Problem: Attempting to Drill Offshore in California

Many moons ago I emailed Barbara Boxer - one of our state senators, along with Dianne Feinstein, and grrrr to both - about something I posted on this blog. I received a generic "we'll never get around to replying" email, and though I was complaining on behalf of myself and her constituents, apparently her email system thought I wanted monthly updates from Boxer's office. Right.

I receive the first (last and only...I immediately emailed to "unsubscribe", as though I had subscribed in the first place) update, and immediately I noticed Boxer's headline: Senator Barbara Boxer will fight to protect YOUR interests and keep oil rigs off our coastline!

Tell me, Senator Boxer, how on earth is that in MY best interest? I suppose pretty coastline is of far greater interest to me than my country being free of the tyrannical rule of OPEC, or maybe it's of greater interest to me than sacrificing $4.59 a gallon (yes, it got up that high, just down the street!) for gasoline.

Wait, no...it's in the best interest of your much wealthier constituents who contribute ridiculously large sums of money to your campaign and incidentally own large beach homes on the aforementioned coastline to be able to look out on the ocean and see just that: Ocean.

Barbara Boxer, how dare you presume to tell me that looking out on the Pacific and seeing the horizon dotted with - nay, COVERED IN - oil rigs would be an eyesore instead of a patriotic lift? It's not like our beaches are all that beautiful, if we Californians are being honest with ourselves. The water is an ugly, dark blue-green full of churning sand and floating chunks of kelp, the sand is grainy and gray-brown, and the beaches are horribly littered. We're not talking the Carribbean here, or the Mediterranian, or anything close to the likes of Tahiti, Fiji, or BoraBora. Our beaches are a poor, pathetic claim to fame...at best.

Right now you're saying to yourself, "So Mommy's position is that it's okay to make it uglier?" Yes. But honestly, are oil rigs just an eyesore, or the suggestion that we may yet be able to severe ties with the organization now using the Euro to discuss gasoline pricing "because the dollar is a worthless piece of paper." Yes, ladies and gents, that was a quote from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last November at an OPEC conference: "They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," he said to the press, and Venezuelan president agreed, saying that "the empire of the dollar has to end." How about we allow Boxer to side with the Iranian and Venezuelan presidents for the sake of "keeping our coastline beautiful"?

Because, and I don't believe I'm alone in this, if I were to look out on the Newport Beach horizon tomorrow, or stand on a cliff in Malibu and stare out at the ocean, or lie on a beach in La Jolla gazing out over the water and see an endless chain of oil rigs, I would feel a pride in my country swelling in my breast to match or exceed the pride I felt almost 7 years ago now as the law enforcement and fire fighters lost in 9/11 were paraded in caskets through the streets of New York. Those oil rigs would signify to me our TRUE independence: Independence from foreign oil and foreign debt. Heck, I'd buy a boat just to sail out to one of them and bring the drilling team on the rig a home-cooked lunch...and I'd buy it with the money I saved on gasoline. I'd take an Alaskan cruise and vacation on the coasts of Texas, Louisianna, Mississippi, and Florida to help generate American Pride in Oil Drilling Tourism. I'd donate to create wildlife preserves in Alaska for the endangered species if it meant drilling around those preserves could commence. And I'd put my hand on my heart every time I saw a oil rig off the California coast whether it was flying an American flag or it didn't have a flagpole. (If I were military, I'd salute.)

And yet Barbara Boxer thinks she's protecting my interests by keeping oil rigs off my coastline, and that I'm obviously better off paying four-and-a-half-dollars a gallon for gasoline if it means that the beach is...pretty? We can't really call California beaches pretty. But I digress. And I state here and now that Barbara Boxer does NOT think she's protecting my interests by "protecting California's coastline from drilling." That's bull poo, and she knows it. Barbara Boxer is protecting her campaign fund. After all, the wealthy California liberals that own beach houses are the ones that have kept her in office as a junior senator since 1992, right? And it's 2008, people. That means election year. I may technically be one of her state residents, but we make less than $100,000.00 a year and our contributions and donations go to our church, not Barbara Boxer. Who cares about Mommy out here in Anaheim? Certainly not Barbara Boxer. The very thought is laughable.

Now for the solution: Offshore drilling is a necessity, particularly since we're so painfully behind in the development of other energy sources. So Barbara is going to get another email from me - and an unsubscribe shortly thereafter - followed by a letter and a phone call to her office. And so is Dianne. And my House of Reps rep. And I'm about to hop on the internet and find out exactly who is running for office this November and email THEM, too. While I'm at it, I'll be writing a letter to the White House, to John McCain, and to B. Hussein Obama. WE WANT OFFSHORE DRILLING!!! WE WANT TO SUSTAIN OURSELVES WITH OUR OWN ENERGY!!! It's a good thing I just bought stamps at the post office, because I'm sick of being the silent majority, and you should be, too. There are a lot of things you should be sick of, and people, silence is NEVER golden. Peace, perhaps, but silence? NEVER.

Mommy's back, and she's pissed. The gloves are off. Let's do something about it, shall we?

Problem solved,

Mommy