Go With The Flow
As quoted verbatim by the E-coli family in this comic strip, Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson responded to ongoing concerns about the safety of recreating in the local French Broad River:
“A lot of people think the French Broad is dirty all the time and you shouldn’t swim there,” Carson said. “But the summer we’ve had, it’s been quite clean because it hasn’t rained that much. It’s important to keep in mind that just because one location on a river may have elevated E. coli levels, doesn’t mean the whole river is unsafe for swimming.”
The fact that the E-coli, a family of bacteria that live in the river, and think that having e-coli in there is great and helpful to them, agree with this sentiment, and express it themselves to naysayers, seems to have angered a bunch of reader of the Mountain Xpress, thinking the paper itself holds these views, and is encouraging skeptical locals to change their minds about the cleanliness of the river, and further they feel they are portrayed as bumpkins for having such concerns, but that’s not really what the cartoon is saying, you have to look where the advice is coming from in the cartoon, or in real life. It doesn’t mean local naysayers are always right either, an you should also wash your lettuce.
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Cartoon originally published in the Asheville, NC alt weekly paper, “The Mountain Xpress”.
© 2024 – Brent Brown, Brent Brown Graphix
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