The issue: Make a personal resolution to reduce your bad cholesterol

This could be a special month for more than politics and sports.

It also could be the month of a special personal resolution — to reduce your bad cholesterol.

IT IS CHOLESTEROL Awareness Month as per the U.S. Society for Vascular Surgery, whose members know the dangers all too well.

They say high cholesterol affects one in every six adults in America and can lead to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Doctors remind us that lowering our risk factors can help prevent coronary heart disease.

The top four tips:

* Exercise at least 30 minutes daily.

* Reduce intake of saturated fats and cholesterol-containing foods.

* Quit smoking.

* Reduce excess weight (men should aim for a waist size no more than 40 inches; women no more than 35 inches).

Federal officials and doctors recommend that adults check their good and bad cholesterol and triglycerides every five years.

Experts say better health is within our reach via lifestyle choices and medications. Why not make this the month more of us do the right thing?

Capitol’s Reflecting Pool is reflecting again

The National Mall in Washington, D.C., is one of the capital’s and the country’s great public spaces, and one of its great adornments is the Reflecting Pool, which along its 2,028 foot length dramatically mirrors the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

But like so much of the Mall, which began life as a swamp, time and the instability of the soil caused problems that the cash-starved National Park Service could put off no longer.

THE OLD POOL, dedicated in 1922, leaked, the stone apron was cracked in many places and the water was often fetid and the resident geese made walking in the immediate vicinity an adventure.

Now, 20 months and $34 million later, the barriers have come down and the pool has reopened to the public. Getting to that point was no easy task. The old pool had to be ripped out and 2,133 timber pilings driven into the underlying bedrock to support the new pool.

The new pool is shallower and more reflective than its predecessor and has the capacity to be cleaned and to recirculate its water supply.

Visitors once again will be reminded how beautiful their capital is. Watch your step, though. The geese are back.

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