If ever there was an overused word in our political world today that word is “crisis.”

Everything is a crisis. Now we have an oil crisis, not enough of the gooey black stuff to turn into gasoline and diesel to power our autos and trucks. More demand and a smaller supply means one thing — higher prices.

Why do we have an oil crisis? Could it be because we just didn’t check our oil? Now when I started driving one of the first things my Dad taught me was to let the man at the service station check the oil. Yeah, they did that along with pump your gas, clean your windows and check the tire pressure. And you could get three to four gallons of gas for a dollar.

As time went by, all that service went away at the vast majority of stations. (The only place I know of that still pumps gas for customers is Vic’s in Vonore.) So now the task of checking oil falls on the owner or operator of the car or truck. Sadly, too many of today’s youngsters can’t raise the hood on their cars, much less check fluid levels.

What does all this have to do with a nationwide oil crisis? Consider this: our country’s domestic oil deposits are located primarily in Texas, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Oklahoma and other places in the west. In addition there are huge untapped deposits of oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, in oil shales in the west and off the coast of Florida. But the enviro-nuts keep us from getting to those plentiful deposits, all in the name of some insignificant animal or insect. Or just because they don’t want to see an oil rig 25 miles out when they go to the beach.

Don’t expect those folks to change. They care not how much you have to pay or if you lose your job when the economy fails because of high energy prices. Not to all, but to many of them that insect, or fighting non-existent global warming to build their dream of socialism, is more important than whether you or your children eat.

How did this all come about? Simple. Our oil is scattered about but all the dip-sticks are in Washington, D.C.

It’s really sad; we elect congressmen to cushy high-paying jobs and they pay us back with $5 gasoline.

Here in Monroe County we can see the effects of the rising price of gas and diesel as the County Commission and the School Board wrestle with their new budgets. Concerning that county budget, non-profit corporations are asking Monroe citizens to donate more than $700,000 tax dollars to their causes. Last year the county kicked in $563,000 plus. That’s mighty generous of Monroe County taxpayers.

Research into those non-profits turned up some surprising figures. I was stunned by the number of non-profits operating in Monroe County; there are 152 of them. Those 152 non-profits collected more than $116 million dollars in revenue in 2007, and they held assets worth more than $173 million dollars.

Wow! With that much income and assets perhaps more could be passed along to those in need whether the county pays or not. And maybe we should selectively check a little closer into the finances of some before doling out hard-earned tax dollars.

Nothing wrong with that, ‘cause folks who do things on the up and up have nothing to hide.

E-mail taylormadetalk@yahoo.com