Daily Breakfast 496 - Global Solidarity
In this episode: The World Youth Days: Texas meets Australia; the iPhone 3G; soaring gas and food prices - how does it affect your family? Iron Man, Marvel vs. DC.
- Father Roderick Live: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/father-roderick-live
- CNMC: http://celebration.sqpn.com/
Just listened to your discussion about fuel prices. It’s true - the prices are causing changes in behavior. I’ve decided to retire my car (which is 16 years old) and buy a monthly bus/train pass here in Los Angeles. I figure that I will save about $200/month when I take into account insurance, fuel, and maintenance.
The gas price thing is a very tough one. I live in quite a rural area in Germany. Without my car, it would be almost impossible to commute to the office. I could use several buses (I would have to change buses), but it would take about almost 1.5 hours until I am in the office. By car, it only takes about 18 minutes. This is not really an option. It is possible but not very feasible.
Last year, I was on vacation in London. It was awesome. I never would have a car, if I lived in London. The tube is awesome. Boy, we could enter the tube everywhere, the huge city of London was almost transformed to a little village with the tube.
I think, it depends where you are so that you can use public transportation.
Probably we will see changes. But my hope is that nobody suffers too much because of them. We need to find options to have individual transport that does not need gas. This is the only real solution I can think about. And quite honest: I am a little annoyed about the car industry and about politics that nobody seems to do anything about that. But ok, there is Big Oil sitting in the back and influencing politics…
Father,
I was touched by your mention of the seminary that might have to close because of the high food prices. I would like to contribute some money to them, and maybe some other DB listeners would, too. Can you give us information about how we might do that? Maybe you could collect the contributions and help us grow our community through giving!
Angela
I live in a suburb of Boston and I work in Cambridge MA. I am very grateful that the company that I work for gives us a transportation benefit of either opting to drive and use a garage for free or to receive a public transportation pass for up to $200 (my pass is less than $200 so it’s free for me). Ever since the gas price went to $4/gal I’ve been using the public transportation. I get to get more walking in per day and it’s actually more relaxing as I just sit on a train and listen to my podcasts (Father Roderick’s being one of my favs).
Now I only have to get gas about every 3 weeks and my car doesn’t have to have as many oil changes as I drive about 2 miles a day.
I also own my vehicle outright so I’m now waiting until the car companies start selling cars that have a much higher mpg than even what the hybrids have now. It’s laziness on the car companies and the mentality “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” on these vehicles. As long as they have a high demand then they will never improve upon these cars. It’s sad but true. The only way we can have a voice against the oil and auto industries is through our demand on the auto companies and our buying decisions.
Re: post-credits of Ironman — what I saw in Canada was a clip from the sequel to Ironman, including an awesome actor. ‘nuf said.
Father-
Loved the quote from Abigail Adams. I wish everyone (Americans in particular) would take the time to read about John & Abigail Adams. In my mind they are among the best representation of our founding fathers (and mothers:-).
John