I saw the price of gas

Context
Thus far the poor economy has not affected me much, as both my husband and I are employed and don't plan on retiring soon. However, I keep an eye on the price of gas as an economic indicator. It's falling like a rock around here, down below $1.70 a gallon in some places.

Commentary
In some ways I know falling gas prices are like the silver lining to the current economic situation, but even when it benefits us personally deflation is a problem in a free market economy. It indicates a lack of demand, which indicates a lack of growth, which leads to more job loss and credit problems.

So this got me thinking about who else in the United States' economy is dealing with falling demand. The Big 3 auto companies who are requesting a bailout from Congress, that's who. And this is not just an economic indicator to me. I have an emotional connection to the fate of General Motors because my dad worked there from the time he left the Air Force until his retirement over 30 years later.

Ever since I became an adult I've looked at GM differently than my dad, because he was a Republican and I'm so liberal that even the Democratic party doesn't satisfy. He died several years ago so I can't ask, but I imagine he would feel some ambivalence about the proposed buyout. He'd probably be generally in favor of it but have some choice words on the side for corporate folks who had mismanaged the company into this position in the first place. He might have even loaned a slightly sympathetic ear to the people who say General Motors should declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy just for the opportunity to stick it to the United Auto Workers. By the way, as the daughter of an executive, it's weird for me to see management and labor so united on something. Well, sort of. This is the UAW's take on the situation.

Anyway, that was my speculation about what a specific conservative would think, here's what this specific liberal thinks: government should not be helping business; it should be helping people. A lot of the pro-bailout rhetoric emphasizes that helping the Big 3 would help people, but I'm not completely convinced. At the very least, I would not hand automakers a blank check, either in terms of amount or conditions. When I'm in a really ticked off mood I think, "if this industry is so important to our nation's wellbeing we should nationalize it." So there!

In the end I'm hoping for one relatively minor silver lining to this whole mess. As a government employee, I'm sick to death of people saying my agency should be run more like a business. So at least I can say to the next person who proposes it, "like what business? GM?"

What did you see today?

I heard a loud motorcycle

Context
I heard a motorcycle while I was driving today that sounded like it had no muffler at all. I think the noise it was creating could be considered a violation of the Shreveport noise ordinance (Chapter 58, Article II at this link), but I can't be sure. Loud motorcycles are very common in Shreveport.

Commentary
Loud motorcycles bug me. I often feel like saying to the rider in question "yes, I get it. You have a motorcycle. Is it possible for you to enjoy the experience without imposing it on me?"

As I read the above I realize that I'm asking for someone to repress a very strong natural impulse: the sharing of joy. There are quiet pleasures, surely, but often when we're happy we want as many people as humanely possible to know about it. That's why we invite 300 people to watch us get married.

Or is it? Sometimes when I read about insane wedding extravaganzas, I feel like the couple in question is showing off. Or being insecure. Or possibly both. This may apply to the loud motorcyclists in question: "how can I really believe my motorcycle is cool if people don't look at me while I'm riding it?" Or maybe they're trying to be annoying as part of the bad-ass motorcycle experience.

Because we're talking about noise here, it's hard for me to communicate my response to the rider, which is roughly this:

1) That's a nice bike.

2) I would prefer to enjoy it visually, not audibly.

3) You're not bad-ass. You're annoying. There's a subtle but important difference.

4) Enjoy!

I'm going to try to come up with a series of gestures that communicate all of these things while I'm sitting at a stoplight.

What did you hear today?

I saw a man not vote

Context
There was a long line at my polling place today at 6:30 a.m., so while I was waiting I had a chance to see an African-American man talking with the European-American guy who was the only election commissioner with a cell phone. It appeared to be the latter's job to check for other possible polling locations for those not registered in my precinct. He apparently found nothing helpful, because he sent the petitioner away with phone numbers for the parish registrar of voters and the secretary of state.

Commentary
I could talk about voter fraud and racism today because I think both of those might have been at play in the situation I observed, but it seems only fair to note what my husband said, which is that the African-American man might have been just inquiring about his polling place, not actually attempting to vote at that time. So I think I'll just focus on perception.

My perception of the situation today was, "that's what happens when we're concerned about voter fraud. People get turned away from the polls." Which led me to think about ACORN.

I'm embarrassed to admit I believed the soundbites about ACORN (sample here). I believed that some members of the organization had been so rabid about recruiting new voters for Barack Obama that they had filed fraudulent registrations in the hopes of somehow turning those registrations into actual votes. I also believed that external institutions had unearthed those registrations before the scam went too far along. I wasn't concerned about the situation for two reasons: 1) I know that many legitimate registrations do not translate to votes, and 2) I know that every organization that tries to do some good ends up with some bad apples.

Now that I've done some research at factcheck.org, I've realized that even my relatively benign beliefs about ACORN were incorrect. Most of the bad registrations in question were flagged by ACORN itself because after collecting them by state law they were required to file them. That's actually how we keep organizations like this from becoming partisan machines. They're required to file every registration, even the ones they'd rather not. More important to me, as perceptions go, is the fact that the frauds weren't perpetrated by people trying to influence the elections. They were done by people trying to make money without doing the requisite work.

So as I said, I'm embarrassed. But I'm more angry. I only found these things out today after I got started thinking about voter fraud and started to do some research. And the only reason I was thinking about voter fraud was because of the ACORN soundbites. After reading up on the situation and talking with my incredibly intelligent husband, I realized that I should have been thinking about why we pay people to collect registrations in the first place. Have we been making voter registration too difficult? Have we made the results of voting insufficiently valuable to be worth people's while (I'm a liberal living in Louisiana. Due to the Electoral College, my presidential vote almost never counts. Why do I keep showing up at my crowded polling place? Hard to say . . .)?

The above are important questions for us to consider. But we never will if we keep letting the soundbites guide our thinking. If we keep thinking it's nice legitimate voters vs. evil fraudulent voters or rotten people who want to disenfranchise the poor vs. saintly volunteer registrars going door-to-door. We need to change our perceptions. We need to open our eyes.

What did you see today?