By !!glenn!! !!capers!!

18 June 2008

Which way American Cry Babies

It's hard to think that the founding fathers and masons wanted our beloved country to be the land of the modern that depended on highways and byways, turnpikes, and expressways. After all a simple graded road for a horse and buggy was enough along with cobble stone city streets and a sea port. Business science has been robbing us for over three hundred years. After all that's why we had the "Great Tea Party" which turned into a revolution. Our cities spread out into the countryside. All for what is thought of on paper - that the greater society would have the best of both worlds.

The question most Americans are wondering is when will the gas price go down or stop.

There are a few answers to the question, but like children, "we the people of the United States" have been treated like little children. With eyes blind and ears covered with electronic earmuffs. We are only tuned into the toys that give pleasure to our personal and immediate gratification.

We are kind of like the digital camera on Auto mode that has come to an end with a dead battery. With prices finally revealing the beast to come, our field trips out into the wilderness will soon be limited to the bus ride to the park.

Today you can walk in Central Park and see wild life photographers with strap on digital cameras and outfits totaling easily ten thousand dollars and more if you add in the camouflage pants and matching vest and bush hat lined up on the walkways shooting sparrows. red-breasted robins and a few hawks that are so used to people that they almost know the English language and will soon have lawyers passing laws stating to photograph a bird in the city, a fee will first be paid along with proof of Id and US citizenship.

You might say it's a luxury tax.They have these queer little taxes in foreign countries as we call them.

After all with the price of gas and hardships which developed from the current administration, we should be willing to do our bit as cry baby photographers and pay to shoot our wonderful digital cameras. You might laugh, but here in New York City a tripod being set up to get a shot can draw the attention of the police. You are given fifteen minutes to take your picture and then you have to move on.

You would think they'd suspect that bold bird photograph with camouflage clothes on looking like a high tech hit man with a Cannon camera and 800 mm lens on a gun stock or mono-pod. Besides with his gear he could easily pay the taxes for all of us poor photographers. That would be nice. Imagine, we go to a national park and they tell us because all the ridiculously wealthy bird photographers paid enough taxes so we could go to any National Part for free for two weeks. Just maybe with their tax gift, the gas prices we now go in debt for would not cause so much anxiety come our shooting holiday.

Every one thinks that paying the debt will bring the gas prices down. If you can recall the gas companies do not pay a penny in taxes, that tax has been passed on to "we the people."

The American dollar in the world market is real low. This is the main fact why our prices have gone up.

For most Americans this means nothing. Most Americans don't even own a passport. And do not rent cars and drive abroad.

I was surprised that many photographers that submit on jpg don't have a desire to travel abroad. Maybe that's why most of our pictures in general come right out of our back yards and neighborhoods.

Classism is alive and well in the world of photography. At most, Americans pack their cars trucks and haul their campers and toys of destruction across the land with family and friends. Once there they wreck havoc on the land to shoot that one image where wild life is at peace and away from the screaming group saying the familiar word, "look!" that echoes across the canyon like a gun shot followed by rapid firing digital cameras and concluding with "chimping" that disturbs the "Wah / Om," in other terms known as the Earth Stewards ' meditation".

These Earthy type people, unlike others, hike with what they can carry in and out. They only leave behind a foot print, not the plastic cover from a flash card or tire tracks.

It's ironic that the now high prices of gas is doing its part to lower the global warming that has resulted from contributed to civilizations that actively indulge in car activities.

Zion National Park was dying from the over pollution of vehicle exhaust and plastic products left behind as litter. The over-use of park paths showed the wear with litter. Tree carvers devoting love, and rock carvers and graffiti artists lost the desire to physically walk and haul what they were accustom to hauling in the trunk of their vehicle.

The outcome is visually clear now in Zion. The wild life will cross your path without fear. The trees are green again. There is no trash floating down stream.

The gas pump is helping to prevent global warming. With high prices Americans can't afford to drive the distance, speed up the lake on water skis, or chase down a deer or coyotes, or bunny rabbits, and disturb bird nests with a cameras in a fanny pack.

Funny how mother nature is connected to the gluttony of the oil and current energy companies. The more we raise the price for the use of her energy the fewer the cars will be out in the back countries across America. Today I see less ATV tire tracks carving up hills. In time weather will heal the scars and man will be forced to live within his man made cities.

On a humorous note

;

With any intelligence all birds and wild game that can at least read signs or

newspapers will stay far enough away from hunters, thus driving up the price, making gas consumption too expensive to kill and photograph critters. This will in time return nature in our country back to when the Spaniards came to America and wrote about the abundance of wildlife living in a close community.

On a serious note:

Lets do the math. It's so bad that if you go to http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic

you might not get an exchange rate answer.

In Europe gas is about 1.07 pounds a liter.That's about 2.10 US dollars a liter. Let's say 4 liters to the gallon is $8.40 American dollars per gallon. Ok, let's fill the tank up. Let's say you have 18 gallons. Oh my, that's $151 dollars a full tank for about 300 miles plus. You will fill your tank up 4 times, that's $604.80 a month for just one car. If you have a partner, you are paying, $1209.60 a month. If you have teens with the need to drive, well lets say that does it. You could be paying 2000 dollars a month. Should you add the insurance in, you could be paying for that second home you can't afford. Did I say with all this money being spent we should throw in a luxury tax to pay off the national debt? However you look at it, it's one big tea party.

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