Daimler paid $36 billion for Chrysler ten years ago. Now, Cerberus buys it back for about a fifth of the price. Sounds like a smart play if they want to rebuild a car company. But I fear that's not what they're chasing. Cerberus, it appears, wants to just pocket the cash. I sense no real vision about actually building and running a car company, or even marketing a brand. No vision about re-inventing the organization. The last interesting car Chrysler made was the Prowler, made by the Dodge division, but since then, there seems no more enthusiasm about design anymore (with the possible exception of the Crossfire), so I would say the Chrysler people, like the other big 2 bet their soul on the SUV and lost. Now there's hell to pay. And the devil's name is Cerberus. Maybe I'm wrong. It would be nice to be. If I'm right, the devil will come knocking at GM and Ford's door anytime now.

Since I am not a Christian and therefore under no requirement to pray for Jerry Falwell's soul, and since I don't believe in the angry, vindictive, and wrathful deity of the scriptures, I'm going to go with the most truthful reaction I have...which is barely containable glee. The Christians who post here will disagree with me on this and that's all right. While you're chastising me for barely controlling my urge to dance in the street at the news of the demise of this ill-fitting empty suit wearing, saggy-jowl having, bug-eyed, nearsighted, Bible thumping, fat-ass windbag, you might think of this: the same Bible that he held as his guide says in the book of Proverbs that when the wicked perish, the city rejoices. I think that is probably a wise man's quite accurate observation. NO ONE will miss Jerry Falwell who watched the dialogue in this country descend into demonizing people who don't fit the Religious Right's (and now the GOP's) version of "righteous" or "American". NO ONE is sad to see this hate-monger finally leave the planet, unless they subscribe to the same narrow-minded intolerance that he stood for. So after breathing a sigh of relief for the passing of this odious excuse for a human being, the job of cleaning up the air he polluted still awaits us all. So pray for his soul if you must, Christians. For my part, I'm far less concerned with what the Almighty will do with it than I am with what our souls have had to endure during his entirely too long moment on this side of eternity.

Speaking as someone who is black, I find it hard to get too worked up about how "hard" it is being white these days.

Since white males with nary a clue about the lives or the humanity of people of color or women of any color continue to run government, dominate the rules of engagement in commerce, and tell the rest of us how to think about it all as well as what to think about it all, thus solidifying their power base and their outsized incomes, any real discussion about how "tough" it is to be white in this country is going to be met with a yawn. Oprah has it spot on, and the audience she was speaking to knows exactly where she was coming from. I get it. It seems disingenuous for cranks like Scarborough to suggest that black people are using "reverse racism" (like he would know what that even is) when we're actually acknowledging the reality that, if a little black girl named Oprah can go from poverty to running a billion dollar media empire, and a little black girl named Condoleeza from AL can end up being Sec. of State (disagree with her if you like; I certainly do), and a skinny black kid named Obama can end up with a legitimate shot at being President of the United States, it means that we have come a long way, and idiots like Scarborough and Glenn Beck, and O'Reilly and Don Imus are on their way to being silenced as they should be. The time to finally acknowledge our common humanity has come whether these bigoted thugs like it or not. So you will understand about Oprah letting you in on a little of how black people talk to each other about this. It's not always pretty, but that we can even talk in these terms at all to each other is cause for hope. For all of us.