Another One (Less) Catches the Bus

According to Lewis Black's show, blogging is the Root of All Evil, but I'm putting in my two cents anyway. I am a member of the Environmental Defense Fund, and today's email from them contained some stats that will surprise many people. For instance, in May of 2007, a barrel of oil was $75 and in May of 2008 it was at $131. Now that's not news to anyone, but this might be. In 2007, a record number of trips were taken by Americans on our public transportation system – 10.3 billion, and Americans drove 9.6 billion miles less in 2008 than 2007. Now here's what hurts – 46% of the American population has NO access to public transportation, and municipalities all over America have cut back their public transportation by 20% this year because the price of gas is putting too high of a strain on their budgets.

Being a citizen of Snohomish County in Washington, I guess I was oblivious to these stats. We live 25 miles outside the nearest "city" of 20,000 people, and there is bus service all day up and down our highway. The county began switching to green thinking way back when I worked for the Parks Department. Back then they were shifting all county vehicles to recycled motor oil, and looking into a new technology called BioDiesel. Almost fifteen years later, the county runs all of its busses and most other diesel vehicles on BioDiesel that it makes itself. This past spring, I had a representative from the county Works Department come up to our school for our community science night. She made BioDiesel on site!! Now I understand that I am lucky to live in a county with such great insight, but this is really the way municipalities need to go. States need to form their own Energy Plans and stop waiting for the Federal Government to tell us what to do.

After all, we are a Republic of states which means that states are supposed to be governing themselves and relying on the Federal Government for international issues, banking issues and interstate commerce. I know I sound like a Republican, but we have forgotten our local roots. There are many citizens in local communities that get together and garden or clean the highways, but there are no town hall meetings anymore, and city council, county council and school district meetings are vacant until some morality issue pops up like a sex shop zoning or a controversial book in the library. It was only forty years ago when a Democrat stood up and inspired Americans to get involved in their part of our Republic. Remember? "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Have we forgotten what this means?

It means you get involved. The next time your utility commissioner goes up for re-election, vote for the person who has a new energy plan. The same old same old will cause us bankruptcy. Call your utility department and ask them about their Alternative Energy plans, or start a citizens drive to encourage them to come up with one. Call your county executive and ask about the future of public transportation in your district. Write to your local paper and encourage others to help your community come up with viable energy plans.

On another note, people have asked me about why Obama is not sweeping the polls. While McCain's new attack ads are comparing Obama to Paris Hilton, McCain is also using his press corps to his advantage. Obama, I'm afraid is making a mistake by only using his press corps to look like a rock star and to defend himself against McCain's attacks. Now I know that the Obama campaign wants to portray him as "above" that kind of campaigning, but get real guys. This is America where many Americans have an attention span of about 8 seconds, and do not go on to research what they have heard.

Obama needs to stand up, use his press corps and start pointing out the very apparent problems in our very broke country. He needs to attack McCain and loosen up a little, or he is going to come off as too arrogant for the regular American to vote for. He came up the Democrat ladder, "fired up and ready to go," but I think someone doused the fire.