Does dining together unite us?

Some nice things seem to be coming out of our two-party system this past week. Instead of resistance and antagonisms as appeared in the past, there is friendly chat and nice talk about government business between our divided executive and legislative branches.

Maybe it’s the meals that President Barack Obama has been serving in the White House where he has gathered with Republican legislators of different views. Maybe the end is near for our partisan manner at the federal level.

It stands to reason that eating a good meal would make one feel good, allowing tensions to lessen with open-mindedness and sensible reasoning taking place. If that is so, we should make Congress and the President dine together more often.

At any rate, let us hope we can once again become a nation united with the result being a common sense resolution to any differences that may aspire between our public officials.

Waterford III has

served its purpose

As the location of one of the 104 nuclear reactors producing electricity in the United States, Waterford III in St. Charles Parish seems to have had little problem in doing its job well.

After the tsunami in Japan that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant two years ago, those in the U. S. reportedly have performed "quite good," according to a report from Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane.

The use of nuclear fuel to produce our power supply seems to be much cleaner than petroleum and, certainly, coal that have served us for years. There have been problems with nuclear but they have been corrected quickly in most cases and we have not had a very serious situation even with our threats here from hurricanes.

The production of electricity has certainly modernized the world and made it a much better place in which to live. And dangers that have been brought about by use of nuclear energy to provide it have not been sufficient to discard it in favor of other means.