Bailing out the "Beg Three"

As the American automotive industry teeters on the brink of utter annihilation, our Congress earnestly jabbers away, toying with the idea of playing David Hasselhoff to the smelly, drunk homeless junkie (executives) flailing flamboyantly in the murky water. But should the American people keep our industrial cornerstone afloat? Last time I checked, stones tend to sink, or roll. Dodd admonishes “We cannot afford to let them fail,” and also insists we cannot simply write a blank check, after our capital injections into banks were less effective than lard injections into pork- wary Islamic fundamentalists (the first taste is free, and after they abandon their radical ways, we charge them exorbitant prices for limited edition Qurans printed on scrolls of savory bacon, and thus capitalism burrows into their hearts like an gluttonous tick). If the Big Three were to go under, millions of lives would be affected. Already, the 240,000 some layouts they have issued to cut costs led to three tenths of a percent rise in unemployment, bringing the rate to nearly 6.9%- the highest our brave country has seen in 34 years.

There is no easy solution. Restructuring in bankruptcy or being bought out by successful Japanese companies might work, but the fact remains that even if we shell out the $34 billion they requested, the real problem is still not addressed. No matter how much money we give the Three to remain operational, it doesn’t change the fact that people can’t and won’t buy cars whilst in the grips of this freakish recession. You & I could speculate until blue in the face about what they should do- but in the end, Congress will do what they want, not what We want.

I am looking to the future. The Age of the automotive vehicle is over, gone like the Dodo before it. We need to focus on the future of transportation (and no, it has nothing to do with electric cars or hydrogen powered hovercrafts). We need to get back to basics, and consider alternative modes of transport.

First to be considered- the classic bicycle (although China has given this once proud conveyance a Communist taint, unless we are talking about the cool ones with one giant wheel, and one tiny wheel, a fitting metaphor for American extremism). I personally fancy a skateboard of the longer variety (mysteriously dubbed longboard), and enjoy weaving in and out of traffic, teasing death while eating a falafel and deviating from my phone conversation to yell at foolish pedestrians that lunge in front of me. I don’t want to see any more rollerbladers- they make me want to puke and should be hunted down like dogs. I’d like to see more people skiing somewhere other than pointlessly meandering down hills, more hang gliding from your nearby cliff to your favorite sushi house’s roof, and more enthusiastic pogo-stickers bouncing their way to the bar. I’d like to see El Camino’s pulled by ornery donkeys, more people riding ostriches, and an increase in the always popular Zamboni (although seemingly sluggish, they get great mileage and easily deal with lingering pedestrians in crosswalks). And the last I checked, submarines are powered by nuclear reactors, not liquid dinosaur bones, so I would like to see more day to day travel by sub, especially in Middle America. A new craze has swept the wheelchair community, and pioneers have begun attaching a small mast and sail to the chair, and those tired of walking are encouraged to take a seat and let the magical power of the wind whisk you away to where you need go.

We need more moving sidewalks, more guacamole powered monorails, and more people willing to tie hundreds of helium balloons to their lawn chairs, rising above this pathetic dependency not only on foreign oil, but on the antiquated notion of life being made easier by a gas guzzling “hot whip.”