The Royce Files

In the film Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix portraying Johnny Cash in the scene of the concert at Folsom Prison takes a glass of murky water and throws it to the ground before breaking in Cocaine Blues. In reality the scene did not happen that way. It seems that Cash did do a comic bit about the water at Folsom Prison in both morning and afternoon shows. I don't think he broke a glass like Joaquin did in the film but he made the a comment to the effect that the water looked like it ran off his guitar player's boots. Either scene made the water quality at the prison appear rather poor. In the video above Johnny does another water bit during the San Quentin concert. Whether the water quality at Folsom Prison was as poor as Johnny Cash suggests, I can find no evidence. However, Folsom Prison is not without its water issues. Back in 2002 there was a sewage spill at the prison which may have contaminated water in the adjacent American River. Tests were made but none proved conclusi...

This year I will be participating in Blog Action Day . Topic of concern this year: water. It is actually something I care about since I drink a lot of it and use it for recreation. Most of my blogging on water has been about flooding but I am not sure how to work that into this blog action day. I guess flooding has potential to contaminate clean water supplies. Water is one of those essentials for having a healthy life and sadly many places around the globe don't have access to clean water. Samaritan's Purse helps provide clean water to many communities. But I'll write more about this and have photos for water. The photo today is from the Sheyenne Grasslands at a windmill that pumps water into the large trough. Numerous troughs are located in the grasslands as it is a rather dry area. The water must be filtered or treated for human consumption. The cattle just drink it as it is. The Sheyenne River runs through the western part of the grasslands.

A really well designed website, www.buyameter.org , concerned about getting access to clean water to some residents in Hale County, Alabama. The people who did some of the design of the site spent some time down in the area. The photographs are stark, yet stunning. I appreciate clean water and I'm sure there are some there who would be very glad to have it. You would think this would be a problem in the States, but it still is. I suspect this kind of relates back to last year's topic, the environment, because pollution and heavy chemical have made some water sources unfavorable for human use.