Op-Ed
Updated December 31, 1969 07:00:00 PM
Is town big enough to be bypassed?

The North Jonesborough Historic Parkway is a proposed solution to traffic congestion in Tennessee’s Oldest Town. Jonesborough officials are considering this “pass through” to ease the daily commute for drivers from Greeneville to Johnson City along with snarled traffic at the intersection where 11-E meets Boones Creek Road.

Town Administrator Bob Browning says: “We wanted to create an alternative route on the north and south sides of Jonesborough. Any reduction of traffic on our busiest intersection is an improvement.”

The North Side Parkway would begin on Ben Gamble Road, proceed through the Meadows subdivision, and come out farther down on Boones Creek Road. The alternative route would be an optimal connection for trucks which would no longer have to use Highway 81 through town and Washington Drive to connect with Highway 11-E.  More...


Updated December 31, 1969 07:00:00 PM
When in doubt, ask the skunk cabbage

A 19th century writer, Alexandre Dumas was asked whence came the drive and energy for his prolific literary output. “I don’t know,” he responded. “Ask a plum tree how it produces plums.”

These days, as winter has lingered with snow and icy temperatures, one might ask this question of some herbaceous plant-family members. Skunk cabbage, a wildflower native of the eastern US deciduous forest region blooms in mid to late winter, defying snow and frozen ground and frigid air temperatures. It is among a very few flower species which have learned some tricks, over the 470 million-year span since the green plants moved on land, to generate their own heat.

Skunk cabbage stokes its furnace so effectively that it melts away snow and ice in a circular patch around itself, the result of dramatically increasing its respiration rate and rapidly burning starch from its underground stem. Botany researcher Roger Knutson studied the plant and its winter-flowering habit for nearly a decade. “At air temperatures near freezing,” he noted, “a seemingly inactive skunk cabbage spadix is using oxygen and burning food at a rate nearly equal to that of a hummingbird.” A thick, fleshy hood (spathe) surrounds the flower parts (spadix), insulating them so well that the interior retains a nearly constant, 72 to 74 degree temperature, “regardless of the temperature of surrounding air and soil.” It seems to have “not only a furnace but a thermostat as well,” Knutson notes. The year’s first nectar and pollen await honeybees and early spring insects in its “tiny island of dependable, near-tropical warmth.”  More...


Updated December 31, 1969 07:00:00 PM
From the Hill: State leaders work to shrink budget shortfall, save major money

By State Rep. Matt Hill

The Extraordinary Session that lasted nearly a month is one step closer to paying off in a big way, as the United States Department of Education’s “Race to the Top” finalists were announced last week.

Tennessee is on the list of states that will move forward in the process, along with 15 others. The eventual winners will receive a boost in education funding. More...


More Top Stories
Op-Ed
Is town big enough to be bypassed?
When in doubt, ask the skunk cabbage
From the Hill: State leaders work to shrink budget shortfall, save major money

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