This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on June 19, 2008.
Bite the bullet on gas prices
Back in 1998, I stood at a gas station pumping gas at $1.11 per gallon and noticed that the station next door sold its gas for $1.01. I had a light bulb moment and created The GasMan website to track local gas prices.
Keeping such a thing up to date is a lot harder than it sounds, and five years later I closed the site down. The average price I was posting at the time of the site's demise was $1.65 per gallon. $1.11? $1.65? Those were the days.
Today, you can buy GPS units that provide directions to the closest, cheapest gas. Finding the cheapest gas in the area, though, might save you $70 or $80 per year. Is there anything that can be done to save $500 or $1000 per year?
There are many factors that affect the price of gasoline. The most basic, though, is increasing demand. In places like China and India, car ownership is skyrocketing. In the past few years, oil production has little changed, but demand continues to rise. Basic economics tells us that rinsing demand with no change in supply leads to rising prices.
The reality is that I will probably never see $1.65 gas ever again in my lifetime. When you're on a budget, that's a hard reality to face.
When reality raises its ugly head, politicians smell blood. Every politician wishes they could come up with a way to tax us back to $2 gas, or to force Saudi Arabia to open the floodgates and let the oil pour forth, or to drill holes in the Alaskan tundra or the continental shelf to extract our own oil. Something, anything, to reduce the price.
The problem is that some of these "solutions" will only work in the short or medium term, but help us not one whit in the long term.
There is almost nothing the current president, nor the next president, nor the Congress can do to manipulate gas prices.
One idea is to cut the federal gas tax -- a tax holiday. Cutting the federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon, though, hardly seems worth it. Remember good old supply and demand? Increased demand for something in short supply means higher prices. That 18 cents will disappear in a week, and the deficit will do nothing but grow.
Some members of Congress want to impose windfall profits taxes on oil companies. This is an idea that I can support, but the new money should have a dedicated purpose having nothing to do with gas prices because such a tax will do nothing to lower the price of gas, and could make it go up.
Midwest farmers see the alternative fuels market as a great way to get paid more for their crops. They get more money when their corn is converted to ethanol than if it is sold as food. But if food costs rise as fuel prices go down, have we gained anything? And who's to say more ethanol means lower prices?
Increased domestic supply is also touted as a solution, extracting oil from shale or drilling at ANWR or off shore. But as environmental consciousness rises, more people don't see solutions in exploiting nature this way, they only see folly.
No, the real solutions are all long-term. We are going to have to bite the bullet.
The best solution is to decrease our need for oil. Higher CAFE standards, so that new cars get better mileage, are a start, but only just. What we really need is alternatively fueled vehicles.
We need bio-fuels, especially from non-food sources like switch grass, and they need to power hybrids that can eke out 100 or 200 miles per gallon. We need to develop hydrogen. We need better electric cars. Something. Anything!
What we need is an Apollo project for fuel. We need to invest time, money, and brain power in the problem. There is a solution out there, and I can guarantee you it has nothing to do with petroleum.
One day, there will be a need for the GasMan web site again, but instead of tracking the price of a gallon of gas, it will track the price of a liter of hydrogen or the cost to top off a quick-charge battery. The day cannot come soon enough.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Mixing personal and political
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on June 5, 2008.
Mixing personal and political
It isn't often that the ordinary citizen gets to represent his or her town, but a couple of weekends ago, that's just what I, and other fellow Willistonians, did.
The Democratic primary held on Town Meeting Day was not the end of the delegate selection process. Several weeks after the election, in towns throughout Vermont, Democrats met to select delegates for the state convention. In Williston, less than two dozen people congregated in the library's Community Room. We mingled and sipped coffee until it was time to tend to business.
That business was the selection of some of us to go to Barre in May, to be town delegates at the state convention. Turns out, Williston was allocated more delegates than there were people at the meeting, meaning that if we wanted to go, we could all go.
We separated into two camps, one for Obama and one for Clinton, signed our names to a sheet of paper, and left to go finish whatever weekend chores we had to do.
When I got home, I announced that I was an official Obama delegate from the town of Williston. My family's reaction was underwhelming, but I was excited. I had gone to the meeting to see what it was all about, and walked out a delegate. For a political junkie like myself, this was heady stuff.
I went to mark the date on the calendar and I quickly spotted a nexus between the political and the personal -- that weekend was when my sister was getting married, and family from all over the country would be descending on Vermont for the event. Since I was not in the wedding party, however, I figured the timing would work out.
As the time for the convention grew near, I started getting a new kind of email in my in-box. Other delegates to the state convention were vying for one of ten positions in Vermont's delegation to the national convention in Denver. The trickle of emails soon turned into a flood as delegates from around the state tried to get their name out there.
I'd already met one of these candidates in the library back in March -- Taylor Bates had been festooned in Obama regalia and made it a point to meet and greet each person who came into the room. He was already campaigning to be a delegate at the national convention. Though just barely old enough to vote and not even yet out of high school, he has been active in Democratic politics since he was 14.
The way the statewide voting went, Vermont was to send six Obama-pledged delegates and four Clinton-pledged delegates. Half of the delegation would be male, the other female. Bates, then, would be competing for one of three seats, against over 60 other men. There were so many candidates at the Obama sub-convention that candidate speeches were limited to 30 seconds each.
Based on the emails I'd already received and read, I'd made up my mind on the three men and three women I'd be voting for. When the results were read, three of my six choices had been elected. One of them was Taylor Bates. In fact, Bates was the second highest vote-getter, so he had more than just the Williston delegation pulling for him.
We heard speeches that day from former governor Madeleine Kunin, Senator Patrick Leahy, Representative Peter Welch, and Speaker of the House, and gubernatorial candidate, Gaye Symington. From my seat in the tenth row, it was inspiring to hear them speak, to call for action in the party, and to rally the troops to fight for Democratic candidates in the fall.
After a long day in Barre, I headed home, happy that I'd been able to do more for the Democratic Party than I ever had in any other election cycle. I enjoyed the quiet of my car trip back to Williston, knowing that when I arrived home, I'd be swept up in the excitement of seeing cousins, aunts, and uncles, and in the happiness of a nuptial weekend.
Though I was very proud of my town that weekend, and of Taylor Bates in particular, it all shadowed in comparison to the pride I felt for my family that next day. I got to escort my mother down the aisle. My brother officiated the ceremony wonderfully. And my only sister married a wonderful man. Congratulations, Kristin and Nick.
Mixing personal and political
It isn't often that the ordinary citizen gets to represent his or her town, but a couple of weekends ago, that's just what I, and other fellow Willistonians, did.
The Democratic primary held on Town Meeting Day was not the end of the delegate selection process. Several weeks after the election, in towns throughout Vermont, Democrats met to select delegates for the state convention. In Williston, less than two dozen people congregated in the library's Community Room. We mingled and sipped coffee until it was time to tend to business.
That business was the selection of some of us to go to Barre in May, to be town delegates at the state convention. Turns out, Williston was allocated more delegates than there were people at the meeting, meaning that if we wanted to go, we could all go.
We separated into two camps, one for Obama and one for Clinton, signed our names to a sheet of paper, and left to go finish whatever weekend chores we had to do.
When I got home, I announced that I was an official Obama delegate from the town of Williston. My family's reaction was underwhelming, but I was excited. I had gone to the meeting to see what it was all about, and walked out a delegate. For a political junkie like myself, this was heady stuff.
I went to mark the date on the calendar and I quickly spotted a nexus between the political and the personal -- that weekend was when my sister was getting married, and family from all over the country would be descending on Vermont for the event. Since I was not in the wedding party, however, I figured the timing would work out.
As the time for the convention grew near, I started getting a new kind of email in my in-box. Other delegates to the state convention were vying for one of ten positions in Vermont's delegation to the national convention in Denver. The trickle of emails soon turned into a flood as delegates from around the state tried to get their name out there.
I'd already met one of these candidates in the library back in March -- Taylor Bates had been festooned in Obama regalia and made it a point to meet and greet each person who came into the room. He was already campaigning to be a delegate at the national convention. Though just barely old enough to vote and not even yet out of high school, he has been active in Democratic politics since he was 14.
The way the statewide voting went, Vermont was to send six Obama-pledged delegates and four Clinton-pledged delegates. Half of the delegation would be male, the other female. Bates, then, would be competing for one of three seats, against over 60 other men. There were so many candidates at the Obama sub-convention that candidate speeches were limited to 30 seconds each.
Based on the emails I'd already received and read, I'd made up my mind on the three men and three women I'd be voting for. When the results were read, three of my six choices had been elected. One of them was Taylor Bates. In fact, Bates was the second highest vote-getter, so he had more than just the Williston delegation pulling for him.
We heard speeches that day from former governor Madeleine Kunin, Senator Patrick Leahy, Representative Peter Welch, and Speaker of the House, and gubernatorial candidate, Gaye Symington. From my seat in the tenth row, it was inspiring to hear them speak, to call for action in the party, and to rally the troops to fight for Democratic candidates in the fall.
After a long day in Barre, I headed home, happy that I'd been able to do more for the Democratic Party than I ever had in any other election cycle. I enjoyed the quiet of my car trip back to Williston, knowing that when I arrived home, I'd be swept up in the excitement of seeing cousins, aunts, and uncles, and in the happiness of a nuptial weekend.
Though I was very proud of my town that weekend, and of Taylor Bates in particular, it all shadowed in comparison to the pride I felt for my family that next day. I got to escort my mother down the aisle. My brother officiated the ceremony wonderfully. And my only sister married a wonderful man. Congratulations, Kristin and Nick.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The legislative session - a brief review
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on May 22, 2008. This version includes a correction and information about a few more pieces of legislation that had to be cut for length.
The legislative session - a brief review
One of the biggest surprises of the 2008 legislative session was not in what passed or what was vetoed, but rather in who would not be back at the podium in the fall. Speaker of the House Gaye Symington announced that she would not be seeking reelection. Symington will, instead, focus her electoral efforts on winning the governor's seat.
Unless Governor Jim Douglas does something really stupid in the interim, however, I think it likely he will be reelected in November. This is nothing to do with Symington's credentials - she has garnered a lot of good will from her three years as Speaker and dozen as a representative. Instead, it has more to do with the built-in protection that incumbency gives Vermont governors, from Snelling to Dean to Douglas.
As I've mentioned in this column before, however, the splitting of the government between the parties, though frustrating at times, tends toward better law as the parties have to work together, to compromise, to get things done.
That sort of compromise was evident in much of the legislation that did make its way out of the legislature this year.
First, though, it was a busy year for action on suffrage issues which I, as a student of political science, found very interesting.
The effort to extend two-year terms to four years, of which I've written before, failed in committee, to my great relief.
A bill designed to help revamp the national Electoral College by mutual agreement between the states passed both houses of the legislature, but was vetoed by the governor. I have a certain fondness for the Electoral College, but after some soul-searching, I'm convinced it is time for a change.
The bill would have had Vermont join a coalition of states which vow to allocate their electoral votes according to the direction of the national popular vote. The compact would only take effect when enough states sign on to make a majority of the electoral votes. Adding Vermont's three votes would have been a drop in the bucket, but I think it would have been a nice boost to the effort.
One constitutional amendment that did make it through this session, and will come up for consideration by the next session. The amendment, if passed in the next biennium and by the people, will allow the Freeman's Oath to be self-administered. I support this amendment, which will make same-day registration and by-mail registration much easier.
Finally, the legislature passed, but the governor vetoed, a bill to authorize instant run-off voting for federal elections. I think IRV is a good idea and deserves to be taken up again.
The legislature did as good a job as they could to keep costs down, with compromises between the legislature and the governor allowing progress to be made in health care, transportation, and job retention and creation.
In these difficult economic times, it was heartening to see some belt-tightening which, even if relatively small, gave struggling Vermonters the feeling that they are not alone. The governor was able to get agreement to half million dollars.
One particularly short-sighted plan from the governor, to lease the lottery to a private interest, was widely and wisely lambasted by many and died a quiet death.
A few other highlights include an independent audit of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant; the creation of a new type of charitable organization, a hybrid between a non-profit and a corporation; a bill providing libraries with some backup when they refuse to release lending records to authorities without a court order; a law that closes a loophole in existing law that allowed some mammograms to be charged out at exorbitant prices; and a bill allowing students on maintenance drugs for allergies and asthma to administer those drugs themselves, without the need for a school nurse to become involved.
In the end, we got some good law, stifled some bad, and did it all on a balanced budget - going into election season, the legislators and the governor have much to be proud of.
Note: the original column mentions a constitutional amendment that allows those not yet 18, but who will be at the time of the general election, to vote in the primaries for that election. This legislation was reported on a web page from the Burlington Free Press, but the page is mistaken. The proposed amendment is the "self-administered oath" amendment mentioned above. The following is the stricken text from the original column:
One constitutional amendment that did make it through this session, and will come up for consideration by the next session. The amendment would allow those who will be 18 at the next election, but who are not yet 18, to vote in the primaries for that future election. Any plan that gives young adults a chance to join the process is a positive step, and I encourage the next legislature to pass the amendment and for we, the people, to pass it also.
The legislative session - a brief review
One of the biggest surprises of the 2008 legislative session was not in what passed or what was vetoed, but rather in who would not be back at the podium in the fall. Speaker of the House Gaye Symington announced that she would not be seeking reelection. Symington will, instead, focus her electoral efforts on winning the governor's seat.
Unless Governor Jim Douglas does something really stupid in the interim, however, I think it likely he will be reelected in November. This is nothing to do with Symington's credentials - she has garnered a lot of good will from her three years as Speaker and dozen as a representative. Instead, it has more to do with the built-in protection that incumbency gives Vermont governors, from Snelling to Dean to Douglas.
As I've mentioned in this column before, however, the splitting of the government between the parties, though frustrating at times, tends toward better law as the parties have to work together, to compromise, to get things done.
That sort of compromise was evident in much of the legislation that did make its way out of the legislature this year.
First, though, it was a busy year for action on suffrage issues which I, as a student of political science, found very interesting.
The effort to extend two-year terms to four years, of which I've written before, failed in committee, to my great relief.
A bill designed to help revamp the national Electoral College by mutual agreement between the states passed both houses of the legislature, but was vetoed by the governor. I have a certain fondness for the Electoral College, but after some soul-searching, I'm convinced it is time for a change.
The bill would have had Vermont join a coalition of states which vow to allocate their electoral votes according to the direction of the national popular vote. The compact would only take effect when enough states sign on to make a majority of the electoral votes. Adding Vermont's three votes would have been a drop in the bucket, but I think it would have been a nice boost to the effort.
One constitutional amendment that did make it through this session, and will come up for consideration by the next session. The amendment, if passed in the next biennium and by the people, will allow the Freeman's Oath to be self-administered. I support this amendment, which will make same-day registration and by-mail registration much easier.
Finally, the legislature passed, but the governor vetoed, a bill to authorize instant run-off voting for federal elections. I think IRV is a good idea and deserves to be taken up again.
The legislature did as good a job as they could to keep costs down, with compromises between the legislature and the governor allowing progress to be made in health care, transportation, and job retention and creation.
In these difficult economic times, it was heartening to see some belt-tightening which, even if relatively small, gave struggling Vermonters the feeling that they are not alone. The governor was able to get agreement to half million dollars.
One particularly short-sighted plan from the governor, to lease the lottery to a private interest, was widely and wisely lambasted by many and died a quiet death.
A few other highlights include an independent audit of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant; the creation of a new type of charitable organization, a hybrid between a non-profit and a corporation; a bill providing libraries with some backup when they refuse to release lending records to authorities without a court order; a law that closes a loophole in existing law that allowed some mammograms to be charged out at exorbitant prices; and a bill allowing students on maintenance drugs for allergies and asthma to administer those drugs themselves, without the need for a school nurse to become involved.
In the end, we got some good law, stifled some bad, and did it all on a balanced budget - going into election season, the legislators and the governor have much to be proud of.
Note: the original column mentions a constitutional amendment that allows those not yet 18, but who will be at the time of the general election, to vote in the primaries for that election. This legislation was reported on a web page from the Burlington Free Press, but the page is mistaken. The proposed amendment is the "self-administered oath" amendment mentioned above. The following is the stricken text from the original column:
One constitutional amendment that did make it through this session, and will come up for consideration by the next session. The amendment would allow those who will be 18 at the next election, but who are not yet 18, to vote in the primaries for that future election. Any plan that gives young adults a chance to join the process is a positive step, and I encourage the next legislature to pass the amendment and for we, the people, to pass it also.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Shining light on our own flaws
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on May 8, 2008. This version includes expanded commentary on the various books listed.
Shining light on our own flaws
A few months ago, one of my sons asked me to help him with a homework assignment by reading aloud a few chapters from a book. The book was
The Giver by Lois Lowry, and reading the back cover, I was curious and quickly agreed. After reading through two chapters, I was intrigued by the depth of a book given to a fourth grader to read, and by the memories it prompted in me, memories of stories of dystopia.
A dystopian society is one which may seem idyllic on the surface, but which has fatal flaws, at least from our perspective. I devoured science fiction novels in high school, and many have this theme. They raised deep thoughts and hard questions, and after reading some of The Giver, I wanted to ask those same questions of my son.
What would it be like in a world with no war? It could be wonderful - but what if the cost was that everyone was the same, that the state chose your profession, dictated your life down to the meals you ate and the pills you took?
What about family? Would it be worth it, for everyone to have a perfect family, if the cost was that the state not only chose your spouse, but also assigned you your children? Are the differences in people so antithetical to peace that they have to be eliminated?
Heavy questions for a ten-year-old, answered admirably. But I wanted to revisit these themes for myself, so I read all of The Giver, and then bought and reread many of my old favorites along with some new discoveries. All of them provoke questions worthy of asking and answering.
For example, in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, all humans are produced in test tubes and raised by the state to do specific jobs. Individual achievement is discouraged. Whether you're born a ruling-class Alpha or a lowly Gamma, you're conditioned from birth to love your role in society and eschew all others. Everyone is happy, because no one has any choices of consequence. And if you ever find yourself unhappy, in need of a "vacation", a dose of government-issued soma will fix that.
In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the government of the United States has been taken over by a fundamentalist religion in the wake of environmental disasters. Mirroring the situation of many women in Muslim societies, women are highly respected and protected - to the point where they have no freedom. Because fertility is in rapid decline, some women are assigned to roles by the government, with the few remaining fertile women parceled out to high governmental officials for use as breeders. The story is told in the first-person, by a woman who used to be free, have a husband and daughter, a life. As she write, she recounts how she learned to wear the red dress of the breeders, and how she was conflicted between the self that wanted everything back the way it was and the self that wanted to just get along with the new order.
In Make Room Make Room! by Harry Harrison, the disasters of unfettered population growth, global warming, and declining agricultural production and water supplies lead to a world of have-nots, with only a few haves who can afford electricity, fresh food, and air conditioning. A luxury for the masses is a soylent burger, made of soybeans and lentil, or meat flakes, made from plankton. The water table around the city has sunk, replaced with undrinkable sea water; upstate farmers hold the city hostage by withholding water during the hottest summer on record.
In Jennifer Government by Max Barry, capitalism has gone awry. The Police has been converted to a private agency, available for hire, and only The Government, with no product to sell, watches out for the public - but with no taxes, The Government has to charge citizens for its services, like tracking down murderers. Murder, by the way, has become a marketing tool. One shoe company, for example, increases demand for its products by hiring someone to kill purchasers in a few large cities.
While usually not thought of as a dystopian novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding fits my criteria. It involves a group of young British boys marooned on a tropical island in the confusion of a nuclear war. One group tries desperately to organize the boys into a working society, with some gathering food, others building shelters, and still another group hunting for food. Paradise disintegrates, however, when the hunters decide they should run the show. I've written about Lord of the Flies before - in the end, savagery wins out over civilization, mostly because of fear and confusion.
One last example is a classic: In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveler takes his machine from urban 19th century London 800,000 years into the future, only to find that all of the buildings have been replaced by a verdant landscape inhabited by the gentle and diminutive Eloi. It doesn't take long for the Traveler to discover the horrible Darwinian secret of the Eloi - they are tended like cattle for consumption by the Morlocks, underground dwellers that tend the machinery of the planet.
And there are several other classics of the genre still on my reread list: 1984 by George Orwell, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.
If movies are more to your liking, there are also many in this genre: Soylent Green, Silent Running, Logan's Run, and THX-1138 are classics. More recently, the TV series Sliders and the films Escape from New York, Blade Runner, V for Vendetta, and I Am Legend use dystopian themes.
In any case, be it a book, short story, or film, the intent of all of these works is to shine light on something in our own time or society, in a way that not only provokes thought but also entertains. Non-fiction works like An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore or The World Without Us by Alan Weisman can inform us, too, of course, but there is something about fiction that opens the topic up to a wider audience.
We all have lives to live, in the here and now. We have to worry about our jobs, the configuration of our schools, the price of gas and food, who the next president will be. These are all important concerns, and they can be all-consuming.
But what these works all tell us, fiction or non-fiction, is that we have to look beyond ourselves. Our society is not perfect, by any means. But we have a strong foundation, and if we are diligent and use some forethought, we can avoid the pitfalls all of these works show us are possible.
Shining light on our own flaws
A few months ago, one of my sons asked me to help him with a homework assignment by reading aloud a few chapters from a book. The book was
The Giver by Lois Lowry, and reading the back cover, I was curious and quickly agreed. After reading through two chapters, I was intrigued by the depth of a book given to a fourth grader to read, and by the memories it prompted in me, memories of stories of dystopia.
A dystopian society is one which may seem idyllic on the surface, but which has fatal flaws, at least from our perspective. I devoured science fiction novels in high school, and many have this theme. They raised deep thoughts and hard questions, and after reading some of The Giver, I wanted to ask those same questions of my son.
What would it be like in a world with no war? It could be wonderful - but what if the cost was that everyone was the same, that the state chose your profession, dictated your life down to the meals you ate and the pills you took?
What about family? Would it be worth it, for everyone to have a perfect family, if the cost was that the state not only chose your spouse, but also assigned you your children? Are the differences in people so antithetical to peace that they have to be eliminated?
Heavy questions for a ten-year-old, answered admirably. But I wanted to revisit these themes for myself, so I read all of The Giver, and then bought and reread many of my old favorites along with some new discoveries. All of them provoke questions worthy of asking and answering.
For example, in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, all humans are produced in test tubes and raised by the state to do specific jobs. Individual achievement is discouraged. Whether you're born a ruling-class Alpha or a lowly Gamma, you're conditioned from birth to love your role in society and eschew all others. Everyone is happy, because no one has any choices of consequence. And if you ever find yourself unhappy, in need of a "vacation", a dose of government-issued soma will fix that.
In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the government of the United States has been taken over by a fundamentalist religion in the wake of environmental disasters. Mirroring the situation of many women in Muslim societies, women are highly respected and protected - to the point where they have no freedom. Because fertility is in rapid decline, some women are assigned to roles by the government, with the few remaining fertile women parceled out to high governmental officials for use as breeders. The story is told in the first-person, by a woman who used to be free, have a husband and daughter, a life. As she write, she recounts how she learned to wear the red dress of the breeders, and how she was conflicted between the self that wanted everything back the way it was and the self that wanted to just get along with the new order.
In Make Room Make Room! by Harry Harrison, the disasters of unfettered population growth, global warming, and declining agricultural production and water supplies lead to a world of have-nots, with only a few haves who can afford electricity, fresh food, and air conditioning. A luxury for the masses is a soylent burger, made of soybeans and lentil, or meat flakes, made from plankton. The water table around the city has sunk, replaced with undrinkable sea water; upstate farmers hold the city hostage by withholding water during the hottest summer on record.
In Jennifer Government by Max Barry, capitalism has gone awry. The Police has been converted to a private agency, available for hire, and only The Government, with no product to sell, watches out for the public - but with no taxes, The Government has to charge citizens for its services, like tracking down murderers. Murder, by the way, has become a marketing tool. One shoe company, for example, increases demand for its products by hiring someone to kill purchasers in a few large cities.
While usually not thought of as a dystopian novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding fits my criteria. It involves a group of young British boys marooned on a tropical island in the confusion of a nuclear war. One group tries desperately to organize the boys into a working society, with some gathering food, others building shelters, and still another group hunting for food. Paradise disintegrates, however, when the hunters decide they should run the show. I've written about Lord of the Flies before - in the end, savagery wins out over civilization, mostly because of fear and confusion.
One last example is a classic: In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveler takes his machine from urban 19th century London 800,000 years into the future, only to find that all of the buildings have been replaced by a verdant landscape inhabited by the gentle and diminutive Eloi. It doesn't take long for the Traveler to discover the horrible Darwinian secret of the Eloi - they are tended like cattle for consumption by the Morlocks, underground dwellers that tend the machinery of the planet.
And there are several other classics of the genre still on my reread list: 1984 by George Orwell, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.
If movies are more to your liking, there are also many in this genre: Soylent Green, Silent Running, Logan's Run, and THX-1138 are classics. More recently, the TV series Sliders and the films Escape from New York, Blade Runner, V for Vendetta, and I Am Legend use dystopian themes.
In any case, be it a book, short story, or film, the intent of all of these works is to shine light on something in our own time or society, in a way that not only provokes thought but also entertains. Non-fiction works like An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore or The World Without Us by Alan Weisman can inform us, too, of course, but there is something about fiction that opens the topic up to a wider audience.
We all have lives to live, in the here and now. We have to worry about our jobs, the configuration of our schools, the price of gas and food, who the next president will be. These are all important concerns, and they can be all-consuming.
But what these works all tell us, fiction or non-fiction, is that we have to look beyond ourselves. Our society is not perfect, by any means. But we have a strong foundation, and if we are diligent and use some forethought, we can avoid the pitfalls all of these works show us are possible.
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