Too Much Naval Gazing?

A writer on my fav feminist blog recently wrote a great post about the lessons we should have learned from the many school shootings America has experienced and why we never seem to learn them. At one particular point, she responds to the story of one shooter's obsession with his weight:

And this is where I really do wish we valued brains a little more in this country, because there REALLY SHOULD BE BETTER THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT. But the same way the first American Dream moved us all out to the suburbs only to strand us there alone with our cable and ice cream and placid lawns and sad fleshy dead-eyed moms who can't bother driving us anywhere, this new American Dream of fastidiously monitoring our intake and expenditure of energy units is really just another big distraction from the real problem...

As a blogger, this is an interesting question as blogging itself is exactly that; a way to "[monitor] our intake and expenditure." My dad always told me that my generation was full of "naval gazers," people so caught up in their own drama with their MySpace pages, blogs, cell phones, and reality T.V. that they'd never care, and that nothing of consequence...other than lint...would ever get accomplished or be found. As the world gets more and more complicated with encroaching fuel, food, financial, and climate crisis', and things become more and more corrupt yet separated from our daily lives by technology and consumerism, we want to get away and are desperately trying to find ourselves. We know something is missing but don't know where to look. But some people, like Colin at No Impact Man, the ladies (and gentlemen) at Jezebel, and Beth at Fake Plastic Fish are turning the sometimes overly personal, ever saccharine apparatus of blogging into a great tool to reach others and make a change, exposing the real problems facing us. What makes them different is that they aren't just telling us about the problems but are becoming the solution.

Everything You Need to Know About Hybrids

NPR posted an article today that describes upcoming hybrid vehicle technology, and how it differs from your typical Prius. According to the article, upcoming plug in hybrids will be an excellent choice for commuters, the plug in electricity supply powering the battery in upwards of 30 minutes. Unlike current hybrid technology, the gas engine on the car will act as a back-up to the battery where in current models, the battery relies on the charge generated by the gas engine. The most interesting part of the article touches on the great fear that many show towards this new grid-tied technology and its effect on carbon emissions. The article reports:

"A 2007 study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council found the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality if the use of plug-in hybrid vehicles was widespread.

The study projected that in 2050, there would be more than an adequate supply of grid-supplied electricity for transportation uses. If PHEVs were in widespread use by then, it predicted that greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by the equivalent of removing 82.5 million passenger cars from roadways. And it suggested that petroleum consumption could be reduced by up to 4 million barrels per day."

Although they do recognize in the article that the United States' antiquated grid system could pose serious integration problems, the article is hopeful and makes me excited for the next two years.