It ain't over yet

By
Hurricane Rita is fast reminding people that the Atlantic hurricane season isn't over until November. The one good thing about Hurricane Katrina is that it seems to have done away with much of the hurricane bravado that so many people had. No one seems to be taking any chances with their lives now with the possibility of Rita doing serious damage in the Gulf. No one seems worried about the political fall out of ordering evacuations either. The fall out from not ordering evacuations in a timely manner is far worse.

Again everyone's talking about what this will do to oil production in the Gulf. Can we ease off the oil for just a hot minute? I got some words for you about that oil.
If there is anything that I know about people, it is that they can be remarkably creative when they really, really want something. The best evidence of this comes from a rather unexpected source: underage drinking. The creativity with which adolescent teenagers obtain fake photo IDs pretty much makes the age requirement of 21 a joke. Any parents who think that their teenager does not have or does not know how to obtain a fake photo ID most surely have their heads in the sand and their asses way beyond the clouds.

But now image that this very same creativity were employed in obtaining a response to exorbitant gas prices. Well, cars would be using something like grass as fuel in no time. Again, if the creativity that people put into being “bad asses” were pressed into the service of finding alternative fuel sources or persons using less of gas, I do not doubt for a moment that we could cut our oil consumption in half. Thus rather begging that the oil cartel continue its production rate, things would be the other way around: they would be begging us to purchase more oil.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Rise Up In The Darkness

By
Image
The teenager who joked with me over physics and algebra homework tonight was 6 months old the morning of September 11, 2001. He spent that day like many other 6 month olds spend their days, exploring his world and being saved from his own curiosity by mom. That morning after I got tired of hauling him back from the edge of the bed he was intent on crawling over I took him downstairs to safer level terrain. I turned on the television to check the news like I did every morning back then. At first I was horrified by what I saw. One smoldering tower. Not long after, while all the reporters and newscasters were struggling to make sense of what they were seeing, one plane, another tower, and I was pissed. At that point I understood what was happening. Why did people think, and still think, that kind of wretchedness served their cause? I didn't care what the cause was. These were arrogant fools. But the news kept coming about just how wretched humanity had been to itself that day. The
Read more

Treating autism as traumatic brain injury

By
I've been doing research into autism, dyspraxia, how the normal brain works, and how an autistic/dyspraxic brain works (or doesn't work). Traumatic injury to different parts of the brain can cause the same problems suffered by autistic and dyspraxic children. Compare this list of the functions of different parts of the brain and the problems caused by injuries to those areas with these descriptions of dyspraxia and autism. What is Developmental Dyspraxia? Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterized by an impairment in the ability to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks. Generally, individuals with the disorder appear "out of sync" with their environment. Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness, vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioral problems, difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture, and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may b
Read more

Battlestar Galactica needs more colour?

By
Here are the letters I mentioned in the previous post. The one that started it (I'm guessing these letters were written after the show's first airing at the end of 2003): Galactica Needs More Diversity The problem I had with Battlestar Galactica was there were no major and very few minor African American characters. There were no Black men in the show at all or if they were, they had virtually no screentime. In the original series, Boomer and Tigh were both played by African American actors. In this rendition of Battlestar, those characters were played by Asian and White actors. In the Caprica city, there no African American extras. On the Galactica's bridge, there was only one African American actress. Another Black actress could be found playing a religious official that swore in the new President of the colonies. This was very troubling to me. Do you not want African Americans to watch your show? Do you want to project the idea that African Americans are not part of the
Read more