Blog Lafayette

What do you think makes Lafayette stand out? Greater Lafayette Commerce wants to know what you think makes our local area special. This is your chance to call attention to the parts of Lafayette that you want to share with others.

You will find the link to the 15 minute survey on the Greater Lafayette Commerce site. Look for the button on the right side of their home page.

I saw an interesting news items in the Journal and Courier Today about the upcoming Monday meeting to talk about setting the rules governing the amount of decibels that proposed wind farms coming to Tippecanoe County will be allowed to produce. After seeing the story I decided to do a little reading on the effects of wind farms on the environment as well as other concerns that are raised when talking about putting in a wind farm.

The main concerns that have been raised are the effect of wind turbines on bird and bat species mortality, the amount of background noise that they produce, and the visual impact they make on the landscape of a particular area. I found it interesting that while people raise the question of noise with wind turbines they often fail to realize that with the amount of decibels in question, the wind that has to blow to make the turbine blades turn often produces as much or more background decibels as the turbines themselves. I cannot make a comment about the impact of turbines on birds and bats. I am not sure of how much of an actual impact a relatively few square miles of wind farm footprints actually have on the populations of birds and bats in general. That is best left to the scientists, who I am sure are studying those questions right now. They have the tools to give us those answers.

As to the visual or aesthetic effect of these wind farms on an area? I would rather have a form of energy production that uses no fossil fuels, no water, and emits no air pollution while the energy is being produced than a pristine view of farm land, fences, livestock, corn and bean fields, and farm houses.

When all is said and done, we as humans have a responsibility to use our brains and to be smart. We have to take care of our environment. Don’t take my words the wrong way. I am not a “Sky is falling” environmentalist. I am more of a realist. We need energy. We just need to be smart about how we produce it. I prefer the lower environmental impact of a wind farm compared to a coal power plant any day. I am truly grateful to the coal plants and the people who work for them and I am grateful for the energy that they produce. I do not want rolling brown outs and black outs like California has had to deal with. I would just prefer that as we move forward, we explore ALL options for additional power production. And I hope that we will lean toward the cleaner solutions.

Without and Within: by Louie Laskowski. Louie will display her skill of painting and photography.

Watermarks: by Rebecca Brody. Rebecca’s exhibit will consist of transparent watercolors on high quality paper.

Memories of Trick or Treat: by Liz Rainey. Liz’s exhibit will bring back our fond memories of Halloween and trick or treating adventures in her light-hearted, fun, and color-filled paintings.

Regular gallery hours Monday – Friday 9 am to 5 pm.

I have a full time job that does not allow me to know my schedule more than just a few days at a time. This makes it a little more difficult during election season to do my duty as a citizen of the United States. But not impossible. I will have to take advantage of early voting or absentee voting in my precinct before November 2nd to make sure that I get my vote in.

You might ask, why does it matter? Is it really all that important? This year’s election season has taken on a larger than life quality when it comes to the tone of the upcoming elections, so many people might be tempted to accuse me of thinking of voting as more important than normal this November 2nd.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The real truth of it is this, voting is extremely important in every election, not just this one. We have the very great privilege of living in a country and a time that allows us the freedom to have a choice in the people and ideas we put in place to guide our government. It is very important for us as a people to make sure that we exercise our right to vote. But even more important is our responsibility to know why we are voting for the people and ideas that we lend our check mark to.

This makes me ask the question, What good is it to vote if you have no idea why you are voting, or if you have no idea of the long term consequences of your vote? Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying don’t vote. What I am saying is, please know why you are voting for the person you are choosing. Get to know their record and their ideals. Your decisions of today will have an impact on your life for many years to come.

Do you know who is on the upcoming ballot or what they believe in? No? Then now is the time to begin researching the candidates. To find out who is on your upcoming ballot in November go to https://indianavoters.in.gov/PublicSite/PublicMain.aspx. You can fill in your personal information and then you will be able to find out if you are ellegible to vote and who is will be on your ballot. You will also be able to see what questions will be on the ballot so that you can research them to find out what your choice will mean in each question.

We seem to be able to find time to watch our favorite episodes of NCIS or Covert Affairs on TV. Can we make the time to find out who we will be voting on and what they believe before it is time to cast our ballot? I hope so!