Share the Pain

Schwarzenegger continues to push for fewer subsidies for public transportation here in this most golden of states, because when you're upside down by tens of billions, nothing is spared. I find it interesting that we are doing so during a period of record ridership. I can't say that it won't affect me, but it likely won't, as a regular bus rider, because I already have direct access to what I consider high quality service: every 15 minutes. What's at issue are the scores of people who only have access to hourly or half-hourly service...if it's only hourly, it's because so few people use it, and these routes will be the first to be dropped. Those who do depend on them, suffer.

But in a budget crisis, everyone has to share in the pain.

I said hello and briefly chatted with an elderly lady in a wheelchair yesterday morning at her bus stop on Broadway as I rode past. It made my day, and perhaps I made hers. She is likely someone without access to a private auto, and so is heavily dependent on the local bus system. For her alone, I have no problem paying taxes...so long as they are directed towards the greater good. But then I watched a TV ad last night where another elderly lady said her retirement plan didn't plan on four dollar gas, and she and millions of other retirees were suffering.

A paid actor.

There's going to be a whole class of retirees who will make the claim that they are entitled to burn as much oil as they want. After all, they worked and saved for it, so why the hell not? Visits to distant locales and children, RVing, fabulous cruise ships to see Antarctica before either they die or all the ice is gone...it's their entitlement. And now because of four buck gas, that entitlement is shrinking by the second, so they are suffering.

I wonder what the curve looks like, if you plot environmental consciousness against age. It's probably linear; the older you get, the less you give a shit. As you thunder ever closer to that final whirlpool you realize all the things you've never seen, never done, and you need to take action, now or never. Recreational oil consumption increases, the vacation homes are built. Fuck it, you say -- there's not much time left for me. Take what you can before you leave.