MAY 20, 2008 --

Gas prices are at record levels and one United States senator is concerned about cheating in professional football and the president says we need to drill for more gas.

LPR would agree that Democrats might well take environmental concerns past the common good in blocking more oil drilling but it seems to LPR that either the president supports the current record prices -- or they are being imposed in spite of him -- which would not be a sign of respect for him, would it?

That Arlen Specter comments on a professional football issue while the American middle class is getting whip-sawed by oil prices and credit card usury is, perhaps, indicative that our legislators haven't a clue what the common good is anymore, having turned politics into a private business.

Again, LPR asks the support of the Internet community in demanding disclosure from credit card companies as to the amount of gain they make from their usurious rates on entire balances compared to the alleged loss from a late payment or two.   

LPR has the sense that the gain over loss, per the affected individual, is  grossly disproportionate, indeed "unconscionable."   

There was a time when the law did not support contracts that gave unconscionable returns to powerful interests.  Has the legal community expunged "unconscionable" from Black's Law Dictionary?

Last issue, LPR quoted Ben Franklin. Here is a new variation of that observation: It seems to LPR that either we start walking now, or, most assuredly, we will, most of us, be walking later.