Like a lot of cities, my ersatz hometown (I really grew up in a suburb) of Louisville, KY has been trying to revitalize its downtown area. For Louisville, this has included development of Waterfront Park along the banks of the Ohio River. It really is a nice park with children’s playgrounds, walking/jogging trail, spaces for outdoor concerts and other festivities, fountains, and more. But it’s one of the fountains, with large pools of water, that has become a problem.
Residents like to use it to cool off and, despite posted No Swimming signs, allow young kids to swim in it. Since it wasn’t designed as a swimming pool (an obvious oversight), bacteria levels can get dangerously high.
So what does a beleaguered executive director of a Waterfront Development Corporation do to try to discourage (mis)use of the pools? If you’re David Karem (the executive director in question) you put up more signs like this:
According to a story in the local newsrag, the Louisville Courier-Journal,
Karem said he was counting on a lack of understanding about water’s chemical makeup, and he thought that suggesting a link to one of the world’s most dangerous weapons — the hydrogen bomb — might keep them from jumping in.
“I thought that with the word … maybe people would not go there,” he said.
Unfortunately for Mr. Karem, some people in the area actually know that water is naturally two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. (And I suspect they are telling the ones who did not know that….)
Karem acknowledged that he might be fighting a losing battle.
“I could go out there with stun guns,” he said, and it would do no good.
I’m so proud….
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4 Responses to “Danger! Decisions Contain Low Levels of Intelligence”
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Let's do Something Cheap and Superficial 
ooooh, hydrogen! scary stuff! and to think I’ve been pouring hydrogen peroxide on cuts for YEARS!
I can’t imagine the word “hydrogen” scaring the crap out of anyone past the 1980s. Perhaps “flesh eating bacterial” would do it?
All they need to do is hire an unattractive person to skinny-dip in that fountain each day from 8-5, and eventually one of two things will happen.
1. It will become a haven for other unattractive skinny-dippers, which in turn will put your fair city on the map as being amazingly tolerant of such diversions, or
2. So many people will be skeezed out over the use of said pool that overall use will drop.
Of course, Mr. Karem probably already thought of that and dismissed it as being inappropriate. We do live in conservative times.
Hilarious post.
Here’s something that would keep me from using the fountain as a pool:
diapers=poop teabags.
Enough said.