As I wipe the oily black film of crud from my desk top, screen and keyboard this morning and cough up some phlegm - a daily routine - I am reminded of my loathing of the automobile, how it has choked our planet, how it kills one billion birds and mammals every year (fact) on American roads, how it has changed the topography of our communities with highways that scar and divide, how it removes us from a sense of responsibility as it indiscriminately flattens innocents in it's path. Just yesterday from my balcony I watched two girls on a scooter squashed by a careless driver, it was deemed an accident but had the driver used a gun so recklessly he'd have gotten manslaughter. Someone gets shot and everyone wants to ban handguns, but cars are unrivaled as a dangerous weapon, they rank high under the definition of a WMD and yet no one lobbies for their ban. Yet somehow, mysteriously, they are forgiven for every hazard they wreak. As I write this the Gulf of Mexico is filling up with black gold (and I use the word “gold” to remind us of the collateral damage wrought in it’s mining), poisoning everything in it's path, and as it enters the gulf stream everyone along the coast is crying about the impact on their livelihood, and blaming Britain as if US oil companies don’t have accidents, as if the US didn’t contract the drilling in the first place, as if US citizens aren’t themselves using the oil! For every finger we point, we point 3 back at ourselves. We are all looking for someone to blame as our eastern seaboard dies in front of our eyes, but I'll bet every one of those blamers and moaners drives a car or a truck, so cuss their hypocrisy, they must examine themselves for culpability. It's only the non-car owners who can bitch about this. Car owners feed the greed of companies like BP. Get a bicycle or a BRAT recommended bike and cut your personal oil consumption by 300%. No excuses, now, now, now! I may not always be right but I’m always sure!
