Though Blacksburg has the Smart Road to serve commuters in and around the home of the Hokies, most major transportation in Southwest Virginia moves on stupid interstates.
The issue of the overlap of interstates 77 and 81 in Wythe County is about to come up again, and the heavy traffic on I-81 to Roanoke is a perennial concern for transportation officials and emergency services.
So far the discussions for dealing with improving major arteries in Virginia has consisted of: "How can we afford to pay for more lanes to carry all these cars and trucks?"
A better question would be: "How might we take some of these cars and trucks off the highways to improve safety, cut pollution and avoid increasing the roads' corridor?"
As a model to solve these woes in my favorite state in the Union, I would like to offer that of the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation in North Carolina, or PART for short, which my wife uses to get part of the way to and from her job in the Triad during the week.
By catching the bus at a stop in Mount Airy, my wife is one of an estimated 400 riders a day that take the Surry County Express.
She gets off in Winston-Salem, but other buses link Greensboro, High Point and all the way out to Durham in the east, Boone in the west, and Asheboro in the south.
The Surry Express launched with 500 riders for the month in August 2006, which stayed pretty constant four three months until suddenly quadrupling in November of that year, according to information from the PART website, www.PARTnc.org.
After that, ridership dropped below 2006 levels for only one month, and continued steady growth. Officials recently told the Mount Airy News that they carried almost 8,500 commuters in a month on the Surry line.
Several cars parked in PART's lot boast Carroll County stickers on their windshields.
The buses drop off workers right at the doors of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and shoppers at the mall, two popular destinations for people from this area going to Winston.
A 2006 study by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that more than 2,000 commuters from Carroll County head south into Surry County.
With 78 percent of Americans driving alone to work, there's plenty more potential riders for a well-thought-out regional transportation system.
PART officials estimate that costs for an individual to drive a vehicle 15,000 miles a year include: $3,721 for depreciation; $1,014 for insurance; $885 for gas and oil; $615 in maintenance; and $270 for tires, plus more for registration and taxes and $828 for finance charges.
Accepting those estimates, the average consumer would spent a total of $7,533 on personal transportation in 12 months.
While a vehicle owner won't be able to save on things like taxes or insurance, it's possible to see less wear and tear on the vehicle and to pay less on the pump.
The transportation service says that the savings, conservatively, could add up to $800 for a rider, depending on fuel prices.
The fare of $2 per trip seems quite reasonable as compared to the height of $4 per gallon of gas — something we've gotten relief from at the moment, but may return in 2009.
PART officials estimate that their service has "saved the Triad 65,000 gallons of gasoline," which they valued as help for consumers to the tune of $250,000.
Mass transit impacts pollution in the Tar Heel state, as well, where 70 percent of emissions come from cars and trucks.
"What PART offers is a way to get to work, school and shopping without getting in your car," the Web site says. "That means fewer cars on the road and better flowing traffic."
For every car the transportation system takes off the road, smog-forming emissions are reduced by 40 pounds a year.
PART offers van-pool options for up to 15 people, which could translate into removing more than 500 pounds of pollution from the atmosphere.
"The fuel efficiency of a fully occupied bus is six times greater than that of the average single-occupant auto," the Web site says. "We need to start making some personal choices about transportation and PART makes it easy for us to save money and do our part to keep the air breathable in the Triad."
(I'd like to see a survey of the ridership miles saved and cars kept off the road, but that apparently hasn't been undertaken or at least posted on the Web site.)
PART continues to expand to reach commuters. The Surry Express cannot be used for Saturday shopping junkets to Winston because it doesn't run on weekends, but maybe that could be on the horizon as the service continues to attract more riders.
Regardless, North Carolina's efforts prove that people will take advantage of mass transit, if it's offered.
That's a bandwagon I'd like to see Virginia get on.
Make more of our roads smart, please!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The cul de sac of memory
Hillsville residents aren't likely to see Google's camera equipped car roll through anytime soon, but fortunately I will not be denied my own personal Street View fun.
Google is, of course, developing a huge database of what America looks like through the windshields of passing vehicles going down everything from major arteries to cookie cutter subdivision roads.
The most popular application of this survey so far seems to consist of an online freakshow.
Websites and YouTube videos take advantage of the random happenstance that the Google cars pass, which ranges from pedestrians trying to hide from being digitally immortalized, girls in revealing outfits, skaters face-planting, couples making out and, not surprisingly, vehicle accidents.
I do respect the art project in Pittsburgh that CNET reported on that features a marching band and joggers and more going through an alley there.
I imagine the Google driver grinning, happy at the break in routine, but then again he could have been annoyed at the social engineering of it all.
My favorite Street View moment is much more personal, and actually quite mundane.
But it just so happened that the car with the camera array past my parent's house just in time to document my dad leaning over to pick up a probably miniscule piece of debris out of his driveway, at the place where I spent my teenaged years down a nondescript cul de sac in a medium sized city.
It's pixelated and low quality and not likely to draw any laughs from the Street View sites — even with their collectively low entertainment bar — but it's a little, nostalgic slice of home on the Interwebs to me.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Facing the sun
It looks like Duke Energy has launched its solar roof farms idea just in time, after an Environmental Protection Agency board effectively halted construction of all new coal-fired power plants.
News agencies across the country are reporting the ruling by the four-judge panel known as the Environmental Appeals Board has blocked a permit being issued for expansion of a power plant at Vernal, Utah.
The appeals board took its cues for the ruling from a Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the justices decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, as the New York Times reports.
The decision on the Utah power plant impacts the proposal from the Bonanza Coal Power Plant, as well as for any pending permit request for coal-fired plants. Wired.com notes in its article that puts more than "100 coal plants into regulatory limbo."
The Environmental Appeals Board sent a message that the EPA needs to develop a nationwide standard for carbon dioxide emissions, Wired reported.
As demand for power continues to rise, and progress on coal power generation has to wait for regulatory action, investment will likely flow toward clean technology like wind and solar, Wired quotes David Bookbinder of the Sierra Club.
So Duke Energy looks like it's ahead of the curve, having already started planning a program to use roofs in its service area to generate electricity from solar.
Analogous to a farmer leasing another's land to grow crops, Duke would lease rooftops owned by individuals and businesses to erect solar panels on, NPR has reported.
This is a change of philosophy for the North Carolina-based utility, long a user of coal itself to serve its four million customers. NPR reports the idea is to spend about $50 million to take advantage of the sun shining on roofs in the Tar Heel state.
Duke would own the solar equipment while renting space from its customers and sending the power to the grid for general use.
Part of the impetus has come from a mandate from North Carolina for utilities to generate a percentage of its electricity from renewable sources.
This idea seems to be a first in using existing structures rather than building solar arrays from scratch, the NPR report said. Duke Energy officials expect their utility can invest in solar technology, making it more economically viable for others, as well as keeping down the expense of using solar for customers.
It's an intriguing idea, using what might otherwise be considered wasted space to meet growing demand for power without generating more air pollution.
Taking into consideration both the Environmental Appeals Board and the willingness of a gigantic utility to move toward power from the sun, these actions may finally herald a ramp-up to large scale solar power operation, after several decades of languid growth.
Another key to a switch to solar is a more compact, more cost-effective and more efficient photovoltaic cell in order to clad more surfaces of our houses and skyscrapers with power-generating materials.
Solar panels that would feed directly into the grid — without individuals having to buy storage and regulation equipment — would also seem necessary and sensible.
Maybe there's a chance that power stations could become old fashioned and even an anachronism.
News agencies across the country are reporting the ruling by the four-judge panel known as the Environmental Appeals Board has blocked a permit being issued for expansion of a power plant at Vernal, Utah.
The appeals board took its cues for the ruling from a Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the justices decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, as the New York Times reports.
The decision on the Utah power plant impacts the proposal from the Bonanza Coal Power Plant, as well as for any pending permit request for coal-fired plants. Wired.com notes in its article that puts more than "100 coal plants into regulatory limbo."
The Environmental Appeals Board sent a message that the EPA needs to develop a nationwide standard for carbon dioxide emissions, Wired reported.
As demand for power continues to rise, and progress on coal power generation has to wait for regulatory action, investment will likely flow toward clean technology like wind and solar, Wired quotes David Bookbinder of the Sierra Club.
So Duke Energy looks like it's ahead of the curve, having already started planning a program to use roofs in its service area to generate electricity from solar.
Analogous to a farmer leasing another's land to grow crops, Duke would lease rooftops owned by individuals and businesses to erect solar panels on, NPR has reported.
This is a change of philosophy for the North Carolina-based utility, long a user of coal itself to serve its four million customers. NPR reports the idea is to spend about $50 million to take advantage of the sun shining on roofs in the Tar Heel state.
Duke would own the solar equipment while renting space from its customers and sending the power to the grid for general use.
Part of the impetus has come from a mandate from North Carolina for utilities to generate a percentage of its electricity from renewable sources.
This idea seems to be a first in using existing structures rather than building solar arrays from scratch, the NPR report said. Duke Energy officials expect their utility can invest in solar technology, making it more economically viable for others, as well as keeping down the expense of using solar for customers.
It's an intriguing idea, using what might otherwise be considered wasted space to meet growing demand for power without generating more air pollution.
Taking into consideration both the Environmental Appeals Board and the willingness of a gigantic utility to move toward power from the sun, these actions may finally herald a ramp-up to large scale solar power operation, after several decades of languid growth.
Another key to a switch to solar is a more compact, more cost-effective and more efficient photovoltaic cell in order to clad more surfaces of our houses and skyscrapers with power-generating materials.
Solar panels that would feed directly into the grid — without individuals having to buy storage and regulation equipment — would also seem necessary and sensible.
Maybe there's a chance that power stations could become old fashioned and even an anachronism.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The second lives of books
People are not the only things that should get Second Lives online.
As Internet developers find new capabilities to exploit for the Web 2.0, book publishers need to embrace its functionality to reach new generations of readers and hold on to the existing bibliophiles.
If newspapers have been lashed for their slow response to new possibilities on the Web, then book publishers should be buried alive. And yet there has been no hue and cry to date.
Publishers should take note of what every single movie producer seems to already know about the Internet.
Simply put, in my humble opinion, every book of consequence should register a domain name as close to its title as possible.
Once they go live, these websites should post features like:
• reviews good and bad, both from professionals and amateurs
• serve as a clearinghouse for author interviews and lectures
• hold reader forums
• use multimedia to produce "behind the scenes" material like movies do, to give "bonuses" to readers.
By taking advantage of the interactivity that the Internet provides, I envision new literary lives for the classics, new interpretation and critical discussions and opportunities for outreach by an antique media in the Information Age.
To be more specific, I think such websites could help unearth the next "Confederacy of Dunces" and replicate its cult-like success and, perhaps, rescue a frustrated author from the pit of despair; allow very capable journalists like Richard Preston, author of the real life thriller "The Hot Zone" about ebola virus as well as "The Demon in the Freezer" (the book I just finished reading) about the 2001 Amerithrax case to update the woefully incomplete story now that the mystery behind the anthrax attacks seems to be resolved; would give renown fantasy authors like Stephen Donaldson or Orson Scott Card a forum to float an idea to their fans whether to revive or not their characters from their original and near-perfect series like "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever" or the "Ender's Game," respectively, in new works; or give readers of rare books, such as "The Politics of Conservation" (the book I'm perusing now), to find other people with the similar interests and exchange thoughts.
Book publishers are missing out.
The rule of thumb for the industry should be: if something is important enough to publish, it's important enough to create a website for.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Fear and loathing in the big box
It's a bad day in the Brooke household when we have to shop at a big box store.
It's enough to make me grimace at people I know and like and try to avoid them.
Shopping at these places produce residual feelings of guilt and resignation to the retail behemoths that continues a good while after I walk out of the silvery pneumatic doors.
Resistance to the “bargains” is futile!
Such a dark day came not too long ago, when a printer cartridge became essential to address envelopes to send out wedding invitations.
A printer cartridge is not something you can typically find in a rural general store.
Desperate measures were attempted: Trying to borrow and swap out printers didn't work. Necessary software no longer exists or wouldn't work once downloaded. The cartridges themselves were incompatible with each other. Other people couldn't get the envelopes printed, either.
I definitely did what I could think of that weekend to try to bypass the experience of driving up to that huge expanse of asphalt, making the long trek from the Cavalier to the personal computing supplies or whatever you call them, dodging highly motivated shoppers armed with fully loaded speeding buggies and grudgingly standing in line to give the world's wealthiest retailer my money for the first time in years.
It's not lost on me that this is a minority position.
That megastore was mega-crammed that day with customers, adding to my discomfort and my sense of frustration about supporting, or not, local businesses.
Admittedly, I'm not much of a shopper and my “crib” has a serious lack of what the kids these days refer to as “bling.”
I do agree with a saying that I heard second hand, however, when it comes to shopping for general household goods in Carroll County: "If you can't get it at Sunnyside, you don't need it."
Given the shift towards “discount” shopping, most locally owned businesses in Hillsville and Carroll County now tend towards services, i.e. lawyers, hair salons, accountants, real estate, food and whatnot, to find their niche.
But there are some savvy entrepreneurs around here that have been able to resist the sucking of all disposable income out of a community by chain stores, all credit to them.
A newspaper from a neighboring locality once acknowledged this by featuring places like Sunnyside and the Hillsville Family Shoe Store and Harmon’s, a few examples of a disappearing retail breed, in an article encouraging readers to take a day shopping trip to Carroll County, that the visit would be worth their while.
And from what I understand, a bunch of people took the recommendation to heart and they made a shopping pilgrimage to the Hillsville area.
I imagine they found it like a retail trip back in time to an era when customer service was key and the wooden floors creak and the aisles are narrow and there’s no laser barcode scanner at the register.
Local businesses continue to face challenges, but organizations like Greater Hillsville Civic Association and the chambers of commerce are trying to find ways to market our merchants and other attractions and keep our economy strong.
If I had my way, I'd take the day-shopping-trip idea and build on it by making a driving tour to stores of interest in Carroll County.
The fresh fruit of Produce Alley in Cana and the Southwest Virginia Farmers' Market, antique stores, arts and crafts galleries, music venues, gift shops, general stores, clothing and more would be featured on thematic maps with highlighted routes popping up from a Web site with the goal of pulling in more visitors to spend money from near and far.
If I had the skills to build an interactive site with clickable store descriptions, photo galleries, maps and driving directions and links, I'd do it myself.
I'll have to settle for doing my part by buying what I can from the stores just down the street from me.
If even a tenth of all those people I saw that day in the impersonal big box would do the same, Main Street would thrive again, I expect.
When I walk into a place like Sunnyside, I don’t feel like an insignificant speck engulfed in racks of cheap clothes, Cheese Whip, Tickle Me Elmos and flat screen TVs.
Chances are I can look over and see the management/owner at work.
While I might leave with an armload of whatever I came in for, I also did something else — I made a kind of investment in my community.
And that makes for a happy day.
It's enough to make me grimace at people I know and like and try to avoid them.
Shopping at these places produce residual feelings of guilt and resignation to the retail behemoths that continues a good while after I walk out of the silvery pneumatic doors.
Resistance to the “bargains” is futile!
Such a dark day came not too long ago, when a printer cartridge became essential to address envelopes to send out wedding invitations.
A printer cartridge is not something you can typically find in a rural general store.
Desperate measures were attempted: Trying to borrow and swap out printers didn't work. Necessary software no longer exists or wouldn't work once downloaded. The cartridges themselves were incompatible with each other. Other people couldn't get the envelopes printed, either.
I definitely did what I could think of that weekend to try to bypass the experience of driving up to that huge expanse of asphalt, making the long trek from the Cavalier to the personal computing supplies or whatever you call them, dodging highly motivated shoppers armed with fully loaded speeding buggies and grudgingly standing in line to give the world's wealthiest retailer my money for the first time in years.
It's not lost on me that this is a minority position.
That megastore was mega-crammed that day with customers, adding to my discomfort and my sense of frustration about supporting, or not, local businesses.
Admittedly, I'm not much of a shopper and my “crib” has a serious lack of what the kids these days refer to as “bling.”
I do agree with a saying that I heard second hand, however, when it comes to shopping for general household goods in Carroll County: "If you can't get it at Sunnyside, you don't need it."
Given the shift towards “discount” shopping, most locally owned businesses in Hillsville and Carroll County now tend towards services, i.e. lawyers, hair salons, accountants, real estate, food and whatnot, to find their niche.
But there are some savvy entrepreneurs around here that have been able to resist the sucking of all disposable income out of a community by chain stores, all credit to them.
A newspaper from a neighboring locality once acknowledged this by featuring places like Sunnyside and the Hillsville Family Shoe Store and Harmon’s, a few examples of a disappearing retail breed, in an article encouraging readers to take a day shopping trip to Carroll County, that the visit would be worth their while.
And from what I understand, a bunch of people took the recommendation to heart and they made a shopping pilgrimage to the Hillsville area.
I imagine they found it like a retail trip back in time to an era when customer service was key and the wooden floors creak and the aisles are narrow and there’s no laser barcode scanner at the register.
Local businesses continue to face challenges, but organizations like Greater Hillsville Civic Association and the chambers of commerce are trying to find ways to market our merchants and other attractions and keep our economy strong.
If I had my way, I'd take the day-shopping-trip idea and build on it by making a driving tour to stores of interest in Carroll County.
The fresh fruit of Produce Alley in Cana and the Southwest Virginia Farmers' Market, antique stores, arts and crafts galleries, music venues, gift shops, general stores, clothing and more would be featured on thematic maps with highlighted routes popping up from a Web site with the goal of pulling in more visitors to spend money from near and far.
If I had the skills to build an interactive site with clickable store descriptions, photo galleries, maps and driving directions and links, I'd do it myself.
I'll have to settle for doing my part by buying what I can from the stores just down the street from me.
If even a tenth of all those people I saw that day in the impersonal big box would do the same, Main Street would thrive again, I expect.
When I walk into a place like Sunnyside, I don’t feel like an insignificant speck engulfed in racks of cheap clothes, Cheese Whip, Tickle Me Elmos and flat screen TVs.
Chances are I can look over and see the management/owner at work.
While I might leave with an armload of whatever I came in for, I also did something else — I made a kind of investment in my community.
And that makes for a happy day.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Corporations have work to do
The suspicion that Corporate America was beginning to struggle came not after a huge stock market plunge, but after a trip to the grocery store I took some years ago.
Going down the condiments aisle, I feasted my eyes on two new niche products: a jar of peanut butter with jelly already mixed in and a bottle of green ketchup.
I scoffed and shook my head and thought to myself that companies must be racking their brains to come up with profitable products.
Those curiosities sat on shelves without selling for a long, long time, as I recall, but they weren't even the worst idea that ever came out.
My biggest marketing pet peeve ever was a single-serving box of cereal that was touted in commercials as being super-easy to serve and eat.
The tack that the obviously desperate ad people took to promote this bad idea involved showing a man having to harvest his own wheat from a field with a scythe in order to have a morning meal.
As if it's so difficult to tip a big box of cereal over a bowl and add milk. Nobody bought the marketing campaign or the item.
Now that all the viable ideas have been exploited, I would recommend to the corporate world that they look inward for improvement.
Instead of striking out into the realm of the outlandish, companies need work on the “consumability” of their products.
Unpopular items that languish on shelves forever help no one — and they certainly won't help companies grow their bottom lines.
Think of all the resources, time and energy that went into those ridiculous products.
The one redeeming value of green ketchup is that the bottle it came in was probably recyclable.
Not so for other more popular items like yogurt and pudding cups or plastic wrap or grocery bags or meat and deli packaging or cottage cheese containers.
It's time that businesses reassess their assembly lines, finished products and corporate culture and become better resource stewards to help make their products more consumer- and earth-friendly.
Some suggestions:
• End single servings and supersize packaging.
Instead of putting pudding into all those small unrecyclable containers, just make one bigger container with the same amount of stuff in it.
Let moms everywhere spoon out a serving of dessert onto a bowl or into a reusable container that goes in a lunchbox.
While each bottle in a soft drink six-pack can be processed into something new, the packaging that holds them together cannot.
One big package will eliminate that waste.
• Put all food products in recyclable containers.
To enhance the benefits and avoid the negative impact of the aforementioned pudding cups, make sure that all of those larger sized containers come in No. 1- and No. 2-type plastics, the only two of seven kinds that consistently can go to recycling — if the consumer puts them in the right place!
Many times eggs will come in a plastic foam kind of container, even though the cardboard kind works just as well AND can be recycled.
• Research and develop.
If you can't find the correct fit for your product in terms of packaging, support research and development to find alternatives.
The need for more biodegradable packaging, which you can throw on your compost pile, comes to mind.
• Back recycling programs with corporate spending.
The more companies buy recycled material to make products out of, the more economical it will be and the more it will encourage.
Consumers can help, of course.
One way is by boycotting those things that can't be reused.
I've stopped buying food storage baggies because of their single-use nature. Just about everything that gets stored in my refrigerator goes into reusable containers made for that very purpose.
With the rising tide of green-awareness, corporations stand to gain free publicity and attention and more sales, I would argue, by reducing the impact of packaging.
There’s no value in creating a useless product that there’s no demand for, that a corporation will have to spend millions of marketing dollars on to try to persuade the public that they’ve “got to have one.”
By helping consumers allay concerns about the waste they create, that’s the way to profitability.
Going down the condiments aisle, I feasted my eyes on two new niche products: a jar of peanut butter with jelly already mixed in and a bottle of green ketchup.
I scoffed and shook my head and thought to myself that companies must be racking their brains to come up with profitable products.
Those curiosities sat on shelves without selling for a long, long time, as I recall, but they weren't even the worst idea that ever came out.
My biggest marketing pet peeve ever was a single-serving box of cereal that was touted in commercials as being super-easy to serve and eat.
The tack that the obviously desperate ad people took to promote this bad idea involved showing a man having to harvest his own wheat from a field with a scythe in order to have a morning meal.
As if it's so difficult to tip a big box of cereal over a bowl and add milk. Nobody bought the marketing campaign or the item.
Now that all the viable ideas have been exploited, I would recommend to the corporate world that they look inward for improvement.
Instead of striking out into the realm of the outlandish, companies need work on the “consumability” of their products.
Unpopular items that languish on shelves forever help no one — and they certainly won't help companies grow their bottom lines.
Think of all the resources, time and energy that went into those ridiculous products.
The one redeeming value of green ketchup is that the bottle it came in was probably recyclable.
Not so for other more popular items like yogurt and pudding cups or plastic wrap or grocery bags or meat and deli packaging or cottage cheese containers.
It's time that businesses reassess their assembly lines, finished products and corporate culture and become better resource stewards to help make their products more consumer- and earth-friendly.
Some suggestions:
• End single servings and supersize packaging.
Instead of putting pudding into all those small unrecyclable containers, just make one bigger container with the same amount of stuff in it.
Let moms everywhere spoon out a serving of dessert onto a bowl or into a reusable container that goes in a lunchbox.
While each bottle in a soft drink six-pack can be processed into something new, the packaging that holds them together cannot.
One big package will eliminate that waste.
• Put all food products in recyclable containers.
To enhance the benefits and avoid the negative impact of the aforementioned pudding cups, make sure that all of those larger sized containers come in No. 1- and No. 2-type plastics, the only two of seven kinds that consistently can go to recycling — if the consumer puts them in the right place!
Many times eggs will come in a plastic foam kind of container, even though the cardboard kind works just as well AND can be recycled.
• Research and develop.
If you can't find the correct fit for your product in terms of packaging, support research and development to find alternatives.
The need for more biodegradable packaging, which you can throw on your compost pile, comes to mind.
• Back recycling programs with corporate spending.
The more companies buy recycled material to make products out of, the more economical it will be and the more it will encourage.
Consumers can help, of course.
One way is by boycotting those things that can't be reused.
I've stopped buying food storage baggies because of their single-use nature. Just about everything that gets stored in my refrigerator goes into reusable containers made for that very purpose.
With the rising tide of green-awareness, corporations stand to gain free publicity and attention and more sales, I would argue, by reducing the impact of packaging.
There’s no value in creating a useless product that there’s no demand for, that a corporation will have to spend millions of marketing dollars on to try to persuade the public that they’ve “got to have one.”
By helping consumers allay concerns about the waste they create, that’s the way to profitability.
Friday, November 14, 2008
From another 'Planet'
It looks like a spaceship full of relatively minor television stars crash landed on Planet Green, Discovery's environmentally-themed cable channel.
Former host of "Dinner and a Movie," occasional star of silver screen and geek siren Annabelle Gurwitch now presents "Wa$ted," an American recasting of a Kiwi television show, which helps households curb their environmentally damaging habits.
Highlight so far: her getting into the shower to talk about water conservation.
Aging rocker Tommy Lee mugs for the camera on the horribly conceived "Battleground Earth," in which he vies for all in his musical genre for green bragging rights with rap's Ludacris.
(One TV critic wondered if there was a reason that the show's title was reminiscent of "Battlefield Earth," that L. Ron Hubbard science fiction book starring John Travolta dramatized into easily one of the worst movies ever made.)
Genial home renovation show host Steve Thomas has made the move from PBS' "This Old House" to Planet Green's "Renovation Nation."
The title to this show doesn't scream environmental awareness to me, but the point is that Thomas travels the country dropping in on and lending a hand to projects that install different greentech systems like heat and air, water use and power generation into homes.
While it makes people aware of some green options to those who are considering doing some work on their homes, "Renovation Nation" suffers from a lack of personality.
These kinds of lifestyle show often fall into the rut of "here's the problem, here's how we're going to tackle it," commercial break, "here was the problem, here's how we are handling it," commercial break, and, finally, "this was the problem, here's how we solved it."
It's a little didactic and dry, in other words.
Emeril "Bam" Lagasse brings the cooking entry to Planet Green's lineup, of course, trying to show people how to spice up their uninspired and humdrum sustainable diet.
And then there's Ed Begley Jr., Hollywood's long-established preachy environmentalist who hasn't had a regular acting gig since the 1980s with hospital melodrama "St. Elsewhere."
Begley's show follows the travails of his long suffering wife putting up with the actor's enviro-consciousness.
Believe me, no one wants to be caught in the same room with the TV tuned to "Living with Ed."
Probably the biggest star involved in a project for the network is movie star Leonardo DiCaprio, who from behind the scenes produces the show "Greensburg."
May there never be another place like it, this Kansas city has decided to "go green" after being almost completely wiped out by a violent twister that tore through the Midwest's "tornado alley" in May 2007.
"Greensburg" concentrates on the city's struggle to tame the wind into a benefit as a source of power, encourage homes and businesses be rebuilt with efficiency and energy conservation in mind, educate the populace in green matters and replacement of public facilities in compliance with the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards.
This show offers, for one thing, a first-class civics lesson in demonstrating how a local government operates. This is precisely the reason why my wife and fellow reporter can't stand to watch — it reminds her too much of work.
"Greensburg" also manages to be a frank discussion of environmental issues, as green doubting Thomases talk to the camera about why they don't support the city hall's agenda.
Even enthusiastic "greenies" have their concerns, like the Kansas Extension agent who committed to rebuilding with the very efficient foam block forms filled with concrete.
Sitting down after a day of doing the interior framing because the cost of materials took all their reconstruction money to go over their balance sheet, the agent admits to his wife that he thinks it will take their whole budget to accomplish, even with doing the work themselves.
Environmental buzzwords like "climate change" come up tangentially in discussions, such as the idea that climate change will probably cause more frequent and more severe tornados like the one that made Greensburg disappear in the first place.
The show is a slice of life of the people who are trying to make good decisions and get on with their lives after a devastating disaster, and trying to do so with as much stewardship of the planet's resources as possible.
"Greensburg" has something the rest of Planet Green's lineup lacks: gravitas.
Programmers no doubt had a suspicion that viewers would find environmental issues unpaletable without some entertainment value thrown in.
Don't want to turn off audiences by trying to share simple facts and/or good information, after all.
But will even the most hardcore Motley Crue fan care if Lee, say, smashes or recycles his empty vodka bottles? Probably not.
The real life drama of the Kansas folks picking themselves up after a tornado is a lot more compelling.
Planet Green should shoot the stars back into space and make more room for some quality television.
Former host of "Dinner and a Movie," occasional star of silver screen and geek siren Annabelle Gurwitch now presents "Wa$ted," an American recasting of a Kiwi television show, which helps households curb their environmentally damaging habits.
Highlight so far: her getting into the shower to talk about water conservation.
Aging rocker Tommy Lee mugs for the camera on the horribly conceived "Battleground Earth," in which he vies for all in his musical genre for green bragging rights with rap's Ludacris.
(One TV critic wondered if there was a reason that the show's title was reminiscent of "Battlefield Earth," that L. Ron Hubbard science fiction book starring John Travolta dramatized into easily one of the worst movies ever made.)
Genial home renovation show host Steve Thomas has made the move from PBS' "This Old House" to Planet Green's "Renovation Nation."
The title to this show doesn't scream environmental awareness to me, but the point is that Thomas travels the country dropping in on and lending a hand to projects that install different greentech systems like heat and air, water use and power generation into homes.
While it makes people aware of some green options to those who are considering doing some work on their homes, "Renovation Nation" suffers from a lack of personality.
These kinds of lifestyle show often fall into the rut of "here's the problem, here's how we're going to tackle it," commercial break, "here was the problem, here's how we are handling it," commercial break, and, finally, "this was the problem, here's how we solved it."
It's a little didactic and dry, in other words.
Emeril "Bam" Lagasse brings the cooking entry to Planet Green's lineup, of course, trying to show people how to spice up their uninspired and humdrum sustainable diet.
And then there's Ed Begley Jr., Hollywood's long-established preachy environmentalist who hasn't had a regular acting gig since the 1980s with hospital melodrama "St. Elsewhere."
Begley's show follows the travails of his long suffering wife putting up with the actor's enviro-consciousness.
Believe me, no one wants to be caught in the same room with the TV tuned to "Living with Ed."
Probably the biggest star involved in a project for the network is movie star Leonardo DiCaprio, who from behind the scenes produces the show "Greensburg."
May there never be another place like it, this Kansas city has decided to "go green" after being almost completely wiped out by a violent twister that tore through the Midwest's "tornado alley" in May 2007.
"Greensburg" concentrates on the city's struggle to tame the wind into a benefit as a source of power, encourage homes and businesses be rebuilt with efficiency and energy conservation in mind, educate the populace in green matters and replacement of public facilities in compliance with the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, standards.
This show offers, for one thing, a first-class civics lesson in demonstrating how a local government operates. This is precisely the reason why my wife and fellow reporter can't stand to watch — it reminds her too much of work.
"Greensburg" also manages to be a frank discussion of environmental issues, as green doubting Thomases talk to the camera about why they don't support the city hall's agenda.
Even enthusiastic "greenies" have their concerns, like the Kansas Extension agent who committed to rebuilding with the very efficient foam block forms filled with concrete.
Sitting down after a day of doing the interior framing because the cost of materials took all their reconstruction money to go over their balance sheet, the agent admits to his wife that he thinks it will take their whole budget to accomplish, even with doing the work themselves.
Environmental buzzwords like "climate change" come up tangentially in discussions, such as the idea that climate change will probably cause more frequent and more severe tornados like the one that made Greensburg disappear in the first place.
The show is a slice of life of the people who are trying to make good decisions and get on with their lives after a devastating disaster, and trying to do so with as much stewardship of the planet's resources as possible.
"Greensburg" has something the rest of Planet Green's lineup lacks: gravitas.
Programmers no doubt had a suspicion that viewers would find environmental issues unpaletable without some entertainment value thrown in.
Don't want to turn off audiences by trying to share simple facts and/or good information, after all.
But will even the most hardcore Motley Crue fan care if Lee, say, smashes or recycles his empty vodka bottles? Probably not.
The real life drama of the Kansas folks picking themselves up after a tornado is a lot more compelling.
Planet Green should shoot the stars back into space and make more room for some quality television.
This power tool blows
Given different circumstances, I could have been a nationally renown consumer product reviewer and advocate.
Check out my hypothetical review, for example, for the Hasta Leaf Vista 4000 power tool, the latest and greatest brand from a respected national hardware-making company.
"Ah, the monochromatic green that covers the Virginia mountains in the summer has given way to the bright patchwork of golds, oranges and reds that stretches on to the horizon in autumn.
"The mountain views obtain new depth as the eye seeks to take in all it can of the astonishingly beautiful and fleeting vivid hues on the ground, until the vibrant canopy meets the strip of sky blue, surmounted by a pile of black-to-gray-to-white clouds towering over the scene.
"The lovely visual effect will soon be interrupted by a less pleasant sensory experience — the eardrum irritating whine of leaf blowers, the least necessary category of yard work power tool known to suburban America, such as the Hasta Leaf Vista 4000."
I could sum up my feeling about this product by simply writing "they blow" in my review, but in keeping with the serious and earnest desire of the consumer products magazine in trying to help people spend their salaries and wages wisely, I would attempt to proceed with a higher-minded tone.
"True, occasionally, a leaf blower can be sighted out-of-season in an urban environment, whirring away at growing mounds of cigarette butts, making them skitter around the sidewalks and cascade into the gutter before being scooped up by the good municipal worker.
"I acknowledge that leaf blowers are as good as their name in directing that blast of air at loose yard debris with the idea of moving the dross about from place to place.
"Still, I would encourage each and every property owner to ask themselves, 'How much do I want to invest in a high-tech yard thingamajiggy? Another marginal he-man power tool to take up space in my basement/outbuilding, collecting dust for 50 weeks out of the year, having to be shifted around constantly because it always ends up in front of a more valuable and useful item?'
"Even for the most procrastinating and grudging outdoor chores worker, a leaf blower is probably only useful for a week or two out of the year.
"With some prices for leaf blowers coming in at or near the hundreds of dollars, the cost-to-benefit ratio just doesn't balance out for me.
"I cannot with a clear conscience recommend the purchase of a Hasta Leaf Vista 4000 — or any leaf blower for that matter — when a much more elegant solution remains."
And here I'd launch into a nostalgic diatribe about the good ole days of yard work past, probably prompting a scowl and some wordsmithing to tighten up the piece by my hardboiled consumer products editor.
"Some property owners can harken back to youth when yard work served as a rite of passage to adulthood and every blister built up a child's character.
"Yard work back then wasn't easy and it wasn't supposed to be.
"Each child who put their shoulders to their reel mowers and hunched over their manual rakes not only made their picket fenced home presentable, they also learned about the importance of work to the American way of life.
"The more enterprising ones canvassed their neighborhood looking to make an honest dollar
"Those youth prepared themselves for the world of work and primed themselves on the importance of fiscal matters.
"No doubt many of them went on to careers and made their fortunes based on the strengths and the talents developed from the lessons of their chores.
"So, if you need some leaves raked, the better idea — perhaps even the more patriotic idea — is to go to the store and spend a minimal amount of money on a rake and set it to sweeping the ground.
"A little manual labor is good for the soul — think of the sense of accomplishment from doing the job with your own two hands. And, in this case, it's a good feeling for the wallet, too."
Thursday, November 13, 2008
More than just a pretty space
The missus and I recently spent a couple of days at the Great Smokies National Park and Gatlinburg in Tennessee after a stop in Asheville, N.C., at the famed Biltmore house, places she'd never been.
Before we left, I'd heard stories that people who make their living on tourism in Tennessee were keeping a general lack of gasoline from visitors.
With family and a job in North Carolina, my wife Beth knew that prices had risen and remained higher there than in Virginia.
Reluctant to give up an already-paid-for vacation to some of the greatest public places on the East Coast — down the Blue Ridge Parkway and over to the national park — we carefully researched gas prices and availability before we got on the road.
Finding about six gas stations online where we could fill our tanks at our ultimate destination left us feeling reassured.
Gas prices in Hillsville remained about about $3.76 a gallon, as I recall, and they rose to just about $4 in areas of North Carolina, such as just outside the tourist trap created by Mr. Vanderbilt.
Those high prices didn't keep people from traveling.
In quick succession, Beth recognized a co-worker from her information technology department coming out of the mouth of Linville Caverns, and down the parkway at Mount Mitchell, highest place in the East, we had our picture taken by a couple from Hillsville.
A friend of mine from Indiana drove down for no other reason but to spend a few hours with us in Asheville. And my brother had made plans in July, separately from us, to take his family to Gatlinburg, as well.
Having attended post-college reunions in Gatlinburg, this was about the ninth time that I'd been.
Usually, the sidewalks of that city tucked in the valley at about 1,800 feet above sea level had been full to overflowing.
While others joined us at the window to the old-fashioned taffy pulling machines — that place has three within a couple blocks of each other on the main strip, as my gear-head engineer brother pointed out — there was no absolute crush of humanity gawking there.
Still, inside the Smokies the next day, when Beth and I took advantage of their picnic facilities, nearly every table hosted families feeding their faces, having a good time.
People on their way down from Clingmans Dome, the park's highest point, kept up their stream of encouragement for us climbing out of breath the steep slope to the observation tower.
A couple from Utah struck up a conversation with Beth at Newfound Gap about their joy in being in the Smokies and how far they'd come for a second visit, and we got tips on the side of a hiking trail from a local couple on little known and little accessible attractions.
With all those people around, it's a wonder there's any space left for the wildlife. But my brother's car came within about 15 feet of a black bear.
And a bunch of cars pulled over to the side of the Cades Cove loop for a rather obscured look through the woods of what we believe was an example of the Smokies' reintroduced elk population, but what another observer insisted to Beth was a really big deer.
The nine million visitors to the Smokies a year probably unconsciously understand something that a study just out in medical journal The Lancet confirmed — people who have green spaces to enjoy live better healthier lives.
Maybe that unconscious understanding is why so many people make an effort to go to the Tennessee mountains, despite the time and expense involved.
The recent study involved green spaces in urban settings where people could exercise and unwind, rather than remote nature preserves.
The BBC reported that having green spaces available halved the so-called "health gap" between the poor and the rich, who are better able to afford medical care.
Researchers Richard Mitchell of Glasgow University and Frank Popham of the University of St. Andrews saw a correlation between greens spaces and lower incidents of heart disease and stroke.
This may be from the ability of people to be more active, and they also found green space could lower blood pressure and even promote faster healing after surgery, the BBC reports.
So what can municipalities do to encourage better health in their citizens? Add green spaces, the researchers answer.
Parks will do a lot more than pretty up the place, writers in The Lancet added.
I learned the story of the Smokies being created about 75 years ago, when citizens and civic groups pushed for the preserve, cobbling the eventual park together from many home and logging tracts.
It wouldn't be nearly the challenge for a city to set aside an undeveloped tract for its residents to throw a frisbee, pass a football, take a stroll or just sit on the lawn and soak in the sun.
That bit of land, the study shows, could be the proverbial ounce of prevention.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Impressions of Southwest Virginia*
While Hillsville is home, Southwest Virginia offers some entertaining fodder for day trips.
In nearly 11 years, I've developed some impressions of these places — with my faithful dog pulling me along on the end of her leash.
At the risk of sounding like a tourism official, here's my notions about the places, going from west to east:
• Bristol — I've seen enough to know I'd like to be able to spend more time in the Birthplace of Country Music to learn more.
At about a 100 miles from home, it's almost out of comfortable range for a day trip.
• Abingdon — It's like one of those model Christmas villages complete with brick Colonial architecture, spread throughout the older parts of town, plopped down west of the mountains.
• Just north of Marion is Hungry Mother State Park, originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, home to miles walking trails and nature watching, an amphitheater in the middle of a manmade lake, and an earthen dam with perhaps the most painstakingly built spillway known to human engineering.
The strange name of the state park arises from an unusual story, as you might expect.
• Burke's Garden — Home to a collapsed mountain, as I understand it, this hard-to-reach, ridge-ringed bowl-shaped rural community owes its living to farming and tourists.
Also known to some as "God's Thumbprint."
• Bluefield — Now the tallest incorporated locality in Virginia, Bluefield is a coal dust-covered railroad town.
• Damascus acknowledges that it's a trail town, and that's the way I've seen it, going downhill on the Path of Least Resistance, by which I of course mean the Virginia Creeper Trail.
Bikers can get up to a good clip going down where the old railway used to be and take a look at beautiful natural vistas to boot. The only other thing I remember about the pleasant village of Damascus is that I caught a van back to...
• Whitetop — For a little place near the summit of Virginia, there's a bunch of things to do here.
Besides the aforementioned trail, Whitetop also hosts the hilarious Ramp Festival; the tasty Maple Festival; the tallest mountain in the state; nearby Mount Rogers State Park, probably the highest park in Virginia; Wayne Henderson's Music Festival; and the crossing of the Appalachian Trail.
The people in Whitetop sure know how to throw a get-together.
• Independence — Pamplona has the running of the bulls, Grayson's county seat has the state-sanctioned running of the privies.
• Fries — Historic mill town now without the mill is, of course, where the New River Trail State Park begins.
Perched on the side of the beautiful New River, Fries offers recreation to outdoor lovers. And with many pending projects underway to expand on those recreational opportunities, Fries still has many good days ahead.
• Galax — Mountain music with the largest and oldest fiddlers convention anywhere. 'Nuff said.
• Hillsville — I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I'm happy to call the town and Carroll County home.
• Floyd — A quirky, hippy-flavored, artsy but also traditional town that's managed to carve out an identity all its own.
• Christiansburg — Shopping capital of the New River Valley. Also home to a rec park with a frisbee golf course on a landfill with the more trees than any other such pitch in the world.
• Blacksburg — Ivory tower of the mountains. Go Hokies.
• Roanoke — Metropolitan in the Blue Ridge, Roanoke has a charming downtown, centered on the Center in the Square, and a good park system, including neon-starred Mill Mountain, an unexpected outdoor treasure in the middle of a medium-sized urban environment.
That, in a few words, is what I know about Southwest Virginia. I'm looking forward to days when I can grab my maps and my Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail Guide and calendar of events and learn more.
* Impressions may not exactly match reality.
Blue Ridge guide dog origin
A little encouragement can go a long way when it comes to staying fit.
People turn to a personal trainer to keep them focused and on task during workouts on those spinners and ellipiticals and simulated flights of stairs and what not.
A little enthusiasm from a second party can help the tired and the sweaty find renewed energy to apply to more repetitions.
But wouldn't it be nice if you could have a personal trainer that motivated you without saying a word? A trainer who only led by example?
Let me share what has worked with me four the last four years: I've lost about 15 pounds without any fad diets.
I eat whatever I want, but then I go out and walk somewhere between one and two miles every day I get a chance.
My walking partner makes sure of that.
To fully disclose: I originally lost a great deal of weight when I was on my work-obsessively-on-your-fixer-upper-60-year-old-home-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else-including-meals phase.
But my purchase of a domicile allowed me to bring home the energetic little thing who pulls me along for extended walks.
Taking her on the trail is much preferable than cleaning up after an accident due to my negligence, after all.
Of course, I'm talking about my combination Australian shepherd/blue heeler/whatever-else mutt. I found her in the Galax-Carroll-Grayson Animal Shelter in Virginia and I adopted her for only $15, plus the cost of her operation...
(Spaying and neutering is required for all animals from the pound.)
The dog, a tri-colored, short-haired puppy with blue eyes, tricked me at the pound because she made very little commotion and, in fact, didn't much stir from wherever I plopped her down when we got home.
But as soon as I rolled in a ball on the floor, she got over her shyness and came alive and pounced on me and nipped me repeated with the tiny sharp teeth that puppies have.
After that, she was ready to go all the time.
That dog, whom I named Sydney because of the Australia connection, could fetch for hours on end. I'd no sooner throw a toy as far as I could, but she'd be back with it and jumping on me to make sure that I knew she'd be willing to go get it again.
Just a little at the end of my leash, I discovered the dog could relax after a protracted walk.
Maybe 'relax' isn't the best word, but she'd lie down and be still for a while.
That was just about when the Beaver Dam Walking Trail opened locally.
Thankfully, Sydney and I can take care of several issues at once by visiting the trail.
We both get exercise. It's possibly the most I've ever had in my life. It's certainly the most I've done voluntarily and consistently.
When you go from no more walking than absolutely necessary to pumping those legs about five times a week for an average of 1.7 miles a day, it's got to do some good. After all, that works out to about 442 miles a year.
Not only that, but they say a person's mental health improves whenever they exercise and enjoy nature.
And there's the idea that a person's blood pressure goes down with the companionship of a pet.
The dog caused me to rearrange my priorities and reexamine what I do and how.
Thanks to her, I'm about as healthy as I've ever been.
B-rated reviews: Dr. Orpheus
If you've ever scanned the cheap paperback section in a used bookstore for an interesting science fiction, then you've probably skipped right over Dr. Orpheus by Ian Wallace as its charm is largely hidden behind bland genre artwork.
In truth, the term "B-rated" might be a stretch as applied to this book, but it's certainly worth the 50 cents an all-too-happy-to-move-it-off-the-shelf bookstore owner would accept for it.
As it turns out, I forked over no cash whatsoever for my copy, as a SF enthusiast and friend of dad's dumped off a whole bunch of books for me more than 22 years ago and it had remained there until some house cleaning by my parents.
Looking for a distraction one day, I picked up Wallace's book and started it. After about 100 pages - about twice as long as I usually give a novel because I'm frustrated with not getting all the way through before I start another book - I found myself rather enjoying its quirks.
The author of this little diversion might have had high hopes this offering would become a genre-breaker, an iconoclastic work that would shatter SF expectations, like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Instead, it ends up being a loosely strung together mix of the paradoxes of time travel and pseudo philosophy and technobabble injected with a strong hippy-dippy vibe about heroism and love as befitted the particular period it happens to be from.
The book never reached either critical or popular acclaim, but it may well have offered the inspiration to a Hollywood script writer for Marty McFly's time traveling conundrum in the first Back to the Future movie.
Dr. Orpheus did have a moment or two that I genuinely did not expect - like the fact hero Croyd decided against a Rambo-style, kill-all-enemies solution to a threatened alien invasion of Earth.
If for any reason you want a quick, bubble gum SF read, simply pull out that used bookstore's copy of Dr. Orpheus. There's bound to be one stuck in that shelf of lesser-lights science fiction that they find hard to sell.
In truth, the term "B-rated" might be a stretch as applied to this book, but it's certainly worth the 50 cents an all-too-happy-to-move-it-off-the-shelf bookstore owner would accept for it.
As it turns out, I forked over no cash whatsoever for my copy, as a SF enthusiast and friend of dad's dumped off a whole bunch of books for me more than 22 years ago and it had remained there until some house cleaning by my parents.
Looking for a distraction one day, I picked up Wallace's book and started it. After about 100 pages - about twice as long as I usually give a novel because I'm frustrated with not getting all the way through before I start another book - I found myself rather enjoying its quirks.
The author of this little diversion might have had high hopes this offering would become a genre-breaker, an iconoclastic work that would shatter SF expectations, like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Instead, it ends up being a loosely strung together mix of the paradoxes of time travel and pseudo philosophy and technobabble injected with a strong hippy-dippy vibe about heroism and love as befitted the particular period it happens to be from.
The book never reached either critical or popular acclaim, but it may well have offered the inspiration to a Hollywood script writer for Marty McFly's time traveling conundrum in the first Back to the Future movie.
Dr. Orpheus did have a moment or two that I genuinely did not expect - like the fact hero Croyd decided against a Rambo-style, kill-all-enemies solution to a threatened alien invasion of Earth.
If for any reason you want a quick, bubble gum SF read, simply pull out that used bookstore's copy of Dr. Orpheus. There's bound to be one stuck in that shelf of lesser-lights science fiction that they find hard to sell.
A mascot with merit
Happiness is... a tail-wagging mascot.
Were I less modest, or less bound by conflicts of interest, I might have proposed my own four-legged and furry walking companion to become the feel-good symbol that Hillsville officials sought in 2006.
It's more than just pet parent pride — to me, at least, my dog Sydney has changed the way I look at the town. Southwest Virginia, and indeed the world.
Let me explain.
The dog and I serve as faithful walkers on the town's Beaver Dam Trail, and we've probably made it there at most more than 300 times a year since the path first opened.
On top of that, we regularly walk on the New River Trail, and we actively search out other places to enjoy the outdoors, as well.
People might not remember seeing me on any of our outings on those trails, because when they pass us going the other way, they often have their eyes locked on the dog, while cooing in that tone reserved for cute babies and critters.
Many of them don't talk to me directly, but exclaim, "Oh, what a beautiful doggy," while looking her into her eyes.
She might favor the complimenter with a wag of the tail.
We say thank you and move on.
Again, this isn't just a puffed-up parent talking about a single example of such flattery — this happens on a regular basis when we meet strangers.
Sydney makes most people feel welcome, but other canines can sometimes feel her Australian shepherd protectiveness in the form of snarling and barking. (To other dog- owners and -walkers, we apologize for any inconvenience.)
The animal does draw attention wherever she goes.
Twice while visiting attractions on the Blue Ridge Parkway — Linville Falls and Mabry Mill — tourists asked me all about her tri-colored coat and blue-white eyes and then requested a photo of the dog.
I thought it was funny that my dog became one of the features photographed at the most photographed attraction on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
So she had in her favor being friendly to people and photogenic, as well as being a staple on the town trail.
But there's more: When a rabies outbreak happened in Virginia's Twin Counties a while back, Sydney unflinchingly acted as a poster-dog for protecting other animals by getting the vaccination in a photograph to accompany a newspaper article.
Arguably the most famous dog in Hillsville, Sydney has already helped to symbolize the town by appearing in action on the trail on the television show "All in a Day's Drive," promoting tourist destinations in Virginia.
And I've written before how, in a way, the dog has served as my muse in learning about the outdoors.
Her hyperactivity as a puppy convinced me that we couldn't just stay in the house and throw the ball 100 times straight to play fetch all day.
We had to get out and walk in order to burn off some of that energy.
Worked like a charm... with an unintended side effect of deepening my love for Hillsville and other parts of Southwestern Virginia we've seen. I started thinking about her as my Blue Ridge guide.
And that's why, if I could, I would submit Sydney's nomination for Hillsville's mascot.
• Originally posted in The Gazette, Galax, Va., in December 2006
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Assessing a failure
Real estate taxes are all out of kilter.
Food from the grocery, eating meals out, tires, gas, vehicles, staying in a hotel room, paper goods, income, savings — all are taxed at a much higher rate than real estate — and reform is needed.
Though I get a queasy feeling each time my real estate tax ticket comes, it's easy to see that taxes on land are the best deal out there when it comes to government tithing.
They take the value of the land and the value of any improvements there upon, divide it by $100 and base the taxes on the remainder.
So if a house is $100,000, they calculate the taxes on $1,000, whether that land is on a mountain peak, a drained wetlands, a riverbank, a former cabbage field, a cut down forest, in the county or in the town.
And that's the crux of the problem.
Every budget season, I hear concerned citizens tell local officials that their governments should be run like a business, and I agree with them fully.
However, our real estate tax system with its generally flat tax on property, with the exception of large tracts of farms and forests enrolled in land use, ignores the economic laws of supply and demand.
Having just been through a county-wide assessment, I am aware that the system used to come up with values does consider variables of scarcity — such as putting a higher price on mountain land or tracts on the river.
But it's when comes to the actual set tax rate, applying it equally across the board, that's the part that makes the real estate taxes (as compared to income taxes, for example) regressive.
This reflects an oversight in our whole economic system — the failure to account for resource depletion.
Farmland, wetlands, forests, they all have intrinsic value. Just to belabor the obvious, farms produce beef, chicken, wheat, corn, etc. to supply food; forests supply timber for building; and wetlands contribute in a more abstract way to world health and biodiversity.
But real estate taxation in the current system will always value wetlands being filled in and farms being split up into umpteen housing tracts in a subdivision higher than it was as productive land.
That is the rule in the economic system that counts on resource-intensive development, i.e. "growth," as progress.
That's okay as long as there are natural resources to feed that growth. But the last time I checked the cliche about land that goes "they're not making any more" still holds true.
Real estate taxes at present rewards the consumption of open land by encouraging people to look for the tax impact will be the lowest on them.
That is not within a town's limits, as people who build there will be subject to both town and county taxes.
(Virginia differs from many states in the application of real estate taxes from towns, counties and cities. In states like Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, schools, fire departments, libraries, townships and more all have independent taxing authority in addition to the localities. The way Virginia allows cities to collect taxes without also the county being able to get a share is also an exception to the rule.)
The "double taxation" for people who live in municipalities is exactly backwards, allowable because the assessments do not take into account the intangible values of open space.
The vast majority of people should be encouraged to live in the world's urban centers, not driven out, I say.
To fix it, government officials, academics and economists would have to add to the equation the true value of open land and the negative impact of its loss.
The result, I expect, would be the inverse of today's flat real estate taxes.
People in town would see a low tax rate, as would owners of huge tracts of preserved open land, perhaps comparable to the way property is assessed today — at less than 1 percent.
Single-family dwellings out in the boonies would pay considerably more for the privilege of changing productive land out in the county to unproductive land.
The more scarce land is, the more the owners should have to pay taxes on it, applying the rules of economics to the taxing paradigm. Therefore, taxes would be the highest for land at a mountain's summit and at the river's edge.
And if owners are willing to pay extremely high taxes to build their 4,000-square-foot mansions across a couple acres, then wonderful, let them do it.
I understand that there's something for everybody to hate about this idea.
People who want luxurious homes in the middle of nowhere with a lot of elbow room will say that's their right and government doing anything to discourage that would be nothing short of communistic.
And people in urban areas would get a lot more development around them and a lot more neighbors, which normally leads to violence and the necessity for police and other emergency response.
This is not something that local governments could pull off alone — the tax system would have to be revised on a national and state level in order for true values of development to be considered and to implement something that would encourage conservation of natural resources.
To try and make an apt analogy, let's consider an independent trucker who runs his own business. Say that he runs his truck hard to make a living, but fails to account for depreciation and the need to eventually replace the truck.
Failing to sock money away will prove fatal to his business and his livelihood once his sole truck wears out and he has no capital to reinvest. That's exactly what we're doing with our land and the minerals in it, as well as water and air.
Unchecked development and overconsumption of natural resources will end one day, no matter what we do.
The tough choices that humankind are propelling ourselves toward amounts to whether we just want to continue the unrealistic attitude that we can burn through all our resources or adopt a model that actually accepts the essential value of controlling development.
People need to correctly assess the failures here.
What worries me most is that the system doesn't even look broken yet, and it won't look broken until a crisis emerges involving something that's hard or impossible to replace.
• First published in The Gazette , Galax, Va., November 2008.
Food from the grocery, eating meals out, tires, gas, vehicles, staying in a hotel room, paper goods, income, savings — all are taxed at a much higher rate than real estate — and reform is needed.
Though I get a queasy feeling each time my real estate tax ticket comes, it's easy to see that taxes on land are the best deal out there when it comes to government tithing.
They take the value of the land and the value of any improvements there upon, divide it by $100 and base the taxes on the remainder.
So if a house is $100,000, they calculate the taxes on $1,000, whether that land is on a mountain peak, a drained wetlands, a riverbank, a former cabbage field, a cut down forest, in the county or in the town.
And that's the crux of the problem.
Every budget season, I hear concerned citizens tell local officials that their governments should be run like a business, and I agree with them fully.
However, our real estate tax system with its generally flat tax on property, with the exception of large tracts of farms and forests enrolled in land use, ignores the economic laws of supply and demand.
Having just been through a county-wide assessment, I am aware that the system used to come up with values does consider variables of scarcity — such as putting a higher price on mountain land or tracts on the river.
But it's when comes to the actual set tax rate, applying it equally across the board, that's the part that makes the real estate taxes (as compared to income taxes, for example) regressive.
This reflects an oversight in our whole economic system — the failure to account for resource depletion.
Farmland, wetlands, forests, they all have intrinsic value. Just to belabor the obvious, farms produce beef, chicken, wheat, corn, etc. to supply food; forests supply timber for building; and wetlands contribute in a more abstract way to world health and biodiversity.
But real estate taxation in the current system will always value wetlands being filled in and farms being split up into umpteen housing tracts in a subdivision higher than it was as productive land.
That is the rule in the economic system that counts on resource-intensive development, i.e. "growth," as progress.
That's okay as long as there are natural resources to feed that growth. But the last time I checked the cliche about land that goes "they're not making any more" still holds true.
Real estate taxes at present rewards the consumption of open land by encouraging people to look for the tax impact will be the lowest on them.
That is not within a town's limits, as people who build there will be subject to both town and county taxes.
(Virginia differs from many states in the application of real estate taxes from towns, counties and cities. In states like Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, schools, fire departments, libraries, townships and more all have independent taxing authority in addition to the localities. The way Virginia allows cities to collect taxes without also the county being able to get a share is also an exception to the rule.)
The "double taxation" for people who live in municipalities is exactly backwards, allowable because the assessments do not take into account the intangible values of open space.
The vast majority of people should be encouraged to live in the world's urban centers, not driven out, I say.
To fix it, government officials, academics and economists would have to add to the equation the true value of open land and the negative impact of its loss.
The result, I expect, would be the inverse of today's flat real estate taxes.
People in town would see a low tax rate, as would owners of huge tracts of preserved open land, perhaps comparable to the way property is assessed today — at less than 1 percent.
Single-family dwellings out in the boonies would pay considerably more for the privilege of changing productive land out in the county to unproductive land.
The more scarce land is, the more the owners should have to pay taxes on it, applying the rules of economics to the taxing paradigm. Therefore, taxes would be the highest for land at a mountain's summit and at the river's edge.
And if owners are willing to pay extremely high taxes to build their 4,000-square-foot mansions across a couple acres, then wonderful, let them do it.
I understand that there's something for everybody to hate about this idea.
People who want luxurious homes in the middle of nowhere with a lot of elbow room will say that's their right and government doing anything to discourage that would be nothing short of communistic.
And people in urban areas would get a lot more development around them and a lot more neighbors, which normally leads to violence and the necessity for police and other emergency response.
This is not something that local governments could pull off alone — the tax system would have to be revised on a national and state level in order for true values of development to be considered and to implement something that would encourage conservation of natural resources.
To try and make an apt analogy, let's consider an independent trucker who runs his own business. Say that he runs his truck hard to make a living, but fails to account for depreciation and the need to eventually replace the truck.
Failing to sock money away will prove fatal to his business and his livelihood once his sole truck wears out and he has no capital to reinvest. That's exactly what we're doing with our land and the minerals in it, as well as water and air.
Unchecked development and overconsumption of natural resources will end one day, no matter what we do.
The tough choices that humankind are propelling ourselves toward amounts to whether we just want to continue the unrealistic attitude that we can burn through all our resources or adopt a model that actually accepts the essential value of controlling development.
People need to correctly assess the failures here.
What worries me most is that the system doesn't even look broken yet, and it won't look broken until a crisis emerges involving something that's hard or impossible to replace.
• First published in The Gazette , Galax, Va., November 2008.
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