Important Issue 1

(first written 11-17-05)

Because of the state of the world these days, I’ve picked some things I’d like to give my opinion about. The main thing you have to remember is that my opinion is most likely the best idea…ever.
Does gas cost an arm and a leg yet? Well the way it’s going, we’re on our way. It makes me happy that I don’t have a car. But it also makes me sad, for when I do have a car it takes 17 gallons to fill. At 2.79 a gallon, that easily comes to a cost of… a fortune! I’m not made of money. I only know one guy who died at birth who was made of money. (I know you’re asking how I knew a guy who died at birth. Let’s just not get into that now). Now the big deal with gas right now is that, because of Katrina and other sources, we now are running out of gas, making the price higher. Now I know I’m one of those naïve people you hear about, but wouldn’t it make sense to strive towards hybrids and maybe just maybe try to use other sources of energy. How about solar power? And I know we can get more creative than that. How about carrot juice or a mixture of carrots and apricot juice? Don’t dismiss this as silliness! You and I both know that if they tried, they could make engines run on anything. I have another solution, let’s try conservation. Now repeat after me: con—ser—vation. We could maybe, just maybe, not drive to the convenience store that is across the street. There should me a minimum of a half mile that people should have to walk instead of drive. They don’t have to walk; they can use any non-gas mode of transportation. Biking, jogging, skipping, parasailing, flying, teleportation. Ok, so those last three are a little unreasonable; the point is still valid. The only reason you should be able to drive less than half a mile is time constraints. I’m a big believer on being on time and even early. So if you’re going to be late to something because you skip slower than everyone else (you know who you are), you can drive. There’s one condition; if you drive, you have to feel bad about doing it. Apologize to all the non-drivers and to the people and place you are meeting.

I realize (and by now I hope you do too) that this is a very simplistic way of fixing problems. But I say this, and no one seams to care or notice: What the Hell is wrong with simple fixes? There is a simple fix to being on fire. Ok, bad analogy. I just think that the simple solutions are often overlooked and that they are taken for granted. Sure you could get a genetic engineer to clone me a light bulb that isn’t broken to replace a broken one, or I could just buy another one. In this case technologies are reversed. For gases, let’s move on. Exhaust the source; the more we do, the more of a priority it will be to find different source. Who knows? Maybe carrot juice gets really good mileage. We haven’t tried it yet.

I’m finished, I have read it through, and now, so have you. I’m sorry for wasting your time. Please respond, regardless if it is just hate-mail.

Happy birthday!
-Sam D.

P.S. if you were paying attention, I said in my first e-mail from college that I would talk about this. It’s taken me over 10 weeks to do it, but I did.