Well, well
I haven’t seen a well in years… Not a working one at any rate.
It’s one of the things you hand over when you joined a modern westernised society… responsibility for your own water supply.
And considering that it is perhaps one of the most important resources for life, that’s a large chunk of responsibility we hand over. A lot of trust.
…and to hand that trust over to a private corporation, whose sole purpose is to generate money for shareholders, well, some may say that that’s a little foolish.
But I can’t complain, as much as I would like to, since by and large they do a pretty good job of supplying me with clean, safe water. On tap too, delivered directly to my bath or sink, or glass.
It might be very different if I lived in Fiji.
Not everyone in Fiji has access to tap water, and some don’t have any convenient access to clean water at all. .. about a third of them apparently.
This is quite odd for a country that exports (a fair deal of) bottled water to the west… well, not the country exactly. Land masses aren’t generally known for their entrepreneurial flair. No, a private business.
That’s right, not only do we have safe clean water being pumped directly into our houses, we also get it shipped in from thousands of miles away in plastic bottles – from people that don’t have any clean water themselves.
It’s an almost perfect plan.
Almost.
For us to finish of the Fijians completely, I move that we privatise air.
Don’t worry, we’ll be under an obligation to supply you with safe, clean air for all your breathing needs, hell, we’ll even ship it in from thousands of miles away in bottles for you too.
Philip J Schadenfreude on
We had water from a well three houses down. Then a dead lizard showed up in the well. So now we’re back to city water. Still, I do live in a desert, so in order for things to be fair, I think water needs to be regulated–because if not, there would be worse ‘regulations’ from tycoons and such.
Anyway, I’m moving somewhere with lots of creeks and things, so worst comes to worst we can just snag water filters from R.E.I.
Yes…KILL THE FIJIANS.
My dad lived in Beijing for a year and had to boil his tap water before it was drinkable. He came out with many interestingly-deformed bottles because he would pour the just-boiled water straight into the plastic container.
Another interesting factoid is that Adelaide, South Australia (where I live) is one of the few cities in the world where ships won’t replenish their water supplies because it’s hard, horrible and tastes like fluoride and dirt.
I drank well water all through high-school, actually. It was pumped up through taps, however. BUT: on the AT, in Pennsylvania there was an abandoned mining we hiked right through. The buildings had all rotted away, and all than was left were foundations, the roads, the grave yard, and the covered well in the old town square. That well was the water source for that section of trail, and we pulled a bucket up, and drank it. Delicious!
I have had the pleasure of sampling many sources of water in Australia and several parts of the world.
I can say that Fuji has the nicest tasting water in Australia.
Well, most times.
I don’t remember Adelaide water being that bad, but when you are thirsty, if it is wet and doesn’t need straining thru the teeth, it tastes good.
Water in LA tasted bad, as did Fremantle water.
As far as I know Fuji isn’t in Australia, it’s in Japan.
Although you could be thinking of Fiji.
Which also isn’t in Australia.
You are probably right.
I had a brain fart.
About the comic.
My mates place in Fremantle has a well (of sorts). I has been capped, but has pipes using it as a kind of bore.
We dropped pepples down to see how deep it was. He stopped screaming well before the bottom.
I meant to take my harness and absail into the well, but I forgot and wasn’t trusting of the rusty ladder.
I understand bottled water. I don’t understand the amount of packaged food that is available in a supermarket. Aisles and aisles of fluoro lit aisle of plastic encased processed plastic tasting food. So easy to cook, yet we are so lazy as to just buy it all (says me who gets all my food paid for and cooked for me).
Gods, you didn’t actually drink the tap water in LA, did you? Ugh!
Yes, I did. I survived, tho at what cost?
That’s happened to me.
It’s hard to climb back out.
What people don’t realize
is you can draw yourself out.
I have well water and septic where I live in northern va. Water is great! But, I wish the poo poo would catch a ride in a pipe and hightail it outta here.
hey my class of 7- 10 year olds are looking at the cost to the planet of bottled water…..water per litre costs a $1000 more when bottled…and in NZ where we ship our water also to the rest of the world at the most expensive prices, and what comes out of the tap is free…that seems kinda silly. Add to that the cost of production using fuels, plastics…….we are drinking from bottles merely to keep marketing companies in the $$$. Having said that I sneak in bottled water past my kids, (almost like it’s gin lol) is that why the planet is going to the pack - we know better, we care, but we just don’t change our personal habits……………………..
That’s pretty cool… teaching children about this sort of thing might just save all our hides.
And I’m not saying that I’ve never used bottled water, just that I resolve not too do it in the future. The problem is that bottles are a very handy way of carrying water around… I’m trying to bring the hip-flask back… that too looks gives an impression of illicit alcohol.
So, what do the kids make of it all? Do you think that you’ve got to them before their habits are set?
I’m lucky to be at a school of almost 200 that was built with a new idea of everyone being leaners together so we approach everything with this idea that parents, kids and teachers all work together. It make me really soppy but the difference seems staggering most days. Our kids have this ‘ten foot tall’ quality to them, they actually believe they can have a real and lasting impact on themselves, their environment, their parents and each other. It’s very cool to watch. Kids choose a passion or an injustice, research and investigate…. but then the life changing bit is the ’so what?’ questions that arise near the end. It’s not enough to just to know, or to care but to make change in either the micro of your own home or the try for the macro of the community consciousness. It’s exciting because you can see kids growing and dragging their parents along (sometimes kicking and screaming). Our first crop of kids are hitting the adult world now, a few were arrested recently for sitting in during a council demolition of a park to turn it into a street. Not what we ideally thought our kids would do, but they had signed petitions, gone to meetings out the wazoo had 70 % of surrounding businesses supporting them (the park’s in the centre of town and outside our school building between the primary and high school), council statements in the paper that they weren’t going to bulldoze and then one morning the diggers and bull dozers arrived…………(Horribly the man who’s sculture was in the park which was destroyed first died the same time in a retirement home - how weird is that). Anyway the bit that rocks is that while we had an idea of what it might be to grow thinking, aware and passionate children ultimately if you are successful - you have no way of guessing where people, who think and care more deeply than their predecessors do, will take that in the future they are designing. …….I’ll toddle off my soap box now…………:)