A Sacrifice to the Gods of Petrol

I've been thinking a great deal about the automobile this summer, with preparing to sell our truck, "An Inconvenient Truth" (Laurie and I rode our bikes to the theater to see it.) and now, 3 cyclists killed by drivers. We seem willing to accept an inordinate amount of collateral damage in order to keep driving.

The death of Audrey Lindvall seems metaphorical in this context. A young beauty is killed by a fuel truck. As Americans, we are willing to sacrifice the most precious parts of, well, America, to maintain our way of life. We send our young people to die in the desert. Our children suffer from an epidemic of asthma and obesity. We lose our sense of community, our humanity, just so we can keep driving.