Automaker's Bailout

Here's the letter I sent to my Congressman and Senators:

Automaker Bailouts:

The automakers need a bailout, but apparently, they can afford expensive pop-up ads in AOL asking me to contact my member of Congress to lobby them to help the Automaker Industry.

It motivated me to write to you, but not in support of them. This is the same industry that has spent millions in lobbying the Congress over the last 25 years to keep CAFE standards low so that they could continue to make crappy cheap cars that use fuel like you are flushing it down the toilet. Rather than leading the world with engineering, they dragged their heels and argued that it just couldn't be done. They've been telling us for years that they can't make more fuel efficient cars.

A year ago, I started looking for a car to replace my 20 mpg Jeep Cherokee. I wanted to buy something that got better gas mileage, and had found that most cars now got worse gas mileage. So if I want to buy a car that won't bankrupt me with the fuel charges when gas gets back up to $4 a gallon, there is no smart American choice.

We can put a man on the moon, but we can't make an 80 or 100 mpg car? We can supply the world with trucks, tanks, boats, and planes during WWII, but we can't figure out how to make a plug in hybrid or electric car? We can figure out atomic energy, but we can't figure out a solar car?

Detroit deserves to die on it's own capitalistic rhetoric, if nothing else. In February of this year, Bob Lutz, GM's Chairman, made a very public statement that global warming was a crock. This was probably just after he approved of taking another couple of mpg's off of the efficiency of the latest truck they make. These people are the problem, not part of the solution. They are why we are so addicted to foreign fuel, and why we are having such a hard time with energy consumption in this country. Hard core proud capitalists are the first to invoke "too bad" or "they should have known better" or "survival of the fittest" when someone else falls on hard times, but they see it entirely differently when it's their own bad decisions that endanger their industry.

If we have to bail them out, if everyone is set on doing that, I believe it should come at a high price. I think they should be forced to fast-track develop high mpg cars, as well as electric and alternate energy cars, and prohibited from ever producing another Hummer or Excursion.

In addition, I believe that if they are going to get bailed out, that their top executives, who unarguably have failed at their job of keeping their companies sound and steered in the right direction, should be limited in their compensation. If we bail them out, and then the next week, I see an article talking about how Bob Lutz got his $300 executive bonus, you should expect to get many more letters from constituents.

We've just elected a lot more Democrats to Congress and will finally have an intelligent President we can be proud of, so let's not lay a big rotten egg with the first major decision of the new Congress and President and allow these auto industry jokers to get a fat bailout without a whole lot of conditions. They should almost wish they hadn't asked for the bailout when they see the conditions. The biggest irony is that if you force them to make efficient cars, Americans will start buying their cars again, and they will get healthy due to natural market forces. You almost have to legislate good sense back into them.

2nd Civil War

This is my first Non Book Review.

I checked out the book The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America by Ronald Brownstein.

Then I succeeded in not reading it for 30 days until I had to return it to the library. This Non Book Review is an attempt by me to explain why that was a good thing.

I read the first couple of chapters and felt this sinking feeling. The book’s title pretty much says it all. This is a book about American polarization. If you’ve been alive and aware of current events in this country for the last 16 years, you know how we’ve been divided to the point where we really hate each other.

This book rubs your nose in that.

I wanted to find out why we were in this mess and what it would take to get out of it.

I skipped forward to the later chapters, hoping that by then, the conflict would be solved, everyone would be singing together with their arms around each other, and the author would explain where everything went wrong and how we could make it so it would never happen again.

Unfortunately, there is no happy ending. Fear and hate are two commodities that don’t need a bailout.

It's A Love Story

If you haven't see the video for this new Taylor Swift song, it's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4xmxb9K8RI on YouTube. I didn't know who Taylor Swift was a short time ago, now I see her in the gossip and entertainment news with increasing frequency.

She broke out on the country music scene two years ago when she was 16. I thought it was Clair Dane when I first saw the Love Story video. Her story is pretty interesting, and I was pleased to find that she writes her own songs.

As I grow older, I keep in mind the infuriating comments of older people I have heard. The comments fall under the category of how stupid young people are, derision about the choices made and the mystifying behavior they display. I had the sense at the time that those comments were being directed at myself and my contemporaries to know that they were wrongheaded, petty in spirit, and lacked insight and understanding. In particular, when whithered old crones with their tiny pursed lips spat distaste and condescension about the music my generation loved, I knew that they had closed their mind to the truth and rejected the best things we loved without opening their heart to knowing and cherishing them with us. I vowed never to fall into their trap, to try to keep my mind and heart open as I aged and try to be one that still remembered and understood the passions of youth.

Listening to Tayor Swift's Love Story reminds me of that vow and makes me realize something else about the age divide. There are things that young people know better than their elders. Passion is a product of youth, something you can forget as you get older. Now that's not absolute, it's not fair to say that you lose all passion as you age, but your passions shift from music and romance to politics, your job, your church, keeping your house nice, and raising your children, among other things.

When you are young, you are really good at romance. I say this even though I remember my own and other's awkwardness, whether by shyness on one extreme or embarrassing yourself on the other extreme. It's true, you may not be as smooth and polished when you are young, the words you come up with may not be worthy of publishing to inspire others, but you are an expert at one thing. When you're young, you open yourself to your loves and throw yourself into them with abandon.

I can rationalize this and say that young people have never been hurt or humiliated yet, and that allows them to leap without reservations. That's true in many circumstances, but not always. Not to get too technical, but scientist have also found that your brain does not easily produce some of the chemicals that it did in youth. I can't find the reference, but it talked about how children love gifts, but older people rarely get as excited about receiving presents when they get older. I've noticed this in myself.

So I think it's fair to say that you lose something as you get older, something besides just innocence. You lose some of the capacity to appreciate the sweeter things in life.

When I see how someone young is finding their passions in life, whether they are creative or romantic, I can't help but get a little wistful. I don't think it's over when you get older, I think this is what the young have to teach the older people, to remember the excitement of discovering the things in life that thrill you. One thrill I know is just seeing that love catch fire for the first time in someone young.

Inexperience is a great thing.

Population Control

I listen to several science podcasts that keep mentioning population control. If the issue is food prices, energy production, urban sprawl, light pollution, species extinction, or global warming, it usually comes down to overpopulation.

I remember the fear of overpopulation back in the 70s prompted some to illustrate the problem with graphs showing how growth takes off. This is the first time I knew and understood about exponential curves. Growth, even a very small percentage, is exponential. This means that it accelerates and eventually the curve gets so steep that it is practically straight up.

In developed nations, the curve is not growing as fast as in less developed nations. Some say it's because undeveloped nations need their children as a source of cheap labor, but there really is not much understanding of the phenomenon.

I came up with an idea about 5 or 6 years ago, when thinking about overpopulation, abortion, teenage pregnancy, and other child raising issues. I sometimes come up with solutions to multiple problems by starting with the statement, "This would never happen, but..." If you throw out the downside of a solution, such as the fact that it may impact on someone's personal freedom, or no one in power would ever agree to it, or the general public would never stand for it, then you can come up with some interesting solutions. Let's try to ignore the fact that China has a sordid history of mandating behaviors that are against the population and sometimes quite scary when you consider personal freedoms.

This idea started as an argument that in this country we always line up on opposite sides of the ideological divide and take diametrically opposed positions on issues, when often there are solutions in the middle that borrow from both ends of the spectrum. Never mind that these bridging crossover ideas never see the light of day. Abortion foes do not believe in killing a fetus. Abortion rights advocates want women to control when they have children, in part so that men cannot enslave them into raising children rather than making their own decisions and choices in life. I've always thought quietly to myself that if people can't control their urges or plan their reproductive schedule any better, that abortion is about the only way to prevent rampant overpopulation. We seem to think that most abundant animal species need us to help "cull" their population, but we never seem to feel that way about people. That's because people are special.

I've always wished we could just take abortion off the table. Find some solution that satisfies both sides. After all, abortion is only chosen because the baby is not wanted. What if we could do something that would guarantee that all children were wanted? How about if we only conceived when we really wanted to? Let's forget for a moment that many of the religious fundamentalists that are most up in arms about abortion are also very against birth control because they think it promotes promiscuity. What you really need is to have everyone that does not want a child to easily and reversibly be made infertile. For this to really have the maximum effect, you need to have this apply to not only women, but men too.

OK, so let's assume that there is some kind of simple procedure developed in the future, maybe some kind of silicone plug that is inserted into your tubes, that can later be removed and full fertility would be restored. It's fiction right now, we need some science to come about to make this possible. Then let's say that all people, as they reach puberty and become able to conceive are given this infertility treatment. What happens then?

Further stipulation would be that these 13 year olds would all be given the treatment and that they would be able to reverse it only after they turned 18, when they had their full rights as adults. No more teen pregnancy, no more babies having babies. The thing I really like about this is that it empowers men in family planning. Men cannot be faked out or blackmailed or lied to in the matter of pregnancy.

You could take it further and say that you only get to reverse the treatment so you could conceive when you were financially secure, in a committed relationship, and drug free (and not a criminal). So not only are all children conceived wanted by their parents, they are also brought into a stable environment. Imagine all the country's children automatically knowing one thing, that they were wanted by both of their parents, and also not having to grow up with a drug abusing, or absent, or criminal parent. Imagine all children having a stable home where hunger or want were not present.

It would solve so many problems. The only thing is that we humans are pretty attached to our problems, and not yet ready to give them up.

How Soon We Forget

I was listening to a This American Life episode where they were travelling in Pennsylvania to document the character of this swing state's campaigning.

This is a state that voted for Kerry in 2004, and for Gore in 2000, not to mention for Clinton in '92 and '96. McCain thinks he can win it and is spending a great deal of time there.

The podcast had a section on Hillary supporters for McCain. They were very fired up, very against Obama, and very involved in campaigning for McCain. I listened to their speeches and reasons for switching the party they support, and I declare them to have no memory of history.

Working in an office with conservative people, and serving industries full of conservatives, and living in a reddish state next to a beet red state, I spent the 1990's listening to right wing rhetoric. For those out there that were either so deep in a blue territory, or who were too young or in a coma, let me remind you what this was like. Conservatives hated the Clintons. You might think that they would focus their hatred on the Clinton actually in power, but you would be wrong. People hated Hillary Clinton. I didn't understand it at the time, and I still don't, I'm just repeating and reporting what I heard. I did not see anything wrong with Hillary Clinton, and used to tell die hard Hillary haters that I thought she was a hottie, just to watch them cringe.

When the 2008 primaries came along and Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, my primary reaction was weariness. I never realized how tired of all the nonsense, bile, and kooky conspiracy theories I was. I also knew that even though Bush's ratings were low and the political winds were favoring a change to the left, that having Hillary on the ticket would supercharge the right. I figured we had to get ready to listen to an avalanche of hatred, fear, and stupid stories (easily debunked if you spent about ten seconds on Snopes).

These people on the right hated Hillary with a fervor that was not to be believed.

Yet as soon as she was knocked out of the primaries, the first thing they did was to use her speeches in the primaries to try to discredit Obama. I remember at the time thinking, "You don't even like her! Why are you telling us to listen to her?"

So when I hear someone that formerly supported Hillary talk about supporting McCain, I really have to wonder at their sanity and awareness. Why would you help the very people that reviled your candidate? This doesn't make any sense at all. It must be some kind of Stockholm syndrome, because I can't think of any logical explanation for it.