In one of the many industries that is struggling to survive today, car manufacturers are scrambling to boost the fuel efficiency of their models in the hopes to broaden appeal.  If you are (one of the few) in the market to purchase a new car, MSN.autos provides a thorough listing of America’s Greenest cars of 2009.  From the Honda Civic GX, which is natural gas powered, to the well known hybrid,Toyota Prius; there are various automobiles to choose from in the comprehensive list. Buying a hybrid or more fuel efficient car releases less smog and fewer green house gases compared to the average automobile.  You can also save more than 20 gallons of gas per month as opposed to the average vehicle. 

In today’s economic turmoil, buying a car may not be your main concern.  What can you do to help lessen your carbon footprint?  Try to make your car more fuel efficient.  Below are some easy ideas you can implement:

·         To check the air filter in my car each month as regular maintenance of your car will help it run more efficiently thus saving money over the year.

·         To keep the window of my car closed when I am driving on the highway and use the air conditioner or heater instead.  Driving at high speeds with open windows can decrease efficiency of the car as it has to work harder and will consume more fuel. 

·         To keep my car tuned up. A car tune-up can improve its efficiency up to 50%.  This will extend the life of your car, decrease fuel consumption, and save money of gas as well as car repairs. 

·         To use antifreeze for my car made from propylene glycol and avoid conventional types which are higher in toxins.

·         To drive around the speed limit.  Improve your car’s efficiency by slowing down.  This can amount to 2%per mile reduced when you are driving over 65mph.  By simply driving 55mph verses 65mph, you will use about 15% less fuel.

Visit Earth Promise and see how your vehicle changes can make an enormous impact.  

Join Earth Promise to make, and keep track of your personal promises

One of the first calls I made was of course to our mortgage lenders – It only made sense to me to explain why in the near future we may get into difficulties with our mortgage. The chap on the other line listened attentively (as if this was the first time he had heard the same sob story). When I concluded my account of why I lost my job, how this would effect our household income and waited for his recant as to solutions to our problem, the only thing I did hear him say was, “I’m sorry I haven’t got better news for you. This job sure gets frustrating at times.” 

He basically went on to tell me that the only time they could even consider us for one of their loan modefication programmes was when we were behind with our payments. He explained that folks who are currently 6 months behind are taking priority. Well, suites me sir!!

The government is looking to inject around 9.7 trillion dollars into god knows what.  Why not divide it up between the tax payers here in the US –  90% of home owners would be able to clear their mortgages, which would stop foreclosures, inject cash into banks which would enable them in turn to open their credit lines once more. This would save the car manufacturers and allow both small and large companies to  recruit from the line I now find myself in!!!  Really – it makes no sense to me. What do you think?

Prone To Decay Part III

LOVE FOR THIS WORLD

     I don’t understand the love people have for this life and this world. A large majority of people in this world seem to think life is great and they would do anything to continue living this life and in this world. What is so great about this world? What is it that makes people marvel at themselves and at human accomplishment? Are we really that wonderful of a people?

     Most of the advancements and achievements that people take for granted today were only accomplished within the past fifty to one-hundred years or so. What about the previous six-thousand years? Why do older people act so smug and think they know everything when they have only been alive for 50 or 60 years? Wow! A whole 60 years? Big deal! In the history of this world, 60 years is meaningless compared to 6,000 years. Yet so many people act like experts in everything and are so proud of their piece of paper stating that they attended some university.

     People show off their fancy cars, their latest cell phone, the newest video games, their bigger television, their expensive couch, their newly built home, or their latest profitable business venture. The rich constantly look down on the poor people as if they are far superior to a poor person, yet when they lose everything and are unable to survive as a poor person, they commit suicide. And if they become rich again, they so quickly forget what it was like to be poor and continue on in life without having learned any life lessons. But even among people of equal financial standing they continuously turn a blind eye to their neighbor and do nothing to help them unless it is profitable to themselves. In fact, there is not one person in the entire world with a pure heart or noble interests. Even if someone is convinced that they are a good person and put others first they cannot deny their human nature. It is our nature to be selfish and to desire fame and glory. It is something as built into us as breathing air. We cannot avoid the fact that we need to breathe oxygen to live. So even the most selfless people who sacrifice so much for others also desires to be recognized or thanked at least. Or deep down, the person may want to be repaid someday or for people to feel indebted to them. They may not realize this or believe this about themselves because it is buried down deep inside. This is the truth of human nature. There is nobody that is “truly” good, no, not one. People care most about themselves and their own riches and belongings more than they do about another person. This has always been and will always be despite what people like to say about how we are becoming better people in an ever improving world. Do we all really enjoy living in a world where generosity isn’t truly genuine and what little generosity exists is hard to come by? Do we love being with people who say they have our backs when really they just have their own? Does it bring comfort to us to have friends that would do anything for us but in reality they just want to look noble and be known as a selfless person when deep down they are selfish and only help others to make themselves look good? Is humanity really improving? Are we going to ascend to a higher plain of existence someday and be beings of pure love, light, and energy? I doubt this very much.

     People are so enamored by this world and the things in it. People flock to shopping malls and buy the latest fashion. They spend an extraordinarily high amount of money to get a popular name brand item. People get together to talk about the latest movies or what the movie stars are doing. And everyone gets wrapped up with things, pleasures, and fleeting delights that have no long term meaning or value. When looking back on history, does anybody actually care what brand of clothing someone wore or what cell phone they used? Yet people put such a high value on it and people get discriminated against just for having something different or just being different.

     People are constantly bragging about human accomplishments. I hear about the ongoing competition between the countries of the world on who can hold the record of the world’s tallest structure, the largest flagpole, the biggest shopping mall and the list can go on. Who cares? No really, who really cares? What’s so great about any of this? Am I the only one that is not impressed by humankind’s “so called” accomplishments? And despite how grand of a structure we may build, one little earthquake can bring it to ruin in mere moments. Our greatest jets can be brought down by birds or air currents. Our greatest submarines still cannot go to the deepest parts of the ocean without being crushed by the pressure. Our own spaceships and satellites break down, crash, and blowup. Yet, mankind marvels at himself and pats himself on the back for these great accomplishments. Mankind seems to be blind to the fact that we are weak and falling apart and our greatest and most noble efforts are like dust in the wind. I believe there is a song about that.

     And despite all of our accomplishments we as a world continue to be unable to solve world hunger, suffering, poverty, racism, and war. I honestly don’t believe it is possible that these things will ever end. Human beings are greedy and selfish and the only way these things would end is if people lost their ego problem, swallowed their pride, and became selfless. Yet, this world becomes more and more selfish and self centered all the time. It is becoming more and more a world of “I” and “me”. I have seen countless arguments and petty bickering over the stupidest things just because one or both members are just being selfish and think they are right and the other is wrong. So many people are unwilling to open their eyes to who they really are. People can’t honestly evaluate themselves and see who and what they truly are. So many just want to live in a fantasy world and believe they are good people because they haven’t done something as bad as their neighbor down the street.

     What’s sad about all of this is that all of these people think they are good people and they believe that they are getting better and the world is getting better. A popular belief now is that the world is becoming greater and greater and the human race is becoming smarter, healthier, stronger, and wiser. Yet the opposite is true. Life spans, as a whole, are shortening despite whatever statistics someone may want to throw at you. There has been more deaths in war in the past century than all the previous centuries combined. Crime rates have skyrocketed and violent crimes are becoming more and more frequent. Catastrophes in the news seem to be common place now. It was in the news recently about the man who lost his job and murdered his wife and kids before killing himself too. I was watching a news broadcast that talked down the incident and mocked the man as if he was so stupid because it was “just” a job. They implied, “Just go get another one.” They also implied that there were no other problems and nothing else going on in his life that would have made him do that. Did they ever stop to think that he could have been struggling with lots of things and this was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”? And in the current economy with so many people losing their jobs and the unemployment rate being so high, how could he have just gone and got another job so easily? How could he find a job that paid as much as he was making at the hospital to support his entire family? But the news broadcaster acted like it is such an easy thing to do. It amazes me how much people lack compassion or understanding and how quick a person is to give their easy “solve all” answers to life’s hardest problems and questions.

     More recent stories are like the stories I read in the news about all the people that were beat up, fought, trampled, and even killed during the Black Friday shopping. Mothers were fighting and punching each other over a toy. Grown men were pulling guns out and having a shootout and both mutually killed each other in the process. People were taking toys out of someone else’s cart and then getting hospitalized because they were beaten almost to death. There is also the story of the man who got trampled to death by customers when he was trying to open the doors of the store to let them in. After the customers trampled him to death, none of them showed any care or concern for him or what they had done. In fact, when the police came to the store and informed everyone they were closing the store because it was now a crime scene, the customers were outraged and justified themselves by saying that they had been waiting outside for hours and the police had no right to kick them out and close the store “just” because they killed someone. The employees spoke about the event in an interview and said the people were acting like savages and when the employees tried to help their fellow worker, they also were trampled and nobody would allow them to help the poor man that got trampled to death.

     People act like uncivilized savages most of the time and throughout most of their day and then they have the audacity to claim that they are good people and that the world is a good and wonderful place as they show you the new gadget they bought at such a great deal despite the fact they killed someone in the process to get it. But maybe it is okay to kill someone if you get an iPod out of it right? Most people would scoff at such a suggestion but that is exactly the mentality of the people who trampled the man to death at the store on Black Friday.

     I have a friend who lives in a certain country where everybody cheats, robs, and steals from anyone they can. They do the most despicable things and don’t think they did anything wrong. And they capitalize on every possibility to earn money. For example, the people in this country believe that if someone dies in a car accident then it means that person’s luck has just run out. So if there is a fatal car accident, the people on the road will call everyone they know about the accident and people will flock to the scene of the accident and try to steal something from the car because they believe that the person’s luck has left them and is moving on and the people want to catch the luck so they can become prosperous. They even use that person’s license plate number in the lottery because they believe those numbers will bring them fortune. They have no concern for the casualty at all. In this same country, there are people who own towing companies. They will take their tow trucks and hide them near the road and then oil the street so that the cars will come down the street and wreck. After the car wrecks, the tow truck is instantly there to offer their services. I know somebody who completely smashed up the car and was injured but no help was given to this person; the towing company just wanted the person’s business and nothing more. They did not offer the person any medical aid or call for help. And when the person called the hospital it took the ambulance over an hour to arrive when it was so close to the hospital yet the mother of this person was able to arrive in 15 minutes and she lived much farther away from the accident than the location of the hospital. But we live in a great world though don’t we? This same country has a phone company that sends at least ten SPAM messages per day to all of the people that use their phone service. Then later they will send a message that says, “Don’t want to get SPAM? Pay us this much money every month and we won’t send you SPAM anymore.” That reminds me of the crime shows where the criminals will go into a business establishment and tell the owner that they will protect that business for a fee and if the owner doesn’t want to pay the fee they will be the ones to prove that the owner needs “protection”.

     It was in the news not too long ago about a babysitter that made a pornographic movie with a two year old child while the parents were away. Then it was in the news about a teenager who murdered his mother because she took a video game away from him. And there was a six year old child who shot his father and his father’s friend killing both of them. Then there was a news report about a whole line of miscellaneous toys that were deathly toxic by containing arsenic and mercury. Those are extremely lethal elements and are being put into toys. But I guess that doesn’t matter right? I mean, they are making such high profits; it doesn’t matter if some children die right? This story relates back to an older story of a car company who had a defective minivan. The minivan’s back door would come open really easily and many children were falling out the back door and dying. The company was being sued and asked to recall their minivans and fix this problem. The car company refused to recall the vans and fix them because they said, “It is cheaper for us to pay the lawsuits for each court case than it is for us to fix all of our minivans.” So all the deaths of the children that fall out of the back of the van is okay because it is cheaper than fixing the problem, according to them.

     There was a very similar story to this in the most recent news. Did you hear about the company called Peanut Corp. that intentionally sold products that were proven to have Salmonella in them and they even sold products that they didn’t even test? The motive behind it all is money. It is cheaper to sell it all and then deal with lawsuits than it is to pay money for testing or to pay money for recalling the items. As of February 7, 2009 there have been at least eight deaths and 575 people sick from this. But at least they got their money. The health and safety of people takes a back seat to profits and so what if people sue them and win? At least it is cheaper than correcting or preventing the problem. It’s all about meeting budgets and cutting costs. You people need to think more about being efficient with your spending budgets. People’s lives and health are expendable and are a necessary collateral. Didn’t you know that? And this very thing could happen to any of us, but we don’t care about the problem until it is at our own door.

     Haven’t heard about these stories? Check the news! These stories are becoming more and more common. These things are happening more and more frequently and are in the news very often now. I didn’t even look very hard for these news reports, there is such an abundance of them that only a blind and deaf person could possibly go without noticing them. Everyone just turns a blind eye to all of this and they love to live in their fantasy world and believe life is great. People go about their lives oblivious while they play their video games, watch their television shows, and gossip with their friends about what the celebrities are doing while shopping for their name brand clothes.

     The downhill drop of everything exists even in the medical field as well. I among many thousands of people have had bad experiences with hospitals. Many have had the impression that doctors don’t want to even take the time to listen to their medical problem. The doctor will cut you off mid sentence and quickly write you a prescription for some kind of drug that has worse side effects than the problem you are trying to fix. But on top of that are the prices they charge for their services or the lack thereof. Countless people are thousands of dollars in debt and have had their credit ruined just from hospital bills alone. But that isn’t all, it gets worse. I have been scammed by hospitals so many times myself. I distinctly remember being in the hospital and a doctor, that was not my assigned doctor, walked into my room followed by four other doctors. The other four doctors stood at the door as the lead doctor of this gang verbally asked me, “How are you feeling?” I said that I was doing okay and then he and the other four walked out the door. Later, I received a bill from EACH of those five doctors charging me $300 a piece for having “checked up on me”. So I had to pay a total of $15,000 just because one single doctor verbally asked me how I was doing and didn’t even touch me, look at my chart, or observe my stats, or anything else that a concerned doctor would do. Not to mention the other four that stood at the door barely peeking into the room, what is it that they did which warrants me paying each of them $300 a piece? Maybe the single doctor that asked the question could argue his point to merit his bill but how can the other four say they checked up on me? And none of them were even supposed to be there.

     Another time I had a doctor intentionally not prescribe me enough medicine to fix my condition. I have friends and relatives that are in the medical field. The doctor gave me half the amount he should have given me so I would have to pay money for a second visit. And on the second visit he prescribed one-fourth the amount I needed so I would have to visit him a third time. So in the end I paid a total of about $1,000 in doctor visits when only one single doctor visit would have been necessary. These types of examples are endless. I have many more stories I could tell of my own experiences and a large majority of people have experienced this same thing. It is becoming common knowledge that the medical field is now for the sake of making money and not concerned with helping people. There have been news reports about people dying in hospitals more and more frequently these days because of the lack of sanitation and due to irresponsibility. Also, I know doctors who have told me that they are required to prescribe a certain amount of specific drugs because the hospital gets financial support by the pharmaceutical companies. If they do not prescribe a certain quota of the drug, they will not get their financial funding. Other doctors have admitted that they have prescribed certain drugs to people that don’t even need it in order to meet this quota to get financial backing at their hospital. There have been news reports about people that have been prescribed drugs that have nothing to do with their problem just because the doctors have to do it. So I guess the moral of this story is that the hospital needs money and the end justifies the means.

     So once again I pose the question, “What is so great about this world?” What is it about this life that people love so much and will do anything to protect it? Why do people think the world is becoming a better place and everything is improving and becoming greater despite the lack of evidence of such a claim? Rather, on the contrary, there is overwhelming evidence to support just the opposite but people turn a blind eye or stick their head in the sand. What is it that constitutes such behavior? Is this deep love for this world merited?

     I have written two previous chapters to my “Prone to Decay” series. My point in all of this is to show that everything is falling apart and becoming chaotic. Nothing gets better on its own. And by nothing I mean nothing. Language is falling apart, morals, ethics, health, governments, economy, knowledge, and so much more. I wanted to write about each and every topic but it an exhaustive study to prove something that many don’t want to see or admit. People want to be ignorant. People choose to not see and nothing you show them will convince them otherwise. I think it is so foolish for people to believe that our lives, human nature, and the world are becoming better every day. There is more evidence than I could ever write about to prove that everything is falling apart. It is a scientific law that everything moves to a state of chaos and decay. Everything breaks down, falls apart, molds, rots, rusts, decays, fades, and weakens with time. Nothing improves by itself. And there is ample evidence that people are not improving themselves or this world despite what they tell themselves and try to make themselves believe. So what if someone drops a penny in a donation jar? So what if you wear a ribbon on AIDS awareness day? So what if you stand outside with a picket sign to protest something? Did any of these things actually make a difference? People feed themselves this lie that they are making a difference by just wearing a ribbon or giving a penny. It is sad that people can only part with one single penny to help someone starving but they will spend hundreds of dollars for a game console or video games. People will wear a ribbon but won’t actually give money to fund research or give food to someone starving. People will stand on a street in a crowd and hold a sign up, but they won’t actually get their hands dirty and do something about a problem. This world is full of people that live in a fantasy and want to believe they are good people and believe they are making a difference. Maybe that is how they cope with life. Maybe that is how they find a reason to get up in the morning. Maybe that is how each person can look at themselves in a mirror. But for me, I am not blind to all of this. I do not claim to be a good person. I do not pretend to be making a difference in the world. And I certainly do not believe that this world is becoming a better place and that people are so great as we evolve to a higher plain of existence someday. Stop to think about all of this. Take the blinders off of your eyes and honestly evaluate your own heart and ask yourself: What is it that I believe?