In the 1970s when lead was first removed from gasoline. You had two pumps, leaded for cool muscle cars and the "new kind" for cars with catalytic converters, unleaded. The great fear was you would put leaded gas in the non-leaded car, thereby having to promise your firstborn male child to a mechanic in order to fix your vehicle.
People driving during this period of time became fixated on saying unleaded, when they had the attendant top off the car. This condition existed for three of the 36 years I've been driving. Yet today when I fill the car up, like a paranoid volcano, the “unleaded” issue still possesses and erupts from my mind.
In addition to my “unleaded” obsession, I also use the word album when describing a collection of recorded material. 33's became dinosaurs during Ronald Reagan's first term. Yet in the museum between my ears they still live. I was never scared of accidentally buying a 78, then bringing it home to find out that Mitch Miller had accidentally dosed himself with Quaaludes. Perhaps using Quaaludes as a reference is further evidence of being old. I must just like saying album, because I always have and it brings me comfort.
Last night it took us 45 minutes to travel 6 miles. Traffic moved like a conjoined twin millipede plodding through molasses. This experience is not a component of the “quality of life” Oregon represents to the world. Instead it is an embarrassing bondage that City Hall uses to “push” people into mass transit. Along the roads we traveled were beautifully maintained and completely empty bike paths. The bike paths compressed the traffic flow making it look like a series of conjoined twin millipedes were attempting to gang bang one another.
The ancient idea that cities need to give up cars and exist with all their transportation needs provided by mass transit is a holdover from "Planet Hippie". The petuli oiled mythology promises electric cars that zip around without harming the environment. Their smaller size and weight will reduce the impact of collisions and the lack of emissions will allow us all to groove to the sounds of Canned Heat.
Electric cars run on electricity. Electricity in most of the nation is still produced by oil and coal fired plants. Oil and coal fired plants produce emissions. Hydroelectric kills fish. Putting nylon strips between the thighs of the obese to create and capture static electricity is considered insensitive to the food intake challenged.
Nuclear power would provide clean and abundant energy. However Silkwood/Three-mile Island/Chernobyl and a predisposition to hate General Electric prohibit this option from even being discussed.
Building roads and nuclear plants would provide solutions to the following problems:
Real unemployment of over 15%
Brownouts and future demand for power
Reducing the over $10 billion in revenue lost to traffic each year
The mutation and evolution of three eyed fish
Unleaded and 33's have left the building. Nukes and roads should be dusted off, building freeways sure worked for Ike.
Bureaucrats cannot use 40-year-old stereotypes and utopian fantasies to bind and torture people seeking self-directed transportation alternatives. (self-directed transportation alternatives is bureaucratese for driving home by themselves without having to smell or bumping into others.)
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