Voices of Central Pennsylvania September 2015 by Voices of Central Pennsylvania, Inc, a 501(c)3 Non-Profit

VOICES Jewelweed

OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA

pg. 11

Thoughtful. Fearless. Free.

Moral Hazard and Big 10 Climate Commitments

El Niño pg. 10

By Matt Dahlhausen Late this year, representatives from countries around the world will gather in Paris for COP21, the United Nations “Conference of Parties” on Climate Change. The goal of the conference is to get verifiable, enforceable commitments from countries around the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to limit global warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels. Countries may make commitments at COP21, but enforcing them will be tricky. Enforcement requires well-designed policy and public pressure to transform the energy backbone of institutions, industries, and economies. A key risk for decisionmakers at all levels is to set high emissions reduction goals far into the future. That delaying process shifts the responsibility to our successors, who can dismiss past commitments as being overly optimistic. This is the problem of moral corruption, as Stephen Gardiner calls it, in which "those who stand to benefit from business as usual, or who will

have to forgo a good deal of their present comfort, will be attracted to inadequate and half-hearted measures. Such measures allow them (that is to say: us) the reassurance that they are doing something to address the problem while, in fact, they are changing very little." Looking at how large, public institutions in the U.S. are handling their current emissions reductions programs, and their future climate commitments, is one way to check on the feasibility of transforming that socioeconomic dependence on fossil fuel energy. This brings us to public universities, including Penn State. Public universities have several key characteristics relating to decision-making, incentive structures and cultural influence. They are large, with student, staff, and faculty ...

see climate, pg. 3

Profile: Tyne & The Fastlyne

Figure 1 - 2005 - 2050 University of Maryland greenhouse gas emissions reduction performance trends based on % reduction per year.

Figure 2 - 2005 - 2050 University of Maryland cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, based on percent reduction per year. The red bar corresponds to the red line in Figure 1

By Jason Crane Banjo player and singer Tyne Palazzi is one of central Pennsylvania's musical treasures. Palazzi's banjo playing is effortless. Even when she's playing the most complicated figures, she makes it look like it's the easiest thing in the world. And her voice. Sweet lord, her voice. I've heard Tyne & The Fastlyne play Mick Ralphs' "Oh, Atlanta," which for me will always be an Alison Krauss song, and Tyne nails it. There are very few singers I can compare favorably to Krauss, but Tyne Palazzi makes that list. Palazzi and the banjo go back a long way. "I start-

ed playing the banjo when I was six years old," she said. "My grandfather and I used to go to flea markets and yard sales all the time. One day I saw a tenor banjo (with four strings) and wanted it for some reason. He made a deal with me and said that he would buy it as long as I learned how to play. I agreed, and he bought the banjo for me. We then got a new neck made for it that had five strings, and I started taking lessons."

see Palazzi, pg. 8

September 2015

Issue #218

Adapting or dying? We'll know by mid-winter Since taking on this editor gig, I’ve been gathering information about the resources needed to create and put out a free local newspaper once a month. For example, the July issue pulled together the unpaid efforts of 21 local writers, who contributed a total of about 14,500 words; eight local photographers; a few hundred dollars in ad revenue from 13 local advertisers; and financial donations from supporters – primarily through the CentreGives fundraiser, which netted the paper $1,400. Linda Meek spent 20-30 hours selling advertisements. Marilyn Jones and I put in roughly 40 hours of copy editing between us, along with a half-dozen volunteer proofreaders who each put in an hour. Luciano Sormani put in about 15 hours to do layout, and then Kevin Handwerk put in at least 50-60 hours distributing the paper. The paid staff – editor, advertising manager, layout editor and distribution manager, were paid a combined $936. The print run – 5,000 copies of a 24-page paper – cost

just under $1,000. Over the last several years, Voices has endured a downward spiral of internal instability, with staff never sure whether there will be enough content or enough money to put out the next issue. Not surprisingly, editor turnover has been high: roughly one per year since Suzan Erem left in 2011. The instability has, in turn, made it difficult to maintain community investment in the paper. The pool of volunteers interested in serving on the board, writing, editing, taking photos and distributing the paper has dwindled, and sustaining financial donations are few. Much of the instability is related to the normal life cycle of civic organizations. The high energy and commitment of founders gives way to burnout, until the organization either folds or restructures itself, adapting the original mission to changing environmental circumstances, and energizing a new group of leaders and contributors. Voices is at such a turning point,

In This Issue

2.. ..... Adapting or Dying? 3 . . ..... Big 10 Climate Commitments 5. . ..... PSU should apply whole systems-thinking 6.. ..... Local Home-Scale Photovoltaic Solar Power 7. . ..... Advice to Agripreneurs 8...... Musician Profile: Tyne Palazzi 9.. ..... Poet of the Month ~ Julia Spicher Kasdorf 9.. ..... Whitey Blue 10..... Winter Outlook 11.. .... Jewelweed - A Gem in the Marsh 12..... An Uncommon Fall Visitor 13..... A Tale of Two Nittany Theatres 14..... Yemen a hotspot in US-Iran power struggle 15..... Superlatives Overtake the Airwaves 16..... The LAguide to PetEuphoria 17..... Not made in China

Katherine Watt Editor and I’ve urged the current board to put the paper into hibernation for a few months to make time for governance and production retooling. Legal restructuring will probably include updating and simplifying the mission and bylaws to maximize organizational flexibility, and transitioning to a new

CONTACT US Voices of Central Pennsylvania P.O. Box 10066 State College, PA 16805-0066 editor@voicesweb.org voicesweb.org SUPPORT VOICES Voices of Central Pennsylvania is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit volunteer organization. Your donations and bequests keep Voices free and independent. Donate at voicesweb. org or email: editor@voicesweb. org for details. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Voices encourages letters to the editor and opinion pieces commenting on local issues. Letters should be a maximum of 250 words; opinion pieces should be a maximum of 800 words. We reserve the right to edit length. Because of space limitations we cannot guarantee publication. Send submissions to: editor@voicesweb.org. Letters become the property of Voices. ADVERTISING POLICY Write to advertising@voicesweb. org for rate information.

18..... Ways Ferguson Township Can Protect Water 19..... September Public Meetings Calendar

board. At the same time, staff could retool production to create a hybrid online-print publication, beef up Voices Facebook presence, and develop simplified online systems for local writers and photographers to submit content, and for advertisers to submit online and print ads and payments. The goal would be to launch the new hybrid publication in January 2016. This community – our community – of activists, readers, writers, poets, photographers, artists and editors, will be collectively testing the hypothesis that governance and production retooling can rebuild the vitality and relevance of Voices as an amplifier for people and ideas marginalized by corporate sources of news and analysis. Visit the Voices Facebook page over the next few months for updates as the process gets underway. And join the Facebook group “The Future of Voices of Central Pennsylvania” to share your ideas and help prepare Voices for 2016 and beyond.

EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR Katherine Watt editor@voicesweb.org COPY-EDITOR Marilyn Jones copyeditor@voicesweb.org LAYOUT Luciano Sormani arts@voicesweb.org OPERATIONS Advertising Manager Vacant Circulation Manager Kevin Handwerk circulation@voicesweb.org Webmaster Bill Eichman bill@voicesweb.org BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Elaine Meder-Wilgus Vice President Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. Secretary Chip Mefford Treasurer

Vacant

September 2015

Moral Hazard and Big 10 Climate Commitments By: Matt Dahlhausen matthewdahlhausen@gmail.com

from climate, pg. 1 ... populations amounting to a small city. They have access to public funding, and they have a social mission that has traditionally encouraged greater moral scrutiny compared to similarly sized institutions. For example, government agencies regulate university animal research far more stringently than animal handling in agriculture. About 85% of public universities’ emissions come from heating, cooling, and powering their buildings. Since universities have centralized infrastructure and management, they are in a much better position to retrofit their building stock than the average commercial building owner. If public universities can’t retrofit their buildings to go carbon neutral, with public interest rates on capital, and a culture that is generally supportive of climate action (especially when compared to government legislatures), then it seems unlikely to expect much emissions reduction from the buildings sector overall. In other words, if actual emissions reductions and enforceable climate commitments are slow to materialize from public universities, then we may expect bleaker prospects from the economy at large. Then again, perhaps universities are more justified in reducing less than other large organizations because of the public benefit of their core mission. If emissions reductions prove to be extremely expensive, how much do reduction commitments take priority over other parts of the University mission?

Assessing Emissions Reductions at Big 10 Universities How much have schools in the Big10 already reduced their emissions? Some schools are doing quite well; the available information is summarized in Table 1. Penn State has cut emissions about 20% from 2005 levels. University of Maryland has reduced emissions by 18% from 2005 levels. University of Minnesota has reduced emissions by 22% from 2008 levels; Michigan State by 18% from 2009 levels. Facilities managers at these schools are doing a good job: tracking and reducing emissions while adding lots of high-energy demand

buildings to their campuses. Few other large companies, municipalities, or government institutions show 20% emission reductions in 10 years. Unfortunately, other Big 10 schools have shown smaller reductions, some have actually increased emissions from their baseline, and many simply don’t track greenhouse gas emissions. This is discouraging, especially

electricity by 2020 by purchasing only from renewable sources." Penn State’s internal facilities management has set a goal to reduce emissions by 35% by 2020. The University of Illinois, whose 2014 progress report shows 12% reduction from 2008 emissions, has an innovative, unique and inspiring “no net increase in space” policy. I support Penn State and other Big

All Big10 universities rely on a central heating plant to provide steam, hot water, and power to their buildings, and of the four schools that have signed the ACUPCC, aiming to reduce their emissions by more than 80% by 2050, none have a plan for how to handle the heating plant.

because the inaction isn’t reflected well in the sustainability rankings. The most common ranking - the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Stars tool - allocates only 27 out of a possible 208 points to energy or greenhouse-gas reduction efforts. The rest of the points are a mix of anything and everything that fits under the sustainability umbrella. So it’s possible to get full marks for sustainability coordination and planning by mentioning sustainability a lot in campus strategic and master plans, usually in reference to landscaping, without having plans to reduce building energy consumption, or even without knowledge of the current emissions trend.

Evaluating Big 10 Climate Plans What are the Big 10 schools’ long term plans for reducing emissions further? University of Maryland has made a commitment by signing the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), with a commitment to become climate neutral by 2050. Four out of 14 schools in the Big10 have done so, although Penn State has not. There isn’t an easy way to compare commitments or plans. UMD president Wallace D. Loh has pledged to “reduce electricity use on campus by 20% by 2020 via energy efficiency upgrades that reduce operating expenses and preserve occupant comfort; carbon-neutral new construction; and eliminate carbon emissions from purchased

10 schools making firm commitments and doing the work to achieve those goals and assess progress. Yet this planning piece is where current efforts are lacking. Why? Because all Big10 universities rely on a central heating plant to provide steam, hot water, and power to their buildings, and of the four schools that have signed the ACUPCC, aiming to reduce their emissions by more than 80% by 2050, none have a plan for how to handle the heating plant. The majority of emissions reductions to date from universities have come from burning less coal and more natural gas, which is less carbon intensive. This gets cheap emissions reductions in the short term, but gas is still a fossil fuel. There aren’t many good options to handle heating plants. Replacing gas with biomass requires an entourage of trucks to deliver it, increasing traffic in usually dense urban areas. The environmental benefits of biomass are suspect, depending on the source. Switching to a ground-source heat pump system requires much more expensive electricity, which is still carbon intensive, and would require massive amounts of capital. Given the difficulty, some schools have presumed that they will be buying substantial carbon offsets indefinitely. Clearly, carbon neutral goals are overly optimistic given the strategic planning evidenced in university climate action plans. Many schools made reduction goals or commitments before they knew how to attain them, or if it was even possible. And many did so without dedicated funding for more than about 30% of their

reduction efforts. For example, UMD’s climate neutrality plan from 2009, now being revised, offered the suggestion for UMD to build a biomass steam plant in 10 years to replace one-third of the emissions, and then perpetually offset one-quarter of the school’s emissions. Neither of these initiatives are anchored in the campus strategic or master plan. It’s misleading to call something like this a climate action plan. It’s more a collection of ideas about possible ways to reduce emissions without interfering with other parts of the University mission.

Feasibility Assessments Penn State and UMD, two of four of the universities with the best reduction efforts thus far, are currently achieving 2 to 3% emissions reductions per year. Both universities assume that these reductions, mostly from their energy programs, will continue or expand. In the near-term, this is probably accurate, as the energy programs get better at identifying and implementing conservation projects. But the best projects will be exhausted, and reductions will be offset by new construction. Energy programs can probably reach a maximum of 30 to 60% emissions reductions, if positive financial returns are required. Given current plans, those projects will be exhausted by the late 2020s, even with technology improvements. At that point, further emissions reductions will become more difficult as the cheap energy savings projects are exhausted. But many university sustainability plans unrealistically anticipate being able to increase their energy savings rates after that point, from 2-3% per year to beyond 4% per year, about the same amount of absolute reductions per year. (See Figure 1)

Checking Emissions Targets The targets themselves are also disconnected from the actual impacts of carbon emissions. There is a popular meme that the target should be 80 to 100% reduction by 2050, copied from a projection that the world would need to reduce emissions by that much to stay within that 2°C warming target. This target is somewhat convenient for the U.S., because it assumes that we have an equal share in reducing our emissions as other countries, despite

September 2015 bearing a disproportionately high share of the responsibility for historical emissions. The 80 to 100% reduction target also fails to reflect updated climate science, the projections for emissions impact, and the changing costs of offsets. Furthermore, the targets are often given as a percent reduction by a given year, whereas the damage depends on total cumulative emissions. Reducing emissions by a slower rate per year initially, and postponing major emissions reductions, greatly increases the cumulative carbon pollution. See Figure 2 - as an example of total cumulative emissions given different reduction rates between 2005 and 2050 for UMD.

Conclusion Given that further cuts become more technically and financially difficult, I think it's better to have an upfront planning conversation about how to cut the most intractable source Photo by Katherine Watt//VOICES of emissions: heating plants, commuting and airline travel, and offset commitments, rather

The West Campus Steam Plant at Penn State.

than project non-specific emissions reduction plans far in the future. This conversation is starting to happen at UMD. Penn State has so far avoided it. And although 80 to 100% emissions reduction by 2050 may end up being an appropriate target for the Big 10 schools, it should be generated from some moral calculus specific to the University, not simply adopted from the U.S. policy machine. There is certainly room for reasonable debate on this. Most importantly, we need to have this public conversation about capabilities, targets, and commitments now, so we don't fall prey to the hazard of moral corruption, and fail to do what we can now to ease the painful tradeoffs our successors will need to make.  Matt Dahlhausen earned a masters in Architectural Engineering at Penn State in May 2014 with a focus onstaging building energy retrofits, and developing online energy simulation tools. He is a doctoral student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland.

School

ACUPCC Signer?

AASHE Recognition (Level, Year)

Campus emissions Campus sustainability or climate trend readily action plan goals? available through a web search?

Notes

Pennsylvania State University

Gold, 2014

Yes

2005 baseline. 35% by 2020

18% reduction from 2005 levels as of 2013

University of Maryland

Yes

Gold, 2014

Yes

2005 baseline. 15% by 2012, 25% by 2015, 50% by 2020, 60% by 2025, 100% by 2050

2014 progress report shows 18% below 2005 baseline

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

Yes

Gold, 2015

Yes

2008 baseline. 15% by 2015, 30% by 2020, 40% by 2025 of building related emissions, 40% building energy by 2025

2014 progress report shows 12% reduction from 2008. Innovative “no net increase in space” policy

University of Minnesota

Yes

Silver, 2012

Yes

2008 baseline. 10% by 2015, 20% by 2020, 35% by 2025, 50% by 2030, 80% by 2040, 100% by 2050

22% reduction so far, mostly by switching to gas.

Ohio State University

Yes

Silver, 2012

2008 baseline. 50% by 2030, 100% by 2050

Current emissions are very close to 2008 levels.

Indiana University

Silver, 2011

Yes

2008 baseline. 30% by 2020

Progress unclear

University of Michigan

Gold, 2015

Yes

2006 baseline. 25% by 2025

Current emissions are slightly higher than baseline

Michigan State

expired

30% by 2015, 45% by 2020, 55% by 2025, 65% by 2030

18% reduction from 2009 levels

University of Iowa

Gold, 2013

Yes

Use less energy in 2020 than 2010

Progress unclear

University of Nebraska– Lincoln

Bronze, 2014

Purdue University

Silver, 2013

Northwestern University

Yes

2005 baseline. 30% by 2016

Progress unclear

Rutgers University–New Brunswick

2009 sustainability plan outlines plans for ~10-20% emissions reduction

Progress unclear

University of Wisconsin– Madison

Comparative Data for Big 10 schools emissions reduction performance and goals. Compiled by Matt Dahlhausen from the online sources, contact the author for links.

September 2015

PSU should apply whole systems-thinking By: Johan Zwart zwart.johan@gmail.com

Penn State wants to sell land near the intersection of Whitehall Road and Blue Course Drive to Toll Brothers developers for a resort-style student housing project. This plan is in the works - likely to come up for a vote by the Ferguson Township supervisors by October - despite ample research showing that the development is potentially damaging to some of the drinking water resources for State College Borough Water Authority customers. In addition to water impacts, the proposed development would cause more traffic congestion and vehicular pollution, and could result in more drunk driving accidents. It would increase local population density and the already high population ratio between students and permanent residents, exacerbating already tense relationships between town and gown. Penn State’s role in the ongoing hazing lawsuit filed by James Vivenzio against the Kappa Delta Rho fraternity is just one example of the many ways that promoting off-campus student housing limits Penn State’s ability to control student behavior. University officials regularly claim they have more power to impose consequences on students who live on-campus than on off-campus students. At the same time, Penn State continues to struggle The East Campus Steam Plant at Penn State. with lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Penn State also already owns and operates agricultural research land along Route 45, at the Russell E. Larsen Agricultural Research Center. The Penn State Sustainability Institute The university could make headway on multiple already has the MorningStar solar problems - protecting public water supplies, expanding sustainable agriculture practices and home, showcasing renewable energy production, improving campus energy efficiency, architectural design. It would be great enforcing responsible student behavior, and to add to the university’s solar and generating good public relations - by supporting rezoning of the proposed student housing lot at waste-heat portfolio, especially in a Whitehall and Blue Course to Rural Agricultural location highly visible to land use, to create an organic research area that does football traffic. not use pesticides, and by building high-density oncampus student housing along Porter Road between the East Campus Steam Plant and College Avenue. Student housing development along Porter Road could be heated by the “waste” heat from the district would allow for short, energy-efficient student heating system capacity at the East Campus Steam commutes to classes; offer good, even walkable, Plant. Moreover, many local people have invested access to town; protect local water resources; and

Photo by Katherine Watt//VOICES

significant time - and Penn State has invested about $50,000 - to create Community Solar on State, a town-gown partnership working to increase local solar power generating capacity. Porter Road student housing development could include rooftop photovoltaic solar power. The Penn State Sustainability Institute already has the MorningStar solar home, showcasing renewable energy architectural design. It would be great to add to the university’s solar and waste-heat portfolio, especially in a location highly visible to football traffic. Penn State has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in institutional use of solar technology and best use of natural gas waste heat. Johan Zwart is a State College resident and president of ZW-Art Mechatronics Inc.

September 2015

Photo by Greg Ziegler

5.5 kW photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of Greg and Renee Ziegler’s College Township home.

Local Home-Scale Photovoltaic Solar Power 3.3% more electricity than originally projected prior to installation. The Zieglers also have solar thermal collectors on (Adapted from an interview published in the their roof. The pressurized hot water system “takes April 2015 CITY-GREEN newsletter) care of nearly all of our hot water needs May through September, and supplements the utility-heated In College Township, Greg and Renee Ziegler have water the rest of the year,” Ziegler said, adding that been transitioning their 2,700-square foot home the system works so well in the summer that extra to blend in with the natural surroundings, and to hot water needs to be tempered with cold water. In 2009 the Zieglers also upgraded some of reduce their environmental footprint. their older appliances to Energy Star appliances. For the landscape, they’ve planted native species, (some chosen to provide an energy-saving windbreak According to the nlcpr.com “Appliance Data” website, for their house), and expanded their permaculture if the previous dishwasher, electric clothes dryer and electric clothes washer were at least 12 years garden of food-producing plantings. In 2009, the Zieglers decided to supplement old, the Energy Star replacements would be roughly utility-supplied electricity with photovoltaic power. 30%, 50%, and 70% more efficient (respectively). Their 5.52 kW rooftop solar array, installed by That would equal 227 kWh, 474 kWh, and 663 kWh, Envinity, now provides about 64% of their annual respectively, in yearly energy savings: $136 per year in energy cost savings at 10 cents per kWh. electricity needs. The Zieglers’ college-age children have been Greg Ziegler is a Food Science professor at influenced by the household’s renewable energy Penn State. He said he first began thinking about installation; they’ve learned that they can make installing a solar system on a future home in the personal choices that can affect other people’s lives. 1970s. He and Renee installed the system in 2009 “I asked one of them and he said that the way we because they could use a 30% federal tax rebate and do things, solar included, makes him more conscious the Pennsylvania Sunshine Grant to help finance of his energy use, including cycling instead of using the project. Module prices were falling so rapidly the car,” Ziegler said. “It definitely got one of them [~22% in 2009] that the Zieglers postponed the construction of their system from February until interested in sustainable design.” When asked how long he thinks it will be before October, and expanded the planned capacity from his entire neighborhood goes solar, Ziegler noted that 3.4 kW to 5.5 kW. one neighbor in the 30-unit development installed The install cost for the Ziegler system was $45,797, with a net $19,658 investment after the federal tax an 8.1 kW system in March 2013, making it “two out rebate and state grant. As of April 2015, the system of 30 at this point.” Ziegler said he would support Penn State following had produced 32.5 megawatts of electricity since the lead of local homeowners who have installed PV installation. Overall, the system has been producing

By: Mike Rybacki michaelrybo@yahoo.com

solar, to install capacity on campus buildings. “There are plenty of rooftops on campus,” Ziegler said. “And the tops of the parking garages could be covered to provide power along with shade for cars.”  Mike Rybacki is the founder and former chair of CITY-GREEN, a community organization working “to promote energy conservation and the integration of renewable, sustainable energy into the local community, through advising local organizations and participating in local projects.” Solar System Financials

Sticker Price...........................................$45,797 Post-rebate Investment...............................$19,658 Break Even Point................................................ 8 years (including real property equity)

Break Even Point..................................... 21 years (not including real property equity)

30-year projected Savings....................... $30,991 Utility bill savings through April 2015.......... $4,130 Rate of savings..................................................... 12.5% (including real property equity)

Rate of savings............................................ 4.5% (not including real property equity)

System production through April 2015.... 32.5 Mwh

September 2015

Advice to agripreneurs; it starts with an idea

- carrots take 80 days to mature and cost $1 per pound, while salad takes 30 days and costs $8 per pound.

By: Woody Wilson woody@wilsonhomefarms.com

Start-ups are cool these days. Farm start-ups are even cooler. In cities around the country, “agripreneurs” are starting farm-totable restaurants, fresh food delivery, community supported agriculture (CSA) farms and a slew of other niche businesses. A few years ago, I started one of these companies in State College: a personal farming company called Wilson Home Farms. My original idea was to combine the CSA model with the lawn care business model to create a backyard farming business. Four years later, the company has now evolved to have a mission to “Make Gardening Easy for Everyone.” Taking an idea and turning it into a business has taken me down many different paths and has been a lesson eglerin humility. Developing a company is an organic process; it has a beginning, but once started does not have an end, apart from failure or the sale of the company. The biggest and scariest lesson is that as passionate as you may be about egleryour idea, it might not be a good one, d beor it might not be a good fit for the ars.”community you live in; it might be better placed in a big city, or deep in the country. Being realistic should be a hairguiding tenet, but after that tenacity is tionyour biggest ally. and Here are more things that it’s taught ergyme. ocal ts.” You Don’t Know What

You Don’t Know

When I opened Wilson Home Farms I knew all about organic agriculture. I knew how to manage pests organically. I knew the number of row feet of salad plants that would yield a pound of greens, and I knew how important it was for people to

Being present with the reality of what is going on in your company is hard for idealistic agripreneurs to do. There are signs that you are doing the right thing, and signs that you are not. If you are tight-lipped and whitefaced, this is a sign that you and your company might be ready for a pivot. Pay attention to these signs; they will guide you to success.

Seek out advice, but don't take it all

Photo provided by Woody Wilson

Woody Wilson with his garden-in-a-pickup. know their farmer. When my website was hacked, however - and who hacks a farmer’s website? - I did not have a clue how to remove the inappropriate text that was strategically placed above my logo. When I wanted to make my handdrawn logo digitized, I had no idea how to use Photoshop. When I wanted to send out invitations to the people on my mailing list to an open house at one of my gardens, I had to learn what “mail merge” means. Agripreneurs don’t have money in the startup budget to waste having the t-shirt printing company charge you for a proof because you could not design your own, or for a web designer to make a website that you cannot edit without paying them. In general, when I opened Wilson Home Farms I did not know that these skills would be needed. Agripreneurs get their strength from their trade, but must recognize that anyone can farm, or make jelly, or make soap, but not everyone can put together all the pieces that make a business successful.

There are some great local and Internet resources I used to fill in my educational gaps. The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has a class called “The First Step to Starting a Business.” They have other classes covering “the second step,” marketing, QuickBooks and much more. The “First Step” class helped me frame the needs of my company after I had an idea of what a backyard farmer does. Youtube videos have been another great resource. You can learn everything from those. I’m currently learning HTML and CSS so that I can totally control my website someday, and have learned enough already to be able to make it look pretty and update my content without a web developer. I’ve also learned Photoshop techniques to create business cards, flyers, posters and much more, for free, whenever I want them, without having to spend weeks emailing back and forth with a graphic design friend working pro bono to help me out.

Every Tuesday ~ 2 pm - 6 pm Summer Season: Pennsylvania Military Museum Parking Lot, Boalsburg, PA Winter Season: St. John's United Church of Christ, 218 N. Church St., Boalsburg, PA

boalsburgfarmersmarket.com

SNAP benefits coming this fall.

For more information, visit our facebook page or stop by the market!

Follow What Works Agripreneurship is about progress. You constantly push forward, creating new things, following new ideas and striving to make a positive change in the world. But many agripreneurs blindly run down this path, not stopping to see if they are forcing something that will not work. Sometimes these things are small, like when I thought hand watering all my backyard farms would work. Some are large, like when I realized my standard square foot price was too vague

Many State College community groups and people helped me take an idea and turn it into a business. People are your most valuable resource, but if you choose advisors incorrectly you can make costly mistakes. When I was a younger, more impressionable entrepreneur, I would listen to anyone’s advice and work to follow it. People at trade shows would come up to me and tell me what I should be selling. Some things were helpful: “You should install fruit trees.” Some were in no way profitable: “You should install your gardens for free, then use part of the land to grow for the farmers market.” And some were just plain silly: “If you used horses to plow your gardens…” What I learned is that words are cheap, and ideas are easy. What is hard is turning an idea into something that will create positive change in the community while allowing you to support yourself. An idea is only as good as its ability to survive and thrive. There is a place in town called New Leaf Initiative, where changemakers meet and work. I’ve met many people there who, while doing their own thing, also find areas of overlap with their co-workers. I’ve met people who can provide insight on graphic design, buying property, and compost-tea brewing, just by sitting across the table from them. They even have a “saladclub” on Fridays where community members involved in the local food scene sit around for lunch and talk about local food issues. I hope the lessons I’ve learned as an agripreneur in State College can provide insight and resources for readers who have wanted to start a local food business, and are getting ready to start the adventure.  Woody Wilson is the founder and owner of Wilson Home Farms. For more information, check out wilsonhomefarms.com.

September 2015

Musician Profile: Tyne Palazzi By JASON Crane

from Palazzi, pg. 1 It came easily to her, Palazzi said, and it didn't take long for her to get serious about it. "I can't remember a time when I wasn't playing the banjo," she said. "I even played in my high school's competition marching band." Palazzi was lucky early on to make some important connections. First among them was Tony Furtado, an award-winning banjo and slide guitar player who has toured with Duane Allman, Derek Trucks and Sonny Landreth, among others. "My style of playing is similar to his, but also a little different," she said. "When he was living on the East Coast, I would go for a two-hour lesson with him once a month. This lasted for a few years, so his style of playing has inf luenced mine pretty significantly." The Fastlyne, Palazzi's band, is made up of Bill "Wiggus" Wilgus on mandolin and guitar, John "JK" Kennedy on upright bass, and Kevin Lowe on drums. Wilgus and Lowe also sing, giving the band that traditional three-part harmony that makes bluegrass music so gorgeous. Wilgus is highly accomplished on both mandolin and guitar, but he always uses his impressive chops in service of the music. Lowe and Kennedy are rock solid, which is important because music like this absolutely depends on strong rhythm. "I think our different musical backgrounds gives us an edge," Palazzi said. "Wiggus, JK and Kevin can play anything. I am always amazed at their depth of knowledge when it comes to different songs. I mean, we were rehearsing the other day and Wiggus and JK started playing a song from KISS. Because of this musical diversity, we don't play your typical bluegrass, Celtic, rock, jazz or blues style of music; it's more of a blending of those different genres. We are also good friends and get along really well." The band primarily plays songs by other songwriters. Palazzi does sometimes pen a song of her own, though she said she struggles with songwriting. "I have written a few songs, but I never feel like they are as good as other writers' songs," she said. "Sometimes a song will just come to me and other times I struggle. The only time I was able to write a song in a short amount of time happened when I was in Ireland on a study abroad trip. I was homesick and wrote a song called 'Summer's Dream.' I was trying to take a nap on the only day we had to ourselves and this song - the lyrics, melody, everything - just kept running through my head. I finally decided

P mak deta part wha K Priz Photo by Jason Crane//VOICES She Tyne & The Fastlyne at Summer's Best Music Fest. Poet H that I better write it down before I forgot it, so 20 minutes later it was in no finished. That has not happened for me since. I think writing is fun when everything works out, but very frustrating when nothing comes to me." Wilgus is currently at work producing a live album recorded at a recent Tyne & The Fastlyne show. Palazzi said she hopes to release more albums in the coming years. She also loves playing for a live audience. "I like to hear the audience's reaction to a song," she said. "The energy a live performance produces is also really cool, especially when someone has a great solo or our harmonies are spot on." This band just happens to be based in central PA. If you walked in on them in a club anywhere in the U.S., you'd think you'd walked in on a very special night. And you'd be right.ď ŽJason Crane hosts the morning show on 98.7 FM The FREQ in State College, and interviews jazz musicians at thejazzsession.com. His writing can be found at jasoncrane.org.

September 2015

VOICES CHOICES Poet of the Month ~ Julia Spicher Kasdorf By SARAH RUSSELL voicespoetry@aol.com

Penn State professor Julia Spicher Kasdorf writes to make sense of experience, to fashion images out of the details of everyday life. She works, she said, “with the particular and the local, the specific and concrete, asking what matters to us at this time, in this place.” Kasdorf’s poetry has won the prestigious Pushcart Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She has published three poetry books as part of the Pitt Poetry Series, most recently Poetry in America. Her current interests have led Kasdorf to spend time in northern and southwestern Pennsylvania where people

F Word

The industry spelling of fracking is actually fracing.

Without the K, it looks less violent: water pressure creates fractures that allow oil and gas to escape—as if they were trapped—under tight regulatory control. Blame the fracktivists, fracademics. A bumper sticker claims, I’m surrounded by gasholes. Frack her ‘til she blows, says a tee shirt stretched on a roughneck’s chest at the Williamsport Wegman’s. Frackville, PA, named for Daniel Frack, from vrack, Middle Low German: greedy, stingy, damaged, useless. Are you going to say what the word suggests, a student timidly asks, to women, I mean? Fracket, a sophomore explains, is a hoodie worn over your spaghetti strap dress to a frat house, an old jacket that won’t matter if it gets stolen or left behind on a flagstone patio, splattered with someone’s else’s vomit. First published in EPOCH, vol. 64, no. 2 (summer 2015)

are living with the impact of the shale gas boom. “I’ve been trying to capture the ways this industry is changing language, landscape, everyday life in these communities,” she said. “This work has made me examine my own beliefs about land use and energy, and to think about extractive industries in the past, here, and elsewhere on the globe.” Kasdorf says when she was in graduate school she was told to avoid writing “political poetry” - that it would diminish her art. “We were supposed to be writing poetry for the ages, not ‘small’ political poems.” Instead, she believes that poets can and should avoid the strategic simplifications that are often necessary in political argument and activism. “If I am trying to tell the truth about experience in its full complexity, isn’t that an appropriate subject for art?” The poem she chose for Voices is part of a collaborative project on the impact of the shale industry. “It’s a meditation on the word ‘frack,’ which is a shortened form of ‘fracture,’ and deals with resource extraction, history, exploitation, student culture and words in an exploratory way. And, of course,” she says, “it moves through various associative connections.”  If you would like to be a Voices featured poet, please Julia Spicher Kasdorf contact Sarah Russell, voicespoetry@aol.com.

Photo by Philip Ruth

Whitey Blue on widening highways (again) By: DAVID M. SILVERMAN VOICES satirist dsilverman104@comcast.net I was talking again the other day to Whitey Blue, longtime Centre Region resident and hardnose. I know we’ve discussed this recently, but there’s been more news lately about widening some highways in Central Pennsylvania. You were strongly in favor of it then. Do you still feel the same way?

“No! After more careful consideration I’ve changed my mind. I think it would be a waste of taxpayer’s money!” But some of the roads under consideration for widening are so narrow now that a car and a semi couldn’t fit on the same stretch at the same time! “Let ‘em pick some other route! We should keep the rural ambience of those old roads!”  David M. Silverman sees highway widening as another affront on our society by the profracking interests.

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September 2015

Winter Outlook…Will El Niño Save The Day? By: Jay Searles jay@weatherranger.com Winter 2015-16: What will it be like? Will we break the pattern of the last two years - perhaps warm but wet? Or will it be cold and snowy again? So far the weather world is touting what could be a record-breaking El Niño event for the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This region of the earth is affected by a shift in the wind pattern that causes the usually cold water from the Peru coast all the way to the middle Pacific to become warm. This change in the wind, and then the warm water that follows, has - in past cycles -

Jay Searles Meteorologist

Figure 1) Sea surface temperature anomalies as of August 14, 2015. Orange to red areas are above average, blue areas are below average.

Figure 2) Comparison of sea ice decline in the warm season for the Arctic since 2006. The black line is 2015, showing much “less” sea ice loss this year.

dramatically impacted weather patterns around the world. Much of South Asia and Australia enter into droughts, and California and the southern United States get very wet during the winter. But there are some subtle differences that can “ruin” these flips. As of mid-August 2015, Figure 1 shows present sea surface temperature anomalies over the Pacific and the North Atlantic. Notice the orange and red from Alaska to California, and then the El Niño (yellow to orange) east of Peru along the equator. In previous years with El Niño, the ocean temperatures have been much colder from Alaska to California. So far this year, they continue to be Figure 3) Long range forecast of temperatures from much warmer than average, and they have been NOAA for December 2015 now for three years. This spring and summer had to February 2016 for the near record warm waters off the California coast, United States: above average with dire consequences to the marine life. This is in red shaded colors, below termed the positive phase of the Pacific Decadal average in blue. Oscillation or PDO. It flips between cold and warm phases every five to 15 years or so. The last strong El Niño in 1996-97 was during a cold phase, the opposite of what we see here. Next let’s look at arctic sea ice. There is a lot of it this summer. This is the first summer in a long time that there will probably be sea ice on parts of Hudson’s bay through August. This is very important! For at least the last five years it has been gone by the first week of August. Figure 2 shows how much sea ice we have this year compared to the last nine years of record. More sea ice translates into much more cold air in the Arctic, and that has been showing up in observations, with temperatures below freezing already

along the far northern shores of Canada. Finally, let’s look at NOAA long range forecasts (Figure 3), not so much for direct information, but for data to interpret. Figure 3 shows the jet stream pattern. In order for it to be warm in Alaska, the jet stream must surge north from the Pacific. I have no doubt the jet stream will do this, because the warm water in the north Pacific acts as a block to the jet stream and forces it north. But the consequences are: what goes up, must come down. This has been the rule for the last two winters. It has helped strengthen that polar vortex over eastern Canada and drive the jet stream along with wave after wave of cold air southward into the eastern half of the United States. So until the North Pacific turns colder (which is still possible this fall or early winter), I doubt El Niño will be the “game changer” many forecasters seem to be predicting. In fact, I think this year’s El Nino could make the winter have much more snow from the central plains right into the middle and northeast Atlantic coast, by providing an abundance of moisture for those waves of cold air. Here are my predictions. First choice: Central Pennsylvania will be colder and have more snow than average for the 2015-16 winter months. Confidence is at 65%. My second choice is that El Niño will eventually provide the energy needed to break down the west coast ridge by the end of January or so, and we’ll flip from cold to warmer conditions, but still stormy. Confidence here is only at 45%. Third choice is that the ocean temperatures turn colder in the North Pacific, and then we get a major shift in the jet stream bringing warmer air to the eastern United States so it will not be as cold. In that case, we would get more rain than snow here in State College. Only 30% confidence at this point, pretty low. You can see much more detail at weatherranger. com along with a video explanation. I also will continue to monitor and come out with a final outlook end of October or the first part of November. Stay tuned!  Jay Searles is a meteorologist with over 25 years of experience in forecasting. He spends his time as lead forecaster with Weather Ranger and teaching college level meteorology online. Learn more about Jay and the weather at http://weatherranger.com.

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September 2015

Photos by Aaron Carlson (left)bobistraveling (middle), Jody Roberts (right)//FLICKR.COM

Jewelweed

Jewelweed - A Gem in the Marsh The mucilage liquid in the stem contains antiinflammatory and fungicidal properties that soothes irritation by countering the chemicals that are causing it. Rubbing a wasp or bee sting with Jewelweed doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always heal them completely, but on initial sting, it helps to make the pain milder and more tolerable, and it nearly always takes the itch and swelling from a mosquito bite. Poultices and salves made from the plant are established remedies for topical plant irritations, bug bites, and fungal skin infections, as well as bruises, sprains, and warts. Jewelweed blooms May through October in the eastern part of North America from southern Canada to the northern part of Florida. It is most often found in moist areas along the edge of woods

leaves, adding to the jewel effect. A trumpet shaped flower hangs from beneath a canopy of leaves at the tip of the delicate stems much as a jewel on a necklace. There are two varieties: Pale Jewelweed, During the summer and fall seasons, many people Impatiens pallida, has yellow flowers, and Spotted will spend their time outdoors. Bug bites and poison Jewelweed, Impatiens biflora, has orange flowers ivy are an expected inconvenience. However, there with dark red dots. is a very special native plant that is most likely very The stems have reddish veins and are segmented handy that will alleviate those itches and burns. All or jointed and hollow. There is a jelly-like mucilage you need to do is pick it and rub the mucilage juice inside the hollow stems. The two varieties both have from the stem onto the affected area for fast relief. medicinal properties. This wonderful, abundant plant is an impatiens There are many ways to preserve the plant. It lasts variety called Jewelweed or Touch-Me-Not, named in a sealed container in the refrigerator for a week or for the jewel- like flowers that sparkle in the morning two. It can be soaked in commercial witch hazel and sunlight and the seeds that pop when touched. jarred and refrigerated for liquid use, but witch hazel Jewelweed is a member of the impatiens family may burn the skin on application. It will keep in that is widely used as a bedding plant. Wild the freezer and the liquid can be preserved in a Jewelweed impatiens plants attract and feed Jewelweed is an effective natural herbal remedy pressure cooker for future use. many wildlife such as bees, and butterflies and To make your own poison ivy treatment, and best known for its skin healing properties. It is brew several types of birds, including songbirds and chopped Jewelweed in boiling water until effective not only for poison ivy, poison oak, stinging it turns a dark orange in color. Strain the liquid hummingbirds. Jewelweed is an effective natural herbal and pour into ice cube trays to freeze. When it nettle, and irritations from other plants, remedy and best known for its skin healing is rubbed on any skin rash it will relieve and but also for bug bites. properties. It is effective not only for poison heal the area. ivy, poison oak, stinging nettle, and irritations Many plants, and insects have evolved from other plants, but also for bug bites, razor with specific qualities that protect them and burn, acne, heat rash, ringworm, athleteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foot, or meadows near any water or marsh, and grows guarantee their reproduction. Sometimes these eczema, and many other skin disorders. A Native in partial sunlight. There is plenty of Jewelweed in qualities irritate human bodies. But, in return American remedy for already developed poison ivy the wild, and it is not hard to find once you learn to Mother Nature can usually provide a remedy for was to rub the mucilage onto the skin until it drew identify it. It is an annual three to five foot plant with anything that irritates us. ď Ž some blood, allowing it to dry, reapplying as the bright green oval, toothed leaves. The undersides of Linda Meek is the owner and operator of Stone poison ivy dried up. Most importantly the itching, the leaves have a silvery shimmer. Because of the Pond Farm in Julian, PA irritation and spreading would be alleviated. oil in the plant, dew will bead up and glisten on the

By: Linda Meek stonepondfarm@hotmail.com

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An Uncommon Fall Visitor

September 2015

By: Joe Verica joeverica@gmail.com It was a slow day of birding in Scotia Barrens. Although it was the middle of the fall migration season, birds seemed to be few and far between on this particular morning. The few birds that were present were mostly local breeders that hadn’t quite felt that urge to pull up stakes and move on to their southern wintering grounds yet. The overcast sky, which seems to be typical of central Pennsylvania in the fall, created a harsh backlight that made identifying birds a challenge. Colors were difficult to distinguish. One had to rely on the shape of the silhouette and the bird’s behavior to venture a guess. I was getting ready to put the lens caps back on my binoculars and call it a morning when I spotted a lone bird atop a tree about 100 yards down the road. I brought my binoculars up to get a look at the bird, but it was too far off for a good view. As I walked

As I made a closer approach, the outline of the bird came into clearer view. This bird was not sleek like a waxwing. It was a compact, bulky bird with a big head – a set of features more appropriate for a flycatcher.

down the road for a closer look, I kept my eye on the bird to see what types of behaviors he displayed. The bird was settled at the highest point in the tree, on the end of a bare snag protruding a few feet above the tree line. He was not content to sit tight. He would frequently fly up off the branch in short sally flights, apparently in pursuit of insects. He would then return to the same perch. My first thought was that the bird in question was a Cedar Waxwing, as they are quite common in the Barrens during the fall. In addition, I have regularly seen them display this type of foraging behavior. One thing did give me pause though. As I mentioned above, this bird was alone. While that did not rule out a Cedar Waxwing, it did seem a bit unusual, as waxwings typically travel and forage in small flocks. As I made a closer approach, the outline of the bird came into clearer view. This bird was not sleek like a waxwing. It was a compact, bulky bird with a big head – a set of features more appropriate for a flycatcher. As I was standing there watching the bird forage, I noticed that the bird also had a relatively short tail for a flycatcher. Just then, the sun made a brief cameo appearance. While the bird was in full light, I could clearly see that he had a pale breast and belly with dark, heavily streaked flanks, giving him a distinctive vested appearance. In addition, at the base of the bird’s tail, small tufts of white feathers

“W good Th in M build Allen Som as “t feet fillin nois Fo ticke wint boot posi Th carto Blue 1934 In th featu Photo by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren//Creative Commons and Olive-sided Flycatcher (Contopus cooperi). Pete And Olive-sided Flycatchers are primarily birds of Beat the boreal forests in Canada and the northern U.S. Sidn Their range extends from western Alaska to eastern the Canada and northern New England. In the west, reme their range extends south in mountainous regions Cybe to central California, Arizona and New Mexico. Th Their preferred breeding habitat is typically near thro open areas with standing dead trees, such as areas - up adjacent to rivers, ponds, bogs or other clearings. mov War Their diet consists almost exclusively of insects. Nesting occurs from mid-May to early July. The Thea

John James Audubon//Wikimedia.ORG

Olive sided Flycatcher, from "Birds of America" protruded like stuffing from a poorly made teddy bear. These field marks, along with the observed behaviors, pretty much clinched the ID for me. This bird was an Olive-sided Flycatcher!

nest, which is constructed by the female, consists of N a small cup of twigs and grasses, and is lined with Th lichens or other similar material. Incubation of the door eggs is provided exclusively by the female, while the in Pe male does the foraging and provides the female with Th food. After the eggs hatch, both parents will feed the State young. but Fall migration for Olive-sided Flycatchers is the N protracted and occurs from late July through early a su October. Here in central Pennsylvania, they are rare the fi or uncommon regular migrants, and are most often and reported in late August and early September. prod The majority of Olive-sided Flycatchers winter in Fo the Andes, in a region extending from Colombia to fund southeastern Peru. Smaller populations can also be nine found in southern Mexico, Central America and the sma Brazilian Highlands. Saxe The best local places to see migrating Olive-sided thea Flycatchers are at Mothersbaugh Swamp, Bald Eagle with State Park, Scotia Barrens and Bear Meadows. Keep abou your eyes peeled for birds hawking insects from Allen dead snags sticking out above the canopy. Th area Joseph Verica is a vice-president of the State recla College Bird Club. He received a PhD in Biology delu from Penn State in 1995. He has been a birdwatcher Garm for over 30 years. insta

September 2015

A Tale of Two Nittany Theatres

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By: Nadine Kofman nadinekofman70@gmail.com

“What goes around comes around” might be a good motto for this tale of the two Nittany Theatres. The first Nittany Theatre in Happy Valley opened in May of 1914, projecting “moving pictures” at a building on the corner of South Allen Street (114 S. Allen, which is currently for lease) and Calder Way. Some regulars referred to the theatre disparagingly as “the armpit” and said people shouldn’t put their feet on the floor, to avoid rodents. I once lost a tooth filling biting into a gum drop from the theatre’s slim, noisy candy machine. For 70 cents an hour, I sold Nittany Theatre tickets 50 years ago from the booth out front. During winters, a small space heater went into the tiny ticket booth – I had to inch my way around it, to get into position to wait on customers. The 1914 moviehouse showed cliff-hangers and cartoons, friendly features and foreign films. “The Blue Angel” with Marlene Dietrich, showed there in 1934. “Topper Takes a Holiday” screened in 1939. In the 1960s, audiences watched such memorable features as “The Rose Tattoo” with Anna Magnani and Burt Lancaster (1961); “Dr. Strangelove” with Peter Sellers (1965); “The Sound of Music” with Julie Andrews (1966); “Bonnie & Clyde” with Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway; and “A Patch of Blue” with Sidney Poitier (1968). Ingmar Bergman’s “Hour of the Wolf” came a year later, in 1969. Some locals remember seeing the French film “Sundays and Cybelle” at the Nittany in the 1960s. This first Nittany Theatre continued to operate through 1973. The successor, the Garden Theatre - updated with a glass front — continued showing movies until 1984, including the unforgettable “Star Wars” premiere in 1977, projected by current State Theatre projectionist John Guss.

Photo by Centre County Historical Society; Places and Spaces Collection

Nittany Theatre and Inn. sound systems. The two general restroom stalls have new plumbing, and there’s a revamped concession stand. Saxe is especially proud of his group’s programming. This past spring, Nittany Theatre at the Barn ushered audiences into the newly renovated space with “Always, Patsy Cline,” followed by the allfemale “1776” and the world premiere of the 1950s comedy “Betty Crocker, Kinsey, and Rock n’ Roll”

written by Saxe. The troupe’s inaugural season will close with “The Addams Family,” opening August 27 and closing September 19. The Nittany Theatre is still a name that denotes good local entertainment for everyone. For information, check out nittanytheatre.org. Nadine Kofman is a former Centre Daily Times writer and contributer to Town & Gown Magazine and Voices.

Nittany Theatre at the Barn The Boal Barn Playhouse in Boalsburg opened its doors in 1953 and is the oldest arena barn theatre in Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest in the nation. The Boal Barn, however, has been dark since the State College Community Theatre moved out in 2012, but now, the old downtown theater’s namesake, the Nittany Theatre at the Barn has opened. It is a summer-stock company “dedicated to providing the finest in theatrical entertainment for residents and visitors to Happy Valley,” led by founder and producing artistic director David Saxe. For the past two years, the troupe has been fundraising, renovating and preparing to reopen the nineteenth-century converted barn. Supported by a small number of donors who gave a total of $100,000, Saxe and his team converted the space from a theater-in-the-round to a three-quarter thrust stage with three seating sections and 130 seats, including about 50 seats from the original Nittany Theatre on Allen Street. They’ve renovated and enlarged the stage area, replaced and reupholstered the seats - even reclaimed another piece of Centre County history: 23 deluxe theatre seats from the recently-demolished Garman Opera House in Bellefonte. They’ve also installed state-of-the-art LED lighting and quality

Photo by Dave Saxe//Nittany Theater at the Barn

The cast of "1776"

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September 2015

Yemen a hotspot in US-Iran power struggle By: Art Goldschmidt axg2@psu.edu

convert? The list goes on, and Yemen is on it. Many Americans don’t know that there is already a proxy war taking place in the Middle East, in Yemen. Some of those who are aware of the conflict Iran is the Middle Eastern country most on the think that Iran is playing a lead role. minds of the American people right now. Will the Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in late Senate and House of Representatives vote down March, seeking to restore its deposed president, the deal negotiated with Iran by the United States, Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, to power. Hadi, who had United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and taken refuge in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, had been Germany to limit Iran’s ability to build a nuclear elected Yemen’s president in February 2012. He weapon? If so, will representatives vote it down in had served for eight years as vice president under sufficient numbers to override Obama’s veto? In Ali Abdallah Saleh, who was challenged and finally that case, what lies ahead for relations between the ousted by Arab Spring revolutionaries. Hadi was developed world, led by the United States, and the the only presidential candidate, making his election Islamic Republic. Will there be another Middle East seem rather undemocratic. Few Yemenis liked him. war? Saudi Arabia, especially under King Salman, who There are already many trouble spots in the Middle succeeded the aged and ailing Abdallah in January, East. The Islamic State has seized parts of Iraq and sees the struggle for Yemen as one part of a larger Syria - possibly also Libya and the Sinai Peninsula. conflict over mastery of the Gulf region. Iran leads Israelis and Palestinians continue to threaten a Shi’ite coalition, against which the Saudi Kingdom another war in the Gaza Strip. Ancient monuments wants to build a coalition of Sunni-led governments. are being destroyed, religious minorities are being Saudi Arabia’s military campaign to restore Hadi as attacked, driven from their homes, or forced to Yemen’s legitimate ruler is one part of this conflict with Iran, and Saudi Arabia has been backed by Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. The conflict seems sectarian: Sunni vs. Shi’ite. It is also political: who has the right to rule in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula? Yemen is the current cockpit, and it’s also the poorest country in the Quaker-Directed Continuing Care Retirement Community Middle East. 500 E. Marylyn Ave.| State College, PA 16801 | www.foxdalevillage.org The rebels who toppled Hadi, commonly called Houthis, are led by Abdul Malik alHouthi. They call themselves Ansar Allah (“Partisans of

Celebrating 25 Years of Caring. Foxdale Village

God”) and began in 1992 as a moderate movement of Zaydi Shi’ites. Zaydis differ from the Twelve-Imam Shi’ites who rule in Iran and much of Iraq. They make up 35 to 40 percent of Yemen’s population. Until 1962, the Zaydi imams actually ruled the Kingdom of [Northern] Yemen, but they were overthrown in a military coup backed by Egypt. A protracted civil war ensued, with Saudi Arabia openly, and Israel secretly, aiding the ousted imam. Finally, the Zaydi Shi’ites and the Twelve-Imam Shi’ites made peace and a coalition government was formed in 1968. The country became the Yemen Arab Republic. In 1990, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, formerly a British colony called Aden, united with Yemen Arab Republic. This union has long been wracked by civil unrest and occasional open rebellions. Sunni Muslims are the majority, especially in the coastal cities and lowland regions, but many of the nomadic tribes in Yemen’s mountains are Zaydi Shi’ite and hostile to any Sunni-led regime. Th During the past six months the Houthi-led perm tribes have taken over most of the country. As of purp mid-August 2015, United Nations estimates were the I that 1,900 Yemenis (mainly civilians) had died and Th 5,000 had been wounded so far. More than one million have been displaced internally, and at least a hundred thousand Yemenis have fled to other countries. Iran’s Islamic leaders have long sought to strengthen their power over Shi’ites in other Muslim states. Examples of their influence include the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s strategic alliance with the Alawites in Syria, and of course Tehran’s close ties with Iraq’s government under Nouri Al-Maliki and Haider Al-Abadi, both of whom are Shi’ites. Iran is often accused of arming the Houthi rebels, which it denies doing, arguing that the Zaydis are a different kind of Shi’ites, but it has given them financial support. Another force is also rising in Yemen: al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which now controls the port city of Al Mukalla. Its conspicuous rival, the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, has not done much in Yemen, so far, but in other troubled Middle Eastern countries, it fills any vacuum. We don’t want AQAP or ISIL to rule over Yemen.

Some Facts and Figures on

Yemen

Land area - 527,968 square kilometers Population (July 2015 estimate) - 26.7 million Median age of Yemen’s population - 18.6 years Estimated GDP (2014) - $43.23 billion, or $106.6 billion adjusted for purchasing power Unemployment rate (2010) - Males: 26%; Females: 74% 54% of Yemen’s population lived below the poverty line (2014) Source: CIA Factbook—Yemen

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September 2015

Photo by ai@ce//FLICKR.COM

Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, seen from a rooftop. The Obama administration faces a dilemma. The agreement between the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, and Iran, purports to ensure that the Islamic Republic will never have a nuclear weapon; the Islamic Republic claims it doesn’t want one. The U.S. Congress passed legislation that enables both houses to pass or

reject the agreement, but Obama will veto any resolution that rejects the deal. If his veto is not overridden by a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and the House, the deal will take effect and a broader United States-Iranian reconciliation should follow. If Congress kills the deal, rivalry between the United States and Iran will intensify. Then will Washington counter Iran and al-Qa’ida in Yemen? And how far can it back Saudi Arabia’s destructive air war to “pacify” Yemen? 

Can’t top this: Superlatives overtake the airwaves By: MARILYN S. JONES copyeditor@voicesweb.org This will be the best article you have ever read in your life. It will stun and amaze you! It will shock and astound you! Your cup will runneth over! What is with the overactive use of superlatives these days? Turn on the network news. I dare you to watch it for two days without hearing the word “stunning” to describe such unusual events as the separation of a celebrity couple, as in “Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner just made the stunning announcement that after 10 years of marriage, they are getting a divorce!” No! I can’t live! Never have I ever thought that something like this would happen in my lifetime! I’m ruined! I truly don’t know which is more stunning – that their divorce is network newsworthy or that the idea of a divorce is stunning? I am supremely confused! After three stunning months of constant exposure, don’t faint, but ABC news unleashed two new superlative operatives: “startling” and “jawdropping.” Hold onto your hat. Remain seated. Take a deep breath. Yes, that thunderstorm in Missouri was “startling.” To the cat maybe. What Donald Trump said was “jaw-dropping.” Well, that might actually be accurate. Hillary Clinton’s e-mails? Astoundingly evil and shaming? What will they say when the San Andreas Fault splits in two? My Uncle Jerry suffered from the exorbitant, mindboggling overuse of superlatives. For example – Uncle Jerry never ate an ordinary piece of pizza. The pizza he ate was the most delicious, most amazingly seasoned, most perfectly thrown pizza in North America, and he would know because he had been to five other states and the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Another exaggeration is the now constant use of the phrase “breaking news” at the beginning of every news report, as in “Breaking now – Two barns are on fire in a small New Jersey town.” What I expect to hear following an announcement of “breaking news” is this: President Kennedy has just been shot.

The situation is really getting serious because it leads to massive, intensive desensitization. When I hear “breaking news,” I shrug my shoulders. When I hear “stunning,” I roll my eyes. When I hear “amazing,” I open my hands and purse my lips. The other night my neighbor called and said she had cut herself on a broken piece of a crystal shot glass and was bleeding profusely and I said, “Can the glass be fixed?” Adjectives aren’t even supposed to be used in journalistic reporting. A story about a fight downtown should read: “Police were called to break up a fight in Calder Alley at 2:00 a.m. between pizza delivery driver, Sam Doe, and his customer, Jack Moe, who refused to pay for his order.” It shouldn’t read: “In a stunning local development, a highly agitated and explosive pizza delivery driver named Sam Doe could not control himself when his irate, insanely crazy customer, Jack Moe refused to pay his diminutive, but still substantial pizza bill.” How about if we all tone it down? How about if grocery store shoplifting is not labelled a “heinous crime,” and the misappropriation of $2,000 of public funds is not “the biggest disaster to hit this county in the past 50 years.” How about if the prize-winning tomato at the country fair is not “the most profoundly enormous and shockingly shaped tomato that the judges have ever seen in all the years they have been judiciously judging tomato attributes at county fairs?” What will they say when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arrive? “Earth-shattering breaking news: right now at this very moment our oft maligned and seldom appreciated oxygen filled home planet of Earth is going to explode into five-hundred trillion pieces that will circle the sun for a million millennia until they are finally swallowed by a black hole that will end all time and zap the final breath from all life and the universe?” Or will there just finally, mercifully, be a simple, “Bye folks; it’s been real.” Marilyn Jones is the greatest writer in history.

16 |

September 2015

Pawprints: The LAGuide to PetEuphoriaN By: Steven Deutsch sdeutsch22@gmail.com

three times a day our doorbell would ring and some little Arthur or Alice would appear, generally crying and bleeding, with an anxious, angry mother or father in tow. Smokey was blessed with a remarkable jumping ability, so people who interacted with her often

of dedicated psychologists, here at Stevieslaw, have termed the condition PetEuphoria. Perhaps you need an intervention? To help you find out, we at Stevieslaw are pleased to publish Pawprints: The Less-intelligent-than-average American Guide to PetEuphoria. In

The neighborhood kids, the Brownsville Boys, all learned to put up with Mike K. Sure, he talked continuously about nothing and had affection for unlikely teams (the St. Louis Cardinals, for example). But he had his place in the schoolyard hierarchy and a suitable nickname. From the time he first ambled out to the schoolyard to roughly his fourteenth birthday, we called him Red. Then his parents opened a drycleaning store in a part of the neighborhood that was so scratchy it hadn’t been visited by a police patrol since the 1800’s, and, at the same time, rescued an enormous German shepherd named Andy from the local pound. Andy was to guard the store during the day and serve as a pet for Mike (an only child) at night. The store did not thrive: Andy did such as an effective job of guarding it that no one would come near. And although Mike loved Andy to pieces, Andy hated Mike and would bite him on his right arm every time Mike went to pet him. It got so bad that we were forced to change Mike’s nickname to Lefty. Sadly, the story does not have a happy ending. Mike’s parents sold the store and moved to Wichita. A rumor that has persisted until this day is that Mike’s parents blamed Mike for the business loss, took Andy with them and left Mike in their apartment - 13F. And indeed, a redheaded ghost with a stump where his Photo by MIphoto//MORGUEFILE.COM right arm should be is encountered by trick-or-treaters each and every No animals were harmed in the writing of this article. Halloween. Pet owners are so dedicated to their pets that they are often the last to know that the little furry things had head wounds. Our son simply the guide, you will be able to identify that rule their lives have become a wore a catcher’s mask while growing the severity of your condition by problem to them and to society. Our up. We were blissfully unaware of examining your behavior in many family is a case in point. We loved just how bad things were until one categories - but first, consider the our small grey cat, Smokey, even night, as we sat reviewing Smokey’s following twelve questions: though she had the disposition of my x-rays, the neighbors appeared Would you rather spend a day maternal grandmother, the Viper. in mass, carrying pitchforks and at Petco examining little stuffed We might have guessed there was a torches and screaming for blood. We, catnip toys than have an all expense problem, as all the little furred and too, moved to Wichita in the dead of paid weekend in Monaco while your feathered things that populated the night, terribly worried that Smokey pet enjoys the good life in the finest neighborhood began to disappear would have trouble adjusting. kennel? soon after we brought Smokey home. Americans love their pets - 450 Where once you couldn’t step out million dogs, 750 million cats, Does your pet have better of the door in all but winter before and a parrot by my count, but do medical care than four-fifths of being entertained by what seemed they love them too much? Do you the nation? Does it have specialists like a dozen different bird calls, have a pet addiction? Do you live - doctors, dentists, rehabilitation after Smokey, there was only silence. for the little furred, feathered or therapists and psychologists who Actually, that’s not quite true. Two or scaled thingamabob? Our team attend to its every need? Do you have

each of its visits scheduled at least a year in advance?

3. 4.

Do you dress your pet better than you dress yourself?

Do you have long and interesting conversations with your pet? Do you feel he or she is an effective teacher? Do you wish you were smarter?

If you had just enough money for a cheeseburger or a can of gourmet pet food, would you be happily hungry?

Do you make a ceremony about feeding your pet? China? The good silver? Is a fine French wine involved?

7. 8.

Does your pet have a gym membership?

On a scale of one to 10, with one ‘strongly disagree’ and 10 ‘strongly agree,’ how would you rate this statement: one pet is good, a hundred pets are wonderful?

As a follow-up question, do you have so many pets you have been forced to give them numbers instead of names? Do you add a “sie,” as in onesie, twosie, threesie…so that your pets will understand?

10.

Has your menagerie grown from just goldfish, hamsters, cats and dogs to include ever more unusual and difficult animals, including some who are a bit frightening to be around?

11.

As a follow-up question: how many fingers and toes do you have? Arms and legs? Do you still have a nose?

12.

Do the neighbors often call the board of health? Do the police visit you every Tuesday? When they visit, do they wear protective gear? If you answered yes to even one of these questions, you are suffering from PetEuphoria and should seek assistance in the guide. For this month only, we will make the guide available at all pet and pet grooming shops to make it as easy as we can for you. It’s the book with the furry cover. Try to read it before one of your beasts has it for lunch.  Steve Deutsch still misses his cat, Smokey, who would be 84-years-old today if she had been spared. This is the first time he has written about pets and pet owners, and suspects he may be forced to move back to Wichita.

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September 2015

Not Made in China: finding Made-in-USA products By: Christine Dua cad5517@psu.edu Many Americans don’t realize that some of the products they purchase daily are not “Made in China.” I decided to challenge myself to a quest to find Made-in-USA products to meet all my daily needs. Where I live on North Atherton, there are large supermarkets, chain restaurants and small gas stations. I started my shopping at Wal-Mart, looking for toothpaste. Crest and Colgate toothpaste are the main brands that I use – both made in China – but Oral-B and Aqua Fresh are made in the U.S. and are just as popular. Top soap brands such as Olay, Dial and Caress are all made in the U.S. Other popular brands like Dove and Aveeno are manufactured in the U.S. and in other countries. Products more suitable for sensitive skin such as Cetaphil and Burt’s Bees are made in the U.S. I ventured to T.J. Maxx, an American department store, looking for a new pair of affordable running shoes. With more than 1,000 stores, T.J. Maxx is a major clothes retailer in the United States, and operates more than 300 stores in Europe. Unfortunately, the hunt for new Made-in-USA running shoes wasn’t easy. Popular brands

such as Adidas and Reebok were made in China or Indonesia. I found a pair of New Balances that were labeled “Made in the USA of imported materials.” The imported part was confusing, but I figured it was the closest thing to American-made that I would find.

Photo by Christine Dua// VOICES

Shoppers can look for a “Made in USA” product label to determine a product’s manufacturing location T.J. Maxx also sells home products: everything from furniture to kitchen utensils. Most of the toasters, and all but one of the coffee makers, were made in China. I did find a Bunn 10cup professional brewer (great for college student all-nighters) with the label, “Assembled in the U.S.”

Home of the 9-to-5 No-Repeat Workday VOICES AD: 5” X 5-1/2”

For groceries, I shop at Wegman’s on Colonnade Boulevard. Fruits and vegetables are mostly grown in the United States. To my surprise, most of the food products that I buy are also made in the U.S., from my breakfast Quaker Oats oatmeal with Yoplait

yogurt, to my lunch of Arnold’s whole grain bread with Kraft’s deli turkey and French’s mustard. Americangrown options for dinner weren’t limited either: I opted for some grilled chicken and salad. For snacks, I prefer munching on beef jerky, which is made in the U.S. My trip to buy food

produced in America was a success. For school supplies, I headed to nearby Target. Crayola crayons and Sharpie markers are both made in the U.S. This came in handy since I was thinking of sending a dear friend a hand-made congratulations card for her engagement. I then remembered that there’s a Hallmark store nearby, so I could save my friend the trouble of seeing my craft skills, and save myself the trouble of working on those craft skills. Hallmark is a privately-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. While at Target, I also looked for American-made hair products. I soon realized that all the brands that I know were made in China. However, American-based CHI makes shampoo, conditioner and hair straightener labeled, “Made in the U.S.,” so I decided to try them out. My quest to find American-made products was not as disheartening as I had imagined. Although the goods I bought were limited, I learned that if I look hard enough, I may be able to fulfill most of my needs and to feel good by shopping for items labelled “Made in the U.S.A.” Christine Dua is a Voices intern. She is a Penn State junior majoring in Print Journalism with a double minor in English and Women’s Studies.

18 |

September 2015

Options for Ferguson Township to stop plan By: KATHERINE WATT katherine_watt@hotmail.com The Ferguson Township Planning Commission natural topography and prevents soil erosion;” does upslope areas tributary to the wells.” split 3-3 on Feb. 23, 2015 on a motion to approve not “provide a character of development which is An additional, related ground for PRD denial the Toll Brothers “Cottages” Tentative Planned compatible with surrounding land uses,” including is that the current PRD plan includes stormwater Residential Development application. On March 2, groundwater recharge and filtration and farming; detention basins located on 5.5 acres of land the Board of Supervisors approved the Tentative “would not be in the public interest” in protecting currently zoned Rural Agricultural and outside the PRD in a 3-1 vote. After several months of plan valuable drinking water resources and agricultural RGB/SSA. Stormwater detention is not a permitted revisions and public engagement, use of RA land under Ferguson the board is currently scheduled to Township law. Development is A strong legal case can be made that the PRD application vote on the Final PRD on or before not a COG-endorsed use of land October 20, 2015. outside the RGB/SSA. RA land is is inconsistent with the intent of the Ferguson Township PRD Public statements by not eligible for direct conversion to ordinance, and can therefore be denied. The grounds for PRD supervisors in recent months have PRD zoning, and inclusion of the denial under Ferguson Township Code Section 27-407include indicated that some supervisors 5.5 acre parcel within the RGB/ feel constrained in terms of legal SSA requires subdivision and that the proposed development does not “encourage a pattern of options, with limited power to regional authorization by all six development which preserves trees and natural topography and deny the plan and rezone the parcel municipalities. prevents soil erosion.” to Rural Agricultural, given the Furthermore, the underlying underlying rezoning to R4 enacted Sept. 7, 2004 RA to R-4 rezoning by a previous Board on Sept. 7, can be reversed as invalid. The 2004. Pennsylvania Municipalities However, the current Board Planning Code contains provisions has received significant new information regarding security land; “is not consistent with the Centre empowering municipalities to rectify past errors, the close relationship between land development Region Comprehensive Plan” which calls for by adopting “Municipal Curative Amendments. See activity on the subject parcel and public water protection of valuable drinking water resources and Act 247 of 1968, Section 609.2. security in the four months since the Tentative agricultural security areas; will have an “adverse The grounds for a Municipal Curative PRD review on March 2. That new information has relationship to the larger neighborhood in which it Amendment include the demonstrated invalidity included evidence submitted by concerned residents is proposed to be established,” will “adversely affect of the September 7, 2004 rezoning from RA to R-4, and State College Borough Water Authority officials existing uses on adjacent lands which are different as evidenced by regional planning staff and elected that R4 zoning and the Toll Brothers PRD plan from the proposed uses in the PRD.” representative recommendations – between March It’s also not “in compliance with the Township’s and September 2004 – that the rezoning request be are both inconsistent with the Centre Region Comprehensive Plan, which identifies the land as an Stormwater Management Ordinance [Chapter 26, denied. ecologically sensitive drinking water recharge and Part 1]” which prohibits “any regulated activity Ferguson Township elected representatives are natural filtration area for the Harter and Thomas that adversely impacts downstream properties, in a strong legal position to protect public water wells (SCBWA Wellfields 1 and 3) and an agricultural structures, public facilities, or threatens the public supplies and valuable agricultural soils, by denying health or safety.” The PRD plan is also not in the current PRD application and reinstating security area. A strong legal case can be made that the PRD compliance with Chapter 26-302 – “Sensitive areas Rural Agricultural zoning. The Board also enjoys application is inconsistent with the intent of the and water quality sensitive developments have been widespread political support for taking those two Ferguson Township PRD ordinance, and can identified which require special consideration with actions as evidenced by community petitions that regard to stormwater management. A. Sensitive have garnered more than 2,100 signatures to date. therefore be denied. The grounds for PRD denial under Ferguson areas are defined as those areas that, if developed, Township Code Section 27-407include that the have the potential to cause catastrophic loss to a Katherine Watt is a State College writer and proposed development does not “encourage a Water Authority well field. These areas consist of community organizer, and the editor of Voices. pattern of development which preserves trees and the delineated 1-year zone of contribution and direct

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| 19

September 2015

September Public Meetings Calendar Sept. 1 Sept. 1 Sept. 1

8:30 a.m. 7:30 p.m. 7 p.m.

CRCOG Public Services & Environmental Committee .......................2643 Gateway Dr. College Township Planning Commission .....................................1481 East College Ave. Halfmoon Township Planning Commission ................................... 100 Municipal Lane

Sept. 2 12 p.m. Sept. 2 7 p.m.

State College Planning Commission ................................................ 243 South Allen St. College Township Water Authority .............................................. 1481 East College Ave.

Sept. 3 12 p.m. Sept. 3 6:30 p.m. Sept. 3 7 p.m.

CRCOG Public Safety Committee ....................................................... 2643 Gateway Dr. CRCOG Planning Commission ............................................................ 2643 Gateway Dr. College Township Council ............................................................ 1481 East College Ave.

Sept. 8 12:15 p.m. Sept. 8 7 p.m. Sept. 8 7 p.m.

State College Transportation Commission ...................................... 243 South Allen St. State College Borough Council ......................................................... 243 South Allen St. Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors ..........................................3147 Research Dr.

Sept. 9 6:30 p.m. Sept. 9 7:00 p.m. Sept. 9 7:30 p.m.

Halfmoon Township Budget Meeting Patton Township Board of Supervisors .................................................100 Patton Plaza Upper Halfmoon Water Co. ............................................................. 100 Municipal Lane

Sept. 10 Sept. 10 Sept. 10 Sept. 10

8:30 a.m. 12:15 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m.

CRCOG Finance Committee ............................................................... 2643 Gateway Dr. CRCOG Parks Capital Committee ....................................................... 2643 Gateway Dr. Halfmoon Township Board of Supervisors ..................................... 100 Municipal Lane State College Planning Commission................................................. 243 South Allen St.

Sept. 14 Sept. 14 Sept. 14 Sept. 14

12:15 p.m. 6 p.m. 6:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m.

CRCOG Transportation & Land Use Committee ................................ 2643 Gateway Dr. Ferguson Township Planning Commission ........................................3147 Research Dr. Halfmoon Township Budget Meeting.............................................. 100 Municipal Lane Harris Township Board of Supervisors ...............................................224 East Main St.

Sept. 15 7 p.m. Sept. 15 7:30 p.m.

Halfmoon Township Planning Commission ................................... 100 Municipal Lane College Township Planning Commission .....................................1481 East College Ave.

Sept. 16 4 p.m. Sept. 16 7 p.m. Sept. 16 7 p.m.

University Area Joint (Sewer) Authority .................................. 1576 Spring Valley Road State College Area School District Board ......................................131 West Nittany Ave. Friends & Farmers Cooperative (Volunteer Meeting) .... 243 South Allen St., New Leaf

Sept. 17 4 p.m. Sept. 17 7 p.m. Sept. 17 7 p.m.

State College Borough Water Authority .................................... 1201 West Branch Road State College Planning Commission ................................................ 243 South Allen St. College Township Council ............................................................ 1481 East College Ave.

Sept. 21 7 p.m. Sept. 21 7 p.m.

Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors ..........................................3147 Research Dr. State College Borough Council ......................................................... 243 South Allen St.

Sept. 22 12 p.m.

CRCOG Executive Committee ..............................................................2643 Gateway Dr

Sept. 23 7 p.m.

Patton Township Board of Supervisors .................................................100 Patton Plaza

Sept. 24 7 p.m.

Halfmoon Township Board of Supervisors...................................... 100 Municipal Lane

Sept. 28 6 p.m. Sept. 28 7 p.m. Sept. 28 7:30 p.m.

Ferguson Township Planning Commission ........................................3147 Research Dr. State College Area School District Board ......................................131 West Nittany Ave. CRCOG General Forum ......................................................Check crcog.net for location.

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