OT To California bashers. After reading all of the posts on the California energy problems and what Californians want the rest of the nation to provide, I thought it might hurry things up if you heard some specifics from a native Californian. That would be me since I was born in the far north of the state and have lived in Calif all but about 6 years of my life.
The first thing is that you are right. We have lots of needs and expectations. We need lots of power. We need clean air and water so that our population can stay healthy and keep jogging, skiing, rollerblading, attending 2 quarters of those Laker's games and sunbathing without having to hear those aggravating coughs. Very few of us would disagree with this, except maybe those Raider fans who, if the truth were known, are probably Bears fans who left Chicago to find a winner.
Will you give it to us? Please? We don't want to have to go back to the dust bowl states. We like palm trees, surfing and winters that won't kill you if you get turned around on the way to the outhouse. We like having all of the lakes, streams and mountains. We like having cheap in-state tuition at some of the finest colleges and universities in the world. We like having a thriving farm economy, a thriving tech economy and a thriving tourist and entertainment economy. We like being the market for many of the products of our other states. We like being an exporter in the world economy that helps mitigate our nation's trade balance.
On a more serious note, we may be dumb on some things, we may be more liberal than the rest of the nation and we may be out on a limb right now, but we are a huge part of a bigger whole that works as one entity.
I hope that GW can see the bigger picture. What's that old saying; you don't cut off your nose to spite your face? The simple answer is to assist California in providing a short term fix that doesn't pour sugar in the California gas tank and that gives California the time to structure a long term solution. It will likely cost California some serious money and will result in some adverse environmental impacts. That's life. It should not send major shockwaves through the California economy that shake the economy of the nation and leads to a recession.
On a long term view, California may be once again leading the nation in the right direction with it's environmental regulations and awareness. In the next 1/2 century or so we may well be looking to California for some models for what worked and what failed in terms of protecting and preserving the environment, including our air, water and wildlife. I think that's a good thing. We don't need a country where every state is trying to conform to every other state. California is fortunate enough to have had an economy that allowed it to make some choices with regard to quality of life rather than maximizing economic opportunities. In the long run that may be of real benefit to us all. Ed
PS, those of us Californians planning to attend the rig party need a date soon so we can start hiking out there. |
