Category: Uncategorized

I thought I’d try Netflix for a couple of months and catch up on watching movies and then cancel. So far I’m impressed: I joined Sunday and got two movies in the mail on Tuesday. I sent one back Wednesday and got the next on Friday. I did the free trial a while back and they were shipping everything from California. Now they have a center in Duluth (but I couldn’t get another free trial).

It’s $20 a month to have 3 movies out a time which probably means you could watch a movie every other day if you watch them the day you get them and mail them back the next. They pay the postage both ways. They have options where you can pay more and have more movies out or pay less and have 2 movies out a time (but that plan is limited to 4 movies per month).

You keep a backlog of things you want and whenever they get a movie back from you they send the next on the list. So you don’t have to keep going back to the website to pick movies. They just come automatically as long as you have movies in your queue.

It’s a very neat idea and seems like it should be very efficient using bar codes and automatically generating e-mails.

Read the follow-up posted in December.

Saw an interesting thing Friday as I was leaving work. I walked from my office to the state office buildings (twin towers, aka Sloppy Floyd Building) which takes me right through the smokers’ hangout. I see a couple of people (white but leathery tan) and they’re opening up the smoker station ashtrays mounted to the columns of the walkway. The woman looked up at me and looked kind of guilty so I wondered if they were up to something but it looked like they were just looking for cigarette butts. Once I was in the building I asked the security guard if they were getting cigarette butts. He said Yes, they do it every day.

Wow.

In an effort to ingest more vegetables but not actually have to eat them, I bought a Juiceman (you may remember the infomercial with the crazy orange man with wild white eyebrows touting the benefits of juicing and calling both himself and his product “Juiceman”).

It’s pretty neat as far as tools go. Chews through carrots like they were nothing. And carrot juice doesn’t taste bad, it’s actually kind of sweet. I tried mixing some carrots and tomatoes. Tastes like carrot juice. Bad thing about carrot juice: it stains instantly and permanently anything it touches (including the Juiceman man). Why not just make the entire machine orange?

I’ll post updates on whether I will get my money’s worth ($100) from this thing. So far it has involved 3 very expensive glasses of carrot juice (one with tomato).

I was reading more about it today. One of the real big problems that could come back and nail all parties is that the Nature Conservancy would buy land for someone else clamp conservation restrictions on it and sell the property at a loss. The “conservation restrictions” are usually just what the new landowner wants, including houses, farming, logging, whatever. They then re-appraise the land at a lower rate and sell the property at that new value. Where they almost certainly ran afoul of the law was in requiring the new landowner to give a “donation” that would bring the amount paid back up to the original asking price. This allows the owner to get land (maybe the owner wouldn’t sell it to an individual but doesn’t mind selling it to a nice organization like TNC) at the same price and do exactly what they intended anyway, but they get a write-off of the “donation”. So really the loser is the government. And I also kind of wonder if there isn’t another deal struck with the original landowner where they donate a conservation easement to TNC before selling the land for less money and are able to write off the difference between the asking price and the lower amount as a “donation” as well. Then the government gets hit twice.

Anyway it also brings up the whole idea of conservation easements. You get a double savings where you donate an easement to an organization. First you write off the difference between the market price of your land with restrictions and without as a donation. So you get a tax break now. But because the land will now appraise for less money you can petition the county or city and have your assessment reduced. Then you save money every year on property taxes.

This is what I wrote to the Nature Conservancy after reading Part 1 of the Washington Post article:

I have been a member of The Nature Conservancy for about 12 years. I have been giving every year in increasing amounts and support the Georgia chapter as well. I joined because I liked the idea of an organization that doesn’t do a lot of lobbying, doesn’t go to parades, doesn’t do publicity stunts, and just concentrates on buying and preserving land.

I read the Washington Post article (Part 1 anyway) and while I took some of the information with a grain of salt, the article also put its finger on some issues that have concerned me in the past. Rather than saying you’ve been improperly portrayed and that TNC is doing a great job, you need to look at what they’re saying and see how much of it indicates some problems or at least opportunities to do better.

One concern I have is the ballooning number of employees at TNC. I’m not sure why it takes so many people, offices, jeeps, etc. to preserve land. While any landowner needs to dedicate resources to protecting that land and managing that land, I wonder how many employees do just that? Employees and overhead are very expensive to have and maintain. The money that pays one $40k employees (with at least another $40k in overhead) will buy a lot of land. And buy more every year. My entire yearly contribution of about $150 pays that employee for less than one day.

Another concern I have when I read the annual report is the number of acres TNC *sells* every year. There is a lot of income from land sales and I would bet that some years TNC sells more land than it buys. I just have to wonder about that. While you are quick to say you have protected X acres, how much of that is owned? I would bet that many of your supporters are thinking you own that land. I may be mistaken but I remember the Gray ranch being touted as a great acquisition and then several years later it was sold.

I see a lot of money in the annual report going towards the vague notion of “education” and “programs”. I wonder what those mean. Is a letter I get telling me about the need to raise money for a new purchase considered “education” or is it “marketing”. To me, it is marketing. Is the cost of the magazine considered marketing? It probably should be. I wonder if marketing costs aren’t hidden in programs and education just to make the organization look better. I wonder that with all organizations I support, so it isn’t unique to TNC.

And yes I wonder why some of the nations biggest polluters always seem to team up with The Nature Conservancy. I think it’s great to raise money from them and put it to good use. And I like the idea of helping them come up with better policies. But I wonder if that relationship legitimizes those businesses. And I wonder if such a tight relationship doesn’t open the possibility of abuse. I work for the government managing consultant contracts and dealing with consultants every day. Therefore I am very aware of how vigilant one must be to avoid conflicts of interest, even the appearance of them.

I hope that The Nature Conservancy takes the questions raised by the Post and uses the information as an opportunity for reflection. I hope that you can build on the information and opinions stated in the article (and those you are no doubt receiving as a result of the article) and use those as a guide to do a better job of protecting land.

Sincerely,

Ted C*****