Thanks to Law Day Program Sponsors and Participants -

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Sponsored by The League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad, the Greensboro Bar Association, Court Watch of North Carolina, the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, North Carolina A&T State University and funded, in part, by the League of Women Voters Education Fund and the Program on Constitutional and Legal Policy of the Open Society Institute.

LIBERTY UNDER LAW: Empowering Youth, Assuring Democracy

Panel Discussion:
May 1, 7-8:30 p.m.

Where: Elon University Law School
201 N. Greene St., Greensboro

Parking: Free Parking in the Bellemeade parking deck or on the street

Moderator: Steven Friedland,Esq., professor, Elon University Law School.

Panelists: Judge Susan Bray, Chuck Hodierne, Lewis Pitts, Esq., Matt Comer, Malcolm Kenton and YOU.

Winning entries from the student multi-media contest will be displayed.

Law Day has been celebrated in our country each year since 1958 when President Dwight Eisenhower declared it "a day of national dedication to the principals of government under law."

More from the American Bar Association.

Photos from 2006 Law Day, click on Law Day on left side of site.

LAW DAY Tuesday, May 1 in Greensboro

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LIBERTY UNDER LAW: Empowering Youth, Assuring Democracy

Panel Discussion:
May 1, 7-8:30 p.m.

Where: Elon University Law School
201 N. Greene St., Greensboro

Parking: Free Parking in the Bellemeade parking deck or on the street

Moderator: Steven Friedland,Esq., professor, Elon University Law School.

Panelists: Judge Susan Bray, Chuck Hodierne, Lewis Pitts, Esq., Matt Comer, Malcolm Kenton and YOU.

Sponsored by The League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad, the Greensboro Bar Association, Court Watch of North Carolina, the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, North Carolina A&T State University and funded, in part, by the League of Women Voters Education Fund and the Program on Constitutional and Legal Policy of the Open Society Institute.

Winning entries from the student multi-media contest will be displayed.

Law Day has been celebrated in our country each year since 1958 when President Dwight Eisenhower declared it "a day of national dedication to the principals of government under law."

More from the American Bar Association.

Photos from 2006 Law Day, click on Law Day on left side of site.

Hey Sprint !

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I guess I'm not alone.

This comment was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution VENT Section today (April 19, 2007)

" Thanks, Sprint, for showing me how truly unimportant one customer is. Five letters to five execs and zero responses. Your customer no-service works well. "

Comments in the VENT Section come from readers and change daily.

I've Had It With Sprint ! ! !

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Here is a copy of a letter going to Sprint Customer Service.
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April 15, 2007

Sprint PCS
P.O. Box 8077
London Kentucky 40742

Dear Customer Service Representative,

I’ve had it with Sprint/Nextel.

I have been trying to make a call all afternoon and I get the same message that I get more and more frequently, mostly on weekends. “Sprint PCS Svc not available.” Why Not???

My service has gotten progressively poorer since the two companies merged. In January I went into a Sprint Store in Greensboro. I wanted to purchase a new phone because the one I was using seemed to be worn out. The dial didn’t light up and I was not able to see the address book, calls record, etc.

The employees watched me as I looked around at the selection of phones. They seemed only interested in selling me a new service plan. I said that I didn’t want a new plan and didn’t want to renew my old plan for an extended period. They were not interested in helping me after that.

I have been a Sprint customer for many years and with the service getting worse and worse, I did not want to get tied into a long-term commitment. I just wanted a new phone. All phones were several hundred dollars unless they were purchased with a service contract. So, I went to the desk in the front of the store and waited for awhile before being told by the woman there that she didn’t know anything and I would have to go to the back of the store to get any service.

At the “Service Desk” at the back of the store, I asked the attendant if I could just use an old phone that I used before I got the one that didn’t work or if I could get the bad one fixed. She told me that they didn’t repair equipment. She played with her computer a few minutes and told me that I didn’t have an account, or that she couldn’t find one for me.

I left the store.

I found my old phone and called Sprint Service to have it activated. It took 5 days to get the phone activated. On some of the calls I was transferred to several different people. Each time I called, I followed the directions I was given and I was told that it took awhile and would work in a few hours. It didn’t.

On one of the calls, a nice lady told me that I was not on the Sprint network. My account had been transferred to another place and I would have to call another number to access a service person. I called, but there was no one there to help me. When I finally got a person I followed instructions and got the same result. No Service.

The weekend arrived and I called again and found out that there was no service on weekends and I would have to call back Monday morning. The phone was finally activated Tuesday. Service has not improved. If I try to reach customer service about a dropped call or to get an account of my usage, I can seldom get through. Either the call is dropped or I get a recording that I can’t get information about account usage.

Even before this problem with activating my phone, I have had many problems with the service since the merger of Sprint and Nextel. I started dropping lots of calls. I dialed the trouble number and told an automated answering service that I had a dropped call.

I did this so that the service provider would know that I was getting lousy service and maybe they would fix it. After several months of this, I started getting messages that said stay on the line because my phone needed some updating or something. I did this for the first few times and it took several minutes. But that didn’t stop the problem. Later, when this message came on, I waited, let them do their thing and when it didn’t work I was then told to wait for a technician. After waiting up to 10 minutes, the phone cut off. This happened several times. I waited. I never talked to a tech person. I think this was just to get rid of me. And it finally worked. I will change my service this week.

The check that I have been sending Sprint for many years will not contribute to the $20 million+ salary of Gary Forsee ever again.

A long-time, patient customer who gave Spring more than enough chances.




Diane G. Davis
Cell phone number ----------

Bad Air in North Carolina

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The Business Journal reports that CO2 from coal-fired power plants in North Carolina increased by 52 per cent between 1990 and 2004. This was in a report from U.S. Public Interest Research Group that used data provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.

And from Raleigh news that another coal-fired power plant has been approved for North Carolina. The Raleigh N&O reports that one of the two coal-powered plants requested by Duke power has been approved.

The article also says that North Carolina is among about 30 states that have no policy mandating environmentally friendly energy use. But several bills have been introduced that would mandate reductions in emissions over the next 10 years or more.

And all this bad news as we celebrate "Earth Day" in Greensboro.

What are we thinking ? ? ?

RE: a tip for the N&R

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I agree with dhoggard’s suggestion

We need more investigative reporting by people who are paid to do it. Just repeating what the government tells lets us in on is not enough. Good reporting includes looking under the covers and behind the doors.

Over-payments and juggling money around are not new. I have questioned some of Greensboro's expenditures that have been passed under the guise of the "Consent Agenda." Check out a questions I asked long ago.

I am a big proponent of open government, especially when it concerns public money.

If YOU'RE Blogging YOUR Ignorance of English

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I understand that blogging is not a class in grammar or spelling. Bloggers write and are read because of their ideas and their willingness to state their news and opinions for the whole world to see. I admire bloggers who are willing to have on-line, on-the-record conversations.

Now, for my criticism: I am a bit embarrassed by the use of YOUR to mean You Are. YOUR is not a contraction. It is a possessive pronoun. YOU'RE is a contraction meaning YOU ARE. I cringe when I read YOUR used incorrectly on some of my favorite blogs.

We all (or most of us) make gramatical and spelling mistakes. This happens when we are typing too fast or when we don't proof read or even if we do, it is hard to proof our own wok. I'm not complaining about gettomg diingers on the wrong jeys. Oops, I mean fingers on the wrong keys. I'm not complaining about long, run-on sentences or lots of things we do to try and make our point. But this YOUR and YOU'RE thing really bugs me.

I hope this criticism is taken as constructive, not mean-spirited. And for anybody who cares, I know I make lots of mistakes; but, confusing your with you're is not one of them. I also know the difference between there, their and they're.

For more on this subject try English-Zone.com

Hit 'em in the money bags

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The North Carolina House voted unanimously Tuesday, April 3, 2007, in favor of House Bill 291 that would require the state to divest its holdings in companies that do business or have strong ties to the Sudanese government. That government is accused of genocide and human rights abuses in the Darfur region. North Carolina would be the first state in the Southeast to enact such a ban if the bill becomes law, supporters say. Treasurer Richard Moore has already taken steps on his own to sell the State’s holdings in nine companies that have done business with Sudan.

More Dump Woes

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Most people stop thinking about garbage when it leaves their trashcan. Where it goes is of no concern to them.
Trash should be a concern for everyone. The pollution of land, air and water has been proven many times over.
The cost of undoing the damage is much more than the cost of disposing of our garbage in a responsible way.
Trash-to-Energy is a better solution than landfills.

A recent comment on my post a year ago about a dump in High Point, NC led me to an interesting web site called theDumpSite. It is the place to learn the truth about living near the Land Fill in High Point, NC.

The comment said in part: "We've been on Kersey Valley's case since it opened 14 years ago.
Our objections were not so much the landfill per se but the deceit we found.
Like High Point using an extraterritorial jurisdiction iron fist against disenfranchised non-city dwellers to put a heavy industrial land use in the midst of their residential area.
Like making false promises about its excellence and ignoring us or denying it when we showed they were false."

Supreme Court Ruled 9 to 0 Against Duke Energy Pollution

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A victory for the environment! ! !

The United States and Environmental Defense filed suit against Duke Energy for violating Clear Air Act rules when it renovated its plants in North Carolina and South Carolina. The US Supreme Court agreed.

From The New York Times reort today:
The Supreme Court gave a boost Monday to a federal clean air initiative aimed at forcing utilities to install pollution control equipment on aging coal-fired power plants.

From the Environment Defense web site.
The suit against Duke Energy, the country's third-largest power company, centered on its costly renovations to 30 coal-fired electric generating units at eight power plants in North Carolina and South Carolina. Many of these facilities had been operated sporadically or not at all and were due to be retired and replaced. Instead, Duke Energy extensively rebuilt them resulting in significant increases in particulate- and smog-forming pollution, but did not obtain permits nor install pollution control equipment as required by law.