Jump: Big Pig | A Fast-Moving Line | With merger, the world’s no. 1 would get even bigger | More water, more waste | What’s cheaper than a S**hole? | Bundy Lane’s family has farmed for several generations, raising hogs and cattle near Gates, a small town in northeastern North Carolina not far from the […]
Lisa Sorg
Bio: Lisa Sorg is the editor of INDY Week.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/lisasorg
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Hot water from the sun
Hot water is expensive, accounting for 13 percent of home energy usage. Yet that doesn’t mean you’re relegated to cold showers and dirty dishes; solar water heaters can reduce hot water bills by more than half. If your roof receives six hours of southern or southeastern sun, it could be suitable for a solar water […]
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Big pig
When a farmer raises pigs for market, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. A gargantuan hog costs more to slaughter, and the carcass is hard to manage on the assembly line. Ultimately, its unwieldy size doesn’t justify the expense. Smithfield Packing, the world’s largest hog processor, is bigand getting bigger. Not only does it control much […]
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Deadline near for (nearly) free dogwood trees
If your yard looks like a lunar landscape, then you need trees. And the National Arbor Day Foundation wants to give them to you. The nonprofit group is giving away 10 white flowering dogwoods to anyone who buys a $10 membership. Deadline is March 31. The 6- to 12-inch trees will be shipped by May […]
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Bills, bulbs and power plants
“There’s gotta be a better way to do this,” sighed a bored state Rep. Doug Yongue, glancing at his watch. It took House reading clerk John Young 40 minutes to introduce more than 200 bills last Thursday afternoon, allowing lawmakers to mingle or raid one another’s candy jars. Among those measures was HB 702, which […]
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Healthy boating etiquette
Buff your boat, spiffy your sloop: Before heading to area lakes, reservoirs or the Atlantic, consider the environmental impact your craft will have on the water and the critters living in it. Some precautions are no-brainers: Don’t toss trash, including fish innards or cigarette butts, overboard and don’t flush your sewage tanks into the waterthat’s […]
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Tyrone Hayes
When agribusiness giant Sygenta commissioned biologist Tyrone Hayes to study the effects of atrazine, it got more than it bargained for. A decade ago, Sygenta paid Hayes’ lab at UC-Berkeley $250,000 to study the herbicide’s impact on fish, frogs and reptiles. But Hayes broke ranks after discovering frogs exposed to atrazine developed eggs in their […]
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Safe paint
That vertigo you feel while painting the living room might not be from the tall ladder. Most commercial paints emit harmful fumes containing volatile organic compounds, also known as VOCs, many of which, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, cause cancer. But before you settle for a peeling wall or resort to faux paneling, try […]
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Free, no-rip-off tax preparation
No fees, no rip-offs: Instead of wasting hundreds of dollars on “refund anticipation loans” (see “Refund loans target the poor“), if you earned $39,000 or less last year, you could have your taxes prepared for free. N.C. Central University law students trained and certified to prepare tax returns through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) […]
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‘The VA is waiting for us to die’
As an Army soldier during the Vietnam War, David Best patrolled Korea’s demilitarized zone, lugging a 40-pound pack on his back in temperatures as bone-chilling as 20 degrees below zero and as smoldering as 100. During his service, Best developed an intermittent pain in his left knee, which radiated to his thigh and groin. “It […]