Free Republic

If you thought the folks at the Los Angeles Times would use the Fourth of July to take a day off from spewing their usual bias and vitriol, think again. Readers of today's op-ed page (Tuesday, July 4, 2006) in the Times are greeted to this piece of bitterness by Mark Kurlansky, "Fathers don't always know best" (The title comes from the print edition; online, the title is, "WWFFD? Who cares?" We have already written about the discrepancy between the print and online titles at the Times here.).Apparently, Kurlansky is not too impressed by the very people who founded our...

Bush tackles historical sagas on vacation CRAWFORD, Texas — Gas prices are climbing, motorists are fuming, President Bush is vacationing with a book about the history of salt. There may be a connection. Bush is reading "Salt: A World History" by Kurlansky, chronicling the rise and fall of the world's [formerly] most strategic commodity. The other books are "Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar" by Radzinsky and "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History" by Barry. The analogies between salt and oil are striking. For most of history, salt was synonymous with wealth. It established...