This road is a lifetime long.

Now let's take a trip to where civil engineering meets social engineering and the rubber hits the road. There was recently a report in the national media (which is surprising enough) that said that a study in New Jersey concluded that HOV lanes don't really work. Gee, there's a shocker! Few people use the damned things. I forget the reason why, but the study concluded that air pollution actually increased because of the lanes. In the wake of the report, the good people in the Tennessee Department of Transportation told us that it was too early to tell if the same phenomenon is happening here. But the part that kills me is that some spokesman said that they wouldn't be expanding any of the interstates in Nashville except for future HOV lanes. For those who have never driven through our town, let me explain the screwy system through Davidson County. I-24, I-40 and I-65 cross through Nashville like a giant asterisk. With the growing suburban populations in the surrounding counties, extra lanes were built on the outskirts of town to handle the additional peak traffic. They added HOV lanes of course. However, the problem starts when you get close to town. The HOV lanes disappear and the highways merge and split in opposite directions, sometimes within the span of less than a mile. So, the plan is to go from five and six lanes where people are getting on the road down to three and four lanes once they get into the city. (Reverse the process for afternoon rush hour.) The dopes at TDOT are hoping that the maddening gridlock will encourage (read force) people either to use our sad mass transit system or to car pool. Who car pools? People are going to drive. It our right as Americans. (Don't go searching the Constitution for that one.) Trust the good old government (federal, state or local) to make things difficult and put the squeeze on you to force you to comply with what they think is best for you. After all, they just want to help you. Bend over, they want to help you some more.

And another thing ...

I have always loved sports. I have season tickets for the Tennessee Oilers this year and have had them for the Nashville Metros for the past two years. Football, soccer and baseball are my favorites, but I can watch almost any. I'm also a believer in capitalism and I understand the dynamics of professional sports. But I realized something as I was in the stands watching yet another anemic performance by the Oilers. Pro sports is entertainment. It is supposed to be an escape for the ordinary Joe from his dull and mundane life. (This is kind of sad, given some of the pathetic teams I support.) I pay, with the cost of my season tickets, to be entertained. The performers earn millions of dollars to entertain me. Yet, I have not been very entertained. The strange part of it is that it's somehow my responsibility as a spectator to encourage the performers being paid huge sums of money to perform. In what other forms of entertainment is this expected? Do we go to the theatre and shout to the stage, "Let's go, Hamlet!" (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) or "Here we go, chorus, here we go!" (clap, clap)? Do we go to concerts and expect the bass player to play better if we yell louder? We cheer and applaud in appreciation and boo, hiss and whistle in disapproval. There are some people who think that you shouldn't boo the home team, but should cheer them no matter what. That's wrong. If they suck, I'll tell them. (Granted they can't really hear me, but it's the principle of the thing.) I still support them, but if I'm not being entertained by these multi-millionaires, damn it, someone's going to hear about it. I guess I was just born a Philly sports fan. Booooooo!!!

And another thing ...

Take me back! or Here we go forward, here we go! (clap, clap)