For just this once, I don’t agree with my excellent pal Joan Juliet Buck; she of the coffee-cup-brought-to-her-lips fame. This particular oil crisis – along with other pressing factors like financial failures, the rise of India and China as super consumers and our diplomatic failures in the Middle East – should really jerk our chains. Maybe, finally, that is happening. I do see a move toward combating global warming, developing new energy sources and ridding ourselves of oil craziness. Because, if we don’t, this country could go down the drain.

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