The Flying Car or: How I learned to stop worrying and love The Bomb
Good morning, America. Hello Sports Fans. This year is a landmark year for us all. This year, we have reached the apex of our great American Dream. Remember the comic books of yore, lauding the future of automobiles that take to the sky? That great, World's Fair so many years ago that heightened America's imagination as to what the end of that era could bring? It was the dawn of the flying car.
Not, The Flying Car, but the flying car's ideal. Then it was nothing more than sparkling paint and a glimmer in an engineer's imagination. The Flying Car, on the other hand, somehow carved its place in this generation's collective memory. It has become tantamount to the American Dream. That notion of life, liberty and happiness. The ultimate; the pinnacle; the perfect existence.
So, this Flying Car, THE Flying Car, goes on sale in a month. The 79th edition of super-percunious retailer Neiman Marcus' "Fantasy Gifts" Christmas 2005 catalog displays a few mock-up action shots of this albatross, complete with a $3.5 million price tag. The car obviously compliments statements made by Brendan Hoffman, prez and C.E.Oh. of Nieman Marcus Direct. "We have something for everyone," his press release reads. Obviously.
So here we are. In seven years we went from a country at peace - poverty finally dropping, inner-cities improving, and national surpluses growing – to a country at war – deficits swelling, corporate profits skyrocketing, poverty rising, and the middle class suffocating. Now, today, the American dream is to never own a home. Interest rates may be low for borrowers, but home values teeter, basically, on the will of school districts, all of them strapped for cash. At least in an apartment I do not have to worry about Escrow payments. At least in an apartment I do not have to take out a loan. At least with a lease I am not in fear of slipping into bankruptcy, which is nothing more than an empty, non-actionable term now.
The New American dream is to stop paying for the consequences of oil. Like some sort of shadow tax, this liquid is practically pure politics, injected right into your tank. The Government recently struck down a move to notify drivers that their unleaded cars can run on ethanol, which is actually CHEAPER than gas now. An extension of this American dream is the cost of just getting a car – with prices so daunting that any of the millions of people living on minimum wage, or damn near, could never hope to afford.
But now, thanks to the "something for everyone" book, the upper class does not have to deal with sitting on the highway behind the poor and their shabby earth-mobiles. The affluent and wealthy can just whirr overhead, finally free of the lowly incapable. And hey, the thing gets 23 miles to the gallon, and zooms to speeds of 350 mph. Who wouldn't want one?
I can picture it now. Instead of driving any car in a fleet of multi-colored Hummers, the ultra-aristocratic slush heads can just jump in The Flying Car and blow off your hat, or maybe rain bits of paper on your head. What wonderful news. I'm just wondering what will become of so many Hummers.
Perhaps these gaudy, unnecessary tanks will be abandoned to used car dealerships. Then, facing Total Hummer Overflow, the smooth will work a deal with the paid to pass them on to The Government and The Military for untold amounts of our taxes. Could 2006 be the new dawn of a stylish H2 fleet in Iraq? I mean, glistening Hummers of all polychromasia in the desert make better FOX News clips than the actual fighting and maiming and death. Hell, I'd drive the orange one.
Beware of Hummers in the Darkness. Bring on The Flying Car. And screw The American Dream. Mahalo.
Stephen Webster's column, "Electronic Horizons", is published in the North Texas weekly, The News Connection. Republished with permission.
Not, The Flying Car, but the flying car's ideal. Then it was nothing more than sparkling paint and a glimmer in an engineer's imagination. The Flying Car, on the other hand, somehow carved its place in this generation's collective memory. It has become tantamount to the American Dream. That notion of life, liberty and happiness. The ultimate; the pinnacle; the perfect existence.
So, this Flying Car, THE Flying Car, goes on sale in a month. The 79th edition of super-percunious retailer Neiman Marcus' "Fantasy Gifts" Christmas 2005 catalog displays a few mock-up action shots of this albatross, complete with a $3.5 million price tag. The car obviously compliments statements made by Brendan Hoffman, prez and C.E.Oh. of Nieman Marcus Direct. "We have something for everyone," his press release reads. Obviously.
So here we are. In seven years we went from a country at peace - poverty finally dropping, inner-cities improving, and national surpluses growing – to a country at war – deficits swelling, corporate profits skyrocketing, poverty rising, and the middle class suffocating. Now, today, the American dream is to never own a home. Interest rates may be low for borrowers, but home values teeter, basically, on the will of school districts, all of them strapped for cash. At least in an apartment I do not have to worry about Escrow payments. At least in an apartment I do not have to take out a loan. At least with a lease I am not in fear of slipping into bankruptcy, which is nothing more than an empty, non-actionable term now.
The New American dream is to stop paying for the consequences of oil. Like some sort of shadow tax, this liquid is practically pure politics, injected right into your tank. The Government recently struck down a move to notify drivers that their unleaded cars can run on ethanol, which is actually CHEAPER than gas now. An extension of this American dream is the cost of just getting a car – with prices so daunting that any of the millions of people living on minimum wage, or damn near, could never hope to afford.
But now, thanks to the "something for everyone" book, the upper class does not have to deal with sitting on the highway behind the poor and their shabby earth-mobiles. The affluent and wealthy can just whirr overhead, finally free of the lowly incapable. And hey, the thing gets 23 miles to the gallon, and zooms to speeds of 350 mph. Who wouldn't want one?
I can picture it now. Instead of driving any car in a fleet of multi-colored Hummers, the ultra-aristocratic slush heads can just jump in The Flying Car and blow off your hat, or maybe rain bits of paper on your head. What wonderful news. I'm just wondering what will become of so many Hummers.
Perhaps these gaudy, unnecessary tanks will be abandoned to used car dealerships. Then, facing Total Hummer Overflow, the smooth will work a deal with the paid to pass them on to The Government and The Military for untold amounts of our taxes. Could 2006 be the new dawn of a stylish H2 fleet in Iraq? I mean, glistening Hummers of all polychromasia in the desert make better FOX News clips than the actual fighting and maiming and death. Hell, I'd drive the orange one.
Beware of Hummers in the Darkness. Bring on The Flying Car. And screw The American Dream. Mahalo.
Stephen Webster's column, "Electronic Horizons", is published in the North Texas weekly, The News Connection. Republished with permission.
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