High gas costs spur debate, little else

It's been an up couple of months.

Stocks up, jobs up, confidence up -- all the economic arrows have been pointing in the right direction, even if they aren't quite soaring yet.

All, that is, but one: gas prices.

Nothing can slam the brakes on an early recovery like an extra dose of pain at the pump. Every extra nickel that goes into the family gas tank is one more nickel that isn't spent on something else. And that can be a premium-grade jobs killer.

The numbers are getting hard to shrug off.

The national average for a gallon of regular hit $3.61 as the weekend arrived. That's up 29 cents from December. Add a minimum of 15 cents a gallon across Nassau and Suffolk, where longislandgasprices.com found dozens of stations charging north of $4.

The truth, of course, is there isn't much any single American -- up to and including the president -- can do to make gas prices fall in a hurry. The oil market is far too global for all, and it's far more focused on factors like Saudi output, Iranian temper tantrums and rising global demand. United States oil production is already the highest it's been in eight years.

But none of that's consoling at $70 a fill-up.

The long-term answers are hard to get excited about. They add up to "do everything you can." Drill safely. Conserve more. Pursue renewables. Pray for peace.

But the politics of an election year are never long term and the campaign debate on energy is hardly ever sophisticated or smart. When gas prices are rising at the start of a recovery, don't expect any of that to change.

BARRELS OF FUN

1. Oily rhetoric

2. Crude debate

3. Unrefined analysis

4. Pipeline to oblivion

5. Spill, baby, spill

ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Can we all agree on this much: Occupy the Hamptons sure SOUNDS like more fun than sleeping beneath a tarp in Zuccotti Park? . . . How did Middle Island become the lottery capital of LI? Why buy a ticket anywhere else? . . . It took Veolia Transportation just seven weeks to threaten Nassau County bus-service cuts? How NICE is that? . . . Did you look in the neighbors' yard? Maybe that's where the wind blew your patio furniture . . . Once the state gets done making teacher ratings public, will every cop, firefighter, sanitation worker and county legislator be publicly rated, too? . . . When Rex Ryan says the Jets are looking "at every scenario" for a quarterback, does Mark Sanchez hear that old euphemism as a six-letter threat? P-E-Y-T-O-N? . . . Connecticut boaters are clamoring for better public access to their side of Long Island Sound. Any parallel rumblings on this shore? . . . That woo-hooing you've been hearing from LI train buffs? Yes, they're very excited that the 2012 Lionel catalog includes a new Ready-to-Run LIRR set with a superrealistic Alco RS-3 locomotive and three shiny cars. Woo-hoo!

THE NEWS IN SONG: Sooner or later, there won't be much around: Tower of Power, "Only So Much Oil in the Ground," tinyurl.com/dryhole

LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK: MARIE COLVIN

Sadly, wars don't cover themselves. We need courageous reporters like Marie Colvin for that dangerous job. Colvin was one of ours: A child of Oyster Bay, she left for Yale and then for war and could never really leave the diciest corners of the world. If someone was suffering, she had to report it. If someone was fighting, she had to go there. From the West Bank to Kosovo, from Zimbabwe to East Timor, she ran toward what others ran from. In the Syrian city of Homs at age 56, she was killed by government rockets. This is no time to sentimentalize her choices. But this grief-filled moment should not pass without honoring and respecting them.

Email ellis@henican.com
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