Maybe higher gas prices are a good thing

I'm back in LA today, back in my own apartment, working from the dining room with my laptop and cell phone like the olden days of April, back before I got my job. I'm finally away from the gray skies of Hotlanta and dingy walls of the airport Renaissance, and back under the crisp blue air and California sunshine. Or something like that.

I was rather alarmed as our plane was coming in for the landing today, when the crisp blue air and imposing San Bernadino mountains suddenly gave way to a single murky layer of brown cloud that stretched as far as the eye could see. One minute I was looking at the mountains, remembering how only one year ago they were so new and exciting to me (mountains!) and how today they seemed so familiar and welcoming; the next minute I began noticing that the thin layer of cirrus clouds that separated the air from the earth had become laced with gray-black edges. Just as I began to make out the cityscape of Downtown LA and started to look for the Hollywood sign, we were engulfed in a blanket of smog. It was truly amazing how one second the air was clean and beautiful as can be, and the next, we're blindly moving through murk. What's really amazing was that it still seemed sunny, bright, and beautiful from the ground looking up.

So I can only imagine the toxicity report fifty years from now: record numbers of Angelenos dropping dead from smog inhalation after we were all out running, hiking, stair climbing, and so forth, all in the name of good health.