Tag Archives: Education

Internet speed and access —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 2012-05-08

At a recent Lowndes County Commission meeting, I said:

I was interested to learn two weeks ago that my neighbor Timothy Nessmith was interested in getting DSL on Hambrick Road.

He said you can get it as close to him as Quarterman Road. I can attest to that because I have 3 megabit per second DSL, due to being just close enough to Bellsouth’s DSL box on Cat Creek Road, but most of Quarterman Road can’t get DSL due to distance. There are some other land-line possibilties, involving cables in the ground or wires on poles.

Then there are wireless possibilities, including EVDO, available from Verizon, with 750 kilobit per second (0.75 Mbps) wide area access from cell phone towers.

Verizon’s towers could also be used for WIFI antennas, for up to 8 Mbps Internet access, over a wide scale.

Then there’s metropolitan-area Internet. Chattanooga has the fastest such network, with 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps). But hundreds of communities around the country have such networks, including (continued after the video)…

Internet speed and access —John S. Quarterman
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 8 May 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

…Lafayette, Louisiana, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Lagrange, Georgia, and Thomasville, Georgia. They use it for public safety, education (Wiregrass Tech, VSU), and

It attracts new industry. If you want knowledge-based industry, they’re going to be expecting Internet access not just at work, but at home, whereever they live.

Other uses include Continue reading →

Solar Lowndes High?

What does the world see driving north up I-75 past Valdosta? The empty roofs of Lowndes High School. Every south-facing one of which could hold solar panels.


View Larger Map

That would do more to put Lowndes County and Valdosta on the map as supporting solar and thus knowledge-based jobs than any amount of exit beautification.

Run out of roof space? What about those parking lots:


View Larger Map

And it wouldn’t take a Ted Turner to do it. In all but a few states the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) could let a private company finance and install all those solar panels and then lease the electricity for a fixed rate for 20 years, greatly reducing the school’s electricity bill and promoting our local community, all without any expense to we the taxpayers.

But you can’t do that in Georgia! Because Georgia Power doesn’t want us to. Unless we get some laws changed. Follow the link for how.

-jsq

PS: I haven’t forgotten Valdosta High School. All the economic advantages would apply just as well for the Valdosta Board of Education and Valdosta taxpayers. Even Valwood could do this and profit. If we get Georgia law changed to permit it.

Company installs solar and leases it to New Jersey school: you can’t do that in Georgia

Schools can’t do this in Georgia, because of the Territoriality Law. They can’t have a company finance and install solar panels on their property and lease the power from them at a fixed rate. You can’t, either, not even on your own private property. Does that seem right to you?

US DoE EERE wrote (no date), NJ School Installs 6.1 MW Solar System,

A 100-year old private school, Lawrenceville School, in Lawrenceville, N.J., installed a 6.1 megawatt ground-mounted system on 30 acres of school-owned farm land. The system features 24,934 SolarWorld solar panels, manufactured at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Hillsboro, Oregon. KDC Solar leased the land for the project from the school and owns and maintains the solar equipment. Through a power purchase agreement, the Lawrenceville School will buy electricity produced by the array over the next 20 years.

The school says the Lawrenceville Solar Farm was dedicated 4 May 2012., and adds that they also keep bees on the same land, plus what six megawatts means:

The Lawrenceville School Solar Farm consists of a nearly 30-acre, net metered, 6.1 megawatt solar facility, and honey-producing bee hives, which ring the perimeter of the array. The nearly 900,000 resident honey bees are nourished by a special wildflower mixture planted among and around the solar panels. The Farm offsets 6,388 metric tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 1,253 cars off the road annually.

The 24,934 solar panels generate six megawatts of energy, covering 90 percent of the School’s needs. During the day, the array can produce nearly twice the amount of energy needed by the School. The excess is imported to the local electrical utility, Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) and credited to the School. The School will draw excess energy and all other required energy from PSE&G after sundown.

Here’s a PDF with more details.

The big picture is: you can do that in all but about four states. Georgia is one of those four states, Continue reading →

Film your cause for annual local festival

VSU professor and student publish book chapter about films of Lowndes County. You, too, can submit a film about changes in local culture for the whole world to see.

Matthew Richard and Andrea Zvikas wrote Causes Mini-Film Festival: Anthropology for Public Consumption for the book Building Bridges in Anthropology: Understanding, Acting, Teaching, and Theorizing, Edited by Robert Shanafelt, published this month.

The goal is simple: to get all of us who live in Lowndes County, Georgia, to ponder some of our casual habits and to seek better ways of doing things here. The hope is that the collective wisdom and creativity of various community members can stoke our collective imagination—maybe even our “collective conscience”—and generate improvements in our way of life. The hope is that the collective wisdom and creativity of various community members can stoke our collective imagination—maybe even our “collective conscience”—and generate improvements in our way of life. Our somewhat quixotic reasoning is that change has to start somewhere, so why not initiate it right now, right here “in our own backyard”?

On facebook: “Causes”— Valdosta’s (mini) Film Festival. 2010 Causes Film Festival YouTube channel.

Do you have a cause? If so, please make your own 90-second mini-documentary and we’ll see you in Valdosta the weekend between the Martin Luther King holiday and the Superbowl.

Here’s a sample Causes video:

Dear Valdosta City Council, we need….
Submission for Causes Film Festival 2010

-jsq

Quitman 10+2 petition

Funny how only the actions of the black activists who won school board seats got investigated by the GBI, and only they were charged with anything, despite a number of irregularities among the losers. If that doesn't seem right to you, this may be of interest: U.S. Justice Department – Eric Holder: Identify prosecutorial misconduct/voter suppression in Quitman 10 +2 case

Many voters in Brooks County are older African-Americans who are senior citizens in their 60's, 70's and 80's that witnessed first-hand the politics of Jim Crow in the last century, but had to deal with GBI agents coming to their doorsteps of their small rural town with guns strapped to their side asking questions. Some were voting for the first time or the first time in years in 2010, but there has been an ongoing effort by Republicans to present more obstacles and/or threats to eligible voters so they would be discouraged not to vote.

I think the Quitman 10+2's real crime was very simple: winning. Even worse, they used an innovative strategy (absentee ballots) for an end-run around their opponents. If that school board election in Brooks County had been a football game, the Q10+2 would be hailed as heroes by the local and state press for winning the game. Why is winning an election by legal means not accorded the same treatment?

-jsq

Citizen Right Denied Quitman-Brooks County Board of Education —George Boston Rhynes

Received today. -jsq

On May 8th, 2012; at 6:00 PM, I (GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES) was denied the right to address the Quitman-Brooks County School Board of Education. Please not that this was at a public meeting in the State of Georgia under our form of government.

May 14, 2012
George Boston Rhynes
(229-251-8645)
5004 Oak Drive
Valdsota, Georgia 31605


TO: Brooks County School Board of Education
     &nbsp(229-263-7532)
      President Brad Shealy
       School Superintendent Debra H. Folsom
       Board Member Robert Lawrence Cunningham III
       Board Member Mr. Wayne Carroll Jr.,
       Board Member Mr. Gerald Golden
       Board Member Mr. Joseph Luke Mitchell
       Board Member Ms. Dennis Monroe
       Board Member Mr. Frank Thomas
       PO Box 511
      1081 Barwick Road
      Quitman, Georgia 31643

Moreover, my request was to speak before all members of the school board, parents, local press and others that attends such meetings. However, after three e-mails and several phone calls I was denied this right in the State of Georgia; as a Brooks County Family tax paying property owner.

I served my country for over 20 years and have been involved in civil and human righs since 1975 but have never seen such ill treatment of a United States Citizen wherein it is so diffuculy to address ELECTED and/ SELECTED officials within a state. I did not have this much trouble addressing a military school in Ramstein, Germany.

Again my family owns property in Brooks County (43 acreamust) as you will hear on the video below. However this did not matter to the Brooks County President Brad Shealy and those that get requests to address the school board in Quitman and Brooks County Georgia.

I can (only) imagine

Continue reading →

Cook County schools furloughing teachers

Cook county schools have a budget shortfall problem, and they think they can solve it only by furloughing teachers. Remind me again why we're wasting $1 billion a year on prisons, including private prisons for the profit of private prison shareholders and executives (like CCA CEO Damon Hininger's $3 million a year) and we're furloughing teachers instead?

Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV 10 May 2012, Teachers in Cook County Face Furloughs,

The Cook County School System is facing a $472,352 deficit. Superintendent Lance Heard tells Eyewitness News reporter Greg Gullberg that the only way out may be to initiate system-wide furlough days and cutting jobs.

"We've done everything we can to maintain the level of education for the students that we've always had and we think we've been able to do that," said Superintendent Heard.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but 488 teachers, staff and administrators, may be facing furlough days next school year. Superintendent Heard hopes to limit them to three to five per employee.

"I would like to say also that when we do take furlough days, they are always none instructional days. The students do not miss any school," said Superintendent Heard.

Yet. Keep on in this direction and the students will be missing school. As it is, they just get less-prepared teachers, for less-effective teaching. But this is not Supt. Heard's fault.

Do we in Georgia want to prepare students for jail, or to succeed in life? Prisons cost we the taxpayers lots of money. Successful young people help pay for everything. Maybe we should choose successful young people, starting with education.

-jsq

Solar IS Civil Defense PSA

While /the grid power was out during and after the March F2 tornado (F3 in Lanier County), the lights at our place never blinked, because we have solar panels and batteries. George Mokray has a video that expands on that point.

Solar IS Civil Defense—what we are all supposed to have on hand in case of emergency—flashlight, cell phone, radio, extra set of batteries—can be powered by a few square inches of solar electric panel. Add a hand crank or bicycle generator and you have a reliable source of survival level electricity, day or night, by sunlight or muscle power.

Here’s the video:

Solar IS Civil Defense PSA
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, .
Video by for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

This is also entry level electrical power for the 1.5 billion people around the world who do not yet have access to electricity. Civil defense at home and economic development abroad can be combined in a “buy one, give one” program like the Bogolight (http:// www.bogolight.com) which is a solar LED light and AA battery charger.

Solar IS Civil Defense and could be much more.

I think Lowndes County Emergency Management Director Ashley Tye did a fine job dealing with the tornado. What if beyond the resources he had available we added distributed solar power? In addition to being storm ready, solar also brings jobs for engineers, electricians, truck drivers, and plumbers, and for professors and students to study all that.

Change a few laws, and profit by selling excess power to Atlanta or points north. Add plug-in electric vehicles, and we get less need for foreign oil, so we get improved national security.

Safety, energy independence, and economic development right here at home through solar power!

-jsq

What actually gets companies to locate in Chattanooga?

So we heard about Chattanooga all during the school “unification” referendum. I turns out Chattanooga really does have something that attracts business (no, not a unified school system; if you want to go back into that, I’ve got the references available). What really attracts businesses to Chattanooga is fast Internet broadband access.

Christopher Mitchell wrote for Planetizen 30 April 2012, Should Your City Build Its Own Broadband Network?

While on a site selection visit in Chattanooga, a CEO asked about broadband access. When told that the slowest tier on Chattanooga’s community fiber network was 30 megabits per second, he turned to his IT adviser for a translation. Upon hearing “that’s more than we can get in our headquarters presently,” the company cancelled its other planned visits and located its new site in Chattanooga.

That’s right, Chattanooga really does have one thing going for it: high speed Internet access.

Why does that matter?

Continue reading →

“Break it down in common VOICE”. —Fannie Jackson

Received today on History should reward all research. -jsq

I like to read LAKE because it allows people with opposing views to voice an opinion. For example, I no longer feel the need to read my hometown paper, the little advertiser, the DC Caller and various other right wing promoters. Another example, George and I disagree on many issues and Ms. Stratton and I disagree on many issues.. Citizens with the same rights as everyone being bullied.. intimidated.. feels familiar. Koch brothers, ALEC, local DA, local BOE, etc… Take your pick. Ms. Stratton, I respect your VOICE. But, I have been too busy getting myself and others CERTIFIED to REGISTER voters and per Ken Collins ANYONE can vote ABSENTEE for ANY reason AND, I can pick up as many ABSENTEE APPLICATIONS as I wish and TAKE them to my family which includes practically EVERYBODY in BROOKS.. Not to DISRESPECT your VOICE, but your previous comment about "anyone NOT capable of getting ID.." basically STUPID. In 2012, there are souls in my community who STILL need all the Fannies and Georges to "Break it down in common VOICE". I can just see Deal, Olens, Carter, Golden and ALL the others huddling NOW to change this little VOTER PERK! I wish someone would please tell this to the guys on 105.9. And George, I have NEVER listened to them.. Do not feel the NEED. I got too many people asking me to come explain some WORDS to them..And, I thank my late father, Mr. Charlie Milton (Bud) Jackson, Sr.. Brooks counties' GREATEST TROJAN for this.. Daddy never learned to read and write, but he was so PROUD EVERYTIME he marked that X on his ballot..

-Fannie Jackson

And all posts (and comments) on the LAKE blog are the posters' opinion, except in the rare cases where a post is clearly labelled "for LAKE". I congratulate everyone for keeping it civil. Please remember to discuss the ideas without attacking the person.

-jsq