CSotD: Of unleaded gas, leaded water and lead dogs
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Here's a picture of me that Jim Morin drew, though he got one part of it wrong: Now that I'm semi-retired, I no longer have a 401k but an IRA, the difference being that I draw money out of it now, for things like the $3,000 dental crown I'm adding next month.
However, after I post today's blog, I'll go top off my gas tank, because, on weekends, there are two competitive convenience stores down the street that offer a five-cent discount. I've still got half a tank, and my car only holds nine gallons to begin with, but thrift! Thrift!
So you young folks can shrug off the ups-and-downs of a 401k because it will eventually come back. Just don't look.
But when it's your right-now go-to fund, the three grand you draw off for your dentist is more like a loss of four grand and it's just that much sooner that it all runs out.
But at least I'm gonna pick up that 23 cent savings on gas, and that's not the only thing that's less expensive these days.
Ann Telnaes explained the benefits of free trade a decade ago, but, of course, these things take time. We're only just starting to see the results.
Wait'll we get that Trans-Pacific Partnership in place — everything will be fabulous!
Speaking of people getting soaked
Mike Thompson offers this homage to Margaret Bourke-White's famous 1937 photo from the Louisville Flood, with his people lining up for lead-free water as hers were lined up for food, clothing and whatever other flood-relief was available.
There's an element of race, economics and fairness in the matter of who lived in Louisville's flood zones, echoed in the question of whose Flint neighborhoods have the oldest, least maintained water mains, both of which make the billboard that much more ironic.
In Bourke-White's photo the racial distinction between real people and fictional family is paramount, while, in the cartoon, the billboard plays upon Flint's history as part of the failed auto industry.
But, while segregation and discrimination were not the cause of the floods in 1937, only perhaps a reason some folks were harder hit than others, the decision to save money by tapping the Flint River was a direct result of heartless spreadsheet politics.
The politicians are being crucified in the press, but let me add a different element of "I told you so."
I'm not an advocate of individual bottles of water for use in the home, and I'm all in favor of filling and bringing a water bottle with you if you know you'll need it.
Unless you live in Flint or any other city that has water mains that are more than half a century old, because all the pious "It's Just The Same!" claims are ignorant at best and literally toxic at worst.
Water is tested at the head end, and Flint's water didn't contain lead until it had passed through the pipes and leached it out en route to homes.
I've lived places where the water was fine at the treatment plant and tasted like undrinkable crap by the time it got to individual homes.
It's too bad lead doesn't have a more specific taste, because it wasn't until the damage was done that — having ignored the public's complaints — the city was finally forced by health experts to test Flint's water at the tap.
So be as illogical as you like about the difference in impact on our water supply between a bottle of water and a bottle of organic free-range iced tea, but if you really give a damn about things, consider the kids of Flint, consider all the other kids who live in old, still-untested neighborhoods, and start lobbying for regular, random testing at taps as standard procedure for municipal water systems.
Because the tap water wasn't "Just The Same!" for them, was it now?
Speaking of cartoons and photographs
Red and Rover was its usual gentle, fun self this morning, but it also sparked an amusing memory and, as it happens, I have the photographs.
I was probably 11 or 12 the first time my home town hosted a dogsled race. We went to the firehouse and saw them all off, then drank hot chocolate, patronized the bake sale and bought hot dogs from the fire department until, eventually, someone yelled "Here they come!" as the first sled hove into sight.
Dogsled races are a fun community event, and, while a five-mile circuit is nothing like the 1150-mile-long Iditarod, the dogs consider it an exciting opportunity to do what they love best, and there is something wonderful in seeing a dog do that for which it was bred.
There are people who race huskies exclusively, but, as in "Call of the Wild," sled dogs are basically dogs that like to pull and can tolerate the cold. This pair show husky lineage, but who knows what else is in there, besides "Hitch me up and let's go!" instinct.
I took theses pics in Oquossoc, Maine, a few years ago, at a race that, due to it being a new event and a not-so-good winter and some conflicts elsewhere, only drew two entries, one an experienced local musher, the other a newcomer to the sport.
(You can see Jack London was right about these fierce, vicious
monsters of the frozen north.)
Off they went, and several of us jumped in our cars and drove around to an isolated, photogenic spot on Rangeley Lake where we could catch them as they flashed by. The first team, the experienced team, came down the snow-covered ice …
… gave the crowd a quick glance and then went past, back onto shore to finish the route on land.
Some time later, the new dogs and new driver came over the ice, at which point the two lead dogs said "Look! People!" and stopped to check things out, and then the next two dogs kind of ran into them, and, well …
It must have gone like this a lot, because there sure was time for plenty of hot chocolate, cookies and hot dogs between the return of the winning team and the end of the race.
I don't think Red and Rover would have had to settle for the bronze.
Hush, you muskies!
(Yes, two RCMP references in 24 hours!)
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