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Show A6 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, May 6, 2008 LIFE SWELL is Celebrating the People of the San Rafael Swell Area Feet Beat EARTH AIM Consider Food, Not Lawns that feel the Denise Reid Spring is here, and so is planting season. It is a great time to enjoy blooms, and an even greater opportunity to grow one’s own food. Growing food would be a worthy use of water. The benefits would be so great to the human race. Buying food that is packaged in plastic and cardboard, often traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles before it gets to one’s table doesn’t even sound appetizing when compared to the strawberries that might be growing in the neighbor’s yard. It is more socially responsible to buy locally grown food, keeping large trucks, guzzling oil, polluting the air, off the road. Spring is here, and watering lawns in the desert may not be the best use of water. I say “may not be” for those unable to tolerate hearing that it is simply not the best use of water. There are so many beautiful, flowering plants, cacti, rock gardens, which would more likely fit into the area in which we live. By all means, don’t dig up your lawns because I said it. Instead, consider researching on your own. The following books are inspiring: “Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally” by Alisa Smith; “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp; “Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times” by Steve Solomon; and “Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community” by Heather Coburn Flores. All of these titles can be found at local libraries, through inter-library loans, or can be purchased new and used from on-line retailers. Is there any real cause for concern? Take a look at what is happening in Atlanta. According to US News & World Report, October 25, 2007, Georgia officials predicted that Atlanta’s supply of drinking water is on its way to being depleted within one year. Local city governments were having trouble convincing people to stop watering their lawns. That is on the other side of the country, but can serve as an example that even in a time of crisis, individuals may consider having an aesthetic front yard most valuable. In our own back yard, 70 percent of the water usage in Las Vegas is taken up in the watering of lawns. That is according to an article, “What Happens in Vegas?” by Mike Sabel, published in Next American City, Spring, 2007. Water is human life’s most precious commodity. Mother Earth offers up so much plant life without the aid of humans, without the manipulation of rivers, without forcing grass where sand and cacti reside. Irrigation can be a beautiful thing when it is utilized to bring forth food. The Show Time Dancers held their Spring Show May 3 at the Emery High Auditorium before a packed house of family and friends cheering on the dancers as they performed dances in hip hop, tap, ballet and Jazz. In all the dancers performed 23 dances during the evening. Under the direction of instructor Donn Jeffs, the Show Time Dancers showed their hours of dedication and practice to the art of dance. The show was dedicated to the memory of Bertha Branch, who passed away last week at the age of 90. CASEY’S WORLD While other careers fizzle, technology-based careers soar Casey Wood As technology advances one may begin to fear and question whether job opportunities will remain available, or if the roles which were previously filled by people will be given to robots. If looked at from a narrow perspective it seems evident that the latter will happen. Jobs in manufacturing, from vehicles to food products, are being done robotically. It seems even telemarketing is becoming a somewhat automated business. Now take a step back and consider all of the things we use and enjoy. Consider their past, their present, and their future. Now what is one thing that they all have in common? They were all thought up or invented by humans. If we were to choose to let technology stand still and be content with no further advancement in technology then yes, all jobs could be taken up by some form of robotics or another. If we want to continue to advance though, we will need one thing robotics do not have, the human mind. From Benjamin Franklin’s invention of electricity, to Philo T. Farnsworth’s invention of the television, to Martin Cooper’s invention of the cellular telephone, it has been ideas generated by the human mind that have made advancement in technology. Look at all the things you use in your life, computers, automobiles, aircraft, television, MP3 players, cellular telephones, the list goes on. All of these things use technology, and to advance and become better, better technology will have to be developed, and for those technologies to be developed, people will have to go into career fields in that techno- logical development. It is the instinct of man to move forward, to grow, and to become the best it possibly can. This drive is what brought man out of feudalism, what convinced man to search and discover new land on earth and to travel to the moon, and it will be this drive that makes mankind push itself to the limit to have everything in its life as good as it can possibly be. The peak of one man’s mind may be the starting point of another’s in a following generation, and it is that growth and development that will make mankind continue advancing onward in technology, even after all the labor jobs are taken up by robots or computers, because while a computer or robot can be programmed, and only do as much as it is programmed to do, a man’s mind knows no limit. The future is technology. Now it is our job to grasp it, push it forward, and continue to open new doors, and to develop better technology, and a more simple and user-friendly world. Not only are the amount of career fields not shrinking, they are getting larger day by day as mankind has new desires. The most important thing to do is realize what you want in the future, take hold of it, and never let go. |
