Excerpts from the Tribune editorial department's bloggers.

Lawn Lunacy

With water supplies having dwindled to the level they have here in Florida it makes no sense ... for Floridians to continue their maniacal quest for lush green lawns. It's certainly irrational to allow homeowners' associations to maintain their water guzzling "St. Augustine Grass Only" rules.

... We may need to begin using less water-needy grasses or even shift to totally different landscaping designs - ones that use little or no water. One of the homes in the development I live in has switched to a "lawn" that consists of mostly red mulch with an assortment of small flowering plants. It looks very attractive, and certainly calls for only a fraction of the water a St. Augustine lawn would require.

Posted by H. David H. Braswell Jr.

Evidence Of Life

Lately I keep a poetry book with me at all times, and I've found them to be incredible sources of motivation; especially since everywhere I turn, I'm swamped with feelings of pessimism and hopelessness regarding the economy, the war, or some crisis or another. The poets of years ago saw the same tragedies we see, so it only makes sense to look to their words for inspiration: "Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;/ sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate/ that brushes your heel as it turns going by,/ the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant."

That's the first stanza of "Throw Yourself Like Seed," a gem of a poem by Miguel de Unamuno. He was a nationalist during the Spanish Civil War, temporarily exiled from Spain and eventually placed under house arrest until his death. He was pained by the war-torn state of his homeland, just as we are distraught over the war overseas. ...

"Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly."

That's half of Langston Hughes' poem "Dreams," a product of the roaring twenties and more adversity than many of us will ever have to face. ...

... If I have learned one thing in the last four years of high school, it's that the ideas of a people are reflected in their art and literature. The names of our wars change with the times, but in reality, we've always been fighting the same battles. The ideas, hopes and dreams of mankind are really all the same from one generation to the next. ...

Posted by Camille Beredjick

Where's The Outrage?

The same issue of the "Tribune" (March 11) included conflicting stories. The headline on page 11 read, "Obama Advocates Longer School Days." The President is calling for schools that will prepare our children to compete in the global economy with a longer school year and more competent teachers. The headline on page 5 announced, "School Budget Ax Looms" and described the latest attempts to balance the budget with unpaid furloughs, reduced support personnel in elementary schools, and more cutbacks in special programs.

The Polk County School Board is actually considering reducing the number of days children are in school and the Legislature continues the economic starvation of public education that has been going on in Florida for at least a decade. ... They politicians keep getting elected on the promise that we can live in Florida and not have to pay for the privilege. The result is that when the economic crash came, our school budgets had already been slashed to the bone. Now, we're talking about outright amputation.

And what are the results? Businesses hesitate to relocate to communities with weak school systems. Students are ill-prepared to be fully productive workers. And ultimately, instead of funding schools, we end up funding prisons. ...

Posted by Jim Harnish