We’re Building The Emerald City, Dorothy
All of this technology that the New Green Steal is bringing will always protect your rights. Right?
I got a parking ticket in the Emerald City at Christmas. The Emerald City, that’s what I call the Utopian ideal that my town aspires to. Remember the shining Emerald City where all was new and your every wish was granted? If you were lucky your wishes were granted and you can transform into anything you desired.
Michigan is the land of Oz and we are building the Great Emerald City at a furious pace. Has to be new, we can’t repurpose anything. Why? I dunno, something about Sustainablity requiring brand new infrastructure. And land, we’ll need lots more land. Those trees and foliage and beautiful farmland we love, that will haven to disappear, well that’s where the dumb people live so it’s ok. We need all materials and resources possible to keep building our Emerald City.
Everything in the new Emerald City will be so great, so new, that it will be completely automated. Don’t worry, it all works like magical, computerized clockwork. Yes, IT WORKS! It’s inerrant, infallible. Don’t ever doubt it. Don’t. Just don’t.
My region is one of the first to sign up to become part of the Emerald City. Yeah, it’s great and all. Solar power traffic lights and automated parking meters. They even have a green light so I know I’m going to be a lawful citizen of Emerald City whenever and wherever I park my car. In fact, they just reminded me how great this going to be by sending me a parking ticket.
See that skinny version of R2D2 with its lovely little emerald eye? It took a photo when I pulled in, left the blinkers on and ran to grab a coffee. Took me only 5 minutes. It was Christmas, I was in a rush and the constant arguments with Mrs Humanzee where I say “Naaawww, I can get in fast before they take their dumb pictures” were ringing in my head as I hopped out of the car. If you’re wondering, Mrs Humnazee’s super power is that she puts up with me. “I’m not parked, the car is standing ‘cause the lights are flashing. In the bad olden days that’s how we did it.” I repeat that as I go to grab that coffee. In fact my city used to have the ordinance that I could leave the car with flashers on for 5 minutes.
So I get a letter from the Emerald City with a photo of a car that looks just like mine (wink-wink), but you know, even though they have my license plate listed in the citation, in the 2 photos they included as proof you can’t see my license plates. They are blurred out by lights, so who can really say. Nope, not in either photo. Yeah, it could be mine, but I don’t recall if I was there or not. I could have been. It was Christmas, we were all in a Christmas rush, etc.
Being the caustic yet ever loyal Humanzee that you all know that I am, when I went to the circuit court to pay this, I started flirting with the clerk, then asked her opinion. “Hey, can you see a license plate, how do I know this is really my car?”
“You can’t. Do you want to contest the ticket?”
Naturally I did just that, figuring that depriving the city their dumb parking ticket money as I could is not a bad thing so I kicked the can down the road. “Screw ‘em”.
That was in January. The first week of March get a letter on Thursday after wrapping up Spaces with the Tribe and it’s from the Emerald City. I have to appear in court at an informal hearing. Mind you, I don’t have to be physically present, because in the Emerald City the courts must be protected at all costs from COVID and I just need to jump on Zoom. I’ll just have to remember to erase “The Mighty Humanzee” from the screen name – forgot to do that last year when I had to fight a charge my neighbor dropped on me over my dog. Long story short, I was on Zoom with “The Mighty Humanzee” as my screen name, the judge snickered and I apologized profusely. I managed to plea down the charge despite that. Yes, I am that charming.
You need charm, wit and cunning in the Emerald City. They are in all cases infallible, and are using technology to make extracting money from you as painless for them as possible, with barely an inconvenience to you. In theory.
I hear that very soon, in the next immediate phases of the Emerald City they will discourage the use of CO2. In fact my area has a target of 40% reduction in 2030. To get there, the Emerald City is doing its best to deliver the best technology for our use. For example, we are getting 127 EV charging stations for the very cheap price of 110 Million. Outstanding deal, just under 1 million per charging station. You can charge your EV in 20 – 30 minutes using the Direct Current Level 2 stations. They don’t say if the temperature has to be perfect outside to achieve. But I won’t have to worry, they have more plans so I won’t have to worry too much about winter travel. And school buses are a real bargain:
A typical electric school bus costs about $375,000, or about three times the cost of a diesel-powered bus. Add in another $1,200 to $10,000 or more for a basic EV charger and infrastructure-related costs, and many districts say the sticker shock is too much to overcome.
So that covers The Wizard, Dorothy, our judges and our kids the Flying monkeys. For me, I guess I just get the Legolas boots and can flit around my 15 Minute City where I am restricted from traveling outside its boundaries. I hear that Oxford in Merry Old England is flirting with that idea, and I get the progressives in the Emerald City are pretty jealous about being behind the times. But I hear all my needs will be met once we devote out entire economy to weening us of the nasty carbon based fuels. I’ll be thinner too, no beef on the menu.