Let's Sue California

Excerpt from Buy Now, Pay Later, by Adam M. Bright, featured in GOOD Magazine.

While it was promoting Greener Miles, Ford was already at work on another initiative: to slow down change. The company, represented by its trade association, was suing the state of California for attempting to pass the nation’s first law capping automobile carbon-dioxide emissions. The automakers claimed that California was passing legislation that only the federal government had the right to demand. Then, this June, when Congress looked as if it was finally ready to raise national fuel-economy standards (they have been virtually frozen since 1985). Ford’s president and CEO, Alan Mulally—along with other auto industry leaders—flew to Washington for a day of closed-door lobbying. Automakers built up to the showdown with an ad blitz warning voters that an increase in fuel-efficiency standards would “take your pickup truck away.” In his public statements, Mulally reminded everyone that the industry had already made “tremendous progress” and was “absolutely committed to increasing fuel efficiency.”

Where is this "tremendous progress" from Ford and why on earth would you want to slow energy emissions when that is a main concern of the nation? (besides losing profits, of course) Will companies ever have a heart or respect for themselves when the world as we know it starts to deteriorate? No, not even then.

Play In Repeat

The taste, savory-
bitter, the kiss.

Eyes lock,
though behold, there is no key.

All is asked,
One moment, please?

To feel and receive
the brush of feet,

Airs colliding,
two faces deep.

Smokeless Cigarettes

I was deep in sleep, submerged for fifteen minutes or so in pure bliss. It was nothing special; no flying from rooftops, no hopping freight trains to India - no. I was indulging in something my mind has often said “stay away from, they will kill you, those dirty cigarettes.” Yes, I was in a room all to myself, and I lit up.

My conscience followed me partly: Just this one, enjoy it while you are young, every breath of it, for you’ll be gone some way or another. The cigarette, the thing I fought against oh so strongly, happened to be most terribly satisfying.

I sat atop a desk in a dark, dated office situated near the ocean. The view, blocked by the closed shutters, allotted only the sound of crashing waves. Air melted into a soft texture I could wrap myself around, as if inside a painting. I imagined this scene akin to one of the 1930s, where a sex bomb journalist angles herself beside a desk and smokes in the darkness of black and white. Her red lips staining the roll of the cigarette with each touch; slowly melting the hearts of men…

The best part of my indulgence was that it never occurred, and yet I felt ecstasy the whole way through.

Imagine-

Just think what this could behold for the future for smokers and nonsmokers alike.

Pure Nature of Life

Jaques Prevert, a French surrealist poet, paints the end of a relationship in bare, simplistic language over a cup of coffee, without the subject ever speaking a word.

Déjeuner du matin
Par Jaques Prevert

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allumé
Une cigarette Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

9.21.07 - Sitting on a park bench

The rain plays nicely with the end of a hot, Indian summer. As the air freezes over, all of life seems to change. Silence- greater, and the noise- dead and gone until Spring's alarm unravels it from a well deserved rest. Sitting by myself I can observe two minute people in the world. The only ones, for that matter, who surround my thoughts at this time. Perhaps it is the recipe of their pronounced, emphatic voices, mixed with the atmosphere's calm. I am just the right distance away to engage in their soothing rhythm of cries; an indescribable satisfaction to the ear. I want to sit here for hours, only to watch.
"Why did I ever marry you?!"
Clearly she is not actually screaming these words in honesty, for she has the pacing of an actress. Her engrossing stance won't allow my eyes stray. One hand clasps the script, the other flails about as she hotly tries to embody the spirit of her character. Stepping into their world- the actor's world- is an intimate experience, perhaps because I am watching from a distance, taking their moment as my own.

The world and I are young!
Never on the lips of man, -
Never since time began,
Has gladder song been sung

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were
here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,—
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbors knock and
borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,—
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house.