In 1973, America imported 30 percent of its crude oil needs. Today, that number has doubled to more than 60 percent. Gas prices are as high as they are now in part because we've had no comprehensive national energy policy for the past few decades.
Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.
Natural gas is the one fuel that we have that's affordable, it's scaleable, it can replace coal over time, it can replace imported oil, can create American jobs.
In the movies, I loved Errol Flynn whether he was playing a soldier or a pirate. I dug pirates. In fact, my first exposure to live performances was when my paternal grandfather took me to a D'Oyly Carte performance of 'The Pirates of Penzance' which impresario Sol Hurok imported from London. I loved every minute of it.
Modernism in other arts brought extreme difficulty. In poetry, the characteristic difficulty imported under the name of modernism was obscurity. But obscurity could just as easily be a quality of metrical as of free verse.
Social media changed Chinese mindset. More and more Chinese intend to embrace freedom of speech and human rights as their birthright, not some imported American privilege. But also, it gave the Chinese a national public sphere for people to, it's like a training of their citizenship, preparing for future democracy.
Jazz music, as is also the case with the old down-home spirituals, gospel and jubilee songs, jumps, shouts and moans, is essentially an American vernacular or idiomatic modification of musical conventions imported from Europe, beginning back during the time of the early settlers of the original colonies.
Renewable ethanol represents a clear opportunity to grow a significant portion of our own fuel locally and begin to break the hold imported fuels have on us.
If you're a beach person or a golfer, Key West is not for you. Most of the sand has been imported, and the water is shallow until you've waded far out, and all the way the sea floor is covered with yucky algae and sea grass.
In the end, perhaps it will be the true romantics, not the nerds, who choose to flee from a world of impersonal, digitized relationships and into the arms of simulacrums with manners imported from simpler times.