On not giving up

I've had a petunia blooming in my indoor garden all winter long. It's a "wave" petunia variety that has been sharing a large pot with a geranium. I generally bring in one geranium for the winter, but this time I wanted to see how long the petunia would go before giving up. It hasn't given up at all.

That seems to have been the theme of the week -- not giving up. On the local level, the Highland Square community has been rallying around an old theatre to save it for the community. The local theatre critic, reassigned by the Akron Beacon Journal to the Business beat last summer, isn't giving up either and is blogging and freelancing theatre reviews. The arts will not give up in Summit County either.

At the state level, a grassroots group in Stark county did not give up on paying attention to Countywide Landfill. An expert has been called in to test with infrared photography to determine if the landfill is indeed on fire underneath the top layers. The toxic brew underneath could threaten aquifiers, and if it explodes into the air, could release some deadly fumes. We continue to pollute and to reproduce at rates that will have us choking on our own deadly chemical wastes. None of us can afford to give up on this one.

On the national front, Patrick Fitzgerald has doggedly pursued the truth behind the twisted lies of Cheney/Rove/Libby regarding the Valerie Plame Affair (it sounds like a Perry Mason mystery title). I've been following the story every night when I get home from work -- watching the parade of famous journalists enter the court.

Planet-wide global warming is on the minds of most people, if not the Republican White House. A huge collection of experts and countries set out a declaration today. From local to global, we simply cannot give in to defeat.