In a triumph of marketing over reasoning, the bottled water industry has turned us into conspicuously silly consumers.

Controlled by a handful of global conglomerates (such as Coca-Cola and Nestle), the water industry has created the fantasy that if it's in a bottle, it's purer than what comes out of the tap.

But wait — the Environmental Protection Agency stringently regulates the public water systems, requiring tests several times a day for bacteria and other contaminants, and these test results are public information. The corporate bottlers, on the other hand, are overseen by the more lackadaisical Food and Drug Administration, which requires them to test their water sources only once a week — and the results are kept secret by the corporations.

One group that is beginning to rebel is one you might not expect: upscale restaurants. Such places profit handsomely from offering Perrier, San Pellegrino, Fiji or other designer waters, paying a dollar or two for each bottle and selling them for eight or 10 bucks. Yet, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., and Del Posto in New York City are among the pioneers who are foregoing this profit center, substituting free filtered tap water or house-made sparkling water that's also drawn from the tap.

Why would they do this? Because they are part of a growing sustainable food movement that prides itself in using local, seasonal ingredients for their menu items. Think about it: In terms of energy, environment and sustainability, it makes no sense to load cargo ships with millions of bottles of water, haul them thousands of miles to our shores, truck them hundreds of miles to our restaurants, then chuck the bottles into our overloaded landfills — when the local public water system supplies perfectly good water available at the turn of a faucet.

Just as it makes economic and environmental sense to "eat local," it also makes sense to "drink local."

UNFRIENDLY SKIES

Travel in some primitive parts of the world is a nightmare — passengers are treated like livestock, service is surly, rules are ridiculous, delays are common and the whole experience is dreadful.

Luckily, here in sophisticated America, we have modern airlines — on which passengers are treated like livestock, service is surly, rules are ridiculous, delays are common and the whole experience is dreadful.

Airline executives publicly blame everything from the impact of 9-11 to bad weather, but when these executives talk to shareholders and the business media, they gleefully confess that they have deliberately created such unpleasantness as a crude way to jack up their stock prices and profits.

For example, while the public demand for air travel has steadily increased, airline honchos have intentionally decreased the number of flights. That's the opposite of how a free market economy is supposed to work — if consumer demand is up, companies theoretically respond by increasing supply.

But air travel is a monopolistic market, with one or two airlines controlling nearly all airports. So, by cutting the number of available seats, not only can the monopolists create an artificial shortage that raises ticket prices, but they also create overbooked flights that have all the charm of cattle cars.

Meanwhile, they've also made drastic cuts in staff, leading to more breakdowns and flight delays ... as well as to less service for customers. The staff that remains has had its wages and benefits slashed, which doesn't help morale. And to make employees even more surly, CEOs have started paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses.

Based on these manipulations, one airline president enthusiastically told shareholders, "We see an encouraging revenue environment." Sure, boss — and we passengers see a discouraging decline into primitive levels of travel. Thanks for nothing.

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.