Mabus, Baker to have photo exhibit in MS

Former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus, an adviser of the Center for a Better South, has an exhibit of photographs taken around the world next month at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson.

Joining Mabus, a Democrat, in the two-person show is another well-known political figure -- former GOP U.S. Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee. Wow! Talk about bipartisanship....

To learn more about the Life Through the Lens show from July 5 to Sept. 7, visit the Mississippi Museum of Art Web site.

Salon: 2 Southern states are battleground states

For all of the naysayers who say the South isn't important in the presidential elections process, a panel of experts says that Georgia and Virginia are battleground states this year, according to Salon magazine. Four other states in the "swing" states are: Colorado, New Hampshire, Ohio and Michigan.

Here's some of what the panelists said:

Democratic pollster Paul Maslin: "Kerry lost by 16 points in Georgia. If Barack Obama wins Georgia, he won't be worrying about the Electoral College on election night. It'll be a 400-vote Electoral College landslide."

Andres Ramirez, vice president for Hispanic Programs and director of the Hispanic Strategy Center at the progressive think tank NDN: "I think Virginia is a much more likely state, especially because you have Jim Webb, who just won, and you have Mark Warner on the ballot. ... But the fact that he's on the ballot again [as a US Senate candidate] means Hispanics will play a much larger role in Virginia. And again, we need to recall, Virginia was one of the few states where Obama actually won the Hispanic vote during the primary. He's incredibly popular with that community there; it's increasingly getting more active. There's a significant African-American population in Virginia as well, and so I think with that combination of facts you have a trending state. You have Governor Kaine in there, you have Mark Warner on the ballot and you have Obama's appeal to the African-Americans and Hispanics. I think Virginia is one of the states that was red that will likely benefit Obama this election."

Read full article.

Bangor, Maine eyes switching to natural gas

By Eric Russell
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - Bangor Daily News

BANGOR, Maine - City officials are close to signing a three-year contract with a local company to run natural gas service lines to City Hall and four other municipal buildings, a switch that could save the city $100,000 annually.

Finance Director Debbie Cyr said the conversion is part of an 18-month effort to overhaul energy consumption citywide.

"We have a number of changes planned that arose out of a lengthy energy audit. In concert with this, our school department is going through the same process," she said Monday.

The three-year contract with Bangor Gas, the only natural gas provider in eastern Maine, was discussed by the finance committee Monday and will be voted on by city councilors later this month, Cyr said.

Five municipal buildings — City Hall, the central fire station, the Public Works building, the recycling station and the bus wash — were identified for conversion to natural gas. The cumulative conversion cost is about $200,000, the finance director said, but if prices stay the same, the payoff could take less than two years.

Natural gas is running at about $1.77 per therm, which is equivalent to 100,000 British thermal units, or BTUs, compared with $4.50 per gallon of No. 2 heating oil, which produces 138,000 BTUs. In simple terms, natural gas costs about half the current rate for oil.

"Historically, natural gas has been increasing, too, but it’s always trailed oil," Cyr said.

Once the municipal facilities are converted, the city will begin exploring natural gas as an option for six of Bangor’s 10 schools, the Bangor International Airport and the city’s wastewater treatment facility. The savings if those facilities are converted to natural gas could be even greater.

Cyr said any savings will likely be used to offset other fuel costs, such as Bangor’s diesel demands.

Bangor Gas, which has pipelines in Bangor, Brewer, Veazie, Orono and Old Town, has seen a steady increase of customers, both residential and commercial, as oil prices have drastically risen.

Jon Kunz, the company’s sales manager, said recently that salespeople are having a hard time keeping up with the increasing demand.

Officials aren’t exploring natural gas for just city-owned property, either.

Dan Tremble, treasurer for Penobscot County, said commissioners are looking at converting the existing county courthouse and jail facility to natural gas.

"We use 85,000 gallons of oil there and it would cost about $15,000 [in infrastructure] to convert to natural gas," he said. "That should save us up to $100,000 every year."

Several Bangor nonprofits also have recently expressed interest in natural gas, including the Maine Discovery Museum, Penobscot Theatre and the Challenger Learning Center of Maine.

The utility is still relatively new in eastern Maine. Natural gas was not available before 1998, when the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline was constructed to bring gas through Bangor from Sable Island off Nova Scotia.

Bangor Gas officials also have said they are committed to expanding their available service area if demand is great enough.

TN capitalist looks at US education

The Los Angeles Times today published an interesting story on how Bob Compton, a Memphis venture capitalist, compared the educational systems of India, China and the United States. Results -- students in India and China worked harder, perhaps because they have a stronger incentive.

"Two Million Minutes" focuses on high-achieving students from top schools in Bangalore, Shanghai and Carmel, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis. All are impressive, but the American students come across as slackers by comparison.

As the film begins, we hear the voice of Neil Ahrendt, an affable,well-spoken young man and a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, saying:"Occasionally, I do homework."

The clear message is that the Indian and Chinese students work a lot harder. The movie doesn't spend much time on curriculum or "rigor and relevance," the kinds of issues that dominate U.S. education discussions.

The film quotes Vivek Wadhwa, a tech entrepreneur on sabbatical at Duke University, explaining why American students are slipping behind in math and science."The hunger isn't there; the desire isn't there," he says. Chinese and Indian kids "are a lot more motivated to get into these fields and succeed, because they're fighting starvation, they're fighting hunger."

Harvard Education Professor TomWagner told the Times:

"We don't challenge kids in schools," he said. "We don't challenge them to think; we don't challenge them to create. We challenge them to get good enough grades to get into a good enough college."

Gas prices hitting South hard

As if things weren't bad enough already in the South (poor education, high rates of poverty and hunger, high unemployment, etc).

Now comes the news that the high gas prices (which are tough anyway) are hurting people in poor rural parts of America -- which means a lot of the South -- harder than other areas. (Makes sense -- people with lower incomes pay the same amount for gas as rich folks and when the price goes up, poor people's incomes can't stretch as much so they're paying a higher percentage of disposable income for gas).

Anyway, today's issue of The New York Times highlights the problem and offers some interesting detail. On the map above (click image), the tan areas are where people are most affected by $4 per gallon gas.

NC House Moves to Strengthen Community Colleges

(Originally posted on The Progressive Pulse, a North Carolina blog.)

The ongoing weakening of North Carolina's labor market has placed unanticipated demands on the community college system and has exacerbated many long-standing challenges. Although modest in scope, the proposed House budget contains provisions that would help the community colleges address certain short- and long-term obstacles.

Overall, the House proposal would add $33.2 million ($26 million in recurring dollars, $7.2 million in non-recurring ones) to the budget approved in 2007. This 4 percent increase would bring the total state appropriation to $932.8 million. (Community colleges also receive local funds and tuition receipts.)

Most importantly, the budget would provide an additional $23.8 million in recurring funds to accommodate unexpected enrollment growth. Due to recent economic conditions, actual enrollment has exceeded budgeted levels by 3 percent, meaning that the colleges are serving students for whom state funds were not allocated. The House budget would provide funding in FY 2009 that accounts for all of that increase. Furthermore, the House proposal would provided $2.5 million in non-recurring funding to support the system's enrollment growth reserve fund, which exists to help meet unanticipated enrollment increases.

The House budget also would use the following measures to begin to address, albeit on a limited scale, several long-standing issues:

1) Adding recurring dollars to better support high-cost allied health programs (+$4 million).

2) Appropriating recurring funds to renew technical education programs in construction, engineering, industrial and transportation fields (+$1 million).

3) Providing non-recurring funds to support and expand a minority male mentoring program designed to improve educational outcomes (+$1 million).

Many of the provisions associated with the House budget also aim to address perennial issues. For example, the House would require the preparation of a report clearly assessing differences in instructional costs. Moreover, the House would direct the community colleges to develop a new formula for financing basic skills programs and would authorize a study of financial aid programs and how they could more effectively serve non-traditional students.

Edit: Bench partisan judicial races

Today is Election Day in Alabama. The most important statewide race may be the races to fill two seats on the Court of Criminal Appeals. Yet, perhaps as few as 1-in-7 Alabama voters will even both to register a preference in the primary election. The editorial board of The Anniston Star weighed in Sunday on a suggestion to scrap partisan races in favor of something better.
Among the suggestions in the editorial:

1. Lose the partisanship. Don't allow judicial candidates to run under the banner of a political party. That's how most municipal elections are run. There's no Democratic vs. Republican way to fix a pothole, so city hall hopefuls run without an "R" or a "D" beside their name. Might voters discern party membership nonetheless? Likely so, but the ballot would be free of a label that is generally useless when it comes to picking judges. The Alabama Bar has looked favorably at such a system.
2. Allow retention elections. Some states allow governors to appoint judges from a qualified pool of candidates. These appointments are subject to approval of the state Senate. Voters get their say at the end of a judge's term. The judge's name would appear on the ballot; voters could decide to retain or dismiss the judge. If the judge is voted out, the governor starts the whole process over.
3. Better regulate campaign cash. In 2006, the campaign for state Supreme Court went through more than $7 million. Already the state's judicial ethics code strongly discourages judgeship candidates from personally appealing for campaign funds. Some states have offered candidates the option of public financing. Those candidates receive a modest sum compiled from voluntary donations; in turn they promise to forgo private contributions that have the ability to taint judicial independence.