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TODAY Friday 19 December 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Mousemobile

In the better sort of journalism circles, one looks down one's nose at the ink-stained wretches who take a corporate press release and print the contents as news. Indolent at best, venal at worst.

So yesterday we get this great press release from GM Advanced Technology Vehicles, dateline Orlando. There's an electric car symposium being held in that city this week ("The Hybrid As Savior"), and General Motors has had a long term contract to supply the cars, trucks and buses at Walt Disney World Resort. From that confluence of time and space comes the no-brainer announcement that "Walt Disney World Resort will replace a number of its vehicles with low or zero-emissions alternative fuel vehicles."

First to come is a delivery of Chevy S-10 electric pickups. Then -- we learn by somewhat anxiously vague wording -- "potential additions may include other electric, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), hybrid, and fuel cell-powered GM vehicles, as they become available."

"May include"? "As they become available"? Wiggle room galore. Still, this is pretty good news for all us new-style car geeks. The quicker average Americans ride around in cool alternative vehicles, the better off we'll all be. Getting those vehicles to Disney World will probably have a greater long-term impact than making the Postal Service deliver the mail late in CNG trucks.

Next steps: A basketball star driving a high-performance hybrid is pulled over by a state trooper and arrested for possession of a controlled substance and an unlicensed firearm. Clint Eastwood motors into Carmel behind the wheel of his new electric jeep. Al Unser, Jr. wins the Indy 500 and drives home in a CNG pickup. An episode of "Friends" features a botched orgy inside an electric mini-van. Let's go mainstream.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

OK, readers, the first under-new-management issue of The Grove -- Liberty Tree's free e-mail newsletter -- is ready at last. Great new piece by Donella Meadows on aquacultured shrimp. If you don't yet subscribe to The Grove, you really should.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

12/18: Year of Fire
12/17: Ramblin' Man (Ramblin' Woman)
12/16: Big News on the Margins
12/15: The Hybrid As Savior
12/12: Good Week for the Dragon
12/11: Help Wanted: Unreasonable Extremists
12/10: Oh Boy! A Fight!
12/9: Running Away From It All
12/8: "What I Wouldn't Give for This War to End."
12/5: Feisty Euros at Kyoto
12/4: Beauty in the Bronx
12/3: God from Machine
12/2: Gentlemen's Bet
12/1: Public Opinion
11/26: Sperm
11/25: Sound Sound-Bite Science
11/24: Home Sweet Storage Locker
11/21: Tim Wirth's Inscrutable Adventure
11/20: Better to Receive than to Give
11/19: Wes Jackson's Problem with Agriculture
11/18: "Stay Home and Be Decent"

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.