What would you find locally? Journalists in many cities have looked and found big stories.

CBS 2 in Chicago found much of the same kind of thing there. Some hydrants have not worked in months.

In Baltimore, ABC2 News also investigated broken hydrants:

ABC2 News investigators got a copy of the county fire department's list of broken hydrants. Fourteen pages, with 545 supposedly "broken" hydrants. Some have been on the list for more than five years. We found at least five schools made the list, including three out of the four hydrants surrounding Carver Arts and Technology in Towson. 

In 2005, WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio, found hundreds of broken hydrants in that town. In 2006, CBS 3 in Philadelphia also found hundreds out of order, and many had been that way for months.

Back in 2000, The Detroit News found thousands of broken hydrants.

You have to wonder when the feds would step in and say, hey, fix the fire hydrants or we will cut off your federal money. This seems like some kind of Homeland Security issue to me.

Here Come the Bugs

Within the next week or so, swarms of noisy, "red-eyed, shrimp-sized, flying insects" called cicadas will invade the Midwest. Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana will get the worst of it. (See pictures here.)

For those of you who have never enjoyed the sound of the cicadas' love song, here are some audio clips of what you are missing:

• This is the full chorus.

• This is the "calling song."

• Here is a phrase of the courtship song.
  

• Here is another segment of the courtship song.

Cicadas are deafeningly loud -- think as loud as a lawn mower for 30 days. They drown out concerts and graduations, and generally drive people insane. They are attracted to lawnmowers and other loud, small engines, so lawn-service workers find them especially annoying.

These things live underground between 13 and 17 years and then come out for their glorious concert. They live in 15 states; it is just the Midwest's turn to enjoy them.

They really are harmless; in fact, my kids used to collect their shells on strings. My big, yellow Lab ate the bugs, which I figured were loaded with protein.

Usually somebody starts using them as a prediction of the end of the earth. Unless frogs and boils follow them, I would not worry much.

Click on this page (scroll down about four screens) to get a list of when you can expect the next big cicada hatch in other states. Next year, 13 states, many in the South, will have the pleasure.

The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology is on top of things with a page filled with more than any human would want to know about the bugs.

Farmers Markets May Benefit From Food Scares

The Rockford (Ill.) Register Star reports:

A string of high-profile food-borne illnesses nationwide may spur more interest in locally grown produce, especially food sold at farmers markets.

One reason: Consumer confidence in supermarket food is at its lowest point since 1989, according to a study by the Food Marketing Institute.

The number of consumers "completely" or "somewhat confident" in the safety of supermarket food has decreased from 82 percent last year to 66 percent this year. The online poll surveyed 2,307 shoppers.

The same survey shows:

Among those who stopped buying products, the items most often mentioned were spinach (71 percent), lettuce (16 percent), bagged salad (9 percent) and beef (8 percent). The survey was conducted in January 2007, when the outbreak linked to spinach was still in the news and illnesses associated with other foods were starting to make headlines.

High fuel and home-heating costs are driving other changes in shopping for 41 percent of consumers. In fact, the impact extends beyond shopping to cooking and dining. For example, consumers:

• Cook more and eat out less, cited by 69 percent of those surveyed.

• Eat more leftovers or use leftovers to make other meals, 62 percent.

• Purchase more grocery store brand items as opposed to national brand items, 56 percent.

• Purchase fewer food items overall, 40 percent.

• Buy more canned, frozen or boxed food as opposed to fresh food, 30 percent.

• Purchase more prepared meals from the grocery store rather than going out, 21 percent.

High-priced gasoline may have contributed to how often consumers shop. In a first for [FMI Consumer] Trends, consumers now shop for food fewer than two times a week. The average number of trips is now 1.9, down from 2.1 in 2006. Cost and health concerns are behind the increase in people cooking more meals. Nearly eight in 10 shoppers (78 percent) eat home-cooked meals three or more times a week. More than nine in 10 (92 percent) say the food they eat at home is healthier than the meals eaten away from home. This figure includes 41 percent who believe food prepared at home is "much healthier."

Why Soybean Prices Are So High

The demand for soyoil is partly driven by its use in biodiesel fuel. Soyoil prices are at a 23-year high. See a Dow Jones Newswires report.

Al's Morning Multimedia: Google Timeline and Mapping

Here is a new experiment for Google's search engine. Type in a word or phrase and generate a timeline or map of the results. Cool.

In Honor of Chris Clark

Allow me a few lines to honor WTVF-TV (Nashville) anchor Chris Clark, who retires today after 41 years on the air. Chris is an old friend. But when I was a news director in Nashville, I wouldn't have minded if he would've taken an earlier retirement. He was our No. 1 competitor.

Long before I thought of him as "the competition," he was my college teacher. Chris traveled more than 100 miles round trip every week from Nashville to Western Kentucky University to teach a classroom full of eager young reporters how to do TV journalism. He often would spend an hour or more after class just talking with us. How many anchors do that these days?

Many co-anchors benefited from Chris' influence. Maybe you have heard of some of them -- Oprah Winfrey (He hired her in 1974.), Brenda Blackmon (WWOR-TV New York), Ruth Ann Leech Harnisch.

There is something else you should know about this guy. It is largely because of him that judges allowed cameras into Tennessee courtrooms. Chris met with judges and lawyers as early as 1979 trying to convince them that open courtrooms are important to public understanding.

It was his credibility and tireless work that persuaded judges, including the state Supreme Court, to give it a try. Nearly 20 years later, we were fortunate to have a Supreme Court chief judge make the experiment a state-court rule.

It is easy for columnists to mock TV anchors as hairsprayed and hollow. But Chris is the real deal. He loved news and he loves Nashville, and the people loved him back. I wish more anchors were like him.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.