We are living in the future
I’ll tell you how I know
I read it in the paper
Fifteen years ago
John Prine is one of America’s finest songwriters. His lyrics are full of whimsy and wonderment and, because he often weaves newspapers into his ditties and ballads, as he did (above) in “Living in the Future,” I’ve always thought he had as much respect for my chosen craft as I have for his.
While most of what is reported in the Express-News today is about what happened yesterday, there is a fair amount of speculation by people we interview and by the smarter writers here about where we’ll be in the future, whether it’s 15 years from now or 50.
So, 50 years ago, when I was a kid just starting to read newspapers, I learned about rocket ships and space travel before they were possible.
Many of us learned about the wondrous things that technology has wrought over the past century by reading newspapers. That is what newspapers do best: We inform the public of the obvious things going on in the world. And readers let us know when we aren’t.
A reader, Earl Scott, called me recently to encourage the Express-News to do a story on EEStor, a company in Cedar Park, Texas, that is perfecting electric cells that can be recharged in five minutes and carry a vehicle 200 miles per charge.
“The thing is mind-blowing,” said Scott. “It’s gonna blow the gasoline engine off the road.”
What is interesting about Scott is he’s not a young technocrat. He’s a retired chemist, 89, and learned to drive in a Ford Model A 75 years ago.
If EEStor is successful, he predicts, it could put the United States back in business as a leader in affordable automotive technology and, better, reduce greatly the need for petroleum and the car’s proclivity to pollute the air.
“Living in the Future” was also in my head last week when I read reports in our paper and other media about similar basic human needs, to wit:
The price of fuel also is giving impetus to solar and wind energy, increased use of mass transit and less driving.
Reporter Pat Driscoll, who’s been writing about the governor’s desire to build toll roads all over Texas, reported last week that experts contend the rising price of fuel won’t, long term, result in reduced driving a vital point if Texas drivers are going to pay the tolls.
And Editorial Page Editor Bruce Davidson wrote in his column last Thursday that Texans must develop desalination plants to ensure a future water supply. San Antonio, for example, continues to rely mainly on a single source of water, the Edwards Aquifer, and growth continues to threaten the quality and quantity of that source.
What else is new? When I got here in the early ’70s, there was a local slogan: “Growing with grace, not haste.” It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. Urban sprawl is normal in a land-rich, high-quality-of-life region, but does it have to be this unchecked?
Whether done well or poorly, growth puts pressure on natural resources and infrastructure and creates encroachment problems for military installations, such as Camp Bullis, which remain the bread and butter of the local economy. Columnist Carlos Guerra and military affairs reporter Sig Christenson continue to follow that story.
Newspapers, at their best, stir things up and keep readers whether they are important people or ordinary ones informed. That is important.
As the rest of the refrain to “Living in the Future” goes:
“We’re all driving rocket ships/And talking with our minds/And wearing turquoise jewelry/And standing in soup lines/We are standing in soup lines.”
