I have a dream. My dream is not as meaningful or as impactful as that of Dr. Martin Luther King, but it's a dream nevertheless.
My dream is to awaken in America one day when there is a pipeline stretching from one end of this country to the other. No, mine isn't meant to tote oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Mine is to transport water from where it is overly plentiful to more arid areas.
Sure, this redistribution of water wealth might seem like a socialist ideal, but I think it's a plan that can make America better in the long run.
Consider the ways it could help us right at this very moment. There's a drought in California and many other western states. There there's also a bit of a water surplus in the Plains. Why not take the floods away from Texas and Oklahoma and deliver them to parched California? No more flood, no more drought. Ahh, if only there was an efficient way to deliver water from flood-proned places to traditionally arid regions.
We could build a pipeline. In the same way an oil pipeline can be built, a water pipeline can be built. But even better, a water pipeline could be built cheaply. With a short Internet search and some rudimentary math skills, I estimated we could build a 2-foot wide line stretching for 3,000 miles for just over $1B. Indeed, other lines going north and south and wherever else would drive that cost up to $2B or $5B, but consider how much it cost to clean up after Sandy, or this mess in Texas or Katrina. Surely insurance companies would be interested in investing in such a private-public project as this...to save on payouts to flood victims. Verily, how good would it be to help keep those flood victims from becoming victims in the first place?
And that's a financial benefit merely from loss avoidance. What about the economic boon on the other end?
I worked for a short period of time for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. One of the most productive regions in the state is the Imperial Valley, a desert area with no business being an agricultural powerhouse. But it is through irrigation. What if we duplicated that bounty in desert regions of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and more? Yields and quality would go up. Prices for consumers would drop and we could expand exports to other countries, even areas where poverty and hunger are extreme. The agricultural boon alone would pay for the pipeline in a matter of years. We could end the feuds between farmers, boaters and citizens. We wouldn't have to flush less or take shorter showers. Farmers wouldn't have to leave fields fallow and sportsmen could fish their hearts out.
And what of environmentalists? If my...nay, our...water pipeline were to leak, what then? Well, it's just water. It'll evaporate. Surely the wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico or the California coast would be no worse the wear if a massive water spill were to dump into the ocean. The ocean is, after all, just one giant water spill anyway.
Haven't the people who live near our great rivers had their fill of piling sandbags in front of their homes? Certainly helicopter pilots are burned out from plucking people from their roofs. News agencies, I know, are tired of running pictures of cracked, parched soil...because nobody can comprehend what a drought is otherwise.
We can solve this problem once and for all. Dr. King realized his dream! Well, I mean, we're still tweaking it a little. It's only been like 55, 60 years, so...
OK, so some dreams are hard. But this one is easy, relatively cheap and will make us better in the end.
Friday, May 29, 2015
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Where will you be?
There's a commercial for a TV/Internet provider that envisions a future with exciting things happening, like man setting foot on Mars and so forth. The idea is that this service makes it possible to enjoy TV anywhere, the train station, the coffee shop, the airport...
First, a side note: there's a future where we're landing human beings on Mars but we're still taking the train to work? #LameFuture.
One of the variations revolves around where you will be the moment a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time. My simple answer is no where. I won't be anywhere watching it because it isn't going to happen.
Certainly women are fully capable of playing in the Big Leagues. My answer is drawn from the fact that things can't spontaneously happen because it's a good idea that fills our hearts with joy. Women won't play in the Big Leagues...ever, ever, ever...if they don't play baseball.
That's how men make it. They grow up playing baseball as kids, keep playing through high school and into the minors then to the Majors. At no point do men play baseball, play softball for a while then go back to baseball and make it to the Big Leagues.
The reason anyone does anything is because the opportunity exists and the proper development is undertaken. Neil Armstrong trained to be an astronaut. Michael Jordan developed his basketball talent. All talent has to be developed. Since girls aren't developed to play baseball, they'll never make it to the Big Leagues. So I'll be no where ever when a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time.
But such is the case with youth sports and the development thereof. I've been involved with sports, in some fashion, for nearly 40 years now. Youth sports, on a bigger level, have failed miserably to understand how to build themselves up.
Soccer has only recently changed its tactics. Previously, they sought out players who could afford high-level camps, clinics and developmental teams and poured their resources into the kids who could afford to pay for the privilege.
Many other sports used the same blueprint. Find "elite" competitors and coach the daylights out of them.
What sports like soccer found out was that their method was really good at filling the rosters of Saint Whoever High, creating an exclusionary structure that developed individual talent but left a competitiveness chasm.
What soccer realized is they needed to develop the players at Downtown High in order to create more competition among teams and, in turn, that competition would force the driven, passionate and dedicated to develop themselves.
Baseball has been slower on the uptake, but developing players who can't buy their opportunities has been a change in the last decade or so that is slowly paying off for baseball.
Unfortunately, we still have a very "isn't that so cute" approach to women's sports. Here, use this girls' ball, hit from the ladies' tee...oh, and here, wear a skirt.
The plan is simple...we kill the Batman. No wait. That's a different plan.
The plan is simple: put girls on the same playing field--in every meaning--and they will find their way to the same playing field as men when they grow into women. The girls that are driven with a passion for the game will find a way to compete with boys, in the same way the Downtown High soccer players compete against Saint Whoever.
Likewise, some boys, not wanting to be bested by a girl, will learn how to compete harder, which makes the sport better overall. Most importantly, because some girls will rise up and be better than some boys, boys and men everywhere will come to respect women differently that they do now...which for some men is not at all.
First, a side note: there's a future where we're landing human beings on Mars but we're still taking the train to work? #LameFuture.
One of the variations revolves around where you will be the moment a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time. My simple answer is no where. I won't be anywhere watching it because it isn't going to happen.
Certainly women are fully capable of playing in the Big Leagues. My answer is drawn from the fact that things can't spontaneously happen because it's a good idea that fills our hearts with joy. Women won't play in the Big Leagues...ever, ever, ever...if they don't play baseball.
That's how men make it. They grow up playing baseball as kids, keep playing through high school and into the minors then to the Majors. At no point do men play baseball, play softball for a while then go back to baseball and make it to the Big Leagues.
The reason anyone does anything is because the opportunity exists and the proper development is undertaken. Neil Armstrong trained to be an astronaut. Michael Jordan developed his basketball talent. All talent has to be developed. Since girls aren't developed to play baseball, they'll never make it to the Big Leagues. So I'll be no where ever when a woman plays in the Big Leagues for the first time.
But such is the case with youth sports and the development thereof. I've been involved with sports, in some fashion, for nearly 40 years now. Youth sports, on a bigger level, have failed miserably to understand how to build themselves up.
Soccer has only recently changed its tactics. Previously, they sought out players who could afford high-level camps, clinics and developmental teams and poured their resources into the kids who could afford to pay for the privilege.
Many other sports used the same blueprint. Find "elite" competitors and coach the daylights out of them.
What sports like soccer found out was that their method was really good at filling the rosters of Saint Whoever High, creating an exclusionary structure that developed individual talent but left a competitiveness chasm.
What soccer realized is they needed to develop the players at Downtown High in order to create more competition among teams and, in turn, that competition would force the driven, passionate and dedicated to develop themselves.
Baseball has been slower on the uptake, but developing players who can't buy their opportunities has been a change in the last decade or so that is slowly paying off for baseball.
Unfortunately, we still have a very "isn't that so cute" approach to women's sports. Here, use this girls' ball, hit from the ladies' tee...oh, and here, wear a skirt.
The plan is simple...we kill the Batman. No wait. That's a different plan.
The plan is simple: put girls on the same playing field--in every meaning--and they will find their way to the same playing field as men when they grow into women. The girls that are driven with a passion for the game will find a way to compete with boys, in the same way the Downtown High soccer players compete against Saint Whoever.
Likewise, some boys, not wanting to be bested by a girl, will learn how to compete harder, which makes the sport better overall. Most importantly, because some girls will rise up and be better than some boys, boys and men everywhere will come to respect women differently that they do now...which for some men is not at all.
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