Excuse the Price of Gas

Today our Commander in Chief stood among the chirping birds in the Rose Garden and announced that if it weren't for that stinky ol' Congress blocking oil drilling in the Arctic Wilderness, gas prices wouldn't be so high.

Now, that's a gas. George must think we're all as dumb as a bag of hammers. I wonder what it is that bugs the GOP and some of these Corpora-crats about not getting their grimy hands on the last bit of the undeveloped wild. Why don't they just go to Africa and shoot elephants instead?

As my daughter and I were running an errand I stopped to fill up my tank, to the tune of $42 and change. That's mild by some standards, because I don't drive a ten-person SUV. I drive a five passenger midsize wagon that gets so-so mileage, about 26 to the gallon if I drive smart and keep that needle between 1 and 2 rpms; I choose not to take the highway to work so it makes for a fairly smooth ride.

But some people do drive enormous SUVs that they don't need. I'm not talking about these 4-H or Brady Bunch families with six kids, livestock, and/or pets. I'm talking about the folks I sometimes see tooling about in my litte Burg -- two parents, maybe two kids, a little baseball equipment, and one big Hummer.

Y'all out there driving solo in those big-ass, low-efficiency cars , listen up: Gas prices are high because you are driving up demand. Oh, don't give me that. I see you out there, every damn day, riding in those pretend trucks on your way to work, just you and nobody else. It's not like you drive the speed limit, either. So when they finally crack open the Alaska wilderness and haul away the last polar bear carcass, pat yourself on the back.

Tonight at Target I found a unique and clever retailer coup: The Re-Tote. Now, I've actually taken my Target bags back to Target so they can be reused, but this is way better. The Target Re-Tote is a big sturdy recycled bag of fun. It's enormous, carried all the items we needed, and it's colorful! What's more, you can help make one if you send your Target bags in. A company called TerraCycle is buddying up with Target and Newsweek to collect your used Tar-jay bags and turn them into this cool and capacious bag. If you take the cover off the April 14 edition of Newsweek, it folds into a pre-paid envelope in which you stuff your used plastic Target bags and send them into TerraCycle; your reward is one of these spiffy totes! I love mine.

Today a United States judge in California ruled that the Bush Administration has 16 days to decide whether to list polar bears on the endangered species list. There is due cause because the polar bear's habitat is eroding, er, melting at a pretty brisk pace, thanks to global warming. Of course, if they hurry and open the Arctic to drilling, that problem will take care of itself. And Shrubya can have himself a nice polar bear rug back at his dude ranch where he'll spend the rest of his life convinced that he's a smart guy and did his country a great service.

This morning on my speed-limited way to work, I was enjoying this tune from Pete Rowan and the Nashville Bluegrass Band. There are a few guys whose voices I really do find stunningly distinctive, and Pete Rowan's is one of them. This is one is on my list of most beautiful songs; it's full of sadness and regret and shame about some of the other bad choices Americans have made, leaders have made. If we kind of globally removed our heads from our self-important asses to think about the consequences of just a quarter of our actions, an eighth, even, what might the world be like?

Trail of Tears