Birth of The Road

Today marks the 52nd anniversary of my favorite American innovation: The Interstate!

You can find out all about it and read a fun “Interstate Fact of the Day” HERE.

(Taken Saturday on the way home from Little Rock)

I know that the current trend is toward saving resources and using less gas and stay-cationing and walking to the grocer and breathing 10% less air and carpooling to work while Al Gore, and movie stars, and state governors take private planes to go to work or visit their lovers and get special cappuccinos BUT lets not forget that it was the automobile and the open road that gave the working class mobility and freedom. 

Let’s not live in a prison of (corporate sponsored) green guilt while the Detroit City Council takes kick-backs from letting corporations dump whoknowswhat in the once-glorious Motor City. You want to drive to The UP? Go on and get yourself a pasty. You want to drive from NYC to LA? It’s your god given birthright and duty as an American. Remember women can’t even drive in Saudi Arabia (and a few other places)– proving just how powerful the act of driving really is – shall we say; driving is the new press? Get to it.

Oh - and read The Autonomist Manifesto published in the New York Times Magazine in September of 2004.

Paintings by Carl Rakeman -- check him out he looks a bit angry but maybe he just doesn’t like having his picture taken – maybe he’s rather be painting or driving.