Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Pardon Me Boys

Here's a link to a nice slide show of the "green" parts of the economic stimulus plan.

I know that opinions vary when it comes to this. Am I sure that it will work or is the best thing to do? No. But my knowledge of economic matters is not good so even if I was opinionated on the matter, I have no knowledge or experience with which to back it up.

And as we know, that only qualifies me to be a hate-filled radio talk show monkey. But I digress...

What I will say is that it's nice to see a president who connects the dots. Who gets that a healthy, sustainable environment helps to create a healthy, sustainable economy and vice versa. Because what I do know is that you can't have one without the other. Our formerly robust economy turned out to be, well, not so much robust as it was a big fat house of cards. And the quality of - and our collective attitude toward - our environment has definitely reflected that.

So, I would very much like to give this plan the benefit of the doubt and be supportive.

I only have one problem so far: the proposed high-speed rail lines.

What's my problem, you ask. Well, let's take a look:


See there... in the lower right section of our country. Anything look odd or amiss? Like, I don't know... the fact there's only one state in that whole area without any rail lines. At all. Yeah. That would be my state.

Did I miss something? I thought I learned in the 7th grade that the word "Tennessee" was derived from the Cherokee word for "meeting place" as in "Wouldn't Tennessee be a great meeting place for all of these high speed rail lines?"

But no. Apparently Tennessee is actually derived from the Cherokee word for "No thanks, I'd rather drive."

And apparently no one from the Department of Transportation has ever had to drive from Memphis to Nashville. If they had, it would have been the first line drawn. Because that drive? It totally sucks. It's worse even than the drive from Cincinnati to Columbus.

Except if you look at the map - Cincinnati to Columbus is totally slated for a rail line.

But don't worry. I'm still here. Being supportive. And not at all disgruntled. In the great Volunteer State. Stuck in my car.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm there with ya--you'll notice the train in Wisconsin only crosses from Milkwaukee to Minneapolis/St. Paul. I live up by Green Bay. Grrrr.
But yes, supportive. And smiling.