Having a pickup truck, I realize that I use more gasoline than I need to. However, when one considers how much money I save each year in delivery charges for all the stuff that I haul in my truck (mulch, lumber, plants, etc.) I more than make up for it. This also means that a pickup truck is a necessity for me. Is it what I would choose had it my way? No. I’d have a passenger car so that I’d room for myself, my junk and my two kids’ car-seats.
That’s why news stories like those run on MSNBC, titled, “Gas Price Woes” tick me off so much. In this video, a reporter interviews people on the street about their gas usage. Now, I’m sure they handpicked which interviews to include, therefore it is both a politically- correct spot, including both white-bread and minority Americans, and a spot that covers all intelligence levels.
For complete coverage, there is the cab-driver, who barely speaks any English, claiming that all oil “sucks.” There is the lucid soccer-mom defending her SUV by saying that with two kids, she needs a larger automobile just to be able to take them and a friend anywhere (because remember, you can’t put children under 85lbs in a front seat). And finally, there is the attractive minority figure exhaulting public transportation.
The kicker though, is the ending where the report first shows two people side-by-side—one biking, the other roller-blading—and the reporter can be heard saying, “Soaring gas prices have some people considering alternative methods of transportation, but others…just don’t seem to care.”
As a writer, I know that anything you say in a story should relate back to the material referenced within the story. Given that, the reporter must be referring to the callous soccer mom who refuses to sell her mini-van so that she can pay $5K more for a “green” SUV that, when you consider any loss she takes on her current vehicle, plus the additional cost of the new vehicle, “might” pay for itself after 3-4 years.
Or perhaps she’s talking about the millions of Americans who do not live in New York or some other major metropolis where riding the subway to work is an accepted way of life. Excuse me for wanting to live in the relative quiet of the suburbs, which also means that in order to get to my office, I have to drive for 30-40 minutes.
Ms. Reporter, it’s not that people don’t care, we don’t have a choice. If we all went out and tried to sell our SUVs today, it would tank the market and nobody would get anything out of it to put forward on a new vehicle. Sure, it’d be great for the auto-makers, but not so hot for the consumer. I guess I could stop going to the grocery store, or maybe I could just quit work and sponge off the government. Nah, that won’t work either. Oh, I know, let’s stop driving to church and quit going to shopping malls where our hard-earned dollars help keep the economy going.
Truly, the ignorance in this country is astounding. And the media are as liberally biased as they ever were. The sad thing is, America has the resources within our own soil to fix this problem, albeit temporarily (for like 150 years in the future), but every time we make a real attempt at tapping into it, the oil barons lower crude oil prices to a point where Shale oil production can't compete. Then, once all Shale technology development and production has stopped, guess what? Yep, crude oil prices skyrocket again.
Couple that with America being too afraid of alienating our foreign friends to do anything about OPEC's monopoly and we get what we've gotten. It makes me sick, it really does.
I weep for my children’s future, and I apologize for the legacy we’re leaving them.
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