General Motors announced Monday it’s shutting down a major stamping plant in Grand Rapids. This is a massive factory that’s been around for many decades. Automotive forecasters are predicting at least one, and possibly, all of the Big-3 American automakers will be out of business or in bankruptcy within one year or less. I know we’ve moved into a service and high-tech economy, but this nation cannot afford to allow its manufacturing base to completely melt away. If the government can bail out the likes of AIG, greedy investment banks and a slew of corrupt politicians, surely it can afford to invest in our automakers to build high-tech hybrid, plug-in vehicles and other forms of alternative energy. The difference being that each of us is sure to eventually see the long-term benefits of such investments in our future, whereas bailing out Wall Street may be throwing good money after bad. I don’t have the solutions, and I’m no financial guru. But I’m confident that aggressive investment into research and technogological developments, such as automotive, life sciences, research hospitals and space exploration, will render enormous benefits for future generations.

Yeah, my sister, Kim, was down in Florida the other day, and was blown away how low prices are in the South. It’s almost always much higher in the Upper Midwest. Are you still experiencing long lines at the gas stations in the South, post-Hurricane Ike?

Kryssi K, Appreciate it while you can. As a transplanted southerner, I would not identify Oklahoma as the south — more mid-western — I like the reference to Indian territory too because it really isn’t culturally very mid-western — sort of an amalgamation of many influences. I was in Tulsa a while back because an old friend returned home to Diamond, MO to get married — and we all flew into Tulsa. You have interesting architecture there from Art Deco to the futuristic Oral Roberts University; and Tulsa also has the ballet and opera —- can’t be all rednecks.