Thomas Friedman, being the smartest person alive that he is, wrote a good op-ed this weekend about the administration's missed opportunity to turn the oil crisis around and make the move towards electric or hybrid cars, specifically by fixing gas prices at $4/gallon. Ideas like this, the ones that address environmental issues head on, always seem like no-brainers, regulations and laws that, sure, why wouldn't we implement them? I understand that people have a right to be skeptical about gloom-and-doom science predictions, but my logic tells me that if we're uncertain about how bad global warming and population growth are getting, if there is in fact a debate over how bad we are right now, isn't it prudent to err on the side of protecting the environment anyway?

I don't believe that it's just this administration or just the Republicans who are resisting making the move away from oil dependancy. Obviously, there must be so much messy politics that have entangled oil with foreign affairs and domestic oil companies that it's difficult to free the problem from the thorns without getting scratched. Friedman, however, says some inspiring stuff about how a good many Americans are ready for this change. Whether or not that's really true (I'm trying to predict how Alpharetta SUV-drivers would react to $4/gallon, and I don't think their first reaction would be to buy a Schwinn and a bell), I like the sound of it. I like the idea that Americans are "waiting" for someone to take leadership on this issue.

Oh, I spent a lot of time in used-book stores around Alpharetta/Roswell this week. I went to the Roswell store off Alpharetta Hwy, which is tucked in behind some profession office sanwiched between two glossy metal car dealerships. Normally it sells mostly old western paperbacks and "Oprah's," but I perused their classics section, and magically found a 6-volume Bantam edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare edited by D. Bevington--- my HTD professor from last quarter. That was my happy moment for the week.

My elitist moment of the week came a bit later when a woman came into the shop asking for a title by "J.R.R. Tuhl-kill-in." The way her voice lilted upward, in a question, sounded like she had never heard this name ever before. However, I should not gloat, since I am usually terrified of speaking or reading in class lest I mispronounce some crucial author's name or proper noun. This fear follows from a moment in Mrs. Malkin's 7th grade class when I provided the class with a creative pronouncing of "hors d'oeurves."

Finally: I had my first grad school crisis Saturday night when I started looking at admissions pages of various schools. More on this later.