Author Archives: Jon Lowder

Fiddling While Rome Burns

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I've been watching with interest the developing marriage amendment story here in North Carolina:

North Carolina voters will decide in the May 2012 primary whether to add an amendment to the state constitution that bans legal recognition of same-sex marriages, after a 30-16 vote Tuesday in the stateSenate in favor of a referendum.

The state House approved the vote by a 75-42 vote Monday. Votes in both the House and Senate were more than the three-fifths margin required to send the issue to the voters.

Supporters and opponents of the marriage amendment say they expect to be busy trying to persuade people between now and next spring.

I'm personally against the amendment, and in fact I have some pretty strong feelings about the appropriate role for government in defining relationships at all, so you can safely assume that I'll vote against the amendment. You can also safely assume that a great number of people, including the amendment's supporters, assume that I'm in the minority here in North Carolina and so they feel confident that they'll get the amendment passed. It's also probably a safe assumption you'll hear at least some of the amendment supporters say something to the effect of "Well, most people here are straight and are good Christians and believe that a real marriage is only between a man and a woman.  Since we're the majority we should be able to say that marriage is only rightly between a man and a woman.  That's our right in our democratic system – majority rules."

That last statement opens up a lot of arguments (equal rights/protections for minority groups, the proper role of religion in public policy, etc.) that would take about 800 pages to dig into and I'll save that for another day.  I will, however, tell you that I'm always made uncomfortable by that argument because it uses the same logic that has been used to oppress people in the minority throughout our history. I will also tell you that I'm far more concerned with the state of our economy than with the fact that Harry might marry Barry.  

I'd really rather not have our leaders play the marriage fiddle while tens of thousands of our citizens suffer through high unemployment and soaring rates of hunger and poverty in a burning Rome. (See Nero Fiddling While Rome Burns).

On a more fundamental level I'll also tell you that I will vote against the amendment because I don't happen to think that if someone is gay there's something wrong with them. I don't think being gay is something that a person can, or should, be cured of, and I find any law that singles out our gay fellow citizens and treats them as a second class citizen to be a stain on our society.  Just wanted to make that clear. 

The 93rd Year of Compulsory Education

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Seth Godin has an interesting post about public education in America.  While I'm not sure I totally agree with the statement "Large-scale education was never about teaching kids or creating scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system,"  I do find the following to ring true:

As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education, here’s the question every parent and taxpayer needs to wrestle with: Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?

As long as we embrace (or even accept) standardized testing, fear of science, little attempt at teaching leadership and most of all, the bureaucratic imperative to turn education into a factory itself, we’re in big trouble.

The post-industrial revolution is here. Do you care enough to teach your kids to take advantage of it?

Bless Her Heart

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Down here in the South the folks have a way of saying “Bless his/her heart” about people who’ve made questionable decisions, shown questionable intelligence or just been straight up dumba**es. Sometimes the term is used as it was originally intended, as a way to show sympathy for someone who has genuinely had a tough time.

Pictured is the recipe for a chess pie written by my Granny. My lovely wife attempted to make the pie as a surprise for my birthday, and as you can see the directions lack a certain specificity so let’s just say that the result has me saying “Bless her heart.”

I’ve done nothing remotely good enough to deserve her.

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Anonymous Art

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Booksculpture
Someone is anonymously leaving paper sculptures in libraries in Scotland:

One day in March, staff at the Scottish Poetry Library came across a wonderful creation, left anonymously on a table in the library. Carved from paper, mounted on a book and with a tag addressed to @byleaveswelive – the library's Twitter account – reading:

It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… 
… We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… 
This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)

 

Cool News from a Friend

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I met Steve Cavanaugh several years ago when we were both coaching our daughters' Challenge soccer teams for Twin City.  Not long after that he and the boys on the White Lightning made the mistake of letting me join their over-40 soccer team in the PASL, a dubious decision for which they continue to pay.  Let's just say I've seen Mr. Cavanaugh on many a green field around Winston-Salem, so it seemed kind of appropriate when I received an email about the recognition his firm received from Google for a green-initiative project they were involved with here in North Carolina.  Below is a video about Google's program – the swine farm project in Yadkin County that Cavanaugh & Associates designed starts at about the 2:20 mark – and below that is the text of the press release from Cavanaugh & Associates.

Google Inc., Endorses Bio-Energy System on NC Hog Farm

Winston-Salem, NC -Yesterday on YouTube, Jolanka Nickerman, Google's director of carbon offsets, announced Internet giant, Google, will invest in high-quality carbon offset credits generated from a swine farm that was transformed into a green-energy animal waste treatment facility designed by Cavanaugh & Associates, P. A. Headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Cavanaugh, in partnership with Duke University and Duke Energy, developed this $1.2 million prototype system at Loyd Ray Farms, a 9,000-head hog finishing operation northwest of Yadkinville, N.C.

In an effort to bolster sustainable agriculture by reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions and creating alternate revenue sources, Cavanaugh was commissioned by Duke University to develop a biomass renewable energy project that generates electricity from the methane gases produced and captured by the innovative swine waste management system.  Methane is captured from a digester and used to fuel a microturbine to generate electricity. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide, as a green house gas, and this project is designed to capture and combust all the methane generated by the farm's waste treatment system. In keeping with the innovative approach to managing waste produced on this hog farm, Loyd Ray Farm is the first swine facility in North Carolina to generate REC credits and produce enough electricity to power over 35 homes a year. 

Like Duke, who credits the greenhouse gas emission reductions (otherwise known as carbon offsets) toward its voluntary carbon neutrality goal, Google is a proponent of green energy and investing in alternative energy projects like the one found at Loyd Ray Farms. Google announced today that it is purchasing carbon offsets from this project.  Both Duke University and Cavanaugh hope this is the first of many swine farm biomass energy projects in the Southeast.

"Loyd Ray Farms is a testament to the importance of  creating sustainable agriculture and Cavanaugh's commitment to Stewardship through Innovation when it comes to finding ways to keep North Carolina moving forward," said Cavanaugh's CEO, Steve Cavanaugh. "Because this is our home too, Cavanaugh welcomes creative partnerships with companies like Google who support the idea of using animal "waste" as an alternative fuel source. It's truly a win-win scenario for us and our environment."

For more information on the Loyd Ray Farm project or to obtain a detailed description of the project in PDF form, please contact: Gus Simmons, PE, Principal in Charge/Designer:gus.simmons@cavanaughsolutions.com or 910-392-4462.  

 

Yes, Tennis Players are Picky

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Below is a great video of 13-year tennis pro Michael Russell being tested to see if he can pick his racket out of a bunch of very similar rackets.  In one case he could tell a 1 gram difference in the weight of a test racket compared to his personal racket.  Everything else – model, string tension, etc.- was similar. 

For someone who plays regularly I'm a weirdly unpicky player when it comes to things like strings. Most players know exactly what kind of string they want, but I care mostly about tension. I've come across a couple of strings that I don't like but for the most part I don't pay much attention.  99% of regular players do care very much, but I've never felt my game was fine tuned enough for it to make much of a difference.

BTW, I had the chance to see Russell play in the qualifying rounds of the Winston-Salem Open two weeks ago and it was amazing to see how much steadier he was than his opponent.  The guy is a hitting machine, and I was very pleased to see him put on a great show versus Andy Roddick earlier this week in a night match in Ashe Stadium at the US Open.

Anyway, enjoy the video.

The Waffle House Index

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Talk about a brand identity.  FEMA has what they call the "Waffle House Index" to gauge how severely an area has been impacted by a natural disaster:

Green means the restaurant is serving a full menu, a signal that damage in an area is limited and the lights are on. Yellow means a limited menu, indicating power from a generator, at best, and low food supplies. Red means the restaurant is closed, a sign of severe damage in the area or unsafe conditions.

"If you get there and the Waffle House is closed?" FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has said. "That's really bad. That's where you go to work."

Waffle House Inc. has 1,600 restaurants stretching from the mid-Atlantic to Florida and across the Gulf Coast, leaving it particularly vulnerable to hurricanes. Other businesses, of course, strive to reopen as quickly as possible after disasters. But the Waffle House, which spends almost nothing on advertising, has built a marketing strategy around the goodwill gained from being open when customers are most desperate…

In a recent academic paper, Panos Kouvelis, a business-school professor at Washington University in St. Louis, pegged Waffle House as one of the top four companies for disaster response, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Lowe's Cos.

I definitely recommend reading the full article.  Great look at the power of planning and adaptation.