On Legislating

Legislating is hard work. The easiest thing for elected representatives to do is nothing. You make fewer enemies that way. It is also easier if you don't do anything new. Maybe pass a few proclamations recognizing the Sweet Potato Festival or Vietnam Veterans or such like.

Even in a small setting like the Oriental Town Board of Commissioners, it is hard to cobble together a majority of three votes out of the five commissioners in favor of anything new, especially if there is controversy. Think how much work it is to obtain a majority out of more than five hundred members of Congress.

Last night's vote in the House of Representatives on health care reform was an awesome accomplishment. We will all be better off as a result, as will our children and grandchildren.

The Public Good

I just read the New York Times review of a book I want to read. The book's title sounds like a downer: Ill Fares the Land, by British historian Tony Judt.

But according to the NYT, it presents at heart an optimistic view of possibilities facing us. The book is described as "a dying man’s sense of a dying idea: the notion that the state can play a significant role in its citizens’ lives without imperiling their liberties." Just the kind of book we all need to read.

South Avenue Court Case Judgment

At the March 2 meeting of the Oriental Town Board, Mayor Sage asked me if Judge Crow had signed the final judgment in the case of Town of Oriental vs Lacy Henry et al. I confirmed that he had. Here it is:

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, COUNTY OF PAMLICO, TOWN OF ORIENTAL, Plaintiff vs. LACY HENRY, and spouse, JUDY B. HENRY, and E. SHERRILL STYRON and spouse, PHYLLIS H. STYRON,* Defendants, IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE, SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION, File No.: 03-CVS-44

JUDGMENT:

"The Court, pursuant to the Opinion issued by the North Carolina Court of Appeals on July 7, 2009 and Judgment certified to the Superior Court of Pamlico County on the 27th day of July, 2009, in case No. COA 08-896, finds that there is no issue as to any material fact and that the Town of Oriental is the owner of the South Avenue terminus, more particularly described as the property located in the Town of Oriental bounded on the North by the land of Garland Fulcher, bounded on the South by the land of Lacy Henry, formerly Neuse Ways and Marine, Inc., and bounded on the West by Raccoon Creek (Oriental Harbor). Said land being the extension of South Avenue beyond the area of vehicular traffic and extending to Raccoon Creek and shown on a map entitled "Survey, Oriental Bulkhead Property" which is recorded in Map Book 1, Page 19, Pamlico County Registry, and that the Town of Oriental is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

"IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that summary judgment is granted in favor of the plaintiff, Town of Oriental, against the defendants, Lacy Henry and wife, Judy B. Henry and that the Town of Oriental is the owner of the afore described real property known as South Avenue terminus and the claims of the defendants to said property are hereby dismissed, and the costs be taxed against the defendants.
"This the 5th day of Feb, 2010.

"Signed
The Honorable Kenneth F. Crow
Superior Court Judge"

*Note: As I pointed out previously, the Styrons are no longer defendants in the case.

2010 Census Here at Last

This morning's mail delivered the 2010 census questionnaire to the Cox household. It contained ten questions for each member of the household. It took me about fifteen minutes to fill it out. I have put it back in the hands of the US Postal Service.

That was easy.

Pamlico - a Wilderness County

Attendees at tonight's (Monday, March 15) meeting of the Pamlico County Commissioners learned a startling fact: the State of North Carolina does not categorize Pamlico County as a "rural county," but as a "wilderness county."

This revelation was provided by Mr. Jim Gray, who spoke in favor of adoption of the proposed Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Strategic Plan. During the ensuing discussion, Commissioner Ann Holton reluctantly admitted the category might be accurate. Just the previous day she had to kick her golf cart up to top speed to get away from a bear. Mr. Gray emphasized the contribution that improved EMS services would make to moving the county out of the wilderness into the rural county category. He noted in particular the importance of enhanced EMS to economic development by encouraging population growth, especially among retirees.

Mr. Gray was one of three attendees who spoke up strongly in favor of the strategic plan during the public hearing. County commissioners voted unanimously to adopt the plan.

The plan is good news for Oriental and nearby locations. The first phase of the plan, covering the next three years, calls for establishing a satellite EMS location in the county's southeast region. This is expected to be at the Oriental Fire Station.

The second phase, over the next five years, will involve upgrading EMS to the Paramedic level. Pamlico County is one of fewer than ten counties in North Carolina to lack a Paramedic or higher level certification.

The plan is only a beginning. It will need funding to complete, but to all appearances, the county is now committed to making it happen.

The Time Has Come

Early this morning, those of us who remembered to set our clocks forward for daylight savings time woke up an hour earlier than the day before.

The theory is reminiscent of the fellow whose feet stuck out from his blanket. To remedy the situation, he cut a foot off the top of the blanket and sewed it to the bottom.

There should be a better way.

Why, for example, can't we just have daylight savings time year round?

Some say it's because the cows get confused about their milking time. I never saw a cow that could read a clock.

Then there are those who say it confuses the roosters.

Maybe we should recall how we got time zones in the first place. It wasn't for the cows or the roosters. It was for the railroads.

Before the railroads, every large European or American town had its own time. Time was told by the sun dial. Noon was when the sun crossed the meridian. (That's why morning time is denominated "ante meridian" and afternoon is "post meridian.")

Even sailing ships told time by the sun. Navigators used their best estimate of the ship's longitude, compared that to the Greenwich (or other) hour angle of the sun and calculated when the sun would be overhead. With the sextant, the navigator observed the sun's elevation. When it ceased increasing, he would declare that local apparent noon had arrived and (with the captain's permission) strike eight bells. The hour glass was turned and that became the beginning point for the next twenty four hours. So each ship carried a little bubble of time with it across the ocean.

So it was with every town. Each town had its own little time zone, based on its longitude. Church bells called the faithful to morning and evening prayers, sent the peasants into the fields and the workers to their tasks. It didn't matter if the next town was on a slightly different time.

Then came the railroad. It began to matter a great deal that one town's clock was five or ten or fifteen minutes different from the next town's clock. Printed train schedules became confusing.

To fix this problem, national railroads developed railroad time. When railroads began spanning continents as in America and Russia, railroad time became divided into zones.

In this day of computers, I see no reason we couldn't return to the prior arrangement of truly local time. Computers would have no trouble keeping track.

We already have a way that keeps track of time for events spanning many time zones. It is called Greenwich Mean Time. Since the dawn of radio communications, the US Navy has used GMT to keep track of messages, assigning a "date time group" to each message, based on the originator and the dtg of the message. It avoids confusion.

Ship and aircraft tracks use GMT. You can do the same with your GPS.

So why not a system based on GMT (using the 24-hour clock) coupled with real local sun time? To avoid confusing travelers, telephone cell systems could broadcast both GMT and LST. The change might even create a new market for time pieces designed to display GMT and LST.

And it wouldn't confuse cows or roosters.

Remember our Women Veterans

Tomorrow morning, March 13, 2010 at 11:00 friends of Florence Elizabeth "Betty" Brandon will gather at Bryant Funeral Home in Alliance to say good bye to a wonderful woman, one of a dwindling number of veterans of World War II.

I can't improve on the obituary of Betty that Melinda Penkava posted on Town Dock. I would like, however, to put her service in the United States Marine Corps in a larger perspective.

Women served as doctors in the Civil War and as nurses in many of our wars. But it wasn't until the United States entered World War I in 1917 that women were accepted into the uniformed services in significant numbers. 11,000 women volunteered for service during that war, almost all of them in the Navy and Marine Corps.

This was brought about by President Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, North Carolina newspaper editor and publisher Josephus Daniels.

Secretary Daniels sought authority to enlist women to serve in shore billets so the men could be sent to sea. Eventually, he decided he already had the authority and just did it. The newly-recruited women were categorized as "Yeoman (F)" and most were assigned to clerical duties. He did the same thing for the other service under his authority, the US Marine Corps. The women were colloquially called "Yeomanettes."

One of the early recruits, Frieda Mae Hardin, a 22- year old department store clerk in Portsmouth, Ohio, later described her experience: "I heard about the Navy taking women on a Saturday night, and I signed up first thing Monday morning," Mrs. Hardin said in 1997. "I wanted to do something more, something bigger and better."

Another woman who served in the navy in World War I was Mrs. Lena S. Higbee, Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She was awarded the Navy Cross for her work. I once served on a WWII vintage Gearing Class destroyer named in her honor.

When the war ended, the women were released and went back to civilian life.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it seemed natural to reestablish the enlistment of women for the war effort, though not everyone agreed. Women were needed in defense industry as well.

Despite the opposition, the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve was established in February, 1943. About 20,000 women joined the Marine Corps during WWII. They made a substantial contribution. By the end of the war, for example, 85% of enlisted personnel assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps were women.

In the field, women served in some 200 different enlisted specialties, from aerial gunnery instructor to quartermaster, including radio operator, parachute rigger, control tower operator, cryptographer, auto mechanic and telegraph operator.

Our Betty was a quartermaster.

Let's join together to honor her service and that of those who followed in her footsteps.

Today women serve in 93 percent of all Marine Corps occupational specialties and serve in more than 60 percent of all billets. Women count for more than six percent of the Marine Corps and are an integral part of the force.

On War

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.

Sun Tzu: The Art of War