The buzzing of approximately nine planes doing circles was just the beginning of the noise that marked Memorial Day in Gloversville on Monday.
The effects of noise pollution include hearing damage and loss, anxiety, aggressive behavior, hypertension, sleep disturbance, coronary heart disease and memory problems, among others. The negative effects of noise pollution affect not only humans, but also animals and plants.
Firefighter, police and ambulance vehicles - all were sounding ear-splitting alarms again and again. Various school bands and a bagpipe company all were producing hearing-damaging marching music. You would think that someone sometime would have suggested that the noise pollution be curbed for health reasons. Nobody said anything that made a difference in the adjustment of the noise level. Why is that? Why were safety reasons thrown out when celebrating the former Southern- inspired Decoration Day, now Memorial Day and U.S. wars, as if it were a party?
It seemed as if the noise of war had come back home to the USA. Those in the vicinity no longer have to completely imagine the terror that noise induces in people of the numerous countries wrongly and unjustly invaded by the USA. The circling planes, roaring sirens and marching music made the city seem as if it, too, were under attack and about to be bombed.
CHRISTIAN RIVERA
Gloversville