Sun nite 11/16/08. Few things are as delightful as finding one's ideas corroborated. Thanks for your piece on Common Dreams re GM/transit.

I'm old enough to remember well the deliberate and systematic destruction of L.A.'s not-bad transit system when I was a teenager. Earlier than that, I remember when nearly everyone took public transit--and no one felt low or put- upon.

My favorite examples are RED HARVEST by Dashiell Hammett, in whch the detective (circa 1922) is in a small city--obviously Butte, Montana-- and takes the STREETCAR. And the early post WW II movie STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, in which the characters DO take the train, because there WERE trains. (I STILL take the train whenever possible.)

I also remember the early TV series, when I was about 16, back in the stone age, 77 SUNSET STRIP; that was just about the first one devoted mainly to supposedly glamorous people spending a lot of time driving around in the first generation of new cars after the war--one of the main characters was a parking lot valet.

I'm much bemused: it seems to me 99.9% of ALL environmental stuff I hear on

As the sun sets on Bush 2, it is clear that a very thin line of electoral protection preserved Barack Obama's victory in Ohio---and the nation.

And it's no accident the vote count battle for a Columbus-area Congressional seat still rages.

The GOP's 2008 electoral strategy again emphasized massive voter disenfranchisement and rigging the electronic vote count. The twin tactics very nearly gave Ohio to McCain/Palin, and threatened to set precedents capable of winning them the national election.

Prior to the 2004 vote, Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell stripped some 308,000 Ohio citizens from the registration rolls in heavily Democratic districts. This mass disenfranchisement alone may have accounted for the 118,000-plus official margin that gave George W. Bush a second term in the White House.

After the 2004 vote, Blackwell disenfranchised another 170,000 voters in heavily Democratic Franklin County (Columbus).

There’s good news for unions attempting to attract the young members that they must attract if they are to grow. It comes in recent studies showing clearly that younger workers do better as union members and that increasing numbers of the workers agree.

The basic figures, compiled by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, certainly are convincing. Unionized workers aged 18 to 29 averaged about $15 an hour -- more than 12 percent or about $1.75 an hour more than non-union workers of the same age.

What’s more, 40 percent of the unionized workers had employer-financed health care, while only 20 percent of those outside unions had such benefits. Almost 30 percent of those in unions had pension plans, only 11 percent of those outside. Most of the unionized workers also had such other benefits as paid holidays and vacations.

The contrast was even greater for workers in the 15 lowest paid jobs, including kitchen helpers, housekeepers, laborers, security guards, stock clerks, teachers’ aides, child- care providers and others. The median pay of young unionized workers in those jobs was about $11 an hour, nearly $2

My second day on the scooter I was a little too sure of myself.

My other bike, after all, is an aging V-twin 750cc Yamaha Virago (currently in need of repairs I can't afford) so how mean could a little 150cc scoot be? I twisted the throttle too fast in a parking lot and learned in an instant that my new eco-friendly ride has more pep than I realized, and doesn't turn as tightly as a motorcycle. Zooming right toward a parked car - a nice one - I had to drop the bike intentionally to avoid hitting it.

Both my new bike and my old ego emerged bruised, but luckily no serious injury to either.

To American motorists accustomed to the relative safety of gigantic SUVs and sedans, scootering is a dangerous proposition: The money you save on gas, maintenance, purchase price and insurance can dissipate in an instant with one bad move - yours, the other guy's or an act of Goddess.