Light it. Live it. Love it.

When you assume that there is some mysterious latticework of cover-up and deviousness that underlies a government’s ineptitude, you are freely admitting that politicians and those in power have been blessed with a much higher intelligence than that of your own and that hundreds or even thousands of people have the ability to keep the same secret.

I for one don’t believe either of those assumptions.

While it may be true that some (and maybe even most) government officials are more intelligent than myself, the fact remains that no large group of people is capable of hanging onto some deep, dark secret that they all share.

Sometimes we just have to look at the text and quit reading between the lines.

Now, one of the most incendiary topics as of late is the subject of soaring gas prices. You can find several insanely intricate conspiratorial plots surrounding big business, the war in Iraq and the historical rise of gas prices.

Whether any or all of those theories are indeed correct is really beside the point. What I would really like to touch on is one of the fundamental attributes of all good (or bad) conspiracy theories: the ordinary, truth-seeking folk versus the evil establishment mode of thinking.

A perfect example of this can be found in those God-awful chain e-mails pleading with people to boycott buying gas on a particular day of the week. Nice. So all of those dead-brained misanthropes that skipped filling up on Tuesday rolled into the nearest gas station the next day and handed a record-breaking Wednesday to any and all oil companies.

That’s a lot like Rachael (Crisco) Ray skipping a meal before a show only to inevitably gorge herself on the backstage buffet immediately after.

If you really want to express your displeasure towards gas prices, start using public transportation on a consistent basis.

Although the economic pains of rising gas prices have socked me in my testes, I am kind of looking forward to the day when most people are pretty much “priced out” of the transportation market. Most of these assholes shouldn’t be on the road anyways and lest we forget: the very act of driving is a privilege, not a right.

I apply the same logic to theme parks as well. I would gladly pay double the price of admission if I didn’t have to deal with the stench of filthy miscreants who find it necessary to neglect personal hygiene and run straight towards the water rides, only to fill the park with the aroma of a musty turd.

Operating in Life's Trivial Pursuit,

Ronald Cherry