Heat or Food Round 2
By Anonymous - Tue, 08/05/2008 - 5:06pm.
Congress is out of session on August recess and Republicans are demanding Speaker Pelosi call the House back into emergency session to vote on energy legislation.
Why do Republicans care about energy prices now and not last winter when heating oil was $4 gallon or after Katrina when gas prices started to rise to all time highs but not between then and now?
Could it be a political stunt to make the Democrats look bad in an election year? There's no debate that energy prices are affected by war in Iraq, threats of more instability in the middle east, and commodity futures trading. The US invasion of Iraq and White House saber-rattling with Iran is something you might keep in mind when you fill your tank next.
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Not Boston
Not Boston.
Your two words and I'll raise you four more
What are you paying for gas?
just the other week I heard
just the other week I heard Obama say how cars in Boston were as bad as factories in Beijing...drill off the cape? Dammit wheres the local angle!
all politics is...
Would you take the late Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr.'s word for it?
Or would you rather talk about Paris Hilton's last trip to Boston, what she was wearing, how cool it is to be a celebrity like her, or Manny, or ... you name it. Just askin'.
And no comment on the snarky gif? The picture is a screen shot from C-Span today. No one recognizes Jean Schmidt (R-OH) who called Rep. Murtha a coward: "Cowards cut and run, Marines never do." YouTube
Think
In the 17 weeks and 2 hours that you've signed up here, did you ever once see Adam post a discussion on DC politicking?
This site isn't about national political discussion. There are a billion other websites for that out there. This is about Boston...and sometimes not even the most obvious Boston story gets coverage here in deference to lost seagulls and worm compost.
I like it that way. Others do too. Don't ruin the qi around here, please.
Think again
The price of heat is going to be a severe local issue that local politicians will have little control over.
It will be used against us, however, to get our pols to vote in certain ways or else. Every vulnerability is an exploit.
Thnik yourself
None of my posts are posted until Adam reviews them.
Why are you worried about an some imaginary balance being altered?
Don't pay attention if it doesn't interest you. Why be a worry troll if it interests people?
What do pay for gas at the pump?
You might want to read
Tip's book of the same title. That quote is often misappropriated, as it is here. Indeed, all politics can be localized, but Tip was referring to the type of politics to which he ascribed: constituent services.
In my career, I saw many a do-nothing pol get handily re-elected to the state House or Senate (frequently running unopposed) simply because s/he returned phone calls and wrote nice letters of congratulations.
Tip, it should be noted, was not a do-nothing pol, however. That's why the Central Artery Tunnel was officially named for him.
Tip's book
I didn't read Tip's book but I knew Tip spent time in the neighborhood talking with his constituency.
You seem like a well read person. How about doing a post on a subject you find interesting? If not local politics, maybe another topic that floats your boat.
Beat you to it
I used to do that here. You know, on MY OWN blog. You can also search UH for "Boston Crazy Driving". Also, search Globe and Herald archives.
Thank you for the compliment. I am fairly well read, but I'm a bit behind some others I know. Right now I'm reading "Atonement" by Ian McEwan (before seeing the movie). It is very literary and reminds me of a 19th Century novel in the style of one of the Bronte sisters. After that, my queue is loaded with "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway and "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley (a re-read; it was first read in high school). Of course, I'd like to fit in "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren, but with the fall television season ramping up, it's going to he hard. I think I'm going to have a tug-of-war between my books and my DVR.
Speaking of which, does anyone know the name of the Dickens novel that the Desmond character on the show "Lost" was waiting to read before he died? I'd like to add that to my list.
Boston Crazy Driving
I'll check out your blog. Great topic.
I think you'll like the movie Atonement. It's a good story and it's well acted. I suspect from the structure of the story, it tells better as a novel than a movie. I reading Chris Bohjalian's latest Skeletons at the Feast.
Monday nights draws me to the TV to watch new episodes of The Closer and Saving Grace both of which are amusing and well written episodic police dramas with two great actresses playing two great characters.
Did you see Personal Velocity? I watched it last night on dvd. Its a great indie film written by Rebeca Miller and acted by Sedgewick, Parker Posey and a third actress.
Can help you with your question about "Lost". Anybody here watch Lost?
Lest we forget ...
The Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. Federal Building, too!
Let's forget it, actually
What an awful building. A disgrace to its namesake.
Which I actually try
to forget.
I used to go there a lot to file bankruptcy petitions when I worked for an attorney while I was and undergraduate. The only nice thing about that building was the exit.
Not nearly as much
as I paid on the West Coast.
In any case, I'm not sure that increased prices for energy reflect well on the current regime - they are supposed to be in the energy business, right?
And if prices slide into the election, it will either look good for the Democrats who have been hauling oil executives before congress to explain, or because even my youngsters smelled a rat when prices slid at election time a couple of years ago.
I think you had the right
I think you had the right story, but the wrong angle.
Ive looked through the comments and cant seem to see how your post brought it back to Boston. Rather it was an attack on the Republicans at the national level. Im not crying foul, Im just stating the fact that you ovbiously just posted your own personal politics and you only seem to be rationalizing it by saying we spend alot of money on gas in Boston... (Im a liberal who has voted for Gore, Kerry, and will vote for Obama so its not like I dont agree with you.)
The picture BTW only kinda proves my point.
From the Vinyl Dustbin
and the previous serious oil shock of a different flavor:
Some background on the issue.
In other words, "freezing out the Yankees" has a past history long pre-dating the current NYY/SOX rivalry. It has been used as a political weapon for the energy extraction industry to inflame regional attitudes, threaten our safety, and get what they want even if it has crap-all to due with any realistic solutions to the crisis at hand.
song in your head
I swear, there's a song in your head for every occasion. I bet you had a fine record collection too. Did you still have it?
Married in to it
I have to credit my husband's cousins for that piece, via his extensive record collection.
I had no money as an adolescent, so I had no record collection. The year I finally had a good summer job and had money was the year CD players came out. My now-husband graduated and started earning a professional salary and bought a CD player. Hence a combined and extensive cd and record collection.
My brain has a tendency to internally cue up appropriate songs whether I consciously realize what is running through my head or not, which results in stuff like this.
good husband
I had money for records from paper routes, lawn mowing and pachysandra sales, which yielded the most cash for the least effort. The plants did all the work, I just had to put an ad in the paper and dig them up. I learned about popular music first when I was about eight and I got AM transistor radio that looked like a Sunoco Oil pump which you could hold in your hand. The music that came out of it - Credence, Stones, Stevie Wonder - was like a whole new world opening up.
Sox/Yanks
Um, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry dates to before 1919 when then-Sox owner Harry Frazee sold George Herman "Babe" Ruth to the Yanks to offset his losses as a failed Broadway producer.
I would be willing to bet that "freeze a Yankee" goes back to about, oh, the 1860s, so I can grant your argument in that regard. However, I think the need for heating oil as a primary source of fuel didn't arise until the 20th century.
The ditty you quote may date to, say, about the 1970s, the last major fuel crisis. That was about the time the Red Sox were hit or miss in the playoffs (1975 being the exception), and the Yanks, well, let's not talk about 1976 or 1978.
Ah, yes
The old War of Northern Aggression and all that.
Gas has gotten cheaper in Boston...
Some of the independent stations are selling for $3.79 per gallon - about 36 cents cheaper than the all time high. In a way, Boston seems to be the luckier of the New England States when it comes to high fuel prices.
I do not drive, however. I've been a MBTA rider for 24 years, and even though Smilin' Dan is rubbing his hands with glee to get more fare revenue, and the freaking Longfellow is still chained to 10mph, I'll stick with my $59/month Charlie Card.
I'm neither in the "drill here, drill now" cheerleading section or Queen Nancy The Botoxed Fan Club. If what Congress is doing is playing the voting public against one another to gain an advantage, then we're seeing a classic power struggle, with petroleum as a pawn and the longstanding grudge between Democrats and Republicans for Election 2000 as its propellant.
If Congress wants to be the laughingstock of the nation, fine. Let them fight tong and nail - and I'm surprised the Republicans can now find their quarters in their pockets, for lack of a better description. I will make it my duty to vote anyone without a (D) or (R) besides their names if that is the case, because I'm sick of Congress being the adult version of the high school clique. It's beyond time to expel the class clowns.