This graphic comes courtesy of the brilliant folks at adbusters, i'm posting it here to relieve my self-loathing after a conversation with a student early this morning in which he gave me some of the lamest reasons i've heard in a while for not using public transportation in a city the size of Budapest. How 'bout this: there are people on the metro who don't shower and would consequently contaminate his business suit (paraphrased in the interests of clarity).... This guy's a multi-national exec with 2 young kids who will no doubt thank him one day for ridding the world of polar bears, radioactive Pacific atolls and human settlements in the Niger Delta.... Why self-loathing? Because his English and mental universe are far too limited for me to even try and explain why that's a bullshit reason to drive, and so i just kind of shrugged my shoulders, sending spasms of pathetically contained pissedoffness up into my frenzied blunderbuss command center.... which stayed there all day .... don't even ask about the phraseology of a little tirade i spewed out when a citroen-like car nearly knocked me over this afternoon 'cuz he just couldn't stop at the red light what with all that high volume drum & bass ricocheting around his combustible piston-propogated brain. i'm telling ya, the longer this preferred irresponsible ignorance about automobile dependency drags on, the crazier it's making me. Contemplating the traffic havoc a 40-room hotel on my lovely pedestrian street is going to cause leads me to a word i haven't used since i stood next to Israel's Apartheid Wall: SABOTAGE. Mark my word, our ELF-en friends may soon be planting an IED near your SUV... anger-alleviating blowback? Start in Texas and fan out from there.