Ford:Contrary to what you may have told your 6-year-old in a panic-stricken moment, babies don't arrive via the stork or FedEx -- and when it comes to choosing our elected leaders, the details of who does what to and for whom also can be a bit awkward to explain.

Ford:It's the middle of summer, the General Assembly has flown the coop and the governor seems to be on good behavior, so let's talk baseball. After they demolish Yankee Stadium, what's next, the Statue of Liberty?

Ford:Spending an hour with North Carolina's top two public education leaders can give you a pretty fair glimpse of the shape of things to come in the state's public schools.

Ford:Jesse Helms might have seen some irony, or hypocrisy, in being chided by this newspaper over the years for his, shall we say, lack of enthusiasm for civil rights laws and other totems of racial justice.

Ford:You can almost see the legislators' palms slapping foreheads and hear their exasperated cries: "Why didn't we think of that?"

Ford:Barack Obama opened himself up to a barrage of criticism that was even more predictable than the sun rising in the east.

Ford:It must have sounded like a splendid idea at the time -- and a difficult time it was. There were these murderous human dirtbags, you see, who went looking for trouble and found it.

Ford:Those of us whose livelihoods hinge on the willingness of customers in the Triangle to buy our products understand that as a general rule, more people living and working around here means more business.

Ford:To venture a bold prediction: One of these days, a bus on Triangle Transit's Route 301, snaking through Cary between Research Triangle Park and downtown Raleigh, will actually be crowded.

Call it a jubilee. The notion stretches back to Biblical times: a special celebration that takes place every 50 years. It can mark an anniversary. Considering that 50 years ago tomorrow the U.S. Supreme Court finally unlocked the door leading to the end of legal segregation in this country, there's good reason to have worked up a celebratory lather. Even more reason, in fact, when the ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education is seen in the context of a national history that once tolerated far worse than separation by skin color in schools and other public places.

Anyone who's paid a whit of attention to what goes on inside prisons -- not just prisons in war zones, but the ones where we happily ensconce our neighborhood crooks right here in the U.S. of A. -- knows there's always a potential for mistreatment of the "guests." Those guests, of course, are none too pleased with the hospitality they've been accorded. They weren't model citizens in the first place. While it's by no means always the case, they can be stubborn, mean, violent. It takes a firm management hand to prevent escapes, fights, exploitation of the weak by the strong.

for character educators. It's a good thing to have the courage of one's convictions, right? But what about when that courage blinds you to the fact that your convictions are uninformed or downright wacky? Loyalty to your organization -- there's another fine quality. Yet if the organization is embarked on some foolish course -- propelled, perhaps, by the courage of its leaders' convictions -- true loyalty demands dissent. There's where courage really comes in handy.