Atomictumor

In case you didn’t already know, the Oak Ridge City Council meets tomorrow night, July 24, at 7:30pm. I think if you are a city resident and you are at all concerned about the effects of the Council’s actions on our school children you should go too.

I plan to address the council at tomorrow night’s meeting. If you want to address the council as well, but are at a loss for words, here’s what I’m going to say:

I am the father of two students at Willow Brook Elementary School. My family is fortunate to live just outside the one mile radius of the school. My children are therefore eligable for bus service. The other night I was talking to my son, who just started Kindergarten. He said that one of his classmates is a walker. Now think about that for a moment. A kindergartener is walking to and from school. I hope she has an adult to walk with her. I hate to imagine, though, the circumstances that would force a parent to send a kindergarten child walking to school. So, I want to pose this question to everybody who benefits from the stable tax this council is responsible for. Is your benefit worth the jeopardy that it places this kindergartener under?

Hope to see you there.

watched the news this week
reminds me of cold war days
eastern enemies

i want to retreat
turn it off and hide away
safe here from rockets

but then i look out
at record heatwaves outside
turn the a/c up

burn the energy
that comes from the fossil fuels
we use so quickly

and buy from those that
fire rockets at children
did i pay for that?

is the tv on?
maybe another beer will
calm me down again

but damn, its so hot
they say the greenhouse effect
created Venus

suns radiation
trapped by carbon dioxide
keeps getting hotter
liquid metal lakes
acid raining from the sky
could it have been green?

i put down my beer
and look out in the back yard
at the browning grass