New Bumper Sticker Suggestion: Idiot on Board

I saw a car today, plastered with a bunch of idealistic bumper stickers hoping for world peace. Good. I hope for world peace, too. Most people do.

But what made me shake my head and laugh, was a big one: Grand Oil Party.

You have to be conversant with U.S. politics to get the attempted joke. The U.S. Republican Party is nicknamed the Grand Old Party. Who the heck knows why.

The irony of such a bumper sticker tickled me.

The driver apparently supports two propositions: Oil is evil. The Republican Party supports the protection of oil interests.

The driver is apparently an idiot.

Hey, I hate congestion, pollution and the cars that spew it as much as anybody. I hate the daily dead zoo of crushed animals I pass on my way to work. I hate putting money into the pockets of Chavez, Putin and other anti-democratic, oil-rich numbskulls around the world every time I fill up my tank. I walk when I can, where I can, and I drive a small, cheap car when I can't.

If I woke up tomorrow and some brilliant soul had found a practical and economically feasible way for all of us to get around, that involved none of the above, I'd celebrate. But I live in the Southern U.S. You wouldn't want to be around me on a summer day if I had only a bicycle to do my daily job and if I had to hike or bike the thirty miles to get to my office in the first place.

And in the meantime, somebody driving a gas-powered car (coated with a petroleum-based paint and no doubt loaded with various plastic components) looks awfully stupid sporting a bumper sticker proclaiming the evils of said product and mocking some political party for supposedly protecting the supply of said product.

What if he/she got his/her wish? What if they pulled into the gas station tomorrow with their needle on empty, only to be told that every Republican was in jail and the petroleum industry had collapsed?

Such a bumper sticker should only be sported by someone courageous enough to sell their car and move into the wilderness; or blessed enough to find a job where they didn't need a car to get around. And it belongs not on a bumper at all, but rather on a bicycle or a hiker's blue-jeaned backside.

Cars -- our modern slaves

I hate cars. I love my car. I am conflicted.

I am an automobile addict. I'm just like those nineteenth century folk who recognized the evils of slavery but couldn't imagine how to maintain their lifestyle without it.

I hate making my way to work through a dead zoo of squirrels, cats, dogs and deer, left to rot on the asphalt after being crushed by some driver -- maybe a pyscho dirtbag who got a thrill from it, or maybe by some quiet librarian on her way home from work who couldn't swerve in time.

Although I've come close, I can say, knock on wood, that I have yet to kill an animal with my car. I dread the day when it finally does happen.

Our eight-lane death-rivers make life unimaginably harder for everything but vultures, cutting off ancient migration routes and water access, introducing terror and confusion and merciless, endless traffic where not so long ago, cool breezes blew through shady forests.

I hate how the modern American community is absolutely dependent on the automobile and how one takes his or her life into his or her hands attempting to be a pedestrian. And when the darn thing breaks down, unless one is blessed with wealth, all other concerns go on hold and your existence is at the mercy of the guys at the repair shop.

I think of the Beatles, famously cursing Sir Walter Raleigh as "such a stupid get" for introducing the world to the pleasures and perils of tobacco -- and I in turn curse Henry Ford, who introduced the common man to the automobile.

But I love being able to cruise down a country road on a sunny day, go where I want, stop where and when I want, something that is almost impossible on public transportation.