Here's the perfect solution for the racetrack dilemma: electric vehicle racing! Now before you sneer, listen to this news flash from the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA): “Dennis ‘Kilowatt' Berube and his dragster, Current Eliminator, have a new official World Record: 8.861 seconds and 147.121 mph in the quarter mile! Now that's a quick EV!” And Seth Taylor, after a qualifying lap at 93.51 mph, won the 1998 Indy Electric Classic at Indianapolis Raceway Park. His car, the Smokin' Buckeye, has reached 144 mph in testing. The event was sponsored by Electric Vehicle Technology Competitions Ltd., whose mission is to “develop, promote, and coordinate electric vehicle competitions across the nation.”
Why race electric vehicles? Simple. Most of the bad features of conventional racing just go away. No noise, no pollution, no negative image. Local property values would hardly be affected. Imagine—racers as good neighbors!
We could even market the Asheville area as innovators in electric vehicle racing. New, high-tech jobs and industry would be attracted here. EVs are actually trendy; major manufacturers have jumped in. Ford has TH!NK and the Ranger EV; both Toyota and Honda sell hybrid EVs.
Electric vehicle racing. How about it?
Does anyone care about paragraph structure anymore? Evidently not, as indicated by most modern writing. The trend these days is to flaunt or completely ignore the rules. To a reader who is used to those rules, it can be disconcerting, to say the least.
A paragraph is a unit of composition, like a sentence or a chapter. Also like them, it has a canonical structure. The first sentence in a paragraph introduces its topic. Subsequent sentences develop the topic, and the last may offer a conclusion. Deviations from this structure are exceptions, best left to skilled writers who have mastered the basics.
Unfortunately, contemporary writers seem to prefer very short paragraphs—the shorter the better. Even one sentence is quite common. This is especially true in journalism, where it is the reigning style. However, some publications (who shall remain nameless) are guiltier than others. Presumably done for emphasis or drama, when overdone it is simply wearying.
Less often, two paragraphs are joined at the hip, Siamese twin style. The reader is left scratching his head, wondering just exactly what was the point.
Compositional units—sentences, paragraphs, and chapters—are the traffic signs on the information highway. They direct the reader's attention, and alert her to what lies ahead. Too-short paragraphs are speed bumps: annoying and puzzling. Too-long paragraphs are missing stoplights. They breeze the reader past important intersections; they are accidents waiting to happen.
A well-constructed paragraph is a joy to read. It is neither too short nor too long. It flows logically from beginning to end, developing its theme as it goes. To quote the Business Writer's Handbook, Third Edition: "Paragraph length should be tailored to aid the reader's understanding of ideas. A series of short, undeveloped paragraphs can indicate poor organization of material…"
‘Nuff said, Citizen-Times?
The editor's heading of your scholarly dissertation on the importance of proper "paragraphing" caught my eye since I was just getting over the acute trauma of seeing the altered paragraphing the editor inflicted on my guest commentary that was published some two weeks ago (copy enclosed).
I was somewhat dismayed to see the damage done to the clarity of my brief thesis by the clumping together of my paragraphs, as noted in the enclosure, since the subject I was addressing was one of some complexity. It has always been my position that one should write so that the reader will understand the text whether he is particularly interested in doing so or not.
Sometimes, though, a short paragraph can be effective in emphasizing an important point. Note my three-word paragraph as indicated in the third column.
Cordially,
Irv Filler
15 Parkview Drive
Candler, NC 28715-9453
Mr. Filler sent me the above letter via U.S. mail. He enclosed a copy of his article championing nuclear weapons. The article was published as a guest commentary by the Asheville Citizen-Times on April 4, 2000. They titled it "Like it or not, nuclear weapons have helped keep the peace for decades".
The 'three-word paragraph' Mr. Filler refers to (in context) reads as follows:
We begin by asking ourselves this question: If China, Japan, the United States, and the major European powers had each possessed nuclear weapons would the Japanese military have invaded China and attacked the United States; and would the German high command have ordered the invasion of Poland and France and the destruction of Great Britain and Russia?I think not.
Who is the worst polluter in Western North Carolina? It depends on how you measure. EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) collects data on all facilities that release large amounts of toxic chemicals; their latest annual report came out May 11. In 1998, the largest total was for CP&L's Asheville Plant in Arden: 2,882,855 pounds. This is slightly more than the amount for Blue Ridge Paper Products (which was still Champion International at the time).
Power plants—including CP&L—did not have to report TRI data until 1998. As a result, Champion always topped the list. But they have been steadily cleaning up their act. They have been elemental chlorine free (ECF) since 1993, ten years ahead of the EPA requirement. And dioxin levels have been undetectable since 1995.
CP&L has been making progress too: they reduced nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by nearly 50% over five years. During this same period, they invested more than $250 million on clean air technologies.
It used to be easy to point our finger at other states and say that the problem was coming from them. With CP&L's entry into TRI, a truer picture emerges. We need to get our own house in order.
This article was originally much longer. It was submitted as a guest editorial to the Asheville Citizen Times, under the title "Hunt Says NIMBY—But What's In Our Backyard?". They did not publish it, opting instead for this much shorter 200-word version that they ran as a letter to the editor.
What is newsworthy? The major media appear to believe that news consists of a steady diet of celebrities, politicians, corporate mergers, and assorted murder and mayhem. These things may be interesting, and even entertaining. But they don't matter deeply to the average person.
So what does? Certainly, if someone cares enough about a cause to risk arrest, imprisonment, injury or even death, that is an important cause. And if that person belongs to a group of activists, then there are likely to be many others who share their sentiments but are more risk-averse.
The protesters, the civil dissidents, the conscientious objectors: these are the people on the vanguard of social change. They call attention to the most egregious violations of human rights, political and governmental authority, animal welfare, and the environment.
These issues are not well covered by the media. Fortunately, there is a small local newspaper that does an excellent job in this respect. The Asheville Global Report (www.agrnews.org) is published weekly, and is available free at many local retailers.
I have no connection to the Asheville Global Report, but I'm glad they exist. Otherwise I would have to read yet more stories about Eric Rudolph and Christopher Lippard.
In his latest syndicated column, Leonard Pitts wonders what motivated all the ruckus at the political conventions, as well as in Seattle and D.C. (“Either I or the protesters don't get it”, 8/24/2000). He lists over a dozen causes on the protesters' agenda, and complains that they are too unfocused to achieve anything.
It may not be obvious to him, but Virginia Rasmussen has it neatly pegged. Her speech “Rethinking the Corporation” (published in “Food & Water Journal”, Fall 1998) traces the roots of all of these causes to increasing corporate domination. She observes that “corporations are legally empowered and designed to carry out their mission of ever more growth, production and profit, pursued in the mandated spirit of competition, aggression, amorality and hierarchy.” It's working—the combined revenues of General Motors and Ford exceed the GDP for all of sub-Saharan Africa.
Some people fear the takeover of the world by the United Nations, complete with black helicopters and a New World Order. It will never happen; corporations beat them to it. With NAFTA, GATT, the IMF and the WTO, they have established a New Corporate Order.
So-called “free trade” is a euphemism for free reign. It has allowed corporations to run roughshod over people and the environment.
Corporations rule the world. Why should they care about a few noisy
picketers?
Source: Facts From The
Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization,
Fact
Sheet Number One -- Corporate Globalization
Note: Leonard Pitts is an ediorial columnnist for the Miami
Herald. His article "Revolution -- or fashion statement?" was published
on Agust 19, 2000.
If you're thinking about voting for Ralph Nader as President, you may have heard a rumor that votes for him will not be counted. Don't believe it! It is true he is not on the ballot in North Carolina. Our state has very restrictive election laws, which make it virtually impossible to get third party candidates on the ballot. And legal fine print has allowed the Board of Elections to avoid counting Nader votes. However, they will be counted. Here's why: the ballot allows you to type in anyone's name and it is recorded. I recently spoke with Doug Stuber of the North Carolina Green Party, who tells me that Green Party volunteers will assert their right under the Freedom of Information Act to count these votes and report the total. If denied, they intend to sue in all 100 NC counties. This is important because the number of votes Nader gets this year determines federal funding for Greens in 2004.
If you are content with incremental change, vote for the major parties. But if you want real health care and campaign finance reform, real environmental cleanup, and an end to the sovereignty of the WTO, Nader is your man.
This is a short version of the original 923-word article, which was written as a column for the Citizen-Times but never published by them.
Three cheers for “Advantage Asheville!” Funded by area businesses, its charter is “to continue efforts to promote quality economic growth in the Asheville Area”. We need growth! Growth is good for business, good for the community, good for you and me.
Wrong.
Who sez?
Eben Fodor, that's who. Fodor is a professional community planning consultant, and author of Better Not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community. Amazon.com gave it a very favorable review: “If you have had enough of endless growth, and want to do something about it, then Better Not Bigger is the resource you've been searching for. Exploding the myth that growth is good for us, this book clearly and convincingly shows how urban growth can, in fact, leave our communities permanently scarred, and saddled with very high costs.”
The book's “12 Big Myths of Growth” are on the Internet at http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/sprawl2.html;
also see http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/sprawl3.html.
The publisher's web site (http://www.newsociety.com/bnb.html)
features long excerpts.
I will buy a copy of this book for any local politician or business
leader who asks me. If you would like your representative to get a copy,
please tell them to get their order in!