Valley Views

valley views Growing up gaming

Irecently overheard a couple speculating on whether kids who are raised on video games will have the same level of imagination as those who weren’t. If something will be taken away from them if they experience too much exposure to this medium. To anyone ruminating on that same question, as someone who grew up on video games I’d like to try and put some minds at ease.

The primary console I grew up with was an N64, translucent green with truly terrible controllers for tiny hands. My dad and I would go to pawn shops to find games to play, or rent them from our local video store when one looked interesting. We played plenty of games together as a family, and the memories of such silly shared adventures are something I look back on fondly to this day. Still, as an only child with two hardworking parents, I spent a lot of time playing an assortment of games by myself.

And my imagination ran wild.

I never completed more than a couple levels in my favorite Super Mario 64 in all my years with the game because I preferred to simply run amok in the colorful worlds, my own narration and scenarios streaming through my head as I gleefully ignored the game’s set objectives. The racing games I played were ripe for drama, my own telenovelas playing out at every corner, pass, and wreck. A tank game my cousin and I would play often, meant to be composed of short rounds and lots of combat against each other, had us instead driving around side by side, exploring the map to find the perfect fort where we could play pretend for hours. No matter the intention set for a videogame by its developers, I constantly and consistently found my own fun in their worlds.

I replayed some of those old games I loved so much as a child in recent years, and was a bit saddened to find they didn’t hold that same spark for me anymore. Without the rampant imagination of my childhood, I’m more limited to the fun I can find within games. Now I simply follow the story laid out before me, and, well, I suppose I remember my own stories invented in those worlds as better.

The expanses of a child’s mind are often hard to fathom as an adult. But just like the old - and accurate - joke of a child being more interested in playing with a box than the toy that came inside, their innate creativity will always rebel against the confines of any medium. In my experience, video games were just another doll house, an added visual element to my favorite activity of playing pretend in precisely my own way. Whatever shiny new tool comes along for kids to play with, it’ll never be enough to tear them away from the more interesting activities that only they can come up with and perceive. All it will do is give them a new way to play it out.

A Taylor’d Approach Taylor Davison Editor, Valley Journal

The trees you can email

Cities around the globe are transforming urban jungles into literal jungles. Driven by rising sensitivity to environmental and air quality issues, cities are opting to boost their tree populations in urban areas. In a previous column, I described a pitfall to this approach in the past: overplanting female trees that resulted in a pollen apocalypse in the US. Nevertheless, trees usher in several significant benefits for urban landscapes. Often, the most vital of these improvements is the reduction of ambient temperature. When sunlight is absorbed by leaves in photosynthesis, less heat radiates into the atmosphere. In contrast, darker-colored streets generate increased temperatures by absorbing the rays. Additionally, trees improve air quality by removing CO2 and other pollutants from the air. Dust and fine particulates are captured by the leaves before being washed away when it rains. Visualize an umbrella with air filters-that’s what trees are in cities.

All of this is fine and dandy, but how do you email a tree? Well for that we need to go to the land down under. In the early twenty-teens, the city of Melbourne, Australia chose to highlight their urban development, based on scientific studies of the benefits of trees in cities. These Aussies commissioned a bold new initiative to catalog each and every one of their more than 70,000

trees. Once the data was collected, the city’s urban forest team collaborated with a data visualist to display the information visually. The result was the Urban Forest Visual. First published in 2013, this massive online interactive map allowed visitors to see every tree in ben there the whole city along with what species and age the

DONE that tree was. Ben Stone Alongside the map, Media Production, Valley Journal when looking at a specific tree, was an option

see page 11

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from page 10 letters to email the tree. The map’s designers’ originally intended email as a method for the public to quickly alert the city of any issues regarding the trees or ask questions. However, as is so often the case, intention does not always equal the final use method. New visitors to the site read the words “Email this tree”-and responded! Soon love letters to the trees began to flood in from the city residences and around the globe. The urban forest team then commenced to respond to these emails on behalf of the trees.

Numerous heartwarming stories have emerged. Take the one of a young boy who emailed a tree sharing about his school. When the “tree” replied to him, he was so overjoyed that he took the printout to his Show and Tell. The school was thrilled and decided to plant the same kind of tree in their garden. Or take for example, the man who wrote a thank you note to the tree under which he met his wife for the first time.

The city of Melbourne designed this as part of a bigger urban forest strategy. Each year they are adding 3,000 trees to their already sizable 70,000. The goal is to increase the city’s canopy cover from today’s 25% to 40+% by 2040. The city set out to improve the lives of their residents and along the way, they inadvertently ended up creating a giant map of trees for anyone to converse with via email. So, if you are feeling lonely or have always wanted to “talk” to a tree, you can find the map online at melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au.

vj

Character counts

Editor,

Hats off to Marc Racicot for his recent opinion piece “Donald Trump is Wasting Our Time.” The former Republican governor and RNC chair focuses on human character, including, “decency, honesty, humility, honor and faithfulness.” He urges all Americans to vindicate the truth.

I agree with Mr. Racicot completely. I believe character is as important as it is elusive in politics. As an example, Putin is heinously committing atrocities in Ukraine daily with an appalling lack of morality. And yet, our ex-president still idolizes him, calling him “savvy,” “smart,” and “genius.” In my opinion, Trump is doing way more damage than merely wasting our time.

With this somewhat rare trait of solid character in mind, I made a list of my favorite Republicans. It includes Jeanette Rankin, Abraham Lincoln, John McCain, Mitt Romney, George Will, David Brooks, and Liz Cheney. Not a Republican myself, I don’t agree with all of their policies, past and present. But I do respect these people, for showing strength, conviction, and most especially character. In my mind, character truly counts. It always has.

Nancy Teggeman Polson

Investment in the future

Editor,

In response to Republican talking points about the partisanship and lack of accomplishments of the Biden administration, I wrote earlier about the progress made in the areas of jobs and children…but that is only part of the picture. Another accomplishment has been the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Under many administrations, Republican and Democrat, Congress has been unable to pass a much-needed infrastructure bill, leaving us with lead in our water systems, unsafe bridges, and an internet system that is far behind that of many other countries. In fact, our infrastructure system earned a C- score from the American Society of Civil Engineers earlier this year.

At long last, thanks to a growing sense of compromise and a president who worked very hard on this issue, we are on the road to recovery. What does this mean for Montana?

To Montanans, this means about $2.82 billion for roads and bridges; $144 million at community airports; $15 million to study expansion of Amtrak rails; money to fund safer drinking water in rural areas, including up to $100 million for the Milk River Project; $2.5 billion for carbon capture demonstration projects; $937 million for a large-scale carbon capture pilot project; $2.7 billion for loans to create a carbon transportation infrastructure; $2.5 billion to complete all authorized Indian water rights settlements; $31 million for Montana community colleges; $34 million for tribal colleges.

Aside from getting needed work done, this is money that is flowing into our economy. It means jobs and prosperity for Montanans. It means an investment in our future.

Gail Trenfield St. Ignatius

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