Free Republic

Look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower, go ahead,'" said "The Factor" host.

O'Reilly and that Professor in Colorado have a lot in common.

This is an exceptional piece of writing on the spirit of New Orleans. The operative sentences are the last:

Doomed cities with an intimate relationship with the dead are special places, incubators of exceptional qualities of spirit and thus of extraordinary inventiveness. If we have lost one of those cities to the forces of nature, it will impoverish our world far beyond the enormous human tragedy. Even if it was long foreseen.

This is sad - what a superb writer.

. . . it needs to be looking at why it scores so low on family values and integrity . . .

The idiot simple answer is simple - BILL CLINTON

Someone who expresses the following doesn't seem to me to be someone who would care to spend much time driving around in an over-priced, gas-guzzling behemoth:

[19] Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

[20] But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

[21] For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. [22] The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

[23] But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

[24] No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

[25] Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

[26] Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

[27] Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

[28] And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

[29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

[30] Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

[31] Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

[32] (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

[33] But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

[34] Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

P.S. Lowry is a simpleton.

If the Bush administration were really intent on going after terrorists bent on our demise - it would expend the same fire power in Saudi Arabia as it has on the much, much poorer Afghanistan. The classes alas stick together.

For what it's worth - my guess is that he would simply take the bus or walk.

Someone who expresses the following doesn't seem to me to be someone who would care to spend much time driving around in an over-priced, gas-guzzling behemoth:

[19] Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

[20] But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

[21] For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

[22] The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

[23] But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

[24] No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

[25] Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

[26] Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

[27] Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

[28] And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

[29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

[30] Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

[31] Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

[32] (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

[33] But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

[34] Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Rosenbaum has been writing like this for years. It's an intentional style. A rambling monolouge that is usually very readable and interesting. I would imagine most who started reading this probably finished it to see where it all was going.

He was never a fan of Clinton. He will likely never be a fan of Bush's domestic poilicies, but the whole point of the piece is that on the fight against the 9/11 enemies, Bush deserves support, not the typical knee jerk reaction that he is somehow the devil in all this.

Nice job with the post.

It's simple really - Clinton was there - What do you expect?

Please Lord
Lead Us Not Into
Penn Station

Stolen from Calvin Trillin

Ron Rosenbaum is first rate - in the tradition of Murray Kempton, but with a different style of writing.

Webb was the only one with honor from that era.

I take it that you will be enlisting in Monday?

Thank you for your post.

What do we do?

Our leadership (Rumsfeld, et. al.) has had a hand in creating Hussein's Iraq.

I would have no problem with a mission that seeks only to destroy Hussein.

But to ask our 18 year olds to risk their lives to destroy what Rumsfeld, Bush et. al. has had a hand in creating is unacceptable.

I checked "closet" and didn't find it. My mistake.

This information should be considered before we all go marching after Iraq.

Roger Williams wrote of and supported the "hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world" in the 17th century in Rhode Island. Its a concept that has been with the country from the beginning, and actually to protect both institutions.

I agree that by and large the pledge of allegiance was a benign exercise in school. But when the issue comes to the courts due to some controversy, and is addressed on constitutional grounds, it is reassuring that they decided the case correctly. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the Supreme Court does with the case.

Interesting timeline. One of America's greatest early supporters of liberty AND religion, Roger Williams, would be justifiably appalled by the forced injection of these sorts of slogans in the classroom and in government.