Barack Obama didn’t waste any time. He’s going to let California and thirteen other states raise fuel-efficiency and emission standards for automobiles. (This was something the Bush government categorically refused to do.)
Canada’s Conservatives now want to adopt similar standards. The reaction over at Inkless Wells? “Fun fact: Canada’s government has been in power for three years; President Obama for six days.”
I Am Fuel, You are Friends has a great old post with more than forty covers of the Sam Cooke classic “Bring It On Home to Me.” The post is actually from last April, but I just noticed it when Heather Browne, the Colorado blogger behind the site, linked to it from a more recent post highlighting a live version by My Morning Jacket. Alas, she didn’t include Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee’s great blues version.
My wife gave me my first iPod for Christmas in 2001, just after Apple released the insanely great gadget. It was 5GB and, compared to today’s versions, big and boxy, but I loved it from the first time I touched it. For years, I used a cassette adapter when driving, but eventually, the cassette player in my car stereo ate the adapter. I switched to an FM frequency adapter, which I hated as much as I loved the iPod. It sounded terrible and I kept having to seek empty frequencies. Before I went on my road trip for DRIVE, I bought a new car stereo with an input jack — that was the only way I was going to be able to survive driving across the continent and back. When I bought a new Mazda3 in 2007, it came with an iPod jack conveniently placed in the storage compartment that sits between the two front seats. But this is what I’ve wanted all along. How could something so obvious take so long to arrive?
I’m sure I am not alone in my dismay at the Globe and Mail’s decision to drop its stand-alone book section. But one of the benefits of the paper’s enhanced online book site is that old reviews — including Kevin Chong’s delightful consideration of DRIVE — are now available. And I am hopeful that some of the new features will be good for both readers and writers.
Over at his blog, Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), considers who’s safer: those with automatic transmissions or those who drive stick. I bought my first manual transmission car a year and a half ago and I think I’m more attentive behind the wheel now. As a guy in Argentina told me, the thing about driving stick is that it means “the car needs the driver.” I assume that makes for safer driving.
If it’s true that a city without traffic problems is a city with a hurting economy, then the recession may temporarily ease the congestion in some places. San Francisco is considering a congestion charge, but the hard times may lead to cold feet. Only a year ago, San Fran’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, called congestion pricing “the single greatest step we can take to protect our environment and improve our quality of life.” But, according to this story in the New York Times, he no longer seems to be in such a hurry: “‘’The devil is in the details,’ said a spokesman, Nathan Ballard. While Mr. Newsom supports congestion management, Mr. Ballard said, ‘Given the challenging economic times, we would hate to impose too heavy a burden on commuters.’”
Still, road pricing is coming to a big city near you eventually.
The Quickie Book Review, a blog by a woman named Jay in Ottawa, manages to capture the ambivalence at the heart of DRIVE: “Forget that the content of the book completely contradicts the thesis — this was one of the most enjoyable road trips I’ve ever taken.”