Column
By Mark Beardsley
Some Inventive Solutions To The Water Crisis
Ok, we’ve got to conserve water or that boat ramp they’re going to build in the Bear Creek Reservoir will lead to nowhere.
So what do we do? How can you cut down on your water consumption?
Thanks, I’m glad you asked. You’ve come to the right place. As a journalist, it is my responsibility to help the Fourth Estate provide answers. I’m leaving nuclear proliferation and global warming to The New York Times and The Jackson Herald, but I’ll take on the water thing.
Here’s what you do, or, in many cases, don’t do.
•Don’t water the lawn. I know, that’s mandated now, but it’s a good year-round policy that has the collateral benefit of cutting down on your mowing, which leads to energy conservation and helps slow global warming.
•Quit drinking water with your meal. Soft drinks, beer and wine are good substitutes. They take a lot of water to make, but it’s not our water. What do we care about water usage in Milwaukee or the Napa Valley?
•Guys, take a whiz outside. Since you’re not cutting grass, this will help kill it, and every time you don’t flush, you’re saving three to five gallons. Be discreet, please.
•Train your dogs and cats to drink on an odd-even schedule. Once we hit Level 4, they can only drink Fridays or Saturdays, depending on your address.
•Scotch and water drinkers? Forget the water, and re-use those ice cubes.
•Use gray water in your dishwasher. This will have some weight-loss benefits.
•Report your neighbors for watering. Even if they aren’t, this will prove entertaining.
•If you spend the night in a hotel or motel, take empty milk jugs and fill them up water to bring home. If you pass by your local reservoir, donate a gallon or two.
•When nature calls, go visit your neighbor.
•Convert your swimming pool into a cistern by channeling your roof runoff into the pool, water from which can irrigate your tomatoes and flush your commode. You’ll find yourself bothered less frequently next summer by trespassing neighborhood kids.
•Don’t flush until you have to. It won’t help your marriage, but it will conserve 3-7 gallons per non-flush.
In The Event Of Rain
When it finally does rain, you’ve got to take advantage of it.
•The first water running off your roof from a summer shower will be bath-water warm. Be the first in your neighborhood to shower under a downspout. See how far into the fall you can continue to use God’s water for bathing. No photos, please.
•Retrieve water from potholes to irrigate your container plants. The oily residue will also discourage aphids on your marijuana.
•If your roof leaks, collect the precious liquid in pots and pans for re-use. If it doesn’t leak, consider punching a few holes.
I hope this has been helpful. If we all work together, maybe I’ll have enough water to get through the drought.
Mark Beardsley is the editor of The Commerce News. Contact him at mark@mainstreetnews.com.
On The Internet, Parental Oversight Still A Must
Newly-appointed district attorney Rick Bridgeman spoke at length to the Commerce Kiwanis Club about his vision of the district attorney’s office in particular and law enforcement in general.
Bridgeman ended his remarks with a promise to fight Internet-based child predators who pose as young teenagers and lurk behind every computer screen waiting to make contact with our children. “Where are our sex offenders today?” he asked. “They’re in our house. They’re in our home coming across the Internet. They’re in your child’s bedroom, they’re in my child’s bedroom on that computer talking to them.”
Those words are a stark reminder that there is no substitute for parental vigilance, that parents need to be involved in every aspect of their children’s lives, both for their safety and for their success. A parent who would present his or her child with a car, offer no supervision, and turn the child loose on the highways would be universally criticized as negligent. The same argument might be made for a parent who gives a young child a computer, access to the Internet and offers no supervision nor provides any limits.
Children adapt more readily than adults to the latest technology, but rest assured that child predators have also adapted. “If you ever watch your teenager go online in one of those teenage chat rooms, you’ll be amazed, because it’ll take about 10 seconds before some adult is contacting your child, wanting to talk to them,” warns Bridgeman. It used to be common practice for parents to warn their children not to talk to strangers. That advice may be more appropriate in the age of instant worldwide communication than it was when it referred to talking in person to a stranger. Today, child predators lurk in the chat rooms and web sites popular with children and teens, and parents must make sure that their children realize the dangers and are not taking risky behavior.
It is reassuring that the district attorney is interested in protecting kids through the prosecution of child predators, but the child’s first line of defense is still in the home. Parents must constantly remind their children of the dangers and need to exercise some control and oversight of their children’s computer use. As wonderful as the Internet is at providing access to information, it can also be a sinister danger to the unwary and unsuspecting. It is beyond the capability of law enforcement to adequately patrol the Internet, so it is up to parents to know what their children are doing.
Parental care has always been the first line of protection for children. No law enforcement presence can make up for a vigilant parent who knows where his or her child is at any given time and who knows who he or she talks to regularly, whether in person, by phone or in a chat room.
Today’s children may be much more sophisticated about and comfortable with the latest technology than their parents, but they’re still kids largely unaware of the potential dangers that may arise. It’s up to parents to provide guidance, oversight and protection.
Column
By Susan Harper
Too Much, Too Little Information
“T.M.I.,” I hear people crying these days. “T.M.I.” They hold up their hands — one vertically, the other capping it horizontally — like a referee calling time out, and the urgency of their tone suggests that the Too Much Information they’re objecting to might actually harm them in some way.
They could be right. It’s a hazard of living in the Information Age, or maybe we should be calling it the Too Much Information Age. I appreciate knowing that Michael Vick was involved in dog-fighting, for example, even though it made me sad. But the days and days of ensuing “follow-up” complete with gory details made me wonder if some misguided souls weren’t just being given a free crash-course in how to run a dog-fighting enterprise, complete with up-to-the-minute tips on how not to get caught, as Mr. Vick did.
I didn’t have to wonder whether our hundreds of TV channels, broadcasting round-the-clock, were simply running out of things to say to us. That was already clear. I’m now noticing re-runs of fifty-year-old episodes of “I Love Lucy,” which I must say are a welcome respite from some of the more recently minted sitcoms, but what’s next, a revival of “Mister Ed, the Talking Horse”? (And now that I’ve written that, I understand that someone will call to tell me Mister Ed’s been on for years.)
Lucy and Mister Ed are harmless, though. Repeated, detailed coverage of armed robberies, child pornography, and other dark deeds simply invites more of the same, gradually creating an environment in which they seem normal.
My own personal TMI isn’t limited to print and broadcast media, though, and I’ll bet yours isn’t, either. Mine comes at me from the 100-plus e-mails I receive during a week when I’m away from the library. (Talk about paying for your vacation time!) It arrives in the unsolicited junk mail that clogs my mailbox, and in the sales and political “ads” and (worst of all) computerized phone calls that fill my voice mail.
There is, of course, the possibility of even more personal TMI. I suppose one could wear a button that said “No Need to Give Me All the Details of Your Recent Bout with Diarrhea — I Have a Vivid Imagination.” The danger is that you’d forget to take the button off when you sat down for dinner out with friends, or for that all-important job interview.
All of this flew through my head last week when we were getting ready for the library’s book sale. I was touched to discover how many lovely old memoirs we had, filled with fond recollections of bygone days and beloved friends. They sold, too, these battered old books no one had looked at in years. Perhaps we’re all nostalgic for that earlier, simpler time. True, no one could call you in your car, and that was sometimes inconvenient. But I have an idea that when our lives were a bit less cluttered with TMI, there was a bit more room for TLC, and time to LOL.
Susan Harper is director of the Commerce Public Library.
