First Trip to Lexington for Some BBQ

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Smileys_in_lexingtonToday Celeste wanted to do a little exploring and stop in on a couple of open houses in Davidson County.  We’re not looking to move but Celeste is always looking for a chance to be a Peeping Tom-ette.

Since we were already down there we decided to drive into Lexington for a BBQ lunch.  We stopped in on Smiley’s on NC-8 and had quite a nice meal which I highly recommend.  Here’s a picture of Justin, Erin and Celeste (Michael was at a friend’s house) in front of their outdoor menu and a picture of Justin in front of what he called a "cool car":
Smileys_menu
Justins_hotrod

Lewisville Has a Sister City in Middlesboro, KY

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I learn something new every day.  Lewisville, NC which my family now calls home, has a sister-city in Middlesboro, KY and there’s an interesting article about it in the Middlesboro Daily News.  Something else I didn’t know: Daniel Boone started his travels west through the Cumberland Gap right here on the Yadkin River, and his parents are buried here.  Very cool.

Coopetition Defined

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The Winston-Salem Journal lost power at their production facility the other night so the Greensboro News & Record stepped in to print about 17,000 copies for them.  The two papers have a standing agreement to help each other out in circumstances such as these, which is good business for all concerned and the true definition of "coopetition."

Update: The Journal’s editor writes about it here.

Great Warren Buffett Quote

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I’ve always been a big fan of Warren Buffett and his recent donation of $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation only deepens that admiration.  There’s an article about Buffett and Gates in the NY Times and it contains a great quote:

"I don’t believe in dynastic wealth," he said, calling those who grow
up in wealthy circumstances "members of the lucky sperm club."

Classic.

Travel truly sucks; So does Delta’s Customer Service

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I tried to post this while on the road yesterday and for whatever reason it didn’t post, so I’m re-posting today:

Yesterday I had a planning trip for SCIP’s 2007
conference at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. I had a flight up
Monday night that was cancelled so I was re-booked for yesterday
morning and the flight up was fine.  Unfortunately the return flight
last night was cancelled due to weather (along with at least a dozen
other flights) and in the typical fashion of modern airlines Delta
assigned exactly one person to their registration desk so re-booking
took forever.  They also offered no help in finding a room, but I was
lucky to find a hotel with the help of a fellow traveler who does a lot
of travel to NY.  Since this is peak tourist season almost everything
was booked solid.

So after four hours sleep and wearing the same clothes as yesterday I
sit in Atlanta waiting for my connecting flight (let’s forget that I
paid for a direct flight) and am feeling tired and smelly. The only
positive note is that they originally had me going through Cincinnati,
but when I showed up they  were oversold for that flight and they gave
me a $200 travel voucher to switch to the Atlanta flight.

I also feel fortunate compared to the woman who was in front of me in
the line to re-book; she was travelling with her 7-ish daughter and
wasn’t sure where she was going to stay.  She disappeared before I or
the guy who helped me find a room could offer help.  Hopefully she made
it home.

Conclusion: Delta’s customer service sucks. Not necessarily the people,
although the kid they had working the counter either wasn’t too bright
or very well trained, but the management structure that allowed them to
do such a poor job of staffing and a horrendou job of communicating
with the customers as flights were repeatedly delayed and eventually
cancelled.  There were a LOT of pissed-off Delta customers in NY last
night.

Forsyth County Commissioners Show Thin Skin

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After the recent Forsyth County budget was announced the number one issue in terms of publicity was the fact that the Downtown Health Plaza lost all county funding (about $600k).  That caused a bit of a stink because of the politics involved, but it got even stinkier when the county’s director of health, Dr. Tim Monroe, wrote an opinion column for the Winston-Salem Journal that basically said the county’s policy, and by association the commissioners themselves, does not fit with the Christian values of compassion and charity.  In Winston-Salem those are fightin’ words!

Two of the commissioners replied in the Journal:

"I think he’s very
disrespectful to the commissioners. I think he’s being misleading to
the community," said Gloria Whisenhunt, the chairwoman. "Tim has never
been a team player."

Debra Conrad-Shrader, the vice chairwoman, agreed.

"I thought it was
inappropriate, and I’m sure the board of health will take care of it,"
Conrad-Shrader said. "He’s their responsibility, and they are in charge
of who the health director is."

Well, pardon me but I think the Bush administration has shown what a mess you can make of things if you insist that everyone be a "team player."  The public is not served well if our public servants just sit on their hands when they feel an injustice has been done.  We don’t have to agree with what is said but we do deserve to hear all sides of the debate.

For what it’s worth I don’t like higher taxes any more than the next person but I think it is perfectly legitimate to question how our government spends its money.  Quite frankly the healthcare system is tough on more people than just the desperately poor.  Every day more people go without health insurance and every day it costs more and I think that you’ll find more people needing the services of places like the Downtown Health Plaza.  Public health policy is one area that deserves heated debate, not meek acceptance by "team players."

And for the record, Dr. Monroe really points the finger at us, the citizens of Forsyth County.  Here’s what he wrote:

But we should not
judge the commissioners. We placed them there, and we sent them the
unmistakable message of our true values – that they would not be
re-elected if they raised taxes. We must judge ourselves. Would it be
an unreasonable burden on property owners to pay a 1-cent increase so
that the disenfranchised might enjoy an incremental improvement in
needed services? Would it damage our economy, as is so often argued by
the no-more-taxes-for-nothing-never-no-how contingent? Below are some
county property tax rates for comparison. Are the property owners of
Mecklenburg, Durham and Cumberland Counties reeling under their burdens?

So if anyone should feel disrespected it is us, but to be honest I’m glad we have at least one public servant with the cajones to stand up and be counted.  Good on ‘ya Dr. Monroe.  And to our esteemed councilwomen I can only say, "Grow up."

10 Year Plan to End Homelessness in Winston-Salem

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After posting this piece about the homeless and email I found out about an initiative in Winston-Salem called the "10 Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness."  The executive summary has some interesting information:

  • "Approximately 1,800 people experience homelessness in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County each year. Twenty percent are families; around 200 are children."
  • "The Ten Year Plan calls for a “housing first” approach that emphasizes placing individuals and families who are homeless in safe and affordable housing as an immediate response to their crisis and then ensuring that the necessary supports are in place to sustain that housing. The Plan recognizes that access to housing is a basic human need that should not be conditioned on external measures of client readiness, such as employment, sobriety, or willingness to accept treatment. Housing First is premised on the belief that the underlying causes of homelessness can be more effectively addressed once a person is housed. And, in fact, research shows that people are most successful at addressing issues that often contribute to homelessness such as unemployment, serious mental illness, and addiction when their housing is stabilized first and supportive services are then offered to promote housing stability."
  • "For a system to fully and effectively address homelessness it must include a range of housing and service strategies that are tailored to meet the diverse needs experienced by individuals and families who become homeless—strategies that are firmly grounded in an understanding
    of how those needs vary according to whether homelessness is transitional or chronic in nature. To succeed, the existing homeless service system must alter its approach from one that responds to all individuals experiencing homelessness in similar ways, to one that differentiates between services for persons with short-term needs and those requiring long-term support."

The full report can be found here and if you want more information the contact they provide is:
Tim West
Winston-Salem Housing/Neighborhood Development Department
(336) 727-8597 • timw@cityofws.org

Homeless on the Net

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Anyone who has lived anywhere near an American city has had some contact with the homeless.  My first real experience with the homeless was in Washington, DC in the summer of ’84 when I was working as an intern for NASFAA in their old offices just off of Dupont Circle.  I spent a lot of time running errands, taking the Metro to Capitol Hill and walking the city in general.  I don’t remember if it was ’84 or ’85 but the homeless situation got really bad when the city had to reduce crowding at Saint Elizabeths, the city’s mental institution, and so one day they just opened the gates and pushed a bunch of patients through.  I vividly remember sitting in a park eating lunch with a bunch of other office workers and looking up to see a flood of the recently expelled patients walking towards us.  To a person we all grabbed our stuff and walked as quickly as possible in the other direction.

I bring this up only to provide the context of my experience with the homeless.  Most that I ran into in DC would fall into the category of people with severe problems that led to their homeless status: mental or physical disease, drug abuse, alcoholism.  It was rare that you saw someone panhandling who looked like they were temporarily down on their luck and homelessness was their sole problem; almost all were homeless because of their primary problem.  So when I came across this piece on WiredNews I was intrigued, especially by this quote from Michael Stoops, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless:

“More have e-mail than have post office boxes,” Stoops said. “The internet has been a big boon to the homeless.”

This is fascinating to me because I wouldn’t have thought that a majority of the homeless would have the capability to work online given many of the aforementioned mental and emotional limitations I personally observed.  Is this because I’ve had a very limited view of the homeless?  Have I only seen a “hardcore” segment of the homeless population and missed a larger, less “damaged” homeless segment?  Or is it that a majority of the homeless population can function intellectually for limited amounts of time but cannot do so consistently enough to hold down a job and function effectively in our increasingly complicated society?

Now I’m not surprised that more people have email addresses than PO boxes.  They’re free and they can “move” with the individual.  But I know many very successful people, the polar opposite of homeless, who become extremely flustered the moment they get in front of a computer or are asked to do something online.  They can navigate modern society with the best of ’em but can’t figure out how to attach an image to an email if their lives depend on it.  So how is it that these people who have such a hard time succeeding in our society can function online? 

If nothing else reading this has caused me to question my preconceptions about homelessness.  The issue is more complex than I thought and quite honestly it is slightly disturbing to me that I haven’t had cause to think about this in years.  The phrase, “out of sight, out of mind” probably summarizes it well and that’s shameful.  But what to do?