© Michael Sprouse 2011
I like this instagram snap I caught yesterday afternoon on the metro to Dupont Circle. I've titled it "Subway Spirit". Not, mind you, as in the pom-pom accompanied "I've got spirit, how 'bout you?", but as in the ethereal, vaporous, wafting sense. Think of the oddly quiet moments when you've walked into an empty elevator into an aura of warmth mingled with the lingering perfume from a mysterious previous rider. It fills your mind with oceans of ideas about the existence of a woman you will never know. The mystery fades like an old, yellowed photograph vanishing in a dusty, time-worn frame eternally placed in some sun-drenched corner of a forgotten shelf when you reach your floor...
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I find it shocking and borderline nauseating that after 35 years the average MPG of most cars on the road today is about 22.4 (based on data from the Department of Transportation dated from 2009 - a mere 2.5 years ago).
While it's true that the Energy Act of 2007 calls for average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 for cars (still 4 MPG under the average listed for these now antique automobiles), it is painfully clear that this is a situation born out of greed and rampant blind consumerism without impunity based on a naive belief by the auto driving populace of this country that the auto manufacturers know best when it comes to making their cars more fuel efficient and that they, and they alone, sit on the top of the pyramid when it comes to research. I can just see the auto manufacturing industry and the oil companies skipping down the road together giggling like flower girls at a wedding tossing dollar bills in the air like rose petals.
It is outrageous that in over 35 years the average MPG has dropped while the cost of gasoline has skyrocketed. Now is the time to seriously demand that our government insist through legislation that the auto manufacturing industry begin to seriously research and produce fuel efficient, hybrid, electric or other alternatively powered affordable and available automobiles. They can do this and they have been able to do this for years.
This shell game will only end when the public begins to become aware that it is unwinnable and that they will perpetually lose in the end. Become aware and become proactive.