So I was going to throw a bunch of awesome facts about this subject at you, but I have reached the end of the day much faster than anticipated. And this post is late. Instead, I ask you to imagine what your life would be like without electricity. Can you think what that would be like? You would be unable to do almost anything after dark! You wouldn't be able to read this blog. In fact, this blog would not exist, not least because computers wouldn't exist.
I am really grateful for electricity in my life, and I wanted to talk about the Tennessee Valley Authority - it was a rural electrification project that was part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. To me, it's an example of the good that government can do - it brought electricity to poor rural areas that didn't have it before. True, it wasn't (and isn't) perfect, but no human endeavor really is - any large bureaucracy has its issues. At its best, however, it remains a popular program that met a need in an underdeveloped area of America. I believe that government can do great good - yea, verily, it can bring a light to those in literal darkness.
Read more about the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) here:
http://www.tva.gov/abouttva/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#History
I am really grateful for electricity in my life, and I wanted to talk about the Tennessee Valley Authority - it was a rural electrification project that was part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. To me, it's an example of the good that government can do - it brought electricity to poor rural areas that didn't have it before. True, it wasn't (and isn't) perfect, but no human endeavor really is - any large bureaucracy has its issues. At its best, however, it remains a popular program that met a need in an underdeveloped area of America. I believe that government can do great good - yea, verily, it can bring a light to those in literal darkness.
Read more about the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) here:
http://www.tva.gov/abouttva/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#History
There's a great Woody Guthrie song about the Columbia River and the hydroelectric dams along it that gave people electricity ("Roll on, Columbia, roll on, roll on, Columbia, roll on /
ReplyDeleteYour power is turning our darkness to dawn /
So roll on, Columbia, roll on.") And the best part is that he wrote it while employed for the Bonneville Power Administration as propaganda song-writer to get popular support for the dams! You can read more about it (where else?) on wikipedia and listen to it here
That's perfect! I actually felt like this post needed a folk song - on the TVA website they talk about some of the folk/propoganda songs related to it!
ReplyDeleteAnd, he later realized that it has the same tune as "Goodnight Irene." Little known and perfectly useless fact.
ReplyDeleteGood post. Rural electrification is a good example of what government can do to help people. (The churches just weren't getting it done.)