Journalists have an expression: MEGO, meaning My Eyes Glaze Over. It stands for worthy and important subjects that people regard as too dull to think about. Water supply seems to be the essence of MEGO. Fixing urban networks is so expensive, time-consuming, and invisible to the public that governments historically have been unwilling to pay attention unless forced by disaster.
Growing demand, increasingly severe droughts, and, above all, aging infrastructure are testing their limits. Almost half a million miles of pipe in North America is nearing the end of its useful life and will need to be replaced soon. Equally in need of upgrades are the thousands of treatment plants built in the 1970s.… History suggests that the systems will not be maintained until there are several disasters. But the disasters could be avoided if voters understood the importance of their water supply, and made clean water a priority.
Everyone involved knew their roles in this drama by heart, and fell right into them with gusto.
A brief, fascinating look at one “microcosm of the larger dynamic” of Trump 2.0 from Yuval Levin.
At the root of the contempt in which Donald Trump and his team hold many of the core institutions of our society is not how they view those various other actors but how they view themselves. The president and those around him appear to understand themselves as outsiders fighting the government, not as insiders running it.
And let us not allow ourselves to get tired of doing good.
Fun fact: “One of the oldest monastic libraries in the world, the Abbey Library of St.Gallen in Switzerland, has the following inscription over its door: ΨΥΧΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΕΙΟΝ (psukhēs iatreion), which translates as ‘healing place for the soul.’”
The library was founded around 937 and is one of the most important monastic collections in the world, holding 160,000 volumes, 1650 books printed before 1500, and 2100 manuscripts from the 8th to 15th century. You can view the e-codices of the original manuscripts here.
We need something better than liberal irony.
I also went back and put up an unshared post on liberalism, conservatism, and imagining toward utopias, most of which is over a month old. I think I had higher expectations for it than I ever found, and I wasn’t sure I was saying what I wanted to say.
Sneaking a photo • Don’t disturb the peace
[Supernatural hope] alone can bestow on man the certain possession of that aspiration that is at once relaxed and disciplined, that adaptability and readiness, that strong-hearted freshness, that resilient joy, that steady preseverance in trust that so distinguish the young and make them lovable.
… As Saint Augustine so aptly says: “God is younger than all else.”