In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.

A childish soul not inoculated with compulsory prayer is a soul open to any religious infection.

The travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination.

The art of politics is to separate actions from consequences

There's a whole journalistic-industrial complex dedicated to keeping newsprint, TV screens and radio waves clean of destabilizing scoops damaging to corporations or the state.

Republicans know well that a change of rhetorical pace is necessary. But efforts by their leaders to damp down the bellicosity of newly elected Tea Party types is running into the fact that the Tea Partiers have only the high volume setting on their amplifiers, just like Palin. They're like a couple having a fight at a funeral; politely sotto voce, then suddenly bursting out fortissimo with their plaints and accusations.