Current status of our Inland Waterways

El and Bill":8b3w2a5n said:
Yes, things usually have had to get really bad before there is collective action on a large scale -- BUT -- that shouldn't hold us back individually in trying to do our part in 'making things better' (and each of us has our own views of what constitutes better, and we respect that).

Also, smaller collective actions can sometimes rectify things to help keep things 'on the trail' in our democracy -- and such actions are going on around us every day -- and they help prevent larger-scale catastrophes.

We are optimists, and believe we should all be involved individually and collectively try to have our fact-based opinions heard by our representatives -- and perhaps help forestall the disaster you envision for all "empires."
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Forestall -- an interesting choice of words, which means, according to the American Heritage dictionary, "To delay, hinder, or prevent by taking precautionary measures beforehand." Actually we are not all that far apart. A case in point is the year 2000 computer scare in which widespread disaster was predicted to our computer systems, because instead of using four-digit year fields in computer code, the year was commonly expressed as a two-digit field such that "1979" was expressed as "79." Programmers thought the year 2000 was so far away as to not pose a problem. Then something truly remarkable happened when 2000 finally hit: nothing at all. The reason is that government and business recognized the necessity for changes to be made, and these entities made massive expenditures to forestall -- prevent -- the problem. In the days of ancient Rome, Patricians massively expended their own wealth to build a fleet of ships to counter the Carthaginian threat. This was nearly unprecedented for the Ancient world. They did so out of recognized necessity. But that was Republican Rome -- not the Imperium. Eventually they decayed and collapsed several hundred year's later due to a wide range of reasons, and the odds are that we will collapse as well.

Peter Bernstein once stated that because a pattern has been repeated 99 times in a row, it does not necessarily follow that that pattern will continue the next time around. So in that context, and in the context of the world's Year-2000 response, there is always hope, if even a little, that America could break that pattern of decay and collapse. You are right to be optimistic and to try everything you can do to forestall or avert disaster. To prevent our eventual collapse, however, we will need a self-actualized, informed and educated population. If we look around at the state of our educational system and the degree to which people work with and care for one another, do we see an increasing trend in such activities that warrants optimism such that this time around, it will be different?

Rich


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Rich -
We appreciate your well-thought and expressed response. Just for a little chuckle, we will share our response to the 'impending disaster' of the New Millennium 2000 -- El and I took a December cruise to Alaska on the ferry with friends. Not the best time of year, weather wise, but a delightful trip with few passengers, nice stays in B&Bs in port cities on the way north, and great good luck with the weather. On the night of the new Millennium, when computers might have crashed we were overnighting on the ferry through narrow passages (hoping the radar, chartplotter, GPS, and radio aboard would all function properly) -- and they did! Now, we know full well that optimists aren't always successful.

Hmmm -- we heard a good one, worth sharing -- a pessimist is someone who once loaned an optimist a big part of his savings on a 'great investment' opportunity. :-)

Since El and I are retired educators, I understand your concerns with education today. My response is that we did the best we could, and still are active in advising in the education world to try to have a better educational system. And we like to see the education that our grandchildren are carving out for themselves. A grandson is off to Norway during school break this summer -- he has been selected by Nat'l Outdoor Leadership School -- and will be sea kayaking, mountain back-packing, and attending college-credited classes with other selected outdoor education interested kids. What an opportunity -- so great it exists -- and that he applied and qualified. Another grandkid is working with coursework specializing her in Special Ed -- she is involved with special ed. needs kids on an Indian Reservation, near her school, and is well-supervised and knowledgeable about their needs and culture.

And people working with and caring for each other -- wow, this site is a great example of people working with and concerned about each other.

Sure, there are many reports in the news highlighting problems with education and caring for each other -- we're not blind to that, but prefer to focus on all the good we see around us -- and in our experience, the good outweighs the evil.
 
And we agree with Roger. Certainly, for us, our optimism is independent of circumstances. Perhaps we were just born with a happy outlook, even though we are certainly aware that circumstances can be hard for some, and it's often beyond their measure to control.

Back to cruising the coasts, even with climate changes and deteriorating maintainance -- it has been a wonderful experience for us. We would like to see it continue for others (and are quite happy to 'pay' for that, whether with higher taxes or demand on our time for public hearings, expressing opinions, or joining with others to let our reps. know we believe rec. boaters appreciate the opportunity given them for cruising the marvelous waterways of this great country.
 
El and Bill,

I forgot that you were educators. If you two are in your seventies, your generation educated me and my cohorts. Personally, yours was a wonderful generation of educators and my hat is off to both of you for providing selfless service to others. If more people were like both of you, we may not be in the sad state of affairs we are in at this point in history. To be more specific, for an elite few, these young people are as educated and as brilliant as any generation before them. However, it's not the elite we have to worry about -- it's the common man. If nothing else, the French and Russian revolutions taught us that it is important in society for everyone to be educated and have a slice of the pie so that together, we can all share a common vision of peace and prosperity. Today we graduate children from high school who are functionally illiterate. Obviously, the problems run deep, and often are the result of socioeconomic factors. Regardless of the cause, the affect is tragic. Like you, my wife Betty was a school teacher, and like you, she was optimistic and always tried to do her best for her students. So you are right to be optimistic, and not to give up, because you, I and all of us should do the best we can can to effect positive change. We at least have to try. And that has been your point from the beginning.

Thanks,

Rich
 
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