What happened in Chardon last winter – when a gunslinging
student ended the lives of three of his classmates and wounded another – was a
terrible tragedy that seemed to make no sense.
And last weekend near Brunswick, four young people
ultimately lost their lives in a one-car accident that could have been
prevented if only the young driver had slowed down.
I’m not going to waste a lot of time on this. I could devote
an entire column to the subject, having written too many times about young
people in our community who have lost their lives in preventable automobile
accidents.
Speed kills, Mom and Dad. And if you don’t get that message
across to the teenage drivers in your home, you, too, could receive the dreaded
late-night telephone call from a first-responder:
“Your son/daughter (blank) died in an accident.”
Speed kills. Write it on their foreheads.
***
Write negatively about one aspect of fracking – in my case
when I wrote last week about the list of chemicals in fracking water – and you
get labeled “anti-fracking.”
I am not anti-fracking. I’m anti-secret lists. And I think
the list of chemicals in fracking water ought to be made available to the
public.
I’m also a firm believer in developing our own supply of
fossil fuel because, for the most part, that’s all we have right now.
I have nothing against wind or solar power, but they don’t
seem to be the immediate answer. I mean seriously how many windmills would have
to rotate 24/7 to provide power to the city of Dover? Thousands? Millions?
And, people, what do we do on a calm, windless day?
My carbon footprint is reasonable. I don’t live in a big
house; I drive a fuel-efficient automobile (by my standards); and I have
employed some of those ugly, but efficient light bulbs that are supposed to
last five years (but don’t) and use gobs less energy.
***
I was skipping through the channels the other day and came
across “The View,” which is the Barbara Walters-produced show that pits liberal
women against a conservative, Fox News-type blonde (OK, that’s not the network
description of the show) and which makes for some good TV viewing when they all
get into it.
On this particular day, the blonde, Elisabeth Hasselbeck,
was commenting on the case of the helicopter mother who took on her daughter’s
bully up close and personal and now faces assault charges.
Elisabeth thought the schools needed to become more involved
to prevent this kind of stuff.
Liberal Whoopi Goldberg called out Elisabeth.
Schools have enough going on, Whoopi said. You can’t expect
schools to police everything.
Right on, Whoopi.
More and more I hear the schools ought to teach that, or fix
that, or feed them that, or counsel them this way or that way (and make sure
the bus stops in front of my house) all while folks are saying no to new taxes
that would help schools deal with the socio-economic-parental stress their
students bring to school every day.
Ever see the pictures on the Internet of the characters
shopping at Wal-Mart? They have children, folks.
The public tends to criticize even well-managed districts
for any number of things because we all know that any member of the public
could run a school district because they’ve told us so on many occasions and
certainly just before they cast a “no” vote on the levy ballot.
***
A few months ago, I might have written this:
“I think this country is on the wrong track by allowing the
private sector to take over the process of delivering space-travel vehicles. At
this point, we have to rely on the Russians to get us to the International Space
Station, or some half-baked private sector rocket ship that may or may not get
there. Oh, boy.”
I would have been wrong. Really wrong.
Of Space X’s Dragon spaceship which returned safely to Earth
last week, the Los Angeles Times said: “After the two spacecraft connected in
space May 25, astronauts aboard the space station unloaded half a ton of cargo,
water and clothes.
“The Dragon spent six days attached to the station and was
refilled with 1,455 pounds of cargo for the trip back to Earth. The cargo will
be delivered to NASA.”
I stand corrected.
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