Taxes

It has been clearly demonstrated that a substantial state and national fuel taxes could turn our economy around and basically save the planet by waking gas-dependent Americans up in the same way that tobacco taxes weaned the majority of U.S. citizens off smoking. The actual impact on individuals would be negligible. Drivers would be able to compensate by prioritizing their use of vehicles. Those with incomes large enough to travel could afford the increases. Income taxes could be stabilized and perhaps reduced eventually.

There is no free ride back to a viable planet. Supporting politicians who rail against these measures is self-defeating. Those who refuse to pay their share now will pay more dearly later.

Gulf

I have no doubt that President Obama is working hard. I listened to his news conference yesterday on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. His logic is impeccable. His ability to avoid hyperbole is admirable. In fact, he often reminds me of a Zen monk. I actually like that about him.

However, he hasn't been elected to be a Zen monk. He is a politician and administrator whose job is to fix things and to report back to his employers, the American people, very few of whom are Zen practitioners.

As one of his sympathetic constituents, I have one simple request of Mr. Obama: Could you please unbottle some of your real personality, sir?

This Harvard-Law-debate persona is inappropriate in some circumstances. It reads as duplicitous, not measured. It reads as haughty, elitist detachment, not as dispassionate professionalism. This gulf, between the person in the role and the role as he perceives it, could undermine the value of an exemplary presidency. If it does, we may all suffer for it.

Libertarians

where are the loud libertarians?

are they wearing scuba gear?

perhaps they are carrying mud

for the oil men to the leaking well?

do libertarians eat oily shrimp?

perhaps they like to boat on slicks?

do they sell oil-repellant to seals?

where are the loud libertarians?

are libertarians still against laws?

do they resent taxes for clean-ups?

are they devoted to oil masters?

kissing their boots for vote money?

liberty-less libertarians, slaves,

money rules them above all else.

a shallow materialist freedom

grinding civilization to anarchy.

Apathy

There is an active volcano of polluting oil spreading over a huge area of the Gulf of Mexico. No, it hasn't been fix yet, despite the cooling media interest. Political mayhem is also spreading in the states on the Gulf Coast. Politicians with considerable lumps of oil cash in their bulging pockets are looking at their shoes and mouthing the scripted litanies of "Don't panic." These are written for them by their masters, quite obviously. Less bribed politicians are calling the alert in hopes of mobilizing voter lethargy on the issue. The lethargic voters are more concerned about gas prices for their SUVs than drowning in polluted, globally warmed oceans.

Afghanistan, Iraq, oil spill, Icelandic volcano, Haitian earthquake. It is all becoming a series of paper cut-outs or digitized screen images to the overwhelmed, overinformed and undermotivated American public, who are treading their personal financial waters in a recession, which everyone in Government says is over. Other than the various fringe groups, there is no united, visible protest against the status quo.

Is it the corn syrup in the Dunkin Donuts coffee and practically everything else? Is it the overprescribed tons of anti-depressants, thrown at anyone with a blue day? Is it that life is still too easy for the middle class, despite all these problems? Is real protest being igored or actively hidden by media? Whatever it is, I can't shake the feeling that something truly wicked this way comes.