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完形填空。 I've loved my mother's desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it as mot
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完形填空。&&&&I've loved my mother's desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it as mother sat doingletters. Standing by her chair, looking at the ink bottle, pen, and white paper, I decided that the act of&&1&must be the most&&&2&&thing in the world.&&&&Years later, during her final illness, mother&&&3&different things for my sister and brother. "But the&&&4&",she said, "is for Elizabeth".&&&&I never saw her angry, and never saw her cry. I knew she&&5&&me. She showed it in action. But&&&6&&ayoung girl, I wanted heart-to-heart talks&&&7&mother and daughter. They never happened. And a gulfopened between us. I was "too emotional".&&&&8&she lived "on the surface".&&&&As years passed and I graduated from college, I loved my mother and I wrote to her in&9words andasked her to let me know in any way she chose that she did&&&&10&me. I posted the letter and waited forher answer.&&&11&came. My hope turned to&&&12, then little interest, finally, peace --- it seemed that nothing happened. I couldn't be sure that the&&&13&&&had even got to Mother. I only knew that I had written it, and Icould&&&&14&&trying to make her into someone she was not.&&&&Now the&&&15of her desk told me, as she'd&&16&&&been able to, that she was&&&17&&that writing was mychosen work. I&&&18&&&the desk carefully and found some papers&&&19--- a photo of my father and aone-page letter, folded and refolded many times. "Give me an answer", my letter asks, "in any way youchose". Mother, you always chose the&&20&that speaks louder than words.(&&&&)1. A. speaking&&(&&&&)2. A. wonderful&&(&&&&)3. A. bought&&&&(&&&&)4. A. pen&&&&&&&&(&&&&)5. A. loved&&&&&&(&&&&)6. A. like&&&&&&(&&&&)7. A. with&&&&&&(&&&&)8. A. So&&&&&&&&(&&&&)9. A. careful&&&&(&&&&)10. A. ignore&&&&(&&&&)11. A. No one&&&&(&&&&)12. A. surprise&&(&&&&)13. A. ideas&&&&(&&&&)14. A. stand&&&&(&&&&)15. A. present&&(&&&&)16. A. always&&&&(&&&&)17. A. sorry&&&&(&&&&)18. A. moved&&&&(&&&&)19. A. inside&&&&(&&&&)20. A. gesture&&B. writing&&&&B. tiring&&&&&&B. gave&&&&&&&&B. paper&&&&&&B. disliked&&&&B. as&&&&&&&&&&B. among&&&&&&B. And&&&&&&&&B. active&&&&&&B. accept&&&&&&B. None&&&&&&&&B. joy&&&&&&&&B. informationB. stop&&&&&&&&B. appearance&&B. ever&&&&&&&&B. encouraged&&B. cleaned&&&&B. outside&&&&B. method&&&&&&C. looking&&&&&&C. funny&&&&&&&&C. designed&&&&&&C. chair&&&&&&&&C. appreciated&&C. be&&&&&&&&&&&&C. beside&&&&&&&&C. But&&&&&&&&&&C. thankful&&&&&&C. forgive&&&&&&C. Something&&&&C. disappointmentC. news&&&&&&&&&&C. continue&&&&&&C. shape&&&&&&&&C. never&&&&&&&&C. regretful&&&&C. fixed&&&&&&&&C. below&&&&&&&&C. action&&&&&&&&D. listening&&&&&&D. productive&&&&D. kept&&&&&&&&&&D. desk&&&&&&&&&&D. sympathized&&&&D. unlike&&&&&&&&D. between&&&&&&&&D. Or&&&&&&&&&&&&D. serious&&&&&&&&D. dislike&&&&&&&&D. Neither&&&&&&&&D. happiness&&&&&&D. Letter&&&&&&&&D. practice&&&&&&D. sight&&&&&&&&&&D. often&&&&&&&&&&D. pleased&&&&&&&&D. emptied&&&&&&&&D. above&&&&&&&&&&D. way&&&&&&&&&&&&
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1完形填空。&&&&20 years ago, I drove a cab&&&1&&a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pickup at abuilding that was dark&&&2&&a single light in a ground floor window. After a long pause, a small woman in her 80's stood before me.&&&&"Would you carry my bag out to the car?" she said. I took her small suitcase to the cab, and thenreturned to&&&3&&the woman. She kept thanking me for my kindness. " It's nothing." I told her. "I just try totreat my passengers the&&&4&&I would want my mother treated."&&&&"Riverside Street, please. But could you drive through downtown?"&&&&"It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly.&&&&"Oh, I don't mind," She said." I'm in no&&5&. I am on my way to a hospice." I looked in the back viewmirror. Her eyes were full of&&&6&. "I don't have any family&&7&." She continued. "The&&&8&&says I don't havevery long." While we were driving through the city, she showed me the building where she had onceworked. Sometimes she asked me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would&&&9&&intothe darkness, saying&&10&. Not until the first ray of the sun&&&11&&up the sky did we get to the address shehad given me.&&&&" How much do I&&&12&&you?" she asked.&&&&" Nothing," I said. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She&&&13&&onto me tightly, saying&&"You gave an old woman a little moment of joy." Then she walked into the hospice.&&&&Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the&&&14&of a life. I don't pick up any more passengers forthe rest of the day. I drove&&15&, lost in thought.&&&16&&I had refused to take the run? On a quick&&&17, Idon't think I have done anything more&&&18&&in my life. We are conditioned to think that our lives&&&19&&ongreat moments. But great moments often catch us&&&20&&----beautifully hidden in what others may considera small one.(&&&&)1. A. at&&&&&&&&&&(&&&&)2. A. except for&&(&&&&)3. A. take&&&&&&&&(&&&&)4. A. attitude&&&&(&&&&)5. A. trouble&&&&&&(&&&&)6. A. puzzlement&&(&&&&)7. A. gone&&&&&&&&(&&&&)8. A. lawyer&&&&&&(&&&&)9. A. stare&&&&&&&&(&&&&)10. A. much&&&&&&&&(&&&&)11. A&&came&&&&&&&&(&&&&)12. A. charge&&&&&&(&&&&)13. A. kept&&&&&&&&(&&&&)14. A. beginning&&(&&&&)15. A. aimlessly&&(&&&&)16. A. How come&&&&(&&&&)17. A. review&&&&&&(&&&&)18. A. troublesome(&&&&)19. A. depend&&&&&&(&&&&)20. A. sudden&&&&&&B. for&&&&&&&&&&&&B. but for&&&&&&&&B. bring&&&&&&&&&&B. manner&&&&&&&&B. hurry&&&&&&&&&&B. excitement&&&&B. stayed&&&&&&&&B. doctor&&&&&&&&B. wander&&&&&&&&B. nothing&&&&&&&&B. appeared&&&&&&B. owe&&&&&&&&&&&&B. held&&&&&&&&&&B. symbol&&&&&&&&B. deliberately&&B. So what&&&&&&&&B. pause&&&&&&&&&&B. important&&&&&&B. rely&&&&&&&&&&B. unaware&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&C. of&&&&&&&&&&&&C. far from&&&&&&C. accompany&&&&C. way&&&&&&&&&&C. time&&&&&&&&&&C. eagerness&&&&C. left&&&&&&&&&&C. neighbor&&&&&&C. disappeared&&C. anything&&&&&&C. showed&&&&&&&&C. give&&&&&&&&&&C. caught&&&&&&&&C. sign&&&&&&&&&&C. intentionallyC. What if&&&&&&C. rest&&&&&&&&&&C. enthusiastic&&C. look&&&&&&&&&&C. conscious&&&&D. in&&&&&&&&&&D. instead of&&D. assist&&&&&&D. means&&&&&&&&D. danger&&&&&&D. sadness&&&&&&D. remained&&&&D. relative&&&&D. step&&&&&&&&D. none&&&&&&&&D. lit&&&&&&&&&&D. cost&&&&&&&&D. seized&&&&&&D. closing&&&&&&D. carefully&&&&D. How about&&&&D. memory&&&&&&D. worthless&&&&D. center&&&&&&D. expected&&&&2阅读理解。&&&&A teacher of English as a second language is the 2004 Teacher of the Year in the United States .Kathy Mellor of Rhode Island will spend the next year as an international spokeswoman for education.President Bush and his wife, Laura ,honored her during a ceremony (仪式) at the White House last week.&&&For the past nineteen years ,Kathy Mellor has taught English as a second language at Davisville Middle School in North Kingstown, Rhode Island ,in the northeastern United States .She redesigned the programfor E.S.L students at her school to provide each student with one to three periods per day in classes forEnglish learners .How much instruction the students get depends on their level of skill in listening ,speaking ,reading and writing. The amount of time they spend in these classes in reduced as their level of Englishincreases.&&&A teacher describes this as the most successful E.S.L. program in North Kingstown. She also praisesKathy Mellor for providing help to students and their families by forming a local parents group forspeakers of other languages .This improved their ability to help their children.&&&Kathy Mellor earned a master's degree in education from Rhode Island College. She studied teachingEnglish as a second language.&&&She was chosen for the national honor of Teacher of the Year from among top teachers in each of thefifty states .As Teacher of the Year ,Kathy Mellor will travel around the United States and to othercountries .She will talk about the importance of education and the work of teachers.1.This passage is mainly about________.A. Teacher of the Year 2004 in the United States&&&&B. Ms Mellor's English teaching instructionC. Ms Mellor's teaching skills of learning English&&D. praises to Ms Mellor from other teachers2.What does "E.S.L." in the passage stand for?&A. English study learners.&&&&&&&&&&&&B. English speaking and listening.C. English special learners.&&&&&&&&&&&&D. English as a second language.3. From this passage we can learn that ________.A. middle school teachers from each state are honored Teachers of the YearB. middle school teachers in the USA have to get master's degreesC. Ms Mellor's students have no problems in learning EnglishD. the American government pays much attention to education3阅读理解。&&&&A university graduate described as a "respectable and intelligent" woman is seeking professional helpafter being convicted of (证明有……罪) shoplifting for the second time in six months.&&&&Ana Luz, recently studying for her PhD, has been told she could end up behind bars unless she cancontrol the desire to steal from shops .&&&&Luz ,who lives with her partner in Fitzwilliam Road ,Cambridge ,admitted stealing clothes worth ￡9.95 from John Lewis in Oxford Street ,London ,on March 9.&&&&Phillip Lemoyne ,prosecuting (起诉),said Luz selected some clothes from a display and took them tothe ladies' toilet in the store .When she came out again she was wearing one of the skirts she had selected ,having taken off the anti-theft security alarms (防盗警报装置).She was stopped and caught after leaving the store without paying ,Mr Lemoyne said.&&&&He added that she was upset on her arrest and apologized for her actions.&&&&Luz,28, was said to have been convicted of shoplifting by Cambridge judges last October ,but MoragDuff, defending ,said she had never been in trouble with the police before that .&&&&"She is ashamed and embarrassed but doesn't really have any explanation why she did this," Miss Duffsaid. "She didn't intend to steal when she went into the store .She is at a loss to explain it. She is otherwise a very respectable and intelligent young lady .She went to her doctor and asked for advice because shewants to know if there is anything in particular that caused her to do this."&&Judge David Azan fined Luz ￡ 50,&&and warned : "You've got a criminal record .If you carry on likethis ,you will end up in prison ,which will ruin your bright future you may have."&&Luz achieved a degree in design at university in her native Spain ,went on to a famous university inBerlin , Germany for her master's degree and is now studying for a PhD at Cambridge University ,UK.1.What is Ana Luz's nationality?A. American.&&&&&&B. British.&&&&&&C. Spanish.&&&&&&D. German.2.What does the underlined sentence "She is at a loss to explain it" mean?&A. In her opinion it was a loss to the clothes shops where she stole things .B. She doesn't have any idea why she has the desire to steal from shops .C. She thinks it is a loss for her to explain why she stole things from shops.D. Personally she feels ashamed and embarrassed for her shoplifting actions.3.Which of the following best explains the meaning of the word "shoplifting" used in the passage?A . Carrying goods in a lift for a shop.&&&&&&&&B. Taking goods to the ladies' toilet .C. Selecting some goods from a display.&&&&&&D. Taking goods from a shop without paying.4. From the passage we can learn that&&&&&&&&.A. Ana Luz is already got her PhD at Cambridge University ,UKB. Ana Luz is ashamed and embarrassed and knows why she often did so&C. the university graduate will be put in prison if she steals in shops once more&D. Phillip Lemoyne is the "respectable and intelligent" woman's defense lawyer5.What would be the best title for the passage ?A. Shoplifting Shame of a PhD Student&&&&&&&&&&B. Apologizing for the Actions in ShopsC. Seeking Professional Help from Experts&&&&&&&&D. Controlling the Desire to Steal from Shops4阅读理解。&&&&The gray-haired lady can't wait to leave the building to search for her dad .Unless watched ,she willwalk in the streets in an effort to find her father ,who died 30years ago.&&&&Not all cases of Alzheimer's disease look like this ,but Alzheimer's is a serious disease that is said tobe the fourth or fifth leading cause of death for people over age 75.&&&&It is said that about three percent of the U.S. population over age 65 have Alzheimer's .In the earlystages ,people may exhibit short term memory loss. Some may experience changes in personality , easyto be angry .As the disease progresses ,patients might lose the ability to move and may be unable to speak or move at all. This progressive disease generally lasts 8 to 10 years before death occurs.&&&While no one is certain what causes these changes in the brain's nerve fibers (神经纤维),their effect iscertain .Alzheimer's destroys not only the patients ,but also spouses(配偶),friends and families.&&&What should you do if you notice progressive memory loss in yourself or a loved one? Have the person examined by a doctor who is a specialist in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.&&&Though many reasons other than Alzheimer's disease may cause memory loss ,its early diagnosis(诊断)and treatment may delay some of the most serious effects.&&&&What feeling will you likely experience should a loved one suffer from Alzheimer' s disease? A personwill often go through the various stages of sadness, shock, anger, and so on. If the spouse develops thedisease, you may experience hurt and disappointment when he or she doesn't remember you are married.&&&&Life for the Alzheimer's patients and their loved ones will never be the same as the disease progresses ,bringing a deep sorrow ,loss and even anger towards God .No matter what feelings are present , facingthem honestly will serve one better than burying them.1.What can be inferred from the passage about the gray-haired day?A. She has been living with her father.&&&&&&&&&&&&&&B. She was sad about the death of her father.C. She can't search for her father without being watched.&&D. She suffers from Alzheimer's disease.2.When people suffer from Alzheimer's disease , ________.A. their families and friends will suffer from the same diseaseB. their families and friends will experience mental sufferingsC. they will certainly die in 8 to 10 yearsD. they will forget everybody but their spouses3. Memory loss occurs ________.A. from Alzheimer's disease and nothing else&&&&B. from sadness ,shock ,anger ,and so onC. for a number of reasons&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&D. with changes in personality4. From the passage we know that_____.A. early treatment may stop Alzheimer's disease occurringB. it is still unknown what causes the changes in the brain's nerve fibersC. nerve fibers in the brain will cause Alzheimer's diseaseD. when one suffers from Alzheimer's disease ,he will be buried
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Wednesday, November 05, 2008
The One and Only Susan Arbetter -- I don't think there's a broadcaster I've enjoyed working with more in my over 20 years in radio than Susan Arbetter.If you live anywhere in New York State, chances are you know her as the host of , which airs on PBS stations statewide. Perhaps you've read . Maybe you read about . For three years, I was privileged to work a couple of feet away from her in the WAMC newsroom in Albany, New York. WAMC is Albany's NPR affiliate, and Susan and I toiled together in the station's newsroom, she masterminding The Roundtable, a daily three-hour news and entertainment show, while I produced and hosted a comparitively paltry one-hour news show, Midday Magazine. If you've seen or heard her work, you know Susan is a brilliant broadcast journalist, insightful, warm and as engaging a presence as you'll find on TV or radio. In the three years we worked together at WAMC, we had many amazing conversations that I'll never forget, and I learned a hell of a lot from her about intellectual honesty and just putting it out there. Knowing her helped me be a little less afraid to express myself, and it's safe to say I'll always cherish the many hours we batted ideas around, laughed at our stupid and brilliant in-jokes, or shared the many and varied treats that found their way into the newsroom, low-fat, low-carb and high-fiber, every last goddamn one of 'em. Right, Susan? Anyways, these days I'm writing and producing commercials in the foothills of the Adirondacks, while Susan is a famous TV personality and blogger. But she still takes the time to answer my emails, and I stand amazed and honoured that she has the time to reminisce and laugh with me on a regular basis, even if these days it's only in email. I miss the hell out of working with her, it was truly a high point of my career. And like most high points, you don't really realize it until you're looking at it in the rearview mirror.Anyway, today is Susan's birthday, and I wanted to take a minute to wish her a very happy birthday and many, many returns of the day. I'd share one of those private in-jokes to bring a smile to your face, but the first one I thought of, and one that's most appropriate to the year I've been having, is a dirty little ditty that begins with the words "Here comes..." and then ventures off into NC-17 territory. But Susan, I want you to know I think of that song often, and I always think of you when I do. I'm sure that's both hilarious and incredibly inappropriate, and I can't think of a more appropriate way to wish you a happy birthday. Give Bill a hug for me, and tell him to give you one right back, and from there, just go with wherever the moment takes you, 'kay?Labels:
// posted by Alan David Doane&@&
Friday, August 24, 2007
ADD Interviews Harvey Pekar -- In October of 2005, on the occasion of the release of the graphic novel The Quitter, I did a radio interview with writer Harvey Pekar, whose American Splendor series of autobiographical comics pointed the way to the future of the artform for decades. This interview was transcribed by Michael Rhode, and will also appear in a forthcoming collection of interview with Pekar that he is editing..Alan David Doane: Comic book readers have known about Harvey Pekar for many years following your life and times through your series American Splendor. The greater public at large learned about your story through the American Splendor movie a couple of years back. Tell me what effect the movie had on your life and your approach to your comics?Harvey Pekar: Like I say, I’m just living the way I used to live. I live in the same house, I eat the same food, I dress the same. Y’know, there’s not much difference. I’m trying to do as much writing as I possibly can – you know, comic book writing and prose writing because I do reviews and some essays.Which do you enjoy more – the comics writing or the prose writing? Or is it just two totally different…I mean comics writing is more important to me than prose writing most of the time because in comics writing I fell like I sort of have kind of an innovative style, and I want to extend that. It’s important to me to do kind of new things. The prose stuff that I do – stylistically it’s pretty straightforward, although I get really worked about some of the stuff, you know like politics or music reviews or book reviews – things like that. But nobody would have heard of me if it hadn’t been for comics. I’m very lucky, and very thankful that I got a few breaks that enabled me to have a career in comics.Since the movie came out, there have been quite a few really big collections of your previous comics work in addition to your new book, which we’re going to talk about in a few minutes. Do you think these collections are helping you to expand your readership?Yeah, I know they are because they’re selling fairly well, and that’s something I should say – since the movie, my book sales have really, you know, skyrocketed. I mean going from practically nothing into respectability. I mean I actually for the first time in my life, and I’ve been doing comics for many, many years, I’m actually making royalties. I feel like that’s quite a luxury.Yeah, but it’s a luxury you’ve certainly worked for with all the years … just from reading your stories…all the years of worrying about paying bills and trying to make the comic successful, it must be quite gratifying.Yeah, it is very gratifying, but it’s like I’m too old to really believe it. You know, every time I get a check or something like that, it’s a joke. I go back into my old way of thinking, my pessimistic way of thinking, which is not good. But I dunno. I guess after you get to be a certain age, some people can’t change.Have you received any feedback from new readers? People that have maybe started picking up your stuff since the movie came out?Oh yeah, I get a lot of positive feedback all the time. Yeah, from new readers. And I enjoy it. My number’s in the phone book, so that in case somebody wants to call me after they’ve seen the movie at 4:30 in the morning on HBO and tell me how much they enjoyed it, they can do that. I hate to miss out on some praise, you know.Sure, I think all creative people like to hear what
people about their work. Who do you think the average reader is that you’d like to reach with your comics work?I think I have a larger audience in the general book-reading public, than in the comic book area, because comic book fans are, for the most part, superhero fans and my stuff is not about guys going about in spandex suits, punching people and stuff. And so they tend not to be all that interested in my work. I mean, it’s not escapist, and that’s what they’re really looking for is escapism. General readers – since my stuff has come out in trade paperback and it’s been available at regular bookstores – that’s when my sales really started to go up.Your work is sort of the opposite of escapism --really completely immersing yourself in the human condition rather than trying to forget about it or ignore it.Yeah, that’s what I try to do. You’re exactly right. Thank you.And I have to say, one of my favorite scenes, and maybe this is a chance to ask you about that, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is that scene right at the beginning with little Harvey going trick-or-treating in just his regular clothes and all the other kids dressed up in superhero costumes – that seemed to me like it was a comment on your place in the comics realm.Yeah, well, actually, I didn’t script that. I just told them… the credit for that scene should go to Bob Pulcini and Shari Berman, the writer-directors. But what I told them was when I was a kid, I didn’t go much for playing around and for frills and stuff like that. I used to go trick-or-treating with the other kids, but I wouldn’t wear a costume, you know, because that seemed like it was kind of childish or something, or I was above it or something like that, so that’s where they got the idea for that. You know, my kids have seen American Splendor and loved it, and now the funny thing is they probably would wear a Harvey Pekar costume.[laughs] Well, let me know if you can find any anyplace.I don’t think that would be that hard to make. Let me ask you, Harvey – Paul Giamatti did such a wonderful job in the movie channeling your character, and I’m just wondering, did you stay in contact with him? Did you enjoy his performance?Oh, I enjoyed it. Yeah, he’s great. Yeah, I’ve stayed in contact with him, although, you know, the more time that elapses between the end of the movie’s run and the present, the less I see of him, or have contact with him and the other people in the movie. That being said, I just had breakfast with a couple of HBO employees. I mean, it was just a marvelous experience making that movie. I get asked a lot of times about how Giamatti went about learning to play me, and how he did such a great job, and people assume that he came out to Cleveland, you know, a few weeks early or something, and just shadowed me all the time, and you know, picked up my gestures and things like that, but in actuality, he just got that from videotapes of me, I guess on the Letterman show, and the written work that I’ve done. He’s really a master.Yeah, that one scene in the movie, where he is watching you… he’s sort of semi-off-stage and watching you… he seems to be taking such delight in being in your presence that you got the feeling that he really developed a great affection for you. I think that really came through.We like each other a lot. He’s very nice guy, and a real likable guy. There’s no doubt about that, and still, although he’s gotten more acclaim, still an underappreciated actor, I think. I think he’s one of the best out there.Yeah, I think the first movie I saw him in was the Howard Stern movie, if you’ve seen that. He played this vile character, but he did it so well.Yeah, yeah, the guy where he put on a slight southern accent. Yeah, I remember that.Yeah, a lot of range there. A great actor.Yeah, yeah, he is. He’s wonderful.Well, your new book is The Quitter. It’s published by Vertigo Comics and with illustrations by Dean Haspiel. It’s described at one point, I think maybe on the back of the book, as sort of a prequel to the movie and having just finished it last night, that seems really apt. It does cover the period from that Halloween scene up until where the rest of the movie really begins, covering a large chunk of your childhood and really filling in a lot of holes. Can you tell me how the idea for finally doing a long-form autobiography like this came about?Yeah. Actually what happened was the illustrator, Dean Haspiel, was the person who put me in touch with Ted Hope who was the producer of the movie. He was doing some freelance illustration work for Hope and he told him that he had done some work me, and Hope said that he liked my work and he’d be interested in doing a movie based on it. So, my wife and I called and we had a deal with them. I thought, “Good, we’re going to get some option money.” I didn’t, in my wildest dreams, think that we’d be able to sell this movie because who’s going to invest a couple million dollars in a movie based on a comic book that sells maybe 3,000 copies a year. But amazingly, Hope was able to sell HBO on the thing, and it’s like a storybook kind of tale after that. I mean, it won awards and everything, so at the end of it all, I called up Dean and said, “Look, I really appreciate your tipping Hope off to me. Is there anything within reason that I can do to pay you back?” And he said, “Yeah, let me illustrate a long work of yours.” So I said OK, but I didn’t off-hand know of anybody who would be interested. He had contacts with DC Comics, more specifically with their Vertigo line which is supposed to be their more intellectual kind of stuff, and because people were still talking about the movie, he was able to interest some editors in my doing something. At first, I thought -- they were telling me that they wanted me to do something that was fiction, y’know, and they even said something with a romantic interest and stuff. I tried to do that, you know, like write fiction based on my own experience, but I just saw where for me it would work so much better if I just was as accurate as I could be and didn’t gloss over anything. So I wrote the comic like that and just hoped that they would see that it was better that way. And happily they did. They liked it a lot and they really got behind it and the promotion they’ve done with this book is just incredible. I mean, you know… they’ve gotten it publicized so well and sales so far have been just terrific, even before the thing’s been released. I mean, it’s staggering to me.I have to say, that it’s surprising -- you mentioned that Vertigo’s sort of the intellectual line of DC, but even for a Vertigo title, it really is a strikingly touching and human work that really offers some profound insight into your life. I for one am grateful that they published it.
I’m grateful that you took the time to write it.Well, I think that Vertigo’s looking for more stuff like it, in case anybody out there is interested. Some of the stuff that they’ve done actually hasn’t really varied that much from standard comics, but I know that the editors there would like to develop a lot more independent lines. I’m hoping that comics do continue to expand. I was just at a Small Press Expo a couple of weeks ago and I saw some really fine stuff out there, but it was like it was all self-published or the publishers were really small, and I wasn’t aware of anybody. Guys were coming up to me and handing me examples of their work, and when I got it back home and got a chance to look at it, I was really impressed, but then I was kind of depressed because nobody knows about these people.But is that not were you were in, say, ?Yeah, that’s where I was… well, I actually thought with the coming of underground comics in the late '60s, well mid-'60s actually I guess it started, that comics would be forever changed. I thought when people saw that you could write about just about anything you wanted to in underground comics, they wouldn’t be so under-utilized. In fact, nothing much has changed, and that’s pretty distressing for me, that still superhero comics are at the top of the heap, you know, like so many years later. Okay, if people want to like superhero comics, that’s fine, but the superhero sub-genre doesn’t dominate any other art form, and it certainly shouldn’t dominate comics.And I think we’re really in a transitional period right now, and have been probably for the last couple of years, where the greater comics industry, including stuff like the stuff that you do, is expanding into areas like mainstream bookstores and libraries, but the comic shops are kind of entrenched and dug in and continuing to emphasize the superheroes. Meanwhile, also comics from Japan, I think, is another area that’s seeing some expansion everywhere except the comics shops. I dunno, I’m starting to see a pattern where perhaps the comics shops are going to be the ones that are left behind as everybody else gets into all the other kind of comics that are out there.I think they have been hurting. I know a guy who worked with one and lost his job – the place went under. Statistically, there are a lot fewer comics shops now than there were maybe a couple of decades ago. It looked like there was going to be a kind of revival in the eighties, but then it just slowed down again.Well, there’s got to be hope though if DC sees a place for The Quitter in its lineup, don’t you think?Well, but people have to offer them stuff like that. And they have to accept it to. Some of the stuff that I saw, that I was impressed with, would impress a lot of regular comic book readers as being pretty avant-garde. There’s a lot of free-association and things like that in it, and I mean, people haven’t even accepted James Joyce’s Ulysses after all these years and if they see stuff like that in comics, they’re going think it’s not commercial. There are these commercial considerations. A large company like DC
they want to see something proven. If my movie hadn’t gone over as well as it did – it made some money and got a lot of artistic approval – if that hadn’t a happened, I wouldn’t a had a chance with DC.But I do think it’s an incremental thing though. I think that because The Quitter is a success, maybe next year they’ll print two or three like that, and year after that, maybe four or five, if it continues to resonate with readers.Well, I hope so. But then on the other hand, I look back on all the good work that was done in the late 60s by people like Robert Crumb, and Frank Stack, and Spain Rodriguez, and really first class stuff. In my opinion, that was the most fruitful of periods in comic history and yet nothing came of it. The hippies that supported the movement became yuppies after we pulled out of Vietnam and it just went down again. So I’m not takin’ anything for granted. I’m gonna to try to take advantage as much as possible of the opportunities I have to write varied kind of stories, like I’m doing one about a woman who went to Macedonia to find out why there was peace there, and there wasn’t peace anywhere else in the former Yugoslavia. I’m trying to do quite a variety of things, but I dunno, a lot of people are sort of afraid of that thing. Especially the publishers are afraid of them.Is there any chance perhaps, some of the artists whose work you encountered at the Small Press Expo, maybe you’ll do some work with some of them?Well, that would be just … if I did, they would just be illustrating it, I’d be writing the stories. I sincerely think that some of those people out there are very good and deserve to be recognized nationally. But with all avant-garde art in the past century, it’s been very hard for the general public to accept. I mentioned Ulysses, I could mention Arnold Schoenberg’s work – 100 years after he started doing the stuff -- it’s still not accepted – atonal music that is. People still don’t like non-objective paintings. There used to be a time lag that used to be overcome between the time a piece of art came out, a challenging piece of art, and the time the public would be able to figure out where it was coming from. But now, it’s like a permanent time lag. It’s like there’s just no acceptance by the general public of anything that was done after like 1925 or something.At least as far as comics go, I guess maybe I have a little more of an optimistic view, and again, looking at as kind of a transitional period over the last couple of years, where we’ve seen companies like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly start to pick up business in the bookstores and start to make some inroads with libraries and things like that. I really think that there’s an awful lot of good comics that are being published today especially by companies like Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, Pantheon, the publishers that you’ve been working with… I’ve been reading comics for over thirty years and it does seem there’s always, if you know where to look, and it is sometimes hard to find it, but there always is good quality work being done and it seems to me we’re seeing a lot more mention of it in the media and the press in the last couple of years, and that kind of gives me hope, I guess.Well, I hope you’re right. I have a tendency to be pessimistic, and I hope you’re right, and I’m not convinced. I’m just going to try to do as much as I can to put out good work. I also try and interest editors in some of these young artists I run across and I hope that some of their work will be more widely read.Well, as far as your own work, what does the future hold for American Splendor as a brand? Will there be any more single issues? Or just books for a while?Yeah, I think so. I’m working on something with DC… we’ve just laid the groundwork for a deal … they wanted me to do like four 32-page comic books a year, and maybe collect them at the end of the year, or something like that, in a trade paperback. So I need a place to do shorter stories – that’s mostly what I’ve done are shorter stories -- but I want to continue to write, now that I’ve had the opportunity, continue to write the longer pieces too, and I have two more works, longer pieces, in the process of being done and I plan to write more.I’m very, very glad to hear that, as somebody who’s been reading your work for about twenty-five years now. As long as you keep writing it, I’ll keep reading it.Well, thanks a lot. I appreciate that very much.Labels:
// posted by Alan David Doane&@&
Monday, August 06, 2007
Completely at Ease: An Interview with James Howard KunstlerIntroductionOn August 2nd, 2007 author James Howard Kunstler sat down with me for what turned out to be a wide-ranging discussion about his career, the state of the nation and the world, and his upcoming novel, . I first interviewed Jim Kunstler on the radio back in the 1990s, when the issue of suburban sprawl first came to my attention. The
before this session was in 2000, and one doesn’t have to reflect long to realize how very much the world has changed since then. I believe Kunstler’s non-fiction books The Geography of Nowhere, Home From Nowhere, The City in Mind and The Long Emergency are groundbreaking works o he explains how we got where we are and where we’re likely headed in the very near future in eloquent, easy-to-understand and often very funny language. All the more tragic, then, that so many people from the highest levels of government to the man and woman on the (badly-designed) street are not getting the message. This is a long interview, but it’s filled with important information that will directly affect your life and the life of everyone you know, and I hope you’ll take the time to read it fully, and most importantly, accept nothing on faith. Research the issues of peak oil and the sustainability of the American way of life, and you’ll very likely come to believe as I do, as Kunstler does, that things are about to change in profound and unavoidable ways. It’s the manner in which mankind deals with these changes that will define us for the remainer of the 21st century and beyond, but as you’ll read, it’s not all necessarily as apocalyptic as one might first assume. The most rewarding moment in this interview, for me, came toward the end when Jim was describing the characters and setting of his forthcoming novel, World Made By Hand (Atlantic Monthly Press, coming in March of 2008). After all Kunstler has covered as a journalist and author, after all the bleak but credible scenarios he describes, I was delighted to see that he can still get excited about the act of writing. There was a positive twinkle in his eye as he told me how the new novel came together, and when he talked about how rewarding his overall writing career has been, I was very happy to hear that a writer whose work has meant so much to me, has felt himself so satisfied with the path of his career – “Completely at ease,” as he says. It was a privilege to talk to him for the hour we spent together, and I can’t thank him enough for taking the time to share his opinions, memories and observations with me.Note: An , as is a .
Alan David Doane: Could you tell us how you got into journalism?James Howard Kunstler: I was a theatre major at a SUNY [State University of New York] four-year college, Brockport, back in the 1960s in the Age of Aquarius. My first job out of college was directing a play in summer stock, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare. And that was my last job in the theatre [laughs]. After that, I started writing for the hippie newspapers in Boston in the early ‘70s. From there I had a series of jobs, eventually at the Capital Newspapers in Albany [New York], and then from there I got a job at Rolling Stone magazine, which was then in San Francisco. And I figured that was about as far as I was going to get in journalism, so I dropped out in the late ‘70s to write books.For the next fifteen years or so, I wrote eight novels and they were all published by various mainstream publishers. I didn’t get rich off of them, but I made enough money to pay the light bill. I would finish one on Friday and start another one on Monday, because that’s really how it was. I get a lot of letters from wanna-be writers, young people who want to become writers, probably the main thing they don’t understand is that perseverance counts for more than talent in this racket. If you can’t hang in there through all the discouragement and disappointments – because you’re writing in a vacuum, you’re producing a product that no one’s asked for, and there’s a lot of disappointment and failure involved that you have to get through. So you have to slog your way through it. Around 1988 or so, I was getting a little burned out writing novels that weren’t making me rich, so I kind of segued back into journalism, and I started writing for The New York Times Magazine, a series of articles about development in America, particularly the northeast. And that led to a book proposal about the suburban predicament and why we had sort of destroyed the American landscape. And that book turned out to be The Geography of Nowhere. It led to several other books on the subject [Home from Nowhere, The City in Mind and The Long Emergency], and eventually to the next level for me, which was my previous book, The Long Emergency. Which is really more about the global energy predicament and its implications for American life than it is about suburbia per se. One of the things that I was struck by in re-reading The Geography of Nowhere, and you kind of hinted at this, you sort of have had two major book-writing careers, as a fiction author and then these other – [you’re] almost like two separate authors in a way.It was an interesting thing that happened to me, and I guess I entered the biz at a strange time, when literature per se was becoming less important, especially “The Novel,” as conceived in the previous era of Norman Mailer, and Updike and Philip Roth and all those guys, that was the previous generation. My generation sort of became over-supplied with that at a time when there was also an over-supply of movies and videos and DVDs and things to distract people. The thing that struck me with The Geography of Nowhere, it almost seems at this point, and I’ll see if you agree, that it almost seems quaint in its optimism for the future. Even though it talks about, “We need to do this, we need to do that,” now that we’ve had a decade or more of Peak Oil predictions and seeing where things are going with the housing market, it seems like The Geography of Nowhere is almost an optimistic book in comparison to where we are today.Well, yeah. I wrote about the oil predicament in the final chapters of The Geography of Nowhere, which was published in ’93. An interesting thing happened in the mid-‘90s, a whole cohort of petroleum geologists started retiring out of the major oil companies. And as they did this, they started publishing their own personal views after they had secured their pensions and gotten their retirement in order. And these guys started publishing their views about where the oil industry was really headed, and that really resulted in a shock of recognition for people who were paying attention to these issues.Now the unfortunate thing is that neither the
public nor the mainstream media nor the political sector is paying much attention to the oil story. But it’s a huge, huge problem that we face. It’s going to change everything about how we live. When I wrote The Geography of Nowhere, even back then I regarded the suburban situation as being really tragic. I wasn’t optimistic about it. The only thing I was optimistic about was, I had become associated with this group of people called . And they offered what I thought was a pretty good remedy for the suburban problem. Which would have been, or which has been a return to traditional principles of urban design, town planning, et cetera. The trouble is that the energy predicament is now presenting itself so rapidly and implacably that I don’t really think that we’re going to have an easy transition. I think that the longer that we put off making the necessary adjustments, the more disorderly and harsh this transition is going to be. That’s something that I wan you write in The Geography of Nowhere about the “” movement which was, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like, in terms of the overall national mindset of how things should work, in a town, in a city, that that was probably the last time the country was headed in a sustainable direction. Well, we were a very different country. And for the benefit of the people who don’t know what the City Beautiful movement was, it occurred at the turn of the previous century, in about a 25-year period from about 1890 to 1915, ’20. And it really was an extraordinary period in which we came to the recognition that we were becoming a world power and that we needed to have cities that were worthy of our greatness. And so you had this tremendous coalition of business leaders, municipal leaders, architects, planners, really all working together on the same page to produce the greatest things that we ever built in our cities. The great civic centers, the great museums and libraries, the great public buildings, all that stuff, the best of it, dates from that period. We’re a very different country now, particularly in the post World War II period, where all kinds of things have changed, and most particularly we’ve had about 90 years of imposing the automobile over the terrain of North America with really disastrous results. And it can be stated pretty succinctly, that we have produced a living arrangement that has no future. And that’s a really big problem. You have been a strong critic of the over-reliance on automobiles in the U.S., basically a lot of the problems that you see coming in the near future are a result of the over-reliance on the automobile. Can you tell me when you first started to see the signs were not pointing to, as you call it, a permanent “happy motoring era,” that this was the problem. What tipped you off?It wasn’t reall I was a young newspaper reporter during the first OPEC oil embargo in 1973, and interestingly enough in a newspaper office building that had just been relocated from downtown Albany [New York], to the suburban wasteland of Wolf Road [in Colonie, a suburb of Albany]. You could see what happened when the U.S. got into trouble with oil for a relatively short period of time. And unfortunately it was a short crisis, and people got over it. Moreover, there were things that happened afterwards that prompted us to think that it was an aberration. Namely, the last really great oil discoveries of the world, in the north slope of Alaska and the North Sea between England and Norway. These two great oil areas came into production in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, and they sort of took the pressure off of the Western world and removed the leverage from OPEC for a while. Is it fair to say that gave a kind of false hope to the idea that [cheap oil] would never end?A yeah, that’s quite true. It really saved the West’s rear-end for about 15 years. And oil prices went down steadily from the mid-‘80s into the 21st century, until they were roughly ten dollars a barrel before 2001. So, the American people in particular developed the false reality that we didn’t have an oil problem, that we didn’t have an energy problem, and that we could just continue behaving the way we did. And ironically, or paradoxically, the worst part, the most emphatic part of the suburban build-out happened in those years, since the mid-‘80s when we built so much car-dependent stuff. It’s going to be such a liability for us, we have no idea.We saw the price of a barrel of crude oil go up to record highs just this week...Well, just yesterday it actually crossed into a frontier that it hasn’t been in, above $78.50. It retreated about a dollar late in trading, but the trend upward into the upper 70s towards $80.00 a barrel is now pretty firm. And there really is no immediate hope that this situation is ever going to get better.This is an implacable problem. There’s a new kind of wrinkle on the oil situation, and maybe a new interpretation that will help people understand it. And it has to do with this idea: That we’re discovering now that the exporting rates from the countries that sell us oil and sell oil to the rest of the developed world, the U.S., Europe, Japan, China and increasingly India, that the countries that export oil, their exports are declining at an even steeper rate than their production is declining. So, if Saudi Arabia’s production is down four percent this year, whatever it is, their export levels are going down at a steeper level. And the same is true for all the other major exporting nations. So what you’re seeing here is a trend in which we’re going to get into trouble much sooner than people thought, and not sheerly over depletion but over simply the market availability. Now the poster child for this, and this is very important, the poster boy for this is Mexico.
Mexico’s oil production, 60 percent of it is composed of one single oil field, the second largest field ever discovered in the history of the oil industry, called the Cantarell Oil Field in the Gulf of Mexico. It was discovered in the last 25 years and produced with the latest and greatest technology, which had the effect of only draining it more efficiently. So when people say “Don’t worry, we have new technology coming along,” this is one of the problems with it.The Cantarell Oil Field of Mexico is now depleting at a minimum rate of about 15 percent a year. Meaning within about five or six years, it’s out. And long before that, they’re going to stop sending oil to the United States. Now, Mexico is America’s third leading source of oil imports. And what this means is we’re going to lose our third leading import supplier of oil within the next two or three years. This is going to have not only a tremendous effect on our ability to get around and go through our daily activities, but it is also going to create a tremendous amount of turmoil and hardship in M because the Mexican national government depends for nearly half of its revenue from the Mexican national oil industry, which is now entering a state of collapse. So as that occurs, we’re going to see probably a great deal of disorder down in Mexico. And if you think we have problems now with immigration, and with managing the border, I think the probability is that they’re only going to get worse.When that comes to pass, they’re going to be looking to get the hell out of Dodge.The last time there was a big problem in Mexico was this long, drawn-out revolution that occurred between about 1913 and 1940, and that was the era of Zapata, and all that tremendous amount of revolutionary activity. And back then, one-quarter of the Mexican population left the country. But back then the population of Mexico was 20 million. Now it’s over 100 million. That’s a scary thought.It is a scary thought, and it’s among a whole menu of thoughts that we’re not willing to even think about in the public discussion of these things.If this is happening on a two- to three-year time scale as you say, wouldn’t you think that the people that are running for president now would be talking about it and trying to present some sort of solution, or at least a band-aid, and yet that’s the last thing that they’re talking about.Well, I’m fond of saying that I’m allergic to conspiracy theories. And I am. People send me these 9/11 conspiracy emails and I pretty much disregard all that stuff. And I don’t think there’s a conspiracy among our leadership to keep us in the dark or anything, I think it’s simply can be explained truly as cognitive dissonance, which is a fancy way of saying “static in our collective imagination,” an inability to form a consensus about what’s important, and about what needs to be addressed. And I think that the more trouble that we face and get into and the scarier that these problems are, actually, the more likelihood there is that the cognitive dissonance will increase. And that’s one of the dangers that I think we face. Let me give you an example. There is one particular project that is just absolutely imperative right now in this country. And that is rebuilding the American passe because we’re going to face enormous problems with transportation between our cities, of both people and of goods. And the trucking industry is going to get in enormous trouble, the commercial airline industries are going to be in big, big trouble, if they survive at all. You know, people are going to need a way to get around.Now, look. We had a railroad system that was once the envy of the world. We now have a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of. The infrastructure for rebuilding it is lying out there rusting in the rain, it doesn’t require the reinvention of anything, we know how to do this kind of technology. It could run on all different kinds of energy, but would do best if it ran on electricity, because it’s the most efficient and you can get electricity from a lot of different things. It would put scores of thousands of people to work at jobs at every level, from labor to management. There’s another thing about it that’s terribly important. This country needs a project that can help build our – that can encourage us, that can give us some sense of accomplishment. That can build our confidence. It’s terribly important, because we’re going to be facing a larger set of problems that are going to be very discouraging. We need a big national project that will boost our confidence, and also do something for us. And so rebuilding the American railroad system couldn’t be more important.Now the thing is, are any of the candidates even talking about this, in either party at any level of the political spectrum? And the answer is “no.” So you have to ask yourself, why is that? Again, I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, I think it’s sheer, obdurate cluelessness. And there is a history in this country, it’s not hard to look back and see previous precedents of great, nationwide projects, from the WPA...Well, the City Beautiful movement, which you mentioned, which was not a government sponsored project, it was a consensus among the private world, the government world, everybody agreed that it was necessary to make American cities great. And now it’s necessary to retrofit the United States for an energy-scarcer world, and we’re not even beginning to think about it. And I think there’s an explanation for that, too. Let me ask you, because my next question involves the psychology – you’ve talked a lot [in your writing] about “the psychology of previous investment,” of the fact that as a nation we’re so wrapped up in our current status quo – as Vice President Cheney has said, “The American way of life is non-negotiable.” And yet, there’s no easily obvious replacement for cheap oil.Yeah, there isn’t. And much of the thinking and talking that is now going on about alternative fuels, for example, the ethanol situation. As a Pennsylvania farmer put it to me last winter, “We’re going to take the last six inches of Midwestern topsoil and burn it in our gas tanks.” We may even starve if we pursue this thing far enough. It’ll definitely be a contest between people eating and automobiles, filling their gas tanks. But to get back to your point, you mention “the psychology of previous investment,” and I think this is a very important point. One of the reasons we’re having such a poor discussion about these problems is because we’ve put so much of our national wealth – and even our spirit – into this American Dream living arrangement of car dependency and national chain retail and all of the accessories and furnishings of it, that we can’t imagine letting go of it, or reforming it, or changing it. It’s almost like the problem is too big for the average person to wrap their brain around, so they just pretend it isn’t there.Yes, that’s true, and as a practical matter, most Americans are so deeply invested in the furnishings of the suburban living arrangement, you know, most Americans who own their own homes, that’s where most of their wealth is located, in the ownership of a suburban house. And if you’re living 28 miles outside of Denver, or Minneapolis, or if you’re living 17 miles outside of Glens Falls, it’s going to be very hard for you to imagine living differently.The mall is going to be very far away when gas is either ten dollars a gallon, or unavailable altogether.Everything’s going to be far away. We’re simply not going to be able to get around. And other things are going to
be happening at the same time. It’s not as though just one thing will be changing. A lot of people write to me and say “Oh, won’t we just be telecommuting from our houses?” Well, one of the things that will be happening is that the American economy will be hemorrhaging jobs. A lot of positions and vocations and professions are going to be decimated. And so you’ll have people sitting in their McHouses 28 miles outside of Dallas, twiddling their thumbs, wondering how they’re going to feed their families. And wondering when the repo man is going to knock on their door, because that’s a whole other issue, which is something that’s happening simultaneously with the ramping up of the permanent energy crisis, is that the housing bubble is crashing, or deflating.A lot of what’s going on in the United States right now is based on wishing. Not on thinking, but on wishing. And there’s a tremendous wish out there that the housing collapse wouldn’t be so. That it’s not happening. That maybe it’ll turn around. And the builders are certainly sitting out there, hoping that it’ll turn around and that they’ll get their production back up again, but I think what you’re going to see is this: This is truly the end of the cycle. The production home builders are not coming back. They’re going to go down, for good. Indeed, the entire suburban development pattern is over. And we’re going to have to occupy the terrain of North America much differently than we have in the last 70 years. And it’s going to be an enormous trauma for us to even process the need to do this, and the resistance will be huge. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that we’ll see an enormous political campaign to prop up the entitlements of the suburban living arrangement long after it is self-evident that it can’t be sustained. And that in itself will be an exercise in futility that may waste many of our remaining national resources, including our national capital. Whatever capital remains in our economic system, that is money, to be invested, when the housing crash bubbles out and all of the things associated with it implode, we’re going to need money to rebuild the railroad system, we’re going to need money to help people move from parts of the country that are no longer going to be very useful to live in, to other parts. I worry very much that this process is not going to be very orderly.You talk about the problem of people counting on wishes rather than solid realities, and something that you talk about is the idea that technology will somehow rescue us from a lack of energy, that energy somehow equals technology.Yeah, this is one of the reigning delusions of the moment, that technology and energy are the same, that they’re interchangeable, and that if you run out of one, you just substitute the other. And nothing could be further from the truth. And we’re going to get into tremendous trouble in believing this. You can see the origin of this, it comes from a century of having one really snazzy technological achievement after another, and there have been, obviously, a whole lot of them, and things that really have given us a lot of pleasure and
everything from cell phones to DVDs to cars that are really reliable, et cetera. So these things have been very magical, and it’s given the public the idea that there’s an endless supply of magic, and that it’s called technology. And that if you run into a problem with anything else, you just plug in the magic technology. I actually had this experience when I gave a talk at the
Corporation in Silicon Valley, and I began to understand where this comes from, too, by the way, part of this delusional thinking. Because when I finished my talk, the Google people in the audience by the way were all executives and higher-up engineers and stuff, and a lot of these people were young people under 30 who had become millionaires working for Google because they got in on the ground floor four or five years ago, and they grew with the company and got stock options, so, here they are millionaires at 28. Anyway, I gave my talk, and we had comments and questions. And there were no questions, just comments. And the comment was all the same. One after another these people, in one way or another, got up and said “Like, dude, we’ve got technology.” Meaning, “you’re a jerk.” And what I began to realize was that this is a form of grandiose thinking, delusional grandiose thinking coming from people who have been so personally successful for moving little pixels around the screen with a mouse, that they think that this is the sovereign remedy for all the problems of the world. And the scary thing about it is that these are among the most intelligent, well-educated people in America, working at the highest level of American technological enterprise. And they don’t know the difference, how do you expect Joe Sixpack to know the difference? So, this is a matter of leadership. We’re getting poor leadership not just from the political sector but from the business sector, which is giving people the mistaken idea that if you run out of energy, you just plug in technology, and it’s a very tragic belief.What’s the place, if any, that you see for alternative fuels? You talked a little bit about ethanol, a lot of people are buying hybrid cars, what do you see as the role of [alternative fuel sources]?Well, this is actually an interesting point, because it’s the essence of the problem. And there are two parts of it. Part one is this: No combination of alternative fuels or systems for using them is going to allow us to keep on running America the way we’ve been running it. We are not going to run Wal-Mart, Walt Disney World and the Interstate Highway System on any combination of wind, solar, biodiesel, ethanol, used french fry potato oil, tar sand byproducts, or anything that we know of right now. Including nuclear. We’re going to have to make other arrangements for all the major activities of life. All the complex systems that we depend on, including agriculture, the way we produce our food, the way we inhabit the terrain, the way we do commerce and trade, the way we do education. All these major systems are going to have to change pretty severely. Now, the real key to this is something that you said, which was, you asked me about the hybrid cars, and this is the big problem. We’ve got to talk about something besides how we’re going to run the cars. We’re going to have to get over this. We’re going to have to overcome this obsession with the cars. Because, any way you cut it, we’re going to be driving fewer miles, in fewer vehicles, fewer times, every day. The car is going to be a diminished presence in our life. And the important thing to focus on is not just how we’re going to run the cars, it’s how we’re going to get the other things in our life together. How we’re going to get a railroad system together, so people don’t have to drive from Plattsburgh to Syracuse. How we’re going to fix the agriculture system so we’re not dependent on the 3,000-mile Caesar salad, or the fruits and vegetables that are coming from New Zealand and South America. We’re going to have to grow more of our food closer to home. How are we going to do that? For the entirety of the 20th century, mankind found a way to that was like an enormous gift from the world, but it never occurred to anybody that there would come a day when it would just run out. And we don’t even need to worry about when it runs out, because it’s going to get to the point where it’s going to cost more than a barrel of oil to take a barrel of oil out of the earth.To get the remaining oil, yeah. Whatever that is.So it’s not running completely out of oil [that’s the issue]...Exactly. People misunderstand this. It’s not about running out of oil, it’s how the complex systems that w