Pray for Gas, religious statues inside the stone pillar for the gas price sign at a gas station in northern NM, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
stop the wind, please stop
war, drought, hunger, judgment
drop the price of gas
nuestra señora
santo niño atocha
break us free from oil
exxon, conoco
profit from the rest of us
prisoners of war
4-plus a gallon
GM lays off 3 thousand
this isn’t funny
-related to post haiku (one-a-day).
Hi yb, my thoughts have been with you & your family. We have had house guests all week long. I know that you & QM have had personal things to take care of as well.
This particular post jumped out at me. Having been in the Transportation industry for most of of my career (over 25 years) I can assure you & anyone that that reads this, that will ALL pay for for the price of Diesel! Everyone has already noticed the increase in the cost of their groceries, etc.
I’m sure we have noticed the cost of gas that it takes to operate our personal vehicles. We adjust our lives accordinally.(We think we don’t have a choice)
At the risk of sounding grim, I fear that this far from over. Therefore, we must all take a stand. How can the large oil companies brag about such grand profits & yet we continue to pay? (more & more) Take a stand & as yb points out “this isn’t funny”. Good, hardworking people, the consumers, are paying a price, while THEY profit big time. And the trucking industry is suffering the most. You & I pay for that. “If you got it, a truck brought it.” My view. D
LikeLike
Ok, I sent my last comment off long before I was done. I wonder if many people really know how many MPG’s a big rig really gets? Trust me, large companies such as Kraft, etc., pay fuel surcharges to the Transportation industry, but WE ALL PAY IN THE BIG PICTURE! We need to wake up & take a stand. Thank you, yb. D
LikeLike
That’s exactly right. We have noticed the jump in food prices. And why? Because of the jump in transportation cost — i.e., gas prices. I can NOT even begin to imagine how disheartening it must be to pay for a full tank on one of those semis and then to have to do it again and again and again. Yesterday, coming I-25 all the way home from southern Colorado to ABQ, we had to refuel in Santa Fe. The headwind was horrendous. We got great gas mileage on the way up, and even though we took a slightly longer route via Taos, we got where we were going with a 1/4-tank to spare. The wind was brutal coming home. I’m sure all the truckers were hurting.
And yes, it’s as funny as a heart attack, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Thought provoking post, ybonesy. Love the photographs, too. Really great with the haiku. What the post and diddy’s and your comments bring home for me is how connected everything is. When we think of gas prices going up, we mostly think of driving our cars from here to there. But it’s so much bigger than that. The truckers are hurting, the farmers are hurting (from corn diverted to ethanol), food prices are going up — everything is connected.
And in the middle of all this, Bush’s solution is to go into what little undeveloped land we have left in this country (I heard just this week about him pressuring again to move into Alaskan park lands), and drill for oil. Instead of pressuring the car industries to develop more efficient cars (and get rid of all the gas guzzling SUV’s), developing mass transit systems across the country — well, I could go on and on.
I’m having a hard time with the way we keep taking more and more and more, and giving less and less and less back to the earth. I’m willing to pay more for alternative solutions that work. But it’s hard to get corporate interests behind them, since they will be making less money.
diddy and ybonesy, do you have ideas about how we can make a difference on the individual level? What are some things we can do day to day, to help the situation. I’d love to hear people’s ideas on that.
LikeLike
Instead of pressuring the car industries to develop more efficient cars (and get rid of all the gas guzzling SUV’s)
This is exactly why GM is laying off 3,550 people in the U.S. No one wants these trucks and SUVs any longer. Everything is connected — and the idea that we’re not in a recession or that Bush and his policies are not to blame — it’s gotten to the point where I can not even stand seeing him on TV any longer. It’s depressing and disgusting what has happened.
What can we do individually? Efficient cars. (BTW, I love small cars — would have loved to buy a mini-Cooper, but there are SOOOOO many big — I mean BIG — trucks and SUVs on the road in NM that small cars are almost deadly.) Grow food locally and eat it, sell it at growers markets. Support local growers. Elect a president who is going to turn around these policies and start developing alternative energies, and putting in place other policies that recognize this fact — we DON’T have unlimited resources. We are using it up, fast. And we are destroying what little we have left.
LikeLike
ybonesy, there is a Ford plant closing over in St. Paul soon. Or maybe it already closed. It’s been there on the river forever and is a big loss to our local economy. I think they made some of the bigger Ford trucks.
The BMW MINI Cooper is my next dream car. I’ve been salivating over one of those for the last 3 or 4 years. BTW, they are pretty safe in terms of frames, as they have the BMW history of designing for safety.
The original Mini first came out in 1959, and it was because of a 1956 fuel shortage as a result of the Suez Crisis. Oil supplies were reduced then, and the United Kingdom re-introduced gas rationing.
Wouldn’t you think the world would have learned from these repeated kinds of lessons on fossil based fuels? We don’t have unlimited resources. And the answer is not to go in and drill on the last wilderness we have left. It’s all so shortsighted.
Liz and I saw a bright yellow Smart Car on the way to work this morning. They’re really tiny, much smaller than the MINI Cooper. Hey, did anyone hear about today being a national day of not buying gas to protest the rising gas prices?
LikeLike
What a bizarre conjunction of gas price sign and votive images. Kind of disturbing – belief in a system, praying to a system which is mainly untenable in the long run – the vehicle Gods, the gas Gods. As I sit and type this – there is perpetual vehicle motion outside my window. I know truckers are sitting on either side of the border between Washington state and BC, waiting to transport all matter of goods either way – a costly and wasteful proposition, largely unexamined for its potential effects on a series of inter-related human activities and needs ( and carrying capacity of our limited world).
I think it would do more to protest rising gasoline prices for everyone to stop driving cold-turkey, and throw a solid wrench into the system of transportation as we know it. i know this would seem a Luddite move, but it might be more effective protest than any other – mainly because of the inter-connected dependence on gasoline in all our doings. G
LikeLike
Well, the sad thing about the price of Diesel is that it actually costs less to produce it. Makes no sense at all. And QM is correct in her comment about how the farmers are hurting also. I plan on having a small garden this year, which is something I haven’t had in 7 years.
yb’s comments on Bush are right on! I also refuse to to watch or read any news re:him. What a piece of crap he is!
The automobile makers are beginning to wise up to some extent, but we should know that it is because of profits & not the concern of the real issues at hand. The plant closings & layoffs are the sad reality of what this administration has done for the little guy. I see it here locally with companies such as Hershey Chocolate etc.. Moving jobs & plants to other countries. I have boycotted all Hershey products for quite some time now.
As far as the cost of gas, I am fortunate enough to own a Honda. My husbands Ford F150 gets terrible gas mileage.
This tax rebate provided by the current administraion was a joke. Bush said it would help boost the economy! Does he think we are as stupid as he is? Let me assure you that his hands are in pockets of big oil companies. Come February of next year he & Laura will return to their ranch & reap the benefits of what he has done to us. The next administration will have to struggle to correct his mess. How sad.
I wish I had a solution, but it has become baffling to me. My feathers become ruffled just thinking about it.
I forgot to mention the haiku & photos on this post. They are awesome! D
LikeLike
I’ve been contemplating this very problem lately…As Ybonesy knows, I am posting this from Venezuela, home of the world’s cheapest gas (about $0.06/gallon), but that doesn’t keep inflation in check. Venezuela has the highest inflation in Latin America. Chavez’s policies are pretty messed up…
Anyway I don’t want to make this a bragging or Venezuelan political post…I am thinking about the people I used to work with, the Navajo.
On the Navajo Indian Reservation, it is not unusual to see a 5 year old car or truck with over 200,000 miles on the odometer. In my latest gig out there, I had put 88,000 miles on my Ford Escort in two years! Most of that was from “local” driving.
For most people, to get basic groceries and supplies, and get basic medical help, means a probably on average, a 30 mile or more (each way) trip to town.
Where I was living, it was 15 miles to Crownpoint (one grocery, minimal services, Indian Heath Care hospital), 35 miles to Grants (a couple of grocers including a small Wal-Mart Super Center), 55 miles to Gallup (several grocers), 100+ miles to Albuquerque.
I can imagine many families going back to buying supplies at the local trading post (if they are still around) and eating beans, fry bread, and mutton. I don’t think many families, unless the government subsidizes their fuel costs, will be able to travel into town to buy supplies like they have become accustom too.
Like Ybonesy said, buy locally if you can. I’m into bicycles, so I promote bike use for commuting and errand running if it is your cup of tea (and if it is safe). I did it at a point of my life where I didn’t want to pay for gas for my car in the mid-80’s. I commuted 12 miles each way, everyday to work and back. But i was living on a small island at the time…Not too practical when living in the wide-open spaces of New Mexico, Arizona, west Texas, etc., but in town it could be a viable option.
LikeLike
Amen
LikeLike
MM, I didn’t know that Venezuela gas prices were *that* low. Wow! Has the truck/SUV craze taken off there? If anywhere, it seems that in a place where gas is so cheap, you’d also see gas-guzzling vehicles.
You have raised my awareness about how much people in the West — NM, Arizona — who live in the vast remote areas we have here must be hurting. The folks on Indian reservations, ranchers, farmers. Oh man, that’s another dimension of how sad this whole predicament is that we’re in. Thanks for bringing it up.
diddy, some of us in other parts of the country learned during the course of the recent primaries more about the economic woes in Pennsylvania. Definitely big changes that have been underway for years now. The loss of US manufacturing is frightening and depressing. I see it in my industry, too, which is not traditional manufacturing but more advanced. My state of NM has not managed to diversify its economy very well, and we continue to rank among the poorest of states. It’s tough, and although the traditions around religion and saints pre-dates how we view modern economies, I understand completely why we continue to rely on our faith and our saints.
LikeLike
The most common car down here are the small Korean type cars like I drive, but there is a pretty fair amounts of SUVs in all sizes. Of course this will mainly depend what neighborhoods you are in. Mainly small cars because they are more affordable to buy. Just so you know, it’ll cost about $0.50 to fill the tank on my Kia.
LikeLike
Wow. That’s pretty amazing. And fishing is free. Or pretty inexpensive, I bet.
LikeLike
yb, I also was intigued by the comments of mm. I find it so interesting to read about those living in other countries.
As far as PA is concerned, much of it is still rural America. In fact the area that my family resides in is very rural. The people there rely on their gardens, local farmers from whom they order sides of beef, etc, & canning their own goods. They stock up when they can. They prepare. I often tease my parents that they could feed the entire county in which they reside in if there was ever the need. They too must travel great distances in order to do their shopping.
I heard on the news this morning that the Truckers were planning on striking on Monday. The sad truth is that most of them cannot afford to it. The cost of their trucks, insurance, tags, & permits are more than double, if not higher than the majority of us pay for mortgages on our homes. D
LikeLike
ybonesy, gas popped up $3.85 here this week, right before the Holiday. I filled up with half a tank yesterday. I don’t use as much gas as I used to since moving in with Liz. I did see that many Minnesota families will only go as far as the Wisconsin Dells this weekend, mostly because of gas prices. What’s it running in New Mexico this Memorial weekend?
LikeLike
QM, I just a bit ago ran out to run some errands and said to myself, “Look at the signs at the gas stations.” Well, I forgot to look. So, I googled it to see, and I found this “gas price watch” (LINK).
Northern NM (Four Corners) it at $3.90, Taos tops it at $3.99, and Albuquerque is around $3.80s. As you know, on Monday I’ll go on my annual trek to Costilla with Dad. Dad, being the planner that he is, filled up earlier in the week when the gas was about $3.55. Hopefully we won’t need to get another fill-up while we’re up that way.
LikeLike
Wow, $3.99 in Taos. That’s got to be hard on the people who live there. Smart of your dad to fill up the tank earlier in the week. Can’t wait to hear about your annual trip to Costilla tomorrow. I hope the weather’s good, too.
LikeLike
[…] is drying up for a local history museum in a rural MN town (many museums receive Arts funding). The volunteers can’t afford the gas to get there and are asking for […]
LikeLike
[…] If you think about it, cars were the Internet of their day, changing the way people communicated, visited with family, and, eventually, after the Interstate infrastructure was built by Eisenhower in the 1950’s, the way we moved around the country, sometimes never to return home. Cars changed America. (And our dependence on fossil fuels and wildly fluctuating gas prices prove it.) […]
LikeLike
ybonesy, after the big crash of the economy, gas is down to $2.13 in Minnesota. I couldn’t believe it when I saw that sign this morning. What is it in New Mexico?
I was listening to an NPR show on it last weekend though and it said OPEC is scrambling to regulate the amount of oil being produced. Once it drops, the experts say gas prices are going to shoot way up past anything we’ve seen, and just as fast as it dropped over the last few weeks.
LikeLike
Let’s see…I filled up my tank yesterday, and I think it was $2.29. It was probably lower in a few gas stations—Costco’s gas is usually about 3-5 cents lower. But I like buying from the one gas station right in our town.
I’ve figured the gas drop had to do with the elections—get people’s minds off the rising prices of everything so they’ll not take that worry with them to the voting booths. Me, I’ve gotten so cynical about these things.
LikeLike
Hmmm. Interesting theory. I somehow think the gas thing is much bigger than our elections, more global. But that’s just me. I can be naive that way, looking at things on their own merit and kind of separated out. But I’m not following the political process all that much either, at least not the day-to-day grind, but more in a general way.
And for some reason, I am more interested in what other countries think about the US as we go through all of this. I am often engrossed in listening to experts in the rest of the world talk about how all the global pieces fall together. I did see a US map of red and blue states on the news last night. It’s getting down to the end.
Seems like the gas prices in NM are running pretty close to what they are here. I heard another NPR segment this morning about this depression/recession lasting a couple of years, with the second year being a slow rise of growth. I’m guessing the world will be a very different place to live.
LikeLike