Miles turns 1

Last January, my wife and I adopted a little furball from CARA named Zeb. Three seconds after we met him, he became Miles … and needless to say, it’s been a wild 10-11 months since we got him.
Jennifer has chronicled our year with Miles … the many ups and downs … at her own site, Life With Miles, and I’m more than positive she’ll have something about Miles’ birthday (Nov. 1) on that site.
All I wanted to do was share a photo gallery of the past year, month-by-month. You can see how Miles has grown from a little whiny furball to a big whiny shedding furball.
Enjoy.

One more photo, and you can have your own Miles calendar.

Sanford, meet Erin

You’ve probably seen a new name in The Herald this week … that of Erin Zureick (I’ve been pronouncing it “ZER-rick” and she hasn’t corrected me yet). She is the former editor of The Daily Tar Heel, the daily paper for UNC-Chapel Hill, where Erin graduated this past spring. She’s also interned for Reuters in Chicago and spent a few summers in Beijing as that country prepared for this year’s Olympics.

Erin began her first day Monday and by Tuesday’s edition, you saw a story from her on early voting numbers. Thursday, she covered an Obama rally. She comes to us during an extremely busy, extremely hectic week … and needless to say, she’s hit the ground running.

The Herald’s newest addition has created her own blog as well — ezureick.wordpress.com … one I trust she will update regularly. She’s had a ton of blogging experience, and she enjoys the multimedia aspect of journalism as much as I do.

So please take the time to check out her site and add her to your respective blogrolls. I have a feeling she’ll have some pretty interesting things to say.

Podcast: The Rant, Oct. 29

This week, our guest was local zombie film producer Christine Parker, the “Lady Cadaver” of our area according to one publication. It was a joy talking about what food makes the best on-film brains, whether her zombies have a soul and what some of her favorite horror films are.
We also talked extensively about the election, and we all listened intently as Jonathan Owens tried to climb out of the hole he dug about racism and this election.
Other fun stuff:
• Billy’s near give-up early in the show
• More Herb Hincks sign talk … hot opinions there
• Another call from Fat Charlie
• Tickets given away for a 3 Doors Down concert.

Enjoy.

Annoying and inconsistent

I’ve been called a lot of things since coming to Sanford, though “annoying” is a new one. “Inconsistent,” I can’t recall, but that does sound like me.
No it doesn’t.
See?

Those were the words used by local blogger Keith Clark (The E-Lee Dispatch) in reference to my post yesterday about the Hincks signs and the fallout. In my posting, I wrote the following:

I’m sure those who have an interest in (the signs story) have followed it through our paper, our site and through blogger Keith Clark’s site. I do believe Clark has turned this story into somewhat of a vendetta, and I hope that doesn’t cloud his judgment. It’s no secret that Clark and Kelly have had their disagreements since he started his site. But according to Clark, who I don’t believe has crossed any lines yet, the story has led to a big spike in visitors to his site. In the newspaper biz (and I guess the blog biz), that means stick with what’s working.

Note that I wrote that posting “BEFORE” Clark became the guy to officially file the complaint concerning the signs (click here, here and here to read about these signs and why they’re an issue). Clark had done considerable reporting on this issue on his site, and all I did was express concern that Clark was reporting on this because of past run-ins with Jamie Kelly. Those run-ins include, but aren’t limited to, a back-and-forth between the two regarding Kelly MarCom’s involvement in the county’s Web site and lines like “It was possible, even likely, that Jamie Kelly and cronies already had in mind to find someone to falsify a report to the Board of Elections and discredit any reports linking Kelly to the signs …” that appeared in his reporting of the sign situation.
Clark calls his reporting “more documented” with “careful analysis” than ours. Yet, his reporting does not include comments from both sides and with lines like the one mentioned above, leaves him open for criticism and potential libel. You simply don’t “imply” that the commissioner and his “cronies” had it “in their mind” to falsify a report. How do you report that somebody probably had it in their mind to do anything?
By being the one who ended up filing the complaint — and naming Jamie Kelly and others in the complaint — Clark only added credence to my claim that I thought his judgment was clouded in this (and that he possibly “crossed the line”).
I had an editor who called this “tossing rocks.” If it’s a slow news day, go out and toss a rock from a bridge on the Interstate, and you’ll have something to report.
In Clark’s case, nobody stepped up to file a complaint in the sign ordeal … so Clark, who I truly believe has the right intentions and the mindset of being taken seriously as a member of the media in Lee County, “tossed the rock” and filed the complaint himself. He then told me he would step away from the story altogether. Today’s post proves otherwise.
I would have never allowed a reporter to do what he did … but Clark runs his own site and can do whatever he feels is ethically sound. I’m not here to question his ethics … just his actions.

And just to square a few other things away ….
• Clark writes: “In an effort to be fair to other parties to the story, I elected to provide a copy of the complaint to the Sanford Herald and reluctantly agreed to an interview will Billy Liggett.” The word “reluctantly” befuddles me, only because Clark came by my office after filing the report. He even offered to do so. I didn’t have to ask him.

• The decision not to publish Clark’s column was a unanimous decision of the editorial board.

• Clark writes: “Had I not voluntarily given this story to Liggett, you, as you have done so consistently throughout this unfolding story, would have been reading in more documented detail and careful analysis about it here rather than on the front page of the local paper.”
Actually, I think I’ve already mentioned this. There goes that inconsistency on my part again. How annoying.

• Clark writes: “This story has driven the readership of my blog to records even beyond those when Jim McCormick resigned and readers found a far more measured and informed reporting of his departure here.”
Clark’s coverage of McCormick consisted of four postings. The first one came after our initial report and did nothing more than speculate. The second one, he brings up McCormick’s alleged marital misconduct without sourcing it. The third post, he points out what the Herald published and links us. And the fourth post, he writes a lengthy report on the involvement in the lawsuit against McCormick regarding … wait for it … the family of Jamie Kelly.

The reason for my post today was partly to defend myself, but also to defend The Herald. I will admit, we don’t always “get it right,” but I think our coverage of recent big events in Lee County has been admirable, if not pretty good. I felt the need to respond to what Keith wrote … not because I have anything against him and not because I feel the need to defend Kelly, Hincks or anybody else.
I’m gladly dropping the subject now, and if Keith wants to respond to my response, I of course welcome it.
The last thing I want to do is become “part of the story.”

Lee County sample ballots

By popular demand …

Please note that those living outside of District 2 (living outside of Carolina Trace, Broadway and Deep River) will have the same ballot, but without the District 2 commissioner race.

The Hincks sign debacle

I found it very interesting looking at The Herald’s Web site statistics today just what it is our readers look at. Our top stories (the ones with the most page views on our site) were almost all crime stories. And we’ve had our fair share of crime stories this week — shootings, the death of a small boy, stabbing at a local bar, etc.

That said, I do think the signs story is important. I’m sure those who have an interest in it have followed it through our paper, our site and through blogger Keith Clark’s site. I do believe Clark has turned this story into somewhat of a vendetta, and I hope that doesn’t cloud his judgment. It’s no secret that Clark and Kelly have had their disagreements since he started his site. But according to Clark, who I don’t believe has crossed any lines yet, the story has led to a big spike in visitors to his site.
In the newspaper biz (and I guess the blog biz), that means stick with what’s working.

It’s also no secret that The Herald and Kelly haven’t always been on the same page either. Oh who am I kidding? Since we’re being honest here … Kelly and the paper disagree a lot. We’ve bashed some of his decisions on the council and some of his decisions outside of the council (cough*signs*cough) … and Kelly has returned the favor and spoken ill of The Herald in public meetings. All part of the fun, I suppose.

But I hope nobody out there thinks our stories and coverage of Sign-gate (or Hincks-gate, Kelly-gate or gate-gate) has been clouded by our past brush-ups with Kelly. It hasn’t been. At all. I’ve received a few e-mails that have suggested otherwise.

It all began with our story last week about the signs — then-anonymous signs that began appearing throughout Sanford and Lee County about a week ago. I first saw them on my way back from an out-of-town trip — a sea of “No Landfill. No Hincks” signs along U.S. 421 just past the Chatham County line. It got me curious, so I did the first story, which appeared a week ago today.
That story stated the signs were anonymous, that nobody had signed up with the Board of Elections to distribute them and that whoever did had until last Saturday to claim the signs, or else a complaint could have them taken down. A few days later, Gordon Anderson reported that a local tobacco farmer had stepped up and claimed the signs. The obvious step for us was to call the farmer.
That’s when it got fishy. The farmer, Steven Thomas, claimed he didn’t sign the filed report with the Board of Elections .. or that he did, but he was coerced into doing it by “two friends,” who still remain nameless. In other words, the report wasn’t true … which is perjury or forgery … which is a felony.
A day later, Kelly fessed up to purchasing the signs, and claimed he did not know Thomas, who claims otherwise.

That is by far the shortest explanation possible of this. What remains to be known is who the “two friends” were, whether the state Board of Elections will investigation this and whether Kelly had anything to do with the perjury portion of it. And all of this has taken away from what was an otherwise interesting election on its own … six candidates vying for three seats. If anything, the signs have backfired, because now Hincks is in the spotlight.
And none of this has helped Kelly, who I believe isn’t the power-hungry sneak some say he is. Then again, the sign debacle doesn’t help the argument otherwise.

What does this mean if Hincks is elected? Why, pretty good drama of course, You’ll have either Hincks or Kelly chosen as chairman of the board, and you’ll have a pretty evenly distributed board (possibly four Democrats and three Republicans or vice-versa) after the election. There could be a lot of split votes on important issues … and instead of Hincks or Kelly attempting to work with the other side to get work done, you’ll have the hurt feelings and sore egos getting in the way.

There, I’ve been asked my thoughts on this mess, and there they were. I think it’s an interesting story that could get much more interesting after the election. Then again, it’s only really interesting to the few of us watching this race closely.

Joe Six Pack and Grandma Underwear seem to care more about the crime news.

Lee County At-Large forum

OK, the other forums (District 2 commissioner, State House, Congress) were online last week, but it’s taken a LOT of time to post the six-part video from the Lee County Board of Commissioners At-Large race, featuring six local candidates vying for three open seats.
But here it is … I’m posting Part 1 on my blog … all six parts can be found at sanfordherald.com or at YouTube.com.

Enjoy.

Election music

The Palin song (genius)

NFL Picks: Week 8

BILLY: What to do when your favorite team in the world is the team the media says is “in shambles?”
You go into denial.
Because of our vacation last weekend, I missed Dallas’ loss to the Rams. I still haven’t seen highlights of it. It’s the first Cowboys game I’ve completely missed (no radio, no updates) in years.
So, you know what? I’m pretending it didn’t happen.
That’s right … if I didn’t see it, it didn’t happen.
It really makes me feel pretty good. And with Romo still out vs. Tampa, I realize it can get worse. But Tampa isn’t a high-scoring team. Dallas will NOT be blown out this week.
If it happens … well, there’s always denial.

RECORDS
Overall
Billy: 62-40
Jennifer: 61-41
Bill (vs. the line): 51-51

This Week:

ATLANTA at PHILADELPHIA
LINE: Eagles by 8.5
BILLY: Philly fans have other things to worry about than the mediocre Eagles (Phillies in the WS) … but if the Eagles lose this one, they’ll find something to gripe about. Eagles 24, Falcons 21
JENNIFER: EAGLES

KANSAS CITY at NY JETS
LINE: Jets by 13.5
BILLY: I’m in a suicide league where 2,000 people put in $10 and pick one game a week. If only one person goes the whole year by picking the right game each week, he/she comes away with $20,000. (It’s not illegal gambling since the “house” doesn’t take home a profit). Right now, there are only 170 people left, and I’m one of them. This is my suicide pick this week. Pray for me (unless the whole gambling thing is a problem). Jets 33, Chiefs 14
JENNIFER: Go Jets! Go Jets! Go Jets! JETS

ST. LOUIS at NEW ENGLAND
LINE: Patriots by 7
BILLY: The Rams can’t make it three in a row over potential playoff teams, can they? CAN THEY? I say yes. Why not. Rams 27, Patriots 24
JENNIFER: PATRIOTS

BUFFALO at MIAMI
LINE: Bills by 1
BILLY: Tough pick here. I say Miami pulls off the minor upset at home. I may change my mind though. Or I may not. Who cares? Dolphins 20, Bills 17
JENNIFER: BILLS

OAKLAND at BALTIMORE
LINE: Ravens by 7
BILLY: Oakland confuses me. So does Baltimore. I’m using a dartboard for this pick. Ravens 19, Raiders 4 (yes, 4)
JENNIFER: RAVENS

WASHINGTON at DETROIT
LINE: Redskins by 7.5
BILLY: Again, I want to pick an upset here … but Detroit’s just awful. Redskins 26, Lions 17
JENNIFER: REDSKINS

ARIZONA at CAROLINA
LINE: Panthers by 4.5
BILLY: Carolina looks unstoppable at times (at home). Arizona’s riding high … why so many tough games this week? Panthers 30, Cardinals 27
JENNIFER: PANTHERS

SAN DIEGO at NEW ORLEANS
LINE: Chargers by 3
BILLY: This isn’t as hard as it looks. New Orleans is a different team at home, even if “home” is London. Saints 37, Chargers 20
JENNIFER: SAINTS

TAMPA BAY at DALLAS
LINE: Cowboys by 2.5
BILLY: Repeat after me … Dallas is not a bad team. They get it together this week. Cowboys 21, Bucs 14
JENNIFER: BUCS

CINCINNATI at HOUSTON
LINE: Texans by 9.5
BILLY: Alright Greg … they better not let me down. Texans 28, Bengals 20
JENNIFER: TEXANS

CLEVELAND at JACKSONVILLE
LINE: Jags by 7
BILLY: Hmmm. Hmm. Hmmmmmm. Uhhhh. Hmmmm. Jags 13, Browns 10
JENNIFER: JAGS

NY GIANTS at PITTSBURGH
LINE: Steelers by 3
BILLY: One of the few times I’ll be a raging Steelers fan. Steelers 24, Giants 20
JENNIFER: Good game…too tough to call. GIGANTES.

SEATTLE at SAN FRANSISCO
LINE: 49ers by 5
BILLY: I’m a year late in my Seattle Sucks campaign .. but they really do suck this year. 49ers 26, Seahawks 20
JENNIFER: NINERS

INDIANAPOLIS at TENNESSEE
LINE: Titans by 4
BILLY: SO much is riding on this game. If Tennessee wins it, they’re for real-for real. I think they’re pretty for real. Titans 29, Colts 20
JENNIFER: TITANS

Opie is bald?

There are a lot of political commercials and videos out there … and no matter who you’re voting for, you have to agree.
This is the best one. Hands down.