We’ve grappled with the problem for decades. Concerns have been registered, positions staked out, policies advocated. But our nation’s chronic addiction to foreign oil continues. Today we import more fuel than ever from regions that are unfriendly, or even hostile, toward the United States. It is a reckless habit that puts our very future at risk.
Sandy, if you’re reading this, and I have a feeling you are, I wrote this editorial about America’s dire need to invest in new domestic energy solutions just for you, my love.
All of it: The well-reasoned arguments against enriching Middle Eastern countries that threaten our national security. The desperate call for alternative-energy strategies, such as investing in renewable wind power and increasing the production of electric cars. The shocking statistic I will presently cite about oil subsidies that clearly shows the United States is on a perilous path. It is all for you, my darling. You were the one, the only one, I was thinking of when I sat down this morning and decided to voice my deepest concerns about how our nation uses more than 20 million barrels of oil a day and lacks any coherent strategy to curb its out-of-control consumption.
Sandy—baby—listen, you’re everything to me. Everything.
To be frank, the situation frightens me. No, not the crippling energy crisis that threatens our entire planet, and no, not even our government’s wanton pursuit of dangerous offshore drilling initiatives. No, Sandy, it’s us. Our bond. What you and I have together. I love you so much it scares me.
You see, I’ve never felt this way about anyone I’ve dedicated an editorial to before.
And it’s not just this one opinion piece, either. You see, my darling, in one way or another, they’ve all been for you. Even if I didn’t realize it at the time. You were my muse, the inspiration behind every last one of my scathing socioeconomic commentaries. Remember the op-ed from last August in which I held government officials to task for their short≠sighted deregulation of large commercial institutions? Or my April 2007 column calling for the immediate resignation of embattled attorney general Alberto Gonzalez? Each I composed with steady hand and trembling heart: a thousand and one love letters to the woman I so desperately adore.
Go on, read my 1,500-word essay on how the perfidy of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein goes far beyond his firm’s manipulative marketing of dubious investment vehicles, and see just how tender my feelings are for you.
Baby, I care more about you than the chairman of the Federal Reserve cares about long-term stability in the commercial banking sector, without which the small businesses upon whose flourishing our continued economic recovery very much depends will never be able to obtain the capital they need to reverse the troubling persistence of high unemployment among the American workforce.
Yes, that much.
Before I met you, Sandy—before you walked into my life and, like the failure of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent collapse of the housing market, changed everything for≠ever—I was just a man alone with his dreams. Back then, I didn’t realize how incredible waking up next to a vivacious fortysomething woman with shoulder-length brown hair would make me feel, but there I was, slowly assembling my argument for honest and meaningful campaign finance reform, hoping to someday have someone to share it with.
I guess what I’m trying to say, Sandy, is…well…you make me want to be a more lucid and intellectually cogent op-ed columnist.
I may not be the first guy in this topsy-turvy world of ours to say such a thing, but we need an energy reform package that does more than pay lip service to the cause of reducing petroleum imports and God, woman, you drive me crazy.
