Watching TV, I have so many questions, but the media don't seem to have answers

WET BUT FAR FROM SEXY: The Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant on the California coast provides 50 million gallons of fresh water a day to San Diego, reports E360, an online magazine published at the Yale School of the Environment. (Photo from Poseidon Water) 

Conundrums: Drought, the U.N.,

cling peaches, invisible captions

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Night after night, the evening TV news reports about the drought in California -- claiming there isn't even enough water to fight the wildfires that destroyed an historic mining town and other property.

But in June 2019, there were 11 seawater desalination plants in California and 10 more were proposed, according E360, an online magazine.

Why have the media been silent about them? Why aren't more of these plants being built? 

Don't they hold the solution to this cycle of drought, fires and barren farmland?

BLAST SCENE: The explosion in the port of Beirut on Aug. 4, 2020, leveled many blocks of the Lebanese city and killed more than 200.

What does the U.N. do?

The other night, I saw an alarming TV report on the first anniversary of that massive explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, with soldiers or police battling protesters in the street.

The report portrayed government officials as corrupt and refusing to investigate the explosion, which killed more than 200 people, or assign blame.

Meanwhile, motorists have to spend hours in lines to fill up their tanks with gasoline.

Lebanon is far from the only failed state around the world, so the natural question is what does the United Nations do?

Nothing, in Lebanon's case. Nothing, in Syria's case. Nothing, in the cases of so many African countries.

Does the U.N. merely call diplomats from around the world to come and live lavishly in New York, one of the most expensive cities in the world, and jawbone all day?

What's the good of a Security Council taking decisive action and moving against a failed, corrupt government, if Russia or any other member can veto the council's decisions?

Cling peaches

Is there any good reason cling peaches and nectarines are still being grown instead of all freestone, where the pit is separated from the flesh?

Try to cut them up for a fruit salad or even eat them out of hand without making a mess of the kitchen counter or your clothes or both.

I buy organic, and the peaches and nectarines I find at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, N.J., aren't labeled as cling or freestone, so you don't find out the bad news until you get home.

Are cling superior in any way? I doubt it. They just piss you off.

TV captions

Here is another infuriating oversight -- captions for documentaries that require translation are invariably in white and often blend into the background, so that they're unreadable.

Why not just render them in black? At least you wouldn't miss any words, and when the background is dark, then white captions would be justified.

One color doesn't fit all.

I noticed this recently when watching the PBS series, "Latino Americans."  

I loved the music, but much was lost in the translation when the captions appeared in white.