don’t panic

In the morning, while I wait with my daughter for her morning school bus, I often do a lot of general people watching. It helps pass the time when the bus is late (always) and it gives great insight into a very normal slice of the American populous.

Across the street we were watching a woman with a girl about the same age as my own daughter. The girl had some bottled water and was emptying it into the planters as they headed for the parking lot and their car.

So my daughter turns to me and says, “look, she’s watering the plants.”

To which I responded with, “yes, she’s helping them to grow.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the water finished draining from the container. The girl shook it once, then without pause dropped it right into the planter and walked away. The mother saw her child do this, said absolutely nothing, and stepped into her SUV.

We both sat there with our mouths open. Seeking some explanation, my dumbfounded daughter tried to find the words.

“Why she… Why she… Dad! Why she do that!?”

I knew what she meant. My mentally disabled child, who still had trouble putting her own name legibly to paper, understood completely the idea of being a litterbug. She might not know the science of ecology, nor the long and short-term implications for the environment, but she knew that it was wrong. She cared.

I hugged her while I tried to think of some explanation she would understand. Nothing came to mind that satisfied what I was feeling personally…

“She’s a rotten pig…”

“Her mother should be ashamed…”

“The earth should open up and swallow her and her mother (and their Lexus SUV), crushing them all into a bloody pulp…”

I was miffed. But some things just can’t be expressed or explained.

I finally settled on, “Yes, honey. That was bad. She should put her trash in the trash can.”

It really didn’t help that we were sitting at a bus stop with trash all around it and no trash can. A four day-old plastic container of greasy, half-eaten pasta salad sat on the seat next to us. Part of me felt guilty for not cleaning it up myself, especially after what we had just witnessed. But another part of me remembered that I had told my daughter never to touch something left by a stranger. We get some pretty slimy people along that stretch of road. Only a few days earlier I heard someone retching into the bushes below our kitchen window. It didn’t make me feel any better about how we as a people treat this planet.

Sure, we are literally drowning ourselves in our own waste, but sometimes I wonder if it’s not us who is the real trash. Our Earth Mother is ashamed of her children’s bad behavior. But unlike the unthinking woman in her SUV, Gaia won’t just ignore it. There will be consequences… punishment. And unfortunately for us, it’s a lot closer to the earth opening up to swallow us alive rather than a simple stern talking-to.

I’m not normally one to condone those who want to impeach a President, but I’m seriously starting to have second thoughts. There are few things that I actually feel warrant an impeachment. It’s easy to throw around the term for political gain, and I can honestly say that I haven’t been happy with the way that Democrats have tossed out the option for Bush in the past. Yes, I think he’s a terrible President (the worst in the history of the U. S.). Yes, I think he has made some horrendous decisions, and yes, I think he will be known throughout history as the man who could have made a difference but chose instead to be an ignorant ass. But that is NOT grounds to impeach him. We were stupid enough to elect him to office, so we should deal with it.

However, there comes a time in the course of a Presidential term when our leader may start looking at what people call “their legacy”. What will they be remembered for? What were their accomplishments? Herein lies the problem.

Flatly put, Bush sucks. He has the worst approval rating in U.S. history. The economy is worse now than it has been in almost 50 years. He started his terms with a strong U.S. dollar, relative peace on the planet, an amazing housing market, and some of the lowest unemployment ever. Today our economy is in a shambles. Housing has completely tanked. Inflation is over 9%. There are mandatory budget cuts in almost every sector of public service, from schools to libraries. The price of gas is over three times what it was when he entered the White house, and the price of food is spiraling out of control. He completely screwed up the two major disasters that hit him while in office (9/11 – by taking us to a war by “mistake”, and Katrina – New Orleans is STILL recovering). And more recently, a dozen major cities along the Mississippi are flooded out and we loose a huge percentage of farming crops and the best Bush can do is send the National Guard? (Our troops are a little busy…)

When you’re already at rock bottom, why not use it to your advantage?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/15/bush.oil/index.html

Hey, blame the Democrats. Blame congress. Throw the American people a political bone by telling them that all that stands between them and “lower prices at the pump” is a simple vote. Never mind that it’s all a bunch of packaged lies. Never mind that the only ones that stand to benefit are his buddies at Exxon (gotta have friends somewhere). He wants us to believe he cares about the coral reefs. He’s a “fisherman” after all (must have been asleep in general biology).

Our President has demonstrated very clearly, that he is nothing more than a political tool. His worth is zero, so why not use him as a mouthpiece to say things that have no other purpose than to bash the democrats and to push his oil agenda. Screw the facts. Screw the science. Screw the American people. Hell, screw the whole damn planet.

Bush, if all you’re going to do between now and November is spew useless political crap at us, then I’m changing my mind.

Impeach him. Impeach him now. The world can’t afford another four months of George Bush.

I’m Type A, big time. Obnoxiously so. I am constantly looking for ways to do more than one thing at a time. When I make toast in the morning, I can’t simply stand there and wait for the toaster to go “pop”, I have to clean a few dirty dishes that sit in the sink while I listen to the radio and get out the butter and a knife and a plate… and anything else I can think of doing at the same time. It’s insane.

But… I tend to be efficient. I don’t waste motion. I pre-figure the best sequence of tasks for greatest time and motion efficiency almost without thinking. But that kind of mentality can be really annoying to others so I have to watch myself. Problem is, it can be really annoying to me too, especially when confronted by my mental opposite.

Every day right now, I go out with my daughter at 8:30am to wait for the school bus to pick her up and take her off to summer school. Another bus brings her back in the afternoon. Most of the time, they are late, but most of the time it’s only by a few minutes. Maybe they catch a bad sequence of red-lights, who knows. You still have to go out there at 8:30, even though her official pickup time is 8:35, just in case they catch a sequence of green-lights and show up five minutes early. No matter.

During the rest of the year school starts much earlier, and the sun has not yet started baking the SoCal soil. But this is “summer” school after all, and the later pickup time means that we wait in nearly 80 degree heat with 60-70% humidity. Yuck. Add to that a cranky, still groggy special needs child who would much rather stay home anyway, and every minute spent sanding there in the sun waiting for a late bus is pure hell for a parent.

Today, as usual, the bus was late. After five minutes I am nearly constantly ensuring my daughter that the bus IS coming, and that she just needs to be patient… After ten, I place a call to the transportation office to see what’s up. They call the driver (who is not the normal one – ah!) and they tell me two minutes. Five minutes later the bus arrives. My daughter and I are both sweaty and cranky and about ready to tear each other’s eyes out (nice way to start a day of educational bliss), but relief has finally arrived… on the wrong street.

We run to the driver who is motioning to us while she waits at a traffic light (?!) and with a quick “haveagoodday” my kid is on her way to school.

As I walked back to our apartment my Type A brain started thinking about what had just happened. They give the drivers of those school buses over 45 minutes to do their routes. The bus is the standard special-ed express with a wheelchair lift in the back and so only holds about ten kids max. With 45 minutes normally (conservative), plus the 15 minutes she was late, that driver had over an hour to pick up what was probably a half dozen children. I know that area reasonably well, and even with traffic, that driver almost had enough time to go out and pick up each child individually and take them alone back to the transit station one at a time. They do give them route maps, right? Right??

How do you screw up a route that badly?

I shouldn’t complain, really. The school bus is still free for her (which is saying something), and it’s only 15 minutes, right? Maybe I’m just upset because of the heat… or maybe because I was stuck standing out there with no way to multitask.

Why oh why don’t car manufacturers get it?

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/autos/0806/gallery.plugins/index.html

Clue #1 – STOP MAKING SUV’S! (slap! slap!)

Clue #2 – If it doesn’t have at least a 40 mile range at 70 mph IT IS USELESS.

Clue #3 – Roof. Sunlight. Solar panels. Who cares if it won’t power the car. If it could add 10-20% to my range while driving, THAT’S HUGE. Throw it into a hybrid for a 15% milage boost. Have it charge the batteries while it sits the sunny parking lot all day while I’m at work. Come on…

Clue #4 – If the designers of your electric concept cars ever once say the word “performance” they should be fired on the spot. Get me to work and back. You can worry about going from zero to sixty later. If I’m buying a “performance” vehicle, I could probably care less about the damn milage.

Clue #5 – TANSTAAFL baby. The idea of a “plug-in” car sounds great only because electric power is currently cheap. Try adding a few million electric vehicles to your local grid and see what happens to your electric bill. A good portion of our power comes from coal and (drum roll please) oil. How long do you really think it will take before electricity prices catch up with oil prices? And what do you think is going to happen to the already overloaded power grid in places like Southern California, when a half million electric car drivers come home from work and plug in their cars to charge… all at the same time. Oh, and “peak usage” hours (according to the utility companies) is between 3pm and 6pm. Right about the same time everyone will be getting home.