Bush Blames Foreign Fuel Subsidies for Gas Crisis. Forgets About America's

Today the New York Times is running a story about how fuel subsidies on gasoline and diesel throughout the developing world are increasing the demand for oil, and raising the overall price of gas at the pump. The article seems critical of how governments in countries like Indonesia, India and China artificially lower the price of fuel in order to gain their economic footing on the world market. Citing BP, it says that developing world fuel subsidies account for 96% of the increase in fuel prices in the last year.

The problem is so rampant that ten days ago, on July 15th president Bush admonished the trend, saying,

“I am discouraged by the fact that some nations subsidize the purchases of product, like gasoline, which, therefore, means that demand may not be causing the market to adjust as rapidly as we’d like.”

But should the president of the largest fuel guzzling nation in the world, with some of the lowest fuel prices, really be targeting the developing world as the main culprit for the increased cost of gas? As newspaper headlines flash the seemingly absurd photos of pumps asking for $4 per gallon, many Americans feel that they are being unjustly punished for their morning commutes. But with a per-capita income of $44,000, and huge fuel subsidies of its own, the real cost of gas in America is the lowest of anywhere else in the world. In Europe it is common to pay $7 per gallon, and as a result there are massive subsidies for a top notch public transportation infrastructure.

In most cities in America, public transportation is, at best, a secondary option.

There are two petrol stations across the street from my house, each charging 55 rupees per liter of regular unleaded gas, or about $5.50 per gallon. Two weeks ago when a ship carrying diesel failed to dock in port on time, there was a major fuel shortage and some pumps charged as much as $10 per gallon. All of this in a country where the per-capita income is about $820 a year.

Why should the president of United States blame the modest fuel subsidies abroad, when the domestic subsidies at home are much more aggressive? How, can he, in good conscience, say that in a place where people earn 1/50 of an average American salary should actually pay more at the pump?

My suggestion to Bush is that if he wants to lower fuel consumption by increasing the price of gas, then he should start by increasing the price of gas at home.

[Link to NYT story], [photo Bitzcelt on Flickr]

Limits of the Body

I began to feel uncertain about my body over breakfast.

On the table in front of me I had a freshly prepared bowl of oatmeal and I was contemplating what would happen if I ate it. The rolled oats, sugar and fruits in the bowl would enter my mouth, cruise down my esophagus and eventually be absorbed into my blood stream as nutrients. The waste eventually would inevitably find a way out. But at what point does that bowl of oatmeal become part of my body?

For the most part we are content to accept that the limits of our body end at our skin. We are convinced that there are finite limits to who we are. But we over look all of the things that get past that skin barrier. Even the things that change it. How do we define the bacteria and viruses enter our body and make us sick, or the medicines come and cure the sickness? How about the million of bacteria that live symbiotically in our intestines and help us digest food? Or the DNA, our own genetic blueprints, that we let fall out with our hair in the shower?

If we break a leg and a doctor uses bolts or a cast to fix it, are those parts of our body? How about a man in a wheelchair or a ventelator, for whom the external device is essential for life itself? Or someone who has donated a kidney to a friend or relative? Is it possible that one organ could belong to two different bodies at the same time? What about a person who lost a leg in a car accident, and yet feels phantom pain in the missing limb? And for that matter, when I dream, I am almost always wearing clothes. In waking life if someone tried to rip them off of me, I would feel violated. Might my body also extend to the barrier of my clothes?

For the most part we don't really need to care about the final limits of our bodies. We can go through our lives without a precise definition. However the question gains salience in today's world where our bodies are commodities that are bought and sold on world markets. Over the last several years I have reported on kidney brokers who steal organs from poor people and sell them to richer ones, and bone thieves who rob graves and sell skeletons to medical schools. This year in Uttar Pradesh blood pirates locked patients in a room and siphoned off their blood to provide a stable supply for local hospitals. But not all buying and selling body parts is illegal. Bio-prospecting companies collect genetic material from indigenous people in order to develop the next generation of wonder-drugs. Multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies run clinical trials that test experimental drugs on humans.

In all of these cases, outside forces defined what was valuable about a body and placed it on the market. Often times without the consent of the people whose bodies were used. If we think that our bodies are special in some way, and that outside interests should not be able to violate them, then we need to start by having a better conception of what our bodies actually are.

This means starting with breakfast. What exactly is the relationship between that bowl of oatmeal and the limit of your body?

photo: LoreleiRanveig at flickr

Ant Goddess and the Sponge of Doom

There have always been ants in our apartment. When we first moved in, near-microscopic red ants scurried across the kitchen counter looking for dropped morsels of food. Winter came and they slightly larger black ants took over until they were eventually replaced by an even larger variety. Now, in the heat of the summer the small red ants are back and they have managed to find their way into every Tupperware barrier we set up against them. They've crawled into the refrigerator, into the rice, and invaded our stash of walnuts. If we don't scrub down the counters after making tea a hundred ants will suck on the residue where sugary water dripped over the side of the cup.

Over the last three years my wife has sealed the cracks in the walls with duct tape and poured eucalyptus oil into their hideouts. She has sprayed their dens with insecticide and sponged away countless ant carcasses from our counter tops. But the ants keep coming back. There are more now in our apartment than ever before. But something that happened over the weekend has made me question her fundamental relationship with this apartment's most numerous inhabitants.

After years of countless ant murders and countermeasures my wife went into the kitchen to find a herd gathered around a dollop of honey. She says that there were at least 50 of them in a circle "lapping up the nectar like antelopes at a waterhole". There is nothing in the world more pleasing to an ant than honey. Rather than her normal reaction of immediately scrubbing the honey and ants into the sink, she bent down over them for a better look. Sensing her gaze--and impending doom--the ants scattered in every direction. They abandoned their sugary stash and ran for the cracks where they came from.

This is unusual behavior. I have to emphasize that that ants didn't run after she had begun to squish their bodies into the counter top with her finger one at a time, or even after preparing a sponge in the sink. They ran after they saw her looking at them. This leads me to believe that after years of wiping out this same colony of ants, they are beginning to respect and fear my wife (as she is their appointed exterminator). She is their fickle and unruly goddess.

We see them as pests that pollute our food and occasionally bite us with their envenomed pincers. But from an ant's perspective we are giving them mixed signals. One day we fill the counters with tasty food droppings, glittering in honey and flower particles that feed and grow their colony. The next day she removes the offering and eliminates the workers that they send out to collect the food. She poisons their colony and wipes them from the face of the earth. She is both the source of their sustenance and the agent of their demise.

Back in the safety of their colony, the ants must gather around their queen and ask for her to interpret the various moods of my fickle wife. Is she an agent of good, or one of evil? Is there a way to appease her, or are they doomed to her random acts of kindness and murder? Right now, the counters are clean, and the ants are likely preforming elaborate rituals to honor my wife and forestall her wrath.

My wife is the ants' goddess. Right now she could be preparing the sponge of doom, or a cup of tea with honey.

photo by Binux on Flickr