Has anyone noticed the rise of Texas Hold-Em Poker replacing Baseball as our new national pastime?  Now, there’s a national distraction worth mention.

Poker, which is often televised on ESPN, the sports channel, is now filled with household names like “Brunson,” “Moneymaker” and Hellmuth!  It has become totally acceptable for people to indulge themselves in the ‘sport’ for 15 hours straight.  How did this happen?  Perhaps the better question is why?

I have seen a lot of weirdness in 40 years, major national distractions - O.J., Monica Lewinsky, Janet Jackson’s boob - which have arisen at such a time that 6 or 12 months later, I would wish we all had been paying better attention to the truly important matters at hand.  Now, when major national distractions arise, I seek the presence of mind to ask the question what are we being distracted from?

In one respect, Poker is the perfect compliment and distraction for much of what we have seen this past 8 years in the United States.  The basic statement poker players make is, “I will sit in a dingy, awful place for as long as it takes to prove to you and myself that with these playing cards, which have no bearing on any reality outside of this room, I can dup you out of your money quicker and more consistently than you can dup me out of mine.”  Apparently, the egoic drive to beat our fellow man into the ground reaches beyond the traditional battlefield.  In any event, it has proven a good distraction for many very intelligent people and a few less fortunate ones.  So, what have we missed lately?

In the 1990’s, with the advent of the electric car, we had one good answer to our dependence on oil, but we allowed the interests of a few wealthy people to move us, once again, in the wrong direction.  We would soon go to war over oil and we remain there today 5 years later.  Tens of thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been wounded.   By the time it is over the price tag on this war will reach a trillion dollars.  Can you imagine how different the world would be if we could go back in time and raise a trillion dollars for the development of renewable energy infrastructure in the United States?

Taking stock of it all, we might look back and conclude that in the archetypal battle between good and evil, Evil has had a pretty good run recently.   Not true! Like the composed poker player she is, Good sits across from Evil and feigns the slightest hint of nervousness, all the while knowing she has the best hand at the table.  “Check,” she says, patiently waiting, doing nothing. “All in,” says Evil, salivating at the thought of taking this monster pot down. Good has lured Evil out into the open for all to see.  And now, having seen it, the spectators, aghast and amazed that they themselves have remained in this place watching this time-suck of a game, awaken from their collective daze and begin to live again.

As a consumer, insisting on and buying an electric vehicle is the single most powerful thing I can think to do.  As soon as one year from now, car companies will be coming out with affordable electric cars for the masses.  There is a solution and we need to focus on it now. Go to pluginamerica.org and become familiar with the facts.  We must do everything possible to turn the tide and put an end to this era of fighting for oil.