“Words are all we have really.”   

George Carlin, 1937-2008

We note with sorrow the passing of the gifted comedian George Carlin.  Carlin was a superb wordsmith who often noted the absurdity of our use of language.  His “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine remains a classic.   The New York Times offered a fine obituary by critic/author Mel Watkins today and a nice appreciation by editor Charles McGrath.  Because, however, Carlin paid such attention to the written and spoken word, I’m going to quibble with one portion of the obit.  It reads: 

“Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. ‘It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,’ a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. (italics mine)

Mr. Ampolo becomes Mr. Purist here.  Why isn’t the critic who offered the observation identified?  This isn’t Robert Novak protecting Richard Armitage after the latter spilled the beans. (Of course, Plame is the real one whose identity should have been protected.) My only guess is that Mr. Watkins might be quoting himself.  I’m not sure that’s kosher.  

Maybe I have too much time on my hands today.  I went so far as to email the Times’ public editor and ask him what’s up and what the paper’s policy is with respect to such quotations.  If you’ve read this far, stay tuned!

It’s Friday. It’s hot and humid. And Mr. and Mrs. Ampolo are staring at deadlines imposed by their paying assignments. It’s hard to multi-task and write for Ampolo today. Still, we’ll soldier on.

Our home offices are separated by one room. We are, oh, 25 or 30 feet apart from each other, but windows that have been strategically placed in our walls allow for easy communication. For better or worse we can hear each other typing away, cursing, humming songs by The Turtles.

After reading a New York Times article about a Buddhist man and women who never leave each other’s side, we were reminded of how close we are to each other for much of the day. But even tho’ we run an idea factory here, it never occurred to us to do what Slate’s deputy editor David Plotz and his wife, Hanna Rosin. an Atlantic Monthly contributing writer, did.

Take a gander at their clever, revealing gambit. Wish we’d thought of it.

In his Wednesday column, “Imbalances of Power,” the New York Times‘ Tom Friedman wrote:

More and more, I am convinced that the big foreign policy failure that will be pinned on this administration is not the failure to make Iraq work, as devastating as that has been. It will be one with much broader balance-of-power implications — the failure after 9/11 to put in place an effective energy policy.

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world — the U.S. economy — to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states — from Russia to Venezuela to Iran — that are reshaping global politics in their own image.

We at Ampolo don’t want to be too long-winded here, but, as the following short video that we particularly like makes clear, there are alternatives to oil. The video also shows that creativity itself has tremendous power when harnessed in this fashion. (Don’t be put off by the narrator’s foreign accent. It only takes a few seconds to understand him.)

Our thanks to Seth Stevenson of the online magazine Slate for drawing our attention to this in his recent feature on the Clio Awards for best commercials of 2008.

We don’t want to spoil the video for you, but if it moves you to want to know more about the subject, come back and click on website 1 or website 2.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend. Drive safely…and at 55 m.p.h. on the highway.

And if you have the energy, send us a comment.