BE CAREFUL ARNIE

A cat and a dog sharing closeness. A pleasant, smiley type picture. They seem to be pretty good buddies. They are among those who have lost, or never developed, mankind's sense of open warfare, shown in this kind of picture. I like it. But I like it because I have always been owned by cats and dogs. We three types of beings get along just fine. And we play and laugh together as though we all had the same forebears. We appreciate and recognize our differences. Hooray for wisdom.

Unfortunately, in politics one often finds him/herself in a quandry. We might share a belief in a certain candidate. Or a disbelief in a certain candidate. What's this got to do with Arnie? Well, Governator Schwarzenegger appears on the front page of our local newspaper The Albuquerque Journal. With him (both showing big smiles) is New Mexico's Governator Bill Richardson. Bill is joining the effort to support five Western state's Governors in a regional effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Boy, that sounds terrific to me. I am really all for that concept (I read Lives Per Gallon and it scared the heck out of me).

The problem I see here, however, is that my Governator is very, very good at getting money from Big Oil. You know, the people who tried to bribe the scientists to turn thumbs down on the facts of global warming. The people who make obscene profits everytime you buy a gallon of gas. The people who really don't want fuel efficient automobiles and trucks. Now, Governator Scwartzenegger is, and has been for a long time, a fighter for less pollution from our transportation methods. I applaud him for that. WTG Arnie!

On the other hand, Governator Richardson only got on this bandwagon when the scientists report came out. His campaign crew finally figured out that there are a number of conservationists in our state. Every vote counts and the more smoke one can blow, the more cloudy the real issues become. And from what I have seen, Bill is very good at blowing smoke. But not very good about solving local, state-wide problems. In my opinion, if a person is incapable of solving the difficulties in a small population state, how could that person be any good at solving the problems of 300,000,000+ people? (And that doesn't include our problems with the vast population of illegals, either.) I rather admire California's Governator and his constant, consistent efforts to make the people of California's life better. I have a problem with our Governator's lack of consistent efforts to make our lives better.

Bill, you have to do a lot better in order to get my clique's votes.