June 30, 2016

Vol. IV No. 26

Greensboro, North Carolina

Thursday, June 30, 2016

www.rhinotimes.com

STATE BUDGET DONE, ON TO HB2 Scott D. Yost

County Gets United Animal Coalition Cash plus Under The Hammer, Uncle Orson Reviews Everything AND MORE

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RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

The Weekly Hammer

THE WEEKLY Hammer

Council Costs City Even More Money

by John Hammer Editor The North Carolina General Assembly is in the process of passing its $22.3 billion budget this week.

The media is primarily focused on the raise for teachers and state employees, but there is another portion of the budget that should be of particular interest to Rhino readers that is not getting much attention.

The budget provides $5.75 million for downtown revitalization in over 50 towns and cities. For example, High Point is receiving $500,000 for its downtown.

Greensboro is the third largest city in the state; so how much is Greensboro receiving? The answer is zero. Greensboro isn’t receiving a dime.

The most powerful elected official in state government, Republican President Pro Tem of the state Senate Phil Berger represents a good portion of Greensboro along with Republican state Sen. Trudy Wade, who in her second term is already co-chairman of a major committee. State Rep. John Blust, who is in his eighth term, and state Rep. Jon Hardister, who

is in his second, are the Republican representatives from Greensboro in the House.

Money was available for downtown revitalization, Greensboro’s downtown needs to be revitalized and could use the money, but despite Greensboro’s influence in the legislature, Greensboro didn’t get any, and that cannot be an accident.

The Greensboro City Council has gone out of its way to antagonize the legislature for the past several years.

Greensboro chose to file suit when House Bill 263 passed, setting new district lines for the Greensboro City Council and eliminating the at-large seats.

The new plan for the City Council is strikingly similar to the current Winston-Salem City Council, with eight councilmembers elected from districts and a mayor elected at large who only votes in the case of a tie.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the system, but the Greensboro City Council went ballistic when the bill was first introduced as Senate Bill 36 and held an illegal special meeting to express outrage. The City Council

then held press conferences and meetings to oppose it and, after the bill passed, immediately filed suit against Guilford County, which seems to make no sense, but politics rarely does.

The result of all that was a temporary restraining order that reversed the actions of the legislature and allowed the current system to stay in place, and the entire City Council was reelected.

The city is now mostly out of the lawsuit but it never needed to be in it.

A citizens’ group, which is continuing on with the lawsuit, could have done it all from the beginning, but the City Council wanted to be involved in suing over a state law and spent over $222,000 of taxpayer money to do so.

Also, the attacks on Wade, who sponsored the legislation, became extremely personal. City councilmembers were not responsible for the most offensive attacks, but supporters of the City Council were, and the City Council didn’t condemn them.

And the city has piled on – passing meaningless resolutions against bills that the legislature has already passed and have become law.

Passing a resolution before a bill has been voted on doesn’t have much effect, but it does make some sense for the city to formally express its opinion on pending legislation. Once a bill has passed and become law, the only reasons to pass resolutions are grandstanding and to annoy the legislature.

The City Council passed a resolution against House Bill 2, the bill that overturned the ordinance in Charlotte requiring not just the City of Charlotte’s facilities but privately owned bathroom facilities in Charlotte to be gender neutral.

The Charlotte ordinance was far more radical than has been reported in the press because the media know that the overwhelming majority of people in North Carolina are opposed to gender-neutral bathroom and shower facilities. So the media and the Greensboro City Council simply lie about what they are supporting.

Gender neutral means that there would be no distinction between bathrooms and shower facilities based on sex. Under the Charlotte ordinance, if a private business had bathrooms and shower facilities available to the public, they could not designate one for men and one for women. They would simply have the facilities and men, women and children of either sex could use either.

The City Council also passed a resolution opposed to House Bill 318 after it had already passed, so the city’s resolution could have no effect. HB318 prohibits cities from accepting identification that is not issued by a government. This type of identification is primarily used by illegal immigrants who are not eligible for government IDs because they are in this country illegally.

Greensboro has funded Faith Action, which reports it has issued over 7,000 of these ID cards, and Greensboro had approved the Faith Action identification cards to receive city services. The Greensboro Police Department also accepts the Faith Action cards as a form of identification.

Despite the state law making it illegal for a city government to accept identification from a nongovernment entity, Greensboro has continued to support Faith Action, and in the 2016-2017 budget that goes into effect on July 1, allocated (continued on page 6)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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HINOSHORTS

Thursday, June 30 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. is the final Beach Music Blast of the summer, with The Embers performing at Commerce Place in downtown Greensboro.

To close out the season, the Rhino Times will raffle off two tickets and a parking pass to the sold out Justin Bieber concert on Wednesday, July 6 at the Greensboro Coliseum. Raffle tickets are $5 each and availabe at the Rhino booth until 8 p.m. when the winning ticket will be drawn. (The winner does not need to be present to win.) All of the proceeds will benefit the NC Children’s Home Society.

The Fun Fourth Festival in downtown Greensboro kicks off this year on Sunday, July 3 with the Freedom 10K run starting in Hamburger Square near the intersection of South Elm and McGee streets. Registration begins at 6:15 and the race starts at 7:30 p.m.

If 10K sounds a little long, you might want to try to the 1 mile Firecracker Road Race, which begins at the same site at 7:45 p.m.

Shortly after the runners get on their way, the American Block Party begins, and runs from 8 to 11 p.m. with the Sleeping Booty Band providing the music. It’s also at Hamburger Square, but hopefully not on the racecourse.

The Fun Fourth Street Festival usually kicks off with a morning parade, but not this year, so don’t show up early and line the street waiting for bands and floats to appear, because it will be a long wait.

The street festival will take place from Center City Park on North Elm to Hamburger Square on South Elm and runs from 2 to 8 p.m. At 8:45, the Fireworks Concert begins in the parking lot at the corner of North Davie and East Market Streets and will feature the Trombone Shout Band, Spoken Word and the Greensboro Philharmonia. And the grand finale of the Fun Fourth will be the fireworks, which are scheduled to begin at 9:25.

The fireworks will be shot off from an area near the intersection of East Market and Murrow Blvd. So if you go to the Coliseum, where they have been for the last couple of years, you probably won’t have a very good view.

But if you stay downtown, Downtown Greensboro Inc. President Zack Matheny has promised the fireworks to be bigger and better than ever.

The Fun Fourth Street Festival starts at 2 p.m., and you can be entertained downtown until the final bang of fireworks sometime around 10 p.m.

The grandmother of all neighborhood parades in Greensboro, the annual Kirkwood Fourth of July Parade, will begin promptly about 5 p.m. on Independence Road between Princess Ann Street and Delaware Avenue. According to the official history, the first Kirkwood Parade was held July 4, 1949, and as far as anyone can remember it has been held every year since.

I hope the new Guilford County Schools Superintendent Sharon Contreras is far more successful as superintendent here than she was in Syracuse, New York. But the omens don’t look good.

It would appear that Say Yes to

Photo by Roy Carroll

We assume that this fellow is dancing with joy on the Rhino Times box in Center City Park because the new Rhinos were just delivered. But it could be he’s just showing off for his friends.

Education is now running the school system because Contreras comes from one of the handful of school systems in the country associated with Say Yes, and it’s hard to find another aspect of her resume that would indicate she should get the job.

If the other three finalists dropped out because they didn’t want to make their job search public, does that mean

Guilford County got her because she was the only one that wasn’t worried what her present school board would think if it found out she was applying for jobs elsewhere? It’s often what boards do when they are hoping someone will take a failing administrator off their hands.

The school system she is coming from has 20,000 students, compared to 72,000 for Guilford County. And in that school system the graduation rate last year was 55 percent.

But what is most telling is that her contract was renewed by a 4-to-3 vote. That means she was one vote away from being let go.

My experience is that people rarely change from voting against an administrator to for them, but they often change from for them to against them.

In other words the handwriting was on the wall in Syracuse. The only real question was time. How long would it take one of the four to turn against her?

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

City Council Agrees To Review David Wray’s Personnel File

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by John Hammer The issue of former Greensboro Police Chief David Wray’s legal fees continues to percolate at city hall.

The Greensboro City Council, at the prodding of City Councilmember Tony Wilkins, has agreed to look at Wray’s personnel filed in closed session on Monday, August 1.

Originally, City Attorney Tom Carruthers told Wilkins he thought Wilkins could look at the file, but upon further research Carruthers said that a majority of the City Council would have to request to see the file.

Wilkins didn’t have any trouble lining up five votes. In fact, when the City Council discussed looking at Wray’s personnel file there were no objections.

City Councilmember Mike Barber also sent an email to the mayor and fellow councilmembers stating that the

city should consider settling the Wray lawsuit.

Wray is suing the city for $220,000 in legal expenses incurred because of lawsuits filed over his actions while chief of police. He resigned on Jan. 9, 2006.

The city has a policy dating back to 1980 to pay the legal fees for city employees who incur legal expenses because of their work as city employees.

There is no doubt that these legal fees were based on Wray’s actions as police chief, but the city has refused to pay based on the clause of the policy that states the city does not have to be paid if “it is determined that an officer or employee (1) acted or failed to act because of actual fraud, corruption or actual malice or (2) acted or failed to act in a wanton or oppressive manner.”

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Both Carruthers and Mayor Nancy Vaughan have reportedly used the term “malicious” to describe Wray’s actions.

And the reason this is coming up now is that Wray recently won a case in the North Carolina Court of Appeals that ruled that the city did not have sovereign immunity in this case. Carruthers has said that the city plans to appeal that ruling to the North Carolina Supreme Court. If the NC Supreme Court upholds the decision of the Court of Appeals, that would send the case back to state Superior Court for trial. If the Supreme Court overturns the earlier decision then the case is over.

Carruthers said the city planned to appeal, but the actual decision on that will be made by the City Council. What Wilkins is discovering is that the case

is not as simple as he was told. Wilkins this week asked City Manager Jim Westmoreland for any written record that former City Managers Denise Turner Roth or Rashad Young ruled that Wray had acted in a malicious fashion.

Wilkins said, “I have requested to see any document that would confirm that Denice Turner Roth or Rashad Young ever made a determination on the David Wray matter, and at this time and it appears no such document exists. According to our current city manager, he is not aware of any such document from either former city manager.”

Westmoreland also reportedly has made no such written determination, which leaves only two possibilities.

Former City Manager Mitch Johnson (continued on page 31)

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council

(continued from page 2)

$15,000 to Faith Action.

The state Senate passed House Bill 100 this week, which ups the ante on the whole issue, but as we go to press the state House has not approved the Senate version of the bill, so it was not law. However, there is reportedly strong support for the bill in the House Republican Caucus, and if the bill does make it to the House floor in the final days of the session, it is expected to pass. The big question according to sources in the legislature is whether the House will find the time to take up HB100 or not.

HB100 withholds state funding from cities that designate themselves as “sanctuary cities” and refuse to enforce federal immigration laws as well as cities and law enforcement agencies that accept non-government issued identification as a form of ID. One of the main stated purposes of the Faith Action identification card program is to provide illegal immigrants with a form of ID that is accepted by law enforcement and the Greensboro Police Department has been a partner in the Faith Action identification card program.

The bill states, “No local government or law enforcement agency may establish, by policy or ordinance, the acceptability of any of the documents described in subsection (a) of this section as a form of identification to be used to determine the identity or residency of any person. Any local government policy or ordinance that contradicts this section is hereby repealed.”

Subsection (a) states that no document of a foreign government other than a passport or an identity document issued by any organization not authorized by the General Assembly is acceptable. The General Assembly has not authorized Faith Action identification cards.

The penalty for violating this statute is the withholding of state funds, in particular for cities the withholding of Powell Bill funds, which are for street improvement. Greensboro receives about $7.5 million a year in Powell Bill funds from the state.

If Greensboro chooses to continue to fund Faith Action and the Greensboro police or other city departments accept Faith Action issued identification as a legitimate form of identification to establish a person’s residence, then if this bill passes the House, Greensboro would stand to lose about $7.5 million in Powell Bill funding alone.

According to the bill, a city found in violation would have 60 days in which

to come into compliance with the state law; if a city does not come into compliance in 60 days then the city would lose the funding for the next fiscal year.

In other words, at least the state Senate is not amused by the attitude of the Greensboro City Council toward state government and is making it clear that the state legislature not only makes the laws for the state but it also controls much of the funding that the cities have come to depend on.

If Greensboro and other cities want to behave as if they are independent city-states and do not have to comply with state laws they don’t like, the state Senate is saying, go ahead, but do it without state money.

Even if HB100 doesn’t pass the House and doesn’t become law, the cities should consider it a shot across their bows and be warned that the next legislative session they can expect more such bills to be introduced and passed.

The fact that Greensboro didn’t receive any money for downtown revitalization is also a warning that the state may not be able to control what cities do, but it does control a lot of funding.

Greensboro at one time was looking for state money for the Tanger Center for the Performing Arts and more money for the Union Square redevelopment project on Gate City Boulevard. The city didn’t receive any additional money for either. High Point, by comparison, received an additional $200,000 for the furniture market in addition to the $400,000 that had previously been promised.

It looks like additional state money that is coming to Guilford County is going to High Point and not Greensboro, and if you think that’s a coincidence then you don’t understand politics.

Crossword Solution From last week’s issue A D D U P

S O R T A

B D R O I I B E

S U P E R B O W L M V P

G R O M E H S A B D O G O O I N H F L O S Y O

U B E R

M T P O C O O O N H O S G A N R E M I S S S E D R G O A S R E S S

E S P E T P A R S E S Y S E E N S O P N O T L A A T N O O T E T S E T

A P R E S C O X E D

B O S E P O U T

R A R C H E Y S T H A M T T N

A C K M P O M P R A Y S L O M B A B Y E A S L A L J A R D A D D S M A Y P O T J C R E W L S H A C H O W I Z A R T A L L G E R E R M D A G M E H E D O C A V A J O M A Y O R

P S Y C T E A M A T S I F I N D R R U E E S N E T Y I N I S E E T E R N T R E A H A I R A D O F D G R E L E A N E N T N B R T O R I S O C A S H

H U G I T O U T S A N F R A N C I S C O

I S N T H O M E

C A S E N P R

T A B R O O Z T I C I E R

G E N R E

table of

CONTENTS

2

WEEKLY HAMMER

35 UNDER THE HAMMER

5

CITY COUNCIL TO REVIEW DAVID WRAY’S FILE

4

BY JOHN HAMMER

7

COMMISSIONERS GRAB RICH FORK HOT POTATO

BY SCOTT D. YOST

8

STATE BUDGET DONE, ON TO HB2

BY JOHN HAMMER

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BY JOHN HAMMER

BY JOHN HAMMER

6, 27

RHINO SHORTS

PUZZLE ANSWERS

9

RHINOS AROUND WORLD

18

NYT CROSSWORD

17 19 21 29 32 34

REAL ESTATE

CHILDREN’S SCHEDULE

THE SOUND OF THE BEEP LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SUDOKU

EDITORIAL CARTOON

COUNTY FINALLY GETS UAC CASH

BY SCOTT D. YOST

10 COUNTY TAX REVAL

TO-DO LIST IS 210,000 ITEMS LONG

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BY SCOTT D. YOST

12 CITY TAKES

SOFTBALL, GOES HOME – FORFEITS GUILFORD CUP

BY SCOTT D. YOST

15 UNCLE ORSON

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

23 YOST COLUMN

BY SCOTT D. YOST

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Cover: Monday, July 4 is Fun Fourth in downtown Greensboro. To learn more, see Rhino Shorts, page 4. Photo and cover by Anthony Council

PUBLISHER Roy Carroll EDITOR-IN-CHIEF GENERAL MANAGER John Hammer Joann Zollo managing editor ELAINE HAMMER

creative director ANTHONY COUNCIL

county editor SCOTT D. YOST

advertising consultants MICK HAYWOOD TYE SINGLETON

contributing editor ORSON SCOTT CARD

cartoonist GEOF BROOKS

216 West Market Street, Greensboro NC 27401 P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro NC 27429 | (336) 763-4170 (336) 763-2585 fax | sales@rhinotimes.com | www.rhinotimes.com (continued on page 11) (continued on page 12)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Commissioners Grabbing Hold of Rich Fork Hot Potato

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by Scott D. Yost The question of whether or not mountain biking will be allowed in Rich Fork Preserve is ostensibly in the hands of the Guilford County Parks and Recreation Commission.

However, it’s the Guilford County Board of Commissioners who will ultimately decide the matter, and, given that the Parks and Rec Commission hasn’t provided a recommendation after months of debate, the Guilford County commissioners are now taking a more active role in determining the next steps.

When the issue has come up before, commissioners have pointed out that they were working hard on cobbling together a $600-million county budget, but now, with that matter behind them, the board is once again turning its attention to mountain biking at Rich Fork.

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips said that, despite what some critics have claimed, the commissioners have no intention of putting the matter off until after the November election in which two Commissioners – Alan Branson and Hank Henning – are in contested races.

“I’ve been pretty clear that July would be the earliest point at which we would address it,” Phillips said. “This is not something that’s being ignored.

I don’t see any value in us waiting for

November.”

He said he expects the board to address the topic in the “near future” and said one issue the commissioners are now discussing is whether or not to hold a public hearing for the board to receive citizen input. He said the commissioners have already heard – through public meetings, one-onone discussions, correspondence and phone calls – a great deal on the matter from both sides, and one of the questions the commissioners must decide is whether there would be any “value added” by holding a hearing in which those same concerns and considerations were expressed again.

It’s hard to recall a controversy in Guilford County government in recent years that’s been more heated and confrontational than the debate over the future of the 116acre county-owned preserve near downtown High Point, and the Guilford County commissioners, who haven’t discussed the matter publically for a while now, are certainly talking with each other about the issue behind the scenes.

The main point of contention in the debate – which has been an ongoing battle for well over a year – is whether to allow non-motorized mountain biking on the Rich Fork property, which also features a historic 1890’s farmhouse, hiking trails and other attractions, and to which land was donated with the understanding it would be for a nature preserve.

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Mountain bike advocates, such as the members of the Greensboro Fat Tire Society, want to see bike trails in the preserve, while some citizens and many members of the Rich Fork Preserve Committee argue that bikers would ruin the serene, bucolic nature of the place and bring environmental damage.

Mark Gatehouse, trails advocate for the Fat Tire Society, said one of the main reasons mountain bikers are very interested in seeing trails at Rich Fork is that there are no other good places to ride in that part of the county. He said that in some other sections of Guilford County there are scenic bike trails with the right topology where bikers are allowed, however the High Point area is a different story.

Gatehouse also said that Rich Fork has become something of a “line in the sand” battle for mountain bikers because there have been other parts of the county where his group has attempted to establish mountain bike trails and residents say, “We don’t mind mountain biking – we just don’t want it here.”

The Parks and Recreation Commission, which is an advisory commission to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, hasn’t voted on a master plan that calls for mountain biking at Rich Fork Preserve. In June, when all eyes were about to be on the parks and rec board, the meeting was canceled.

The commission has another meeting coming up on

Tuesday, July 12 – two days before the county commissioners meet next on Thursday, July 14. The agendas for those two meetings have not been set.

Even if Rich Fork isn’t placed on either agenda, it may very well come up at those mid-July meetings.

Phillips said he’s listening to both sides of the debate.

“I’m open-minded to bikers being included at Rich Fork,” he said, adding that the biking trails could be established and maintained by those who use them. Mountain bike advocates point out that area mountain bikers have established – and now maintain – many miles of biking trails in Guilford County.

“I have not made a final decision,” he said.

Phillips also said he’s also open to plans that Rich Fork Committee members have suggested regarding the historic farmhouse on the land.

He said that he would hope that committee, which has expressed an interest in maintaining the farm house on the land and using it for educational purposes, would be willing to follow through with plans even if mountain biking was allowed in other parts of Rich Fork.

“I’d like to think they would consider doing so,” the chairman said. “I’m not sure. I’ve only heard what they don’t want. I haven’t heard what they would do if bikes were approved.”

Branson said this week that critics (continued on page 13)

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State Budget Done, On To HB2

by John Hammer teacher will receive a raise of $4,700, and the average teacher salary in three years will be raised to over $54,000.

Teacher salaries are, in fact, up over 20 percent from when the Republicans took over the state government in 2013.

Education funding overall in the new budget is increased by $512 million over the current budget.

The North Carolina Association of Educators consistently supports Democratic candidates for office, but it is the Republicans who keep giving the teachers raises.

State employees receive an acrossthe-board 1.5 percent raise, plus a 0.5 percent one-time bonus. The budget also sets aside $80 million for merit raises.

State retirees receive a 1.6 percent cost-of-living bonus.

The budget makes some interesting moves as far as state universities go. One is that tuition is frozen for students for four years, which means the universities can’t raise tuition on students who are already enrolled. It

Even the Democrats are having problems finding substantial problems with the 2016-2017 $22.34 billion North Carolina budget that has passed the state Senate and is now being considered by the state House.

The budget, in the usual fashion, is the result of the state House and Senate leadership getting together to iron out differences between the two earlier versions of the budget passed by each house. But this year, unlike year’s past, the Senate and House started from nearly the same point, and it appears the General Assembly will get the budget passed this week and adjourn before July 4, which was its goal.

Proving once again that there isn’t enough money in the world to satisfy some education advocates, the state budget – which raises the average teachers’ salary to above $50,000 a year – is being criticized by some for not giving teachers enough of a raise.

Over the next three years the average

also freezes student fees where they are, and limits increases to 3 percent per year.

The budget takes three universities – Pembroke, Elizabeth City State and Western Carolina – and sets the tuition at $500 a semester. The state will make up the rest of the funding. These are struggling universities with falling enrollment; the idea is to increase the enrollment and get the universities on a more stable growth pattern.

As far as taxes go, over the next two years the amount a family earns that is exempt from state income taxes will be increased from $15,500 to $17,500.

It appears the Republican plan to lower income and corporate taxes and depend on more revenue from an improved economy is working. Taxes are lower and revenue is up. According to the Democrats, the only way to increase revenue is to increase taxes, but it’s hard to argue with success.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about the budget: It pays off a $37 million loan from the federal government that

former Gov. Jim Hunt borrowed in 1999 and deferred payment for 15 years.

Being able to defer payment for 15 years is pretty close to free money, or at least it was for Hunt. He knew he would be out of office long before a payment was due. Of course, he probably never considered that Republicans would be in charge when the payment did come due.

It wouldn’t be North Carolina without a discussion of House Bill 2, the “bathroom bill.” The Republicans in Raleigh are reportedly discussing some changes to HB2, the bill that made it law that men would use the men’s bathroom and women would use the women’s bathroom, which according to many gay rights activists is a terrible injustice.

The House discussed changes to the bill in the Republican Caucus for the first time in any detail on Wednesday, June 29. The report from the House was that the impetus to make changes to the bill was coming from the Senate. (continued on page 34)

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County Finally Gets UAC Cash

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

PRICES JUST REDUCED!

by Scott D. Yost

Guilford County has finally received the roughly $264,000 contained in two funds related to the Guilford County Animal Shelter that had been in limbo ever since the shelter’s scandal last summer.

Guilford County had filed a request with the NC Department of Justice for the state to deliver to the county $264,000 that the United Animal Coalition (UAC) gave to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of the Triad earlier this year and now the county has those funds in hand.

The funds consist of about $234,000 in Susie’s Fund, which is meant to pay for the medical treatment of animals at the county shelter, and just over $31,000 that was donated for the construction of a new Guilford County Animal Shelter. That money was in the possession of the UAC when that nonprofit organization lost its license to operate last summer in a huge scandal after state investigators found 66 cases of animal abuse and neglect at the shelter while the UAC was running it.

Former Guilford County Animal Shelter Director Marsha Williams, who also ran the Davidson County Animal Shelter, was charged with felony cruelty to animals in Davidson County, as were two other shelter workers.

The Guilford County district attorney’s office has not brought any charges related to the scandal, though most of the instances of cruelty and neglect found by state investigators occurred in the Guilford County shelter.

Guilford County has promised that it will use the funds for their intended purposes and would set up a “publiclyassessable website” that would disclose the nature of all expenditures of existing funds and future donations.

In early February, as part of the UAC’s dissolution proceedings, the UAC surprised everyone – especially Guilford County officials – by handing the $265,000 to the SPCA. The attorney general’s office – which may or may not have been alerted to the move by Guilford County officials – froze those funds and instructed the SPCA to keep the money separate from other SPCA funds until state officials could complete their investigation.

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10 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

County Tax Reval To-Do List Is 210,000 Items Long

by Scott D. Yost

If you see some Guilford County employees snooping around your house and taking notes, don’t be alarmed: It’s probably just county tax appraisers trying to figure out what value to put on your property for the new countywide revaluation that will establish updated tax values for all property in the county on Jan. 1 2017.

That effort, which takes place once at least every eight years, is for the first time being conducted entirely in-house by the Guilford County Tax Department. Guilford County officials say it’s too early to tell what property values overall have done in Guilford County in the last five years, when

the last revaluation was held, but with the help of some new employees and some high tech tools it will know the final outcome in a matter of months.

During the process, the Tax Department is reevaluating all 210,000 parcels on the Guilford County tax roles and setting new values for every house, building or piece of land.

Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis said he and his staff are immersed in the countywide reval effort.

“We’re working hot and heavy on that right now,” Chavis said.

In the past, most revaluations have meant that property values increased overall, but ever since the housing market collapse of 2007, that’s no longer taken for granted.

In the

previous reval, which was conducted in 2011 and put into effect on Jan. 1 2012, property values in Guilford County remained relatively flat overall.

The tax director said that could also be the story for the current revaluation.

“Things have gotten better but we still haven’t seen a great appreciation,” Chavis said of property in Guilford County.

He said the new evaluation is starting to a look a lot like the one Guilford County conducted five years ago.

“It’s shaping up to be the very same scenario,” Chavis said.

He added that, in the past, when property values increased steadily – and the county only conducted a revaluation once every eight years – property owners would often get “sticker shock” from the dramatic increases they experienced after a revaluation.

He said homeowners might see a property value increase of 25 percent or more. However, with the slower economy, and with Guilford County now on a five-year revaluation cycle, taxpayers are less likely to be hit with giant value increases and correspondingly larger tax bills.

Chavis said the big, consistent and widespread value increases of the past now seem “unusual” in the post2007 economy.

In past years, a countywide revaluation has meant hiring a lot of extra tax assessors at considerable added expense to the county.

However, Chavis said that this time around the Tax Department is conducting the process totally inhouse. The Guilford County Board of Commissioners approved two new tax assessor positions last year and one of the selling points for adding the new employees was that the move would save the county money in years when the Tax Department conducted revaluations.

He also said that the reval isn’t generating too many overtime hours.

“We are trying to keep overtime light,” Chavis said. “Our budget did not go up this year even though we are doing a reval.”

The Guilford County Tax Department has 63 employees and 18 of those

work in the appraisals section.

Chavis said that enhanced aerial pictometry technology the county invested in a couple of years ago is very beneficial in the reval process.

It provides high-resolution, multipleangle photos from above, as well as software that analyzes any changes to structures and property by comparing new aerial photos with old photos from years ago. The new tool can find tax cheats – or those who simply “forgot” to tell the county that they added a swimming pool or an outbuilding.

Most importantly, Chavis said, the tool takes a lot of the footwork out of the appraisal job.

“Using the pictometry that the commissioners gave us is a big benefit,” he said.

According to Chavis, sometimes the assessors must check out changes to homes and buildings in person.

“If we can’t tell from the pictometry, we’re sending people out,” Chavis said.

The Tax Department also relies on property owners to disclose changes that have been made to their property.

Assistant Guilford County Tax Director Greg French said the tax bills that go out right after July 4 will include a brochure about the reval and will ask property owners to check that all of the information on their tax bill is correct.

Tax officials say one major goal of the periodic revaluations is fairness, but there will always be some who question their new property values.

French said property owners may not have a full understanding of what is going on and said that could lead to appeals once the new values are announced and adopted. He said someone might see his or her house assessed higher whereas a neighbors house stays the same as it was five years ago – but French added that it might be because the homeowner, say, did a $20,000 kitchen renovation that increased the value of a home.

In the last revalue, Guilford County saw less than 10,000 appeals for 210,000 property revaluations – which, tax officials say, means that those updated values were on the mark for the most part.

(continued on page 27)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

11

12 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

City Takes Softball and Goes Home – Forfeits Guilford Cup

by Scott D. Yost A softball team made up of Guilford County officials and staff was all set to go up against the City of Greensboro team in the thirdleg of this year’s Guilford Cup competition between the two local governments – however, before the scheduled Saturday, June 25 game took place, the city forfeited.

The turn of events – which surprised county players who had been gearing up for the battle – means that Guilford County sweeps the city 3-0 in the 20152016 Guilford Cup, since the county won in flag football and basketball in the preceding games this season.

The Guilford Cup games were largely the brainchild of Guilford

County Commissioner Ray Trapp and Greensboro City Councilmember Jamal Fox. The two came up with the idea two years ago in an effort to enhance comradery between the staff and elected officials on both sides, as well to raise money for local charities.

In the first year of the competition, Greensboro swept the series 3-0, winning the Guilford Cup trophy handily. This year Guilford County has now returned the favor.

The softball game was to be at Gibson Park in High Point. However, days before the game, Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen, who was heading up the softball effort on the county’s side, got word that the city wouldn’t be fielding a softball team after all.

On Monday, June 20, Thigpen sent out an email that stated he’d spoken on the phone with Assistant City Manager Chris Wilson, and that, “The City of Greensboro is forfeiting the Softball game for this coming Saturday, June 25th. That means the County has a 3-0 sweep from our Football, Basketball and now Softball game.”

Thigpen wrote that he wanted to thank all the county employees who had participated in the softball practices.

Thigpen said this week that he was looking forward to the showdown.

Thigpen was a star catcher for the Guilford College baseball team and, when he was there, the team set school records and, one year, was “one pitch away from the College Baseball World

Series.”

Thigpen said this year’s county team included some other serious players.

“We would have fielded a very competitive team,” the register of deeds said.

When Thigpen was asked about the forfeiture, he said he’s not certain why Greensboro pulled out, but he theorized one factor may have been that Donnie Turlington – the former director of communications and marketing for the city who did a lot of the organizing for the games – was no longer with the city. It should be noted that former Guilford County Deputy Elections Director Tim Tsujii, who was the point man for the county on the Guilford Cup games, left Guilford (continued on page 28)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

rich fork (continued from page 7)

have stated that the commissioners are dragging their feet and putting off this hot button issue until after the election, but he added that the board will deal with the matter “very soon.”

“It’s got to come to a head,” Branson said. “July could be interesting.”

“The board of parks and rec can’t make a decision [about Rich Fork],” Branson said, adding that the debate has totally dominated the focus of the Parks and Rec Commission for months and months.

“All they talk about is Rich Fork, Rich Fork, Rich Fork,” he said.

Branson also said the input the commissioners have been getting is roughly equal on both sides with many nature lovers and mountain bikers all weighing in.

“It’s well-divided,” he said of the breakdown of the comments to the commissioners.

He said that in the end it will be the commissioners’ call.

“It’s going to fall down on what the Guilford County Board of Commissioners decides,” he said.

Branson said that, speaking for himself, he believes the proposed master plan being debated – one which includes mountain bike trails – offers “the best of both worlds.”

He said he would seek assurances that any activities allowed at the preserve, including mountain biking, would be implemented in a way that was environmentally sound.

Commissioner Justin Conrad said he questions whether there’s any benefit of the board holding a public hearing on Rich Fork since the commissioners have already heard quite a bit from both sides, including lengthy public testimony at the commissioners’ Dec. 3, 2015 meeting.

“I’m not sure what we would hear at a public hearing that we didn’t hear that night,” Conrad said.

He added that public sentiment seems to be about 50/50 between those who want mountain biking allowed on some parts of Rich Fork Preserve and those who do not.

Conrad said there was a lot of frustration over the fact that the Guilford County Parks and Rec Commission had been so consumed with this one issue for so long. He said he didn’t want to be critical of a commission that’s made up of volunteers who give their time to serve the county, but he added that the commission appeared to be having trouble addressing the issue that was absorbing so much of their attention.

“It seems like the group has allowed itself to become mired down in this,” he said. “I really wish the parks and

rec board would make a decision – I’d like to hear the vote.”

When asked his view of allowing mountain biking at Rich Fork, Conrad said that, at this point, he isn’t opposed to it.

“I lean toward allowing it,” Conrad said.

He said he believed it was possible for nature lovers to enjoy the preserve in some areas while bikers ride elsewhere on the preserve, “where the people that never want to see them would never see them.”

He said that, on other county-owned property, mountain biking coexists with more passive enjoyment of nature, and he added that the voters who passed the bonds that provided the money to purchase did so with the idea that the land purchased would be open up for enjoyment of all types of activities.

Commissioner Carlvena Foster, who represents part of High Point, said there’s been a great deal of frustration over the issue and she added she currently favors not allowing biking in the preserve.

“The land should be used for the intent and, from what I see, the intent was not for mountain biking,” she said.

Dot Kearns, a former chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and a former member of the Guilford County Board of Education – and now a leader of the Rich Fork Preserve Committee – has been very vocal against allowing mountain biking on the preserve.

Kearns said earlier this year that the Rich Fork Preserve committee has spent a great deal of time an effort making plans for the property, and said the committee members know the preserve like no one else since they’ve been working with it for years and have taken such a great interest in it.

That group, which began meeting in December 2012, has discussed the preserve at length in monthly meetings held at the High Point Museum.

This issue of mountain biking has at times been a real hot button issue in other parks and preserve in the county as well.

Opponents argue that mountain biking leads to soil erosion that runs off into the creeks, and also that the sport creates liability issues, leaving Guilford County open to lawsuits if someone is injured while riding mountain bikes in a county-owned preserve. In addition, those opponents argue that the bikers are loud and say that the noise and swift movement scare off birds and other animals, making the area much less enjoyable for those who come out to observe wildlife and appreciate the quiet beauty of nature.

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14 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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15

UNCLE ORSON Reviews

Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

Broken Glasses at the Beach

by Orson Scott Card There is no convenient time to have your glasses break.

But some times are worse than others. Take, for instance, a few days into your vacation at the beach.

After using this pair of glasses for about five years, it shouldn’t have been surprising that it broke. It was simply time. I picked them up to put them on, and one side dangled.

When I tried to straighten it, metal fatigue in the arch of the nosepiece split them in two.

This was not something that could be cured by a dab of duct tape (not, I beg you, “duck” tape).

Now, somewhere at home I have a spare pair. But when I’m at the Outer Banks, home is at best six hours away. Given how easily I get sleepy while driving, it’s more like seven or eight hours, including brief naps along the way.

I have other glasses. My driving glasses are the identical prescription, but they’re sunglasses, which makes them kind of awful indoors. My computer glasses are fine for working – yeah, I could still work during my “vacation” – but they’re unusable for driving, since they don’t focus anything farther than three feet away.

My vacation was going to be difficult unless I replaced the broken glasses. And since it had been about three years since my last eye exam, and my optometrist is in Los Angeles, buying new glasses would require staring into the machinery and reciting letters to a new doctor.

My first thought: LensCrafters.

Because of various rivalries in the eyeglass-frame industry, the Marchon frames that I’ve loved for years aren’t carried by LensCrafters, so I’ve never bought glasses for myself. But they’ve been our go-to glasses store when buying glasses for family and

friends over the years. Plus, I am devoted to the excellent lens-wiping cloths and lens-cleaning fluid that they sell.

Most important to me, though, was their ability to grind lenses at the store. Show up with a prescription, with enough time before closing, and I could get the glasses in a single trip and come home with them.

But where was the nearest LensCrafters to Waves, North Carolina? Because we drive round Raleigh on our way to the beach, that was my first thought – but if I was driving as far as Raleigh, I might as well drive home, find my spare eyeglasses (which is not likely to be easy, since I’m not a “place for everything, everything in its place” kind of guy), and spend the night in my own bed before driving back. So ... two days of my beach trip would be spent driving home and back again.

Then my wife Googled “LensCrafters nearest to me.” Using our current location, Google found us two Lencrafters locations in Virginia Beach, one in Norfolk, and the

nearest one in a mall in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Virginia? That’s another state!

How can it be closest?

I had forgotten how very close the big harbor cities of Virginia are to the Outer Banks. My geography of the Outer Banks includes driving up to Duck for dinner at Blue Point, and one visit years ago to the horseflies of Corolla. You can’t drive north from Corolla, so in my mind, that was a dead end and Virginia was out of reach.

Then my wife reminded me that one of my kids routinely gets to the Outer Banks for family vacations by flying to Norfolk, and it’s only a couple of hours away – much closer to the islands than the Raleigh airport is. Google Maps said that it would take only a couple of hours to get to the LensCrafters in Chesapeake.

Since this was Sunday, my wife called that LensCrafters just to get their recorded message with Monday’s hours of operation. Instead, she got the news that they were open Sunday afternoons. We waited till they opened at noon, and found out that not only were they open, but also the optometrist next door would be on duty.

We pulled out of our rented beach house in time to get to our 3 p.m. “appointment” with the optometrist. If we finished the eye exam and brought LensCrafters the prescription by 3:30, we could have my new glasses by closing time at 5:30 p.m.

The GPS in my Hyundai seems to estimate travel time based on an average speed of a mile a minute.

This is realistic when a trip is largely on freeways, but no such thing

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happened taking highways 158 and 168 to Chesapeake. So our “plenty of time” gradually turned into being 20 minutes late.

Then we found that our “appointment” was simply a note from LensCrafters to the optometrist alerting them to our likely arrival.

The optometrist still regarded us as “walk-ins,” and they weren’t planning to take walk-ins after 3 p.m. on Sunday.

We tried to take it in good humor, but it was frustrating to drive two hours thinking we had an appointment. Of course, we were late to that appointment, so we really had no one to blame but ourselves. Or our GPS. No, ourselves.

But then the assistant at Dr. Surmaty & Associates talked to the optometrist on duty, Christopher Luft, and they agreed to give me the exam. But now we were pushing the deadline for getting the prescription to the LensCrafters tech.

(continued on page 16)

16 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

uncle orson (continued from page 15)

So my wife and I divided our labor. While I was getting my eyes examined, my wife went next door to LensCrafters and chose frames for me. She also learned that if we had the prescription there by 4, the technician would stay late and prepare the glasses.

Trusting someone else to pick out my frames was a bold move on my part. That’s such a personal decision, and she would have to give them approval to go ahead without my having a chance to try them on first or anything. I did remind her that my head is shockingly wide, so they’d have to find frames big enough to fit.

Dr. Luft did a full exam, even though it was late and we only needed the lens prescription. But I recognize and respect integrity – he wasn’t going to do a halfway job.

The exam ended at 3:58 p.m.

So Dr. Luft agreed to wait to finish the consultation until after I got the prescription to LensCrafters. I’ve never seen a doctor write so fast and still be legible! But I made it to LensCrafters, slipped on the glasses my wife had chosen, found that they were wide enough, and then the optician, David Good, quickly checked where the bifocal dividing line would have to be and then got the frames and prescription to the technician, Trung Lee (or Lee Trung;

Speed Bump

they only called him Trung there at the store, so they weren’t sure).

I then returned to Dr. Luft, who was still waiting, well past the time he had meant to go home. He gave me my ocular health report, which came down to this: Whatever’s going wrong with your body shows up in your eyes. My years of high blood pressure and overweight, and my stroke, left evidences in my eyes. The good news was that my never having smoked also showed up.

The real news was cataracts.

Right now they’re still nearly transparent, so they aren’t interfering with my vision at all, but both lenses will eventually be blocked so that without lens replacement surgery, I’ll be mostly or totally blind. To say that this would put a damper on my career is an understatement.

However, my dad has undergone three lens replacements (his first was so early that he outlived the warranty) and he can still read, watch television and movies, and use a computer.

Because he’s an artist, photographer and sign painter, he proved that the lens replacements worked fine by continuing those activities as well.

So cataracts are not the sentence of blindness that they used to be. I could hear that news with equanimity.

I really liked Christopher Luft – he’s a good, thorough doctor, willing to

by Dave Coverly

adjust to circumstances, and his explanations of everything were clear.

He never condescended to me, even though I look like any other fat old man and I get talked down to by professionals and tradesmen all the time.

In fact, since my current optometrist may be near retirement (he’s almost exactly my age), I would have happily become a regular patient of Dr. Luft – if it weren’t such a long drive from Greensboro to Chesapeake, Virginia.

While my lenses were under construction, my wife and I had nothing to do but wander around a mall that had very little to recommend it – almost all the stores were duplicated at Four Seasons or Friendly Center in Greensboro.

Except that it did have a seating area about a hundred feet from LensCrafters – comfortable chairs and sofas, clean and well maintained.

Before the appointed time to return to LensCrafters, one of the opticians, Cynthia, came out and found us: My glasses were ready.

And they were perfect. The prescription worked. And this is not what I expected, because I do an odd thing with my bifocals. For daily wear, the lower half of each lens is not set to a proper distance for reading.

Instead, I have it set at the same focal length as my computer glasses, so that I can read a computer screen without changing glasses (as when I’m sitting down to a strange computer that doesn’t have a pair of my monofocal computer glasses sitting next to it).

More to the point, the readingglasses setting is terrible for driving a car, because the screens and dials on the dashboard are even blurrier with that setting than without any glasses at all. The computer-distance lenses, though, are perfect for driving.

The dashboard is exactly as far away as a computer screen.

I do have a pair of bifocals with the lower half set to reading distance – but I also have the bifocal line set higher than normal, so I can see a whole page while lying on my back in bed – the only time I use reading glasses. They’re indispensable for reading tablet and phone screens in bed, too – the only time I hold the screens that close. The rest of the time, the computer distance is perfect for daily use.

However, this idea seems so foreign to the opticians I’ve dealt with in Guilford County that I was glad to give up on buying glasses in town, because my Los Angeles optometrist also ordered my glasses from his supplier, and there was never an error.

In Greensboro, however, one

optician was so sure that she was smarter than me that she ordered standard reading bifocals despite my extremely clear and repeated instructions. Then, when I told her I would not accept glasses that had been ordered by her in defiance of my clear wishes, and I expected a replacement pair as I ordered them, she demanded that I come in to be reexamined and prove that the glasses I had were wrong.

This was so stupid and outrageous that I ended up leaving an ophthalmologist that I liked very much because I never wanted to see that optician’s smug, superior face again when visiting the doctor she worked for.

Then there was the High Point optician who refused to believe that my daily-wear bifocals should have the computer-distance prescription in the lower half, despite the fact that the doctor (a friend of mine who has since moved out of state) had clearly written on the prescription exactly the instructions that I was telling her. She actually got angry and abusive because I insisted she was wrong. I haven’t been back there to allow that fascist of idiocy to rail at me again.

So the idea of driving to Chesapeake for eye exams and glasses isn’t such a strange one after all. If LensCrafters carried my Marchon frames, it might be tempting.

Because apparently in Greensboro, my perfectly sensible decisions about my glasses bring out the dictatorial ogre in opticians.

Speaking of opticians, David Good understood completely what I wanted and there was no mistake in these glasses. He helped me fit my new glasses so they stood out the right distance from my eyes (when they’re too close, my eyelashes smudge the lenses with body oils, but the bridge of my nose is so slight that it’s hard to get the lenses far enough away).

Everybody involved went the extra mile.

Now, you might be thinking that I got all this special treatment because, hey, I’m the author of Ender’s Game.

But even though my occupation came up in the paperwork in both places, nobody at the optometrist’s office recognized my name, and most of the extra service had already been cheerfully given at LensCrafters before anybody recognized my name.

Not being recognized, by face or name, is not a surprise to a writer.

Unlike actors, models, athletes and famous rich people, our faces are not plastered all over People, Entertainment Weekly or Sports (continued on page 22)

RHINO

REALESTATE www.rhinotimes.com

June 30, 2016

Everything you need to find, finance and buy the house of your dreams

SHOULD YOU REFINANCE YOUR HOME?

BY SANDY GROOVER

How do you know whether you should refinance your home? Here are some of the questions the Federal Reserve Board says you should ask yourself when considering refinancing: Have interest rates fallen, or do you expect them to go up? Has your credit score improved enough so that you might be eligible for a lower-rate mortgage?

Would you like to switch into a different type of mortgage?

(continued on page 18)

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18 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

The New York Times

crossword puzzle No. 0619 ARTFUL THINKING

1

BY TRACY BENNETT / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

54 Daughter of James II 55 Where there’s Wi-Fi availability 57 Get ready to drive 60 Former six-term senator from Indiana 61 More yang than yin: Abbr.

62 Monetary bribes, in slang 64 What a star probably has 65 N.R.A. piece?: Abbr.

68 Artist’s favorite Broadway musical?

70 Revival meeting miracles 71 ___ Zulu (warrior dubbed Africa’s Napoleon) 72 Atlantean superhero of DC Comics 73 ___ Field 75 Defrocked villain on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” 76 Vista opener?

77 Roman of film 81 Michigan college 82 ___ generis 83 Part of an umpire’s count 86 Put in writing 87 Parts of an orrery 89 Artist’s expression for “Such is life”?

92 Easter purchase 93 Worth all the hype, as a film 94 Snorkeling aids Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more 95 “Tsk!” than 4,000 past puzzles, 98 Finger nytimes.com/crosswords 99 Cuts some slack ($39.95 a year).

ACROSS

103 “Zero Dark Thirty” locale 105 Castaway’s construction 107 Rough position?

108 Sedona maker 111 The Roman way 112 How the expert artist passed her exam?

116 “The Cosby Show” boy 117 Last word in the Torah 118 Rain man?

119 Inclination 120___ Club 121 River that “sweats oil and tar” in T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” 122 Predoctoral tests, for short 123 Approximately

3

4

5

19

This is a Best of The New York Times puzzle that originally appeared in 2013.

1 Whammy 5 Where les enfants might play 9 Rendered speechless 15 Female lobsters 19 Every which way 20 Subject for a mariachi band 21 Insubstantial 22 Like Voldemort 23 Artist’s favorite spiritual?

26 Ablution, e.g.

27 Firefighter’s need, maybe 28 Summer Olympics host after London 29 ___ vu 30 Food item a cook might flip 32 Prescription pain medication 35 Nos. in a directory 37 Look for 38 Several, in Seville 40 Cool with what others are doing 42 Go (for) 43 Christmas song line from an artist?

47 Batman villain 51 What Mississippi cheerleaders ask for a lot 52 How you might do something gross 53 Cagney or Lacey: Abbr.

2

13 Patchwork quilts have lots of them 14 “Good point” 15 Artist’s line of weary resignation?

16 “On This Night of a Thousand Stars” musical 17 Capone’s top henchman 18 Wintry mix 24 Flawed, as mdse.

25 Party host’s convenience 31 Reposed 33 “Laborare ___ orare” (Freemasons’ motto) 34 What Morehouse College lacks 36 Before, poetically 38 Home of Kings Peak 39 Little muchacho 41 What the tipsy artist had at the bar?

DOWN 42 Liz of “Garfield,” e.g.

1 Tatooine race in the 44 Pay to cross town, “Star Wars” saga maybe 2 What’s big at the 45 First chimp to orbit movies?

Earth 3 Like old unrecyclable 46 Pay to cross town, bottles maybe 4 Certain Jaguar 47 Pop icon?

5 Pre-exam feeling, 48 “The Odd Couple” maybe role 6 Playground retort 49 Daft 7 South Korea’s ___ Tae 50 “Phooey!”

Woo 53 Gauntlet thrower’s 8 Buffet cabinet challenge 9 Key of Schubert’s 56 What the artist “Trout” Quintet: confused people Abbr. with?

10 Bronze 58 Norse source for Loki 11 Topper lore 12 Ancient 59 Dash

7

24

27

28 32

55

45

41

67

68 72

75

76

58

59

50

78

79

80

64

73

74

77 83

84

85

86

90

91

93

94

98

99

100 101 102

103

104

111

112

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

60 Dairy consumer’s enzyme 62 Erotic 63 Good wife in “The Good Earth” 65 Org. protecting music copyrights 66 “Congress ___ make no law …”

67 Actress Hayek 69 Prefix with poise 74 Pain and suffering

49

70

89

97

48

60

63

82

92

18

54

69

88

17

42 47

62

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77 “Gay” capital 78 Summer lawn sight 79 New Jersey’s ___ University 80 QB mistakes: Abbr.

82 Holy mlle.

84 Turn to bone 85 Apiarist’s woe 88 Watchful ones?

89 Holy city of Iran 90 Access charge, of a sort

114

108 109 110 115

91 Debatable sighting

101 Some templegoers 102 Pro vote 104 Birdbrain 95 Blurts (out) 106 “___ fair …”

96 ___ yoga 109 Discoveries of 97 Arabic name Michael Faraday meaning “wise” 110 Regarding 98 J. Carrol ___, 113 Easter purchase Oscar nominee for 114 ___’easter “Sahara” 115 “Boardwalk 100 Phycologist’s study Empire” network 93 Words to live by

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

refinance (continued from page 17)

You may be able to get a lower interest rate because of changes in market conditions or because your credit score has improved. A lower interest rate also may allow you to build equity in your home more quickly.

David Nishan of McLean Mortgage Corporation says one of the main reasons people decide to refinance is to save money on their current mortgage payment.

They can do this by refinancing to a lower interest rate, which results in a lower monthly payment. Nishan also says that now is a good time to refinance, as interest rates are at record low levels. But he cautions that there are all kinds of economic factors that can affect rates.

Nishan pointed out that election years often have an effect on interest rates.

Rates may fluctuate depending upon the election’s outcome. He says that if you’re thinking about refinancing, this is the time to do it – before the election in November.

Another reason people often refinance is to replace an adjustablerate mortgage with a fixed-rate loan.

An adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), or variable-rate mortgage, is a type of mortgage where the interest rate on the outstanding balance varies over the lifetime of the loan. Initially, the interest rate, which is often quite low, is fixed for a certain length of time.

Once that timeframe ends, the rate is reset periodically. That period can be as often as every year, or even every month. The interest rates fluctuate according to an index known as an ARM margin, and can go either up or down. Refinancing to a fixed rate mortgage protects the mortgagee from future rate fluctuations.

To pay off a mortgage in a shorter period of time, many people will change the term of their loan. (The “term� is the number of years it will take to repay the loan.) By changing the term of a loan from 30 years to 15 years, the mortgage will be paid off sooner. However, changing from a 30-year to a 15-year mortgage generally results in a higher monthly payment, since you’re paying more of the principal each month.

You can often decrease the term of your mortgage by paying a little extra on your principal each month. You’ll pay off the loan sooner and reduce the term of the loan.

Melanie Troutman of the Hamilton Group says another reason people refinance their mortgages is to get needed cash. When the refinanced amount is greater than what is owed on the home, the difference can be taken in a cash payment. This is called a cash-out refinancing. The cash can

be used in any number of ways, such as paying off credit card debt, making home improvements or paying for a child’s education.

Don’t forget, however, that using the equity in your home means that it will take time to rebuild it. If you should have to sell your home for some reason, the equity you’ve used results in a lower profit from the sale since that loan will have be repaid.

Sometimes refinancing is not a good idea. For instance, if you have had your mortgage for a long time, the major part of your monthly payment will be going toward the loan’s principal and building up equity. If you refinance, you begin the amortization process over again, and go back to paying interest rather than principal. Also, there may be a prepayment penalty for paying off a mortgage early, even when you are refinancing. If you are using the same lender, be sure to ask them whether there is a penalty for prepayment when refinancing.

Also keep in mind that there are fees associated with refinancing just as there were when the original loan was secured. Fees generally include an application fee, loan origination fee, attorney/closing fee, appraisal fee, title search, title insurance, survey fee, homeowner’s insurance, points, prepayment fee (if there is one) and the lender’s fee. These fees add up and must be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not it’s beneficial to refinance.

If you’re pleased with your current lender, talk to them about refinancing.

They will want to keep your business, and may work with you to reduce or eliminate some of the usual refinancing fees. If your loan is only a few years old, the paperwork for the original loan may still be current and applicable to the new loan. It also doesn’t hurt to let your current lender know you are shopping for the best deal.

Troutman said she believes the relationship that develops between the lender and the client is an important factor in choosing a mortgage lender.

While it doesn’t hurt to research online lenders, a local firm knows an area’s needs and can give a client multiple choices to see what fits the their needs best.

If you believe refinancing your home might be a good move, the next step could be speaking with a mortgage expert such as Nishan and Troutman.

They can advise you as to the practicality of refinancing, and there’s no risk involved in getting an estimate.

For additional lenders, see page 20 of Rhino Real Estate.

DOWNTOWN GREENSBORO INC. Downtown Greensboro

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Monday, July 4 from 2 to 8 p.m., from Center City Park to South Elm Street, enjoy entertainment, live music, food and crafts. For maps and information, visit funfourthfestival.com/4th-street-festival.

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Fireworks

Monday, July 4 from 8:45 to 10 p.m., end the Fourth with an RXWGRRU FRQFHUW DQG ÂżUHZRUNV H[WUDYDJDQ]D IHDWXULQJ WKH Madison Heavenly Sounds Trombone Shout Band, Spoken Word and the Greensboro Philharmonia. For more information, visit IXQIRXUWKIHVWLYDO FRP WK ÂżUHZRUNV FRQFHUW IRU DOO

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Carolina Kids’ Club

Wednesdays mornings through July 27, enjoy a family-friendly 'LVQH\ PRYLH SUHFHGHG E\ H[FLWLQJ NLG IRFXVHG OLYH VWDJH HQWHUWDLQPHQW IURP 0DG 6FLHQFH DQG OREE\ IXQ IURP %ULFNV .LG] leading up to the show.

July 13 – Toy Story; July 20 – Mulan; July 27 – Finding Nemo Doors open at 9 a.m.; stage games and live entertainment begin at 9:30; movies begin between 10:15 and 10:30, with events ending by noon. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Tickets are $5 and include a kids’ snack pack. Five-packs of tickets are $20.

For more information, call (336) 333-2605 or visit carolinatheatre.

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1859 East Lexington Ave., High Point

Colonial Ink Making, Quill Pen Writing

Saturday, July 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, July 3 from 1 to 4 p.m., practice your penmanship with a feather pen. Costumed interpreters will provide the quills and some homemade walnut ink.

This event is free and all ages are welcome. For information, call (336) 885-1859 or visit highpointmuseum.org.

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Free Family Night

Every Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m., enjoy a free Family Night. Stop in to play, create art and share ideas, create paintings and work with FOD\ RU QHZ DQG XQH[SHFWHG PDWHULDOV DW WKH KDQGV RQ H[SORUDWLRQ table. For information, call (336) 333-7460 or visit GreenhillNC.org.

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19

REAL ESTATE

20 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

The Sound of the

beep

business profile

What follows has been transcribed from the answering machine on our comment line. We edit out what is required by the laws of the state, of good taste and of good sense. The limit on phone calls is one minute and each caller may make up to two calls per week. If you have something to say, call our comment line at 763-0479 and start talking at The Sound of the Beep.

Since those of us who are thinking we have known the enemy has been within our borders for decades and decades, I’d just like to point one thing out that nobody seems to have noticed. ISIS are terrorists who go around killing people and blowing up homes, and blowing up children, and mothers, and shooting. They don’t show their faces. Isn’t that the same thing the KKK does? They’re hate crimes against anyone who doesn’t agree with them, and they are such cowards that they hide behind masks. So, to all of you terrorists, you’re nothing but a bunch of cowards.

If you weren’t cowardsa, you wouldn’t hide your identity. Thank you. Just one woman’s perspective.

%%% You know the NRA won’t ever change their ways unless the same thing happens to them that happened to those people in Orlando. Instead of gun control, the only way to get people to stop killing each other, ban it altogether where they won’t fire. Just like the Organians did on Star Trek.

The Organians made it where nobody could shoot them at each other.

That’s the only way anybody is going to stop the evil in this world.

%%% Well, I see where Hussein Obama was at it again. I see he told his secretary of state – I mean attorney general, Ms. Lynch, there to redact every word in the thing that mentioned, in the transcripts of the calls by the terrorist, that referred to Islam or Muslim or anything else, to redact them from the released information. If anybody has got a half a cup of brains, they can look at this and see what it is. This man is, if he is a Muslim there is no other way around it. He’s been doing this stuff ever since he took office. He was raised in Indonesia. He was a Muslim then.

He continues to do everything he can to interrupt and refuse to admit that this is Muslim terrorists.

%%% Just look at us. Look at our country. We have been all over the world.

We have fought everybody’s wars for them. We have sent aid to every country in the world when they needed aid. We have done everything for everybody. We have opened the gates. We have let anybody come in this county and live. Now just look at us. Our country is flat broke. Even worse than broke; $20 trillion in debt. And the streets are not safe to walk.

Democrats, are you happy now? Look what you’ve done to the country.

Are you happy? And to think anybody would dream of electing Hillary Clinton. Come on, America. Wake up.

%%% Yes, it sounds like Hillary is going to kick the can on back down the road again just like Barry did. Illegal aliens, financial crisis, war. It’s just a mess. I don’t think she’ll be any good for our country. We need to do something different.

%%% I wasted about 30 minutes of my life watching Hillary Clinton speak down at Raleigh. You would think she was following the Republican president when she talks about how much she’s going to do, and how bad it is.

But she’s following a Democrat president that’s run up the national debt.

When he gets out it’ll be $20 trillion. Twenty trillion. I’m from a little small

(continued on page 22)

Since 1986, The Diamond Gallery has been the place to go for quality diamonds and gemstones. Known for their impressive selection of Gemological Institute of Americacertified diamonds, The Diamond Gallery offers both mounted diamond solitaire rings and unmounted diamonds.

Diamond engagement rings and wedding bands are not the only type of jewelry The Diamond Gallery offers. Customers will find a wide variety of beautiful diamond pendants, earrings and diamond bracelets. They also carry an excellent selection of gemstones such as sapphires and rubies, along with pearls and exquisite sterling silver pieces.

If you don’t see the diamond you desire in a mounted setting, The Diamond Gallery can custom design a piece for you. The Diamond Gallery’s knowledgeable staff can help you select both the diamond and setting that will capture your vision. In only a couple of weeks, you’ll have your custom-made piece.

The Diamond Gallery also does jewelry appraisals and repairs. If you’re selling gold or diamonds, see The Diamond Gallery for the highest prices paid in the area.

Owner Jay Winepol is proud of the expertise and longevity of The Diamond Gallery’s team. Almost all the members have been with Jay for over 10 years, and together they have over 100 years of experience.

They have built a loyal following here in Greensboro. It’s hard to estimate how much joy The Diamond Gallery has brought to the recipients of their jewelry over the

years.

Winepol and his wife, Rhoda, moved to Greensboro in 1972. For 19 years he traveled the East Coast as a representative for a jewelry company, selling to other jewelers.

In 1986, he decided he wanted to leave the road and have his own business. Having seen the way in which many of the stores he serviced were operated, Winepol said he was determined that his store would give his customers an excellent selection of jewelry, topnotch service and great prices. And, during the 30 years of its existence, that’s just what The Diamond Gallery has done.

Now, Winepol said, it is with deep regret that he is retiring and closing The Diamond Gallery. That is not something he really wants to do. You can sense his dismay in leaving the profession and store he loves when you talk to him. Recent health issues are the reason behind the move. He knows it’s time to get to know his new grandchild and spend more time with his wife.

He’ll also have time to travel and more closely follow his favorite sports teams.

Because the store will be closing in approximately three months, now is the time to come in and take advantage of the tremendous goingout-of business sale. You can save up to 75 percent off retail prices on selected merchandise.

Visit them at 2811 Battleground Ave. in Greensboro, in the T.J. Maxx and Ross Dress for Less shopping center, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. To learn more, call (336) 282-3700.

21

22 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

beep (continued from page 21) town here in Randolph County.

I don’t know where there is anybody in this town can count to 20 trillion. But I don’t understand her. I know that absolutely she intends to be president =. Now the Republicans need to get on the ball, because she will steal it if there is any way she can do it. She wants to be it. That said, don’t you want to see a woman president of the US? Not Hillary Clinton I don’t.

%%% I have noticed lately when you hear our leaders say the word transparency or transparent, watch out, because we are getting ready to be lied to.

%%% The left is calling for gun control.

So, how is that working out for cities such as Chicago?

%%% Well, me and a couple of friends, we went to the Trump rally. It was in the Greensboro annex. It was completely filled to the point way passed the fire code. So they had to start turning people away.

So that tells you the Coliseum was packed. In fact, they should have had it in the main Coliseum. But we went to the Hillary Clinton rally today in Raleigh. And I’d say it was probably about one-third of the amount of people there that there was at the Trump rally. I know it was on the news tonight.

They made it sound like it was packed. The building was only one-third the size of the speech area that Trump was in. And there

(continued on page 25)

uncle orson (continued from page 16)

Illustrated. Most Americans don’t read more than a couple of books a year, and the odds are against any one person’s having read any book of mine. Which is fine: You can lead a full and happy life without reading any of my made-up stories. I’d like to think that my readers’ lives are slightly better for having read them, but I’m content with the readership each book happens to earn for itself. My ego isn’t involved in whether people recognize me or not.

Which is a good thing, because except for the local Barnes & Noble, where I do signings so they can’t help but know me, I have never had a bookstore clerk recognize my name from my credit card. This can be profoundly humbling if you’re one of those writers who is convinced that everybody admires their work. Until you’ve done an American Express commercial or had a magazine cover, writers are not celebrities. We’re like soft-drink brands that aren’t Coke or Pepsi. A few people know we exist, but most people skip right past our eight-inch space on the shelves.

Anyway, we paid for the glasses – no extra charge for rushing, either at LensCrafters or the optometrist – stocked up on LensCrafters’ really convenient travel packs of lens wipes, and ... it was 5:30 on Sunday afternoon and, miraculously, I had a new pair of comfortable, good-looking glasses, almost as lightweight as my Marchon frames, and my wife and I had time to go get dinner at Carrabba’s in Chesapeake before heading back south to Waves.

Now, I have to say that one thing that helped reconcile me to mission failure when we thought we weren’t going to be able to get the eye exam was the fact that we Mormons try very hard to be Sabbath-keepers, and

going to a store on Sunday makes us very uncomfortable.

In this case, though, we felt that broken glasses fell under the oxin-the-mire exception to Sabbath rules. If LensCrafters and the optometrist had been closed on Sunday, we would have made the trip on Monday. But since they were already open, by their own previous decision, we felt OK about paying them to labor on Sunday. Mostly OK. As for dinner at Carrabba’s, we’ve always had a restaurant exception when traveling. If we had any reason to think that all restaurants and grocery stores would be closed on Sunday, we’d probably figure out a way to pack our food with us – or, more likely, do all our traveling midweek. But let’s face it – the hotel and hospitality businesses can’t close down on Sunday, anymore than broadcasters can.

Even when Greensboro still had blue laws that closed businesses on Sunday (which was still true when we moved here in 1983), there was one designated drugstore that was allowed to remain open on Sundays to help with emergencies.

Our dinner of burrata caprese salad and mezzaluna pasta was very good – though it was hard to find anything else on the menu that didn’t have some kind of wine in it, which makes it unusable to my alcohol-allergic wife. (Even the wine used in making many soup stocks will trigger a nearly instant reaction of nausea and faintness that ends the meal.)

Even though I’m not allergic, I’ve never found that wine or any other alcoholic beverage adds anything to a sauce or soup. It’s a sharp and nasty taste – at least to somebody like me, who has never willingly tasted

alcohol.

It’s like putting coffee in ice cream or other desserts or dishes. Why? Don’t coffee-drinkers get enough of that flavor in the billions of cups of actual coffee that they consume?

But apparently, once you’re inured to drinking stinky, dreadful-tasting liquids, you start to crave reminders of their flavor and aroma in everything.

So even though we got a good meal at Carrabba’s, I probably won’t regard it as a regular go-to restaurant when traveling, unless I want exactly the meal we had this past Sunday. At most chain Italian restaurants, wine is easily avoided, so the others have to move ahead of Carrabba’s on our preference list. (And yes, we’ve been to Italy and eaten Italian food in some fine restaurants – and almost none of the sauces had wine in them. I guess that in Italy, they assume you’re drinking wine continuously through the meal, so why would you need it in the food as well?)

We made it home to Waves before dark. My wife drove the last half of the trip – I had had only had four hours of sleep the night before, and I could tell I wasn’t going to be a safe driver once we got near the islands.

If I had made the trip alone, I would have pulled off and taken a nap. But since I had a better, though habitually faster, driver than me in the car, there was no reason for us to stop while I napped.

I used my TRTL pillow and slept almost continuously until we were making the turn from Highway 12 into our street. Today, I’m wearing my computer glasses while writing this; my new glasses are resting on the desk beside my Surface Pro 4. That’s how I spent my summer vacation.

The glasses are cool. That doesn’t mean I look cool while wearing them. Painting a sausage yellow doesn’t make it a banana.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

23

YOST Column

Yost Column

Britain Down, 27 Countries To Go

by Scott D. Yost Well, everyone has been all abuzz this week about “Brexit,” so I might as well let that massive event inspire my column too. If you don’t know, Brexit is the separation of Britain from the European Union and the separation of all of us from our retirement funds.

Back when the EU began in the ’90s, I was never really a fan of the move because I enjoyed the uniqueness and individuality of the European countries, and I figured that, over time, the whole unification process would homogenize all of those countries until they were completely identical. It’s like how, with globalization, you’ll travel thousands

of miles to some exotic far corner of the earth – like Fiji or wherever – and walk out of your hotel room and look down the street and the first three things you see are a KFC, a Wachovia and a Stamey’s barbecue.

Because, basically, more and more each day, every corner of the world looks like Battleground Avenue.

Anyway, in honor of the Brexit, I thought I’d offer a few of my thoughts on the EU countries.

France: The first time I went to France, I was 16 and I went with some fellow high school students and my fond memories of that country begin even before I arrived. The stewardess on Air France was making mixed drinks and she asked me if I wanted one, and I pointed to myself, and said, “Moi?” She smiled and said, “We are in international airspace now so you can have whatever you like. There’s not really any law anymore.”

I lit up like a kid in a Christmas tree shop and said something like, “Yes,

I’d like four gin and tonics and three bourbon and cokes. Make them doubles and keep them coming every 10 minutes until I pass out. Then start bringing them every five minutes.”

As best I can figure, that was my first legal drink. Or rather, my first legal drinks, plural.

And, when we got to France, the rules were the same – apparently there was no law against kids buying alcohol. I think they have a drinking age these days but back then there wasn’t one as far as I could tell. A 3-year-old who was able to clutch money in her hand and who was able to say the word “tequila” could buy as much as her little stroller would carry.

When my new high school age acquaintances and I arrived in Paris, some of the other guys went to the store within 10 minutes of being there and bought a case of beer and they were getting pretty ripped when I came into the room. I was the only one in the group who’d taken any French and I looked at one of the

(continued on page 24)

24 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

yost

(continued from page 23) bottles, which said “sans alcohol.”

I told them, “Hey, not to rain on your parade or anything – but this beer has no alcohol in it.”

They all sobered up right away and one said, “Yeah, I didn’t think this had much kick to it.”

They made me go back to the store with them to make sure that – this time around – they bought real beer.

The next time I went to France was a few years later when I was in college. I was in London and I met these two really pretty American college students who were sightseeing for the summer and the three of us would often hang out together.

One day they asked me, “Well, we really want to go to Paris, but we don’t feel safe going alone – we need a guy to come along. Would you be willing to come with us?”

And I was like, “No, not really, because I am a completely insane person who has no interest in making decisions that will lead to my happiness.”

Actually I said, “Yes, I would be delighted to.”

I had seen the movie Summer Lovers so I had a pretty good idea where that whole thing was going.

We arrived in Paris at the train station about 2 a.m. and we found an open restaurant and met these four very nice French guys who were security guards at the George Pompidou Museum of Modern Art. They took us into the museum and gave us a private tour before it opened.

The guards never slept and partied all the time, and I asked how they could party so hard, and they kept saying, “La bombe atomique!” They explained that, since the atomic bomb could kill everyone at any moment, you need to party all day everyday.

They were very nice, wonderful people, but I don’t feel like they were very good security guards based on the way they opened up the building for complete strangers in the middle of the night.

Thinking back as a more rational and cautious adult, it strikes me how crazy we were to just get in the car with a group of total strangers in a foreign country, but, in my defense, that was before I had seen Hostel.

England: The first time I went to England was after I met an exchange student in America who was a student at Oxford. I really liked her, so, a while after she went back to England, I went too.

I lived in Oxford for the summer and we would sit on the banks of the Thames and drink “Pimm’s and lemonade” and watch the rowing competitions. Or we would go “punting,” where a guy pushes you around on the river with a long stick as though he had never heard of the concept of paddles.

I liked England but there was one thing about it that I didn’t like at all: the horrible sound of screeching and screaming tires every time you crossed the street.

The problem is that, in England, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road; and – while you think that you have a habit of looking both ways before you cross the street – let me tell you something: You do not. You look exactly one way when you cross the road – the way the cars should be coming.

The drivers know instantly that you’re an American from the way you walk right out into the path of moving cars, and they give you a very mean gesture and shout, “Go home you $%&*-ing Americans! Mind your crossing!”

That’s one thing that I’ll never get about English people: They act like it’s your fault that they are driving on the wrong side of the road.

Italy: People talk as though Italy is this great country but I was not impressed. For instance, everyone speaks so highly about Rome but to be honest the whole place is completely run down. For instance, one time we went to this coliseum that was supposed to be wonderful but it was just falling apart like it was 1,000 years old or something. And a lot of other buildings there as well were crumbling or partially collapsed.

I mean, in some cases, they were absolute ruins.

I thought it might just be Rome, so I went to another city in Italy that everyone raved about, but that city was completely flooded and no one was even trying to get the water out of the streets.

The Italians are nice but, People, how about some upkeep for goodness’ sake!

Germany: The coolest thing about Germany is the signs that say, in German, “Speed limit: Unlimited.”

There’s always a speed limit – it’s just that in some places the speed limit is “unlimited.” Which makes being in a car somewhat frightening.

I mean, you’ll be in a car on the Autobahn and the driver will be going

like 200 miles an hour and you can barely keep from freaking out and then you see cars blowing by you like you’re going backwards.

Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark: I’ll lump these four together because, basically, from what I can tell, these are all more or less the same country. At least, I can’t tell them apart for the life of me. The people all speak with the same accents, and all of these countries have very, very hot blondes everywhere you turn.

I don’t speak a word of Swedish but I do have a very good Swedish accent that I can pull out and use when I need it. When I was there, I would say things like “Vinga verda vinga, ja?” I don’t know what it means but I feel certain it means something.

The first night I spent there freaked me out because I woke up at 3 a.m. and the bright sunshine was streaming through my window – so it is very disorienting.

All the Scandinavians who live there are so sexually free and uninhibited that they go to public saunas together and get naked with strangers and think nothing of it. They are so uninhibited it is just weird.

I remember Frogner Park in Oslo, which I call “Pornographic Park.” I couldn’t even put a picture of the statutes from that park in this newspaper if I wanted to and, in Norway, it’s a public park, like Center City Park is here. And there are pornographic statues everywhere you turn. I wanted to run around and throw my jacket over the heads of the children, but their parents were perfectly fine with it. They were walking around like people in The Twilight Zone, like they couldn’t see what was all around them. I wanted

to scream: “Do you not see this!?”

The great thing is that the woman in these countries are fantastically beautiful and have sexy accents that really work for me. I read one time that it’s because everywhere the Vikings invaded and plundered, they took the most beautiful women back with them.

So I guess if you do that for a couple of centuries, eventually you have a whole country full of hot women.

The women are very close talkers who smile at you and drape themselves all over you and look deep into your eyes, and you think, “Man, I’m doing great with these women,” but it’s just cultural – it means nothing – and when the clock strikes midnight they were like “All right, godnatt, we have a tough day herring fishing in the fjord tomorrow.”

Spain: Hot. I mean, Spain is soooo hot. It has been hot every time. Oh, and humid.

Portugal: I’ve actually never been to Portugal but I feel like I have because Rhino Times Editor John Hammer and his wife, Elaine, go there every single time they take a vacation and then they force everyone in the office to look at all their pictures. It was where they met and it is the only place they ever go. That kind of makes me want to go there but, on the other hand, I don’t want to enjoy a country so much that I can never travel anywhere else, so I’ll probably continue to avoid it.

Amsterdam: For some reason, I can never remember anything about Amsterdam after I’ve been there.

Amsterdam is always kind of a haze for me. I do remember that they have a really good dessert called Space (continued on next page)

This is one of the only views of Oslo’s Fronger Park that we can show you – and even this view has to be from a good distance

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

yost (continued from previous page) Cakes. I mean they are really, really good.

Oh, there is one other thing I recall: When you walk down the street at night and look in the store windows, instead of the usual merchandise they have women in sexy corsets and high heels just standing behind the glass with their certificates of cleanliness on display. The women sit in the windows and smile these giant, welcoming smiles at you as you go by. They always seem very friendly.

Czechoslovakia: I went to Prague once years ago when it was part of the Soviet Union, so we had to go through an Iron Curtain border crossing. We were coming from Amsterdam and, right before we got to the border, a guy on our tour bus – Steve from Canada – mentioned that he had brought some marijuana from Amsterdam with him.

We all said, “Are you nuts?? You can’t take weed into the Soviet Union. They will lock you up for like 10 million years!” And he got

worried and he leaned over in his seat and he ate all of it.

Ten minutes later we were at the border and it was just like in the spy movies. It was maybe 100 degrees outside and we were all sweating profusely and they lined us up, and Russian boarder guards walked up and down the line holding submachine guns, while other guards called us over one by one as they rifled through our suitcases. I was thinking, man, this is really pretty intense.

And the dogs were all excited and pointing to Steve, and barking, “This guy! This guy right here!!”

So anyway, the EU was fun while it lasted and, now that Britain’s pulling out, look for the whole thing to collapse like a house of dominos.

But, Brexit? Don’t sweat it. Thirty smaller countries is much better than one big one. And, as for your retirement, well, just plan to retire in London where a US dollar will now go a very long way.

beep (continued from page 22) wasn’t that many people there. And they went in a C-shape around her.

I was not too impressed with the Hillary Clinton turnout today. No wonder she’s been running so many ads in North Carolina this week.

Because she was lucky to pack the room. And Trump could have filled the whole complete Greensboro Coliseum main lobby, you know, and still had people turned away.

%%% Yeah, Steely Dan Fan Man. I was reading in the paper the other day – if I read it correctly – it said that one, or more, auto manufacturers were now going to have to stop putting Takata airbags in their new cars. I don’t understand why they were allowed to continue doing it up until now to begin with. As soon as we found out about this crud a year or two ago, it should have stopped right then, right there. In fact, they shouldn’t have been able to put anything in any new vehicles until they fixed what they had ruined, even if it put them out of business. I don’t care if they go out of business.

What I care about is my safety. And I will not buy any car newer than

1990 from any auto manufacturer ever again. Period. And that’s what I have to say about that. They did it to themselves. And I hope a lot of other people see it the same way.

%%% I believe the only real difference between habitual liar Hillary Rodham Clinton and king Barack Hussein Obama is Hillary wears a skirt and blouse with an occasional pants suit, and king Obama a suit and tie. After that, they are both ungodly, leftist, progressive, Marxist ultra-liberals who I believe will pay a heavy price on Judgment Day. As far as I’m concerned, that day for them can’t get here soon enough.

They may think they can fool the American people, but they cannot fool God almighty.

%%% Yes, Loretta Lynch’s speech the other day was very troubling. Talks about love versus terrorism. I don’t know which direction this country is going in, but the other issue is the tweets that came from the guy from Orlando that shot the 49 people.

The Democrats seem to be content (continued on page 30)

25

26 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Children’s Home Society’s Beach Music Blast

Photos by Sandy Groover

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

tax reval

sudoku_533A

(continued from page 10) NC General Statutes charge the counties in the state with valuing every parcel of property at least once every eight years. In that process, the tax departments look closely at “sales ratios,” which is calculated by dividing the assessed value of property, when it sells, by the selling price, and multiplying the result by 100. So, for instance, a house with an assessed value of $95,000 that sold for $100,000 would have a sales ratio of 95 percent.

In the mid ’90s, the sales ratios of homes and other property in Guilford County were right at 100 percent – as they should have been immediately after a revaluation. However, as home prices rose dramatically during that period, the average sales ratio hit 84 percent in 2000 and bottomed out in early 2003 at about 80 percent. After the 2004 revaluation, the average ratio went back to 99.4 percent. After the housing collapse, Guilford County saw average sales ratios hit about 104 percent.

Chavis said that the last revaluation, in 2012, was uncharacteristic because, in the years that led up to it, housing

27

prices first climbed very high and them tumbled – leaving home prices about where they were eight years earlier.

According to Chavis, the reassessments for this year should all be finished by late November – which will give the Tax Department some time to review the numbers before the new values are set.

Chavis said that Guilford County may move to an even shorter cycle for revals – once every four years instead of the once every five years.

“I don’t know of any disadvantages,” he said of moving to the shorter cycle.

In the past, one objection to a shorter cycle has been the added expense of hiring outside appraisers for a year or longer; however, doing the revaluation entirely in house mitigates that concern.

Chavis said many other counties in North Carolina have gone to a four-year cycle. Since a revaluation is a lengthy process, as soon as one is done, those tax departments are getting geared up for another one.

“It keeps you in the environment and keeps values in line with the

market place,” he said.

Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Jeff Phillips said the commissioners hadn’t studied the matter or heard the request yet. He said he was open to hearing the advantages and disadvantages of such a move.

Guilford County Marty Lawing said the four-year cycle might work well for Guilford County. He said the commissioners may see that request come to them in the future.

Forsyth County is conducting a revaluation this year as well, and Forsyth County Tax Assessor John Burgiss said his department finds the four-year cycle beneficial.

“That seems to be a good approach for Forsyth County,” he said. “The state mandates at least every eight years, and the four-year system seems to be more equitable in taxation and in fairness.”

Burgiss said he isn’t ready to predict how Forsyth County’s tax base will change once that county’s 116,000 parcels are all reassessed.

“We don’t have any final numbers,” he said.

He added, “There has not been a lot of change in market values as a whole in Forsyth County.”

He also said that the appreciation

Created

by Peter Ritmeester/Presented

by Will varies Shortz or deprecation of property

according to location, types of structures and other factors. 7 According to Burgiss, 8 one interesting segment of the tax base 3 in his county2 has been 9apartment complexes.

9“The 7multifamily 3 1 or apartment market in Forsyth county has been 1 interesting to watch,” he said.

He3said that at 8 first there5was a big undersupply of that type of housing 7 was 1 met with a lot of building but that and now there 5 8may be 4more apartment complexes than is needed.

8

9

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Sudoku Solution

533A

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

(c) PZZL.com

Solution sudoku_533A

From last week’s issue

3 7 5 9 1 6 4 2 8

2 1 8 4 5 3 7 9 6

4 9 6 7 8 2 1 5 3

1 5 2 3 7 4 6 8 9

9 3 4 6 2 8 5 1 7

8 6 7 5 9 1 3 4 2

6 4 9 2 3 5 8 7 1

7 8 3 1 4 9 2 6 5

5 2 1 8 6 7 9 3 4

533A

28 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

Music for a Sunday Evening in Hester Park

Photos by Sandy Groover

softball

(continued from page 12)

County government earlier this year to become the elections director in Forsyth County.

The fact that the city had no mathematical chance to win the cup this season, since the county had already won two out of three Guilford Cup competitions this year, also may have led to the city’s lack of motivation.

“With that said,” Thigpen added, “the county has had five practices and we noticed the city’s GCTV vans driving in and out and stopping while we were practicing, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that

they were scoping us out and were so overwhelmed with what they saw that they decided to make a very wise and strategic move to pull out.”

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, when asked about the cancellation by the city, said she was just hearing that for the first time and added that she wasn’t sure of the reason.

Fox, when asked about it, said that, to his knowledge, there was never a game scheduled for that date. He added that, as one of the co-founders of the Guilford Cup competition, he would have known if there had been.

He also said the City of Greensboro had been very engaged in recent weeks with important city business.

“We just passed a budget,” Fox said.

It should be mentioned that Guilford County also just passed a budget and managed to field a softball team.

Both sides are planning to have a third Guilford Cup season starting in the fall. However, the Guilford Cup games may be expanded to include some less athletic competitions in order to give more people a chance to participate.

Vaughan said that, in future competitions, she was interested in including other events for those people who might not want to participate in

football, basketball or softball. The mayor suggested bowling might be a good addition to the lineup. Others have suggested a bridge competition – though it isn’t clear where the county or the city would find players both old enough and smart enough to know how to play bridge.

Whatever the future holds, county officials are now eagerly waiting for the return of the Guilford Cup trophy to put proudly on display in the Old Guilford County Court House. Thigpen wrote in his email, “In the coming weeks, the City will be returning the 2015-16 County Cup to its rightful place with the County. I’m sure that presentation will take place at a televised Guilford County Commissioner meeting.”

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

Letters NAPA’S RESPONSE TO THE HOMELESS DEAR EDITOR,

When in Napa, California, years ago, I noticed an advertisement/article in their local newspaper concerning their method of dealing with their homeless problem. In short, the local police picked up the person and, if they had no permanent address in Napa, they bought them a one-way bus ticket back to San Francisco. They did feed them and attend to any immediate needs before placing them on the next bus. Seems like Napa also had excellent benefits for their real local homeless and the migration from San Francisco became a large problem.

Terry Wyrick

SOCIAL SECURITY IS DOING FINE DEAR EDITOR,

The Republican-controlled Congress would have us believe that Social Security is going broke. Not so.

The Social Security board of trustees just released the good news that our Social Security fund is in excellent shape with a $2.8 trillion surplus and growing daily, and at a cost of less than penny on every dollar being spent on administrative fees. The Republicans, however, still persist in attempts to privatize Social Security and hand it over to Wall Street investors to manage a system that doesn’t need fixing.

So what are we to do to protect

LETTERS To The Editor

TO THE EDITOR benefits for retirees and the disabled?

The way is clear and obvious. Do all we can to insure that Sen. Richard Burr and Republican candidates for the House of Representatives are given early retirement. Your vote can make it happen.

Bob Kollar

YES TO GUNS, BUT WITH CAVEATS DEAR EDITOR,

Our founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment to keep our government from disarming the citizenry, rightfully protecting us from the overreach of government that brought about the end of British rule. Any effort to permanently deny Americans the right to own guns is wrong.

In 1776, guns were muzzle-loaded single shot muskets and pistols.

Mass murder by a single gunman was unimaginable. Today, nut cases and hate-filled terrorists using semiautomatic military style weapon (MSW) have murdered unarmed citizens.

Grandstanding knee-jerk reactions to ban guns are objectionable, as is bowing our heads in resignation.

Mentally ill people shouldn’t have access to MSW’s. The current HIPAA inspired frenzy over medical records is an example of government overreach.

Mental health professionals should have a duty to notify local authorities of patients that pose a risk to others.

The authorities could store a patient’s MSW’s until a judge releases them.

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This alone could have prevented Sandy Hook, the Batman movie killings and others. Guns don’t kill, crazies do.

To heck with the current PC attitude.

Direct the FBI to investigate, identify and remove terrorists, period.

Americans have the right to own MSW’s but should be required to safely store and insure them. Near impregnable gun safes are an absolute necessity and proof of their use should be a prerequisite to ownership. We register and insure automobiles, trucks and commercial property. Substantial insurance against the effect of MSW misuse should be required. Gun makers, shop owners and others that profit from the sale of MSW’s should collectively provide the initial funding for claims of injury until adequate funds are banked to enable insurance companies to issue policies and fund claims. Possession of unregistered

MSW’s and assistance in providing a MSW that is used it to harm others should carry lengthy prison terms.

Many MSW owners may object to these increased costs and wish to unburden themselves.

Law enforcement should buy back these guns for 100 percent of their original cost plus inflation. If all eight million MSW’s were re-purposed for $700 each, the cost would be less than the $6 billion Hillary Clinton’s State Department simply misplaced.

Gun ownership is a right, not a privilege. Failure to recognize the responsibilities of gun ownership is nonsense. Americans can show the world that responsible gun ownership can insure that the right can be exercised without spreading the risk of loss to the rest of the population.

Keith Church

(continued on page 30)

30 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

letters

(continued from page 29)

ABORTION SHOULD BE AN ANACHRONISM DEAR EDITOR,

The decision to strike down Texas’s proposed law on abortion clinics is a triumph of politics over patient safety.

Requiring doctors to have admitting privileges, for clinics to have hospital quality facilities, etc. is just common sense.

The lives and future health of mothers is at risk if they are too far away from a hospital. Childbirth emergencies often lead to heavy bleeding. Time is life. Premature deliveries are now viable at 21 weeks if a neonatal ICU is available. Untold viable children are killed rather than given a chance to live. Roe v. Wade was decided in the medical stone age. The day after pill, combined with modern birth control, should make abortion an anachronism.

Abortion may be a right, but it needs severe revision to catch up with modern medicine.

Ed Philpott

made. One quick example: You quote Trump saying, “I was against the war in Iraq from the beginning.” Later you wrote, “He always comes back to his central themes that the US … has to defeat ISIS.” Well, which is it? He can’t simultaneously be against the war in Iraq and in favor of defeating the very people we went over there to wage war against. And that is just one example of many.

Granted, Trump is not nearly as scripted, uninspiring and marionettelike as Hillary Clinton. But, even so, as much as you wrote about how he went with the crowd, I still heard nothing but the same old platitudes and cliches that he’s been spewing out for so long now.

You can write what you want about Donald Trump, that is your journalistic prerogative. But after your adjulating (sic) review of his speech here, you have no right to ever again condemn the mainstream media for their exact same treatment of Hillary Clinton.

John Pugh

CALLING THE KETTLE? DEAR EDITOR,

LOOK TO BREXIT AND THROW OFF SHACKLES Of all the times you have written about how the “mainstream media” DEAR EDITOR, fawns over, flatters, defer to and practically grovels at the feet of Hillary Clinton, can you honestly say that your piece on Donald Trump (“Politically Incorrect Trump Connects with Local Crowd”) was not the same treatment of him?

Your article was just one paragraph after another basically saying two things: One, everything Trump said was great mainly because it was Trump saying it and, two, everything Trump said was great because his supporters blew the roof off with their wild cheering every time he said something (no matter how inconsequential).

At no time did you ever point out any inconsistencies, fallacies or irresponsible statements that Trump

Is it just me or is anyone else noticing a similarity in the events unfolding overseas and what is slowly happening here at home?

The EU has just revealed to Poland their long range plane to eventually do away with national sovereignty among the European nations and make it one big happy family with Brussels and the big boy nations (Germany, France, Italy, etc.) in de facto charge. They want to dissolve borders and individual governmental controls, combine economies and meld the armed forces of each nation into one big EU army.

In other words, total control over all.

Britain just dodged a major bullet.

Now let’s look at the US. Washington and the ruling class

are gathering more and more control for themselves by using alphabet agencies that put out “regulations” written by unelected bureaucrats at the behest of their masters because if it comes out as a law they would have to defend it in court where it would most likely be found unconstitutional and tossed out. But if they can stack the courts then that won’t be so much of a problem. And, by the way, this applies to both sides of the aisle.

With Brexit, the common man stepped up and said “not no, but hell no,” and this really upset the ruling elite. And we are starting to see the same thing here. I do not necessarily like Trump, but he does strike a chord with the average American. He is saying what we have been saying, only he’s doing it on a national level.

And the ruling elite in the Republican Party can’t stand the fact that he has so strong an appeal to the average Joe on the street. Like the EU elites, they are shooting themselves in the foot by the way they are treating him. Look at the raw number of votes he pulled.

Both of these organizations are tearing themselves apart. The main difference is here they are going to bring about the election of a third Obama term in the form of the hildabeast, and all that that is going to unleash on our great nation.

The only way this is going to stop is if we do what the Brits did. Tell the ruling class to pound sand by voting them out. Otherwise, stop complaining and be good little serfs.

Go Galt and go vote

Alan Marshall

MONEY IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE DEAR EDITOR,

The Guilford County school system should be ashamed. I am sick and tired of them playing the “children” card in an effort to obtain more funding for what the taxpayers have already provided for in spades.

The very idea that they cannot afford textbooks, let alone toilet paper, while they waste millions and millions of dollars on tablet devices (toys) that do nothing to enhance anyone’s education, flush additional millions down the toilet for consultants and round table discussions (Let’s remember the $1.6 million they spent for a 2-hour discussion on “achievement barriers brought about by a lack of time for collaboration and planning.”) and an ever-growing, bloated administration that makes the idea that they are lacking for basic necessities absolutely absurd.

When will our school system be held fiscally accountable? They consume

the largest portion of our budget by far. They have all the funding they need to educate our children but they waste it on nonsense and then have the audacity to claim they don’t have enough funding to buy textbooks and toilet paper. Enough is enough.

It is time to hold the school system accountable for their blatant financial malfeasance.

No more additional funding until they begin spending the fortune we already provide them with some measure of competence.

Frank Swanson

Send to letters@rhinotimes.com or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429

beep (continued from page 25) with the fact that they can just edit that out, any reference to ISIS or terrorism. I wonder when Pravda became the news organization of this country that you could do something like that. I’m just totally appalled and amazed that over 40 percent of the voters in the United States would stand for that. That’s not the first time.

They did it with the James Rosen tape. They deleted eight minutes of the tape.

%%% Yes, I was just looking over in your June 16 issue in the salaries for the Guilford County people. And I was just wondering if you could, please, explain what a super custodian is. I’ve done custodial work before, and I’ve never been called a super custodian. And for that kind of salary, I’d like to know what they do. Thank you.

%%% I would like to compliment the News & Record for being the most left-wing socialist Democrat and racist paper in North Carolina. They despise Christians, American patriots, conservatives and the military.

Allen Johnson and Susan Ladd head up their all-star team.

%%% It’s Thursday and king Obama has taken up my news time when I’d like to see the weather.

However, during his course he’s talked about the Supreme Court did not come up with the decision to give these people amnesty that he wanted so bad so they’d (continued on next page)

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

wray (continued from page 5) could have determined that Wray shouldn’t be paid or acting City Manager Bob Morgan, who took over when Johnson was fired on March 3, 2009, could have made that determination.

And the plot thickens. Vaughan recently had $8,500 in legal fees paid by the city after she, at the last minute, decided to hire Amiel Rossabi (who at that time was an attorney with Rossabi

Black Slaughter but has since left that firm), to represent her when she was being deposed in the lawsuit that Eric Robert and Qub Studios filed against the city because Robert didn’t receive any city redevelopment funds for the Union Square redevelopment project.

Vaughan’s bill was paid based on the same policy that Wray is suing over.

When Vaughan was running for City Council in 2009, and the Wray issue was

beep (continued from previous page) be Democratic voters. And that’s the only reason he wanted to do it.

Anybody that the third grade was their senior year in school knows that. But during the course of his conversation, talking, he said, we’re just hoping the election in November is where we don’t have to worry about children being jerked from their parents’ arms. He is just about

as low as you can get. He would make maybe a good dogcatcher when he leaves Washington.

%%% Yeah, this is for the guy who called in, or woman who called in, and said Obama has taken away their Social Security raise. Well, Obama doesn’t take away your Social Security raise.

If you want to know where your Social

fresh, she was quoted as saying that she was in favor of paying the legal bills for David Wray. She was also quoted as saying that the Risk Management Associates (RMA) report had been discredited and the city should get its money back for that report.

The RMA report was the basis for forcing Wray to resign. If the report is discredited – and it certainly is chock full of factual errors – then the whole basis for the fiasco of locking Wray out of his office and forcing his resignation by Johnson is in doubt.

The investigations and treatment of

Wray resulted in the resignation or retirement of the entire Greensboro Police Department command staff with the exception of then Assistant Police Chief Tim Bellamy, who was promoted to chief.

If that report is discredited, as Vaughan said, then the City Council should explain what the rational is for not paying Wray’s legal fees.

Vaughan uncharacteristically did not return a phone call to comment on this article, so whether or not she still believes the RMA report is discredited is unknown.

Security raise is, it went to all the rich people who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. If you keep lowering taxes, then you will never ever get a raise on your Social Security. And who keeps lowering taxes? Republicans.

the world. There’s only bad guns.

But the people are so good, but the guns just jump up out of the box and they start shooting at everybody. So, these Democrats, they’re just going to sit down up there on the floor, and they’re going to pout and whine and just have a pity party. And, so, everybody will feel sorry for them so they can get what they want. And I just feel so sorry for those poor little Democrats. You know what? Thank you so much for this paper. I love it.

%%% Don’t you feel sorry for these poor little Democrats up there in Congress?

They just whine and pout because they don’t get what they want. And king Obama is supposed to give it to them, but nobody will give them what they want. And we all know that there’s not any bad people in

(continued on page 32)

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32 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

under

(continued from page 35)

on in the world.

The Brexit vote is great news for Trump because it was a vote against the establishment. The major political parties in Great Britain were both in favor of remaining. Only the United Kingdom Independent Party was behind leaving.

This vote should send a message to the British Parliament from the people that says: We don’t like where you’re taking us and we don’t care what party you claim to represent, we don’t trust any of you.

If Trump wins, and I think he will, it will be that same sentiment that gets him elected.

As the Republican establishment rightfully claims, Trump is not really a Republican. It’s true. But look at what the rank-and-file Republican Party members thought about the bona fide Republicans running.

Jeb Bush was at the top of the list and he spent over $100 million and dropped out after South Carolina, the second primary. Nobody really supported Jeb Bush just like nobody really supports Hillary Clinton. In fact, their campaigns have a lot in common. Jeb Bush’s real campaign slogan was, “It’s my turn,” and since he couldn’t use that the campaign

came up with a new slogan every couple of weeks. The absolute best or worst, depending on your view of Jeb Bush, was “Jeb Can Fix It.” It was as if Jeb Bush were running to be the country’s handyman and completely misread the mood of the public.

Hillary Clinton’s real slogan is the same, “It’s my turn,” and she also comes up with a new slogan every couple of weeks. The current slogan, “Stronger together,” is, according to some pundits, her seventh slogan during this campaign. Some of the others she has tried and sometimes uses include, “I’m with her,” “Make America whole,” “Love and kindness,” “Break down barriers,” “Build ladders of opportunity” and “Love trumps hate.”

My personal favorite is “I’m with her.” People accuse Trump of being an egomaniac, but “I’m with her” is all about Hillary Clinton.

None of them are even close to “Make American great again,” which is not about Trump but about what he plans to do as president. If slogans make a difference, Trump should win in a cakewalk.

Here’s some advice for a more pleasant summer and fall. Ignore

The New York Times

Hyper-Sudoku 3 4

5 6 9 7 6

1

2 1 4 2 9 5 3 1

5

533B

Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution sudoku_533B

It is kind of amazing that the British still vote with paper ballots. I’ve been voting since 1972 and the first time I voted it was on a machine. As I remember it, the voting machine was larger than a refrigerator, but it was still a machine.

(continued on next page)

beep %%%

Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

(c) PZZL.com

The Muse and I were driving down to the coast on Thursday night when the Brexit votes were coming in and listening to the BBC reports for a couple of hours. The “unbiased” newsreaders at the BBC were bewildered that the returns were

not coming in the way they thought they should and seemed to report on what the actual total was only when absolutely required.

At first I thought it was like tuning into a baseball game where the score was given in the instant before you tuned it, and it seems like forever before they mention the score again.

You can generally figure out who is winning, but it’s nice to know the score.

That turned out not to be the case in these reports. They would mention that the leave supporters should be happy, that the areas that should have been strongly remain were not, and that it was going to bring about all kinds of changes if the leaves won – but they wouldn’t give the totals. Finally, the BBC called it for the Brexit supporters. But even then it seemed some of the newsreaders were holding out hope that a bunch of remain votes would come in and change everything. It didn’t happen.

(continued from page 31)

sudoku_533B

6

the polls. The pollsters don’t seem to have figured out how to deal with the radical change in communication.

People don’t have landlines like they used to and don’t answer their phones.

My mother, who is in her 80s, still has a landline and still answers the phone every time it rings. She gets polled all the time.

I don’t have a landline, don’t usually answer the phone from area codes I don’t recognize and never get polled.

I can’t imagine that young adults who never actually talk on their phones but communicate through texts and social media ever get polled either. How would you poll them?

So much of campaign coverage by the mainstream media is dependent on polls, it’s hard to imagine how they are going to adjust.

Just this week I’ve seen a poll that reports Hillary Clinton is up by seven points and another that it is a dead heat. They can’t both be accurate, but which one is it?

Yeah, I called in about Hammer getting a new picture, but I don’t share the criticisms the caller did in today’s Rhino. I’m not in love with Trump, but given the choice of Hillary and Trump, I think Trump’s the logical choice. Hillary leaves a trail – the Clintons leave a trail of dead bodies behind.

%%% I barely did get out of high school, but I’ve got common sense. Since the FBI said ISIS is in every state in the US, it looks like that somebody up there in DC would set the liquor bottle down long enough to think about putting guards on all our power systems, the big dams like the Hoover Dam, all the tunnels and things where people could really do some damage. But they won’t do it. And absolutely in front of Barack Hussein Obama you can’t use the word Muslim. And I’ve called this in before. It’s my understanding that

if you’re living over there, and your family is a Muslim, your daddy is a Muslim, you’re a Muslim, too. And, I guess, that’s the reason that he don’t want it mentioned, because his daddy was a Muslim. So, turn them all out of Gitmo. They’re hunting one that they lost.

%%% I recently attended the 72nd anniversary of D-Day on June 6 in Bedford, Virginia, of course, home of the National D-Day Memorial.

This was my third trip in the last four years there and can be a great day trip from the triad area just up US 29 North. I felt humbled to be able to talk and shake hands with five D-Day veterans. One veteran said point blank to me that he hopes that God will let him live to see the November election and, hopefully, Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Tears were in his eyes as he said to me, quote, if Hillary Clinton wins, the country

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www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

under

(continued from previous page)

I not only understand, I agree with people who say the idea of electing Trump is scary because they have no idea what he will do – once again, much like the vote by the British to leave the EU. Nobody really knows what that will do, but the majority of British voters were willing to take that chance because they don’t like the way things are going in the EU. I don’t even think Trump knows what he will do. But not knowing what he will do isn’t the same as not having any idea what he will do.

People don’t change their behaviors much during their lives, with notable exceptions for alcoholics who dry out, drug addicts who get clean or regular folks who get addicted to crack or heroin.

Trump has been in the public eye for about 50 years; he’s far less unknown than some of the other candidates who have been elected president.

For example, some people say that Trump might start a nuclear war.

It’s possible, but unlikely, because a nuclear war would be bad for business and Trump is all about business.

Trump will likely be the most business-friendly president we have had in decades. Most of our presidents come from the public sector. They are elected to local office, state office and then federal office or governor and they run for president. Their focus during most of their adult lives has been on being a politician.

Ronald Reagan was an exception.

He was a successful actor and a successful speaker. He served as governor of California and then president, but most of his adult life was

not spent trying to get elected to office.

Trump has skipped the governor stage and is going straight for the jackpot, but he is far from an unknown.

More bad news for Hillary Clinton regarding her emails. It seems that not only did she not turn over all of her government emails to the State Department, she also didn’t use a her own private server because of convenience.

According to several of the emails that she didn’t turn over, which have been made public because of a court order, she did it for the obvious reason – she wanted to control which of her emails would be released to the public.

One thing the whole private email server business proves is that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, it will be the most closed, secretive, private presidency in decades. Without the courts ordering the release of her emails, it seems likely the State Department would have never gotten around to releasing anything.

It seems unimaginable, but when the State Department was first asked for Hillary Clinton’s emails concerning Benghazi, it simply replied that there weren’t any. Then the State Department evidently discovered that it wasn’t just the emails about Benghazi that they were missing, but any emails from Hillary Clinton who had been secretary of state for four years.

All it proves though is that Hillary Clinton is a manipulative liar and everybody in the country knows that already. I don’t see that it hurts her candidacy because her supporters know what she is and support her anyway. The people who are upset by her behavior would never support her.

33

beep (continued from previous page) is finished, end of quote. I was so moved by this statement I started to tear up. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

%%% Referencing the News & Record Thursday, June 23, page A7.

The photographer that took this photo should get the Pulitzer Prize for capturing in color what the Democrats have been doing so eloquently for over 50, 60 years, and that is, what they do best: sitting on their posterior, having temper tantrums and then when they don’t get their way saying nothing of substance and most effectively shafting the public. Their pay should be docked more than once.

%%% As for Bill O’Reilly, I believe in much of what he says politically.

However, the way he says it, I have to cut him off. As soon as he gets on a guest speaker, he does not let them talk, often interrupting three times in a minute. Yes, three times in a minute. Some say he is the most egotistical person in politics since there was another one back in Germany in the 1930s. He also was an egomaniac. Thank you.

%%% I see where Barack Hussein Obama’s immigration bill was thwarted today by the Supreme Court. Bear in mind, the only reason that was a draw was simply because the Republicans wouldn’t allow a vote on his candidate for the new Supreme Court decision, which everyone knows would be

a liberal and would have been the deciding vote on that. That’s why they’re holding out and wouldn’t let him vote. There’s too many good decisions that’s coming down to allow another liberal on there.

He’s already put two on there. It’s enough. I see where in this county down here that there’s at least 10,000 illegal aliens that are going to be affected by that ruling. You multiply that all across the state and you wonder why we’re bankrupt.

%%% Donald Trump drew a comparison between England voting itself out of the European Union and with the politics that are going on in the US now. I’m glad he drew that comparison, because over the next four or five months we can see the demise of the United Kingdom and know that would be what is in store for us here in the US with a Trump presidency. Keep your eyes on England for the next four months.

I just saw on the news the other day where Barack Hussein Obama’s Obamacare is going to be going up, costing people more. I see UnitedHealthcare is getting out of it completely, because they can’t afford it. You’ve bankrupted them. See where all the other ones, BlueCross and them, they’re talking about 20 percent to 30 percent increases and 37 percent increases next year. I’d like to mention something that people seem to have not understood as to why this insurance is going up. We filled our

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34 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

hb2 (continued from page 8) The report from the Senate, which as of Tuesday, June 28, had not discussed a new bill in the Republican Caucus, is that the House wants to make changes.

Regardless of where the plan to make changes originates, the changes so far being discussed are not anything that is going to gain the support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community that has opposed the bill.

A draft of a proposed bill was leaked to the press this week and it evidently includes much of what is being discussed. One major change is to allow employment discrimination lawsuits to originate in state court.

Under HB2, the lawsuits have to originate in federal court and it has been a major sticking point with some people who otherwise said they had no problems with the law.

Also the law would state that North Carolina would follow the federal guidelines on anti-discrimination laws.

This reportedly would not change much of anything, since the state has to follow federal law regardless.

One change that would make a difference is that according to HB2 a person is required to use the bathroom

or locker room facility consistent with the sex as stated on their birth certificate.

In North Carolina, a transgender person that has sexual reassignment surgery can have their birth certificate changed to reflect their new gender.

Some states, however, do not allow people to change the sex on their birth certificate. The law would allow a certificate of sexual reassignment to serve in place of the birth certificate.

However, once a person’s birth certificate or sexual reassignment certificate is changed to reflect their new gender, then they are required to use the bathroom or locker room consistent with the sex on their birth certificate or sexual reassignment certificate, just like everyone else.

The legislature is also reportedly considering increasing the penalties for crimes committed in bathrooms or locker room facilities.

Rep. Jon Hardister said that he could not comment on discussions taking place in the Republican Caucus, but did say, “I totally reject the idea that we are backing down.” He said that it is very rare for a perfect bill to be passed and that the discussions he has had with fellow House members have been

“about how to strengthen the bill and how to make the law better.”

There appears to be little support among Republicans in either house to alter the portion of the bill that makes it a violation of state law for a male to use a women’s bathroom or locker room facilities or for a female to use a men’s bathroom or locker room facilities.

Looking at the proposed bill that

was leaked, it doesn’t appear there is much to cause those who adamantly oppose the bill to change their minds.

But allowing employment discrimination suits in state court and allowing a sexual reassignment certificate instead of a birth certificate for transgender people are changes that appear to correct oversights in the original law.

beep (continued from page 33) country full of illegal aliens. They’re going to the hospitals. They’re taking their entire families with them when they go to the hospitals.

Therefore, higher costs. They pay absolutely nothing for the medical care. They come in here, they’re being paid more money, $1,250 a month more money than an American taxpaying citizen gets for welfare.

%%%

Yeah, hi, Rhino. This is a resident here that lives downtown. And this is about the third night that they’re digging up in front here on the street.

And according to the police, they’re allowed to do this at night: 11, 12 o’clock. Is there no concern for the people that live downtown? What kind of city is this? Digging up the street so you don’t inconvenience the people in the morning when they’re at work. Don’t understand it.

But, then, this is Greensboro.

www.rhinotimes.com | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | RHINO TIMES

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by John Hammer

One thing we have learned from Brexit is, if Donald Trump should get elected then the Hillary Clinton supporters will demand a do-over. Big government wouldn’t be big government if it thought the rules applied to it like they do to everything else.

British Prime Minister David Cameron offered to hold a referendum because he never thought it would pass, not because he was interested in what the people wanted.

Now the powers that be in Great Britain and the European Union are trying to figure out how to convince the British people they don’t want what they think they want.

Another thing we have learned is that polling is useless. I don’t know if it is because of cell phones or because the polling organizations have been infiltrated with highlevel political operatives instead of pollsters, but the polls on Brexit were consistently wrong. The final ones before the election showed remain winning by a couple of points; instead leave won by four points. People like to vote on the winning side, so if the polls had been accurate, then the leave vote totals should have been higher than they were.

In the presidential primaries both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders often out-performed the polls. Presidential primaries are more difficult to call because some states, particularly the smaller ones, don’t have much polling while the larger states, as well as the early states, seem to have new polls every day.

But it seems to be a huge coincidence that the establishment poll numbers appear to be higher than the vote. If the sole problem was polling itself you would expect the numbers to be all over the place, but it appears there is a definite bias in favor of the establishment.

This is a safe prediction, because there is absolutely no way to know if I’m right, but I think if a vote were held today for president that Trump would beat Hillary Clinton by about the same margin that Brexit won.

In fact, the latest poll shows that Clinton is in the lead but still within the margin of error, which is eerily similar to the polls on Brexit just before the vote. The big difference is that neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton is the official candidate of their party, yet.

People in the US have a lot of similarities with those in Great Britain.

And on both sides of the Atlantic, the result is that people are tired of the establishment.

The Republicans in Congress have done nothing other than offer grudging support to President Barack Hussein Obama’s extreme left-wing policies. To their credit the Republicans in the Senate have refused to give the far left wing of the Democratic Party a majority on the Supreme Court, but you also have to question why they approved the appointments of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

It appears the Democrats have done a much better job of keeping the right-wing Republicans off the court than the Democrats. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and has turned out to be a consistent vote for the liberal wing of the court.

Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush, twisted the Constitution into an incomprehensible tangle to support Obamacare. Where are the justices appointed by Democrats supporting Republican causes?

Of course, if Hillary Clinton is elected it all becomes moot and the Supreme Court will be so packed with radical leftists that the Constitution will effectively be thrown out the window.

The Second Amendment will likely be the first to go, but judging from what’s happening on university campuses, the First Amendment may not be far behind. Freedom of speech will be guaranteed only for those who agree with the government.

Those in favor of the European Union have no one but themselves to blame for the exit vote by Great Britain.

The European Union was supposed to be an economic alliance, not a European government, but it has become more and more a federal government of Europe, becoming

involved in all kinds of issues that had nothing to do with an economic union.

Reportedly, with the exit of Great Britain there is move to turn the EU into a country with an army and all the other attributes of a country. It seems what is more likely than becoming a country faster is that the EU will lose more members.

And one of the major issues that caused the British to vote to leave is the uncontrolled immigration into the EU, which is very similar to one of the issues that is going to be critical in the US presidential election.

The differences between the presidential candidates on immigration are night and day.

Hillary Clinton says she will continue Obama’s policies and allow people to cross the border with Mexico at will and Trump famously will build a wall to discourage illegal immigration.

There’s a pretty funny aspect to the move for the European Union to become what it has trying to become for decades – a new country. What makes it funny is that the most common language used by the European Union is English and that will not be the native language of any of the member states. But maybe that’s fair; everyone will be wheeling and dealing in a second language.

On Tuesday, I was listening to NPR, which I had largely given up to keep my blood pressure in the normal zone.

But I couldn’t believe how panelist after panelist talked about how shocked they were that Great Britain

voted to leave the European Union.

I stopped listening, but maybe some alert caller called in and asked why they were shocked. Were they shocked because they thought that the British people should agree with them and Obama? Were they shocked because they thought the British establishment would be able to finagle the vote? Even if they believed the polls, which is a really dangerous thing to do these days, the final polls showed that it was within the margin of error.

It turned out the vote wasn’t that close. Despite what people are now saying, 52 percent to 48 percent is not a nail biter election. In most elections 4 percent is considered a comfortable margin, close but comfortable.

So the leave side won by a comfortable margin. The polls, which unlike the election were certainly rigged, showed it too close to call.

Why should anyone be shocked if leave won?

In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry, 51 percent to 48 percent. Nobody was talking about how shocked they were that Bush won. A lot of liberals were extremely disappointed, accused Bush of being unfair and generally thought anyone who voted for Bush should have their head examined, but the results of the election were not shocking.

The results of the Brexit vote were not shocking either to people who are paying attention to what’s going

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36 RHINO TIMES | Thursday, June 30, 2016 | www.rhinotimes.com

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