Auto show offers cautious relief

No one can shout "we survived!" just yet, or even know for sure that the domestic auto industry has turned the proverbial corner. But having given wariness its due, this year's North American International Auto Show is the time and place to acknowledge what an extreme difference a year has made around here.

EDITORIALS

Catastrophe and compassion

To unsuspecting TV viewers, the spectacle of a grim-faced U.S. president flanked by his vice president, the secretaries of State, Defense and Homeland Security, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may have suggested a national security emergency on the scale of 9/11. But what occasioned that extraordinary display of executive branch resolve Thursday was not some new terrorist outrage, but the latest in the long history of natural disasters that have historically mobilized the best and most generous impulses of the world's mightiest democracy.

Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010

A silver carp, a variety of Asian carp, pictured by the Illinois River in central Illinois. (MARLIN LEVISON/Associated Press)

EDITORIALS

Close carp highway before it's too late

Michigan has every right to expect better -- indeed, demand better -- of the federal government in order to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. And the U.S. Supreme Court should keep that in mind Friday as it discusses whether to grant the state's request to, in effect, put plugs in Chicago-area waterways to keep the carp out.

EDITORIAL

A deficit no civilized state should tolerate

As Michigan looks at becoming an increasingly poor state, the countermeasures have to include raising children who are secure and healthy even when their families may not be able to provide the necessities on their own. The economy of the future depends on rearing children who can become capable adults.

It's show time for the auto rescues

I was disappointed to see media reports suggesting that metro Detroiters should be insulted by the decision of administration officials and key members of Congress to visit the North American International Auto Show. These comments did little to help the cause of the exhibitors or the auto companies, who looked forward to the opportunity to show off their new, innovative products to the American people.