GAS PRICES!!!!! AAAAAAHHH!!!!

Oh JESUS! The gas prices are so high and they aren't going to be going down. By summer they will be over $4/gallon and while this isn't nearly as bad as it is in the Europe, they don't have nearly as far or much to drive as we do in the US. What is the biggest problem? If you work anything of a 'typical' work day, 9am-5pm, you are going to end up sitting in traffic and using some of those precious gallons of gas just sitting on the highway.

I love it how there was a big mess in the news about high gas prices and how oil execs were posting record profits and paychecks. That they were then brought before Congress for a day or two of hearings and then no one was indicted is a crime. how is the working class supposed to survive when the prices of food are escalating, the prices of gas is continually rising day by day, and the rate of new jobs created and people hired continues to proportionally go down. You cannot have an economy that bounces back or has any hope of surviving when more and more people are being put into poverty and unemployment while every aspect of living costs skyrocket.

Meanwhile our half-whit-in-chief talks about taking measures to curb rising gas prices by getting Ethanol to wider markets. Meanwhile Ethanol is incredibly cost-ineffective and is causing the change of cash crops in countries around the world to switch from rice to corn for ethanol while most of the world is starving for and paying record prices for the rice they depend on as part of their diet.

It's a good thing all those truck-drivers with their 'support the troupes' and American flag stickers on their trucks voted for George Bush. I hope they suffer the most.

Homeless and the Public Anxiety

We as a culture like to keep poverty and suffering at arms length, making poor and people begging on a corner invisible and seeing them as unfortunate but ultimately unpleasant and dangerous. Homeless people then are forced to remain away from the public eye, spending their time in alleys and under bridges, alternating between being harassed by the police for loitering and being ignored by the general public. What are we afraid of though? Why do we feel the way we do? is it because we feel guilty for the things that we do have when we are reminded of those who are less fortunate? By making them invisible are we justifying our better clothes, expensive shoes, our desire for expensive cars? Or are we feeling anxiety that we are not doing enough to help?

Either way, I've seen the same group of homeless people hanging out in and around a park near where I work, just off of a fairly poor area which I am sure has either or both of a soup kitchen and shelters. One day I saw them passing around a single bottle of cheap vodka as they sat outside on the grass, another time I saw them under a bridge, sitting in a cluster, probably for safety. Why people are homeless is a mystery to me, but I can see that there isn't a single reason and most of the time it isn't by choice or by their own fault. I just don't understand how we are such an advanced society technologically and economically, yet we can't seem to find ways of housing people despite the fact that more and more homes are standing empty.