Monthly Archives: July 2008

(Community Matters) Heard on the street today that Mike Levy has engaged consultants for a possible mayoral race. chances: zero

(Community Matters) Exxon Mobil and Shell reporting record profits, $11.7B and $11.6B, respectively. Makes no sense to look at raw numbers. Exxon’s quarterly net profit margin at 8.5%, 11-ish before depletion and depreciation. Their 38%+ return on equity quite a doozie.

(Community Matters) Nate shows a graph of media spending by each campaign over the last seven weeks by geography.


And, we’re loving the latest numbers.

(Community Matters) Marion & I met over breakfast with Ronda Rutledge and Joy Casnovsky, Exec. Director & Program Director, respectively from the Sustainable Food Center. If you don’t know the group, they run the community gardens, the downtown & Triangle farmer’s markets and the Concina Alegre (happy kitchen) food & nutrition training programs.

SFC went through a few really tough years. The board hired Ronda nearly two years ago. We met when Jen Vickers asked me to meet her over coffee. The organization’s farmers markets are thriving – as are two exciting, new programs: the Farm to School as well as Farm Direct projects, the latter whereby consumers subscribe for deliveries from organic farmers.

Marion and I were talking with them about launching food & nutritional cooking classes for women with breast cancer. Like all cancer survivors, studies support the contributions of special diets for breast cancer patients while in treatment as well as while in recovery.

(Community Matters) The trailer is out

(Community Matters) Like manna from heaven:

13 book recommendations. The Man Booker longlist:

Aravind Adiga – The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold – Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry – The Secret Scripture
John Berger – From A to X
Michelle de Kretser – The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh – Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant – The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif – A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher – The Northern Clemency
Joseph O’Neill – Netherland
Salman Rushdie – The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith – Child 44
Steve Toltz – A Fraction of the Whole

(Community Matters) Gotta love those earnings here

(Community Matters) from Joe Jervis:

The Black AIDS Institute has issued a stunning comparison:

If black America were a country, it would rank 16th in the world in the number of people living with the AIDS virus, the Black AIDS Institute, an advocacy group, reported Tuesday.

The report, financed in part by the Ford Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, provides a startling new perspective on an epidemic that was first recognized in 1981.

Nearly 600,000 African-Americans are living with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, and up to 30,000 are becoming infected each year. When adjusted for age, their death rate is two and a half times that of infected whites, the report said. Partly as a result, the hypothetical nation of black America would rank below 104 other countries in life expectancy.

Those and other disparities are “staggering,” said Dr. Kevin A. Fenton, who directs H.I.V. prevention efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency responsible for tracking the epidemic in the United States.

(Community Matters)

#1 – About a month ago, I misplaced my Boss sunglasses. I’m betting I left them at a friend’s house. Anyone seen them?

#2 – Someone left two jars of homemade, either tomato sauce or an Italian sauce on our porch. Since I don’t know who left it (it could be either Dawnna Dukes or Glen Maxey – can you say “try this delicious apple little girl”), thought I better identify the source before trying. Takers?

(Community Matters) Steven received a standing ovation at last night’s EMS conference in San Diego where he delivered the evening’s keynote.

(Community Matters) Rather scary to watch McCain these days. Suspected Reagan was showing signs of his illness during the last months of his administration. McCain already shows signs of age and difficulty keeping facts/events straight in his mind. Don’t mean this disrespectfully, I’m 100% serious.

(Community Matters) Six-shooter Patterson, aka GLO Commissioner Jerry Patterson, continues committed to privatization of Christmas Mountain rather than donating or selling the property to the National Park Service. The latest proposal to lease the property to Terlingua Ranch sounds innocuous, though a couple of questions remain: 1) given their recent closing of the Lodge, do they have the financial wherewithal to be good stewards of the property, 2) what assurances, checks & balances will be in place to ensure public access to the property?