Oct. 17--West Virginia has been known as the Coal State almost since its inception, but it is also the Plastics State.

State Sen. Karen Facemyer, R-Jackson, pointed out recently that 75 companies produce plastics or polymers. They operate in 33 of the state's 55 counties.

Marshall University's Center for Business and Economic Research, in a study conducted for the Polymer Alliance Zone, found that the industry contributes $2.2 billion to the West Virginia economy and employs about 8,000 people. Workers make an average of $54,000 a year.

The state also has an automotive sector.

Toyota's engine and transmission plant in Buffalo recently began supplying 6-cylinder engines to its Highlander sport utility plant in Indiana. In addition, Buffalo will soon begin making 6-cylinder engines for Toyota's RAV4 plant in Ontario.

These additional assignments speak well of the quality of the 1,050 workers at the Buffalo plant.

Manufacturing is not dead in the United States. It is alive and picking up steam in West Virginia. Maybe the Coal-Plastics-Toyota State can help lift the rest of the nation out of this recession.

HARPERS Ferry National Historical Park will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the raid led by abolitionist John Brown of the Harpers Ferry Armory, which held 100,000 firearms.

It was part of Brown's plan to liberate the slaves in the South. The raid quickly went awry and after two days, Brown and his band of goons were arrested. Less than two months later, Brown was hanged.

"We're not celebrating Brown," said Todd Bolton, chief of visitor services at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. "We're commemorating an important chapter in American history."

Brown's impassioned action presaged the Civil War by 17 months, and the passage of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, by almost six years.

Though the nation eventually achieved his goal, Brown's actions were not justified. Indeed, he may have hurt, not helped, his cause.

"By any means necessary" is the credo of fools.

SEN. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, voted for the health insurance bill before the Senate Finance Committee this week.

Howard Kurtz, the media critic for the Washington Post and the host of "Reliable Sources" on CNN, noticed something about the coverage of her post.

"Snowe is a diligent senator, she's not a grandstander, and she was clearly struggling to do what she sees as the right thing. But Republican defectors tend to get good press, especially, as in this case, if they're helping salvage a Democratic president's top domestic priority," Kurtz wrote.

Kurtz compared Snowe's sudden stardom to how the press covered Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who ran as an independent and won re-election after losing his party's primary in 2006.

"Maybe it comes down to this: It seems like this health care debate has lasted longer than the Afghan war. Snowe may have brought the legislation one step closer to passing.

"I suspect most journalists want something to pass so it feels like we spent all that time on something momentous. If health reform goes down in flames, then we've expended all this energy on a mere footnote," Kurtz wrote.

If that's true, some editors need to sit down and remind the reporters who cover Congress that they are not supposed to root for one side or the other.

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