And then I wrote...
by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"
... about a couple of “natural” things I recently observed.
Those who have had occasion to travel Waukon’s 11th Ave. S.W., south of the park, the past several months have observed the effort to dredge silt and deepen the pond;
One day during the first full week of May as I was heading west from the highway along the quarry, I noticed a pair of geese and at least four very young goslings on the shoulder on the quarry side of the road; I could only assume this is the same pair that has raised families there for the past several years, since geese mate for life and live long lives. But the difference this year, is there was no pond! I know water is necessary for the eventual training in safety measures and flight, but can the little ones get along without the pond? I did notice a few days later that the pond was being filled again, so maybe a crisis was averted.
I have never watched one of those television movies in which Earthlings are stranded on a strange planet, but in previews and teasers and trailers I have seen, sometimes the sun on the alien planet is a different color. Blood red or violet or lime green, or some such, just to make things look strange. Sunday morning, May 8, when I looked out my east window about 6:30, I thought possibly I had been transported! The sun, up to about 25 degrees, was very red and hazy. It was the effect of high level smoke from Minnesota and Canadian wildfires. The weather channel runs a bar graph for Prairie du Chien showing air quality, and it is usually well left, for good. That day, it was way right, not good. We were told it might take a couple weeks to clear up. Which got me to wondering about the effect of natural events on climate change.
If we had had sensitive measuring devices in the 1880s, when the volcano Krakatau erupted, what would they have told us? The ash cloud lasted two years!
Politics.
Fox News has a personality named Waters, who is sent around the country to interview “the folks” about current events. Fox says otherwise, but he seems to select only the dumbest people, particularly college students, who display abject ignorance. Recently, he interviewed some children, and there was one blonde girl of perhaps nine or ten who spoke clearly and intelligently about all topics and obviously had given them some mature thought.
Too bad there is a minimum age for president!
Same topic.
The Des Moines Sunday Register took the Iowa legislature and governor to task for failure to pass several things which would “better” Iowans. Two of them would have required additional taxes and a third would have raised the purchase prices of many goods and services. A fourth advocated more government control, and another would have legalized a marijuana based oil drug.
Actually, I feel “better” because those opportunities were missed!
