Bitter bus passengers
by definition does not concern anyone reading this blog but it does raise the question of which candidate is likeliest to be successful at bottom-fishing, as it were, in the voters' pool.
McCain's jokes are wooden and elderly but Obama might look way too smooth for non-prime-time. I can't decide.
A thoughtful piece in the Observer newspaper asks whether the real impact of the fuel crisis is that "in effect, America is becoming larger again".
This is the key point:
"That will lead to a more localised economy. To many environmentalists that is a blessing, not a curse. They point out that cheap fuel for industrial transport has meant the average packaged salad has travelled 1,500 miles before it gets to a supermarket shelf.
"'Distance is now an enemy,' said Professor Bill McKibben, author of the 1989 climate-change classic The End of Nature. 'There's no question that the days of thoughtless driving are done.'
"The worst hit parts of the US are not yet the suburbs or the freeways of southern California, but the small towns that dot the Great Plains, Appalachia and the rural Deep South. Even more than the Inland Empire, people in these isolated and poor areas are reliant on cheap petrol and much less able to afford the new prices at the pump. Stories abound of agricultural workers unable to afford to get to the fields and of rural businesses going bust. "
Whole piece .
Britons used to being squashed on trains and buses cannot avoid a touch of schadenfreude in their attitude towards the US experience but it certainly is true that an inability to travel will have an effect on the modern American mind.
Back in the UK this week, on a short trip, I am reminded again how spacious America feels, uncrowded, and un-hemmed in.
But if you cannot move from your small town there is a risk that you will become very bitter and turn to religion and guns and public transport. Except that there isn't any public transport.
Only a few years ago I covered the ending of the rural Greyhound bus service in parts of Texas - I wonder if it'll be back?
Hello, I'm 
Comments