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Who frontman Roger Daltrey described the Rolling Stones as a "mediocre pub band" in a recent interview. His comments follow those of Paul McCartney, who reignited the Beatles-vs.-Stones argument when he called Mick Jagger's group a "covers band" — leading to a lighthearted response from Jagger during a concert. In conversation with the Coda Collection, Daltrey offered his own views, saying: "Mick Jagger, you've got to take your hat off to him. He's the number one rock 'n' roll performer." He continued with a laugh: "But as a band, if you were outside a pub and you heard that music...

Charles H. Percy, a brilliant businessman who represented Illinois for nearly 20 years in the U.S. Senate, once headed the chamber’s powerful Foreign Relations Committee, and harbored unrealized ambitions to run for the presidency, died early Saturday. He was 91. Percy died at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time at a Washington D.C. hospice, according to Kate Kelly, a spokeswoman with WETA, the public broadcasting station in Washington D.C., where Percy's daughter, Sharon Rockefeller is president and CEO. Percy, a moderate Republican, entered the Senate in 1966 after defeating one liberal icon, the late Paul Douglas. But he was ousted by the...

Does Barack Obama owe his meteoric rise to an Israeli-hating adviser to a Saudi billionaire? Why did a race-baiting mentor to the Black Panthers favor this yet unknown community organizer?...He [Sutton] told NY1 reporter Dominic Carter on "Inside City Hall" that he was introduced to Obama by a friend raising money for him. The friend asked Sutton to write a letter in support of Obama's application to Harvard law school. "The friend's name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas," Sutton said. "He is the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men. He told me about Obama." ...According to...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Sharon Percy Rockefeller, president of WETA public television in Washington and former board chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has been diagnosed with colorectal cancer, her husband, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said Monday. Rockefeller said his 60-year-old wife will be undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment for the next three months. "Sharon is a fighter, and I know she's going to beat this," Jay Rockefeller said in a statement. "She is a strong and loving person, and we are fortunate to be surrounded by so many supportive friends and relatives." Sharon Rockefeller has served as president and...

Saint Austin Review. 2003. In the summer of 1995, my wife and I––both Evangelical Protestants–-took a trip with the Catholic novelist Walker Percy. He had died in 1990, but his presence was very much evident in Signposts In A Strange Land (Noonday Press, 1991, 1992), a posthumous collection of essays and interviews we took along with us and read to one another as we drove from the Pacific Northwest up into Canada on a weeklong vacation. The title was fitting––not because of the scenery along the highways, but because at the time we found ourselves in a strange land between...

Around 50 retired US diplomats have written to US President George Bush to complain about America's policy towards the Middle East. The letter is similar to one written by 52 former British diplomats to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair last week. The former US diplomats complained that President Bush's approach is losing the US "credibility, prestige and friends". They criticised what they say is Washington's unabashed support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The American diplomats said they were deeply concerned by Mr Bush's endorsement last month of Mr Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. 'Great danger' They were...

“THE ONE GOOD THING TO DO WITH MONEY” Collections of letters can be charming. One of the things I like best about them, and I like this about journals and essay collections also, is that they can be so random. One’s day is not usually an organized treatise in which one thing flows directly from another in some logical patter. I have nothing against logic or organization, but I rather like to live in a world in which I am not quite sure what will happen next. I like it when folks can just “drop by.” The end of my...

RELIGION, CONSERVATISM, AND LIBERATIONISM Is conservatism necessarily grounded in religious faith? The answer depends, of course, on what is meant by both conservatism and religion. My charge is to make my answer personal, but I hope not too personal. I woul dnot want to say that conservatives must be Catholics, much less think and believes as I do in every respect. So I am going to define conservatism for this occasion in an expansive way. And I am going to limit myself to sayig that much of Christian psychology and portions of Christian faith must be true for me to...