Gray Watson Personal Thoughts 2002.05.06
Swing and a Miss
[ In going back over my old mail I came across this letter to my
local radio station WBUR and their program called OnPoint. They
usually are very good and this program was such a departure from their
normal quality that I had to write them. I am commenting on their
show on April 24, 2002 entitled The Hybrid: The Car of the Future?.
To whom it may concern:
I am a big fan of the Connection and OnPoint and a contributor to
WBUR. Having a environmental slant and looking to buy and Insight or
Prius, I was very interested in the show about hybrid cars. I could
not watch it live unfortunately but just listened to it online.
In short, I thought the program was one of the worst I've heard
from you. John DeCicco had little to contribute, Sarah Chaise with
her Land Rover and wisdom about driving in Afghanistan was little
better, and Tom Ashbrook was quite obviously skeptical and seemed
rather disinterested. He seemed more interested in the Catholic
Church scandal and the Arafat siege then the program.
- In the wake of 9/11, no one mentioned that 15 of the 19 hijackers
and Osama himself are all from Saudi Arabia who not only is one of the
top suppliers of oil to the US but also the number one financier of
secular Islamic fundamentalism. The American love of high performance
automobiles, SUVs, etc. comes with a cost which no one is recognizing.
With all of the fuss that is going on in the Middle East right now,
you'd think there would be some good segues into oil. Alas.
- No one mentioned the green house gases and that the US produces
21% of the global emissions of CO2 with 4% of the population.
- No one directly pointed out that while GM is suing the State of
California over its clean air and water regulations, it is the
Japanese, who have less oil than we (thank the lord), who are pushing
these consumer level technologies. The Japanese killed US car makers
in the 70s and 80s with fuel efficient small cars, and now, in my
view, are poised to do it yet again.
- No one talked about politics of oil. How we have an oil man in
the White House with oil companies like Enron stopping by for visits.
If the government upped the regulations on mileage would people stop
buying cars or something? What would they think would happen? It
would push the technologies and hopefully do away with vehicles like
the Excursion which gets <10 mpg. We might see a drop in power of
some cars which would undoubtedly drop the number of car fatalities,
etc.. But who cares about all that.
No, this was a program completely "in the box" and without much
excitement or educational value for most I would guess. Given the
high standards I have set for your show, maybe I'm not surprised that
you get and F every once and a while -- but I am still very
disappointed.
You are so very good with social and political tops that how you
could not see the social and political ramifications of the topic is
beyond me.
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