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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide for Pecos Country
of West Texas
Opinion
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
Squarely Pegged
By Peggy McCracken
Drop silver iodide on a
convective cloud for rain
I've always heard it's not wise to mess with Mother Nature, but this cloud-seeding
program may hold some promise. Any way we can increase rainfall in this
dry land has to be a positive.
Yes, this is desert, and it's not supposed to rain much. But the last
few years have been ridiculous. It is so dry, even the cactus are dying.
Of course, cloud seeding won't do any good at all if we don't get some
clouds, and they have been mighty scarce lately. Some days, though, a good
cloud will hover overhead for awhile and then just dissipate or move out
of the county. That's when you want to cry.
And if George Bomar is right, those clouds have an abundance of rainwater.
Convective clouds are best for seeding, Bomar says. Just what a convective
cloud is, I don't know. But he says if you drop silver iodide on a convective
cloud, and Mother Nature provides ice crystals, you are in business.
He calls it mining moisture out of the air. We've been mining it out
of the ground for years, so now we should look up, he says.
Looking up has always been the best way to get anything done, anyway.
Only God can make a rainbow, and you know what precedes a rainbow. Maybe
we should sow some seed through prayer to the Creator and Sustainer of
this entire universe. Then put feet to our prayers by dropping some silver
iodide on a cloud.
After all, doesn't every cloud have a silver lining?
"When there were no oceans, (wisdom) was given birth, when there were
no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, (wisdom) was given birth; before he made the earth or
its fields or any of the dust of the world." Proverbs 8:24-26
EDITOR'S NOTE: Peggy McCracken is Enterprise business manager
and webmaster. Contact her at peg2@pecos.net
Your View
Shrimp boil was a great success
Dear Editor:
I would like to say thanks and congratulations to the Pecos Rotary
Club for offering a great Dinner to the people of Pecos with their shrimp
boil last Saturday night.
The food was delicious and the workers very friendly, accept for one
occasion. Gene would only give me one ice cream.
The Rotary Club does a lot of good things in Pecos. Keep it up guys
and lets do it again next year or sooner.
WOODY MERRITT
Critic's Corner
Gold, God and grandeur
From Route 66 to the Rio Grande, Paul Robert Walker's coffee-table book
takes the reader on a wild and colorful tour of the southwest.
Walker details the histories of indigenous peoples, illustrated by photographs
in brilliant colors and drawings that depict the early lifestyles.
He draws on pre-history from 1528 Clovis people through trails, traitors
and Texans, Spanish missionaries and explorers to the new southwest from
1910 to the present.
The 249-page hardback is riveting leisure reading and a good history
text. ISBN 0-7922-6436-3, $35. Published by National Geographic Books.
-Peggy McCracken
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Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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