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NC State University News Clips for December 13-15, 2003

Compiled by North Carolina State University’s News Services, a part of the Public Affairs Office. Listed below are the current news clips. Click on the headline of interest to be taken to the full text. Click on “Return to Headline List” at the bottom of each clip or use the scrollbar to be taken back to this location.

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Veterinarians learn to handle outbreaks
They came to the fields and barns of N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine at dawn Saturday to learn signs of disease outbreaks among livestock and how to monitor and subdue animals during a disaster.

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Veterinarians learn to handle outbreaks

Dec. 14, 2003
News & Observer
By MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

RALEIGH -- They came to the fields and barns of N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine at dawn Saturday to learn signs of disease outbreaks among livestock and how to monitor and subdue animals during a disaster.

About 74 veterinarians and public health officials from across the country attended the daylong lab, a hands-on follow-up to a two-day national homeland security symposium that drew 275 to Research Triangle Park.

College instructors showed participants how to spot signs of African swine fever, exotic newcastle, foot-and-mouth and other diseases that have plagued farms in recent years. Widespread infections threaten the food supply, instructors said, but also pose a particular hazard to agricultural states such as North Carolina.

"Either through natural introduction or bioterrorism, those could be introduced, which would have a devastating effect," said Dennis Wages, an NCSU professor and director of the teaching animal unit.

Emergency responders might be told to identify and slaughter animals with foot-and-mouth disease right after an outbreak, instructors said. But as the disease becomes widespread, they could be asked to give animals shots instead, and instructors said they wanted those in attendance to be prepared.

Step one: Restrain the livestock.

Veterinary technician Christy Whitelaw, 46, usually works with small animals. On Saturday morning, she found herself wrestling a sheep onto its duff, a good position to take a blood sample or check its nose and lips for lesions. She toppled backward at first but managed to steady herself and the ewe. It was good training, she said, because "I may have to subdue an animal like this."

Whitelaw, who traveled from Christiansburg, Va., for the symposium, serves on the North Carolina-based veterinary medical assistance team. One of five in the country, the team is called in after disasters such as Hurricane Floyd to assess and aid animals.

Instructors emphasized the connections between doctors, public health officials and veterinarians, particularly when it comes to the spread of West Nile virus, SARS, monkeypox and rabies. Responders must know what to expect in case of an outbreak and how to coordinate their response, they said. Montana rancher Russ Bloom, 40, agreed.

"In a big state like Montana or Kansas, that's important because you're scattered," he said after watching an instructor restrain a calf.

Participants paid $150 to $180 to attend the symposium and $200 to attend the lab. Wages said the college intends to make the program, sponsored by the state and the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health, an annual event.

Although other states sponsor similar forums, Kansas veterinary epidemiologist Brad DeGroot, 42, said he has seen nothing as developed as this: "North Carolina seems to be the leader."

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Veterinarians Learn To Handle Outbreaks At NCSU Lab Health Officials, Emergency Management Personnel Taught How To Protect Food Supply

Dec. 12, 2003
WRAL-TV
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 wral.com

North Carolina State University's veterinarian school is teaching lessons in homeland security.

Health officials and Emergency Management personnel from across the country gathered over the weekend to learn about protecting the food supply.

Veterinarians from all over the country woke up before dawn to gather at the fields and barns of N.C. State's College of Veterinary Medicine.

About 74 veterinarians and public health officials spent their day learning signs of disease outbreaks among livestock. They also learned how to monitor and subdue animals during a disaster.

The lab was a hands-on follow up to a two-day national homeland security symposium that drew 275 people to Research Triangle Park.

Instructors taught participants how to spot signs of African swine fever, exotic newcastle, foot-and-mouth and other diseases that could spread through natural outbreak or bioterrorism.

The college intends to make the program an annual event.

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Training Focuses On Larger Animals

Dec. 14, 2003
North Carolina News Network
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 North Carolina News Network

(RALEIGH) -- Veterinarians and other health professionals received some hands on training at N.C. State University in Raleigh -- on how to deal with larger animals should disaster strike. Many of those who respond to disasters, such as hurricanes, have little experience with cattle, horses, pigs or other animals. Dr. Dennis Wages at N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine led the demonstration for about 70 veterinarians, public health workers and emergency managers. He says the first step is adjusting to the larger size. Wages says there are also some diseases unique to larger animals. There's also ongoing worries about a bioterrorism attack affecting animal agriculture. The training was part of an overall, three day program. Wages says he hopes that similar sessions will held on a regular basis, to prepare for future emergences.

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Researchers Develop Uses for Poplar Trees

Dec. 15, 2003
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By ESTES THOMPSON, AP staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Associated Press

After years of struggling with the dirty disposal problem of sludge from hog waste lagoons, researchers have come up with a possible green solution - poplar trees that suck up the waste like soda straws.

If the procedure works well enough to be approved by state water quality officials, it could more than cut in half the cost of closing a waste lagoon, currently done with bulldozers and dump trunks.

"It is a simple method," said Frank Humenik, coordinator of the animal waste management program at North Carolina State University.

Humenik has been working with Oregon researchers who have been experimenting the past few years with technology that relies on groves of fast-growing hybrid poplars to suck up waste.

Studies have found the trees can absorb nearly 3,000 gallons of effluent per acre per day, ridding the ground ammonia and nitrogen by safely metabolizing the compounds in their woody tissue.

Oregon State University water quality researcher Ron Minor said it could take 10 years before the trees clean the land well enough that it can be used again.

"Over time, the trees take up the nutrients and it is natural purification," Humenik said. "With the trees, you have a harvestable product."

The current method approved by the state of North Carolina to clean up hog lagoons is complex. First, the liquid is drained from the top of the lagoon onto existing sprayfields of grass at the farm. Then the farmer pays to have the sludge scooped out and trucked away to be spread thinly on acres of fields.

"We don't like to haul that stuff around," Humenik said.

Humenik said the sludge usually isn't welcomed by neighbors of the fields. The cost and politics of cleanup may be the reason only 20 lagoons were closed last year in the state, he said.

There are 1,700 inactive lagoons in North Carolina waiting cleanup and 4,500 more lagoons in use. North Carolina ranks second in hog production at 9.6 million animals, behind Iowa at 15 million head.

National Pork Board figures show one animal produces between 8,000 pounds and 64,000 pounds of waste a year, depending on its development.

Cleaning out a typical lagoon could cost as much as $40,000 an acre, not counting the cost of land on which to spread the sludge. The sludge can't fertilize crops for human consumption. Humenik said the typical lagoon cleanup using the poplars would cost between $15,000 and $20,000 for a lagoon that is two to three acres.

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State branding program urges 'buy local'

Dec. 14, 2003
Shelby (NC) Daily Star; New Bern (NC) Sun Journal
By Barry Smith, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Freedom News Service

RALEIGH -- When you're walking through the aisles of some supermarkets, don't be surprised to see a display with the heading "Goodness Grows in North Carolina."

It's about a program operated by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to market products grown in North Carolina.

"It's sort of a brand label," said Ed Estes, professor of agricultural economics at N.C. State University. "Most other states have one so that you almost by default have to have one.

"The theory is that North Carolina consumers would buy North Carolina products if they knew that they were North Carolina products."

The state spends $175,000 a year in the marketing program, said Jeff Jennings, manager of domestic marketing at the agriculture department.

The money is roughly matched by a partner -- such as the N.C. White Potato Association or the N.C. Pork Council -- to purchase or set up a display at a store.

"We are very conscientious of how we spend the money," Jennings said.

Growers can participate in the program if their product is grown in the state and is of good quality, Jennings said. Processed foods can be included in the program if the processing took place in North Carolina. Also, the product would have to include goods produced in North Carolina, provided that they are available.

Jennings said that no study has been done to see how effective the program is, noting one would likely be expensive.

But he's heard stories from partners who say they see an increase in sales right after such marketing efforts are put in place.

"On the simplest radio campaign that we do, it's pretty easy for them to say that they saw a direct increase," Jennings said.

Estes said studies of similar programs in other states have shown them to be effective. "The Tennessee study has shown that people will support local agricultural products," he said.

John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh-based conservative policy organization, said the program might encourage consumers to buy North Carolina products if the prices are similar, but not if the locally grown products are priced higher.

"I think most people will make their decision based on price and quality," he said.

Mitch Peele, director of public policy for the N.C. Farm Bureau Federation, said farmers like the program.

"A lot of folks are seeing the value of having that and want to be part of the program," he said, adding that anything increasing the marketability of North Carolina products is good. "We need more markets for North Carolina products."

Hood said he sees nothing wrong with cooperatives exhorting consumers to buy their product. But he does have a problem with using tax money to do it.

"In a free society, you get to ask people to take voluntary action and they get to decide whether they're going to do that," Hood said. "If they are funding this through general taxpayer support, then what they are doing is compelling taxpayers to advertise particular products."

While quite a bit of the focus is on getting North Carolina consumers to buy products from their state, some of the efforts are spent getting businesses in other states to buy North Carolina products.

For example, the Goodness Grows program has sponsored programs for national retail stores.

"We're the only state that has ever held a food show exclusively for Wal-Mart and Sam's Club buyers," Jennings said.

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Is there room for dissent in academia?

Dec. 14, 2003
News & Observer
By BARBARA BARRETT, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Perhaps professor John Spencer Bassett knew he was touching a nerve.

The historian's article on race relations compared the greatness of Booker T. Washington to that of Gen. Robert E. Lee and set off a firestorm among the white, Democratic elite that almost forced Bassett out of his job at Trinity College in Durham in December 1903.

Bassett kept his job, but as Trinity's successor, Duke University, marks the century-old controversy with a yearlong discussion focused on dissent, some fear academic freedom is again in danger.

Though many professors say campus leaders support their freedom to speak out and to do research without outside interference, they worry about the political winds from the state legislature and Congress. Conservatives are upset at what they see as the liberal indoctrination of students, and the Washington-based American Association of University Professors has just issued a scathing report on post-9/11 erosions of academic freedom.

"The whole atmosphere of questioning itself is being questioned," said Sue Estroff, former chairwoman of UNC-Chapel Hill's faculty senate. She said she is more fearful of forces beyond the campus than inside it.

The AAUP cites the Patriot Act and national security measures since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and says they:

* threaten scientific exchange by declaring more research projects classified or secret. (Such a trend hinders the free exchange of information and jeopardizes scientists' freedom of inquiry, the AAUP said.)

* prevent visiting scholars and graduate

students from doing their work in the United States through a complicated monitoring system. (The system can delay foreign hires at universities or burden international cooperation among scholars, according to the AAUP.)

* hurt campus debate by making some universities jittery about controversial speakers.

The report cited incidents at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University as examples.

In 2002, UNC-CH was attacked for making Michael Sells' "Approaching the Quran" a summer reading assignment for incoming students. Critics said the book glorified Islam and overlooked the religion's violent aspects, and some state lawmakers even threatened to pull funding if UNC-CH didn't give all religions equal time in the classroom.

The AAUP said that, in the end, the debate helped the cause of free speech because the UNC Board of Governors formally endorsed academic freedom. The AAUP also noted, however, that the board did not immediately offer its support.

The AAUP was also disturbed that Phil Donahue, NCSU's commencement speaker in May, was roundly booed and that several people walked out of his speech about his "search for a liberal." The report pointed out, though, that unlike speakers on other campuses, Donahue at least was able to finish his speech.

Of particular concern to many academics are two moves by Congress to influence what should be taught and by whom.

* The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions concluded a hearing in October on intellectual diversity on campuses, hoping to raise public awareness on the issues of faculty political leanings, speech codes and the replacement of core curricula with trendy courses. A conservative political group helped write a House bill that would -- in the name of academic freedom -- force colleges to consider ideological balance in their hiring practices.

The bill, called the Academic Bill of Rights, would require political diversity on campus. The AAUP opposes the bill, saying such decisions should be governed by university leaders, not outsiders.

"We take seriously anytime there's an effort in a governmental body, especially a legislature, to impose a political test or a litmus test," said Jonathan Knight, director of the AAUP's Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance. Faculty members, he said, "don't like that pressure, and rightly so."

* Congress also is revisiting Title VI legislation that provides special money to train students and professors in international programs. The bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate says that a goal of international programs should be "to assist the national effort to educate and train citizens to participate in the efforts of homeland security."

It also includes a new advisory board that would include members with interest in national security. The board would monitor how the money is spent and ensure that the projects follow the legislation's goals.

Sarah Shields, an associate professor of history at UNC-CH who specializes in Middle East studies, said she fears the advisory board will squelch voices critical of the Bush administration on international affairs.

"What this legislation threatens to do is make it so policy-makers don't hear all the voices," she said. "The reason academic freedom is so crucial is sometimes it's the other voices that have the right answers."

But some contend that their voices are being drowned out. Conservatives say left-leaning campuses leave them uneasy about expressing their views. Organizations with names such as Students for Academic Freedom and Noindoctrination.org have emerged with Web sites where students can identify offending professors or get information on how to rate their campus's ideological bent.

William Van Alstyne, a Duke University law professor and an expert on the 1903 Bassett case, said he understands some of the concerns. He visited the University of Michigan this past spring as the U.S. Supreme Court was discussing the affirmative action case, and he noticed that students who opposed race-conscious admissions felt uncomfortable speaking out in classes.

George Leef, executive director of the Pope Center for Higher Education, part of the conservative John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, said he too is troubled by an apparent code of silence on some campuses.

"You find frequent instances where people who want to challenge the so-called orthodox liberal opinions find themselves getting in trouble for doing so," Leef said.

Still, he would oppose any legal mandate for a litmus test on political diversity.

"A university should be a place of open, rambunctious debate," he said. "My concern is when professors use their classrooms for political indoctrination, and they've been known to do that."

To Estroff, the critical issue for students is how faculty members handle their classrooms. Estroff, a professor of social medicine, teaches medical students on topics such as reproductive rights, euthanasia and the costs of health insurance. It's important for professors to spark debate without bringing their personal views into the classroom, she said.

"You walk a very careful line," she said.

In 1903, John Spencer Bassett learned how dangerous crossing it could be.

His article in "The South Atlantic Quarterly" warned of the danger should powerful white leaders continue to stoke racial warfare. What got Bassett into the most trouble was a statement that Booker T. Washington was the greatest man born in the South in the 19th century, save Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The idea that any black man would be greater than most white men outraged the Democratic establishment. Led by Josephus Daniels, then publisher of The News & Observer, newspapers and politicians called for Bassett's ouster. They even took to mocking him as "bASSett" in print. Parents were urged to pull their children out of Trinity College, and clergy were told not to recommend the small religious school to their brethren.

Bassett hastened to clarify that he did not support social equality. He also offered his resignation, but faculty colleagues warned that if he left, they would follow.

Finally, Trinity trustees called a meeting Dec. 1, 1903. After a debate that lasted until 3 a.m., they voted 18-7 to reject Bassett's resignation. It was a proud moment in the history of Trinity, now Duke University.

In a recent statement on the Bassett affair, Duke president Nan Keohane said its effect still resonates on her campus, but she could have been talking about universities everywhere.

"Both governmental concern about security issues and conformity in our society and on our campus are sometimes at odds with academic freedom," she said. "Thus, we need to continue to express and uphold the central value of this defining aspect of academic life. It is as relevant today as it was in 1903."

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Last-hour purchase may trim quota cut

Dec. 13, 2003
Winston-Salem (NC) Journal
By David Rice, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Winston-Salem (NC) Journal

In a move that could reduce a potential 22 percent cut in tobacco quota for 2004 to 13 percent, cigarette-makers agreed in the final hours this week to buy 45 million pounds of surplus leaf.

"This is a very pleasant surprise, and it was somewhat unexpected," said Blake Brown, an agricultural economist at N.C. State University.

"It's still a very difficult situation for farmers to have a 10 to 13 percent cut, but it's certainly much better than 20 to 22 percent," Brown said.

After a rainy growing season, the Flue-Cured Tobacco Cooperative Stabilization Corp., which buys leaf that doesn't fetch the support price at auction, wound up with 70 million pounds of leaf reserves this year.

Yesterday was the deadline for tobacco companies to buy from those reserves - which are a factor in the formula used to determine tobacco quota - before Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman sets the quota Monday for the amount of leaf that farmers can grow in 2004.

Arnold Hamm, the assistant general manager at the stabilization co-op, said that eight to nine companies - some of them foreign - bought almost 45 million pounds of discounted reserves in the past several days.

Industry leaders Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. "both hit it pretty hard," Hamm said. "It came to a groundswell this week."

Tommy Payne, a spokesman for Reynolds, said that the company agreed to buy 11 million pounds of surplus tobacco from the stabilization co-op.

Veneman has authority to adjust the quota up or down by 3 percent every year. Gov. Mike Easley and other tobacco-state leaders have written Veneman, asking her to use her full authority to reduce the cut for 2004.

"Nobody knows what the secretary will do, but a lot of people have written letters," said Hamm.

For farm leaders, word of a smaller cut in quota was good news, but still bittersweet.

"Who in the would have thought we would have welcomed a 13 percent cut?" asked Peter Daniel, the assistant to the president at N.C. Farm Bureau. "I hope the secretary will have compassion for the farmer."

Though a 3 percent reduction might not sound like much, "it increases your balance sheet for operating loans 3 percent. If you're Down East, that can be a significant amount," Daniel said.

Brown said that a change of 3 percent in the amount that farmers can grow translates to 14 million pounds of leaf that could be critical for some growers.

"It's spread over a lot of farms. But it'll make a difference," he said.

A day after the General Assembly agreed to extend $12 million a year in tax breaks for exporting cigarettes until 2018 to help Reynolds and Philip Morris, Easley wrote the tobacco companies Wednesday and asked them to buy more leaf out of stabilization reserves.

In a debate of the cigarette-export-tax breaks on the floor of the N.C. Senate on Tuesday, Sen. John Kerr, D-Wayne, said he had received "commitments" from the tobacco companies to buy more domestic leaf.

Easley issued a statement yesterday praising the tobacco companies for their purchases.

"I am pleased that these companies are stepping up to aid our farmers in this time of need," he said. "Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds notified me today of their intentions to commit to buy more tobacco."

Payne said that there was no agreement to buy more leaf in return for the tax breaks that the company got to help it bring 800 jobs to Winston-Salem.

"There's no quid pro quo here," Payne said. "There is a coincidence of timing that the special session ended up the same week that by statutory definition Stabilization offers its pool for sale."

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Southern writers make book giving easy

Dec. 12, 2003
Chapel Hill (NC) News
By Samia Serageldin, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Chapel Hill (NC) News

This holiday season, as always, the December column is dedicated to the premise that books make the best gifts: personalized, thoughtful and practical.

The infinite variety of books makes it easy to choose just the right gift to reflect the taste of the person receiving it. Easy to wrap, guaranteed to expand one's mind rather than one's girth, shared and passed on from hand to hand, books are the gift that keeps on giving.

A Very Southern Christmas: Holiday Stories from the South's Best Writers (Algonquin Books, 232 pages, $15.95) is a very seasonal anthology featuring familiar and beloved regional authors Tim McLaurin, Lee Smith, Tim Gautreaux and Fred Chappell, among others. We are reminded of the universal themes of the season: nostalgia for Christmases past, childish expectations and disappointments, and adult attempts to capture the spirit of the holiday. Illustrated with full-color paintings by Wyatt Waters, this small volume makes as cheery and welcome a stocking stuffer as individually wrapped chocolate cordials.

Hillsborough's own Michael Malone enters the holiday book lists with The Last Noel, (Sourcebooks Trade, 304 pages, $14), a fable about a privileged white Carolina girl and a destitute black Philadelphia boy who share a Christmas birthday. Seven years later, they take a sleigh ride together that marks the beginning of a lifelong friendship, related in vignettes.

For children of all ages, local author/artist Pamela Pease has written and illustrated an interactive pop-up book, Macy's on Parade (Paintbox Press, 16 pages, $36). This big format book is packed with riotous colors, foldout maps, packets of sequins and other amusing extras to delight 4- to 8-year-olds.

For the reader on your list inclined to religious philosophy, two timely new books by local authors. Bart D. Ehrman, professor of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, has just published Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford University Press, 294 pages, $30). Basing his study on the discovery of a number of key texts in modern archaeological digs, Ehrman reveals the astonishing religious diversity that existed in early Christian centuries.

Duke professor and acclaimed Southern novelist Reynolds Price's provocative new book, A Serious Way of Wondering: The Ethics of Jesus Imagined (Scribner, 160 pages, $23), brings up ethical questions that Jesus did not address in his day. Price imagines a resurrected Jesus engaging in conversations with Judas about homosexuality, suicide and the plight of women in male-dominated societies.

For the history buff on your shopping list, the themes of war and revolution are eternally popular. This year's crop of historical fiction brings two notable entries in the annals of the American Revolution. Former president Jimmy Carter's The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War, explores the less-familiar territory of the Southern battlefields: the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. It follows the Pratt family's migration southward and is partly based on Carter's family history (Simon and Schuster, 480 pages, $27).

Robert Morgan's Brave Enemies: A Novel of the American Revolution (Algonquin Books, 309 pages, $24.95) is also set in the South, in the Carolina upcountry. It has an unusual protagonist, a young girl, Josie, who dresses up as a man and lives with a Methodist minister who falls in love with her and marries her when her true identity is discovered. When her husband is captured, she disguises herself as a man again and joins the North Carolina militia.

Stella Suberman's When It Was Our War (Algonquin Books, 320 pages, $23.95) looks back on her experiences as a soldier's young wife during World War II, following her husband from the Miami of her youth to his various postings around the country. This memoir follows Suberman's successful first book, a memoir of growing up Jewish in the South titled The Jew Store.

Another memoir of growing up in the South by a writer of the same generation as Suberman comes from acclaimed novelist and Chapel Hill resident Elizabeth Spencer. Landscapes of the Heart (Louisiana State University Press, 333 pages, $19.95) is a leisurely exploration of an idyllic childhood in small-town Mississippi that leads to a broadening education in Rome, Florence, New York and Montreal. Especially interesting are the passages describing Spencer's friendships with famous writers like Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow, John Cheever and Robert Penn Warren. Like Stella Suberman, Elizabeth Spencer grows to question and eventually to distance herself from an upbringing mired in the values of racial segregation.

Yet another memoir by a local author, Elaine Neil Orr, transports us to a very different landscape. Orr, a professor of literature and women's studies at N.C. State University, was born to medical missionaries in Nigeria in the mid-1950s. In Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life, she describes her upbringing in close proximity to the Yoruba people during her childhood and her separation from Nigeria as an adolescent sent abroad to high school. When a devastating illness overtakes Orr in her 40s, she seeks solace and healing in recalling her African roots (University of Virginia Press, 301 pages).

UNC-Chapel Hill alumna Barbara Wright transports the reader to the Dust Bowl of eastern Colorado in the mid-1930s in her novel Plain Language (Simon & Schuster, 340 pages, $13). Virginia Mendenhall, a Quaker from North Carolina, travels to Colorado to marry a man she has met only twice. Their marriage is tested by the extreme harshness of their living conditions as well as by the secrets in their past.

This Christmas, many people will be missing a family member or friend in the military, and war in the Middle East is on everyone's mind, whether or not a loved one is directly involved. Several new books come as a timely reminder that war has many voices. Two young women writers one Iranian, one Iraqi reflect on the war that set their two countries against each other for 10 years, and what it was like for young girls to grow up in countries perpetually in turmoil.

Iranian-born Marjan Satrapi's Persepolis is a graphic, or illustrated, novel, a genre familiar and successful in France, where she now lives and was first published. Pantheon took a risk in publishing Persepolis in the United States, where adult comic books are rarely taken seriously Maus being the notable exception. With minimalist black and white drawings in small boxes, Satrapi tells the story of growing up in a bourgeois but radical family that originally welcomes the revolution against the Shah only to fall victim to the fanaticism of the mullahs and the ravages of the long war with Iraq (Pantheon Books, 160 pages, $17.95).

On the other side of that war, Betool Khedairi's A Sky So Close is a semi-autobiographical novel about growing up near Baghdad with an Iraqi father and an English mother. The cultural conflict between her parents at home is the one discordant note in the heroine's otherwise comfortable life as a businessman's daughter. But soon the winds of war and suffering overwhelm the country. The long war with Iran, so terribly costly in lives, is followed by the Gulf War and the years of sanctions (Pantheon Books, 256 pages, $23). Chapel Hill residents may remember Khedairi from her recent visit to the UNC campus to read from her novel and discuss the war in Iraq.

At holiday time, we remember not only those away and overseas, but also elderly family and friends in nursing homes. The best of us feel blessed to bring them to our dinner table to share the traditional feast. Clyde Edgerton's new novel, Lunch at the Picadilly, is the perfect gift to bring a smile to the face of the relative or friend who struggles with the frustrations and rewards of taking responsibility for a nearly senile relative. Set in a retirement home and interspersed with hilarious original songs, the novel is full of lively dialogue (Algonquin Books, 264 pages, $22.95).

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People: NC State University

Dec. 15, 2003
The News & Observer
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

James "Bo" Dame, who earned a doctorate in coastal resource managment at East Carolina University; Jessica Maher and Adrienne Harris, who earned master's degrees in environmental management at Duke University; and Shauna Slingsby, who earned a master's degree in marine science at UNC-Wilmington, are heading for Washington as Dean John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellows for 2004. They will spend the coming year learning about federal policy-making processes that affect the ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources. The fellowships, each valued at $38,000, are sponsored by the National Sea Grant College Program. The NC Sea Grant offices are at NC State University.

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Footnotes: NCSU to open facility for pets

Dec. 15, 2003
The News & Observer
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

A new MRI center for pets and domestic animals is under construction at N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. The magnetic resonance imaging center will help doctors detect and begin treatment of hard-to-diagnose health conditions earlier, more accurately and with less need for exploratory surgery, according to NCSU.

The MRI center is sponsored by Iams Co., maker of animal foods. Veterinarians and technicians working at the pet imaging center will be employed by Iams and also will have clinical faculty status at the College of Veterinary Medicine's teaching hospital.

Animals may be referred to the MRI center by private veterinarians or by clinicians at the NCSU vet hospital. The center is expected to open in the spring.

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Building Activity Shows Increase

Dec. 13, 2003
Pilot (Southern Pines, NC)
By Holly Realty , staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Pilot

Building permits issued by Moore County in November increased by 12.5 percent, with an increase of 4.5 percent in estimated values.

County Planning Director Richard Smith presented the November report from the Code Enforcement Division during the December meeting of the Moore County Planning Board.

The report shows that the county issued 25 permits in November, including 15 for residences, nine for alterations and additions and one for a commercial unit. That brings the total for the year to date to 486, compared to 432 for the same period in 2002.

November building values were estimated at $2.1 million, bringing the total for the first 11 months to $49 million. For the first 11 months of 2002, the total value was $46.8 million.

EAST MOORE -- Once again, the continued development of the East Moore Water District accounted for a substantial increase in the number of plumbing permits.

The Code Enforcement Division issued 593 plumbing permits in November, a 48.6 percent increase for the year over the number issued through November of 2002.

Electrical permits climbed by 5.5 percent, insulation by 12 percent, miscellaneous permits by almost 59 percent. However, electrical permits for manufactured homes continued to decrease, down 26.4 percent.

Moore County handles inspections and issues permits for all unincorporated areas of the county and for seven of the 11 municipalities. Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Aberdeen and Pinebluff operate inspections programs of their own, including their extraterritorial jurisdictions.

UNEMPLOYMENT -- More than 8.7 million Americans continuing hunting for work as the unemployment rate dipped to 5.9 percent in November, the U.S. Labor Department reported.

"The job market has gone from bad to mediocre, but try telling that to people still looking for a job who can't find work," said Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. "While President Bush is celebrating, someone should remind him that 8.7 million Americans didn't get invited to his party."

The Labor Department reported that only 57,000 new jobs were created last month, less than expected and far fewer of what is needed to erase job losses in the Bush recession, Edwards said. Economist have said that the economy needs to add 400,000 jobs a month over the next year to replace the three million private-sector jobs lost in the last three years, to sustain the recovery, he said.

"We cannot claim victory until every American searching for work finds a job," said Edwards, a former Robbins resident.

Edwards renewed his call for a 10 percent tax cut for American manufacturers that keep jobs in this country. He would eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

"We should be exporting American products, not American jobs," he said.

ECONOMIC PLAN -- Under an economic plan outlined by Edwards, a national venture capital fund would be created to help small businesses to create jobs.

Edwards said he would double funds for Community Development Financial Institutions that serve areas overlooked by most banks. He proposes increasing investments in new high-tech jobs, such as energy technologies that reduce dependence on foreign oil and help the environment by burning cleaner fuel.

To strengthen the rights of American workers, Edwards said he would increase the minimum wage by $1.50 per hour. He also wants to offer tax breaks to help the working poor and middle-class families buy a first home and save for their children's education and save for retirement.

Edwards has also proposed canceling tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans with incomes of more than $200,000. And, by closing corporate loopholes and eliminating wasteful spending, the deficit could be cut in half over the next four years, Edwards said.

SPAM -- Republican Congressman Richard Burr has voted to place restrictions on unwanted "spam" e-mail coming into North Carolinians' e-mail inboxes.

Burr, who represents the 5th District, said Congress is fed up with spam. Using the language of Burr's bill, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2214.

"The problem of unwanted e-mail has reached epic proportions over the past few years," Burr said. "The problems caused by spam go well beyond the annoyance that it causes the public. These problems include the fraudulent and deceptive content in most spam messages, offensive pornography that has been cleverly disguised or hidden to evade spam and smut filters, and the security issues raised when spam acts as a vehicle for sending viruses."

Burr has announced that he will seek the Republican nomination for the Senate seat now held by John Edwards, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president.

AGRICULTURE -- A bill that would provide more than $300 million in support for North Carolina farmers has passed the Senate.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture that distributes the aid throughout the country was allotted almost $1 billion more in this year's appropriations bill than was in last year's version, according to Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat and former Robbins resident.

The North Carolina allocation provides $261,000 for aquaculture research, $228,000 for biotechnology research, $199,000 for crop pathogen research and $492,000 for swine waste management research at N.C. State University.

Other appropriations include $138,000 for the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute at East Carolina University and $322,000 for mariculture research at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Another allocation is $500,000 for statewide technical assistance with phosphorous application to agricultural lands.

LENDER SUED -- The state has ordered a check-cashing business to stop taking consumers' money to repay loans, Attorney General Roy Cooper and Banking Commissioner Joseph Smith announced.

In a ruling last week, a Wake County Superior Court judge barred Check Into Kwik Kask Inc. and its director, Albert Thomas of Washington, N.C., from the lending business. That means consumers who took out loans from Kwik Kash are no longer responsible for repaying those loans.

Cooper and Smith filed suit against the company in January, alleging that the check-cashing operation was making loans in violation of state lending and consumer protection laws. According to the complaint, a typical borrower received five loanss in one day, each for $100.

The loans came due over a six-month period, to be repaid one per month. Most consumers paid interest rates of 200 to 400 percent, and some rates went as high as 585 percent, Cooper said.

State law permits only a 36 percent interest rate on loans under $600. State law prohibits licensed check-cashing businesses, such as Kwik Kash, from making loans.

"Consumers should be able to get short-term loans at reasonable rates, but the rates that Kwik Kash charged its customers were shocking high," Cooper said. "Thanks to this ruling, consumes are no longer trapped by these unfair loans."

Smith said, "Kwik Kash charged interest rates far in excess of what the law permits. We will not tolerate these companies that flout North Carolina law."

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Nursery is birth central for poinsettias

Dec. 13, 2003
News & Observer
By WETA RAY CLARK, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

The yuletide blooms of the poinsettia have returned to grace foyers, hearths and other spaces in homes and businesses. Retail chains, grocery stores and nurseries have been stocked for the rush since Thanksgiving. But at the Homewood Nursery & Garden Center, the cup runneth over.

"There's about 30,000," said Joe Stoffregen, who owns Homewood. We'll take his word for it.

They were everywhere. Red ones, pink ones, speckled whites, yellow, pink and the ever-so lovely burgundy. Short and squatty, tall and sparse, wide and bushy with blooms. Poinsettias of every color, shape and size evoked an immediate awe as customers entered the huge greenhouse off the nursery's main showroom earlier this week.

Housing 103 new or rare varieties, the North Raleigh nursery is part of the National Poinsettia Trials, which tests new varieties. Just call it a poinsettia birthing center of sorts.

"We are the only commercial greenhouse in the United States that has this distinction, as we work cooperatively with N.C. State University, Purdue University in Indiana and the University of Florida in Gainesville," said Stoffregen, who with his family, owns the nursery.

On long tables near the greenhouse doors sat 40 different poinsettias with sticks holding numbered cards protruding from the pots.

Customers are asked to vote for their five favorite trial varieties. The votes are scrutinized and tracked by officials in the floriculture industry before being released onto the market. The numbers indicated the rankings.

"We trial them and then give feedback to the breeders on what consumers think ... whether there are gender differences."

Stoffregen then took us on a tour of the greenhouse, pointing out the different varieties -- Plum Pudding, Glitter and Peppermint.

The sight of all those beautiful poinsettias was inspiring. We couldn't leave without buying two 6-inch Winter Rose, a novelty variety with curly, crinkly, roselike blooms.

Taking an idea from one of the nursery displays, I rushed home to nestle my plants in moss in a small wicker basket. An empty spot to the right of my fireplace begged for the floral attention.

We thought many of you might want some fresh ideas for displaying your holiday blooms as well. (Let's face it, placing the flowers up on the mantel or sofa table wrapped in the same wrinkled gold foil they came in does looks a tad bit lame.) So, we asked some local designers for help. Here are some of the ideas they shared. Note that some of the ideas are for temporary decorating situations. To keep your plant viable throughout the season, you should make sure to follow specified care instructions.

Cluster. More than one is twice the fun. Cluster poinsettias for impact, especially as a focus in the foyer for guests to enjoy. (Just take care they aren't in a draft.) "I selected a tiered, iron plant stand for these lovely red poinsettias."

Bag them. For mantels that aren't very wide: "Bag" the plants by removing them from their pots and placing them in sturdy plastic bags with just enough soil on the roots for the plant to remain viable. Tuck the poinsettias in spots that pots won't fit, such as narrow mantels or arrangements of greenery. Tie the top of the bag, allowing an opening for watering, and poke small holes at the bottom of the bag for drainage.

"I learned this while decorating the Capitol with the Raleigh Garden Club. It is a wonderful way to give more versatility to Christmas decorating with this beautiful plant. ... It is a way to use it in more places than you could a potted plant."

SKIRT THE TREE. Have a well-dressed tree and no -- or a few -- presents to go with it? Take decorated poinsettias and nestle them neatly around the trunk of the Christmas tree.

"I personally like to use the Jingle Bell variety," said Elise Carroll Thorne Cope of Apex. She suggests wrapping the plant's container in leftover Christmas wrapping paper. "I purchase the foil-lined paper for $1 each from the local grocery store." This will protect the wrapping paper when watering the plant."

Next, use leftover ribbon to make a beautiful bow. "For the all-thumbs crowd, just wrap the ribbon around the container and tie a knot allowing it to fall naturally."

When you are ready to add the presents under the tree, you will have beautifully decorated poinsettias to use in groups in the corner of the room for an added festive look.

PLACE SETTINGS. "I like to purchase the small 3-inch pots of red poinsettias for our Christmas Eve family dinner. I re-pot the poinsettias in clear glass pots with some small white stones at the bottom of the pots.

"Then I place a plant atop each place setting of Christmas china. I also group some 3-inch and 6-inch glass pots of red and white poinsettias at varying heights in the center of the dining table as a centerpiece, mixing in pine, holly and boxwood around the grouping."

CONTRAST AND COMPLEMENT. Consider using a lot of one color for a big impact or using contrasting (red and white) or complementary colors (pink and pink variegated varieties).

"Display them en masse -- not just two or three, but four or five together -- on a hearth, using different sizes. Take them out of the foil, and use a decorative pot or basket."

SPARKLING EFFECT. "To add sparkle to any table setting, use an elegant soup tureen or favorite bowl as the plant's container. The addition of candlelight gleaming on polished silver or crystal will certainly add holiday spirit to any space. Be sure to properly line the container with a plastic water tray to protect the table surface and allow for proper drainage."

Bren P. Eskridge, Chapel Hill; Peggy Herbert of Renewed Interiors, Raleigh; Elise Carroll Thorne Cope, Thorne Cope Interior Design, Apex; Dyan Nemetz-McCleery, Dyan McCleery Interiors, Cary; Ann Pierce, manager at Buchanan's Nursery, Raleigh.; Willie Green-Aldridge, Distinctive Interiors, Raleigh

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Infusion of federal dollars bails out N.C.'s military communities

Dec. 15, 2003
MSNBC.com, Triangle Business Journal
By Kim Nilsen and Chris Baysden, staff writers
© Copyright 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.

FAYETTEVILLE - War has boosted the military payroll in North Carolina by an estimated $1.1 billion since late last summer when the U.S. shifted the strategy for dealing with Iraq from weapons inspections to a military assault.

An analysis of federal and state data by Triangle Business Journal reveals the additional flow of federal dollars has acted as a buttress - and arguably a significant economic boost - for eastern North Carolina military towns that were negatively impacted by the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf.

In Carteret, Cumberland, Craven, Onslow and Wayne counties - communities distinguished for their varied dependencies on military bases - unemployment has declined during the Iraq deployment to levels that are healthier than the state as a whole.

Retail sales have shown no prolonged dive. People have continued to buy houses and eat at restaurants. Few businesses have closed their doors because of the troop deployments, and observers say fewer spouses have left town.

The five counties have fended off the type of brief but bruising shellacking their economies endured during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. They have, in fact, experienced an amount of prosperity because of the invasion of Iraq.

"Last time, large numbers of dependents picked up and went home," compounding a wave of losses caused by troop deployments, says James F. Smith, director of the Center for Business Forecasting and a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"This time around," Smith says, "most people stayed put, and lots of new people have been shipped in, so that the base strength may be even higher."

Healthy military paydays

Data indicate that fatter military paychecks and new military personnel are filling the void this time. Military pay flowing into North Carolina during the first quarter of this year was 13.9 percent higher than during the same period of 2002, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That increase was higher than the national average increase of 9.6 percent.

Wages paid to military personnel based in North Carolina topped 4.42 billion during the second quarter of this year. That was nearly $2.8 billion higher than the $1.6 billion payroll of early 1991.

Phil Hopkins, an analyst for the Waltham, Mass.-based research firm Global Insight, suggests the difference could be traced in part to a swelling of military personnel stationed in North Carolina and the activation of National Guard and Reserve troops.

Military personnel also received a minimum pay raise of 4.1 percent in December 2002. Some personnel received increases ranging from 5 percent to 9.5 percent.

Additionally, most military personnel based in war zones direct that a significant portion of their pay be sent to their families in the U.S. Because most family members have stayed put - in part because of local efforts to keep them from moving out - more dollars have flowed to spouses still residing in North Carolina.

On top of those factors, military personnel essentially are given temporary pay raises for service in "hazard" zones such as Iraq.

Marine Maj. Keith Reventlow is a case in point. His pay became tax free and rose by about $200 a month when he was deployed this spring on a tour that took him to hot spots including Iraq and Liberia.

Reventlow's wife, Andra, remained at home in Jacksonville, where she held the family budget steady and stashed away the additional money. "I just tried to keep it the way it was before he was deployed," she says. "That put a little bit back into savings."

Small business owners in eastern North Carolina say that money ultimately gets released into the economy. Gary Baldree, co-owner of Baldree's Tire and Service in Havelock, says his business is booming as Marines rotate back to the States. "There ain't a whole lot of places to go and spend it in Iraq," Baldree says.

Contrasts are evident

Global Insight predicts that the state's share of military pay will have increased by 27 percent from 2002 for both the third and fourth quarters of 2003, when the payroll numbers are reported. That would push wages beyond the $5 billion mark to a new high.

The contrasts between the Iraq invasion and Desert Storm are stark. As Desert Storm loomed in 1990, military wages in North Carolina were on a downward trend. They bottomed out in the first quarter of 1991 but began rising in the second quarter.

For Desert Storm, some 30,000 Marines and sailors were deployed from Camp Lejeune, a facility that helps fuel the economies of Onslow, Carteret and Craven counties. Roughly 32,000 Fort Bragg soldiers left Cumberland County.

Compounding the departure of the troops was the fact that isolated spouses fled for familiar ground - back to mom's house in Ohio, California, Kansas and the like. A bulk of the pay went with them. Apartment vacancies rose in North Carolina's military communities, as did joblessness.

"Desert Storm was a nightmare for all the businesses," says Charles Kay, who owns Excel Body Works, an auto repair shop in the Onslow County town of Jacksonville. Operation Iraqi Freedom has caused little economic sputtering, Kay says. "It wasn't the same kind of war for us."

Havelock is a bedroom community in Craven County, which is home to the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point. The county bested its 2002 retail sales figures four of the first five months of the year with the exception of May, when sales slipped by just 0.26 percent. In January, two months before the invasion, sales rose by 17.7 percent over 2002.

Some pockets of economic dislocation have been noted - though they were temporary and associated with the beginning of the invasion.

Tom Phillips, Havelock's city manager, says retailers who deal in big-ticket items, from real estate to refrigerators, did experience some slow times.

Vehicle registration records suggest that dealerships in military communities took a drubbing in February and March as soldiers and airmen shipped out. Statewide, weak months came in April and May.

Four of the five military counties suffered weak retail sales in March, the month after fighting began, and lost ground compared to 2002. Yet the following month, all five military communities rang up enough sales to beat their previous year's performance, while the rest of the state fizzled.

"It looks like the downswing - the negative effect on things like sales - was occurring earlier in those counties than other counties," says Michael Walden, an economist at North Carolina State University.

The differences between the 1991 Gulf War and the war in Iraq have allowed North Carolina's military communities thus far to fend off an economic dislocation, and that could bode well for the short-term economic future of significant pockets of the eastern portion of the state.

"Any economic ramifications of the deployments are going to be more prolonged," NCSU's Walden says. "The war happened, and we're staying."

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Suzanne Gordon Is New Chief Information Officer at SAS

Dec. 15, 2003
LocalTechWire
By Rick Smith, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Local Tech Wire.

CARY, NC – Suzanne Gordon, a long-time veteran of SAS, is the new chief information officer for the world’s largest privately held software company.

"SAS has always done a great job of using its technology to run the business and gain competitive advantage," Gordon said in a statement about her new role. "Now, we have an opportunity to further differentiate SAS by leveraging our industry-leading solutions. I look forward to being part of this continued success for years to come."

Local Tech Wire interviewed Gordon at length earlier this year when she was one of only 11 women named to the Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders in 2003. She talked at length about her job – and how she keeps searching for new ideas and technology.

“As vice president of information technology, I direct the systems development, hardware implementations, strategic support and budget activities of the SAS Information Systems organization,” she said. “As such, I am responsible for establishing strategic and tactical plans for all information systems departments, working with other company divisions and aligning our strategy with the goals of the company.”

But Gordon does not rely on her own skill sets.

”I try to read to stay up to date, but I must rely on the folks in each area who are really interested in their specific technology,” she explained. “Since SAS is a software company, there are plenty of “technical experts” in R&D who keep me up-to-date on the latest technology. There are two, in particular, whom I try to have lunch with at least once a month so I can pick their brains.”

Gordon also said teamwork is a crucial factor in success. Another is focusing on the future and change.

“I define success with these questions: Are we helping the company be successful? Are folks motivated and challenged? And do we have good teamwork?,” she said. “My secret to success is persistence, openness, a short memory for negative things, and a willingness to listen and to change.”

Gordon already served as vice president of information systems at SAS. Her additional responsibilities mean that Gordon will coordinate development strategies throughout the firm.

"One of Suzanne's key focus areas continues to be the alignment of IT resources with other business units within SAS," said Keith Collins, senior vice president and chief technology officer at SAS, in a statement. "Her advocacy of SAS software for internal applications over the years has helped the company realize its vision of being an intelligent company, one that demonstrates market leadership through innovative use of data and information systems."

Gordon has worked at SAS for more than 20 years and led the management information services department for much of that time. She was promoted to vice president of SAS Information Systems Division in March of last year. Gordon also has worked with the SAS Professional Services Division and as director of National Technical Consulting.

Jim Goodnight, president and chief executive officer of SAS, praised Gordon in announcing her new duties.

"Throughout her career at SAS, Suzanne has proven herself to be an exemplary leader who wants what's best for the company," he said. "She has seen and acted on many opportunities for us to achieve the highest levels of efficiency and effectiveness in our internal use of technology and that perspective will continue to be vital to SAS' future."

Gordon is a graduate of North Carolina State University. She was named to the Triangle Business Journal named her one of the top 25 women in business for 2003.

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Golden LEAF Foundation Elects Officers

Dec. 12, 2003
Biz Yahoo.com
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003 Yahoo.com.

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C., Dec. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of the Golden LEAF Foundation has elected William "Billy" Clarke, an Asheville attorney with the firm of Roberts & Stevens, as its new chair. Clarke, who is a founding member of the Golden LEAF board, succeeds S. Lawrence Davenport of Pactolus.

The Board also elected Richard Holder of Kinston, President of Harvey Fertilizer and Gas Company, as Vice Chair; Michael A. Almond of Charlotte, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Charlotte Regional Partnership, as Secretary; and Debbie E. Worley of Princeton, a farmer, as Treasurer.

Clarke, who lives in the Buncombe County community of Fairview near the family farm where he was reared, has served as chair of Golden LEAF's investment committee. He is past chair of Pisgah Legal Services and the Western North Carolina Group Home for Autistic Persons. He serves on the board of visitors of the Carolina Environmental Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the board of North Carolina Environmental Defense. He received the BA degree from Princeton University in 1979 and the JD degree from the University of North Carolina School Of Law in 1982.

Holder is a state and national leader in the agricultural industry. He serves as president of the National Cotton Ginners Association; director of the National Cotton Council; president of the North Carolina Cotton Producers Association; and on the North Carolina Agricultural Finance Authority. Holder has served as a director of the Southeastern Cotton Growers Association and the Pesticide Association of North Carolina and on the Lenoir County Extension Advisory Board. He received the BA degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972.

Before joining the Charlotte Regional Partnership, Almond was a senior partner at the Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein law firm, where he served as chair of its international business division. He has a keen interest in international affairs and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former chair of the Charlotte World Affairs Council, and a recipient of the Council's annual service award. He is chair of the board of directors of the Charlotte Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Almond received the BA degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971 and the JD degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1975. He was a Fulbright Fellow and studied at the University of Mannheim in Germany.

Worley, who served two terms as chair of the Golden LEAF Foundation program committee, has an extensive farming operation in Wayne County that includes crop land and poultry, swine, and beef production. She has served for 10 years on the board of directors of the Agricultural Foundation for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University and is a member of the board of the North Carolina Tobacco Foundation. She is a graduate of Wayne Community College and North Carolina State University, where she received the BA degree in 1974.

The Golden LEAF Foundation was established in 1999 and administers half of the money received by the State of North Carolina from its settlement with cigarette manufacturers. Since its inception, it has made 256 grants totaling $102,020,646.41 to non-profit organizations and government entities throughout North Carolina to help communities make the transition from a tobacco- dependent economy and create new job opportunities in economically distressed areas. Grant application forms are available on the Foundation's Web site goldenleaf.org or by calling 888.684.8404. The deadline for the next annual grant cycle is August 1, 2004.

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High tech? How about nanotechnology

Dec. 13, 2003
Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times
By Dale Neal, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times

TRYON - In the new knowledge-based economy, Jerry Soderquist would like to be a matchmaker, marrying great ideas from various universities in order to birth new businesses.

The nursery for those high-tech offspring and new jobs could be located in Tryon and Polk County, with the creation of the new Southern Appalachian Science and Technology Center.

"The SASTC would be a place not only for scientists to meet, but it could provide a forum for the corporate to meet with scientists or students or venture capitalists," Soderquist said.

For now the center is little more than a white paper and a Web page on the Internet, but Soderquist and his partners envision a virtual forum for the Southeast's top scientists to compare ideas that might someday produce a profit.

Soderquist formed the center in October along with Tryon investment banker Terry Ackerman., and Ken Rossen, director of e-Polk, the agency building a fiber-optic network through the county.

The nonprofit center could be eligible for federal funding under a new law signed by President Bush last week. The Nanotechnology Research and Development Act provides $3.7 billion to explore the emerging field of nanotechnology, in which matter can be manipulated at a microscopic level to create new fibers, computer chips and even tiny machines.

Tryon is neutral ground at the geographic center of several leading research universities across eight states, including Virginia Tech, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke and N.C. State in the Research Triangle Park, Clemson in South Carolina, Georgia Tech in Atlanta and University of Tennessee in Knoxville as well as UNC Asheville and Western Carolina University.

Soderquist has been making the rounds of those campuses in his role with his other company, Nanotech Capital, an investment firm scouting for marketable ideas in nanotechnology. Nanotech has already signed a first-look option for nanotechnology research coming out of the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee.

"We might go to a particular university and see an idea. We'll say `that's really great, but I don't see that as the nucleus of a new company.'" But taking those various ideas from several campuses could lead to a marketable concept, Soderquist said.

Starting out as a virtual center on the Internet, the Southern Appalachian Science & Research Center could soon become a real office in Tryon, which could attract other start-up companies. "We're not going to have a physical facility in the first few months," said Rossen. "It's going to take some time to work on the legal side and in building the technical infrastructure. It's like arranging a dozen different marriages." The center will have plenty of broadband to move massive data files at high speed, thanks to PANGAEA, the new fiber-optic network being built in the county. PANGAEA stands for the Polk Advanced Network for the Growth of Academic and Entrepreneurial Advantage. The acronym was Rossen's idea, Pangaea is the name of the prehistoric landmass that existed eons ago before the Earth's continents drifted apart. "The idea is we're bringing the back together."

The high-capacity network should be up and running by February with eight miles of fiber-optics connecting Columbus and Tryon, with a wireless hookup from Tryon mountain to the Education and Research Consortium's Internet hub in downtown Asheville.

That fiber-optic network makes Tryon a likely site to host a virtual center. Rossen sees the city as a sanctuary for often-competitive universities to share their ideas behind a wall of non-disclosure agreements and Internet security to safeguard their valuable data.

Frank Lockwood, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Western Carolina University, serves on the center's board of directors. A former director of a NASA business incubator in Florida, Lockwood likes the potential in nanotechnology, biotechnology and other new sectors that could find homes in the region.

Western Carolina University would be interested in providing business support for the new entrepreneurs who might start those companies, Lockwood said.

"Everyone's interested in what we can do to create jobs in sustainable companies that want to be in Western North Carolina," Lockwood said. "SASTC will provide the resources and information for folks who want to get involved in nanotechnology and live in a beautiful place."

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Financial help for new digesters and ethanol plants

Dec. 13, 2003
Kiplinger.com
By Josh Alban
© Copyright 2003 Kiplinger.com

Although future funds may be eliminated in 2004 budgets, this year's federal grants are leading to more biomass conversion.

HIGH up-front capital costs have long been a serious obstacle for farmers looking to develop new revenue streams. This is especially true for farmers looking to use waste products as a feedstock for renewable energy production, where moderate to substantial infrastructure additions or modifications are often par for the course.

To overcome this hurdle, the federal government has designed a grant and loan program to provide selected entrepreneurs with the seed money they need to leverage private financing for biomass projects such as anaerobic digester systems, biofuels facilities, gasification projects and wind and solar energy projects. The program, established under Sec. 9006 of the energy title of the 2002 Farm Bill, is named the "Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Improvements" program, and is authorized at $23 million/yr through 2007. For a Farm Bill with a price tag of $248.6 billion, this is but a drop in the bucket; but to the farmers who are set to receive the first round of grant awards (no loans were given out this first year of program implementation), this is the fiscal push needed to pursue nontraditional revenue streams while advancing renewable energy production and energy efficiency.

On August 25, 2003, USDA announced the selection of 113 applications for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvement grants in 24 states, totaling $21,207,233. Ofthat, $7 million will go to 30 anaerobic digester projects; 16 applications totaling $3.9 million will go to ethanol plants/anaerobic digesters, direct combustion, and fuel pellet projects; $7.4 million will go to 35 wind power projects; and $1.1 million will go to six solar projects. In terms of anaerobic digesters, New York applicants were awarded the most project money, accounting for $1,740,203 in seven projects. New York was followed by Wisconsin with $1,715,610 in 11 projects. The following examples - one waste to ethanol plant and two anaerobic digesters - offer a sampling of the scope of the projects being supported by USDA across the country.

LIQUID RESourceS OF OHIO - $500,000

Liquid Resources was founded in 2002 with the goal of creating both a service and an end product: converting waste liquids from beverage producers and other manufacturers to create ethanol. Company founders applied for a Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency grant from USDA. The $500,000 award will go directly toward the purchase of machinery and equipment and the hiring of engineers to turn the idea into a reality.

Liquid wastes are typically thought of as pesky by-products of processes from industries, ranging from soft drink manufacturers to pharmaceutical companies. At the facility to be built in Medina, Ohio, shipments of waste liquids will arrive as case goods (i.e., goods arriving in packaging) or in bulk from various industrial suppliers located within a maximum radius of 500 miles (depending on the amount of waste to be disposed). According to representatives of Liquid Resources, companies will find it more cost-effective to ship their waste fuels to the Medina plant than it would be for them to dispose of it themselves.

The waste conversion process will be similar to most ethanol production, except that instead of converting starch to sugars, the waste liquid will be converted to sugars by enzymes. From there, yeast will be used in order to ferment these sugars, thereby creating ethanol. And, to complete the environmentally friendly cycle, packaging that originally accompanied these waste liquids - like aluminum, glass, and plastic - will be recycled, thereby diverting waste from landfills.

According to Tim Curtiss, cofounder and CEO of Liquid Resources, federal dollars have been a crucial part in getting his project off the ground. "Every dollar of this grant is a dollar of equity that we don't have to raise," says Curtiss. "For an entrepreneur, that's incredibly valuable." And the benefits of that seed money have larger implications for Medina's industrial sector - Liquid Resources estimates that the new facility will create 25 new jobs.

HARRIS FARM OF NORTH CAROLINA - $130,000

The Harris Farm in Northeastern North Carolina - an 11,520 head swine finishing farm ("finishing" is the last stage of swine farming, preceded by the farrowing and nursing stages) - is looking to replace its old waste storage lagoon with an anaerobic digester as a means of both treating swine waste and generating energy. To this end, the farm has hired AgriClean, a private company based in Nashville, Tennessee, that specializes in agricultural waste management. The bulk of the money for the project - approximately $600,000 - is to come from a grant from the Animal & Poultry Waste Management Center of North Carolina State University. That portion of the project relates mostly to setting up an infrastructure for manure handling. The money to come from USDA - $130,000 - will be used to build the systems that are specific to renewable energy production, i.e., a gas collection and management system as well as a generator to provide power for the farm.

As is the case with any anaerobic digestion process, there are four general stages: Put simply, a handful of microorganisms work to convert the manure into a substance that is eventually converted into organic acids by a second group of microorganisms. These acids are then used by methanogenic (methane-producing) anaerobic bacteria to complete the decomposition process. The methane that arises from this process is collected and pumped off to a generator that burns the methane and produces electricity. The electricity from the generator powers the digester along with any other energy needs on the farm. Officials at AgriClean point out that the excess energy produced by the digester - energy beyond what is necessary for on-farm energy needs - could be plugged back into the public electricity grid, but electric utility rates are currently so low in North Carolina that they pose a significant disincentive to all forms of distributed generation.

It should be noted that the anticipated benefits of the project go beyond energy production. From a farming perspective, coproducts that the digester provides, like liquid nutrients and compost, are indispensable value-adds. Environmentally, not only does the energy produced by the digester displace electricity produced by fossil fuels, but capturing the methane and putting it to use prevents one of the most harmful of greenhouse gases from contributing to global warming (methane is 21 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). And finally, digesters can virtually eliminate two major environmental hazards associated with animal feedlots - groundwater contamination and odor.

However, despite these benefits, private capital to fund these projects is hard to find. Often times, public sector funding is the only option for cutting edge projects like the one on Harris Farm. According to Scott Pogue of AgriClean, this is precisely why the USDA's program funding is so crucial. "If USDA were not out there to supplement the development of these systems, they simply wouldn't exist because it is simply too hard to gather the upfront capital... Traditional sources of funding for these type projects are just not there yet," he says.

MARKS FARM OF NEW YORK - $500,000

Another innovative awardee is the Marks Dairy Farm in northwestern New York State (Lewis County), which has received $500,000 to pursue an anaerobic digester with a bit of a twist. The region is home to two large cheese production facilities, Kraft and Lewis County Cheese, which both have substantial waste disposal needs for cheese whey, the serum/watery part of milk that remains after the manufacture of cheese. One disposal method that cheese producers have relied on is turning cheese whey over to farmers, who, after combining it with manure, use it as a topical field fertilizer. However, because the cheese whey is ultimately an untreated waste product that can contaminate water streams, this is becoming less and less of an option due to environmental regulations.

The anaerobic digester to be built on the Marks Farm will be an alternative for cheese manufacturers seeking to dispose of waste. According to Dennis Burke, an engineer working on the Marks Farm project, the digester will be able to co-digest - along with traditional manure - roughly one million gallons of cheese whey per month. The methane then collected from the digester will translate to roughly 2-3 megawatts of generated electricity per hour. And, because this amount is well beyond the needs of the farm itself, the farm will be able to sell excess energy to local utilities. Discussions with utilities are underway. Another by-product of the process will be a soil product that is pathogen free and nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorous) laden, a product the farm then will market to the region and the Northeast.

Because the digester will prevent the emission of harmful greenhouse gases, the farm anticipates being able to sell greenhouse gas (GHG) emission credits to companies looking to comply with GHG emission limits. This seems an especially timely commodity given that New York Governor George Pataki has led the campaign to create a Northeast market-based emissions trading system to reduce CO2 emissions and its equivalents. According to Mark Handley of the Coalition of Northeastern Governors, "Everything you can do to add value to these projects and bring revenue to farmers is critical... Greenhouse gas credit trading will be an important part of a long-term strategy to mitigate climate change."

FUTURE OF THE PROGRAM

It has been nearly a year-and-a-half since the passage of the 2002 Farm Bill, and from a federal government standpoint, implementation of the program is still very much a fluid process. For USDA's part, they have worked to ensure distribution of all grant monies in 2003, and will work to improve the application process for 2004.

However, if the last year is any measure of things to come, the long-term future of the program is uncertain. Despite the fact that the 2002 Farm Bill allocated $23 million per year in mandatory funding for the program through 2007, the President's proposed budget and the House Appropriations Committee eliminated funding for the program for 2004. Funding was eventually restored in the House by the passage of an amendment offered by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). The Senate Appropriations Committee approved full funding for the program, but it is clear that legislators will face a similar funding debate for fiscal year 2005.

USDA will release a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the FY 2004 Sec. 9006 program by mid-November 2003. More information on the program and the application process can be found at www.eesi.org.

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SAS VP named chief information officer

Dec. 12, 2003
Triangle Business Journal
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.

Cary-based SAS Institute has appointed Suzanne Gordon as its chief information officer.

Gordon will remain the vice president of the company's information systems division, a post she was given in March 2002.

In her expanded role, Gordon will be responsible not only for the operational systems and data within the IT organization, but also for developing strategies for information systems throughout the company.

Gordon, a graduate of North Carolina State University, also is a member of the board of trustees at NCSU.

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Letter: Approaching math

Dec. 14, 2003
News & Observer

Your Dec. 10 article "Thinking about math" might have left the impression that I endorsed the math programs identified in the article. This is absolutely incorrect. On the contrary, I was specifically talking about the balanced, comprehensive and coherent math program of which I am an author, "Houghton Mifflin Mathematics." This program effectively combines "new approaches" to teaching mathematics while implementing best practices of traditional math instruction.

Exclusively using either an investigative approach or traditional instruction is not the best way to help students be more successful. Any suggestion to the contrary does not accurately reflect the statements that I made.

In fact, it is the use of different approaches that makes a balanced program of math instruction more beneficial to students. A balanced program helps teachers differentiate instruction. As a result, different students having different needs at different times gain greater access to more and better mathematics. A balanced program that combines elements of the new approaches with the best of traditional instruction can reach all learners all of the time by providing more than one way for students to understand the math. It was in this context that I stated, "For more people to do it (math) well, we have to teach it differently."

Lee V. Stiff, Ph.D.

Raleigh

(The writer is professor of mathematics education at N.C. State University and past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.)

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Opinion: No fan of extravagant college athletic centers

Dec. 14, 2003
The Greensboro News & Record
By reporter name, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Record.

Posh athletic facilities on college campuses prove that wretched excess is not an exclusive characteristic of the rich.

For a full-text version of this article, please contact News Services at 919/515-3470.

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North Carolina State Center Offers High-Tech Health Care for Animals

Dec. 12, 2003
High Point Enterprise; Nursing Homes Long Term Care Management (Cleveland,OH); CNNMoney (NY,NY)
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003 High Point Enterprise

Dec. 12--A dog has health problems, and the veterinarian thinks it might be cancer.

The only way to find out for sure is to go in, operate, and take a look to see how extensively the cancer has spread.

That scenario could change drastically this spring, when N.C. State University opens a diagnostic center that will be the first of its kind in the region.

N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and pet food manufacturer Iams Co. have announced plans to open a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) center in late spring 2004.

The center, the first of its kind in the region, according to N.C. State officials, will bring human medicine technology to vets across the region.

The Iams Pet Imaging Center will be a 3,348-square-foot facility with a price tag of more than $2 million located in the N.C. State Centennial Biomedical Campus, according to N.C. State officials. The university hopes to have the center in operation by the end of June 2004.

"Fundamentally, for veterinarians, this device will provide them with a high-quality and useful diagnostic tool in animal health care," said Oscar Fletcher, dean of N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

The MRI, used for years in human medicine, is a device that takes high-resolution images of the body. Unlike a common X-ray, an MRI produces precise images of soft tissue, which can help in the diagnosis of cancer, spinal cord ailments and brain injuries such as strokes. Medical professionals essentially use the painless pictures as an alternative to more painful and expensive exploratory surgery.

Fletcher said a similar machine is in place in a Vienna, Virginia facility, near Washington, D.C.

"The fact is that MRI technology has not had wide use in veterinary medicine," Fletcher said. "It has been primarily used in human medicine, partially because of expense, and partially because you must anesthetize the animal."

But the new N.C. State facility will make MRI technology that has been available to human medicine for years open for use in veterinary procedures.

The MRI could be used to diagnose a dog's stomach cancer, a cat's seizures or a horse's lame leg, Fletcher said.

The Iams Pet Imaging Center will take referrals from patients either within N.C. State's vet school, or, more likely, vets will refer patients to the center.

But, with the inconvenience of the procedure and at a cost upward of $1,200, the MRI might not be for every dog and cat.

Pet owners have to be referred by vets. Then they must transport the animal to Raleigh and check them into the center. Unlike humans, Rover might not be willing to lay still for the MRI scan, so he'll have to be anesthetized.

"These things are useful, there is no question, but they are expensive and they aren't used often," said Paul Bencuya, a veterinarian who practices at Skeet Club Veterinary Hospital. ". . . There is no question about that, we can offer more things like this to pet owners, but you get more sophisticated with medicine and you get into more expense."

Despite the expense and inconvenience, the Iams Center will make animal MRIs more convenient, relatively speaking, than they once were.

In the past, veterinarians had to rent or borrow other MRIs. For example, N.C. State's vet program rented an MRI that came on a tractor-trailer truck, Fletcher said. And, several years ago, when Bencuya was studying cancer in dogs, he had to rely on the MRI at Duke University Medical Center.

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Don't cry for Kannapolis in North Carolina or Celina in Ohio or any number of other factory towns that have lost jobs to foreign labor

Dec. 14, 2003
Gannett News Service; Press Connects (NY); Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
By GREG BARRETT, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Gannett News Service

When free trade affects the livelihood of U.S. workers, a capitalist government exhibits socialist tendencies. Globalization may cost the United States about one million manufacturing jobs each year, but laid-off workers are offered a relative bounty.

Unlike employees who lose jobs because of a slumping economy or bad decisions by executives, workers sacrificed to global bartering typically are eligible for between 18 months to 24 months of unemployment pay. They also get tuition and books for education and retraining.

It's payback for being uprooted by trade decisions that benefit society as a whole.

North Carolina State University economics professor Michael Walden estimates that apparel imports save U.S. consumers a minimum of $19 billion annually. In return, Washington provides a benefits package that costs taxpayers about $1.2 billion each year.

In North Carolina's Rowan and Cabarrus counties, where 3,688 residents lost their textile jobs on July 31, laid-off workers were given access to trade schools and community colleges, food banks and YMCAs, job counselors and social workers.

More than 800 former textile workers have signed up for classes at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. Another 1,200 are expected to enroll within the next year, swelling the student body by 50 percent.

"We're scurrying to find the faculty," said Rowan-Cabarrus vice president Jerry Chandler.

Embracing change

Some ex-workers are getting their GED or learning English as a second language. Others are taking classes in business administration, office technician work, truck driving, or child day-care.

Job losses tracked to free trade can make for wonderful opportunities, a "metamorphosis of sorts," according to the gospel-style lecturing of career c