THE ANDROID GATHERING INVADES WILMINGTON ON AUGUST 28

What: A free Android OS rally and conference, featuring door prizes, giveaways, consultations and expert-led breakout sessions, including:

1. Beginners Android OS for HTC Incredible owners
2. Beginners Android OS for Moto Droid and LG Ally owners
3. Beginners Android OS for Droid X owners
4. Favorite Android Market Applications
5. Android OS for the business user

Who: Verizon Wireless, builder and operator of the nation’s most reliable wireless network

When: Saturday, August 28, 2010
9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Where: Hilton Wilmington Hotel
301 N. Water Street
Wilmington, NC 28401

Why: As the Android movement gains momentum, Verizon Wireless is offering consumers the opportunity to learn more about how Android is revolutionizing smartphones. Unleash Android’s full potential with more than 92,000 applications, hundreds of widgets, full search capabilities, Google based navigation system and customizable home screens. Our free Android Gathering will teach consumers more about the Google movement as well as tips and tricks for maximizing the Android platform.

Contact: For information about The Android Gathering in Wilmington, NC, visit TheAndroidGathering.com to register.

# # #
Media
Contact: Karen Schulz
Verizon Wireless
864.987.2006
Karen.Schulz@VerizonWireless.com

In the fall of 2005, I harvested acorns from the great oaks at the Fort Fisher recreation center in what I hoped would be the beginning of a worthwhile horticultural experiment, to bring a lush maritime forest to our back yard. I was amazed when after a little over a month the nuts had sprouted tap roots and were ready to be transferred from Styrofoam cups to proper nursery containers. The seeds germinated just prior to the issuance of our building permit and I planted the trees the first fall after the completion of our house on Greenfield Lake in a simple poetic gesture. The house and the trees shared a birthday (sort of) and they would grow old together. Somehow one would help tell the story of the other. I would make little bronze plaques commemorating the unlikely brotherhood and the history would live on long after I’m gone. This seemed like a good idea, but little did I know that there would be another story to tell. Around the same time I set out on a more ambitious endeavor to restore indigenous vegetation in the hope of having a more or less natural habitat – following a vow that I made to eliminate turf and the miles of wisteria and poison ivy that for a half century had blanketed the yard. It didn’t occur to me then that the two tasks, planting trees and restoring habitat represented an age long problem, the reconciliation of nature and artifice.

One morning in late July, I took my morning walk around the yard to investigate new growth on the various species encircling the house and as always the overall progress of my oaks. I noticed something peculiar in a thick stand of indigenous willow trees that I was also cultivating and had recently pruned. Two of them were missing! To my knowledge, they were not missing the prior evening. Where could they have gone? There seemed to be evidence of tool marks and the ground around them was littered with what appeared to be chopping debris. I blew it off thinking that it was some random act of vandalism. But then the following morning three more were gone. At first I was amused, but then later became concerned that there may be a person lingering around the house outside waiting for everyone to fall asleep so that they could help themselves to the trees. It didn’t make any sense, so I did what any good Samaritan concerned about the safety of his neighborhood would do…I called the police. An officer came out and filed a report, baffled at the audacity, and commenced looking for a trail to follow. There wasn’t one. The following day there were four more trees missing. I spent the afternoon installing motion-sensing lighting in the back yard and that night, I got the call from Tanya as I sat quietly sipping a cold Beer at Satellite Bar and Lounge. The 12 inch tall bandit was caught red-handed dragging a freshly cut tree approximately due north sporting a brown coat and a flat tail. The terror of Greenfield Lake was a beaver!

It was days later after losing a few more trees that I actually got a glimpse of it. He was a cute little guy/gal and Tanya and I were very distressed at the dilemma. Neither of us relished the idea of hurting it not to mention that the yard becoming a beaver habitat seemed like the pinnacle of fulfillment in the journey to restoring native habitat. For anyone following Facebook at the time, it became a public drama with varying opinions as to how to deal with it…some violent while others were more sympathetic. We settled on a passive deterrent strategy of building a protective fence around the most at-risk area but it didn’t help. Subsequently, we discovered that it is illegal in North Carolina to relocate beavers (as it is basically like taking your problem and giving it to someone else.) Six trees later, we solicited advice from a consortium of environmentalists, trappers and storm water specialists and they all agreed…the beaver must go.

After a week of disappearing willows, I noticed two things that helped make the ultimate decision. The first was my observation that it had successfully felled and left behind a 6 year old bald cypress planted by yours truly and second, evidence that it had begun a debarking assault on one of the prized oaks. I am certain that there were many casualties in the month of July, domestic and abroad. The patch of amputated trees in our yard in no way measured up to other environmental disasters but in my mind was no less profound. I have always admired beavers and given my own aspirations in architecture and construction, consider them to be kindred spirits. As I looked at the wasteland created for its personal gain, I couldn’t help but think that it was a little like looking in a mirror. I called the trapper with a heavy heart and by the weekend, the deed was done. The oaks are alive and well. Averting tragedy at the mouth of a beaver will forever be part of their heritage and perhaps twenty years from now the little fellow’s demise will be regarded as a worthwhile sacrifice. In the fall of 2009, I harvested some acorns from the aged Airlie Oak in Airlie Gardens and those seedlings are now ready to go in the ground as well. Through the rustling in the trees they will grow up hearing about the great tree hunter of 2010, bracing themselves for hidden dangers lurking in the city’s storm water inlets and a soon to be unveiled monument showing a likeness of a furry brown rodent spewing a final epitaph, “Tastes Like Chicken!”

It will WoW You!

encore’s Wilmington Webbie 2010 goes to WhatsOnWilmington.com

…Though fleeting moments of time get lost on me, a knack for talent does not. In this case: 1) a great writer; 2) an impressive traveler; and 3) a businessman whose dedication to Wilmington comes tenfold thanks to his eight-month-old baby, http://www.WhatsOnWilmington.com (WoW). Though, I can’t take credit for discovering his Web site, I can absolutely tout encore’s savvy readers for their numerous nominations for Wilmington Webbies 2010.

As I read recently in the Star News of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority’s decision to begin adding fluoride to the water being produced from the Ogden Plant, I couldn’t help but think of how non-controversial the article came across. Everyone in our area has heard of fluoride and its widely accepted use preventing cavities. But it’s just as controversial now as when municipalities began adding it to water in 1945.

I’ve heard a few horror stories about how fluoride is industrial waste that refineries had duped the American public into believing it was necessary for your personal hygiene. So after reading the article I decided to do some research and develop my own conclusions on the subject. That’s easier said than done. Fluoride controversy, it would seem, is as polarized as politics, rife with rhetoric and mudslinging where everyone is an expert.

While I was doing this research, The Star News published another article on the subject after the Utility Authority began receiving calls from concerned citizens. A few concerns were mentioned, including toxicity in high levels, discoloration of teeth, and “opposition to the government putting something in the drinking water without asking first.” The rest of the article seemed to be dismissive of the concerns, in my opinion, quoting a UNC professor and a World Health Organization report from 2006. I wanted to understand the concerns a little better and find reassurance for my own concerns, so I continued digging through the information.

From what I can tell, the best argument anyone can give to put fluoride in our municipal water systems is that it is a cheap and effective way to distribute a substance whose sole purpose is fighting cavities. The goal is to prevent chronic problems effecting mostly children and the poor. According the CDC it cost $.72 per person per year to distribute in 1999, a cost of about $.94 in today’s dollars. (1.) That’s not a bad argument if it’s effective, which is up for much debate. Another quote by the CDC is typical of the research supporting fluoride: “Daily and frequent exposure to small amounts of fluoride will best reduce the risk of tooth decay for all age groups. With multiple sources of fluoride available to us, we want to ensure that every family member gets fluoride in the right amount.” (2.) Some studies suggest that since most toothpaste has fluoride as an active ingredient adding it to water isn’t completely necessary, but it couldn’t hurt since you don’t know who in the community isn’t getting their daily dose. (3.)

Opposition to fluoridation is based on ethical, legal, and safety grounds, but opponents have also been accused of denying the benefits, selective reporting, and fear mongering. (4.) There are many arguments against fluoridation. Some claim an imbalance between effectiveness and adverse effects, since it’s widely known that fluoride is toxic at very high levels. A lethal dose of sodium fluoride for a 155 lb. man is 5-10 grams. It can cause dental fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis, weakened bones. Some claim it can also cause osteoporosis, arthritis, and impaired thyroid function. Many say that it is a compulsory human rights violation; that consent would be needed by everyone in a community for it not to be so, and you cannot control the exact dose each individual receives. They say that fluoride in toothpaste would be enough for people who want to use it, since fluoride doesn’t need to be swallowed anyway, and it would be easier for people to choose other products if they preferred. Importantly, statistics indicate that tooth decay has dropped at the same rate in countries with and without fluoridated water.

No conversation about fluoride would be complete without mentioning the conspiracy theories: It is being used by the New World Order to take over the world. It was used by the German government to make people more submissive. Parties that keep popping up are aluminum refineries and the phosphate mining industry. I don’t know if these are just scare tactics, but I wanted to know how fluoride was connected to those industries. It turns out sodium fluoride and fluorosilicic acid are waste products of both of these industries. In the early days of those industries, the fluoride would be emitted out of stacks, burning foliage and killing cattle wherever the wind took it. The EPA has since squashed the air emissions problem. But those against fluoride say that those industries would have a huge waste problem on their hands if they hadn’t figured out how to sell it to municipalities unrefined. I must admit that if I were a big company that had committed an environmental catastrophe in the infancy of my industry and were now selling my waste product for consumption, I would be a little secretive about it, even if it is beneficial to mankind.

The truth must lie somewhere in the middle.

Many well respected scientists and doctors have taken up arms in defense of and opposition to fluoride and have staked their reputations on their studies and findings. The amount of scientific data available on the subject is mind-boggling, each one putting its own individual spin on the evidence. There is no clear evidence in support of or opposition to the effectiveness of fluoride on cavities. The arguments for and against the efficacy of fluoridation tend to be biased on both sides.

I have pored over this for days now and cannot make a definitive stand on the issue. All I can hope for is that you are a little more informed for reading this and that we can start a discussion. By all means do your own research. If I stand anywhere on the matter, it’s that I would rather brush my teeth daily and not drink a chemical that I am not sold on.

1. http://cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm
2. http://cdc.gov/fluoridation/guidelines/tooth_decay.htm
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17333303
4. http://anzhealthpolicy.com/content/4/1/25

Fluoride Deception – Investigative Journalist Christopher Bryson narrates.

Part 1 (9:38)
Part 2 (9:31)
Part 3 (9:30)

(Image courtesy of Illuminati News)

Wilmington Squall Lines owes its existence to the public, university-born, massively subsidized internet; its readers’ literacy to public education; its readers’ dubious political energy to open, public information systems that our government invests in and preserves, sometimes despite its narrower interests; and cribs its fatuous, powdered wig style as much as anywhere from public investment in the arts by groups like the much-maligned NEA.

Government can be overweening, overreaching. Wasteful. I got that. But I don’t think anti-government voices have any idea what the world they’re invoking would actually look like without the systems they decry, and I don’t think they’re honest about how un-powdered their constituencies are.

Discussions like the one that Nat Torkington kicks off in “Gov 2.0 as means not end” on O’Reilly Radar, in which the idea of updated government tools and a more enabled citizenry is seen to be a middle ground for hoary left/right, investment/cost debates about the role of government, are a hundred times more fruitful than, at the homestead dinner table, “This broccoli sucks and I hate you and you guys can’t make me eat it!”

I want to be sure you know about this great opportunity to turn in our unneeded prescription drugs this Saturday in Wilmington.

Below is a link to information provided by WHQR and a cut & paste of the key information.

I send my great appreciation to New Hanover Community Health Center for doing this. This is service is greatly needed to keep drugs from getting into our drinking water and into our coastal waters.

The good people at PamlicoTar River Foundation and at White Oak – New Riverkeeper Alliance are part of a growing initiative called Operation Medicine Cabinet to push to get many such drop off facilities regularly available around the state. Below is a cut & paste handout of that initiative.

I hope you will support this important work. Thanks!

Jack

New Hanover Community Health Center – Prescription Drug Turn In Event

Saturday, August 7, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Do you have unwanted medications around your house that you don’t know how to dispose of?
Help protect your family, your community, and the environment by properly disposing of the medications you no longer need.
This drive through event is sponsored by New Hanover Community Health Center and The Governor’s Institute on Alcohol and Substance Abuse

Venue:
New Hanover Community Health Center
925 North 4th Street
Wilmington
28401
910 343 0270
Email:
ajohnson@nhchc.net

The Cross City Trail is an eight food wide path, alongside but separate from the auto road, that walkers, runners, cyclists and others can use to get around. It will eventually connect with the Eastwood Road leg of the Cross City trail and with paths leading downtown to make a set of car-less arteries for the Cape Fear region.

As with the Island Greenway project in Carolina Beach, however — and against all the evidence — some residents near the trail believe the trail will endanger or devalue their property, and are opposing the development. (Nothing could be more wrong! Trail systems like this raise property values of nearby neighborhoods and of whole regions, and of course they also enrich the lives of residents that use them.)

And so the Cape Fear Cyclists have sent out the following message to their mailing list, about a public meeting this Thursday, where proponents and opponents will go to learn more and discuss the impact of the trail:

Mark your calendars to attend the Transportation Planning Meeting on Thursday from 5 to 7 P.M. at the County Government Offices off of S.College Rd. and near Racine Drive (in the Human Resources Training Center near the fish tank!). The WMPO will be presenting maps and plans for the College Acres segment of Wilmington’s Cross City Trail. (You can come and go as is convenient for you.)

Please participate to help residents of the area to understand the many values in having such a trail in their neighborhood. Currently there is some opposition to having the trail routed through their neighborhood. Throughout the country many such residents that have previously opposed rail trails and greenways near their homes, subsequent to the opening of the trails, have become enthusiastic users and cheerleaders of trails and greenways. They have realized increases in their property values because of the proximity of the trails in their communities…or in “their own backyards”. Mostly they have come to appreciate the enhancements to their family’s and community’s quality of life…health & fitness; cleaner air; easier access to schools, libraries, churches, stores, workplaces, friends, athletic fields, beach, or other local attractions. Trails will provide means of transportation to members of our community regardless of age, mobility, capability, or economic status. Increasing modes of access helps to relieve traffic congestion and the costs of transportation. Trails and green space help to nurture our bodies and spirits, while they help to build community connectedness and attractive neighborhoods with a neighborly spirit.

Wilmington and New Hanover County are gradually becoming a bicycle and pedestrian friendly region. A well planned, extensive network of trails such as the River-to-the-Sea Bike Route, the Cross City Trail, Greenfield Lake & Haliburton Park paths, and the Historic Scenic Byway will make alternate means of transportation safer, more convenient, and accessible to all. Wilmington will also be distinguished as a Destination City along the East Coast Greenway, a link in the 3000 mile off-road route that someday will host travelers along the coast from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida.

The College Acres link will be an important segment of our local trail network. Come out to the meeting to support the concept as well as, the staff and volunteers who have helped to design this proposal. Listen and speak up. Explain how the trail will benefit you, your family, and the whole community. If you live in or near the College Acres area, it is especially important that you lend your ideas and support! Come learn how the Cross City Trail will provide connectivity throughout our region…and share your ideas and enthusiasm.

Faced with a looming, $3 billion budget deficit, North Carolina is eyeing a major shakeup of its tech operations that could see the state outsource the bulk of its IT work to the private sector while consolidating other operations internally.

Exclusive: North Carolina to Privatize IT Operations, Jobs

Hoping the presentation will get us talking about local economic development and in particular the opportunities we have here given the relatively cosmopolitan hub of Wilmington and the Cape Fear area, and the surrounding, less-well-off counties, such as Columbus County. I had the great pleasure of going out to Columbus County as a representative of the CFEDC with Tim Will, a genius in the mountains who turned Rutherford County around with an innovative high-tech infrastructure plus low-tech, healthy farming techniques project, Farm Fresh Market, that has transformed that Tier 1 county in exactly the way grant providers like Golden Leaf had hoped. Things are starting up with Columbus County and this Farm Fresh project. I think great things may happen there.

Hope you’ll come too.

CFEDC Presents: Feast for the Southeast: Community supported agriculture (CSA) and economic development

For the first time in the past six years, local public radio station WHQR 91.3fm, is in the black.

“We’ve lost money since 2004,” said Jeff Hunter, WHQR board chairman, to members and staff of the station at its annual meeting on June 30. “We’ll break even this year.”

Read the whole story