== The good news, the bad news = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Gas is $4 a gallon, but bike sales are up. Gay marriage is here, but so is the apocalypse. It's your choice!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/05/28/notes052808.DTL&nl=fix

The good news: Gas is racing merrily past four bucks a gallon and oil is skipping over a previously unheard-of $130 a barrel and Big Oil execs are snorting like pigs in diamond-crusted mud, and hence people are quickly rethinking their transportive ways, driving less and dumping the land yacht in favor of more Priuses and Mini Coopers and Smart cars, as ultra-efficient auto technology suddenly becomes very attractive indeed.

Positive side effects: Bike sales are way up, as are roller skates and electric skateboards and walking shoes and SPF face lotion and hats and sidewalks and strolling amiably through the neighborhood instead of driving, waving casually to the neighbors and saying hi and suddenly noticing all manner of amazing detail, all the flower beds and stoops and architectural curiosities of the city you never really noticed before because you were too busy racing the stop light to get to IKEA. Just imagine all the happy socioeconomic shifting when gas hits six, seven, eight bucks a gallon. Mmm, uncomfortable market-forced behavioral adjustments. It's the American way.

The bad news: Market-forced behavioral adjustments are a bitch. Driving less, walking more, caring about small cars? It's almost unnatural. What's more, it's a shift brought not by any deep concern for the environment, but by the fact that it costs $125 to fill the damn Explorer and suddenly you're asking, wait a second: Tank of gas or new couch? Tank of gas or case of wine and the mortgage payment? Dammit, we're Americans. We hate thoughtful restraint.

The good news: Gay marriage is now legal in California by astonishing (Republican) State Supreme Court decree, thus confounding and infuriating and yet secretly titillating the religious right and sending shock waves through the culture, as notions of love and marriage get slapped and pinched and urged to finally move a few steps forward because, well, it's about damn time. Bonus: economy smiles, wedding and divorce industries cheer, lots of delightful social awkwardness as everyone tries to figure out who's the husband and who's the wife. ...