Choking Planet • Net

I don’t support the notion that we need to reduce or eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. In fact, I believe that such a notion hurts America. It certainly diverts our attention away from reality.

Presidents and political parties have been pushing this notion since Nixon, maybe before, but Nixon was the first to name it a major objective of American policy. Every president and presidential hopeful followed this trend in the years and campaigns that followed.

It’s the perfect American goal; everyone claims they want it, nobody wants to change a thing to get it, and few of us agree on what it means. It ranks right up there with wanting to improve public education. By the way—not to spoil it for anyone—we aren’t getting private jet packs, either.

Our forty-five year old number one priority is, well, forty-five years old, with no sign of maturity. When a person claims to have the same goal for just half that time, but shows no forward progress, our tendency is to nod and smile whenever they talk about it—but believing them is out of the question.

Actually, even your least intelligent and most underachieving friend has a better chance of securing the millions he needs for his wacky invention, than the USA has of lessening its dependence on foreign oil. At least your friend has a small chance of winning the lottery. There is no chance that we will reduce oil consumption until a week after the world supply dries out. We are fossil fuel diabetics, who will accept diet soda, but won’t give up cake or increase our physical activity to offset it.

Who cares where our oil comes from anyway, as long as we get it? The oil burns the same whether its from Mexico, Iran, or Oklahoma. It sure as heck isn’t any cheaper just because it’s homegrown.

In fact, I’d prefer that they screw up their oceans and leave ours without the dead marine life. I love shrimp—they get that from the Gulf Coast. All that comes from the Iran in the Caspian Sea is caviar. Even rich bastards have to prefer shrimp more regularly than salty fish eggs.

To reduce dependence on foreign oil means we have to increase offshore drilling, despite the risk to the sea—and in turn, us. It means we need to implement serious use of nuclear-fueled power, increase coal production, and other painful to accept realities. And, it means that everyone (not just rich conservatives with fleets of cars) needs to cut consumption of fuel in half. No more three-block drives to chauffer home cases of bottled water—in fact, no more bottled water. The pudgy offspring will need to get to and from school by their own soft-muscle power. Just because Steve Jobs has announced a new iWantit, doesn’t mean you get to have it. And all the wonderful stuff you buy in plastic will need to be refilled, over and over again. In other words, to make it happen will require that everyone agree to the things they disagree with. All Americans will need accept and implement every solution from every direction. We will need to really want—not just vote for a slogan—change. At this point, I should tell you that BP isn’t shaking with anticipated fear.

So, the next time any politician lazily chooses the old decrease our dependence on foreign oil sound bite to garner some cheap applause, laugh out loud. Laugh along with me. Laugh heartily, or, if you prefer, insanely. Just don’t—be a patsy. Don’t spend your life chasing after cars driven by people pretending to offer you a friendly ride, certainly not after forty-five stops and—just as you reach the car door—starts. “No really, we were just kidding. We’ll give you a lift. Hop in.”

I live on a busy street. Fair enough, it was busy when I moved here. But I still wonder why so many drivers use their horns for so many things that they encounter every day. Why honk your horn because you have to pause while someone backs into a parking space—don’t these people ever park themselves? Maybe not, maybe they stay in their cars, driving around all day looking for things needing to be honked.

Or, there’s the idiot who honks because someone is stopped at a green light, but doesn’t think that maybe there’s someone still in the crosswalk. In fact, a woman was just killed at an intersection on our block by a driver who blindly changed lanes to pass a stopped car from the right and ran over the woman just finishing her way across the crosswalk. The report said he was sorry, he couldn’t see why the other car had stopped.

The worst of them all have to be drivers who honk when traffic is backed up. They’ll do in front of houses, hospitals, it doesn’t matter to them—they’ve got a horn and nothing to do until cars start moving, so they honk. What magical powers do these buffoons think that their horn has been attributed with? Perhaps, like Moses, they wish to part the path so they may pass—unfortunately God doesn’t seem to rank their travels as being quite as important to his plan.

Horns are useful to warn someone about to change lanes, or back out of a parking spot without seeing your car. Horns after a particular team wins the Super Bowl, or at midnight on January 1? I’ll go out on a limb and say that’s acceptable too. Even once—but only once—to let someone inside a house know that the car is waiting outside and the driver is too out of shape to get out and ring the doorbell. But honking just because you’re annoyed is in no way acceptable human behavior.

Maybe you’re one of these horn blowhards, but otherwise a nice person. If so, I beg you to think about how annoying random horn blasts are for someone watching TV, nursing a cold, riding a bike, walking a baby, or just looking for peace and quiet.

Of course, if you’re one of the guilty but don’t see any reason that you should change your behavior to suit others, you probably haven’t thought through the mathematical probability that one day you’re likely to honk your horn at a person nursing a hangover he got from getting drunk the night before because he just lost his job, and is on the way to hock the gun sitting next to him in the passenger’s seat. I’m not saying it’s likely you’ll end up in the morgue; I’m saying, it’s a mathematical possibility if you needlessly honk your horn enough times.

Enough. I’ve got to get to the pawnshop.

The US experiences around 44,000 deaths a year from them. Add in injuries, property damage, police and medical costs and you begin to see just how big the problem is. So why is it then that piss-poor drivers are still allowed on the road?

Most people consider themselves to be good drivers; they are wrong. Most people are bad drivers either some of the time or all of the time. In fact, lots of drivers consider driving laws only in terms of tickets—not safety. Failing to signal an adequate distance before turning or changing lanes, stopping halfway into a crosswalk, speeding between stoplights are examples of behavior that is barely even considered to be an issue for many. This makes them not only bad drivers, but a special kind of idiot as well.

Can this really be considered terrorism? Don’t be stupid, of course not: terrorists do what they do because they are trying to make a statement, and they know that people will panic if there’s a .000001% chance of them being harmed or killed by a random act of violence. If cars were considered terrorist tools the streets would be empty, because the chance of being killed by a car in the US is .014%, which is considerably a greater risk than all terrorist attacks in the world.

Are we going to get rid of cars? Probably not until we get a little lower on fuel. But I can’t see anything wrong with tightening up the licensing procedure a little, giving people who eat or use their cell phones while driving a few days in jail, and anyone who doesn’t know how to safely change lanes should just be put away for life. We’re all at less risk from armed robbers than we are bad drivers; maybe we need to start using the prisons to a better end.