i’m ashamed to admit that i watch TV ALL day. well, not all day, but for a good eight hours while i’m at work. first thing my boss does when he gets in is to turn on the big screen that sits in the office/basement lounge. all the CNN you can handle, which usually isn’t that much for me.

the past couple of days have provided endless amusement, frustration, and speculation among my friends and i. there is once again (does anyone else remember the days following 9/11?) talk of a fuel shortage. with this comes serious price gouging. here in our small mountain town you can find gas prices reaching near $4/gallon! i think the cheapest you can find now is about $3.30/gallon. people are freakin out! thousands of people lined up at gas stations to fill-up their cars, trucks and suvs in anticipation of running out of fuel. sure enough, some stations ran out, which only added fuel to the fire of the consumerist freak-out (no pun intended, i swear).

for those of us that prefer the bike (and are rather anti-car) this is all rather hilarious. at least to me and my friends. the complexity itself is rather humorous. on the one hand, i don’t think we have run out of fuel and reached a national crisis (we pulled out of the 70s and the Enron California energy scam). i think its just a ploy to scare people. when people are scared, they’re usually easier to control. here in the USofA, that translates into buying more stuff at outrageous prices. on the other hand, we are running out of oil. you can’t base your entire civilization off an unsustainable extraction of a natural resource. how many times do we have to learn in primary and secondary school that it took millions of years for the Earth to make oil before we understand that that means once its gone its gone for a really long time? what are people going to do when we can’t just ride out the media-hype and get used to the new, improved prices? undoubtedly we’ll learn a lesson or two from folks in New Orleans and just start shooting. but for now, we’ll call those that pick up guns barbarians while we rush to the grocery store to buy all the water we can fit in our trunk, making sure to stop by the gas station one more time to buy our $75 worth of rationed gas.

watching the news all day its no wonder people are freaking out. its hard to know what to do when all you hear is “thousands dead” (even though the official count is just over 100, remember when the number dead in the WTC was over 10,000?), “bodies in the streets”, “prisons have escaped and are raping women”, “looting”, “snipers shoot at rescue workers”, and all the other nonstop sensationalism? and i haven’t even begun to bring up the imagery. i tried to count today how many images of New Orleans actually has and i figure they cycle the same 15-20 pictures everyday. judging by the pictures, every Black persyn in New Orleans is either looting WinnDixie, stuck on a roof, or yelling at the camerapersyn. all the White people in New Orleans are rescue workers or cops, by the way. well, except that “truly amazing” story of the guy who decided to go for a boat ride in the hurricane and didn’t die. that guy is White, too. apparently there are only White and Black people in New Orleans.

i have to admit, though, until this week i didn’t watch much TV (maybe 12 hours a year). and its getting to me. i find myself leaving behind logical thought and true compassion in order to embrace the culture of fear and self-preservation. so my advice for those seeking solice and a balance to this tradegy? turn off your tv/radio/corporate website. ride a bike. and think what you can do (besides just give money) to help create a network/community of compassionate action and mutual aid. truly question what will happen when their are no more federal oil reserves, arctic ice caps, or coastal cities. we’ve got to take care of ourselves, each other, and this beautiful planet that we temporarily call home.