By Mary O’KEEFE

While my grandson was visiting last week we watched “Reading Rainbow.” I had forgotten how amazing this series was, and how informative. We learned how bowling balls were made; who knew how fascinating that was? The book read by host LeVar Burton was “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” written by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond. This book has its critics, as just about every book does, and tells of varied chosen lessons. But for me, and “Reading Rainbow,” the book was a great example of cause and effect, which got me thinking about so many things.

First, it is a great lesson about social media. When one person writes one thing, true or not, that equals cause. Then often an unfortunate spiral of hate-filled misinformation follows, which equals effect. There are times, however, when “cause” is a post of a cute little kitten or puppy and “effect” is a high number of people sharing how their hearts are melting when seeing that cute picture.

I hadn’t realized how thoughtful this little book was and what a great lesson it teaches. And, because my mind often works in a science fiction way, I was reminded about Dr. Who. During the 2005 “The Christmas Invasion” David Tennant was introduced as Dr. Who. He had saved the Earth from the cruel Sycorax, whose purpose was to enslave mankind.

The Doctor outwitted and defeated them, sending them off with a warning that Earth is under The Doctor’s protection. But as the ship of defeated enemies began to leave orbit, Prime Minister of England Harriet Jones gave the word to destroy the ship. To her this was a way of saying, “Don’t mess with the Earth.”

This act infuriated The Doctor who took down Prime Minister Jones with one short statement said to one of her assistants: “Don’t you think she looks tired?” The “cause” statement grew and grew ending with a final vote of no confidence ousting her from office and opening the door for the evil master to take over the world. This was a huge “effect.”

There are so many examples of cause and effect: industrial revolution chucking gases and pollutants into the air: cause; warmer climate: effect. Warmer climate – melting ice caps: cause. Melting ice caps creating more flooding and stronger storms throughout the planet: effect. Accelerated extinction: cause; biodiversity loss that can increase pathogen transmission across a wide range of infectious disease (according to Scientific American): effect. And this important local lesson: our recent rainfall that was wonderful and increased our beautiful vegetation: cause; and the summer months drying all the vegetation thereby increasing fire dangers that we must be ready for: effect.

Isn’t it amazing the amount of knowledge that is in books? Isn’t it wonderful that we can share these books with our kids and grandkids?

The weather for the next week is a mix of heat, cooling temperatures, winds, fog and rain. From today through Sunday the heat during the day will be in the high 80s to the low 90s (10 to 20 degrees above normal). The peak heat will be on Saturday.

Isolated winds will also be a factor from today through Friday with gusts up to 15 miles per hour followed by winds with a little stronger gusts – about 20 mph – on Sunday and Monday. The nights will be cool reaching high 40s to low 60s. There will be a bit of fog in the mornings and overnights until Monday. There will be less fog then and a high chance of “some rain” Tuesday through Saturday, according to NOAA.