GARDEN WORKS – Doctoring Trees: How to help them after a harsh winter

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Has winter caused damage to your fruit trees?

Emily Catesby Emily Cates

Are you feeling a little beat up from this winter? I sure am! And from the looks of it, so are a few of my fruit trees and a few more in the woods. While the promise of springtime is certain, it may be a while until it arrives. Until those glorious days arrive, we simply must endure.

Of course, we need not wait idly for springtime; there is plenty to do! And, the more we stay busy, the quicker it will seem to arrive. Look on the bright side: no bugs, scorching heat, or weeds to deal with! Also, the pace is much more relaxed and many activities can be done without as much competition from other chores. In this article, let’s look at something healing we can do in the meantime – giving attention to trees that need some help. After the windstorm last fall and other storms since, we’re sure to find something in our yards that needs TLC.

Sometimes it’s clear how to fix a broken tree, and sometimes it’s not. However you decide to care for them, use clean, sharp tools. Try to resist the urge to use a chainsaw when you can use hand tools, as that rips through branches as opposed to a clean cut. (Can you blame a tree for faring better with precision tools? Would you prefer a surgeon with a chainsaw or a scalpel?) Lop or saw damaged branches neatly to the “collar” from which they grew. When sawing, be sure to cut deeply from the bottom first a bit, then remove the saw and start again from the top side, sawing downward through the limb to eventually meet the cut made underneath. This will prevent tearing of the bark under the limb and damage to the good part of the tree when the limb falls off.

Oh no! What if the trunk of the tree is cracked or split? Some folks have had success from rather heroic efforts involving splinting, tying, cabling, and even duct taping. The sooner a damaged tree is repaired, the better a chance it has of healing. Don’t wait if you can help it. Your peach trees will thank you. Remember, though, not to leave on any items that could hinder the tree after it has healed, such as wire, rods, boards, rope and the like. If a tree is prone to damage, perhaps it needs to be pruned, supported, and fruits thinned. Or maybe it needs a better location, or a different tree altogether….

What if it’s not possible, despite our best efforts and intentions, to save a damaged tree? Well, maybe then it’s time for the chainsaw. Oftentimes a cut tree will sprout up and save itself with a little help. In grafted specimens, cut above the graft if possible and keep only sprouts that are growing above the graft. If this is not feasible, cut down to the part that is least damaged. Some folks insist in coating the wound with Treekote or something similar, but I don’t usually bother and let the tree heal itself. If all that is left is a stump and the tree decides to send up sprouts from the roots or base of the tree, select the most vigorous sprout and remove the rest. This sprout can be used as a rootstock onto which a desired variety can be grafted.

Well, I hope these activities help lessen the sting of a harsh winter and usher in the spirit of springtime. Enjoy the increasing sunshine as much as you can!

FOR YOUR HEALTH – It’s Flu Season: CDC Reminds Public That Antibiotics Do Not Treat Flu

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(NAPSI) — Flu season is upon us and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants patients and families to remember that prescription antiviral drugs, not antibiotics, are the treatment for influenza (flu). Antibiotics do not treat viruses that cause colds and the flu. They are only needed for treating certain infections caused by bacteria.

Remember that the best way to protect yourself and your family from the flu is by getting your annual flu vaccine. It’s not too late to get vaccinated.

KNOW WHAT’S GOT YOU SICK

Viruses cause infections like the common cold, flu, runny noses and most sore throats, and none of these are treated with antibiotics. Illnesses like strep throat, pneumonia and whooping cough are examples of illnesses caused by bacteria that can be treated with antibiotics.

ANTIBIOTICS AREN’T ALWAYS THE ANSWER

If you have the flu, taking antibiotics won’t help to treat your flu illness. It is important to remember that any time you take antibiotics it can lead to antibiotic resistance and cause side effects.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most urgent threats to the public’s health and occurs when bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics designed to kill them. Antibiotic side effects range from minor—e.g., rash, dizziness, nausea, yeast infections—to very severe health problems, e.g., life-threatening allergic reactions or Clostridium difficile infection (also called C. difficile or C. diff), which causes diarrhea that can lead to severe colon damage or death.

When a patient needs antibiotics, the benefits outweigh the risks of side effects. Antibiotics save lives and are critical tools for treating a number of common infections like pneumonia and life-threatening conditions like sepsis.

PROTECT YOURSELF FROM INFLUENZA (FLU)

You can protect yourself and others from the flu in three steps.

1) Get vaccinated. Everyone 6 months or older should get a yearly flu vaccine.

2) Stop the spread of germs by avoiding close contact with sick people. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, and cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue. Clean your hands often with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer or soap and water.

3) If you get sick, take antiviral drugs if your doctor prescribes them.

FIND OUT HOW TO FEEL BETTER

Most healthy people with the flu have mild illness and recover in less than two weeks without needing medical care or antiviral drugs. If you get sick with flu symptoms, in most cases, you should stay home and avoid contact with other people except to get medical care.

If, however, you have flu symptoms and are at high risk of having complications from flu, or are very sick or worried about your illness, contact your healthcare professional. Your doctor may prescribe antiviral drugs to treat your illness. People at high risk of having complications from flu include young children, people 65 years of age and older, pregnant women and people with certain medical conditions.

Visit www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use for information on antibiotic prescribing and use, and visit www.cdc.gov/flu for information about the flu.

SCORES & OUTDOORS: Pesticides having a detrimental affect on bumble bee population

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Bumble bee

Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

Recently I read an article about the state of bumble bees and honey bees. It seems a common class of pesticide, neonicotinoids, is causing problems for honey bees and bumble bees, by attacking their central nervous systems, causing a reduction in weight and the number of queens in bumble bee hives. It also causes them to become disoriented, and fail to return to their hives.

Neonicotinoids are a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically similar to nicotine. As of 2013 neonicotinoids have been used in the U.S. on about 95 percent of corn and canola crops, the majority of cotton, sorghum, and sugar beets and about half of all soybeans. They have been used on the vast majority of fruit and vegetables, including apples, cherries, peaches, oranges, berries, leafy greens, tomatoes, and potatoes, to cereal grains, rice, nuts, and wine grapes. Imidacloprid is possibly the most widely used insecticide, both within the neonicotinoids and in the worldwide market.

For more than a decade, pollinators of all types have been in decline, mostly because of loss of habitat, inadequate food sources, diseases caused by parasites and viruses, and bee management practices, along with perhaps some pesticides.

In a British study, researchers dosed bees with the pesticide and moved their hives out to a field. After six weeks, they found the pesticide-treated hives to be 10 percent lighter than those that weren’t treated; and more important, the hives that had pesticides lost about 85 percent of their queens.

Even though lower doses were used with bumble bees, it seems that bumble bees are more sensitive to the pesticide and that issue is worthy of more study.

Honey bee

Honey bees, which aren’t native to America, are managed by professional beekeepers, carted from farm to orchard, and raised to produce honey. Bumble bees, native to this country, are wild pollinators.

Bumble bees are typically found in higher latitudes and high altitudes, through exception exist. They are also found in cold climates where other bees might not be found because bumble bees can regulate their body temperature.

Bumble bees are social insects that feed on nectar and gather pollen to feed their young. Bees are also needed to pollinate fruit, vegetables and nuts. Without them, experts say our diets would be very bland.

Bumble bees generally visit flowers exhibiting the bee pollination syndrome. They tend to visit the same patches of flowers every day, as long as they continue to find nectar and pollen. Pollen is removed from flowers deliberately or incidentally by bumblebees. Once a bumblebee has visited a flower, it leaves a scent mark on the flower. This scent mark deters visitation of the flowers by other bumblebees until the scent degrades.

Once they have collected nectar and pollen, bumble bees return to the nest and deposit the harvested nectar and pollen into brood cells, or into wax cells for storage. Unlike honey bees, bumble bees only store a few days’ worth of food, and so they are much more vulnerable to food shortages.

Queen and worker bumblebees can sting. The bumble bee stinger has no barbs and is capable of multiple stings. They are not normally aggressive, but will sting in defense of their nest or if harmed. They will attack host colony members, but usually ignore other animals and humans unless disturbed.

Multiple species of bees are either seing a decline or disappearing entirely from the European landscape, along with some native to America, some of them may even be extinct.

According to 20th century folklore, the laws of aerodynamics prove that bumble bees should be incapable of flight, as it doesn’t have the capacity to achieve flight with the degree of wing loading necessary. In 1934, French entomologist Antoine Magnan included the following passage in the introduction to his book, Le Vols des Insectes: “First prompted by what is done in aviation, I applied the laws of air resistance to insects, and I arrived … at this conclusion that their flight is impossible.” Apparently, the bumblebee’s wing function is that the wings work similarly to helicopter blades. Bees beat their wings approximately 200 times a second. Their thorax muscles do not expand and contract on each nerve firing but rather vibrate like a plucked rubber band.

So, environmental activists and some beekeepers are convinced the pesticide is a problem. Entomologists have said without bees, “we’d be a scurvy-ridden society.”

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

Chris Sale is scheduled to be the opening day pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in 2018. Who was the last Red Sox lefthanded pitcher to start two consecutive opening days?

Answer can be found here.

I’m Just Curious: Eighth grade test, Part II

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by Debbie Walker

Okay, I am about to fulfill your excitement about the rest of that 1895 8th Grade Final. How many of you figure you’d still be in a lower grade now?? I probably would have been in a much lower grade!!!!

1895 test continued:

Orthography (Time, one hour), [Do we even know what this is?]

  1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
  2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
  3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
  4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
  5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
  6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
  7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
  8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
  9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
  10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

  1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
  2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
  3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
  4. Describe the mountains of North America .
  5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco .
  6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
  7. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
  8. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
  9. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

I would love to hear about your test results! I hope you got a kick out of it. When I come across funny or odd stuff I have to pass it on.

If I have ever written anything you might want to check out again you are encouraged to go to our website and check out the archives.

I’m just curious how your test results came out, Contact me at dwdaffy@yahoo.com. I’ll be waiting to hear. Thank you for reading.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Singer: Dick Haymes; Composer: Irving Berlin

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Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Dick Haymes Sings Irving Berlin

MCA, MCL 1773, LP, released 1983 and based on Decca 78 originals.

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin (1888-1989), born Israel Baline, in Czarist Russia, came to America with his parents to escape the frequent bloody pogroms occurring there. He left home at the age of eight years, eking out a living as a newsboy. Other subsistent jobs would eventually lead to songwriting, begun with Marie from Sunny Italy, his first published song; the publisher misspelled his name as I. Berlin and Baline kept it for the rest of his very long life.

Within a few short years, the hits started with Alex­ander’s Rag­time Band, Play a Simple Melody, and Everybody’s Doin’ It.

Meanwhile, for more than 70 years, he created an avalanche of songs, of which at least 60 were megahits that still generate royalties for his estate. Dozens of singers covered them on record, especially Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Pat Boone, etc. George Gershwin considered him, “the greatest songwriter who ever lived;” Jerome Kern quipped, “Irving Berlin has no place in American music; he is American music.”

Dick Haymes

Tommy Dorsey

Many music lovers consider Dick Haymes (1918-1980) the finest singer among the sizable pool of talent to emerge during the ‘30s and ‘40s Big Band Era. The story has been verified that Haymes began writing songs as a means to earn a living, and submitted a few to bandleader Harry James. The trumpeter refused the songs but hired Haymes as a singer to replace then recently departed Frank Sinatra, who had meanwhile signed with Tommy Dorsey.

Haymes worked with Benny Goodman and then was introduced by Sinatra himself to Dorsey as a suggested replacement when Sinatra decided to pursue a solo career. Inevitably, Haymes too left Dorsey, became a success and signed with Decca records, scoring nine gold records. His popularity in films increased with 1945’s State Fair. And, even later when his career waned, all of his records would be treasured by collectors simply because he was a great singer and conveyed a sincerity and passion for singing right up to his last years before his death at 61 from lung cancer .

Benny Goodman

Finally, he was married six times, one of his wives being Rita Hayworth and this side of his life having considerable potential for a biographer.

The above reissue contains sixteen 78 sides devoted to Berlin, who was a special favorite of Haymes and includes The Girl That I Marry, Little Fish in a Big Pond, All Alone, Let’s Take an Old-Fashioned Walk, Say It With Music and my own personal favorite, You’re Just In Love, with Ethel Merman and the most exquisite, enchanting arrangement by Gordon Jenkins. A gem of an album!

IF WALLS COULD TALK: Though lost in construction, library still serves the people

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Katie Ouilette Wallsby Katie Ouilette

WALLS, here’s a good one for you! History? Well, I watched the crows flying in the trees and thought of the crow that used to perch on a street post in Waterville and, yes, literally would say, “hi” to folks passing by. I guess the policeman who found the bird that had been wounded taught it to say ‘“hi.” Well, that was a long time ago, but those who remember must have a smile at the thought.

Yes, that was a happening in Waterville about 70 years ago. Now, as Stephen Aucoin recently wrote to the editor of the Morning Sentinel, downtown Waterville is changed, but the Waterville Public Library, though lost in the high rising new buildings, still stands ready to serve the people and the award for community service given to it. Certainly, those who faithfully work there are proud to say “we did it.”

WALLS, do you remember my giving the book that I wrote…Two Birds in a Box,” to the librarian at the time? Mr. Dee, the dad of the Denis family, grew up in Waterville and was a graduate of Colby College. Now, Colby College is the library’s neighbor! Yes, faithful readers, times do change!

Y’know, WALLS, Maine has wonderful colleges and even those have grown in number. Many of my grandkids have attended University of Maine. Yes, when I think of Colby’s first having been on College Avenue in Waterville and then moving to Mayflower Hill and now expanding to downtown Waterville and Maine’s, once, Abner Colburn contributing to Maine education and his name having been placed on so many college buildings in this grand state of Maine, WALLS, you must be proud that this was a Skowhegan man who was educated at Bloomfield School (which was still a school until SAD #54 came into view). Yes, little wonder that Attorney Robert Washburn, a member of Skowhegan Heritage Council, proposed that the council have a Governor Abner Coburn Day on his March 22 birthday. Faithful readers, Abner Colburn was a famous man who had an education until he was 14 years of age, He lived in Bloomfield (South side of the Kennebec River in what is now Skowhegan). He did much for education worldwide and had a mountain near Jackman named for him.

Yup, and here we are, back with libraries again, faithful readers. Gov. Abner Coburn gave funding that made the Skowhegan Public Library possible. Proudly, the Skowhegan Heritage Council with Attorney Robert Washburn as chairman, will celebrate our famous governor’s birthday at the Skowhegan Public Library at 3 p.m., on Thursday, March 22, 2018.

SOLON & BEYOND: Solon school opens preschool registration

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Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

It is time to begin the preschool application process for the fall of 2018 at Solon Elementary School. If your child will be four years old by October 15, 2018, you can apply for enrollment into the RSU #74 2018-19 preschool program. The program is open to all four-year olds regardless of family income.

Applications can be picked up at any of the elementary schools, you can have one mailed to your home by calling the school at 643-2491, or you can download one from the district website.

You will need to provide income verification and a copy of your child’s birth certificate, MaineCare card, and immunization record.

If you have any questions about the preschool program, please contact the school at 643-2491.

Grades 3-5 students at Solon Elementary are preparing for State Assessment Tests.

Grades 3-5 students are getting ready to take the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA), which will start the week of March 19. Students in all three grades will take tests in reading, writing/language, and math. Later the fifth graders will take a test in science.

This test will be taken on the computer. The test will be administered over multiple days so that students do not get too tired. Teachers are using practice items and teaching test-taking strategies with the students to help prepare them. Please encourage your child to do his/her best on this important test, which helps us to assess each child’s achievement level as well as the progress of our school.

Again this year Solon Elementary School scheduled some fun activities to brighten the winter season. The Solon Kids Care Club sponsored a Secret Cupid activity in which each of us decorated a heart with some kind words for another person in the school. The hearts have been displayed on the bulletin board in the lobby.

Received this e-mail from my good friend, Nancy Whittemore, and she wrote: I would like to extend a sincere thank you to all of the folks in the community of Solon, and surrounding communities for all of the many kind deeds and encouraging words to me during my difficult journey with Terry’s illness and death. It meant so much to me.

And now an e-mail from the Happyknits Crew with some news that perhaps many of you didn’t know about. “We’re starting to notice that the days are lengthening and the temperatures are shifting as we move in fits and starts towards spring. Happyknits is making a bit of a shift too. Julie Cooke, who first opened this yarn shop on her own and gave us all a little place for yarn paradise, has decided to change directions and move on to other interests. We’d like to express our gratitude to her for being our partner and good friend for the last several years, and we wish her the best in her new adventure!

Sarah, Mary Lou and Karla are looking forward to continuing to serve you all. They are grateful to all of you for helping to make Happyknits such a happy place and we hope to see you soon!

Percy’s memoir this week is entitled, The Magic of Love:

Love is like magic.
And it always will be,
For love still remains
Life’s sweet mystery!
Love works in ways
That are wondrous and strange
And there’s nothing in life
That love cannot change!
Love can transform
The most commonplace
Into beauty and splendor
And sweetness and grace!
Love is unselfish,
Understanding and kind,
For it sees with its heart
And not with its mind!
Love is the answer
That everyone seeks –
Love is the language
That every heart speaks –
Love can’t be bought,
It is priceless and free,
Love like pure magic
Is a sweet mystery!

(words by Helen Steiner Rice)

COMMUNITY COMMENTARY: Slippery facts on Sheepscot Pond re-introduction of species

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Alewives by John Burrows (source: mainerivers.org)

by Buck O’Herin
Montville resident

Feelings are running high in some communities about the potential re-introduction of sea-run fish species into Sheepscot Pond and the potential for these species to impact the fresh water fishery through disease and predation. The front page article in The Town Line newspaper on January 25 quoted several reasons why a couple of community groups oppose the re-introduction of these species. Many of the points listed were misleading and did not give appropriate context, and some were outright false.

It is crucial to remember that both alewives and sea lampreys are native to Maine and our rivers, lakes, and ponds. They both spend time at sea and migrate back to lakes and rivers to spawn. Sheepscot Pond represents 40 percent of the historic alewife habitat above Head Tide in the Sheepscot River. Many Maine lakes have healthy runs of alewives and other sea-run species and also maintain healthy populations of freshwater game fish. Alamoosook Lake, in Orland, has had an alewife migration for years, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a hatchery there. The lake has a healthy fresh water fishery that includes salmon, brook trout, brown trout, bass, and eel.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service tested alewives from the St. Croix River from 2014 to 2016 for seven different diseases. None were found to be carrying any diseases. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been offered assistance to ensure there is proper filtration and disinfection of water at the Palermo facility. Even though most other IF&W hatcheries have this equipment, the Department has so far chosen not to accept the help.

Adult sea lamprey cannot survive in freshwater and die after spawning. As young adults, they are primarily trying to get to sea, not feed when they do attach to fresh water fish. It is very common to install small notches in a dam to make sure young adult lampreys can get to sea with a trickle of water, even if water is not flowing over the dam. Sea lamprey are probably already in Sheepscot Pond. They can get through the open fish ladder at the Coopers Mills Dam, into Long Pond, and over the Sheepscot Pond dam as long as water is flowing.

The proposal in front of the legislature would open the Sheepscot Pond fish ladder year-round, that IF&W currently blocks for two months of the year. Water already flows over the dam, especially in the spring. U.S. Geological Survey records show the Sheepscot River flows at an average of 734 cubic feet per second in April. The fish ladder at Sheepscot Pond is designed to use about 6 cubic feet per second. Allowing the fish ladder to be open increases flow to the river by only 0.82 percent. The lake level would not be significantly affected.

We should be thoughtful about how we make this decision and depend on the science. There is abundant evidence that restoring fish passage to the entire Sheepscot River is beneficial for all native fish species and the Sheepscot Pond ecosystem.

ERIC’S TECH TALK: My bipolar relationship with the Internet

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by Eric W. Austin

I love technology. I hate technology. I just can’t decide.

When I was a boy, I dreamt of moving up to the mountains and living in the hollowed-out trunk of a redwood tree, making rabbit snares from deer tendon and barbed wire. Then Dad brought home our first computer. Now, I panic when the lights flicker and fret over whether I have enough gas for the generator.

Recently, I ‘liked’ a post on Facebook from a Californian cousin. He had shared an article from The Washington Post about a product that has been introduced into more than 600 American schools meant to reduce cell phone use by students. The idea is pretty simple. Each student receives an opaque, nylon case just big enough to hold a cell phone. On the open end of the pouch is a magnetic clasp. When touched to a special ‘magnetizer,’ the clasp is magnetized and becomes impossible to open. The students remain in possession of their phones at all times, but cannot see or access them while they are locked away in the nylon pouch. At the end of the school day, the students touch the cases to the special magnetizer again, which this time de-magnetizes the clasps, once again giving students access to their phones.

The program has been an unsurprising success. Grades have gone up, behavior problems have dropped, and people have started talking to one another again. What a great idea, I thought. They should implement this in every school!

Then another school shooting happened in Parkland, Florida. In its aftermath, the first thing many of those kids did was text their parents to let them know they were okay. And I thought, What if all those kids had had their phones locked away?

Whether it’s technology or just life that refuses to be free of rough edges, I don’t know. Technology has certainly invaded our society and isn’t going away anytime soon. I’m sure the first guy to invent a fork thought it was a great idea right up to the moment when his neighbor took it and stabbed him in the eye. How long before a shooter enters a school with a signal-locating device and goes on a hunting trip?

When I graduated from high school in 1993, school shootings were unheard of and the Internet was as yet in it’s infancy. My first year of college I still wrote letters home to my parents. Only the computer lab had a connection to something we might recognize as the Internet. However, things were moving fast and the following year Netscape, the first popular browser, was released. Then in 1995, an online bookstore launched called Amazon.com, and I was hooked.

It was the dawn of the technological revolution, and for me, a time of discovery. The ability to find information on anything, talk to people from half a world away, and engage in discussions on topics considered taboo in the circles I’d grown up in, was integral to my emergence into young adulthood. I remember thinking at the time: This will change the world! This will banish old superstitions and produce an educated population like never before!

Oh, how naive I was.

The Internet, like any tool, has a variable impact depending on how we wield it. On the one hand, it offers knowledge at your fingertips. On the other, it is cluttered with misinformation. And while we can choose to use it to expose ourselves to challenging views and evidence-based information, the Internet is also designed to cater to our biases.

Take Facebook or Twitter, for example. They are basically set up as digital versions of a high school clique, with posts judged by the number of ‘likes’ they receive, rather than the validity of their content. Shouting is encouraged, and gossip trends faster than facts.

Social media gives us additional tools to customize our feed by snoozing or unfollowing anyone that might annoy us. Over time, our choices feed into an advanced algorithm whose job it is to ensure our experience is as pleasant as possible. God forbid we might encounter something that challenges our established beliefs!

And the entire internet is like this, allowing us to filter the information we receive: follow certain people on Twitter and block others; customize your search results so you don’t have to see objectional content; tweak your spam filter so you won’t need to look at anymore emails about erectile dysfunction.

Am I proposing we eliminate these filter options? Hell, no! But in small and subtle ways the internet encourages us to customize our flow of information so that the world we see is not the ‘real’ one, but instead a version that is tailored specifically to us. The overall effect is to emphasize our specific individuality at the expense of our collective commonality.

In some ways, technology has united us like never before. In others, it constantly divides us.

Most of the news websites that have cropped up since the Internet’s inception present a strictly liberal or conservative viewpoint. What you see on cable news is 90 percent opinion and 10 percent news – a complete flip-flop from decades past. It seems the era of news neutrality is over.

Smaller, local newspapers still tend to be bipartisan affairs, mostly out of the necessity to cater to a mixed, localized audience. But when you can build your niche from people from all over the world, the narrowest viewpoints still find a sizable audience.

This ability of the Internet to validate even the most fringe views often blows political differences out of all proportion. And by empowering us to customize the information we see to such a granular level, it allows us to create ever narrower filter-bubbles in which to live. Jesse Singal, writing in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, put it nicely: “What social media is doing is slicing the salami thinner and thinner, as it were, making it harder even for people who are otherwise in general ideological agreement to agree on facts about news events.”

The Internet’s ‘ability to divide’ is seeping into our society and symptoms are popping up everywhere. Our politics have never been so partisan – and it’s not just the politics. The narratives spun by each side are like alternate realities. Flipping between CNN and Fox News will leave you with the frightening feeling you’ve just glimpsed a parallel world.

The sad part is that we are doing this to ourselves; technology is just the tool we’re using to dig the chasm that divides us. The scary part is that technology tends to accelerate cultural change, both the good and the bad; and at the pace we’re moving, the near future is not looking good. We’re facing total gridlock at best, a cultural civil war at worst.

The problem with the old world was that it was too easy to live in a localized bubble and care little for what was happening a world away. The problem with this new world is that it’s too easy to live in a filter-bubble of our own creation and forget to talk to the people sitting right next to us.

Eric Austin lives in China and writes about technology and community issues. He can be reached by email at ericwaustin@gmail.com.

FOR YOUR HEALTH – Healthy Living And Macular Degeneration: Tips To Protect Your Vision

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(NAPSI) — Here’s health news you may be glad to see: A healthy lifestyle may reduce your risk of getting vision diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which can damage central vision and currently affects 11 million Americans. If you already have AMD, such a lifestyle may help protect your remaining vision. Here are hints on how.

Tips To Help Your Vision

Don’t Smoke. Smokers are more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to get AMD. Smoking narrows the blood vessels, reducing blood supply to the eyes. If you smoke, make a plan to quit with your doctor’s help.

Exercise Regularly. Exercise may reduce inflammation, which is a key contributor to AMD. It can also help lower eye pressure, which improves blood flow to the retina and optic nerve.

Eat a Varied and Nutritious Diet. Both your eye health and your overall health benefit from a diet rich in vitamins and minerals, including dark leafy greens, yellow and orange fruits and vegetables, fish, and whole grains.

Maintain Normal Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Levels. High blood pressure narrows the blood vessels that nourish the retina. Cholesterol deposits in the eye contribute to AMD.

Maintain a Healthy Weight. Being overweight contributes to AMD and increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes. Develop a healthy diet and lifestyle plan.

Protect Your Eyes Outdoors. Sunlight exposure may increase the risk of AMD. Wear wide-brimmed hats when outdoors and use high-quality sunglasses with a UVA and UVB rating of 99 to 100 percent.

Keep Track of Your Eye Health. It’s important to monitor your vision, to help with early detection of eye problems or to slow the progression of AMD. Schedule regular, comprehensive eye exams with your eye doctor. More than a vision test, the exam should include pupil dilation to detect diseases, and the use of tonometry, which measures eye fluid pressure.

Ask your doctor how often you should schedule exams, based on your risk factors. These include a family history of AMD and being over age 60.

Learn More

For more eye care advice, you can download The Top Five Questions to Ask Your Eye Doctor and other free vision resources at www.brightfocus.org/eye-health, or call (800) 437-2423.