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College of Veterinary Medicine
Sept. 30, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By NANCY BRACHEY
© Copyright 2004
Tending a egacy Elizabeth Lawrence's plants and her words about them live on in her Charlotte garden and in a new biography Five private gardens in Charlotte will be open Saturday and Sunday for the Open Days tour sponsored by The Garden Conservancy, a national organization dedicated to preserving exceptional gardens.
Nancy Brachey
On the first day of autumn, one of those delightful surprises that gardeners savor occurred in the Elizabeth Lawrence Garden in Charlotte.
A lilac autumn crocus opened its small neat blossom among an abundance of leaves and flowers. But where it came from is anyone's guess.
Though she has come to expect such surprises, the garden's owner, Lindie Wilson, never tires of them, even after 18 years caring for the Myers Park garden created by writer Elizabeth Lawrence.
"Little treasures like that have occurred," she says of the lone crocus. "The surprise is they keep on happening."
The larger treasure is Lawrence's legacy, including the garden and a wealth of garden writing. She designed, planted and tended the garden from 1949 to 1984, a year before her death at age 81. And she wrote books, articles and columns about her lifelong passion.
Now, nearly 20 years after her death, three things are converging to awaken public interest in Lawrence:
• A biography, "No One Gardens Alone: A Life of Elizabeth Lawrence," by Emily Herring Wilson of Winston-Salem, (Beacon Press, $26) will be published in October.
• The Lawrence garden will be among five private gardens open to the public Saturday and Sunday. The Garden Conservancy, a national group dedicated to preserving exceptional gardens, sponsors its Open Days tour.
• Efforts are underway to preserve the Lawrence house and garden. A new organization, the Friends of Elizabeth Lawrence, has applied to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission for historic landmark status for the property.
Any of these occurrences would delight fans of Lawrence. Taken together, they give people like Douglas Ruhren, head gardener at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, hope for a strong renewal of interest in Lawrence's work.
Ruhren once helped to create the Elizabeth Lawrence Border at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, which includes plants from the Lawrence family home in Raleigh. She lived there from 1912 until moving to Charlotte in 1948.
"I truly feel, and say it all the time, that anybody gardening in the South really needs to read her books," Ruhren says. "It would be valuable to have an Elizabeth Lawrence renaissance because of her experience (Piedmont gardening). The plants she wrote about are still entirely valid today."
Lawrence's first book, "A Southern Garden" came out in 1942. Still in print, it is based on the Raleigh garden, now displaced by an N.C. State University fraternity house. Horticulture magazine recently ranked it No. 41 on its list of top 100 classic gardening books, native perennials, shrubs and trees and horticultural organizations.
Two more books, one on small bulbs, another on winter gardening, followed during her life. In addition, she wrote frequently for gardening journals and magazines.
She was one of the Observer's garden columnists from 1957 to 1971. After Lawrence's death in 1985, others edited her short pieces, columns and letters into five more books published between 1988 and 2002. She was a dedicated plant collector, observer and recorder of bloom times, plant performance and seasonal changes.
She advocated planting for bloom every day of the year. From the top of the canopy to the floor of the garden, she embraced things decidedly untypical in her day, including adonis, stewardia, sarcococca, witch hazel, hardy cyclamen and astilbe. (Though prone to die out quickly in Southern heat, Lawrence's astilbe plants prosper today.)
Ruhren recalls he read "The Little Bulbs" at the time he was becoming aware of bulbs' value and beauty.
"Here," he recalls thinking, "is a North Carolina gardener trying all of them. It was a great revelation.
"Elizabeth Lawrence... writes so beautifully that anyone who appreciates the written word and enjoys reading would find great pleasure in reading her books, even if they had no interest in gardening. "
Larry Mellichamp, director of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, also recalls her influence.
"I knew her before she died. ... She was thin and frail, but she was not shy," he recalls. "I was a bit intimidated by her, an older woman, but I realized there was something there."
Mellichamp says she inspired his interest in Southern winter gardens, something he later pursued by collecting winter landscape plants at UNCC and by co-writing a book with Peter Loewer of Asheville, "The Winter Garden."
Mellichamp believes Lawrence wasn't recognized sufficiently during her lifetime.
"She was quiet, not trying to change the world, but an influence on those who would listen, about people and their involvement with plants... that plants were as interesting as people," he says.
Charlotte people who appreciate Lawrence's work are looking for ways to preserve the house and garden.
Wilson, who bought the small, gray-shingled house and garden in 1986, hopes this will secure Lawrence's place in Charlotte history.
About 60 percent of garden's plants were chosen and planted by Lawrence. Over the years, Wilson replaced other things that died out and selected new things she felt were in the Lawrence spirit.
The garden has a profuse array of bulbs, perennials, annuals, roses, flowering shrubs and trees. There is no lawn.
Wilson's goal, she says, is to "prevent it from being torn down and taken to the landfill, which would be a certain fate, given the neighborhood it's in." Myers Park is prime real estate in Charlotte and many older houses have been torn down and replaced with much larger ones.
She is part of the group, the Friends of Elizabeth Lawrence, seeking advice and direction from preservation and historical groups, including Preservation North Carolina and The Garden Conservancy.
Mary Davis Smart of Charlotte, chairman of the Friends steering committee, says the Lawrence books, an interest in gardening and volunteering at Wing Haven Garden and Bird Sanctuary built her interest in preserving the Lawrence house and garden.
She says getting started early should help.
"Normally you don't have a lot of time when an historic site is in danger to do much about it. Sometimes, you are there with a bulldozer at demolition" trying to stop it, she says.
Smart believes the Friends have the time and professional advice to develop a sound plan for the property's future.
Another goal is to raise the public's knowledge of Lawrence, something both the new biography and this weekend's tour can advance.
"People nationwide know her, but Charlotte, I don't think, understands her national significance."
And even though Lawrence left the garden 20 years ago, there are people who can still feel her presence there.
"To walk through that garden and be able to visualize Elizabeth Lawrence having worked there digging, day in and day out, or gaze out the window overlooking her desk where she actually wrote her books... that gives me a sense of her presence," Smart says.
Such places, she says, possess "the ability to change the quality of people's lives, not just their backyard environments, but their interests, the books they read, the relationships they form with others."
Garden Conservancy Tour
Five private gardens in Charlotte will be open Saturday and Sunday for the Open Days tour sponsored by The Garden Conservancy, a national organization dedicated to preserving exceptional gardens.
• Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., both days. Entry to each garden costs $5. Tickets will be sold at each garden and at Wing Haven, 248 Ridgewood Ave., which will be open for visiting during tour hours.
• On tour are the gardens of Lindie Wilson, 348 Ridgewood Ave.; Bev and Ann Armstrong, 3034 Hampton Ave.; Pam and Rick Crown, 1901 Sterling Road; Geary and Gus Mandrapilias, 3111 Markworth Ave. and Genie and Jim White, 2924 St. Andrews Lane.
• The tour also calls attention to two other gardens, the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, Mary Alexander and Craver roads, UNC Charlotte; and Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, 6500 S. New Hope Road, as worthy of visiting during the weekend .
• Lindie Wilson opens her garden to groups at other times by appointment. (704) 374-1650.
Sept. 30, 2004
News & Observer
By JENNIFER BREVORKA
© Copyright 2004
Police charged four men Wednesday in connection with an August armed robbery involving money, drugs and guns -- one of which was used to kill two men Sept. 4 at an N.C. State University tailgating party, prosecutors allege.
Timothy Wayne Johnson, 22, and Tony Harrell Johnson, 20, were charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon and first-degree burglary. According to arrest warrants and prosecutors, four residents of 2100 Mariner Circle in south Raleigh were robbed and restrained with duct tape and handcuffs.
The two brothers were already in jail, charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Kevin M. McCann of Chicago and 2nd Lt. Brett Johnson Harman, a Camp Lejeune Marine from Park Ridge, Ill. The men, both 23, were gunned down in a parking area outside an NCSU football game.
Nathan Bartholomew Archer, 24, of 3816 Ingram Drive in Raleigh and Christopher Paul Edge II, 22, of 1919 Cherokee Drive in Fayetteville were arrested Wednesday in connection with the August home invasion. They were charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon and first-degree burglary, according to arrest warrants.
A fifth man, Justin Barron McCarty, 23, of Fayetteville, was charged earlier this month in the same robbery, authorities said.
At a bond hearing Sept. 17, Assistant District Attorney Susan Spurlin told a judge that the Johnson brothers were heavily involved in drug activity. The Mariner Circle robbery occurred after cocaine and $1,000 were stolen from Timothy Johnson's apartment. Timothy Johnson had asked a female friend to scope out the apartment of the person he suspected, Spurlin said.
Then shortly after midnight Aug. 23, robbers used a handgun to steal drugs, $600, seven guns, car keys and five cell phones from James Todd Morgan, Jeremy Howard Ellis, Ashley Megan Case and Luz Velazquez, according to arrest warrants.
One of the stolen firearms was used in the double homicide, Spurlin said in court.
Spurlin declined to comment Wednesday on the armed robbery arrests.
Edge and Archer were each being held at the Wake County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, according to arrest warrants. The men are scheduled to appear in District Court today.
Sept. 30, 2004
News & Observer
By David Ranii
© Copyright 2004
The comedy "Napoleon Dynamite" is still playing in movie theaters, but David Merrifield recently watched it on a 17-inch computer screen in his dorm room with a couple of buddies.
The N.C. State University freshman downloaded the movie from the Internet even though he knew he was violating federal copyright law. "I don't personally agree with it," Merrifield said.
That kind of attitude has Hollywood worried that illegal movie downloads will trigger a new horror production: "The Incredible Shrinking Profit." It's a fear that ripples throughout the industry, rattling film studios, theater chains and neighborhood video rental stores.
"We are scared to death that what happened to the music industry is going to happen to us," said Curtis McCall, CEO of the West Virginia-based Marquee Cinemas, which expects to open two multiplexes in Wake County before Christmas.
Illegal music downloads are thought to be the primary reason that global sales of recorded music have fallen for four straight years.
But the movie industry is fighting to avoid such a scenario and create a happy ending instead.
So far, technological limitations have prevented movie downloading from entering the cultural mainstream, and Hollywood is hoping that it has learned a thing or two from the beating that the music industry suffered.
Movie theaters nationwide have been running spots featuring a set painter and a stunt man talking about how Internet piracy hurts them. The Motion Picture Association of America has been placing ads in college newspapers, including at N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The ads warn students: "You can click but you can't hide. If you think you can get away with illegally swapping movies, you're wrong."
Movie studios also are working with Internet service providers, including universities, to send cease-and-desist letters to offenders who are downloading unauthorized copies of movies. And they're hiring companies to create decoy files that look like downloadable movies but really aren't -- designed to frustrate illegal downloaders.
"The Internet isn't the bogeyman in this equation at all," said MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor. "The Internet isn't the problem. It's how it is used."
Hollywood has learned from one of the mistakes the music industry made in its early efforts to combat Internet piracy, said Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff. For years the music industry resisted making song downloads legally available for a price.
But the movie industry already has passed that threshold: Companies such as CinemaNow and Movielink provide a legal way for consumers to download movies.
But so far, the volume of legitimate movie downloads has been dwarfed by the illegitimate. "It's hard to compete with free," Taylor said.
Hollywood considers unauthorized downloading of films a serious problem, although it can't pinpoint just how bad it is. "By some estimates, there are 400,000 to 600,000 illegally downloaded movies every day," Taylor said.
Last year a Forrester Research survey found that 22 percent of individuals between ages 12 and 22 -- or about 11 percent of all consumers -- admitted to illegally downloading a full-length movie. "It's pretty shocking," Bernoff said.
Within 24 hours of a movie's release in theaters, a bootleg copy typically is available over the Internet, said Mark Ishikawa, CEO of BayTSP, a Silicon Valley company hired by movie studios to detect illegal downloaders.
Many of these early copies are low-tech productions created by someone sitting in a theater with a digital camcorder, although quality copies are leaked out of Hollywood as well -- occasionally, as in the case of "The Hulk," even before a film reaches the theaters.
For now, time is on the film industry's side. A song can be downloaded in a matter of seconds, but it takes two hours or more to download a full-length movie with a high-speed connection. It's not feasible for someone who relies on a dial-up modem to download a movie.
Advances in digital compression technology, however, are expected to steadily erode download times.
Because a broadband connection is crucial for movie downloads, much of the movie industry's public education campaign is focused on college campuses. Students are tech-savvy, hooked into fast networks and perennially short on cash.
In addition to running full-page anti-piracy ads in more than 100 college newspapers, the MPAA also has been working with university administrators to persuade them to discourage students from illegal downloading. They've been receptive, partly because it's illegal. Also, excessive downloading can make a university's Internet networks sluggish, Taylor said.
Molly Broad, president of the University of North Carolina system, sits on a committee formed by the Motion Picture Association of America and university educators. Broad said she understands why Hollywood is worried.
"If you look at most university campuses these days, you'll find that the CD stores that were once a hallmark of the university terrain is diminishing, if not disappearing," she said.
Colleges in the UNC system have policies that call for students who persist, after receiving warnings, in illegally downloading movies and music to lose their computer-network privileges, Broad said.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, the university gets an average of three movie or music industry complaints a week regarding students who are illegally downloading, said Jeanne Smythe, director of computing policy.
Students identified as illegal downloaders temporarily lose their network privileges and must attend a counseling session. As a result, 99 percent of the students halt illegal downloads after receiving a warning, Smythe said.
At N.C. State University, about a half-dozen students each year lose their network privileges for a few months because of repeat offenses, despite warnings, said Carrie Levow, coordinator of ResNet, the Internet network for the school's residence halls. "We get very few repeat offenders," she said.
Unlike the music industry, the movie industry hasn't sued any individuals for illegally downloading files -- at least, not yet.
"We have many arrows in our quiver," Taylor said. "We're not going to rule any of them out."
Bernoff, the Forrester analyst, said he thinks Hollywood won't ever take the financial hit the music industry suffered from illegal downloaders.
The quality of a downloaded song is indistinguishable from a CD, Bernoff said, but there's a major difference between a movie downloaded to a PC and a DVD viewed on a TV set.
And there's nothing like the experience of sitting in a dark theater in front of a big screen.
College Students Learn About Importance Of Breast Cancer Exams
Sept. 29, 2004
WRAL
By Dr. Allen Mask
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. -- When you are young, you feel invincible. Health warnings for things like breast cancer are for older women, but not necessarily. The disease is more common in women over 40, but younger women should not ignore it.
On a typical college campus, female students usually have exams on their mind, but not breast exams.
"Young women 19, 20, 21, college-age women are getting breast cancer," said
The Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation sent a educational trailer on a 10-campus tour. It has grabbed the interest of a steady line of students at North Carolina State University.
"It gives me hope that they will not become what I am, which is a survivor," said Ellen Szinege.
A year and a half ago, a routine mammogram showed Szinege had a small cancerous lump.
"Every year, I had a mammogram. Thank goodness because nobody felt it," she said.
Doctors recommend annual mammograms for women 40 and older but not for younger women. Officials suggest starting at age 20, women should get a clinical exam every three years.
Most women who get breast cancer have no family history of the disease. You can do things to reduce your risk such as exercise and eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
Suspects Charged In Deadly Tailgate Shooting Face More Charges
Sept. 29, 2004
WRAL
By Amanda Lamb
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Two men charged in a double fatal shooting at a football tailgating party face additional charges.
Timothy and Tony Johnson now face burglary and robbery charges in connection with a home invasion in Raleigh on Aug. 23.
Both men have already been indicted in connection with the shooting deaths of two men outside a North Carolina State football game earlier in September.
Christopher Edge, 22, of Fayetteville and Nathan Archer, 24, of Raleigh, were also charged Wednesday in the home invasion case. Another man, Justin McCarty, was arrested last week.
N.C. State revives homecoming parade
Sept. 30, 2004
News & Observer
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
For a copy of this article, contact News Services at 5-3470.
Sept. 30, 2004
News & Observer
By MIKE ZLOTNICKI
© Copyright 2004
FUQUAY-VARINA -- Daniel McKinney recently spent the better part of a week in Colorado working on his favorite sport. But he wasn't skiing. Or mountain biking. Or trout fishing.
Instead, the N.C. State freshman joined 14 other selected teens Sept. 15-19 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to receive instruction in trap shooting from USA Shooting coaches.
"It was great," McKinney, 18, said, seated at his family's dinner table this past Thursday. "Wake up at 6:30 a.m., get to the range at 8, shoot until 4 p.m. Go back, eat and then have 'mental sessions' after dinner to learn the mental aspect of the game."
McKinney estimates he shot about 1,500 rounds in Colorado, equivalent to 60 25-shot rounds of trap. He was coached on form, stance, the mounting of the gun and visual aspects. One visual exercise involved a yard stick.
"We'd take a yard stick and hold it at the 18-inch point," he said, "and focus on the numbers on either in 2-inch increments, alternating side-to-side. It works on eye-muscle strength. If you ever do it, your eyes will get tired."
McKinney got into trap shooting almost by accident.
"My grandpa used to shoot when he was younger," McKinney said. "He was recovering from heart troubles, and one of his friends said [trap shooting] helped him relax. He got into it and got the rest of us into it; my mom Kim, my brother Michael [age 16] and my dad. My sister doesn't really shoot, but she goes out there with us."
He still spends "quality time" with sister Ashley, 20, an N.C. State junior, because they work part-time at Jack Astor's Bar & Grill in Cary, with Daniel busing the tables his sister waits on.
Why trap shooting, instead of skeet or sporting clays?
"I guess it's just what I started with," he said. "I haven't competed in skeet or sporting clays, but I've done them before."
McKinney, who shoots at the Durham County Wildlife Club in Morrisville, got to Colorado via Ohio. After mailing off an application for the Junior Olympic Development Camp, he traveled to Vandalia, Ohio, to shoot at the Grand American World Trapshooting Championships, where he also interviewed for one of the Colorado slots.
McKinney participated in the Scholastic Clay Target Program while at Fuquay-Varina High School, and more than 1,000 scholastic shooters were among the 7,208 in Ohio. There are about 5,000 youths nationally participating in the program.
McKinney's father, Doug, is the N.C. director for the scholastic program. The family jumped into shotgunning as a whole, but Daniel has taken it a step further.
"If I had to pick one word, it'd be dedication," the elder McKinney said. "He's got some natural ability, but he works on it. The Scholastic Clay Target Program is really what got them going. It teaches the safe handling of firearms, and target shooting is size and gender neutral."
The basics of trap shooting are fairly straightforward. Five shooting positions are set in a crescent behind the "trap," a small structure holding the clay thrower. A trap squad is five shooters or fewer standing 16 to 27 yards behind the trap, depending upon skill level. Each person shoots once at an individual target. After all shooters shoot five times, they rotate one position to the right. Because the thrower is constantly moving, the shooters don't know which direction the clay will be moving.
Daniel McKinney has interests besides wielding his Krieghoff KS5 on the trap range, but he has little time to pursue them because of academic work (he wants to major in engineering), his job and practice.
"I'd like to hunt. If we had time, we would, but I spend too much time doing this," said McKinney, who also wrestled during high school. "I like pretty much anything outdoors. I love to fish. I used to fish and play golf a lot."
It takes a lot to compete at a high level, and a tour of the McKinney garage confirmed that. With four family members shooting regularly, McKinney estimates they shoot 20,000 to 25,000 rounds a year. They save costs by reloading a lot of their own shells. Glancing around the shelves and benches, McKinney estimated 25,000 hulls waited to be reloaded. To top it off, 125 "flats," (boxes containing 250 rounds each) lined the walls.
McKinney said he would like to pursue competition further, perhaps venturing into international trap, which is more complex with more throwers offering more extreme shot angles and heights.
He has a lot to look forward to, even after his trip, which impressed him on several levels.
"The food was great," he said, laughing. "I came back and told Mom, 'You need to pick it up.' "
He may need to sharpen his culinary skills with comments like that.
Campus Conservatives Unite: National Conference at North Carolina State
Sept. 29, 2004
NCrumors.com; Men's News Daily, CA; Torontofreepress.com, Canada
By John Plecnik
© Copyright 2004
The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, formerly affiliated with the John Locke Foundation, will be hosting its annual policy conference at North Carolina State University on Saturday, October 16, 2004. The topic: “Freedom and the American Campus.” Led by Director George Leef, Esq., the Pope Center hopes to bring “innovative thinking and critical analysis” to higher education.
The first “College Abuse Conference for Free Speech” was hosted by then-congressional candidate “Whit” Whitfield in Durham, N.C. Scholars and students from across the country assembled to discuss academia’s chronic liberal bias. The October 16 conference is highly reminiscent of Whitfield’s original. The coordinator of the first conference, Dr. Christina Jeffrey of Coastal Carolina University, will be speaking at the NCSU event. A former congressional candidate and U.S. House Historian, Dr. Jeffrey brings considerable perspective to any gathering.
Dr. Candace de Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York System, is also a veteran from the previous conference. Known for countless quotes in the ‘Sunday paper’ and her appearances on Fox News, Dr. Russy has been fighting the good fight against liberal bias for some time.
Other speakers include Dr. Michael Gillespie of Duke University, Dr. Alan C. Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. James Miller of Smith College, Dr. Norman Hurley of the University of North Carolina, and Dr. Roger E. Meiners of the University of Texas at Arlington.
David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and chief editor of FrontPageMag.com, will also be making an appearance. Horowitz gained wide recognition for lobbying state legislators to adopt his ‘Academic Bill of Rights,’ a document designed to take the political bent out of university curriculum and prevent liberal indoctrination. Recently, Colorado’s system of public universities voluntarily adopted significant portions of the ‘Academic Bill of Rights.’ Granted, the system only began moving after Republican lawmakers threatened to vote on Horowitz’s proposals.
Even the guest list is noteworthy. Rachel Lea Hunter, Republican candidate for North Carolina Supreme Court, will attend the event with several of her supporters and campaign staff. “Madame Justice” has run on two issues: stopping judicial activism and ending liberal bias on campus. Hunter has offered her legal services to any student in North Carolina who is discriminated against for his or her political beliefs.
Throughout all my opinion on liberal bias against campus conservatives, I always fall to one repeated refrain: “Awareness is the first condition for real reform, and the need for reform is nationwide.”
Campus conservatives owe a great debt of gratitude to Director Leef of the Pope Center. Utilizing such venues as the Clarion Call and Carolina Journal (widely circulated conservative newsletters), Leef has argued on behalf of conservative students and faculty for years. In so doing, he has promoted awareness for years. Though Duke and UNC may be among the most blatantly biased institutions in the nation, at least parents and alumni are waking up to that reality.
Conservative columnists like Leef must never stop forcing the issue. Conservative politicians like U.S. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) must never stop forcing the issue. College Republicans (and Libertarians) must never stop forcing the issue. Together, we are big enough to take on the ivory tower…
Sept. 29, 2004
Tampa (Fla.) Tribune; Richmond Times Dispatch, VA
By KURT LOFT
© Copyright 2004
Hurricane Charley one of the first hurricanes to unleash its power on Florida this hurricane season simmered thousands of miles to the east as an infant swirl of wind and water before it hit Florida.
Then it revved up along Hurricane Alley, gaining strength just north of the equator on its march to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. As a hurricane, Charley surprised everyone with its quick turn and change of intensity, aspects of the storm scientists will continue to study.
But much less documented than a hurricane's wrath at landfall is its beginnings, and the long-range, ecological benefits of its passing.
Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division in Miami say they have much to learn about the birth, or genesis, of Atlantic hurricanes and the confluence of events that give them so much bite. That will be a focus of NOAA's 2004 Hurricane Field Program Plan.
"Genesis is one of the areas we know least about because it's so hard to observe," says Robert Rogers, a NOAA research meteorologist. "There are a lot of factors that have to come into play to form a hurricane."
Average Atlantic hurricanes take six to 10 days to spin through the alley and its warm, equatorial waters, which fuel its life. The final fury of Charley, Rogers says, only "highlights the importance of having a better understanding of the intensity and origin of hurricanes."
Like most Atlantic hurricanes, Charley started out as what meteorologists call a Cape Verde storm, named after the islands where favorable weather systems give birth to more than 70 events each year. August and September are ideal spawning months for Cape Verde storms.
Typically, Cape Verde waters are too cold at the beginning and end of hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. In contrast, storms that originate in the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico tend to be in the early and late periods of the season.
In a Cape Verde storm, the clash of hot air over the Sahara Desert and cooler air over the Gulf of Guinea provide the energy and spin required for hurricanes to develop, scientists say. Once on their way up Hurricane Alley, storms can be unstoppable as they feed on waters above 80 degrees, upper-level winds that limit disruptive shear and a convergence of air masses called a tropical wave.
While scientists continue to learn about the origins of hurricanes, others are studying the end result: their benefit to ecosystems. One study suggests that storms replenish estuaries and fisheries and can have a positive effect on water quality.
Researchers found a natural laboratory with the Neuse River and Estuary and Pamlico Sound in North Carolina, which took the brunt of hurricanes in 1996 and 1999. These ecosystems were nearly destroyed as the storm surge depleted oxygen in the water and brought in high concentrations of contaminating nitrogen, phosphorus and fecal bacteria, according to a team of scientists at North Carolina State University.
Not only did the systems quickly recover, but also some harmful organisms that took hold before the storms decreased in number. This suggests a helpful flushing effect, the team wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"The overall story we see is resilience to these major storms," says JoAnne Burkholder, the director of the Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology in North Carolina. "The predictions about long-term devastation, made right after the storms, were not borne out."
NASA explores advanced space concepts
Sept. 28, 2004
Universe Today
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has announced its 2004 Phase 1 awards. Twelve proposals to boldly go beyond the frontiers of space exploration were selected for a six-month study period beginning in October 2004.
The NIAC was created in 1998 to solicit revolutionary concepts from people and organizations outside the agency that could greatly advance NASA's missions. The proposals push the limits of known science and technology. The proposals are expected to take at least a decade to be fully realized. NIAC's intention is to discover ideas that may result in beneficial changes to NASA's long-range plans."We are thrilled to team up with imaginative people from industry and universities to discover innovative systems that meet the tremendous challenge of space exploration and development," said Dr. Robert Cassanova of the Universities Space Research Organization (USRA), and NIAC director. The USRA runs the Institute for NASA.
The NIAC sponsors research in two phases. Proposals selected for Phase 1 awards typically receive up to $75,000 for a six- month study that validates the viability of the concept and identifies challenges that must be overcome to make the proposal a reality.
The results of the Phase 1 studies are evaluated. The most promising are selected for further research into the major feasibility issues associated with cost, performance, development time, and technology through a Phase 2 award. Phase 2 studies can be up to two years long and receive as much as $400,000.Proposals selected for the 2004 Phase 1 awards:
Tips to help buyers judge quality
Sept. 30, 2004
Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN; Knight Ridder Newspapers
By MARY BETH BRECKENRIDGE
© Copyright 2004
(KRT) - Judging the quality of upholstered furniture is hard, because most of the important elements are hidden from view. Here are some tips for choosing the best that fits your budget:
_ Make sure the chair or sofa feels sturdy, sits squarely on the floor and doesn't creak or wobble.
_ Don't assume that just because a piece of furniture is heavy, it's good quality. Inferior frame materials can weigh more than better ones, and frames using good materials can be constructed poorly.
_ Look at the underside of the chair or sofa for interior corners that are braced with corner blocks. Those reinforcements should be glued and screwed in place. The addition of two dowels in the corners makes a frame even stronger.
If the support blocks are missing, or if the blocks are only stapled in place, the frame will be less durable.
_ Find out what the frame is made of. Make sure the material is strong, holds fasteners securely and resists shrinking, expanding and warping.
Kiln-dried hardwood or engineered hardwood, also called hardwood plywood, are often used in better-quality furniture. However, good materials won't make a frame durable if the construction is poor.
_ Ask how the foundation - that is, the springs or other system of support
is constructed. In general, steel springs are considered more durable than webbing, but some furniture styles use webbing because springs are too deep for the frame. Further complicating the matter, there are many configurations of springs and gradations of quality.
Since this is an issue that's particularly tough for consumers to judge, you need to question the salesperson and trust your gut about the answer you get. If he or she doesn't seem knowledgeable or gives you an explanation that isn't thorough, consider that a red flag. It probably means the foundation isn't good enough to be a selling point.
_ Sit on the piece of furniture to make sure it's comfortable. That's an issue that's strictly subjective.
_ Bounce on the center of the chair or sofa. The bottom rail - the structural piece on the very bottom of the piece of furniture, between the legs - should remain rigid. It's OK if there's some give above it, but the rail itself shouldn't sag.
_ Check whether stripes or plaids match and seams are sewn tightly. Those are indications of a good-quality upholstering job.
_ Ask how the cushions are made. They might contain springs, cotton or polyester fiber, foam or down.
Look for cushion foam with a density rating of at least 1.8, which refers to its weight in pounds per cubic foot. Ratings typically range up to about 2.5, although a higher density might be desired if you want a very firm feel.
Foam should be wrapped or covered to protect it from direct contact with the upholstery fabric.
_ Buy from a reputable dealer that offers a good warranty.
_ Make sure the furniture bears a gold tag marked "UFAC." That ensures it meets the Upholstered Furniture Action Council's fire safety standards.
_ When you get home, check the Web sites of the manufacturers whose furniture you're considering. If furniture construction is addressed on the site, it's an indication the company is proud of its methods.
Sources: American Furniture Manufacturers Association; John Summey and Tom Culbreth, Furniture Manufacturing and Management Center, North Carolina State University; Mitchell Gold, president, Mitchell Gold Co.
Technology has changed how furniture is made
Sept. 30, 2004
Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN; Knight Ridder Newspapers
By MARY BETH BRECKENRIDGE
© Copyright 2004
(KRT) - It used to be fairly easy to pick out a good-quality piece of upholstered furniture. You looked for eight-way hand-tied springs and a kiln-dried hardwood frame.
End of discussion.
But in the furniture industry, like the rest of the world, technology marches on.
Manufacturers have come up with all kinds of alternative materials and methods for building upholstered furniture, mostly to save time and money. Some of them, however, are giving hand-tied springs and hardwood frames a run for their positions on the top rung of the quality ladder.
Furniture maker Mitchell Gold Co. has even built an advertising campaign around its construction methods, which include the use of hardwood plywood in some pieces and serpentine springs instead of hand-tied coil springs.
Yet Mitchell Gold, president and chief executive officer of the company that bears his name, said many in the furniture industry have been slow to embrace change. He likens holding up hand-tied springs as a gold standard to saying typewriters are the best tools for writing.
"This is part of the struggle of the furniture industry," he said, "not keeping pace with new technology."
Springs and other types of foundation systems are one aspect of upholstered-furniture construction where change has been marked. A multitude of spring choices are available, and quality varies according to the type of steel, the configuration of the springs and the number of springs used.
Gold said his company researched construction methods when it started making sofas 16 years ago and chose a sinuous-wire spring system that he argues is superior to eight-way hand-tied springs. In the latter system, each coil spring is tied in eight places to the springs around it to stabilize the springs and distribute weight.
Hand-tied springs are labor-intensive, and Gold said the twine can loosen over the years. Hand tying might add $100 to the cost of a sofa, "but it doesn't give you $100 more of goodness," he said.
Some manufacturers are forgoing springs altogether. Webbing has long been used as an alternative, although most industry experts consider it less durable than good-quality springs. Still, webbing has been a boon to upholstered-furniture design, because it takes up less room and therefore allows for greater design flexibility.
One company, North Carolina Foam Industries, has come out with another alternative, a high-density foam that it's marketing as a replacement for foundation springs. The foam, called Pluralux, is being used as a foundation in some sofas and chairs that will be shown by a handful of manufacturers at October's semiannual International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C.
Chris Bradley, North Carolina Foam Industries' national account manager, said the foam simply fits into the frame where the springs would be. Installing it requires no skilled labor, and he estimated it can cut production time by a half-hour for a chair and an hour for a sofa.
Bradley maintained the foam also provides the same comfort as hand-tied springs. The company tested the foam at the April market by having visitors sit in two chairs or sofas, one with the springs and one with the foam. In the sofa test, 60 percent of the subjects preferred the foam, and another 12.5 percent considered the two sofas equal in comfort. The results were similar for the chair test.
Taylor King Furniture is one of the companies that will be marketing furniture with a Pluralux foam foundation at the October market. The company is using it mainly in some carved wood chairs that have a base that's too shallow for hand-tied springs, President Dale Starnes said.
Starnes said the foam replaced webbing or sinuous wire springs in the chairs, and it has greatly improved their comfort. Still, he stopped short of comparing the foam to a hand-tied system.
"Were not looking at it as exactly a replacement for eight-way hand-tied. ... I don't know that this foam can replace that at this point," he said. "Maybe it can."
John Summey, an extension specialist at the Furniture Manufacturing & Management Center at North Carolina State University, said he'd like to see independent research conducted on the foam's comfort and said its durability is still unknown. "The idea is not bad if it works," he said, "but the question is, does it work?"
Furniture frames are another element where materials have changed. Hardwoods such as oak historically were considered superior because of their "nailability" - their ability to hold fasteners such as screws and pegs securely over time, Summey explained. Drying the wood in a kiln made it more dimensionally stable, meaning it wouldn't shrink, expand or warp.
Then along came hardwood plywood, also called engineered hardwood. It's similar to traditional plywood, except it's made of thin layers of hardwood instead of the softwood used in most plywood. The layers are glued together with the grain of each layer perpendicular to the next, giving hardwood plywood a dimensional stability similar to kiln-dried hardwood, Summey said.
The material makes a strong, durable frame, he said. In fact, "we basically have seen no difference in them" in terms of resistance to breakage.
Gold also likes that hardwood plywood creates less waste than solid wood, and that what waste there is can be recycled to make particleboard.
There's still that nailability issue, though. Hardwood plywood doesn't hold fasteners as well as regular hardwood, so some manufacturers use a tack strip of solid hardwood inside the plywood frame, Summey said.
Summey cautioned, however, that the comfort of a piece of upholstered furniture depends on the sum of its parts. A good-quality foundation and a strong frame won't make a sofa comfortable if the cushions aren't made the way you like - and that's strictly an individual judgment.
"Ultimately, it still boils down to what the consumer feels good in," he said.
Grants Will Preserve Paperless Bits of History
Sept. 30, 2004
New York Times
By KATIE HAFNER
© Copyright 2004
THE Library of Congress is giving $15 million to eight institutions to preserve a range of electronic material, including Web sites relating to the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, digital maps, sound recordings and decades' worth of social science data.
The grants, to be announced today, are part of a $100 million multiyear program,
established by Congress and administered by the library, aimed at archiving
resources that are increasingly born digital - that is, as a Web site or an
electronic database.
"This is material that is of critical importance to our cultural heritage
or public policy," said Laura Campbell, associate librarian for strategic
initiatives at the Library of Congress.
Ms. Campbell said the material to be preserved includes not just Web sites but also digitally rendered cartographic data and census material. Public opinion polling data that currently exists only on punch cards will be digitally preserved.
The eight recipients will match the awards with cash, hardware, software or consulting services. The University of Michigan, for example, will work with partners to preserve social science data, including opinion surveys on politics, aging, health care, race relations, women's rights and employment.
Myron P. Gutmann, a history professor at the University of Michigan and director of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the university's Institute for Social Research, said much of this data has not been properly archived. It resides on the computers of individual researchers and research institutions, on Web sites, and even in storage boxes filled with punch cards.
"Without aggressive activities to locate and preserve it, it will disappear for good," Dr. Gutmann said. "Our goal is to assure that the material remains accessible, complete, uncorrupted and usable over time."
For the punch card data, that will mean converting it to an electronic form first.
"We'll be buying a punch card reader," said Amy Pienta, acquisitions director of the consortium.
Emory University in Atlanta, with several partners, will preserve digitized documents and other information relating to the Civil War, the civil rights movement and slavery.
North Carolina State University in Raleigh will collect and preserve digital cartographic material, such as tax assessment and zoning maps, from counties across the nation.
"These are things that we used to have in tangible form, on paper," Ms. Campbell said of the maps. "Now they are generated digitally and we don't have the analog equivalent."
Steve Morris, head of digital library initiatives at North Carolina State, likened the digital map project to the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, a collection dating to the mid-19th century and depicting the commercial, industrial and residential sections of some 12,000 cities and towns in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"We're looking at these as being a current analogue to those," Mr. Morris said. "Someone wanting to do research down the road would want to get to this data to see where things were."
The problem of preserving digital collections is complex. Merely archiving digital material isn't enough; the Library of Congress and its partners are wrestling with the problem of finding an effective means of preserving it.
Digital archives can be more vulnerable than their acid-free-paper counterparts, because computer hardware and software quickly become obsolete, and the durability of magnetic storage media like tapes and disks is limited.
Web-based documents that are filled with links pose yet another preservation problem because keeping a Web site vital means keeping its links accessible.
The University of California, for instance, will preserve Web sites connected to the 2003 gubernatorial election in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will lead an effort to preserve digitized sound recordings, many of which reside at the National Gallery of the Spoken Word, an online database of spoken word collections that span the 20th century. The collection includes some of Orson Welles's performances, early recordings of John Philip Sousa and Raymond Massey's reading of Lincoln's Gettysburg address.
Sept. 30, 2004
New York Times
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
© Copyright 2004
By the time you have found
a perch on the storybook hill, stumbled through the boggy marsh, ascended
the glistening wall of craggy bluestone, scuttled
through a notch in the limestone boulders and - attention, first graders! -
slid into the sand pit, you will be amazed that you have covered only 1.9 acres.
In one-440th the space of Central Park, the new Teardrop Park at Battery
Park City, which is to open today, seems to pack almost as many features,
most of them designed for youngsters. Framed by three apartment towers, soon
to be four, the park responds with a dense landscape that dips, rises and
twists.
"It's going to be the most magnificent place for chasing games, for hide-and-seek," said Robin Moore, a professor of landscape architecture and the director of the Natural Learning Initiative at North Carolina State University, who was a consultant on the park. "Play equipment is fine and it's important, but we mustn't forget all of the other potentials that landscape offers for healthy child development."
On a tour this week, Timothy S. Carey, the president and chief executive of the Battery Park City Authority, which built the $17 million park, lowered himself on his knees to about three feet. He pointed to the top of a hillock covered in flowering helleborus and halesia trees, cresting at a reading circle formed by rock outcroppings.
"If you get down here," he said, "and you're a little child, this is a jungle. You can climb up over those rocks and read 'Tarzan' or Robert Louis Stevenson." (Obviously, it's been a while since Mr. Carey was three feet tall.)
The designers, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Matthew Urbanski and Laura Solano, of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, worked with the artists Ann Hamilton and Michael Mercil, with engineers at Mueser Rutledge and at Arup and with Professor Moore and his colleague, Nilda Cosco. They were inspired in part by the work of Frederick Law Olmsted.
"Olmsted said for a park to be great, it has to have range," said Mr. Van Valkenburgh. The designers tried to create an "unfolding landscape of discovery," Mr. Urbanski added.
The cruciform park is in the center of a block bounded by River Terrace, North End Avenue and Murray and Warren Streets. Under an earlier master plan, this block was to have been bisected by a street. The buildings around it were to have had their own courtyards. But the street was eliminated in a new plan by the architect Ralph Lerner, who replaced the street on the blueprints with a park that he referred to informally, after its shape, as Teardrop.
"When 9/11 came along, it took on a different connotation for many," said James F. Gill, the chairman of the Battery Park City Authority, which decided to formalize the name.
With the red-brick apartment towers serving as a mountainous environment, the park was envisioned as a kind of glen.
"This is a piece of the Hudson Valley in Battery Park City," said Mr. Gill, standing by a 27-foot-high, 168-foot-long wall of randomly coursed slabs of Hamilton bluestone from Albany County. Through 10 spouts hidden in the crevices, water started to flow as he spoke, moistening the surface. In winter, this rock wall will be encrusted with sculptural ice forms.
The layout, Mr. Van Valkenburgh said, was influenced by the "microclimatic asymmetry" of the site. Simply put, the north end gets more sunlight, suggesting lawns, while the south end is more in shadow, suggesting play areas.
When it was learned before construction began that one building bordering the park would cast too long a shadow, its planned height was reduced six inches, ultimately yielding a gain of 30 precious minutes more sun on the north lawn. Climate was not the only factor measured on a micro scale. "We changed the design of the soil to drain faster in one place or hold more moisture in another," Mr. Van Valkenburgh said.
There are 65,910 trees, shrubs, perennials, ground covers, vines and bulbs, including viburnums, which are now vibrant with red berries. "We wanted to invite the birds in," Mr. Carey said.
The designers wanted to communicate that the space between the apartment towers was open to everyone. One subtle gesture was the use of asphalt paving blocks and benches with circular armrests, known as the World's Fair model, common to many parks.
Some things just happened serendipitously, like reflected sunlight in the park from the hundreds of windows around it.
And though Teardrop Park is supposed to evoke the Catskills, Mr. Gill's mind was not on Greene County as he walked along the rock wall, but on County Clare in Ireland.
"It reminds me of the Cliffs of Moher," he said of the escarpment before him. "This looks like it will be here to the end of the world."
U.S. State Department Helps Students in Storm-Damaged Grenada
Sept. 29, 2004
U.S. Dept of State
By Eric Green
© Copyright 2004
Washington -- The State Department and several other U.S. government agencies are helping about 225 college students from Grenada to continue their studies in the United States following the September 7 devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan.
The United Nations has reported at least 37 people on the island died as a result of the storm.
In a September 27 statement, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said it was working with the State Department to assist students from St. George's University in Grenada study at such U.S. schools as Barry University in Florida, the New York Institute of Technology, Purdue University in Indiana, Kansas State University and North Carolina State University. St. George's was among the educational institutions in Grenada severely damaged by Ivan.
ICE said the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which maintains information on international students and exchange visitors in the United States, is being used to facilitate the students' entry to the United States, thus enabling them to study at U.S. universities this fall. The Internet-based system, implemented in February 2003, allows the United States to collect and manage information on foreign students and exchange visitors by maintaining up-to-date data that can be accessed electronically.
"The academic community requested assistance with this unique circumstance, and through SEVIS, we're able to immediately respond," said Susan Geary, acting director of ICE's Student Exchange and Visitor Program.
The State Department, ICE and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (another agency in the Department of Homeland Security) have created a procedure whereby the Grenadian students will be allowed to enter the United States, receive temporary documents, report to the designated universities, and then submit supporting documentation from the U.S. universities within 30 days of arrival.
The students from Grenada will be allowed to study in the United States through December 31,a deadline that might be extended if the situation at St. George's University does not allow for classes to be held in the spring semester.
"Last year, SEVIS simplified and secured what was a manual process, this fall it facilitated the entry of an increased number of foreign students and exchange visitors, and today it is enabling students impacted by disaster to continue with their education," said Geary.
St. George's Chancellor Charles Modica said in a September 28 message to his students and faculty that the school's colleagues at U.S. universities "have been just wonderful in this very tough transition period, helping us to relocate with as little trouble as possible."
Modica reported that the situation at his school is not "perfect as we repair our campus," but that Grenada "has rapidly begun rebuilding and the signs of progress become more apparent every day."
The United States is also helping Grenada by providing more than $900,000 in humanitarian relief to the island. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said that as of September 24, it had funded four flights of emergency relief supplies to Grenada, carrying plastic sheeting for shelter, hygiene kits and emergency water supplies.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is appealing for $32.6 million in aid from the international community to help Grenada recover from Ivan.
The United Nations said in a September 24 statement that the money is needed over the next six months to meet Grenada's immediate needs -- including repairs to shelter, the sanitation system, and the interrupted supply of clean water. The aid would also be used for the re-opening of many schools closed because of the extensive damage they suffered from the high winds of Ivan.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)