Schuylkill Flow On
Rain droplets drumming echo the beat
That lilting , white snowflakes repeat :
" Drink as you may , waters flow on ."
Wherever ripples heard -" Earth's Song ."
" Drink as you may , waters flow on ."
High upland grow hemlock and oak ,
Maple and pine grey clouds they stroke .
Rhododendron , fern , laurel , moss
Drink they may , Nature's use no loss .
Pools and puddles , crevice and nook ,
Trickle to rivulet , stream from brook ,
Etched valleys cut through hill and farm .
" Drink as you may , waters flow on ."
Barons despoiled rivers for smoke ,
Vast green forests turned into coke .
Black hard coal silt mud washed on down ,
Schuylkill's high, clogged, floods river town .
Miller , tanner , iron tender's strong arm
Flushed acid wastes so terrible their harm .
Now corrected they're returned to the flow ,
The Schuylkill's cleaner , still hidden she'll go .
White birchbark canoes were clean in the past ,
Early American native life sad never to last .
Strong mules pulled barges , now motors push boat ,
Long past remembered through sojourns and floats .
" Drink as you may , waters flow on ."
Hear her , see her , do her no harm ,
Dream , redeem , unhide her each day ,
Schuylkill's a jewel at work or at play .
Flow on ,flow on , Schuylkill flow on ,
Flow on , flow on , forever flow on .
Ronald C. Downie
The Mississippi River floods and so will our own Schuylkill flood some time in the future. We'll all complain and gnash our teeth wondering why we didn't do something to mitigate the damage done. Now, out of sight out of mind, prevails .
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Property Taxation
The Crime of Property Taxation
A leader, from its inception as an original member of The Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania, with its abundance of swift moving streams, coal, iron ore, timber, and industrious immigrants, led the early Colonies in industry and manufacturing. The value of her real estate rose proportionate to her industrious muscle and raw material opportunities.
In the mid Twentieth Century, post WW2, Pottstown reached its pinnacle in industrial production and commercial activity. Along with numerous heavy and light industries we were the regional hub for professional businesses, banking, and service related companies. Both laborers and their managers lived within the Boro limits as our population topped thirty thousand citizens. Property values reflected the upward vitality of the Town's strength.
Then came the crash when three quarters of Pottstown's industry began their exodus along with their payrolls, not only of the workers but also the wages of the managers, and, adding insult to injury, houses came on sale at a lower than ever value in a race to the bottom price we find now. Professionals also moved out of town as everyone became more mobile in the age of the automobile. During this fifty year decline the population dropped by ten thousand and even as the cost of living rose each year property values declined or remained flat.
The only constant during this time was the cost of education which went up each year and property taxes to fund the increases went up also. No matter how much you squeeze an orange you get only so much juice from it. As a stabilizing force in most small towns, seniors, many of them on fixed incomes, must reduce their daily living costs in order to pay the rising costs of property taxes if they decide to stay in their homes. When forced from their homes the character of that neighborhood changes many times to the negative eroding the tax base further.
It seems a consensus in public thinking that an educated citizenry is an imperative to having a strong healthy country. An after thought in an agricultural society, education became more and more important as we moved into and out of the industrial revolution and we are now in the information age where education is a must.
Today, just as important : as highways, as bridges, as water ways and ports, as trains and air lines, is education which needs to be funded accordingly. To function in the 21st Century and beyond we can't rely on outmoded methods to raise money for schools. Anchored to the land, anchored to a community both life styles of agriculture and industry adapted to property taxes supplying funds to educate her young. Now in the information age where everyone is mobile and everyone needs more education the means to pay for it is vastly inadequate.
Education is the bridge to the future and as all bridges serve all travelers an educated American serves all countrymen. Bridges are high cost structures, education costs a lot too and as bridges need to be paid for out of a general fund so must we pay for education in the same way.
Taxing property, once acceptable when agriculture and industry ruled the economy, no longer serves a proper role in the 21st Century. Building the universal bridge through education needs us to develop a universal method to pay for it.
Ronald C. Downie
A leader, from its inception as an original member of The Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania, with its abundance of swift moving streams, coal, iron ore, timber, and industrious immigrants, led the early Colonies in industry and manufacturing. The value of her real estate rose proportionate to her industrious muscle and raw material opportunities.
In the mid Twentieth Century, post WW2, Pottstown reached its pinnacle in industrial production and commercial activity. Along with numerous heavy and light industries we were the regional hub for professional businesses, banking, and service related companies. Both laborers and their managers lived within the Boro limits as our population topped thirty thousand citizens. Property values reflected the upward vitality of the Town's strength.
Then came the crash when three quarters of Pottstown's industry began their exodus along with their payrolls, not only of the workers but also the wages of the managers, and, adding insult to injury, houses came on sale at a lower than ever value in a race to the bottom price we find now. Professionals also moved out of town as everyone became more mobile in the age of the automobile. During this fifty year decline the population dropped by ten thousand and even as the cost of living rose each year property values declined or remained flat.
The only constant during this time was the cost of education which went up each year and property taxes to fund the increases went up also. No matter how much you squeeze an orange you get only so much juice from it. As a stabilizing force in most small towns, seniors, many of them on fixed incomes, must reduce their daily living costs in order to pay the rising costs of property taxes if they decide to stay in their homes. When forced from their homes the character of that neighborhood changes many times to the negative eroding the tax base further.
It seems a consensus in public thinking that an educated citizenry is an imperative to having a strong healthy country. An after thought in an agricultural society, education became more and more important as we moved into and out of the industrial revolution and we are now in the information age where education is a must.
Today, just as important : as highways, as bridges, as water ways and ports, as trains and air lines, is education which needs to be funded accordingly. To function in the 21st Century and beyond we can't rely on outmoded methods to raise money for schools. Anchored to the land, anchored to a community both life styles of agriculture and industry adapted to property taxes supplying funds to educate her young. Now in the information age where everyone is mobile and everyone needs more education the means to pay for it is vastly inadequate.
Education is the bridge to the future and as all bridges serve all travelers an educated American serves all countrymen. Bridges are high cost structures, education costs a lot too and as bridges need to be paid for out of a general fund so must we pay for education in the same way.
Taxing property, once acceptable when agriculture and industry ruled the economy, no longer serves a proper role in the 21st Century. Building the universal bridge through education needs us to develop a universal method to pay for it.
Ronald C. Downie
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Three Treasures
Three Treasures
Break the mold
Burn the prints
Uncork the bottle
Speed the Genie gone .
Not of, but in this World,
Eye sight sharpens
Finds Nature's way
Quietly seeking silence .
Even though Nature does nothing
Nothing is left undone .
Enough becomes enough
Everything in it's own time .
Yin and Yang, the Te,
Into a family of oneness,
The practice of eternal light
Seeing small, listening more .
Keep needs to a minimum,
Wants to all but nil, for
Within each, a Universe exists
Where no storm lasts forever .
Flow as a water course
Which seeks her own level
Softly cutting it's own way
Unequaled in strength .
Surface your sixth sense :
To see, to hear, to smell,
To feel, and to taste are
Just not enough to liberate .
Cherish "three treasures":
"Courage" gained through "mercy",
"Generosity" found in "frugality",
"Leadership" developed from "humility".
Build life one brick at a time .
With a single step each journey begins .
Originating from a single source,
Existence ultimately depends on Love .
Instead of calendar pages
A slash joining four strokes .
Non-being, being, back to non-being
As the bell begins it's final toll .
Ronald C. Downie
-After studying The Tao-
Erica at arriving at 21 years
Break the mold
Burn the prints
Uncork the bottle
Speed the Genie gone .
Not of, but in this World,
Eye sight sharpens
Finds Nature's way
Quietly seeking silence .
Even though Nature does nothing
Nothing is left undone .
Enough becomes enough
Everything in it's own time .
Yin and Yang, the Te,
Into a family of oneness,
The practice of eternal light
Seeing small, listening more .
Keep needs to a minimum,
Wants to all but nil, for
Within each, a Universe exists
Where no storm lasts forever .
Flow as a water course
Which seeks her own level
Softly cutting it's own way
Unequaled in strength .
Surface your sixth sense :
To see, to hear, to smell,
To feel, and to taste are
Just not enough to liberate .
Cherish "three treasures":
"Courage" gained through "mercy",
"Generosity" found in "frugality",
"Leadership" developed from "humility".
Build life one brick at a time .
With a single step each journey begins .
Originating from a single source,
Existence ultimately depends on Love .
Instead of calendar pages
A slash joining four strokes .
Non-being, being, back to non-being
As the bell begins it's final toll .
Ronald C. Downie
-After studying The Tao-
Erica at arriving at 21 years
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Green Is Spring
Green Is Spring
Looking west from my front porch
Into my neighborhood, see
Spring's green in all its glory
When yellow hues mix with blue's.
Daffodils, forsythia,
The ascending morning sun,
Tulips and crocus burst forth
With the yellow pigment sought.
Do blue hyacinths join with
Blue lilacs and heaven's sky
To supply those pigments sought?
Green dominates my eyes' sight.
Gone again the sterile bleak
Of late winter's browns and grays
Which blankets below cold snow
And buds ready to burst forth.
Awash in green leaves tall trees
Grow straight up out of green grass.
The dominant color is green
Announcing Spring's arrival.
Ronald C. Downie
Do you, as I do, find amazement in Spring's ability to cast off winter's whows so fast when browns and greys quickly meld into greens ? Living with cycles life processes flow on without much of a notice : we sleep then awake, we work then rest, we eat then drink fluids, we dirty then wash, all as we live in nature which changes seasons without much to do about it.
Looking west from my front porch
Into my neighborhood, see
Spring's green in all its glory
When yellow hues mix with blue's.
Daffodils, forsythia,
The ascending morning sun,
Tulips and crocus burst forth
With the yellow pigment sought.
Do blue hyacinths join with
Blue lilacs and heaven's sky
To supply those pigments sought?
Green dominates my eyes' sight.
Gone again the sterile bleak
Of late winter's browns and grays
Which blankets below cold snow
And buds ready to burst forth.
Awash in green leaves tall trees
Grow straight up out of green grass.
The dominant color is green
Announcing Spring's arrival.
Ronald C. Downie
Do you, as I do, find amazement in Spring's ability to cast off winter's whows so fast when browns and greys quickly meld into greens ? Living with cycles life processes flow on without much of a notice : we sleep then awake, we work then rest, we eat then drink fluids, we dirty then wash, all as we live in nature which changes seasons without much to do about it.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Energy Policy - 40 Years Without
Energy Policy - 40 Years Without
Alternative verses Renewable - either/or - should it be both ? Tuesday, April 19 at The National Press Club Luncheon two guys, one my age, Ted Turner, the other 6 years older at 82, T. Boone Pickens, debated their current passions.
Ted Turner, the man who shrunk the World when he started CNN, is the chief proponent of renewable energy today. Solar, wind, and geothermal, he claims, are the only way to save humanity as we know it because these renewable energy sources do not use the energy stored up in carbon as oil, coal, and natural gas does.
T. Boone Pickens, a wildcatter in the oil fields after graduating college with a degree in geology, is lobbying Washington to adopt a plan to transition the USA away from gas and diesel, first in our truck fleets then to the automobile, by changing their fuel to Natural Gas. Already large fleets of busses and garbage trucks have transitioned. His success will come, he asserts, when the 18 wheeler fleets which crisscross the country delivering most everything a family uses makes the change over.
Both men realize each plan has merit : Turner's, as a long term ultimate solution ; Pickens', as a transition from dirty oil to clean natural gas especially to move goods in trucks and trains.
Washington, to its shame both men agree, has pandered to campaign contributors who profit from the status quo by stifling a nonpartisan passage of a comprehensive energy bill that would chart America's future energy course.
Our future is in all of our voices joining together to demand an Energy Policy along with a sympathetic press telling the true story of the World a generation out if nothing is done. The United States with only 4 percent of the World's population uses 25 percent of the World's energy so how goes the USA goes the World.
Joining these two old bulls in an arena where they
would meld their energy policies the Press Club did the country a great service. The future, I realize, is in renewables but the immediate need is to swiftly ween us off dirty oil, gasoline and diesel, as we transition to renewables. Our duty is to press legislators to get on board and formulate a comprehensive energy policy that takes both Turner's and Pickens' ideas and form legislation around them. If Congress won't move, remove them.
Ronald C. Downie
As appearing in The Mercury Letters To Readers' Views May 5,2011
Alternative verses Renewable - either/or - should it be both ? Tuesday, April 19 at The National Press Club Luncheon two guys, one my age, Ted Turner, the other 6 years older at 82, T. Boone Pickens, debated their current passions.
Ted Turner, the man who shrunk the World when he started CNN, is the chief proponent of renewable energy today. Solar, wind, and geothermal, he claims, are the only way to save humanity as we know it because these renewable energy sources do not use the energy stored up in carbon as oil, coal, and natural gas does.
T. Boone Pickens, a wildcatter in the oil fields after graduating college with a degree in geology, is lobbying Washington to adopt a plan to transition the USA away from gas and diesel, first in our truck fleets then to the automobile, by changing their fuel to Natural Gas. Already large fleets of busses and garbage trucks have transitioned. His success will come, he asserts, when the 18 wheeler fleets which crisscross the country delivering most everything a family uses makes the change over.
Both men realize each plan has merit : Turner's, as a long term ultimate solution ; Pickens', as a transition from dirty oil to clean natural gas especially to move goods in trucks and trains.
Washington, to its shame both men agree, has pandered to campaign contributors who profit from the status quo by stifling a nonpartisan passage of a comprehensive energy bill that would chart America's future energy course.
Our future is in all of our voices joining together to demand an Energy Policy along with a sympathetic press telling the true story of the World a generation out if nothing is done. The United States with only 4 percent of the World's population uses 25 percent of the World's energy so how goes the USA goes the World.
Joining these two old bulls in an arena where they
would meld their energy policies the Press Club did the country a great service. The future, I realize, is in renewables but the immediate need is to swiftly ween us off dirty oil, gasoline and diesel, as we transition to renewables. Our duty is to press legislators to get on board and formulate a comprehensive energy policy that takes both Turner's and Pickens' ideas and form legislation around them. If Congress won't move, remove them.
Ronald C. Downie
As appearing in The Mercury Letters To Readers' Views May 5,2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
My Thoughts
My Thoughts - The Posted Poet
Namaste
The Book Of Life of each individual is paged open by their own Hand Of Time revealing a just completed episode in their life. There is no use peeking at unturned pages since they are still blank and not yet written.
Therefore, we must live each day as it unfolds and deal with its consequences. Doing so, we hope to gain some knowledge that will help guide us in making future decisions easier to accept.
Learning from the past makes us stronger to face the future, unknown to us now, which will arrive in its own due time.
Then, and not until then, will another page be written and found ready to be laid open.
Ahimsa !
Ronald C. Downie - The Posted Poet
Namaste
The Book Of Life of each individual is paged open by their own Hand Of Time revealing a just completed episode in their life. There is no use peeking at unturned pages since they are still blank and not yet written.
Therefore, we must live each day as it unfolds and deal with its consequences. Doing so, we hope to gain some knowledge that will help guide us in making future decisions easier to accept.
Learning from the past makes us stronger to face the future, unknown to us now, which will arrive in its own due time.
Then, and not until then, will another page be written and found ready to be laid open.
Ahimsa !
Ronald C. Downie - The Posted Poet
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Connor Kurtz At Seventeen
Connor ( at a decade plus seven ). Happy Birthday !
What kind of person is he yet to be
Who casts shadows like a growing tree?
Will he seek real answers to set him free
With independence ? Guess, we'll wait to see .
Conditioned safe harbors are not his style,
Undaunted quests fill his personal file.
Debate him on any subject for awhile,
Sticks to his guns, gains his point with a smile.
Correspondence and communication are
His domain which needs refinement power
So his detractors will not think him sour
When, in effigy, hang him from the tower.
Potential is the mountain of his strength
That only he may control its final length.
A dogged damed determination is meant
As a marker before Connor Man is spent.
Love, PopPop & Nanny
Beware: emerging from his den another Alpha male cub grandson of European heritage loosed upon an unsuspecting World . He will size up his peers, evaluate his elders , calculate the leaders , and debate any who get in his way. The Universe will be his apple to take out a great big bite . World , you are put on notice !
What kind of person is he yet to be
Who casts shadows like a growing tree?
Will he seek real answers to set him free
With independence ? Guess, we'll wait to see .
Conditioned safe harbors are not his style,
Undaunted quests fill his personal file.
Debate him on any subject for awhile,
Sticks to his guns, gains his point with a smile.
Correspondence and communication are
His domain which needs refinement power
So his detractors will not think him sour
When, in effigy, hang him from the tower.
Potential is the mountain of his strength
That only he may control its final length.
A dogged damed determination is meant
As a marker before Connor Man is spent.
Love, PopPop & Nanny
Beware: emerging from his den another Alpha male cub grandson of European heritage loosed upon an unsuspecting World . He will size up his peers, evaluate his elders , calculate the leaders , and debate any who get in his way. The Universe will be his apple to take out a great big bite . World , you are put on notice !
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