DRAINS TO RIVER

It's not unusual in this country to see a drainage grate that says No Dumping - Drains to Stream/River/Lake/Ocean or what have you. This is a storm sewer cover in my neighborhood. I assume that storm sewer runoff has nothing like the treatment of sanitary sewers and that water that comes through here will find its way into the Mississippi. No one is going to pull this open to dump used crankcase oil but the authorities placed the cone just in case.                                

WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT CABLES?

From big bridges to shoelaces to the fiber optic line that will carry this post into the ether, we don't think about cables much. Even the heavy ropes seen yesterday are examples, and the rope-maker's art is ancient. We can even think of the tendons in our bodies. Without them, as Yeats said, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. So thank a cable. Do it today.

This is the lyrically-named Stan Musial - Veterans Memorial Bridge, connecting Missouri and Illinois at the north edge of downtown.     

ALL BOATS FLOAT ON A RISING TIDE

Well, actually, I was just looking for a catchy title. The title is supply-side economic Republican economic baloney but it fits the situation.

The view is upriver as the great gates seen yesterday closed behind us. This time the barrier is horizontal. It will lower slowly, raising the water level in the lock until a boat can proceed safely northward. The engineering and construction of these things is beyond me.