-
Autumn Leaves
December 13, 2012 | 17 comments
-
Osceola Who?
May 29, 2012 | 34 comments
-
Touchy-Feely Football
April 4, 2012 | 54 comments
-
Guess What, Grandpa?!!
January 16, 2012 | 48 comments
-
Important to Decide
November 9, 2011 | 18 comments
Another Perspective
Solutions
Going to the well once too often.
Four hundred thousand customers in Prince George’s County, adjacent the District of Columbia, have been warned to boil their tap water because it may be contaminated. It was a little matter of a 54-inch water main that burst and produced a gush of water resembling Old Faithful and then produced a rushing stream that blocked, for a time, a portion of the major highway that surrounds the District. Several cars were destroyed by the eruption and a nearby business was damaged. Winter weather forced road crews to treat the highway to prevent the formation of ice. And soon word went out: boil that water, even if only to brush your teeth or refresh your dog.
In Prince George’s and nearby Montgomery Counties, there were 647 main breaks last month alone among the mains that are 40 years old and getting frail. There is a move underway to get the federal government’s money involved in what may be a multi-million dollar project.
Ah, but there is another way to save public money. Turn out the lights along public highways! It’s being done on Route 100 in Howard County. State highway officials say about 75 lights along a section of the six-lane inter-state have been “deactivated” as part of a pilot project to see whether that state can cut its power use along state roads without affecting public safety. The next logical step would be to close major highways to travel from dusk to dawn. This has alarmed the highway folk at Triple-A, a spokesman reminding that drivers are not getting any younger and have trouble seeing well at night.
One fatal crash, warns Triple-A, may offset the savings in juice. Advocates of the lesser lights along the roads point out that car lights these days are more efficient than when the overheads were installed.
True. Perhaps we’d be better with communal water wells to replace those danged mains also.
Think of all the interesting people you might meet down by the well with your bucket.
Caution here: remember to boil that water when you get home.
About the Author
Reid Collins is a former CBS and CNN news correspondent.
Bob K.| 1.27.11 @ 7:36AM
And people run for office to live here and decide how the rest of us will live?
Yo! RETJr. and Wlady, and all you other Mental Giants of Journalism. What the hell are you doing in this place? Get back out to "fly over" country.
No wonder the economy is going to hell in a handcart!
C. S. P. Schofield| 1.27.11 @ 8:47AM
Get used to this game. Every time the voters look like they might force the State's drones to cut their perks and pet projects, there's a blizzard of threats to cut core services like police, fire, and street lights. The hope is that that'll distract us from the pork and the payoffs. I've seen it in every city I've ever lived in in my adult life; somehow cutting back on Garbage Collection always comes BEFORE 86ing the CPS executives annual planning retreat on Fiji.
We're going to have to put up with the inconvenience until these swine get the message that THEY work for US, and not the other way around.
Maddox| 1.27.11 @ 10:26AM
And that, sir, is the truth of the matter. Well said.
JP| 1.27.11 @ 10:10AM
Progressive politicians of all persuasions relish in solving problems in the abstract (Global Warming, Wolrd Hunger, Ozone Depletion, Obesity). But none have any interest in doing what they're paid to do (snow removal, street and sewers, police and fire, zoning). Even where I live, a supposedly conservative area, the pols get really worked up discussing "Global Climate Change" and what we can do about it. But, ask them why it took the city 3 days to plow away 6 inches of snow, and they get upset. "We need more money", is thier response. More and more cities and counties must beg Washinton for money in order to do ordinary things like fill pot holes or pay for police. Where did all the tax payer's money go?
bobmontgomery| 1.27.11 @ 3:30PM
Ditto for education. "Why Johnny can't read" is because he's not being taught reading - he's bein gtaught multiculturalism.
Jack London| 1.27.11 @ 10:35AM
This article looks like a call for collective intervention in fixing our decrepit architecture. Well said and not what I expect from this site.
Steve A| 1.27.11 @ 11:18AM
Hey, what happened to the 1 Trillion in "stimulus" for updating our infastructure with all of those "shovel ready projects?" Maybe somebody should ask Obama.
MikeBee| 1.27.11 @ 12:02PM
Steve,
All that money was given to states to shore up their general fund budgets. For example, the state of Michigan received about $2 billion, which they used to pay state workers who should have been laid off when their departments were closed years ago. But the democrat governor here, Jenny penny, couldn't bring herself to right-size government, so King Obama bailed her out (Yay! You saved me! My hero!)
Steve A| 1.27.11 @ 12:26PM
You are correct sir. New funds will be used no differently. This is precisely why we must remain the Party Of No (more bull***t)
Frisbee| 1.27.11 @ 1:32PM
Repaving highways that go almost nowhere, and didn't need repaving. Has anybody else noticed that?
Notary Sojac| 1.27.11 @ 10:38AM
Government when threatened turns itself inside out to face the danger.
The bone and muscle migrate outward, prepared to incur any injury so as to protect the precious fat within.
sinanju| 1.27.11 @ 11:18AM
But we DO know where all the money went that used to go into the basic chore of maintaining infrastructure!
"The Crumbling of America" gradually took hold and accelerated as the public unions' pay and benefits expanded to devour more and more of state and municipal budgets over the past forty-five years.
Richard Baker| 1.27.11 @ 11:21AM
Ah Maryland! Home state of Marvin Mandel and Spiro Agnew among other notables. The money is gone and more isn't going to solve the problem. How about reducing the size of the bloated and corrupt government in the Old Line State, instead? It couldn't hurt.
dvb| 1.27.11 @ 12:40PM
I hear there are some really nice roads being built in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Frisbee| 1.27.11 @ 1:39PM
Hey, here's a great "solution" the federal government could fund: cremation ovens for abortion doctors, starting in Philadelphia. That would certainly have solved Gosnell's problem.
Forget the chicken in every pot. We could have an Auschwitz in every neighborhood.
Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 5:33AM
In Prince George's and nearby Montgomery Counties, there were 647 main breaks last month alone among the mains that are 40 years old and getting frail. There is a move underway to get the federal government's money involved in what may be a multi-million dollar project.
sex toys | 7.4.11 @ 1:11AM
Hey I pair your style I instrument concur for your take gratify remain transmitting!
Thanks
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 4:39AM
is good