Gate City Bomber

Gate City Bomber is the story of homegrown terrorist attacks taking place right here in the City of Greensboro, North Carolina. It's unique in that it stars people you really know portraying some of them in ways you've never seen them before. Gate City Bomber is in-fact a novel, a work of fiction but it is based upon the reality in which we live today. And you can read it online for free by clicking on Gate City Bomber and following the links through this harrowing story that takes place right here at home.

Giant Amazon Snake Creeper

A carnivorous plant native to remote sections of the Amazon Jungle that feeds almost exclusively on Boa Constrictors and other snakes.

The Giant Amazon Snake Creeper grows primarily in the tops of trees and like its favorite food, kills by constriction before pulling its prey inside of itself where the rotting, composting and digestion process begins.

Growing up to 500' long, a single Giant Amazon Snake Creeper can sometimes overload the trees they grow in causing both to fall to the ground. While the life expectancy of a Giant Amazon Snake Creeper is only a few short weeks after falling to the forest floor one plant can wreck havoc to the community upon which it falls forcing entire villages to have to be abandoned.

On occasion Giant Amazon Snake Creepers have been known to eat other animals as well as humans.

Sometimes I Need A Break From Politics

So I call on my friend Veggie Head Stalker from VegetableStalker.com and his faithful Baridog, Spud, to Wackemall for me. Veggie never misses a shot and Spud always buries the bones where they'll never be found.

The Truth About The Billy Jones Foundation

All his life Billy Jones was a greedy man who only cared about making a profit. His company, Billy Jones Reality, was known throughout every state in the American South as a slum lord who took advantage of the poor at every opportunity while only doing the minimum required by court orders to keep Billy's thousands of rental properties up to minimum housing standards.

For over 5 decades Billy Jones ran his business in this way accumulating millions, perhaps billions in cash and properties.

As Billy began to get older he began to become concerned about how he might be remembered. Not wanting to be remembered for the cheap, skinflint, greedy slumlord he really was, Billy decided to put some of his money into his newly formed, non profit Billy Jones Foundation of Greater Greensboro.

Soon after his death his heirs began donating the foundation money to so-called "worthy" causes the first being a big music barn where rich people from all over the country could come to enjoy concerts the working class could never afford to buy tickets to see. His heirs actually started introducing themselves to strangers as philanthropists-- whatever that means.

Billy would be proud.

Soon after it was announced that the Billy Jones Foundation had given a Million Dollars to a local homeless non profit that would be renting houses for 25 homeless families.

Now the Billy Jones Foundation was being touted as heroes in the local media.

Of course, what the local media never reported was that Billy Jones Reality owned the 25 houses the local homeless non profit would be paying the rent for. Billy Jones Reality donated the money to the Billy Jones Foundation, got a tax deduction for doing so, the Billy Jones Foundation donated the money to the local homeless non profit and the local homeless non profit paid the money to Billy Jones Reality.

But it didn't end there.

When the news of the Million Dollar donation spread, lots of other local non profit foundations, corporations and individuals also donated to the local homeless non profit to help more homeless families. So the local homeless non profit rented even more houses and apartments from Billy Jones Reality who remains a slum lord despite the fact that the Billy Jones Foundation continues to give money away.

Soon every unit Billy Jones Reality could get their hands on was rented but there was a limit on how long the local homeless non profit would pay the rent for each family-- eventually they had to stand on their own as it should be.

Now Billy Jones is remembered as a hero and his heirs philanthropists but just as soon as those people the homeless non profit placed in homes owned by Billy Jones Reality miss a rent payment they will once again be homeless.

So what really changed besides our perception? And why isn't Billy Jones Reality also required to stand on its own just as those who live in its homes are required to do?




Of course, as you know, Billy Jones (That would be me.) is penniless, never owned a reality company, has no living heirs and never founded a non profit foundation. Obviously this story is fictitious.

Or is it?

Brick Mansions

As you enjoy this full length movie remember Heritage House, Glenwood, Bessemer and the other great neighborhoods deliberately destroyed by Greensboro's Elites over the decades:

Where Are Charles And Nina Coffey?

I awoke from my afternoon nap dreaming about today's News & Record editorial thinking about what they had wrote:

"...Charles Coffey and his wife, Nina — who have been harder to find than Elvis."

And thought to myself, Elvis is dead. I was in Memphis in 1977, that's why they can't find Elvis. Needless to say, with what I now know about Sonny Vestal my mind couldn't help but think the worst.

Sonny's father, Gloyd Vestal Sr killed Angelo Pennisi in 1969 over a $6,000 Cadillac that Gloyd had apparently stolen and sold without a title then tossed Pennisi's body out of an airplane into Lake Gaston.  After a few years of trials with a crooked lawyer named Jim Swisher of the law firm Cahoon & Swisher, the charges were reduced to manslaughter. Old time Greensboro residents all know Jim Swisher's reputation.

The News & Record reported that Sonny Vestal had lost his real estate license for ripping off a trust account. That trust account belonged to Mike Elliott of Piedmont Premiere Properties  who had hired Sonny Vestal's real estate management company to manage accounts for him.

According to Sonny the money was invested in a restaurant named Capone's. You know, like Al Capone, the notorious gangster many tell me Sonny seems to admire and models himself after. According to Sonny his partner ran off with all the restaurant equipment and was never seen again.

Sonny's partner in that heist was a Mr George Michael Glykis,  a long time employee of Sonny's father Gloyd Sr, and last known to be hiding from Sonny in Savannah, Georgia probably in fear of his life and running up a few bills as he rushed to get the hell out of Dodge... er, I mean, Greensboro.

By the way, I don't know if it has anything to do with it or not but Sonny has family (cousins) in Chatham County where George's tax lien was filed.

Anyway, with all this info about Sonny coming in via my team of investigators and nobody seeming to know where Charles and Nina Coffey are I couldn't help but wonder...  How long have Charles and Nina been gone? When was the last time anyone saw them? Are Charles and Nina in the bottom of a lake somewhere? And has anyone even checked to see if they're alright? Maybe that's what happened to all the money at Heritage House? And when Charles and Nina found out... cement shoes.

But hey, maybe I'm just getting all worked up over nothing and shouldn't have taken my nap so soon after I ate my lunch. I mean, the homemade eggplant Parmesan was great but you know what the aftereffects can do, right? Probably should have baked it instead of frying it.

How To Steal Property From Poor Homeowners

A work of fiction... sorta'.

Let's say you've got your eye on a piece of property that isn't in the best part of town but has the potential to become a great commercial property. Only problem is about 400 mostly sick, elderly and poor people live in 170 separately owned condominiums there and you're not willing to pay the kind of money it would take to convince them to sell.

Now let's just say that you're an attorney, retired state senator and partner in a business that manages homeowners associations and the homeowners association for that very condominium project just happens to be among your portfolio.

Add to that your wife is mayor and a well known city councilman and attorney along with an often controversial retired county commissioner and commercial real estate salesman just happen to be investors. Oh, and the disbarred attorney husband of a city councilwoman is also an investor. Nothing can go wrong because the daughter of the city councilwoman is the assistant district attorney so even if you get caught it never goes to court.

The first step might be to pocket the money paid by the homeowners and skip paying the water bill until the city water services department department starts making waves about the long overdue bill.

The second step might be to divert the city's code enforcement department's attentions elsewhere so that problems there go unnoticed for far too long.

The third step might be to leak the story to an ambitious local blogger/activist with a history of writing about social issues and blight, even perhaps pushing the issue into the local newspapers to get folks all stirred up. You know, make yourselves available to the blogger for interviews so the local newspaper will want to run his story even though newspapers don't like to run stories written by local bloggers.

The forth step could be to release a press release overstating the number of police and 911 calls to that address so that it appears to be the most dangerous place in town.

The fifth step would possibly be to force everyone, even those who own their homes, to leave declaring the place a public nuisance and taking the property for the water bill without taking anyone to court or serving any sort of due process.

Only problem is: the blogger you slipped the story to found out about your little plan and started making threats. What to do, oh what to do?

You could offer him a piece of the deal but unlike the rest of you who are all living in mansions and taking European vacations the blogger is living in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, a single parent begging for rides to city council meetings because his car is out of gas. He isn't going to wait until you sell and cash in on your new project as that might take years.

So what do you do? You have city staff create a request for proposals and give him a make work contract that can be renewed every 6 months at the taxpayers' expense.

Is that pretty close to the way it all happened?

Ben, Mike? Nancy? Don? Yvonne? Skip? Paul? Jim? Anyone?

First Tee, Second Swing

A little bird came flying in from the golf course a while ago so excited I could hardly understand what she had to say. "Calm down," I said, "I told you not to fly so close to the golfers, that a stray ball might hit you. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she tweeted, "I'm just excited about what I heard about First Tee of the Triad."

"You mean Greensboro Councilman Mike Barber's gig?" I asked. "Here, have some lemonade and cool your feathers."

"Yes," she sang, "First Tee has a program they call Second Swing where golfers can donate their old golf clubs and other golf gear and stuff."

"Really?" I asked.

"Really," she chirped. "It's tax deductible and everything."

"So what does First Tee of the Triad do with the donations they take in through their Second Swing program?" I asked "Do you like the lemonade?"

"Great lemonade," she fluttered. "They sell the stuff they take in and use 75% of the money to go towards the programming."

"You mean programming like teaching poor kids to play a game most will never be able to afford to play on their own?"

"Yes!" she chirped, "Isn't it exciting!"

"So what do they do with the other 25%?" I asked.

"Oh that," she said as she took to flight, "Mike Barber puts the other 25% in his pocket."

What can I say, my sources are birdies

Greensboro's Elites Hurting Economic Growth

An adaptation of the Associated Press article, Income gap hurting economic growth, many economists say 

Greensboro-- The growing gap between the richest Greensboro citizens and everyone else isn't bad just for individuals.

It's hurting the Greensboro economy.

So says a majority of more than three dozen economists surveyed last week by The Associated Press. Their concerns tap into a debate that's intensified as middle-class pay has stagnated while wealthier households have thrived.

A key source of the economists' concern: Higher pay and outsize stock market gains are flowing mainly to Greensboro's elites. Yet these households spend less of their money than do low- and middle-income consumers who make up most of the population but whose pay is barely rising.

"What you want is a broader spending base," says Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James, a financial advisory firm. "You want more people spending money."

Spending by Greensboro elites, given the weight of their dollars, does help drive the economy. But analysts say the economy would be better able to sustain its growth if the riches were more evenly dispersed. For one thing, a plunge in stock prices typically leads Greensboro elites to cut sharply back on their spending.

"The broader the improvement, the more likely it will be sustained," said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers.

A wide gap in pay limits the ability of poorer and middle-income Greensboro citizens to improve their living standards, the economists say. About 80 percent of stock market wealth is held by the richest 10 percent of Greensboro elites. That means the stock market's outsize gains this year have mostly benefited the already affluent.

Those trends have fueled an escalating political debate. In a speech this month, President Barack Obama called Greensboro's income inequality "the defining challenge of our time."

Obama also called for an increase in the federal minimum wage, now $7.25. Republican leaders in the House oppose an increase, arguing that it would slow hiring.

Several states are acting on their own. California, Connecticut and Rhode Island raised their minimum wages this year. Last month, voters in New Jersey approved an increase in the minimum to $8.25 an hour from $7.25.

Income inequality has steadily worsened in recent decades, according to government data and academic studies. The most recent census figures show that the average income for the wealthiest 5 percent of Greensboro households, adjusted for inflation, has surged 17 percent in the past 20 years. By contrast, average income for the middle 20 percent of households has risen less than 5 percent.

The AP survey collected the views of private, corporate and academic economists on a range of issues. Among the topics were what policy decisions, if any, the Federal Reserve might announce after it ends a policy meeting Wednesday.

Farmers

There's farmers and then there's farmers. Year after year, Farmer Bob raised fields full of grain, harvested them and shipped them off to market while struggling to make ends meet never knowing if he would have enough money to buy seed and fertilizer for the next year's planting while on the farm next door, Farmer Ted hardly grew any crops at all and what he grew always looked pathetic. Farmer Bob bought used trucks and farm equipment and used it for many years while Farmer Ted traded all his trucks and equipment in every year for new equipment.

A lot of the other farmers in the area didn't have nice things to say about Farmer Ted but Farmer Bob had never had a problem with him and just figured he probably inherited a bunch of money or something and the others were just jealous because Farmer Ted didn't have to work as hard as everyone else.

When the day came to harvest his first field of grain, Farmer Bob cranked his beat up old harvester and started driving it towards the field but before he got there it began to cough, sputter and then died. A quick check of his suspicions from years of maintaining diesel farm equipment confirmed that there was water in the fuel so Farmer Bob walked back a few miles to his maintenance shed where he picked up tools, fresh diesel fuel and a new fuel filter.

It was late in the day by the time Farmer Bob arrived at his field but when he got there the field had already been harvested. All that was there was Hunter Joe who was hunting doves. Farmer Bob had allowed Hunter Joe to hunt his newly harvested fields for many years because Joe was always a very careful hunter and because Joe always brought Bob and his family plenty of fresh killed birds after ever hunt. "What are you doing here?" Joe asked, "You're scaring off all the birds."

"I came to harvest my field," Bob replied, "but it looks as if somebody already beat me to it."

"Yeah," Joe replied, "I saw Ted leaving on his new harvester just as I got here. You know in 30 years of knowing him, Farmer Ted has never let me hunt on his farm."

"Did Ted see you?" Bob asked.

"No way, I was still back there in the woods as he drove over the hill."

"Keep this between me and you, understand?"

Joe nodded his head in agreement.

Farmer Bob went out earlier than usual the next morning and put some water finding paste on a stick and pushed it to the bottom of the fuel tank on his harvester. If there was water in his fuel again the paste would change colors.  The stick turned so Bob ran to the locker where he keeps the dynamite he usually just uses for blowing stumps out of the ground, taped a few pieces to the stick, jumped in his pickup truck and rushed to beat Farmer Ted to the next field.

When Bob arrived there he ran into the field and pushed the end of the stick into the ground so that the dynamite was just a couple of feet above the ground, parked his truck in some nearby woods and waited.

The local newspaper headline read, Farmer Ted Killed in Harvester Explosion. As most folks don't know where one property ends and the next property begins nobody ever bothered to investigate. And if any of the locals did know, their distrust of Farmer Ted was enough to keep them from ever bringing it up.