I Am A Southerner Who Grew Up

Incumbent White House Parties Have Won 10 Of The Last 18 Presidential Elections; The Odds Are Tight, But They Favor Obama In 2012. And So Gloomy Democrats, Check Your Despair; Gleeful Republicans, Watch The Hubris.

In Rich And Captivating Prose, Jessica Dulong Kindly Invites The Rest Of Us On The Journey Of Her Lifetime: From A Dot-com Job To The Fabled Waters Of The Hudson River, Where She Became A Fireboat Engineer. This Is An Unusual And Fascinating Book.

As A Southerner Born After The Epic Events Of The Civil Rights Movement, I've Always Wondered How On Earth People Of Good Will Could Have Conceivably Lived With Jim Crow - With The Daily Degradations, The Lynchings In Plain Sight, And, As The Movement Gathered Force, With The Fire Hoses And The Police Dogs And The Billy Clubs.

Justified Or Not, The Supreme Court Has A Kind Of Sacred Status In American Life. For Whatever Reason, Presidents Can Safely Run Against Congress, And Vice Versa, But I Think There Is An Inherent Popular Aversion To Assaults On The Court Itself. Perhaps It Has To Do With An Instinctive Belief That Life Needs Umpires.

As Crucial As Religion Has Been And Is To The Life Of The Nation, America's Unifying Force Has Never Been A Specific Faith, But A Commitment To Freedom - Not Least Freedom Of Conscience.