Normally a letter such as the one Feb. 26 titled "Mental health success," which called upon North Carolina to do things the way they are done "up North," occasions cries of outrage from all of us, me included.

Still, the documented incompetence of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services in the area of mental health care, rivaled only by the demonstrated incompetence of the N.C. Department of Transportation -- along with the numbers of our convicted or soon to be convicted political leaders -- can lead one to conclude that perhaps North Carolina, a state that has obviously lost its way, needs some other state to show the way and provide a model of governing proficiency.

Bill Palmer

Chapel Hill