Hurtling toward economic chaos

Mike Davis is always worth a read.

When my old gang and I were 14 or 15 years old, many centuries ago, we yearned for immortality in the fiery wreck of a '40 Ford or '57 Chevy. Our J. K. Rowling was Henry Gregor Felsen, the ex- Marine who wrote the 1950s bestselling masterpieces "Hot Rod," "Street Rod" and "Crash Club."

His books — highly praised by the National Safety Council — were deterrents to unsafe driving, meant to scare my generation straight with huge dollops of teenage gore. In fact, he was our asphalt Homer, praising doomed teenage heroes and inviting us to emulate their legend.

One of his books ends with an apocalyptic collision at a crossroads in a small Iowa town, and the deaths of the teens are graphically described. We loved this passage so much that we used to read it aloud to one another.

It's hard not to think of the great Felsen, who died in 1995, while browsing the newspaper these days. There, after all, are the "tea party" Republicans, accelerator punched to the floor, grinning like demons as they approach Deadman's Curve. (John Boehner and David Brooks, in the back seat, are of course screaming in fear.)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-davis-crashclub-20110726,0,448545.story