Oil may be the foundation of our economy, but water is the foundation of our lives. The average human can go weeks without food, but just a few days without water can mean death. Yet, like oil, our water resources are shrinking. One in six people today lack access to clean drinking water. While hotels in Las Vegas build fountains in the desert, a child dies of a water-related illness every 15 seconds.
    And things are getting worse, not better. The world’s population grows, living standards rise, and global water usage skyrockets. Middle classes expand, but carbon emissions increase, the earth warms and deserts spread, as the Sahara has over northern Africa. The wars of today may be fought over oil, but the wars of tomorrow will be fought over water.
    As with all of our resource shortages, the solutions to any impending water crisis lie in both conservation and innovation. We must seek to both reduce our consumption and develop technologies to allow fewer resources to serve more people. As is often the case, it makes sense to combine both the conservative approach of saving water or energy with a liberal approach of spending money on technological development. The devil, of course, is in the details. 
    In The Coney Island of Gregory Kiss’s mind, Michael Thomas Tedder writes of how one such innovative technology, photovoltaic glass, is being used at the new Stillwell Avenue Subway Terminal at Coney Island in New York. The architect, Gregory Kiss, uses the project to demonstrate that solar power can be both environmentally and fiscally sound, disproving not only political conservatives, but also traditional progressives, who are also inclined to think of solar power as expensive.
    Conventional wisdom holds that the Democratic Party has a lock on the African American voting bloc. Because of this, both parties write off the group’s vote and consequently ignore African American issues. Keli Goff’s Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence, reviewed by our book editor Amy Brozio-Andrews, explores how conventional wisdom might be wrong.
    A disenfranchised electorate can speak to the frustration inherent in politics. Emma Kat Richardson tells of her frustration in attempting to visit the heart of American politics, Washington, D.C., in her essay District of despair. A self-described "political junkie," Richardson’s love of the political process is palpable in her impassioned account.
    Pris Campbell explores how love is a self-conserving force, staying with us in fragments and images long after a relationship has died, in her series of poems entitled Romance and reminiscence. Her poetry is accompanied by artwork by Mary Hillier. 
    In Streethaiku, An Xiao uses the poetic form to inspire a photo essay that, like its namesake, uses a small part to suggest a larger whole. The images discard what is not necessary and capture the essence of their subject, and nothing more.
    Just as an old love can burn brightly for decades or a political voting bloc can be taken for granted for a generation, the power of conservation can dominate our lives in both positive and negative ways. Conservation can mean preserving something valuable, like oil, water, culture, or tradition, or it can mean clinging to old ideas for no more reason than they are what our parents and grandparents believed. The art of conservation is in determining how to strike a balance that maintains the good aspects of conservation while avoiding the bad.
    We hope that you enjoy this month’s issue. Thanks for reading!

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.