7 Golden Rules of Energy Efficiency

Some good tips from the Woking Burough Council (UK) for local land use planners, especially those who chose not to include any energy efficiency standards in their own major downtown development project earlier this week.

The Golden Rules for energy efficiency and renewable energy

Follow the seven golden rules to successfully integrate sustainable energy in new development:

• Start to plan at the outset how you will address these requirements. Factors such as site layout, building design and orientation all impact on energy efficiency and generating renewable energy. If these are addressed early on, there will be a wider range of options that are viable and the solution is likely to be more cost effective.
  
• Aim to achieve the highest possible standards of energy efficiency. The greater the energy efficiency, the lower the energy consumption. This will reduce the target level of renewable energy that will need to be generated within the development.
  
• Think carefully about how energy will be consumed. For example, a development of one and two-bed apartments will have a very different pattern of hot water consumption than a sheltered housing development, and solar hot water heating may not be the most effective means of generating renewable energy in both cases. This is because the quantity of energy generated by a solar hot water panel may fall short of the amount claimed by its suppliers if the occupiers of a development do not consume hot water at a rate equivalent to its production.
  
• One size does not fit all. Just as with many other aspects of Planning, every development will bring its own circumstances. For example, the solar resource (amount of sunlight available to generate renewable energy) will differ from site to site depending on overshadowing by other buildings and trees.
  
• Seek advice from energy experts. Modelling the energy consumption of a development and designing to achieve high energy efficiency and integrated renewable energy generation requires particular skills. Early involvement of the right expertise can help to achieve a successful solution and avoid delays during Planning. Advice for house builders is provided by the Energy Saving Trust and for commercial development by the Carbon Trust.
  
• An energy efficient development is not a 'niche' development. Whilst some examples of energy efficient development are conspicuous by their leading edge design, very high standards can be achieved in more 'conventional-looking' developments. Energy efficiency and renewable energy generation does not need to be at the expense of quality architecture. Many measures (such as wide cavities, insulation, ground source heat pumps) have no visual impact. New products such as solar tiles are also becoming available that have very low visual impact.
  
• Do not always assume energy efficiency and renewable energy are very costly. Not all energy efficiency measures carry a net cost. For example, designing to capture passive solar energy. The growth in the market for high specification materials and micro renewable energy and higher volumes of production means increasingly competetive prices. In addition, as energy prices rise and environmental awareness increases, consumer demand for energy efficient homes can be reflected in the marketing of new development. Grants and other finacial incentives (such as enhanced capital allowances) can also reduce the net cost.

Progressives

According to George Lakoff there are 6 basic types of progressives:

1. Socioeconomic progressives think that everything is a matter of money and class and that all solutions are ultimately economic and social class solutions.

2. Identity politics progressives say it is time for their oppressed group to get its share now.

3. Environmentalists think in terms of sustainability of the earth, the sacredness of the earth and the protection of native peoples.

4. Civil liberties progressives want to maintain freedoms against threats to freedom.

5. Spiritual progressives have a nurturant form of religion or spirituality, their spiritual experience has to do with their connection to other people and the world, and their spiritual practice has to do with service to other people and to their community. Spiritual progressives span the full range from Catholics and Protestants to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Goddess worshippers, and pagan members of Wicca.

6. Anti-authoritarians say there are all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there and we have to fight them, whether they are big corporations or anyone else.

"The problem is that many of the people who have one of these modes of thought do not recognize that theirs is just one special case of something more general, and do not see the unity in all the types of progressives. They often think that theirs is the only way to be a true progressive. That is sad. It keeps people who share progressive values from coming together. We have to get past that harmful idea. The other side did."

Public Meetings Rant

My rant for the day. Where does OWASA post their public meetings notices? OWASA has subcommittee meetings of the board every month, but they aren't posted to the Board calendar. Is the point to make sure they comply with the law but don't have to deal with the messiness of public oversight?

What about the town of Carrboro? Carrboro has a Greenways Commission meeting scheduled for October 28, but I can't find it anywhere on their website. It's not on the message board with Top News, it's not even on the inaccessible printable calendars.

Legally, all meetings must be posted 48 hours in advance. Apparently, it doesn't matter where they are posted or else citizens have got to be clued in separate from the public posts.

Orange County has the worse website of any local government in Orange County, but at least they have an accessible and up-to-date calendar. Even the Chapel Hill website has a current events page that is sort of like a calendar and is easier to use and more up-to-date than OWASA or Carrboro.

End of rant.

Sad Death of Organic

The article below is not written by a local writer or published in a local newspaper, but it very much a local problem. We have three natural food groceries in this community and other large chains (H-T and Lowes) have organic sections. But our local farmers are selling out to developers.

(begin reprinted article)
The Sad Death Of 'Organic'

How weird and depressing is it now that Kellogg's and Wal-Mart are hawking 'natural' foods?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist , Friday, October 13, 2006

***I*was a little unprepared. The commercial came on and I heard the familiar ukulele strums of the late Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's famous and famously beautiful version of "Over the Rainbow (I know, but it really is quite lovely) and my first reaction was merely to cringe and wince as yet another exquisite and plaintive song was whored out to the advertising demons, just one of thousands.

But then came the barrage of images: the requisite shot of the Perfect Mom feeding her Perfect Child some sort of Perfect Food, all bathed in soft morning breakfasty light with happy trees peeking through the windows of the Perfect Kitchen in some utopian hunk of Perfect America, a bizarre scene that of course does not exist anywhere on this planet given how there weren't three empty wine bottles and some used underwear and a stack of dirty dishes and a fresh bottle of Xanax and an open
newspaper offering up giant headlines about murders and nuclear warheads and Korean sex slaves anywhere in sight.

And then it happened. The logo. The product shot. The soothing voice-over. It was a commercial for a brand-new product: Kellogg's Organic Rice Krispies. And your heart goes, Ugh.

You say it aloud and the words tend to catch in your throat and make you sort of gag. Kellogg's Organic Rice Krispies, with "organic" in big scripted flowing font across the top of the box, all steeped in bogus warmth and happiness and false notions of health and nature and protecting your Perfect Child from the millions of icky poisons and unhealthy crap churned out by giant megacorps exactly like, well,
exactly like Kellogg's.

Kellogg's Organic Rice Krispies. It's sort of like saying "Lockheed Martin Granola Bars" or "Exxon Bottled Spring Water." Self-immolating, and not in a good way.

That's when I heard it. The plaintive wail, the sigh, the crack and the moan and the whimper, like a tree shooting itself in the head. It was the final death knell of the "true" organic movement, breathing its last.

Because yes indeed, it's over. Organic is dead. Corporations have officially bought it out, the USDA has weakened its definition to near death, Whole Foods has made it chic and popular and profitable and yet has compromised its integrity like no other by being forced to pretty much ignore small, local farms and ideas of sustainability in favor of staggering commercial growth. And now this.

Did you know? Did you already understand the real definition? Because that's what "organic" was really supposed to mean, way back when: local, sustainable, ethical, connected to source, pesticide- and hormone-free. But the vast majority of organic product now flooding the market only gloms on to that last aspect (and sometimes, barely even that), to meet the USDA's impotent organic guidelines. Ah, government. There's just nothing like it to make you want to smack yourself in the skull with a
brick.

One example: Stonyfield Farm's organic yogurt. As BusinessWeek points
out, the stuff is made not on an idyllic working farm like the one on the label but rather in a giant industrial factory. They get their milk trucked in from a whole range of suppliers and it's possible they will soon begin to import some of their organic ingredients -- in dried, powdered form -- from New Zealand, so as to meet national demand, delivering it all over the country via pollutive trucking companies.

This is the harsh reality, the real cost of mainstream organic. There apparently aren't enough happy small, Earth-conscious local farms around to produce this stuff in sufficient quantities to feed the entire Wal-Mart nation. Massive compromises have been made. And those compromises mean "organic" is a shell of its former self.

"Organic," according to the lobbyist-friendly USDA, does not have to mean the food is grown using sustainable (read: nondestructive) farming practices. It does not mean locally produced. It does not mean the ethical treatment of animals. Nor does it mean the companies that produce it need be the slightest bit fair or trustworthy or socially responsible. All it means now: no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers,
no bioengineering.

So is that enough? After all, the fact that megaproducers like Kellogg's and General Mills and frightening discount megaretailers like Wal-Mart are going big into organic certainly will translate into an enormous reduction in chemicals in the American diet, thousands if not (eventually) millions of pounds of pesticides and hormones and fertilizer removed from the food chain as a whole. The benefits of this cannot be understated: It's a great thing indeed.

But there's a massive snag: Thousands of products now claim to be organic, but many merely replace the chemicals and pesticides with a slew of other industrial, pollutive, destructive processes that easily offset any health benefits -- most notably the extra shipping and global delivery these "industrial organic" producers employ to obtain and deliver organic ingredients, which pumps so many chemicals back into the environment it probably counteracts all those saved in growing the stuff
in the first place.

(On that note, if you're going to read one astounding book on the subject of farming, organics, fast food, and the American diet overall, let it be Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma." He maps it all out far better than I ever could. It's your must-read of the summer, even though it's now fall.)

Whole Foods? Perhaps the greatest mixed blessing of all, an amazing company that has single-handedly done more to bring the organic movement to the mainstream and raise awareness of healthy foods and improve farming and meat-quality standards across the board, not to mention the pleasures of food shopping overall. Yet at the same time, merely by its sheer size and success, they've simultaneously done more to dilute the
real meaning of "organic" than any other company.

Put another way: Unless you shop at farmers' markets or quasi-hippie co-ops or unless you do your homework and find a true family-run farm within 100 miles of your home and establish a relationship with them and /really/ begin to buy local, the odds that the next "organic" product you buy truly meets the original definition is about as likely as finding real breasts at the Playboy mansion. And for now, maybe this is just the way it has to be.

Which brings us back to Kellogg's Organic Rice Krispies. Industrial to the hilt, not the slightest bit locally grown, not the slightest bit sustainable, from the same company that poisons your kid with Pop-Tarts and Froot Loops and Scooby-Doo Berry Bones and cares about as much for the health of the planet as Dick Cheney cares about pheasants. And of course, they ship the crap all over the country in planes and trucks that burn enough oil to make Bush leer and the oil CEOs grin and it's
all just one big happy joke. On you.

But hey, at least they're helping remove millions of pounds of chemical crap from the food chain, right? At least they /pretend/ to care. Problem is, they've merely replaced those chemicals with an even more toxic additive: hypocrisy. Now, can you swallow it? (end of reprinted article)


The Foundation for a Sustainable Community, a project of the local Chamber of Commerce, recently initiated a sustainable business program and gave out a sustainable business of the year award. Whole Foods was one of the finalists. I shop at Whole Foods occasionally (Lucy loves Whole Paws cat food) and am happy to have them in this community. But let's not kid ourselves that they are a sustainable business. We jeopardize 'sustainability' as much as 'organic' by doing so. (Congrats to Weaver Street Market for being the first recipient of this award.)

Jack Klein

My friend and neighbor, Jack Klein, died last night. Jack was the first neighbor to welcome me to Heritage Hills. He was a little disappointed, I think, that I bought this house. He had just married a young Hispanic couple who had been trying to buy it, but couldn't get financing.

Jack was the most openminded, progressive individual I have ever known. He accepted everyone and judged no one except those who tried to limit the freedom of others. Jack planned his own funeral (April 2006) as a celebration to be held while he was still here to enjoy the party. He danced, sang, and told stories along with everyone else. It was a great party and by far the most moving and memorable funeral I've ever attended. The amount of love in that room was overwhelming. What a tribute--celebration rather than mourning.

Jack's last community activity was the IFC sponsored Crop Walk. He walked and was pushed in his wheel chair for 3 miles to raise money for the hungry. A party-loving, human-loving individual. Unfortunately, there was no mention of the Crop Walk in any of our local newspapers, let alone Jack's dedication and contribution.

Jack Klein is the model of what it means to be a progressive in Chapel Hill/Carrboro. More importantly, he was a good, loving man with a great sense of humor. I will miss him.

Corn

"At its most basic, the story of life on earth is the competition among species to capture and store as much energy as possible—either directly from the sun, in the case of plants, or, in the case of animals, by eating plants and plant eaters. The energy is stored in the form of carbon molecules and measured in calories: the calories we eat, whether in an ear of corn or a steak, represent packets of energy once captured by a plant. Few plants can manufacture quite as much organic matter (and calories) from the same quantities of sunlight and water and basic elements as corn.

The great turning point in the modern history of corn, which in turn marks a key turning point in the industrialization of our food, can be dated with some precision to the day in 1947 when the huge munitions plant at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, switched over from making explosives to making chemical fertilizer. After World War II, the government had found itself with a tremendous surplus of ammonium nitrate, the principal ingredient in the making of explosives. Ammonium nitrate also happens to be an excellent source of nitrogen for plants. Serious thought was given to spraying America's forests with the surplus chemical, to help the timber industry. But agronomists in the Department of Agriculture had a better idea: spread the ammonium nitrate on farmland as fertilizer. The chemical fertilizer industry (along with that of pesticides, which are based on the poison gases developed for war) is the product of the government's effort to convert its war machine to peacetime purposes. As the Indian farmer activist Vandana Shiva says in her speeches, "We're still eating the leftovers of World War II."

http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2006/july/presence.php

There's corn in that?

• It takes the equivalent of half a gallon of gasoline to grow every bushel of corn.
• Of 10,000 items in a typical grocery store, at least 2,500 use corn in some form during production or processing.
• Your bacon and egg breakfast, glass of milk at lunch, or hamburger for supper were all produced with US corn.
• Besides food for human and livestock consumption, corn is used in paint, paper products, cosmetics, tires, fuel, plastics, textiles, explosives, and wallboard – among other things.
• In the US, corn leads all other crops in value and volume of production – more than double that of any other crop.
• Corn is America's chief crop export, with total bushels exported exceeding total bushels used domestically for food, seed, and industrial purposes.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1031/p17s01-lihc.html

Chay: The P Lot Kitty

Early this spring a young tabby kitten showed up in the UNC "P" park and ride lot. Over the next couple of months, various commuters took to feeding her. We didn't know each other, only that the kitty's food bowl was kept filled. A couple of weeks ago, I put up a sign at the light post where we fed the kitty asking for contributions to get "him" neutered and vaccinated. According to everything I read about feral cats, trap, neuter and release (TNR) was the best we could do for him unless someone wanted to take him home. One woman responded to my post, and when we met, I learned that she, Kathy, had developed a very special rapport with the boy who she called Chay--Chapel Hill Gray.

POP-NC, Pet Overpopulation Patrol, comes to the Orange County Animal Shelter just up the road from the parking lot every Tuesday so I borrowed a Hav-A-Heart trap and set out to trap him. Unfortunately, we had major thunderstorms for the next 3 Mondays and in the interim we realized that he was getting pretty chubby. Over that week we finally realized that he was a she and she was probably pregnant. On Friday, I got an email from Kathy asking if I thought there might be two kittens. She said Chay had hissed and been very unfriendly the night before.

Over the weekend I agonized over how to handle her pregnancy. A veterinary friend assured me that it was best for Chay to go forward with the spay. She said feral cats who are forced to raise kittens in captivity are miserable and frequently end up killing their kittens. And allowing her to give birth in the parking lot was sure to bring just as much heartache since Chay had already been hurt once herself. I didn't see her on Friday or Saturday. But when I got to the lot of Sunday she came running for food and looked very thin. Were there two kittens--one pregnant and one not? Or had she given birth already?

According to the Feral Cat Coalition, if she had kittens we could still trap her and get her spayed but we would need to get her back to the site within 24 hours. So I made the appointment for this past Tuesday, and Kathy and I agreed to not feed her on Monday afternoon to increase the likelihood of a successful trap on Tuesday morning.

I got to the lot early on Tuesday morning and set the trap before Chay's normal breakfast hour. Skinny Chay cooperated by showing up almost immediately, and walking right into the trap to get the food. And then she walked out--too light to have set off the trap. Notice how she is licking her lips!

Fortunately, I only put down a couple of bites since she was heading into surgery if the trap was successful. So I pushed so more of the nice smelly food onto the paper plate and got a long stick so that I could trip the lock myself. Success!

She fought like the proverbial wildcat, but I had followed the trapping advice from the Feral Cat Coalition and came prepared with an old sheet which I immediately draped it over the trap. She calmed right down and was a little lady throughout the car ride and the check in procedure.

Was it Chay that we trapped or were there two of them? I went back to the lot and put down more wet food to try and solve the mystery. To my great relief, the food was still there when I got back to the lot that afternoon. One feral kitty is enough!

When I picked Chay up, I was told that she wasn't pregnant but she was lactating. From what I read and the POP folks confirmed, Chay needed to be kept indoors and warm for 24 hours after her surgery. The POP staff also felt like there was no point in returning her to the parking lot for the kittens because her milk had just about dried up, indicating that the kittens, if there were any, were old enough to eat on their own.

Kathy had decided to take Chay home after the surgery so I picked her up and met Kathy for the handoff. Unfortunately, Chay started waking up just as we were transferring her to Kathy's car for the ride to Durham. She was totally freaked out, swaying from side to side and banging her head into the sides of the cage. It was absolutely heartbreaking. But once again, once we covered the cage, she calmed down. What we had hoped would be a perfect ending for our beautiful little girl was marred by our fear for the kittens. We put up another sign and agreed to do what we could to find them, if there were any.

Since Chay had gone from chubby to skinny over about 4 days the week before, I felt like she had miscarried or the kittens had died prematurely, but Kathy wasn't willing to take that chance. She returned Chay to the parking lot the next day. I've been out everyday since, but Chay isn't going to have anything to do with me. And there are no sign of any kittens still.

As much as I wanted Chay to live happily ever after with Kathy, I love knowing she's somewhere around the parking lot. Parking lots are such barren wastelands and her presence adds a humanizing factor that I didn't know I was missing before she came to live there. I'm still hoping we can recapture her and convince her that living with Kathy is a better life than living on asphalt, but in the meantime, I look forward to going to work everyday and seeing our P lot kitty.

School Funding: The 20-Year Debate

The Problem

• As population in the CHCCS service area increases through new development, the demand for schooling in CHCCS increases
  
  
• The ad valorum taxes resulting from that population growth is not sufficient to meet the O&M requirements of the schools.
  
  
• In order to meet the O&M requirements AND all the special services demanded by district parents, the CHCCS budget is becoming increasing dependent on the district tax.
  
  
• The district tax was created to fund non-basic services. The current funding mechanism used by the commissioners balances the basic services budget of the CHCCS district against the full budget of the OCS.
  
  
• The impact of growth in the CHCCS service area and the resulting financial machinations is imposing an artificial ceiling on the OCS budget.
  
  
• If the CHCCS does not use the district tax to cover a portion of its budget, the budget presented to the county commissioners will inevitably exceed the 48.1% targeted limit on school funding set by the BOCC back in the early 1990s. If a larger portion of the county budget is allocated to schools, less funding will be available for other vital human services such as mental health and environmental protection.

The Evidence

• Evidence of growth can be found in the State of the Economy report. The population of Hillsborough, Mebane, and the rest of the county (53,874) is 20% smaller than the population of Chapel Hill/Carrboro (67,091). Between 2000-2004, Chapel Hill-Carrboro experienced 17.3% growth, Hillsborough 4.1% and the county 4.7%.
  
  
• Financial resources between the county/Hillsborough and Chapel Hill-Carrboro are unequally distributed:
  
  
  • The towns generate more ad valorem taxes per capita
    
    
  • The towns generate significantly more retail sales (sales tax) per capita. $1,436,798,693 of revenue was generated through retail sales last year. 73.4% from Chapel Hill-Carrboro; 26.6% rest of county. So while the county population is only 20% less than the population of Carrboro-Chapel Hill, the county's retail sales (sales tax generation) is 64% less than Carrboro-Chapel Hill. That means that the residents of the county pay a larger portion of the taxes for services than does the town population.
    
    
  • According to the Cost of Community Services in Orange County report residential development contributes approx 76 cents for every $1 of service; agricultural land contributes approx $1.38 for every $1 of services, and commercial land contributes approx $4.21 for every $1 of service.

My conclusions

• There is a greater demand for schooling in the towns
  
  
• Taxes in town generate more services than taxes in the county, meaning that there is less tax load on the average town resident than on the average county resident: higher in-town residential property values generate more ad valorum taxes; there is more commercial property in town (less demand for services); and the 64% higher retail base generates significantly more sales tax.
  
  
• The district tax supplements the already larger revenue source availabe to the city schools. But since residential growth doesn't pay for itself and we know more commercial growth is needed, the CHCCS shouldn't be held totally responsible for their dependence on the district tax. (Although the school board members should understand this better.)
  
  
• Current land use policies (which I support and don't wish to change) puts a ceiling on the revenue generating capacity of the county
  
  
• The county residents are already paying a larger % of their taxes for services and receiving fewer services than the town residents
  
  
• When the district tax is used to fund basic services, contrary to the intent of that tax, it becomes a limiting factor in the per pupil funding allocations for the district schools.
  
  
• Creating a new district tax for county residents ignores the basic problems and adds to the already inequitable distribution of wealth and resources between town and county residents.
  
  
• Any real solution must address the financial burden placed upon county residents by an environmentally positive land use policy
  
  
• Any real solution must address the inadequacy of residential growth to adequately fund the O&M budgets of the city schools
  
  
• Any real solution must address the inelasticity of the district tax in relation to the OCS budget.

Sleeping on Street Benches

According to today's News and Observer, sleeping on a street bench in the town of Chapel Hill can get you thrown into jail. Should I turn myself in? I was waiting for the bus last week and fell asleep on one of the benches. But I was clean and had on decent clothes so I probably wouldn't have been fined or arrested even if one of Chapel Hill's finest had noticed the violation.

While I was very pleased with idea of moving the men's homeless shelter to the Southern Human Services Center area that came out of this week's Assembly of Government meeting, and I feel sure such a move would change the complexion of homelessness in the downtown business district, I don't think it will solve the problem of sleeping on benches. Those men who are willing to abide by the strict rules of the shelter, aren't the ones who sleep on the benches.

From working with the Community Initiative to End Homelessness assessment committee, I've learned that there are many kinds of homelessness. The shelter is best equipped to deal with those who are experiencing transient homelessness, or individuals who are unemployed, victims of domestic violence, or have serious health problems. Then there are those who have camoflaged their homelessness by living with relatives or friends (doubled up). The guys who sleep on street benches are more likely to be chronically homeless. They may have a drug or alcohol abuse problem, a mental illness, or some other life challenge that interferes with their ability to gain control over their behavior. To stay at the shelter, they must be drug/alchol free and they must be inside by 8 pm. And so they wander the streets at night and sleep on the benches during the day.

Assembly of Governments

There were 3 items on tonight's Assembly of Governments meeting: relocating the IFC shelter operations from downtown, solid waste update, and a small area plan for Rogers Road. I expected the IFC discussion to be the same old same old, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The chair of the IFC board laid out the predicament by explaining how much funding they have lost over the past 3 years (HUD) and how much they need and want to provide the same type of quality facility and programming for men as they do for women. But to do that they need the 3 local governments to work with them. It went round and round (Eubanks Road too far out, don't want to run water/sewer into the rural buffer) with none of the elected officials addressing the request for partnership, until Steve Halkiotis pointed out that all the services that shelter residents need are contained at the Southern Human Services center and that there is plenty of room to put the shelter there. It was such a simple, obvious solution to a problem the community has agonized over for nearly 20 years. Everyone recognized the beauty of the solution and the partnership was formed. The IFC folks left very happy (and surprised).

The solid waste discussion focused on methane. Earlier today I had heard about the fact that the landfill doesn't generate enough methane to make it attractice to the utilities or to justify the investment in capture for onsite use. The elected officials have a very different opinion. They think the new transfer station, the animal shelter, and something else could be powered by landfill methane. And supposedly UNC has contacted the commissioners about piping it to Carolina North. It should be interesting to see which story lies closest to reality. In the meantime, OWASA is already doing it.

Black Thursday

The lottery opens today. Sad, sad day.

Feline Diabetes: Ketones & blood glucose levels

Edited from a post by Hilary & Zug (GA)

Ketones are a serious side effect of diabetes. Caregivers must test their cat's urine for ketones daily when blood glucose (BG) levels are high (over 300) and a couple of times a week as long as exogeneous insulin is being given. The explanation describes 3 conditions in which high blood glucose levels can lead to ketones and 1 condition in which high blood glucose levels rarely leads to ketones.

1. Insufficient insulin. Insulin allows glucose (energy) to enter cells. Without insulin, cells starve because they don't get glucose. Insulin's like a door key -- if the key's missing, you can't open the door, and all the glucose stays on the wrong side. If the cells don't get enough glucose, they try and compensate by breaking down lipids (fat) for energy, and that causes ketones.

2. Infections. The immune response to the infection can impair insulin usage. So it's like the doors are partly barricaded, and not enough glucose can get in to feed the cells. That's why things like UTIs or bad teeth can cause ketones, even at relatively innocuous numbers.

3. Insufficient food intake. This one often seems counterintuitive, and even grasping the physiology, it took me a little while to bend my brain around this. Because even at high numbers, a cat needs a fresh infusion of nutrition-wrapped glucose for the insulin to let into the cells. kind of like the cells are watching a stale buffet get staler, and waiting for the good fresh stuff to come out of the kitchen. when it doesn't, they start looking at ways to get more/better "food", and that can mean breaking down fats and causing ketones.

4. Too much glucose. Rebound is the bodies response to an insulin dosage that is too high over time (a positive feedback loop). In rebound, glucose still enters the cells at a good rate, but MORE glucose is being dumped into the bloodstream (well, technically, more glucose is being produced via glycosis, but...). So the cells aren't starving, and they don't "feel the need" to break down fats into metabolic products they can use. Plenty of food's coming in the door, there's just a lot more out there. So the physiological mechanism that creates the high BG levels is a very different underlying physiology that won't lead to ketosis. If your cat has high BG levels and you suspect it is due to rebound, you have a little more leeway to experiment without the threat of ketones hanging over your head.

So, to put it in really simple terms there are 3 ways to get ketones:

1. High numbers (not enough insulin/ineffective insulin) --> possible ketones.
   
2. Inappetance/insufficient food intake --> possible ketones
   
3. Infections --> possible ketones

(Note that the latter 2 issues make it possible for ketones to appear at relatively "low" BGs e.g., under 300mg/dl)

When you start combining these issues, you increase the probability of developing ketones, ketosis, and potentially fatal ketoacidosis.

Thanks to Hilary & Zug(GA)

Tarheels Beat Duke 83-76!

They came close at the Dean Dome, and succeeded at Cameron!

"The freshman-heavy squad of No. 13 North Carolina handed the senior-laded team of top-ranked Duke its second loss in as many games with an 83-76 victory in the ACC finale for both teams.

Tyler Hansbrough scored a game-high 27 points and added 10 rebounds as North Carolina's four freshmen outscored Duke's four seniors 55-51 in a game that again showed why ranking, statistics, age, beauty and credit rating mean nothing in college basketball's craziest rivalry."

http://www.newsobserver.com/122/story/414847.html

Too bad David Noel's leadership role isn't recognized in the N&O's reporting on this win. He's been my favorite player since he joined the team. Clearly Roy Williams feels the same:

"Carolina coach Roy Williams didn't recruit Noel, but he might just adopt him if Noel's family wants to share permanently. Williams was nearly in tears in describing what an unselfish and heroic effort Noel has given since the end of last season until now.

"I have a saying on my desk at my house," Williams said. "It says, 'Statistics are important, but relationships last a lifetime.' And the relationship I have with players has always meant more to me than anything.

"David Noel has done as good a job -- no one has ever done anything better than David Noel."

Getting Started with Feline Diabetes

The initial diagnosis of feline diabetes (FD) can be overwhelming. It adds a new dimension of caregiving to the relationship we have with our cat as well as changing the day-to-day routine we have all established around feeding. But FD is not a death sentence and the changes it introduces into our households can be routinized fairly quickly. It is a complex disease though, and there is a lot to learn. The best sources of information are the Feline Diabetes Message Board FAQs and the Pet Diabetes Wiki.

You should also read and post on the message board. Ask questions, then ask more questions. Also check out Making the Most of Your FDMB Experience.

In the meantime, you must still care for your sugar cat. Here are a few tips to help you get started. As you learn more about feline diabetes, each of these tips can be customized for you and your cat.

1. If you are already using insulin, don't switch your cat to low carbohydrate diet unless you are hometesting. A low carbohydrate diet has a high probability of reducing your cat's insulin needs so when and if you do decide to switch, do so carefully. For details, read 10 Good Reasons NOT to Change that Diet Just Yet!
   
   
2. If your cat is on insulin, don't adjust dosages upward until your cat's body has had time to adjust to the current dose. This usually requires between 3-5 days. You can adjust downward at any time. Dose adjustments should be made in .2 or .5 unit increments.
   
   
3. Most FD cats benefit by being on a schedule, but don't be daunted by the prospect; most of us work and have a life, yet are able to manage our FD kitty by making a few adjustments in our day-to-day lives. If you choose to hometest, you can either test, feed, shoot OR feed, test, shoot. With fast acting insulin, such as NPH, you may need to wait for 30 minutes to an hour after feeding before shooting. Over time, you may refine this sequence to meet the needs of your unique kitty.
   
   
4. If you choose not to hometest, don't expect your vet will do everything for you. At minimum you need to know the clinical symptoms of hypoglycemia and be prepared to act quickly. Following a set schedule will help you recognize any odd behavior following an insulin shots.
   
   
5. Don't forget to test urine for ketones (weekly). If your cat has had ketones or DKA, you should test daily or every other day. Ketones and hypoglycemia are the most dangerous side effects of feline diabetes. Be sure to learn about both early on in your studies. -
   
   
6. Don't hesitate to ask lots of questions on FDMB. We've all been in your shoes, we like to share our experiences!
   
   
7. FDMB members have varying degrees of experience and knowledge regarding feline diabetes and often have differing opinions. Don't assume that what someone says is the one and only "right" answer. If you are asking for advice and getting divergent opinions, ask posters to explain why they are recommending a certain course of action. "Why" is an excellent question. Only you can decide what is right for you and your cat.
   
   
8. Don't piss off your vet over diet or hometesting. Your cat will need medical care beyond what you can do at home. Of course it is better to have a vet who will work with you on hometesting and dietary adjustments, but if you live in a small town and don't have choices, you need to find a way to work with the vet you have.
   Interviewing Vets for the Treatment of Your Diabetic Cat and
   Questions for Vets.
   
   
9. Don't feel like you are in this alone. FDMB is a community. We care about you and your cat. If someone doesn't answer your question right away, it only means no one is around who knows the answer. Be patient. If your question gets lost, repost it. Be persistent!
   
   
10. Don't worry yourself sick about feline diabetes. It is a manageable disease, especially if you don't stress yourself out. Go to the movies now and then. Take walks. Have fun. Your cat will be OK and you'll both be happier if you take as good of care of yourself as you take of your sugar kitty.

Remember, this is just a quick reference to help you start caring for your diabetic cat until you have time to read and understand the more technical information contained in the FAQs and the Pet Diabetes Wiki.

Bombast

"A life without bombast is not a life."

Steven Halkiotis, Orange County Commissioner, in response to chair Barry Jacobs' recognition of Halkiotis' 20 years of service. "We thank you for your compassion, your integrity, dedication, creativity and for your passion and even for your bombast on occasion." Halkiotis announced yesterday that he will not seek re-election.

I attended my first county commissioners meeting last week when OWASA was asked to explain to the commissioners how they handle assessments (adding service to existing neighborhoods with septic systems). The atmosphere was casual and collegial between the commissioners themselves and the presenters. I don't recall ever laughing out of amusement at a Carrboro or a Chapel Hill town meeting, but Commissioners Halkiotis' bombastic speech gave me a couple of good belly laughs that night.

I regret now that I haven't paid more attention to the county commissioners. We could certainly use more interesting characters in local politics. Sorry I missed the opportunity of getting to know Commissioner Halkiotis as a legislator and a bombast.

More on Net Neutrality

"Nothing less than the future of the internet is at stake in these discussions. We must preserve neutrality in the system in order to allow the new Googles of the world, the new Yahoo!s, the new Amazons to form. We risk losing the internet as catalyst for consumer choice, for economic growth, for technological innovation, and for global competitiveness." Vint Cerf , speaking to Congress on 2/7/06

GGC all -the-way

In my younger days, I ended many nights of partying on Franklin Street at Hectors. Not the best of places for vegetarians, but the GGC (Greek grilled cheese) all-the-way will go down in memory as one of my favorite foods.

Raspberries to the property owner that is forcing Hector's out of their space on the corner of Henderson and Franklin Street. I'm glad they'll be re-opening elsewhere but it won't be the same. Pretty soon all the remnants of old Chapel Hill will be gone. Thank goodness for the Shrunken Head!

First School

FPG Institute is proposing a new model of early childhood education. "This model offers a new way to think of children starting school that moves away from simply thinking of preschool, Head Start or More at Four as being an “add on” to the existing system, that is not fully integrated into how we think about educating children in our community." (Dick Clifford memo excerpted by Neil Pederson in his memo to the Sewell School Governance Committee)

The idea is to build the school at the back end of the Horace Williams Tract, close to Seawell School to create a natural transition from the preK-2nd students at First School into grades 3-5 at Seawell. On the surface, this is a great idea, like everything else that comes out of FPG Institute. Children from low-income homes are exposed to more non-educational television and less written and numerical materials than children in middle-to upper class homes. When they come to school, the disparity in readiness creates one of the most significant social problems of our era (IMHO).
I was happy to see the following also from the Dick Clifford memo (see above for reference):

"The model has as a major goal of reducing the achievement gap between children with great economic advantage and those with less advantages. About half the achievement gap exists prior to kindergarten entry according to recent studies. By reaching children earlier we have a chance to substantially reduce the gap at this point in their lives. We know that both your More at Four and Head Start programs have this same goal and we see a joint effort in First School as the next logical step in working toward school success for all. A clearly articulated model that cuts across the current age and grade configuration should be a major help in dealing with the achievement gap. We know that the school system has been committed to addressing this issue and believe First School will offer a new set of strategies to accomplish this common goal.

I understand the concerns expressed elsewhere about institutionalizing children at such a young age. But this proposal is an attempt to provide exposure to words and numbers and other intellectual activities that low SES children do not always receive at home. Children in lower-income homes don’t have as many books, newspaper, or magazines available to them in the home; their parents are less likely to be seen reading or calculating; their neighborhoods have less signage; they don’t travel as much so their neighborhoods and homes are the environments that establish their frames of reference. In essence, their environment does not convey the message that literacy (words and numbers) is a vital aspect of everyday life. Schools are built upon the basic assumption that words and numbers are the basic operational tools of life. If children come to schools without already having embraced that assumption, they are at significant disadvantage. As are the schools that have to balance their services between those who already ‘fit the mold’ and those that don’t.

The school district needs all the help it can get in resolving the minority achievement gap, and I've long wanted to see more interaction between the university and the school district. But I am concerned that Seawell isn't the best choice for students to populate this program. For one thing, Sewell Elementary is doing a better job of bridging the gap than 4 other district elementary schools.

Excerpted from the Chapel Hill Carrboro School ReportCard for 2004-2005

Elementary School	Black	Hispanic	Economically Disadvantaged	Limited English Proficiency	Disabilities
Seawell	74.2	87.5	80	78.9	81.5
FP Graham	66.1	76.7	65.9	74.1	65.6
Glenwood	78.1	89.5	78.0	76.2	72
McDougle	71.1	66.7	69.2	50	68.1
Carrboro	63.3	67.5	60	51.3	51.9
Ephesus	57.1	85.7	68.1	78.6	51.4
Estes Hills	60.8	71.4	61	64.7	57.9
Scroggs	88.2	73.3	73.3	80	80.6
Rashkis	74.4	57.1	65.7	83.3	63.6

I hope the school board will consider an assignment plan that pulls students from Frank Porter Graham, Carrboro, Ephesus, and McDougle as well as Seawell if they go forward with this project. The goal should be identifying strategies for reducing inequities, but I'm afraid the money savings may get in the way of their focus.

Questions for now:

1. Who will be attending this new school? Will this new school taking students exclusively from the (middle class) northern neighborhoods currently served by Seawell or will it also pull from FPG elementary and Carrboro where there is a more diverse student population (racially and SES)?

2. The minority achievement gap is the most significant performance problem in our school district. According to the literature, children who come to school ready to learn lose the benefits of early age programming by late elementary/middle school. Where do the students of CHCCS most benefit--an additional readiness program or late elementary/middle grades programs that help prevent the erosion of benefits from current readiness programs? Does the financial situation dictate making a choice between the two?

3. What criteria will the school board use for making this decision? Can we take the financial aspects of it off the table for the first round of discussions? How will the school board and district administrators communicate with the public? Will public review come early enough to actually have an impact on decision making?

I'm much less skeptical of the programming part of this project than I was when I first heard about it. Hopefully, the implementation plan will focus on serving the most underserved children and not get too tangled up with finances.

Changing Paradigms

This week we saw the 'messiness' of appointing someone to a position that should have been filled through election. The public debate of the Carrboro Alderman was painful, circular, and at times appeared to be downright, heavy-handed bullying. For a while there was two groups on the board, publicly defined by the individual that group was supporting for the open seat.

The ideological differences between those two groups is of critical importance for members of the community to understand. Too bad those different positions were so singularly attributed to representation for the annexation area, to be referred to as northeast Carrboro from here on out (thanks for the suggestion Mark!). Certainly that was a consideration, but I think it was masking the deeper divide on issues of growth.

On one hand, there is the 'go slow, minimize change' group. Those individuals are working to maintain the status quo of Carrboro as a small, funky bedroom community of Chapel Hill. In many ways, this is the group I most closely identify with. At least, it is the group that has my emotional support. The other group is working from the assumption that future growth within the urban services boundary will take place in Carrboro and that we need to acknowledge the inevitability of change and to plan for it. While I don't like the way change is destroying the small-town, close knit community feeling of Carrboro, I also intellectually understand that denying this position will force development outside the urban services boundary and result in sprawl/environmental degradation.

Donella Meadows says that 'If you want to understand the deepest malfunctions of systems, pay attention to the rules, and to who has power over them.' (Rule 4 of Leverage Points) What do we know now that the 'no/limited growth' group has control of the rules?

• Environmental regulations within Carrboro zoning control will become stricter. On the surface this is hardly objectionable. And yet, we don't live in a bubble. What happens to growth that is kept out of Carrboro? We certainly won't stop it from occurring, so we should assume it will go where there are fewer restrictions, such as Chatham County. They may be downstream from our waterways, but their traffic certainly flows northward.

• The stock of affordable housing will increase. Again, hardly objectionable. And yet, focusing on supply through zoning ordinances/policy is tied so closely to development of luxury housing that we should be prepared for the current trend of decreasing proportions of low-to-moderate income residents to high-income residents to continue, creating a more economically bifurcated population.

• Taxes will most likely continue to increase. I'm not a no-government supporter. I don't object to paying for taxes that provide valuable human services and environmental protection. I do mind wasting my hard earned money on unsustainable infrastructure and administrative services. I definitely object to the impact annual tax increases is having on the composition of the community. Gentrification and out-migration of Carrboro's African-American population will leave this community looking more like Cary than Carrboro.

• The cultural divide between old and new Carrboro will turn local government into a war zone. The repercussions of the appointment process will have a significant and detrimental long-term impact on old Carrboro. There's no way to predict whether appointing someone from the newly annexed northeast Carrboro area would have smoother over the transition, but there is no doubt in my mind that the failure to appoint someone with a legitimate claim to representing those who were not able to vote will have a major impact on the 2007 election. Fortunately the residents of northeast Carrboro do have a strong environmental and social justice ethic, but they will change us in other ways.

Up until now, local growth has been caught up in a series of postive feedback loops ("any place where the more you have of something, the more you have the possibility of having more"). The more growth we see, the more pressure is placed on local government and human service agencies, the higher the taxes go, the more we need development to support the burden of growth. The reputation of our school system contributes to those growth pressures. The better our kids do on national tests, the more development occurs to support wealthy families who want their kids to go to school here.

What steps/policies will the new majority on the BOA undertake to break the growth cycle? Will they be successful or will they create more turmoil? Will they acknowledge the complexities or fall back on positions they've shared in previous contexts? And how much pressure will they feel to act quickly before the 2007 election? Will they dance with the system or try to control it?

The question that can never be answered but which we should never forget, is how the use of appointment rather than election impacts everything that happens over the next couple of years. Yes, I know there was no way around appointment. But the appointment could have been made on the basis of the last election by appointing the 4th runner up. That one little decision may be the one flap of a seagull's wings for Carrboro.

And where does Dan Coleman fit in all this? Without his participation in the electoral process and having been subjected to the intense questioning of groups like the Sierra Club, we really don't know but we might have a clue. In one of his pre-campaign season editorials, he speculated about a candidate of the future: "In the future, Carrboro may find itself on the horns of a dilemma: On the one hand, a marvelous case study that small really can be beautiful; on the other, a small town facing the challenge of trying to affordably meet the expectations of an increasingly affluent population....Some future candidate might posit a merger with Chapel Hill as a way to resolve this tension."

Where's my crystal ball? Certainly sounds like a campaign issue that would get him traction with Carrboro's newest neighborhoods in 2007.

Point In Time Count

Last week, we did a community point-in-time count of homeless people here in Orange County. The goal is to count everyone in the county who classifies as homeless by HUD standards. By far the largest portion of our homeless population is covered by the service agencies, but we also had to count those individuals who live on the street and don't use the services. In the past, the street count portion has been handled by the police exclusively. As part of our effort to increase the accuracy of our reporting, we decided to try using volunteers rather than the police this year. Since it was our first time to use volunteers, we decided to start slow and partner volunteers with police officers and then use those volunteers to develop a training program for a summer count. Our goal is to make this an entirely volunteer activity; it's going to take much more training and preparation than I anticipated.

I went out with the Carrboro officer from 9:00 pm - 11:30 pm. It was a very cold and windy night so fortunately we only found two guys, both of whom were willing to talk with us. We began by driving around looking for anyone walking. Next we began checking out a list of places that had been compiled by the other officers on the force (underpasses, abandoned houses, etc.). Fortunately, we only found two guys out that night. They were just walking around trying to keep warm. When we pulled up in the car, they were very hesitant to talk with us at first (no surprise there!), but the the police officer really knew how to talk to them and help them relax their guard. They told us that homelessness, substance abuse, and unemployment are a vicious cycle. If you drink, you can't hold a job; if you can't hold a job, you lose your housing; if you lose your housing, you can't get a new job; if you can't get a new job, you keep on drinking.

It's interesting to see the town late at night from the eyes of a cop. I had no idea that people hangout in the rafters of road overpasses, or that there are small communities of individuals living in tent cities within the urban area. All we saw was the sites that night, but one place we went really scared me. Besides being outside with only industrial plastic covering beds that had been pulled out of dumpsters, the amount of trash spread around the site was just unbelievable. I've lived in cities so I've seen desperate poverty, but this was different. I can't imagine living like that or how it must feel to be so totally cut off from the wealth and prosperity that is this community. It was a very humbling experience.

...homelessness deprives people of far more than shelter. They have no place from which to be productive and giving, to be restored, to be welcomed, to be themselves, to give physical expression to their personalities. The homeless are, quite simply, deprived of their humanity. Restoring that to them requires more than grudging public expenditure and warehouses where they can sleep at night....I don't know the solution for homelessness. What I do know is that it requires more than an impersonal institution that removes the homeless from our sight and our minds. It requires some attention, some engagement from all of us, some willingness to focus on homeless people not as statistics but as individuals, needing care, needing to be welcomed back as full members of the human race.

--Donella Meadows, Being Homeless is More Than Being Without Shelter

Net Neutrality, or Keep the Internet Free

Net neutrality is the basis of the Internet, the assumption that 'all users are entitled to access content and services or run applications and devices of their choice.' A couple of posters to Squeeze the Pulp don't want a municipal network because they fear government would destroy the concept of net neutrality.

But it's really the big businesses are that systematically attempting to destroy free and open access of the Internet. Cable providers (telecomms) and phone companies (telecos) are at each others throats in their attempts to protect their communications turf. On January 11 representatives from Verison, Time-Warner, Bellsouth, and others met withe NC Revenue Laws Committee to try and convince our legislators to regulate use of the Internet. The telecomms want to prevent telecos from offering video services, and the telecos want to prevent the telecomms from offering voice over IP telephony.

The companies that control the pipes want to discriminate in favor of their own applications, while shutting out or slowing down competing services. These companies have a business incentive to create their own affiliates to compete with the most popular applications — like search engines, voice-over-the-Internet, and streaming video archives.

They now seek to pad their pockets further by becoming gatekeepers to all things digital — deciding what content, applications and services we can use. The telco and cable giants — which dominate 98 percent of the broadband market — not only expect consumers to pay to access the Internet, but they want to charge content producers for using their wires to deliver it. (Deadend for the Internet)

Businesses have every right to expect reasonable profits but access to the Internet and other telecommunications services can no longer be considered luxury service. Local news sources do not provide indepth reporting and analysis; more and more businesses will only accept online job applications; schools budgets don't fund print reference books, etc. Without access, living and working in this community is seriously curtailed.

Access has two components. First, is the information available and representative of all views and second, is it available to everyone, regardless of income level. Through a municipal network we can assure access on both levels.

Here's what I believe:

• A municipal networks is the only means of protecting our free and open access to the Internet and all its associated benefits.
• Local government should support the creation of a non-profit organization that would oversee the design, installation, and ultimately the management of the service; but that service should be protected against any interference by local governments in policymaking, etc.
• Local governments should commit to use the service to support their own operations, thus creating a significant market demand from the start and reducing their own municipal expenditures for network access.
  
• The service should be low-cost but not free. It should follow the similar cost of service principles written into the OWASA charter.
  
• Taxes should not be used to fund ongoing operation although municipal funding will be necessary for start up costs.
• Such a service will create new, well-paying jobs to support our local economy and will continue to support economic development by reducing business costs and creating new business opportunities, especially if we can bundle Internet, telephone, and cable services.

Ultimately, I want telecommunications in southern Orange County to be treated as a utility--a basic function necessary to life in the 21st century. Just as I trust OWASA to protect my water supply, I will trust a similarly structured utility to protect my access to a free and open Internet.

The Free Expression Policy Project has put together an excellent "overview of the mass media system and the concerns of the media democracy movement"