Many of us are familiar with the old trick of two people tossing a coin into the air to settle some matter, and one saying quickly, "Heads, I win—tails, you lose!" It sounds all right until you give it a second thought.
The gasoline shortage and the accompanying frustration, hostility between drivers competing for meager supplies, charges of institutional greed and government ineptitude, raise the broad question of just where our dependence is resting.