Rains County Leader (Emory, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 3, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 25, 2013 Page: 3 of 12
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STATE CAPITAL HIGHLIGHTS
MY TAKE ON TECH
TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2013
Bains CoPntnTirailrr
House vote clears way for
new abortion regulations
AUSTIN
- Legisla-
tion to revise
redistricting
maps, regulate
abortion and
change pun-
ishment guide-
lines regarding
youths convict-
ed of a capital
felony occupied state lawmakers
in special session last week.
Called by Gov. Rick Perry on
May 27, the 30-day session ends
on June 25. Drawing the House
floor spotlight through Sunday
night and early Monday morn-
ing was Senate Bill 5, relating
to the regulation of abortion pro-
cedures and providers. Citizens
for and against crowded Capitol
corridors and the House gallery.
SB 5, tentatively approved on a
97-33 vote at 3:24 a.m., faces a
final vote before moving back to
the Senate.
The legislation proposes to
amend the Health and Safety
Code and the Occupations Code
regarding regulation of abortion
procedures, providers and facili-
ties, prohibiting abortions at or
after 20 weeks post-fertilization
and adding a violation related
to abortions performed after the
same time window to the list of
prohibited practices by physi-
cians or license applicants.
Included is an exception
that allows an abortion in the
physician’s reasonable medical
judgment that so complicates the
medical condition of the woman,
to avert the woman’s death or
substantial and irreversible
physical impairment of a major
bodily function, other than a psy-
chological condition.
The legislation also directs
the Texas Medical Board to
assess penalties on physicians
for improperly distributing or
prescribing abortion-inducing
drugs. And, the legislation would
create a new minimum standard
By Ed Sterling
TEXAS PRESS ASSOCIATION
for abortion facilities licensed by
the Department of State Health
Services. Such a facility would
be required to meet the new stan-
dards by Sept. 1, 2014.
Republican members, leverag-
ing a 40-seat majority over Dem-
ocrats, moved bills forward to
comply with the wishes of Gov.
Perry, but Democrats brought
their arguments to the forefront
through proposed amendments,
although all failed on votes to
table them.
Two among many arguments
were the adverse and dispro-
portionate effects of the great
distances women from rural and
remote areas would have to trav-
el to get to one of five facilities
that currently could be qualified
to perform abortions under the
bill and that 26 percent of Texas
women do not have health insur-
ance.
The House on June 24 pre-
liminarily passed SB 23, relating
to the punishment for a capital
felony committed by an indi-
vidual younger than 18 years of
age. The bill proposes to allow
a 17-year-old offender serving
a life sentence the eligibility to
apply for parole after serving 40
years.
The House also tentatively
approved SJR 2, a proposed con-
stitutional amendment to change
how dollars are moved from the
state’s general revenue fund to
the so-called rainy day fund on
transfers based on oil and natural
gas production taxes.
Votes on the preponderance
of special session legislation
have been along party lines, with
Democrats voting in opposition.
Some lawmakers who chal-
lenged bills said that ultimately
the abortion-regulating legisla-
tion would not stand up to scru-
tiny by the courts, nor would
bills revising certain redistricting
maps and limiting a jury’s abil-
ity to mitigate parole in capital
murder convictions of certain
juveniles.
One bill already on its way
to the governor’s desk is SB
3, relating to the composition
of Texas House districts. Ten-
tatively approved by the Sen-
ate earlier in the week, the bill
came back to the Senate with
several amendments passed to
allow certain Democratic mem-
bers in abutting House districts
to tweak boundary lines in small
and mutually beneficial ways. In
a vote on final passage, the Sen-
ate accepted the changes adopted
by the House.
Jobs Rate
Stays Positive
Texas’ seasonally adjust-
ed total nonfarm employment
expanded by 19,500 jobs in
May for a total of 324,700 jobs
added since May 2012, the Texas
Workforce Commission reported
on June 21.
Positive every month since
May 2010, the state’s annual
job growth rate in May stood at
3.0 percent and the seasonally
adjusted unemployment rate rose
slightly in May to 6.5 percent,
from 6.4 percent in April.
“The addition of 324,700 jobs
over the past year, with private
sector employers adding 299,800
during this period, is good news
for Texas,” Texas Workforce
Commission Chairman Andres
Alcantar stated in an agency
news release.
Offer: Feral Hog
Grants
Texas Department of Agricul-
ture on June 18 announced it is
accepting grant applications to
assist regional efforts to control
feral hog populations through
its new County Hog Abatement
Matching Program. Selected
applicants will receive funding
on a cost reimbursement basis of
up to $30,000.
COMMISSIONERS COURT
Court to open material bids Thursday
The Rains County Commis-
sioners Court will meet in regu-
lar session Thursday, June 27, at
10:00 a.m. in the Rains County
Courthouse Courtroom at which
time the following agenda items
will be discussed and/or acted
upon:
I. Opening.
II. Open Forum.
III. Presentations.
IV. Items for Discussion and/
or Action.
A. Departmental Reports.
1. Road and bridge.
a) Open/discuss/take
action on sealed bids for road
and bridge materials.
b) Permits/ROWs.
B. Elected Officials’ and
Finance Reports.
1. Treasurer.
a) Payment of accounts.
b) Monthly report.
2. Sheriff.
C. Discuss/take action on
insurance policy updates.
D. Discuss/take action on
Rains County Hazard Mitigation
Plan.
E. Discuss/take action on
Rains County Hazard Mitiga-
tion Plan adoption Resolution
9-2013.
V. Administrative Court
Activities and Comments.
Self Storage of Point
Great rates - Guard on duty
903-268-1233
Rains County Emory Head Start
The Head Start Program is a Federal program for preschool children from low-income
families. The Head Start program is operated by a local non-profit organization which is
Northeast Texas Opportunities, Inc. in our Community. Children who attend Head Start
participate in a variety of educational activities. The Head Start Program offers: Full-Day
quality care and education from 7:30-3:30, Monday through Friday, Comprehensive Ser-
vices to children with disabilities, Nutritious breakfast, lunch and snacks, Social, Emotion-
al, Physical and Cognitive Education, Mental Health, Dental, Hearing, Vision and Speech
Screenings and Case management services for children at no cost to the families.
At this time the NETO Head Start Program has limited slots available for children who
are three or four years of age on or before September 1, 2013. These openings are for the
2013-2014 school year. Interested applicants can obtain an application for the program
at the NETO office located at 208 Taylor St., Mt. Vernon, TX. 75457 or by calling (903)
537-2256. Rains County applicants can call 903-473-4320 or pick up an application at the
school. If there is no answer, please leave a message and phone number and we will call
you back.
Please forward your application to the address indicated above, or drop it off at one of
our schools, along with these items which are needed to process your child’s application:
verification of your household income to include your 2012 1040 or one month of current
check stubs for each family member in the household that is employed or receiving income
benefits such as unemployment, TANF or SSI. Social Security etc., official birth certifi-
cates, current immunization records and social security cards for one parent and the child.
Please have the applications back to us as soon as possible.
Generating electricity with straws
By JOHN KELLY
Rains County Leader Contributor
A company in Stockholm, Swe-
den, is changing the landscape of
both how skyscrapers look, and
how that new look can be used to
generate electricity to help power
the building. Belatchew Labs is a
studio within Belatchew Arkitek-
ter that works with experimental
projects that aims to investigate
and test new approaches and solu-
tions to urban and building design
and energy issues.
The company is working to
explore new techniques that could
create the urban wind farm of
the future on skyscrapers of the
future. By using piezoelectric
technology, a large number of
thin straws can produce electricity
merely through small movements
generated by the wind.
The result is a new kind of
wind power plant that opens up
possibilities of how buildings can
produce energy. They call those
new buildings “strawscrapers”
because of the use of straws in the
design of the building outside and
their ability to generate electricity
when properly configured.
With the help of this technique,
surfaces on both old and new
buildings can be transformed into
energy-producing entities. Fur-
thermore, an additional aspect is
revealed when the constant move-
ment of the straws creates an
undulating landscape on the four
sides of the building.
The actual building is usually
considered to be the most static of
all things, but the new power-gen-
erating aspects of the building can
give the impression of a body that
is breathing. The straws swaying
in the wind give the building a
constantly changing facade fur-
ther reinforced at nighttime with
lighting in changing colors.
The straws of the facade con-
sist of a composite material with
piezoelectric properties that can
turn motion into electrical energy.
Think of a typical lampshade with
lots of drinking straws loosely
attached to the outside, and you
will have a general idea of what
they are attempting, but on a huge
scale. But in their case, the straws
will have the ability to generate
electricity.
Piezoelectricity is created when
certain crystals’ deformation is
transformed into electricity. The
technique has advantages when
compared to traditional wind tur-
bines since it is quiet and does not
harm or interfere with birds who
are often found in urban environ-
ments. It functions at low-wind
velocity since only a light breeze
is sufficient for the straws to start
swaying and generate energy.
One of the problems today for
buildings using wind to generate
power is that any type of typical
wind turbine associated with a
skyscraper might be aesthetically
unpleasing to the eye in an urban
environment. Wind farms are one
thing out on the open prairie,
but having huge turbines in a
downtown or other urban environ-
ment would likely detract from
the landscape that many residents
love about the look of their down-
town or high-rise office building
areas.
Huge wind turbines also could
contribute to noise pollution in
an urban environment, and would
be a serious hazard to helicopters
that land on heliports on top of
high-rise buildings in urban envi-
ronments.
Also, in an urban environment,
birds and wind turbines don’t get
along too well either. So that is
another reason to avoid stacking
what amount to large windmills
on top of urban skyscrapers. That
is why the “strawscraper” idea is
so appealing. The straws might
vary in size and shape, and how
they would be placed; how much
electricity they might generate in
total is not known. But it seems
to be an idea that might have
some promise as building own-
ers grapple with how to be more
efficient in the use of energy. And
if they can actually use the wind
to safely generate electricity, so
much the better!
Perhaps in hot environments,
such as Texas, straw scraper build-
ings could also use the straws as a
way to shade part of the building
from the hot sun, thus helping
to lower cooling costs as well as
generating electricity.
If this idea proves to be work-
able and sustainable, you may see
it being used on both new and
retrofitted office buildings in the
future.
(You can contact John at
mytakeontech @ gmail. com)
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Hill, Earl Clyde, Jr. Rains County Leader (Emory, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 3, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 25, 2013, newspaper, June 25, 2013; Emory, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth823080/m1/3/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rains County Library.