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About:

Lorton Valley Star Newspaper
monthly and on the web
www.LortonValleyStar.com

Covering the greater Lorton, VA area from Fairfax /Franconia Parkway to Prince William Parkway.

Contact Information:

Floyd Harrison,
Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Lorton Valley Star Communications, LLC

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Nuzguy@
LortonValleyStar.com
for press releases about Lorton or advertising inquiry

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Print deadline is 20th



Mail to:
Lorton Valley Star
P.O. Box 1436
Lorton Valley, VA 22199

Urgent? Publisher Cell:
571-274-7389

© 2005 Floyd Harrison T/A
Lorton Valley Star Comm.
All international rights reserved; No copying in whole or any element is permitted.

We are not responsible for the content of our advertisers web sites.

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Mother's Grieving Heart

On November 10, 2000 Maria's daughter Crystal was killed in a terrible accident. Maria went through what no mother in the world wants or expects to go through.

Go To Site…

To moms who have suffered the loss of a child:

When Maria was faced with the death of her child, all the books she read provided the same answer. This answer was not good enough. She began to write poetry. Her poetry was a way for her to find the answers to the terrible crisis that she could not find in any book. Through writing her poetry, Maria became closer to God and she found during her journey, that God's mercy is a sufficient answer to any crisis or devastating situation.

Those poems are now available in the book, "Crystal, A Mother's Grieving Heart" published by Lorton Valley Star. It is available in Occoquan at the Coffee House of Occoquan and at Attic Treasures. It is also available online from Maria's web site.

Buy the book now…

Copyright © 2003 Maria Carneiro, of Montclair, Prince William County, Virginia, USA

All international rights reserved.

94 Pages
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1994 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.



Catalog Data:

Carneiro, Maria A.
Crystal, A Mother’s Grieving Heart
Original Publication:
A.D. 2005
ISBN 0-9764770-0-9

Grief, Poetry

Library of Congress Number TXu1-189-869

Cover Art:
Michelle Carneiro
Graphics and Layout:
Floyd Harrison




Publisher:
Lorton Valley Star Communications
P.O. Box 1436
Lorton, VA 22199
USA

See Coffee House

See Attic Treasures

Volunteer

Community EVENTS calendar:
Always check here between print issues for EVENTS updates and changes.

EVENT CHANGE: Art in the Courtyard for May 11 Postponed 'til June at the Lorton Station Town Center

New May EVENTS up now and even June additions.

Color Magazine Suppliment:
Byways advertiser links and Byways stories online.

Lorton Community Information:
Lorton VA Usa

News and Feature Videos:
Video page we are remodeling this section

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Lorton Area Charities:
Lorton Charities Catalog

Franconia Wanted Posters:
fairfaxcounty.gov/police/stations/franconia/wanted.htm

If guns are outlawed, only terrorists will have guns. The biggest army in the world is America's hunters. Only our banks can destroy us.

Gerald Lyons Photoshops Our Skies

By Floyd Harrison

Jerry Lyons passed away on Thursday the 16th as the result of a catastrophic brainstem stroke that he suffered on Friday the 10th. He is survived by his wife Sally Lyons and daughter Savanna. A funeral service was held at Pohick Church on Monday the 27th followed by a reception at Gunston Hall.

Jerry and Sally of Mason Neck, Lorton, have a successful commercial arts business. Their work appears on some of our local park trail signs in Lorton. They were participants in the Occoquan, Woodbridge and Lorton Digital Artists Dinners and Jerry was an early member of the Artists’ Undertaking in Occoquan. They were supportive of the Lorton Community and of Lorton Community Action Center.

Jerry was a great supporter of Gunston Hall and instrumental in several of it’s annual programs. They also were active in preserving local history. We remember a great citizen and jolly fellow always with humor and a good word. He will photoshop our skies.

In lieu of flowers, they ask that donations be made in Jerry’s name to Lorton Community Action Center (http:// www.lortonaction.org/) or Gunston Hall (http://www.gunstonhall.org/).

Byways: Lorton Valley Star Newspaper now includes a center color magazine section called Lorton Byways. Byways are the roads less traveled so this is more adventure than news. It gives us the capability of offering color advertising to Lorton Merchants. See Lorton Byways site. Contact Byways at <Byways@LortonValleyStar.com>,

Keep Government Out of the Internet

http://www.break.com/index/the-government-wants-to-kill-the-internet-2222109

Video Clips (five more in the wings)

Enjoy video clips linked to the Entertainment page. One is a trailer for a short film by a local film maker; The other is an abstract of the Saint Patrick's parade Downtown Alexandria.

When you Google Lorton, our new companion site Lorton, Virginia USA comes up 4th and Lorton Valley Star comes up 6th.

New Lorton Community Web Site

Try our new Lorton Virginia Usa community web site at Lorton.Net. You'll find community links for Churches, Dinning of all kinds, Entertainment venues, Parks, Businesses, Community organizations like clubs, Schools, Gunston Hall, the Lorton Workhouse Arts Center and Volunteer opportunities. Save gas; Trade locally; Enjoy Lorton. Most of the listed services are within 5 files radius of the Lorton Road exit of the Shirley Highway RT. 95. including Mason Neck and Occoquan. There you'll also find a link to our new online South Fairfax Chamber of Commerce. The Events are back here on Lorton Valley Star. Lorton.Net is hosted and sponsored by Look.Net providing web site services and hosting for greater Lorton. Our thanks to Peter Weyland. Please visit Lorton Virginia Usa. It's new.

After 10 years,
we're still having fun, and we're still the one.

We are Lorton’s one and only home town newspaper serving the greater Lorton community for 10 years. A FREE monthly tabloid picked up from the Fairfax / Franconia Parkway to the Prince William Parkway, Lorton Valley Star covers Occoquan, Woodbridge, Lorton, Mason Neck, Laurel Hill, Newington, Fairfax Station, Landsdowne, Fort Belvoir and Engleside.

Press releases are received in e-mail to Publisher@LortonValleyStar.com as well as advertising requests and events for the calendar. Print issue deadline is generally the twentieth of the month. Please check out our web site at http://LortonValleyStar.com.

Support Lorton Valley Star and patronize Lorton Merchants. After 10 years we’re still having fun and we’re still the one.

Subscription Offer

Lorton Valley Star is offering free trial subscriptions of our print issue for a brief time to residents of Lorton, Virginia 22079 and the town of Occoquan 22125 only. The purpose is to promote the inception of paid mail subscription service.

Addressee name: __________________________________

Snail mail address: ____________________________________

ZIP check: Lorton, ___22079 or Occoquan ___22125

Send to: Lorton Valley Star Subscriptions

P.O. Box 1436,

Lorton Valley, VA 22199

Our Volunteer Opportunities Page has moved to Lorton.net

New Food Outreach Locations in NOVA

Evidence of the difficult economic times can be clearly seen in the dramatic growth of a new food relief program spreading across northern VA.  With only 20 locations statewide at the beginning of 2008, Angel Food Ministries has now grown to more than 90 locations statewide and has added new local sites in Stafford, Lorton, Woodbridge, Nokesville, Manassas, Warrenton, Sterling and Fairfax.
“The need for real help with food is obvious in all of our local Northern VA communities, and it is not just with those who have traditionally needed assistance.  Now we find that  it is growing with families and working people just trying to keep food on their table,”  states David Mills, State Outreach Director for Angel Food. 
At the beginning of 2008 Angel Food only had one or two trucks delivering food in Virginia, but now a dozen trucks, each holding up to 1500 boxes of food roll across the state each month.  Total volume has grown 10 times since the beginning of 2008.  Lots of this food is making its way to families, seniors and other individuals in northern VA communities.
  Unlike traditional emergency food programs, which are now under significant strain, Angel Food does not require an income qualification, but instead uses a cooperative food approach in which thousands of volunteers located in non profits and churches across the state join together each month to organize and distribute boxes of high quality food.  All of this is made possible only by the massive scale of Angel Food purchasing and the local commitment of volunteer host sites.  A host site in Woodbridge, VA is typical of other sites that are seeing a dramatic increase in interest in Angel Food; their participation rose from 120 to 350 boxes between September and December of 2008. 
  “This approach is built on dignity, because both those who receive the food and those who distribute it share in the cost and labor to get the food delivered, and no one feels like they are getting charity,” says a local host site director, Andy Casper from South County Cares in Lorton, VA.  Angel Food purchases high quality groceries from national providers and delivers a box of 16-18 items including meat, frozen vegetables and staples for $30.   They also provide senior meals, special fresh fruit and vegetable boxes that at least double their food dollar.  Food stamps are accepted and people who participate select from a menu that changes every month.
  Orders for the month of February are due by February 15th, with food delivered on Saturday morning February 21st.  If you visit one of these sites, you will see the relief on people’s faces as they see a box of quality food containing 8 to 10 lbs of meat along with vegetables coming their way, and find a great example of community members pulling together to help each other.  The regular food box will provide the main meals for a family of four for about a week, the seniors box contains 10 high quality meals.
The new volunteer groups that join Angel Food each month all seem to reflect the attitude of Host Site Director Jonathan Buttler of Warrenton, who started Angel Food recently, “This food is really making a difference.   It comes in when the two ends of the budget can’t be stretched far enough to provide good nutrition, and what people get is really quality food with lots of meat.”
Contact: Tel. 888-819-3745  web. http://www.angelfoodva.org

Passive Solar Home (click on photo)

This unique passive solar home in Lorton is designed with a counter intuitive approach which is the culmination of a career of experience by it’s architect owner/ resident. The ‘Green House’ facade is not the collector but a control space. The temperature and humidity are extremely stable with little assistance. Lorton Valley Star has the exclusive report.

No Global Warming & Response

By Floyd Harrison

I don’t believe that global warming is our problem. There are threats to the environment but there is not sufficient data to indicate that warming is the immediate threat. In fact, the particulate matter we are putting into the atmosphere is dimming the sun which with CO2 reduction actually makes us cooler. I believe we are seeing climate shifts but not overall warming.

The real threats, I believe, are the demise of huge areas of green forest, long lived toxic chemicals which are building up in the water, and the loss of water.

Negating the Chicken Little common belief, The huge glacial cover has been diminishing since the Little Ice Age and even since the Great Ice Age. This is only an observance of natural cycles. The theories for the cycles involve Solar output, changes in Earth’s orbit and sea salinity. There is a respected late scientist who actually predicted that another ice age is imminent. By the way, the globe is losing geothermal energy. Actually, we have cooled since 1999.
If the sea level is on the rise, Explain to the Midwest Indians why they can no longer get water from wells they can afford to dig. Fact is, the water table is falling. If the Great Ice Age caused drought, why is there less water now? Where is the extra water going? Space, I suppose.

Furthermore, you couldn’t affect the CO2 content over the course of a year without destroying the green forest. The percentage of this greenhouse gas changes with the seasons in each hemisphere by more than any scientist can claim we have influenced it. It goes down half a percent in Climatic Spring with the greening of the continents. And it climbs after the deciduous trees lose their leaves. This demonstrates that the biota is controlling it. But, clear the forests and the control will be gone THEN we will have global asphyxiation.

Our use of resources and daily activities are accelerating the dispersal of toxins into the environment. The chlorine compounds are building up as well as other industrial chemicals. Even our water treatment contributes traces of PCBs to the affluent. The threats from lead and mercury are already common concern. Without getting technical just know that there are more pollutants than these.
So, even the energy crises is not one of CO2 generation but one of pollution and increased cost of mining or drilling. There is still a lot of coal and oil in the ground but we’ve skimmed the easy to reach stuff and it gets increasingly more costly to retrieve as we go forward in time. Jed Clampets are far between.

Maybe you’re not old enough or didn’t live in the Washington Metropolitan area back when we had stifling smog. That was the beginning of air stagnation reports. We don’t see that dingy yellow sky now but we did hear about the bad air in Bejing during the Olympics. We exported pollution and the crude oil glut when we exported production jobs. Just because we don’t see smog over our heads doesn’t mean that we aren’t causing it with our glutenous consumption of throw away products.

So, what will we do? Realize that the root problem is not the CO2. Al Gore has a right to a living at journalism but he’s no scientist. I think that’s just a conspiracy to spread our blame and to tax the wealth from producing nations with the CO2 credit idea. I think that’s more of the financial mentality that got us into global recession. Florescent bulb replacements are a wash in the long run as they spread mercury. So…then what?

1) Stop the demise of the Rain Forests in all climate zones. This is the single most imperative action. Don’t believe me, read The Ages of Gaia by James Lovelock. That’s his imperative.

2) Own the blame. We are the polluters. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle is a good philosophy and the second most imperative action. Notice that Reduce is first in this rule. We can all do this directly, starting now.

3) While realizing that we depend on crude oil for many products other than fuels so we don’t just burn it all, make a sane search for alternative energy which doesn’t tie up food sources as ethanol production does, resulting in starvation. Drive less, combine trips and drive a more miserly vehicle.

You see, there are now so many people on the planet that it is becoming very critical what our mass decisions are. My point is that the CO2 global warming issue is a smoke screen to the real problems that we can all do something about.

I’d might like to hear your responses but please quote real sources not Al Gore; I’ve already heard his synopsis.

To the Editor:

from Glenda C. Booth
Virginia Outreach Coordinator
National Audubon Society
January 22, 2009
 
I have to both quibble and concur with Floyd Harrison’s January column titled “No Global Warming.” Harrison wrote, “My point is that the CO2 global warming issue is a smoke screen to the real problems that we can all do something about.”

  My quibble:  Global warming is not a smokescreen; it is real.
  My concurrence:  We can all do something about it.  In fact, he offers several good suggestions, including develop cleaner fuels, drive less and drive more efficient vehicles.

Is global warming real?  Here’s what some of the experts say:

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the United Nations’ body of over 2,000 scientists from around the world) has issued four assessments of climate change science.  They are unequivocal in their conclusion that “most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”  
  The IPCC found that carbon dioxide concentrations since the Industrial Revolution are due primarily to human use of fossil fuels.  Land use changes, largely deforestation, have also been significant contributors.  Greenhouse gas emissions will grow without action to curb them, IPCC says.

• Virginia Governor Tim Kaine’s Commission on Climate Change, December 2008: “. . . the fact that global climate change is happening and is largely human-caused is now widely accepted.”  The Commission said that from 2000 to 2099 “the average warming for Virginia will be 3.1 degrees C (5.6 degrees F) and that precipitation will increase by 11 percent.

• The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments reported in November 2008 that the area is experiencing climate change now and that without action, greenhouse gas emissions in the region will grow by 33 percent by 2030 and 43 percent by 2050.  “There is an urgent need to address the causes of global warming, as the costs of inaction are greater than the costs of mitigation and adaptation,” warned COG.

• The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of major American businesses, on January 22 called for action to address climate change because they believe it is serious and delay can bring great economic costs and disruption.

• Addressing climate change is a priority of the Evangelical Environmental Network:  “We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part,” they assert in For the Health of the Nation, An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.

• Finally, in September 2008, the Global Carbon Project, an international scientific group, reported that carbon from burning fossil fuels has increased more than most experts had previously predicted.
 
While the planet’s climate has changed over time, up and down, it is (1) the rapid rate of warming and (2) the fact that human activities are the primary cause that are unsustainable and alarming. Global warming is not a smokescreen; it is real.
  We know what the solutions are.  It’s time for Congress, state and local governments and all of us to act.

Dear Glenda, (publisher's reply)

Thank you for your informed response to my editorial challenging the prevailing theory of Global Warming. I appreciate your concern we share for the environment.

I would like to point out however, that your reference sources are more political than scientific which is my complaint about the issue. It is trumpeted by people who make their living flying around the globe echoing the call in smoke filled rooms. And, even those actually mostly refer to ‘climate change’ rather than ‘global warming’. Scientists are not unanimous which means it’s theory, not proven. I still don’t believe it.

I can only find data that shows that the globe has cooled in the last decade with a primary reason given as a delayed solar cycle increase; 1999 was the recent temperature peak. This is a scientific fact. The annual mean is since decreasing.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is announced to have increased 100 parts per million (ppmv) by comparing current measurements in Mauna Loa to Arctic ice bubbles speculated to be from a hundred, eighty years ago. This is not a scientific controlled experiment. It’s a crude guesstimate.

Either scenario you believe, however, still leads back to the same conclusion that you and I agree. As a member of the National Audubon Society, you know that the immediate threats to wild animals are pollutants, and loss of habitat, which we have affected. I just believe that if we were to concentrate on helping them, we would have done all we need to do to help ourselves.

We need to quit felling entire forests globally but to allow the thinning of national forests to promote new growth and reduce the intensity of natural wild fires which wipe out hundreds of acres. It’s the dead wood on the forest floor which helps fires spread so uncontrollably. Transmitting documents by .pdf file rather than paper based FAX would reduce paper use. We need plans for reclaiming strip mine land. If we put the mountain back with organic land fill, it could become productive land. We need to reduce our glutenous consumption of throw away products because they both waste diminishing resources and increase all kinds of pollution. Again, reduce, reuse, recycle.

So, actually we can work together whether or not we believe the popular carbon-dioxide scare. I believe that if we do the right things, carbon dioxide will take care of itself. My further point is that by owning the blame personally instead of passing the responsibility to some global corporations, we can start on our own, right now to make the needed changes. You, perhaps, are doing that; I was talking to everyone.
Thanks again for your participation.

VDOT Punchlist

See our punchlist of VDOT problems and contribute hazards or missing signs that you find in Lorton. Click on photo. This hazardous storm drain was broken in snow removal winter before last. Cones have been there over a year.

Video Clips Coming to this site

Lorton Valley Star has tested an easy method to ad video clips to our web site. We expect to be adding clips from arts venues and video news. Deer nibbles greens in Lorton back yard.
Virginia Railway Express Commuter Train makes afternoon stop at Lorton Station

The Publisher@ mail address has been turned off due to spam marketing abuses. Local contacts Please use the new address which is provided at About. Sorry, very sorry, for the inconvenience.

Humor and Stories
to Warm the Heart  

Joni_Relyea_Art

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Floyd Harrison, Publisher

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