The Big Dig

Who cares about a tunnel!

 

    The Big Dig was a multifaceted project that replaced I-93 in Boston with an underground highway, two bridges over the Charles River, extended I-90 to Logan International Airport, and reconnected downtown Boston to the waterfront.  Planning began 1982 amid debate over the many challenges that lay ahead.  Congress approved federal funding to support the project in 1987.  Construction began in September 1991 on a bypass and one of the Big Dig's name-sake tunnels under Boston Harbor. The first tunnel was opened and dedicated on January 13, 2006.  It was named after Red Sox great Ted Williams who accumulate a life-time batting average of .344 and hit 521 home runs in his 21 years with the Sox!

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

     My pick for America's worst city would be New York or L. A..  I have been both places and I will never willingly go back to either if I have a choice!  But I have purposely eliminated Gotham and other behemoths that sucks "professionally".  I chose one that sucks "horridly in an amateurish kind of way".  Some of my considerations were: cost of living, crime rates and potential for natural disaster.  New York certainly has the worst cost of living in the country since it has a COL index of 400.  With an index of 160, not even Honolulu can top that.

     My choice for the worst city in the U.S. is .........drum roll,please .......... Memphis, Tennessee..  The crime rate in Memphis is one of the highest in the country.  This city of 660,000 has a crime rate of 18.06 crimes per 1000 people.  New York has a rate of 5.52.  The murder rate is 0.2 per 1000 people while New York stands at 0.06.  You are over 3 times as likely to be killed in Memphis than in New York.
     Memphis also sits way too close to the New Madrid Seismic Zone.  The last major quake along the New Madrid was in 1812.  The area is due for a shake-up any time now.  Memphis also sits at the east end of Tornado Alley.  The potential for a natural disaster there is too high for me.
     Although it is a dangerous place to live, Memphis does have a few redeeming qualities.  Of course, it has Beale Street, home of the Memphis blues, which is a fun place to visit.  Memphis isn't particularly flood-prone even though it sits on the Mississippi River because most of it sits on a high bluff.  The cost of living is good, too.  With a COL index of 86, Memphis is actually a cheaper place to live than Macon where the COL index is 100.  I think the low cost of living will be irrelevant to me if someone kills me, don't you?  Maybe the cost of dying (COD) ain't bad either.  The executor of my "estate" (lol) might get a real deal on a funerary plot!
                            Stay tuned!  The "best city" is yet to come!

     My choice for the best U. S. city is ... Macon just jokin'!  My pick is Austin, Tx..  Having maligned a historic southern city, I feel the need to do penance.  Austin is a city of of nearly 800,000.  I chose it because it is in the south!  (Hey, you asked ME, remember!  I want to live in a place where an old man can appreciate the culture without having to stretch too far.)  But Austin has a lot going for it.  Money magazine voted it the #2 best big city in the nation. The COL is good at 94 although the economic growth rate is just barely keeping up with inflation at a mediocre 3.5%.  I also think Austin would be a good place to live because nature is usually cooperative with its residents. Tornadoes are not common because Austin is south of Tornado Alley.  The area has had a few earthquakes over the last 200 years but they have been weak and far between because the area is not very active geologically.

     Austin has one significant drawback.  Although it is far enough south to avoid having a high frequency of tornadoes, it still gets its share of heavy thunderstorms. That seems to be pretty common most anywhere these days.  Flash floods do occur in the Austin area but I think I would like to live there one day anyway.
       I have found one thing to be true in researching this Blog; no big city is perfect.  That doesn't mean your spot in it can't be close!
     Post Script:  You didn't ask what piece of this great country was the best.  That would have been really tough to decide ... but chances are, it would probably be sorta south and sorta east!

Is "King Cotton" Sustainable?

     Most people would say “Of course cotton is sustainable!”  I believe that, ultimately, that is true, but only because I have faith that scientist of the future, students at Mercer and other Colleges and Universities, will continue to meet the challenges of keeping it sustainable!

     What are those challenges? 

     Irrigation accounts for nearly 60% of fresh water consumption worldwide according to the USGS.  Producing cotton successfully and profitably requires lots of water.  Dwindling resources will require cotton of the future to thrive on less water, hence a tremendous challenge for geneticists.

     Pesticides and herbicides produce chemical runoff that can pollute groundwater, ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers.  These chemicals may also pose a threat to unintended fauna and flora.  Chemists and environmental scientists must work together to mitigate the impact these chemicals have on the environment.  Entomologists may play a major role by introducing natural means of pest and weed control.

     If any agricultural commodity is to remain commercially sustainable, farm equipment and transportation must evolve to meet the growing need to preserve our environment.

     Producers in other countries are most likely to continue to produce cotton without regard for the environment.  The challenge for science will be to improve and refine our seed stock and production techniques to keep “King Cotton” homegrown.

What is Vampire Power?

      Vampire Power is power that is consumed by electrical appliances that are switched "off" or in "stand-by" mode.  These power suckers includes appliances like stoves and microwaves that have a clock display as well as coffee pots and the like that are equipped with automatic timers.  Other vampire amenities include modern-day conveniences that can be operated by a remote control such as your TV or stereo system.  Even devices that store settings for you like your personal computer and cable box consume power perpetually .  The only way to stop these devices from consuming a small amount of power every second of every day is to disconnect them from the power source entirely.  All the examples I have given are items found in the home.  But think about how much vampire power is consumed by offices, schools, and industries every day!

Beware the real vampire!

     The amount of energy consumed by one of these devices is small but the number of them is staggering.  America could save a huge amount of electrical energy every year if we made a few small changes.  We could begin by switching off or unplugging all equipment that has a standby mode whenever practical.  Next, engineers could create more energy-efficient designs so retailers could offer models that replace perfunctory clocks with timers that must be activated manually in order to function.  Remote-controlled appliances could be designed so that the remote function is activated only after the equipment is turned on manually.  Not all electrical devices in the home or office use power when they are not in use.  We could save power by selecting electrical devices that are designed with a simple on/off switch which breaks the circuit completely and denies the flow of power to any component part of the equipment.
     If everyone were conscious of vampire power and tried to limit it, the results could be significant but the amount of savings to a household or small business may not seem impressive enough for most people to think the effort worthwhile.  In today's world, we like our conveniences but they come with a price.

My Pet Resources

"The Gadget"

Plutonium was discovered by two physicists at U. C. Berkley in 1940.  It is a byproduct of spent Uranium and occurs infrequently in nature.  Plutonium, not Uranium, was the fuel used in the world’s first nuclear detonation, code named “Trinity”.  Scientists had no doubt that a Uranium weapon would work but they weren’t so sure about Plutonium so they tested a device called “The Gadget” in the desert near Alamogordo, N. M. on July 16, 1945.  Plutonium has been used to fuel the space probe Cassini and Galileo as they venture long distances from the sun.  It is also used in some nuclear reactors.  

Paper-Makers at Work

Paper seems to have been invented around 100 BC in China.  About 200 years later, the first paper-making industry was begun there under direction of the Han Dynasty.  Paper-making spread to India by 400 AD and to the Arab world about 750 AD.  The process eventually spread to Europe and in 1453, Gutenberg produced the first printed Bible.  By that time, the Aztecs had independently learned how to produce paper and were making books of their own.
      The role of paper in the development of the world we know today can’t be over-stated.  It facilitated the development of education without which, today’s technologies could not exist.  These days, paper is everywhere.  Paper products serve us in innumerable ways and impact every walk of life.

Sustainable Economy? 5/5 and FREEZE

1.  FIVE PERCENT for  FIVE YEARS.  Slash the entire government budget including every single sub-budget for everything.  Mandate the cut by law!  This would have to include each Congressperson and each Congressional office's traditional indulgences.  They often exempt themselves from the many distasteful tidbits they shove down our throats.  It must also include The President and The White House. Lead from the front, brother!  It would be a hell of an example for the rest of the world.  Freeze all governmental salaries including the military.  Sorry guys, we all gotta suck this one up!  As a former military guy who goes to school on Uncle Sam's dime, I can advocate this sort of thing without being quite as politically incorrect (as if I care).

Our Infrastructure is Failing.

2.  At the end of the 5 year period, we may be able to work on the most important things by increasing certain budgets.  These are my preferences.
     A)  Our infrastructure is falling apart.  Guard closely against pork-barrel stuff.  Let's concentrate on the interstate system first and see where we can go from there.
     B)  The U. S. is falling behind in education.  We are woefully short of science and engineering grads.  Let's concentrate on math and science and figure out how to remedy that part of the problem.  Hey, with my plan, we can only do so much for the next five years.  We should have a great plan in place by the time the money is available!

Education is Lacking.

    C)  Create a new way to make war on drugs!  How about dozens of old-fashioned sabotage operations and a few black-ops assassinations.  If that doesn't work, smart bombs will.  Ask Uday and Qusay.
     D)  The environment is definitely one of the biggest issues facing the world today.  We need international cooperation to fix most of these problems but it won't happen.  If we create an international organization, it will either be a toothless blowhard like the U. N. or a whorehouse like the International Whaling Commission where Japan is now buying the votes of small, poor countries to support their wasteful, abusive practices.  We will just have to do what we can on our own if we can't get any genuine cooperation.

Drugs Gotta Go!

     E)  We have to have a military but we must do what we can to keep the cost down.  This stuff is expensive.
3.  There are places where we need to make cuts.  Here are my suggestions.
     A)  If we fail to get heart-felt cooperation from any particular member of the international community, let's let the air out of the basketball and go home.  Limit trade with them; we get the shaft anyway!  Eliminate them from all programs that provide them any kind of "freebees".  Don't tell me that we are only hurting the peasants.  I call it "tough love", gang. When the peasants get tired of their crappy government, they will do the same thing we did in the 18th century. We give away too much money and a lot of it goes to countries that don't even like Americans.

Wasteful Spending Out of Hand!

     B)  Create a watchdog in the Justice Department to oversee earmarks and eliminate pork-barrel spending, period.  Except for our misguided philanthropic practices and our one-sided trade agreements, these are our most wasteful expenditures.
     C)  I don't know what to do about Wall Street!  They need a babysitter.  Greedy children always do!  Japan is more involved in their private sector and it is working for them but I don't think that would work as well here.  It's just a mess, a bloody mess I tell ya!

Disclaimer:  For anyone reading this who doesn't know me, you probably think I crazy!  I assure you, I am reasonably sane.  I just like to use sarcasm and a lot of tongue-in-cheek to make my point.  That doesn't mean I don't think my ideas are basically sound.  I do.  I do recognize, however, that  implementation of this particular plan is going to be messy!