Free Republic

Looks like Barack Obama is going to have to learn to live with disappointment. He has prepared for his presidential library for years. It’s part of his legacy. When Obama was elected, Chicago treated him literally as if he was the second coming of Christ. He was their favorite son. Nine years later, not so much. They are beginning to see the real Barack Obama at long last. The citizens of Chicago are balking at the plans for Obama’s library. In its initial bid for the right to host the library, put forth on behalf of the city, the University...

As New Yorkers mark the 150th anniversary of Central Park, it's worth noting how that 843-acre jewel influenced the rest of the country. For it launched the career of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture. It's hard today to imagine New York City without Central Park, Boston without the Emerald Necklace, Washington without the National Zoo or Rock Creek Park - all the work of Olmsted, or (in the case of Rock Creek Park) his son, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who carried on his work. Central Park's serene beauty is not the original landscape of Manhattan. That...