excellent additions:

Lowell George
John Bonham
Keith Moon
Layne Staley
Clifford Brown
Charlie Parker
John Coltrane

I remembered Charlie Parker, the great jazz saxophone player, shortly after I compiled the original list then it slipped my mind to add him when the weekend arrived.

Truth, the Open Forum and when fur flies

June 25th, 2009, 7:52 am by madisontaylor

 

 Things are hot on the Times-News Open Forum these days. Scalding hot, touch-a-running-lawn mower engine hot, harbanero pepper hot.

In other words, scorching.

Now some of it started during the election of 2008.  Folks’ll remember that presidential campaign had the bonus of feature of producing mounds of fictional information about the candidates and their running mates. Now this wasn’t a particularly new addition. Fiction has been a part of American politics dating back to George Washington. It’s just that in 2008 there was just more of it than before.

Blame the unending news cycle, the internet and the demand for facts that fit a particular point of view for this. News shopping is now an American pasttime. Take it from me, Americans were better off when they just went fishing.

So some stuff was just flat made up. It’s how politics works today when everybody it seems has a version of the truth.

Anyway, this has only continued into and past the first 100 days of the Obama presidency. Obama campaigned on a platform of change and he’s done a lot of it. Some of it’s pretty terrifying. A lot of spending proposals are open to question. Obama contends that swift and significant measures were unavoidable with the economic and global situation he inherited. It’s hard to argue with him — particularly when no better plans are out there for how to to pull America out of its funk.

Which brings me to the subject at hand: A letter to the editor we published on Monday June 22 (”Obama and his followers are leading the nation to ruin”) and the vociferous response to it.  The original letter was from Robert Simpson, chairman of the Alamance County Republican Party. In it he makes some accusations similar to those hurled during the election — allusions to Obama as a Muslim, vague allegations about Obama’s religious beliefs, etc.  He also refers to goose-stepping lieutenants” and “yellow-dog, mind-numbed, Kool-Aid drinking” followers.

 A couple of items in his letter can’t really be verified and usually I disdain name-calling in the Open Forum. But I decided to publish Mr. Simpson’s letter because he is the leader of the local GOP and as such a spokesman for the party. I also thought it showed a puzzling lack of interest in building a  base to oppose the current administration on policy issues that matter to Americans. After all, I believe voters issued their referendum on Obama’s middle name being Hussein and have no problem with it. But Obama voters may have some buyer’s remorse on bailing out corporations or how to rebuild the economy without bankrupting taxpayers.

Instead, Simpson chose to bait and ridicule those voters Republicans need to recruit in order to succeed in the next election cycle. It reminded me of Democrats in the 1980s who were so bumfuzzled by the politics and charisma of Ronald Reagan. Instead of finding their own policies and solutions, they instead attacked Reagan as a “B-movie actor” who thinks ketchup is a vegetable.

It wasn’t a winning strategy then and it’s not now.

But the responses to Simpson’s letter have been loud, equally troubling and I intend to publish those as well. Many Democrats took the name-calling route, too and some came with their versions of the truth. One was penned by a member of the county Democratic Party’s executive committee.

In response to the Democrats, I got this e-mail from a reader who did not send it for publication in the newspaper. The reader wanted to take us to task for printing falsehoods. Here’s the note, unedited.

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“We are all very use to reading incorrect statements in the “OPEN FORM” part of the paper. Normally I think most people just laugh and go about their business. Today there are so many incorrect statements in this form that it is really sad. Incorrect statement are made about what Robert Simpson said in his earlier letter, national debt figures are incorrectly stated, some of the most important issues are left out, and wrong legislation is blamed for the housing/financial  mess.  It does no good to correct the facts because people will believe what they wish. It would, however, be a good idea for anyone that wished to get the correct information to check into the history of the fair housing act, the national debt and any other item that is written in this paper because , apparently , no one there cares if incorrect information is presented. Just one note of correction regarding the letters today. The National Debt when George W. Bush took office was $5,727,776,738,304.65.”

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Now it’s hard to take anyone seriously who can’t successfully spell forum but the point is well taken about checking on facts — especially numbers that by definition are facts. And I will try to do a better job of vetting our submissions.

But truth? Well, that’s harder to determine.

The biggest change of all

June 21st, 2009, 9:37 pm by madisontaylor

From the minute I walked into my father-in-law’s house on Friday night, all he wanted to talk about was the newspaper. It stinks this, he hates that and he doesn’t know what to make of the other thing.

He’s cancelling his subscription.

What are his reasons? Let me count the ways:  He doesn’t like the size. He hates the stories — but wishes there were more. He thinks the paper used to print it on  is too cheap, there are too many ads …

The list went on and on.  It was like Frank Costanza compiling grievances to read at Festivus.

He wanted to show me what he was talking about. He saved copies so I could see. Every morning his first question was whether I had seen the newspaper yet and what I thought about it.

And the thing is, it’s not even our newspaper he’s complaining about. His criticisms aren’t foreign to me though. I hear them from Times-News customers as do editors at other newspapers where the page counts are shrinking these days.

Now right away I’d like to say that I was looking forward to being at my father-in-law’s house in Swansboro this weekend to, well, get away from the newspaper business for awhile. With furloughs, vacations and staff cuts everybody at the Times-News — and all newspapers around the world for that matter — have had to take on more duties. So lately I’ve been in the office on days I used to be off.

Happens.

Anyway, my father-in-law had been waiting for us to arrive at his house so he could show us his daily newspaper, the Daily News of Jacksonville — a place I worked for 15 years and my wife for 12. The Daily News and its three partner newspapers in eastern North Carolina in Kinston and New Bern just radically overhauled their product. They moved from a broadsheet newspaper printed at two sites to a tabloid printed at only one. While reporters and editors remain in all three towns, the headline writers and page designers are all in Jacksonville, which is where the press is. Each night all three papers are produced at one site then trucked to readers.

Let me tell you the logistics and planning that went into that alone is a year worth of work and they pulled it off in a couple of months.

And for those who aren’t familiar, a tabloid is a newspaper built to be read on city subways. That’s why New York papers like the Daily News, the Post and Newsday are in this format. Other daily newspapers are this size as well — as are supermarket tabs like the Weekly World News. They’re smaller, save paper and for many readers easier to handle.

By the way, let me make something clear at this point. The Times-News is NOT doing the same thing as the eastern papers. We have no nearby partners and our press couldn’t handle the job. So there.

Anyway, back to Jacksonville, the switch to the new format down east was going to be controversial no matter what. After all, readers abhor change — and they’ve already seen a lot in all newspapers, including the Times-News over the past two years as we struggle to meet new customer demands and financial goals.

I saw the preliminary test papers and thought they looked very good. A big change for sure, but very good nonetheless. I still think so.

The first live publication date was June 1. Technical problems the first week sent thousands of papers out late and with some pages missing – which isn’t the kind of start my friends were looking for. They got thousands of complaints from readers, not only about the changes but about late papers, too.

But over the past few weeks the bugs have begun to work themselves out. My wife has been telling her dad to stick with the newspaper, not to cancel his sub until he’s seen how the work progresses. In fact, we thought he in particular would have no trouble with the new format because he read Long Island Newsday, a tabloid, for years before moving to North Carolina.

But Friday he was still complaining. Saturday and Sunday, too. He’s not alone. The Daily News has published dozens of letters to the editor from readers unhappy with the switch. All have different reasons.

But the more I talked to my father-in-law the more I understood that his basic problem with the newspaper isn’t about the new format at all — not really.

It’s that his daughter doesn’t work there anymore.

And I, for one, wasn’t going to fight a proud pop on Father’s Day.

Call waiting … Cary Allred on the line

June 17th, 2009, 10:12 pm by madisontaylor

For former State Rep. Cary Allred, calling the Times-News is a hobby. Sometimes he wants to voice an opinion about something we published. Every now and then he wants to criticize an editorial or letter writer. Then there are those times when he just wants to try new political or comedy material before putting it out there on the radio or in publc appearances.

Hence the “Hello, my name is Johnny Cash,” telephone greeting I got last summer. I laughed. He laughed. He used it again and again for months.

But Wednesday was the first time I had heard from him since he ran into problems with his former colleagues in the state House — a well-publicized thing that eventually led the longtime Republican lawmaker to resign his seat in the 64th House District under heavy fire and ahead of a Legislative Ethics Commission report into his antics. Allred, by the way, likes to call it retirement. But really it is what it is.

I figured he was probably irked with us because we wrote stories he didn’t like much, published editorials he hated more and I had a column or two that must have made him a little uncomfortable.

But maybe not.

Anyway, here he was on the telephone Wednesday morning, his old cantankerous and well-prepared self. He wanted to question an item in our Saturday editorial Ups and Downs that had noted his replacement Dan Ingle would bring stability to a previously turbulent seat. He argued that his seat wasn’t turbulent — but others were. He wasn’t the problem. It was those other guys, or something.

Here a few more Allred observations from Wednesday morning.

He said he was glad to be out of Raleigh and away from those “Lying, back-stabbing bastards” in the House.

He asked when we were going to take his former colleague in the Alamance County delegation, Democratic House Rep. Alice Bordsen to task for her yea vote on the proposed state budget and the tax increase that would come with it. “She’s the one who should be thrown out of her seat,” Allred said. Bordsen’s one of his favorite targets. He can grow tiresome on this subject.

About his replacement, former County Commissioner Dan Ingle, Allred noted that if Ingle thinks being in the state House is going to be fun then it’s obvious Ingle doesn’t plan on doing much. “No one can do anything there without a fight until there’s a Republican or conservative majority,” Allred said. I noted that Ingle isn’t really a conservative and Allred jumped quickly to agree. “That’s right. That’s right. He’s no conservative,” Allred said.

When I asked, Allred said he was doing well. He made no mention of our stories the previous day about his reckless driving citation from an Alamance County deputy, his refusal of a roadside sobriety test or the rather colorful narrative of the incident the deputy put in the official report.

Before long, I heard Cary’s famous dogs barking in the background and he said someone was coming up the walkway to his house. When the doorbell rang he gave a quick “Bye,” and hung up.

But I got to thinking after I put the phone down. Maybe Cary’s next career should be as a co-host with Bill Huff on his morning radio show. I might actually tune in for that.

Or I’ll just wait for Cary to call me again.

As seen on TV

June 17th, 2009, 9:37 am by madisontaylor

 Had a call this morning from Mr. McCormick, a reader from Graham, who wondered why the Times-News had no story about something he saw last night on CBS News. The CBS story was about a problem at Veterans Affairs hospitals related to unsanitary practices during colonoscopies — something that has exposed veterans to HIV and other viruses.

“That story should have been on the front page,” he said. “That’s more important than any problem between the sheriff and Cary Allred.”

I would agree, the CBS report, “Deadly Colonoscopies,” is of significant interest to any veteran who uses one of the 40 VA facilities under investigation. Our problem in reporting the story locally is that we have no access to CBS News. We count on the Associated Press and McClatchy news services to provide that part of our daily report. So far, neither one has posted a story about this issue.

The link to the CBS report is contained in this post. I’ll keep an eye out for a print story.

Sometimes you have to get mad

June 14th, 2009, 2:12 pm by madisontaylor

This is my print column for this week in the Times-News. I wrote it on Saturday afternoon after reading an early version of a story by my longtime acquaintance Estes Thompson of the Associated Press. It was about a subject I know well — an envronmental catastrophe at Camp Lejeune that perhaps destroyed the lives of many hundreds of people who lived or worked there over a 30 year period.

And the fact the government refusess to acknowledge that it’s in some way responsbile infuriates me. This was especially true in 2004 when I found that military officials knew the water in base housing was contaminated by toxins in the groundwater from a nearby dry cleaner yet failed to cap the wells until 1985 or even warn families about it.

As a nation, we owe our service members much, much more than that.

I wrote a better column about this matter in 2004 for the Jacksonville Daily News.

This one is largely about the latest report on the matter issued by the government just this weekend. It lays the groundwork for these military families to never get the satisfaction or answers they deserve.

My grandmother had a word for this. Just plain “sorry.”

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What kind of government report is issued on a Saturday?

On the surface this might sound like a trick question - one where the real answer is,  ”Ha-ha, fooled ya. How can any real government report be handed out on a Saturday when absolutely nobody in government who wears a suit actually works on a weekend?”

While true, it’s not technically correct - in most cases anyway.

The real answer is much simpler and inherently sinister. Here it is: The only kind of government report ever released on a Saturday is one the government wants zero people - or hopefully many fewer - to notice.

Stands to reason. Not much of anyone paid to watch government is working on Saturday either. There aren’t too many reporters around. Nobody is available to answer questions and folks in the public are otherwise busy taking their kids to Little League games, working in the yard, shopping, fishing or sleeping off another joy-sucking work week.

But I was still shocked to find that the National Research Council on Saturday released a congressionally mandated report sought by the U.S. Navy about contaminated drinking water detected decades ago on one of the nation’s largest military bases into this vast weekend information vacuum. No, normally government officials do something like that at 4:59 p.m. on a Friday then fly to Aruba without leaving behind a cell phone number.

Yes, call me cynical but as a former editor at a newspaper covering Camp Lejeune, I watched this particular scenario play out time and again over the 15-year period I worked there. And I’ve witnessed it more than a few times regarding the long and never-ending story about contaminated drinking water first discovered in the Marine Corps base housing area in  1980 - something the military failed to do anything about for at least five more years before the wells were capped and the EPA turned it into a Superfund cleanup site. The water, contaminated with toxic and cancer-inducing chemicals such as TCE and PCE, which were once found in cleaning solvents, could have been tainted as early as the 1950s.

In fact, that’s how the matter was initially announced to the world years ago. My former newspaper, the Jacksonville Daily News, first wrote a story about capping the wells on Jan. 1, 1986. Note the date. Reporters got the news from Camp Lejeune on New Year’s Eve, 1985. Then anybody official simply vanished to watch New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

The headline that long ago day: “No high concentrations of pollutants found.”  According to the story, “Base officials have said that only trace amounts of contamination have been found at the sites.” The story went on to report that even though “toxic” chemicals were discovered, the concentrations were not high enough to be a threat to humans.

Then odd things began to add up for hundreds of former Marine Corps families who once resided or worked on the North Carolina base. Stories began to circulate about birth defects among children born at Lejeune starting in the 1950s or high incidences of cancer among those who used to live there and their offspring. A victims group calls it one of the largest contaminated water cases in U.S. history, according to a Jan. 28, 2004 story in the Washington Post. So far, more than 1,500 claims seeking compensation have been filed with the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Office.  I once talked to someone at the federal Centers for Disease Control who likened it to the true case on which the movie “A Civil Action” is based.

For the last 20 years distraught families have been seeking answers and relief but instead endured government delays and excuses as one incomplete or uncertain study after another was released, discussed and dismissed by a variety of panels and commissions.

So Saturday morning while much of the world was asleep, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences published the latest 341-page study: That while evidence exists that people aboard Camp Lejeune from the 1950s to 1985 were exposed to toxic substances, it  ”cannot be determined reliably whether diseases and disorders experienced by former residents and workers at Camp Lejuene are associated with their exposure to contaminants in the water supply.”

It also recommends that the Navy wait no longer to determine what should be done with the claims it faces and that no further studies be conducted.

Call me cynical, but I believe the government just excused itself from its own potential malfeasance - and they did it on a Saturday.

Who says they don’t work weekends?

 Madison Taylor is executive editor of the Times-News. Contact him by calling 506-3030 or by e-mail at Madison_taylor@link.freedom.com.

The e-mailbag: Need a course in mixology to cover politics these days

June 11th, 2009, 6:32 am by madisontaylor

 

Got this message last night from Nick Ledger of Graham. I think he raises a valid point about a lapse in our political reporting. Here’s what he wrote on the note slugged “Cary Allred.”

“Could you please tell us what is the recipe for a “chelada”? being this drink is in every article you have written about this public servant I am very curious. Thank You for your time.”

As most know, the term “chelada” moved into Alamance County’s consciousness a month ago when questions were raised about Allred’s behavior on the floor of the N.C. House on the night of April 27. One of the complaints made by Allred’s former colleagues in the chamber is that he had alcohol on his breath. Allred, who resigned his House seat a couple of weeks ago following an inquiry into that night, admitted to having one chelada which was first described as beer and tomato juice.

Immediately that touched off debate in our office. Where I grew up they served something at the Walnut Cove pool hall known as a “red eye,” which was beer and tomato juice. I’m assuming some liked to stop by and have one for breakfast.

But truthfully, I never had one. Not a fan of tomato juice.

Later we came to find out that a chelada also included clam juice or clamato.  This site has some information about the history of the chelada. But here’s a copy of  their primo recipe for those who don’t wish to travel.

 1 regular or light beer (preferably Mexican)

Clamato juice

5 dashes Tabasco

3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon horseradish

2 pinches celery salt

2 pinches ground black pepper

6 ice cubes (if desired)

2 cubes of pepper jack cheese (garnish)

3 stuffed green olives (garnish)

¼ wedge kosher dill pickle (garnish)

1 large lime wedge

chili powder (for rim)

margarita salt (for rim)

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I also found this recipe and video for those who want to get a little more adventurous or refreshed. I’m a little queasy just thinking of something akin to a chelada pop, though.

Or, you could simply go to the local grocer and get one already in the can provided by the kind folks at Budweiser. This got a big thumbs up from our Transmissions from Mebane blogger. You make the call.

Let the political reporting continue.

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