New appreciation
I recently had the unexpected opportunity of participating in the initial training to become a Certified Tourism Ambassador (CTA) for Lake County. The program was adopted by the Board of Supervisors as a means of promoting Lake County when it became necessary to close a tourism office in a climate of diminished marketing dollars. I can only applaud that decision as a cost effective means of training business and front-line people in the hospitality industry to respond to inquiries from our out-of-county visitors. This program makes information available by individualized, personalized, face-to-face encounters with visitors to supplement information already available through print and electronic media.
Receiving the one hundred and eighty-six page manual plus additional supplemental material to be read prior to the training appeared initially daunting. However, as I read I found myself more thoroughly appreciating the rich history and varied recreational opportunities available to both locals and visitors to Lake County. The training renewed and excited my interest to explore more fully much of what I have come to take for granted here. With the assistance of our CTAs I hope that our guests will also come to explore and experience the diversity of Lake County and leave with a greater appreciation and an improved impression.
Barbara Ehr, Cobb
A long range view
I appreciate Mr. McKay taking a long range view of the prospects for the continuance of life on planet Earth and in the universe in general. It appears to be true that the eventual fate of the Earth is to have its hydrosphere and atmosphere stripped away by the rising heat of the sun, then itself being vaporized by the sun as it expands to the red giant stage. The sun, in turn, is likely to fall into a black hole, and the entire universe collapse in a “big crunch” or fizzle out in what was called in the 19th century “The Heat Death Of The Universe,” in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. What is a bit puzzling to me is how he reconciles the things he advocates with his stance as a conservative.
My experience is that the critical factor defining social classes is not the amount of wealth they attain or control, but the manner in which they treat that wealth. This is a question of values and the greater wealth of the middle class is a consequence of the values it puts into practice. The wealth then, is a measure of class status, but not its defining feature.
The upper classes of societies that have gone through a feudal stage, be they in Europe, China, Japan, or India, are the result of people, identified as either royalty and nobility, organizing extortion rackets, exchanging “protection” for the peasants against the neighboring warlords for a social condition not far removed from slavery. The ancestors of most Americans of European extraction came here to escape this perpetual serfdom.
The lower class may be defined as consisting of those whose conditions of life are chronically burdensome, suffering from harsh labor, low wages, and often ill health. The advent of any resource, such as winning the lottery, is viewed as a random occurrence to be celebrated in some kind of spree as an escape, at least temporarily, from discomfort and uncertainty. This is a fundamentally pessimistic attitude.
The middle class can be characterized as those who are optimistic, who use available resources cautiously, with the goal of enhancing their own continuing security and prosperity. They may sacrifice the pleasure of the moment for more long term goals of educational and occupational advancement. The upper class in America is largely derived from people with middle class values, but who have become so engrossed in the expansion of their wealth that they may have lost sight of its potentially deleterious social consequences.
On a planetary scale, the question is whether we want to squander the fossil fuel resources currently available to us in an orgy of living in a grand style, with the possible consequence of disrupting the natural cycles that have created and maintained the life we enjoy, or do we want to use these resources as a platform for building a just and economically sustainable society for the near future. The former represents the pessimism of the lower class mind and the latter the optimism of the middle class mind. It seems that both liberals and conservatives like to identify themselves with the middle class, as it represents some kind of American ideal. For some reason self-styled conservatives have embraced an essentially lower class view with respect to non-renewable resources. This is a bit of a paradox, since conservatives are supposed to be those representing stability and order and who themselves identify liberals as those who introduce social changes that are potentially destabilizing.
In the end, we have to decide if we should “burn it all” and deal with the results, or take a more measured and thoughtful approach to the use of our fossil fuel legacy. I say we should think ahead to the foreseeable future and not jeopardize the next few generations, even if we are all fated to be fried or crushed at the end of time.
Steve Harness, Witter Springs
