Leopold A. Potsiadlo, Las Vegas

Mon, May 26, 2008 (2:04 a.m.)

Thomas Friedman’s Thursday commentary in the Las Vegas Sun, embarrassing as it is to our country and its leaders, lays bare our precarious position of relying on foreign oil. Our president begging for foreign oil was humiliating, to say the least.

Oh, yes, Congress has grilled the oil executives with loud rhetoric but with little if any positive action. The ethanol “cure” has backfired, creating a shortage of raw food supplies and worldwide problems, including those in our own country. That plan requires immediate corrective action, ignoring lobbyists and special interests.

We cannot rely solely on our oil reserves in the event of disturbances requiring our intervention to protect our nation.

Readers will say, “There is nothing we can do.”

I say there is. Our leaders must prod and awaken our good old American spirit of “We can do it know-how” to solve our most pressing problem, the energy crisis. The many excellent ideas concerning energy-saving resources and devices — ignored in the past — must be researched and those feasible must be advanced.

Mother Nature has provided us with reserves of wind, oil, coal, shale, gas and other, yet undiscovered, energy sources for our use. Even used cooking oil and other recyclables must be utilized as much as possible.

The environmentalists, animal lovers and others who have so vociferously prevented or opposed such use must join us to realize that the future of our nation, our children and our grandchildren lies in the breaking of the mold in depending heavily on foreign energy sources.

In addition, we the people must also roll up our sleeves to get rid of our expensive energy-draining habits; otherwise we are in danger of becoming a “Third World” nation, or worse.