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Back to school

After the long days of summer, it often takes students a little while to get back into the swing of things, the schedules and routines of the school day, including getting up earlier and heading to school.

This also means the rest of us have to make some changes as well.

During morning and afternoon commutes the roads will now be shared with buses, walkers and more people on bikes too.

According to the National Safety Council there are a number of steps that we can all follow to help avoid accidents and keep everyone safe.

School days bring congestion: School buses are picking up their passengers, kids on bikes are hurrying to get to school before the bell rings, harried parents are trying to drop their kids off before work. It’s never more important for drivers to slow down and pay attention than when kids are present – especially before and after school.

When dropping students off be aware schools often have very specific drop-off procedures for the school year. Make sure you know them for the safety of all kids. The following apply to all school zones: Don’t double park; it blocks visibility for other children and vehicles, don’t load or unload children across the street from the school, carpool to reduce the number of vehicles at the schools.

According to research by the National Safety Council, most of the children who lose their lives in bus-related incidents are 4 to 7 years old, and they’re walking. They are hit by the bus, or by a motorist illegally passing a stopped bus.

A few precautions go a long way toward keeping children safe: Don’t block the crosswalk when stopped at a red light or waiting to make a turn, forcing pedestrians to go around you; this could put them in the path of moving traffic

In a school zone when flashers are blinking, stop and yield to pedestrians crossing the crosswalk or intersection.

Always stop for a school patrol officer or crossing guard holding up a stop sign.

Take extra care to look out for children in school zones, near playgrounds and parks, and in all residential areas.

Don’t honk or rev your engine to scare a pedestrian, even if you have the right of way.

Never pass a vehicle stopped for pedestrians.

Always use extreme caution to avoid striking pedestrians wherever they may be, no matter who has the right of way.

If you’re driving behind a bus, allow a greater following distance than if you were driving behind a car. It will give you more time to stop once the yellow lights start flashing. It is illegal in all 50 states to pass a school bus that is stopped to load or unload children.

Never pass a bus from behind – or from either direction if you’re on an undivided road – if it is stopped to load or unload children.

If the yellow or red lights are flashing and the stop arm is extended, traffic must stop.

The area 10 feet around a school bus is the most dangerous for children; stop far enough back to allow them space to safely enter and exit the bus.

Be alert; children often are unpredictable, and they tend to ignore hazards and take risks.

By exercising a little extra care and caution, drivers and pedestrians can co-exist safely in school zones.

In honor of Labor Day, I am offering a twice-worked piece, one that I wrote almost 15 years ago when, like today, the economy and global warming were on everyone’s minds. It is one of my favorites. Unfortunately, some things don’t change. Enjoy. (I hope.)

While we sit here wondering where our retirement money has gone; while we watch financial institutions and gigantic automobile manufacturers come, cups in hand, to Congress begging for relief, the federal government, in its infinite wisdom, has just announced a two-for-one strategy that may increase its coffers, no doubt to help the above mentioned supplicants, while also having an impact on global warming. Questioning the impact of said strategy generates more questions and answers that may have some fascinating consequences.

The feds are going after the nefarious gastrointestinal system of cows. Yup, those placid ruminant gals who stand around in the verdant fields of rural America are quietly (or not) producing voluminous amounts of greenhouse gas that floats up into the atmosphere and causes, among other things, the elevation of sea levels with concomitant threats to the existence of cities, upscale golf courses and phalanxes of McMansions located on the nation’s shoreline. The solution to the gaseous gals’effluent, explained by the American Farm Bureau Federation, is that the department of agriculture’s research has led to a proposal to tax dairy cows, beef cattle and pigs. The proposal being discussed is a head tax on each dairy cow of $ 175. This of course applies to both ends of the cow. Seems that bovine production of gas comes equally from chewing the cud and the expulsion of the gaseous products of cellular activity through the other end of the animal. Pigs have their own problems.

How will this tax solve the problem, if there is one, of the methane production of cattle? How does taxing farmers do this? Is this the same thing as penalizing automobile companies who produce cars with noxious emissions? Will it create a big demand for breeding cows with less flatulence? Will veterinary research work on producing an additive to cow chow that contains something like “Beano,” “Gas X” or such? Will dairy products of the future be variants of tofu or will they become expensive as Italian truffles? Think of the TV commercials for all of this!

Thinking further about greenhouse gases and methane production I began to wonder about the effect on greenhouse gas production by Americans entering retirement age, or the “Golden Years.”

I can’t think of anything that Baby Boomers are doing that will stave off the eventual malfunction of their gastrointestinal systems.

Organic eating and gym memberships will not help. Will tax incentives be granted to people who can prove that they haven’t consumed indigestibles such as beans, cabbage and grapes?

On the other hand, will said foodstuffs be taxed because of their notorious reputation for producing methane?

Will retirement communities, senior citizen housing and nursing homes require special air filters? One can only wonder.

Will we all be required to add specific digestive enzymes to our daily regimen of pills? If so, this should be a good time to invest while the market is down.

What about summer barbecues?

Will permits be required to serve baked beans? Corn on the cob? Tacos? Refried beans? Coleslaw? What about cheese pizzas? Blue cheese salad dressing? Chili?

And forget about all of the people in the world who are lactose intolerant ... unwittingly contributing to the decline of civilization as we know it.

No … things don’t look good for cows.

On the one hand they produce methane and on the other hand, dairy products incite similar gaseous outflow by humans.

Poor babies … except, maybe … hmmmm, Isn’t there a commercial on TV that shows how Johnson and Johnson use the methane from a landfill to power one of their plants?

What if the farmers can capture all that methane? They can turn it into electricity. Part of a new “green” revolution.

What we do about people, I haven’t a clue.

And that “bright golden haze on the meadow,” immortalized in the opening lines of Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma?” Methane!

a bright golden haze on the meadow

Ramblings from the empty nest

Ann Ferro

Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.

Approval voting

To the editor:

I have been doing this for months. Through jobs, through COVID, and when it seemed impossible. Presentations, speech anxiety, flyers, letters. Why? Because democracy is worth saving.

Now that sounds dramatic. As fear mongering as it is over ambitious. But I mean it. I have learned that fixing democracy is easy policy wise, and the cost of not doing anything is far too steep to pay.

Approval voting is a solution. “Why do we keep electing the same politicians every time if we dislike them so much?” People rarely ask if the voting system is the problem, instead blaming voters. After all we already vote - how many ways to do it are there? A lot evidently.

Our current voting system “choose-one” is the worst method bar none. You can only pick one candidate to support, and you must oppose all the rest. Even if that isn’t what you actually believe. That doesn’t even make sense does it? This leads to distorted outcomes. The most famous being the spoiler effect; where a candidate opposed by the majority wins because there were too many good candidates running. But chooseone also limits who runs for office and encourages candidates to be the most divisive to have the best chance to win. It favors candidates seen as viable - those who raised the most money - and can lead to the most well liked candidates losing.

And in a strongly Democratic or Republican election, it doesn’t allow two candidates from the same party to safely compete, reducing accountability and increasing corruption. And causing elections to be determined in the primary when most voters don’t vote. That last distortion is what causes unpopular politicians to win again and again. If it’s an awful choice on your side, or handing power to the other side - it’s no choice at all.

With Approval voting however, the arbitrary rule that you must support just one candidate and oppose the rest is removed. Voters can support or oppose any number of candidates that they want to. You always vote for your favorite, and any others you would be OK with supporting. Candidates can share voters without risking spoiled elections. Approval voting makes it safe for any number of candidates to run for office, and allows candidates to agree on policies rather than constantly having to oppose the ‘other side.’ You simply add up all the votes as we do now, and the mostly highly Approved candidate wins.

Approval voting reduces partisanship, produces more accurate elections, brings more candidates in and makes it easier for regular people to run for office. Approval voting is just a simple rules change with far reaching benefits. Municipalities in NYS have the power to implement this change, and every one that does puts pressure on Albany to do the same. Saving democracy starts locally in NYS. Please visit ElectionScience.org for info on Approval voting. And consider signing the “Make Voting Powerful in Nelson” petition on Change.org

FROM THE MAILBAG

maTThew kouBa Jr

NelsoN

Radio magic

To the editor:

In my 19th year of retirement I like to listen to the radio as I drift off to sleep. I usually listen to 106.9 (FM) or 570 (AM) because I like their programs from 9 - midnight.

But periodically strange things happen like what happened last night. The program was jumbled from the start. Commercials overplayed the talking part of the program.

At 9:22 p.m., there was a ridiculous silence and it lasted until 9:30 when the news part of the broadcast began. After the news, more radio silence - no program.

This is not the first time this has happened, but it makes me wonder if the radio engineers at the station are listening at all? Are they asleep at the wheel? Com’on guys and girls. Get your act together and please do a better job of consistent programming for us that still count on listening to the radio.

John e. sTevens JamesvIlle

Secularism

To the editor:

Recent Letters in the Republican have included a bit of “tit for tat, starting with Charles Marucki’s tome blaming our country’s woes on “Secular socialism.” Why not? Even the Uvalde massacre has been blamed on such.

His comments are representative of our history regarding public beliefs about secularism and socialism. Several states still have laws on the books prohibiting atheists from holding public office and socialism is still a word confused with communism.

Both are very often seen as immoral with license to do whatever pleases them. As for a vague generalization of “secular socialism,” a term I have little acquaintance with, I suggest one must account for a diverse amalgamation of people with different beliefs; agnostics, atheists, deists, naturalists, freethinkers, humanists, and variations thereof, such as religious humanists, agnostic atheists, etc. The unifying label here is humanists since most of the others group under and follow humanism.

Marucki arrogantly said his comments “Can’t be refuted.” Letters l Page 7

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