The promotion offers to cap the price of gas for new car purchasers of Chrysler products at $2.99 for three years. Customers get some sort of credit card to buy their gas. They get billed for $2.99, and Chrysler pays the rest. The article stated that the purchaser of a 2008 PT Cruiser would save over $350 a year if gas was at $3.61 a gallon. Of course, prices have zoomed past $3.61, closing in on $4. So savings would be even greater as prices rise.
One Chrysler official said it would give customers peace of mind regarding gas prices. It may also put Chrysler in the poor house, because I suspect consumers are going to go for it big time. Look for other auto makers to follow suit. It makes plenty of sense to me.
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We print our paper in Ocilla at Pineland Press. For the past 10 or 12 years the press has been managed and operated by two of the nicest people I know — Jeff and Robin Blease. Good adults tend to rear good children, and Jeff and Robin are no exception. Alicia and Jennifer both do their parents proud. Jennifer’s a ninth grader at Irwin High School at the head of her class. Alicia Blease is the Irwin County High School Class of 2008 Salutatorian.
Alicia has something I don’t have — a scientific mind. She intends to make a career in science. I have no doubt she’ll be successful. She has elected to go to Wesleyan College in Macon — the oldest chartered women’s college in the country. She competed for and won an additional $15,000 science scholarship from the school. I saw Robin and Jeff last Thursday afternoon after they had spent the morning at honors day at ICHS. I knew Alicia had racked up the awards and scholarships. I asked Robin if she got tired of hearing them call her daughter’s name. She grinned and said, “No.”
Lots of Moms and Dads are grinning this time of year over the successes of their children in high school and beyond. And justifiably so. Some clichés are true. Hard work does pay off. And good things do happen to good people. Congratulations, Alicia, from one member of your Pineland family.
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William Earl Lynd was executed at Jackson State Prison last Tuesday night. Lynd was from Berrien County and had been on death row for nearly 20 years. He killed his girlfriend in brutal fashion and fled to Ohio where he murdered another woman. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. And so the State of Georgia carried out his sentence.
There’s something other-worldly about executions to me. A young woman from the Georgia Press Association office called me the day before the execution and asked me if I would be a witness to the execution. I wasn’t aware that Georgia Press provides two witness to these events until she told me. Since Lynd was from Berrien County, they were looking for a south Georgia press representative. I declined.
I know a few people who would gladly drive a long way to watch an execution, but not many. They say lethal injection is humane, and I hope it is. If someone killed one of my family members, I’d be ready to push the plunger myself. But watching a total stranger die isn’t my idea of a good time.
I told the nice lady to take my name off the list.
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Joshua Keeler, Joey Stocking and Adam Gatherum packed up a 2005 Toyota Scion last Monday, left the home in Maine and drove 7,008 miles in 106 hours. In the process they drove through all of the lower 48 states. Seems silly, you say. And you might be right. But they broke an old Guinness record of 120 hours.
I did the math, and they averaged 66 miles an hour. I think they should do it again and leave 12 hours earlier. Then they could see the places they missed in the dark on this trip.
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Some of you may have seen a recent segment about Dr. Paul Farmer on “60 Minutes.” My cynical mind keeps me from being easily impressed, but Dr. Farmer impressed the socks off of me. He is one of the founders of a group called Partners in Health, an international medical aid organization. He has one goal — to cure the world. And he just might do it.
Farmer and his group have hospitals in refugee camps in Africa and clinics in Haiti and other places around the world. They go where the world’s poorest are barely hanging on and do enormous good. The interviewer asked Farmer how many people his group had saved. He said “Too numerous to tell.” And he had the proof. He had photos of near-death, emaciated figures, and photos taken years later of the same person in robust health. All because Farmer got them medicine for malaria, HIV or other preventable diseases, made sure they took their medicine regularly and saved them.
Farmer grew up in Florida, one of eight children. His father was a teacher, his mother a store clerk. They lived in an abandoned bus, a tent and a nearly sunken houseboat. He said, “We never had much, but I was surrounded by love.” He won a scholarship to Duke University, later graduating from Harvard Medical School. He is a specialist in infectious diseases. But mostly he is a man with an enormous heart for the poor and powerless of our planet. He could have a successful medical practice anywhere in the world, likely making millions. But he lives in Haiti, one of the poorest places in the world. That’s where his work is.
There was a book written about him a few years ago. It’s title is “A Man Who Would Cure the World.” And he just might. This guy is the real deal.
