I was too fried from my gastric bout last week to natter about this contemporaneously, but the WSJ story on the fall of the town of Viking was fascinating on many levels, and not just because the first reader response was “Thank you, Obama.” As if a guy in office all of five months had anything to do with a meltdown that started, as the piece clearly stated, nearly two years ago. My favorite details included why the company even began, which was to come up with a stove for a woman longing for those great old Fifties ranges — you know, the ones now worth more than some of us paid for them fully restored nearly 20 years ago. But as you read the sorry tale, on how a whole tourist attraction was built around one factory producing one appliance only a few could afford, you can see how the house of credit cards had to come crashing down once homes could no longer be used as ATMs. We always knew the pricier the kitchen, the more likely the owners were to be ordering Chinese in.