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State looking into insurance
Andy Taylor, political scienceGovernor race gets celebrity backing
Andy Taylor, political sciencePresident keeps big lead in N.C. poll
Andy Taylor, political science
Ancient
Remedies May Hold Clues for Future Medical Breakthroughs
John Riddle, history
Design
Students May Energize Downtown Raleigh
College of Design
Extension
Service to Hold Regional Poultry Conference
Jesse Grimes, poultry science
Jackie's
ghost: The room
Creative Writing program
Robinson
seniors nominated for aid
Park Scholarship
Friday
wins NCAA award
William Friday
Ballantine
shows he's in touch
political visit
Oct. 28, 2004
News & Observer
By FRANK NORTON
© Copyright 2004
N.C. Insurance Commissioner Jim Long is opening an investigation into the state's insurance companies and brokers to determine whether any used illegal sales practices that cheat buyers out of the lowest-price insurance options in exchange for financial rewards.
Other states have launched similar probes in the aftermath of allegations by N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer this month that Marsh & McLennan, the world's largest insurance broker, engaged in price-fixing.
The North Carolina insurance department today will begin mailing queries to each of the roughly 1,400 insurance companies and 4,000 insurance brokers doing business in the state to certify in writing whether they engaged in illegal price-fixing, said Chrissy Pearson, a department spokeswoman. All responses must be notarized and are legally binding, meaning false answers are subject to legal recourse, she said.
She added that the top 10 insurance brokers in North Carolina, which account for about 95 percent of the business, are first on the list.
"We're asking for pretty simple stuff: Have they been involved in illegal price fixing?" she said.
The most egregious example of that is bid rigging, a practice in which brokers fake or manipulate bids to steer clients to select insurers, regardless of whether they are the best-priced option for the client. In return, the insurer provides an extra fee to the broker.
Some observers question whether Long, who is up for re-election next week, may be heeding the call of the ballot box as well as regulatory needs.
"Elected officials have found that going after the corporations and sectors that are not necessarily embraced can have direct electoral benefits," said Andrew Taylor, a political expert at N.C. State. "The swashbuckling notion that they are bringing public interest to the forefront makes them appear as a promoter of public good and a person of action."
Robert Brawley, Long's Republican opponent in next week's election, said he wanted to know why the commissioner did not launch an industrywide investigation when the issue came up in the past. "Why is Spitzer the one that notices, when it is the insurance commissioner's job to regulate the industry?" he asked.
Last month, a Charlotte insurance executive pleaded guilty to steering clients to certain insurers after an insurance department probe.
Long said he opposes all contingent-fee arrangements that reward brokers for steering clients to favorite insurers. By law, insurance brokers' primary fiduciary responsibility is to clients, not insurance companies.
Marsh & McLennan and Aon, the two largest U.S. insurance brokers, said this week they have banned the practice of accepting contingent commission payments from insurance companies.
State insurance commissions are set up to handle complaints, not to fish for malfeasance, said Tom Hazen, a corporate law expert at UNC-Chapel Hill. He said it's not state regulators' fault that Spitzer launched a probe before they did.
"It's not that insurance commissioners haven't been doing their job; it's that they're really not geared to investigate business practices," Hazen said.
Traditionally, state insurance departments oversee whether insurance companies are solvent enough to pay claims and whether their premiums are priced fairly in terms of risk.
Separately, a spokeswoman with the N.C. Justice Department said Attorney General Roy Cooper is also examining insurance business practice in North Carolina but stopped short of calling it a full investigation.
State treasurer Richard Moore, who has collaborated with Spitzer on previous investigations, said Wednesday he is pushing for further inquiry into the financial relationships Marsh & McLennan board members had with the company, and whether those members acted on behalf of investors. The N.C. Retirement System holds 567,357 Marsh & McLennan shares, which have lost a third of their value in the past 10 days.
Oct. 28, 2004
Lincoln Tribune
By jsaine
© Copyright 2004
An ancient herbal medicinal recipe that has proven to be an effective treatment for modern-day diabetes may cause doctors to look to the past for clues about unlocking future medical breakthroughs, according to a North Carolina State University historian.
Dr. John Riddle, professor of history at NC State who specializes in the history of medicine, discovered that based on a 2002 survey of diabetes patients hospitalized in Saudi Arabia, 17.8 percent of patients surveyed were treated with herbal remedies. Those patients were taking herbal compounds almost exactly the same as those listed in medieval herbal medicine recipes used to treat kidney disorders.
Riddle’s findings were publishing in a recent edition of The Journal of Nephrology.
An examination of several early medieval monastic medical manuscripts reveals that ancient herbal recipes dating back to as early as 500 B.C. could have effectively treated those kidney disorders, known today as diabetes. Those recipes included myrrh, cumin, fenugreek, aloes and one additional herb that could not be identified.
A plant mixture of ales and cinnamon bark, for example, has a blood glucose lowering effect. A combination of ales and myrrh gums effectively increased glucose tolerance. Recent studies in such journals as the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and Diabetes Research indicate that medieval monastic recipes may be alternative treatments for insulin resistance in adult-onset diabetes.
Riddle has extensively studied ancient medical journals that recorded urinary and kidney problems as well as the herbal remedies used to treat these symptoms.
“There is a perception that ancient physicians dealt with superstition and their prescriptions included snakes, snails and puppy dog tails and things like that,” Riddle says. “It doesn’t get into the history books, but these ancient physicians were able to diagnose and treat what we now know to be diabetes.
“The time period from 500-1100 B.C. is generally called ‘The Dark Ages of Medicine.’ The only thing that is dark about it was our ignorance of it.”
Riddle says his findings have present-day applications to modern medicine, as well. He says scientists are discovering many agents used in present-day drug treatments were agents that ancient physicians used in their medicinal remedies.
“We are just now discovering some of the drugs that they were using,” Riddle says. “There are many plants that they used in treatments that we haven’t even begun to examine. Those remedies would give us powerful targets and indications of where we conduct future drug research.”
Robinson seniors nominated for aid
Oct. 28, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By Nancy Riley
© Copyright 2004
Tyler Barry and Brice Pridgen, seniors at Robinson High School in Concord, have been nominated for the Park Scholarship, a full-expense, four-year grant to N.C. State University.N.C. State awards about 50 Park Scholarships every year, totaling about $4 million. Three-quarters of the awards go to N.C. residents. The awards are based on scholarship, leadership, service and character.
Governor race gets celebrity backing
Oct. 28, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By SHARIF DURHAMS AND ANNA GRIFFIN
© Copyright 2004
GREENSBORO - In his quest to become governor, Republican Patrick Ballantine has lined up some big-name help: New York Gov. George Pataki and former Sen. Jesse Helms.
But Gov. Mike Easley has no intention of being trumped. He's getting help from Mayberry.
Pataki spoke briefly in a Greensboro airport hangar Tuesday and left Ballantine's rally and fund-raiser to make stops for candidates in Florida, Iowa and Washington state. This morning, Ballantine will walk with former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot through the crowds of Charlotte politicos at the Mallard Creek Barbecue. Tonight, he'll raise money with Sen. Elizabeth Dole at a Charlotte developer's house. Helms will stump with Ballantine in Kinston this weekend.
Easley, in a new 30-second TV spot that signals a shift from hard-hitting attack ads to positive, biographical spots, has Mount Airy native Andy Griffith telling the governor, "You're the man."
It's the nature of the last week of campaigning, filled largely with positive speeches and celebrity endorsers. Some critical television ads might remain on the air, but candidates often wean the vinegar out of their stump speeches.
Ballantine has made exceptions to the "all-positive" rule to take jabs at Easley, who has used attack ads to pick apart Ballantine's record as a state senator. But Ballantine is spending most of his time telling supporters that they can help him make up Easley's lead in recent polls.
"Clearly, we have momentum on our side," said Ballantine. "I need you and you need me," he said to about 60 supporters.
Ballantine also mentioned his support of social issues such as a stronger ban on gay marriage and clamping down on illegal immigrants.
The endorsements can carry weight. Four years ago, Republican Vinroot was surging in the polls going into the campaign's final weekend. Both Easley and Vinroot aired positive TV ads: Vinroot's starred George W. Bush, Easley's featured Griffith.
On Election Day, Easley won. Political pundits dubbed it "The Mayberry Miracle."
This time around, the governor is trying to stave off a miracle by Ballantine, down big in recent polls, by going positive in his television advertising in the election's final days. Ballantine sent a fund-raising e-mail to backers Wednesday, saying he needed money to air a positive ad -- one that says "Bush, Burr and Ballantine" is the best ticket for North Carolina.
Griffith, 78, filmed the Easley ad two weeks ago on the porch of the governor's mansion. He spent the night at the mansion, and stayed up playing his guitar and singing with Easley.
Griffith may be best known as an actor and performer, including his work as Sheriff Andy Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" and the small-town legal whiz on "Matlock." But don't underestimate his political value.
In 1990, Democratic activists tried to convince Griffith to challenge Helms.
N.C. State political scientist Andrew Taylor (no relation) said such endorsements can make a difference in a close race, but he says the gubernatorial contest isn't close enough for it to work.
"This is one of the largest states in the union, and this is the race for governor, so obviously the Republican Party has to put some effort into this,'' he said.
"But really, if Ballantine can get 42 percent of the vote or so, that would be as much as he could expect based on how it looks right now.
"No single person is going to change that at this point."
Numbers don't tell whole story on graduation rates
Oct. 28, 2004
Durham Herald-Sun
By BRYAN STRICKLAND
© Copyright 2004
As an administrator at a university near the top of the heap when it comes to graduating its athletes, Chris Kennedy has every reason to boast about the numbers released by the NCAA earlier this week.
But Kennedy, Duke's senior associate athletics director, said he doesn't believe that's a reasonable approach to take.
"The easy thing to do is to look at this number and that number and say, 'This school is better than that school,' " Kennedy said. "But that's too simple a number to attach to too complicated a situation."
Duke graduated 94 percent of its athletes that first enrolled in the school for the 1997-98 academic year -- the same rate at which its general student body graduated. North Carolina graduated 70 percent of its athletes who started the same year, N.C. State graduated 49 percent and Division II N.C. Central graduated 52 percent.
For all of Division I, 62 percent of athletes in the class graduated. For all of Division II, 53 percent graduated.
"It's very tempting to compare schools, but frequently that's not a valid comparison because even within the ACC, there's this broad range in types of schools," Kennedy said. "At a large state university, you'll have older students, you'll have non-traditional students, you'll have students that take longer than six years to graduate for financial reasons or for things going on in their lives.
"Here it's ethnically a fairly diverse population, but it's homogenous in the sense that these are kids to come to an institution with a four-year plan in mind, and they're surrounded by kids like that, you are also high achievers. So you're put in this environment where there's a real commonality of goals, and that produces the graduation rates that you see at Duke or Stanford or Princeton.
"There's not such a commonality of goals among the 20,000 or whatever it is students at say, N.C. State. The numbers are just going to be different because of those differences -- not because somebody is doing a better job than somebody else."
While it might be unfair to compare rivals Duke and UNC in graduation rates in the same way they're compared each year on the Smith Center scoreboard, it is valid to compare how an athletic program's graduation rates to its performance in the past and to the student body in general. But even in those cases, mitigating circumstances can skew the numbers.
Look no further than Duke. The Blue Devils graduated 100 percent of their football players in the class that entered school in 1997-98, but the four-player men's basketball class of Shane Battier, Elton Brand, Will Avery and Chris Burgess got credited for just a 25-percent rate.
"We had two guys leave to play pro basketball and one guy who transferred. That's just a reflection of the way the landscape has changed in the last 10 years or so," Kennedy said. "Anybody who stays here four years is going to graduate, basically. It's hard to extrapolate and say, 'Well, if Elton Brand would have been here four years, yes, he would have graduated.'
"But if you just look at the record of the past, people who stay graduate."
Here's a report card on how the other area schools' report cards looked in the latest NCAA numbers.
N.C. State
While N.C. State graduated 64 percent of its general student body that enrolled in 1997-98 within six years, the Wolfpack graduated just 49 percent of its athletes in that class.
But according to calculations by Phil Moses, the school's academic support program director, 77 of the 88 athletes in that class either graduated from N.C. State or left school in good academic standing.
Athletes who transfer count against a school's graduation numbers. Regardless, Moses wants to figure out why so many athletes left early.
"We're not happy," Moses said. "We want to know why they are leaving. We've instituted new procedures. Now, before a scholarship athlete can obtain a release, he or she has to meet with [Athletics Director] Lee Fowler.
"Some are going to leave no matter what for any number of reasons, but there are still a core of undecideds. We need to help those people. We need to learn how to help them."
In football, N.C. State graduated 35 percent of the class in question. The year before that, 44 percent of the class graduated.
N.C. State coach Chuck Amato was an assistant coach at Florida State when those classes enrolled.
"They were all guys I didn't recruit," Amato said. "You talk about disciplining them for turnovers? Now I really discipline them when they don't do right in school. A lot of it goes unnoticed.
"They're not here to not go to school and not go to student hall. Because if they'll go to class and they'll use the great academic support system we have here, they're going to be fine."
North Carolina
A year after the NCAA report showed that 35 percent of the Tar Heels' football players who enrolled in 1996-97 went on to graduate, the latest class graduated at a 67-percent rate.
Athletics Director Dick Baddour said the '96-97class was more the exception than the rule. UNC's four-year percentage stands at 53 percent and would be even higher if not for the class that Baddour labeled an "anomaly."
"We'd had a lot of transfers and we expected the rate to go up," Baddour said. "We also had done some shifting around in some responsibilities over in academic support.
"It reflects a lot of work, especially by the kids. But I also would be quick to tell you that's it's not high enough."
Overall, 70 percent of UNC's athletes in the class graduated; 83 percent of the student body graduated.
"The overall is great," Baddour said, "and we want to get it better."
N.C. Central
NCCU made a significant jump in graduating athletes across the board but took a significant hit on the football field.
NCCU had a 52-percent overall graduation rate among athletes who entered school in 1997-98. For the 1996-97 class, that number stood at 38 percent.
"The first thing I did when I started here was instituting 'the posse,' " said NCCU athletics director Bill Hayes, who is in his second academic year at the university. "They're the coaches who go around checking class attendance. The kids never know when a coach will be there waiting for them in class.
"We felt all along that any problems with academics have been because of poor class attendance."
The only glaring weakness for the Eagles was the football class that entered school in 1997, which graduated at an 11-percent rate compared to a 41-percent four-year average for the team.
That contributed heavily to a difference in male and female graduation rates. While 29 percent of male athletes in the class graduated, 82 percent of the females graduated.
But the black male students in the class graduated at a 33-percent rate compared to a 37-percent national average for blacks in Division II. NCCU had a better four-class average than the national average, 46 percent to 35.
Staff writers Neil Amato, Al Featherston and Mike Potter contributed to this report.President keeps big lead in N.C. poll
Oct. 27, 2004
Asheville Citizen-Times
By Kerra L. Bolton
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH - Republican President Bush maintains a strong lead over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in North Carolina, according to the latest Citizen- Times/Mason-Dixon poll released Wednesday.
The poll of likely voters found that 52 percent support Bush and that 43 percent prefer Kerry. Ralph Nader picked up 1 percent of the state's voters, and 4 percent are undecided.
The poll randomly samples 625 registered voters who were interviewed by telephone. All said they were likely to vote in next week's election. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Bush's poll numbers among North Carolinians are up by one percentage point since the survey was taken last month.
"The numbers are obviously reflecting North Carolina values," said Robin Wilson, chairman of the Buncombe County Republican Party. "Bush has maintained his stance as being a strong leader, a moral leader and the numbers prove that."
But the margin between Bush and Kerry wasn't always so wide. Bush had a one-point edge over Kerry in May and a three-point advantage in July when Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate.
"I think it says that North Carolina is out of play despite the fact that John Edwards is on the ticket," said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at N.C. State. "If they won North Carolina, they would be on the verge of a huge victory. But it might be disappointing for Kerry and Edwards, especially because Edwards couldn't get his home state to be closer or even win it."
A spokesman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign said on Wednesday that campaign workers were unfazed by the latest poll.
"We don't live and die by the poll numbers," said Ashley Turton, a Kerry-Edwards spokesman in North Carolina. "We feel strongly about the Democratic ticket from top to bottom, and we look forward to celebrating a victory on Nov. 2."
Kerry's momentum in North Carolina has slowed, especially since the Republican National Convention in August, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, Inc.
"It's locked in for Bush," Coker said. "It's been consistent since the Republican convention in August when the numbers bounced back to Bush."
Western North Carolina Republicans, however, say they remain cautiously optimistic.
"We need to do anything we can to get Republican voters to the polls," said Jeremy Abee, chairman of UNC Asheville's College Republicans. "Unfortunately, polls are easier to participate in than voting. We will be knocking on doors in the five days leading up to the election making sure they get out to vote."
Democrats said they are expecting a large turnout, especially among first-time or infrequent voters who may break for Kerry.
"It's my experience driving around Asheville and North Carolina that you see about 10 Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers to every Bush bumper sticker," said Joe Adams, 49, of Asheville. "What that tells me is that there are a lot of people who are enthusiastic about the election and looking for change."
Design Students May Energize Downtown Raleigh
Oct. 27, 2004
WTVD-11
By Don Ross
© Copyright 2004
(10/27/04 - RALEIGH) — Next semester, some students at N.C. State's School of Design may be doing the out-of-the-box kind of thinking expected of them. Not in an on-campus studio, but in the top floor of a 70-some-year-old building in downtown Raleigh.
It's being renovated to become a satellite design school studio where students will study unique urban renewal concepts.
It actually has an artistic, creative history. The Art/Craft Sign Company occupied this site from the 1930's.
Raleigh boosters hope the student's creative juices rub off on the downtown area since they're there.
The president of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance says when university design schools located in urban areas in several other cities, it helped revitalize the neighborhood, attracting businesses, offices and other educational facilities.
"They're unfettered by politics or anything else. They're just there looking for new innovative solutions to things. They have typically been the leaders of downtown revitalization around the united states," said Alliance President Margaret Mullen.
She especially hopes their being there will inject energy in the two blocks of Wilmington Street next to the new progress energy building.
Design Student Nicole Young, said "What we're looking at is about improving the city streetscape, the city character so that people want to be out and walking and to give them interesting and fun things to go to on their walks."
For instance, a climbing wall, dance steps on the sidewalk and an aquarium ". . . that you could actually go in and visit but maybe on the sidewalk you have little windows," said Student Elizabeth Trick.
This is a sample of the ideas this future design studio may spawn for downtown Raleigh.
Extension Service to Hold Regional Poultry Conference
Oct. 27, 2004
Southern Pines Pilot
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
The Cooperative Extension Service will host an area poultry conference on Tuesday, Nov. 2, for growers in Chatham, Harnett, Lee, Moore and Randolph counties.
The conference will be held at Best Foods Cafeteria on NC 64 in Siler City.
Topics include farm biosecurity, types of composters, new phosphorous rules, air quality issues, and drinking water quality.
Speakers will include Dr. Jesse Grimes of N.C. State University, Henry Outz of the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Dan Campeau, area poultry specialist for the Extension Service, and Danette Ray of Biochem Resources Inc.
The registration fee will be $10.
Registration will begin at 9 a.m., and the program will begin at 10 a.m.
Interested persons are asked to call Jane Tripp, Extension secretary in the Chatham County Extension Center, at 919-542-8202 if they plan to attend.
Deadline to register is Oct. 29.
Oct. 28, 2004
News & Observer
By BRENT WINTER
© Copyright 2004
A shout answered Michelle's scream, and the bathroom light came on, revealing a wide-eyed John standing there with one hand on the light switch. When he saw Michelle, he sighed and sagged and rolled his eyes. "My God, you scared me," he said. "What are you doing up?"
The bathroom's medicine cabinet had a mirrored door that opened by swinging outward, toward the hallway, and the cabinet door was partially open.
Michelle saw herself in the mirror.
"What -- what am I doing up?" Her teeth were almost chattering. She could barely get the words out. "What are, what are you doing up?"
"I thought I heard a noise in here." He had on pale blue pajamas, and his hair was mangled into sleep-shapes.
"M-me too," Michelle said. She stepped into the bathroom and looked around. It seemed like a normal small bathroom -- toilet, sink, tub and shower, same worn brown carpet as in the rest of the house -- but there was an aluminum walker in front of the toilet. The shower curtain was pulled back, and a handrail had been installed on the shower wall just above the top of the tub. A crowd of medicine bottles were arrayed along the back of the sink like a group of friends standing around together, waiting for something to do. A newspaper was folded on top of the toilet tank, open to the comics and the horoscope.
She said, "Are you sick?"
"This was my mother's bathroom."
"Oh. Did she die?"
"Last Christmas."
"I'm sorry."
John shrugged. "This bathroom ... I told her she should take my room, you know? The master bedroom. Because the master bedroom has its own bathroom. Easier for her once she, you know, got sick. But she wanted this bathroom because she wanted this bedroom." He indicated the adjacent room with a nod. "It has windows that look out on the flower beds out front. She wanted to be able to look out and see those flowers."
"How did she die?"
Another shrug, and a look down at the carpet. "She had Alzheimer's."
Michelle didn't know Alzheimer's could be fatal ... could it? She almost asked him, but then thought better of it. "It must have been hard," she said.
John didn't look up from the carpet. "She got so angry," he said.
"Angry about everything, all the time. You go in to feed her, and she says you're starving her. And then she hates what you're feeding her. And giving her a bath ... that was the worst. That was what made me decide to put her in a home." His voice snagged and stumbled.
Michelle put one hand on John's arm. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."
"You don't know what I have to be ashamed of," John said. He gave her a look that made her flinch.
She let go of his arm. "Sorry," she said.
He shook his head and snorted. "She knows, though."
"You think your mom is haunting this place?"
John looked at Michelle, his eyes pouchy and red, his mouth drawn down, his beard stubble graying, and she thought, It's you who's haunted, not this place. But then she heard, unmistakable in the silence, a distinct creak in the ceiling above their heads, as if someone had taken a step in the attic.
They looked at each other, each silently confirming that the other had indeed heard the noise.
"That's it," John said. "I've had it."
He marched past Michelle into the hallway, where he reached up and pulled on a cord that was attached to an attic trapdoor in the ceiling. Springs squeaked as the door swung down and John unfolded the wooden stairs.
Michelle followed John into the hallway and turned on the hall light.
"This is my problem," John said, turning to face her. "This has nothing to do with you."
"Well, but it affects me," she said. "I'm here. Am I supposed to go back to the living room and just curl up and go to sleep while you're tromping around looking for a gateway to the spirit world or something? If I hear any screams, or demonic laughter or whatever, am I supposed to just ignore it?"
"Well, you don't have to be here. This is personal. This is family stuff."
"I do have to be here because of my personal stuff, my family stuff. I can't escape it."
"Neither can I," John said. He started climbing the creaky wooden stairs.
When Michelle followed him up, he didn't protest.
Brent Winter is a freelance editor living in Carrboro. He also is a degree
candidate in the MFA Creative Writing program at N.C. State University in
Raleigh. Winter owns a Ouija board, but so far it only spells out gibberish.
Oct. 28, 2004
Associated Press; News & Observer
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
FRIDAY WINS NCAA AWARD: UNC system president emeritus William Friday will receive the NCAA President's Gerald R. Ford Award at the 2005 NCAA Convention, the NCAA announced on Wednesday.
Friday, 84, is the second recipient of the award. The first was Notre Dame president emeritus Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh.
The award honors those with a career's worth of work and impact on intercollegiate athletics.
Friday has made his contribution as a college administrator since 1948 and over the last 15 years with the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
The NCAA will make a $25,000 donation, in Friday's honor, to the University of North Carolina to be used for programs that benefit student-athletes. Friday earned a bachelor's degree from N.C. State in 1941 and a law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1948.
Ballantine shows he's in touch
Oct. 28, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By Anna Griffin
© Copyright 2004
It's not quite a chicken in every pot, but ...
Speaking at N.C. State University on Tuesday night, Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick Ballantine sought to make it clear he understands what the youth of America wants from its elected officials.
He promised the crowd of students and supporters that he would work hard to help ensure that they can find a job upon graduation, and all the spoils that come with a hard-earned paycheck.
"You guys need to live in a state where we are leaders in this country, where we have good jobs, so you can go out and provide for your family and pay the bills," Ballantine said. "You can get the kind of car you want, get a good XM stereo system in it or whatever you need. That's what I'm running for governor to do." -- ANNA GRIFFIN
Now, invasive species stream in online
Oct. 28, 2004
Christian Science Monitor
By Mark Clayton
© Copyright 2004
It's a beautiful green water frond with delicate petals. Pleasant enough to look at with names like "Water Thyme" and "Star Vine."
But don't let its looks fool you. Hydrilla verticillata, which grows up to several feet thick and chokes the life out of lakes and ponds, has been dubbed the "killer" weed by those in the know.
"It's just a thug," says Leslie Mehrhoff, director of the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England.Once a problem mostly in Southern states, hydrilla has become an aquatic scourge in a third of US states. Researchers blame the weed's spread not only on unwitting aquarium hobbyists and motor-boat propellers, but also the Internet.
Indeed, online sales of such noxious weeds - some of them illegal - have flourished so much in the past few years that the federal government is preparing a high-tech crackdown.
"We've seen a link between growing Internet sales, the mail system, and the spread of these plants," says Larry Fowler, a botanist with the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). "We realize many people are simply unaware of our laws, but that still doesn't make it right. And there's still a segment that is quite aware of the law and is still selling."
The hydrilla - named after the hydra-headed monster of Greek mythology - is on the federal govern- ment's short list of "noxious weeds," making it illegal to buy or sell it nationwide.
Nevertheless, an online search leads within minutes to the website of a New York pet store offering not only hydrilla, but also another federally banned plant - Hygrophila polysperma, known as "Indian Water Star."
"We know our products," the website boasts. "We're proud to have the most knowledgeable staff in the industry."
Clearly, federal law is not the company's strong point.
Businesses selling banned plants can be fined up to $250,000 under federal law, while smuggling them into the US can bring criminal penalties.
New tracking system
Nearly three years ago, Mr. Fowler saw the danger of Internet sales of invasive species. Miscreants were selling with impunity invasive plants like hydrilla. Next-day courier services made it possible to ship them coast-to-coast or even from abroad with little scrutiny.
With the help of North Carolina State University researchers and the Internet search company Fast Search & Transfer, Fowler created a system that can identify and track Web pages and Internet operators selling outlawed plants.
The resulting high-tech enforcement tool, called the Agricultural Internet Monitoring System (AIMS), is to be unveiled in January. Already, its pilot test has identified 6,568 distinct pages on websites belonging to US suppliers who may be hawking banned plants (4,790 pages), mollusks (734 pages), and insects (1,044 pages). Those numbers could rise dramatically as researchers eliminate technical glitches.
As soon as January, US sellers of regulated plants will begin to get e-mail notices from APHIS warning them to produce a federal permit to sell such plants - or stop selling them.
Hydrilla has spread northward to 16 states, including Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts, according to the US Agriculture Department. Hydrilla was found in Massachusetts in a pond on Cape Cod two years go. Scientists theorize it may have arrived with aquarium hobbyists who dumped fish tanks into local ponds - or even as tendrils stuck to propellers of motor boats.
But the latest reason given for the spread of such plants is technological.
"The Internet sales of plants and other organisms is quite a large unknown and there's little if any regulation," says Ted Grosholz, an ecology professor at the University of California at Davis. He leads a program that intends to educate the public and businesses as a way to reduce the introduction of nonindigenous species.
One of his concerns: the seaweed Caulerpa taxifolia, dubbed "killer algae" because of its propensity for spreading fast and pushing out other species. Popular with aquarium fanciers, caulerpa escaped in the mid-1980s into the Mediterranean, where it has become a huge problem. In 2000, it showed up in a lagoon in Carlsbad, Calif.
Efforts to eradicate it in California appear to be working, but the threat remains of caulerpa being shipped from overseas to California aquarium lovers. "We're working with both the pet and aquarium trade," Professor Grosholz says.
What's needed most is more consumer and pet-store education, the pet industry says.
"Internet sales can be a real problem," says Marshall Meyers, executive vice president of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, an industry group overseeing the invasive-species issue. "You can buy giant salvinia over the Internet out of Europe. [But] this is an area that's confusing to the public. Not all nonnative species of fish and plants are invasive. Our industry relies on nonnative species. One thing we are trying to do is educate the public not to release these into the environment."
Warning signals
The council will soon begin mailing information to pet owners to acquaint them with the invasive-species problem. It also supports Agriculture Department efforts to police the Web, though some sellers may be doing so out of ignorance of the law, Mr. Meyers says.
At least initially, the AIMS Web-scanning program will focus on US sales of about 600 organisms, including plants and animals like the Giant African Snail - a voracious creature 6- to 8-inches long that can reproduce quickly and threaten crops. There are plans to expand the system to monitor international websites, Fowler says.
The AIMS program is working with Australia, Britain, and a few other nations to develop an information-sharing system to identify and shut down operations selling invasive plants. The goal is to use the new system to identify sales of "bad actors" abroad, well before they begin to arrive en masse, Fowler says.
Animal invaders
People and plants aren't the only ones who move in and change ecosystems. Invasive species of animals are spreading globally. For example:
• Argentine ants, one of the world's most invasive species, have formed a "supercolony" 60 miles wide under Australia's second-biggest city, Melbourne. Also discovered in North America and Europe, the ants drive out local species.
• Cane frogs in New Zealand and rats, pigs, cats, and dogs in New Caledonia are a few of the targets of a $1 million New Zealand project to help protect the fragile ecosystems of Pacific Island nations.
• Sea squirts in America's Puget Sound created such alarm that divers this month used an experimental chlorine treatment to try to get rid of them.